Page 32 of Vile Bastards
The girl immediately stiffens up, sitting up suddenly and glancing to the small camera in the corner of the room. She’s worried. I don’t blame her. Knowing Aspen, if he were to take out his wallet like this and offer money up, it’d be for something dark and twisted.
I hand over the cash and then take a seat, putting my elbows on my knees, my fingers steepled together.
“We’re not going to have sex right now,” I say, and the girl relaxes, but only a little. “But you’re going to tell everyone we did.” I smile and then I get out my wallet again, counting out several more hundreds and laying them on the hot pink leather cushion between us. “While we’re in here, why don’t you tell me about some of your clients …”
Scarlett
Dying and coming back to life has only boosted my notoriety at Prescott.
My girls greet me like the second coming of Christ, lavishing me with food and gifts and praise. I hold court on the hood of my Pantera, doing my absolute best to ignore the damage to the front end. I must say, I would’ve liked to see Widow in action, blasting into that quarry, knocking boulders loose … crushing either a mayoral goon or a mobster underneath one.
There’s been nothing on the news about the incident, not about the cop that Ash and Widow dumped in the river, not about the Lamborghini at the bottom of the McKenzie, not about the car that was crushed under the boulder.
Radio silence.
That means we’re not the only players in this game who benefit from society’s ignorance of the situation.
“I’m fucking exhausted,” I murmur, lying back on a picnic table at the track after school and trying to summon the energy to run it, just to make sure my PTSD or panic attacks or whatever they are don’t extend to the one place that I excel.
Getting behind the wheel didn’t trigger me, but when I saw a janitor cleaning out Lemon’s locker the other day, I damn near lost my shit. I actually grabbed the guy and threw him backwards into the wall. Fortunately, my girls took care of things so it wouldn’t become an issue. Meanwhile, there I was, shoveling my dead bestie’s belongings into an oversized designer purse that I won from the track and … I couldn’t breathe.
I ended up in the bathroom, leaning against the wall next to the toilet with my arms wrapped around my legs until Bohnes and Widow found me. There’s not a move I make that they don’t spot, don’t track, don’t follow.
Speaking of, I glance over to where Widow’s lounging on the roof of his Stingray. He’s clearly listening in to our conversation, but he’s at least trying not to monopolize all of my time. He glances over and our eyes meet before he hooks a smirking half-smile and shakes his head as if he can sense what I’m thinking.
In the library today, he ignored me completely when I tried to bend over near him. I can’t decide if he’s playing hard to get or if he’s having issues the way he did in the backyard that day. Regardless, it only makes me want him more.
Basti snaps his fingers in front of my face and sighs heavily.
“You are one thirsty bitch, you know that?” he tells me, and I narrow my eyes his way.
“If you weren’t a virgin, you’d be a thirsty bitch, too. Just watch: you’ll have more fuckboys than I do.” I take another bite of fry and reach up to rub at my forehead. “I need to get my shit together; I’m functioning like a goddamn zombie.”
“Girl, you died,” Bastian argues, sitting on the bench beside me and eating the chili cheese fries that we picked up from Wesley’s. “Go easy on yourself. Nobody said you had to hop right back into the thick of things.”
I sit up suddenly, crossing my legs and staring out at the dirt loop that’s consumed so much of my time and heart over the last three plus years. I’ll be simultaneously glad to be rid of it and also miss it terribly after graduation.
“We have less than three weeks before we hit the P-Triple-C track.” I chew on a thumbnail, and then turn fully around so that I can see Nisha and Basti from where I’m sitting. “That’s not a lot of time to prepare.”
Bastian waves a hand at me, dismissing my concerns.
“I’ll work on the car, don’t you worry your pretty head about that. As far as preparation, Scarlett, these are rich boys. You’ll wipe the floor with them. What are you even worrying about?”
Only, I am. I’m worried because I couldn’t bear to go to Portland and lose to a bunch of idiot Chads with ugly chode dicks and chunky trust funds. Not happening. I have too much pride to allow that to happen. Besides, there’s never been a female racer in a P-Triple-C race. Never. The world being the way it is, nothing short of first place is acceptable.
