Chapter 32 Villain
VILLAIN
Iwoke up happy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up feeling safe, comfortable, and content. I had an imprint on my cheek from the texture of his flannel pajamas that I couldn’t stop touching.
This is why people slept together in beds, because when you woke up, you felt like this, like everything was possible, the potential for the day so much greater since it started so well and would perhaps end just as perfectly.
Breakfast was delicious, even if it was beans and biscuits, and the prep for the day was peaceful and lovely, the perfect soundtrack, even if Jezebel was yelling at someone for getting too close to Jack.
I couldn’t stop smiling, and every time I saw Dirk, my heart flipped, and the world became even brighter. I shouldn’t feel like this, because it couldn’t possibly last, but then again, why wouldn’t you feel things as much as possible when they wouldn’t last forever?
When I was triple-strapped in with Trixie, driving across the desert with plumes of dust following in our wake, I still felt happy, comfortable, safe, and if I closed my eyes, I could still feel his strong arms around me.
An hour into the drive, Trixie said, “You’re not much of a talker. I like that.”
How could I possibly respond to that? “Thank you. You as well.”
She snorted. “I like to talk about engines. This off-road truck is my baby.”
“Have you ever woken up in the morning happy?” I asked because that’s what I wanted to talk about.
She reached over and covered my hand with hers.
“Sure. Not all the time, but usually. It’s as normal to wake up happy as it is for the sun to shine.
If you don’t as a rule, you might want to change things.
” She released me, returning her two hands to the steering wheel.
“Would you grab the snack bag from the back? It’s the little purple one with the white zipper. ”
I got it for her while I thought about what she’d said. Normal. I liked normal. I liked working eight hours and then going home. Normal people slept in beds with other normal people. Dirk wasn’t normal, but maybe he’d liked waking up with me as much as I did.
“How well do you know Dirk?” I asked once she was chewing on her beef jerky.
She swallowed and shrugged. “He ran a team; now he mostly does video. He’s quiet these days, but when he was Dirk Dagger, leader of the Blades, he was flashy, loud, egotistical enough to give Horse a run for his money.
He was a daredevil with a death wish. Nix used to complain about it all the time. ”
“Because he showed him up?”
“Because he was putting the whole league in danger of being shut down. It’s all experimental and almost impossible to get insured, but Nix keeps the risk lower than it looks, and spends a lot of time dealing with authorities who worry about that kind of thing.
Dirk was always a good reason to shut down the off-road racing. He had no fear.”
“And now he has fear?”
She shrugged. “Not exactly; he’s just focused on other things. He’s content to be cutting edge on the tech side and leaving the actual cutting edge to Jezebel. Have you seen her with knives? Now that’s scary.” She flashed me a grin like it wasn’t scary at all.
I smiled back at her, but then my smile faded. “After Nitro died, and his sister, his focus changed?”
“Seemed like it.”
“Do you think that Nitro’s car was sabotaged?”
She knocked on her dashboard. “Don’t talk about that while we’re racing across the desert in Velvet. She spooks easily.”
My stomach twisted. That wasn’t a ‘no.’ “How did his sister die?”
“Suicide. He has her last note taped to the sun shield in his car.”
I straightened up. “You’ve read it?”
She gave me a look before refocusing on the road.
“Maybe you should have done more digging on him before you got married. Yes. There’s a big ‘sorry,’ and then something about this was the only possible escape.
He used to go all icy-shard furious when anyone apologized to him after that, but he mellowed out.
Not that any of us on Nix’s team are big on apologies, but some of the support are.
Not for long. Nix doesn’t care about anything other than results, and he can use your weaknesses as well as your strengths. ”
“Have you ever dated him?”
She laughed, loud and long, making me feel like an idiot, but I couldn’t help smile because her laugh was so infectious.
“That’s funny. Usually, Jezebel gets asked that question, since they sweet-talk each other in public, but their sweet talk isn’t actually sweet.
Even I can see that, and I miss a lot of nuances.
No, I didn’t date Nix. I don’t date anyone, and neither does he.
He doesn’t date even more emphatically than I don’t.
Do? Whatever. Horse dates enough for the rest of us combined. ”
“You’ve mentioned him twice. Have you seen him during this race?”
