(ty for reading, ur time is much appreciated :D the little star awaits you for your company)

(EDITED)

(Note to readers: Some chapters ahead may not be fixed to be in line with the new edits)

In a world of beasts and beast-alikes, you can't wait to find paths, you have to cut them out yourself.

If the world isn't made for you, then you have to remake it. If the world isn't remakable, then you have to break it up altogether and start from there. That's less "laws of living life" and more "laws of keeping your life". But that's coming from a Stirling.

It wasn't a real law that packs had to stay with each other, but you'd be putting your head on a platter if you didn't otherwise, so most packs had drawn unofficial lines of their jurisdictions throughout the world, and if you crossed it, well, just hope no one but you noticed.

That's all to take us to the Splinter.

The Splinter was a vast ridge in the earth just above San Diego and diagonal of Riverside to sit in a long line between LA and Carlsbad. It was a fracture on the map, hence the name, with spindly roads crawling out from the central shape to creep into tiny towns or dead ends. The sun came for us last and left us first. The clouds found us the fastest. The rain remained for eons. Rockslides and mudslides were good friends. Summer was bearable. Winter was a massacre.

The city was built from the cavernous walls inward and from the deep ground upward, closing its residents in bit by bit with apartment stacks, elongated billboards, towers of town homes. Grocery stores were atop banks were atop laundromats were atop smoke shops. Bridges cut the skyline into shards. Lights hung from ropes with an artificial white buzz in poor imitation of the sun. Iron pillars, stone roofs, colored brick, and hopeful people held the world up from underneath. The only way in or out were perilous bus routes and a hell of a staircase.

Nia found me after the tryout in the parking lot. Wynter and Zoe came bounding out like mad women, their injuries forgotten in favor of celebration. 

Zoe leapt into her arms. "Nia," she gasped. "We made it."

Nia's lip twitched up. "I see that."

"Oh, it was terrible," she said. "Absolutely traumatizing, I adore it."

"Terrifying," Wynter agreed behind her. "We start Monday."

Nia peered around both of them to smile at me. "You start Monday?"

I held up a hand. "If my organs heal by then, sure. And if they don't shred my file in secret."

"You two know each other?" Wynter said. At Nia's single nod, she whirled on the captain with a gaping face. "How come he's not on the Jackdaws?"

I stared at her. Nia raised a brow, glancing between us. 

"Don't know," she admitted, eyeing me.

I cleared my throat. "Timing, you know."

"Not really," Wynter said. Her brown eyes narrowed on me. "Kid is kind of out of his mind."

"In a good way," Zoe vouched.

"In plenty of ways."

Nia smiled at that. She waved both of them off, opening the door of her dusty white truck to hop inside. She jutted her thumb at the passenger side to me with a look. "I believe that," she said. "Congratulations, you three. We'll celebrate the shit out of you later. But get home, heal your organs or something."

"Bring us cake?" Zoe inquired. "Just a little."

Nia wiped a stripe of blood from under her eye and snorted. "Promise."

I clambered into the passenger side, albeit with immediate protest from my still-aching body. As I shut the door in my wake, I stole a look to the entrance of the Corvidae, bodies beginning to waltz out with echoing conversation accompanying them. I pursed my lips when their faces came into sad familiarity.

I sighed, shrinking in the seat. Nia waved Zoe and Wynter one last goodbye before whirling on me, grinning wide.

"Sit the fuck up and tell me how you killed it," she said.

"Maybe we drive far, far away first," I muttered, eyeing the group ahead. "Where I can tell you how I nearly bombed it."

Nia's face fell deadpan. She said, "Can I leave you alone anywhere?"

I thought of King's soaking anger and Corvus's frozen faces at my secondary profile announcement. My mouth tasted of pure iron. I let out a long sigh, and gave her a smile neither of us believed.

"No," I told her. 

Nia groaned. She started the engine up. 

"You punk," she sighed. "Let's talk about it."

The hour-long drive home was as discordant as you would expect, subsequently. 

Nia lived in Cat's Eye, which was admittedly a large step up from the main leg of the Splinter since it was above ground level and didn't lose sunlight at three o'clock in the afternoon. She'd moved out of my branch only a month or so ago, to her gratitude, and to my ambiguity. I wasn't unhappy to see her leave, but I wasn't altogether pleased at being left alone once again in the ravine.

She must've known so since she still offered to drive me home most days. And after the Hell that was the tryout and the Hell 2.0 that was the aftermath, she'd gone so far to offer to help me right up to my front step just for a good chance to chastise.

"You're a goddamn idiot," she told me, unhooking the straps off my bike in her truck's bed. "You're a prodigy, but you're an idiotic one."

"Not a prodigy." I took the bike with a grateful nod. She locked her doors and helped me wheel it towards the stone stairs. "I did what I could in the moment. He's just bitter he lost. What the hell is the guy's deal anyway?"

Nia tilted her head at that. We passed platforms and bridges, varying levels of housing or eateries or miscellaneous shops, all the way down, down, down to the dark, damp bottom. My beaten and bruised bike clunked and sputtered on the way down, its loose metal rattling in protest at each step.

"They're different," she told me carefully, her tone suddenly solemn. "Their world is different, Yun."

I lived on 17th, which was simply a street off the center of the Splinter that mainly consisted of gas stations, residential homes, drug stores, and a few palm readers no one really knew what to make of. The garage sat below it, and I pushed in the five digits to let the steel door creak open like a stiff jaw progressing through a thick yawn.

