Hi Guys and welcome back to Rush and Response! Sorry for the late update today, but here it is! Let's crack on shall we?
The Audi's engine roared to life as Kendall put his foot down on the accelerator, causing the car to shoot forward, the blond easily gaining a few spaces. Both of them seemed impressed by what the car had managed to do so far, and Kendall knew that if it maintained this standard for the rest of the race, he'd have no issue winning the $180,000.
Glancing into the rearview mirror, Kendall saw how a couple of the cars behind him were fighting each other for 19th place, causing the blond to put his foot down even further, hoping to gain a lead on them. The blond knew that whoever won that battle would be coming for him next, so he wanted to put as much distance between him and them as possible.
However, on his second glance into the mirror, the blond was greeted with the sight of one car smashing right into another, causing the second car to spin out and flip onto its roof. A couple of cars behind the crash were able to swerve around it, but unfortunately for two others, they went crashing into the toppled car, causing them to flip as well. Kendall let out a sigh as he witnessed this happening, the blond taking a small moment to glance down in order to pay his respects.
As James witnessed the crash as well, he couldn't help but bring his hand over his mouth at the sheer horror of the situation, but he was quick to respond, dialling Camille's number on his phone. "Camille-"
"I see it and I've already dispatched an ambulance," the brunette said down the phone, causing James to let out a sigh of relief.
"Thanks, Camille" James replied, before cutting off the phone once again and turning to Kendall. "Does that happen often? At the start of races?" James asked, causing Kendall to shrug slightly as he let out a sigh.
"More often than you'd expect" the blond replied, glancing back to look at the crash once again. "Some people will just stop at nothing to get what they want"
"Was that a subtle dig towards me?" James asked, causing Kendall to shake his head, turning his attention back the road.
"It wasn't. At least it wasn't meant to be" Kendall answered, before letting out another sigh. "Still, I just can't help but feel slightly on edge with everything that going on. I mean, I'm directly in the firing line for the whole thing, and I can't help but feel like something's bad is going to happen, or something else is going to go horribly wrong" Kendall continued, causing James to glance down at his lap, fidgeting slightly.
"I'm sorry that I make you feel that way," James said sincerely, causing Kendall to move one hand off of the steering wheel, linking it with one of James'.
"Hey, it's not you at all. We're ok James, I promise" the blond said, causing a small smile to grow on James' face at the news. "But I have to admit, it's Gustavo. I just keep feeling like he's out to get me specifically. I mean, think about it. You'd said to him that the base raid was a bad idea, saying that it wouldn't actually get him anywhere, but he overruled your decision. And then, when the base was raided, he told both Carlos and I that we were under arrest for suspicion of murder, yet I was the only one that was properly interrogated. The rest of them were just asked to provide alibis of where they were." Kendall explained, before letting out a sigh. "I don't know James, maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I think he's out to get me" Kendall finished, finally glancing at James, who was trying to digest all of the information. It was true that Gustavo did focus on Kendall more than the rest of the crew, but then again, that was because most of the information James collected was based around the blond. James let out a sigh, as he rubbed his forehead.
"I just think that Gustavo wants this whole street racing/murder business sorted out and that he got a bit overzealous when he'd thought that we'd found a suspect" James replied, causing Kendall to tut slightly under his breath. "But, then again, I suppose it is a little strange that he's targeted you specifically. I'll keep an eye on him if that's any help. I mean, we're supposed to be cooperating with this investigation now, and I don't want him to fuck it up just because he thinks you're the murderer when you're clearly not" James continued, causing Kendall to nod.
"Thanks, James."
"Don't worry about it. And if he ever overrules me again, you'll be the first person I let know" James added, causing a small smile to grow on Kendall's face.
Something about the tone of James' voice portrayed how sincere he was being, causing Kendall to relax slightly. The whole situation was still putting him on edge, but at least he knew that he could rely on James if anything or everything went to shit.
It was about half an hour into the race when James got a phone call from Camille again, and as Kendall glanced over at him, the brunet put the phone onto speaker, so the two of them could hear her.
"Ok, so I've managed to identify about 9 of the racers so far, although for of those were because of the crash earlier." Camille began, before letting out a sigh. "I will admit though, that is has been slow going. It turns out that none of the cars that are racing today are actually registered, meaning that I can't just use the licence plates to find who owns them, so I've been having to use street camera imagery to get a match"
"I can't imagine that's easy for the cars with tinted windows" Kendall said, causing Camille to let out a huff on the other side of the phone as if to agree with Kendall.
"Still Camille, you're doing brilliantly," James spoke up, hoping to encourage the brunette girl.
"Thanks, I'll keep working with what I can get, but I'm hoping the process will speed up when the police start to chase the cars. That way, the uniformed officers will be able to provide us with a description of them" Camille replied before the sound of typing filled the car for a brief second. "Speaking of which, all the uniformed officers are now on alert, and will be ready as soon as you drive past."
