Jackson Ford - The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind

Annie mutters something, but after a few moments gives Reggie a tight nod.

The smile that breaks on Reggie’s face makes her look twenty years younger. “That’s done then. You’re all safe, and we got what we needed, so let’s say no more about it. Mm. Carlos, I’ve told you a dozen times, you have to let the water sit for a few seconds after it boils, or you’ll scald the leaves.”

I finally change out of the rent-a-cop uniform, spending a few minutes in the Boutique’s bathroom as I change into jeans and my favourite shirt, a bright purple T depicting a cartoon monster about to swallow a city, the words Eat Local below it. After the clunky security-guard boots, my Jordans feel like heaven.

I’m starting to stiffen up, and it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. I need to get some more food inside me before I sleep. Something more than jerky. And forget delivery—I can go five minutes out of my way and pick it up myself.

The downstairs bathroom, which we use as a kind of half-assed locker room, is just off the part of the house where Reggie has her Rig. She’s there when I come out, working the trackballs, the only light coming from the six giant screens that surround her chair on all sides.

“You’ll mess up your eyes,” I say.

She scoffs. “Honey, I’ve had twenty-ten vision since I was a kid. I got better eyesight than you do.”

“Twenty-ten? Is that even a thing?”

“Ah, the ignorance of youth.”

“If you say so, Grandma.”

She waves an arm at me. “Get out of here. See you bright and early tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah. Night.”

I head back into the living room/office, lost in thought. Annie and Paul are still there, leaning up against the kitchen counter on the far side, their backs to me, talking in low voices. “… can’t fit it in there,” Paul is saying. “You’d have to take the whole back off the van.”

“But we can do it?” Annie replies. “Right?”

Paul shrugs. “I mean, sure, in theory, there’re a bunch of ways to—”

At that instant both he and Annie look in my direction. Paul stops dead. It catches me off guard, and for a second the question of what they were talking about dances across my tongue.

You know what? I don’t care. Whatever it is, it’s between them, and I am way too tired right now.

“Night, folks,” I say, squeezing past them.

Annie says nothing, but Paul gives me a tight nod. “Yeah, Teagan, see ya,” Paul replies. His tone is frosty but still polite.

I’ll give him this: he’s annoying and anal-retentive, but he’s a professional. He might have been angry with me, but now that the debriefing is over, he’s keeping it to himself. He’s a former navy quartermaster, and unlike Annie and Reggie he loves talking about his past. Blue-collar upbringing in Ohio, high-school football champion, his time in the navy.

Of course he usually skips over the parts from after that. For someone obsessed with details and logistics, Paul was an absolutely terrible businessman. He tried everything, from selling web ads to flipping houses, even tried to market an app where you tapped on the screen to make virtual grass grow faster.

He’s got not one but two failed marriages, and child support to pay. And say what you like about Paul, he’s a pretty good dad—or at least I assume so, given how often he talks about his son. But he is drowning in debt, and China Shop is a decent, secure, guaranteed income. He is forty-four, balding, with a swelling beer gut and just about zero chance of finding an alternative career.

And I’ll say this: Tanner knows how to pick people. It would be easy to surround me with a group of special forces operatives—career soldiers with beards and ugly tattoos, who could run a tight ship and make sure that nothing went wrong, ever. The reason we have our current motley crew is that we all have a lot to lose. If China Shop ever disbanded, through a job failing or us getting caught or me revealing my powers, we would all be screwed in a number of interesting ways.

Carlos would almost certainly be deported, right back to the hands of the Zetas in Tecomán. Annie would never be able to hold a decent job again—not with her record. Paul would go bankrupt, and there’s a very good chance that he’d never see his son again—not after a few missed child support payments. Reggie might be OK… but it’s Tanner who paid for her Rig. Her life would get a lot harder if she wasn’t with us.

And then there’s me.

Here’s what happens if I fuck up, or if Tanner decides I’m not worth the trouble. I don’t get deported, or get a visit from the cops. No, I get a visit from some nice men with black ski masks, who whisk me off to a faceless building in North Dakota or Virginia or Missouri and give me to the security-cleared scientists who are desperate to cut me open and figure out how my parents made me. I work for Tanner as her own private psychokinetic operative (sounds cooler than it is, believe me), and she keeps those assholes off my back.

I step past Paul and Annie, out into the garage. Carlos has the van’s hood open, tinkering with something inside. He doesn’t realise I’m there until I slap him on the ass. “Night, sweetie.”

“ Mierda ,” he mumbles, almost bumping his head on the raised hood. “Aight. Later, bitch.”

It sounds forced. Said on reflex. He must be tired too.

As I move along the side of the van, he straightens up. “Walk you to your car?”

I don’t particularly want to people right now—even with Carlos. But there’s something in his eyes, an unsettled look.

“Everything OK?” I ask.

“Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I could just do with a walk, is all.”

The alley is quiet, baking hot, with just the faintest rumble of traffic. There’s almost no light save for the faint glow from the lights on the main drag. The smoke isn’t as bad in this part of town. I take a deep breath, savouring the scent of the air: a little smoke, a lot of ocean, the faintest hint of jasmine and surf wax. Someone, somewhere, is getting high.

Carlos and I walk in silence for a few moments. My Jeep is parked at the far end of Brooks Court, right after it spills out onto Main—technically, we’re not supposed to park in the alley, and I have more than one ticket to prove it.

“Long night, huh,” Carlos says, as we turn the corner. I’m already digging in my bag for my keys.

“What? Oh, um, yeah.” I’m barely paying attention, already thinking about whether there’ll be traffic on the 405 at this time of night, and whether I should get bulgogi, or splurge and go for some fried chicken.

“That was some pretty crazy shit back there.” He pulls a cigarette from a pack. “You mind?”

I shake my head absently. He knows better than to offer me one, of course—I don’t smoke, don’t want anything that hot anywhere near me. But I don’t mind if others do it.

My Jeep, a rusty black ’06 Wrangler, is a short distance away. Its name, in case you were wondering, is the Batmobile. I bought it with my first cheque from Tanner’s Los Angeles Bureau of Insane Shit. The Batmobile is the bomb. It’s crusty and messy and has an engine that Carlos regards as a personal challenge, and I love it to pieces.

“Well,” I say. “This is me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nods, not looking at me. He’s lost in thought, eyes somewhere in the distance. I wait for him to respond, and when he doesn’t, my heart sinks a little. Something’s wrong, and he’s not going to tell me what it is.

And no, before you point out the obvious, it’s not what happened with Annie. Carlos would never give me shit about something I got into shit for already—not seriously, anyway.