Eye of the Sh*t Storm Jackson Ford (detective books to read txt) 📖

their neighbourhoods, letting developers come in. It ain’t right, man.

It’s hard not to dwell on how angry she’s been lately. How most of it seems to have been directed at me. The thoughts taste bitter. I get that she’s grieving, I do, but…

I really thought she and I were doing better. We’ve never seen eye to eye, but we were… well, not friends, exactly, but friendly. That’s gone. Blown away like smoke.

Leo doesn’t talk much. Just follows, head down, carefully placing his feet. I’d like to say it’s a companionable silence, but it isn’t. Unease radiates off him. Like he could change his mind at any second.

And really, if he did, what could I do about it? Maybe I could knock him out or something, drag him with me, only what the hell do I know about knocking people out? I’ve got as much chance of giving him a brain haemorrhage as I do of sending him to sleep.

And I’m pretty sure if I try, he’ll just zap me out of existence.

These are not fun thoughts. I block them out by thinking about cooking. Running through recipes in my head, techniques I’ve used, techniques I want to try. When I actually have a decent kitchen again. When I go to cooking school—

I yank back from that thought like it burned me – a sensation I’m all too familiar with.

When you’re saving the world – or at least, keeping this little part of it safe – it’s hard to become a professional chef. I might hate Moira Tanner, but she was right about that. All the same, having to put aside that dream… hurt.

It’s no fun thinking about any of that. So instead, my mind switches to thinking about Nic.

So much better.

What kind of vengeful, sadistic God arranges things so that the only person I can turn to is one I ghosted? With good reason, by the way. Nic Delacourt said some pretty awful things to me after the quake, and yeah, he apologised afterwards, but that didn’t make me any less pissed at him.

To be fair, I never intended to just leave him hanging. I’m not that terrible. I just couldn’t figure out what to say to his messages. I tried out a dozen responses in my head, but every time I’d try typing one, I’d end deleting it. After a while, it just got awkward. In the end, I just kind of… left it.

Ugh. Maybe I am that terrible.

Don’t forget what he said, too. The way he looked at you when he called you selfish, for not revealing your ability. A sorry is not going to erase how that look made you feel.

We haven’t gone very far – maybe just around the first big bend in the river, a little over a mile – before I notice that there’s something wrong with Leo. You know, beyond the whole freaked-out-kid-with-lethal-superpowers-thing.

He’s limping. Dragging his left foot. And he’s doing something weird with his hand, which is twitching in irregular jerks. He wasn’t doing that before, I’m sure of it.

I frown. “You OK there, dude?”

“Fine,” he says, sullen. Oh yeah, his left foot is messed up – scratch that, his entire left leg. It’s jerking, too, just like his hand.

“Did you hurt yourself somewhere?” I say. I don’t remember seeing him trip or anything, but I’m so zonked that there’s a chance I just missed it.

He drags his twitching foot over a bump on the hard-packed surface. “It’s just my wiggles.”

“I’m sorry, your what now?”

“My wiggles. When I make ’lectricity, my foot starts wiggling.” He blinks down at his jerking wrist. “And my hand.”

“Leo, dude, those aren’t just wiggles.”

“They don’t hurt,” he says. He sounds confused, like he doesn’t understand why I’m making a big deal out of this.

“OK… does this happen every time?”

“Only when I zap things for a while. Or zap a really big thing.” He scratches his nose with his good hand. “I can’t really use my ’lectricity while I got wiggles.”

Electricity. Isn’t that how nerves work? Is his ability affecting his nervous system somehow? Jesus, what is it doing to his brain?

If I push my power too hard, my body drains itself of energy. If I push myself really hard, my PK goes really fuzzy. It’s super-hard to lift anything, or even sense it.

On the surface, Leo’s wiggles make sense. They’re the result of his ability being pushed too hard. So why do I feel cold thinking about them? Why do they send a shiver of worry up my spine?

Maybe it’s because they cause a physical reaction – an actual movement I can see. Or maybe it’s because he can’t use his ability until they go away. It’s as if he gets a supercharged version of my PK’s feedback, like he’s experiencing it all at once.

Who the hell did this to him? And why?

“Do you…?” I shake my head. “Do you need help? Like a piggyback or something?”

“I’m OK,” he insists. “Sometimes, when it happened, Dr Ajay would give me an ice cream.”

For a second, just a second, he smiles.

Man, listen. Leo Nguyen from Albuquerque has the greatest smile. It fills up his entire face, makes his nose wrinkle. It is impossible not to look at it, and not feel a little bit better.

Then it’s gone. Just like that. Replaced by the same mistrustful look – only even more now. Like he’s said too much.

“Who’s Dr Ajay?” I say, filing the name away for later.

In response, he just shrugs.

I don’t know if he doesn’t want to tell me, or if he doesn’t know how. I don’t remember being four years old all that well, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t too communicative, either. Especially about stuff I didn’t really understand.

Which doesn’t stop it being ridiculously frustrating.

We’ve been walking for a couple of miles now, and aside from the sloped sides, there’s no concrete anywhere. It’s a literal river: a snaking channel, bordered by dirt and foliage. And it’s a lot deeper now. I can’t see the bottom, but