Tracked (8 page)

Feeling more than a little guilty, I slink out and pad
barefoot across the lobby. Cash opens his door before I have the chance to knock. Benroyal's interior decorators aren't very subtle. While my apartment is awash in white, Cash's place is a dozen shades of black and gray.

His bed-head and insomniac stare tell me I'm not the only one who's been tossing and turning. Tonight, I don't see a prince or an arrogant rogue. Just a sleepy-eyed boy.

“Heya,” he says, lowering his voice and leaning in.

I start to ask him why he's whispering, but then I remember the possibility of surveillance. The thought of cameras makes my skin crawl. I stay close enough to keep our conversation quiet. “Benroyal's wife. What do you know about her?”

He shuts the door. “Well . . . I know she's messed up in the head. And that she's James's sister.”

That first detail is obvious. The second is a jaw-dropper. “Really?”

“She's James's twin.” He shrugs. “She and Benroyal? Childhood sweethearts.”

I raise an eyebrow. “There's nothing ‘sweet' about Benroyal. You're telling me he actually—”

“Oh, he loves her all right.” Cash leans against the doorjamb, sidling up. “He's completely smitten. With her beautiful brown eyes. Her vast fortune. Her half-mad, easily influenced mind . . .”

“Wait, I thought—”

“She and James both own Locus Informatics.”

I sigh, but it comes out more like a growl. Of course. James and his brother-in-law, working together. I've been totally played. “My father drove for Locus. What a complete coincidence—Locus manages the courts and Benroyal shows up, right after my hearing.”

My pacer is quietly laughing at me. “I hate to break it to you, Vanguard, but it's King Charlie's universe, and we just live in it.”

I pull out my flex and image-search James and his sister. Oddly, there aren't too many of her. Just a few publicity shots of her on Benroyal's arm, smiling at circuit galas and PR events. Even in the grainy stills, you can see there's something missing. The vacant look in her eyes. I can almost fill in the gaps, imagining the way she might have shined, but the picture won't quite come into focus.

Cash looks over my shoulder. “She looks . . .”

“Like the ghost of someone else.” I shiver, remembering her voice in the dark. “Cash, does the word
Sweetwater
mean anything to you?”

“No. Should it?”

“It's nothing . . . nonsense. Just something she said.”

I follow him through the living room, which is almost a mirror image of mine, a negative snapshot of my cloud- colored space. But here, there are glass doors beyond the kitchen.

I don't wait for another invitation. I pull open the doors and step outside. A quicksilver band of Pallurium skims the top of a waist-high, transparent railing. Stepping between two lounge chairs, Cash and I stand against the railing and let the air gust over us. It's like we're perched on night's open windowsill, breathing in the light of the stars.

“How'd I draw the short straw on apartments?” I ask.

“I got here first?” He points at the huge black telescope at the end of the patio. “And I like being able to sneak a glimpse of home.”

Prince Cashoman. I can't forget that. He hides his accent well, but it's so obvious that he's Biseran. I glance at his eyes. Dark irises, charcoal with the telltale golden rim.

He knows I was staring. “Some say it makes us less than you. Inferior. The first colonists from Earth called us Black-eyed Devils.”

I can't deny it, and I've heard even worse. This one difference in our genetic code makes the Biserans a target. Never mind that no Castran could see so well in the dark. This gift, the unique glimmer and shadow of their eyes—it makes them a people apart. Prince or no prince, it can't be easy for Cash, to live here and deal with those kinds of assumptions. Especially when he headlines every gossip feed. Runaway Royal. Rogue. Gambler. That's all they see in him. For the first time, I wonder if they're wrong. “Some say I'm nothing but south side trash. Who cares what they say?”

“I don't. I've learned not to.” He walks over to the telescope. After adjusting the focus, he beckons me closer.

I lean over the scope. The enhanced view is astounding, as good as any satellite image. I see twin orbs—the moon, lustrous and pale, floats next to Cyan-Bisera. Cash's home planet is the brightest jewel in any diamond sky, and even through the lens, I can almost feel its silent pull. “It's so . . . beautiful . . . all that blue water and green mountains and white shores . . . so—”

“Lush.”

“Exactly. I know Castra is more . . .” I almost say “civilized” but I know how elitist that would sound.  “. . . developed, but still—it's so dry and ugly here. Why would anyone give up . . .”

Silence. The trademark grin vanishes.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I didn't mean—”

“I know exactly what you meant. I'm a coward. A spoiled aristocrat who would rather play pacer than face my responsibilities to a ruined country. Bisera's just a haven for greedy noblemen, dealers, and thieves, and I'm no better.”

