Chapter 2

/MAYA/

Despite the fact that the SUV has finally left, I still felt uneasy. Unable to sleep, I spent the next two hours doing mindless chores just to keep my hands moving. I swept the concrete floor twice, organized my sockets by size, and wiped down the counters until my arms ached. 

I walked into the small back room that doubled as a kitchen and break area. 

“Mom?” I went inside to check on my mom. It was around the time she usually fell asleep.

My mom was already asleep on the small cot we kept back there for nights when she was too weak to make it up the stairs to our tiny apartment. Her breathing was shallow and sometimes it scared me. I was afraid that one day, she wouldn't… I shook my head. I refused to complete that sentence even if it was just a thought. Mom was going to be alright, after all, she's one of the major reason I'm working this hard. “I’ll keep working hard, so hang on for me,” I muttered to her before kissing her on the forehead.

On the small bedside table sat three plastic prescription bottles. I picked one up, twisting the label toward the dim light, it was empty. All three of them.

“I know I said I will work hard but this is harder than I thought,” I ran a hand through my hair. We were barely getting enough to eat after paying bills, how would I be able to handle her medication if everything were to finish at the same time? Not to talk about insurance.

“Damn it!” I cussed.

The black-market pharmacy down the lane was the only place that didn't ask for health insurance, but they charged double the price for her specialized heart medication. It was three hundred dollars a bottle, and she needed two a month just to keep her lungs from filling with fluid.

"I'll figure it out, Mom," I whispered, setting the bottle down gently.

I walked back out into the main garage, turning off the overhead fluorescent lights. The only light left came from the pale moon leaking through the high, dirty transom windows. I grabbed a fresh rag and a bottle of degreaser, intending to polish the frame of the chopper I'd been working on earlier. I needed to exhaust myself completely, or my brain wouldn't stop looping through images of that blacked-out car and the empty prescription bottles.

Just like my day couldn't get any worse, I heard the shattering of glass coming from close by… it was coming from the building. The building I was in.

“Had thieves broken in?” I muttered to myself as I grabbed my handy wrench from my toolbox. “I swear to God, I'm gonna kill someone one of these days. What the fuck do we even got to steal?”

"In the back! Check the office!" a voice shouted from the front waiting room.

I stepped out of the shadows of the garage, holding the wrench tight against my thigh. The front door was completely gone, reduced to a barely surviving frame and a pile of glittering shards on the floor. Three men were stepping through the wreckage, their heavy boots crunching loudly on the glass. They wore dark hoodies, their faces partially hidden, but I recognized the guy leading them instantly.

Marcus was the main enforcer for the local loan sharks who ran the gambling rings three blocks over.

"Looking for me?" I asked, my voice coming out steadier than I felt. I raised the wrench, keeping my feet planted wide.

Marcus stopped, a nasty, yellow-toothed grin spreading across his face. He didn't look intimidated by the metal in my hand. He casually kicked a stack of my spare tires, knocking them over into a chaotic pile.

"There she is," Marcus said, taking a step closer. "The little mechanic. You're a hard girl to track down, Maya."

"You know exactly where I am, Marcus. And you know I don't owe your boss anything until the first of the month," I snapped, keeping my eyes on the other two men who were moving toward my tool racks. "Tell your dogs to keep their hands off my gear."

Marcus chuckled as he pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it onto the counter between us. "Things changed tonight, sweetie. Your late father’s gambling debts don't just disappear because he’s under the dirt. Interest has been busy racking up."

"I’ve been paying the agreed amount every single month!" I yelled, my grip tightening on the wrench until my fingers went numb. "We had a deal."

"The boss sold your paper," Marcus said, leaning over the counter, his breath smelling like stale tobacco and cheap liquor. "Some new collector bought up all the old neighborhood debts. They don't do fifty-dollar-a-week payment plans. They want the lump sum, and they want it now."

My blood ran cold. "How much?"

