Page 109 of Vile Bastards
“Deal.”
I’m not worried about whoopin’ Cody’s ass. Nah, not at all. I slip into the Devil’s familiar interior, pausing to tap the metal ring that Widow gave me against the steering wheel. This prick, I think, but if I’m honest with myself—something that hasn’t been happening near enough lately—I’m pleased.
I’m pleased because I’m crazy, because I collected a bunch of fuckboys the way a bee collects pollen, and now I’m rolling in honey, on a sugar-rush, and disturbingly satisfied with myself. They’re mine, whether they like it or not.
The possessive urge sweeps over me, even as my gaze shifts to where Ash-pen is sitting, flirting and laughing with pretty girls of all socioeconomic statuses, as if his half-a-mil plus car didn’t just end up trashed, as if he doesn’t care.
He does. But not because of the car or how much money it’s worth. Because Widow didn’t just piss on Ash’s seat, he pissed in his face (metaphorically, duh), and Ash Kelly has little recourse but to smile through it. Prescott girls avoid him—they don’t like boys who flout track rules which, apparently, I do—but the Fuller Girls? The Oak Valley girls? Mm, they are smitten.
I slam the car door shut, switching on the radio to find the young and vibrant Nessie sounding grainy and far away.
“Live from the comfort of my own home today, Prescott. I’ve got a cold that I can’t seem to shake.” She sniffles, as if to lend credence to her words, and I ease my ass down the hill, passing a once-again victorious Shirley as she leads the losers of her race back to the parking lot with agonizing slowness, laughing all the while. “I know you’re always ready for hot goss, and I don’t dare disappoint. I’ve been digging—it’s what I do—and I’ve discovered something terribly interesting but not at all surprising.”
I park my ass at the starting line while Chet guides the Trans Am into place.
My eyes find the metal ring on my finger again, and I lick my lips, tapping it against the wheel in tune to a rhythm only I can hear.
“KMZI 66.6 is on the chopping block. Community radio and a brick-and-mortar station on public property. We’re being sold to Archer Realty so that they—with their newfound status as a subsidiary of the Borisov Group—can build a skyrise where we sling tunes, share rumors, spread news. Real news. Not politically motivated, not funded by this wealthy aristocrat or that one, not funded by overseas governments with enough greed to choke an elephant. We tell it like it is here, and this is what I’m telling you: if we don’t fight back as a community, we lose the station.”
I’m so gobsmacked by what I’m hearing that I can barely breathe.
Lose KMZI 66.6? I imagine future generations of Prescott kids, like Stacey Langford with the curly hair and the snapping bubblegum, and I think about her growing up in this nightmare without access to the hand of an angel, a single saving grace, a community message board delivered with old monster movie nicknames, heavy snark, and a salting of hopeful but blatant reality.
How? Why? No. I don’t accept it.
My hands tighten on the wheel, and I pause to reach over and grab my racing gloves. We’ve got two minutes till we start, keeping to that strict Prescott schedule. Because, while most things around here are pure and utter anarchy, something has to be rigid. At the track, it’s time.
Tick, tick, tick.
Seconds filter by, and I can hear a collective roar from the parking lot. I’m not the only person to have heard this news, to be shocked by it, enraged by it. Not only that, but … Archer Realty? A subsidiary of the Borisov Group? Since when? How? Before or after Pavel’s death?
“Archer Realty—as it’s currently structured—has only been operating for two years. Yet, they were in charge of finishing construction on the now defunct South Prescott Gardens. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
It did. It doesn’t now. I get it.
As a subsidiary of the Borisov Group, Archer Realty could surpass the legislation that Emma helped Larron Van Gordon introduce. It makes a certain perverse sense. Did Pavel die so that Chet Archer wouldn’t have to serve beneath a man that he so clearly despised? I’ve got a sharp mind (not just a sharp tongue and a wicked pussy, eh?), and I won’t ever forget the way Chet scowled in that Ken doll way of his when Pavel put a hand on his shoulder during Lem’s engagement party.
If that’s the case, who’s in charge of the Borisov Group—and by extension, Chet and Jonas and Ernest—now?
There’s no time for that.
The green flag flashes, and off we go.
Cody drives exactly as I’d expect someone of his persuasion to drive: like he’s got a personal vendetta against the track. I ignore him, allowing him to pick up speed, knowing exactly what’s going to happen to him in this wicked ice-cold weather. When the mud is crunching rather than squishing under your feet, it’s time to drive slow and focus on staying on the track.
