Chapter 22 Liar
Chapter Twenty-Two
LIAR
“You sure you’re feeling up to it?” Beastie asked for the fiftieth time.
We were perched on the top of a bowl, both of us wearing the usual protective equipment, otherwise just in casual clothes, my board shorts and smiley face t-shirt. I didn’t need the smiley face anymore to remind me to be happy, but I still liked it.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that,” I said, stepping towards the edge and setting up my board. “If I can board while I’m dying, I can certainly do it now that everything’s all sunshine and yellow roses.”
I’d woken up to a bouquet of yellow roses beside my bed, and another cup of herbal tea.
There was also a note in elegant handwriting from Flowers, wishing me good luck today.
Daddy Flowers. Yeah, I’d let as many people love me as I could love back.
Including Bosky who was coming up behind me, Stina at his side.
She looked like sex appeal even in a helmet.
I thought she gave up boarding when Beastie broke up with her.
Or she broke up with him. I’d heard it both ways.
Apparently, she’d decided to join Horse’s team, because apparently he liked to torture me.
“No hard feelings,” Bosko said, holding out his hand.
I hesitated before I took it, shaking his hard. “Absolutely none. Because we’re going to kill you guys. You came here to die.”
He grinned and shook my hand back, squeezing tight. “Yeah? I still can’t believe you married someone who wasn’t Beastie. If you’re ever looking for some side action…”
Beastie grabbed Bosko’s neck and yanked him away from me, baring his teeth at our old friend. “There’s a line. I am the line. You try to get in line, I rip out your spine.”
I elbowed my bestie beastie. “Save the poetry for your winner’s speech. Also, you’re going to get disqualified. We’re doing a skating competition. Don’t throw it by breaking his neck.”
Stina gave me a nasty smile. “We’ll break your neck instead.”
I rolled my eyes and focused on the park in front of me.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, a quarter mile of curves and slashes, with the huge bowl directly beneath me.
The winners would be determined by difficulty of tricks as well as the time.
There was the possibility of interference from the other skaters, like the sketchy team members to my right.
“Where’s Bea?” I asked Bosko.
He frowned. “She’ll be at the finish line, I guess.”
“How are you going to get there?”
“Pixel is my ride,” he said, looking shifty. He had doubts about Pixel’s responsibility. I’d seen his hair and face piercings. He was dedicated to being ridiculous, so how could I help but respect that?
“Hope you got paid upfront,” I said, glancing at the pair of over-muscled dudes to my right. Beastie shifted so he was blocking them from my view.
Bosko said, “Sure, but the exposure’ll be good either way.”
“If you don’t get yourself killed,” Stina said, giving Bosco a look that could curdle milk.
She didn’t appreciate being on the same team as someone with doodles tattooed on his arm.
She looked past me and gave Beastie a look that was the kind of thing you gave to your ex-boyfriend who knew what you looked liked naked.
I elbowed Beastie just because.
“Save it for the ride,” he said, not giving Stina so much as a glance.
“I can’t believe you dated her over me,” I muttered.
He gave me a flat look, my tall, muscular, blonde vision of angelic beauty. And those cheekbones. No wonder Stina was giving him come-hithers. “I was trying to get you to date a hero that could save you. Dating her was misery.”
I snorted. “Sure. Her and her perfect breasts have tortured countless men.”
He elbowed me. Weird. He could actually do that and not puncture a lung. “I mean, you actually believed that I’d pick someone else over you based on something so stupid? How long have you known me? What do I care about?”
I frowned at him. That was a good question. He’d mown someone. He cared about vengeance, fighting, and me. Probably in the reverse order. He only cared about me because I was the ultimate weapon. Still, I’d helped him not be so lonely. He might appreciate that.
He elbowed me again. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“I’ll let my board do the talking for me.
” The shot rang out and I kicked off, in freefall for an exhilaration moment until the sweep of cement rolled under my wheels and I was on.
Halfway down the bowl, one of the guys on the right angled towards me, but Beastie blocked him, knocking him out so he rolled down the cement, his buddy barely able to avoid the mess of body and board.
It was so hard to leave that beautiful bowl behind and go onto the next tunnel, but the race was on.
