20. Bay
TWENTY
bay
“Are you seriously still staring at that thing?”
Juice glances over at me, lips down casted in a pout. The forest green Mercedes that the boys and I picked up tonight sitting in front of him is about to get stripped and sold.
“It’s my dream car.”
My brows pinch in disbelief. “Really?”
Flicking my eyes back to the SUV, it’s ugly.
Maybe because it’s too boxy for me, and I don’t see the hype. Whoever we ripped it off from paid way too much money for it, in my opinion, and I felt as though I was doing them a solid by getting a nicer ride.
“It’s a premium G550 Mercedes Benz, with four hundred and sixteen horsepower, and hand-fitted leather seats with a hot stone massage.”
My face lifts. “A what now?”
Juice stares at me with the same devastated expression. “Heated massage on your ass and your back.” He turns his focus longingly back to the ride. “Heaven.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“It has voice controls, LED ambient lighting on the inside, and double-wishbone suspension for on-road precision.”
I step closer to him, still not seeing why he’d want this car over anything we’ve ever seen or raced against.
I look back at my buddy. “But isn’t it a little too?—”
“Perfect. It’s perfect,” he vouches confidently with a nod. “This baby has a bit turbo V8 in it and a camtronic system that saves on fuel. I could literally take this thing anywhere.”
I mean, we just drove it through thick mud and deep puddles so he has me there. “Right.”
“You still starin’ at that piece of shit?” Levi carps out before wrapping a heavy arm around my shoulders. The familiar smell of motor oil wafting around me. “We gotta get this thing out of here and back to the shop to strip.”
“I…” We both steal another glance at Juice, whose mouth is wide open like he can’t bear the thought of disassembling any part of it.
“Why don’t we just give it to him?” I mutter to my best friend. “He’s literally about to have a panic attack and cry.”
“Do you know how much money we could get for this thing?” he retorts, keeping his voice down, even though Juice is only but five feet from us. “It was a risk just going out to that area to lift it.”
We’re in the middle of nowhere, deep down in the throng of woods where we keep all the stolen cars we take. It’s too risky to leave them anywhere else where law enforcement might find them, and we don’t have the warehousing to hold them in either. You literally have to take a dirt road here and back because it’s so off the map.
“Yeah, but look at him.” He looks pathetically attached already, and I feel bad. Besides, Juice never asks for anything, and I’ve never seen him make heart eyes at anything so intently before. “He’s in love.”
“He’s an idiot.” Levi raises his voice specifically for Juice when he says, “And he knows he can’t ride it around South Shore because it’ll get Muncy sniffing around our asses.”
Juice rolls his shoulders, clearly not happy with the reality of the situation before spinning to face him. “Well, I’m driving it back.”
“Whatever.” Levi tosses him the keys. “We got four hours per Travis to move it, rip it, and get rid of it. He said his dad was fuckin’ around in Wharf Bay tonight.”
I bob my head as if I’m listening.
I mean, I am, but I’ve been paranoid that Levi is going to push the whole Cairo school thing again. I need to tell him everything, I do. But after his more frequent phone calls and text messages lately, he’s actually scaring the shit out of me.
“What’s wrong?”
I shake my head and try to appear cool and collected from my inner thoughts. “Nothing, I’m just tired.”
“You still upset about the other day?”
“No. Are you?”
“Yes.”
See.
“I told you, I don’t go anywhere without anyone.”
“No offense, but Travis wouldn’t be my first pick.”
“Levi…”
He steals a look at me. “What? I love Trav, I do, but fuck, the wind could blow that kid over.”
I force my lips to not lift because he’s such a douchebag. “Stop it.”
“When do you have school next? I’ll be waiting out in the parking lot for you like a good little boyfriend.”
“You’re givin’ the wrong vibes, Lev. A man like that appears possessive with low self-esteem.”
“Do you think I really give a fuck about what Torin and Cairo think of me?” He lifts his eyebrow with the spiked piercing. “I don’t.”
“Why does Cairo want to meet with you anyway?” I solicit.
“Eh, probably the beef I have with Torin. He also probably wants the guns back. Too bad those are already on their way to L.A.” He gives me a squeeze, then steps forward in Juice’s direction, who still gaping at the Mercedes. “You gonna drive it back or eye-fuck it?” His palm lightly slaps Juice on the backside of his head before he pivots around to face me. “Go home. You got school tomorrow, right?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Don’t you have school on Thursdays?”
