Your Fault

Chapter 29 Noah

When Jenna told me how the races were going to go, I was scared, and when I saw Nick’s car on the starting line, ready to take off, I ran toward it, forgetting the consequences, and got inside. Nick looked at me, first with surprise, then with fury. Terrified, I looked at his feet and reminded him what we were there to do:
“Step on the gas, Nick!”
With lightning reflexes, he tore off and caught up to the other cars before I even knew it, destroying their initial advantage.
“I’m going to kill you! Do you hear me?” he shouted. We were almost into the city, and I knew I needed to be quiet and let him concentrate.
For a split second, he looked over at me and shouted, “Put on your damn seat belt!”
After flinching, I did as he said.
I was going to pay for this, big-time, I knew, but I needed to be there with him. This race wasn’t like last year’s. It didn’t matter how many times I told him not to do it; Nicholas made his own decisions and sometimes left me out. Well, this was my decision: If he was racing, I would, too. If he put himself in danger, so would I, and I couldn’t care less what he had to say about it. I’d deal with the consequences later.
“I told you to go,” he screamed, punching the steering wheel. He was livid, but I was, too, and I wasn’t about to back down. This wasn’t the way to do things, and I wanted him to know that if he was still in that world, I would be, too, and if me being there helped him leave it behind, then it was worth the risk.
“Yeah, but I chose not to,” I said, staring at the road. His jaw clenched, the veins popped out in his neck, and I was so scared, I shrank back in my seat.
When we reached the first curve, my feet moved as if I were stepping on the pedals. I was enjoying myself so much, my body was pure adrenaline. I wished I were in Nick’s seat, gripping the wheel and showing him how damned good I was. Even if things had gone to hell last time, I had won; there was no denying that.
Nick was good, but at that moment, all I could see was a guy who hadn’t stopped to think about how much what he was doing could hurt us.
No matter what happened, Nick kept turning back to the dark side, and when he did, he dragged me down with him. He had supposedly quit racing and doing all those things that reminded me of my father, but there we were, and I hated myself for doing something that could have destroyed my family—and loving it.
My brain disconnected from those problems and focused solely on the cars in front of us. In front, not behind. We were losing.
“You need to speed up, Nicholas.”
The vein in his neck swelled even more. I bit my lip; I was so nervous.
“I can’t believe I’m going a hundred with you in the car.”
This is a competition, goddammit, not a walk in the park!
“Well, this car can do two hundred, so step on it, or we’re going to lose.”
“Shut up!” he shouted.
I closed my mouth and left him to his own devices. My hands were quivering. By the time he hit 120, he had nearly caught up to the others.
Lion was in the lead, the other two just in front of us. Either we took them on the next curve, or we’d never be in the lead. I prayed for Nicholas to get it right. If we lost, he’d kill me; he’d claim it had all been my fault.
But then things changed suddenly, and I watched with horror as we pulled ahead of one guy only to see other cars on the road. They must not have cut off the traffic in that section, so suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a bunch of regular drivers. I didn’t like this at all; I didn’t want someone getting hurt… This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Shit!” Nick hissed, hitting a curve and trying to dodge two cars that were going forty. With spectacular control, he veered past the car in third place. I couldn’t help but cheer.
Lion was the one person in front of us, and even though second place also got a portion of the purse, the competitive side of me wanted to win.
Nicholas aced the next curve—I had to give him credit—and I had to press my hand into the dashboard to keep from getting jostled. We were hot on Lion’s tail, close but not close enough… I shouted when Nick pulled into oncoming traffic to pass a truck that deafened us with its honking. Not even I would have risked that, but it did help us get ahead. If we could shoot past him at the next intersection, we’d win.
“Come on, Nick! You’ve got to pass him!” I shouted.
He looked at me, fuming, and just then, with only a few feet to go until we reached Lion and his brother, the needle on the speedometer dropped from 140 to 75.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked, incredulous, turning to him and watching with horror as Lion put distance between us.
“I’m teaching you a lesson,” he responded, gunning it again, but it didn’t matter—Lion had just crossed the finish line.
Indignant, I took a deep breath. “I can’t believe it… We could have won!”
“That money’s for Lion. We just needed to take first and second. The order didn’t matter,” he said as we crossed in turn.
He screeched to a halt, and I prepared myself for whatever he had to say to me, but then flashing lights caught his attention, and he turned to look out the back windshield just as the sirens started echoing. His expression transformed completely.
“No fucking way!” he said, hitting the gas again, speeding up quickly, breaking every traffic law known to man before pulling onto the next exit.
Honking horns and shouting pedestrians made it impossible to hear. Only then did I start to realize what was happening.
Nick’s phone rang.
“Pick it up,” he ordered me, his eyes on the road. “It’s in my left front pocket.”
I bent over and reached inside, pulling it out.
“Put it on hands-free.” He grunted.
I did, and an unknown voice resounded inside the car.
“Dude, the cops are here. They’ve got us. This is bad!”
“What the fuck, Clark? You told me this was all taken care of!”
“I know, I don’t know what happened. Somebody must have snitched!
You need to get off the road ASAP!”
“Where’s my bike?”
There was nothing but racket on the other line. Apparently the cops had shown up at the empty lot where the race started. We were in a better spot than the rest of them, but I was so scared, I couldn’t think straight. All I saw was danger, and I told myself Nicholas was stupid for going there. He should have listened to me; we should have left—both of us.
“Toni took it to the spot. You know what to do. If you hurry, I don’t think they’ll catch you.”
Nicholas grabbed the phone, which was lying on my leg, hung up, and smashed it against the dash.
“Nicholas…” I said, terrified. “They can’t catch us.” If they did, the consequences would be terrible. I might get kicked out of school, and he already had a record—things could be even worse for him. Maybe even his father would struggle to get him out of it if they wound up arresting him this time.
“They’re not going to catch us,” he said softly. He stepped on the gas and pulled onto a road I’d never been down. He seemed to know where he was going, and I just sat there praying for a way out. The patrol cars were onto us, I knew that because I could hear the sirens, but they were too far away to catch the license plate.
We kept going. Then Nick turned down a side street, and soon we reached a long line of warehouses and garages. Then, finally, we found ourselves on a muddy driveway that led to a building with the number 120 on the outside. A rolling door automatically went up, and he pulled inside, next to the motorcycle I’d seen in our garage.
“Get out,” he said, and I was too scared to disobey.
I saw a bunch of crates and old furniture inside. It must have been a storage space of the Leisters’ that Nick used on occasions like this.
He quickly grabbed a canvas sheet off a table and covered the car, lifting a cloud of dust that nearly blinded me and made me cough as I walked away. I felt him behind me. He grabbed my waist, turned me around, and pushed me into the car.
“Now you better do everything I say, Noah. I’m dead serious,” he said, rage oozing from his every pore. “If it weren’t for your bullshit trauma, I’d leave you here so you’d finally learn to keep out of my goddamned business.”
I blinked several times, surprised by his harsh words, wanting to cry.
Even if he was right, he was the one who’d gotten us into this situation. He had been the one who’d decided to go back to that world. I swallowed my pride and nodded because I knew the most important thing just then was that we not get caught.
He pulled me over to his motorcycle. There was only one helmet. He pushed it down onto my head. As I briefly met eyes with him, I had no idea how to interpret what was going on in his mind. He got onto the bike, and I climbed on behind him, bending over and wrapping my arms around him before we took off into the cool night.