“I never said I—”

“You didn't have to say anything. I saw it in your eyes the second we met. I guess I hoped you'd be different.”

“I was completely blindsided that night, Cash. James hauls me into a black sap den and introduces me to a rusting prince. How was I supposed to look at you?”

“Maybe like you weren't predisposed to hating my guts. Like you didn't assume I was a complete amateur, unworthy of two words. That might've been nice, actually.”

“Oh, but you were so warm and welcoming? You should talk, Your Highness. You're the one who could barely be bothered to get up from the table and meet your new driver. You made it pretty clear we ruined your precious twelve-hand streak.”

“I was tired. You were a mess.”

“I was not a—”

“Look. Just forget it.” He invades my personal space again, his smile coming back out of nowhere, this time lopsided and almost contrite. Almost. I hate the way it moves me. Already, he's too good at slipping past my defenses. “I misunderstood you, you misjudged me,” he says. “Do-over on first impressions, all right?”

Fair enough. For once, it doesn't hurt to nod in agreement. We're standing shoulder to shoulder, in quiet truce, when he reaches for his flex. After glancing at a text, he quickly stuffs it back into his pocket.

“Who's that? Some other girl waiting to look through your telescope?”

Brazenly, he laughs. “No. If you must know, it was Hank. He asked if you're okay. Should I text him you're all right or would you rather I tell him to double the guard because you're weeping in fear?”

“I'm fine. Obviously, Your Highness.”

He texts a quick reply, but makes a show of turning away, just so I can't read it.

“Honestly, Cash. How does someone like you end up friends with one of the guards?” I ask. “Or better yet, how does a prince end up in the Spire at all?”

I'd meant it playfully, but by the look on his face, I can see the question cuts too deep.

“I am a second son.” Suddenly, there's a thickness in his voice, a sigh that he can't let go. “After my father was . . . after he died, my older brother, Dak, didn't much want me around.”

“Why?”

“It doesn't matter,” he says flatly. “Let's just say I'm no longer needed in the palace. So here I am. Under Benroyal's protection. Fifty-six million miles from home.”

Protection. A kinder word for prison.

“I'm Benroyal's ward now,” he adds. “Have been since I was thirteen. I've apprenticed for three different crews. Cameras and feedcasters always in my face. Bodyguards forever breathing down my neck. Kept me out of the Spire, at least. But two weeks ago, Benroyal calls me back. Tells me he wants me here. Says he's getting a new driver, and that we're going to be a team.”

“Two weeks ago? But I was only arrested last—”

“You said as much yourself. You know that arrest was no coincidence. Benroyal gets what he wants. You and I are no exceptions.”

I don't answer. My mind turns over his words, but I can't find a single angle that makes any sense. I get why Benroyal might want to keep Cash—the politics of holding him like some high-stakes marker—but I'm nothing. I'm not royalty. Just a street rat racer who doesn't belong here, least of all on the 210th floor.

“I'm sorry,” I say at last. “That I'm the reason he made you come back—”

“It's fine. It's done. Besides, I'm the one who should apologize. I didn't mean to get into it with your friend.”

“Bear's just a little protective, that's all. Practically the only friend I've ever had.”

“I see. Does your only friend know you're here, with me?”

I fight the stupid blush creeping over my whole body. Suddenly, I feel guilty, as if my two a.m. visit is some kind of terrible betrayal. “No. And he doesn't need to find out either. He wouldn't appreciate—”

“No worries. This will be our secret. I can pretend to hate you in front of him, if you like.” He edges closer—the whisper-light scent of balm leaf drifts my way, and all I can do is welcome the sweetness.

Before I can answer, a sharp gust of wind blows my hair back, exposing my neck, the site of my fading hospital scar. He stares at me. I feel his eyes mark the spot his lips once grazed with a warning.

Be careful
, he'd whispered.

The shape of his voice, even imagined, makes me suck in a breath. I didn't ask for this. I don't want to feel this way—it's stupid and irrational to let moonlight soften a stranger's face into something more than handsome. I can't look at him anymore. I focus on the railing, where his arm is inches from mine. One careless move and our hands would touch. I can't let that happen. I can't allow him to have this power over me.

The night air is perfect. I look back at the balcony chairs. “Can I just sit here for a while?”

He nods and ducks back into his apartment. He's gone for a minute, and when he returns, I'm already settled into the chair with my eyes closed. I feel a soft touch as Cash tucks a wool blanket around me.

“I can't stay . . .” I whisper.

“Just a little while . . .” He sits beside me. “I won't fall asleep.”

But I could fall. Out here, I could easily dream.

Too early, I open my eyes. I'm in my own bed, covered in
soft wool and the ghost of Cash's scent. But it's Bear who is shaking my arm.