“No.” I cock my head to the side. “What days do I have school?”
He lifts his massive shoulders and shrugs. “Dunno. That’s why I just asked you. I know it’s three days a week.” He lifts a finger at me. “Go to school.”
“I am,” I whine back. “Geezus.”
“Did you know that this thing can go zero to sixty in five-point-six seconds?” Juice tells Levi as if he just has to know.
My best friend eyes him placidly. “Did you know that I really couldn’t give a fuck, and if you don’t get this thing out of here, I’m going to make you strip it alone?”
Juice scoffs just as headlights streak through the thick trees to our left and my forearm immediately gets death gripped by Levi.
He yanks me with him as the boys and I quickly sprint to the set of parked cars we’re still holding, when said vehicle continues down the dirt road and into the enclave of our stolen cars.
The grip around my arm tightens, and I hear the growl of Levi’s displeasure.
“What the fuck?” Juice mumbles to my right while we’re hunched down behind a red Challenger. “Who is that?”
“Someone who definitely shouldn’t be here,” Levi leers back. “Not one of our boys. They would’ve texted me.”
“My baby is out there, bro,” Juice mourns sourly. “They touch my Impala, and I’m spraying lead.”
“Chill.” The pop of doors opening resonates through the air, and I am immediately tense. We’re not far away from the stolen Mercedes, and the feeling of danger fills the air, coercing my lungs to only take air when it absolutely has to. “Car must have a chip on it. There’s no way anyone found us out here.”
“We’re fucked,” Juice utters under his breath. “That doesn’t sound like two guys we can easily take down.”
“I know that car,” a male voice quips over the sound of a running car. “Search this fuckin’ place.”
Levi’s fingers dig a little deeper into my arm, and I hold my breath for any sound of them approaching this way.
“What about the car?” another asks.
“Oh, hell no,” Juice snap-whispers. “They’re not takin’ my baby.”
I want to ask him which one he loves the most—the Mercedes or the Impala because he’s two-timing with his love right now—but there isn’t time for teasing. Our place to hide our stolen vehicles just got blown to pieces and now we have to find another place.
“Would you shut the hell up?” Levi shoots back. “Check how many there are. Bay”—he gives a little shake to my arm—“get under one of these cars, okay? Don’t move, no matter what you hear.”
“I can shoot and?—”
“Roger and the girls.”
It’s all he has to say.
The only reminder that I’ve already taken one chance tonight with the law in stealing that Mercedes. I don’t have any room for another.
“Go ahead,” he orders softly. “We’ll be fine. I promise.”
I follow his instructions, finding an old Oldsmobile behind us that leaves a little more room for me to crawl underneath.
We’ve kept quite a stash of vehicles back here. Some of them are grabbed up by the guys randomly when the opportunity is available and then laid aside here for a buyer or parts. Others, like the Mercedes, are stripped or sold as a whole.
I hear Levi whisper something to Juice before I see them creep around a red Challenger and disappear somewhere else.
The crunch of rocks and shuffle of dirt sounds down the trail made between all the cars kept here, and I steadily focus on just breathing over anything else.
Crickets and the soft brush of leaves from the trees collectively sound around us, leaving an eerily feeling of what’s not so peaceful out here.
“They’re here,” I hear a male say. “I want them alive.”
“We’ll find them.”
I see a pair of white shoes approach, followed by a fucking flashlight as it guides the person through the darkness barely lit by the moon that just conveniently disappeared behind a cloud.
I hope it stays put.
We need as much darkness and quiet as possible.
The shoes pass me, and I release a silent gulp of air from my lungs. Wild goosebumps tread up my arms and down my spine as I wait in pure apprehension of the boys getting hurt.
The distinct sound of tussling bodies and a male grunt sounds to my left, causing me to crane my head that way, but there’s nothing I can see besides the front tire of the car I’m underneath.
“Motherfuck—” A hiss sounds before the obscenity can be finished, then a thud of something heavy hits the ground. The shadow figure of legs runs past the front of the car I’m under and they suddenly drop a whole body to the ground, scaring the absolute shit out of me.
