5. Cass
CASS
PLAYLIST: RUNAWAY – AURORA
Iwatch it through the rear mirror as she spins the Eleanor around, blocking the entire street. Allowing me to get away, while she throws herself into the lion’s den.
“Why would you do that?” I ask her out loud. Of course, she can’t hear me, but I don’t understand. And now, I am in her debt. Twice.
She beat me.
Me.
The elitist bitch beat me, the unbeatable.
In the car that belonged to Elise.
I want to crush her, beat her till she can’t say a word anymore because she is here and Elise isn’t.
Audrey Whitney-Morgan. Fled to live her Hollywood dreams where she is adored and admired. I despise the world of stars and self-proclaimed very important persons.
It’s a world of faking, lying, and pretending. In other words, everything I am not. And now, I am in debt to one of them.
I hit the steering wheel as I turn around the corner and get away.
All the anger.
I have the desire to destroy everything and burn down the world behind me.
My phone rings, but I don’t answer. My brother. I have no desire to speak to him right now. Nor anyone.
Just when it stopped, Nikki calls.
I ignore her, too.
But she doesn’t stop.
I groan as I answer.
“What the fuck is wrong?” I ask when I press the green button to make her shut up.
“Did you get out?” she asks.
“Apparently,” I say in a very annoyed tone while rolling my eyes.
I quickly glance into the mirrors, but no one’s behind me.
“You know,” Nikki says, “You should really check your attitude. You have been obnoxious recently.”
“You didn’t stop annoying me with your annoying calls,” I snap at her. “Don’t complain if you harass me.”
“Sorry for caring enough to check if we need to bail you out,” she says in an icy tone. It takes a lot to piss Nikki off; otherwise, she couldn’t be with my brother.
“I would’ve let you know,” I say dismissively.
Nikki scoffs.
“You don’t need to piss us all off because you lost for the first time,” she then says.
I breathe in very deeply, trying to ignore the compression around my chest.
I lost.
To an elitist bitch.
My jaw clenches so much it hurts in my gums.
“They got her,” I say. “Cops.”
I am close to lying, telling everyone she got caught. But it would be against my code.
“She took the fall for me,” I add hesitantly.
“What?” asks my brother and Nikki at the same time. Apparently she had me on speaker.
“Yeah. I took the escape via Clinton, and she turned round and blocked the road. I don’t know what’s the matter with her, but she means trouble.”
“She’s Elise’s sister,” Nikki says. “Maybe she tried to make up?”
“I don’t care!” I shout and hang up. I don’t want to talk about Elise or anything else. My chest compresses even more from the thought of her. I want to escape the sensation in me. The sensation that makes me feel like I’m under pressure from all sides.
The blonde hair.
The Elenaor.
The race.
Everything.
I drive through Brooklyn and Queens for hours. I need to lie low until I can return to our home in Red Hook. I also don’t want to see any of their faces right now.
When I finally return, I check the area for any cops, but they know we’re gone. The cobblestones of Reed Street underneath the wheels give me the distinct feeling of home.
I pull into the open gate into the driveway leading to our hideaway between industrial buildings with roughly ten cars in the lot.
The house has belonged to my father, God bless him, but it’s good he is gone. And since he died, my brother and I lived here, taking over the garage and growing it into a go-to place no outsider knows about for custom builts.
Nikki practically lives here, and it’s always been an open house to family—blood as much as chosen one.
I sit in the Hellcat after turning her off and stare into the dawning night. The lights are still on; apparently the party went over here.
I groan.
I don’t want to go inside.
But running ain’t my style.
So I get out of the car, walk up the stairs, and enter the house.
Loud music blasts into my ears as I close the door and walk into the living room.
My brother sits in his favorite armchair with Nikki on his lap, opposite Joy and Illy, who are quite occupied with themselves. Not that I don’t enjoy a good show, but tonight I have no patience for any of them.
“Yooooo, C,” says Ahmed, who sits on the kitchen counter separating the kitchen and living room. “You look like you need a beer.”
“Meh,” I say, ignoring the rest and getting upstairs. I’m not tired, but I need solace.
I throw my stuff onto my bed, open the window, and climb from it onto the roof. I always climbed up here whenever things got rough. Done so since childhood.
My father didn’t really care much; he had too much to do running the garage to keep us fed. So my brother and I, we raised ourselves. Between the street and rooftops. That’s where we find peace.
My brother pulls himself up onto the roof.
“I came here for silence,” I say coldly.
“I know,” he says and sits next to me without another word for a very long time.
My mind wanders off to everything that happened today.
“How did she even get in there?” I suddenly say. “Who let her in?”
“She’s Tommy’s,” my brother says. “Apparently been racing for him in L.A., and not bad.”
I scoff. As much as I want to hate her, her driving skills are extraordinary.
“She drifted half the street to cut that corner. Never seen anything like that in my life before,” I finally say.
My brother doesn’t answer, so we just sit there.
“It’s been a while since we sat here,” he says after a while.
“Yeah,” I say. He doesn’t know I’ve been up here almost every night since Elise died, unable to fall asleep.
“You ever wonder what happened to mom?” he asks out of the blue, and a cold shudder runs down my back.
“No,” I say harshly. “She left. Why would I care about someone who left us hanging?”
“I dunno,” he says. “Maybe she had a good reason.”
“No reason in the world justifies leaving your children behind,” I say dismissively. “Why don’t you go back? I’m sure they’re all chaos down there. I need some peace here.”
“Are you gonna be okay?”
“I’m fine, Jackass. Go, or I’ll push you down.”
He climbs back down, and I lean onto my knees as I stare at the Manhattan skyline.
I never loved the city for it. I have always been a Red Hook girl, and that will never change. The city, with its arrogant suits and money-flexing bastards who care about no one but themselves, taking over almost every hood in it—no, that’s not me.
Looking at the skyline is more like a reminder that all the glitter in the world, all the shiny facade, means nothing if there is no family to share it with. I’d rather live here in the rough with people who mean something than over there hustling to pretend to be something.
I despise that world because they believe us to be something lesser, something unworthy, something like vermin while they feast on us.
Like her.