We were in the lobby again. This time the letter had started with, Dear Gamers, I hope you've had some experience with driving. Duncan and I were at a disadvantage already. We were the only two without drivers licences, though I planned on getting mine soon. We hope you all know there will be eliminations. You should keep that in mind while you compete. Not everyone is safe, in fact none of you are. This scared me because we knew that the people in charge had a habit of personalizing letters. If they said none of us were safe, it meant that anyone- even we- could be eliminated. Should we be wary? Or were they just trying to cause tension... The letter ended with, This competition is called Speed, and with that we wish you good luck, gamers.

When we got into the virtual world, we were greeted by a customization area. Our outfits would not affect our gameplay, but I liked the personalized aspect. I went for a burgundy red to match my hair, on one of my shoulders I chose a number and kept that orange to represent my team. On my back I wrote my name in thick black letters. I made my helmet match the color scheme and then I was off to pick a car. I chose one that was fast but could recover from damage easier. I was sent into the waiting room and everybody else was there. We had to wait, I guessed all teams started at the same time so we had to wait for them. The red light began to flash and we started to get ready.

When we were there I noted that though I wasn't going against my team I would be facing people from the other teams. I was able to adjust the volume of their speaking and I kept them all on low. We were almost instantly transported to another area where we'd be able to practice driving. I was glad they'd taken the time to let us practice first. Even if some of us could drive, we weren't well versed in driving competitively. Well, in real life that is. We've all played a racing game before, it was inevitable.

I started by getting used to all the controls. It was very different than a regular car. There was only one pedal, for example. The speed was controlled by a lever and the pedal was the breaks. After that I used the last five minutes to actually drive. I wasn't that bad for someone without a licence. Just don't look at the side of my car where a rock decided to run into me, it totally wasn't my fault. I also found a really cool button I looked forward to using later.

We were finally lined up and a map was placed in the corner of my vision. I looked back to where my car was scarred, thankful that the blemish was removed. A timer by the starting line counted down and I prepared to take off immediately. Five. Four. Three. I counted along with it in my head. By the time it had gotten to "one" everybody took off and I ended up somewhere in the middle. I hadn't counted how many people I was against but I was currently in fourth place, or so the number on the opposite side of the map told me. I started speeding up in order to catch up. I'd heard once from my grandma that it wasn't how you started the race, it was how you finished it. I wasn't going to freak out until the end. Until then I was going to block out anything besides the race.

The beginning was fairly uneventful, every time I passed the starting line I was informed of how many laps I had finished. I was proud for maintaining my position but knew I'd have to get my game together. I started to worry on my third lap when I was still only in third place with someone trailing right behind me. I started to go faster even then, when I was directly in front of the other person I pushed the button I had discovered earlier. Really, the poor girl should have took it as a warning when I was aligning myself in front of her. The next thing she knew there were about three boulders falling in front of her. She tried to dodge them but soon realized they spread in different directions. I pushed farther on the lever controlling my speed. The person on second place was then in sight. I focused on their car as I approached it.

A giant boulder fell unexpectedly off the side of the mountain we were currently twisting around and I pulled back the lever, slamming my brakes as I came to a sudden halt. I reared to the side as I'd evaded the boulder. When it passed the girl from behind me approached with a vengeance. I started to hurry but it took a while to regain my original speed. She was right beside me as we were making a sharp turn. I had been on the inside of the road and recognized the opportunity a little too late. I stayed in line with her until the next sharp turn when I rammed into her so she slid off this tier and had to start from the one below us. I only felt a little bad. She was too oblivious to her surroundings. I could have passed her but I stayed right there, next thing she knew she was falling onto the tier below us. In the background noise I heard a long line of curse words aimed at me. She wasn't afraid to say my name either, since she'd seen it while she trailed behind me the whole time. I was glad when we were done with the mountain for then and went through a tunnel that took us back to the bottom, we had to dodge various poles that were hard to see due to the darkness.

Someone was backing up and I dodged them, feeling bad for only a second when I realized they ran into a pole. I couldn't spend too much time empathising otherwise I'd end up like them. I was now in second place with only one more round. I spent most of it trying to tail who I noted was Jasper. I tried to stay away from behind him but his reactions were too fast. There were the boulders coming at me. Apparently he had discovered them too. One smashed into the side of my car and the blemish was back. My cars damage went higher and I knew that it would be calculated against me into my final score.

I saw him looking back at me through his rearview mirror and he came to a sudden stop. The poles were such a pain. I went passed him and tried to get through the cave as fast as possible. Exiting the cave we entered a misty forest, lots of twists involved in dodging trees. I did my best not to look back at Jasper, knowing his lack of attention caused him to be in second place. I couldn't help it, when I looked back I saw how close he was and started to speed up. Doing so was risky because of all the unpredictable twists but I'd gone through them enough to have a general idea of when I'd have to turn. I focused all my attention on the road in front of me and was discouraged when he was right next to me. He stayed by me the whole time. I pushed forward on the lever when we were back to the mountain, knowing the turns here were more predictable. I couldn't believe how fast these cars could go.

