"Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for this round's winner: Hazel Garret in the Shitrider!"
The tinny, mechanical voice of the announcer was barely audible above the roar of a faltering engine as a mangled wreck completed a victory lap around the dirt paddock, the word 'Shitrider' scrawled over the door in cheap red spraypaint. Crowds were standing up from their seats and pressing their fingers from the steel gates that kept them seperated from the carnage, cheering on the whooping redneck as he stuck a fist in the air, shouting triumphantly. Loud, rancuous electric guitar continuously blasted from another set of speakers on the back of the grandstands. It was a complete assault on the senses - and perhaps appropriate, considering the setting.
The Placer County Fairgrounds - ironically, just across the way from a Country Club - were normally the setting for more sedate kinds of gatherings: craft festivals, the occasional woodchop, or a large, outdoor concert venue. But there were also some things that the large area was good for - and, with a sufficient dump of dirt, a large amount of water, and four dozen cars destined for the scrapyard, it was used for one of them. The decent crowd - watching the carnage was far better than hitting up Sacramento's nightlife - had gathered and seated in a set of rickety wooden grandstands, buoyed by cheap beer and the occasional hotdog vendor. An array of steel fences had been set up to separate them from the carnage, with tyres and crash pads arrayed in front of them, holding them in place. Sand and gravel formed a barrier for the arena, meaning any car that accomplished too much speed should slow down before it tore through. It was safe for the crowd, at least.
Not so much for the drivers.
The results of the derby lay strewn in the dirt around them; a bumper here, hubcap there, the mangled wreck of a car somewhere else, the bonnet caved in. Two men had been taken away in an ambulance, one covered in a white sheet. They hadn't even removed the wreck the driver had died in, though someone had blasted it with a hose to eliminate the bloodstains. The crowd didn't particularly care. The scent of death just drove them more wild.
They weren't the only ones savoring the sight of death and blood. Now, admittedly, a demolition derby wasn't the typical place one would look for a member of the Invictus. But Abby wasn't exactly your typical member of the Invictus. Clad in a dumpy fleece jacket, tank-top, and jeans, a trucker's cap on her forehead, and her limp hair tied back in a bushy ponytail, she didn't stand out as much - though the occasional person would catch a closer glimpse of her skin, or worse, her teeth, and decide to shift over a bit further.
To be frank, she couldn't really care. This was awesome. Nobody got up to stuff like this in Miami. Pressing her hands against the steel fence and shaking it, she let her own cheer rise up into the crowd, savoring the genuine emotion that rode up in her.
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