Page 42 of Furious

I clutch sightlessly for her hand, and she takes it.

The cops look more annoyed than angry, and in an unlikely blessing, this crowd of bored small-town gearheads is almost made up entirely of white dudes aside from us. So I don’t think anyone’s in immediate danger from them. But my parents? They’ll kill me. Then they’ll ground me until I graduate, and Putt by the Pond will fire me, and I won’t be able to show my face at volunteer club with an arrest record, and UNC will never let me in once they find out I’ve been trespassing and street racing—

Well, technically, your girlfriend was street racing, a treacherous, wheedling, familiar little voice whispers inside of me. You were only standing here.

God, I hate that voice.

Maybe Jo sees something in my face, because she says, low and urgent, as she disentangles our hands to open the passenger door for me, “You won’t get in trouble, El, I promise. They’re not gonna bust you just for being here when you weren’t even driving.”

I start to climb in, but stop to realize aloud, “You don’t have a license, Jo.”

She hesitates, and I think I see something in her face for the first time, a flicker of uncharacteristic fear, before she forces a tight smile. “So they’ll call my dad, and he’ll call my grandma, and I’ll get a lecture from Italy. What are they gonna do, take away my car keys? It’ll be fine.”

The drivers around us are reluctantly pulling out and lining up behind the Fiesta. It seems the cops don’t find anything, because two of them move the barrier to let him pass through the gap in the fence, then walk it back into place before circling a lime-green Nissan. They’ll make their way down the line until they get to us, car by bike by car. Tempted as I am to believe Jo, I’m pretty sure that driving a technically stolen car without a license is bigger trouble than she’s making it sound. And I’m not the only one with plans for my future.

“Maybe … maybe we should switch. Say I was driving.”

“No, El, just get in the car,” she says, gently shoving me toward the passenger’s seat.

But I can’t. I can’t let Jo take the fall for everything she’s done to help me. Can I?

I’m still frozen on the asphalt when an engine revs loudly, and we both snap our heads toward the fence. The cops have just moved the barrier for a car to pass through, but before they can move it back, Riley and the Gixxer boys rip out of line and plough through the gap in the fence after it. I can hear the cops swearing and shouting from here as they do. Both pairs pile back into their cars and turn their sirens on, taking off after them and leaving the rest of us behind.

I glance back at Jo. “Should we … should we wait for them to come back?” I ask, even as the remaining cars take advantage and tear through the fence toward freedom.

She stares at me as though I’ve just suggested we hide the evidence of our crimes by eating the Hornet. “Are you kidding?” she shrieks, but she’s laughing, too. “Let’s go, go, go!”

We throw ourselves into the Hornet and take off, and now I’m laughing, too. She sticks to the speed limit as we thread our way through back roads, but we don’t cross paths with Riley or the cops. By the time we reach the highway toward Dell’s Hollow, I’m absolutely giddy with adrenaline and relief. Jo and I haven’t let go of one another yet; we stay connected, my arm threaded below hers while she keeps a hand on the stick so that we’re layered atop one another, my hand resting on the leg of her jeans. As we come up on a familiar exit, I squeeze. “Hey, pull off here?” I ask. It’s a total impulse, but the thrill of victory and escape makes me bold. I feel like a completely different person.

Trustingly, she takes the exit without asking why.

I direct Jo down a stretch of rural roadway under a sky steadily darkening to ink, and though she glances sidelong at me, she doesn’t question it. At last, we reach our destination: Pemberly Mill, a half-finished housing development in the middle of nowhere. Along the honeycomb of streets marked with 10-mph signs, two-story town-houses in inoffensive shades of sand and taupe and fog stand in various stages of construction on dirt lots or lawns that have turned to meadows. Some have no siding at all, only particleboard. Some are missing roofs, their rafters bared to the night like bones, while a handful look move-in ready. Like anybody could be inside right now, living their mysterious lives.

But nobody’s around except for us.

“This is where you used to come with Max, right?” she asks, parking beside the dry basin of what would have been a man-made pond. She takes in the rows of dark windows on a darkening street. “To practice riding?”

I’m surprised she remembers. “Yeah. She had me ride for hours, learning the difference between dirt bikes and the R1 so I could get my motorcycle learner’s permit. She, um, forged Mom’s signature on the forms and took me to do the tests so I could get my endorsement. My parents still don’t know. It’s the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done, until today.”

“Eliana Blum!” Jo shrieks. “You are a wild card.”

Maybe I am.

“She was a good teacher,” I say, protective of the memory. “Like, she took it seriously. Drill after drill after drill until she thought I could pass the off-street skills test.”

“And you aced it, right?”

“Well, it wasn’t that different from the Husqvarna, since the controls are pretty much the same. Though the highway is scarier than a track, obviously. And you sit differently, you know, and the turn radius is really different, plus there’s countersteering to consider on a street bike, and you can’t lean a dirt bike around a curve like that without a low side… .” I trail off when I notice JoJo watching me with the same rapt attention I bet I wear on my face whenever Letty Ortiz is on-screen: leaned forward, eyes bright. “What?”

“I just like it when you talk technical.”

I flush. “Wait till I tell you about the one hundred points of traction.”

“Oof.” She bites her lip.

“Lean angle points versus acceleration and breaking points—”

“El, would you get the fuck over here?”