The car continues to skid around the corner, its bumper meeting with the guardrail. The long strip of metal is a meager defense against plummeting to our deaths. But what can I do? We only live once, right? Red lights from recorders fly by. Hangers-on from behind the rails cheer us on, raising their cameras higher to get the best video of the drift. The drones are capturing this too. Which means her father must be watching. I can only guess what the boss must be thinking. If I’m still alive tomorrow, then he approves of the lesson I’m teaching his daughter. Since this is not a sanctioned run, no bets can be made. I snort as the car’s front bumper zooms by mere inches from the unprotected, easily breakable limbs of the hangers-on.
The insanity of it all. I love every second of it!
“Keep your eyes on the road!” Zamara screams.
Time to work. I slip the pencil into my boot and reposition the rearview mirror. I return my hands to the wheel just as the car exits the corner. “Okay, I’m going to start driving seriously now.”
“You mean—”
“We’re entering the three S-curves,” I cut her off. My grin morphs into a full-blown smile of pure evil.
“Brake!” Zamara’s screams continue, barely drowned out by the screeching of tires on asphalt. “RC, brake!”
Without slowing down, I tackle each corner, giving the princess glimpses of the ravine drenched in darkness. Five centimeters. That is all. One mistake, like missing the apex of a corner or understeering and losing control of the car, and we die. That is what it means to be a racer. If Zamara truly wants to be a part of this world, she must understand.
“Son of a b—” The rest of her sentence ends in a wail as the car fishtails out of one corner and dives nosefirst into the next.
“What a filthy mouth you have, Miss Zamara,” I tease. For a split second I imagine that mouth on different parts of my body. I bite down and force the image out of my mind. Not the time to be thinking about lips and tongues and what they can do. Shit. Driving never fails to turn me on.
The tires squeal in time with Zamara’s cries. The speedometer hardly stays below eighty kilometers per hour and climbs to as much as a hundred eighty in some corners and straights. I have to hand it to Goose. The Zagato is made for sprinting at breakneck speeds. Its engine rejoices at the pace I put the car through, not backing down from the challenge.
“We’re reaching Suicide Curve now.” I lose all humor in my voice.
“R-R-R-C! Slo-slo-slow down!” Zamara keens like a calf with a broken leg. Ice should be dotting her forehead. Her breathing is shallow and quick. The reaction I’ve been aiming for.
At the mouth of the widest corner of Mount Giga, I engage the handbrake, then twist the steering wheel at an impossible angle with both hands. The engine snarls. The car jerks violently sideward. The back practically becomes the front. The rear tires leave rubber on the blacktop, shrieking as we go.
AT THE penultimate hairpin curve near the base of Mount Giga, I ease the Zagato into a road embankment behind the guardrail for cars in need of repairs or drivers in need of rest before tackling the steep climb. I glance over at the snoozing girl beside me. I suppress a laugh for fear of waking her. Killing the engine, I make a mental note to commend Goose for his tuning skills. A V12 doesn’t belong in a downhill race, but he managed to find the right balance between the weight and power ratio. The Zagato is a monster on the straights, and surprisingly, it responds well to drifting—the suspension and tires topnotch. The organizers will not be happy with the stunt I pulled tonight, but Bedlam and Ace will more than make up for it.
Speaking of which….
Girding my loins, I press two fingers on my earpiece. “Mac, you there?”
“Would you mind telling me what business you have driving a V12 down Giga, pushing it to the limit? Not even Slipstream is that stupid!” comes the reply.
I pull out the earpiece halfway through Mac’s tirade. His bitching doesn’t help my already fried nerves ever since my body began to wind down from the adrenaline rush caused by driving like I won’t die in a crash.
“You done?” I slip the earpiece back into my lobe. Heavy breathing responds to my question. “Did Goose get my GT back in one piece?”
“Why do you insist on giving me a heart attack by doing these crazy stupid stunts? And this close to the Impulse Cup too!” Mac breathes in deep and releases the irritation-laden air he’d taken in slowly. “Why don’t you just jump off a cliff if you’re so intent on killing yourself?”
“I already know how I’m gonna die, Mac, and it’s not by jumping off a cliff.”
“What got into your head anyway?”
“I had to teach Zamara a lesson.” I give the softly snoring girl a sideways glance, strands of brown hair fall on her cheek. “Is Goose there?”
“He and Screw are talking about that ludicrous driving line you took. Be sure that Ace was watching you.”
What Mac failed to add was that the rest of Terra One watched as well. Not a bad thing. Consider it my unofficial challenge heading into the Cup. “Put him on for a sec, will you?”
Crackling white noise signals Mac passing an extra earpiece to someone.
“How did she handle entering Suicide Curve? I saw your tail end skid too far in,” Goose says.
I shake my head. The guy is a little too enthusiastic for someone who got kneed in the balls not half an hour ago. “You sound just like Screw.”
“He shares my opinion.”
“Why did you bring Zamara to the races? You
