Page 25 of Furious
“Heather isn’t a one and done kind of girl, Fox. She’s a relationship type. So unless you want the sheriff all up in your business, I would stay the fuck away from her.”
Our conversation is interrupted by some of our frat brothers coming from the house.
“We’re all here.” Tucker informs us. “Corey and Candace are having everyone playing a drinking game. Most people are already too drunk to notice that we’re missing, anyway.”
Like last week, a small group of us sneaks out of the fence at the end of the Gamma house backyard.
We walk down Greek Row, passing the dorms and getting toward the end of campus. It’s getting late and we don’t encounter anyone as we walk past the hockey arena and the football fields.
As we cross the same wooded area we navigated last week, Lev and I stay behind.
We didn’t trust Dave to keep our bikes safe, so I came here straight after the game and parked my truck behind a thicket of trees right before we come into view of the derelict hangar with the other motorcycles.
A noise makes me turn around, and I point the light in my phone, scanning the woods to identify the source. “Did you hear that? It sounded like a twig snapping.” I whisper to Lev.
“No, I didn’t. It must have been a bunny or something like that. These woods are full of small and not so small animals. Remember a few years ago there were those articles in the Gazette about sightings of a black panther in these woods?”
I roll my eyes, lowering the bed of my truck. “A fucking panther? That’s impossible. Panthers don’t live in California.”
Lev agrees. “They don’t. But the theory was that someone could have imported one illegally as a pet and then freed it in these woods when it grew too large.”
I lift the tarp and I’m relieved to find our bikes underneath, just the way we left them. “What kind of stupid fuck would get a panther as a pet? They’re predators, not kitty cats.”
“Yeah,” Lev sighs. “Some people have more money than sense. And to think that my parents never even allowed me to get a puppy.”
Another noise makes me turn. “Come on, you must have heard that.”
Lev doesn’t look worried. “Relax, dude. There’s no one here. Let’s hurry up and go meet the others. I left Zara with Heather and the other Zetas. She didn’t feel like drinking, so she was helping Candace run the game. I want to take her home when we’re done with this shit.”
I pass Lev the bags with our helmets and gear. We aren’t bothering with race suits, but we have proper riding shoes and reinforced leather jackets. “Oh, come on, dude. Can I take Zara home tonight? You got to dance with her, and I had to watch. If you’re going to be the official boyfriend for now, you’re going to get a shit ton of time with her, anyway. Especially once our parents are back from their honeymoon.”
“How about the one of us who places better in the race gets to take Zara home?”
I don’t think it’s fair, but I’m confident I can be faster than Lev, so I agree. “Fine.”
There’s another rustling noise but, again, I can’t see anything. “If that’s a panther,” I grumble, untying the cords we used to secure the bikes. “I hope it comes out and attacks Fox’s ass.
“Right.” Lev chuckles. “He’s such a piece of shit that I bet even a starving predator would pass on his ass. And that stands for both Fox brothers. If anyone found out that he used the fraternity’s initiation to trap us into racing, he would get kicked out. Maybe even expelled from college.”
I thought about it too, but it isn’t that simple. “Yeah. That would have worked if my dumb ass had listened to you last weekand said no to racing. If we report him, I’m sure we’re gonna go down with him too. Dad would kill me if he knew.”
Lev is way more understanding than I deserve. “It’s not your fault, brother. Gamma initiations are always pushing the limits. We had no choice but to race or we would have failed the task. How could we know that it was a trap?”
Once the bikes are untied, we make quick work of unloading them and walk the rest of the short way down to the clearing where the old hangar is located.
“What the actual fuck?” I mutter under my breath when I see the people assembled in the clearing around the hangar.
LEV
I should have known that this thing would spiral out of control. I just didn’t think it would happen so quickly.
Last week, the only witnesses to the race were our Gamma brothers and teammates.
This week there’s a small crowd gathered around the starting line.
I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that Fox would bring some sort of following with him. But these are way too many people to be sure that what’s about to happen will stay secret.
A blonde woman in a miniskirt so short that it looks more like a wide belt approaches me and Chance, holding a basket.
