It had to be.

No one else drove with that particular combination of confidence, malice and theatrical timing.

Indeed, somewhere ahead in the dark, Maddie’s car had swallowed the road with its lights disappearing and reappearing like the blink of a predator.

Her taillights did not merely glow; they mocked him.

It was glaringly clear that the chaos demoness could fold both him and Brian in racing if given a good car and the right mood, and judging by the fact that she had not already ended their self-respect out of mercy, she was probably enjoying the chase.

And sitting beside her, of all people, was Cassiopeia.

Cassiopeia had chosen to ride Maddie over him.

Phei clicked his tongue.

"Traitor," he murmured, though the corner of his mouth still lifted. "Ah~ it would have been good with her here."

But Cassiopeia was not here. She was beside Maddie, likely quiet, serene, perfectly composed while Maddie turned expensive machinery into a weaponized love letter to chaos.

Phei almost pitied the passenger seat. Almost.

He could imagine it too easily: Cassiopeia’s hair catching dashboard light, one hand perhaps resting calmly near the console while Maddie sent the car sideways through corners with a grin that belonged on warning labels.

The Utopia shot into the next curve, and the world became impact, scream and light. Phei braked late, so late the front tires seemed to bite down on the road with offended violence. The nose dipped, the rear loosened, and he feathered the throttle through the corner’s edge, not drifting this time but carving, slicing through the bend so cleanly the car felt less like it had turned and more like the road had surrendered its shape to him.

The engine note rose again on exit, deepening into a metallic howl, and the Utopia launched forward with enough force to press him into the seat.

Behind him, the blue Perrari reappeared, Brian refusing to die quietly. Its headlights stormed out of the corner in his mirror, twin white wounds bouncing over the road as the blue body snapped into line. Brian fought the wheel and laughed like a lunatic.

The Perrari’s exhaust spat flames, its tires screaming through the exit, and Brian’s voice crackled through the open channel.

"You’re not getting away after that!"

Phei tapped the comm once. "Brian."

"What?"

"You blocked my path."

"You drifted around it!"

"That is not the point."

"That is exactly the point!"

Phei shifted again, the Utopia kicking forward. "You showed poor manners."

Brian barked out a laugh. "Poor manners? You nearly turned that Pagani into a flying lawsuit!"

"A lawsuit would have braked."

"That sentence makes no sense!"

"It does at high speed."

Brian shouted something that dissolved into engine roar as the Perrari clawed closer down the straight. For several seconds, they ran like that, Utopia ahead, Perrari behind, two storms ripping through the cleared road while the night watched in offended silence.

Then the road widened near the lake’s shoulder, the trees pulling back to reveal a long silver stretch bordered by guardrails and black water.

Maddie’s lights appeared ahead again.

This time closer.

Too close.

Phei leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. The Utopia’s cabin glowed in soft blue and gold, the wheel warm beneath his hands, the pedals alive beneath his feet. He could feel the car wanting more.

The thing had tasted one impossible drift and now believed the world owed it further disrespect.

Fine.

He gave it more.

The Utopia surged.

The engine note sharpened until it felt like the air itself was being cut open. Phei threaded the car through the straight with savage smoothness, eating distance by meters, then car lengths, then entire chunks of reality.

Brian’s Perrari faded behind him again, still roaring, still fighting, but the Utopia had locked onto Maddie now, and that changed everything. The road ahead became a tunnel of light, Phei’s headlights stabbing forward while Maddie’s taillights pulled away, two red invitations dangling just beyond reach.

The lake caught both cars in broken reflections, long white spears chasing red sparks across the black water below.

Ahead, Maddie’s car flicked left around a shallow bend, its rear sliding just enough to be disrespectful and not enough to lose speed.

Phei laughed under his breath.

’Of course. She is not merely racing.’

She was showing off. Maddie drove like she flirted, all sharp confidence, sudden danger, and the infuriating certainty that if the world wanted her to slow down, it could submit a written complaint and perish waiting.

