Devon drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his bright yellow Mazda RX-7, which stood out in the crowd of family sedans in traffic like a canary that had flown into a gathering of gray city pigeons. He was at the very end, feeling the chain of cars ahead barely inching forward, the air trembling with the smell of exhaust fumes and sun-heated metal. He took another sip of the coffee he'd managed to grab on his way out and leaned back into the seat that creaked slightly under his weight. A strand of dark purple-dyed hair fell into his eyes, and he quickly brushed it back with his palm, absently thinking that he'd need to touch up his hair soon - the black roots had grown out about half an inch. It was another September Friday in Azure Nest - the weather was still quite hot, but the evenings were getting significantly cooler. Devon hummed - he'd need to grab a couple of hoodies for the Pit - Bruce usually didn't bother with heating until there was a layer of frost on his ass.

The guy reached for the glove compartment and, clicking it open, pulled out a cigarette, rolled down the window, and lit up. Taking another drag, he started examining the cars next to his Mazda just to kill time - a slightly beat-up white Jeep, driven by a man with an impressive mustache and a face that screamed "my wife's a Southern belle and she's got me by the balls, send help," in front were a couple of cheap European cars that made Devon unconsciously wrinkle his nose. Whatever Genesis and even the Ghost Angels were like - none of them would park their asses on something that didn't fit the unspoken kanjo style - see one of the guys on non-Japanese wheels? Well, be prepared to become the laughingstock of the bros.

Devon flicked ash from his cigarette onto the asphalt and looked at the car standing literally bumper-to-bumper with him on the left - it turned out to be a taxi. In the driver's seat sat a bored-looking man, his speakers blaring Rose's "APT APT" too loudly, and in the back seat sat a girl with such an impressive belly that Devon mentally whistled - the girl was, pardon the pun, almost at the finish line to giving birth.

He turned away, tossing out his cigarette butt and had already pulled out his smartphone to put on some music himself when panicked sounds reached his ears - some excessive movement, male muttering, and then a female scream. He quickly turned towards the source of the sound, and his eyes widened like saucers - the girl in the taxi? Her face was contorted in a grimace of pain, she was holding her belly with her hands, periodically sobbing and screaming, and the poor taxi driver had turned as white as a sheet, realizing what was happening. What was happening was that his passenger was giving birth on the back seat of his crappy taxi in the middle of traffic. Cab driver yelled practically in unison with the woman in labor, "L-lady! Oh my God, oh my God, we can't move an inch! Someone, oh God, I'm gonna be sick, call an ambulance!"

Devon automatically thought that an ambulance would take a million hours to get through this traffic - shit, what if they don't make it in time? He don't know jack shit about childbirth, but what if she dies, the baby dies, someone else dies?! Fuck, he wasn't ready to witness a birth, a potential death, or anything else this Friday!

O'Connell bit his lower lip and flung open the Mazda's door, already knocking on the window of the panicking taxi driver.

"Open the fucking back door! I'll drive her to the goddamn hospital myself!"

The taxi driver automatically clicked the lock, greedily gulping air to avoid puking his guts out, and Devon grabbed the girl's hands, helping her get out. "That's it, come on, come on, please, squeeze your pussy or whatever to keep your little angel from falling out onto the asphalt under our feet, okay??"

He was already opening the door of his car, seating her and quickly jumping into the driver's seat.

"Okay, come on, hold onto something, we're going to be driving very fast."

Devon backed up a bit to carve out even a crumb of space to pull out and, turning the wheel, drove onto the pedestrian part, scaring a bunch of women clutching paper shopping bags in their hands, making them press against the walls of the nearest café as he drove backwards to get into any alley to turn around.

"Sorry, ladies, you have to understand - we've got a birthing situation here! Female solidarity and all that!" he shouted on the go, until he saw a tiny nook between buildings and exhaled.

"Oh, thank fuck for this!"

The Mazda carefully, like a Lego piece, backed in, the distance between the walls from the car was catastrophically small, but Devon wouldn't be the Void Eater if he couldn't squeeze into claustrophobic nightmares politely called "small spaces."

The car smelled weird. He turned to look at the poor girl only to realize that her legs were wet.

"OH SHIT!" he cursed. "Is that the smell of the water your kiddo's been swimming in?! Shit, shit, shit, is this normal?! Is this not normal??"

He pressed his foot on the gas pedal, ignoring the voice of the mechanical GPS assistant saying that they had "gone off course." Devon quickly switched to the Spotify app, turning on a random song - he had enough problems without the fucking mechanized woman reminding him that he was driving "somehow wrong." Fucking Miley Cyrus with her song about the midnight sky starts playing in the Mazda, and Devon can't hold back a nervous laugh at the absurdity of the situation - he's driving some unknown laboring girl to the tune of lyrics like "I was born to run, I don't belong to anyone, oh no" while he's begging her not to pop out the baby right on his seat.

"Focus on the music, beautiful!" he shouts, trying to be... Encouraging?

He turns around and squeezes into a narrow alley between a laundromat and a small Chinese restaurant. It's not even a real road, but it'll connect him to the next street, saving them time. They end up in a not-so-great part of town - the road is cluttered with overflowing garbage bins, forcing Devon to swerve around them and there's still fucking little space, but they're moving and this is one of the shortcuts.

"Okay, beautiful, I'm begging you, calm that uterus of yours, fuck - we are not ready for a car birth! We'll be at the hospital soon, I swear," he felt a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. "But if this little bastard doesn't become the second Victor after this, I swear to fuck I'll quit racing!"