Lark’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye, and I can feel it, that electric, unspoken challenge that’s been running between us since the day she called me pretty boy in that half-collapsed garage.
“I’m not scared,” I say finally. “I’mthinking.”
“Oh, you can do that?” She grins. “Didn’t know.”
Uh-uh. She knows very little about me.
I push off the hood, close the distance, until the wind carries the scent of gasoline and cheap cigarettes off her jacket.
“Alright, babe.” I take a strand of her jet-black hair between my fingers. She wants to slap my hand away but stops herself. “Tell me something. How would we get in? Rey’s boys don’t just let strays roll up and take their money.”
“They will if they think you’re not a stray,” she says. “I’ve got a friend on Rey’s crew. I used to run races with him before he got too deep in the game. He owes me a favor. One name drop, and you’re in.”
Great. Instead of just sneaking onto Rey’s turf, you’re gonna play traitor. Get your head straight, Talon.
Plus, hello? She has a friend on Rey’s crew.
I knew Lark knew people. Otherwise, she wouldn’t survive around here. But I’d hoped it was friends of Fisher, not Rey.
“Doesn’t sound very airtight,” I say.
“It’s airtight enough,” she replies, leaning back with that lazy-cat grin. “You’ll be driving my car, under my entry. Rey’s guys don’t care whose hands are on the wheel, as long as the name on the pink slip isn’t an enemy’s. And last I checked…” she tilts her head, eyes glinting, “…you’re not anyone’s enemy.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
Not anyone’s enemy.
Christ, if she knew.
“Am I wrong?” she prompts. “I can always give my guy a fake name, if you’re paranoid.”
I drag a hand down my face and look toward the shoreline. My gut saysdon’t do it. My bones saynever in hell. Fisher’s voice in my head says if I pull a stunt like that, I’m done.
But my pulse? It’s doing something else entirely.
Why? I don’t know.
Maybe because it’s her asking.
“It’s one night,” I say. “One race. We’re in, we’re out, we’re ten grand richer.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I shove her hands into the pockets of my jacket. “But if Rey’s boys decide they don’t like my face…”
“Then you’ll just have to drive fast enough to make them go fuck themselves.”
I let out a long breath, mind already sketching the route, the escape angles, the way the Camaro’s tuned suspension will bite into the turns on the industrial strip. I’ve been on Rey’s turf once, when I was young, when Gran had just died, before I chose a side. The place must’ve changed since then.
Fuck, I hate myself for it.
Hate that I’m picturing the race instead of telling her to shove the keys in someone else’s hand.
I could at least tell her who I really run with.
But if I did, she’d vanish.
Time’s limited for everyone.
