Page 61 of Soulless Saint

He paused.

“Who’s racing with you?”

He jabbed a thumb at Rook.

“Could you maybe take one of my friends?”

The pair of them screeched noisily behind me.

Grey snorted a laugh. “Sure.”

Rook threw up a hand like I’d ruined all his fun, and I gave him an apologetic, pained smile.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Toby said behind me as an announcer came on over the speakers and they repeated the words in unison.

Toby slammed his hand down, his fingers spread wide, indicating paper, while Kate’s hand remained in a balled fist. Paper beats rock.

“Yes!” Toby fist bumped the air and Kate really only seemed upset for half a second before she gave Toby a high five and told him she wanted to hear about every fucking minute or she would disown his ass.

“Next race is yours,” I promised her, knowing somehow that I would be able to make good on that promise before pushing Toby toward Grey and mouthing thank you to my friend from Thorn Valley.

“All right, all right!” The announcer was saying, his voice loud enough to deafen, echoing around the canyon. “Racers to your vehicles! Looks like we’re starting the party early tonight, folks!”

“Go!” Kate urged, pushing me through the crowd toward the road, where the angry growl of a second engine rose to meet the first, getting closer as they crept toward the starting line. Kate shoved me through the line of cheering race babes, out onto the road. “Just don’t die, ’kay?”

Yeah. I would fucking try not to.

Grey stepped out of his sleek lime green car to open the door for Toby, but I got no such welcome. Kaleb sat behind the wheel of his white race car, revving the engine lightly, his hard stare fixed on the road ahead as I walked around to the passenger side.

It appeared I’d struck a nerve. Good.

I slipped open the door, a hiccup in my throat as I folded myself into the low riding seat, my eyes catching on the series of simplistic—almost dated looking—gas gauges and speed dials. Between us, in the space where an armrest should have been, a large scratched up silver bullet rested in a red cage, a tube protruding out the front to disappear into the dark beneath the dashboard. A little metal flipswitch glinted in the lights outside. NOS.

They were using fucking NOS. What was this, Fast and the Furious?

“Buckle up,” Kaleb ordered in an even tone, his chin lifted as he adjusted his position in his seat, eyes fixed on the road ahead of us.

I fumbled with the seat belt as a girl in a sheer dress with literally nothing on underneath stepped out onto the road and Toby and Grey in the car beside us slowly crept right up to the starting line.

The girl put herself in front of the cars, just between them, and I cursed, the seatbelt sticking in its holster, unable to be pulled any further.

“Shit. Shit Shit.”

Fuck. Shouldn’t there be like a fucking harness or something? I looked at the flimsy strip of woven nylon and shuddered as the girl lifted her arms in the air to cheers from the crowd.

My heart lurched in my throat, pulling uselessly on the seatbelt.

“Fuck,” Kaleb muttered, releasing the wheel to lean over me. My pulse jumped. He knocked my hands away and easily drew the belt across my lap, latching it before pulling roughly on the top strap, making sure it was good and secure. His gunmetal eyes flicked up to mine, his face barely an inch away.

“Thanks,” I muttered, my hands curling on the underside of the seat. His lips pulled to one side in a smirk, and I got the sense he was getting off on the fear evident in my eyes. Like he could smell it beneath my designer perfume.

He reached up to draw the pad of his index finger down the line of my jaw, his teeth skimming over his lower lip. “Hold on tight.”

A horn blared, and I let out a little yelp, squeezing my eyes shut, but the car didn’t jolt forward like I thought it would.

Kaleb settled in his seat, throwing his head back in a rumbling belly laugh as the horn blared a second time and everyone outside shouted TWO.

The girl standing between the cars went up onto the balls of her bare feet, her eyes alight with excitement that bordered on hysteria.

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