The finish line was on Clinton Avenue. Turning right on this road, Alexia saw the other Skulls and their cars, nestled in another small parking lot. A few scattered cheers rose up as Alexia's battered car rolled over the finish line, but the cheers turned to murmurs and confused glances after it became obvious there were two people in the winning car.
After hitting the last checkpoint on her GPS, Alexia pulled to the curb and shifted to park. Noël was waking up, a quiet moan escaping her throat as her little face scrunched up.
"Noël?" Alexia put a hand on the girl's shoulder, shaking it gently. "Hey, Noël, wake up."
Noël's eyes fluttered open. "Wh…where am I?"
"The finish line." Alexia smiled. "You made it…We made it. We're gonna be in the Skulls."
Noël was looking at her surroundings, her eyes growing larger. "But…I-I'm not in my…"
"Your car was totaled – my bad on that." Alexia put up her hand. "It was a stupid thing I did out of anger, and I apologize. But you were knocked out and your engine was smoking, so I carried you out and put you in my car. We just crossed the finish line together."
"You did what…?"
Noël's breaths grew heavier. She put a hand to her face, a smear of blood from her forehead staining her fingers, then looked up at Alexia. The girl's sky-blue eyes shone in the overhead streetlights.
"You did what?"
"No need to thank me," said Alexia, watching the other Skulls approaching the car. "And no need to apologize for ramming me either. I know you were just playing by street ru-"
Alexia was cut off by a sudden pressure on her neck, which grew as tiny fingernails dug into her flesh. Noël was standing up in her seat, her hands tightly grasping Alexia's neck and squeezing her windpipe.
"You stupid fucking bitch!" Noël's voice broke as she screamed. "That was MY fucking race to win, NOT YOURS!"
Alexia tried to pry Noël's hands off her throat, but the girl was surprisingly strong for her age. The other Skulls rushed over, opening the car doors and yelling at the two girls to calm down. Eventually, some of the men managed to separate them. Alexia choked on the air that returned to her lungs as she was lifted out of the driver's seat by her armpits. Noël was similarly dragged out, kicking and screaming a barrage of curse words as two other Skulls escorted her from the car.
Alexia panted for breath, a smear of Noël's blood painted across her neck. Noël was led to the opposite side of the street by the other Skulls, who tried to force her to sit down so they could treat her wounds.
"Fuck you, you pasty-ass goth bitch!" Noël's voice echoed across the street. "Why the fuck would you do that?!"
"Wha - I saved your life, you little brat!" Alexia called back, her anger flaring.
"Did I ask to be saved?!" Noël retorted. "Why don't you go back to your hole, motherfucker?!"
Alexia stood there outraged, completely lost for words. The men eventually managed to get Noël sitting, one of them applying a cloth to her forehead to wipe off the blood.
A hand slammed down against the hood of Alexia's car. Looking to her left, she saw the bookie, Reese, along with two of the heavily armed Skulls, who had ganged up around her.
"You wanna explain to us what happened back there, Initiate?" Reese asked, his voice a low snarl.
Alexia gulped. The three men surrounded her, cornering her against the driver's side door. Reese held his clipboard inches from her nose.
"This is a race, got it?" he continued. "In case you missed it earlier, the Skulls make their revenue off these things. People had money tied up in this, and you're just gonna make a mockery out of the whole thing? Out of your own goddamn uncle and everyone else?"
"I-I…" Alexia was trembling, lost for words.
"EXPLAIN yourself, goddammit!" he screamed at her, causing her to flinch.
Alexia's face felt hot, her heart racing in her chest. The three men were towering over her, looking like they were about to kick her ass on the spot. Until then, the thought had never crossed her mind that what she'd done was a potential screw-up. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, but these were hidden from the other Skulls by her hair, which fell back into her face.
Over Reese's shoulder, a much taller man suddenly appeared, whom she immediately recognized.
"'Ay, what's goin' on?" Lamar asked gently.
"You saw it, LD," said Reese. "Her and the other initiate, riding across the finish line together like it's a fucking parade or something! Now, how the fuck are we gonna pay out the prize money and all those bets, huh? A newcomer just came up in here and made a fucking mess of things!"
