The Last Fare

[Taylor Steele]

The Last Fare
The city was electric tonight, humming with that chaotic, suffocating energy that promises either a massive payday or a complete personal disaster. But I wasn't thinking about the city. I was thinking about the woman standing next to me on the curb, and the cheap, ugly lie she thought she'd just gotten away with.
I checked the app. Scott. 5.0 Rating. Driving a Yankee blue Audi A8.
"This is it," I muttered, shivering as a bitter November wind cut right through my clothes. The gust whipped my purple hair across my face, sticking to the heavy, doll-like makeup I'd layered on earlier--a mask meant to hide the fact that my entire world was about to detonate.
Sloan stood right beside me, coiled tight like a spring, radiating a tense, aggressive aura. She completely refused to look at me. Instead, she just stared blankly down the street, smoothing her tight jean skirt. She smelled like a heavy cloud of expensive designer perfume mixed with the sharp, warm sting of top-shelf Cognac.
The Audi pulled up to the curb, its sleek frame glowing under the pulsing neon sign of The Gilded Lily. It was a rolling fortress of pristine chrome and caramel-colored leather--way too luxurious for two women who were about to rip each other to pieces.
Sloan didn't even wait for the car to fully stop. She yanked the rear door open so violently that the luxury sedan rocked on its suspension.
"Sloan. I'm Sloan," she snapped at the driver, sliding onto the leather seat.
She scrambled all the way to the far side of the backseat, putting as much physical distance between us as the Audi's wide frame would allow. I slid in right behind her, and the immediate, heavy silence of the soundproofed luxury cabin hit me like a solid wall.
"That's me," the driver, Scott, said, his eyes instantly darting to us in the rearview mirror. He looked incredibly uptight, precise, professional. Black leather driving gloves gripped the wheel. "Got you both. Heading to Beverly Acres."
I just nodded, my eyes already locking onto Sloan. She pressed her shoulder hard against her window, her tense reflection ghosting against the dark safety glass.
The driver turned up a track of low-fi jazz, trying to smooth out the jagged edges of the silence stretching across the backseat. But no amount of music could drown out the static between us. It was thick enough to choke on.
"I saw you," I whispered, the words scraping out of my throat.
Sloan didn't move an inch. "You didn't see shit."
"You were all over him," I hissed, the image from the crowded bar burning behind my eyelids. "The bartender. The one with the tribal tattoo. Don't lie to me, Sloan. I saw you."
"He was just being nice," she replied, her voice dropping into a dangerously calm, level tone. "He was giving us free drinks."
"Oh, so that's what we're calling it now? Letting a total stranger put his hands all over your body? That's just 'being nice'?"
I saw Scott's eyes flash in the rearview mirror, his gloved fingers tightening hard around the steering wheel. I didn't care about him. I didn't care about anything. I leaned across the console, my hands clenching into white-knuckled fists over my bare knees. Sloan slowly turned her head toward me. A cold smile touched her lips, but it was all teeth.
"You really want to do this now? In a stranger's car?" she whispered.
"You're damn right I do," I said, my voice cracking under the weight of it. "I give you everything. I trust you. And you do this to me. Again."
"Trust?" Sloan let out a sharp, mocking laugh that cut like glass. "You want to talk about trust? Don't make me laugh, Nik. Don't you dare."
My anger momentarily faltered, crumbling into pure desperation. "Sloan, please... After everything we talked about... how could you? He was... he was nothing."
I reached a trembling hand across the expensive caramel leather, trying to touch her arm, begging for some shred of remorse.
She snatched her arm away as if my fingers were raw fire. "Don't. Touch. Me."
The Audi glided to a halt at a red light. We sat there--an isolated island of simmering, venomous hatred beneath the buzzing amber glow of a streetlamp.
"You were flirting with him, Sloan," I said, my voice going completely flat, the sadness giving way to something much darker.
She turned to face me fully, her chest heaving. "And what if I was? What the hell are you going to do about it?"
That was the absolute breaking point.
I lunged, grabbing her face by the jaw, my fingers digging brutally into her skin, forcing her to look at me. "You're a toxic bitch."