I frowned at her. "What's that mean?"

We headed down the concrete ramp, narrowly avoiding the fault lines and dents. Nia rolled the bike to a halt into my respective space, a narrow little thing barely lit beneath a sickly green light at the corner. She paused there to lean against the handlebars, considering me.

"Corvus is a whole new beast," she said. "These kids, Yun, they're more than just racers. Their families run empires. They're born and bred for the track. They've been trained to win. They've raced against the best of the best, they are the best of the best. They're not just reigning champions, they're practically NCAA royalty." 

I pursed my lips tight. Practically? If that was how they raced without even trying, forget "practically". They were.

"This isn't your world, is what I'm saying," she said. "They're not gonna let you waltz right in and join the ranks. A team like that, it's gonna take a lot more than a few tricks at a tryout to win them over. You're past tryouts, but one word from King, and you'll be cut. This isn't an everyday chance for everyday people." She pointed down at my face. "So, be careful where you tread."

This isn't an everyday chance for everyday people.

The sound of metal on concrete echoed between my temples. King's striking blow to my body, the feeling of my tires crossing the finish line, the burn of the stadium lights, the smell of exhaust and leather, sweat and blood. 

"Got it?" Nia sighed, sitting up. "Say 'got it'."

I blinked at her. I said, "Got it." I turned on my heel. "Thanks again, Nia."

I headed for the tight coil of stairs that led to my hallway high up. Nia called, "Yun!"

My head craned back. Nia's smile was wicked, a sharp thing, a surprisingly invigorating gesture despite her recently ominous words.

"I forgot to mention," she said. "You've at least got the hardest part down."

I raised a brow. "What's that?"

She gestured at the bike. "You can fucking race." 

She turned on her heel, and disappeared into the evening shadows.

I escaped to my room.

I threw my helmet on the sheets with my bag beside it and sat down at my desk. I yanked open the bottom drawer. The first aid kit dropped atop a stack of anatomy textbooks, withered with overuse.

Champion.

I peeled off my shirt and let the blood's metal scent meet my nose. I settled on my poor excuse of a desk, the metal worn, the drawers always stuck. I pushed a damp rag to my ribs and clicked my computer on with my other hand. When it lit up, two green alerts were stamped onto the screen like toxic vandalism.

I.GHOST - New Message

'D' has sent you a message. View it here.

I.GHOST - D

New order. Relatively undamaged. 10PM.

I closed my eyes for a long moment.

And you thought I was finished talking. But there's a lot to be known about a shitstorm like this one. You've got to be patient with me.

Don't worry. It's only my life.

I'm 10.5 million dollars in debt and it's not my fault.

Half-truth. 

If you made a half-assed map, it was my mother's. You didn't get very far in life on borrowed things, you see. "To borrow" is a temporary agreement. "To steal" was the mix-up of my mother's. At least I've heard so. I couldn't give her the benefit of asking her myself. Ghosts don't do confessions.

"Ghosts don't do confessions," my mother had said.  "At best, they'll give you a secret."

It didn't take long for me to realize she was talking about herself.

If you drew in more details, it was my father's. He had little pity for people like my mother. Hopeful people, that is. Desperate people. He had that ironclad personality which liked cutting people at the feet instead of getting himself a step-stool. So he was a genius, and a criminal to his bones.

His business crossed morally illegal and downright federally illegal in perfect, hellish harmony. Him and money knew each other about as well as he and the law didn't. There was blood in his footprints, in his palms, beneath his fingernails. Everyone thinks I'm lying until you're shaking his hand to the scent of metal. Everyone thinks it's a coincidence until it's yours.

"Everyone likes coincidences for other people," he'd said. "Never be a coincidence, Echo."

The debt was a bit complicated.

Arriving a Class III Stirling nobody with a timer around my throat was all my father's doing, as I'd heard it. "Time isn't something I like giving ," my father had said. "Time is something I give you in mercy. Do you know mercy isn't an obligation? It's a privilege. Your life is a privilege, Echo. And I am not a patient man."

Being sent to America wasn't being freed, but rather, it was being timed. My father offered me five years and 10.5 million dollars that he was out due to having to cover my tracks and pay my boss handsomely for wrangling me. In exchange, I got a shitty hand of life, the lowest ranking a lycan could rank, an iron leash, and a very, very, very thin chance.

Emphasis on the "very".

So, it's my mother's fault, yes, my father's, definitely, several other culprits of the past and present and every muddy moment in between, highly likely. But if you really wanted a map, if you really wanted every mountain and valley and dead end and shortcut drawn out to a T, then it wasn't much of their faults at all.

It was my brother's.

I'd be cruel to get into the gruesome details of that statement, and a criminal as it'd be an immense breach of several contracts, so we'll just leave that accusation as that, for context. He didn't start it, per se. But he was probably hoping to see it end. 

Not that I'd know.

I hadn't spoken to the guy in five years.

______________________

There weren't a lot of methods in which you could repay 10.5 million dollars in the amount of time I was given. I had to get creative. Jobs kept me alive. Street races gave me some pocket cash. An odd job or two bought me a real meal every now and then. But, I was still left with the same dilemma any college student had: money and an amateur face.

Luckily, I was good with a knife.

I tore off my helmet and deposited it in the corner with a clatter. My gloves landed next to it. The scent of blood was thick and coagulated in the air, rotted with must and stagnation. The listless green walls shuddered with pale white light. The pale white light broke out in fragments, tripped over itself, on the way to the steel table, the tray carts of sharp tools and empty bins. The Red Room was red for certain reasons, though. You just had to wait.

