by Jenny Martin
Footsteps in the hall. Quickly, I call up the Castran Sports Feed, letting it run on every wall.
Bear shuffles into the living room. “Can’t sleep?”
When I don’t answer, he sits and throws an arm around my shoulder. He pulls me closer, and I relax into his warmth, cozy and snug and a little less gloomy.
“I let you down tonight,” he says.
“You didn’t, Bear. You watched out for me at every turn. It’s not your fault. They were gunning for us, and I didn’t have my head in the game before the race. Cash tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen.”
He tenses at Dradha’s name. I feel the wince.
“I have to win the next one,” I say.
“Do you?” He withdraws, putting on a sleepy frown. “For Benroyal?”
“Not for him. Or James or anyone else. I just can’t stand losing.”
“Then we’ll practice.” When he slides his strong hands down my arms, the rift is almost gone. “Win or lose, I’m here.”
“I know.” It pains me to see him this worried. With a look, he summons the tenderest part of me, the vulnerable girl no one else is allowed to see. Suddenly, I need him to smile again. “Remember the plan? How we were going to—”
He obliges, half grinning at memories. “I haven’t forgotten. Our own garage. Our own crew. Winning every—”
“Street race from Capitoline to Piper Dunes.” Even as I finish his sentence, I know the dream is gone. It died the moment the DP picked us up. Through the prickle of unshed tears, I look into his eyes and see an altered future. I mourn the one we’ve lost. “That’s over now. We can’t go back.”
“I don’t care. No matter what happens, no matter where we end up. Nothing’s going to change between us.”
But something has changed.
He folds me close and I listen to the drumbeat of his heart. Its steady rhythm always quiets the keening in my blood, but this time, the surrender feels too much like drowning. I pull away, dazed and more uncertain than I’ve ever been.
Bear misreads my wide-eyed stare. “No one’s going to hurt you. I won’t ever let that happen.”
“It’s not that,” I answer. “The drivers and feedcasters can do their worst. I’m not afraid of them.”
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t know.” I lie because I’m not brave enough to whisper the truth.
I’m afraid of hurting you, Bear.
Bear watches me for a moment before settling back, and I wonder if he’s as scared as I am. I try to pinpoint the moment things shifted, but so many edges overlap, a hundred memories slipping against one another. We are six and eleven and then thirteen, knee-deep in mischief and forever inseparable.
I can try to pretend I’ve always bloomed the same shade for Bear, but my love for him has deepened over the years. It has, and no matter how many times I call him my brother, I can’t deny the subtle drift. It’s as if our routes were always angled to converge, and I’ve never resisted the slow pull. Until now.
I pull back to look at him. We are frozen, staring at each other.
It’s Bear who reaches first. He brushes away a strand of my hair, then cradles my jaw in his hands. He leans forward, moving so slowly, like a ship rowing to shore against the tide. A few seconds more, and our lips will touch, but the kiss meant to bring us closer looms like something dangerous and sharp, something that, if mishandled, might cut the cord between us.
I focus, tuning out the feeds, ignoring everything but him. The familiar exhale. The gentle weight of his touch. Even now, the way his eyes call to me. I have my answer, insistent and clear. He sees me as he always has, his to hold and protect. And even if I’m not sure anymore, even if that’s not what I . . .
He is the boy I’m supposed to love.
I swallow, then break away, shattering the moment. Confused, I pull him close again, burying my forehead against his shoulder, and it’s then I feel the quiet shudder. I hear it in his voice, even as he tries to pretend I haven’t sunk another dagger into his heart.
“Hey,” he whispers. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice two seconds from cracking. “It’s just . . . I’m just a little worn out.”
“I know. Be quiet. Go to sleep.”
He shifts, and puts some space between us. We both pretend it’s okay, that the distance doesn’t matter.
“You don’t have to stay.” I pull a blanket to my chin.
Bear doesn’t answer. As we sit shoulder to shoulder, I silence the voices in my head and in my heart, and focus on the chatter of the feeds. I pretend to watch the exhibition recap as talking heads parse and analyze the gory details of my first defeat.
“. . . You certainly called it, Jack. One week on the circuit, and the other teams have already put the new kid in her place. After tonight, you have to wonder if Phoenix Vanguard can ever live up to all the hype . . .”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The morning-after mood in the hangar is pretty somber, like it’s not just me who tossed and turned all night. Although everyone’s going about their usual business, running tire tests and detailing rigs, they might as well be tiptoeing around me. Sure, I get a few smiles and tired “good mornings,” but I can read the hush. My less than stellar debut has done nothing for morale. And I don’t even want to think about how scorched Benroyal must be right now.
After sitting behind the wheel for a new six-point harness adjustment, there’s nothing for me to do until Gil is ready to put me back on the practice track. Right now, his office door is closed—Goose has arrived, and I’m pretty sure they’re having it out.
Cash and Bear are busy, hauling extra fuel for Banjo. So, flex in hand, I lean against the far wall. I check for messages and scroll through feeds, anxious for a sign that Abasi’s doing something—anything—about Benroyal’s black sap empire. I know I can’t expect a lone politician to perform miracles overnight, but even so, there are no rumors of an investigation. On the feeds, there’s nothing but more rumblings about Cyanese terrorist groups hiding out in the Pearl Strand.
