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“So, are you coming on the 23rd or not?” Tom had to ask Alex one more time, because he was annoying like that.
They were on the corner outside the coffee shop that wasn’t too far from their college. The place was strangely deserted for the time of day when all the students would be finishing their classes, but the shop was well hidden and a bit of an insider secret. Sitting on the high curb, the duo were discussing yet another idea that could potentially end up in flames - or rather, Tom was trying to convince Alex why it was a good idea.
“I don’t know. It all depends on whether or not Jack has a date. Ian is still down in Cornwall, so that’s not an issue.” Alex sighed, visibly dejected - at least to Tom - and added, “And if I finish the lights in time.”
Tom was about to offer a few words of condolence - he knew that Alex had wanted this for a long time - when a dark shape loomed over them, blocking the frigid March sun. “Can we help you?”
“Yeah, actually. Lads, could you find somewhere else to be for the rest of the day? As in avoid this area completely.” The red-haired man was dressed rather casually but looked flustered, nervously shifting in the discreet way that Alex did when he and Tom were probably in trouble.
“Um, okay,” Tom answered quickly, almost sensing Alex tense up to release some of his pent-up emotion into an interrogation session of epic proportions.
The man looked slightly relieved at that answer, before whispering, “I’m with the Met, and things are going to get ugly here in a while. Just if you wanted to know.”
“We didn’t want to know, but thanks anyway.” Alex deadpanned, still a tad upset. Gathering their lunch up, they stood up and walked down the street towards the tube station. Looking back, Tom saw the man climb into an unmarked black BMW, and turn to talk to a blonde man sitting in the shotgun seat. He looked vaguely familiar in that strange way that strangers sometimes were, then the car pulled away and the officers were gone.
“Hey, Tommy. Are you just going to stand there or are you coming to the garage to finish your ride?” Alex called out.
“Nope, I’m coming. Wait up, Lex!”
“Come on mate, there is no way that you’re missing this. Not after all the work you put into that beast .” It was a week later, the 23rd, and Tom had casually kicked Alex off the bed in protest of Alex’s somewhat passive behavior. In that way that all best bros did, because Alex just picked himself off the floor and flopped onto the bed in the same place as before.
“Yes way I’m missing it. Jack will go nuts on us if she finds that we’ve snuck off.”
“But Leeeeex, ” Tom had to make a face, the one which always made Alex smack him round the head because it looked as if he’d ‘eaten a sour lemon and vomited it up again’. “Don’t you want to go flex your beast baby?”
“No.” It was a slightly weak answer, and they both knew it. Alex had been looking forward to the night for weeks and Ian had promised that he would take both of them if he got back in time.
Ping! Ping! Two phones’ notifications went off at the same time, and in the scary unison that made everyone think they were secretly related, the duo opened their group chat.
Sabina
- Hey you boys coming or not?
19:36 pm
“Come on, now can you say yes? I’ll go on my own if you don’t anyway.” Alex fixed him with his let me think of what the best way to kill you is glare, not that it had any effect on Tom. He’d grown up with that glare. Come to think of it, the only reason that he and Alex did any crazy stunt was because they had grown up somewhat dangerously.
That’s how both the Riders are, Tom thought. And Jack, can’t forget her.
“Fine. But we’re leaving a note just in case.” Alex said, finally caving.
“Yessssssss, man. Grab your best clothes and let’s go!”
They’d snuck out using Alex’s somewhat dubious skillset and entered the garage where they’d started modifying cars. It had been a small thing, helping out at a high-class garage on the edge of Chelsea (where everyone seemed to want their cars to be better than the rest of the population) to gain something to put on their profiles at the end of secondary and get some money while doing it, but had turned into something bigger. Eventually, the owner of the garage had given them a small corner of the workshop and 24-hour access to it, because the boys’ tendency to work late nights during the summer holidays.
Tom could still see Ian's proud face when he’d discovered what the boys had done as their first project. Even more memorable than that was Alex’s face when Ian had been proud of both of them.
Shaking himself out of the memory and grabbing the keys to their rides, Tom chucked Alex’s to him across the shop, earning another glare when it almost hit the car. “Damage my beast baby, and I’m ending you, Tommy.” he casually threatened. Meh, Tom was used to it.