"Baby, you aight?" Lamar asked.
Alexia nodded, although she couldn't bring herself to look up. Try as she might, she couldn't stop trembling, knowing how angry the other Skulls were at her. Not even five minutes in the crew, and she was already on bad terms with the established members? What would her uncle think of this? Would she even be allowed to join, despite crossing the finish line? Her legs turned cold, her knees quaking with fear and her eyes rimmed with red.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Gerald, lingering in the assembled crowd. She could tell he was looking at her, waiting for her to make a move. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, but she clearly remembered what he'd said to her: 'you can't be a gangster without a backbone'. As undeveloped as her backbone was, Alexia knew that above all else, she wanted to be a gangster. The truth was that she didn't have any other options.
Besides, it wasn't like she didn't have any backbone. She remembered several times back in juvie when some of the bigger inmates had tried to get in her face and intimidate her. But despite her shyness on the outside, Alexia had been popular, well-liked, and even a little outgoing as an inmate, and she'd had a close group of friends. During recreation time, she'd worked as a tutor for some of the girls in her GED class – a big favor, since passing the GED exam was a factor of early release for many of them. While doing this, she had realized just how many of the girls had trouble with the reading sections, so she had convinced the warden to let her start a prison book club to encourage reading among inmates. Incentive for joining had been high - any inmate who didn't belong to a club was forced to do chores on the prison grounds, digging holes, hauling wheelbarrows, and pulling weeds under a blazing hot Sun.
Eventually, the club's membership had swelled to thirty inmates, almost too many for the prison's air-conditioned library to contain. Regardless, the club's members had often expressed thanks to Alexia for keeping them out of the heat. Fights were common in the underfunded, dirty and cramped facility, but because Alexia was well-liked, anyone who had tried to bully her had been ganged up on, then either intimidated or beaten into submission. Two weeks before her release, one girl in the cafeteria had managed to punch Alexia in the face and give her a black eye. She'd fallen to the ground, and she remembered afterwards that the girl had been beaten to a pulp by almost the entire cell block, causing correctional officers to storm the cafeteria. According to Rachel, one of Alexia's former cellmates that she sometimes wrote letters to, the bruises and fractures the girl had received had taken months to heal.
After so many years of being bullied in school, she'd had to admit it felt good to have people watching her back, but she'd made it a point to keep her enjoyment a secret. She'd also been careful not to get into any fights herself, which would have jeopardized her early release.
While she lost many of those prison friends after she got out, as they all lived in other parts of South Yankton, the experience had given her some much-needed confidence. No longer was she afraid of her mom, who had tried to get sober while Alexia was in prison, but had almost immediately fallen back into binge drinking, wasting what little money the family had on expensive booze. More than once, while paying the family's bills and realizing there wasn't enough money, Alexia had flipped out, screaming at her mom for her carelessness, and her mom had often screamed back. Many of these long shouting matches had ended with Alexia being slapped and punched, and because she was a parolee, a physical retaliation would have seen her going to an adult prison, which she knew was a much worse place than juvie. However, verbal retaliations were fair game, and Alexia had been honing this skill for the last two years fighting with her mom.
She was still shy and anxious, but Alexia knew she could stand up for herself when needed. She had a backbone buried deep within, and in a city with limitless possibilities, that backbone had the potential to grow much stronger.
She laid a hand on her car for support and took a breath. Her spine straightened as she forced herself to look up, but she kept her eyes focused on Lamar and not on the three other angry Skulls. In that moment, she tried to imagine her mom was standing in front of her.
"Look…she was trying to take me off the road the whole race. Lamar can vouch for this. She spun him out, nearly flipped his damn car over."
"Yeah, man, I'll admit, she took things a lil' overboard," Lamar joined in, backing her up. "I mean, I seen dudes play it dirty befo', but nothin' like that. Took me hella off guard…" He suddenly smiled. "Baby, I gotta say, you a real gangsta for fendin' her off like you did."