Smack.
With a violent, cracking sound, she slapped my hands away from her face. I flinched, but before I could even blink, her open palm crossed my cheek. The slap sounded like a firecracker detonating inside the tight confines of the car. My head snapped sideways. A burning, red handprint bloomed across my skin, hot, stinging, and deeply insulting.
I didn't cry. I didn't gasp. The last shred of my restraint dissolved. I lunged across the seat with everything I had.
I threw a full-force, open-palm backhand, channeling every ounce of heartbreak and fury into my swing. I caught Sloan square on the temple. The momentum smashed her head sideways into the passenger window with a nasty, wet, heavy thud--bone and skull colliding hard against the safety glass.
The small, enclosed backseat instantly erupted into pure chaos. It was a localized war of ragged grunts, sloppy, frantic slaps, and the sharp, violent sound of tearing fabric. Our legs tangled in the footwell, high heels and shredded fishnets becoming a frantic mess as we fought for leverage.
"Don't, fuckin', pull my hair!" Sloan shrieked, her voice reaching a piercing, manic crescendo as she anchored a fistful of my hair extensions.
"Don't you fuckin' pull mine!" I screamed right back into her face, my fingers locking deep into her natural dark roots, yanking her head down with punishing force.
The car suddenly lurched forward, the terrified driver stomping on the gas pedal to get us to the destination, but the motion didn't slow us down for a second. The sweet smell of the expensive perfume vanished, entirely replaced by the sour tang of spilled Cognac, hot sweat, and the distinct, coppery smell of freshly spilled blood.
Sloan completely snapped. With a macabre, guttural shriek that didn't even sound human, she tore herself free from my grasp. She swung hard, slapping the remaining taste right out of my mouth--a wet, heavy smack that sprayed a fine mist of blood and saliva into the dark air of the cabin.
I fell heavily back against the seat cushions, completely disoriented and defenseless. Sloan used that split-second momentum to mount me, swinging her leg completely over my waist and pinning me flat against the caramel leather. I was entirely trapped beneath her weight, my arms pinned down by the crushing pressure of her knees.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.
She went back and forth ruthlessly--forehand, backhand, her arm a terrifying blur in the dim interior light.
"I! Would! Never! Trust! You!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, punctuating every single word with a fresh, stinging blow across my face. "You! Cheating! Bitch!"
The words hit harder than her hands. My hands stopped fighting. My purple hair was matted with sweat and blood; my clothes were completely ruined. I felt my eyes rolling back toward the roof of the vehicle, the entire world blurring into a gray haze of blinding pain and rhythmic noise.
Suddenly, the Audi's high-performance brakes shrieked in protest. The car skidded to a violent, smoking halt, the sudden deceleration throwing our tangled bodies hard against the back of the front seats.
"We're here!" the driver yelled, his voice cracked and hoarse with pure panic. "Get out! Cut it out! Get the fuck out of my car! You're going to kill her!"
The rear door was suddenly ripped open from the outside, and a wave of freezing night air hit my hot, wet skin. Scott grabbed us--he literally had to peel our fingers and limbs apart, as we were practically glued together with spilled liquor, sweat, and shared blood.
"Get OFF!" he roared, exerting every bit of his strength.
We tumbled out of the backseat as a single, thrashing, screaming entity, crashing down in a violent, rolling heap onto the pristine, manicured front lawn of a Beverly Acres mansion.
"I'm calling the cops!" a panicked voice shouted from the porch of the massive estate above us.
I lay flat on my back in the damp grass, gasping for air, tasting the thick iron of my own blood. I rolled my head to the side just in time to see the Yankee blue Audi tear away from the curb, its red taillights fading rapidly into the midnight darkness.
It was the last fare that driver would ever take from us. And it was the absolute last time I would ever let her skin touch mine.

[🍷 𝗔𝘀𝗵𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝟳𝗖 🍷]

Thanks for sharing

[🍷 𝗔𝘀𝗵𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝟳𝗖 🍷]