Hot Driver - S01 E66

Story 2 days ago

Hot Driver - S01 E66

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 66

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{Golden High – Cafeteria}

“You eat like a literal goat,” Jason announced, watching Eloise inhale her third slice of pizza in record time. “Do you even chew?”

“Chewing is for people with time,” Eloise said around a mouthful, entirely unbothered.

“That’s disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m not the one with sauce on my—” Jason reached over without warning and wiped a smear of red sauce off her chin with his thumb. “There. You looked like you’d been in a crime scene. you look more ugly when you stain you lips”

Eloise pouted, swatting his hand away and smacking him lightly on the back of the head for good measure. “Don’t touch my face, idiot.”

“OW.” Jason clutched his skull, staggering dramatically sideways in his chair. “She’s assaulted me. I’m dying. Someone call an ambulance.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Luis laughed, nearly choking on his own drink.

The whole table dissolved into laughter, Eloise still smiling smugly despite herself.

Hazel, across the table, had been quiet — quieter than usual, her eyes flicking toward Luis and away again in quick, nervous bursts, the way they had every day since the morning she’d kissed him at the school gate.

Their eyes met again now, held a beat too long, and Hazel’s cheeks warmed. She winked, quick and reluctant, before dragging her gaze away to stare very intently at her tray.

Luis swallowed hard, taking a long sip of his juice to cover the way his own face had gone warm.

His phone buzzed against the table.

He glanced at it absently at first — then froze, thumb hovering over the screen as the headline registered.

Este’s Restaurant Shut Down Amid Mass Poisoning Investigation — Owner Detained by Police.

“Luis?” Eloise’s voice, distant, concerned. “You okay?”

He was already on his feet, chair scraping loudly against the floor, bag half-forgotten as he bolted for the doors.

“Luis!” Hazel called after him, alarmed, but he didn’t stop, didn’t look back, sprinting down the hallway with his heart hammering somewhere up in his throat.

—

{Ivy Fashion Empire – Ivory’s Office}

Duane set the lunch tray down on Ivory’s desk just as her phone buzzed with a news alert, her eyes catching the headline before he’d even fully straightened up.

“Duane.” Her voice had gone sharp, urgent. She turned the screen toward him.

He read it twice, color draining from his face. “That’s — that’s Mama’s restaurant. What happened, what does this even mean, is she—”

“Breathe,” Ivory said firmly, already reaching for her second phone. “I’ve got this. I have people who can move faster than any local police department. Sit down.”

She dialed before he could respond, pacing a tight line across her office as the call connected, her voice shifting instantly into something crisp and commanding.

“This is Ivory Bennett. I need to speak with someone regarding a case currently under investigation at Central Station — a Celeste Brooke. Immediately.”

Duane sank into the chair across from her desk, hands laced tightly together, watching her work, some small, disbelieving part of him marveling — even now, even in the middle of this — at how completely she’d thrown herself into fixing something that had nothing to do with her own life at all.

—

{Prestige High School – Cafeteria}

The cafeteria buzzed with its usual noise, but something had lifted from it — some tension that had sat heavy over the room for weeks finally gone.

“I still can’t believe it’s actually over,” Penelope said, sliding into her seat with a tray piled high, grinning wider. “Sadie and Emilia — both rusticated. Gonr. Just like that.”

“Feels like I can actually breathe again,” Mitchell admitted, laughing as Penelope reached over and stole a fry off his tray without asking.

They ended up circling the cafeteria afterward in a ridiculous, half-serious game of hide and seek with a few other students, weaving between tables, ducking behind pillars, laughing so hard that a teacher eventually had to shoo them back to their seats — but even the reprimand couldn’t dim the lightness in the room.

The culprits were caught. The truth was out. For the first time in weeks, nothing hung over their heads at all.

—

{A Residence – Afternoon}

Hannah sat curled on her small, worn couch, the apartment silent around her in a way it had never been silent before. No mother in the next room. No familiar cough drifting through the wall. Just silence, and grief, and the terrible knowledge sitting in her chest like a stone.

Maybe telling the truth will help, she thought, staring blankly at the wall. Maybe if I say it — all of it — the guilt will let go of me a little. My life isn’t safe anyway. I’d rather die having said it than die carrying it silently inside me.

She pushed herself up off the couch, resolve hardening in her chest for the first time since the poisoning.

Her phone buzzed.

Unknown: Report and die!.

Hannah’s legs gave out beneath her, and she sank back down onto the couch, the resolve draining out of her as fast as it had come, replaced by cold, paralyzing faer.

—

{Este’s Restaurant – Same Afternoon{

Luis arrived breathless, sweat-soaked from running the entire way, and stopped dead in front of the restaurant.

The door was locked. Police tape crossed the entrance in a bright yellow X, fluttering slightly in the wind.

He sank to his knees right there on the pavement, dropping his bag, and cried, the sound raw and unguarded, uncaring of who might see him.

Everything Mama worked for, he thought, pressing his palms against his eyes. Everything. Gone. Just like that.

His phone buzzed against his leg. Hazel calling.

He looked at it, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer, couldn’t summon the energy to explain, and let it ring itself out into silence.

{Alice’s Private Residence – Afternoon}

The bedroom door finally opened.

Maeve stepped out slowly, and Alice’s breath caught at the sight of her — eyes red-rimmed and swollen, fresh rashes blooming angrily across her collarbone, the lymph nodes at her throat visibly swollen beneath her skin. Her dress, one Alice recognized as having fit her perfectly just weeks ago, hung loose off her shoulders now, swaying with every unsteady step.

“Maeve—” Alice rushed forward, arms already open.

Maeve shoved her back, hard enough that Alice stumbled slightly. “Don’t.”

“Maeve, please—”

“You lied to me,” Maeve said, voice flat and cold, though her whole body trembled. “You told me my father was dead. You gave me a fake name. Chester Ben. You just — made him up. Like it was nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Alice said, and for once, the practiced polish in her voice had cracked entirely, something raw bleeding through. “I’m going to take you to him. Tomorrow evening. I promise you, Maeve, I won’t fail you on this.”

Maeve stared at her for a long moment, exhaustion and fury warring visibly across her face, before she simply turned and walked toward the kitchen without another word, needing something — anything — in her stomach.

Her phone buzzed as she rummaged through the fridge.

Curtis: Come right now.

Maeve’s jaw clenched. She switched the phone off entirely, shoving it deep into her pocket, and slammed the fridge door hard enough to rattle the bottles inside.
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