Page 6 of Vile Bastards
Ash doesn’t wait around, retreating back to the Cobra.
“I have to go,” he tells me, climbing in without a second’s hesitation. “I’m already fucking late.” He pauses before closing the door to glare at me with dark eyes. “Kiero,” he hisses, gesturing at me. “Piss off. Get out of here.”
I bare my teeth at him, but it’s not like I have the luxury to kick some stupid rich boy’s ass just now. No, only Scarlett is important at this point. Look at you, Widow, thoroughly pussy-whipped. And I am. And I know it. And the only thing I give a crap about is ensuring that Scarlett lives—at the expense of anything and everyone else, myself included.
We both pause at the sound of sirens, and our eyes meet.
“Leave now—unless you want to play games with armed goons.” Ash slams the car door shut on our conversation and takes off, nearly running over my toes. Piece of shit.
But … the Pantera. I can’t leave it here.
I jump into the Stingray, moving it up and onto a nearby driveway and into the bushes. Not perfect, and I’m sure I’m scuffing the hell out of my paint, but what else can I do? I sure as fuck can’t leave Scarlett’s car here.
It’d be sacrilegious.
What sort of man would I be if I disrespected my woman like that?
I’ve barely got time to slide into the Pantera before I see several blacked-out cars coming around the corner. Thankfully, my girl is smart. She left her keys under the visor. I start that sweet baby up with a purr, and I ease out of the gravel before hitting the throttle and blasting in the direction of the oncoming cars—rather than away from them.
Scarlett already took off in the opposite direction, and if I’m quick, I can catch the quarry road rather than Coburg Road itself.
It’s a risk, but it’s the only chance I have of getting both myself and the Pantera out of there without meeting the grim motherfucking reaper. Because I just drive better with music, I hit the radio and start up KMZI 66.6, the simmering rage of Our Last Night’s ‘NO HELP’ egging me on. The cars screech to a stop as I fly past them, jerking the wheel to the right and letting the Pantera spin so that I’m facing the quarry road. Up I go, catching air on the bumps, eating the potholes in my goddamn teeth.
It hurts, but I ignore the rattling, tearing down the dirt road and past the sleeping giants of bulldozers and dump trucks, knocking over Danger: Falling Rocks signs and wondering if there isn’t something to that …
I’m sorry, Scar, I think, just before I clip the edge of the mountain with the front left of the Pantera. The impact causes us—me and the Devil, that is—to waver dangerously, two wheels down, two up, back and forth until we finally slam back down to the ground.
I silently apologize to the Pantera for jacking off and tainting her faithful sweetness with my cum. After this, we’ll be bonded, won’t we? Anyway, if this is my girl’s car, this is my car, too. There’s a give-and-take there. It’s the very reason I didn’t kill Scarlett for stealing the Stingray when I rightfully and righteously would’ve killed anyone else.
That was my sign right there.
We were made for each other.
Skidding to a stop, I use a controlled drift to turn like I’m on ice, spinning to face the oncoming cars just in time to see the boulders loosed from the side of the hill. By clipping and thereby opening the chain-link gate, I’ve welcomed a rockslide.
They tumble down the hill in a sea of gray dust, causing the three black sedans that are on my ass to slam on their brakes. The frontmost one is crushed beneath a massive boulder, the shriek of metal caving in breaks through the sound of the radio as I pant and quiver, the stolen gun on the seat beside me, my hands shaking as they clutch the wheel.
I can’t see beyond the dust to see what happens to the other two cars, but at the very least, the stunt gives me time to turn around and take off down the road that Scarlett used to get up here in the first place. If you didn’t know where it was, you wouldn’t even think to look for it.
Catapulting out onto the main road, I head back in the direction of Prescott, snatching up my phone with my right hand and using my left to steer.
“Pick up, pick up …” I murmur, and even though I know I should trust Scarlett, that I shouldn’t go back, I do. Rather than return the way I came, I head through the heart of the city and around to a neighborhood known as the Mohawk Valley. Same ‘hood where Alexei’s safe house is located.
