Page 83 of Her Sloth

Cass is directly behind me.

We’re immediately followed by two police cars, and three more join us, two of them black sedans that are way too fast for normal cars.

Cass passes me, shooting in front, and I let her.

I know what she is doing. She is taking the lead because she knows these roads like no one else.

There is one moment when we are at the same height⁠—

It is one look.

One pull in my chest.

One smirk.

Goosebumps on my arms.

Things are as they should be.

This is who I am.

21

CASS

PLAYLIST: IN THE END – LINKIN PARK

Irace past her with full power. It will be a tight game we play, because right now, we have every single cop hunting us once more. We are many; we can divide, but the call is as close as it can be.

But, we don’t leave family on their own, even if they massively fuck up.

Like her.

Like me.

I take over, because this is my hood, and she lets me, against all I prepared for. Even she must realize how close this is. I know how to disappear here. She is an excellent driver; I knew it from the moment she beat me, and learned how good she is after that stunt she pulled leaving earlier. There are only three people who can pull off a move like that, and she is one of them.

She is one of the people who pulled off what she did alone, climbing on that damn building alone and risking everything for it. For helping me find peace. And I will not let her ride it out alone, as much as I want to hate her right now.

We dash up Park Avenue; I’m avoiding any small streets, so we have room to breathe. Four more cops are joining the tail of lights we have behind us, and we have to avoid them with a risky maneuver across the lines as one of the cops shoots out of the side street and nearly bumps into me.

We drift around the corner onto 125th Street leading into Harlem in such a close call that I hold my breath. One crossing car nearly hits Addy’s back.

We are faster than any cop car, drive riskier than anything, and yet, we are at a disadvantage, because the cops coordinate.

Two cars block the 125th, and we are forced to wiggle through a small window, half over the sidewalk into Manhattan Avenue, causing a dangerous thud in my front axle.

Manhattan Avenue is leading us back downtown. My plan was to get lost upstate before they can close it, but it’s not working. Not like this.

I grab my phone and dial her number.

“We’re going ninety degrees right and ninety left on the third,” I tell her quickly. “Don’t go straight or you won’t make that corner. Do the thing you’re best at.”

I know she grins right now without seeing her.

“I’m proud of what you did,” I add, and then I need to focus on driving for a second, so I throw the phone in my lap. We drift around the first corner; she is pulling off the move she perfected, and I simply admire the skill. The way she lands it is a perfect line—pulls it into the left drift so effortlessly, and then we’re on Columbus Avenue.

We wiggle through the three lanes of the one-way Avenue.