“Well, fire her up then.” he grinned, seeing Alex twirl the keys around his fingers - like he had done a lot with his dad’s old combat knife and given Jack a heart attack repeatedly. They climbed into the cars, glossy black paint shining under the halogen white lights that simultaneously seemed too bright and too dim.
Tom had done a great job on his ride. It was actually the best he’d done on a car. His Chevy Camaro had attracted plenty of turned heads and raised eyebrows during a late-night test drive, not to mention a few appreciative whistles from some petrolheads at a pub. The 6.2 litre engine was a bit less powerful than Alex’s but he'd made up for that in other ways, like the 432 horsepower under the bonnet.
And there it was. The black car came to life with a throaty roar of the V6 engine, supercharged with imported nitrous. 300 horsepower, modified with extra torque on top of that. A normal Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat would hit 60mph in 3.7 seconds, but this , this was special. It was a Rider’s car. Alex’s beast baby, as they fondly called it.
“Do your underglow lights work?” Tom asked. Alex gladly obliged, turning on his LED lights to light up the workshop in an almost hellfire-like, devilish purple that reflected on his face through the windows, highlighting his sharp features.
“And yours?” Tom switched on his own lights, a bright orange to contrast, in reply. The laws on underglow colours in the UK had slightly limited them but the ones the owner of the shop had shown them had more than made up for it. “Ready?”
“Hell yes, Lex! This is going to be lit .”
“Lead on then.”
The Ace Café London. A hangout for any good Londoner petrolhead, infamous for being part of the rock and roll scene for young bikers in the 1950s. It had been lost in the pages of motor history before being revived again to be restored to a pedestal just as high. During the day, silver chrome bikes lined up neatly glinted in the meagre sunlight but at night, it was a different story. Every night.
This is why the boys were here.
The 23rd was a Free For All night, specifically for cars. Modified rides, old and new turned up, and it was the best chance to show the other people what you were made of. And it wasn’t just old motorbikers in outdated leathers who turned up to stare like a child in a sweet shop. Anyone and everyone could come along. A few times before, the boys had spied middle-aged adults, younger teenage students and even some toddlers riding on their parents’ shoulders to see all the vehicles as well.
The drive had taken almost half an hour, with traffic thickening on the roads nearing the cafe. Through their linked radios, Alex could hear Tom pointing out any car that he found remotely interesting and it was quite the impressive selection.
Finally rocking up into the almost full carpark was just as satisfying as the first time they’d done it. The appreciative glances, the whispered praises, the envious glares in good-nature, even the few police officers stationed around the place turned to look. They parked their cars side-by-side.
Stopping the engine and climbing out, wearing (completely unnecessary) black shades and striding out to be met with faces that Alex mostly recognised felt like coming back to a second home. Someone was performing a burnout on a nearby road, and the smoke from it hung low around everyones’ ankles, making the lights on the various cars around him seem even more eerie.
“Lex, Tommy, you made it!” Sabina pushed through the crowd, her boyfriend pushing through behind her, trying to keep up. He grinned at them, tipping his head in hey how’s it going way that guys somehow could interpret. “Wow, so this is your beast baby, Lex.”
“Yeah, we made it! Couldn’t miss it for the world, Sab, you know what Lex is like. Don’t harm his beast baby or he’ll end you.” Tom said, almost shouting over the music that someone was playing. The people around them laughed at that, they all knew how ‘Lex’ was. Anyway, damaging anyone’s ride was a big no-no here - an unspoken rule that was reinforced by the police presence every night.
And the next few hours passed just like that. Somewhere along the line, Alex had lost Tom while talking to the owner of a Nissan Skyline and was standing in the crowd with a mug of hot chocolate that he’d ordered. The nights in London, even though it was March and he was surrounded by the heat of several powerful engines, were still cool enough to warrant a hot drink.
Sipping contentedly, something caught Alex’s gaze from the corner of his eye. He quickly shifted inconspicuously to inspect whatever had flared his senses. An ash-blond man wearing a jacket. Blue denim, with an embroidered back. Nothing new, a bit unique compared to the usual bikers with their leather jackets, but this looked familiar to him. He’d seen it before, when he and Tom had gotten in trouble for a prank gone spectacularly wrong - Ian had found the whole thing hilarious but Jack had made them sort through the boxes in the basement as punishment. The same jacket had been in a box of his dad’s things. It was where he’d got the combat knife. Ian had almost unnoticeably freaked out when Alex had asked what the design meant. He hadn't asked again. A silver scorpion, surrounded by blood red roses, a banner with the words ‘Est. 1987’.
