Page 6 of Blind Spot
Dominic
PRESENT DAY
Every muscle in my body was tight and well-tuned into the vibration of the car and the hum of the engine. We moved as one, and it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Dark blurs passed by on either side of me, and though my mind knew that it was the towering green pines, they were unidentifiable in the darkened night at this speed.
I heard the roar coming up fast to my right. I didn’t bother to look in the mirror but kept my vision laser-focused on the street ahead of me. We both had $2,500 on the line, and I was not about to lose it to that crackhead.
I didn’t give a shit how many others he beat before me. I wouldn’t be the one who lost to him tonight. I pressed the button to release the nitrous oxide into the engine. The horsepower and torque weren’t the only things that increased; the determination and the adrenaline flowing through me were like a match to a fuel line.
“Whoohoo!” I shouted, pushing air through my cheeks as my tunnel vision became sharper. I blew through the red light and over the train tracks, even as I heard the sound of the traincoming. I barely made it past the crossing gates before they were lowered.
The clacking sound of Chrome busting through the gates barely registered in my mind. My speed continued to climb until the sound of his engine eventually disappeared—until all I could hear was the growl of my car.
I made it to the finish line and waved at my boy, Tremonte “Demon” Scott, who was recording the results, before I continued back to the meet-up spot. When I climbed out of the car, my crew ran up to meet me. Every one of them dapped me up and shouted, “Congrats, Reaper! If anyone could do that shit, it’s you!”
The crowd parted, and my heart swelled at the sight before me. Strength and determination were the only things that allowed me to keep control of my feelings. It didn’t matter how many wins I took home; they all paled in comparison to the feeling that I got whenever she was around.
My best friend, Charly, walked through the crowd and threw herself into my arms and shouted, “Congrats, Dom! There was never a doubt in my mind that you could pull out the win.” She was that light in my life that kept me sane. I had walked on the edge of darkness for most of my life, but she always brought the light whenever life became too complicated and overwhelming.
I laughed, pulled back, and smiled at her. “Girl, you know I always do that shit when I got my good luck piece with me.” I leaned down and kissed the top of her head as I looked around at the others who had doubted me but now claimed they hadn’t. I tried desperately to ignore the feelings stirring inside of me at the feeling of her in my arms and the scent of her in my nose.
All the feelings that Charly stirred within me died down within moments, thanks to the presence of my opponent. Chrome came pulling in, and he was thirty-eight hot.
“The fuck you doing, man? You cheating and shit!”
“The fuck you mean? Don’t come at me like that, dawg!” I exclaimed, walking up to him.
“What the fuck do you got under that hood?” he asked, slamming his hand on the hood of my car.
“Muthafucka, you ’bout to get fucked up in here. They call it grudge racing for a reason, dumb ass.”
“Who the fuck you calling dumb?” he shouted and shoved me.
I chuckled and replied, “You might wanna keep them paws to yourself, dawg. I ain’t the one for all that.”
“The fuck you gon’ do? Whine like a bitch? Or get that yapping ass bitch that’s always under you to do something about it? Somebody needs to bust her in her shit,” he declared and thrusted his head at Charly.
I hit that nigga in the mouth and the jaw so fast. And then I started pounding his head until he went down. He curled in a ball and covered that big ass dome head of his.
“Reaper! Reaper! Chill, man!” My team members pulled me back as I kicked him repeatedly in the ribs and shoulders. They got me just before I aimed my steel-toed boot at his head.
I shook them off me. “Don’t come for me. That nigga had the nerve to talk shit ’bout my day one, and she ain’t did shit to nobody. Can’t stand bitch ass niggas who wanna put their hands on a female.”
“He didn’t do that shit, though, yo,” Jeremy “Novocain” Watson, one of my street racing team members, declared.
“The fuck am I supposed to do? Wait around for him to get it off? Nah, he gon’ learn not to mess with nothing attached to me before he even tries!”
I was furious. The high that I’d been on from racing and winning had come down fast and hard. I felt as if I’d jumped from a plane without a parachute. That shit didn’t feel good at all.
“Aye, clear this bitch out!” Jordyn “Chopper” Fontaine, the team captain, shouted. “Somebody called the folks.”
We heard the cops in the distance. Everyone ran to their cars, and I ran to mine. Charly ran right behind me and jumped into my car. She’d have to hold on tight because I had removed everything from the car: the dashboard, carpet, seats, and everything behind the bumper. The only thing that remained was the driver’s seat. We did that shit all the time when racing because it made the car lighter. I’d even changed the brakes to racing brakes.
She was supposed to get a ride with her friend, Tunisia, but TT, as we called her, hadn’t made it to the meet-up spot yet. And I wasn’t taking any chances on leaving Charly behind to wait for her.
I pulled out of the lot, squealing with the rest of ’em, and pulled ahead, going over yards, curbs, and anything else that got in my way.
“Damn, Dom!” Charly shouted from behind me.
