Rebel With A Cause (6 page)

They began to make their way over to the bar, when they were stopped by a tall, slim girl with long, curly black hair.

“Carter!” she screamed over the loud music, grabbing him in for a tight hug. Kaitlyn looked blankly at them and wondered if she was a former conquest of Carter’s.

“Bekah!” he grinned. “I haven’t seen you in
 
ages
.”

She grinned back. “I know, right?” She kissed him on the cheek. “So how’ve you been?”

“Not bad, not bad,” he replied happily. Kaitlyn began to feel left out and made to move away, but Carter’s arm gripped her closer to him.

“Bekah, I want you to meet Kaitlyn, my girlfriend,” he announced. “Katie, this is my baby cousin, Rebekah Hawke.”

Rebekah looked offended at that, and slapped him on the arm. “Carter!” she cried. “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

“You’re right,” he said, smirking. “You’re no baby. You’re a monster.”

She huffed angrily and turned her attention to Kaitlyn.

“So, you a racer too?” she asked. Kaitlyn shook her head and Carter laughed. “
What? What’s so funny?
” she
demanded
.

“Katie isn’t a racer,” he said smugly. “She just wishes she was.”

“Yeah, I do actually,” Kaitlyn announced. “But Carter’s too mean to let me. He doesn’t like it when I drive his car, even. He doesn’t trust me.” With the last sentence, she shot a puppy dog look at Carter that she knew he couldn’t resist. He groaned
and pecked her on the lips
.

“Well,” Bekah said thoughtfully, “you should steal it when he’s asleep, and come and race in an
all-girls
race. We’re having one tomorrow at Mangere Bridge. You won’t be ready for it
if you’ve never raced before,
b
ut you can come and watch. And then maybe, you could race with us next month.
If you can get a car that is.”

Kaitlyn nodded and grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll just have to steal Carter’s car. I stole it today, and he wasn’t too happy.”

Bekah laughed. “Good one! Anyways, I have to go. People to see, things to do, you know. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”

Kaitlyn grinned and watched her walk off. When she looked back at Carter, he was scowling.

“What?” she asked him.

“I don’t want you racing, Katie,” he s
aid protectively. “I couldn’t bear
it if anything happened to you.”

She scowled. He was just afraid she’d be a better street racer than him. “Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “You’d be sweet. You’d find another girl to screw in no time.”

She stalked off to the bar angrily, leaving a grumpy Carter behind in the massive throng of people.

She woke up with a pounding head.

“What happened last night?” she groaned, pulling her blankets over her head.

“Would you just shut the hell up?” an unfamiliar voice snapped. She quickly pulled the blankets off her head and sat up, taking in her surroundings.

She let out a relieved sigh.

She was fully clothed, thank god, and Carter was sound asleep next to her. The unfamiliar voice belonged to one of the guys on the floor; there was a small group of people left over from last night’s party.

She shook Carter awake.

“Carter? Where are we?” she whispered. He sat up and looked around. He frowned.

“You know what?” he asked. “I don’t actually know. I can’t even remember what happened. Can you?” He looked questioningly at her.

She shook her head. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”

He continued to frown and shrugged. “Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded and grabbed the hand he was offering her. “I agree,” she said. “It’s kind of freaky, not knowing what happened last night. Do you think we were drugged?”

He shrugged, but looked sceptical. “I dunno.
Maybe.
I think we just got wasted.
I
f we were
n’t
wasted, my head wouldn’t feel like someone’s driving a jackhammer through it.”

He towed her out of the bedroom, and down the hallway.

“You know,” he said casually, “I think this is T-Man’s place.”

“What makes you think that?” she asked.

“Dunno,” he replied. “But it makes sense. He was throwing the party, so we were more likely to go back to his place.”

She nodded and chewed on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. She was about to reply, when a naked young woman ran up to Carter.

“Carter! You can’t leave yet!” she whispered as she giggled. “We never played that game of Truth or Dare you promised!”

He gulped and took a step back. “Do I know you?” he asked.

Her big grin was instantly replaced by a wobbling bottom lip, and tears forming in her eyes.

“Carter!” she whimpered. “We had sex just last night!”

Kaitlyn frowned and looked at Carter,
whose
face had such an expression of fear on it.

“Uh,” he said, his eyes darting around the room. “Katie, we need to go.
Now.”

Kaitlyn almost giggled. He looked so terrified of this crying girl in front of him. His face was priceless.

“Ok,” she said, tugging on his hand. He turned around and raced to the back door, the fear never leaving his face. When they had made it outside, he breathed a quick sigh, before running around to the front of his house.

He was not impressed when he found that his car was nowhere to be seen.

After the extremely long walk back to the abandoned warehouse, both Carter and Kaitlyn were overjoyed to find his car where they left it, and all in one piece.

“Thank god!” he muttered. Kaitlyn felt just as relieved. Carter’s car was his life.

“I’m not letting my baby out of my sight ever again,” he told Kaitlyn, unlocking the car. She just rolled her eyes, knowing he meant the car, and not her.

“Are we going to the
all-girls
race at Mangere tonight?” she asked him.

He looked at her and shook his head. “No way, Katie,” he told her. “You’re not racing. You don’t need to. I make enough for both of us.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to do it because of the
 
money
. I want to race because I’ve never done it before. I’m surrounded by racers; I
 
go
 
to all the races, so why shouldn’t I try racing myself?”

