The high desert wind whistled through the shattered remains of the Supra, a mocking dirge for our failure. Julian's applause was the only other sound, sharp and condescending in the vast silence. The look on his face wasn't just victory; it was pure, unadulterated vindication. He had always seen me as a stray, and now he was here to put me down.
Chloe took a step forward, her hands clenched into fists. "You treacherous snake, Julian. You sold us out."
"Sold you out?" Julian chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "My dear Chloe, I simply made a smarter investment. I saw a rookie being led by a disgraced cop on a suicide mission and decided to hedge my bets. The club needs that shipment, and I'm the only one competent enough to secure it. Your little joyride just served as the perfect distraction for the IA dogs."
Rostova moved with a predator's stillness, positioning herself slightly behind the wrecked Supra's door, using it as a shield. Her wintery eyes were calculating, taking in the two buggies and their armed drivers. "Internal Affairs doesn't make deals with 'stray dogs,' Julian. They use them and then put them down. You're a fool if you think you're in control."
"I am in control," Julian snapped, his smugness cracking for a second. "I have the location, I have the firepower, and I have you three as my bargaining chip. Now, step away from the wreck. The show is over."
My body ached, my head throbbed, and the taste of vomit was still sharp in my mouth. But seeing Julian's face, hearing his voice, ignited a cold fury that burned through the pain. He hadn't just betrayed us; he had betrayed everything the club was supposed to be about. It wasn't about money or power; it was about the legacy. The soul.
He was about to walk away with the heart of our rebellion, and all we had to show for it was a broken dream.
My eyes darted around, not in panic, but with a frantic, desperate need for a gap. A chance. My gaze fell on the Supra's mangled front end, steam still hissing from the radiator. Then, it fell on the open driver's side door, and the key still dangling from the ignition.
The engine was dead. But the electrical system... The battery was still connected.
A insane, desperate plan formed in my shattered mind. It wasn't about horsepower anymore. It was about chaos.
"Okay," I said, my voice hoarse but loud enough to draw everyone's attention. I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender. "You win, Julian. It's over."
I took a slow, deliberate step away from the car, making sure I was between Julian and the Supra's open door. Chloe shot me a confused, betrayed look. Rostova's eyes narrowed, but she remained silent, trusting my play.
Julian's smile returned, wider this time. "Finally, the boy sees reason. A shame about the Supra. It had a certain... rustic charm."
He took a step closer, confident, already victorious.
This was it. The pressure point.
As Julian took another step, I suddenly dropped my raised hands and slammed my body against the Supra's open door, shoving it with all my remaining strength.
SLAM!
The heavy door swung shut. But my target wasn't Julian.
My hand, still inside the car, flicked the headlight switch to the "on" position.
CLICK.
For a split second, nothing happened. Then, with a weak, flickering glow, the Supra's high-beam headlights sputtered to life. They were cracked and misaligned, but in the deep twilight of the plateau, they were two sudden, blinding suns aimed directly at Julian and his men.
"GAH! MY EYES!"
Julian threw his arm up, stumbling back. The drivers of the buggies were momentarily blinded, their night vision obliterated.
"NOW!" I roared.
Rostova didn't need to be told twice. In the split-second of confusion, her energy pistol was out. PZZZT! PZZZT! Two precise, silent shots. The spotlights on the nearest buggy exploded in a shower of glass and sparks.
Chloe, understanding instantly, lunged not at Julian, but toward the wreck. She ripped a loose, jagged piece of body trim from the fender, wielding it like a crude blade.
The element of surprise was ours, but it was measured in seconds. We were still unarmed, battered, and surrounded.
Julian, blinking away spots, drew a sleek, compact pistol of his own. "You stupid child! You've just signed your death warrant!"
He aimed at me.
A shot rang out.
But it wasn't from Julian's gun.
It was a sharp, high-velocity CRACK from the darkness beyond the perimeter of his vehicles.
The rear tire of Julian's pristine McLaren Senna exploded, the car lurching down with a sickening crunch.
Everyone froze.
From behind a cluster of rocks, a figure emerged. He moved with a slow, deliberate grace, a long-barreled hunting rifle held casually in his hands. The moonlight glinted off a bald head and a thick, grizzled beard.
It was Leo. The man with the piston tattoo.
