Chapter 374: Death Run

The rough middle did not give either of them room to breathe.

Buster threw the Mark II left, then right, then left again, killing every line Lucas tried to take. He was not defending a lead. He was shutting the track down on purpose, using the full width of the scarred lane like it belonged to him alone. Every swerve came hard and late. Every correction carried the same message.

Stay behind.

Lucas stayed on him anyway.

The black Silvia clung to the Toyota’s rear, low and stubborn, eating the dirty air for as long as he could stand it. When the turbulence got too ugly he eased off half a car length and followed from there, patient, eyes locked on Buster’s bumper. From the barriers it might have looked like he was fading. Inside the car he was doing the opposite. He was reading every weave. Every brake light. Every angry little twitch of the Mark II’s rear end.

Buster checked the mirror and felt his jaw tighten.

This bastard was still there.

Still glued to him after the trap that should have ended the whole thing. The first brake check had failed. That only made the next lesson more important. Buster’s hands flexed on the wheel until the leather complained.

He did not just want the win anymore.

He wanted the handsome stranger broken in front of everybody who had been watching him like he mattered.

Behind the barriers Rechelle felt sick.

She was the one who brought him here. She wanted to spend time with him. She wanted him busy on this track so he would not wake up and decide he was done with the city. That was why she pushed the deal. That was why she pushed Hector for the keys. That was why Lucas was out there right now in someone else’s car.

Now her greed was punishing her for it.

Buster was not racing clean. He was hunting the black Silvia across the broken asphalt, and every near miss hit her first. If anything happened to Lucas out there, the pain would belong to her.

She gripped the fence and could not look away.

Buster threw another short brake check down the next stretch, not as violent as the first but sharp enough to test him. Lucas was ready this time. He caught the sudden squat of the Mark II, bled speed without panic, and stayed clear of the rear bumper by a margin that still felt too small. Along the barriers the lot reacted with a collective held breath. Hector’s mouth was a hard line. Rechelle’s stomach turned as the next corner rose ahead under the sun, faded markers and old scars pointing the way in.

Lucas stepped harder on the gas.

The Silvia surged and the gap closed fast. Buster saw him coming in the mirror and swerved left to shut the door, but Lucas read the move the moment it started. He cut right instead, pulled up clean on the outside, and for a second the black nose of the Silvia sat level again.

Buster’s face twisted.

This bastard was learning too quickly.

He threw the Mark II hard to the right to close the new line, and the two cars ended up on the same strip of track, dragging for the same space with bodywork so close the air between them felt thin. Buster drifted in. Lucas held. The Toyota pushed harder, forcing the Silvia toward the edge where the scarred asphalt met the barrier line.

Lucas did not step down.

There was almost no room left between the cars and the edge. The race had stopped being about speed. It was pure will now, two machines forced into a space that could not hold both of them cleanly. Metal finally touched. A long harsh scrape tore down both flanks as the cars rubbed hard, sparks jumping once where panel met panel, the ugly sound carrying all the way to the barriers.

Hector exploded.

"That’s my car!" His hand slammed the fence so hard the metal rattled under his palm. He watched the Silvia take damage it had not earned, paint and bodywork grinding away under Buster’s deliberate pressure. "He’s tearing it apart on purpose!"

Rechelle could not look away.

She had watched Buster race for a long time. She had seen him aggressive, loud, even dirty in small ways when a heat got under his skin. She had never seen him like this. This was personal. Every swerve carried intent. He was turning the race into a death run over a stranger’s face and the attention that face had stolen from him in a single morning.

Her fingers locked around the fence.

’Back down. Please just back down.’

She wanted Lucas to lift, survive, let the bastard have the stupid win if that was what it took to keep him in one piece.

Out on the track, Lucas was already past that choice.

Buster went left hard, using the move to slam the Silvia farther right, trying to shove Lucas clean off the track and into the iron barrier for good. The Mark II’s weight leaned in with real violence, steering locked on the finish of the lesson he had been chasing all race. Lucas fought the wheel the other way, clawing for any strip of clean asphalt left, but the space was almost gone and Buster was not easing off.

They swerved hard together, locked in the same ugly argument of metal and speed.

Then Lucas changed the ending.

The moment Buster committed left for that final shove, Lucas matched the brakes with full force and yanked the handbrake in the same brutal sequence. He upset his own balance on purpose for a fraction of a second, bleeding speed right as the Mark II lunged in for the knockout hit that was supposed to put the outsider into the wall.

The timing turned against Buster.

With Lucas suddenly slower and the whole fight shifted under him, the committed swerve had nowhere clean to go. The Toyota overcommitted. The rear stepped out on the broken grip. Buster tried to catch it and throw the car back right, but the correction came too late.

The Mark II flung itself into the iron barrier.

The impact was heavy and final.

CRUNCH~

The Mark II hit the iron barrier like it had been thrown into it.

Metal folded on impact. The front end compressed against the rail with a violent force that ran through the whole chassis, and the car bounced off the concrete only to keep turning, spinning across the scarred asphalt in ugly, uncontrolled circles. Glass exploded outward as the windshield shattered, bright fragments scattering across the track in a wide spray. Bodywork tore open along the side. One corner of the front collapsed inward like it had been stomped flat. Dust and smoke lifted hard around the wreck as the Toyota finally scraped to a stop, broken, steaming, and finished.

For half a breath the barrier line went dead silent.

Then the lot erupted.

Rechelle’s hands flew over her mouth. Hector stared at the folded Mark II, then at the black Silvia still moving under its own power, caught between horror and raw relief. Phones stayed up all along the fence. Nobody crossed onto the track.