The Blood Racer (The Blood Racer Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

              Next was Joe Pipkin’s sweet shop. Rigel and I used to run across his rooftop as part of a shortcut that we’d made when bounding through the town. He had only ever yelled at us a few times. He had always been a very nice man. Like the Greers, money wasn’t Joe’s primary focus. As long as he could make enough to buy more sugar or syrup, it was fine by him. Even though he was in his fifties, and had a head of thin grey hair, I think he loved snacking on the candies as much as any kid in the whole city. I think that was what I liked about him. Even though the world was a bleak one, especially in Adams, he never let it bring him down. Maybe that’s where Rigel learned it from.
              As I continued through the main area of town, I was able to make it to Mayor Westward’s house without being badgered about what I was carrying. Doing my best to look as professional as I could, I pulled off my helmet with a free hand and tried to ruffle some life into the short brown hair that had been flattened against my skull. Giving up after only a few seconds, I lifted a gloved hand to the white door and rapped loudly.
              It took only a minute for the door to open, revealing the tall, pudgy frame of Mayor Westward. He was wearing a grey knitted waistcoat, and had an absurdly large, unlit pipe hanging from his mouth. His dark, greased hair was a bit out of sorts, and I wondered if I had awakened him from a nap, or something. His drooping brown eyes glared down at me in semi-confusion, but they quickly flitted over to the box and he seemed to understand.
              “Delivery, is it?” he huffed, breathing loudly through his nose as he adjusted the pipe with his lips.
              I nodded, holding out the box. “Yes, sir. From Rainier.”
              “I need to sign anything?”
              “Just that slip there,” I pointed to the corner of the box.
              Westward patted down the chest of his waistcoat, searching for a pen that wasn’t there. From behind him, a narrow feminine arm reached over his slouched shoulder. “Here you are, dear,” said his wife, Cecily, as she handed him a silver and blue fountain pen.
              “Hm. Yes, thank you,” he grunted, taking the pen from her. Blinking his eyes pointedly, he scribbled at the shipping slip for a moment before tearing off the top copy and handing it back to me.
              I gave him a nod of thanks and turned to leave when I heard Mrs. Westward slap her husband on the arm. “Rupert, it’s proper manners to tip the girl.”
              “Right, then. Here you are,” the mayor grumbled, tossing me a coin from his pocket. I had to snap a hand up to catch it, but he didn’t even wait for me to thank him. As he was closing his door, the only thing I could hear was Cecily whispering.
              “Is that for the race?” she asked.
              I scoffed as I walked away. Rigel had been right. Probably his Race Day speech.
Definitely looking forward to hearing that,
I thought to myself as I stepped away from their house. Opening my hand, I looked down at the coin he had tossed me and felt my eyes bulge for a second.
              “Twenty tokens?” I breathed, cradling the coin in my hand as if it were suddenly made of glass. That was as much as I made in a week. He had just thrown it to me as if it were nothing to him. How much money did he have that he could just throw twenty tokens at someone like it wasn’t a big deal? So much for being just like the rest of us. Quickly, I slipped the coin in my pocket and gave a cursory glance around, making sure no one had seen it. I didn’t want anyone begging me for a handout.
              It wasn’t that I was against helping others, but I had never begged for anything in my life. I had always found a way to earn my keep, to provide for those I needed to provide for. I didn’t have much in this world, but what I did have were things I had earned. I found it difficult to pity those that couldn’t. I even hated accepting gifts, even for my birthday. Rigel could attest to that. Once or twice he had tried giving me things, and I had mostly refused them. He once gave me a pair of flying gloves that he had made himself. I accepted them only because I knew it would crush him if I refused. In hindsight, I was glad I did. They were comfortable and durable, and I was still wearing them even after two years.
              With a bit of a spring in my step, I journeyed back toward the docks, headed for Nichols’ shop. I just needed to drop off my delivery slip and, hopefully, that would be all for the day. It was getting to be that time, anyway. And since I had made an extra week’s wages with one run, I would’ve loved to have the rest of the day off.
