“It’s the game,” Harlan said again, and just for a moment she caught something dangerous in his eyes, something desperate and hard. She remembered his fingers. “It ain’t how you win, it’s that you win at all.”
“Yeah,” said Shiara, dispirited. “Seems that’s what everyone thinks around here.”
“Study that map,” he told her. “Tomorrow …” Something caught in his throat and she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. “Tomorrow we’ll show ’em all.”
He turned away and hurried out. Shiara watched him go. Just for an instant, she’d glimpsed something, some drunken emotion that slipped through his guard. And in that instant he’d seemed small, pathetic, and terrified. Terrified that he was relying on two young girls to prevent himself from being maimed. Terrified of what was to come if they failed.
She sighed, spat on the ground. For Cassica. For Harlan. For everyone else’s sake, she’d do it. So she bent over the map and began.
They drove along the lonely, eerie highways of a weed-strangled city. Cracked asphalt blurred beneath their wheels; the echoing roar of their engine sent black birds scattering skyward. Broken trucks lay across the road like felled beasts, and wrecks clogged the rotted streets to either side.
They felt like the only living people in the world.
Cassica’s focus was total. She drove with a fierce calm in her eyes and didn’t say a word. They had a two-hour lead on the other racers, and the Wreckers couldn’t start until at least half the pack had set off. They were way out ahead on their own, and thanks to Harlan’s map they’d progressed deep into Lost Angeles without seeing a single Howler. The worst they’d encountered was a few shots from a rogue sniper, but they’d been far away and the shots had missed.
Others hadn’t been so lucky. The second stage of the Widowmaker was a little over four hours old now, and most of the other racers had made their way through the outskirts. The Howlers were waiting in number out there, with barricades and explosives. They didn’t tolerate any invaders in their territory, and their love of violence and chaos was notorious. They dropped rubble from above and blocked in racers with armored vehicles, they swarmed out of alleys to attack trapped cars, they popped up from hidey-holes with belt-fed machine guns. Already two pairs of racers had been killed, one car riddled with bullets and the other crushed by a building toppled with dynamite. Another car had broken down, and the racers had used their rescue alarm to summon help, disqualifying themselves. Shiara hoped they were found by the race officials before the Howlers got them. There was no telling what they might do to prisoners.
She’d felt guilty for taking that map when Harlan offered it. Now, not so much. Winning wasn’t so important to her, but survival most certainly was.
Cassica skidded round a burned-out car that lay slumped in their path. Given their lead, she could have afforded to take things a little easy, but that wouldn’t be Cassica. She drove with more urgency and aggression than ever, jaw tight, stare hard.
“Take the slip road left,” Shiara told her. Cassica didn’t question Shiara’s directions or wonder why she was so confident in her route. She just drove.
Shiara hadn’t told Cassica about the map. Maybe she would have, if Cassica had been around to tell. But Cassica didn’t come back to the garage all night, and she wasn’t in their quarters when Shiara went to bed to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep. Shiara had been forced to oversee the morning preparations on her own, while Harlan ran about in a flap looking for Cassica. She appeared at last, a few minutes before they were due to set off, walking casually across the tarmac to where Shiara sat fuming in the car.
Cassica got in, settled herself, and adjusted the neckscarf that disguised her bruised throat. Then she looked over at Shiara and asked, “We ready?”
We ready? That was all. No apology. No explanation. No word of thanks.
And Shiara just said, “Yeah.”
All that work she’d done to get the Interceptor back up to scratch. The way Sammis had saved them with his spare parts. How Harlan had cut them a deal and acquired a map to get them through Lost Angeles safely. Cassica didn’t know about any of it, didn’t ask, didn’t care. She’d been off doing who knew what (but then, Shiara did know what) while everyone else broke their backs to make it possible for her to continue her challenge for the Widowmaker title. And then, when all the work was done, she sauntered back, expecting everything to be in place, everything set up, like a bunch of damned fairies had waved their wands in the night and made their busted-up car all better.