"Fifty grand," Marcus said flatly. "You have exactly seven days to find fifty grand. If you don't have the cash in a week, we take the keys to this shop, we sell the inventory, and just for good measure, we make sure that pharmacy down the street stops selling those little white pills your old lady needs."

My eyes widened in panic. If I couldn't get Mom's meds, she'd… she'd die. I was so angry that I took all that was in me to stop myself from crying.

"You can't do that," I whispered, the strength suddenly draining from my legs. "Fifty thousand dollars in a week? That's impossible. Nobody on this block has that kind of money."

If we did, we wouldn't be in the slumps, you fucking assholes.

"Then I guess you better start packing," Marcus said. He turned to his men and nodded. "Give her a small reminder so she doesn't forget the deadline."

Before I could move, one of the guys grabbed a crowbar and smashed it down onto my digital diagnostic scanner—the most expensive piece of equipment in the entire shop. The screen exploded in a shower of plastic and sparks.

"Stop!" I screamed, lunging forward with the wrench, but Marcus caught my wrist in a vice grip, twisting it until I was forced to drop it. It clattered uselessly onto the concrete.

"Seven days, Maya," Marcus hissed in my ear, his grip bruising my skin. "Don't be short."

He shoved me away, and the three of them turned around, stepping back out through the broken door frame and disappearing into the night.

I fell to my knees on the cold floor, surrounded by broken glass and the ruined plastic of my scanner. My chest was heaving, tears of frustration stinging the corners of my eyes. I wanted to bawl my eyes out, scream, cry and even rip out my hair.

Fifty thousand dollars? I could work twenty-four hours a day for a year and I wouldn't see that kind of money. If they took the shop, my mom would be dead in a month.

I looked at the shattered glass, then at the door to the back room where my mom was sleeping through the nightmare.

Desperate times meant doing things that made you sick to your stomach.

I stood up, my hands shaking as I walked over to the office desk. I unlocked the bottom drawer, reached all the way to the back under a stack of old tax returns, and pulled out a small, cheap burner phone. 

“Dead,” I cussed. Of course it was dead, when was the last time I'd used it? I plugged it into a charger cable, my heart racing as I waited for the screen to light up.

There was only one contact saved in the memory. A name I had sworn I would never look at again after my dad died.

Carter.

Carter ran things at the Circuit for the most part. It was the underground, no-rules motorcycle racing ring that operated out of the abandoned industrial zone on the edge of the city. The buy-ins were lethal, the tracks were dangerous, and the people who bet on them were monsters. My dad had lost everything there and I'd bowed never to associate myself with them, but it was also the only place where a fast rider could make ten grand in a single night.

I pressed the call button and held the phone to my ear. It rang three times before a hoarse voice answered.

"Yeah?"

"It's Maya," I rasped. "Maya Hunter."

There was a short pause on the other end, followed by a low chuckle. "Well, look who finally ran out of options. I told you you'd call eventually, Little Mechanic. What do you want?"

"Put me in for the underground circuit tonight," I said, gripping the phone so hard the plastic creaked. "I need the high-stakes line, the maximum buy-in."

The man laughed, but it wasn't a friendly sound. "Tonight? You're cutting it close, girl. The heavy hitters are already setting up. And honestly, the game changed while you were gone playing legitimate business owner."

"I don't care," I snapped, my voice sounding desperate to anyone who could hear. "I need the race."

"Alright, you're in," he said, dropping the laughter as his tone grew unusually serious. "But listen to me, Maya. There’s a new player in the bracket tonight, he calls himself 'Jax.' Dark horse, expensive imported bike, and the face of someone who's willing to shed blood. He’s been breaking bones and destroying bikes all week, and he’s explicitly looking for the best rider in the slums. You sure you want a piece of this?"

I looked down at the bruised skin on my wrist where Marcus had held me. I looked at the empty medicine bottles in the kitchen.

"Tell him to get in line," I said, and slammed the phone shut.