D said, "You look more like the corpse than the corpse does."

D was Dominic Rossi, Class II Stirling Alpha with more tattoos than skin and more ash than fire. He was somewhere between early thirties and late forties, but the gruff voice and the viking-worthy beard made it difficult to tell. He and I could've been friends in a better life, but for now, we just happened to be mutuals with sticky hands and bad habits.

I hummed. It was best not to talk much during these things. You started actually saying things you meant. "Where is she?"

He cocked his head at me from that dismissal, but turned around to head for the corner, where a plastic body bag lied. He hoisted it over his shoulder, then let it smack against the steel table. The light flicked on to illuminate the red splatters in the plastic, the sallow skin waiting under the surface. 

"Lungs, left kidney, right eye," he listed. He tossed me a pair of latex gloves. "Can you even see?"

I gingerly touched the gash cutting over my brow, narrowly missing the bottom of my eyelid. I yanked on the gloves, ignoring him. "Let's just start."

He unzipped the bag and laid the body out. I took up a scalpel. The bruises and matted hair said she'd taken quite a beating before she caved. Maybe a miracle so much of her survived. Maybe a nightmare.

I angled it at her sternum, and sank the blade in. 

Red was thick and clotted on silver blade. The skin peeled back, sickly white, scented by street winter and death. I sliced the muscles to watch them break away in snaps. The tendons pulled back with droplets raining around my gloves, onto her bruises, into the bones. The scent was pungent, noxious, inescapable. Death smelled metallic, spoiled, and familiar.

I dug into the flesh and held my breath.

"Word around," D said, wasting no time, "Corvus has some new recruits."

My scalpel stopped in its tracks.

"Do they," I said.

D let out a dry laugh. "You've got a year left and you grow a spine now?"

"I didn't grow anything," I said.

"How'd you convince them?" 

"I raced."

"Well, hell," he drawled. "It's like you wanna live."

I dragged the knife through the muscles. The snap of the tendons, like the twang of plucking strings. I said, "What a thought."

"Well, do you?"

"Do I?"

"Wanna live?" D said with a scoff. "'Cause Corvus might kill you before your brother ever gets the chance."

I wondered if I was a terrible lycan in that moment, for seeing flesh and bone and blood and feeling nothing but a nausea born of that from my mother's hands. I figured yes. I figured I had no choice.

I sliced so deep I hit the spine.

This isn't your world.

I said, "Don't bet on it."

I cut the shapes of tracks into the nameless body just to imagine racing down the blade of the knife.

______________________

Monday. Doomsday. The dun-dun-dun kind. Blackout. Rainfall. Sludge and slaughter. Dun. Dun. Dun.

Calculus was Tuesdays, which left me subject to the 8AM torture of a 200-person expository writing lecture followed by a three-hour chemistry lab. Which really wasn't helping my Monday considering it preceded the fateful snoody lycans and private collegian concrete I'd have to face after filleting a dead stranger for semi-viable organs to inch my way out of a dead-on-arrival debt coming for me in less than eleven months. Perhaps calculus wasn't such a bad guy after all.

I counted the seconds to two o'clock.

This isn't your world.

Nia had one point going for her: it'd only be smart for me to tread lightly.

I shed my lab gear, yanked my duffel over my shoulder, and headed for the Corvidae.

When I arrived, it was, terrifyingly, quiet. The roof was high. The walls were thick. The sun hid.

I clutched my helmet to me as I jostled my bike back and forth for good measure to sense its security, before jogging out to the track. I couldn't tell where my heart stopped or my stomach started. Everything in me was a little too liquified for calm.

There were bodies on the track, but only eight along with the coach. Edwards was waiting at the bottom in an AVU hat, waving her hand nonchalantly at me from below.

"You're late."

I nearly tripped over my cleats. I whirled around to spot the voice.

The bleach-haired boy from before approached me. Kenzo, his bangs over his eyes, his getup nothing more than joggers and a nylon shirt. He looked as wholly unimpressed to see me as before, his face a blank nothingness that was somewhere in the realm of indifference and disdain.

Still, I forced myself to flash him a grin. "Ah, my bad," I said. "I thought it started around afternoon."

Kenzo raised one brow. "It does."

I clicked my tongue. "There's a rule I'm missing."

"Ten minutes," he replied, like that was the full answer. I took as "ten minutes early", and nodded. 

He stared down at my helmet, then the rest of my outfit, and said, "What's that?"

A prima ballerina's getup. "My gear."

"No," he said.

"No what?"

"No, it's not." His voice was threaded in and out with a foreign accent, holding his vowels hostage. He faced forward and headed for the steps. "Are you going to grow?"

"This is an enlightening conversation, let me tell you," I said.

Kenzo didn't reply to that. He headed onto the track. I sighed and went after him. Perhaps Corvus wasn't really elite in square racing. Maybe they were so exclusive because of how elite their lack of social skills were.

"You're late," Edwards drawled the moment she spotted us.

"So I've been told," I said.

Everyone from before was present, save for the King man I'd "pushed" off a bridge. In some sense, I was grateful he was gone, as it meant I got to keep my head for a little longer.

Edwards grimaced at me. She looked me up and down. "What is that?"

"I'm getting deja vu," I told Zoe, who was busy brushing off her trainer jacket to look somewhat more presentable in the hand-me-down.