Shiara was so angry she wanted to slap her; but there was a long way between wanting and doing in Shiara’s world. So she gave her driver directions, and she kept an eye on the gauges, and she watched out for Howlers. Beyond that, they didn’t speak.
She looked for news of Sammis among the trailing pack, a worm of concern gnawing at her gut. Maybe she should have told him about the map? But no, that was naive, that would have been stupid. She liked him, for sure, but she didn’t trust him that far based on a few sweet hours in his company.
Still, it would have been nice to daydream a little, to remember how kind he’d been, what a time they’d had fixing the car. But she was too mad at Cassica, too busy with the race.
They came off the highway and into gridded streets that sprawled away into the sea. Flaking buildings rose around them; rubble lay on the sidewalks. The roads of Lost Angeles were covered in slippery weeds, and its walls were bedraggled with creepers. Nature had had its way with the city once the people left. Now those who remained scavenged among the debris in the shadow of the Howlers or moved in roving gangs for protection.
Cassica and Shiara had spotted evidence of recently used shelters, seen darting silhouettes in upper windows and a battered car driving quickly away from them. The scavs were like mice, eager to stay out of sight. If the Howlers caught them, they’d be dead meat.
Shiara’s eye was caught by the screen again. The sound was off—they found the commentary distracting—but the announcers were leaning in excitedly, and she could tell something major had just happened. The scene cut to a hovercam view of a yellow-and-red Hyena, driving down a narrow road, weaving through the wrecks. The caption at the bottom of the screen told Shiara what she already knew: SAMMIS RYE AND TATTEN BREESLEY.
A little smile grew on her lips as the screen switched to an interior camera, showing Sammis driving, his tech pointing out a route to him. That broad, easy face already felt strangely familiar to her. Those were eyes you could come home to.
Then there was a bright flash, and her smile dropped away. For a moment, everything on the screen was shaking, Sammis hauling desperately on the wheel; then the camera cut to black.
The hovercam took up the story, replaying the incident from the outside. Shiara watched, ice gathering at her core, as the Hyena hit a buried mine. Even with the sound off she felt the dusty thump of the explosion. The car skidded and rolled, bouncing down the road, leaving pieces of itself behind as it went.
“Which way?” Cassica asked, eyes still on the road.
Shiara just watched the screen. The Hyena rocked to a halt on what was left of its wheels. The passenger door had been blown clean off. Tatten slumped in his harness, blackened and bloody and dead. Beyond him, Sammis was motionless in his seat.
A childish voice of protest clamored in her head. No! It ain’t fair! It ain’t! He didn’t even wanna be there!
“Which way?” Cassica demanded, irritable and impatient.
“Take a right,” Shiara murmured.
Cassica did so. After a moment, she looked back at Shiara. “You okay?”
Her voice buzzed in Shiara’s ear like a mosquito, tinny and faint. “There’s been a crash,” she said quietly, feeling numb. “Bad one.”
“Good,” said Cassica. “One less rival to worry about.”
Shiara felt something twist like a knife inside her. Rage seeped from the wound, creeping through her body, touching her skin with angry heat. She gritted her teeth, trying to keep it in, but
it was unstoppable. “Is that all we are to you?” she said, her voice thick. “Rivals? Supportin’ cast? Background players in the inspirin’ story of Cassica Hayle’s rise to fame?”
Cassica gazed at her like she was mad. “What in hell are you talking about?”
“You just don’t care, do you? You don’t care what happens as long as you get to win! You don’t care who lives or who dies or who—”
“Where’s all this coming from?” Cassica cried. “You’re angry ’cause I don’t shed some fake tears over a couple of dead racers? This is the Widowmaker, dumbass! Did you think no one was gonna die?”
Shiara wasn’t even listening. It all came spewing out of her, like some long-dammed river that had burst. “We’re frickin’ people, okay? Everyone who does your hair, who sets up the lights so you look good, who fixes your damn car while you go runnin’ off with—”
“Oh, that’s what it’s about, is it? I knew you were jealous!”
