Chapter 13 #2
The guy barely glanced at it before narrowing his eyes. “Not allowed on the tarmac unless you’re a medic.”
“I’m Cris Bacque’s daughter,” I snapped.
The man nodded slowly and shifted out of the way. “I didn’t see you.”
By the time I made it to the crash site, he was sitting up, his helmet in his lap as a guy pulled him to his feet. He was shaking his head as the helmet crashed on the ground.
“What are you doing here, Zsófia?” he hissed, voice slurred but eyes sharp. “On the track?”
I bent to grab his helmet, grateful the turul had saved it from cracking open like last time. “I needed to— to translate for you—”
“You didn’t,” he snapped and winced, closing his eyes tightly. “It’s not safe.”
I reached for his arm — instinct, not thought — to lead him to the barrier. My hands only stopped shaking when they gripped him.
He shook off the man beside him and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, walking us quickly through.
To get me off the track as if I were the one in danger.
“Are you okay?” I asked, hoping that no matter how abuzz my body was with worry, he’d lean into me more. To keep him upright.
“I’m fine,” he said. His nod was slow.
“We need a crash test,” I said, and gestured at the track marshall to open the gate, and pointed at my racer.
“Maybe I’ll milk this,” Zolt murmured in my ear, “if it means you’ll nurse me back to health.”
I rolled my eyes and tried to stop after the barrier.
But Zolt kept going, not stopping for the check-up we both knew he needed.
“Sannier radioed in,” the track marshall said, stopping him with an arm. “You shouldn’t be walking anywhere.”
I translated for him.
Zolt said in English, “You let Fia track?”
The guy shrugged and closed the gate behind us. Zolt shoved against his shoulder. “You let her on track?”
“Fuck off, mate,” the guy said, and my heart sprinted, knowing that was not a way to talk to Zoltán Farkas.
“Tell him if he lets you put yourself in danger again for me, I’ll see to it that he’s not just out of the job, but out of working limbs.”
“I am not telling him that.”
I didn’t need to. His glare said it all.
“Zolt, we need to get you checked over,” I said and tugged at his hand.
He took one more second to dare the track marshal to argue back before squeezing my hand. But he didn’t stay. He headed toward the tunnel. I stayed close to him, feeling our entwined hands at my stomach, in the hopes no one would see.
I couldn’t bring myself to let go. Feeling his warmth, hearing his steps behind me, and his ‘hello’ to the staff that let us through the doors reminded me that he wasn’t unmoving on the track. He was safe. He was here.
“I’m fine,” he said once we were in the tunnel. “You don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not,” I said, but I didn’t let go of his hand and started to lead. If he wasn’t going to be checked on track, we needed to get him to the medical bay pronto.
“Not fine or not worrying?”
“I’m not worried,” I said, voice clipped.
He chuckled. “Yeah, sure.”
I whipped around. “Stop dragging your feet, Zolt. You just crashed and were unresponsive.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “I was just a bit done. I was annoyed, so I thought I’d lie there for a bit.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I just didn’t want to move.”
I stepped closer, tilting my head to stare at him — to look for a sign that he had to be kidding me. “You’re telling me you were conscious and just wanted to lie there meters off the track because you were annoyed? In the same place you lost your mind at me for standing in for twenty seconds?”
“I’m signed off on being on the track,” he countered as if that was a logical comeback. “You could have been hurt.”
“I am more hurt by you deciding to lie there! You could have given me a heart attack!”
“Aw,” he said, lips pouted, and took my hands. “So you were worried.”
I snatched them back. “Lying there on the track hurt me more than potentially getting hit by some gravel!”
“You could have been hit by a bike.”
It didn’t change how I felt. I wanted to shout it at him, but I managed to hold the words back after a few attempts at a different retort.
“Medical bay,” I said through my teeth, before turning on my heel and storming over to it.
But I looked over my shoulder to quickly assess him, and he gave me a beaming smile.
He had no idea, did he?
He was the most frustrating man on the planet.
Who seemed to be walking just fine.
In the medical bay, Dr. Yvette Sannier had just finished stitching a forearm from one of the earlier crashes and gave Zolt a dull look before rolling her stool over to us at the desk. She waved at one of the doors. “Sit, Zoltán.”
We walked to the little room with a single bed as she gathered some papers.
“You should sit,” I told him as he paced the length of the bed.
“I hate this part,” he grumbled.
“What? Crashing?”
He shook his head. “No. When they treat me like I’m vulnerable.”
He huffed and sat beside me, winced, and clutched his ribs.
“Still fine?”
He gave me a dull look. “My snow boots are full, that’s all.”
I blinked. “Your… what? Your what is what?”
“My snowboots.”
My eyes narrowed, and he sighed again. “I’m fed up.”
The door swung open, and Dr. Sannier strutted in, a clipboard to her chest as she glared at my racer, handing him a bottle of water. “Where?”
“Malaysia.”
“When?”
“May 2nd.”
“Race?”
“Four. Sepang International Circuit track.”
“Name?”
“Zoltán Simon Farkas.”
