Chapter 29 - The Capitol Circle
Down on the course, the race was entering its final, brutal half-mile—a sweeping uphill curve that circled the grand limestone facade of the State Capitol building.
Mia and Julian were neck and neck, their wheels nearly interlocking as they pushed their bodies beyond human limits. Sweat poured from Julian’s chin, his breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps. Mia’s eyes were locked ahead, fixed entirely on the checkered flag fluttered by the judges two hundred yards away.
She made her move.
Digging deep into the iron reserves of her shoulders, she unleashed a burst of speed that defied physics. In three violent, perfect pushes, she pulled half a chair length ahead of Julian, taking the inside apex of the final turn.
The entire grandstand stood on its feet. The noise was like an oncoming freight train.
Suddenly, a loud, metallic grinding sound echoed from the curb just ahead of the finish straightaway.
A heavy cast-iron storm grate, weighing over two hundred pounds, violently buckled from below.
A hand clad in a torn tactical glove shoved the iron grate aside. From the dark depths of the storm trench beneath the street, Arthur emerged like a phantom from hell, his face caked in mud, grease, and dried blood.
The crowd shrieked in horror. Security guards bolted toward the track, but they were sixty yards away behind the security barriers.
Arthur wasn't holding a pistol. In his hands, he held a heavy steel crowbar, his eyes fixed on Mia as she barreled down the hill at twenty-five miles per hour.
"Vance!" Arthur screamed, stepping directly into the path of the oncoming racers, raising the heavy steel bar like a scythe to smash Mia's front wheel and send her flying onto the concrete at fatal speed.
Julian, seeing the madman, instinctively swerved his chair hard to the right, crashing into the outer hay bales in a tangle of limbs and spinning metal.
Mia was moving too fast. There was no room to brake. There was no room to turn.
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"MIA!" I shrieked, clawing at the chain-link barricade, completely helpless.
***