He sighed and looked her in the eyes. “Katie, if I promise to take you to the race tonight, will you promise me that you won’t race?”

She shook her head.
“No way, Carter.
I want to try. If I’m no good, then I won’t race again. But all I want is one chance.”

He smirked and shook his head and turned the car on. “Katie, trust me, once you’ve started, you’re hooked.”

Of course, using her powers of persuasion, a.k.a flirting, Carter agreed to take her to the race.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he sighed as he picked her up from her house.

“Because you love me,” she replied cheekily. Carter just rolled his eyes and smirked.

“I wish I could say that I did, Katie,” he sighed dramatically
, one hand over his heart
. “But, to be honest, you make it so damn hard.”

Kaitlyn just laughed and flipped him off.

As Carter drove the fifteen minute drive to Mangere Town Centre, Kaitlyn could hardly keep still in her seat.

“God you’re jumpy,” he teased, amused by her eagerness.

“That’s because I’m excited,” she replied happily.

“How come you’re never this excited about going to
 
my
 
races?” he asked jokingly.

She flipped him off. “I’ve never been to an
all-girls
race before,” she replied
seriously
. “And at your races, I’m always scared you’re going to bet me again. I’m not a piece of meat, you know.”

He rolled his eyes and focused on driving.

“Oh, you should know,” he announced after a while. “I love you. So, I’m never going to bet you again.”

“You’ve said that before,” she muttered angrily, too low for him to hear.

The next thing she knew, Carter was pulling into a small parking lot in front of a row of shops. People were milling around, and she could see cars lined up on the road. They seemed to be surrounding a blue muscle car.
They both got out and wandered over to the muscle car.

“
W
hose
car is
 
that?
” Kaitlyn asked.

Carter just sniffed dismissively.
“Bekah’s.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “That is
 
so
 
cool.”

Carter shrugged. “It’s just a muscle car.”

“Excuse me?”

They turned around to see Rebekah, the owner of those words.

Carter rolled his eyes. “Hey, Bekah,” he said casually. “I think Katie like’s your car.”

Bekah grinned. “Well, she should. It’s a classic.”

“What kind of car is it?” Kaitlyn asked, leaning against Carter’s car.

“It’s a nineteen sixty-nine Shelby GT-500,” Bekah replied proudly. “I rebuilt it myself.”

Kaitlyn had to admit it; she was impressed. “So, where’d you learn to do that?”

Bekah smirked. “My dad taught me, before he and my mum went to jail, and before I got chucked in juvie.”

Carter’s eyes bugged out of his head. “When did you got to juvie?” he cried, astonished.

Bekah smirked. “When I stopped writing to you, you dumb shit. I stole a car, remember?
Took it for a sweet as joyride.
It was a cop car.
”

Kaitlyn was secretly impressed. Bekah was a real badass chick.

“So, do you wanna come for a ride?” Bekah asked Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn bit her lip and Carter scowled. He pulled her closer to him and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“No way, Bex,” he growled. “I like my girlfriend in one piece.”

Bekah laughed. “Down worry, Carter boy, she’ll be fine with me. I’ll look after her.”

Carter scowled. “It’s almost ten. Shouldn’t you be getting ready to race?” he asked pointedly.

Bekah sighed.
“Yeah.
I’ll be back.” She ran off to the back of the building, leaving Kaitlyn wondering where she was going.

She turned to Carter. “I wanna go in the car with Bekah.”

He snorted. “No, Katie, no way. Bekah’s been in more near misses than I can count, not to mention her habit of breaking the rules. She’d get distracted with you in the car, and you’d both be killed.”

She frowned. “So? You’d find some other chick no problems.”

Carter looked down at her angrily. “If that’s really what you think, then why
are you
still here?” he snapped, before storming off.

“God, what crawled up his ass and died?”

Kaitlyn turned around and saw Bekah standing behind her, in a completely new outfit. Bekah’s ripped jeans, form-fitting tank top, and fingerless gloves looked intimidating, compared to her own outfit of short shorts, loose long sleeved white top and Nike high tops.

She sighed. “He thinks if I get in the car with you, I’m going to die. He also got angry when I accused him of not caring.”

Bekah snorted. “That boy needs a good kick up the ass. But about him not caring?”

Kaitlyn looked up at Bekah. “What?”

Bekah sighed. “Listen, Katie, if Carter didn’t really care for you, he wouldn’t have made you his girlfriend. Yes, he’s a loser who wants what he can’t have, and yes he’s a tool, but that’s only because his father is an abusive
 
dick
 
who always reminded him that
 
‘real men don’t have feelings’
. He had to be a heartless dick growing up, and he’s just gotten stuck that way.
Don’t worry. Those close to him can tell that he loves you.
So, you coming or what?”

Kaitlyn shrugged. “Do you think I should?”

Bekah smirked. “Yeah, I do. Carter needs to learn to trust people, and let them do their own thing. You need to experience what it’s like to be in a race, before racing yourself.”

Kaitlyn let out a huge nervous breath and nodded. “I’ll come.”

Bekah grinned. “Awesome, now let’s get going.”

She led Kaitlyn over to her muscle car and jumped in, motioning for Kaitlyn to do the same. Kaitlyn got in and Bekah started it up.