Chapter 21
Bohnes
The most frustrating part of haunting a woman as capable as Scarlett Force is this: it’s not always easy to outmaneuver her and fight a war against the mayor and the mob on two other fronts. I need backup here, and I need it in the form of these other men.
They’ve impressed me thus far. Not that I’m particularly surprised. Scarlett would never fuck a loser. She would never let some disloyal rat put his cock anywhere near her perfect pussy.
Scarlett’s crew splits in half at the end of the driveway.
One group goes right on McKenzie View, in the direction of the quarry and Coburg Road.
Our group is headed east with the river on our right side.
My phone sits on the passenger seat, open to a group call with Scarlett, Widow, Alexei, and Ash. Like a radio.
“I have the bats, too, Scarlett,” I tell her, pushing on the gas and trying to pass her on the right side of the road. She lets the Devil drift, trying to run me off into the field. I drop back, enjoying the tease but knowing this isn’t the right moment to make my move.
If she wants to beat me to the church parking lot, she’ll have to earn it.
“The bats?” she repeats dryly, knowing exactly what I’m talking about. She’s the one that mentioned it at breakfast this morning, a much better way to explain the arcing of nerves in my gut. Butterflies? How grotesquely delicate.
“Nightmares don’t usually get weddings,” I tell her and she laughs.
“Maybe not.” Scarlett takes the next right on two wheels, rocketing off down the road.
She rides the center line, country-driving as recklessly and expertly as she city-drives.
I press down on the gas, leaving the other men behind us briefly.
“But I don’t do anything by the book, not even half-dead Prescott traditions.
Rewrite the book, Kellin. Don’t just read it. ”
I grin as I lean over the wheel, enjoying the chase even as I’m trying to get in front for practical reasons.
The way Jonas looked at me during the reception, I expect him to do something…avant-garde. What are you up to, you slimy little bastard? I’ve gone over the list of people I know he’s working with in government, the people that made him and Chet believe they could rise through the ranks so quickly.
Jonas has something strange going on.
I’ll cut off Trish’s fingers and see if she tells me then.
We’re taking a roundabout way to the church, one that passes by the Ferndale Hill Cemetery where our mausoleum awaits.
We can live wherever Scarlett wants while we’re alive, but I think we should be dead here, in the place that made us.
Scarlett texted Mr. Lisitsa the other day to arrange our pre-needs, in case we die during this mess.
That way, all five of us know we never have to be separated.
We never have to be alone. Even death will be in good company.
At the next turn, I plow through some cardboard that was stacked on the edge of the road for recycling pickup. The Chevelle throws it aside like my sexy little ride is a snowplow instead of a hearse. One of Scarlett’s issues is that she can be a little precious about her car.
“You know how much I fucking despise littering,” she says over the phone, and I can hear her shifting gears as I rip through muddy grass and flirt with grazing the side of the Chevelle against a guardrail.
We’re going over a bridge right now, crossing the McKenzie.
Hopefully I’m distracting my adorable little flesh-and-bone soulmate enough that she doesn’t think about it.
My Nightmare. I’m going to nail that goddamn sign to the wall during the party. Hang it in the living room with ol’ Maverick’s psychotic dribble scrawled across the back of it. If we move, I’m taking it with us wherever we go.
“You sound like one of those old nineties PSAs they used to make us watch in elementary school.” Widow is laughing, hugging Scarlett’s ass. He starts cursing when she brake-checks him. If they both weren’t skilled drivers, that would’ve caused a deadly accident. Oh, this is fun, isn’t it?
I have…friends. Me. A cemetery-dwelling murderer. I’ve been, by anyone’s definition of the word, a serial killer since I was in middle school. Contacts, yes. Informants, absolutely. A woman to obsess over? Obviously. But friends?
“Littering is an activity that makes me believe in public caning.” Alexei maintains his position in the back of our group, tucked up between Scarlett’s girls and our own distinctly separate little crew.
He isn’t racing: he’s paying attention. A man I could trust to watch my back without him searching for a spot to plunge a knife.
What a surprise. Best client I’ve ever had.
“To be fair, the cardboard was still tied up and intact. Also, it landed on the driveway. No littering there. Too bad about this though.” Ash smashes the Countach into a mailbox, destroying it.
