Page 7 of Luka

Brake lights flash several times like Arseni wants the car to laugh along with him, and although I’m annoyed, I find my grip loosening when he waves his middle finger out the window at me. I chuckle, my head shaking as I shift in the seat and slap the sun visor up.

“All right, fucker, let’s play.”

I jerk the wheel as my foot presses the accelerator to the floor, the car’s engine growling like a cub who hasn’t quite found its roar. We’re on a two-lane road, headed to the lake, in the middle of summer, so speeding in the passing lane with a dead body in the trunk of this piece of shit is needless to say, reckless. But as soon as I see Arseni’s shit-eating grin, his hand draped lazily over my wheel, it feels like I have something to prove.

I stab the button to roll down the passenger window.

“Think you could beat me in that?” he yells in Russian, nodding to the silver Chevy Sonic.

He’s in a 370z. There isn’t a chance in hell that I’m going to beat him. He knows it. I know it. But it won’t stop us from having some fun.

“You couldn’t beat me if I walked,” I yell back.

He shows me his teeth before rolling up his window. I leave mine down, not wasting any time before I gun it to get around him. He could easily stop me, but to make things interesting, he lets me take the lead. We both ease off the gas when a minivan passes, but as soon as we skid onto the more secluded road, my foot doesn’t let up off the accelerator.

Arseni—like an asshole—toys with me, pulling just ahead before easing off again and again. I look over to see him pretending to be asleep at the wheel before belting out a laugh. This car really is pathetic.

It whines as we pull up the hill to the cliff, Arseni pulling ahead of me to take the narrow trail. The car bounces over rocks, and when the first glimpse of water finally breaks past the hill, Arseni gives one last shove on the gas before drifting the car around to stop just before the cliff, sending dust flying.

Fucking show-off.

I slow the car to a stop and put it in park, shaking my head at my best friend as he steps out of the car and takes a bow. After turning off the car and popping the trunk, I throw open the door and climb out to meet him.

“What are you gonna do when you drive right off the cliff one of these days?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “Die, I suppose.”

“Do it in your own car.”

“Mmm, but yours is much morestylish,” he says as he struts to the trunk dramatically. I follow.

Arseni frowns, his head tilted as he studies the whore. “Her arm looks funny.” Stepping next to him, I peer in to see what he’s talking about. The rough car ride has her hair a mess and her body folded in half, her arm twisted awkwardly behind her.

I take it and straighten it out, lying her body down flat in the process so her dead eyes can look at us. She always wore these bright green contacts that looked striking but unnatural, and now one is missing, so one of her eyes is green while the other is a bland brown. Died hair, fake tits, fake eye-color. The illusions never stopped with this one.

“All better,” I say.

Arseni purses his lips and gives a single nod of approval before taking her legs while I take her arms. Together, we hoist her out of the car and carry her to the cliff, dropping her on the hard ground. The taste of dirt collects on my tongue as her body kicks up dust, and I wipe my mouth on my shoulder.

“I’ll get started on her,” I say, gesturing to the body. “You do the car.”

“Yup.”

Arseni grabs the crowbar from my trunk while I lug the black bag of tools to the corpse. I hear the dinging sound from the key being in the Sonic’s ignition when he opens the door to start going through her glovebox, getting rid of any identification she may have first. Her registration, her license, her purse, etc.

I start rifling through the bag, but when the dinging doesn’t stop, I look up to tell him to take the keys out of the ignition but lose my words when I see his face.

He’s staring at me with his wide eyes, a giddy smile on his face as he stands by the car’s rear window. He crooks his finger at me to beckon me that way.

My eyes narrowing, I abandon my tools and walk to the car. He presses a finger to his lips when I reach him then points inside the back seat.

“We don’t want to scare it,” he whispers like he’s talking about the rare squirrel who’s allowed us to get close.

I peek inside, at first not seeing anything, but as I get closer to the window, yellow dotted white catches my attention. Then black hair fanned over the shoulders of a girl curled into a ball on the floorboard. It takes only a moment to notice her shaking.

My brows raise as I turn to Arseni, matching his grin. “I didn’t think the whore had friends,” I whisper, although it’s only a tease. We both know she can hear us.

I switch to English so the girl can understand. “Do you think it’s alive?”

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