Just a few feet more, three, two…then it was over. I’d crossed the finished line.
The screams were deafening; people were waving their hands and their fluorescent bandanas in the air. It was wild, the feeling of winning, knowing I’d left that thug in the dust.
I braked next to the mass of spectators, looked in the rearview, and saw Ronnie getting out of the car in fury. He kicked the door of my car. I just laughed.
Then someone appeared in my window, opened the door, and pulled me out of the interior, almost lifting me in the air.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Nicholas said. He looked rabid.
“Jesus, Nicholas!”
I’d never seen him so mad. Not even when we’d fought at the party the night before and he’d been handing out beatings like they were candy. His hair was messy, it looked like he’d been pulling on it, and his gaze told me he wished I was dead and buried and he’d never have to lay eyes on me again.
I was so scared, I blurted out the first thing that came into my head: “I won, though.”
Face almost touching mine, he asked, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” I was terrified, but I wasn’t going to let him cow me, so I shook and shook until he had to let me go.
“Don’t you dare yell at me.”
That rich fucker. It wasn’t like I’d wrecked his car; I’d taken perfect care of it. Whatever damage it had received was the fault of that dumbass, Ronnie. Plus, I’d won the race! I’d won!
That was when Jenna and Lion came over, leaving behind the chaos. As I pricked up my ears, I heard screaming and whistling coming from all around.
“Cheater! Cheater!”
That meant the public was on my side. They’d seen Ronnie playing dirty; he’d broken the rules and rear-ended me; that was strictly illegal, especially in a car like that, which wasn’t made for harsh impact.
“Let her go, Nicholas,” Lion said, but his face was no friendlier than Nick’s.
Jenna’s expression was nasty, too, and that surprised as well as hurt me.
“Here comes Ronnie,” she said, and Nicholas released me so abruptly that I hit my back against the car.
What the hell was going on? Why was everyone so pissed off?
Nicholas turned around with his fists clenched.
“You broke the rules, Leister, and you know exactly what that means,” Ronnie said, clearly furious, but with a grin across that face full of piercings and tattoos.
“Bullshit,” Nicholas said. Lion was next to him, and the other guys in his gang approached to give him support. Ronnie’s crew did the same. Less than a minute had passed, and I still had no idea what was going on. “It’s not my fault if someone else gets in my car and drives on the track. There’s no way you’re pinning that on me.”
Now I started to see what was going on.
“She’s a member of your gang, Leister. That makes her your responsibility.”
“No, she’s not,” Nicholas said, but then he turned and looked at me. I saw surprise in his eyes and anger again, or, rather, a new anger, three times as fierce as the old one.
“She’s got the bandana on. That means she’s in the gang,” Ronnie blustered.
Now I got it. The bandana made me a member. But if I was, then what was the problem with me racing in Nicholas’s place?
“You broke the rules, Leister. The final was between you and me. So that makes me the winner.” All those behind him howled in agreement, and his eyes seemed to dare us to say otherwise.
“This is bullshit,” Nicholas said, stepping forward. Lion did the same, his fists pressed into his hips.
With that dumbass smile of his, Ronnie started shaking his head even as Nicholas was speaking.
“You can go ahead and hand over the fifteen thousand and that baby right there,” he said, looking at Nick’s black Ferrari.
What the…?
I stepped forward; I didn’t care who was standing across from me. I could feel Nick getting tenser, but before he could push me back, I spoke:
“You were the one who told me to race you,” I shouted. “And I beat you. A seventeen-year-old girl beat you.” Ronnie’s face twisted into an expression of wrath. I thought he’d kill me. But that wouldn’t stop me from saying what I had to say. “I wounded your puny little masculine ego, and now you want to try to make everyone think you’ve got some right to the money and the car.” I would have continued, but Nicholas got in front of me.
“Shut your mouth and get in my car,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now!”
“Fuck that!” I shouted, looking past him to Ronnie. I wasn’t going to let that fuckhead manipulate the situation to his benefit, and there was no way in hell I was letting him take the car. I won the race; he never even took the lead. “You should learn to race, dumbass!”
Nick’s gang shouted their agreement. That made me feel better.
Someone pulled me back as Nick turned to Ronnie with the veins in his neck ready to explode. I saw Ronnie’s face and thought they might beat each other to death.
“Shut up, Noah, now,” Jenna said in my ear. “You’re going to make this way worse than you can imagine.”
I didn’t respond. Nick and Ronnie were staring each other down. A fight seemed inevitable. But then Nick grabbed the keys from me and handed them over.
No!
“I’ll send you the cash tomorrow,” he said, feigning calm.
All around us was silence. Ronnie smiled, took the keys, and started spinning them around his finger. Nicholas was struggling to breathe, and I could tell he was seething, ready to explode.
“Yo, try to keep that bitch at home,” Ronnie said. That was when Nicholas lost it.
It happened so quickly, no one saw it coming. His fist struck Ronnie’s jaw with such force, he laid him out over the hood of his car.
Fists started flying all around me. The two gangs were going at it, and now I was in the middle of that inferno. Someone hit me from behind, and I fell face-first on the ground, scratching my knees and hands.
“Noah!” Jenna shouted, kneeling to help me get up.
They were fighting like their lives depended on it. I was in a panic. There were more than fifty muscular, scary guys there throwing blows.
Someone grabbed my arm and pulled Jenna and me away at the same time. It was Lion. His face looked stony and determined. His lip was bleeding. He spit on the ground as he struggled to get us out.
“Get in there and lock your doors,” he said, pointing at Nick’s SUV.
Lion hopped in the driver’s seat and pulled out, coming to a stop where Nick was beating on a now-disoriented Ronnie.
“Nick!” he shouted as loudly as possible, making himself heard over the group of men fighting and falling.
Nick punched Ronnie one more time in the stomach and ran toward us. His lip was busted, his cheek bruised. He’d barely hit the passenger door when Lion turned the wheel and hit the gas.
That was when I turned around.
My heart froze. Ronnie was lifting up a handgun and pointing it at the back of the car.
“Get down!” I shouted as the rear windshield shattered into a million pieces, and then we started racing away, and I thought I’d lose my mind.
“Fuck!” Nicholas and Lion screamed. Jenna and I were shouting as well.
“Son of a,” Nicholas said while Lion pulled out onto the highway. At this hour of the night, there wasn’t a single car on the road, and I was grateful to see Lion wasn’t worried about the speed limit. I turned back and saw several other cars doing the same, but as long as I didn’t see Ronnie, I could breathe easy.
“Are you okay?” Nicholas asked, looking first at me, then at Jenna.
“Jenna, talk to me,” Lion said, looking into the rearview, face heavy with worry.
“That goddamn son of a bitch!” she shouted hysterically. I was trembling from head to toe.
“I see you’re good as ever,” Lion said, laughing despite his nerves.
“Find a gas station,” Nick said.
I was petrified, scared to even breathe too loudly. No one had ever pointed a gun at me in my life. Ronnie had looked me in the eyes before shooting. I’d have that image of his face in my head for a long time.