“The family that lives here recently lost their fortune due to their own greed. They’ll have to clean that mess up all by their lonesome. Also, they’re cunts.”
“The Jones’ place, big-time gamblers,” Alexei adds with a laugh of his own as Ash swerves and hits the trash can next.
Garbage explodes across the family’s well-manicured front yard.
We’re in wealthy countryside right now. Soon enough, we’ll cut straight through the heart of Prescott and reemerge in the South Hills.
“That was amusing, but disgusting. You’ve contaminated my Papa’s car. ”
Ash is laughing, too. He’s been pushed just this side of too far, but that’s a good thing. Crazy just means not agreeing to follow society’s bullshit. That’s all it is. Ash Kelly is crazy because he’s finally woken up.
It’ll take an effort on my part not to execute Jonas and Chet inside the church. That is, if they even show up.
“I’ll wash it,” Ash promises, and Alexei thanks him in Russian.
“Well then, I suppose you’re the one that has to ride in a filthy car until then.”
“While you guys are busy playing games, I’m busy kicking your ass.
” Scarlett takes the lead again, using the regular traffic against me.
Hitting random people’s cars is not a favorite of mine.
Too many dash cams. Too many traffic cams. Too much attention.
We all avoid them like the plague, a sea of classic cars descending on the regular folk like a flock of metal falcons.
A bumbling Toyota knocks me back behind both Widow and Scarlett, so I drift to the shoulder and start eating miles with a cement retaining wall less than an inch from the side of my car.
“Is that so?” I pass them again, intending on moving across the lanes of traffic until I’m in the center. More maneuverability that way.
And then we come around the curve.
It’s not that I’m not expecting it. Just… “Fuck.”
That’s all I’ve got time for.
We’re traveling at a high rate of speed and the semi truck just up ahead of us has turned suddenly, cutting across all three lanes of traffic like he’s trying to make an illegal U-turn.
The trailer is now stretched horizontally across the entire highway.
The front of the truck is coming right at me on the shoulder.
What a bold move on Mayor Kelly’s part, arranging a massive traffic accident that’ll claim the lives of dozens of innocent civilians.
And I suppose Scarlett and I were both right in a way: it doesn’t matter that I’m driving the Chevelle because this is a move intended to get most of us, if not all of us, at the same time.
I’m driving fast enough that I force myself to stop breathing to think clearly.
In a silent space inside my head, I realize several things at once.
If I try to move to the right and go underneath the trailer (the clearance should be fine) then I might get clipped by the front of the truck.
In that case, the physics of him coming at me while I’m hurtling at him… not good.
“Go underneath,” Scarlett commands, her voice weirdly calm. She’s probably not talking to me, but to everyone else. For everyone else, that’s the right move.
I can’t though. No traffic on the other side of the road. I make a note of that in an instant, nearing the end of the retaining wall and taking the Chevelle to the left instead. The semi-truck barrels past me, sparks flying on the right side of my car.
There are sounds all around me, like an explosion. Not like. Is. Is an explosion. Something in the front of the truck explodes, knocking the Chevelle over. I’m tumbling and tumbling and tumbling. Roof up to the sky. On the pavement. Sky. Pavement. Sky.
I’m using every muscle in both arms to turn the Chevelle toward the side of the road. I’m going to go off the edge either way, but doing it facing forward is a lot safer than risking more somersaults down the slope. We’ve just passed the river, so I don’t have to worry about the water, but… “Fuck.”
I say it again. Forty feet out, twenty feet down. That’s where I’m going.
The Chevelle launches off the side of the road, catching air. If I hadn’t been going as fast as I was, I might’ve died. I wouldn’t have cleared the truck at all. Thank fuck for games amongst our little bat colony.
“Kellin!” The way Scarlett screams for me gives me strength. Not only is she alive—of course she is, a car accident? Jonas is an idiot—but her love for me is like a shot of adrenaline to a dark, rotten heart that was already beating out of control.
I hit the ground and the seat belt snaps tight across my chest, bruising me. Knocking the air from my lungs. My head hits the steering wheel with a sharp burst of sparks, snapping back and then knocking into the seat. I might’ve broken my neck.
My phone smashes into the dash, exploding into pieces.
I’ve barely come to a stop, skidding through mud and grass and narrowly avoiding trees, when somebody rips my door open. Ah. Okay then. So this was a present just for me.