"I took her ass out!" Alexia's voice was louder as she said this, her face hard and fierce, to Lamar's visible delight. A rush of whispers rose up from the crowd surrounding her car as she continued. "She was laying into my bumper, over and over again. I fought back and crashed her into a wall, ended up knocking her out cold. Her engine was smoking, so I stopped and took her out of the car, made sure she was still breathing, and then put her in my car so she could cross the finish line and join the crew. I don't really like her methods, but I figured she was within you guys' rules…And so am I, for that matter."
"Are you, now?" Reese asked with contempt.
"I didn't kill her, I didn't use any guns, I didn't take shortcuts, and I didn't get caught. I followed your 'street rules' bullshit to the fucking letter."
Alexia felt her backbone taking shape as she said this. Suddenly, Reese and the others didn't seem quite as tall and imposing, even if they were still very much pissed at her.
Lamar shrugged. "I mean, she kinda right, man," he said to Reese. "We didn't say nothin' to her about not helpin' the other racers."
"That's meant to be common sense," Reese dismissed. "How is it a race if you're helping instead of racing?"
"We had a lot of dudes that ain't choose to race," said Lamar. "You remember that one dude a few weeks back? Three racers, and one of 'em ain't even finish. All he did was go off-course and try to knock this one dude off the road. The last racer was the dude's homie, and he was tryna help him get in the crew. And he was let in, even though he was bein' helped out. That was still a race though, wasn't it?"
"That was different," Reese said, but with less conviction.
"You know as well as I do, man, these things are all about expectin' the unexpected." Lamar clapped Reese on the shoulder. "I would say that my girl here did a good job of that."
Reese looked up at the sky, then at his two companions, who in turn were looking at him for advice. Alexia was looking at him as well, her pale lips set in a scowl, her green eyes heavy and unwavering.
"Hey yo, what are we gonna do about the bets?!" another Skull yelled from the crowd, which had spilled off the sidewalk and onto Clinton Avenue.
Reese conferred with the other two men in hushed voices. Alexia could barely make them out, but they continued to look at her with what looked like annoyance. It was rather obvious to her that there was no 'street rule' in place for this contingency, so Reese and his boys were being forced to make something up to avoid a riot. From what she'd seen of Reese's clipboard, she knew that many more bets had been placed on Noël than her.
"It's a tie!" Reese announced, to a chorus of dismayed groans from the crowd. "All bets are voided, everyone gets their money back!"
"That's fuckin' bullshit, man!"
"I had good money on that little kid!"
The crowd grumbled in discontent, some going back to their cars. Alexia's eyes went to Gerald again, whose expression didn't change. He at least didn't look mad like the other Skulls, which she was able to take some comfort in.
Reese leaned in close to her, his breath reeking of cigarettes.
"You'd better count yourself lucky you're the boss's niece," he said. "Like I said, money's very important to him, and we lost out on a lot of it tonight. If you were anyone else, he'd probably have you tortured."
"Tortured, huh?" Alexia rebutted, not backing down. "You guys like torturing women?"
"No, but we like torturing little punks that question how we do things…Watch your back, alright?"
Reese shoved Alexia against her car before walking away, his two assistants following him. As soon as they were gone, Lamar wrapped an arm around her.
"It's aight, baby, don't listen to him. I like my boy Reese, but he a bit of a dick sometimes. Like I said, he in charge of finances, so he a real stingy mo'fuckah."
Alexia exhaled now that she could finally let her guard down. At least Lamar still seemed to like her, but she couldn't say the same for the other crew members, most of whom looked at her with subdued anger. As Reese had said, she was the boss's niece, so she didn't think anyone would try to lay hands on her. However, this didn't mean anyone was obligated to like her.
Lamar pulled her in a little closer, his gangly frame towering over her short and scrawny one. He smelled strongly of weed, but Alexia needed a friend in that moment, so she bore the terrible smell to let herself be hugged.
"Say, you really helped out that little girl, even though she tried to take yo' ass out?" Lamar asked. "You know you not gonna get any prize money now, right?"
"Yeah. I just felt like it was the right thing to do," she said. "If I'd left her there, the cops would've found her, and her membership would've been terminated…Reese told me you guys needed getaway drivers right now."
