I wasn’t planning on going down to Wacker Drive. Racing is stupid, I know that. But it draws me back again and again. It’s that scent of high octane fuel, and the way the engines snarl like a beast under the hood. A car wants to race just like a horse does.
And I want to be the one behind the wheel.
Time slows down. You can live an entire year in the space of fourteen seconds. I can see everything—every pebble on the pavement, every drop of moisture on the windshield. I can feel the whole operation of the engine through the vibration of the gearshift under my palm.
I crashed my Bel Air here. That was a bad night. I was in a fucking fury. In one of those states where I feel like I want to see the whole city burn down around me. I don’t know why I get like that. There’s something wrong with me.
If I feel something painful, I want more pain, more rage, more violence.
Maybe it’s because you can’t get rid of pain. All you can do is try to burn it out.
Anyway, Mason’s racing tonight and I want to see it.
He’s got his Supra up against Vinny’s Impreza. It’s a friendly race—$2K on the line.
As the cars are lining up, I see a familiar red Trans Am pulling in under the covered road. Camille Rivera slides out of the driver’s seat. She’s dressed in normal clothes for once—well, normal compared to her usual coveralls. She’s talking to Mason’s ex-girlfriend.
It’s weird. I hadn’t seen Camille in years. Now she’s come out twice in a week.
Bella Page is here, too, with Grisha Lukin. He’s Russian—born here, but his father’s an old-school oligarch with Bratva ties. My family’s on shaky footing with the Bratva right now. The Russians haven’t picked a new boss yet, after the Griffins killed the old one.
Anyway, I’ve known Grisha a long time. So we should be cool. Or at least, cool enough to keep it civil.
He gives me a curt nod when we lock eyes. I do the same. I’m sitting on the hood of my Mustang, drinking a forty of Olde English. It’s absolute piss, but it gives a nice buzz. That’s all they had at the bodega on Quincy Street.
Mason and Vinny peel off the line, racing down the covered roadway. The Impreza has more kick to start with, but the Supra catches up in the end, and Mason edges him out.
Watching them race makes me want to do it, too. I get that itch, where my head starts to feel muddled and my thoughts are all mashed up together, and I know that the one thing that will give me clarity is speeding down the road at a hundred and sixty miles an hour.
“Put me on the lineup,” I say to Carlo. He’s running the races tonight.
“Who with?” he says.
“I don’t care.”
I’ll race anybody. It’s not about the money. It’s the challenge.
I notice Camille is talking to Levi Cargill. She looks irritated. No surprise there—Camille is as prickly as a hedgehog, even under the best of circumstances. But I haven’t seen it turned on Levi before. Maybe Camille found out he’s been using her brother to move Molly.
She’d better watch it. Levi might look like a total poser, but he’s got a nasty temper. Sometimes the rich boys are the worst thugs of all. They want to prove they’re hard-asses.
I can feel myself tensing up. My eyes are fixed on the two of them, on Levi in particular. Just waiting for him to reach in his pocket or raise a hand to her.
I don’t know why I should care. Camille and I aren’t even friends.
But I guess I do respect her, a little. She’s not vapid, like Bella’s friends, or reeking of desperation like Bella herself. Camille is . . . real. She is who she is, and she doesn’t apologize. There’s honesty in that.
Maybe that’s the real reason Bella hates her. Because Bella is trying so hard to be the most beautiful, the most desirable, and the most fascinating person around, and it never really works, and she knows it. And then here’s this other girl who’s not trying to be any of those things. And it’s like an insult to Bella. Because Camille won’t even play the game, so how can Bella win it?
Or maybe I’m drunk.
I don’t know what the fuck goes on in Bella’s head. All I know is that she’s squaring up with Camille again, starting another skirmish in their endless war.
I slide off the hood of the car, ambling over so I can hear it.
“Well, it’s too bad all you’ve got is that rolling trash heap,” Bella is saying, “or you could participate, too. But you’d rather just watch, anyway, wouldn’t you? That’s what creepy losers do. They stand on the sidelines watching more interesting people living their lives.”
“You might be surprised,” Camille says calmly.
“About what?” Bella says.
“How fast that beat-up rust-bucket can go. And also, how few people would consider you interesting.”
Bella flushes. She’s always doing this to herself, trying to dominate Camille, and never getting what she wants out of it. You’d think she would have given up a long time ago.
“I doubt your car could make it over the finish line in the same night as mine,” Bella says.
“Only one way to know,” Camille replies.
Bella laughs, disbelieving.
“What’s the bet? Don’t tell me your car—I wouldn’t take that tin can if you paid me.”
“I’ve got six hundred,” Camille says. She pulls the folded bills out of her pocket.
I snort. That’s my fucking money I paid her this afternoon. She’s going to blow it on a race with Bella?
It’s completely stupid. But I’m sort of enjoying this reckless Camille. Her chin is stubborn, and her dark eyes are fierce.
“Are we doing it or not?” Camille says.
“I want to,” Bella sneers. “I’ll just feel so bad taking your whole life’s savings . . .”
“Yeah, I bet.”
Camille stalks over to the Trans Am, climbing into the driver’s seat.