She frowned. "You never got your new gear?"

"Obviously not," Wynter said and gave me a side-eye. "He wasn't here this morning."

"Listen, I'm a lot of things in this world, but a telepath just misses the cutoff," I replied. "'See you Monday' is a very vague farewell."

Edwards flicked that away. "I'll send you to get it later and trash all that Jackdaw stuff."

Wynter and Zoe sent her offended looks, then sent me knowing ones, but Edwards either didn't care enough to notice or didn't see. She clapped her hands together in a ricocheting thunder strike. 

"King!" Edwards yelled, and my sweaty skin crawled. That salvation was short-lived. "Hustle, would you?"

"God help me," I muttered.

"On this track," Wynter scoffed at me, watching King along with the rest of us, "you're gonna need a hell of a lot more help than God."

Kane King descended onto the track, clad in his racing gear with his helmet beneath his arm. He had bandages over his nose and cheek, which was the little pleasure I could take in seeing him. He tapped the back of his fist with Zahir's on his way and headed for Edwards. She gave him five unintelligible words before he returned it with a nod and whirled on his heel. 

Towards us.

"Okay," I told Zoe and Wynter. "I'm going to pretend to have a heart attack in three seconds. You two are going to catch me and say oh my word, get the doctor and we're all gonna start convulsing together. Then, I begin to wail."

"Are you an idiot?" Wynter snapped. It'd likely offend my dignity to answer that honestly, so I refrained. "He can hear you."

"A trick. No he can't."

"Yes, I can."

He strode towards us in the same way a man pushed off a bridge strides to the man who pushed him off said bridge would. With contempt, that is. Plenty of contempt.

I pretended the straining of my neck just to look up at him wasn't as humiliating as it appeared. "Good day."

"Oy vey," Zoe whispered.

King sneered at me. His black eyes were carbon bullets. "There's no wailing on the track."

"Hey, he did hear," I said.

King looked me up and down with the same gesture a Doberman would a Chihuahua. I cleared my throat. "Good to know you have the time to spare for us," I said.

He took no bait. "I was in a meeting to negotiate terms of agreement for you three," he snapped, and added rather acerbically, "The NCAA isn't too thrilled about the idea of adding a third-rate beta to the Corvus belt."

Wynter frowned at him. She said, "He was good enough to get in."

King brushed past me. "You know how many lycans have come onto this team only to be cut a few practices in?" He gave me a look over his shoulder, a scalding thing layered under cold rock, as if just talking to me was infra dig to him. "Don't feel special yet."

Meredith tried to catch his eye with a disapproving look, but he ignored it and settled for heading back to Edwards. She sent him a more acerbic glare that made him sigh. Edwards cleared her throat and said, "Get your bikes ready, rookies. You're racing."

"We're gonna race?" Zoe piped, her hazel eyes lighting up. My stomach dropped to my feet.

"Yes," she said, her glare following King the whole way. "It's all we're doing for today. Call it a preliminary assessment of you three."

"Like hell we let these Corvus assholes get their smug victory," Wynter snapped to both of us. "If you collapse, I'll drag you by your heels."

Zoe nodded. "Do it."

I said, "Oy vey."

The blonde girl caught my eye with her jade green knife of a gaze. I said, "I thought we were all racing."

Rosalie frowned. "You are."

"What?"

"We race as a team next time," she said. "Everyone's first race is against King, though."

"Three to one sounds unfair," Zoe piped.

Rosalie humored that for only a single second before throwing her head back with a spiky laugh that didn't have as much mirth as it did mockery. "Sure," she said. "For you."

Zoe gaped after her as she climbed the rest of the stairs. Zahir remained behind, and for the first time since we met, genuinely spoke to us. His smile was earnest, black curls straying from his face as the wind blew us all south.

"Don't worry," he assured. "It's always fun racing with King. I mean, last time wasn't that boring, right?"

My gut twisted. "Ah, shit."

"Hey."

We whirled around. Kenzo stood a few yards away, looking on at us with that same blank disinterest as before. He looked towards the locker rooms and bikes to say, "Gear. Come on."

Zoe clutched my hand, her skin going cold from the cooling sweat. "Three to one, we could take him, right?" she said.

"Call this our real initiation," Wynter said.

I clenched my hands. I swore I could smell rotting flesh, maggot-infested organs, sickly and old and iron-infused. My stomach churned.

"Let's race," I sighed. "Just keep us from the bridges this time."

The locker rooms were about as cheery as the stadium it resided in. That's all to say, it was dark, dark, and darker. And, quite purple.

Kenzo led me down to the last row furthest from the entrance. He headed down the aisle, then came to a stop in front of an ultramarine locker, equipped with a thin silver lock. He clicked it open, glanced at me to confirm I'd gotten the combination, then pushed the door open and jutted his thumb at the contents inside.

"New everything, see if it fits," he stated. When I made no move, he raised a brow. "Now." I frowned. Kenzo said, "Locker room."

"I'll tell you if it fits, you don't have to watch me change."

"Locker room, track, rooms, we share them. Gonna have to get over it."

I said, "Rooms?"

Kenzo gave me a strange look, then brushed past me altogether to the outside. "Five minutes," he said, and shut the door behind him.

