Chapter Fourteen
They retired the Mercedes before Cricket’s baby could be smashed beyond repair. The dents were already adding up the more they used it, so Cricket had ordered a few plain cars to practice in. They didn’t have the speed they would have in the Ferrari, but if they could get through the practice track at least once in the slower cars, it would help once the Ferrari came in. It would be there in the next couple of days, and still, despite that, they had yet to finish the practice course with traps that were hardly as dangerous as the ones that would be in the real races. Car after car was wrecked, tossed to the side to be taken care of later. If they continued as they were, they’d soon run out of cars to practice in.
They were trying Radley driving again, just in case the first time had been a fluke. Danny had changed up the course, had moved the traps around, because in the Games, nothing would be predictable. She wasn’t sure how her friend had pulled it off, but her tablet was synced to show some of the traps so she could navigate.
“Trap coming up. Swing to the right in case it’s the wall,” Cricket commanded, her eyes dancing between the tablet and the road in front of them. They’d just started. Radley’s style of driving was far different than her own, more reckless. Where Cricket preferred smoothness, Radley seemed to drive every car like he stole it. “Swing to the right,” she ordered again when Radley aimed for the left.
“It’s better to go left if it’s the wall,” he grunted, just narrowly avoiding the sinkhole that opened on in the center of the road.
“And if it’s the log then going left will put us in its range,” Cricket argued. “Go right, wolf!”
But Radley didn’t listen. Instead, he went left just as he said he was going to, ignoring his navigator. The wall was triggered as he passed over the glowing sigil on the road. But Danny had accurately foreseen the difficulty of the Games and had combined traps. Not only was the wall triggered, but the log came from the left just as she’d worried for. Radley gunned the engine to try and beat it, but the log slammed in the driver side rear fender, spinning them. Gritting her teeth as the car spun, her hand on the handle to keep from flying around, another wall appeared right in front of them, a triple trap.
“Radley!” But there was no way to avoid it, not when the car was already out of control. The Camaro slammed into the wall violently, throwing them both forward. The seatbelt cut into her chest and her ribcage creaked with the hit. If she’d been human, likely she would be injured. As it was, the bruises and redness that bled beneath her skin started to immediately fade.
The car smoked and hissed, the entire front end crushed. They were lucky the engine hadn’t come through the dash. While they would both survive, they didn’t have time to rest and heal.
Both Cricket and Radley sat silently in the totaled car, their eyes looking through the windshield at the metal wall before them. Cricket wasn’t sure what she would say, what she could say. “I told you so,” didn’t seem proper in this moment and would only start an argument.
She took her helmet off and held it in her lap. “This isn’t going to work if we can’t move as a team, Radley,” Cricket said softly, her eyes still on the wall. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, not right then, not without getting angry.
“You think I don’t know that?” he replied, taking off his own helmet and curling his lip.
“You didn’t respect my directions. I’m the navigator—”
“And you don’t respect mine when I’m sitting in that seat,” he argued, defensive as always.
Cricket blew out a puff of air and looked down at the helmet in her lap. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
She heard Radley shift in his seat rather than saw him. She still couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see whatever he was thinking about her, couldn’t stand to see the hate or listen to him being a jerk yet again. Not right now. Everything was squeezing in, getting worse, and everything suddenly felt like it wasn’t going to work. She’d been wrong. This couldn’t be the way to fix everything. She was gambling her freedom and she was betting on a game she wasn’t sure she could win. The stakes were against her. Why was she still fighting it?
“It’s not a mistake,” Radley grunted, and for once, his own voice was as soft as hers.
“We can’t even make it through the practice course without wrecking.” She finally glanced at Radley, just a quick look of exasperation, before looking away again. “What do you think is going to happen in the Games if we can’t even do this?” Anger hit her, anger at her father for forcing her to do something so drastic, anger at the way the world worked, anger that Radley wouldn’t listen. Without realizing what she was doing, she picked up the helmet and slammed it into the dash hard enough to crack it. It didn’t matter. The car was useless now anyways. “We can’t even finish the half-assed practice course!”
Radley took a few seconds before he responded. He didn’t flinch away from her anger, didn’t try to stop her. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant. “We just need to practice—”
“Practice won’t make you hate me any less,” she interrupted. “You think I wanted to force you into this? I had no choice!”
“Cricket—”
“No one else will dare race with me! They’re too afraid, too much a coward.” Her eyes watered at the emotion running through her, but it only made her angrier that they did. Now wasn’t the time. “I have no one else to ask, Radley. I have no true friends, none who would risk their lives in a race or going against my father, none who even care for anything passed my family name and money. I didn’t want to have to ask you, but I had no choice.” She risked a glance at the silent wolf, but he was only staring at her as if she’d grown a second head. “Practice won’t change your hate.”
Cricket sniffed and angrily wiped her face, an attempt to hide the tears, before she kicked the jammed passenger door open with her strength alone. “This was foolish.” Glass shards rained down as she violently slammed it back closed despite the metal being bent in a way that should have made it impossible.
“Cricket, wait.” Radley went to open his own door, but just like hers, it was jammed. She heard him rip it open, the entire door tearing from its hinges and sliding along the concrete.
Desperate to get away from the wolf, she put distance between herself and the wreckage and flared her wings, prepared to fly away from it all.
“Cricket, stop!” But she was moving fast and had her wings open for flight, her feet just barely lifting from the ground. “I said wait a minute!”
Strong fingers wrapped around her forearm and tugged her back down to the earth before she could take off. Radley jerked her back as gently as he was probably able to, forcing her to look at him. When she turned, there were real tears trailing down her cheeks and Radley seemed surprised by that, his eyes tracing the trails they left behind. His eyes met hers again, focused there.
“I don’t hate you,” he said softly.
“You do,” she nodded. “I see it.”