The Blood Racer (The Blood Racer Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

              “Who are you?” Darby asked the rude woman, forgoing any attempt at goodwill. I couldn’t blame her. I would have done the same thing.
              The woman scoffed smugly. “I’m going to be the first one at the finish line…waiting for the rest of you lot to cross.” She then paused for a moment, looking me up and down. “If you even make it that far.”
              “You better believe we’ll make it that far,” I snapped. My mouth was forming the words before my brain could catch up. What was I saying? I wasn’t even going to be racing.
              Instantly, her conceited smirk evaporated, leaving behind an expression that I could only describe as icy and hard. “The race is not a game for children,” she spat, sauntering toward me. She stopped just a few inches from me, her eyes burning with cold fire. “Stay home…unless you’re that eager to join mummy and daddy.”
              I knew it.
              She knew who I was, just like I knew her. Maybe it was my familiar face that had drawn her to Darby and me in the first place. Maybe she wanted to gloat to me, to crack open a few well-rehearsed insults. Either way, I wanted to reach up and slap my calloused hand across her smooth, perfect face. Sadly, I didn’t. I couldn’t even think of anything to say to her. All I could do was stare up at her with my eyebrows set, trying not to blink first.
              “You shouldn’t underestimate us,” Darby said matter-of-factly. “We might be the best pilots you’ve ever met.”
              The woman let out a loud cackle. “Doubtful, gypsy.”
              Being called a gypsy was clearly not Darby’s favorite thing in the world. A flash of anger flitted across her face before her normal softness returned. “What makes you so sure you can win?” she asked.
             
Nice tactic,
I thought. I could see what she was doing, trying to play on this woman’s boastfulness, to get her to reveal something about her strategy in the race. Unfortunately, the woman seemed to pick up on the hidden message just as easily as I did.
              She made a show of pulling a large, sparkling gold pocket watch from her leather holster. “A better question would be ‘why did I bother talking to worms like you when I could be doing something much more fascinating, like rearranging the socks I packed?’”
              With her scathing sarcasm still hanging in the air, she whirled around on her heel - flinging her red cape at us - and strode off into the crowd, effortlessly making a path between the bustling citizens.
              At that moment, Killian found his way back to us, a half-eaten sweet roll in one hand and a thick stack of jam tarts in the other. He handed the cookies to Darby, but his eyes were on the slender, retreating figure of the woman that had just been with us. I also glared after her, suddenly curious as to what was written on her stupid cape.
              “I say,” Killian muttered. “Who was
that
?”
              I sighed, watching the woman disappear totally into the crowds. “You should know. That was Audra Carina,” I told them simply, not even bothering to hide the salty disdain in my voice. “She won the last race.”
              I wish I had known then. I wish I had known that I’d just met the woman who would haunt me for years to come.
              I would have killed her right then and there.

              After saying goodbye to Darby and Killian, I made my way back to Nichols’ shop, still stewing about my encounter with Audra. That, the abundance of people stumbling around in my way, and the ceaseless conversation about the stupid race, and I was in a downright foul mood by the time I arrived. I barged through the door with my teeth gritted and slammed it closed with an angry grunt. The force was enough to ring through the entire shop and rattle all four of the rickety walls, but Old Man Nichols didn’t even look up from his work. He remained hunched over a small circuit board even as I paced furiously around the floor, my boots leaving scuff marks in the faint layer of metal shavings.
              Finally, after I still hadn’t sat down for several minutes, he arched an eyebrow in my direction and let out a slow breath. “If only getting angry solved problems,” he said calmly. “You’d have conquered the world by now.”
              I sighed and shook my head. I didn’t feel much like chatting at the moment, and I definitely didn’t want to hear some sort of lesson about emotional control. I decided to just keep quiet and continue pacing. I didn’t know why exactly I was so worked up, but I knew it had a lot to do with Audra Carina. Was I really so vain that her barbs and insults got to me that badly? No. No, I didn’t think so. It was the disrespect, the complete and utter contempt she had shown for Darby and me. If she only knew. If she only knew how good I was. I flew a small cargo plane for a living. Not some fancy Shiloh-based jet. But I knew I could beat her in a race. At that moment, I would have gone up against anyone.
              Behind me, I heard Nichols sealing up one of his tin boxes. Without a warning, he was suddenly beside me, handing me a small package. “Delivery. Rainier. She’s expecting it as soon as you can.”
              As soon as the box - which was only about eight inches long - was in my hands, he turned from me and headed back to his workbench where he once again hunched over the circuit board he’d been working on. I closed my eyes and drew in a slow breath through my nose. I knew what he was doing. He was sending me out because he knew it was the surest way to calm me down. It also meant I was doing more harm than good by being around him. That made me feel a little guilty. Nichols went out of his way for me at every opportunity, and I was bringing my uncorked teenage angst into his place of work.
              “Copy,” I said glumly.
