Chapter 9 #4
Alexei and Widow are off the track now, standing behind the Stingray and the Pantera, watching us. Bohnes seems willing to run the Chevelle into the ground to kick my ass, regaining control of the vehicle despite the flat tire. I catch up with him, lining my stolen car up alongside his.
“My turn,” I murmur, and then I swing my wheel sharply to the left, knocking the yellow Corvette into the back of the Chevelle and executing a successful PIT maneuver of my own.
I’m as good or better than Widow, and the Chevelle turns just the way it’s supposed to.
Bohnes is now facing the opposite direction, but that doesn’t deter him.
He keeps going—in reverse.
I’m able to get ahead of him, but all that means is that he’ll be coming at me when I swing around the track next time. Ash is the one who encounters Bohnes first, and the pair of them go head-on at one another. Oh fuck. I think Bohnes is as crazy as I am. I think…Ash will swerve.
I’m right.
Ash is the one who jerks his wheel to the side, ending up with his front tires stuck on a particularly slick patch near the center of the track. He spins in place, but doesn’t gain any traction. Bohnes takes the time to turn back around, and I watch him come after me in the rearview as I pass.
We’re racing one-on-one, and it feels like this is going to be it.
Me and Bohnes in a showdown to the finish.
And then on the next lap, the GT500 slams into the side of my car, sending me sliding across a sheet of black ice.
Bohnes disappears as I’m blocked against the edge of the track by Ash this time.
If I get too far into that muddy goop where the service station used to be, I’m disqualified.
So, Kelly has the same plan as the others, does he?
How annoying.
“I wanna drop a hot vibe, something to encompass my feelings about tonight,” Milicent is gleeful on the air, like she’s salivating over all this dark Prescott goss I’m churning up. “How does ‘Hood’ by HAON sound?”
I could give a fuck about the music.
Our tires spin, cracking the ice on the ground.
Churning it. Turning it to slush instead of sheets of ice.
I grab the gun again and hang my ass out the window.
Ash sees me and works his jaw, but what’s he gonna do?
I shoot both of his front tires. My Chevy manages to wiggle out of the swamp. His Shelby is stuck.
I leave Ash behind, completing the lap by myself. Deal with Bohnes then try to win, in that order. If I were racing for anything less than the life of someone I love, I would focus on getting to the finish line without interfering with either of the remaining boys again.
Flying around the curves, I run into Bohnes and his mischief making. Right on schedule. He’s trying to push Ash off the edge of the track, disqualify him instead of me. The black Chevelle is shoving at the blue GT500 like they’re a pair of squabbling boys on the playground.
My hands tighten on the wheel and my eyes go slitted.
Through the mud splatters on my windshield, through the fog of dick-swinging that clings to the air, I still miraculously manage to catch Kellin’s gaze. He knows what I’m about to do before I do it, and he is pissed. My lips curve in a triumphant smirk as his pull back in a frustrated grimace.
I ram the Chevelle’s ass while going way too fast, sending it spinning through the muck and into the muddy pit at the center of the track.
Bye, bye, baby. You’re out. If I were driving the Devil, Bastian would’ve strangled me for the damage the Vette just sustained.
Oops. Got the job done though, didn’t I?
The move slows me down enough that Ash has time to work his own way out of the mud. He appears in the rearview, gaining on me. For the next three laps, we’re neck-and-neck. With two flat tires on his end. Holy shit. He really is as good a driver as I thought he was.
We don’t have any way to use my new in-car flagging system here at Prescott (a device that would keep me updated on what lap I’m on, among other things), but I think I’m about caught up.
Still, it took an act of gods for him to win.
I cross the finish line before he does, but when Ash follows after, our flag girl waves the checkered black-and-white.
I slow to a stop in the winner’s circle, and it is dead silent in the bleachers. Dead fucking silent. The radio crackles as Wolfman slides onto the mic, panting like he’s just run his own marathon.