I decided to linger on it after the race/final hour of my life. I tore everything out of the locker to deposit on the bench between the two rows. Cleats, pads, guards, gloves, shirts, jacket, pants, and a crisp helmet so black it was almost blue. It was a sharp, reinforced thing, jet black metal coming to a deadly point like a crow's beak at either ends of the shell. The face shield was so black, it reflected blue.

I ran my hands over it a hundred times before moving onto putting the rest of the gear on. The cleats were the same coloration, the spikes pure metal and a terror to all surrounding hardwood. The guards threatened to be thicker than the leather. The leather itself, well, it would've taken me years upon years just to save enough money to match it. Half of me wanted a mirror, while the other half of me thought I'd faint if I looked at myself. Echo Yun. Class III Stirling Omega, head to toe in Corvus. The idea was comical.

The only difference remained in the fact that while Corvus's gear was decked out in five-star sponsors, mine was blank, void of names, customizations, or brands. A meek reminder of Kane's stiff promise. Not everyone made it past the initial stage. Not everyone got a real uniform.

I yanked on the thick gloves like pulling shadows onto my fingers and let out a shaky laugh. "I'm gonna die in designer," I muttered.

The decision was made for me by a bang on the door that jolted me into scrambling. I shoved my things into the locker. Kenzo spared me only a glance before spinning around. 

I said, "Thanks for the gear."

Kenzo said, "Don't ruin it."

"It's...hard not to."

"If you don't last," Kenzo snapped, and stopped at the bikes, "it'll go to waste."

I cocked my head to the side. "Are you betting it will or something?"

"Something," he said, and jutted his chin for us to leave.

I let him lead me to the Corvidae.

Zoe and Wynter were both side by side, their bikes propped up and their hands brushing over each other's new gear. Zoe was staring at her gloves with more absorbance than you'd offer a historical art piece. Wynter scraped her cleats against the concrete just to see the tiny sparks fly and make her jump.

Zoe whirled on me. "We have to survive this. Solely for this gear, Yun."

"Tell me about it," I muttered. "I think this costs what I make in a decade."

She laughed, although I wasn't really kidding. Wynter said, "Hey, those cleats make you look taller."

I shook my head. "This team isn't good for my self esteem."

"Don't sweat it, sugar rush." Diego leaned over the railing to snicker. "It's how we treat all the newbies."

"First year newbies," Rosalie added.

"Third-rate newbies," I deduced.

If these people were what stood between me and Red Diamond, then so be it. Elitism and pompous lycans were child's play compared to what would happen if they really did drive me out. Nia was right about one thing: this wasn't a chance I was going to get again. If Corvus was the worst fate I'd have to endure to make it worthwhile, then I'd be stupid to walk away out of pride. What pride? Racer or not, I was a Class III Stirling in a room full of Class I kings.

If I wanted even, I'd have to get it on the track.

King came beside us. He rolled up his bike aside ours; it was a Drachmann dragon on wheels, a vehicle of smoke and blood, the turbines a deadly silver and every inch of it equipped with fins or ventricles or curves to assist the speed of the already-monstrous firepower it possessed. He must've used a different one for the tryout, either to keep attention off himself or to show us all up at this fucking initiation.

I peered around it, and frowned. Beads of metal were implanted into the tires' leather, like purposefully inserted nails. King held his helmet on his lap, where in place of thick plastic at his ears, knitted ventilation and an intricate series of wires remained instead. I leaned to look closer at the strange contraptions, but Wynter rolled up closer and blocked it before I could.

I cleared my throat and  glanced at Wynter. "How you doing?" I asked.

She frowned. "Could be better."

I nodded. "That's good. Because we're gonna die."

"Wait, what?"

"Calm down." Zoe swung her leg over her bike to sit upright. "We're not dead. We have a chance if we strategize. We've played together before, it's not like we're new to this."

King glanced to Edwards. "We're ready," he said.

Edwards leaned over the railing. At our likely-pale faces, she said, "No one's died yet, so I let them have their way with this one. Same rules as the tryout. All you gotta do is cross the finish line before him."

"If we don't?" Zoe asked.

"Then you get to keep trying until you do."

King strapped on his helmet and we followed suit. At the sharp jaw of his helmet, KING was printed in gleaming silver. At the back of his jacket, it read 01 KING in blazing white, breaking the darkness.

I pulled on my helmet. The engines roars were diluted in the fresh, thick padding. The view was clean and enhanced in the new, calculating face shield. But, even through the comfort, without any of each other in the others' ears, it left all three of us alone against King. I didn't want to know if he looked smug about that fact or not.

I let my bike rumble to life, and waited for the go.

We looked to Edwards. She raised her hand.

Whoever won anything—

She brought it down like a knife.

—by taking what you're given?

And we raced.

Whatever miracles had occurred that first day between King and I, they'd fled from me for this one.

Zoe had, in fact, been wrong about the advantage in numbers. Begrudgingly though, I could see why the rest of Corvus had left King to be what stood between us and the finish line.

Amateur racers didn't know the difference between a fast racer and a good one. Speed was only as valuable as you made it. Braking at the wrong time, braking too early, braking too late. Speeding up too slow, speeding up on the wrong turn, speeding up on the wrong angle. When you struck, when you were struck. When you fled, when you chased. Your bike was only half your speed.

King dodged the pillars and logs with swerves so fast I thought I'd imagined them. He swung around the curves without a single falter, cleared the ramps like they were child's play. He managed twice our speed with half the effort, and wherever our franticness caught our heels, his calm carried him miles ahead.