"Seems you're the one surrounded, Julian," Leo's voice boomed, low and gravelly. He chambered another round with a smooth, metallic shuck-clack. "And I've got four more tires to go."
Julian spun around, his face a mask of shock and fury. "Leo? What is this? We had a deal!"
"A deal's a deal till you screw over the club," Leo growled. "I might have my debts, but I ain't no rat. Harrison sent me as a backup. A backup to the backup. Looks like the old man was right again."
He nodded towards me. "The kid's got more guts than you, Julian. He was willin' to fly. You were just willin' to crawl."
The tide had turned. Julian was now pinned between us and Leo's rifle. His men in the buggies looked uncertain, their leader's plan in tatters.
But Julian was a cornered animal. And cornered animals are the most dangerous.
His eyes, wild with rage, darted from Leo to me, to the cargo drone waiting at the launch platform.
"This isn't over," he spat. He made a sharp gesture to his remaining buggy. "Scatter them!"
The buggy driver, recovering his nerve, slammed his foot on the accelerator. The vehicle roared, kicking up a cloud of dust as it swerved, not towards Leo, but directly towards Chloe and me.
It was a distraction. A violent, chaotic one.
As we dove out of the way, Julian sprinted, not for cover, but for his disabled McLaren. He wrenched the dihedral door open and dove inside.
"He's going for the shipment!" Rostova yelled, firing two shots that sparked harmlessly off the Senna's carbon-fiber monocoque.
The Senna's electric motors whined to life with an eerie, high-pitched scream. With one tire shredded, the car limped forward, but its advanced stability systems kept it moving, a wounded but determined predator dragging itself toward the prize.
Leo took another shot, blowing out a second tire, but the low-slung hypercar, riding on its rims, kept going, scraping a fiery path through the rocks.
He was getting away. He was going to steal the shipment right in front of us.
We had no car. We had no way to stop him.
I looked at the Supra, my beautiful, broken ghost. The headlights were still on, their beams growing weaker, the battery draining. It was over.
Then, Chloe grabbed my arm, her eyes wide not with despair, but with a fierce, blazing hope. She was pointing at the Supra's engine bay.
"Kaito! The battery! The ECU! They're still good! We don't need the engine!"
I didn't understand. "What?"
"The cargo drone!" she shouted over the whine of the Senna and the roar of the buggy. "It's remote-controlled! It needs a clean signal! Our jammer... it's still in the car! It's powered by the car's battery! Turn it on! Jam his signal!"
A final, desperate roll of the dice.
I scrambled back to the Supra, flung the door open, and shoved the key back into the ignition. I didn't turn it to start; I turned it to the "ON" position, activating the electronics.
The dashboard lit up weakly. My hand fumbled for the signal jammer unit under the dashboard, its lights blinking.
I saw the Senna, almost at the prefab building. Julian would be transmitting the unlock codes for the shipment any second.
With a silent prayer to the ghost of my car, I slammed my palm down on the jammer's master switch.
A wave of invisible energy pulsed from the wrecked Supra.
At the launch platform, the lights on the heavy-lift cargo drone flickered erratically. Its stabilizing fins twitched.
Inside the McLaren, Julian would be staring at a frozen control screen, his commands unable to reach their target.
He was stopped. He was right there, but he was stopped.
Leo started walking forward, his rifle now aimed squarely at the Senna's cockpit. "Game's up, Julian. Get out of the car."
For a moment, everything was still. The buggy had stopped, its driver seeing the standoff. The wind was the only sound.
Then, the Senna's door hissed open.
Julian didn't get out. He simply raised his hands, a look of cold, defeated hatred on his face.
We had won. We had saved the shipment.
But as Leo moved to apprehend him, a new sound cut through the air. A sound we knew all too well.
The synchronized, high-pitched whine of multiple electric engines.
From over the ridge, three Enviro-Police interceptors rose into view, their silver-white armor gleaming under the moon, their light bars blazing red and blue.
They weren't Julian's. They weren't Rostova's.
They were Internal Affairs. And they had followed the noise.
They hovered for a moment, like hawks spotting their prey. Then, they descended, surrounding the entire scene—the wreck, the Senna, all of us.
We had survived the betrayal. We had won the battle.
But the war had just found us.