“Holy hell! Did you all see that? If you aren’t at the old Prescott track tonight then you missed out on the race of a century.
Fuckin’ A. Milicent, have we ever seen a Queen race her fuckboy before?
Let alone plural, fuckboys. Such savagery.
” Wolfman laughs, and I curl my lip, slamming my palm into the radio and trying my very best to keep my calm.
I lost a race. I lost in front of the whole neighborhood. I lost to my own idiot fuckboys. My eyes and lips twitch. My fingers go crooked and strange around the wheel, splayed like the gloved digits of a witch. There’s a sharp squeaking sound as I clutch at it, trying not to let my emotions show.
Second place. Technical term for loser. I don’t like it. I’ve never lost before.
On the outside, I look okay.
On the inside, I’m an empty white scream.
Ash and I climb out of our cars together, coming face-to-face in the calf-deep mud. He meets my eyes, reaching up with trembling fingers to pull his mask down. His mouth is so frustratingly perfect.
I lost. I lost. I fucking lost a race? Me? Scarlett Force? But I’m Scarlett Motherfucking Force. I’m…I’m… I tell myself that it’s okay because Ash won. At the very least, Ash won. He’ll make the decisions about what to do next. We all agreed to that.
And he is going to do what I say.
If I let Ash take this too far, he’ll sacrifice his life for mine.
He leans down, smelling fragrant and fresh and sweet.
There’s nothing but pure violent black in his eyes now.
“Scarlett-o-chan,” he whispers, his voice hidden by the wind rustling the naked branches of the trees that surround the track.
Crispy leaves float by, giving Ash the look of something fae-like and slippery.
He’s always felt like an entity that could shift a world away at any given moment, disappear into a crack in the universe and nobody would notice.
Except for me.
“Listen up, princess,” I whisper back, my voice frosting in the cold air. “I’ve gone to bat for you. I hope you understand that. Don’t make a fool out of me.”
He closes his eyes and shakes himself out, reaching up with his right hand and yanking at a tuft of black hair that sticks out from under his hood. Opens his eyes again. Fixes them on me.
“Sayonara,” Ash says with a menacing level of sincerity. Drags each syllable out, too, the bastard. Makes the word long and heavy and sticky. Even I know enough Japanese to understand that one.
I bid thee farewell.
Ash turns and takes off, pushing his mask back into place.
Hiding that sinful mouth. That is my mouth.
How dare he walk away from me? I need to start feeding him orders, but I can’t test him here in public.
I have to wait. If Jonas and Chet are still alive, Ash won’t sacrifice himself yet.
They’re in DC, aren’t they? His death has been put off for another day.
Slow, calming breaths. Same technique that I used during the race. The race. The race that I fucking lost.
Alexei joins me next, crowding in close and opening a package of wipes for his still-bleeding nose.
The air smells like antiseptic, dirt, and iron.
Everything is silent except for footsteps in the mud.
Widow materializes next, wearing a self-righteous glower on his handsome face.
Bohnes is last, bold and unbothered in every part of him except his eyes, lit with twin fires.
I’m aware on a sort of peripheral level that I’m angry with them all, but I can’t show it in front of Prescott. I can’t let anyone in the crowd know how I’m feeling.
I laugh, even though all I want to do is scream. I toss my hair and put my hand on my hip. No problems to see here. Everyone move along. Show’s over.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK ME! FUCK THEM! FUCK PRESCOTT TO HELL AND BACK!
I’m smirking up at the gathered crowd above and bestowing my most flirtatious expression upon them, blowing kisses and batting my lashes. Nisha and Bastian are front and center, slack-jawed and wild-eyed.
They’re probably afraid I’m going to start killing my boyfriends in front of all these witnesses.
“Better thank your buddies for that win, Doki-Doki Boy,” I call out to Ash as I waltz over to the Pantera (delivered to me by Alexei).
I stare at the damage. My teeth are clenched so tight that I’m getting a migraine.