She nodded and straightened.
“You were out for seven seconds, it looked like,” she said as he guzzled some water. “And then you walked here? You know the protocol, Farkas. You should have let my team look you over .”
Normally, he would know what she’d said, or at least pretend he did, but he looked up at me with an expectant smile.
It took me a second to translate. I added, “Stop smiling at me like that.”
His smile only grew. “How can I not when you’re so beautiful?”
“Did you hit your head?”
“No,” he said. “Don’t insult yourself. I think you’re beautiful every second of every day.”
“So just a case of severe verbal diarrhoea?”
He chuckled, and Dr. Sannier shuffled her weight from one leg to the other, an expectant brow cocked.
“He didn’t knock his head,” I blurted.
She gave me an unimpressed glare and shone a light in each of his eyes. He knew the drill, looking one way then the other. “Translate word for word, Miss Bacque. I need Mr Farkas to be crystal clear on what I’m telling him. Where are your medical records, Farkas?”
He only looked at me when I translated, and she checked his pulse.
“Did you know I find it insanely hot when you just go between languages like that?”
“Not infuriatingly?” I joked before realising I was playing along instead of doing my job.
His head fell back, and he groaned deep within his throat. “Exactly.”
“He doesn’t know,” I told her. “It’s with his team. I have them in Hungarian, I’m translating them—”
“When?” she snapped and lifted the helmet I’d brought with us, analysing it for any scrapes. “I have a page and a half summary of the crash. No MRIs, no brain scans, no orthopaedic follow-ups. I don’t care what Benedek Farkas has to offer; his brother won’t race without a full clearance.”
“That page and a half tells you he is cleared to race,” I bit back. “I translated it myself. Benedek said the head of his rehab team spoke directly to you.”
“I can’t treat someone whom I don’t have the correct history for.”
I bit my tongue. “I’ll get them to you.”
“You will,” she agreed. “Or he’s not on the track next race. I’m sending you to the hospital for a CT. Are you saying you didn’t hit your head? You weren’t unconscious? Then you’ll have no issue passing a neurocognitive baseline test.”
She nodded at me to translate, and he paused before he responded, not from pain, but as he calculated what he wanted to say.
He wanted to be cleared.
And I had the power here to make that happen.
“I didn’t hit my head,” he confirmed. “I wobbled and scraped my balls, but that’s about it.”
She waited patiently for me to translate, sighed, and then turned on her heel and walked out.
I stepped to his side and rested my hand on his shoulder. “You scared the shit out of me.”
It was only now that the exhaustion from the adrenaline passed, and I realised just how abuzz with fear I was.
He smiled softly and placed his hand on mine. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened?” I asked softly.
He shook his head, looking down at his lap.
With my palm, I guided his cheek to face me.
“Sometimes I get in my head,” he admitted, looking at me.
His pupils were more dilated than usual.
But I didn’t know if Sannier would pick up on that.
I only did because I looked into them, dreamed about them, often.
“Sometimes when I’m on the track, I make the mighty mistake of thinking. Overthinking.”
My heart started to hammer steadily in my chest.
“About?”
He breathed in deeply and rested his head in my palm.
“Is it the crash?”
He paused for a second. “Partly. Sometimes I have a flash of memory, and I picture it. But that’s not regular. It’s the pressure I put myself under. I need to prove myself. Not just that I’m back, but that I’m better.”
Better as in at racing or health?
“It’s a lot of things.”
“Is it… is it me?”
His right eye twitched, but then he wrapped an arm around my ass and pulled me to him. He swallowed hard. “It’s not you.”
I raised a brow.
“Maybe it is,” he admitted and dropped his head to my chest. “I don’t regret what happened between us — I do regret not telling you.
I don’t resent you, I just… when you’re around, I can hardly think of dreaming.
But it’s not your burden. It’s nothing you have control over. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Maybe I should move teams,” I thought aloud. I’d be on the back bench but—
His head snapped up. “No. No. Please.” He let out a shaky breath. “Please.”
How could I say no? After everything… I still wanted him to have anything he wanted. If he wanted to race, I’d help him race. If he wanted me on his team, I was staying.
I brushed back his hair and leaned down. “I need your help.”
“Anything,” he said on a breath.
“It’s a big ask,” I teased. “It might be too much for you.”
“Nothing is too much.”
I smiled and so badly wanted to kiss him.
“It means we’ll have to spend time together. Maybe even more than two days.”
His eyes brightened, his pupils blown wide.
“Zsófia,” he begged.
“No one knows what happened to you better than you,” I told him. “So help me understand it. Before the next race.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes.”
“There will be some rules, though,” I warned.
“Anything,” he said again.
I leaned further in, so close to kissing him, but knowing I shouldn’t. I couldn’t.
He’d have to earn my forgiveness.
“We’ll leave as soon as your scans are done?” I asked.
“Before, if I had my way,” he said, hands on my waist, keeping me close.
My pulse hitched as he arched his neck, and I could feel myself crumbling.
And the panic in me tapped his nose to blast us both with a fire extinguisher. “Best get going then.”