Chapter 29
Scarlett
The bulldozer is painted jet-black, reinforced with steel plates and concrete. The cab is outfitted with a gun I don’t even know the name for. Bohnes has explained the controls to me several times. I had it memorized after the first, but better safe than sorry.
Both of the huge warehouse doors are open and the killdozer is chilling on the driveway. The guys are setting me up to tow some Lambo we took from the school. Thank you, Oak Valley, for all of the wonderful get-away cars.
“You’re good to go,” Widow says over our shared group call.
He and Alexei are going to take the rear while Bohnes and Ash are up front.
Once we’ve hit the construction site at the radio station, we’ll head back towards town and the guys will draw off the cops—if there are any.
Mayor Kelly’s bright idea to remove the police and then pretend like crime was down has backfired: crime is back up, baby.
Multiple felonies, here we come. Honestly, driving this thing might even be considered an act of terrorism or something.
Well. YOLO.
I shift the vehicle into drive, settling down to control the beast all by my lonesome. There’s only space inside the turret for a single person, and I’ve got this.
“Hai, Adrian-kun,” Ash says into his phone, voice crackling with a ridiculous amount of false cheer. He hates everything about this because it relates directly back to his father. He’s worried about us, and his fears are well-justified. Totally understandable.
“Adrian-kun?” Widow asks, and then he laughs because he likes the nickname. The pair of them can watch hentai together while I take turns riding one and then the other. Fuck, that’s hot. “Okay, Ash-chan.”
“Ouch.” So Ash says, but he’s laughing. It’s a beautiful, beautiful sound. “Ash-chan, huh?”
“You used to call me Scarlett-chan,” I remind him, a thrill of power and possibility rocketing up my spine.
I feel invincible. I’ve never felt as powerful as I do with the killdozer between my thighs and four fuckboy psychos on leashes around me.
Nah-nah-nah-nah-na, Jonas Kelly. “But you’re a good boy who learns his lessons. ”
“Can’t teach a rabid dog new tricks.” Bohnes accelerates up the road ahead of us, taking the lead with another borrowed Oak Valley car (it’s a green McLaren). I’m driving a goddamn bulldozer, so I’m sort of out of the running if we start racing.
“Who’s the rabid dog?” I wonder, teasing them as I turn left at the end of the driveway, moving at a literal snail’s pace. Eight miles per hour. That’s what this baby tops out at. Great power comes with horrible speed, apparently. That’s what the boys are for, to keep the cops away from me.
You know what I saved up my reputation for all these years?
A moment like this. I’m going to ride through Prescott in this baby, and every bitch and bastard on those streets is going to say they didn’t see a damn thing.
If they ever speak about this, we’ll hunt them to the ends of the earth. That’s implied.
We do need to keep our route as short as possible, seeing as this thing moves like a tortoise.
“If I’m a dog, then I’m pedigreed and very, very expensive.” Alexei hits the brakes on his stolen blue Camaro, spinning it in a circle for no reason other than it’s fun. “A service dog, highly trained to keep his handler on track.”
“Real cute, all the dog references,” I reply, deadpan.
Only my voice though. I’m grinning my ass off in here, excited to actually smash this thing into some construction equipment.
Or the side of a building’s poured foundation to dig up a corpse.
This is going to be fun. When I warned the boys to enjoy themselves, I was warning myself, too.
I love being bad.
Drama is a helluva drug.
“Radio tower, right turn,” Bohnes says, leading us down a short dirt road to the newly placed fencing, complete with barbed wire.
The station is dead. Silent. Chained up and boarded shut.
Killed. The heart of the Prescott neighborhood, punctured and bleeding.
Jonas isn’t as addicted to murder as Chet. He likes to see suffering.
Ash and Bohnes swerve around the exterior of the fenced-off area while Widow and Alexei pause on the dirt road just behind me.
I roll my war machine into the fencing, knocking it over and crawling right on top of it.
The metal crumples like tinfoil. Very nice.
The front of the pitch-black beast crashes into the side of a work truck, knocking it on its side.
I nick the edge of the radio tower, knocking the entire structure down to collapse on top of an old shed.
Boom.
Debris falls across the roof above me, but it’s nothing to worry about. Backing the bulldozer out of the space is easy enough, if a little slow. Once I’m facing in the correct direction again, I follow behind Widow and Alexei instead. Bohnes and Ash are now in the back.
