Page 55 of Fatality

I touch my jaw and nose, wincing slightly.

I'm grateful for my body modifications, or I'd be lying unconscious right now.

I paid thousands of credits for pain dampeners that activate the moment an injury would normally knock someone out.

I still feel the impact, I still feel the pain.

But once the dampeners kick in, they flood the nerves around the injury with a synthetic morphine-like compound, dulling the worst of it and letting me keep fighting.

I slowly lick my lips, the metallic taste of my own blood coating my tongue.

The third lap never starts.

I frown.

What the fuck? Why aren’t there cars ramming each other right now?

Then I hear them, cars. But not the engines of racing cars heavily modified.

Enforcer cars.

Their drones are already recording everything, scanning faces and uploading the footage within minutes to whatever government database stores your identity and tags you for life.

Oh.

She fucking called for help.

I laugh, clutching my stomach for air.

That's smart, she's smart.

“Fuck.” I run a hand through my hair and shake my head. “That's it, call for help.”

I grin, letting the words hang in the empty air.

“Run... but when I find you...”

I don't finish the sentence, I don't need to. It's a threat, a fucking promise to her—to myself.

I turn and walk back toward the wreckage, the guy is still unconscious.

I bend inside through the window and press two fingers against his neck.

Alive, one less corpse to get rid of.

I leave before the drones sweep the area and climb back into my car.

My Charger roars to life.

I don't head back to my apartment, I drive straight to the garage.

Everyone's going to have fucking questions about the race, about the why Enforcers came.

I just let that brat walk away on her own two feet.

How the fuck did she dare pull stunts like that? Who is she? Where did she come from?

I need to find her and make her regret ever fighting back.