by Jackson Ford
“Get off!” Paul bats his hand away.
“Then at least kill the music.”
“It helps me think.”
“For real?”
“Yo, Teagan.” Annie twists round, eyeing the chasing cop car. “Shut ’em down.”
“No good,” I spit. It’s true that I could fuck with the engine, maybe, twist some delicate little component and stop the car in its tracks. But it’s way out of my range—matching our speed but still around thirty feet behind us. Not exactly surprising: unlike movies, cops don’t ram people off the road in the middle of a city.
Could I drop something in their path? Spin another car into theirs, maybe? But I’d have to do it without hurting the cops or anyone else. I can’t think of a single way to pull that off.
Annie curses. “Keep heading straight,” she tells Paul. “There’s a—Whoa!”
A second cop car explodes out of a cross-street. Paul yanks the wheel, only just managing not to hit it. As he does, the truck’s back tailgate pops open. Reggie’s chair, on its side in the rear, is sent sliding. It bounces off the side, then pops off the back edge of the truck like a diver from a high board, shearing itself to pieces on the blacktop. A chunk of plastic whizzes straight up in the air.
“Go to sport mode at least,” Carlos says.
“OK, yeah!” Paul’s voice sounds several octaves higher than normal. He pushes something on the dashboard, and the truck’s engine pitch changes, Paul swinging us away from the cop car right into the second lane. There’s nothing immediately ahead of us, but there’s a car in the distance, flashing its lights as if trying to gently inform us that we’re out of our lane.
“Don’t turn off El Segundo.” Reggie is tapping at her phone. “We can take Continental.”
“Where?”
“Up ahead, the blue building? Just past it.”
“What about roadblocks?”
“Not in the city,” Annie says. “That’s not how they work.”
“Hang on then!” Paul guns the truck, swerving through honking traffic, tapping the brake to turn right onto Continental—only to yank the wheel with a grunt of surprise as Continental reveals itself to be blocked solid with traffic, bumper-to-bumper. None of us in the back seat is wearing a safety belt, and Annie and Carlos squash me against the door.
“Any other ideas?”
“Sepulveda?” says Reggie.
The traffic has thickened, slicing past on both sides, horns blaring.
“They’re dropping back,” Carlos shouts over the music. “The cops.”
“You sure?” Annie says.
“Take a look.” He claps Paul on the shoulder. “Keep going, man. You got this.”
I don’t get it. We’re in a big heavy truck loaded with five people—how are they not keeping pace with us?
“OK,” Reggie says. “Sepulveda, then I think we can hang a left onto Grand. Then we—Is that a helicopter?”
It’s a helicopter. Hovering over the sunlit street ahead of us, the wind from its rotor blades pushing back the palms on the side of the road, the whup-whup-whup penetrating the car.
“LAX is two miles away,” Reggie says. “They’re in the no-fly zone!”
“Don’t think they got the memo,” says Carlos.
“How the hell did they get here so fast?” Paul says.
But how many helicopters have I seen today alone, buzzing over Skid Row and North Hollywood? The LAPD, patrolling the skies. There was probably one nearby, available the second the cops called in air support. Hell, they’re probably happy to get some action.
We roar underneath the chopper. It banks, following us close, less than a hundred feet off the deck. Excellent.
Annie leans back into the headrest. “Oh, we’re so fucked.”
“Not yet,” Paul says.
“You don’t get it. You can’t lose an LAPD chopper—believe me, I’ve tried. There’s nowhere for us to go.”
“What about like an underpass?” I say. “Or a garage?”
“Won’t mean a goddamn thing if they see us go in.” She points up through the roof. “Why you think the LAPD use them? No matter where you go, they got you. They got infrared, ultraviolet, all types of shit.”
The surroundings are getting more industrial, with fewer cars on the road and fewer pedestrians, but there’s no telling how long that’ll last. El Segundo doesn’t go all the way to the Pacific. Soon we’ll either dead-end or turn up into the suburbs below LAX. Nowhere to hide.
“Teagan,” Carlos says. “You gotta do something.”