"Perfect, Camille thanks" James replied before Kendall spoke up.
"We're still about 30 mins out from the police station" the blond added, causing more typing to sound throughout the car.
"Thanks for the update, and I'll be sure to keep you up to date of anything changes on our end, but so far, we're all in the clear."
"Perfect thanks Camille," James said once again, before glancing at Kendall slightly, who was focusing on overtaking one of the other racers. "Um, Camille?" the brunet asked.
"Yeah, what's up" the brunette girl replied, causing Kendall to glance over at James for a brief second, curious about what he was going to ask.
"How's Gustavo?" James asked, causing Camille to go silent for a brief second as if she were stunned by the question.
"He's alright why?" she replied, causing James to let out a brief sigh before he spoke up.
"No, it's nothing. I was just wondering if he's said anything about what's happening today with the race and that"
"No, he hasn't said anything about it really, he's just letting us get on with it. I mean, he did shout at one of the uniformed officers earlier, but then again, that's one of his character traits" Camille stated, causing a smirk to grow on James' and Kendall's face.
"Alright, thanks. Just, keep me up to date if he says anything yeah?" James asked, causing a small smile to grow on Kendall's face.
"Will do. Camille out" she replied before the phone call cut off.
"Thanks for that" Kendall spoke up, causing James to shrug slightly.
"It's alright. I mean, it's better to be prepared in case anything is happening" James replied, placing one of his hands onto Kendall's leg as if to show his support.
The blond was about to reply when his earphone cut into action. "Kendall?" Logan said into the blond's ear.
"I can hear you loud and clear, what's up?" the blond asked, catching James' eye line, which was looking right at him.
'Logan' the blond mouthed, causing James to nod before he turned his attention back to his phone, where Camille had sent through the information on the people she'd identified.
"We're set up at the marina, by the finish line of the race, and I just thought that I'd give you an update on what's going on. So, you're in 8th place at the moment and the car in first place is about 3 minutes ahead of you, which is a bit of a distance but since you've got about an hour left, it's definitely possible for you to catch up. As well as that, 3 more cars have been knocked out at the back of the pack, so you're down to 18 racers"
"Alright, I'll pick up the pace a little bit, thanks Logan" Kendall replied, causing James to tilt his head slightly at the blond.
"As I said, I wouldn't worry about it too much at the moment. Carlos seems to think that the car at the front is designed to take these winding roads better than most, but in order to do that, it's gonna suffer on the straights, so you'll be able to catch up there"
"Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Thank the guys for me as well"
"Will do, and keep it up" Logan replied before Kendall's earphone went silent.
"What did he say?" James asked as soon as he knew that Logan has finished.
"That we're in 8th place at the moment, and the car in front is about 3 minutes ahead of us" Kendall replied, causing one of James' eyebrows to raise.
"So how far is that?" James asked, causing Kendall to let out a sigh.
"It's difficult to say properly. But I'm averaging about 50-60 miles an hour on these roads, so probably about 3 miles ahead, if that maths even works" Kendall replied, thinking about what he said for a brief second. "Whatever the case, it's not a bad distance, but it's also not the best. Still, everyone seems to think that the car in first is going to suffer when we start to hit straight roads again as it's built for driving on roads like this"
"So, we've still got a chance of winning?" James asked, causing Kendall to let out a little chuckle.
"Yeah, I think so. Plus, it could all change as soon as the police get involved, and we have a distinct advantage there" Kendall replied, causing James to let out a little chuckle.
"That's definitely true," the brunet said before the car went silent, with the two of them concentration on their own tasks. It was a few minutes later when James went to speak, opening his mouth before he shut it again. The brunet must have done this for a few seconds, causing Kendall to glance over at him.
"You alright? I think your mouth might be broken" the blond said, causing James to roll his eyes.
"Jackass" James commented before he went silent once again. It was only a few seconds later this time when James pressed the button which turned all the microphone off in the car, causing Kendall to glance at him once again.
"What was that for?" the blond asked, his eyes flicking between the road and the button James had pressed.
"It turns off the microphones in the car" James replied, before shifting in this seat slightly so that he could face Kendall better. "I'm curious about something that you said earlier. When we were speaking about WayneWayne, and how he's indebted to the Crime Boss, you said that a similar thing had happened to Logan, with him being bailed out of prison by someone random, but we ran background checks on everyone, and none of you had a criminal record." James continued, causing Kendall to let out a little chuckle.
"That's Logan's handiwork" Kendall commented, causing James to raise an eyebrow at him, and that's when Kendall began to fidget in this seat slightly.
"It's alright, you can tell me. The microphones are off, and I promise I won't tell anyone" James added, causing Kendall to let out a breath before he spoke up.
