The Syndicate’s Bride

CHAPTER ONE Vanessa “You need to slow down with the drinks, Marco.” I said without looking at Marco who stopped beside me, holding his third energy drink in the last hour and a half. He tipped the can in the air. “What? this? It’s barely anything. I take more than seven at least in a day.” “And where has that gotten you?” “To a full tummy and a pleasant race watching experience,” he pointed at the race arena. “Like now.” I sighed. Why do I ever bother? Marco was a 5’9 curly brown haired Mexican with impressive engineering skills and an energy drink addiction. Seriously, he always had the orange can in his hand or by his side when he was working. One time, he convinced me to try the drink so I could understand his undying love for it and I had spit it out almost immediately. It tasted like piss. Chorused gasps of excitement peeled my attention from the addicted energy drink engineer and back to the game. I looked at the monitor, watching as a fleet of F1 race cars sprint past, a familiar orange and black one in the lead. The camera zoomed in, capturing the driver’s face in unflinching concentration, his right hand steady on the wheel, and his lips slightly tipped in sly victorious arrogance. I resisted an eye roll. “Who’s in the lead?” Marco asked, too busy stuffing his face with his drink and snack to pay attention to the game. “Who else,” came my blunt reply. He chuckled knowingly. “Ah, of course. Ryan is exactly who he thinks he is. The guy’s a prodigy.” Unable to deny his talent in racing, I merely scoffed. He was a good racer, the best even, and at only twenty six with his level of accomplishment, it was a talent worth bragging of. Everyone knew the guy, he was just that good. If only that talent came with a good personality, I thought. “That doesn’t look good,” Marco suddenly said, silencing my thoughts and returning my attention to the monitor. On the monitor, Ryan’s car seemed to be jerking to the side unintentionally like he had no control of the movement and was trying to get the car back on track. It was a subtle movement at first, but it became increasingly forceful by the second and soon the concerned whispers around us was indication that it didn’t skip the audience. I watched closely, trying to see if it was a minor tire fault or something along that line when all of a sudden, the car wheels screeched as the car was forced into a turn and rammed into a wall at the center of the arena, barely missing impact with the other cars behind it. The arena broke into a fit of gasps and shouts. Everyone rushed forward, trying to get a better look at the accident. The paramedics swung into action as the announcer said something in the intercom that was drown out by the alarmed screams in the stadium. From the corner of my eyes, Marco had gone silent. His mouth hung open, food hanging from it, and his eyes widened. “Holy s**t,” he muttered. I stared in shock, unable to believe the scene displayed on the monitor. The camera zoomed in on the wreck, unsteadily as if to express the shocked state of the camera man. Ryan laid on the wheel, his body unconscious to the moment of disarray created by his accident. A thought crossed my mind; is he dead? I went pale at the thought, not because I cared about him being dead or alive, but because of the gravity of the situation itself. It felt like everything happened in slow motion and I was the only one at normal speed. But suddenly, as though in answer to my question, Ryan lifted his head, slowly but surely. I looked in confusion, how on earth had he survived that? He moved his head side to side, as if checking to see if his bones were still intact. And all of a sudden he stopped, and his eyes flashed blue. My eyebrows creased. “What the – ” “We’ve got to go,” Marco said, having gotten over his shock momentarily. I looked at him. “we’ll need to get his car checked.” I nodded a reply absentmindedly, still thinking of the flash of blue I had seen. But upon returning my gaze to the screen, it was gone. I mentally scoffed and muttered to myself. “Of course it was nothing.” I turned to Marco. “Let’s go.” When we got to the pit, we discovered the damage was even worse that it seemed. The entire front of the car was completely wrecked with almost no redeeming piece, leaving only the back and major parts of the sides untouched. How the hell did he manage to survive? I mused. “Well, this is certainly unusual,” Marco said, running his hand along the broken pieces in concentration. “His legs should have been smashed to pieces.” Marco nodded. “It should be. Luck must really be on his side. But that’s not what I find unusual.” “Tell me.” “If this were any other player, this accident would have been understandable.” “But not Ryan?” I said, but it sounded more like a question. “Not Ryan.” He confirmed. “People like Ryan; the only son of the Winchester family, king of the underground racing scene, cold-blooded, speed obsessed and distrustful of fate, people like Ryan do not make mistakes like this.” He rested his fingers on his chin in thought. “Something’s off” My eyes roamed over the car, scanning in between the broken parts, over the smooth exteriors, cautiously and calculating. “Faulty engine, perhaps?” I asked. Nose deep in the vehicle’s remains, Marco hummed a reply. “Perhaps.” “You’re in doubt.” “Aren’t you?” I shrugged. “The guy’s not a god, you know? His blood’s just as f*****g red as ours and I’m quite sure he takes dump when he has to, and pukes when he’s s**t face drunk,” I looked up from the car. “In other words, he’s a f*****g human being. He can make mistakes.” He turned to me, hands leaning on the table behind him. “You’re right.” I sighed, returning my gaze to the damage. “But?” “But that would have been a logical conclusion for any other person, not someone who has never once been in a car racing accident. He’s fast, cautious. He’s great at what he does.” He sighed and turned away. “My gut says otherwise.” “Well, your gut feeling isn’t a diagnosis...” I trailed off as my eyes met with a familiar metal. Its dull shine protruded from under the wreck, easy to miss but present nevertheless. The F1 federation had placed an effective ban on the metal as far back as 1999, which became a total ban at the beginning of the 2000 season to shun performance enhancement. Beryllium. Lifting the metal in my hand, I turned to Marco with a scoff. “Or maybe Ryan isn’t as invisible as he seems.” Confusion laced his voice as he turned. “What does that mean...” his eyes fell on the metal and widened. His mouth dropped open. “I told you, Marco, this guy is a human being and he’s definitely not a saint.” I nodded at Marco and slipped the metal into my pocket. “I’m going to get an explanation. I’ll be back.” By the end of my sentence, I was already out the door. Ryan, leaning forward with his head bowed low, was seated at a bench far away from the audience and spectators like he had purposely placed a distance between himself and any possible human interaction, meaning I was an unwanted interference to his self-induced isolation. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t care. (to be continued...)