by Jackson Ford
“Bad idea.” Annie shakes her head. “We gotta keep moving.”
It would be a lot more convincing if she didn’t look like she was about to fall over.
For a long moment, nobody says anything. Annie keeps glancing back up Alameda, as if looking for anyone chasing us.
“Maybe it’s not such a bad idea,” Nic says. Leo punctuates this with a massive yawn.
Annie shakes her head. “We have to—”
“Annie, come on,” I say. “Ten minutes. We take ten minutes, catch our breath, then we keep going.”
“They’re probably coming after us right now. You know that right?”
“OK, so we hide. They’re not gonna search every single building.”
She wavers. She’s as exhausted as I am, and probably in real pain from the bruises. Her lip has started bleeding again, a thin trickle of blood on her chin.
“We gotta get the bikes off the street anyway,” I point out. “Can’t just leave ’em for the Legends to find.”
“OK, genius.” Annie rubs the back of her neck, wincing. “Where should we…? What is it?”
I happen to be looking over her shoulder as she speaks. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there’s a strange building behind her – one that isn’t a rectangular office block, or line of stores, like most of the buildings you see in this part of town. It lies at the other end of a short plaza, which is now a graveyard of toppled palm trees. It’s an odd shape – like a church, with a tall tower at one end.
Nic squints into the darkness. “Teags, what do you see?”
“Son of a bitch,” I murmur, a smile cracking my face.
Annie spreads her hands, eyebrows raised.
I straighten up. “Come with me.” Without waiting for them to agree, I march off, heading for the strange building, ignoring the protests from Annie and Nic.
Eventually, I’m far enough ahead of them that they have no choice to follow. They wind the heavy bikes through the fallen palm trees, and by the time we reach the front of the building, Annie looks like she’s going to fall over.
OK – maybe I should have gone back and helped with the bikes. But as the details of the building coalesce out of the downtown darkness, I decide not to be too hard on myself.
When Annie sees what I see, she lets out an exhausted laugh. “Unreal, man. Unreal.”
Nic frowns. “Is that—?”
“What does it say?” Leo asks, pointing. There’s a wide awning that projects out from the building entrance, big metal letters bolted onto the front edge, looking out over the plaza.
I grin. “It says, Union Station. Come on, little dude. I got something amazing to show you.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Teagan
God, if he or she or they actually exist, is a gigantic prick.
No, for real. Take one look at the world today, and tell me that God isn’t out to mess with us. But every once in a while, you get a freebie. And right now, on this, the most fucked up, weird, hallucinatory night of Teagan Frost’s wild life, we’ve just gotten a gigantic freebie from the Big Dickhead in the Sky.
Getting inside Union Station is not easy. It’s still standing – obviously – but it’s been closed off, the windows and doors covered by thick, heavy wooden boards. Annie and Nic try to persuade me that it’s a non-starter, that we can’t get in, that we should go somewhere else.
The glass doors under the awning are sealed off with the same boards. They’re secured with a horizontal steel bar, locked in place by two of the biggest, toughest padlocks I’ve ever seen. Goddamnit, I was really hoping there’d just be a basic lock – one I might even be able to kick in. Then again, whoever owns Union Station probably didn’t want that happening.
“Locked,” Annie says, as if that settles the matter.
For a second, I waver, not sure if I can do this. Then, I take a deep breath, gather what little is left of my PK, and go to work.
It’s hard. Brutally hard. The headache comes roaring back, the lock greying out in front of me. I have to have a very serious talk with myself as I force my dregs of PK energy into the lock. Come on, dude. You can do it. All you need to do is move a couple of latches. You don’t have to deal with guns, or motorcycles, or shift slabs of concrete. Just a couple of tiny latches. That’s all. Come on.
Nothing happens. A horrible, slimy, sweat breaks out on my forehead. I grit my teeth, doing everything I can to ignore the headache. I am going to make this work. I am not going to look like a punk, not after getting excited about finding Union Station. I want what’s inside.