              When I arrived, Rigel was still there, putting the finishing touches on the hydro tanks I had given him earlier. He was laughing at some joke that had just passed between him and Sparks, the long-distance courier that Nichols used for carrying goods to other parts of the Dominion.
              Sparks looked over at me as I walked in. “Uh-oh,” he said, grinning widely. “Fun time’s over.”
              I chuckled. “Just like your days of having hair.”
              Rigel laughed loudly at my comment, but Sparks slapped a hand over his bald head as his mouth fell open. “Immediately, she comes out swinging!”
              “You can’t joke with her,” Rigel said, still laughing. “She goes for the hurt. Every time.”
              “Your face is gonna hurt in a minute,” I said, hopping onto a vacant stool by Nichols’ work table.
              Rigel pointed me and looked over at Sparks. “See what I mean?”
              Sparks got up from his own stool and made his way toward the door, pulling on his long leather coat and shouldering the large mailbag he always carried with him. “All right, I guess I should be going. Got some Rainier business to take care of. Besides, if I wanted to get nagged at all day by a woman, I’d get married.”
              I cackled dramatically. “You? With a wife? That would be the day.”
              He grinned again, his silver tooth glinting from the corner of his mouth, and stroked his scraggly goatee. “Still mad that I turned you down? How long are you gonna hold that against me?”
              Laughing at his own joke, he ducked out the door before I could muster a sardonic response. Growling, I tossed my delivery slip onto the worktable. He hadn’t ‘turned me down’ for anything. Sparks just loved getting the last word. His ego demanded it. He was older than I was, probably by about a decade, so his wit was a little sharper than mine. That didn’t stop me from giving him grief whenever I saw him, though. It was a regular routine with us. We would fire quips at one another every chance we got. I couldn’t do that with Rigel. He was a little too sensitive. He could joke for a minute, but he always ended up with his feelings hurt, like he thought I was serious. With Sparks, there was no danger of that.
              Still smiling, Rigel sauntered over to me with my hydro tanks dragging on the ground behind him. Now that they were full, he couldn’t carry both of them “You’ll get him next time,” he said with a wink. I gave him a playful shove and he slid out the door, managing to hook it with his foot so that it closed behind him.
              With a sigh, I turned to look for Old Man Nichols, who was hunched over a workbench in the back of his shop, soldering some small pieces of metal together. “I suppose I should count myself lucky that I had finished my business with him before you drove my mail carrier away,” he said, not even looking up from his work.
              I rolled my eyes to myself and smiled. “I assumed you’d already got the business out of the way first, and that Sparks was just flapping his gums. That’s kind of his thing, you know.”
              Nichols chuckled quietly. “Indeed, my dear.”
              I exhaled and tapped my fingers absentmindedly on the table in front of me, carelessly toying with various tools and bits of metal. “Well, the delivery slip is here. Signed by Westward. Is there…anything else for today?”
              Nichols paused in his work and raised up slightly. “Just one thing,” he said.
              I suppressed a curse, but I couldn’t keep my shoulders from slumping. Nichols stood from his work bench and made his way over to me, wiping his big filthy hands on the blackened apron that hung off of his neck. On his way over, he grabbed Sparks’ stool and set it down in front of me, taking a seat on it with a groan.
              On most days, Nichols didn’t really strike me as an old man. He worked harder than any young man I knew, and he never complained. He was always on time, he was always dependable, and he never even got sick. Not that I could remember, anyway. I knew he was in his sixties, though, and as he took off his ancient cap and rubbed his pale eyes in front of me, he suddenly seemed quite old. Old and weary. His lightly wrinkled skin looked to be sagging. His grey hair was shaggy and long, and was matted with sweat. I never understood how he could keep his beard so perfectly trimmed and shaped, but never bothered to comb his hair. At the moment, it didn’t matter. He removed the multi-lensed work glasses from his face and sighed deeply.