I learned from last round to slow down at the giant boulder but Jasper was lucky to get through unscratched. I went faster again only to find him impossible to catch up to. I dodged three more boulders as he was allowed to use them again but only took damage in my car. I expected his move and was ready to dodge it. Unfortunately when we got to the finish line he was there only a second before me. Fireworks went off as each one of us crossed the line. We were freely driving until the last person crossed. I counted nine racers and tried to stay positive. My other teammates had to have done better. They had to.

I hurried to the lobby to see the scoreboard. When I got there I met Duncan and asked, "how'd everyone else do?"

He replied, "not so well, but D3 wasn't so hot either so we'll still be first."

"How's that? Jasper won in my game," I said. He shrugged and I hadn't known what to feel. We needed to start winning again. We couldn't keep hoping D3 would get less points than us.

Amberline, Victoria, and Parker soon followed and asked what had happened. Apparently both Amberline and Victoria came first in their races. I was glad she at least wouldn't have to deal with her parents too much.

After we made sure we were still ahead of D3 we all dispersed to do our own thing before it was time to go back to the flat. We spent far too much time holed up there and relished the time away. Besides that, we saw people at the door denied the opportunity to leave and figured we wouldn't be allowed to exit either.

"So, are you willing to tell me about why you snuck out?" I asked in curiosity as we walked over to an area replaying the race. It switched back and forth from different players and I saw that Duncan was really struggling.

"How bad do you want to know?" He answered. He looked at the screens for only a moment and deemed it not worth his attention.

I shrugged and said, "not too bad. I just can't think of anything bad you'd be doing."

"I'm not doing anything that bad. We just needed to wait for the cameras to retire to their homes. I swear, it's nothing bad" he assured me.

"I figured that much," I said looking away from the screens and back to him. His skin was again tinged with pink and I had to ignore the surprisingly strong urge to touch his face.

"Am I supposed to be offended?" He asked as he crossed his arms. He was totally pretending my questioning hadn't affected him.

"Nope," I shrugged. "What would you have been able to do here? You're surrounded by geeks in a well monitored and secluded place." He was about to say something- probably suggest some random ridiculous thing he could have done until something else caught my eye. Parker was talking to both Jasper and Erin. How dare they team up on him like that? I thought to myself.

"Should we step in?" he asked, noticing my lack of attention and knew exactly what was going on. This had happened much too often here. I was conflicted, I wanted to help him out but he didn't want me to.

"I think we should see how he handles it," I said looking away so it wouldn't seem like I was watching. I was though, and my blood began to boil as I watched them talk to him.

"You want to step in," stated Duncan. I couldn't argue otherwise I'd be lying. "Would you tell me why Jasper bothers you so much?"

I struggled to find a somewhat legitimate response. "They shouldn't treat people the way they do," I came up with. I instantly regretted saying it because even I knew it sounded like a lie. I mean, it wasn't a lie. We all knew how I felt about him treating his team and mine like crap. What Duncan was asking was why it bothered me as much much as it did, he understood that there had to have been more.

His face showed as much. He was about to formulate a smooth response when I saw Parker walking away in my peripheral. I was shocked, and it showed because Duncan looked back in their direction. "How was it?" He asked when Parker was near enough to hear him.

"Just great," he replied sarcastically. "I absolutely love the harassment." He rolled my eyes and I didn't know what to feel.

"You were able to walk away," I pointed out. "That takes gut."

"I knew you were watching. You've given up on me, haven't you? You see that I'm a lost cause and you're not going to stand up for me anymore. I get it," he said, not looking either Duncan or I in the eye. He was solely focused on the screens showing the race. He frowned when he saw the scene where I ruthlessly pushed the girl off the tier. I thought it was a smart move, but he apparently held too much sympathy to see the strategy behind the move.

"No, Parker I just thought you'd be mad-" I couldn't finish my thought because the people in charge had interrupted me. They instructed us to go to our designated boxes and so we did. Amberline and Victoria gave us cautious glances when they felt the raising tension.

"I hope you were all notified of the eliminations today," said a lady who was one of the people in charge, as if the letter we'd all read hadn't warned us. She paused for a second to look around the room, as if she'd enjoyed the tension her sentence had caused. "We also hope that you were able to figure out that we won't be eliminating teams, but rather certain people in them that aren't... as good as the rest of you."

"She'll leave us alone right?" Asked Parker nervously, seemingly forgetting our earlier conflict.

Thanks for reading my chapter! Remember, all feedback is appreciated. Feel free to leave a comment or vote, there should soon be a new cover for this. I hope you all had good holidays. If you want a review on your book, apply in my new review book. Thanks! Have a great day. :)