Hold tight, Mary’d said. Wait and see. I didn’t honor my promise and now I’m just praying my family won’t pay for it.
“Attention! Attention!” Goose’s thick accent cuts through the murmur in the hangar. With Gil at his side, he stalks to the center of the room and stands in front of my rig. After waving all of us over, he silences my crew. “Mr. Benroyal has made a few adjustments to Miss Vanguard’s schedule. In order to better support our new driver, he has canceled all her public appearances for the next few days. That is to say—”
“What that means, boys,” Gil interrupts, pacing like an IP sergeant inspecting field troops, “is that you’d all better clear your schedules and gear up to win. Until the next race, it’s going to be sixteen-hour days and short suppers with no time to spare. And anyone who wants to whine about it, you can call your momma and tell her I’ve got you degreasing parts and sweeping up for the rest of the season.”
No one else says a word. Not a single groan. The only sound is the hustle of footsteps as people get back to work. Satisfied, Goose leaves. When Gil starts to follow, I grab his arm. “They’re all going to hate me now,” I say. “For losing and for doubling their work.”
Gil grins so easily, sidestepping like there’s no reason to panic. “C’mon back to my office.”
Gil’s space is more modest than it should be, a small room tucked behind the far end of the hangar. Even here, the sharp, oily tang of fuel sap hangs in the air. The photos on his wall screens crowd and overlap, tilted at odd angles—if I squint, the effect is old-fashioned, like the walls are actually papered over with a thousand circuit memories. Pit rosters. Stat sheets. Victory shots.
There are so many of my father.
Gil touches one of them, a promo for my dad’s last race, the treac
herous mountain rally on Cyan-Bisera. Out front, my dad leans against the hood of his emerald rig. Behind him, the horizon’s dusk-purpled summit.
“I knew your daddy,” Gil says.
I don’t even try to play it cool. “How’d you know?”
“Please.” Gil snorts. “That Vanguard nonsense is strictly for tourists. I know why you’re here. Benroyal’s smart. Of course he’d want the next Van Zant. And even if I hadn’t been briefed on your bloodline, I’d have figured it out. Benny Eno flexed over enough footage—you drive just like your dad. Fierce and a little foolish. But it works.”
“Benny sold me out?” I blurt, too scorched to control a gasp.
He huffs a little, like he’s disappointed I hadn’t caught on more quickly. “I wouldn’t call it that. Call it business. Survival. You think things would’ve ended well for him—or for you—if he’d tried to resist? This way, Benny gets to keep his garage, I get a scrawny little thing bursting with raw, reckless talent. And you get to win.”
“Except I’ve already lost.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” he says, sidestepping again. “I’m the one who scouted your dad. Back in ’69, he’d just started racing cars. You know those slow-start, smoke- belching junkers that passed for rigs on Earth?”
I nod. My father used to show me pictures. The cars were small and fragile-looking, yet much less sleek than the vehicles we race.
“See, I’m the one who brought Tommy from Earth to Castra in the first place,” Gil says. “Back when you could still get off that forsaken rock.”
“But you weren’t on his team. I thought you crewed for—”
“Yamada-Maddox. Yeah, I did. It was good, a lot of early wins. Magnus Shirkey raced for me and brought home three Corporate Cups. But I scouted for everybody back then. Sport was different. Tommy signed on just in time to watch everything change.”
Gil’s talking, but it’s Benny I hear. How many times have I heard him rant about the old days, when he crewed “real” rallies? About the sellout drift, the way the circuit evolved from a breakneck rush into a stockholder’s game?
“Two real rallies,” Gil fusses. “That’s all we got left anymore. Used to be a race wasn’t a race unless it was three days over a long stretch of unforgiving country. Drivers cutting through the old pioneer routes. Now it’s nothing but arenas and chasing your own exhaust for the cameras. Your daddy hated those oval courses as much as I do.”
I nod. He did. I’ve seen every one of his old interviews a thousand times. Mouthed off about the round and round tracks every chance he could.
“You hate ’em too, don’t you, spitfire?”
“What happened to him?” I ask.
He cuts me off, palms raised. “You’re hoping I’ve got answers, but I don’t. Sure, I watched him tote you to every event, but I can’t pretend we were ever that close. Not really. Never could understand why a man would walk away like that.” He is lost for a moment, as if staring right through the screens.
I was too young to remember, and it’s a strange thing to watch him wonder. I hadn’t let myself do it for a long time. Seemed pointless, like questioning something that’s always been. The desert is hot. The moon shines at midnight. My dad is gone. But lately, I’ve been brooding over it more and more.
Gil turns and looks me straight in the eye. “What really gets me, a man like your daddy—winning every race, raking it all in for Sixers? For the life of me, I can’t figure out why they’d let him walk away at all.”
I wince. The sting of anger. It’s a needle-prick stab in the throat. I know what Gil’s implying—that my father didn’t just leave, that he was somehow pushed out or eliminated. But am I ready to believe that? That some corporate engineered his “disappearance” for failing to perform? Or more likely, for failing to lose?
