Chapter Text
A slow exhale becomes a roaring tailpipe. Everything but the track is nonexistent. Zoey is laser-focused in the only space she truly can be: behind the wheel of her 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, Lappy. The pop star's stage is one high. This one is something else. Something that's all her own.
No, can't think about the girls now. Whoosh. She makes a hard right like it's easy. Of course it isn't. There's no space for anything else right now. One missed second can mean death. Zoey blinks quickly.
Behind her, fuck, it's that Mystery shithead. Zoey prides herself on being a good sport, but this guy truly grinds her gears. She could swear he's deliberately tried to make her crash once or twice this season. He doesn't even have the grace to be a cocky rookie. She's never heard him speak even once to anyone. When she beat him fair and square for a podium spot, he pushed past her when she tried to shake his hand. She's seen him do it to other racers too. And even after all that he's still trying to be a bully when it can get someone killed. And yet, no one will ban him from racing. Zoey squeezes down on her wheel and gives Lappy some gas.
The girls would never have let Zoey race if they knew that was what she was really doing. Bobby absolutely wouldn't. But they trusted her to go out to gaming tournaments a few Saturday nights a month. It didn't feel great to lie to them, but racing was a rush she couldn't pull herself away from.
She had been a buggy racer in California growing up after a friend in her school's gaming club turned out to be friends with some of the grease monkeys in the motor shop. After they took her out riding a couple times she found herself loving the whole thing. The smell of the exhaust, the sounds of the engines, the control of your own destiny when you got behind the wheel. The feeling of a good vehicle cradling you and the partnership of the drive.
She never expected to take it to this extreme, but after hearing about a race in some forgotten corner of Twitter during Hunter training and sneaking out to go watch, she, in her usual fannish way, had picked her favorite racer Seung-Min Ji and befriended him.
Despite initial skepticism and hesitance on his part, she eventually won him over with her earnestness about his driving and desire to learn from him, not to sleep with him. Ew.
Seung-Min turned out to be a great mentor and after a while, he finally let her get behind the wheel. It was hard to keep her hobby up once Huntr/x made their debut and demon hunting started becoming its own part-time occupation, but she made it work.
Obsessive as ever, she had a lot of ideas about what her car should be once Seung-Min judged her capable of entering the amateur circuit. After getting to test drive a few, she quickly landed on what would become Lappy. Lappy had a 5.0L Coyote engine giving Lappy 500 horse power stock but Zoey being the speed-loving girl she is added a Roush Phase Two super charger giving Lappy a total of 810 horsepower. Lappy had Recarro bucket seats, a massive spoiler and splitter making him a beast of a machine. Zoey also gave Lappy a little extra push by adding a nitrous bottle. Seung-Min also pitched in and gave Lappy some drag slicks—much to Zoey's delight.
Lappy's paint job and her racing coveralls were laughed at when she debuted, of course, but to her own and Seung-Min's delight, she placed 5th in her first race out of 14. She didn't hit every race that season of course, but she quickly gained a reputation. Snapper, the anonymous woman racer with the "garish" turtle theme and bubbly body language, despite never taking her helmet off. It amused her that despite maintaining two secret lives, she had fans in both arenas. It was nice to feel respected in both sides of her life.
Mystery was needling behind her, drifting in and out of her blind spots and playing chicken with her back panels. Every time she'd approach a turn, he'd be on her back corner, threatening to force her to PIT herself with the turn momentum brushing his front corner, or having to slow off and let him pass around her. Or if she called his bluff, he'd drop back and then pass her on the inside, way too close for comfort and trying to psych her into twitching into the wall that way. God, he irritated her.
It wouldn't surprise her if he was a demon how much he seemed not to value his own life, but it wasn't a good idea to make assumptions. Regardless, she wasn't going to suddenly pull her shin-kal and knife someone in the middle of a populated racetrack. Unless they really were a demon, but most demons aren't that bold. So for now she had to grit her teeth and beat the motherfucker the only way she could: on the track.
Zoey gave Lappy a bit of throttle and made some distance from Mystery, taking a bit of breathing room and comfortably making the turn. But it wasn't long before he was back on her ass. Zoey took a deep breath. Just 5 laps to go.
"Zoey-nim," Seung-Min told her over the radio, "you're going to be okay. You're doing better against him than you think. He's off his game tonight. Just keep ahead of him and be smart and you'll beat him."
"Roger." Zoey said, simply.
She took another turn without issue, Mystery zipping past it just behind. She couldn't really understand why, but she thought Seung-Min was right. He did seem off his game tonight.
Just a few more turns to go.
As she came up on a left, Mystery did yet another of his usual tricks. The self-PIT corner hangout. Zoey sighed out a breath and waited for him to drop back as usual again.
He didn't. Wait. He's not moving.
Wait, fuck, he should have dropped by now. Shit, tu-
Zoey felt her back bumper catch something as she cranked her wheel left. Front and back wheels suddenly moved in opposite directions.
She felt a strong g-force lurch as a spin began that-
Suddenly everything went dark.