"God-fucking-dammit," Wynter hissed, slamming her water on the bench. "How the hell are we supposed to beat him? I swear I blink and he's halfway across the fucking track."

Edwards had been kind enough to give us a ten minute break to recharge our bikes and guzzle more water than the lycan body could hold. We would've been grateful for it too if our lungs didn't feel like shattering in our currently-shattering ribcages.

I leaned against the stadium wall, taking gulps of my water. I watched King from where he stood with Kenzo and Zahir leaning over the railing. Diego was cackling over something no one else thought was funny, and Rosalie was talking to Meredith, pointing at us as she did so without shame.

I considered them all, and said, "He's got a bad left arm."

Zoe and Wynter whipped their heads to me. Zoe frowned. "What?"

If street racing taught anyone anything, it wasn't so much how to fix your own speed or timing, but rather how to find the fundamental flaw with everyone else's. If pro racing was all cleverness, street racing was all exploitation. 

"Those chicanes," I said, and pointed my finger at the alternating corners. "When he does them, he puts weight on his right arm to slide out of the last turn. When he ducks under the log series, he uses his right arm."

"He could just be right-handed," Wynter argued.

I shook my head. I pointed at Corvus. "Look. He's left-handed," I said. "But he swings wide on the pole series, he overcompensates the left side. The only reason it looks like he completes the series well is because he's so fast. But he never extends his left arm once, even when it'll make it easier."

Zoe blinked. She turned to gaze at King across the track. "What do we do with that?"

"Get him against the poles, slow him down," I said. "He'll be forced to use his left arm, he might falter. We've been trying to chase him or triangulate him, but we leave too much space for him to rework. We gotta close him in on the right. If he falters, we can knock him into the pillar. He might not go down, but he'll skid, and we'll have enough time to get to the ramp and jump ahead."

They exchanged glances at that, then nodded. Wynter got to her feet, shaky on her legs, and said, "Then let's do it."

"Remind me where you've been that isn't on a racing team?" Zoe sighed.

I shrugged and told her the most honest thing I'd probably said to her since we met. "I'm not very trustworthy on the track."

"Yun."

I looked up. Rosalie was leaning against the stands, staring down at me with a lazy interest. She squinted. "Right?" she said.

I flexed my hands. "Yes."

"Biochem," she said.

"You got a file on me?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, and my heart skipped one too many beats. At my blank face, she narrowed her gaze and said, "But it's too blank to be of much use."

I didn't know if that was a threat or not so I settled for a simple shrug. "I'm a token kid."

"Yeah," she said, like taking in the observation before her. "You are."

Zoe and Wynter came beside me. King stood by his bike on my left. He turned his head away, and from the very top of his neck guard, a lightning strike of black appeared on his skin.

I leaned in, but his head whipped towards me before I could see anything else. He glowered.

"What?" he asked.

I quickly returned to my position and brushed myself off. "For a captain, you're very unwelcoming to newcomers," I commented, and presented our faces to him. "When we are so inviting."

He pushed the stand up from the bike and swung his leg over and ignored me rather completely. 

I said, "Very welcoming."

"You got your welcome," he replied curtly.

"What's your problem?"

"Frankly," he sighed, "You."

"He's a good racer," Zoe protested. 

Wynter added, "He beat you."

"Once," he said. "How many times have I beat him?"

We were quiet. King's bike bursted to life, the engine growling bloody hell at us. He spared us no glance and flicked the face shield over his eyes, locking it in place.

Zoe glanced at me. "Left?"

I grit my teeth. "Left."

We locked our shields on.

And we went.

The three of us swerved up and around and behind King for the first fourth, waiting him out as he glided through the course. We chased him all along the ramps and the logs and the tires and the dips. Up ahead, the pole series stood looming aside the rows of hanging logs.

I sped ahead of Wynter and gave a jut of my head. She nodded.

"All right, jackass," I muttered as she zipped forward. "Better hope you're ambidextrous."

Wynter wasted one second before swerving her bike nearly horizontal and slamming King so far off course his front tire nearly collided with the first pole. He faltered, attempting to swerve around her, but Zoe was there in another heartbeat, blocking him from the last chance of entrance into the logs.

King slowed and careened towards the poles. In a flash, a millisecond, he stuck his left hand out and hesitated, his right hand twitching.

I veered forward, slicing through the air and pushing the bike up with more vigor than my body could likely withstand. I slid my bike down, my glove scraping the heat of concrete, to swing around the poles entirely and send a striking kick into King's bike's imbalanced left side.

He smashed into a pole, hand barely retracting fast enough to avoid being ripped off. The bike went diagonal, metal to stone, sparks like fireworks bursting in his wake. He whipped his head to me.

"Poke the bear and flee, poke the bear and flee," I muttered to myself as we began to zip ahead of him.

Zoe went for the ramps and we followed in her trail. She went flying, suspended in the air like a soaring bird, before landing right into the sharp-headed chicanes.

One fourth left.

I looked behind me.

"Poke the bear and flee" was not a popular method of anything at all, considering there was no guarantee the bear was not inhumanely fast and could eventually catch up to you to enact its irritated revenge, so it relied more on your ability to get the hell out rather than the bear's inability to get back up. Ergo, the statistics were not ever in your favor, ever.

But I wasn't really known for my smooth learning curves.

King's black helmet and beastly vehicle appeared only a bike length behind me, the sound of the engine so violent it was thunderous even through the thickness of my helmet. I cursed something awful.