              Without another word, I left the shop and slowly made my way toward the docks, fighting the crowd every step of the way. More than once, I was tempted to use the metal box in my hand as a blunt weapon. Maybe then people would clear a path. It took me nearly ten minutes to make the two-minute walk, but I eventually came upon the familiar cradle number eleven. My ship was sitting serenely amidst the chaos, beckoning me to hop inside and get both of us into the free air. I was all too happy to oblige.
              As I approached, I checked the area for Rigel, hoping he would somehow find his way back here from the crowd. I spotted Toby, looking slightly ragged and flustered, and made my way over to him.
              “Hey,” I said.
              He looked down at me and smiled, probably just to see a familiar face, but then his frazzled expression returned. “I saw him earlier,” he said. “He was going to get someone to cover him for a bit.”
              “Cover him? For what?”
              Toby folded his arms and shrugged. “He wanted to find you for something. That’s all I know.”
              His eyes blinked rapidly as he spoke. Either he was suddenly averse to the air on the docks, or he knew more than he was letting on. I had no idea what he would be keeping from me, though.
              “Hey, Ellie,” I heard from behind me.
              Spinning around, I looked up into Rigel’s hazel eyes. “There you are. I need to head out,” I told him, staring around at the undulating horde of visitors around me. “As soon as possible.”
              “Stellar!” he said enthusiastically, his face lighting up with a grin. “I’ll help get you untethered. Do you, uh…Do you think I can come with?”
              I raised an eyebrow. “To Rainier?”
              “Yeah,” he said, still smiling excitedly. “I wanna go. Toby said he’d try and cover my area, and I was hoping I could ride with you.”
              I nervously scratched the back of my elbow. After the morning I’d had, I was sort of looking forward to some alone time. Also, it wasn’t very often that Rigel asked for a ride anywhere. Any business he ever needed to attend to could be done here in Adams, and just about every time I was going somewhere, it was during his work hours. This time, though, he had actually gone out of his way to get out of work just to come on my delivery run.
              “Why?” I asked him. “What do you want to do in Rainier?”
              He shrugged. “I just want to go. If you don’t want me to ride with you, that’s okay. I can find someone else.”
              “No, no,” I said quickly, hoping I hadn’t hurt his feelings. Despite my wish to be alone, I was going to have to bite the bullet. “Yes, you can come with me. But I’m not going to be there for very long. I only have one delivery.”
              Rigel smiled with relief. “Then I’ll be quick.”
              He grabbed Toby and the two of them made for the cradle, getting the hooks and cables off of my landing gear as I climbed into the hatch and tucked the package into one of the cargo straps on the wall of the hold. I continued to the cockpit and quickly ran through my preflight checklist, making sure my gauges were all working and that all my instruments weren’t making any odd noises. After ensuring my flaps were in good order, I started up my turbines and waited for Rigel to climb inside. When he finally did, he pulled the hatch door shut and gave me a thumbs-up in my mirror.
              The traffic around the docks was much heavier than usual. I never, ever had to wait to leave or to land, but today I was delayed several minutes because the control tower didn’t want to have a collision in the air.
              “I don’t remember it ever being this bad,” I said to Rigel as we finally got underway.
              He had come to sit on the steps behind me and lean into the cockpit to talk. “I don’t either. Maybe that’s because we didn’t have to deal with it on the last race. You weren’t flying yet. I was still hosing down the docks and carrying luggage like a cabin boy, but I do remember it was pretty busy.”
              “Hm,” I responded. He was right, I suppose. I hadn’t taken up flying until after my mother had passed. It wasn’t until then that I had finished what my father had started when he began building the
Cloud Kicker
. Luckily, there wasn’t much that had to be done. Some wiring, some riveting, a little bit of welding, and it had been pretty well completed. I had made my own mods over time, like the hydro thrusters and the solar cells, and now it was the best ship in the Dominion. In my eyes, of course. I would always be indebted to Old Man Nichols, though. He had paid money, every month for those three years, to make sure the
Kicker
was allowed to rest on cradle eleven.
              “Don’t worry,” Rigel said to me, patting me gently on the forearm. “Few more days, and it’ll be over for another three years.”
              “Not a moment too soon,” I said.
              Behind me, I heard Rigel sigh. “Can I say something without you getting mad?”
              “Doubtful,” I said. This was sure to be an interesting conversation.
              “I honestly don’t think you hate the race as much as you say you do,” Rigel said blankly.
              I turned in my seat so that I could look down at him. “Are you kidding me?” I said, feeling my anger bubbling up under my skin. “How much has that stupid race cost me, Rigel?”
              “That’s not what I mean,” he said, holding up a hand defensively. “You know I know all about that. I didn’t mean that.”
              I scoffed and turned to face the front windscreen. “Then please…clarify.”
              I could hear him fidgeting where he sat. “I just mean that I know you see the other side of it, too. You see the opportunity. You see the…the draw of it. You can see how it’s a window to escape.”
              “If by ‘escape’ you mean ‘death’, then yes. I agree with you,” I said, unable to let go of my aggravation.
              “I know you know what I mean,” he said, sounding a little annoyed himself. “That’s why so many people enter. They know it’s dangerous, but there’s something else. There’s the prize money, which would mean freedom for anybody.”