"Yeah, he wasn't bullshittin' on that," said Lamar, patting her head. "And like I said, if he didn't want you helpin' the other racers, he shoulda told you. You can't be expected to know any unwritten rules of the streets yet. You just got here, man."
Alexia nodded while stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. "Uhm…thanks for having my back there, by the way. I don't know if I could've handled that by myself."
"It's all good, baby," he said, waving his hand. "But we ain't done just yet, you an' me. I'ma drive you to yo' apartment next, and in the mornin', I'll call up my boy Simeon, see if he can repair yo' car." Lamar pointed at Alexia's Oracle, which had suffered extensive damage from the earlier vehicular melee with Noël.
Alexia looked sad as she surveyed the damage to the car – her car. Due to her family's poverty, this was the first car she'd ever actually owned, and seeing it wrecked was like a punch in the gut. Hopefully Lamar's friend, whoever he was, could fix it up for her.
He led her over to his car, but Alexia halted him. She scampered over to the wrecked car and opened the passenger side door, popping open the glovebox and retrieving her gun.
"Good shit, baby," Lamar said. "Hopefully, you'll get to cap some fools with that soon."
Alexia half-smiled. It wasn't like she hadn't known she'd have to kill people in this profession. Her uncle's crew was known for its brutality, mowing people down left and right with military-grade weapons and heavy armored vehicles. As much as she'd tried to see herself in this scenario, she'd had some trouble doing so – she had no idea what it was like to kill someone, even if she'd come close that one time. She could have killed Noël back there, but she figured anyone would feel bad for almost killing a little girl. Surely, she thought, it would be different when she was forced to gun an enemy gangster down in self-defense.
Out of the slowly dispersing crowd, Alexia met eyes with Noël once again, who was sitting on the curb with her face in her hands, looking like she'd been crying. A white bandage was wrapped across her forehead, and Alexia could also see that her right eye was bruised and a bit swollen. Knowing that she'd caused these injuries, Alexia felt a sharp pang of guilt in her stomach, but this was overridden somewhat by the look of complete and utter hatred that emanated from the small girl after she caught sight of Alexia. Noël had told her she'd wanted to win the race, and Alexia knew this loss had probably cost her a chance to prove herself as a solid driver to the others. Knowing this, Alexia figured she and Noël would probably never be close, even if they were crewmates.
A couple of the other Skulls took Noël's tiny hands and helped her stand up, leading her to a car in the nearby parking lot. Noël mouthed something to Alexia as she walked away, which she immediately recognized as:
'You're fucking dead'.
A chill ran down Alexia's back – never did she think she would be so intimidated by a grade-schooler, but nothing that had happened that night had made much sense. She had no idea if Noël was serious or not, but the fact that the girl had killed her own mother made her think the girl's threat was genuine.
Alexia sat down in the passenger seat of Lamar's Emperor and spotted another familiar face, the bikini-clad girl with the Skull mask. The night had gotten colder, and she'd since put on a flannel shirt over her swimsuit, although her long legs remained completely bare. Alexia noticed she was shivering a little bit as she approached the car.
"Hey. Alexia, right?" she asked, looking around a bit as she said it. "Look, I'm probably in the minority when I say this, but…good job tonight." The woman smiled at her. "Seriously, I never would've expected someone to help the other racer. Most people are only in these things for themselves, but you're not like that, and I think that's really cool."
"Thanks…" Alexia was still a bit uneasy around this woman, so she didn't want her to know she was very much in it for herself and her family; otherwise, she would have just stayed in South Yankton and let herself be arrested.
"I'm Jessamine, by the way," the woman said. "But most people call me Jess."
Jess stuck her hand out, and Alexia reached her hand out of her car window and shook it. Like the rest of her, the girl's hand was smooth and unmarked, her nails painted pink and neatly manicured. The sleeves of her flannel shirt were rolled up, and Alexia couldn't help but glance at the track marks, which looked freshly irritated under the pale glow of the streetlights. Maybe she'd shot up again during the race? This was possible, as she seemed hyperactive and twitchy, her eyes like saucers as she looked at Alexia.