Her car’s headlights swung wide across the road ahead of her, briefly lighting the trees from beneath like monsters in a theatre, then snapped back into the lane as she caught the rear with perfect cruelty.

Phei closed the gap through the next section.

One bend.

Then another.

A short tunnel of trees.

A drop beside the lake.

Each turn came faster than the last, the road flashing between silver visibility and black uncertainty as the headlights fought for the next ten meters, then the next, then the next.

The Utopia screamed out of the darkness and finally drew alongside her, its nose level with Maddie’s rear quarter.

Through the side glass, he caught the brief flash of her face.

She turned her head, eyes bright, mouth curved into a grin that belonged in wanted posters and wedding nightmares.

Beside her, Cassiopeia sat composed, one hand braced lightly, hair stirred by the violence of motion, expression calm enough that Phei suspected she had either transcended fear or decided Maddie was now her chosen disaster.

Maddie saw him and her grin widened.

Then she lifted one hand from the wheel just long enough to point forward.

’A challenge?’

Naturally.

The woman could not simply race. She had to narrate her evil with gestures.

Phei’s smile sharpened. "There you are."

Maddie’s car roared in answer.

The two machines hurled themselves down the road side by side, engines overlapping into a monstrous duet. Her front tires were still half a car ahead of him, just enough advantage to mock him, and Phei could almost feel her satisfaction through the glass.

Maddie held the outer line with lunatic confidence, her car leaning into the road’s curve like it had been born sideways, while Phei took the inside, the Utopia’s bodywork kissing the lane edge so close the reflectors flashed beneath him like sparks.

The road tightened but neither braked.

Because evidently, everyone involved had chosen criminal poetry over survival.

The first corner came in screaming. Maddie entered first, tires shrieking, the rear dancing on the edge of control as she threw her car into the bend. Her headlights swung outward, cutting across the guardrail and into the black water beyond, a brief, insane flash of light thrown into nothing before she caught the angle and dragged the car back toward the exit.

Phei followed inside, the Utopia snapped down the front end biting, rear threatening to swing until he fed throttle through it and made the whole beast rotate under him. For a moment they were parallel through the corner, Maddie’s car higher, Phei’s lower, both engines howling against the guardrail, tires crying black prayers into the road.

Smoke crawled low behind them, lit blue-white by Brian’s approaching beams.

Brian arrived behind them like thunder with jealousy issues.

"Are you two racing or mating with the asphalt?" he shouted over the comms.

Maddie’s voice cut in, laughing. "Jealous?"

Brian roared, "Terrified!"

Phei exited the corner beside Maddie, still half a tire behind. The straight opened briefly, and both cars punched forward. Acceleration slammed them into their seats. Trees became dark brushstrokes. The lake became a silver smear. The night broke apart under the weight of their engines.

The road markers flickered beneath them in white pulses, counting down insanity like a metronome built by criminals.

Maddie glanced over again, her grin impossible.

Phei could see her mouth the words even before her voice came through.

"Catch me, dragon."

Then she dropped a gear.

Her car screamed before the rear squatted and Maddie shot forward.

Phei laughed, full and bright and dangerous, the sound swallowed instantly by the Utopia’s answering roar. "Gladly."

He punched his own gear shift, and the Pagani exploded after her, tires biting so brutally the car seemed to tear chunks out of the road’s soul.

Behind them, Brian cursed, the blue Perrari charging in furious pursuit, headlights shaking over the asphalt as he refused to be left out of the stupidity. Far ahead, the road curled upward into the cliffs, where switchbacks waited like knives and the night grew narrower.

The beams of Maddie’s car climbed first, vanishing and returning in vicious fragments between rock and trees, while Phei’s Utopia followed like a hunting star, its engine snarling into the black.

Phei’s hands tightened on the wheel.

Maddie’s taillights burned before him like twin invitations to sin.

The Utopia lowered into the chase, engine snarling, body trembling, every part of it alive and hungry.

And the race truly began.