37. Callum
The rain came down sideways, blurring everything into a smear of gray and red. Normally, this was my weather. Scotland had raised me in storms like this, and I’d made a career of dancing on water while the rest of the grid tiptoed. But not today.
My car was fine—better than fine, actually. The rebuild and upgrade kit after Tobias’s crash last week had the car feeling sharp and extremely responsive, exactly the way I liked it.
That wasn’t the problem. It was the pain ricocheting in my skull. It was the pressure in my chest as my straps pressed against my nearly-healed bruises. It was the sudden fear that if I passed another driver on an out lap, they’d push me wide and I’d be flipping the car.
Fuck.
I’ve always believed you can’t strap yourself in with fear. Once you do, the car owns you, not the other way around. If I started flinching from ghosts now, from shadows of past crashes, then I didn’t deserve to sit in this seat.
Maybe Aurélie was right. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to get back in the car yet, and not all of that was due to my injuries.
Because I couldn’t drive in Formula 1 with fear whispering in my ear.
I’d spent my entire life learning how to shut that voice up.
Yet here I was, going against everything I had ever stood for.
I sucked in a deep breath. No need to doubt myself yet. I was keeping it steady. No risks. No flashy moves to impress the crowd and set records just because I could. Right now, I needed to focus on pushing just enough to stay alive on the board.
“Yellow, sector two,” Dom’s voice told me through the comms. I tightened my grip on the wheel, squinting through the spray.
Yellow wasn’t unusual in this weather. Someone off, someone spun. Alright, whatever. I needed to keep holding my line. I had just exited sector two, entering sector three with all the confidence of a four-time champion.
At least, that’s what the world saw.
But really, I was drowning.
“Red. Same sector. Car forty-seven in the barrier.” Dom sounded so calm as he delivered the message.
Forty-seven.
Auri’s number. Her car was in the barrier. She had crashed, and it was a red flag. A red flag.
Oh God.
My body reacted before my brain could. Every muscle seized, my shoulders bunching so hard the belts cut deeper, pressing into my chest, suffocating me. All the breath left my lungs. My hands slipped on the wheel, my arms locked up, my heart pounded so hard it hurt.
I couldn’t breathe. Oh God, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. I just kept hearing her number echo over and over in my skull, matching the pattering of the rain on my helmet.
Forty-seven. Forty-seven. Forty-seven.
I coasted the in-lap on autopilot, eyes wide, but I couldn’t see the corners anymore. Couldn’t see the track. All I saw was her pinned. Trapped. Broken. My breathing came in short, sharp gasps that fogged the visor until I was blind.
No. Focus, Fraser. Focus.
I swallowed down the bitter taste of panic. “Status?” I demanded, voice clipped and thick with emotion. I was met with static on the radio. “Dom!” I shouted as my stomach churned with unease. “Tell me she’s out. Tell me she’s moving. Tell me something .”
Finally, Dom responded. “Dubois is still in the car. Marshals arriving on scene.”
Still in the car.
The words detonated like a bomb in my head.
Montreal slammed back into me—the spin, the fire, the cockpit caving in.
Metal screeching, sparks flying, straps holding me so tight it felt like I was being squeezed to death.
The heat. The smell of fuel. Her voice screaming my name until it broke.
That nightmare I’d had, the one I couldn’t shake—her stepping across the track, baby in her arms as Morel came flying around the turn.
Suddenly it wasn’t just a dream. It was now.
Jesus, I was going to be sick. Sweat dampened my balaclava and trickled down my spine.
I felt the panic attack happening before it fully surfaced.
It was my last moment of clarity to slow the car to safer speeds, forgetting the fucking flying lap I was on.
The red flags were waving anyway, so it didn’t fucking matter.
Nothing fucking mattered if she wasn’t here anymore.
“Update!” I roared, dread shredding my throat. “Dom, I need a fucking update now.”
“Waiting. Return to the pit lane,” was all he said.
I jammed the radio button with my thumb to shut it off and let out a gut-wrenching scream, the kind that tore up my throat and filled the cockpit with sound that didn’t even sound human anymore.
My fists hammered the steering wheel over and over until they throbbed, the carbon shuddering under each blow.
Tears blurred everything, streaks of red rain lights smeared into nothing as I sobbed and raged at the same time.
No, no, no. This can’t be happening. It can’t be happening. It had just happened to me— it wasn’t supposed to happen to her . Not her. Not her.
WHY DID SHE GET IN THAT GODDAMN CAR? WHY? WHY? WHY?
