Chapter 2

Seeing me planted squarely in front of her, she glared at me, her eyes vicious.

"Are you moving or not?!"

"No! Give me back my scooter!"

"Fine!"

Suddenly, she jerked her body to the side and flopped straight onto the pavement like a landed fish.

"Help! Workplace violence! My coworker is attacking me! Ow! Oh, the pain! Someone call an ambulance!"

She lay right there in plain sight, clutching her arm and wailing at the top of her lungs.

It was rush hour, so a crowd gathered almost instantly. Onlookers who had no idea what was happening started whispering and pointing their fingers right at me.

I had never seen anyone so utterly shameless in my entire life.

"What are you doing?! I didn't even touch you!"

"You shoved me! You pushed me hard! I just asked to borrow your scooter. If you didn't want to lend it, you could've just said no. Why did you have to lay hands on me?"

The nasty accusations stung my ears, and heat rushed up my neck until my face burned crimson. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

Even when security arrived, she stuck to the exact same script.

The crowd grew.

Linda lay on the asphalt, her hair wildly matted across her face. Through the messy strands, I caught the cruel, triumphant smirk in her eyes.

A throbbing migraine hammered behind my temples from pure rage.

"Fine! You refuse to get up? I'm calling the police!"

When the officers arrived, the very first thing they said upon seeing Linda was, "You again?"

Linda upped the volume on her wailing instantly. "Officers, she assaulted me! I can't lift my arm! I demand a full medical evaluation!"

"Officers, I didn't lay a finger on her. If you don't believe me, you can check the security cameras."

Unfortunately, where Linda parked happened to sit right in a blind spot outside the camera's range, leaving no choice but to take her for a medical checkup first.

At the hospital, the doctor found absolutely nothing wrong with her other than high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar.

Linda refused to drop it. "It's internal damage! You can't see it on an X-ray! She caused me severe psychological trauma!"

She insisted she was emotionally scarred, took three days of sick leave, and demanded I pay for her lost wages.

Over my dead body. The police took my side, sternly warning Linda to stop making a scene.

She didn't get a single dime out of me, but I still didn't get my scooter back right then.

Right in front of the officers, Linda begrudgingly promised to return it the second she got discharged from the hospital.

I watched her lying in that hospital bed, raising her eyebrows at me in mock victory.

My stomach twisted into knots from pure fury.

When my coworkers heard about the nightmare, all they could do was offer sympathetic pats on the back.

Three days later, Linda finally strutted back into the office. Miraculously, she tossed my keys onto my desk.

"Here! It's just a stupid scooter, and you actually called the police on me! For a newbie, you really don't know how to play nice. Mark my words, you won't last long in the real world."

I snatched the keys off the table. "How long I last isn't your concern."

"Hmph! You're all talk!" She pulled another set of keys from her pocket, identical to mine, and flashed them right in my face.

"I bought my own! The absolute latest model! Yours is a slow, clunky piece of junk anyway. I couldn't care less about it!"

Slow?

I almost laughed out loud. I bought my scooter two years ago. It had a seventy-mile range and topped out at thirty miles per hour, back before the new city speed cap laws. The current models were capped at fifteen miles per hour and didn't have half my battery life.

She couldn't care less? Fine by me.

The second I got my ride back, I swapped out the lock for a heavy-duty deadbolt.

Yet the very next morning on my ride to work, less than half a mile from the office, the scooter suddenly shuddered. The digital dashboard flickered, turned pitch black, and died completely.

I twisted the throttle twice. Nothing. Not a pulse.

That made no sense. I had plugged it in all night and left home with a full charge.

As I crouched by the curb trying to inspect the vehicle, Linda glided up beside me on her scooter, bringing it to a smooth stop.

"Oh, hey Katie. What's the matter, broke down? You're gonna be late."

I kept my mouth shut, remaining ducked over the wheel.

When she realized I was ignoring her, she let out a cold sneer.

With a sharp “whoosh,” she zoomed off.

My head snapped up, my eyes locked on her disappearing back.

Something was wrong.

Wasn't hers the brand-new model? With the city speed limiter enabled, how on earth was she riding that fast?