I hide them behind tight, faux smiling lips.
“Without them, you woulda been screwed.”
I reach out to grab a piece of broken headlight, holding it in my palm and staring at it before I look up again.
All of Prescott is staring at me, fucked over by my own fuckboys.
No, worse. More than Prescott is watching.
In the bleachers, I see a man in a smoke-gray coat nursing a cigar. Burt Cramer. Fantastic. I invited the guy here to watch me race on the one night where I lose? Oh, the irony. He gets up to leave without making any attempt to speak with me, his ginormous bodyguard lurching dutifully behind him.
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. Yeah. I might hurt somebody if I don’t get out of here and calm down.
I climb right back into the Devil, reaching out for the driver’s side door and finding it caught by Ash’s hand when I try to close it.
“Do not kill Alexis,” he whispers frantically, like the idea has just occurred to him.
Must have. He ran all the way back over here just to tell me this.
“If you do, then you’re killing me, too.
” He steps back suddenly, moving aside to give bloody-faced Alexei, brooding angry Widow, and wild-eyed Bohnes some room to close in.
If I kill Alexis, I kill him? Is he leveraging his own safety against me? !
I put the gun up to my temple again and offer the four men a special smile.
Nobody else can see me from up in the bleachers, crouched in the low darkness of my stolen muscle car with the cold barrel of a weapon pressed into my skull.
This is just for us, like a couple thing. A quintet thing. Whatever we are.
“Give me some space.” I am not asking. I am telling them to back off for a minute. Telling them.
“Put the gun down now,” Ash commands, the winner of the race and therefore the one who gets to make the rules. I keep it where it is. He stares me down, and I see that he’s a hair’s crack away from breaking entirely. “Onegai-yo.”
Ash’s Aspen-mask slips and his eyes flicker with pleading.
“What a dirty, low-down rotten move,” Bohnes says, almost approvingly. The shape of his mouth says I want to fuck you, and his eyes read good girl in a way that makes me want to shoot him instead.
“Don’t be selfish.” Alexei is absolutely cold, dressed in his own blood and peering down at me like he’s wearing a six-figure suit and delivering a verdict to the mob.
He’s bleeding profusely now that he’s stopped wiping at it.
I hadn’t realized I hit him that hard. He ignores the injury, crimson dripping from his chin to his sweatshirt.
“Kelly won the race, so we’ll spare him. Don’t threaten us, Scarlett.”
“Smart people don’t do stupid things.” Widow is pacing behind the others, fighting back the urge to lunge at me.
If I don’t put the gun aside, he’s going to charge and then I might really have an accidental trigger pull.
His amber eyes slant dangerously as Bohnes places his palm on the roof like a threat.
Ash is backing away, black eyes wide and pleading, hands up in silent surrender. Obeying. Good sign.
I close the door, lock the car, then set the gun aside. I crack the window.
“I’m going to Wesley’s. If you decide to join me, stay far, far away.
” I drive up the road that curves around the side of the track and empties into the parking lot up by the bleachers.
Rolling the window the rest of the way down, I take hold of the wheel with one hand and lean out to shout at everyone with a smile plastered to my face.
“My treat: Wesley’s all around! It’s on me to celebrate my first official loss at the track. ”
I fall back into the seat, crank the window back up. Stare at the road. Seethe.
Get enough of a headstart that I can scream without anyone seeing or hearing me do it.
I punch the steering wheel a few times, bloody up my knuckles.
In the end, Ash won so he won’t order his own execution.
Yet. I’ve bought myself time, spared him a painful, messy death at the hands of Bohnes, Widow, and Alexei.
I reach out and put my bloodied right hand on top of the gun, savoring the feel of it. A smile curves my face, something broken and wild and manic. I lost a race, but I got what I wanted more. The unhinged surge of sharp, violent adrenaline in my veins.
I’m not really that mad.
I’m not.
I’m not mad.
I am homicidal though. That should come in handy later.
Adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline.