The Race

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When you first look at me, you see a girl of eighteen on the taller side, slender but curvy, blond hair, and blue eyes. I come from a pretty well-off family and live in a nice house in the Hamptons. You would think me this sweet innocent girl, but actually I'm far from it.

My name is Lennox Gordon and I am the United States' number one Race contestant and only girl to compete. Ever.

The Race started twenty-five years ago when the people of the country needed some form of entertainment to keep them from realizing just how bad the economy was. And when the Race was introduced, it worked. The first Race was so successful that even after the economy rose back up and even higher than it had been previously, the government continued it because of the profits it brought in.

The Race was held two times a year, lasting on average a month and a half. There is only room for eight contestants for each Race. People aren't chosen for it, but volunteer.

There are four areas that contestants have to cover in the Race: helicopters, cars, motorcycles, and on foot. There are a certain number of miles that you have to go for each of the areas in the Race, which changes along with each. The course changes also, going throughout the entire country.

But it's not just like any other race. To make it more interesting, the organizers for the Race allow weapons that can kill, making it sometimes a race to the death. Killing is even necessary most of the time if you don't want to get killed yourself.

You're allowed four weapons, from guns to bombs, though I don't know why anyone would choose a bomb since you can only use it once. I have two semi-automatic Glock handguns, a machine gun, and a hunting knife. I've trained for years with all of them, plus I've also have martial arts training.

I'd been competing in the Race since I was fifteen, winning the seven that I've participated in. My father, Daxen Gordon, was the reigning champion in the number of wins before I was born, winning the first Race ever held and eight after that. He quit to get married to my mom and he became a trainer for the competitors. So with that, I'd already had some fame from him. Whoever wins automatically becomes a celebrity and gets five hundred million dollars in prize money, which is just a fraction of what the Race makes. Being my best friend and inspiration, he was why I wanted to get into it.

It was just the two of us now. My mom had died when I was five. A family member of one of the men that my father had killed in the Race had tried to shoot him, but instead the bullet hit my mom. She had died instantly with me standing right beside her.

It wasn't really just me and my dad now. We had our housekeeper, Sonora, who, even though I wasn't her child, treated me like I was her own flesh and blood. She was the same age my mother would have been, so that made it even worse. Yeah, I loved having a mother figure around, but she could get pretty annoying sometimes, as any mother probably would.

Like now, as I was lying in my bed with the sheets covering the bottom half of my face, Sonora barged into my room, not even minding to knock or anything.

"Wake up, Lennox. Breakfast time," she said.

I could hear her footsteps going toward the windows looking out over the water. I pulled the covers up over my eyes so that the light wouldn't hurt, but then I heard Sonora coming over to the bed and my covers flew off of me. I was only in a tank top and short, so the cool air shocked me.

"Sonora, don't do that!" I screamed, sitting up to pull my covers back.

She just laughed. "I've been calling you for the last ten minutes. It's time to go downstairs," she said.