Into The City...

The sound of roaring engines became louder and louder as we came closer to the city centre. A few moments later, we were dropped off outside a well know attraction, the local pub. We timidly walked in, only to be greeted by the strong smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol. My eyes immediately began to water. I stood by the door next to Lauren, as Alleisha went to ask the dude behind the bar where the nearest hotel was.

"Welcome to the Bloody Hook, ladies." a voice spoke from over to my left. I turned around, to see a tall dark-haired figure, wearing a rather flashy red coat and bright yellow racing gloves.

"Thanks." Lauren said, breaking the awkward silence between us. Another man appeared behind the dark-haired man, ginger hair and half of his ears cut off.

"Why don't you two join us? Your other friend can join once she has finished arguing with the bartender." He continued, placing his hand around my waist, moving me towards a table. Lauren followed next to the ginger-haired Man, and set opposite us, next to him.

"I don't believe I have seen you before..." the tall dark-haired man said, turning to face me, registering my clothes.

"We're new here..." replied Lauren. I knew that he was talking to me, but I just ignored it, being very shy. I just put my head onto my hand and leant onto the table,fiddling with a drink that appeared in front of me. I sat up and looked at the dark-haired man. He simply smiled at me. This mad me feel slightly uncomfortable, I just shrugged off the feeling and carried on. After all, I'm shy, this could be the only time I will ever sit next to a guy.

Lauren began to giggle and laugh with this ginger-haired man, introducing herself.

"I'm Lauren" she said, fiddling with her hair. They began to talk about hydraulics and car parts. My head span with all of the terminology. I was feeling quite uncomfortable, so I excused myself to see where Alleisha had got to. She was stood at the bar, talking to a man with a mask on. I stood next to Alleisha, and gave a greeting nod towards the masked man.

"This is Cutter" Alleisha said, introducing us.

"Hi" I mumbled timidly, sitting down. They carried on talking about car parts and whatnot. I sighed to myself. I was fed up of hearing about the innards of cars and how they worked, I was getting agitated. Cutter invited Alleisha behind the bar, and started to show her a few concoctions.

Through the corner of my eye I could see a small pile of paper and a pot of HB pencils, so I helped myself. I sat back down at the bar and began to draw some curving lines, followed by sharp points and wispy edges. After a few minuets it turned into the outline of a car, and slowly, I added in the doors, and a few weapons, A while later I felt a breath down the back of my neck...

"Ah, if it isn't a Javelin-X." the voice was smooth. I turned around to see it was the dark-haired man from earlier. He sat down at the bar, on the stool next to me.

"I don't believe I introduced myself before... I am Razor, maybe you've heard of me? I work for Mizo." He took a long drag on a cigarette, and turned to face me.

"I've heard your name here and there. But, who is Mizo?" I asked, trying to sound like I was joking.

"He's my boss..." he said. Obviously being protective of his boss' identity.

"Fair enough. So, what do you do for a living?" intrigued... I knew that he raced, but raced what? The taxi driver wasn't exactly very descriptive when he spoke of him.

"I race. In cars." he chuckled. Smiling at me. "You should drop by the garage sometime, Your skills of designing seem good enough, maybe you could do some advertising for us, we need some new engineers."

"I'd love to." I said, inside I really wanted to go, but my head said I shouldn't , a wave of nervousness swept over me.

"Good" he replied. "I'll see you out on the track then." he stood up and went to walk off.

"Oh, Razor?" I said standing up jogging after him. He turned around and looked at me, with a smirk etched over his face. " My two friends are engineers, maybe you could see what they could do?" he stood there for a moment, stroking his mini goatee beard.

"Yes I'm sure I could give them a chance. Why don't the three of you meet me and the boys out on the track tomorrow morning? We could see what happens then." I nodded in agreement an turned around. Lauren and Alleisha were on their way over to me with the two boys.

"How about we walk you home?" Razor asked, opening the door for me.

"Thank you" I said walking to the nearest pavement. He lifted my arm and interlinked it with his.

"Who's the ginger-haired guy?" I asked, still not knowing his name.

"Shiv" Razor replied. I simply nodded and carried on walking down the road.

"Where are you ladies heading?" Razor asked a few moments later.

"Intercham Hotel" said Alleisha. The boys walked us to the front of the hotel and said their goodbyes. It had been a strange night. I never felt that confidant before. Maybe its the fuel-filled atmosphere that had an effect on me. All the same, I was tired, and couldn't wait until tomorrow.

I pulled the short straw, ending up in a room on my own. It wasn't all that bad, at least I had some peace and quiet. Glancing at the clock I noticed that it was only twenty past 10, early for Kras civilians. A few moments later there was a knock at my door. Walking towards it I knew that it wouldn't be Lauren or Alleisha, as they would either ring me beforehand or shout through the letter box. Opening the door I saw a dark shadow on the floor. As I looked up, I noticed that it was Razor.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, leaning on the door frame. He bit his lip, and looked up at me.

"I felt like coming to say hi. You see, as hard as it is to admit, there's something about you that confuses me. Your not here to do engineering with your 2 friends, but you simply sit and draw cars, which does not prove to be very productive. So, I've been sent by Mizo, to, lets say, do a bit of celebrating."

"Celebrating?" I questioned, letting him in.

"Yes, you see, Mizo sent me here today to recruit you. I hope you don't mind, but the Javelin-X you drew earlier, I took to him. He likes you style, and therefore would like to offer you a job." He continued, answering my question. "He would like you to design paint-jobs for the cars and maybe do some racing in-between."

"That sounds great! Although, I haven't been in a car for a number of years..." Razor simply looked at me, while opening what appeared to be a bottle of red wine.

"Why ever not?" he asked, clearly intrigued. He bought over the 2 glasses of wine, and the bottle, and sat down next to me. He lit a cigarette and turned to listen.

"Well, I was involved in a car crash when I was 14, I still have nightmares about it. But it was a number of years ago, and I should really just move on" I took a sip of the wine, and placed it on the coffee table positioned in front of us.

"That's awful" he said, looking sympathetic and taking a sip of his wine.

"Oh...My...God..." I said slowly, leaning back into the black sofa...

"What's wrong?" Razor said, unzipping the top of his blue shirt.

"I have no clothes..." I said bluntly, remembering the train fire, and the fact that my clothes were burnt to ashes on it. I took another sip of the wine and placed it carefully back onto the table.

"Yes... I heard about the inter-city train fire. Well my guess is that you clothes would not of suited the fashion here is Kras anyway." he spoke with slight ignorance , running his finger around the rim of the wine glass.

"Tell you what, if you meet me in the lobby in the morning, I'll take you clothes shopping. We'll get you something to suit your stay here in Kras." he finished off his wine and rinsed out the glass, placing in on the draining board.

I stood up, as he walked towards the door, to see him out. He turned towards me and I smiled.

"I'll see you at 8.00am in the morning. Don't be late." he said, walking down the hallway. I turned in and shut the door, That was very strange. I've only been in Kras City for a few hours, and we've already ha a job offer. We were suppose to be going to a man named Jak, but since I knew Razor vaguely now anyway, I thought it would be better to carry on with him. I text Alleisha to tell her my plan, I was going shopping with Razor at 8.00am, and would meet her and Lauren at the track when we had finished. Tomorrow was going to be a great day. I could feel it.