Zoe and Wynter were already halfway through the chicanes, but I'd be a dead man to leave King behind me and try to beat him through them. My blood was pure adrenaline, shooting through my veins so fast it was bullets in my ears.

"Lord I pray," I muttered, and swerved around.

There are a lot of do's and do not's in square racing, let me tell you. Do be fast, do not lose your helmet, do use the ramps, do not do flips, do swerve often, and do not ride backwards.

But I figured if we were already to be exiled from Corvus for losing out to King, then at least I could be exiled for something on my own terms. 

I slammed my foot down and forward, shifting gears, and yanked the side mirror down. King momentarily slowed, staring at me as he rounded the first corner. King inched forward for me. The distance closed at a stomach-sinking rate.

The fifth chicane approached. He swooped down with his right hand out.

I slowed, and yanked my bike up, around, and reversed. Riding backwards.

Our front wheels collided. There were so many sparks from the grating metal, I thought we'd start a wildfire. The seconds split in two. I took the millisecond-chance. I unhooked my feet from the bike, rose up straight, and swung my leg in a clean curve right into his side.

The last chicane.

King lost grip, his right hand grasping the bike and skidding out of control into the corner. I yanked my bike in an ear-piercing left. I faced front. My foot slammed back into the pedals, shifting gears with a groan of protest from the inner workings, before I jolted the vehicle upwards.

It sailed up and over the final corner, landing on the railings of the chicanes. Steel cried out from the burning rubber digging into it. My teeth were clenched so hard I nearly broke every molar in my mouth.

I sank into the accelerator and the bike swallowed up the last of its energy to burst forward in a dizzying spike of speed. I swerved around the track.

The final ramp.

I soared over the final fourth of cruel concrete below.

My tires landed so hard my bones shook. I raced ahead. Zoe and Wynter were already at the finish line, waving gloved hands at me in a fierce beckoning. I went and went and went.

A flash of black and purple bolted like a lightning strike.

My tires crossed the line.

But King's were inches above me.

It took a minute for my bike to come to a stuttering halt. I let it pitter out to collapse. Breathing took every ounce of focus. My body shook. I slumped against the vehicle's coughing body.

Someone came beside me, tearing off my helmet. She winced at my face. "Oh, my God, Yun," Zoe gasped. "Are you okay?"

I blinked blearily in the wave of sweat and blood dripping down my skin. I stumbled onto my feet, still leaning against the sad sight of my bike. I turned around to look at the finish line with something almost like contempt. Wynter stared with me.

"Hey," Zoe said, pushing my shoulder. I gagged at the pain. She quickly ratified. "Shit, sorry. You got more beat up than I thought."

I shook my head. "Forget it."

"Don't forget it," Wynter said. Then, cracked her head back, and let out a raucous laugh high into the sky. "Holy shit. Did you even—did anyone see that? Yun, you're out of your mind."

"Out of his goddamn mind!" someone shrieked.

I turned to the upperclassmen, who were all staring at me with unreadable expressions.

"Wow," Meredith called, and laughed a bright cackle. "Holy—wow, hey, that was the best match I've seen against King in a while!"

"Did you ride backwards?" Zahir said. "Did he ride backwards? Can he do that? Is that in the handbook? Someone check the handbook, I hope that's allowed, because that was fucking cool, even I gotta say."

"Don't encourage him," Rosalie snapped. "Because it wasn't cool, it was stupid. Are you stupid?"

"Probably," I said, and turned to where King was.

The celebration was extremely short-lived. King held his left arm with a tight expression across his face, helmet propped on the handlebars. He looked almost upset, like a child perturbed. 

Bitter anger was a hot bubble that burst in my stomach the moment I laid eyes on him. I curled my fists tight. I shook my head and threw them up, not even caring for the burn in my shoulders.

"Where did you even come from?" I exclaimed.

King didn't look at me, which only boiled my blood further. He pointed behind me. "There's a bigger ramp."

Ah, of course there was.

"You've gotta be kidding me," I said.

"Your tricks aren't as foolproof as you think," he told me plainly. "And neither are your cheap shots."

"Anything below the head is allowed," I shot back. "And they're not cheap shots, they're just shots you couldn't take."

King paused. He turned his head to me, eyes dark. "Who cleared the finish line first?"

"By inches, and you just used a bigger ramp. I almost beat you."

He released his shoulder and faced me with the same stance an unimpressed teacher would face a failing student. Every fiber of my body shook with the effort it took to not let my fist go flying into his sneering face. 

"Almost," he emphasized. "There is no 'almost' in racing. There's either you win or don't. And you didn't."

"I beat you before."

"And I beat you seven times over." I pursed my lips at that. He turned around as if to leave. "But you're free to hold onto that one anomaly if it makes you feel better."

"Yun," Zoe warned, but my temper was already breaking the glass.

"What's your problem?" I snapped. "Your team asked for first years, and we're the ones that made it, out of all the others. We can only help you, so why are you treating me like I'm some stray dog that wandered onto your pretty little track?"

King paused. He turned around to face me. The look he sent me wasn't angry, and wasn't frustrated, but concentrated in disdain and painted over with a foul distaste. It stripped you of your very shadow.

"You said it," he replied. "Not me."

"Don't have to," I argued. "So what's your problem?"

