I'll Be Mellow and I'll Be Your Muse

Girl One

"We just can't get a lead. The ring is so tight and the leader can practically smell a lie. Every cop we send undercover gets ratted in a week." Tom sat across from me rubbing his temples. "I'm at my wits end. If I could just offer a solution, I'd be a shoe-in for plain-clothes." Faint worry lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. I stared across the kitchen table at him, wondering how my life had turned into this.

I’d been with Tom for a little over a year now. Our relationship surprised me to say the least. We’d met in a coffee shop down on Main Street when I accidentally spilled my hot chocolate on him. I was still a kid in many ways, just over 21. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. A fragmented past landed me in Long Beach, California with little to my name except the car I slept in and the ten dollars in my wallet. But that day I spilled my hot chocolate -- a drink that cost me half my money -- on an unsuspecting man changed everything. We started talking and the relationship quickly progressed. In a few short months, I found myself living with and dating a man eight years my senior. I still had no clue what he saw in me, but I chose not to question it.

"Well what's the case about?"

"Lynds, I've told you every damn day once I started working this unit. We're working on a street racing bust. There have been some disappearances and all the victims were on a specific team. We need someone to get on that team and stay on long enough to be of use." He grunted as he leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back two legs. Something he knew bothered me.

"Oh yeah...." I trailed off as I got up to get more water. Without turning around, I addressed him, "I'm sure you'll get something." Silence fell between us. I tried to calm my nerves as I filled my glass. Tom was a cop. He was trained to see and hear when someone is hiding something. I’d been doing good so far.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Apparently I failed. I didn‘t want go where this conversation was inevitably headed, so I decided to play dumb. Hopefully he would just let it go. "Hmm dear? I was thinking of making chicken for dinner tonight."

"Lyndsey. Do you know someone that can help?" Why wouldn’t he let it go?

"Define 'help'."

"Do you know anyone that can street race?" I gripped the edge of the sink tightly. I knew this was coming. I had just hoped it wouldn’t come up so soon. Although some may argue that after a year together, we shouldn’t have secrets from each other. Eyes closed, I nodded slowly. "Is that why you never paid attention when I spoke about the cases? Because you know ways to solve them?"

I took a few deep breaths, aiming to calm my rapid breathing so my voice wouldn‘t shake. "I- no. I thought maybe if I ignored it, I wouldn't have to deal with some past issues." I sipped my water, attempting to steady my slightly shaking hands by giving them a task. The water dribbling down my chin told me I failed.

"Like what?"

"The fact the I can help you. I‘m out of that life now Tom. I was desperate when I moved here and stupid enough to trust the first person who offered me help." My grip on the cup tightened. That was only part of the story. But I couldn't tell him anything else. Not without reopening some old wounds and reliving memories that no one should have.

"Lyndsey, I need you to help me." He turned me to face him. Those eyes. So full of pleas, begging me. I always said his eyes could get me to do anything.

Girl Two

The blazing wind threatened to freeze everything in it’s path as the dull roar of vehicles died. The snow curled around what was left of the dying trees, as if searching for any warmth to extinguish quickly. Meanwhile, the blizzard whipped against my black Dodge Charger, freezing my skin against the leather seats. As the condensed air left my lips, I tried to start the car again. It was in vain.

Nothing needed to go wrong during this trip, as the thirty degree below weather could strand us easily in the desert. Strands of music cut into the whistling howl of the wind as I grabbed another coat to put on. My partner sat beside me, snatching at the tools needed to fix the flat tire that annihilated any chance of us winning the race we were in. Lyndsey Silver was the reason I got into this freezing mess. It seemed appropriate that she would take the chance of hyperthermia, as her weak boyfriend prompted her to throw me back inside an abandoned past.

It was 2007 when I turned nineteen and grew a sharp aversion to jail. Silver’s boyfriend was the same cop who arrested me for my first screw-up and he hounded me since. Sure, I moved to New York after growing up in the south, but after two years, I grew complacent. I was fine in the city, especially after I heard my stalker cop switched coasts. I stole and sold enough cars to a dealer to get on my feet comfortably, before a rat got me slammed back into probation and I started working off a hefty fine.

Then I got the call. If I could say anything nice about Tom Wyatt, he was a shrewd bastard. He called to ask for my help to solve a case. The exchange was a clean record and enough money to start a new life. The kicker was that I was to have a partner, someone he trusted and who just happened to be his girlfriend. It had to be a set-up.

We met in a noisy restaurant, loud with the conversations and lively chatter of the tourists on Broadway. Wyatt chose the place because he knew there were only a few places I would hesitate to violently act in, and Giovanni’s was one of them. Hell, when he arrested me, I was pulling up into a McDonald’s.

“You mean to tell me,” I said, curling the spaghetti around my fork that night. “You want me to basically break the law to help you solve a case? How do I know I won’t go in the slammer with them?”

He looked tired. He needed a good night’s sleep, a vacation, and maybe a good lay. He was a good looking guy, just too motivated by ambition and disappointment. “You won’t. You will have all the benefits of being an undercover cop-”

“A soon-to be dead casualty by bullet, you mean.”

“And,” he pressed on, ignoring me. I merely flicked my overgrown bangs out of my face in reply, going back to my food. “We won’t interfere as long as you play by the rules. All you have to do is help and you’ll have what you want.”

So here I was, months later, chasing after a bargain that would make me freeze to death. I could have minded my business, but I wanted things done the easy way. Rising from the seat, I pushed the door open to swing out into the cold. I should help, instead of complaining. After all, I was the one who decided not to modify the tires because it would make my car look ridiculous.

Priorities had a way of biting you in the ass when they bring themselves back to life. Like the cold.

She and I haven’t killed each other yet, which was more of a testament to her tolerance than mine. My temper only allowed me to swing at her once, before she reminded me that part of the deal was her alive. Besides, when she told me this, I was lying on the ground surrounded by the broken glass of a window. We picked the races equally, but our system was going to have a major rewrite after this one. The race was in the Gobi Desert, and now we were stranded with no food, barely any water, and no outerwear. We were screwed.

“Got the spare ready?” I shouted over the wind, jabbing Lyndsey to get her attention. She looked up at me with her huge blue goggles, and put a thumbs up. I noticed she had a thermos of once-hot chocolate next to her, making me glare at her retreating back. The wind whipped against my cheek, making me all too aware of my body that was clad in only two muscle tees, jeans and boots.

Why did we end up in this mess? I could blame my past, I could blame Tom, but in the end it was the thrill of knowing that someday, we could be with the The Fold. They were something of legend, the best underground “company” on the West Coast. Racers, shippers, makers, and movers- The Fold had it all. While I was on the other side, I had to see if the rumors were true. I wasn’t disappointed. The few encounters we had with the inner workers of The Fold left me in awe and fear. Awe because these were the same people I idolized as a young kid starting out in my line of business. Fear because working for them was like a life contract.

This was our audition to be their official sponsored drivers. We couldn’t screw this up. Grabbing the tools, I moved Silver aside to work on the tire. I only heard her fall by the sound of a plop and her screaming curses into the icy wind. I grunted, moving the spare quickly. I had no idea why it took her a half hour to do this.

“Get in!” I screamed, nearly leaping back in the driver’s seat after throwing the tools in the backseat. I barely waited until I heard the passenger door slam before taking off. We were going to win this race. Lynds needed it to help out her boyfriend, and I needed it to be free.

This was going to be a wild ride, and it just started. I felt like I willingly signed up to be a gladiator and couldn’t see who the lions were. As I watched my speedometer coast at over 180, I prayed that I wasn’t in over my head.