Bella’s G-Wagon is not at all built for racing. Still, she’s got the newest model, a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8. It is quick, for a six-thousand-pound tank.
On the opposite side you’ve got Camille’s Trans Am, which maybe she’s juiced up, or maybe is held together with string. I guess we’ll find out.
When they pull up to the line, Camille looks ahead down the stretch, cool as a cucumber. Maybe she’s nervous, but she won’t show it, out of pure stubbornness. Bella’s trying to look tough, but she doesn’t pull it off as well as Camille. She blows a kiss to Grisha. He grins, amused at this whole thing.
Carlo stands between the cars, raising his arms over his head. He counts down—“Three . . . two . . . ONE!”
His arms swing down, and the cars peel off the line.
Camille had the quicker reflexes. Still, the G-Wagon pulls away first. Camille has to shift gears manually, which means she has a slower start. But as she expertly moves from second to third to fourth gear, the car leaps forward in bursts, as if it’s a locomotive and she’s shoveling in load after load of coal.
It’s only a quarter-mile race. Less than fifteen seconds long. Maybe sixteen, with these two cars.
I can see Mason standing at the end of the line, watching to see which vehicle passes first.
Camille edges up. Her car is more than roaring—it’s bellowing. A wisp of smoke comes out from under the hood. She keeps pushing anyway.
I can’t help admiring her driving. Camille’s got balls. And she knows how to get the most out of her car.
Meanwhile, the G-Wagon wobbles unsteadily on its base. It’s top-heavy, and Bella probably has the gas pedal floored. Camille deliberately crowds the SUV. Bella jerks the wheel too hard to correct. The wobble turns into a fishtail. Camille flies past, crossing the finish line.
They circle back around, Bella driving recklessly fast as if she can still win, Camille moving cautiously, because there’s a steady stream of dark gray smoke coming out from the corner of her hood.
Before Bella’s even gotten out of the car, she’s already shrieking that Camille cheated. “That was horseshit! You tried to run me off the road!” she yells.
“I didn’t touch you,” Camille says.
“ ‘Cause you don’t care if you scratch up your piece of shit car!” Bella shouts, furiously. She turns and boots the side of Camille’s Trans Am, putting a dent in the driver’s side panel.
This is a big no-no in street racing. You do not fuck with anybody’s car.
Camille launches herself at Bella, only held back by Patricia and Carlo, who has thrown himself between the girls.
“Hey, hey, relax!” he says, stiff-arming them both in opposite directions.
“That is fucking IT!” Camille is shouting.
“Looks the same as it did before,” Bella sneers back at her.
“Here,” Grisha stuffs a bundle of bills in Camille’s hand. “You won. There’s some extra for the car.”
Bella smirks, pleased to have her boyfriend pay for her mistakes.
Camille takes the money, but she’s so pissed off that she’s shaking. She’s mad that Bella didn’t even pay her bet, let alone the damage. It looks like Camille has to silently count to ten before she can turn away from Bella, popping the hood of her car, and releasing a cloud of smoke-tinged with oil.
“Fucking garbage,” Bella hisses, not specifying whether she’s talking about Camille or her car.
Camille ignores her, focused solely on her ride.
Mason, Carlo, and I all circle around her, irresistibly drawn by our curiosity to see what went wrong. I stand next to Camille, peering over her shoulder. It’s exactly the position we took when she was looking at my car earlier today.
“Here we are again,” I say.
She gives me an annoyed look, not seeing the humor in it.
“Yikes,” Mason says. “That doesn’t look good …”
“COPS!” somebody shouts.
The effect is instant. The word is like a grenade thrown into the center of the group. Everybody scatters.
It’s not that I care so much about a ticket. It wouldn’t be my first. But I don’t fancy spending the rest of the night in an interrogation room, if the cops get the bright idea to try to put the screws to me while they have the chance.
I’m about to take off, until I see Camille standing helplessly next to her car.
“Come on!” Patricia calls to her. “Come with us!”
Patricia is climbing into Mason’s Supra. She gestures frantically for Camille to join them.
“I can’t leave my car!” Camille calls back.
I hear sirens closing in on two sides.
I should just leave.
If Camille wants to get arrested, that’s her dumb choice.
Camille rests her palm on her car, her expression anguished. Like it would kill her to leave the Trans Am. Like it’s her baby.
“Forget the car,” I bark to Camille. “You can come back for it tomorrow.”
She casts a frightened look in the direction of the cop cars, but she’s still glued to the smoking Trans Am. I hear racers speeding off in all directions, while I’m still standing here like a fool.
Propelled by annoyance, I scoop Camille up and throw her over my shoulder.
“HEY!” she shrieks. “Put me down! What are you—”
“Shut up,” I snarl, jogging over to my car.
I’m jostling Camille but I could care less. I wrench open the passenger door and throw her inside.
“I don’t need you to—”
I slam the door in her face and run around to the driver’s side.
A squad car is heading right for us. We’re the only idiots still parked along the main drag. Mason already peeled off as soon as he saw me grab Camille.
The cop has his siren blaring and his lights on. Over the speaker, he barks, “Stay right where you are!”
Instead, I set my foot on the gas pedal and press it all the way down to the floor.
