Chapter 28 #3
My body reacts before my conscious brain can identify what’s happened, but I’m swerving to avoid the hunks of debris that litter the track, nearly missing a tire that’s come untethered and hurtles across my path.
I’m past it all and sweeping around the next corner, attention shifted to my mirrors, before the realization catches up to me.
Raphael is in the wall, and the entire front end of his car is gone.
‘Red flag,’ my engineer says, but I already know from the flashing lights around the circuit – and from what I’ve seen with my own eyes. This isn’t something a mere safety car can handle. ‘Come into the pit lane.’
‘Is he okay?’ My heart is in my throat, choking me as I try to get words out, hands weak around the steering wheel as I head for the pit lane. ‘Is – is he out of the car yet?’
It’s a long few seconds before my engineer crackles over the radio again. ‘He’s all right, but he’s being taken to the medical center as a precaution. Probably looks worse than it is.’
That doesn’t stop the bile from creeping into my mouth, forcing me to swallow it back as my body flushes with a new, horrible rush of heat.
I could have so nearly been wrapped up in the crash with Raphael.
If I’d been any closer, been any later to react, been distracted in any way, I would have been spinning out of control.
It could have been last year and Lorenzo Castellucci all over again.
Once I’m parked in the pit lane, I shove out of the car and rip off my helmet so I can take a true deep breath, then stalk into the garage under the excuse of needing a comfort break.
I spot Ava lingering toward the back, black-and-silver headset resting around her neck, gaze growing concerned the longer she looks at me.
When I’m close enough, she gently wraps her fingers around my throbbing wrist and guides me around the partition to where the engineers are tucked away and the cameras won’t dare to go, settling us in a secluded corner with my back to the rest of the team.
‘You’re okay, Zaid,’ she murmurs. Like Axel leaning over my wrecked car after our crash in Miami, she’s not asking me how I’m feeling, but telling me that I’m safe, pulling me back from the edge of panic. ‘Breathe, joonam. Just breathe. Inhale with me.’
As she draws in a breath, I make myself do the same, chest shuddering as my lungs expand. I blow it out in sync with her and then repeat, again and again, until my hands no longer shake.
‘I don’t – I don’t know if I can get back in the car.’ The words are hushed and rough. I doubt she can even understand me. ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’
‘You can.’ Ava sounds so sure that I nearly believe her. ‘This is not your ending. You didn’t come this far to walk away now.’
‘Maybe I did,’ I practically babble. ‘Maybe I was never meant to come back. Just . . . tell me to retire. Right now. Tell me to leave this behind.’
She shakes her head. ‘No.’
‘Do it,’ I plead. ‘If you tell me to, I will.’
‘I’m not going to.’
My stomach twists and churns. I’m somehow hot and cold all over, sweat dripping down my spine, panic still threatening to take over. I need her permission to do this, because I can’t give it to myself. ‘Why not?’
‘Because you want this, Zaid.’
I do. I do want it, but not more than I want to be alive to watch our daughter grow up and love Ava for all the decades to come.
Still, I know, deep down, if I don’t get back in the car, if I retire right this second, there will come a time when I’ll look back and wonder what could have been.
It won’t be regret, but it will be a curiosity I’ll never escape. I have to do it.
She squeezes my hands before placing them on the sides of her belly, where Noor immediately kicks under my right palm. ‘You want this,’ she repeats, letting the affirmation settle between us. ‘And you’re going to do it. You know you can.’
She’s right. She always is. She knows what lives inside my chest right behind my breastbone, beating in tandem with my heart and driving the fear back into its cage.
She believes in me. I just need to believe in myself.
When the ten-minute warning of the race restart comes, I brush my lips over hers and whisper my love before heading back out into the pit lane. I’m handed my balaclava and helmet as I have a quick, tense chat with the engineers on the pit wall, then I’m buckled back into the car.
It’s a standing restart, so the safety car guides us back around the track and to the grid boxes, and this time I line up in P1.
For the remaining ten laps, I have to keep Axel behind me.
I’m lucky Dev’s in P3 and will fend off anyone else who might try to inch their way up, or even force Axel to battle him instead of coming after me, but it’s still going to be the challenge of a lifetime.
I have a solid start when the lights go out again, but so does Axel.
It’s not enough for him to beat me into turn one, though, which lets me keep my lead in the most precarious moment.
But I know better than anyone how good Axel is, and if I give him even a centimeter’s worth of space, he’ll claim it.
Thankfully, Dev is proving to be a first-class teammate and is forcing Axel to fend him off, allowing me to get farther ahead.
‘How is this pace?’ I ask my engineer.
‘We’d like a little more.’
Fuck. Despite the fresh tires the pit crew put on during the red flag, I don’t know how much either I or the car has in us. Still, I push, checking my mirrors every few seconds to see how close Axel is. The answer is always too close.
I grit my teeth and ignore the pain lancing up my arms with every gear shift and button push as we count down to the last five laps.
Axel tries to make a lunge on me, but I shut the door in the next corner, forcing him into my dirty air.
He tries it one more time, striking in a spot where he barely has a chance – and is left to back out unless he wants to crash – but it tells of his desperation. Of mine too.
I have to hold on. Just hold on.
It’s down to one more lap. Nineteen corners. So many places for things to go wrong. I’ve seen drivers lose it in the last lap thanks to the smallest errors.
But I won’t let that be me.
Checkered flag in sight, I cross the line first, yelling into my helmet in relief and exhilaration. Ava was right to believe in me, to push me back out here, because I had it in me after all. I’ve written a new chapter of my history, and she’s the reason for it.
‘That’s P1,’ my engineer announces, and I can hear the grin in his voice along with the cheers of the garage in the background. ‘What a superb drive, Zaid. Absolutely wonderful.’
The tension leaves my body with an exhausted laugh. ‘Thank you, mate. Thank you to the entire team, especially everyone back at the factory.’ I swallow the emotion welling in my throat. ‘And thank you, Ava. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.’
I take a breath, letting my lungs fill, no longer constricted by the fear that once banded around them. It’s so freeing that I nearly scream.
‘Congratulations,’ Basil comes on to say, his voice thick. ‘I know how much this one means to you.’
I grin as I guide the car to parc fermé. ‘Are you crying, Basil?’
‘You know I bloody well am.’ He laughs before sobering again. ‘One step closer, Zaid. You’re almost there.’