I entered first, Beastie behind the others since he was delayed taking out the one guy.
The tunnel came out to a rail. I nollie frontswitched, then big spin switched and would have landed perfect if Stina hadn’t skipped the rail and landed ahead of me, blocking me so I fishtailed and would have lost some skin of Bosko didn’t reach out and steady me.
I shot him a look. He grinned as he took off after Stina, ollying up a rail that slid twenty feet down.
I took off after them, but I could feel the big muscle guy breathing down my neck.
I came off the rail, landed sweet and then took the right half pipe instead of the left backyard bowl.
Scores were determined by tricks as well as speed, and since I was behind because I wanted to trick, and Stina was ahead because she wanted to rush the course, I might as well lean into that.
The guy followed me, Beastie a few seconds behind.
I flew off the first ledge, rolling down the bowl to the opposite ledge, spinning kickflip to blunt and then on the next ride down, reversing, and doing a nice lazy flip at the top before I came down and glided across the bowl.
I’d have time for two more tricks. What would Nix like to see?
He’d like to see me having fun. Fun was fast, free, running on the edge of death.
I did an invert, grabbing the lip and handstanding for a second before I flipped over, gliding back down, getting more speed.
Muscle guy came out of nowhere, crossing right where I’d be. I kicked up, twisted around, some kind of ice dancer move to get out of his path, letting him take the lead.
I did tricks until Beastie caught up to me.
“Are you trying to lose?” he growled at me.
I grinned at him. “It’s not a win if it’s alone. It’s just lonely. Shall we race then?”
His eyes glinted and he nodded. “I’ll block, you lock. No mercy.”
Look, it’s not that I wanted to make smears on the pavement from the other skaters, but this wasn’t the first time we’d come in contact with aggressive skaters who wanted to dominate the park. And this time, I wasn’t a delicate blossom that couldn’t be bruised.
We kicked hard, minimizing tricks that would slow down the speed, although we got some fun slides in on the long grind ledges. It was the best day ever, sunshine above us, riding boards with my bestie, Nix somewhere close, cheering me on.
And then we caught up to the muscle guy, and it was almost too easy to come up on his left in a threat that had him flinching right into Beastie who was suddenly in the way. It took a flick of his board’s nose to send muscles flying, and then we hit fives and were after Bosko and Stina.
“Don’t hurt Bosko,” I said as we rolled down a beautiful bowl.
“But Stina’s fine?”
“I should forgive her for dating you.” It was so nice to talk and board.
“Naw. It’s more fun that you’re jealous.” My beautiful bestie, the blonde angel of death, needed to die.
“I’m not jealous. If it was Bea, or someone else who wasn’t soulless, I wouldn’t mind so much.”
“But then it wouldn’t be nearly as funny.”
I glared at him. “Meanness is unbecoming.”
He grinned back. “If you were ever truly mean to Stina, it would be so becoming. I’ll let you take her out.
No interference. I’ll take Bosko. Don’t worry.
I’ll be gentle.” His eyes twinkled in a way that I didn’t trust, but we were coming up on the other skaters at a narrow pipe.
The end of the pipe was close to the end.
Inside that pipe, we’d sort out who were the winners, and who… weren’t.
I slid down the metal tunnel, dark except where the translucent panels on top let in some light. Bosko was just ahead. I used a tiny bit of my super strength to power ahead, then rolled up the side around him, slipping ahead.
“Woah. Where’d you come from?” he asked, but I was already ahead, chasing down the red helmet ahead of me.
How did I want to do this? Honestly, part of me really wanted to hurt her.
She’d hurt me for years and years, rubbing in my best friend’s preference to her, and my own inability to have a real relationship, and general meanness.
It hurt when I already had enough pain in my life. More than enough.
Part of me wanted to hurt her bad. Maybe as much as I’d hurt DuPre.
You know, permanently. Right. The psychotic part of the serum was probably alive and well inside of me.
That was a hard pass. Speaking of, I zoomed to her left, intending to pass her as smooth as I’d passed Bosko, but her arm came out, sweeping me off my board.
I grabbed her, and came down on her board, balancing awkwardly with her.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you, but then you go and do something like that,” I muttered, trying to twist her off her board.
She snarled at me and punched me in the throat.