Chapter 15 Allies #2
She slowed. Just a little.
Sanchez slowed too.
Juliette enabled DRS. Then she shot forward, sailing past him on the corner.
A roar ripped through the crowd. She could hear the race engineers babbling over Hamish’s speaker, the excited clack of keys.
“Bloody hell.” Hamish sounded almost offensively impressed. “That’s P11.”
Juliette pulled away. Her gaze was already on the next car: a green Asteri Stag. That had to be Alex Forth, a young Glaswegian, based on the driving style. A low buzz started in her veins, warm and jittery as morning coffee.
“I can overtake him.”
“Wait for him to pit.” She could tell that Hamish was shaking his head. “He’s faster than us. It’s too risky on track.”
Juliette sized up the situation. True, Alex had the faster car; there was no point in trying to overtake him on a straight.
And yes, Hamish was right; she could wait for Alex to nip into the pits to change his tires, but that would only give her a temporary lead; she’d have to change her tires eventually too.
But the corner…She shifted gears. Alex was notorious for braking too early. She could overtake on the outside line, so long as he didn’t push her too wide.
“I’m going now.”
“Brilliant,” Hamish muttered. “Well, it’s your funeral.” There was more crunching, accompanied by something in Scots that sounded distinctly like fecking bampot. “Try not to blow up the car again. We cannae afford it.”
“Cheers,” Juliette muttered.
She slammed on the gas. Her car gave a whine of protest, and she gritted her teeth. Alex hurtled toward the corner; he showed no sign of slowing. Come on, she thought desperately. I’ve seen the tapes. You always brake.
He slowed.
Relief blazed through her. Juliette dove down the outside, pushing her car until the tires blistered. Alex made to block, but it was too late; you couldn’t move under braking, and anyway, she was already through.
The crowd let out a whoop. Her speaker crackled.
“P10.” Hamish sounded stunned. “That puts us in the top half.”
Juliette swallowed. The relief was so crushing that it was a second gravitational force. “How many laps to go?”
“Twenty.”
Twenty. Juliette shifted gears automatically, following the curve of the track. She could hold this position for twenty laps. In fact…Her mind flicked through possibilities, moving cars around like pieces on a chessboard.
“What if we undercut?”
Hamish’s voice was wary. “What?”
“Let’s say that I pit first.” Juliette’s mind spun. “Change to hards right now. That would mean my tires would be fresher at the end of the race.” She’d be fastest for the last few laps, which was her only chance of overtaking.
There was a moment of silence. No crunching, which meant that Hamish was covering his microphone to speak to someone. Then a faint whistling began, an eerie tune that dragged fingernails down her spine.
She knew damn well who that was.
Hamish came back on. “Robert wants to hold off.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“In case there’s a safety car.”
Juliette considered this. A safety car would allow her to pit and rejoin the race in her current position, without risking the drivers behind her overtaking. It made some sense, but…“We can’t bank on that.”
“Team orders,” Hamish said.
Juliette took a hairpin turn. Her thoughts raced with the car.
Was it possible that Robert was trying to sabotage her?
To make her look bad so he could replace her?
But no; the man had twenty years’ experience with race strategy.
She was a recent graduate who’d watched too many miniseries about corporate sabotage.
The experts knew best. Despite what Ranya had said, she had to believe that Robert was on her team, at least for now. After all, it wasn’t his fault that he’d unwittingly fathered the veritable spawn of Satan.
“Okay,” Juliette said. “I’ll stay put.”
She was true to her word until the checkered flag waved twenty laps later. The crowd roared as she passed the finish line. Cameras exploded in the darkness, raining down like silver stars.
“Not bad,” Hamish said begrudgingly, which was—in Hamish-speak—the equivalent of composing a fifty-line ode in her honor. “I dinnae ken how you’ve done it, lass, but that was one hell of a drive. P10.”
Juliette forced a smile. “Good.” In the points. Thank the lord. Robert’s order to stay put still niggled at her, but perhaps he’d just made a bad judgment call. Anyway, her seat on the team was secure for now, which was all that mattered. “Hastings?”
“Dominic finished third.”
Her mind did the calculations. “Sinclair won?”
“Aye.”
She parked the car. Well. Dominic wouldn’t love that. He was already out of his vehicle, weighing in at the scales. His dark hair stuck up in clumps, and his navy race suit dangled around his waist. Goggle marks ringed his eyes.
Juliette slowed.
She could congratulate Dominic on third place. She could say that it was impressive to get a podium in a midfield car, or to make up two places, and both would be true. But she wouldn’t because a driver was only satisfied by winning. On that point, at least, she and Dominic had always agreed.
So Juliette said, “You’ll have to subtract three pounds. For your ego.”
Dominic didn’t look up. “You might want to look up sympathy in the dictionary, Marchmont. You’ll find it useful.” She had the sense that he was fighting a smile as he stepped off the scale. “Good work today. You raced well.”
“You had a decent drive too.”
He shrugged. “Johnson and Tomlinson crashed out early. I got lucky.”
She leaned against the scale. “Someone told me that we make our own luck.”
Dominic held her gaze. The fluorescent stadium lights caught at his eyes, illuminating the flecks of gold until they glowed like whiskey held up to firelight.
Juliette swallowed, bracing herself. She’d once had to stab a syringe of epinephrine into her thigh after eating a prawn spring roll. This felt a lot like that.
“Thank you,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without your help.”
Dominic surveyed her. He seemed to be deciding whether she was kidding. “We’re teammates, right?”
A cheer exploded from a distant stand. Crew raced around, carrying bottles of sparkling juice and microphones.
The interviews would start soon, followed by the trophy ceremony.
Still, she had the dizzying sensation of being ensconced inside a bubble, impenetrable from outside forces. Dominic cleared his throat.
“Look, you have no interest in being friends with me. I get that. It goes both ways. But we could be…” He seemed to search for the right word. “Allies, of a sort. We’re going to need each other on track.”
“Allies,” Juliette repeated warily.
Dominic glanced at the press box; an irritated-looking crew member was waving him toward a microphone. “What do you think?”
Juliette shifted her weight. On one hand, she trusted Dominic Hastings about as much as a passenger trusted a drunk pilot.
On the other, he was right: They’d need to work together if they wanted to win.
But it was the sincerity in his voice—the rare chink in armor, so often disguised behind the blade of a joke—that decided her.
“Deal.” Juliette jogged backward. “But, Hastings?”
“Yes?”
“If you screw me over, I won’t hesitate to hit you with my car.”
To her surprise, Dominic smiled. “Good. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
He turned for the press box. Juliette swallowed.
Allies. She wanted to believe him, but it wouldn’t be the first time Dominic had extended the hand of friendship and then happily screwed her over.
She’d spent weeks wallowing in bed, eating tinned soup and crackers like a doomsday conspiracy theorist living in a bunker.
And there hadn’t been a world championship at stake then.
No.
If it came to it, she’d take him down first. Allies be damned.