I want something good for us today.
“Teags…” Nic puts a hand on my shoulder.
Click.
It happens so suddenly that I almost gasp. Just like that, the lock is open. I reach out with a trembling hand, pull the big glass door open with a squeak of disused hinges.
“There,” I say, my voice shaking. Like I totally knew that was going to work.
“We can’t just stop here,” Annie says, although not even she sounds convinced. I flash ten fingers at her, as in: ten minutes. Then, without waiting for a response, I step inside. Like I know exactly what I’m doing.
The station interior is pitch-dark, dead silent. Nic and Annie follow, shaking their heads, sending drops of water flying everywhere. Leo, however, hovers on the threshold, hugging himself.
“What’s wrong?” I ask – then immediately see the problem.
I pull out my phone – well, the phone I stole from Minnie. Maybe there’s a way to turn on the flashlight without unlocking it. But when I open it up, I’m mildly surprised to find that the dumbass didn’t activate password protection. I guess when you’re a badass leather-clad biker, you don’t sweat about people stealing your phone. Pop would probably tear him a new one if she found out.
I’m tempted to mess around on the phone a little, maybe see what weird photos he’s taken, but decide against it. I am not in the mood for biker dick pics right now. I activate the flashlight, noting the time: 21:53.
I also note the background: a smiling Latinx woman, holding a swaddled baby. It’s hard not to think of Minnie, beat to shit by Annie, his face mashed hamburger. I swallow, looking away from the screen. Nothing we can do now.
The flashlight isn’t super-strong, but it pushes back the darkness a little. Leo swallows, then limps inside. I smile at him, thinking how crazy it is that a kid who has seen as much as he has could still be afraid of the dark. Then I feel bad for thinking this, then reach out and take his hand.
Union Station is not your average train stop. It’s this amazing art deco building, with high, vaulted ceilings and little filigrees and details on every pillar and doorway. Of course, it’s less amazing now: silent as a tomb, and clearly damaged. One of the many chandeliers lies in a smashed pile in the middle of the lobby.
“Teags.” I don’t think Annie means to whisper. “Y’all know there might be other people here, right?”
“Yeah? So?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I can’t feel anybody with my PK.” That’s a blatant lie, I can barely feel anything with my PK right now, but she doesn’t have to know that. I don’t care if the devil himself lives here; we have to rest, if only for a few minutes.
And there is no better place to do it, in the whole of LA, than Union Station. I grip Matthew’s hand, and lead us deeper into the building.
Our footsteps echo off the high ceilings as we head into the main hall. Annie did manage to plant a tiny seed of doubt in my mind – I don’t know if we have the energy to fight off yet more people who want to mess with us, for whatever reason – but there doesn’t appear to be anyone around. It doesn’t look like people have been here at all; the inside of the station is musty, but there’s no trash, no signs of life. Figures, given the heavy-duty security.
Maybe it’s the darkness, which the phone flashlight only pushes back a little way. Maybe it’s the silence. But I can’t stop thinkin
g of the Zigzag Man.
I don’t feel like I have a choice – like if I ignore the thought, it’ll swell and swell until it pops the top off my head. Both times, the Zigzag Man used his ability on two of us. The first time, it was me and Nic, and the second, me and Annie. Why would he stop there? Why not take us all out? Put us all in his fantasy world? Unless…
My ability has limitations. I’m stronger that I used to be, but unless I’m high on meth, I still have a limit to my range and strength. Maybe the Zigzag Man has limits, too. Maybe he can only affect two people at once, and no more. Maybe we can use that. Somehow.
It’s strange that he didn’t use his ability on Leo when he first tracked us down. Maybe he thought he didn’t need to – that Leo would be tapped out, his wiggles preventing him from fighting back.
The idea of someone with the ability to make you see things that aren’t there isn’t as far-fetched as you’d think. When you can move shit with your mind, your notions about what is possible and what isn’t are very flexible. But where did the Zigzag Man come from? How does he exist?
