‘That’ll work,’ Asta said under her breath.
Asta leaned forward, rubbing Carmine’s neck with her gloved hands, letting him know that this was it. Time to go all out.
He bellowed back to her.
As she knew they would, Nat and Vulture swerved to hit the barrels, sending them toppling. Carmine jumped over the rolling obstacles, twisting in the air like a cavorting calf. Nat guffawed over her shoulder and urged Vulture on, increasing the distance between them with every stride.
‘Climb!’ Asta called, and Carmine was up the pallets and onto the roof of the shipping container in two powerful leaps.
She let loose the reins, and Carmine sprinted for the far edge. Reaching it, he sprang into the air and flew. They passed Nat and Vulture in a rush of flapping wings. The dragons screeched at each other in fury, their voices like the shrieking metal of the train’s wheels. The assembled Bruces scrambled left and right as Asta and Carmine tore across the finish line at flight speed, triggering the final beacon for the victory just as Carmine’s feet touched solid ground. Nat and Vulture galloped along behind them, too late.
Carmine ran halfway up a mountain of sand before slowing to a stop. He was panting hard, but he shook his head playfully and pawed at the sand.
‘Good job, buddy!’ Asta cried, leaning forward to embrace his neck. ‘Good boy!’ She laughed as he romped his way down the sand pile like a playful puppy, nearly bucking Asta off.
She slid off his back when they got to the bottom and found him covered in grit all the way up to his belly. Carmine shoved his snout into the sand and sneezed, sending two dirty plumes up from his nostrils.
Asta took off her helmet, still laughing, and looked around for Nat.
She had run Vulture in circles around the lot to slow down until Hummer had grabbed hold of Vulture’s harness by the steel ring at her chest.
‘Get down,’ he said.
‘No,’ Nat said.
‘Damn it, girl!’
‘She ran such a good race, Hummer,’ Asta said, walking up tentatively to where he stood.
‘Shut up, Asta,’ Nat spat, her voice low.
‘Boys,’ Hummer said, ‘if you wouldn’t mind.’ Several of Nat’s cousins came up on either side of Vulture and grabbed at Nat’s feet, forcing them out of the stirrups.
‘Tru!’ Nat implored.
Tru, standing next to Asta, shook her head. ‘I told you not to lose, girl.’
Nat struggled and kicked, managing to nail Karol right in the cheek before she reached the ground.
‘What are you going to do to me?’ she demanded. She wrestled with her cousins who locked her arms in theirs.
‘Baptize you,’ Hummer said.
‘What?’ Nat shrieked.
‘Fresh start for tomorrow,’ he said, and laughed. It was not a kind laugh. His hands in his pockets, Hummer stalked off in the direction of the cinderblock wall.
‘Come on,’ Tru said to Asta, and they all followed, Nat dragged by her cousin-guards. Vulture arched her neck uneasily, but Hummer had handed her off to his nephew, who pulled her head down and hooded her. Asta watched as one Bruce after another disappeared through a door in the wall. She told Carmine to stay put and followed, downhill through the brambles and across the train tracks. They kept going, right to the river’s edge.
The riverbank here was held back by a low retaining wall. Extending from the wall was a decrepit old bridge support, the bridge long gone. The cement on the sides of the support was crumbling, and rebar jutted from its top. Below, the river slipped along, dark and rank.
‘No!’ Nat shouted. ‘I’m not going in there! It’s gotta be toxic.’
Hummer and the other Bruces laughed.
‘It’ll be ten times worse once we put you in it, Nat,’ a cousin named Jozefina called from the back of the pack. ‘They’ll have to send a hazmat team to clean it.’
‘Throw her in!’ Karol yelled, his hand massaging his face where Nat had kicked him. It was already swelling and turning a dark reddish color.