The words ripped through my skull like vicious talons, over and over, until all that was left was the sound of my own hoarse cries bouncing inside the helmet, raw and broken.
My hands slipped from the wheel for just a second, clawing at the sides of my helmet, raking over the visor as if I could rip it off so I could finally fucking breathe.
Darkness flashed across my vision as my gloves covered the visor. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Just panic—pure, animalistic panic—racing through me. My chest heaved, lungs refusing to pull enough air, the belts across me suddenly strangling the life out of me.
Claustrophobia. I needed out. I needed to get out.
I wasn’t a driver anymore. I wasn’t anything but a man begging the universe not to take my heart from me.
The pit entry arrow flashed ahead, and I nearly missed it.
A jolt of survival slammed my hands back on the wheel, jerking it straight.
I barreled into the pit lane far too fast, tires locking up on wet asphalt as I fumbled to downshift, heart slamming against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack them.
Marshals on the lane blurred past, neon streaks I could barely register. My whole body shook as I aimed for the box. Engineers shouted in my ear, the comms on their end alive with static and panic, but I didn’t hear a damn word. The only thing I heard was her name pulsing in my head.
Aurélie. Aurélie. Aurélie.
I skidded into my marks, half sideways, barely stopping before I was tearing at the belts.
The car hadn’t even fully rocked to a halt before I was twisting the wheel off, tugging at the harness, gloves fumbling, desperate, shoving myself free of the cockpit.
I staggered off the car before anyone could stop me.
My legs buckled, forcing me to the ground, but I forced myself to stand.
They could fine me, dock me points, kick me out of the session—I didn’t give a fuck. She was in that barrier, and no one was telling me if she was alive .
“Callum, session isn’t over—” one of the engineers started.
“Don’t care.” My voice was a snarl, guttural, inhuman. “Is she back here yet? Is she out of the goddamn car yet?”
I couldn’t hear if there was an answer. The rain pounded the concrete, the engines of other cars rolling into the pit lane, impact drills and power tools. So many sounds filled the air, and none of them were her voice.
Breathe.
I stopped cold, turning, swearing I heard her speaking to me. Hoping, praying she was behind me saying it.
But she wasn’t there. It was still just my team.
Jesus fuck. I was already imagining her. Did that mean she was dead? Oh my God, did Luminis fucking kill her with that death trap of a car?
My fingers tore at my helmet straps, then I pulled it off with my balaclava so I wasn’t suffocating in my restraints. I gulped the storm air like I’d been drowning. My hands shook uncontrollably, gloves plastered to my skin with rain and sweat. I ripped them off and tossed them on the ground.
“Fraser! What the fuck are you doing?” Dom barked, grabbing my shoulder and turning me around.
I shook him off and took off in a sprint down the pit lane, breaking who knew how many fucking rules to get to the Luminis garages.
Ivy was in Aurélie’s bay, standing at the edge so she had a clear view of the pit lane entry, pale and frantic. Kimi was in his car, visor up, gold eyes wide and haunted as they met mine. Neither of them had answers, I could tell by their faces.
I grabbed the nearest Luminis mechanic by the collar. “Tell me,” I pleaded through gasps, shaking him. “Where the fuck is she?”
“They’re… they’re still extracting?—”
The word detonated inside me. Extracting. Trapped. Helpless. Too late.
A roar filled my head, a whooshing so deafening it drowned out everything else. My chest seized, lungs clawing for air that wouldn’t come. The floor tilted under me, vision narrowing until all I could see were black spots flashing across the edges.
My knees buckled. I doubled over, palms slamming onto my thighs, bracing hard because I physically couldn’t stay upright. My heartbeat hammered so violently it shook my whole body, every pulse feeling like a countdown to losing her.
My nightmare played on loop. I shoved it away, but it came rearing back stronger, the image painfully vivid in my mind. My knees buckled and I fell back into the wall behind me, holding myself up with sheer will.
“Callum.” Ivy’s voice cracked. She tried to touch my arm. I flinched like she’d burned me. “She’s okay.”
“They said that about me.” My words came broken, breathless, half sob. “In Montreal—they said I’d be fine while I was burning alive. Do I look fine? Do I, Ivy? Because I don’t feel fine! I don’t feel fucking fine! It was that goddamn death trap of a car–”
There was a burst of static over the comms. “Driver is out of the car. Repeat, driver is out of the car.”
I froze. The whole garage froze.
Out. She was out.