King tilted his head. "Your turns are too sharp, your timing is too close, you can't race in a straight line to save your life, you have no sense of balance, no sense of planning, and no sense of directional dominance. You race like this track is some kind of playground," he said. "You use street tricks and fast patches and it makes for a good show, but your technique is frantic and your execution is disgustingly sloppy, and you race with such an empty, inflated ego, I'm surprised you're still on the ground." He leaned down to remain eye level with me. "That's my problem."

The track was silent. I stared, my mouth refusing to move, the words like series of bronze bullets snapping into every artery of my body. 

King turned back and kicked the prop on his bike. "Welcome to Corvus," he called, and walked away.

Edwards made her way down and barked an order for King to stay, but he ignored her. We watched him go. My tongue began to bleed between my teeth. I ripped my gloves off and tore off my neck guard.

Wynter scoffed. "Jesus," she murmured.

"Bloody hell," Zoe muttered. "He really just said that shit, the jackass."

This is your chance.

"He's right." 

Rosalie descended the stairs onto the track. There was no sympathy in her eyes, rather just a plain understanding. She shrugged. "There's no 'almost' in square racing," she said. "You either win or you lose, doesn't matter by what margin. And you still lost." 

"Rosalie," Meredith tried.

"Win or lose, who cares," Diego argued. He flashed me a grin. "Still quite the play, man. I've never seen anything like that."

"Because it's a stupid move," Rosalie said. "It's borderline illegal."

"So is the fact this conversation has gone on this long," Edwards called from behind. She settled in front of the team and let out a heavy sigh. "Enough talking," she snapped. "Gossard, tell King to get the hell over the chip on his shoulder because we're gonna be doing this almost every day for a while. You, too. Now I don't care what rate any of you are because we've got an entire season together and all your attitudes are pissing me off so the next time we meet, which is tomorrow, I want it off the track, got it?"

We nodded. Edwards hummed.

"Good. Now someone help Yun because he's bleeding all over my track. And get King here on time Friday, because you're all helping move these three into the Talon."

I did a double take. "The what?" I said.

"We dorm with you?" Zoe asked. "But we're subs."

"I hear 'but'," Edwards snapped. "Why am I hearing that?"

"Oh, Coach," Diego said. "Let me explain the tendencies of ears."

I nearly choked on my next breath. "Dorm?"

"Take them to the lockers," Edwards sighed. "I'm gonna review some contracts for you three and we'll discuss them tomorrow. For now, get a Band-Aid and charge your bikes, you're back here six AM tomorrow."

"Living in the Talon?" Zoe squeaked. "Good God, it's spectacular."

"It's a death sentence," Wynter corrected. "She's basically giving them a free-for-all at us."

I turned to Edwards. "I don't want to dorm."

"It's a lot better than the campus dorms," Meredith assured us, sliding in at my right with a brimming smile. "We live in the suites, they're a lot bigger. And there's two microwaves. And a Dunkin' Donuts."

Zoe and Wynter perked up. "Dunkin' Donuts?"

"It's always Dunkin' that gets them," Zahir said.

Kenzo said, "Where did you learn that trick?"

It was the most syllables he'd spoken to me that wasn't an order, so I took a moment to look over Meredith's head to him. He was a softer blank now, curious more than anything.

I scratched at the back of my neck. "Dunno," I said. "I didn't think it'd even work."

"It shouldn't." Rosalie shook her head. "Because it's suicide. You pull that in a game and I'll come for you."

Wynter stared at me. "I think you have an enemy-making face, Yun."

"So I've heard." I wiped my face. A cut on my nose stung something fierce. "I don't live on campus."

"What? Do you like making your life harder?" Rosalie scoffed.

We reached the lockers and I propped my bike up at the station, locking it into the stall, before plugging in the wires to let it soak up enough energy for tomorrow's hellfest all over again.

"I just don't want to," I said. "If I'm here on time, why does it matter?"

Zahir made a remorseful face from behind Rosalie. "It's sort of mandatory. We've had too many incidents with Corvus members being far apart from each other so for safety, Coach has us all in the Talon. Most of the other sports are in there with us, too. It's just easier to be close to the track and fields."

"Safety?"

"For someone so eager to be on our team," Rosalie muttered to Meredith, "he doesn't know much about us."

I opened my mouth to ask what that meant, but Zahir beat me to it. He held up his hands at me.

"It's part of being in Corvus," he said. "You've all got until Friday. We'll help you, of course! We'll meet you in front of the Talon." He smiled and gave us a thumbs-up. "All right?"

I clenched my fists. Living in the Splinter's apartments was risky enough. Jumping from place to place, jumping from park bench to stranger's couches, I'd become well accustomed with it. But living with Corvus and a hundred other athletes I didn't know was downright suicide. No dorm was big enough to closet everything I needed, and nowhere would be good enough to run to if something fell through.

Meredith frowned, and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, blue eyes earnest when she gazed down at me. "I know it's a hard adjustment," she said, "but it'll be okay. We'll help you. And you'll have your friends." She gestured to Zoe and Wynter.

It wasn't "friends" I was worried about. Still, I shoved my lips into a smile, hoping the split in my lip didn't grow with it. "Sure."

A clock ticked above my head, the hand steady and slowly moving down. I could smell blood from my lip, from my nose, from the woman's remains the night before. My heart beat with it.

I held the Corvus helmet between my hands, and imagined my name at the jaw.

Welcome to Corvus.

I held it between my hands, and felt it breathe to life.

(long chapter again, i'm sort of scrambled all over this chapter but hopefully most of it is coherent :D ty for readin', ur much appreciated, the little star sits in the corner with a smile)