CHAPTER 63 #2
I feather the throttle just to show off, I fucking love the sound of my Charger.
My adrenal booster flares to life making my veins visible under my tattoos.
One.
The light flashes green.
I slam the gear home and the rear tires spun violently, throwing smoke across the grid before finding grip.
The car lunged forward, the engine exploding into a deafening roar that drowned out everything else.
My right-hand snap through the gears with practice precision while my left holds the wheel steady, making only the smallest corrections as the nose of the car surges ahead.
Around me, the grid erupts.
Bikes shoot forward like bullets, slipping through the smallest gaps, while heavily modified cars fight for every lane.
Exhaust flames burst from oversized pipes, tires scream against the asphalt, and mirrors filled with flashing headlights as competitors fight to avoid being boxed in.
Two cars trade paint before the first corner, another bounces off the barrier in a shower of sparks, yet nobody lifts.
My augmented eyes devour every detail, the gaps, the cars, the obstacles.
Nothing escapes them.
I thread through the opening gaps before they disappear, reading the chaos as it unfolds.
A Static Rebel tries to force me wide, but I snap the wheel, bury the throttle, and surge past before he can close the door.
In my mirrors, the rest of Crimson Velocity follows in formation, our scarlet machines cutting through the pack like a single wave, leaving behind smoke, sparks, and the deafening roar of engines.
“In fifty feet, first obstacle!” Ren shouts.
I nod and laugh.
I wrench the wheel sideways and slam into one of the Kitsune cars. The impact rattles through the chassis, but I keep my foot planted. In the mirror, the Kitsune spirals into a cloud of steam and twisted metal before disappearing behind the pack.
“One down.” I grin.
The freight highway stretches ahead, four lanes wide and already clogged with racers fighting for position.
Bikes weave between bumpers like ghosts, their riders barely inches from disaster. A Crimson car blasts past my left, its exhaust spitting blue fire as it muscles another racer toward the guardrail.
“Left!” Ren barks.
I flick my eyes just in time.
An Iron Hound throws his reinforced machine across the lane, trying to block the opening.
I don't brake.
I dive toward the narrowing gap, the side of my car scraping against his armor with a shower of sparks before I burst through.
My heart pounds, but my mind stays perfectly still.
The first warehouse entrance comes into view.
I lift just enough to settle the car, then throw it sideways into the corner. The rear steps out exactly as I want, tires screaming against the concrete.
I catch the slide with a quick correction and fire out of the turn, inches from a stack of shipping containers.
The world becomes a blur of steel pillars, flashing lights, and impossible gaps.
Every corner is a gamble.
Every mistake is elimination.
And I wouldn't have it any other fucking way.
The warehouse swallows us whole.
The light vanishes behind walls of rusted steel and towering stacks of cargo containers. The only light comes from flickering work lamps and the occasional shower of sparks raining from overhead cranes.
Every turn is blind.
Every meter feels tighter than the last.
I throw the Charger into another drift, the rear bumper missing a steel pillar by inches. Tires howl across the concrete as the nose snaps toward the next corridor.
“Three bikes on your right!” Ren shouts.
I don't even look.
I hear them.
Three screaming engines slip through a gap no car could ever fit. One flashes past my passenger side, another clips my mirror, the third dives for the inside of the next corner.
“Wrong move.” I smile.
Ren only rubs the bridge of his nose but I catch a smirk.
Hide it little piece of shit, you’ll be happy the credits and I will be happy to show off what’s mine once I finish.
I stay wide, let him commit, then cut back underneath. His bike runs out of room between my Charger and a stack of containers.
Metal screams.
He bounces off the wall and disappears behind me. The remaining two scatter. Ahead, the pack begins to compress.
A Neon Raiden dives cleanly through the next chicane while an Iron Hound barrels straight through a line of plastic barriers, forcing everyone else to react.
Too slow for my reflex boosters.
I stab the brake, the rear rotates.
One quick flick.
The Charger slides perfectly between the Iron Hound's rear bumper and a concrete support, sparks exploding along my driver's side as the door kisses the pillar.
Close, way too fucking close.
Steam bursts from broken pipes overhead, turning the next section into a wall of white.
Visibility drops to almost nothing.
