Chapter 12 #3
“I…let me join the Crimson Crew,” she whispers, eyes shining.
I knew this might happen. I get success and then a bunch of girls come running at me.
I decide to form a secondary crew, like a trial group.
Give ‘em orders and see what they do. If they behave, I’ll give them to Stacey Langford as a gift.
“Later, sweetheart. I ain’t sayin’ no, but I’m not saying yes either.
” I turn back to the track, confident that my girls will take the coat from her.
Check its pockets. Check hers. That kind of thing.
I’m fixed on the boys as Bohnes goes straight for Ash.
Probably because he’s banking on Widow to crash himself with the way he’s taking the curves. Jesus.
The Chevelle knocks into the Cobra, causing the pair of them to fall behind Alexei in the L88. It all comes down to modifications around here though. If Alexei had the Miura—RIP—that’s in the river, then he’d be catching up to Widow.
Not today though. I feel bad, seeing as that was Alexei’s personal car and I trashed it. It’s hard to win one of these high-stakes races in somebody else’s ride. The L88 is nice, but it’s just some restoration project and not a racing freak cobbled together with zero regulations and stolen parts.
Bohnes knocks into Ash again. It’s keeping Ash from winning while allowing Widow to dominate.
Huh. I’m puffing on that cigarette to calm myself down, coughing a little, waving sweet-and-spicy smoke from my face.
These babies smell like Christmas. They literally have cloves in them. Harsh as hell on the lungs though.
After we’re done with this murder shit, I think I’ll quit. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.
“Hell yeah!” I scream, mumbling around the cigarette as I grab onto the chain-link with two hands, staring down at the pack of feral boys. As Widow comes around the track to lap Bohnes and Ash, the Chevelle is abruptly turned into the side of the Stingray, pitting him. Oh. My. God.
Widow is an amazingly skilled driver and getting better. For anyone else, they would’ve been out-of-bounds or crashed. He recovers, the Stingray waffling from side to side before it comes down hard on the ice—facing in the opposite direction.
Bohnes keeps going, but he slows way, way down.
When Alexei goes by, he stays away from him.
When Ash does it, Bohnes clips his car and causes him to lose enough speed that he can’t quite catch up to Alexei.
Widow is absolutely fucked. Bohnes is relentless, getting in front of him, forcing him to slow down or crash.
Widow manages to escape after a quick tussle, doing his best to catch up. He avoids Bohnes’ blatant attempts to derail him, lapping the Chevelle. Coming up on the Cobra.
Slow and steady, Alexei blows through the twenty laps in first place.
It’s over so damn quick.
Ash finishes just ahead of Widow, stealing second place. Bohnes comes chugging in last and loves it. I can already tell he’s going to find this insanely amusing. It was a lesson, a reminder: with him by your side, a person can do anything. Bohnes won that race for Alexei.
“Cops are here,” Jennifer whispers in my ear, and I sigh. I turn and catch sight of red and blue lights in the distance. No sirens though.
The crowd is fucking wild, edging toward rowdy. The next group of drivers is already making their way down to the track, determined to utilize every last second we have here tonight. Amen, baby.
I’m laughing as the boys pull up, climbing out of their cars in various moods.
Bohnes is grinning, supernaturally cocky. Alexei is smug, removing his leather gloves and tossing them before he dons some fresh latex. Widow is really mad, but holding himself together. Ash is bleeding a little, like maybe he hit his head against the glass of the driver’s side window.
“Shit, are you okay?” I murmur, running over to Ash and using the end of my shirtsleeve to clean his face off. My shirt is white, so the red really stands out.
“I’m fine,” he says with a loving smile. I’ve never seen this before, Ash being himself in front of other people like this. What happened that he feels safe enough to do this? The barbershop? I smile back.
“See that?” Bohnes says proudly. “Alexei is a client of mine. And I just love doing favors for loyal customers.” Bohnes has both hands in the pockets of his joggers, laughing hysterically as blue and red lights color his pale face.
“You are fucking insane,” Widow snaps, running his hand over his hair. “If you’d just driven your car like a normal goddamn person, I’d have kicked your ass.”
“This is Prescott. Play dirty, win big.” Bohnes looks over at Alexei as I help Ash clean off his face. “Alexei has the win now. How exciting.” Bohnes then rolls his head around on his neck, casting his pale blue eyes back in the direction of the cops. Distracted by them.
Playing with Widow, Ash, and Alexei on the racetrack was like a fun game to him. The cops though, that’s work.
“What’d ya win?” I ask, checking the cut on Ash’s forehead.
It’s not too bad. I’ve had worse on the track.
He’ll live. I whisper to one of my girls to find a bandage and one appears within fifteen seconds, floating from one hand to another.
Basti gives it to me, and I lean forward, getting on my tiptoes and pressing the bandage to Ash’s cut.
It has purple and pink dicks on it. The dicks have wings.
I snort and step back, studying Ash in the red hoodie. The face mask with a snarling mouth, a long tongue twisted across the bottom. Some sort of oni mask or something. A demon mask.
“We made our own arrangements beforehand.” Alexei’s smile is vicious. He might be a rich boy, but he fits in just fine with these demons. “I asked that we all share the same last name, whatever that may be.”
He’s dead-cold when he says that, like he’s got an ulterior motive.
I work my jaw as I skirt around Ash, his blood still staining my sleeve, and pause in front of Alexei.
“You up to something, Marie?” I toss Alexei a saucy look and then move around him, walking across the parking lot to check on the situation. “If so, you better tell me your secrets now.”
“No secrets,” he calls back to me, “just a hunch.”
The fuck does that mean?
Jennifer comes over to whisper in my ear again.
“The cops already had tow trucks with ‘em when they got here.” She sounds annoyed.
I am, too.
I smile like a shark at the sound of clanking chains, the creak of metal. Headlights flash through the dark as a pair of tow trucks—there are a dozen of them, by the way—tug two Prescott cars out of the road.
The space between us and the law is opened up.
I pull out a pack of gum and push a piece between my lips.
“High-speed chases, my specialty.” With a sigh, I turn and make my way over to the Devil as several cop cars slip past my crew’s barricade. Bummer. We’ll get the track back—legally or illegally, either way—later.
“Try not to kill another cop, Widow,” I tease him as I waltz past, declining the offer of my fur coat from one of the girls. I don’t like to drive fast while wearing fur. It’s a thing.
“Piss off,” is what he says to me, swinging into the Stingray. Not that either of us is really bent up about that death.
That guy, Pierce Cranston, the police officer that Widow shot, he was in charge of the evictions at the building Chet Senior owns.
Two of the residents there were arrested after speaking out about the eviction—by Pierce.
They haven’t been seen since. Never made it to the jail.
No paper trail to indicate where they might’ve gone.
Emma Jean has actual video footage of that. We watched it together last night. I’ve got all sorts of fresh goss in my pocket.
There’s the click, click, click of doors closing around me. Bohnes in the Chevelle, still laughing. Alexei, latex fingers around the wheel. Ash, with the damn sword like always.
Widow pulls out ahead of me, and my eyebrow twitches. Seriously? We start racing each other down the dirt road with cop cars oncoming, splitting around them and taking off into the grass on either side. We both know the spots where it caves in and where it’s safe to drive.
We’re out on the pavement by the time any of the others catch up to us.
I take a right. Widow takes a left.
Thirty minutes later, we’re back at the mansion and eating pizza.
I picked it up on my way, lost the cops in the line for the drive-thru.
I know.
I’m awesome.