Page 38 of Furious

“Grandma’s brilliant, but she’s still a sixty-something who asks me to explain her smart TV remote once a week. Let’s try mine.” She punches in the numbers (while I make a note to research the romantic compatibility of Virgos and Sagittariuses) and is rewarded with a flashing of red from the screen. “That’s what I get for being egotistical. I’ll try my dad’s.”

“Hold on a sec.” I sit beside her to get a closer look at the brand name on the lock, then pull out my phone to Google it, my stomach sinking. “This is one of those locks that shuts you out if you put in the wrong combination four times in a row.”

“For how long, exactly?”

“You want me to pause in the middle of a heist to read product reviews?”

“That would be wild card behavior.” Jo sighs. “We’ve just gotta go for it.” But her dad’s birthday doesn’t work, and neither does Jolene’s. “Crap. Okay … Dad’s an only child, so maybe it’s my mom’s.” She starts to punch it in, but I catch her wrist.

“Or maybe her longtime partner’s?” I gently suggest.

“Oh. Yeah, that’s more likely. I just hope I remember Flo’s birthday… .” After thinking for a moment, she punches in a date—and we both hold our breath… .

Until the light flashes green, and the lock clicks open.

We squeal together, and JoJo throws her arm around me, hopefully forgetting all about this awkward half conversation. We pause long enough for a quick-but-life-changing kiss before JoJo scoops a key on an antique-looking American Motors keychain off one of the shelves and closes the safe. Clutching hands unnecessarily, we sprint back through the garage at a half crouch, as though somebody might be peering through the windows. I realize that besides Googling safes, we haven’t checked our phones once for a text from CJ and James, and my volume is off, so who knows if our lookouts could have warned us, anyhow.

Some heist squad.

Out in the back lot again, I stop JoJo before she heads for the fence, where Zaynah waits impatiently beyond. “Hold on, I want to see it. Can I see it?”

JoJo grins, like maybe she was hoping I’d ask. “Sure, I’ll introduce you to Betty.”

Forgoing the combat roll this time, we dart between the cars to get to the shelter in the back. Not only is it a nice shelter, one with sides and a zippered door and all, but the machine inside has a fitted car cover protecting it. Reverently, JoJo begins the process of untucking and rolling it back, then holds up her phone flashlight so I can see the Hornet in its beam. And it’s …

I mean. It’s attractive. Pretty compact for a muscle car, with a long, straight hood and sloping rear. The angles are crisp for a two-door sedan, and even in poor light, the electric-blue paint and black stripe shimmer. It reminds me of the R1 in my backyard shed; JoJo has clearly taken excellent care of this vehicle, even while slowly gutting and repairing it.

But as far as ‘70s muscle cars go, it’s not exactly a Dodge Charger R/T. And we’re about to risk an awful lot on a fifty-year-old sedan racing a modern GSX-R.

JoJo must see the doubt on my face, because before I’ve uttered a word she says defensively, “Look, this car has a history. Just because it’s not famous doesn’t mean it’s not fast. It came out of the Hudson Hornet, you know, and that was a stock car racing star. Won all but one AAA race and over 80 percent of the NASCAR Grand National events the year after it came out. Then like a decade after AMC dissolved Hudson, they brought back the Hornet to replace the Rambler. The ‘71 took the ‘70 model and put in a 360 cubic-inch V-8 and a 2100 two-barrel carb. It made 245 horsepower, while barely weighing over 3,000 pounds. But this model has the Go Package, which bumped it up to 285 horsepower with a four-barrel carb and a ram-air induction scoop, plus dual exhaust pipes instead of a single and a four-speed transmission. It could do a quarter mile in fourteen seconds, and Mom got it down to thirteen. They only made around three hundred of these with the Go Package, which is why it’s so rare. You haven’t heard of it because it was overlooked and underestimated, not because it isn’t amazing. Betty has the heart of a winner,” she insists, staring lovingly down at her mom’s car.

“And … does she still do thirteen?” I ask, afraid to insult the machine she’s memorized, just like me and the R1.

“She can, and she will. I can do it, El.” She turns her burning gaze on me. “Will you trust me?”

Though it’s hard to think under the heat of her green eyes, I know, in some part of myself, that I don’t know JoJo well enough to justify trusting her completely. Not with this crush like coals in my throat, or with my sister’s jacket, or my family’s future.

But I deeply, desperately want to.

So I smile and nod. We leave the Hornet behind for now—JoJo will come back to collect it before the race, since she can’t exactly park the car in her own driveway. We throw ourselves into Zaynah’s car, beckoning wildly for CJ and James to join us as they stroll out of the shrubbery, then shriek at Zaynah to go, go, go! As we cruise out of the lot at a painfully sensible speed of 15 mph, I push down that familiar part of me. The small, scared El who counts herself out of jumps she hasn’t even tried and can never keep her goddamn foot on the gas, not once in her whole life.

She’s always been the part of myself I hate most, anyhow.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JoJo

The day after our “heist,” if you want to call it that, El and I pull up in the Hornet at Benton Creek Airfield, a small, regional abandoned stretch of runways and rusting hangars half an hour away from Riley’s apartment building.

“Holy shit,” El mutters in the seat beside me. “Is this really the place?”

The Hornet’s headlights illuminate a stretch of tall chain-link fence that’s been cut open wide enough to let a car pull through. Kudzu vines cover the fence with a leafy curtain, making the open section look like a portal to another world. Beyond the vines, the airfield stretches into the night, the central runway lined by dozens of other cars who have their headlights on to light up the stretch of pavement. Neon underlighting colors the ground pink, green, and blue, and music pumps out of many of the cars, the bass thumping into the night. Clumps of people stand around, laughing, drinking, and making bets and side bets like something out of Fast & Furious.

A thrill of excitement electrifies my nerves, and I sit up straighter. We’re really doing this. I’m really staking Mom’s car. I’m finally—finally—back on the track and racing again. It’s going to be so goddamn amazing.

Even as I have that thought, it’s immediately chased by another: What if I lose and Riley takes Mom’s car? How am I ever going to explain that to Dad? I grip the steering wheel as my stomach flips. I absolutely cannot think that way. There’s no way I’m losing this race. Not even an option.

I turn back to El and her question. “Yup, looks like the place.”