              “How are you, Elana?” he asked, his forehead lined with genuine concern.
              I was a little taken aback by his question. I didn’t think there was anything bothering me, but the way he was looking at me made me wonder if I was sending some kind of body language signal. I fidgeted in my seat, but I managed a shrug.
              “I’m…nothing. I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
              His lips made strange shapes for a moment before he answered. “Well, I know the race is coming up. And it’s the anniversary of…your mother.”
              “Oh,” I said feebly. In truth, I had successfully pushed it from my mind. Until just then, of course. He was right. The race marked the three year anniversary of my mother’s death. It was also the
six
year anniversary of my father’s death, but I decided not to point that out.
              “I know things…have been difficult,” Nichols said, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I just want you to know that, whatever you feel…you can say it in here. No one is going to judge you, or make you try to…feel a certain way. And you don’t have to worry about any questions from those pesky radio people.”
              I managed a smile. Nichols’ message was simple. He was there for me if I needed him. He knew the pressure I was under, trying to take care of my brother and sister, trying to work and make money, and he had always been more than accommodating to me. He also knew that the radio stars had a habit of interviewing contestants and their families from previous races.
              “Thank you,” I told him, feeling suddenly embarrassed and awkward with the conversation. “You’ve done enough for me, though. I think it’s time for me to start taking care of you. Isn’t it about time for you to retire?” I finished with a smirk to let him know I was joking, but he was already chuckling.
              “Well, that day is coming soon, my dear,” he said. He was still smiling, but I could hear the somber note in his voice.
              “Not too soon, I hope.” I gave him a playful nudge. In reality, if Nichols was to retire, I’d probably be out of a job. I didn’t know anything about running a business, and even if I did, I couldn’t craft things the way he could. He was a master. Without his goods and products, I would have nothing to deliver. I didn’t like that thought at all. Where would I be when he finally did hang up his welding torch?
              He was staring at me as I thought, and I had a distinct sensation that he knew what was going on in my head, and that I was thinking exactly what he intended me to be thinking. I straightened my jacket and stood up, trying to kill the moment.
              “Was that the ‘just one thing’?” I asked. “Because if so, I’m gonna go get something to eat. You want anything?”
              He shook his head and smiled politely. “No, child. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
              I gave him a nod and skipped my way out of the shop and onto the street. While I had the money, I perused one or two of the shops that I rarely visited, purchasing a full inkwell and a sheaf of loose writing paper for Jack Dodson, the haggard, dark-skinned, dark-eyed, smooth-as-silk fellow that operated the control tower most afternoons. After making the purchases, I dropped them by the tower for him. He was busy, which was fine by me. I didn’t feel much like chatting. From there, I was headed home.
              I made my way around the edge of town and sighed when I came to the causeway. Rigel had warned me, but the sight of the Race Day banner still felt like a jab in the gut. Instead, I focused my attention over the rusted metal railing of the causeway, gazing into the orange afternoon sky.
              It really was a sight that most of us took for granted. The causeway spanned a gap between two sections of a mountain, which was kind of a marvel in itself. Below me, I could see the distant tops of a few trees, as well as a couple of birds that had made their nests there. There was also several decades worth of random things that had fallen over the side. A few metal toys, a ratty shirt or a stray shoe, all things that were never valuable enough to try and retrieve. Not that there was a real feasible way to do it. Besides, the birds may one day use that junk to build nests.
            I had once asked Nichols how the animals down below were able to survive the poisonous Veil. If a human were to breathe it, he would die in just a few seconds. Animals, on the other hand, were virtually unfazed. He had told me that humans had created the Veil, hundreds of years ago, by polluting the air and attacking each other with toxic gasses. The poisons were only designed to target other humans, so animals were immune. But even he admitted that the fumes should have been gone by now. Whatever people did back in those days, it almost killed us all. It still could.