49. Aurélie
Tears blurred my vision as I raced toward the crash, ignoring the shouts from my team in my earpiece. The track was chaos, red flags waving, marshals rushing, the safety team already climbing the barrier, but all I saw was him and the wreckage.
Callum’s car was a mangled mess, the nose nearly sheared off. The halo was beat up but still intact, the cockpit eerily still.
“Callum!” I screamed, tears already blurring my vision. “CALLUM!”
My chest tightened as panic clawed at me, each breath harder than the last. This was all my fault. I should’ve warned him sooner. I should’ve pushed harder with the FIA, forced them to listen. If I had, he wouldn’t be sitting here now, trapped and?—
No. I couldn’t think like that. He was okay. He had to be okay.
I scaled the barrier like it was nothing, like it wasn’t meant to keep me out.
Nothing would stop me from getting to him, even the two marshals who tried to stop me.
I shoved them off and swung my leg over the tires making up the barrier, crawling toward the love of my life who still wasn’t fucking moving.
I could hear a medic shouting ahead. “We need extraction tools!” Then, lower, more grim, “If he makes it out of this, he may never walk again.”
Oh. Non, non, non.
“Callum!” I shouted again as I tried not to fall into the tires.
“Ma’am, you need to back up,” a member of the safety team said as I approached them, still on my hands and knees. I froze when I saw it all up close, shoving my visor up to make sure I was seeing it clearly, hands trembling violently.
By the high-pitched whine coming from the engine, that meant the throttle was still engaged.
He was pinned and unresponsive . This was dangerous for everyone standing this close, because the safety features in modern F1 cars have electronic systems in place to detect crashes and initiate an engine shutoff.
It was supposed to reduce the risk of a stuck throttle. Except it failed, and now?—
Smoke curled from the engine, licking through the torn carbon fiber like the breath of a monster. And then, like something out of a movie, it burst into flames. The safety team and the marshals all sprung into action, fire extinguishers at the ready to put it out.
I recoiled as someone yelled for a saw to cut the monocoque—the chassis. They were tearing his car apart to get to him. Tearing it apart like it wasn’t holding the most important person in the world.
But Callum was still in there .
I had to get to him. I had to talk to him. I had to let him know I was there.
I stopped breathing, and a pair of arms wrapped around my waist, hauling me backwards. I didn’t know who it was, but I screamed and thrashed. Another set of hands grabbed my shoulders, trying to contain me. We all balanced on the tire barriers, all while I clawed and fought against them.
“He’s not moving!” I sobbed. “LET ME FUCKING SEE HIM!”
“Aurélie, stop. You could make it worse!” one of them barked.
“I don’t care! I need to see him! LET GO!” I kicked, scratched, grunted like a woman possessed.
The one holding me said, “He’s unconscious. We need to get him out. You need to move . The safety team needs space.”
“HE’S MY FUCKING SAFETY!” I shrieked, my throat raw, heart splitting open inside me. “Do you understand? I’m not leaving him! Let me go!”
I twisted and wrenched my body, but they had an ironclad grip on me.
I bucked again, but they just kept dragging me back, and then they hauled me over the barrier as I cried and begged.
Another marshal caught me and pulled me farther from the barrier.
I scrambled on the gravel, choking on gasps of air.
“You promised me!” I screamed toward the car. “You promised me you’d come back!” My voice cracked from desperation and panic and fear and grief. “Please, please, s’il te pla?t. S’il te pla?t! Tu as promis!” You promised.
I finally got free from their clutches, quivering, crying, hyperventilating.
My knees hit the gravel, and I tried to claw my way back toward the man I loved, who sat limp and silent in the midst of fire and smoke, but the wall of orange-vested bodies blocked me.
I shouted profanity until my throat was raw and my voice was nothing but static.
I begged the universe to rewind time. I cursed every goddamn person who ever said this sport was worth it.
I’d trade every podium, every point, every breath I had just to be close to him again.
I glanced up suddenly, watching as the marshals pulled off a twisted panel of bodywork.
I didn’t even have time to react before they started moving again—lifting Callum’s body out slowly and carefully, loading him onto a gurney.
He wasn’t moving. His helmet was cracked. His suit was covered in soot.
A marshal hooked his arms under my armpits, hauling me to my feet.
I knew they wouldn’t let me near him, wouldn’t let me see him, wouldn’t let me touch him.
