10:3

God I hate that bitch.

The steady purr of the 351 started to roar as the speedometer climbed past 80 miles an hour. The southern Alberta highways were straight and empty and Barney took his rage out on the road, chewing up the asphalt and watching the miles disappear like the crisp, biting light of the sunset behind him.

He had the car, but little else and it was all that bitch’s fault. And she… what she had was worth more than the cash he was now mourning. She had a piece of the puzzle, a piece he could never recover short of murdering the interfering shrew and he had sworn that was the one thing he would never again turn his hand to. But the temptation…

He wrestled the iron monster into a sharp corner posted with ridiculous limits; a squeeze of the brake, a pause and then he floored it coming out of the apex, crossing momentarily into the other lane. That’s how you do it, not by slowing down, but by muscling through. That’s how you survived, how you prospered. Fucking sheep are always slowing down, obeying the law and getting in my way. Let them speed, let them roar down the road at whatever pathetic pace their tiny ego’s allow them; he would still crush them in the corners and leave them broken in the dust.

Barney notched the radio up again and grinned fiercely; broken in the dust he mused. He did not, however, look back to see if there was any truth to that assertion on this particular day.