“Hurry and get cleaned up,” he says. “They're waiting for you downstairs.”

I sit up and we both stare at the smoke-colored blanket tangled around my hips, the one that doesn't belong in my ivory room. He opens his mouth to ask the question, but turns away instead. Bear does not ask, because no matter the explanation, the answer would sting. He isn't one to talk things out, and I'm ashamed to feel so relieved. I don't want to lie to him, but I can't volunteer to torture him with details—how, half-asleep, I let Cash pull me into his arms and carry me here, how I let him lay me down and whisper “Sweet dreams.”

That was a mistake, and it won't happen again.

“Who's waiting?”

“Auguste and what's-his-face . . . Dradha.”

I'm certain he knows Cash's name well enough, but I let him pretend. “Oh. Practice today?”

Bear shakes his head. “Check your schedule. You've got some hair and makeup drama. Then gear pickup and media training for your first circuit press conference.”

I take his advice and glance at the schedule they've loaded onto my card. I keep scrolling, but there seems no end to the events. I've got a handful of days to practice for this season's races, but this morning, there's nothing but makeovers, media training, and other nonsense.

“So basically, today is really going to suck exhaust.” I blow at a few flyaway strands of hair.

Bear smiles, tucking them behind my ear. “Pretty much. Sorry, short stuff.”

I don't think he's called me short stuff since we were eleven. The memory's a comfort.

“You're coming with me, right?” I ask.

“I'll meet you at the press conference,” he says. “Until then, Gil's going to work with me at the track. He says there's room on the crew for an alternate pacer—”

“That's good, isn't it? I could talk to him and tell him that you—”

He shakes his head. “I've got this. I need to do this on my own.”

“You don't have anything to prove,” I soothe.

“I do—”

“Not to me, you don't.”

“But I need to prove it to them. That I can pace you just as well as . . .” Just as his voice edges toward impatience, he doubles back, teasing again. “Just let me do this, short stuff. You go off and get your hair extensions or whatever, and I'll show Gil I can earn my keep.”

I nod, then haul myself out of bed like a condemned prisoner. Ridiculously, I groan. “I am not getting hair extensions, Bear.”

“I know.” He smiles. It's a small thing, but it's enough. I know we'll make it through the next twelve hours.

Goose and I walk into the salon. It's over-the-top, the kind of snooty henhouse I'd never dream of visiting on my own. Stepping inside now is enough of a nightmare to make me cuss under my breath. We pass through a funhouse of booths—the whole place is wall-to-wall mirrors and rich women and mile-high hair—to get to a VIP room in the
back,
a
space
that
is,
today,
reserved
just
for
me
and
the most stubborn hair stylist on the planet. Oh, and Bijan is here too, just to twist the knife. Apparently, not only is she an expert in clothes, she is also a “cosmetics color specialist.”

This means she's in charge of lining up lipsticks and dangerous-looking jars of waxy goop. Every time I try to stand up and walk out, Auguste pushes me back into the hydraulic chair.

I look at Penelope, the stylist, who's comparing sample tresses. “You can shake those rattails in my face all you want,” I say. “But you are not putting them on my head.”

Penelope
says
nothing,
but
Bijan
purses
her
pout-
perfect, fat-enhanced lips. “We get it, no extensions,” she says. “These are designer pigments. We need to decide which color, and then which gloss to brush in.”

I stare at the sample strands in Penelope's hand. All are bright shades of copper and ginger. “No way. I'm not going red. Don't try to make me into something I'm not.” I shake my head, scuttling out of the chair before Goose can pin me down.

Bijan starts to protest, but he raises a forefinger to silence her. Hand still in the air, he paces back and forth twice before wheeling on me. “Sit,” he says.

“I'm not going along with some stupid—”

“Sit.” It's nothing less than a command this time.

So I sit.

“Listen, my friends.” He circles my chair. “This spitfire girl is right. We are wasting time making her over, when we should be accenting what is already there.”

I wince when he pulls and holds up a tangled handful of my hair. “See? Look at this. It is dark,
noire
. All we need to do is finesse this into something . . . more. Make her a Phoenix, yes, but
ma lune et les
étoiles
! Save the red for her lips.”

He lets my hair fall back onto my shoulders and stares at Penelope. “Cut it. No color, clear gloss. Keep it black.”

“Yes, Mr. Chevalier,” Penelope and Bijan both answer at once.

Thanks to Goose, by the time they are finished with me, I look a little less like a Sixer doll and a little more like a circuit vixen. My chin-length bob has been shined into a glossy black waterfall and I make them take it easy with the makeup. No lotions or creams. Just a little powder on my pale nose, some black eyeliner, and a dab of velvety lipstick.

