‘I’ll be fine, Mother.’
The morning sun was bright in Asta’s eyes, but it didn’t do much to warm her. There was frost on the ground, and her breath came out in a white cloud.
Hummer was planted directly outside the door. Two of the Bruce cousins– the wheedling Karol, still sporting a purple bruise from Nat’s boot, and his brother Michael– hung back, their eyes scanning the sidewalks. Torque stood at Hummer’s side. Hummer was scratching at his head impatiently, pushing his bucket hat so far back that it almost fell off. As soon as Asta opened the door, he tugged it down again over his ears.
‘Get this to Natalia’s crew,’ Hummer said without greeting or explanation. He nodded to Torque, who reached into one of the deep pockets in his dark blue shop coat and pulled out a little jar. He held it discreetly in front of him, his body blocking it from any view but Asta’s. ‘After the white coats come through. Orville will be expecting it. Don’t be obvious.’
‘What is it?’ Asta asked, eyeing the jar, but she recognized it as the irritant that Yixin had spotted on day one.
‘A favor,’ Hummer said. ‘Now be a good girl and do it.’
With a glance to either side, Torque extended the jar toward Asta. She took it from his calloused hand and shoved it into the pouch of her sweatshirt.
In a way, Asta was relieved. After all those warnings from Torque and Tess, this wasn’t nearly as bad as she had been expecting. Use of the irritant was a fairly minor infraction. Until a few years ago, the stuff had remained legal, if frowned upon, in NFDRA races.
It wasn’t even all that helpful. Spreading the greasy stuff down the throat and nasal passages of a slow-footed dragon caused enough pain to spur a little extra speed, but it also made the dragon peevish and ill-tempered. It was cruel and unpredictable, and Asta had never let anyone use it on Carmine.
Nonetheless, it was just a little jar of spicy goo. Asta had all but convinced herself that Hummer would task her with something a bit more sinister. Still, if Asta got caught with the jar, Flávia would have her out on her ass faster than she could blink.
‘Is that it?’ Asta asked, shifting from one bare leg to the other in an effort to keep warm.
Hummer stopped. ‘Is what it?’ Under the brim of his hat, his eyes probed Asta’s face.
‘The favor. Just deliver it?’
Hummer huffed a quick breath of air through his nose. ‘For now.’ Hummer motioned to his nephews and Torque that it was time to go.
Torque hesitated. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his open coat. He pressed his lips together and swung his hands wide, as if to say, ‘What can you do?’ The coat spread with his arms– like wings. He would fly away, Asta thought, if he could.
Asta went back into the room. Carmine stretched his neck as far as it would go, trying to reach her. His silver eyes narrowed, like a peevish schoolmarm eyeing up one of her delinquent pupils. She went to him, and he began to sniff at her. She wondered if he could smell the irritant.
For now,he had said. A flutter of worry was knocking around in Asta’s head. What if the jar was just a test? Asta wasn’t sure if it would be better to pass this test or fail it.
Gem had his orange pieces on a plate now, and he was eating them one by one as he read over a paper from the Silverscale packet that they had received at orientation. He looked up, his finger marking his place, and studied Asta. Asta kissed Carmine on the head and plopped down on the edge of her bed. Then, since she was there anyway, she kicked off her boots and burrowed back under the covers to get warm. From the look on his face, Asta could tell that Gem wanted to ask her about Hummer, but he went back to whatever it was he had been reading.
She gripped the jar of irritant in her sweatshirt pocket. With or without this stuff, Nat might not make the top five in her heat, and then Asta would be off the hook. She could sign with another racing house or start her own and be out of the Bruces’ orbit forever. The day could not come soon enough.
She slipped the jar out of her sweatshirt and stuffed it under her pillow.
In the kitchen, Gem ran his fingers under the faucet to clean the stickiness from them.
‘You ready for today?’ he asked.
‘You know it.’ Asta slouched into the bedcovers and tried to quiet the thousand thoughts racing through her mind. She peeked at him over the mound of blankets. ‘Are you mad about yesterday?’
He looked thoughtful as he dried his hands on the tea towel beside the sink. With a sigh, he came around from behind the counter. ‘I’ve known you all your life, Asta. You getting yourself in trouble– it wasn’t exactly a surprise to me. But it did make me realize something.’ He walked to his bed and sat down, his hands on his knees. ‘This arrangement– me as your manager– I don’t think it’s working.’
Asta felt her panic rising. ‘Please don’t say that. Gem, I’m so sorry about—’
‘Asta, shut up. I’m not trying to make you feel bad about anything. I know you. I know how you get when the pressure’s on. You need to let it out somehow, and usually it’s by doing something stupid. And I knew it. IknewI should have stayed on top of you that night.’
‘You’re not my babysitter anymore, Gem. I’m a grown-ass woman.’
Gem gave a half-smile. ‘And yet I still get the feeling that I’m going to catch you on the roof with homemade dragon wings, about to jump.’
‘That happened one time.’
Gem leaned back, propping himself with straight arms. ‘I don’t think I have a choice. With us, it’s always going to feel like babysitting, like you’re this little hellion getting into trouble, and I’m the one pulling you back from the edge. I knew I should have stopped you, but I was so sick of being the wet blanket all the time. Or, I don’t know, maybe the Bruces make me nervous. Anyway, I wasn’t there.’
