“You need to drive me to the track, and you need to do it right fucking now. Consider it a peace offering for being such a jerk over the last few weeks.”
“What?” he grunts, his face scrunching with frustration. “Absolutely not.”
“Stop being an ass for just two seconds and grab your keys. Either you drive me there or I’m taking your car. Take your pick?”
“FUCCCCK,” he groans, pushing away from his bedroom door and diving into his room to find a shirt, shoes, and his keys. He returns a moment later and barges past me, clearly not a morning person.
I hurry to keep up with him and he takes pity on me on the stairs, even stopping to offer me a hand. We hurry to the bottom and rush out the door, his stupid little sports car roaring to life.
By the time I get in and close the door, Jensen is already taking off. The bumps and turns of the road bring flashes of Colby’s black Charger to mind as it races toward me, but I swallow it down, terrified of what I’m about to find at the track.
Neither of us say a word until Jensen is pulling onto the dirt road leading toward the track. “What is this all about?” he asks. “If I’m driving you any further, I better not get in there to find some fucking sacrificial witch ceremony.”
I groan, the anticipation of what we’re about to find scarring my chest. “All I know is that Tanner’s in some kind of trouble and needs my help.”
“What’s so special about this fucking idiot anyway? You know he’s been sneaking into your room in the middle of the night, right? The guy is a fucking creep.”
“You knew he was sneaking into my room and didn’t say a damn thing? Holy fuck, Jensen. That’s messed up, but for the record, I’ve known he was sneaking into my room since the very first time he did it. The first time was fucked up, I’ll give you that, but it’s fine now.”
Jensen shakes his head. “No matter what kind of spin you put on it, it’s still messed up.”
I roll my eyes as Jensen pulls into the parking lot at the end of the dirt road, and we find Tanner’s Mustang shooting around the track, the boys standing by, doing absolutely nothing. “What the fuck?” Jensen says, driving down past the parking lot and toward the track. “He must be going at least 200 miles an hour, 220 maybe. That’s way too fast for this track. He’s either going to kill himself or the assholes standing around watching.”
Panic tears at me, and I bounce in my seat as he moves painfully slow toward the track, not wanting to damage his precious car. I can’t take my eyes off the sleek Mustang, watching as he whips around the track, taking risks that no driver should take. Jensen is right, he’s going to get himself killed, and I can’t stand by and let it happen.
Riley stands with the twins, all three of them staring at Tanner with grim expressions, just waiting for this to go south. With each new lap Tanner takes, the dread sinks heavier onto my shoulders. “What the fuck happened?” I call out the second Jensen stops his car and I get my door open.
Riley looks back before jogging to meet me, his eyes dark as night. “I don’t fucking know. The most we could get out of him is that there was some kind of attack on Addie.”
My eyes bug out of my head. “What?”
“Yeah, Hudson took off to the hospital to check it out,” he explains, unease flooding my stomach, having a good fucking idea who’s behind all of this, “but as for Tanner, he’s out of control. He’s been going like this for almost forty-five minutes. He tripped the security sensors on his way in and has been going ever since. We’ve all fucking tried, but he won’t stop and soon enough—”
“He’s going to get in a wreck,” I finish for him.
Riley nods as we catch up to the others, watching as Tanner shoots by us, pushing his car even faster at the sight of me standing with his friends.
“Fuck,” Logan mutters, shaking his head. “We shouldn’t have called her. It’s going to fuck with him more.”
“Nah, if anyone can talk him down, it’s Bri,” Riley says, his confidence in me definitely misplaced.
I shake my head, way out of my league. “I don’t know what you guys expect me to do,” I say. “How the hell am I supposed to help this?”
“I don’t know,” Jax says, not taking his eyes off Tanner as he reaches the top of the track, just seconds from turning the corner to bring him back down toward us. “But you better figure it out quickly. There’s only two reasons why Tanner is so messed up right now, and you’re one of them.”