And both times we’ve run into him, we only barely escaped. Sooner or later, our luck is going to run out, and I still don’t have the first clue how to actually stop this guy.
More than that: if he comes back, and makes me see Carlos again, puts me in the fire…
“My fingers hurt.” Leo squints down at them. His left eye is still twitching like crazy.
“Leo,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “The Zigzag Man…”
“Huh?”
“Is there anything you can tell us about him? Anything at all?”
Leo bites his bottom lip. When he finally speaks, it’s as if he hasn’t heard me. “Me and Olivia and Lucas would use our powers, and then we’d get to play, but—”
“Who’s Olivia?”
“She could do math and stuff.”
Math. I want to ask Leo more, but before I can, he says, “Sometimes the Zigzag Man and the other lady would watch us.”
“The other lady? Who’s she?”
“I don’t know. What’s gonna happen to the other kids? Are they gonna be OK?”
For a second, I think he means the other kids at the School. Lucas and… Olivia, was it? But no – he’s talking about the Legends’ Daycare for Wayward Orphans. I want to tell him not to worry, that of course they’re going to be OK. In the end, I can’t do it. I don’t have the energy to lie. “I don’t know. But Mrs Garcia seemed nice, so…”
He ponders this for a minute. “Where’re your mom and dad?”
It takes me a couple of seconds to form the words. “They… aren’t around any more.”
“Did they die?”
“… Yes.”
“Oh.” He thinks about it. “That’s sad. I would miss my dad if he died.”
“Your dad’s… We’re gonna do everything we can to find him, OK?”
“Hey,” he says, “did your mom and dad know about your powers?”
The smile I give him feels forced. “Yeah. Actually, they… they kind of gave me my powers. Me and my brother and sister.”
“They had your same powers?”
“No. Chloe could see heat – she could see how hot and cold things were. Adam – my brother – he never needed to sleep.”
“He could stay up all night?”
“Pretty much.”
“Cool!”
It was very much not cool. Turns out, having no sleep your entire life turns you into a psychopath. Adam was the one who killed my parents, and Chloe. He would have killed me too if I hadn’t booked it the fuck out of there. I’m not shy about my past – I came to terms with it a long time ago – but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give Leo the details. He hasn’t exactly had a normal childhood himself, and I probably shouldn’t make it any worse with horror stories.
God, Chloe… I miss my parents the most, but I miss Chloe too. What girl wouldn’t miss her big sister? Especially when she’s the source of so many good memories. Like riding through the woods, the wind whipping against our faces, both of us laughing.
At that moment, I spot what I’m looking for. Nic does too, and bursts out laughing. “I forgot these were here,” he says, grinning at me.
I can’t help but smile back. Because yes, I am a genius.
Union Station isn’t just an architectural masterpiece. It has the greatest waiting room known to man. If you think that sounds lame, then I want you to imagine yourself and your buddies relaxing in giant, puffy armchairs while you wait for your train. That’s right: armchairs. Dozens of them, aligned in neat rows across the waiting room, each one a miracle of squashy leather upholstery and smooth mahogany.
LA is a dirty, messy, chaotic place, but there are some spots that stay pristine and untouched, against all odds. No graffiti, no vandalism. And it appears that despite the quake, despite everything that’s been thrown at my city, the Union Station waiting room is one of them.
I turn to Annie, raising a hand for a high five. She stares at me, shaking her head in wonder.
“Don’t leave me hanging,” I say. I make it sound light, but I really do want her to high-five me. I want her to be OK with this.
After a few seconds, she gives my hand a weak slap. A moment after that, we crash down into the chairs.
The leather is old and slightly cracked, dusty as hell, not as comfy as I remember. You wouldn’t want to sit in this chair every day. But right now, at this moment, it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt. It is all I can do not to go to sleep right here. I wink at Leo, who sits with his legs dangling off the chair opposite. Against all odds, he’s grinning too.
