Page 1 of Furious

CHAPTER ONE

JoJo

Some people are born fearless, but most of us think if we keep running fast enough, we’ll stay ahead of whatever scares us.

Maybe that’s not really true, but it’s what my mom, a professional race car driver, used to tell me whenever I’d ask if she was scared before a race.

Her words echo through my mind as I swipe my forehead with the only clean stretch of my forearm available. It’s a boiling Saturday afternoon in early June and I’m standing in front of an ancient rotating fan, which does exactly nothing to cool the swamp in my Grandma Jolene’s garage. Sweat soaks my tank top and the upper part of the mechanic’s jumpsuit tied around my waist. The syrupy air ambling out of the fan dries my upper lip, but after being in the garage for most of the day, what I need is an ice bath, or a properly working AC unit—even a dip in the local river would do.

Somehow, after all this time away, I’d forgotten how hot North Carolina gets this time of year. It was hot in Charleston, yes, but at least we had breezes off the ocean to cool things down sometimes. Here, in the garage, even with all the doors open, it’s at least a million degrees.

More like ninety, the thermometer on the wall beside the fan tells me. But still. Who can work or think in these conditions? I ease the fan up a notch—it rattles angrily at me—and pull a bottle of water from the cooler. Condensation beads on the bottle as I rest it against my forehead. I’m tempted to order an air conditioner from Amazon myself, just so I’m not cooked alive this summer. But it’s not like I’m sticking around long. I can survive a little heat. Especially if I’m ever going to make it as an F1 driver, where the cockpit temperature can reach as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

As I gulp down half the bottle of water, I consider the wall beside the thermometer. There’s a framed picture of Mom, standing in the middle of a NASCAR winner’s podium, clutching a huge bottle of champagne, a ridiculously-pleased-with-herself smile splitting her face. Beside it hang checkered flags, banners from her team, and a few pictures from my early racing days. My favorite picture is of me when I was eight, squished between Mom and Dad, taken moments after my first win, my tiny fists in the air. Mom beams down at me. Dad’s smile matches my own.

Mom wouldn’t like to know how worry coils in my belly every time I look at this picture. Or think of racing again. Or wonder if I’m even good at it after all these months away from the track …

Which is why I have to keep moving. Maybe I’m not fearless, but I can keep ahead of whatever scares me. Which is a lot of things these days, not that anyone needs to know that.

Lifting my long hair from my neck, I turn my back to the fan. Warm air caresses my bare shoulders, and I close my eyes, inhaling the smell of grease, dust, and something metal- and car-related that reminds me of my family.

My parents met in this very same garage. Dad was a mechanic, Mom was an up-and-coming NASCAR champion, and they fell in love over a gearshift. Which is about the cheesiest thing ever if you ask me. When they used to tell me the story, Mom would tease me, saying, “Maybe you’ll meet your true love at Grandma’s garage, too, JoJo.”

“No way,” I’d say. “I’ve got no time for that. It’s all cars for me.”

“We’ll see about that when you’re seventeen,” Mom would say with one of her big laughs. (A laugh like a porch swing on a southern house, Dad says. Meaning it invited you to stay awhile and get comfy.)

Now that I’m seventeen, I’d give anything to hear that laugh again.

But that’s silly, of course. I could pull out my phone right now, go to YouTube, and hear Mom’s laugh in one of several documentaries about her life. DeeDee Emerson, world-famous race car driver. First woman to, blah blah blah. Died in a fiery crash four months ago. Still can’t forget her laugh.

Especially when I’m working on her car.

Ignoring the stomach-wringing grief that grips me at the thought of my mom’s death, I leave the fan and pick up a wrench. I hold the tool so tightly I can feel the raised letters on its handle digging into my palm. Slowly, I walk across the garage, each step taking me closer to the electric blue AMC Hornet SC/360 that sits in the center of the room. It’s a muscle car and has the curves and racing stripes to prove it, but it’s far less famous than something like the 1964 Shelby GT350 Mustang, which has become a collector’s item for millionaires. The Hornet is a machine true car geeks adore, and it was Mom’s first baby and her greatest love (well, second only to Dad and me, she swore, but it’s a close second). Mom named the car Betty and hung a tiny pink plastic cat-shaped toy from the rearview mirror. When I was little, my favorite thing to do was watch that pink plastic cat bob around when we’d take Sunday family drives to the beach.

“I’m going to try real hard not to fuck you up, Betty,” I murmur. The Hornet hasn’t been run in months, not since the last time Mom visited the garage, and Grandma says it needs some work.

That falls on me, since Dad is now officially done with cars. Not even kidding—he rides a bicycle everywhere, living his life a quarter mile at a time on two wheels. With a helmet on. And fingerless gloves. And all other appropriate bicycle safety gear.

Which, fine. Grieve as you will, but don’t take me with you.

I scowl at my own bike, a blue-pink-purple thing—the perfect bi-girl bicycle, my best friend CJ cheerfully told me over the phone when I told them about it—that rests in the corner of the garage. Much as I love to be a bi-on-a-bike, this one has a basket for God’s sake, like I’m twelve. Dad wouldn’t even get me a racing bike when we moved from Charleston back to teeny tiny Dell’s Hollow, North Carolina. Now, I’m stuck with this dorky thing. At least until I get my license.

Which is happening never, since I’m not eighteen for six more months, and Dad won’t take me to get my license before then unless I do a bunch of volunteer work for the sake of the college applications I don’t even want to fill out—

“JoJo Emerson-Boyd, I swear, I can see the gears in your head turning from here,” says a loud voice with a southern accent thick and sweet as raspberry jam.

My Grandma Jolene—don’t even ask about the Dolly Parton song, which she most certainly inspired, at least according to her—strides into the garage, her bottle-red hair twisted into a bun and her fleet of wildly impractical gold bangles clacking.

Like me, she wears a bright green mechanic’s jumpsuit with a name patch on the chest, but, always glamorous, she’s paired hers with red heels.

“I’m just looking at Mom’s car,” I say, dropping the wrench into a toolbox at my feet. “Promise.”

Grandma raises one perfectly tweezed brow. “Uh-huh. You wouldn’t dream of taking this thing out for a spin, would you now?” Grandma walks around the car, running a hand lightly over it. “Because your daddy told me you’ve not got a license yet.”

“Grandma. I’ve been driving race cars since I was seven.”

“Go-karts.”