climb into the truck bed.
Aubrey and Emory sit on the top of the cab, his arms wrapped around her shoulders from behind. Along the sides of the bed, a few other kids from school are hanging out. I give them a small nod, watching Carlton sneak a sip from a longneck.
“Where have you been?” Georgia asks.
“Talking to Sebastian,” I explain, looking toward his car. I brought Mr. Lee’s zoom lens, and it’s not great for such low light, but I can just get Sebastian in frame, close enough to see the way he’s looking out the windshield, intense and eerily still. I press the shutter without thinking.
“Holy shit.” I can hear Emory shifting behind me, a slow inhale sucked through his teeth. “Is that Jasmine? What the fuck happened to his car?”
Carlton adds, “Oh, shit! She’s all busted up.”
Lowering the camera, I mutter, “He’s racing and isn’t very happy about it.”
“He is?” Emory says, glancing back at Ben. “Did you bet on him?”
Ben grins back, patting his front pocket. “Got it in at the last second. Sounds like he was a late addition.”
I slide him a cutting look. “He said his brother is making him race.”
They all look at me and Emory frowns. “Wait, you’re saying Heston is here?”
“I guess.”
“Where?” Georgia asks, looking around. I’m not imagining the way her expression shifts to something tight, hunted.
“I saw him a few minutes ago,” Aubrey says. “With Sydney Rakestraw.”
Emory’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Jesus, not that I’d put anything past Heston, but since when does he sniff around high school girls anymore?”
I look to Georgia to get her reaction to all of this, but she’s uncharacteristically quiet. I ask, “This Heston guy… is he really all that bad?”
She ducks her head, hiding her face. “You know I love Bass. I mean, I’ve told you repeatedly to give him a chance, so obviously I’d vouch for him. But Heston?” She shakes her head. “That guy is a fucking psychopath.”
Carlton overhears and pipes in, “Hey, go easy on the psychopath community. Pretty sure even they don’t want to claim him.”
All of this is putting some of Bass’s meltdown into perspective.
“It’s about to start,” Ben says, nodding toward the parking lot.
“Do you mind if I stand up so I can get some pictures?” I ask, looking at Emory.
He looks surprised I’d bother asking. “Go for it.”
The set up tonight, while still make-shift and temporary, is less primitive than a straight drag race down the street like the first time I came. There’s an elaborate course, set up with cones and a few metal barricades. It’s hard to tell where the lines are, but it seems to arc all the way across the big parking lot, and loop back around.
“It’s one lap,” Ben says, noticing me surveying the course. “Whoever finishes first or without crashing, wins.”
I spot the Shelby—Jasmine—nose up to the line. Nerves spin in my stomach and I focus on my camera, the crowd, anything to keep my mind off what’s about to happen. I’ve seen Bass drive. I’ve seen him fight. I’ve seen him handle himself. I know his reflexes are good, but he didn’t exactly seem at his most level-headed. All that pent-up anger behind the wheel of a two-ton moving ball of steel doesn’t feel safe.
The flicker and glint of sparkles catches my attention and I press my eye to the viewfinder, watching through my camera. Someone is walking out in front of the two cars, but the most prominent thing I can make out about them is the fact they’re dressed in sequins.
And then, they turn.
I don’t bother trying to hide my smile. “Fuck me, is that…?”
“That is Micha Adams,” Aubrey says, her tone tinged with a similar awe. “He’d posted on his ChattySnap account that he was going to be here tonight and had a surprise for everyone.”
The kid saunters up to the beam of headlights, a red cloth hanging from his hand. His outfit is a sparkly red and gold, and his eye makeup matches flawlessly. The headlights hit him like the catch of sparks, practically making him glow. He looks like a smirking phoenix.
“He’s the flag girl—er, boy?” Emory declares or asks. I’m not sure he knows. But this kid, Micha? He knows. Goddamn, he’s glorious out there. My lens zooms in on him like a magnet, and through it, I can even see Sebastian grinning at the sight.
Micha raises the flag in the air, and everything goes suddenly still and silent. The two engines