We sit in silence for a few minutes. Just… being. Yes, we’re being chased by the Legends and the National Guard and Africa and the goddamn piece-of-shit Zigzag Man, but it feels like we’ve called a time out in this little game. Not to say that we can totally relax yet. We won’t be able to for hours. But resting for a little while here will make those hours more bearable. And as grouchy as Annie and Nic were about coming in here, they’re also sinking into the leather seats. Welcoming the cracked, dusty embrace.
It’s only after another microsleep almost takes me that I remember the meth in my pocket.
My hand jumps to it, half wanting to check it’s still there, the other half hoping it isn’t. But there’s a muffled crackle of plastic under my fingers.
Come on. You took the meth for a specific reason, remember? I have this bag so I can test it later – find out what very small amounts do to my PK. I didn’t plan to get high this morning, and it does not mean I’m going to become addicted. In fact, this is probably a smart way to treat the urge I’m feeling. It acknowledges it, doesn’t try to force it away, gives it a healthy outlet.
Leo speaks, jerking me out of my thoughts. “Nic, do you have powers too?”
When there’s no response Leo leans over, and tugs on Nic’s sleeve. “Hey.”
Nic jerks his arm back, as if Leo had shocked him. He stares down at the boy, as if seeing him for the first time, then gives his head a little shake. “Sorry. What?”
Leo repeats the question.
“Oh. No. I’m normal.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Nic realises what he just said, and gives me an embarrassed look. “Well, I’m… I mean, no, I don’t have powers.”
Leo doesn’t appear to notice that Nic just called him and me abnormal. “Annie, do you have them?”
Annie shakes her head.
Leo huffs out a dramatic breath. “It’s like we’re in a movie,” he says.
“Yeah,” says Nic. “The Avengers.”
“I don’t really like superhero ones,” Leo says quietly, as if admitting he did something bad.
“What? Why not?”
He little-boy-shrugs. “I dunno. They’re not fun.”
“Same,” I tell Leo. Well, that’s half true. Batman isn’t bad. Mostly because he’s just a normal guy with a ton of money and cool gadgets. Technically, anyone could be him.
>
“Wait, what?” Nic squints at me. “You’ve never seen Avengers?”
“Well yeah, obviously I’ve seen it. It’s just really unrealistic.”
There’s a part of me that can’t believe we’re actually talking about this shit. Superhero movies we’ve seen, in the middle of everything that’s happening? Then again: why not? We’ve all been through the ringer, and if talking about random movies lightens the load, then why the fuck not? I’m down.
“It’s a comic book movie, man,” Nic says. “What did you expect?”
“I have insider knowledge of what it’s really like.” I nudge Leo. “We both do. Besides,” I tell Nic, “you like that arthouse stuff, don’t you?”
“Hey, The Graduate isn’t an arthouse movie, man. It’s a classic.”
“What’s The Grad-jit?” Leo asks.
Nic and I exchange a worried look.
“Um…” says Nic.
“It’s boring,” Annie says. “You wouldn’t like it.”
“How about you Annie?” Nic asks. “You watch Marvel movies? I know you don’t have powers or anything, but you’re in the business. Sort of.”
Annie shakes her head. “I’m not really into movies.”
“Oh come on.”
“They’re annoying,” she says. “Especially if they’re set in a real place. The ones set in LA always get stuff wrong. I hate that.”
“They don’t all get stuff wrong.” Nic actually sounds offended. “What about… like, Mulholland Drive?”
“Never seen it.”
“What?”
“Dunno what to tell you. I’m more of a book person.”
“Never?” He actually gapes at her.
“Do you realise how many great movies you’re missing out on?” I ask. “Die Hard was set in LA.”
“So was Training Day,” Nic says. “Boyz n the Hood. The Big Lebowski. Nightcrawler. Collateral.”
“Yes!” I snap my fingers at him. “Everybody always forgets Collateral. That is a goddamn amazing movie.”
“Right?”
I deadpan a cop’s voice. “Hey, is this blood up here on your windshield?”