My eyes compensate instantly, highlighting heat signatures through the fog. Not as clearly as I'd like but enough to track the cars, the bikes and the pipes lining the concrete walls.
Everything appears in flashes of red across my vision.
“There!” Ren points.
I punch the throttle.
The Charger tears through the steam cloud and bursts back into the open, engine roaring as daylight from the refinery district floods the windshield.
The longest straight in the Industrial Belt stretches out before us.
I suddenly see in the rear-view mirror a Ghost Void car bolting through, of course.
I roll my eyes but continue to drive, focusing on winning.
Focusing on her waiting for me.
A violent impact detonates through the rear of the Charger. The force almost lifts the back wheels off the ground.
My vision blurs for a heartbeat as the car snaps sideways, tires screaming across the concrete.
I fight the wheel with both hands, wrestling nearly two tons of steel away from a support pillar that rushes toward my windshield.
The front bumper misses by inches. Whoever hit me wasn't trying to pass.
They were trying to push me into the wall.
A black silhouette shoots past my left, disappearing between two rows of containers before I can catch more than a glimpse.
No gang colors, no markings.
Just taillights cutting through the darkness like two crimson blades.
“What the hell was that?” Ren mutters.
“I don't know.” I tighten my grip on the wheel, my eyes narrowing “But I'm about to find out.”
I bury the throttle.
The Charger snarls, surging after the mystery car. Every corner it takes is impossibly clean, every drift perfectly measured. It isn't trying to lose control—it isn't trying to fight the track.
It's flowing through it.
I close the gap.
Twenty meters.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Then it vanishes behind a wall of steam erupting from a ruptured pipe.
“Damn it!” I slam my palm against the steering wheel over and over, my chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.
I'm going to kill that bastard for daring to hit me.
I plunge into the whiteout without lifting. The world disappears and there is nothing but engine noise and instinct.
I wrench the wheel toward the fresh tire marks, bursting out of the steam.
Nothing.
The refinery straight stretches ahead, packed with racers fighting for every inch of asphalt.
“Where the fuck did he go?” I growl.
The answer comes from behind.
The Charger jerks violently as something slams into my rear quarter. The back-end snaps sideways, trying to throw me into the barrier.
I wrestle the wheel back.
“Motherfucker!” I roar in pure blinded rage.
The tires bite and save it.
“Is that all you've got, you bastard?!” A grin creeps across my face.
Another hit, harder.
The impact sends my shoulder into the door as the Charger fishtails across two lanes. My hands clamp tighter around the wheel, veins bulging beneath my tattoos.
Ren twists around in his seat. “I can't see him!”
Neither can I. That's what pisses me off.
Before I can recover, the black car appears beside me.
“Get back here!” I jerk the wheel toward him. He's gone again. “Son of a—”
The third strike comes before I finish the sentence. Not the rear, on the side. The Charger is sent straight toward the outside barrier.
“Fuck!” I yank the wheel.
The front misses the concrete by inches but the rear clips it. The impact launches the car back across the track.
Everything happens at once, an Iron Hound has nowhere to go. He plows into my passenger side.
Another racer clips my rear, a bike cartwheels through the air.
The Charger lifts, all four tires leave the ground.
I hear Ren scream in terror. I can’t react fast enough despite my reflex booster.
The world explodes into motion, the windshield shatters, concrete flashes past.
The Charger slams roof-first onto the refinery access road, bounces, rolls again, tearing through barriers and cargo fencing as pieces of the bodywork scatter across the track.
The cabin collapses around us, my head whips sideways.
Something cracks.
Pain erupts through my body before disappearing beneath pure shock and pain dampeners.
The seatbelt digs into my chest so hard I can't breathe. Another roll, another impact.
The world becomes nothing but spinning lights, flying glass, twisted metal, and flashes of fire.
Then, silence.
The Charger lies on its roof, crushed almost beyond recognition. Smoke curls through the broken windshield.
I try to move but I can’t, I’m blocked, my vision blurs. I slowly turn my head.
Blood drips from my mouth, from my head, I feel it. But I don't even know where.
The pain dampeners aren't enough for that kind of wound.
Ren isn't moving either.
The last thing I see is a black car disappearing down the refinery straight without slowing.
And her.
My troublemaker.
Blushing furiously as she flips me off before I climb back into the Charger.