28 #3
‘You monster,’ Tru spat. She rattled the gun at his head. ‘You would have killed my dragons. I ought to shoot you, you bastard.’
Hummer’s eyes were still locked on Nat. ‘This family falls apart without me.’
Nat pouted. ‘Oh, no. Don’t shoot him, Tru!
He’s so important!’ She turned to address her cousins again.
‘What do you think? Shoot him? Don’t shoot him?
’ A murmur of indecision ran through the Bruces.
‘But if we shoot him, who do we pin that track-tampering business on? Or the firework incident, for that matter?’
‘Try it,’ Hummer growled, ‘and I’ll take you all down with me.’
Nat wiped a fake tear from her eye. ‘The words of a true leader. Except that he isn’t a leader without us behind him. Without us, he’s just a rank old man in a stupid hat.’
There was a rustle of amusement from the cousins gathered on the tracks by the mouth of the tunnel. Nat fully turned her back on Hummer now and addressed her family directly.
‘The name of Bruce is your name as much as it is his. He has brought shame on us all, but we can make it a name worth speaking again. Let’s take back what is ours.
Together, we are unstoppable! We can topple kings!
The House of Bruce! The House of Bruce!’ Her chant was picked up by the riders on the tracks.
There was whooping and cheering. A dragon bellowed.
‘Now somebody grab that bastard before Tru shoots him,’ Nat commanded. ‘We’re going to need him for leverage.’
The eyes of the cousins turned on Hummer. He started to back away, then made a break for it. The uneven ground tripped him up and he slid down the embankment.
A dragon and rider darted forward from the pack.
It was Karol, bounding after the escapee.
There was a scuffle and shouting, an when Karol turned, the crested blue dragon held Hummer, caught by the shoulder, tightly in her jaws.
The Bruces sent up a cheer that echoed off the hill above them and rolled all the way down to the river.
As the cheering died away, they all heard the distant sound of a train horn. Nat looked down at Felix, who shook his head.
‘That one’s real, assholes. Get off the track.’
Asta, Felix, and Nat stood at the gate into the Horizons complex watching the procession of Bruces march by, their recalcitrant prisoner in tow.
Carmine was with Yixin, getting his bite seen to, and Asta was free to enjoy the sight of Tru, gun jabbed roughly into Hummer’s ribs, chewing her brother out for every offense he’d committed against her since childhood.
‘Do you really think they’re going to let you blame it all on him?’ Felix asked Nat, his arms folded over his chest. That was the plan: surrender Hummer to the authorities and begin negotiations for the remaining Bruce family’s future in racing.
Nat shrugged. ‘Probably not. But it’s fine.
Let them get their jollies, show how tough they are.
Whatever those weenies can dole out, I can take it.
It won’t last forever.’ She glanced after her aunt and uncle and the rest of her family, slinking toward the track.
‘We’ll be back. People are suckers for second chances.
’ She tossed her head, her neon blue earrings banging against her neck.
‘In the meantime, the streets of Port Veracruz will be open for business. You’re always welcome, Ek. ’
Asta smiled. ‘Sounds fun.’
‘I’m thinking of expanding out of PV actually. What do you think? Bruce Street Tourneys: coming to a city near you.’
Asta considered the prospect. ‘Sounds risky. I like it.’
Nat beamed. ‘Knew you would.’ She turned, half running to catch up with the mob of her surly cousins trailing after Tru and Hummer.
‘Yo, dumbass,’ she called, and Karol turned.
‘I want moving beacons, and you’re going to make them for me.
’ She put her arm around him and bent close to explain her vision.
‘Well,’ Felix said, and Asta turned her eyes back to him. He was unshaven and disheveled. His track pants were muddy from his tumble down the hillside, and the back of his shirt was torn from where Hummer had grabbed it. ‘What now?’
Asta studied the burnt hazel of his eyes, flecked with gold. She scanned every inch of his face, as if she was trying to absorb him just by looking. All this time, and she was still in love with her best friend.
She searched his face for the Felixes she remembered, the ones she had fought and fought for, the ones who had misjudged her and had been misjudged by her, the ones who let her down and held her up – and they were all there.
But in the hidden corners of his face and around its edges, she caught the glimmers of a Felix she had barely begun to know.
She wanted to know him better, to know all of him. To love all of him.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, taking one last look around. ‘I liked this place better on TV, anyway.’
He laughed a short, soft laugh. ‘Where are we going, Asta?’
‘We’ll figure it out. Side by side, right?’
‘Side by side.’