The drive back to Vinewood felt longer than the trip out. The sun-washed streets seemed garish, the pristine houses a hollow mockery. Megan navigated the familiar curves up to the mansion with a grim focus, the ghost of Danny's proposition lingering in the car like a bad smell. It wasn't the act itself that repulsed her; it was the transactional bleakness of it, the reduction of her urgent, dangerous mission to a crude barter.
She pulled into the garage, the silence of the house pressing down on her. Upstairs, she moved on autopilot. She went to her closet and bypassed her usual baggy armor. Instead, she pulled out a pair of tight, black yoga pants that hugged every curve and a faded, olive-green tank top with a deep neckline. It was comfortable, but it left little to the imagination. It was the uniform for the job.
As she was leaving her room, the door across the hall swung open. Tracey stood there, wrapped in a silk robe, her face a mask of bleary judgment. She took in Megan's outfit, her eyebrows arching towards her hairline.
"Wow. Gonna go out and slut again already?" Tracey's voice was a lazy drawl, dripping with a superiority that felt desperately fragile. "Didn't you get enough from the hood rat last night?"
Megan stopped, turning slowly. She didn't have the energy for their usual intricate venom. She simply raised her hand, extended her middle finger with cold deliberation, and locked eyes with her twin.
"Just following the family tradition," she said, her voice flat and final. "You'd know all about that, porn star."
She turned and walked away, leaving Tracey sputtering in her doorway, the cheap shot landing with the satisfying thud of truth.
The industrial gloom of Darnell Bros. at night was a different beast. The sewing machines were silent, the only light spilling from the grimy windows of Lester's office and the single security lamp over the loading bay. Megan leaned against her Elegy, the cool night air raising goosebumps on her exposed arms. She waited, a knot of anxiety and disgust tightening in her stomach.
Right on time, the growl of an old truck echoed down the alley. Danny's beat-up Vapid pulled in, towing a flatbed trailer. On it, covered by a dusty tarp, were three distinct, angular shapes. He killed the engine and hopped out, his swagger illuminated by the yellow security light.
"Told you I deliver," he said, walking up to her. Before she could react, he leaned in and planted a rough, possessive kiss on her lips. It tasted of cigarettes and cheap whiskey. Megan didn't pull away dramatically; she just endured it, her body rigid, her eyes rolling skyward as soon as his closed.
When he broke away, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Don't get any ideas. This is a transaction. The bikes are the transaction."
Danny's confident smirk faltered for a second, replaced by a flicker of irritation. He sighed, a theatrical sound. "Sure, princess. Whatever you gotta tell yourself. Let's just get 'em unloaded."
They worked in a tense, functional silence. The tarp came off, revealing three Nagasaki BF-400s in a matte navy blue. They were perfect—lightly used, but clean, with no identifying marks. Danny was strong, his newfound solidity evident as he muscled the heavy bikes down the ramp. Megan helped, her own strength surprising him. They wheeled them one by one to a pre-scouted hiding place: a dank space under a crumbling overpass a block from the factory, where a persistent leak from a broken pipe had created a permanent, shallow puddle. It was out of sight, sheltered, and miserable—no one would stumble on them by accident.
With the last bike stowed, Danny wiped his hands on his jeans. "Alright. My part's done." He jerked his head toward his truck. "Now yours. Follow me."
Megan let out another long-suffering sigh, the sound swallowed by the dripping water. She didn't argue. She got in her car and followed his taillights through the labyrinth of La Mesa's back streets, down into a neighborhood where the buildings leaned against each other for support. His apartment was in a complex that had given up on paint decades ago.
The night that followed was exactly what she'd expected: functional, joyless, and punctuated by Danny's earnest, sweaty attempts to prove his "improvement." She lay there, staring at a crack in the ceiling, her mind far away in a muddy tunnel, calculating gear shifts and escape angles. It wasn't violation; it was dull, degrading logistics.
She left before dawn, slipping out while he snored. The morning air was cold and clean, a relief. She drove home as the sky lightened to a pale grey, showered in her own bathroom with scalding water, and dressed in her usual armor of baggy clothes.
Then, she made the call.
"It's done," she said into her phone, leaning against her bedroom window. "The bikes are in place. Under the overpass on Cortes, by the leak."
There was a pause on Lester's end. Then, his dry, unimpressed voice came through. "I know. I was there an hour ago to verify."
Of course he was. He'd probably been watching the whole exchange from some shadowy van.
"How did you acquire them?" he asked, the planner needing all the data. "And how reliable—or rather, how unreliable—is your source?"
Megan took a breath. "A contact from the auto trade. He's… manageable. Clean enough for now, greedy in the right ways. He asks no questions for the right price." She left the currency of the transaction carefully, deliberately vague.
Another pause. She could almost hear him weighing the variables, filing the information. "Acceptable," he finally said. "Good job, rookie."
The line went dead.
Megan lowered the phone. A slow, unexpected smile touched her lips. It wasn't a happy smile. It was a hard, earned thing. Heh.
'Good job.' From the nervous, sweaty ghost of her past. From the architect of the score. It was the first genuine, performance-review praise she'd ever received in her life. It wasn't for being pretty, or for being Michael De Santa's daughter. It was for delivering, under pressure, in the dark.
She looked out at the perfect, empty lawn. The hollow victories of sibling squabbles and shopping sprees seemed pathetic now. She'd just navigated the first real obstacle of a real, dangerous world, and the hunchback in the garment factory had said she did good. The four percent—and the terrifying, thrilling race to earn it—felt suddenly, solidly real.