Chapter 6 #3
“Oh, I’ll be there. I’ll show you, Scarlett, what you so very narrowly avoided.
Twice.” Ash strokes two elegant fingers down either side of his face.
He’s unnervingly beautiful. A pretty so dangerous that it dragged Lemon to her death.
I understand why she was attracted to Aspen on a physical level.
It was his heart that was missing. This twin stole both of them in the womb, I’ll bet.
“Only you and I know that I could’ve beaten you on the track. Now, everyone is going to know.”
His gaze is not a challenge, but a threat.
“The only way you could beat me is through an act of God.” I step into his space, and he scoots past me, stalking around the front of the car to open the passenger side door.
I watch him do that with slitted eyes. A widowmaker fell in my path during my second race with Ash.
The first time, Widow jumped my stolen car onto the track.
We haven’t really had a fair shake of it.
“So desu ka?” Ash whispers, as much of a stubborn asshole as the other three.
They all think they know best. “Well, then. You’ll finally get to prove it in front of me and everyone else.
If you win, you can have whatever you want.
If I win, then I will make the decisions about our relationship.
If I want you over the hood of my car, I’ll have you.
And if I want you to fuck off, then you’ll do that, too, won’t you? ”
A rusty beater rolls down the street and comes to a stop on the opposite side of the road.
I vaguely recognize the guy driving it, some dude from Lexi’s graduating class.
I’m not surprised to see my sister step out of the vehicle.
Alexis slams the door, and her ride takes off like he knows better than to get involved in this mess.
Wish Alexis was as smart as that guy.
“Remember this, Ash-pen,” I whisper back to him. “I am going to punish you for every stupid stunt you pull. I have a long memory and I hold grudges.” I’m giving him this warning now, so he can prepare himself for later. His throat dips and he shakes his head.
“After tomorrow, I will be nothing to you but a bad memory.” Ash holds out a hand to indicate the passenger seat of his car, inviting Alexis to sit in it. Her heels—my heels that she’s wearing—clack across the pavement as she saunters over to the Shelby like she thinks she’s hot shit.
“Jesus, you’re shameless, Scarlett.” Alexis smiles at me. It’s an ugly, pathetic smile. Hollow. Her eyes are feverish. “Lemon is dead and you still can’t keep your hands off her man. You really are a pathetic whore.”
I rush around the car to go for Lexi when Ash steps between us. He peers down at me with a patrician bearing, dressed in a severe black suit with his hair slicked back. On a street of run-down duplexes and cars on cinderblocks, he’s a blotch of luxe depravity.
Most of those cars will be track-ready by next year though. Never underestimate the will of a Prescott kid.
“Do not touch her,” Ash warns me, and I rage on the inside. Our angry expressions clash, and I want to punch him more than I’ve ever wanted anything else. How dare he stand there and defend the woman who signed my death warrant by ratting me out to the mayor.
Rat-fucked. By my own sister. My sister.
“Move.” I pull out a switchblade. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but Lexi isn’t running scared the way she should be.
After what she did to me on the radio, the entire neighborhood is going to be waiting for justice to be served.
I should let this go. I want to get out of Prescott. I want to be a star.
I can’t…oh my God. I’m acting like a crime boss.
I drop the knife on the ground and Widow appears to pick it up, looking up from his crouch to destroy Ash with his eyes.
That depth of hatred is going to be near impossible to breach with my actions alone.
Ash is going to have to prove himself to the other men.
“Whoever wins the race can decide what happens to Alexis. For now, she’s with me.” Ash turns away, dismissing Widow like he’s not a threat. Turning his back on the man? I wouldn’t have done it. Widow stands up beside me, toying with the knife.
“You better fucking pray that I’m not the winner, Aspen.
” Widow flicks the blade closed and tucks it into his jeans.
Bohnes is more subtle, standing on the lawn with his arms crossed and his shock-white hair picked up by the cold fingers of the wind.
His coat billows around him and his colorless eyes are locked on target.
When he says he’ll put Ash’s head on a pike, he means it.
Remember: Widow used his chains on Ash’s car. Bohnes would’ve used the chains on Ash’s person.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Ash’s borrowed smile is hideous.
It’s Aspen’s smile. His eyes though, they’re a silent scream that he doesn’t think I can hear.
He helps Alexis into the car, digging himself an even deeper grave.