“Her ability doesn’t go that far,” Reggie says. “Not for something a hundred feet up.”
“You threw a dumpster this morning.” Carlos is almost pleading with me. “You gotta try.”
“I beg your pardon?” Reggie says.
Oh, Carlos, I wish you hadn’t told them that.
“What do you mean, she threw a dumpster?” Annie says.
“When did that happen?” says Paul.
“It doesn’t matter.” My voice is almost a shout. “Yes, I can lift heavy shit now. But I can’t just throw something a hundred feet. I’ve got strength, not range.”
“How do you know?” Carlos says.
“Because—”
“Have you tried?”
“Do you mean to say you can lift past your limit?” Reggie sounds furious. “And you didn’t tell us?”
“Jesus! Shit! Yes! I’m sorry! But I can’t just—”
“Everybody shut up,” Annie says. “Teagan, whatever it is you can do, you’ve gotta do it now.”
“Do what? It’s like ten times my normal limit.”
“Then throw something at it. Knock them off course.”
“Great idea. No one will suspect anything. I’m sure psychokinetics get into police chases all the time.”
There’s the sudden, piercing blast of a horn, invading the cab, nearly blowing my ears apart. Paul swings past a truck: a big Mack, gleaming red. The driver leans on the horn, letting us know exactly what he thinks of our driving. My PK skids across the side of the truck’s cab, plays along its oversized wing mirrors.
“What kind of helicopter is it?” Reggie says.
“How the hell should I know?” Annie spits back. “One with a big-ass LAPD sign on it.”
“What does the front end look like?”
“Huh?”
“Look at the front of the cockpit. From the edge of the roof to the tip of the nose. Does it run down straight or is there an angle?”
“Reggie,” I say. “This isn’t the time for—”
“Someone talk to me. I can’t see a damn thing from here. Is there an angle? Or does it run down straight, cockpit to nose tip?”
“Um…” Carlos has his head craned out the window. “I think it’s an angle…”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah… yeah, it’s angled,” Annie says. “Like three degrees, but it ain’t straight.”
“OK,” says Reggie. “The LAPD uses two types of choppers: Bell 206s and Eurocopters. That’s a 206. How fast is it going?”
“Our speed?” Annie’s veins stand out on her neck, like they’re about to pop.
“Paul?” Reggie says.
“Seventy-five miles an hour? Give or take?”
“Good. Now the height. How high up is the chopper?”
“What the fuck are we doing?” Annie hisses.
“Just tell me. Give me the chopper’s altitude.”
“A hundred feet,” Carlos replies. “Maybe hundred-ten.”
Reggie bows her head as if thinking deeply. “206… hundred feet… seventy knots… the curve would be…” Her eyes snap open. “OK. Teagan, there are fuel pumps in the hump below the rotor mast, next to the tanks. Crush the pumps, and they’ll just coast right down.”
“Is anybody listening to me?” I shout. “Anybody at all? It’s out of my range.”
“Teagan.”
Carlos looks me dead in the eyes, gripping my hand. “You can do this.”
>
“I can’t…”
A smile flickers across his face. “Course you can, cabrón. I don’t know how you do what you do, but I believe in you.”
It doesn’t matter how much he believes in me. I can’t even push past ten feet. How am I supposed to manipulate an object a hundred feet up? There’s too much saliva in my mouth, like I’m going to throw up.
“It’ll kill them,” I say. It’s hard not to picture Steven Chase laid out, rebar wrapped around his neck like garrotte wire. Whoever did it might not have a problem taking lives, but that’s not me. And last I checked, you can’t crash a chopper without killing the pilot and the passengers.
“I used to be a pilot, remember?” Reggie replies. “The rotors’ll keep spinning even if the engine cuts. At that height and speed, the chopper can autorotate down.”
“Auto-what?” Annie says.
“They’ve got the entire street to land on,” Reggie says. “It’ll damage the chopper, but they’ll be OK.”
She’s looking at me as she speaks over her shoulder. There’s the strangest expression on her face—a kind of horrified determination.
She’s not trying to convince me or anyone else in the truck. She’s trying to convince herself.