Yes. I am. I live in a world where assets are acquired and liquidated every day. Suddenly, I don’t want to be in this room anymore, with all these pictures on the wall. “Was there something else you wanted to talk to me about?”
Gil stiffens up a little. I’ve yanked him back into the present. “Benroyal pulled your bid for the Biseran mountain rally. You’ll still get a little point-to-point experience at the end of the season, but you’re looking at nothing but round and round for the duration.”
I don’t answer because I know the score. I didn’t place well in the exhibition, and Benroyal would sooner pull me than let me embarrass him during the biggest prestige race of the year. I won’t get to compete off-planet. Not this year.
“You got anything to say about that? You just going to lie down and give up your bid?”
I know Gil’s trying to provoke me so I’ll work harder to win. Of course I hate losing. But for the first time, my will to compete falters. Everything that’s happened in the week since signing my contract. Benroyal’s secret game. James’s constant scolding. Now my father. How can I make myself score for these liars?
When I don’t answer, Gil shakes his head and whistles through gap teeth. “You said the crew’s gonna hate you now for losing. But that ain’t hardly the truth, is it? You didn’t lose. We lost. And they’ll only hate you if you work half as hard. Give it everything you’ve got, and they will too.”
Yes. Gil, Banjo, all of them. Even Cash. Win or lose, like it or not, our fates are bound together now. I can’t forget that. I open my mouth to promise my best, but Gil’s already walking away.
“Don’t tell me, spitfire girl. Show me. See you on the track in twenty minutes.”
Back in the hangar, I look around. Bear is still moving fuel. Far behind him, Cash looks over his shoulder and then quickly slips into the exit corridor. I can’t believe he’d bail at a time like this.
I don’t want to draw Bear’s attention, so I skirt the edge of the shop. I catch up with Cash before he can turn the last corner. “Where are you going?”
“I have business on the south side. I’ll be back for evening practice.”
He opens the last door and steps outside. I have to double- time it to keep up, and I can hardly breathe in the noonday heat. “What kind of business? How can you just leave when we’re so far behind?”
“I need to take care of something.”
He’s not even flustered that I caught him slinking away, and his noncommittal shrug completely sets me off. The anger makes me careless. I choose the worst words, the ones I know will twist the knife. “Too long since you’ve been at the tables? That’s the real reason you’re leaving, isn’t it, so you can sneak off to your little sap house and gamble on Benroyal credit?”
“Look, Vanguard—”
I shut him down. “No, you look. How many guards will it take to bring you back in?”
That scorches him well enough. He gets right up in my exhaust. “Right. You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? Makes it that much easier to write me off, doesn’t it? Just keep pushing me away, Phee.”
“Who’s pushing who here? You’re the one who’s running off when your crew needs you.”
“I realize that, but I can’t—”
“When I need you.”
“I know.” He stops himself, clamping his jaw. “I’m sorry. But there are things about me you don’t have the first clue about. The circuit isn’t my whole life. I’m not here just to—”
I see it in his eyes. He’s arguing with himself as much as with me. I watch him struggle, and it’s like looking in a mirror. Underneath it all, we’re both divided and volatile. At war with ourselves half the time.
“Talk to me,” I beg. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t tell you. And it wouldn’t matter even if I could. You’d still think I’m just off to gamble and waste your time. But I’m not. I’m not how the feeds make me out, Phee. You don’t understand what it’s like for me to live here.” His voice wavers, and I know he’s about to lose control.
Cash tak
es me by the arms. The move is rough and desperate, but if I shake him off, he’ll be the one to break. “Every day, I wake up knowing that my own brother helped Benroyal murder my father. He was a good king, Phee. My father never stopped trying to protect my people, and he died for it. Knifed in the back for control of the Gap. A million more barrels of sap. That’s all his life was worth. I won’t ever let that go. I can’t. I just want . . .”
“Tell me,” I whisper.
“I want you and me . . . everyone to stop living off scraps. To stop accepting the only choices given. I’m tired of living in fear. It’s exhausting, and I don’t want to do it anymore. I just want—”
I finish for him. “A real life.”
He nods. “A new world.”
The words finally sink in, tasting black and hopeless. Now I’m the one who’s shaking. Pulling away, I retreat—an inch, a mile. “Impossible. We can never have that, Cash. Never. Not as long as we live in the Spire. It hurts too much to dream.”
He lets go. “I guess that’s the difference between you and me. I don’t want to live without that ache. I have to believe in impossible things.”
Before I can reply, I hear the hum of an engine. An Onyx pulls into the lot and heads straight for us. Cash waves it over. Through the windshield, I spy Hank driving, with three other guards riding inside. Their caps are pulled low enough to shadow their faces, but I’m pretty sure two of them are Biseran, and the guy in the back looks . . . Cyanese? Which makes no sense. I can’t imagine Benroyal would hire these guys as security.
“I have to go,” Cash says, stalking toward the rig. “I’m sorry.”
“Where are you going? Who are they?”
“I told you. I can’t talk about this right now.”
When he reaches for the passenger-side door, I slide between him and the rig. “Don’t do this, Cash. You can’t just run off and leave me hanging.”
