I need to move. I need to move fast…
Max reached for the car key and unsurprisingly it was still firmly lodged in the ignition. As he turned the key to start the engine, Max let out a yelp of anguished pain. He was definitely going to need to find somewhere to crash and lie down for a hot moment.
Worse than the jolting pain in his shoulder though was the fact that his trusty muscle car wouldn’t start up.
‘Come on, don’t let me down baby,’ Max said, a rising frustration in his voice as he attempted a second, then third, time to get the powerful gas guzzling engine up and running. ‘Come on! Come on! Ineedyou to work for me!’
Max’s biceps were tense with sheer frustration as he let his anger bubble over. This wasn’t good. And what made it worse was that the angrier Max got, the more painful the sensation in his shoulder felt.
As another cop car passed in the distance, Max began to feel like it was only a matter of time before his car was spotted. And Max knew that if he was still inside it, then there would be way too many questions for him to answer.
‘I have to bounce,’ Max said, an increasing sense of urgency in his voice.
Max still felt a little woozy, but he knew that now wasn’t the time to wonder exactly what had gone down to lead him into this situation. Max could work all that out later. As far as Max was concerned, he needed to get himself the hell out of there.
Max’s police record wasn’t entirely blemish free, and he knew that a DUI or some kind of dangerous driving charge could even lead to a custodial sentence. There was no way Max was going to allow himself to lose his freedom, not over an offence he could not even remember committing.
There was no other way. Max would have to exit the scene of the crime, whatever that crime actually was, and make a run for it.
And if that meant leaving his beloved car behind, then that was just the price Max had to pay.
As Max gingerly opened the car door and stepped outside onto the clean Los Frisco road, he shot a glance over at the large black bag in the passenger seat…
‘Holy hell. I… won the drag race,’ Max muttered. ‘My winnings. That bag has my winnings in it!’
For a brief moment, Max smiled his cocky, charming, utterly brilliant smile. His mind suddenly filled with memories of winning a tough, highly intense drag race the previous night.
I’m faster.
I take more chances.
No one beats Max Manchester…
But Max’s smile soon disappeared as he picked up the black bag and it felt suspiciously light. Max opened the bag in double-quick time and was dismayed to see that there was the grand total of zero dollars inside it.
‘What the fuck?’ Max said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Some sonofabitch must have swiped my prize money. Butwho?’
The sound of a fire truck in the distance brought Max back into the present moment. He may have been down ten thousand dollars in prize money, but that didn’t change the fact that he may well have been at the scene of a crime that he committed.
It was time to make a run for it.
* * *
After managing to run for several blocks, Max knew that it was time to find somewhere nice and secluded to rest. Looking around him, he realized that it wouldn’t be an overly difficult task.
The neighborhood looked relatively upscale. With smart apartment buildings and nice detached houses, this was very much a Los Frisco kind of place.
‘Pfft. Too many electric cars for my taste, but whatever,’ Max grumbled, noticing the plethora of shiny Teslas on the streets and in the driveways.
Putting his distaste for electric cars to one side, Max found a quiet side street and took a moment to sit down and take things in.
Max knew he was in Los Frisco and had a rough idea of where he was in relation to his car – well, if it hadn’t been spotted and removed by the police yet.
Going home wasn’t exactly an option for Max though.
In fact,homewas something of a touchy subject.
Max had recently split up with his kinda casual on-off-on again boyfriend and was pretty sure that his face wasn’t exactly welcome at their old apartment any longer.
