Pitbabe S2, Chapter 34 pg 1
Pitbabe S2, Chapter 34 pg 1
CHARLIE:
If that’s the case... I guess I’ll have to take the path that seems impossible.
I yanked the steering wheel, veering sharply toward the innermost edge of the car graveyard. Behind me, Winner’s supercar was hot on my tail, bullets flying. In the next lane, the green car was right beside me. If my guess was right, two more cars were closing in from both sides. The moment I emerged from this lane into the three-way intersection, they’d block every escape route—left, right, and center—trapping me completely.
My heart pounded furiously. Not just because I was being chased, but because I had no idea if the faint possibility in my mind was even real. If my calculations were correct, I might just escape this. But if I misjudged, it’d be an embarrassing way to meet my end in front of the underworld’s gatekeeper.
As expected, they boxed me in. The roaring engines from all directions made me feel like Simba, the lion cub from The Lion King, surrounded by a pack of hyenas ready to tear me apart. Was I scared? I don’t think I was all that afraid. The reason my heart felt like it was about to explode was probably more from excitement than fear.
Should I really be enjoying myself at a time like this?
Everything happened in the blink of an eye. I took a deep breath, counted to three in my head, then floored the accelerator and cranked the steering wheel with all my might. My car spun wildly, careening into a pile of scrapped cars stacked as high as a two-story building. The metal framework shuddered violently under the impact, and the unmoored hulks of retired vehicles teetered, ready to collapse below. In a split second, I let go of the wheel with my right hand and snapped my fingers with full force. Then, everything froze.
Winner, staring straight at me, stood with his mouth agape, eyes wide as if he’d seen a ghost. His car’s spinning wheels halted. Even the swirling dust hung motionless, like a painting. Countless car wrecks that should’ve come crashing down floated midair. Seizing the few seconds I could control time, I slammed the accelerator, smashed through a row of steel beams, and barreled out of the car graveyard with my son in tow, the car battered beyond recognition.
CRASH!
Time resumed. Everything that had been suspended in midair succumbed to gravity and plummeted to the ground.
The hyenas were left buried under a massive pile of twisted metal. I couldn’t predict whether they’d be mildly or severely hurt, but one thing was certain: it’d take them a long time to dig themselves out.
“Bought myself a bit more time,” I muttered, steering the car toward the lab. The relief of escaping danger should’ve calmed my racing heart, but my body betrayed me. My pulse quickened, breathing became labored, and a searing pain tore through my head as if it were being crushed in a giant vise. Suddenly, I was confused—why was I here? What time was it? Why did everything feel so utterly wrong?
The strange symptoms lasted less than a minute before everything returned to normal.
But I knew, deep down, that the most abnormal thing right now... was me.
It took me nearly half an hour to drive back to the lab. When I arrived, I parked my heavily damaged “son” out front before stepping inside, where it was now pitch black, with all the lights off. I figured Liu and the others were probably hiding as I’d instructed, which explained the silence and darkness. It felt like the place had reverted to an abandoned warehouse.
I flicked the light switch by the entrance, and the entire hall lit up brightly. Everything looked the same—every door tightly shut, no sign of Jeff, Dr. Chris, Phii Touch, or Liu. That could mean they didn’t know I was back or weren’t sure if it was really me who turned on the lights, so they stayed hidden.
Or maybe it was neither.
My instincts kicked in again, but to be honest, they were a bit late. It wasn’t until I was standing in the middle of the hall that I started feeling something was off. The silence was eerie, but I sensed more people around than when I’d left. A strange smell mingled with familiar ones. Those odd signals made me pull my gun from its holster again, even though I knew I had no more than three bullets left.
I moved forward slowly, scanning my surroundings carefully, trying to heighten my awareness as much as possible. But it didn’t help much. The special sense I got from Babe had been acting up for a while now, so I felt like I had to try harder than usual to pick up on my surroundings.
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