"Say, uh…" Jess scratched vigorously at her arm. "Sorry to ask this, but can I borrow a few bucks? I don't have enough gas to get home."
Alexia shook her head, her face guarded. "Sorry, I don't have cash right now."
"Nah, that's cool, that's cool." Jess attempted a smile, although her eyes fell with disappointment. "Hey, maybe we'll see each other around or something. I work these races for extra money, but when I'm not doing that, I work in our air trafficking division as a pilot…People like to say I get high in more ways than one."
Jess giggled. Her laugh was bouncy and genuine, and Alexia smiled in return despite the crude nature of her joke.
"I really like your hair, by the way," Jess continued. "You mind if I touch it a little bit?"
Alexia was taken aback by this since they had just met, but she saw no harm in Jess's request. She nodded, and Jess took a few strands of Alexia's jet-black hair between her fingers. Jess seemed enraptured by it, although Alexia thought this was less because of her own beauty and more because Jess was high. She couldn't recall anyone ever complimenting her hair before, which was long and unkempt, her choppy fringe a style that was years out of date.
"Wow…Oh my God, it's so soft!" Jess squealed as she said this. "What conditioner do you use?"
"Whatever's in the store, usually," said Alexia, looking away from her. "Look, sorry, I'm really tired right now and…"
"Oh, uh, n-no problem." Jess looked a little embarrassed as she dropped Alexia's hair. "Well, like I said, I hope we meet again sometime. You take care now, Alexia." She locked eyes with Lamar in the driver's seat, pointing a finger at him. "And as for you, you've gotta stop hitting on girls with boyfriends. It's not right."
"None of us is right, baby, we all outlaws," Lamar said smoothly. "'Ay, gimme yo' number, and I'll give you a ride home."
"Not a chance, pencil dick," Jess said with a friendly grin as she rose and walked across the lot toward the curb, where Alexia noticed there was a bus stop.
Lamar was left stunned as he watched Jess go.
"'Pencil dick'?" He clicked his tongue. "Man, that girl fine as fuck, but she somethin' else, baby. Good on you for not givin' her any money though, 'cause you know she ain't buyin' a bus ticket – she gon' spend every cent of it on dope."
Alexia nodded, leaning back in her seat as she thought about how she'd lied to Jess. She actually had a few dollars in her wallet, but she hadn't wanted to give it away. Not only was she very poor at that moment, but Jess was a junkie, and giving her money would only enable her self-destructive behavior. However, it had surprised Alexia to learn that Jess was a pilot. She wondered how much money Jess made in this role, and how much of it she had spent on her drug habit.
However, Alexia supposed it wasn't her place to judge. The way she saw it, she had done a lot of stupid things in her life – otherwise, she thought, she wouldn't even be in Los Santos with a bunch of cold-blooded killers. Despite her uncle's assurances otherwise, Alexia knew she wasn't going to live very long in such a dangerous crew. The way she saw it, the best she could hope for was to survive as long as she could, making as much money as possible to give to her brothers for a college education. That way, they would be given a path out of poverty and wouldn't have to resort to crime to make a living.
As Lamar drove away, Alexia reached for the aux cord connected to his stereo.
"You mind if I play my music on the way?" she asked him.
"Shit, baby, I'm still in yo' service till I get you settled in," said Lamar. "Go right ahead."
Alexia smiled as she connected the cord to her iFruit phone and navigated through her music. After the long flight, the street race, and being threatened by Reese and Noël, Alexia craved some music as a stress reliever.
Eventually, she found the track she was seeking: "Dangerous Bastard" by Love Fist, one of her favorites. She cranked up the stereo, allowing the heavy crunch of power chords to invade the cabin. However, this was a kind of loud that Alexia craved.
Lamar listened to the song intently. He didn't talk, but his face visibly scrunched at moments where Jezz Torrent, the lead singer, went into his screeching falsetto. He obviously wasn't into it, but Alexia supposed that was fair. Not everyone liked rock music, especially not the loud and abrasive variant of glam metal that Love Fist played.
She let her eyes close, letting the distorted wailing of guitar and the steady thump of the bass wash over her as the car sped down Vinewood Boulevard, toward her new apartment.