She pursed her lips. “He came over to talk to Nix last night about security. It was so shocking to see him without an entourage of women.”
“Did he talk to you?”
She made a face aimed out the windshield. “He offered me a candy bar while he was asking me if I noticed anything out of place. Who does that?”
I fought my smile. “Did you take it?”
“Of course I did. It’s in the purple snack bag. I’m not going to refuse Belgian chocolate even if it comes from my worst enemy. I’ll share with you, since you’re such a quiet passenger.”
“You can have me taste test it to make sure it’s not poisoned.”
She snorted. “Horse isn’t going to poison anyone with chocolate. He uses his personality for that.”
I laughed and settled down for another hour of driving.
It wasn’t always even terrain, and sometimes the other vehicles would come out of nowhere and give Trix a hard time, but she returned the favor with interest, cutting them off and sending them rolling when they hit a big rock wrong that I hadn’t noticed, but Trix used to her advantage.
“How did you become an off-road driver?” I asked as we drove away from an upside-down monster vehicle, wheels spinning in my rearview mirror.
“I’ve been racing as long as I can remember.
My uncle has a track in Jersey, one off-road, one paved.
It’s always made sense to me- mechanics, the physics of motion, and while pavement is fine, it’s not as dynamic as dealing with the changing terrain.
I wasn’t serious about it until I needed to raise some money, and that’s when I realized that I really liked to beat boys.
I was fat when I was a kid, not very pretty, and boys gave me a hard time when my mom forced me to wear a dress, but when I raced, or boxed, I earned their respect.
It was easier for me to be one of the boys than a pretty girl that they liked.
Then I got pretty, and my fat turned into curves, and everything got weird again.
Racing was never weird, and if I gained weight, I’d just add more power to the engine to make up for it.
Now that’s empowering. How about you? How did you get started with the music stuff? ”
I didn’t talk about my family, but she’d been so open, like it was normal to have childhood reminisces. “My father was a great cellist.”
She nodded, but looked at me, like there should be more.
“He died, and my mother and I moved in with my grandfather. The cello was her one remaining rebellion, and she made it one of the main conditions that I would learn the cello, and then she would let me learn whatever else he wanted to teach me.”
“Business?” she asked, only mildly curious.
“That and dislocating fingers.” I meant to make it sound casual, but the sudden memory was so visceral, my stomach knotted up and I opened the door, throwing up on the rapidly passing ground.
I closed the door and sank back against the seat, my stomach still delicate.
“They don’t seem to go together,” she said, like it was a practical matter.
“The one made the other possible. I could endure anything knowing that I had Straw to play at the end of it.”
“That’s the name of your dad’s cello? Cute.
My first car’s name was Calvin. Went off a wet road in him when I was seventeen.
Calvin didn’t recover, and I barely did.
I should probably go in and get more surgery, try to fix things, but who has time for that?
Would you grab the chocolate? I think both of us could use something sweet. ”
I reached back for the chocolate at the same time I saw something in my periphery, red, white, a blur coming towards us.
Trix swore and spun the wheel, and then the world vanished in a spinning whirl of black, red, and light.
We hit the ground, rolled, while flames wrapped around the vehicle.
Up and down were vague theories until the truck finally came to a stop on its side.
White foam exploded inside the cab and outside.
Fire retardant, I vaguely remembered from Nitro’s lectures.
I was suspended from the body straps, my arm at an awkward angle from reaching into the back seat when it hit.
Trix was quiet, eyes closed, blood gushing from her head wound. Good, because moving blood meant she wasn’t dead. Bad, because she might bleed out in the middle of the desert.
Someone had shot a rocket at her? Why would anyone do that? Rage spilled through me at the thought of someone putting Trix’s life at risk to beat her in a race they couldn’t win on their own merit. She was tough and strong, but someone had shot her down like she was target practice.
I undid the straps and landed on Trix’s door, on her bloody hair.
The smell of gasoline was strong in the air, and fire was still flickering in between the white foam.
What did I need to do? Stop the bleeding.
Stop the gas leak. Get this vehicle over the finish line, where medics and mechanics could take over.