“It’s about respect!” Shiara almost screamed. “It’s about the way you only think of you! We’re equals, don’t you get that? You, me, and every other racer and tech out there! All the ground crew that make it possible, and the management and the television folk and all those people who do their jobs day after day just so you can stand up in front of a camera and be worshipped! Do you get that? I mean, really? Do you understand that the whole world doesn’t exist to service your needs? I’m not your follower—I’m not your servant! You wouldn’t be nothin’ without me!”
“I nearly died!” Cassica screamed back, before Shiara had even finished. “Not one day ago some hell-damned horror had his stinking hands round my throat and I felt it coming. I felt death coming, Shiara, and I looked right into that pit before you got him off me. I nearly died! So excuse me if I ain’t at my most considerate today! Excuse me if I thought I deserved a bit of personal time when I’d just narrowly avoided my own frickin’ extinction from this earth!”
They were full-out now. Finally this was the fight Cassica had wanted. But in the fury of the clash, Cassica had taken her attention from the road, and that was why neither of them spotted the truck rolling out in front of them until it had already blocked their path.
Cassica instinctively stamped on the brakes the moment she saw it. The Interceptor’s wheels screeched and smoked as they were thrown against their harnesses. Through the shuddering windshield Shiara saw a figure rise up on the rooftop of a nearby building, carrying something on his shoulder.
A rocket launcher.
There was a flash, and a rocket flew toward them. Shiara didn’t see where it hit, but she felt the Interceptor slammed by a terrific force, felt it lift up off the ground, flying, flipping, and all she could hear was her own scream as the tarmac rushed toward them and the car came down again.
When her senses returned, they came slowly, as if from some great distance. The sharp smell of leaked oil. The dull ache of muscles that would later bruise. Upon opening her eyes, she found the Interceptor’s cockpit jumbled. Everything was out of place, every straight line bent, the dash punched in and broken glass on the dented roof above her.
It was the glass that told her she was upside down before her body did. Glass shouldn’t fall upward.
Cassica was in the seat next to her, hanging in her harness, puffy eyes opening, now narrow, now wide as realization came. She cast about in alarm, found Shiara; then she looked beyond her, and her face loosened in horror. Shiara turned her head painfully and saw what Cassica had seen through the crushed window of the Interceptor.
Howlers. Men and women more animal than human. They came running between the wrecks, wearing shredded leathers and buckles and oil painted on their faces.
Cassica and Shiara thrashed in their harnesses, fighting to get free. Cassica managed to release herself and fell to the roof of the car, but Shiara’s straps held her fast. She couldn’t find the buckle, and when she did, she couldn’t make it work. Panic made her clumsy. She glanced fearfully at the Howlers—so close now, knives glinting in the punishing sunlight—and then Cassica was there, yanking at her harness. But even with her help, the straps stayed tight.
Cassica let go. She backed away, shuffling on her knees in the cramped cockpit of the upside-down car. Shiara saw in her eyes what she was thinking, and a hopeless emptiness filled her.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
Tears glittered in Cassica’s eyes. She held Shiara’s gaze for a heartbeat. Then she scrambled backward, out through the driver’s side window. Shiara saw her booted feet running, and she was gone.
The last thing she heard before unconsciousness took her was the happy screams of the Howlers as they gave chase. The last thought in her head was the hope that she’d never wake again.
The hovercam whirred in the air, its steady glass eye trained on Cassica. Reflected in its lens, she was no longer the beautiful idol that the cream of Pacifica’s sports newsies had once clamored to interview. She sat huddled in the corner of a long-abandoned call center, among fallen ceiling tiles and smashed desks and cubicles. Her driving leathers were scarred, her hair dirty and messy, her eyes swollen, mascara smudged with tears. Her neckscarf had been lost and her neck was bruised yellow and purple. By her side was a long metal table leg, her best attempt at a weapon.