              Poor Rigel. He had always been a dreamer, an idealist. He only ever saw the sky, and never the clouds. Yes, there was prize money. A ludicrous amount of prize money. But the odds of winning were so slim, and the chances of death were so high, it just wasn’t worth it. Several generations of my bloodline had all lost their lives chasing the same tiny spark of hope that Rigel was talking about. I was suddenly very glad that Rigel didn’t have a ship of his own. The way he was talking, I would have had to knock him out to keep him from entering the race.
              “We should talk about something else,” I said shortly.
              Rigel exhaled. “Sure.”
              But we didn’t talk about anything else. We didn’t talk at all for about ten long minutes. Rigel sat quietly behind me, lost in his mind full of pipe dreams. I focused on flying, and watching the traffic around me. Off my port wing, I noticed a sleek, shining ship glinting in the sun. I watched it apprehensively as it slowly tilted toward me, getting closer and closer until it was only a few yards from me.
              “You’d better check your space, buddy,” I said to myself. I was tempted to get on my radio and give the pilot an earful. As the fancy ship slipped a little bit closer, however, I could see into the perfectly sloped cockpit windscreen, and I felt my jaw clench.
              Audra Carina. She must have been on her way to Rainier for the night. No doubt she would be first to line up for the start of the race in the morning.
              As we flew, she looked over at me, a smug grin plastered on her perfect face. Holding my gaze, she quickly sped up and then slowed down, matching pace with me once more. She did this twice more before I understood what she was doing. She was challenging me to a race. Scowling at her, I reached over for my throttle. She was in desperate need of a lesson, and I would be all too happy to teach it. I was about to punch the accelerator, but another hand atop mine stopped me.
              “Don’t do it,” Rigel said as I looked over at him in confusion. “You don’t have anything to prove to her.”
              “Do you know who that is?” I asked, feeling adrenaline ebbing into my bloodstream.
              Rigel nodded. “I do. And I know you don’t owe her anything.”
              “Let go,” I ordered, looking into his eyes. He looked forlorn, like the last thing he wanted was to see me race against Audra. Why? Did he have that little faith in me? What was he afraid of?
              After a long moment, he slowly released his grip on my hand and sat back. Immediately, I hammered down on the throttle and took off, watching with glee as Audra was suddenly struggling to keep up. After a second, she was with me again, and even beginning to pull ahead. Her ship was very fast. I could see the air rippling with heat coming off her engines. She was at max throttle like I was, but she was quickly pulling away.
              “No, you don’t!” I shouted, stomping on the valve for my thrusters. Instantly, I felt myself pushed back in my seat, and Rigel gave a cry of surprise next to me. I ignored him, though, and gritted my teeth, holding the trembling yoke in my hands as I started gaining on her. I was making some progress, but it wouldn’t be enough. If we had miles and miles of open air, I could probably overtake her with my thrusters, but I just didn’t have that much hydro. I did, however, have one more trick up my sleeve, one that would shoot me past her.
              If it worked.
              “All right, Rigel,” I said. “Let’s kick the tires!”
              Bracing myself for the next acceleration, I slapped the button for the Leap engine and held on…but nothing happened.
              “No, no, no!” I cried, hammering the button with my fist. I tried priming the fuel line, but it was working fine. The Leap just didn’t want to function. I growled in anger and punched an empty spot on the console.
              “Ellie,” Rigel said, his voice soft and sympathetic. “It’s okay. We’re almost there, anyway.”
              I huffed an enormous sigh and kicked off my thrusters, watching up ahead as Audra pulled away, doing a celebratory barrel roll just to taunt me. Both Rigel and I were silent for the rest of the ride. Even when we had landed and were strolling up the Rainier docks, we only exchanged muted parting words before I took off towards the center of town. I didn’t know where Rigel was off to, and I wasn’t really in the mood to ask.
              It wasn’t until that moment that I realized I didn’t know exactly where I was going. I hadn’t bothered to check the address. Lifting up the box in my hands, I located the address scrawled in Nichols’ handwriting and felt a small jolt of surprise. This particular package was going to Grace Buchannon, daughter of the Archon Merrick Buchannon, the man who ran the city of Rainier. I wondered what Grace had ordered from Nichols that she couldn’t have got from her wealthy hometown. As the daughter of an Archon, she had more money than just about anyone, so what had she ordered from a town like Adams?
              I made my way through the city streets, sticking to the center, where there seemed to be fewer people. I had to dodge the occasional rickshaw, but it wasn’t so bad. The worst part was the decoration. Rainier was a city that was always shining. Bright lights in windows, polished metals on the towers, it always had a glimmer about it. But now, the clean sparkle of lights had been replaced with a mind-numbing hodge-podge of colors and banners. Cloth posters hung from storefronts, and massive flags with pilot and ship names waved in the wind from tower windows. The cobblestone streets, which were always so clean and spotless, had been attacked with colored chalk, and featured all sorts of drawings and words that the local children had no doubt had a hand in. People here loved the race, and with the commencement only one day away, they were at the height of their madness. I wondered how much money in bets was currently being wagered. More than I could imagine, surely.