What did it mean? The man had approached a smaller group in one corner, that had nobody in hearing distance, strangely enough. Turning around, Alex realised that he recognised the man wearing the jacket as well. Yegor? No, something similar and foreign, Yassen. That was it. A strange friend of his late father, he would turn up every few years to check on Alex before vanishing like a weird vampire. The last time had been when he was fourteen, and they had spent a day together, Tom actually tagging along as well. Of all the bizarre reunion things to do, they had gone to a shooting range and thrown actual knives. Yassen had taught Alex how to twist a knife, then kaploofed off the face of the earth until now, almost four years later.
He was talking to the group of people and with another realisation, Alex knew another person in the group. Ian. His uncle. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he in Cornwall? Why was he laughing at something Yassen had said when the last time the two men had met, they’d almost killed each other?
Alex had to think. His head was full of too many questions and none of them had answers that made sense. Pushing his empty mug towards one of the staff members who gratefully accepted it without a second glance, he walked out of the car park and to the edge of the pavement, leaning on the barrier overlooking the A406 motorway.
After a while to calm down and breathe, Alex heard a familiar pattern of footsteps behind him. He didn’t turn around to see who it was. “Tommy.”
“You okay here, mate?” he asked, because he was Tom and he knew that there was something wrong.
“Can we just go back home?”
“...You want to go home? Mate, if you weren’t feeling good, you should have said, rather than allowing me to drag your arse out here.”
“It’s not that. I feel fine.”
“Oh. Okay, you want to talk about it then?”
“No. Not now.”
“Well, um, I guess I’ll be telling Sab that we’re leaving early. Ours cars are near to the exit so we shouldn’t have a hard time getting out either and - “
Alex blocked out Tom’s rambling for a few seconds, seeing something else. A black BMW cruising quite a way down the A406. The same number plate as the other day, and what looked like the same driver.
“Tom.” His best friend immediately stopped - this was serious if Alex was not using nicknames. “See that car down there? The black BMW?”
Tom leaned across the metal to look at what Alex had pointed out. “That’s the same car as last week. The undercover cop. What’s he doing here?”
“I think we should get out of here. Call it a bad feeling, call it paranoia, but police presence today is a bit more than usual as well.”
“Then let’s beat this joint, before someone ends up getting thrown in the nick. I mean, our rides are perfectly legal but still.”
“I’ll go and tell Sab then. Go ahead, I’m right behind you.”
“I sure hope so.”
The doorbell rang, the first chime waking Alex immediately. He checked the digital clock on the side of his bed, the red letters reading 03:02 am. Tom still snored on, dead to the world, on the opposite end of the bed, comically hanging off the mattress. He was staying overnight while his parents still battled each other through a messy divorce. Anyway, Jack hadn’t noticed their sneaking-out and they hadn’t been castrated so that had been good.
The doorbell rang again, making a bedroom door open and the stairs creak as Jack walked downstairs, opening the door. Softly, Alex shifted his weight so that Tom wouldn’t topple onto the floor and lifted off the bed. He walked to the window where soft moonlight was shining through and looked down to see the serial number of a police car parked on the smooth driveway. A rattle to indicate the security chain being removed, and then the porch light turned on to illuminate two grim-faced police officers.
“Mrs Rider?”
“No. I’m the housekeeper. What is it? What’s happened?”
“This is the home of Mr Ian Rider?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if we could come in…”
Alex’s stomach dropped. Something had happened. Ian wasn’t coming home. Why wasn’t he coming home? Alex knew, but still listened numbly to the mens’ funeral voices, saying how they were sorry for what had happened. By this time Tom had woken up as well, looking as devastated as Alex felt inside.
“... a car accident… called the ambulance … just outside Cornwall… intensive care… nothing anyone could do… so sorry.”
The words echoed in Alex’s head, not making any sense. Ian hadn’t been in Cornwall, he’d been in London. So why was he dead? What had happened?