Our eyes meet above the roof. His might be black, but they’re not empty.
They’re too full. Stuffed with emotion. “Jigou jitoku,” Ash breathes, like I’m the only one that’s meant to hear him.
“Say that again, Kelly. I fucking dare you.” Widow is a menacing threat beside me, violence on a hair trigger. Ash’s gaze swings over to him and in it, I see his own death reflected in amber pools. Ash knows that Widow is going to try to kill him. He expects it. He welcomes it.
“You reap what you sow,” Ash says in perfect American English.
No hint of that British accent. He moves around the car, careful to keep as much distance from me and Widow as possible.
He doesn’t even look at Bohnes, opening the door and sliding in with his polished suit and gleaming diamond cuff links.
Just before Ash closes the door, he sees something that stops him cold.
It’s the ring on my finger, the diamond he sent me on Saturday. I wiggle it at him with a smirk.
“Please tell me you’ll marry me, or I can’t get through this. Tell me that you will, even if it’s all a lie.” That’s what he said to me on Thanksgiving. That was before Alexis spilled our secrets to the mayor. That’s what changed. That’s the difference in all this. Alexis.
I put my hand on the edge of the car roof and lean in, peering at my sister from across Ash’s lap. His legs are splayed, one perfect shiny loafer still sitting on the pavement. The sight of the ring has paralyzed him. He’s drowning right now. His eyes are screaming.
“What was your price?” I ask her, because I’m genuinely curious.
My jaw is tight. Rage. Rage. Pure, unfiltered rage.
“What did they have to pay you in order for you to rat out your own flesh-and-blood?” I tap, tap, tap the pair of rings on the roof of the car and Ash grits his teeth.
He yanks on the door, but Widow stops him, putting his hand on the edge of it to keep it still.
The pair of them glare at one another, their arms shaking as they fight for control of the car door.
“You threw in with the mob,” Lexi tells me confidently.
I can’t even believe that Miss Marie Jennings came over here this morning.
What a stupid risk to take. And all to ask me out on a date?
What are you up to, Borisov? “But you know what’s even worse than that?
You let Lemon die so you could take what she had.
I learned from you, Scarlett. If you like what another woman has, steal it.
” Alexis smirks at me, sliding out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter with the KMZI 66. 6 logo on it.
She won that lighter when the station came to Prescott High for a job fair. I was always jealous of it. Didn’t steal it, even though I could have.
My sister and I are locked onto each other, brown eyes to brown eyes. Same childhood. Same upbringing. Same mother. Same grandmother. Same dead baby brother. Same neighborhood.
“How could you?” I ask her, when what I really should be doing is signing her death certificate.
“Finding out that you’re not perfect, that hurts, doesn’t it?” Alexis replies, her curly hair falling around her face. She studies me with the cigarette in her hand, and I know that for as long as I live, I’ll never forget her expression. She hates me. She hates me, and I don’t know why.
I love her.
“Enough of this nonsense.” Ash-pen stands up, and I back away, putting space between us.
I only do that because I don’t want Alexis to see us touch, even accidentally.
If she sees that, she’ll know. She’ll know what I know at a cellular level.
I meet Ash’s gaze, and I tell him with my own that I’ll defend him from anyone—even himself.
I might’ve failed Lemon, but I didn’t stop trying to save her from herself. I can’t. I should, but it’s not in my blood to give up like that. Widow takes hold of my shoulders from behind, releasing his hold on the door.
“Don’t sacrifice yourself to clean up her mess.” I point past Ash, at the open car door where cigarette smoke is twirling into a frigid November morning.
“Stay away from Alexis,” he repeats, voice a cold, hard rapier. He climbs back into the Shelby, and I notice the most random thing: the hilt of a sword poking out between the front seats. Huh. “If you continue to harass us, I’ll file a restraining order.”
He slams the door and hits the gas, rocketing down the street at a dizzying speed. Zero to sixty in six seconds.
Quite a few of my neighbors are watching us. That’s not good. The gossip machine runs strong in the southside.
I forcibly unclench my jaw.
If I didn’t want to be a star, if I wanted to hang around this neighborhood forever, I’d cause great bodily harm to Lexi for today’s disrespect. If I didn’t know Ash as well as I do, if I didn’t think he had a plan for my sister, I’d kill her.