I look older, and it's the only thing I like about this whole ordeal.

The color on my lips is a shade between ruby and dried blood. I jokingly suggest they should match it to the exact red in my rig's paint scheme, but Bijan shrieks approval. No doubt, by next week, Benroyal's engineers will have a thick tube of gloppy, custom-made crimson and I'll be a laughingstock among circuit drivers.

No, no, Auguste keeps saying, I am a fierce femme fatale. It sounds dangerous enough, so I'll settle for it.

The final uniform fitting is much easier to endure. Everything is delivered to the back of the salon, and I use an adjacent dressing room. Once I'm alone with my new gear, I allow my giddiness to show. My hands quiver as I fasten each snap and latch and zipper. Unlike the rest of my team's, my new zip-front jumpsuit is black with a stripe of red. My gloves and boots are also black, along with my helmet, which is finished with a flame-colored wing motif. On each side of my head, a wing stretches out, the last golden feathers arcing back. My number is painted on each side as well.

Six. Of course I'm six.

I feel a stab of pain behind my rib cage. It could be my skintight gear, or it could be remorse. I say I don't want to be here, but do I really mean it? Am I so easily bought? With black leather and fireproof suits?

Yes. Maybe I am. I cannot deny the thrill of this moment. I step out of the dressing room. When I look in the full-length flex wall mirror outside my door, the sight makes me gasp.

I am a tiny superhero, a black-booted femme fatale. A real circuit driver.

Auguste will be pleased, I'm sure. But I wonder, if he were here, would my father be proud? Is this fierce- looking creature the girl he wanted me to be? Or was he just as trapped, caught between the sport he loved and the keepers that controlled him?

When I picture my father's face—the sunbaked crow's-feet under his eyes, the perpetual shadow of red-brown whiskers on his jaw—I'm struck by something more than melancholy longing. I'm angry at him for being dead and gone, absent but not invisible to my heart. For leaving me with his flaws—his stupid need to always run, smashing into every wall. Suddenly, the gloves, the clothes—everything is too heavy and stifling hot. I fuss with the straps on my helmet and pry it off just as Goose comes in to check on me.

His hand sweeps over his chest and he feigns a heart attack, as if one look at me had left him a dying man. I tug at my collar and gulp a breath of much-needed air. Auguste starts to laugh. The sound builds and builds until I can almost see tears in his eyes. For a split second, I misread him, and think he is making fun, but then I realize, he is overjoyed, overcome with more than one emotion.

That makes two of us.

“Ah,
ma fille
! You are my greatest triumph, Miss Vanguard. Yes, you will be
une l
é
gende
!”

It's only one in the afternoon, but I'm already worn out. I change back into my tee and gray cargoes. For now, I just need some food and room to breathe.

I'm only getting the food.

Auguste and I still have an appointment with Benroyal's PR team. We're in a suite at the Grand Delian, Capitoline's fanciest hotel. The circuit will be hosting this year's first press conference in the ballroom downstairs. All the biggest Castran racers will be there, so we've just enough time to inhale some room service while Benroyal's media goons put me through the paces.

There are a lot of rules, things I have to remember, not just for this press conference, but for pretty much every occasion that takes me outside the Spire. The way they talk, I'm three hours from diving into a public pressure cooker, complete with tabloid reporters, stalker-like fans, and corporate bookmakers starving for insider information.

My role has been all but spelled out: Dazzle the public and above all, perform for the stockholders.

To them, I'm a variable in a spreadsheet. There will always be someone watching, analyzing my every move, waiting for me to win or lose. I'm a name in a bracket, a made-up girl. Property of Benroyal Corp, bought and branded. This, my handlers explain, is the normal price of circuit fame.

For me, there's nothing normal about managing my body language, crafting deflective answers, and staying “on message” eighteen hours a day. I'm not thrilled about the “key takeaways” the PR drones want me to hammer home during the press conference either.

1. I'm so grateful Mr. Benroyal discovered me through Capitoline's UrbanReach youth program. As soon as I turned eighteen, I jumped at the chance to sign with his team.

2. I'm just happy to be here and I'm not worried about my standings on race day.

3. I've idolized circuit racers all my life, and I'm honored to work with such a capable team, especially my crew chief, the legendary Gil Gates, and my new pacer, Cashoman Dradha.

At best, one of these statements is a half-truth. Aside from these answers, I'm not to reveal any more details about my personal life. If anyone asks anything off limits, I'm supposed to grin and make eye contact, all while explaining what a private person I am, and how excited I am to get behind the wheel and let my driving speak for itself. Under no circumstances can I frown or grumble or cuss.