TAMING THE ALPHA STREET RACER

I know I’m screwed the second the voice blasts through the speakers again, even louder than before.

“ZERO! Straight outta Tokyo! Back-to-back wins in Shuto, Fuji, Ibiza!”

The music pounds fucking louder.

Each beat sinks into my chest.

People push in from every direction, shoving toward the front like it’s the second coming. My chest slams into someone’s back and I almost lose my footing.

“Tamara!” I yell, but I can barely hear myself.

I twist, trying to find her, trying to see over heads. “Tam—”

“Move, bitch!” someone snaps, elbowing past me. “Ain’t no one savin’ your spot!”

“Get the hell off me!” another voice shouts.

“Tamara!” I call again, louder, voice breaking.

I hear her. Barely.

“Left! Stay to the left, Riv!”

I spin in that direction, trying to follow it, but people are everywhere. Someone’s shoulder clips my jaw, almost sending my teeth sinking into my tongue. Someone else sloshes a cold drink down my leg.

I fight my way forward, heart pounding, crowd too loud, and I get to the front, somehow, and latch onto the metal barricade. My hands are moist with sweat, and my face feels on fire.

I can’t see her.

I can’t see Tamara.

But I see the car.

Low, black, shining under the lights. The crowd goes absolutely feral. Some dude beside me is straight-up barking. Two girls beside him are on their toes, screaming so loud their voices are cracking. One actually tosses a pink bra onto the asphalt.

Two guys behind me are losing it.

“Zero, baby!”

“Run me the fuck over!”

I’m dripping sweat. Hair sticking to my face. Eyes darting side to side. Still no Tamara. No one’s listening. Everyone’s chanting, screaming, elbows in the air.

The car spins once, slow and cocky, tires whining against the concrete. It’s like a fucking performance. The way he turns the wheel. The way the engine growls. Whoever’s behind the wheel is eating it up.

The engine revs louder.

It’s so; It’s so hard; to get to heaven.

It’s so; It’s so hard; don’t make me bleed.

The lyrics pound against my ribs.

I can barely hear my own thoughts.

And, still, no Tamara. I search the sea of heads behind me, heart racing, still gripping the barricade like it’s the only real thing left.

And then the car slows.

Right in front of me.

It idles. Steam hisses from the vents.

Through the black windshield, I see a helmeted head turn. The car is still. The music warps for a second as my ears ring.

It’s so; It’s so hard.

It’s so; It’s so hard.

The helmet tilts.

Just a little.

And I swear he’s looking at me.

I haven’t thought much of it, when the music shuts off abruptly.

“Riv!”

Tamara’s voice reaches me like it’s fighting through water, she sounds scared. I turn fast, heart in my throat, still holding on to the barricade, still trying to breathe.

Then I hear it.

A siren in the distant. .

Someone in the crowd yells, “Shit! Five-O!”

And then all hell breaks loose.

The crowd reacts immediately. People start pushing forward, and then more join in. Elbows fly. Bodies press. Feet stomp. The entire space is chaos. I see someone trip and disappear amidst the crowd and yet, nobody stops to help.

My eyes lock with the racer again, but he is already taking off before I can even blink, tires squealing across the ground, leaving smoke in the air.

Tamara sounds frustrated now. “Riv! Run! Get to the fucking car!”

Heart in my throat, I pull back from the railing. I think to myself how fucked up this is. How I should have never given in to coming here with Tamara, how my mother would have felt if she found out, two weeks into the new semester resumption, I wasn’t stuffed in my books, working my ass out for my A’s but instead at an illegal street race. My heart is a wreck, pummelting so hard it hurts, and my chest keeps rising and falling as I whip around to find Tamara in the crowd of heads. Blonde, brunettes, redheads, everywhere… everywhere…. Chaos… me with my feet sweaty in my sneakers, the siren sounding closer than they’d been before. Blue-red strobes are alreadystrobes are already hitting the garage as a police car swerves into the corner from my peripheral, by cuttingby cutting a long train of cars making their escape.

I take the first leap into the crowd, trying to move past a group of screaming girls blocking my way. But just as soon as I’m surging forward, an elbow collides with my chest, sending me stumbling backwards.

I didn't even have the chance to scream before my back hit the divider and I'm toppling over it. One second I'm on my feet, the next, I'm crashing facefirst into rough tarmac floor.

My ribs take the blow, grinding against concrete.

My breath snatches from my lungs. My elbow scrapes. The back of my head bounces and everything instantly feels fucked and fussy.

But I hear her.

Tamara screaming my name in the distance, like she’s standing above the shoreline and I’m submerged and drowning. Tears gushed out of my eyes, and my nose burned.

Heaving, breathless, I push up on shaking hands, and take a look around the garage. In the crowd that’s beginning to thin, the familiar bronze skin of my friend is still missing, and right in my line of vision, a lanky boy is being tackled to the ground by a cop easily the size of a bear.

Copper tang hits my tongue. Thick and metallic. I scramble backward, heels scraping the grit, but there’s nowhere to go. The cop is a wall of navy blue and bad intentions. He leaves the lanky boy cuffed and facedown, turning that bear-like bulk toward me. Even from the distance between us, because he’s across the road, I can still catch the strong whiff of sweat with a mix of glazed butter donut that makes my stomach churn.

“Hands!” he barks, voice gruff and vibrating in his chest.

“Let me see your hands!”

I can’t breathe. My lungs are small, shriveled things. I lift my shaking hands, palms open, blood from my nose dripping onto my white tank top.

This is it, I think, a cold numbness spreading through my veins. Expulsion. Jail. Mom is going to kill me. I’m going to die in a cell and—.

Blinding light hits me from down the road.

Tires shriek against the asphalt, a sound that tears right through my eardrums. The air smells like burnt rubber and gasoline, overpowering the donuts. The cop curses, shouting something unintelligible as he throws himself backward to avoid being clipped. He teeters, boots slipping, arms windmilling as a low, sleek shadow swerves between us.

The car halts with a violent shudder.

Everything slows down.

The strobe lights bleed into long, red-and-blue ribbons. The noise of the scattering crowd fades into a dull roar. It’s just me, the asphalt, and the machine that just cut me off from the law.

Click.

The passenger door swings wide open.

I stand there, frozen. A deer caught in the headlights. A statue of pure terror. My eyes are wide, burning, locked on the figure slouched in the driver’s seat.

It’s dark inside, illuminated only by the glow of the dashboard gauges. But I see him. Gloved hands gripping the leather wheel. Shoulders tense. And that helmet. That midnight-black, void-of-a-helmet reflecting the chaos outside—the flashing sirens, the smoke, my own blood-smeared, horrified face.

The cop is scrambling to his feet behind the car, reaching for his belt.

The driver turns his head toward me.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t shout. He just tilts his helmet to the side. A sharp, impatient jerk of the chin toward the empty bucket seat.

Get in.

My heart stops. Literally stops.

At me?

I blink, blood dripping off my chin.

He’s looking at me?

“Move!” The voice is muffled by the helmet, deep and distorted, but the command snaps the world back into speed.

At me.

I make a choice.

I jump in.

The door slams shut behind me as blue and red lights break through the haze.

And then we’re running.