OVERDRIVE *Excerpt*

Overdrive - Chapter 2

ELEVEN SCUFF MARKS ON THE CHECKERBOARD FLOOR. I missed a couple on the first count—two black streaks under the far side of the table. They're important. Part of the interrogation process.

I picture "bad cop" yanking back the chair, metal legs screeching across the vinyl. He sits, stares, passes me a smoke like they do in the movies. Or maybe that's just for the big-time criminals, like murderers and shit.

My stomach pirouettes.

I rub my wrists, red and raw from the handcuffs. Truth is, I didn't make it anywhere near the slammer. "Good cop" threw me in this room instead, leaving me to stew about Kevin, my stupidity, my very bleak future.

I should be at the chop shop collecting my cash and hitting up In-N-Out Burger with my boyfriend. Instead, I'm staring at four beige walls and a fist-size hole I bet one of the big-time criminals made after "bad cop" delivered "bad" news. My fingers curl until they form fists.

Ineffective anger management , my social worker's voice plucks in my subconscious. 

I can see her and the two officers in another room on the other side of the window. She paces while "good cop" sits at a round table pawing through a file. My file. "Bad cop"—I've decided to call him Frank; all the Franks I know are dicks—leans against a counter, sipping coffee between intermittent scowls. He's got one of those resting asshole faces.

Everyone's lips move but it's like I'm watching CSI on mute. There's shrugging, a what-the-fuck type motion from Frank, and then all eyes land on me, like they think they're invisible on the other side of the glass.

I'm a maggot under a microscope.

I shift my gaze  before they catch me squirming. Begin re-counting the scuff marks on the floor to distract myself from thinking about how much shit I'm in. It's not just this stunt—more than eight thousand cars in Vegas are jacked every year. But by now, Frank over there has probably figured out I'm the infamous Ghost. No wonder his lips are twisted into a perma-smirk.

Movement outside the door pulls my attention.

The handle turns.

I fold my arms across my chest and steel for confrontation.

Whether they throw me in juvenile detention, dish out community service, or stick me with a stuffy, twig-up-his-ass probation officer, I'm done. My foster parents will never let me back into their double-wide shit-hole.

And Emma.

My breath hitches. We've spent the last four years bouncing from one shitty place to the next. Together. If we're separated now...

I swipe away a tear with the back of my hand. Not if I have anything to say about it.

The door wedges open. I roll my shoulders back. Sweat beads across my forehead.

Muffled voices.

Terse good-byes.

And then the click-click-click of my social worker's heels.

Vanessa, as she likes to be called, stands in the doorway, the hall light glowing around her white pantsuit like a damn halo. 

I shift to take some of the pressure off my ass.

"Julia." Her voice tenses, just like her expression. "Or perhaps I should call you Ghost?"

My mouth glues shut.

Vanessa closes the door and makes her way over to the table. She opens her briefcase, reaches inside, and drops my file in front of me before dragging her chair across the vinyl with an extended scraaape. Two more scuff marks.