21 #4
Felix sat quietly, watching the screens. The other spectators were clumped together here and there, gesturing and exclaiming and shaking their heads. The workers had finished removing the fireworks and Underling’s body was being carted away in the bucket of an excavator.
‘What about you?’ Felix spoke without turning his eyes from the screens.
Asta frowned, not understanding his question.
‘They’re dangerous,’ he went on. ‘Are you?’
‘I never wanted anyone to get hurt.’ It was the best she could do.
‘But someone did.’
Asta locked her eyes on her helmet at her feet. He was right. Regardless of what was in the jar, she was part of this. And she had to get herself out.
But how? Who had ever said no to Hummer?
Torque was a good man, and yet he stood by.
Tru fought with him, but only up to a point.
Then she backed down. She always backed down.
Everyone did. No niece or nephew told him to fuck off.
No one left Hummer’s clutches and went off to become an accountant or something.
They stayed where Hummer put them and killed themselves to please him.
Even Nat. Heck, Nat had jumped off a building to win a street race – not just for the thrill of it, Asta realized now, but because she was terrified of facing her uncle if she lost. Asta was Nat’s only friend, and Asta was pretty sure that Nat had taken her to bed because Hummer had told her to.
Nat was no angel, but she was only dangerous because she was afraid.
Felix thought it meant something to say that someone had gotten hurt. He didn’t understand. With Hummer, someone was always getting hurt, like some law of nature.
It was like Nat said once when Asta had been complaining about her own parents. ‘Families suck. But what are you going to do, you know? Not like we get a choice.’
‘Your family’s not that bad,’ Asta had argued. ‘At least they let you do what you want. They support you.’
‘True,’ Nat had said, ‘but they’re real bastards, you know? Everyone hates us.’
Asta couldn’t argue with that.
Nat had shrugged it off. ‘One day I’ll get my shot at making it mean something to be a Bruce.
We’ll be more than a bunch of asshole punks doing what the chief asshole says.
You wait, Ek, it’s gonna be glorious.’ The image of Nat running the Bruce family in Hummer’s place had stuck with Asta.
It reminded her of what Tess had said – that the Bruces used to be different.
Bad, but not bad-bad. Maybe it could be that way again.
If only Nat had meant what she said. But as far as Asta could see, she bowed to Hummer’s whims like everyone else. They were all afraid of that cruel little man in a bucket hat. And look where it had gotten them.
A long horn sounded, and down on the track, the teams were released from the pits in a choreographed dance of flags. Asta and Felix watched without saying anything to one another. Neither of them felt much like cheering.
Tossing her head convulsively, Vulture tore away from the pits and into the terrain with uncanny speed.
She was almost more than Nat could control.
Vulture and Nat fought their way, tooth and talon, out of the middle of the pack.
By the time they went airborne at the top of the mountain, they were in third place.
Asta knew exactly what had been swabbed into the dragon’s nostrils to make her run so fast, and she waited for the wave of relief that would tell her she was not responsible for what had happened to Pikki.
But it didn’t come. The fact of the matter was, the Bruces had tried to kill Pikki, and Asta was on their side, doing their dirty work, as cowardly as the rest of them.
Lose, she thought as Nat and Vulture tore through the air around the buoys. Asta did not want to know what Hummer would ask of her next.
Lose.
They touched down again on the track for the final sprint. Vulture could not hold her position. One team passed them. Then another. But it wasn’t enough. In fifth place, Nat had qualified for the finals.
The cheering for the finish was muted, as if the spectators, who had exhausted themselves over Pikki, had nothing left to give the victors.
The second heat would start in two hours – time enough to re-tamp the track, reset the illusions, and repair any damage done by the first heat of racers.
Felix and Asta made their way down to the elevators among the masses of somber fans.
Their footsteps rang on the aluminum steps, hollow and sharp.
The pain of Asta’s bruises zinged at each small descent.
Asta reached out and caught Felix’s shoulder as he trudged in front of her, and he turned back, waiting for her to speak.
‘I’m trying to get free, Felix,’ Asta said. ‘I promise you I’m doing the best I can, but—’
Felix stepped back up to the stair that she was on. Her heart pounded to have him so close. There was a pull to him, like the pull of the open sky.
He reached out and put a hand on her neck, just under her jaw, and looked hard into her eyes.
‘I know you are.’ He took a long, slow breath, and she breathed with him. ‘I trust you.’
Then he turned and continued down the stairs, leaving her to follow, drifting, in his wake.