Her eyes might be on mine, but the person behind them is far away: above a scorched desert in a far-flung corner of the world, wrestling with the controls of a chopper that wouldn’t listen to her. She knows the consequences of getting this wrong. If I do this, and whatever calculations she did are off, then the people in the chopper will be hurt. Badly. Maybe even killed. And if they survive, Reggie knows exactly what they’ll go through to be whole again.
“There’s gotta be another way,” I say. I don’t know whether I’m addressing her or myself.
“There isn’t,” she says through gritted teeth. She closes her eyes. “Fuel pumps. Under the rotor mast. LAPD pilots are some of the best in the world. They’ll know what to do.”
A swell of that old, familiar panic. The same panic of watching the flames ripple across the walls in that farmhouse, hearing the insane, hysterical laughter. But then again, what does it matter? Reggie can tell me to take out the fuel pumps all she wants, but I can’t just make my PK go supercharged.
And then I get an idea.
One that lands in my mind like a live grenade.
“Hit me,” I tell Annie.
She goggles at me. “Say what?”
“I said, hit me.”
“Hit you?”
“You wanna lose that chopper? Do it!”
Annie turns to Carlos. “Don’t look at me,” he says, sounding as stunned as she looks. “I ain’t fuckin” hitting her!”
“I’m sorry,” says Paul. “Teagan, why are we hitting you?”
“Could someone just please do it?”
“I don’t understand,” Reggie says.
“Oh my fucking God.” I reach over and slap Annie across the face.
If I’d stopped to think, I’d never have actually done it. It’s not a hard slap, but the expression that follows it would scare Moira Tanner back to whatever spy school hellhole she crawled out of. Annie draws her fist back, twisting on the seat. I close my eyes.
“Annie, no!” Carlos shouts.
Her fist takes me across the jaw, snapping my head back. Blood floods my mouth, my ears ringing, pain flashing across my face in jagged bursts of lightning.
Whatever chemicals flood my body when I’m in danger, they obviously jack my PK, giving me strength I didn’t even know I had. And I don’t know for sure if it translates to range instead of power—I’m still figuring this out. But right now it’s the only option we’ve got.
I dig deep.
Touch the raw, electric energy.
Ask it to go further than it’s ever gone before.
I reach up through the back window of the truck, sending the tendrils of invisible energy through the air, right at the chopper above our heads.
Not far enough.
Going from ten feet to a hundred is a big, big ask. I don’t know how far I actually get with my PK—there’s nothing to grab on to, nothing to feel.
I dig deeper, clenching every muscle in my body like it’ll help, willing my energy to go further. It does… but it’s still not enough.
“Again,” I hiss.
“What the fuck is this?” Annie sounds like she is this close to freaking out. Probably not used to someone she punches asking for more.
My voice is almost a snarl. “Hit. Me. Again.”
The punch, when it comes, isn’t as strong as the first. Annie’s anger is draining away, replaced by terrified confusion. But even at half-strength the hit is enough to cut my lip, bloody my teeth. My cheek goes numb, then wakes with a jolt, sending ragged bursts of pain through my skull.
My energy leaps, a volcano flowing through me. Reaching the chopper. I can feel the shape of its hull, the texture of the skids. I can sense the whirring machinery inside it, the contours of the cockpit windshield, the pen in the pilot’s shirt pocket. The subtle curve of her sunglasses.
I follow Reggie’s directions, sliding my PK into the hump under the spinning blades. I find the fuel tanks, one on each side: sloshing, hot, sticky. The lines running off them. And the lumpy metal cylinders alongside them, running at full bore. The fuel pumps.
I wrap my mind around them and squeeze.
Even inside the truck, the change in the chopper’s engine noise is audible. The whup-whup of the blades is still there, but there’s nothing behind it. The subsonic rumble of the engines has vanished.
I crane my head back, looking out the window, mind still wrapped around the fuel pumps. They’re nothing more than crushed lumps of metal now, completely destroyed.
