CHAPTER 40
Evren
Tear Me Up – October Ends
The roar of my Charger doesn’t do a damn thing to calm me down.
The Upper Layers stretch above me in their usual bullshit perfection.
Glass, chrome, black steel—tower after tower disappearing into the clouds like they're trying to outrun the rest of us.
Their shiny facades throw holograms everywhere, drowning the streets in blues, golds, and crimson, selling people lives they'll never fucking have.
Silent maglev trains cut between the skyscrapers while executive transports drift overhead in neat little lanes, surveillance drones floating after them like obedient guard dogs.
Not a single thing out of place.
And it pisses me off even more.
I can’t stop seeing her face, the deep purple her skin turned when she couldn’t breathe anymore because of that motherfucker.
I shut my eyes and replay that horrific shit in my head, seeing her get choked out by him, turning a sickly shade of purple while going all limp in his fucking hands.
Felt like my heart imploded, bursting into flames hotter than lava or colder than ice.
I couldn't hold back, I was consumed by a fucking tidal wave of rage and pure terror at the thought of losing her.
My mind went berserk wanting to brutalize that piece of shit, just wanted to kill the motherfucker right then and there, more than all those other assholes I've taken out in business deals or races.
I reveled in the sick satisfaction of beating his ass and chopping off his fucking hand—and I’ll do it again without even blinking, without hesitation.
I don't even give a fuck.
I open my eyes and the only thing I see in the rearview mirror is a monster, a damn monster of obsession and possession.
I was already one, but she made me become a worse one.
I'm panting, each breath harsher than the last.
My eyes begin to glow with everything raging inside me, the image of her almost dying is burned into my mind.
I know it'll haunt me.
Every fight.
Every race, every moment I need a reason to push harder.
And I fucking told her—don’t fucking let me disappear back into that damn silence—and now everything is so fucking quiet.
She chose him. She chose him. She fucking chose him.
Not me.
It feels like a fucking nightmare.
I slam my fist against the dashboard, again.
And again.
And again.
The dashboard starts to splinter beneath my fists. I slam on the brakes in the middle of the street, horns blaring around me, but I keep pounding that fucking dashboard.
My hands bleed, but the pain dampener takes the edge off, so I keep going.
“Fuck!” I slam my fist into the dashboard. “Fuck!” Another crack. “Fuck!” Again. “Fuck!”
I roar inside my car.
I can't stop. The moment I do, the pain fades—even through the dampeners—and the silence comes back.
She chose to throw me out after I saved her life.
I expected more than that.
I expected some fucking acknowledgment. A simple thank you, Evren.
None of it. I was ready to cut off his hands for even touching her, and she threw me out anyway.
Even after I told her she was real to me.
I shouldn’t have said it.
I got too overwhelmed, too angry, too consumed by everything. I should’ve kept my mouth shut and just finished what I started.
I would've turned his hands into fucking trophies, kept them in my garage as a reminder to anyone who forgot exactly who the fuck I am—and what happens when someone touches her.
I stop.
I probably broke my little finger, maybe the bone along the side of my hand too.
There are probably shards of the dashboard lodged in my skin.
I don’t care.
I let my head fall back against the headrest and close my eyes.
She told me to leave? Fine.
I’ll fucking leave.
I throw the car into gear and pull away. One hundred and ten miles an hour, maybe more. I don’t give a fuck.
I cut off some perfect little rich asshole's car. They lean on the horn.
I ignore it.
My hands are white-knuckled around the wheel, blood dripping onto the leather.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I’m still in the Upper Layers. I’m still too close to her world.
I need to breathe, I need the noise.
Now.
I weave between cars, my reflex booster and ocular augmentations making every gap, every angle, every calculation effortless.
The other drivers swerve violently, yanking their cars out of my way.
It’s not enough, I need more.
The stab wound doesn't matter. My hand doesn't matter.
I need to kill whatever the fuck woke up inside me the moment I thought she was dying—the moment I met her.
I jerk the wheel and slam the chassis of my Charger into the rear of some expensive car that fucking floats.
Anti-gravitational cars aren't impossible. Rich assholes just like pretending they cracked the laws of physics.
A grav-core beneath the chassis generates a counter-field that tells gravity to go fuck itself. The core keeps the car hovering while vector thrusters take care of steering and acceleration.
Smooth, quiet and efficient.
Boring as hell.
They're expensive to build, even more expensive to maintain, and the moment the core starts drifting out of calibration, you're looking at repair bills big enough to make most people cry.
That's why I still drive on wheels.
Tires bite asphalt.
I can feel every crack in the road through the steering wheel.
I know exactly when the rear's about to step out because the whole fucking car talks to me.
Anti-gravs float over everything, insulated from the street like they're too good to touch it.
That's the Upper Layers in a nutshell. Always hovering, never getting their hands dirty.
The car barely fucking moves.
I clench my jaw and wrench the wheel, driving the chassis into the back of the floating car again, crushing its rear end.
The driver loses control, swerves across the road, and slams into a utility pole displaying the time. The clock glitches once before dying.
The driver is alive and unharmed. Already calling the Enforcers.
I roll my eyes.
Perfect, some fucking action.
Something to make me forget how Riven chose him over me, how she almost died, how quiet everything is.
I can’t stand the silence.
I grew up in the poverty of the Lower Layers. Noise wasn't just everywhere—it was life.
Silence leaves too much room in my head, too much room to think about everything that's wrong—the cars, the races, the enemies I still have to deal with.
Her.
Her mismatched eyes, the piercing in her nostril that wrinkles with it every time she gets angry.
When she’s around, she creates chaos. She reacts in ways no one else ever does. She drowns everything else out, she hits me and doesn’t back down.
No one even tries to touch me, afraid I’ll snap their necks like twigs.
Now that I actually left—the very thing I asked from the beginning—it feels like I’m back in that confinement cell, where everything was silent.
It was so silent I could hear my own heartbeat. My own thoughts.
Fuck that.
I need her.
But she doesn’t need me, she made that perfectly clear.
I hear the hum of the drones closing the distance.
One of them drifts up beside my window, their floodlights locking onto the Charger.
Attention. Your vehicle has been flagged. Pull over immediately. Exit the vehicle. Continued non-compliance authorizes lethal force. You are under arrest for intentional property damage and vehicular assault.
I slowly turn my head and lower the window.
“Oh, am I?” I grin.
I shoot my arm out and grab the drone one-handed and slam my foot onto the gas pedal.
One twenty, one thirty.
“You like that, huh?” I laugh, the sound wild, almost manic. “Let me show you how Crimson Velocity operates under arrest!”
I tighten my grip, the veins beneath my skin bulging.
I let go of the wheel and grab the drone with both hands, keeping the Charger steady with my knee.
You are not authorized to tamper with the property of the Central Authority. Please remain inside the vehicle and pull ov—
I cut it off by driving my fingers into the metal. They split open, blood running down my hands, but I don't stop until I rip the drone clean in half, laughing like a fucking maniac.
I drop the pieces.
I snatch the wheel just before the Charger plows into an asphalt barrier, yank the handbrake, slam on the brakes, and wrench the wheel to full lock.
The Charger spins in tight circles before finally grinding to a stop, the rear bumper kissing the wall with a soft click.
I’m breathing hard.
This—this is what I’m talking about.
I hear them before I see them, more drones and actual Enforcers.
I throw the Charger into gear, yank the handbrake down, and peel away.
Are they following me? I glance into the rearview mirror.
They are.
I need this shit.