Exaltation (Insight #11)(97)

“This war is going down in the swamp, not the Quarter. Go protect your girl. I’ll make sure Kade doesn’t get around this track.” They couldn’t let him win, not when they thought Benjamin had attached a curse to him. The one they had been trying to avoid for months.

This was no drag race. There were curves in the uneven track. Half of it couldn’t even be seen even though lights lining the mounds were shining down.

Kade had gotten into his car. Benjamin, or the image of him, winked at Rydell and gave him a pout before he got into the opposing car. The girl before them held up the pinks as they revved their motors.

Rydell heard Raven scream over the crowd.

“Go, man, I got this!” Dagen yelled.

Rydell only had a second to think and in that second a thousand thoughts and scenarios raced through his mind. Bottom line, Benjamin was a racer. He would expect Rydell to run to Raven. He would expect Rydell to fight the war and not go on a joy ride. And in the end he would truly win, for he would have laid the curse down.

“You go,” Rydell said.

“What? No!”

“Dagen. I gave her a shield of my energy. You know I did. Which makes you currently more powerful than me. Go protect her. I got Kade.”

“What do you know?” Dagan demanded.

“Do not defy me. Grab Kade so I can slide in.”

“King—”

“You keep my girl safe, all of them. Now!” And they were off.

Dagen manifested in the car and pulled Kade away. Rydell appeared in his spot a split second later, so fast the gas pedal didn’t even have a chance to leave the floor.

***

The swamp at night is never a calming sound.

Knowing you are being guarded as your friends are cheering on a race in the distance is not soothing by any means.

Raven paced, and so did the twins and Soren.

Every time the wind picked up they would glance at each other. Raven kept trying to think of what she learned in The Realm, the rink, how she made it a game, pull the rope. Pull the rope.

The boys Rydell had left with them had given Raven and the others a wide enough berth so they didn’t feel like prisoners.

Raven was staring at one of them, thinking to herself how he looked so much like Rydell. They all had an outward image that reflected him.

Then to her horror she saw a hand push through his stomach, smoke rush from the wound and him fall to the ground. She screamed then. Really screamed.

A man in black, like the ones they fought before, was behind him. Smiling at her next to him was Benjamin. Benjamin leaned closer to him. “Now go get her,” he said to the man in black.

Others descended then. Raven and the others moved into battle formation—the twins just behind Raven, Soren before her—and began to fight. Benjamin never touched them. It was like he was pulling the strings though.

Seconds later Dagen appeared. He started to help his boys. They had lost at least two so far, but far more men in black had fallen. So much so, Raven wasn’t sure how all this black smoke had not caused everyone from the race to look over there.

***

The real Benjamin was right beside Rydell. Rydell knew you could make your mirror mock anything, but he’d taught this boy to drive, to race. He knew this was no mirror he was racing.

Benjamin was after the slow kill, after the curse tonight, but Rydell had stopped that. He’d protected Raven, all of them.

Benjamin figured it out right as they went to the dark side of the track. He plowed his car into the side of Rydell’s. At that point it was an all out war. Rydell had to keep him occupied. If they took this fight outside the car Benjamin would win. Rydell was too close to mortal, too low on vim. He just had to keep him busy until Dagen came back.

***

Every time someone came near Raven, they were repelled away. Raven could see them clashing against vim, vim Rydell had given her. As soon as she figured that out she took the lead. She wasn’t going to let any more of Rydell’s friends fall, or any of hers.

She charged for the image of Benjamin and did her rope pull deal. He was hollow, no rope, no black smoke, just a poof and he was gone. He had to be fake like the fake Berries she’d seen at school. Raven figured out when she made the fake one go away, the men in black around that image vanished, too, so that was her new plan. The others tried to take down the image of him but nothing happened besides him flickering. So Raven did it. She took down nine. She finished it.

Right then she heard Kade moan and saw him against a tree, holding his head. But the race was going on. Raven could hear it, meaning Rydell was racing.

Raven had taken down nine fake Benjamin’s with the energy he had given her, but Rydell was fighting the real one, depleted, no doubt. She took off in a sprint, fearing the worst.

***

Rydell was almost having doubts this was Benjamin—he started making mistakes, even weaving like someone was stabbing his energy. He must have found a way to agree with the pain because he charged up on Rydell’s bumper. When he rammed it they were going over a dip. His hood went under Rydell’s car and sent it soaring upward.

Raven reached the dune just in time to see Kade’s car flying through the air and the one racing him flipping and then spinning under the other. The scream that left her was blood curdling. She charged down the hill. The crowd stayed on the bank screaming, ‘They’re going to BLOW.’

Raven told herself Rydell moved. The second the accident happened he moved out of the car. He was safe—had to be—on the bank, and would be furious at her for charging down there but the sense of doom, the deflation of her very soul told her she was lying.