Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

He’s going to do something, hurt someone, hurt her , unless he gets what he wants right now. She has to stop it. They are packed tight into the chopper, all these people… even the soldiers won’t know what hit them. And what if he hurts the pilot, by accident? They’ll crash, plummet out of the sky. Terror paralyses her, locks her to her seat. She can’t look away from the mud.

But then, it stops. Slops back onto her shoe.

She’s never seen him this furious. His eyes are tiny, malignant dots of light in the darkened cabin. His shoulders tremble, his arms ramrod straight, fists clenched tight enough to whiten the skin. His mouth is set in a thin line, lower lip trembling. The air around her suddenly feels thick, stifling, like it’s been turned to runny oil.

Why isn’t he—?

Because he doesn’t want to reveal his powers – not around other people, and definitely not around the military. Not in a helicopter, where he might cause a crash.

He can’t hurt her. There’s nothing he can do. The thought is so big, so impossible, that Amber doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s like a prisoner, held underground for years, finally being led out into the sun, blinking, flinching from the light.

And on the heels of this: satisfaction.

Twisted and strange, but still satisfaction. She handled the situation. She controlled her son. She managed to stop him from doing what he wanted. And if it happened once, then it could happen again. She—

Matthew punches her in the face.

It’s not a hard punch. For all her son’s powers, he’s a skinny boy, almost scrawny. It glances off her cheek, rocking her head back, leaving her more dazed than hurt. It takes her by surprise, and so she doesn’t get her hands up in time to deflect the second punch. This one lands right on her upper lip.

Amber’s been beaten before. Sometimes they were small – a slap, a shove. Other times they were… bad. She learned very quickly which ones she could stop, and which ones she couldn’t. The ones where fighting back would only make it worse. And so when instinct leads her to grab his wrists and hold on tight, she doesn’t let go.

He howls, pulling as far as he can against his seat straps, trying to wrench out of her grip. When that doesn’t work, he starts kicking her, sneaker-clad feet hammering her knees and thighs. He spits in her face, the glob of saliva landing on her swollen upper lip, mingling with the blood. Matthew’s own cheeks are wet with tears, his mouth twisted in an animal grimace.

She’s aware of bodies around her – soldiers, civilians, concerned faces, hands reaching out to hold Matthew back. Nobody appears willing to touch him, even as he kicks and scratches and bites. “ I’ll kill you! ” he yells, his little-boy voice pitching higher and higher with each word. “Leggo. Leggo me! ”

She pulls the two of them tight together, wraps her arms around him, locks him in her grip and whispers soothing words into his ear, ignoring his angry, anguished cries.

Because he is skinny. He is scrawny. And as exhausted as she is, it’s easy to lock him down. Amber’s breathing hard, almost gulping air, her shoulders hitching and her lip fat and throbbing. But she holds her son, holds him until he’s still.

Her thoughts are a hurricane, howling and raging. This is her fault. Of course he’d try to hurt her, even if he couldn’t use his powers. She should have seen it coming – goddamnit, she should have controlled it. She could have asked one of the soldiers, or… or…

She has to stay calm. It’s just a temper tantrum, like any kid would throw. It’s all part of being a mom. Another quote from one of her books – one she’d actually written down on a Post-it, stuck on her fridge – When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves .

If she can hold onto him tight, show him that hurting her doesn’t work, that it doesn’t always get him what he wants…

He’ll learn. He’ll become the still child in her arms, face pressed into her shoulder. He’ll see how much she loves him, and maybe she can stop him from hurting anyone else.

And he needs her, even if he doesn’t realise it – no matter how smart he is. There are things she can do that he can’t. He can’t drive, or pay for a meal, or check into a motel. He can’t even walk down the street by himself before a cop or a well-meaning passer-by asks if he’s OK.

For all his powers, he’s still just four years old. And she can still be his mom.

It’s crazy. All of it. But that thought is easily brushed aside, a cobweb that vanishes into nothing and is forgotten almost as quickly.

There’s a change in the engine pitch. Amber’s stomach lurches a little – they’re descending. They’re dropping . It takes her a few stunned seconds to realise that the chopper is coming in to land.

Matthew’s realised it too. He wiggles out from her grip and presses his face to the window, scanning the ground, the past few minutes already forgotten. And yet, as they swoop towards the glowing bowl of Dodger Stadium, Amber tucks the knowledge away. Hoarding it.

Seven p.m on the worst day in the history of LA.

We’re in the back of a troop transport, on the way to Dodger Stadium. I didn’t think it was possible, but it’s actually colder inside the truck than it is outside in the rain.

Maybe it’s because we were moving before. Now we’re just sitting still, crammed into the back of this troop transport, perched on freezing metal benches and trying not to move in case we accidentally elbow our neighbours in the ribs. Mine is a grouchy dude in a business suit, tie still done up. When I squashed down next to him, he gave me a look that said not to move even one inch into the space he’d carved out for himself.

I didn’t have the energy to insult him properly.

Reggie got a five-second examination from a harried medic, enough to establish that she didn’t have any life-threatening injuries. Maybe. Possibly. We won’t know for sure until someone can give her a ten-second exam at Dodger. We’ve been heading toward the stadium for the past two and a bit hours, the truck regularly jerking to a halt as the soldiers clear debris out of the road.

I’m freezing, starving, and more tired than I’ve ever been in my whole life. And yet, somehow, I can’t sleep. My body won’t drop off. Africa is conked out, mouth open, leaning on Annie’s shoulder. She and Africa are on the opposite side of the truck to Reggie and I, Annie tapping at Reggie’s laptop, ignoring the curious, shell-shocked looks from the other survivors. “Trying to see if I can boost the range of our comms,” she tells me when I ask her what she’s up to.

Reggie’s asleep too, snoring gently. I have to stop myself from waking her up and asking her what the secret is. I keep thinking back to the office – to the living room we’ll never have another planning session in, to the roof I’ll never again climb up to enjoy a sunset beer or three.

As for what I – or we – are going to do about this kid who can apparently cause earthquakes, I don’t have the first clue. Keeping myself sitting up is hard enough.

Weirdly, what’s getting to me the most is the lack of information. I want to know how bad it is – just how much of my city is gone. What we need is a TV, like Schmidt had on his plane. Some more words from Molly Zuckerman – that was the reporter’s name, wasn’t it? A strange little detail lodged in my mind. Good old Molly. She could give us the skinny from up there in her chopper. That’s right, Gina, we’ve learned that the earthquake was entirely natural and nothing more than a result of tectonic plates shifting. It definitely wasn’t caused by a small boy with abilities beyond his control. Our sources tell us that I know absolutely fuck-all, and that I have an annoying voice and terrible hair. Back to you in the studio .