Crash into You (Lights Out #3)

Prologue

Zaid

September – Singapore

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve almost died.

It’s part of the life I chose. Part of what makes me who I am. But it doesn’t make facing it any easier.

Somewhere on the track, my Formula 1 car is nothing more than charred remains. The monocoque – the structure meant to keep me safe in the event of a crash – is all that’s survived, covered in soot and dust and fire-suppressing foam, but I’m living proof that it’s done its job.

‘You still with me, Zaid?’

The question comes from the paramedic sitting beside me in the ambulance.

He checks my vitals on a small screen before returning his attention to me, searching for anything else that might tell him how I’m doing.

But it’s the way his eyes drop and linger on my hands, limp and useless in my lap, that churns my stomach.

Dull pain thuds at the base of my skull. His words sound like they’ve come from underwater and my reply is thick on my tongue. ‘Still here,’ I say, but here is relative when I’m still piecing together how I landed in this position.

We’re in Singapore, I know that much. It’s a street circuit – my favorite – with tight corners and slim margins for error.

The start of the race was fine. The lights went out and my P1 grid box was behind me in a split second, business as usual.

I was ahead in turn one, barely edging out Axel Bergmüller, nearly wheel to wheel.

It was good hard racing between rivals. Maybe not the cleanest, but we’ve done this with each other for so long that it’s a familiar, if infuriating, dance. It was all fine. And then . . .

And then Lorenzo Castellucci came down the inside of the track, pushing for a gap that wasn’t there – that would never be there – and forced his way in.

It was followed by a blur of screeching tires and shattered carbon fiber.

Of flickering flames, acrid smoke, and pain radiating from my fingertips to my elbows.

Adrenaline and training and muscle memory got me out of the car before I could burn with it, but I’m barely five minutes removed and I don’t know what really happened, except that I’ve escaped with my life.

I’m still here. But is anyone else?

‘That’s good,’ the paramedic says. ‘I’m going to walk you through what happens next, okay?’

I attempt to nod but the throbbing behind my eyes makes me stop. To his credit, he explains slowly and clearly. It’s something about a hospital and surgeons on call, but it’s all in one ear and out the other. My mind whirs with only one thought.

‘Are they alive?’ I ask. I swallow hard and try to specify. ‘Axel . . . Lorenzo . . . Was there anyone else?’

The look on his face tells me I should stop asking questions. ‘Everyone made it out,’ he says.

Made it out. Doesn’t actually mean shit. Doesn’t mean they’re not bleeding on the side of the track with a white sheet held around them to keep out prying eyes. I’ve seen it before. Don’t want to see it again. But isn’t that what I signed up for?

‘Alive?’ I press. He can’t miss the panic in my voice. I can hear it too.

‘Alive,’ he reassures me. ‘They’re being taken care of.’

It’s an answer, vague as it is, but I’ll take what I can get, even if it only shifts a little of the worry off my shoulders.

Now, maybe, I can think about myself. I can think about the pain simmering and flaring in tandem, mirrored on left and right, bones at awkward angles that tell me everything is wrong.

I can think about how tired I am. Physically tired.

Mentally tired. Tired of this life I’ve built over the past two decades that revolves around one thing and one thing only – racing.

I can finally think about how I’m ready for it all to end.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve almost died – but this is the last I’ll ever add to the tally.