They were talking to me, but I couldn’t hear them.
This—I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t do it.
Losing Callum meant losing myself. What was life without your soulmate by your side? What was the point?
One of the marshals—the one speaking to me—wrapped an arm around my shoulders and guided me back to my car, probably to make sure I didn’t try to interfere more.
Every step felt heavy, like a final nail in the coffin.
My ears were ringing. The tears wouldn’t stop. My chest felt like it was caving in.
It was a long walk back, because my legs didn’t want to work. I shuffled slowly, feeling hopeless and heartbroken. He could be dead, and I wouldn’t know for certain because they wouldn’t allow me to.
I hiccuped on a sob, and I was grateful my helmet was still on and no one could see just how much of a mess I really was.
I glanced over my shoulder and stumbled over my feet. They were carefully carrying the gurney across the barrier.
Oh my fuck.
I would kill Adrian Morel.
My blood boiled as the marshal tugged me forward. We reached my car a minute later, my legs moving on autopilot, and I gripped the halo for balance, trying to breathe.
“You need to return to the pit lane, ma’am,” he said before stalking off.
My body shook so hard I nearly collapsed against the car. I was supposed to get back in, probably return to the race, pretend nothing had happened. But I couldn’t move. I wanted to quit. To collapse. To curl up beside Callum in our peaceful little bubble.
I don’t know how long I stood there, but finally I felt steady enough to swing a leg over the halo to climb in. Just as I was about to sit, I heard someone screaming my name.
“Aurélie! Miss Dubois—STOP!”
I turned, confused, my lungs constricting. The marshal who’d walked me back was sprinting toward me, helmet bobbing, waving his arms like a madman. I stared as he reached me, gasping for breath.
“He’s awake,” he panted. I blinked. “Callum’s awake. He’s asking for you.”
I looked past him, still standing in the cockpit of my car, completely frozen.
Across the track, through the flashing lights and red flags, I saw him.
Still on a gurney they were wheeling toward the open doors of an awaiting ambulance.
His helmet was off now, and his eyes were open, one arm gesturing wildly while the other clutched his side.
Oh, mon Dieu.
For a moment, all I heard was my heartbeat thundering in my ears, and my vision darkened at the edges as I struggled to breathe.
I yanked my gloves off. My hands fumbled to undo the chin strap of my helmet before I yanked it off along with my balaclava.
They clattered to the floor of the cockpit, but I was already leaping out of the car again.
I didn’t pause or wait for the marshal to catch up to me, I just ran—faster than I ever had before, back across the grass, the track, the runoff. I wasn’t sure how long it took me, but every stride felt like it took too long. Like for every meter I covered, two more separated us.
Callum was alive and asking for me. Nothing could stop me from reaching him.
Every step was powered by desperation. Every beat of my heart was fueled with love. Every breath brought me closer to him in a moment where I thought I lost him forever.
When I got to him, he was still on the gurney, the safety crew preparing to lift it into the back of the ambulance. Over the sound of people yelling into radios, I could hear him speaking, and I’d never been so relieved to hear someone’s voice in my life.
Until I heard what he was saying.
“... can’t feel my legs.”
My stomach dropped, and my blood froze in my veins. I told myself we didn’t know anything yet.
The crew parted, and there he was. His hair was sweaty and matted to his forehead, and blood seeped from a tear in his race suit along his ribs.
It was a terrifying shade of red that coated the hand pressed on the wound and smeared across his temple.
But his eyes, brilliant blue like the sky above, were scanning, searching. Until they found me.
“Callum,” I breathed, pushing my way to his side.
His gaze was glassy but locked on mine, relief breaking through the pain. He exhaled shakily. “There you are…”
“I’m here,” I said quickly, grabbing his trembling hand—the one not clutching his ribs. “I’m right here.”
He winced, swallowing hard. “You’re okay?”
A surprise laugh tore from my throat. “You’re asking me that?” My voice cracked as the tears started falling again. “You scared the hell out of me. You—God, Cal—your fucking car.”
“You should see the other guy,” he rasped, but the smirk barely held before his features twisted in agony.
“Not funny.” I brushed his sweaty locks from his forehead. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Liar.”
The medics started shifting again, but he lifted his bloody hand and waved them off, his voice sharpening just enough to command attention. “Just give me a second. Please.”