The plan is to take care of a few buildings on the way to Larron Van Gordon’s burial plot.
Once we’ve uncovered the corpse, Emma Jean will launch the drone.
News story. More videos of Ash. Public scrutiny and outrage.
Then the mob can act. They can figure out a way to get Jonas arrested, charged, and put away, tidying things up.
It’s what Burt ultimately wants from us.
“We have time,” Widow says, sounding playful. Probably because he’s driving a gray Aston Martin and listening to I Prevail in his own car. Each time he unmutes himself to talk, I hear a different song. “While we drive I mean. Let’s play a guessing game.”
“Like how many Prescott idiots we’re going to have to kill when they don’t keep their mouths shut about tonight?” Bohnes wonders. “I’m guessing…thirteen. That is my lucky number, after all.”
“666 is your lucky number,” Widow scoffs at the end of a laugh. “I meant: let’s guess how many cop cars are going to show up tonight.”
“If you boys do this right, zero.” I start heading for Gram’s neighborhood.
My neighborhood. It’s on the way to Mr. Van Gordon’s corpse anyway.
I know that in the end, it won’t matter.
The careful fabric of Prescott is already in shreds.
Before I leave, I should give this neighborhood a fighting chance though.
I said I would, didn’t I?
Rolling up and over the curb, I end up in a planned development.
A bunch of too-close together houses made out of paper and stolen dreams. The killdozer blows right through the partially built nightmares, sending plywood flying.
I don’t bother to do anything but head in a straight line, paving the way for all four boys to follow behind me.
“Kellin, may I ask why you thought to build such a thing?” Alexei wonders, like he’s marveling at the power of the bulldozer-turned-tank but also like he’s confused by it. “It seems like something only a truly desperate person would dream up.”
We emerge on the opposite side of the development, crawling over the curb to land in the street.
My street.
“Desperate doesn’t seem like the right word.” Bohnes thinks for a minute, following behind me in the McLaren. “Numb, maybe.” He grunts at the end of that sentence, obviously still in pain and stubborn as all get out. “But not anymore. I feel…everything now. Everything.”
I drive directly into my own front yard.
Alexis’ burned-out Ford Econoline is sitting in the sooty black driveway. The house is gone though, bulldozed by someone else. I smash into the van and drive it into the Bobcat at the edge of the lot, destroying them both. Then I knock over a dumpster and off we go.
The track is the next place on our list, the site of the ‘affordable housing units’ that Jonas Kelly is using as a shield against his own corruption.
I drive over the Archer Realty sign and flatten it into the mud.
“This seems like the right way to use the killdozer.” Widow is contemplative, leaving himself unmuted after he finishes speaking and sharing his music with us.
The security fence comes down next, folding beneath the power of my ride like an accordion. I make sure to clear the parking lot and the area around the bleachers, pushing aside any possible barriers between Prescott and our racetrack.
“There won’t be another time or place to use it anyway. Remember? We’re livin’ like squares. It’ll go to waste if we don’t enjoy it now.” Crush. I shove a sign out of the way that reads ‘62 Acres For Sale, Great Development Potential’ with a ‘Sold’ sign slapped over the top.
I can’t promise somebody else won’t come in and try to take advantage of this place, but I can guarantee that Chet Archer and Jonas Kelly won’t be involved.
We roll down the dirt road and back onto the pavement, slinking past all-dark city blocks in search of our target.
Ain’t nobody outside tonight.
“Larron Van Gordon…thank you for letting me do right by him.” Ash circles his borrowed purple Rolls-Royce around in the intersection ahead of me, confirming which building it is that I’m aiming at and which corner I want to hit.
“He’s in the foundation closest to this side, just a few inches deep.
I memorized the location of the body, in case I needed to use it as leverage. ”
“Good call.” I drive up and over the sidewalk, heading straight for the corner of a cement block. It’s outfitted with steel beams, like some high-rise thing was supposed to go here. The front of the killdozer crumbles the cement like a cracker, crumbs scattering everywhere.
A tumble of bone and fabric is visible in one of the cement chunks.
I can see it on the camera that’s attached to the front of my ride.
I’ve been steering through the screen this entire time.
It’s the only way to see out. I ram it a second time, knocking more pieces loose and shattering fragments of Larron Van Gordon’s skeleton to dust by accident under my treads.
Oops.