Mad Dash

With Batal well into his second lap and Fadhi lagging behind on his first, the race had already been lost by most standards. Catching up to that camel would prove almost impossible even without the stormcloud of emotion that had inexplicably overcome the sisters in that moment.

Why win?

Frankie looked at Maxine again and didn’t understand. This wasn’t worth it. The reward couldn’t possibly equal the pain and stress she felt just being here. So why was Maxine trying so hard to beat her, even after she’d given up?

She realized.

Maxine wasn’t trying. Rather, she’d already done everything she thought she needed to do to complete her plan. She didn’t need to use her controls anymore. She didn’t even need to pay attention, because there was no way two depressed lunatics were going to beat her.

Katie was pressing her fingernails under her other fingernails.

“Frankie, I’m scared…”

Her big sister couldn’t look at anything but the ground. Becoming just as pathetic as her, she crumpled into a wet ball of regret. It should’ve made Frankie want to die.

But she fell into her sister, embracing her.

“I’ll protect you.”

Frankie picked the whip controls back up.

Maxine didn’t see at first, but when she finally heard the girl clicking the button incessantly, her eyes bulged in frustration.

“What are you doing, idiot? You’re going to lose.”

Frankie didn’t turn around.

“Don’t listen to her. Katie, take this.”

She handed her partner the microphone.

Katie shambled towards the window and witnessed their camel struggling to make the turns, it too falling under its own kind of pressure.

She breathed in deeply.

“Keep going!”

The losing camel sprang into action.

Maxine scrambled for her controls in desperation, finding she was going to have to take this seriously. The sisters didn’t see it, though, refusing to pay attention to her.

In the time she’d rested, the determined Fadhi had already grown so close to Batal he was now hot on his tail. With the tortoise catching up to her hare, she did her best to drive the champion competitor.

“GO! GOOOOO!!!”

She held her ears shut. Next to her, her opponents were somehow more determined than ever as their desperation became raw fighting strength. She looked down to her fingers, considering if there was any possible concoction of pheromones that could stop them, but couldn't think of a thing. In all her life, she’d never seen girls like these before.

Fadhi passed Batal.

“YES!” While Katie cheered on their camel, Frankie cheered on her. Becoming a well-functioning team, far more connected than her and the perfect beast she’d chosen, the tides had flipped completely. As it was, Maxine now saw little chance of winning.

Despair touched her heart now. Though completely resistant to her family’s signature trickery, she didn’t know a thing about defending herself against the fear and anger that came from being so unequivocally defeated.

“Katie… we can win. Keep going.”

“What’re you talking about? Of course I’ll keep going!”

When Fadhi started his third and final lap, Batal was a full minute behind him. Salman smiled at the incredible feat.

“Impossible… impossible! You’re- you’re cheating!” Maxine ranted. Nobody heard.

Her head fell into her hands. What was she doing? How was she supposed to win now?! Was there anything she’d forgotten? Any posssible way she could beat those spineless, idiot tourists?

Fadhi crossed the halfway point. Batal wasn’t even gaining on him. As the sisters cheered, victory was assured.

And then a lion broke into the ring.

Ripping apart the vulnerable paper walls on part of the outside and leaping over the fence, she found herself in the presence of two quickly-circling meals- and she was pissed.

Maxine got up and started laughing.

“I forgot! I forgot I ticked you off back there…” she cackled some more. “Dinner time! Go for the fast one!”

She snatched Katie’s mic.

“H-hey!”

“Here, kitty kitty! Come get me~!”

Katie stole it back and sneered at the cheating brat for only a second before Frankie tugged on her shoulder, forcing her back into the game.

“Tell him to run!”

“RUN!” Katie cried into the mic, watching helplessly as the lioness bounded towards their partner.

“No… no!”

Katie realized again she was useless.

She couldn’t win.

Maxine’s laugh was all she could hear over the ringing in her guilty ears.

She was pathetic.

Seeing her frozen sister, Frankie shouted into the mic:

“GOOOOOOOOO!!!”

Fadhi finally realized there was an apex predator behind him.

Running faster than he’d ever had to run in captivity, the prey broke into a mad final dash to the finish line. At the speed of a bullet he raced away from the weak and lazy lioness, at last finding himself in the home stretch.

“GO! GO!!!” Both sisters got up to cry out in unison. Maxine freaked out watching them get so close to the exit-

And just as staff came in to secure the Lion and end the race-

Just as the creature was gaining, just about to bite into the rookie camel’s hide-

It let out one last burst of speed, and crossed the finish line.

Frankie and Katie fell to the floor, lacking the energy to celebrate. The pheromones finally started to wear off. Willow, having nothing to say, was impressed with someone in a way she hadn’t been in a long time.

The lioness was secured, the racers placed back in the safety of their pins.

Maxine shook in her seat, left with the paralyzing knowledge that as much as she had cheated, she had still lost.