She was staring at an object in her hand, turning it over and over. A small rectangular metal case, opened to reveal a single red button. Her rescue alarm.
It had taken over an hour to lose them in the hot shadowed alleys, the corroded department stores, the broken yards guarded by chain-link fences. She could still hear them out there, wailing and whooping like wild animals as they searched. That damned hovercam hadn’t helped: it almost got her caught twice when they saw it following her. Finally she’d given them the slip inside an old office block, and now she hid on the third floor, listened to their cries and despaired.
Don’t leave me.
But she had. There was nothing else she could have done. They’d both have been caught if she stayed. She tried to persuade herself that she’d been trying to draw the Howlers away, but it was a lie. She’d been running for her life, running to save herself.
“You couldn’t help her,” she muttered. She looked up at the hovercam as she realized she’d said it aloud. It just hung there, watching. The whole world watched with it. Discussing her. Judging her.
They didn’t know. They didn’t know the fear that took her, seeing those monsters run shrieking toward the car. They didn’t know what it was like to have someone’s hands on your throat, to abandon yourself to death. They didn’t know what that did to your head. They didn’t know how it felt to remember your best friend’s face as she was left to her fate.
Don’t leave me.
They didn’t know. Nobody knew. She wanted to die. Better than being this helpless. Better than living on, knowing she’d abandoned Shiara to those creatures of madness. The thought of what they might do made such horror well up inside that she retched on it.
Don’t leave me.
Through tear-blurred eyes she stared at the rescue alarm in her hand. Shiara had one too; all the racers did. Surely she’d pressed it already? Surely troops and medics had already flown in to save her?
No. She’d heard no copters. And anyway, she knew the rules. Rescue teams would only extract a racer if it was safe. They wouldn’t risk their lives busting into a Howler nest. Wherever Shiara had gone, wherever they’d taken her, there was no help coming.
They’d come for Cassica, though. She just had to get up on the roof. One press of the button and they’d pick her up, take her away from all this. One press of the button and her race would be over.
The race? The race is already over, Cassica. Your car’s totaled. Your tech’s gone. It’s done.
She swallowed against a dry throat. She’d never been so alone, or so adrift. Times like these, when she was all turmoil inside and so high-strung she couldn’t think straight, she needed someone to talk her down. Someone like—
r /> “Shiara,” she whispered hoarsely.
A landslide of memories swept over her: childhood adventures in Coppermouth; laughing themselves sick at some stupid joke; talking long into the night in their bedroom over the auto shop; crying over boys; fixing up Maisie; and driving, driving on highways and dirt roads and racetracks with the hot air of the badlands in their faces. They’d never felt so free as in those moments; nothing ever felt so right.
Shiara was Cassica’s home, more than her real home ever was, or the DuCals’ flat over the auto shop where she’d gone after Momma died. Shiara was the safe place she came back to after her wildness took her roaming. Shiara was the one who tempered her fire, who made her see reason when she didn’t want to, who picked up the pieces when she broke. Shiara, who always had her back.
You wouldn’t be nothin’ without me, Shiara had spat at her earlier. And she’d been right.
Cassica snapped the case closed on her rescue alarm and shoved it back in her pocket. She got to her feet, picking up the metal table leg as she did so. It was heavy and had square edges. She looked up at the hovercam.
“Hoy,” she said to it and beckoned, “over here.”
The hovercam moved closer, whirring as it focused. Capturing her face in close-up for the viewers, her grief, her determination. She looked deep into the darkness of the lens, and there at the heart of it, she saw nothing but a point of empty white light.
She swung the table leg hard, knocking the machine to the floor. It still buzzed with life, rotors whirring as it labored to rise, a huge wounded insect. She hit it again, and with increasing viciousness she kept hitting it, until it was still, and the light in the lens had died.
When she was done, she stood over it, panting. Finally, she straightened, brushed her hair back from her face, then pulled her helmet off and let it drop to the floor. The small round eye of her helmet cam was left staring uselessly at the wall. She let out a sigh as if a great weight had been taken from her.