The chopper wobbles, like the pilot can’t decide what to do. It starts to fall…
… and the second it does, the pilot flares the nose, tilting it up. The chopper comes in crazy fast, but the rotors keep spinning. It lands square, skids thudding off the tarmac, the body bouncing once, turning ninety degrees in a full slide before coming to a shaky stop. The pilot is just visible, still at the controls, still moving. We’re too far away for me to see the expression on her face, but I imagine it’s some variant of What the shit just happened?
“Is it still there?” yells Paul.
“Yeah, but it’s on the ground,” Carlos says like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.
I let go of the chopper, and my PK energy dissipates like it was never there. I collapse back onto the seat, body slick with sweat, barely able to open my mouth to speak—and not just because my lip is starting to swell from Annie’s punch.
“You’re welcome.”
There’s a half-second silence, then the truck erupts.
Reggie murmurs, “Thank God,” over and over again. Paul grips her hand, squeezing it, his other smacking the wheel. Carlos is saying, “I knew it! I fucking knew you could do it!” He’s slapping the seat over and over again, reaching around the headrest to grab Paul’s shoulders. Only Annie is silent, staring down at her hands.
“No cops behind us,” Carlos flips a mock salute. “Adiós, pendejos.”
Annie looks up at me. She’s wide-eyed, mouth slightly open. It makes her look younger than she is. “Teagan, I… I didn’t mean to…”
I don’t hear the rest because that’s when I really do pass out.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jake
Jake sits at the island in the kitchen of the yellow house on East Orange Grove, eating a grilled cheese sandwich.
He let it sit too long in the pan, not used to cooking with a gas flame. Most of it is burned, turned black and greasy. He’s managed to eat most of one half, but the other sits abandoned, nudging up against a slick of ketchup.
The woman who owns the house is locked in the pantry, just off the kitchen. With her kid. They stopped sobbing a while ago, which was a relief. He really didn’t feel like going in there, not in the mood he’s in.
He’s been in the
house for over twelve hours. He’s napped, eaten, watched TV, played games on his phone. He wants nothing more to than get the hell out of here, get on his Enfield, finish what he started. He doesn’t dare. If he’s going to pull this off, he has to be careful.
It hadn’t taken long for the woman to give in. The sight of her child—Katie? Carey?—being hurt was enough to do it. She’d begged him to stop, all but dropped to her knees in front of him. Jake had hated to do it, hated the idea of hurting a kid. But a little cut wasn’t the end of the world, and there was no way he was going to let this little family stop him. Not when he was so close to the finish line. And it had worked: the woman had given him the address where Javier, his final target, now lived. He was south, near Long Beach.
Which was a problem.
He had to be sure. He couldn’t risk driving all the way up there only for Javier to be somewhere else. So he had held Katie or whatever her name is close, the glass no longer digging into her neck but still hovering nearby, a hand over her mouth. Whispering to her that if she made another sound, even one, he’d kill her mom.
He’d felt a thread of remorse at that, wondered for a moment what the hell he was doing. But it vanished almost immediately. They’d get over this—the woman and the girl both. It was nothing compared to what he’d been through: a few minutes of pain in a perfect life, compared to everything he’d endured.
He’d made the woman get her phone, call Javier. She was shaking so badly that she kept misdialling. Jake had made her stop, told her to take a few deep breaths, then a few more. He needed her calm. Composed. Normal. So she’d sat, inhaling and exhaling in shaky bursts at his command, hands folded in her lap, eyes never leaving her daughter. When she’d stopped, after a minute or so, Jake made her keep going.
Eventually she managed to dial the right number, put it on speaker. When Javier answered, groggy from sleep, her voice had sounded almost normal. “It’s me.”
“Sandy?” There’d been a hiss, as if he was sitting up in bed. “What time is it?”
“It’s… um, it’s early.”
He was suddenly alert. “Is the Bean OK?”
Jake had smiled at that. While Sandy was struggling to dial, he’d toyed with the idea of having her tell her husband that their daughter was hurt, get him to rush to the house immediately. He’d rejected that; if the girl was hurt, the expected place to meet would be at a hospital. He couldn’t afford to have Javier suspicious.