"You know that Logan's, like, really good with computers right?" Kendall asked, causing James to nod. "Well, when he first joined our crew, it was safe to say that everyone was a little bit off with him because he couldn't really race. Sure, we tried to make him feel welcome and that, but there was the general consensus of what's the point of having and helping this guy if he's not going to contribute anything to the crew. I think Lucy was the first person to finally say something about it, and when we asked what he could do, he said that he could pretty much delete every trace of us from the internet"
"So that's why there was nothing on you when Camille ran your name" James though out loud, causing Kendall to let out a little chuckle.
"Pretty much. He did it for everyone in the crew, and he was able to get rid of criminal records, and any real indication of who we were" Kendall replied, causing James to let out a little chuckle. "He's definitely good, I'll give him that" James commented, causing Kendall to nod along with him.
"So, how'd he end up as part of your crew. I mean, we were able to find out that Logan graduated from Cal Tech, so I'm curious as to how someone like that ended up in this situation"
"Hey, I'm offended by that. Are you saying I'm dumb because I ended up in a situation like this?" Kendall mocked offence, causing James to begin trying to defend himself.
"No, I didn't mean-"
"It's fine James" Kendall quickly interrupted, letting out a little chuckle as he did.
"I didn't mean it like that, I promise," James said, feeling the need to defend himself anyway. "I'm just curious as to how it happened"
"I probably shouldn't be the one to tell you" Kendall began, letting out a sigh, as he removed one of his hands to rub his forehead. "Promise you won't say anything to anyone"
"Promise," James said, causing Kendall to nod, as he blew out another breath.
"So, Logan was 21 and he'd just graduated from Cal Tech, but he didn't have much to his name. After Logan had come out to his parents during university, they cut all ties with him and wanted nothing to do with him, so he had to fund his own way through, meaning that by the time he'd graduated, he had no money and nowhere to move back to. He was out every day, applying for all sorts of jobs, just looking for anywhere that would take him, but no one would hire him, mostly because he didn't have a place to live. I think he said it was something like 2 months after he'd finished university, and he was still living out on the street, with nothing to his name when someone finally approached him and offered him a job. Well, he was desperate, so he took it immediately but what he didn't realise was that it was for some sort of 'hacktivist' group and that they were looking for him to do some illegal shit. From what Logan says, it started out light, with him hacking people's profile on social media in order to gain some sort of information about them, or adding stuff onto people's criminal records so that they'd get arrested for shit they didn't do, and while Logan wasn't comfortable doing it, he also couldn't really complain about it. This group had given him somewhere to live and he was getting a fair sum of money from it, so at the end of the day, it was in his best interest to keep working for them. Plus, you know, they had loads of blackmail material on him, so if he tried to leave, they'd release it"
"So what happened?" James asked, causing Kendall to let out a sigh.
"Logan said that they started to ask more and more of him over time. He says that sometimes they were getting him to hack into smaller government servers in order to get information and stuff about a city's dealings, or they'd ask him to start removing stuff from criminal records so that a guilty person could go free. Eventually, they asked a task of him that he said crossed a line. He'd probably been working with them for about a year by this point, when the main guy of the operation wanted him to hack into a banks local network and transfer $1 billion over three different accounts, one of which was the main guys, but Logan didn't want to do it. Still, he knew that he couldn't just refuse to do the job, because the group would completely ruin him, so as he hacked into the local system, he left little traces throughout the system that the police could trace. It didn't take long for them to realise that he was doing it, so they stormed his apartment and he was arrested."
"Fuck," James said, letting out a deep breath at the story.
"Yeah, it's definitely something. But yeah, so he was bailed out by one of the Crime Boss' minions, and he's been with us ever since."
"And what about the hacktivist group. Do they still have all that stuff on him?" James asked, causing Kendall to shake his head.
"No, they were all arrested as well. When hacking the bank's system, the traces Logan left also lead the police to them as well, so the whole group was taken down, and all the data was deleted" Kendall replied, causing James to let out another deep breath. He already knew that everyone in Kendall's crew had suffered something to be in the place that they were, but to actually hear their stories, that was hard.
If anything, however, it only made James more determined to keep his promise to Kendall, that they'd all be free to live their own lives once this case was over.
So there we have it! Kendall confessed that he's worried that Gustavo is out to get him, and we also learnt Logan's story as to why he's in this situation! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and once again, I'm sorry for how late it's out.
I want to say a massive thank you to Winterschild11, Guest, RainbowDiamonds and EpicallyObsessed for reviewing the last chapter, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! You all seemed to love the banter between everyone which was nice to see, and yet, you all seemed to think that something was going to go wrong during the race, which of course, no comment from me!
I hope that you're all having a great week, and I will see you on Monday for the next chapter of Blizzard! But until then,
TTFN 😃🚗