“Get to my car.” A dangling of keys skips across the hardened earth and its Juice. “There’re too many of them.”
“What are you going to?—”
“Hurry up.”
Shit.
As quietly and quickly as I can, I slither out from my safe haven, swipe up the keys, and listen for anyone approaching. Juice is gone, disappeared somewhere else in the darkness, and my heart is literally beating the crap out of my chest.
Getting back behind the Challenger again, I round the backend to keep myself closest to the brush and woods for better coverage.
No shining flashlights give way to anyone nearby and one step out is me in the open to where the green Mercedes sits and Juice’s Impala is parked along the other side of the woods.
It’s a good twenty-five yards over with no cover.
A blacked-out SUV that I can’t make out the brand of is parked behind the stolen vehicle that caused all this to happen, and unless I go into the woods and make a circle, it’s the only way I’m getting safely to it.
My right heel doesn’t even make it out, when I’ve quickly spun around and slammed into the trunk of the Challenger, a large palm covering my mouth to keep my scream and the surprised grunt at bay.
“I should’ve known that when there’s trouble, you’d be a part of it.”
I know that voice.
However, I can’t confirm it fully with the limited light from above, but the smell of aftershave and weed fills my nostrils just like they did when Travis was getting shot and I had a gun held to my head.
“Bay Astor,” Cairo’s voice leers venomously. “I’m getting real tired of your fucking ass.”
I open my mouth, not to speak, but I feel the familiar end of a gun pressed into my stomach.
That quickly gets my lips to clamp shut against Cairo’s palm.
“I’m removing my hand,” he states. “And if you fucking scream, I’m shooting you, got it?”
I bob my head, but Cairo is untrusting of my silent acknowledgment.
“One peep and I’m putting a few bullets in you. I don’t care that you’re Emilio Wildes’s daughter. I don’t give a fuck that your Levi Wallace’s girl, either. Scream, and you’ll only give me something worth comin’ out here for besides getting my car back.” The hand over my mouth falls to the wayside, and I inhale a fresh breath of air. “Well?”
“Well, what?” I stutter a bit.
“How many guys?”
Oh God…
He wants the layout of the land so that he doesn’t miss someone out here that might jump his ass.
“Five,” I lie.
“Who?”
“Bobby, Fallon, Walker, Murphy, and Yates.” All five names that I just pulled proudly out of my ass.
“The Nameless?”
“Dunno.” The barrel of the gun shoves itself deeper into my side again. “I don’t know.”
“How the fuck don’t you know?” he retorts through his teeth in a low growl. “Do I appear like I’m in the mood for your bullshit? I dragged my ass through the fucking forest to get here. You’ve been nothing but a pain in my ass who I can just get rid of before you become a bigger one.”
“I don’t have a list of—” A loud explosion booms through the air, rattling my eardrums and jolting me into shock at how close it sounded.
Instead of delving back into safety, Cairo only grips my arm and twists me around to see what’s happened.
On the far end of the small enclave of woods where we’ve kept some of our cars, it’s fucking on fire.
“How much more are you willing to bet against us before you lose, Your Highness?” Cairo carps out in my ear, sending an unwanted and cold chill down my whole body. “It only gets worse moving forward.”
And on cue, another explosion, this time toward the back of our mini-junkyard-safety spot.
I can feel some of the heat from here and my brain promptly goes to Juice and Levi.
Were they close?
Are they safe?
Did someone grab them?
I haven’t heard any gunshots, thank fuck.
“Tell Wallace that we’ve been quiet thus far with what we can do to South Shore. This is a warning to stop touchin’ our shit. I swear to God, Little Terror, I run into you like this again, and I’m murdering you, understand me?”
And why am I not surprised that he lit this place on fire? Just like he did with The Stowaway.
His front to my spine disappears and I glimpse over my shoulder to watch him striding toward the SUV they arrived in.
The moment he’s in the backseat, both that car and the Mercedes start up, backing up so they can get down the small trail leading here.
A clip of gunshots pops off from my left as I quickly search for the culprit. There doesn’t need to be a spotlight on him to know who it is.
It’s Levi.
And he’s hella pissed.
And that’s when another warm hand wraps tightly around my lips and drags me into the darkness of the woods, kicking and freaking the fuck out.
“Now, it’s my turn, Wildfire.”