Chapter 1 Pit Stop Problems
Pit Stop Problems
~AURORA~
The undercarriage of the Apex prototype is a fucking masterpiece of engineering that someone has royally fucked up.
I'm flat on my back on the creeper, fluorescent lights burning through my safety goggles as I trace the suspension linkages with gloved fingers that know exactly what they're looking for.
The smell of motor oil, brake fluid, and carbon fiber fills my nostrils—familiar, grounding, the scent of home in a way that my actual apartment has never managed to be.
"Compression ratio's off by point-three percent on the rear left," I call out, my voice carefully pitched in the lower register I've spent years perfecting.
"Front right damper's reading inconsistent—could be a faulty sensor or actual hydraulic degradation.
Won't know until I pull it and run diagnostics. "
My tablet's propped on my chest, stylus moving across the screen as I log each measurement, each deviation from spec.
The numbers don't lie, even when everything else in my life is one giant fabrication.
"Differential temperature variance suggests the cooling system's not distributing evenly.
See this?" I angle the thermal camera toward Marco, one of the other techs crouched beside the car.
"Should be reading 87 degrees across the board.
Instead, we've got 91 here, 84 there. That's how you get warped components and catastrophic failure at speed. "
"Christ," Marco mutters, making notes on his own tablet. "How long to fix?"
"Depends on what I find when I actually get into it." I roll myself out from under the car, sliding the creeper across the polished concrete floor of the garage until I'm clear of the vehicle. "Could be a few hours. Could be a few days if we need to order parts."
The garage is massive—one of the private facilities that only the elite racing teams can afford.
Everything gleaming and state-of-the-art, from the hydraulic lifts to the diagnostic equipment that probably costs more than most people's houses.
It still smells like any other garage, though: rubber, fuel, and the particular tang of high-performance machinery pushed to its absolute limits.
I'm pushing my goggles up onto my forehead when I hear the sharp, impatient voice that's been grating on my nerves since I started this job three weeks ago.
"Can you work any faster?"
I don't even have to look to know it's Richard Pemberton, the team's performance coach and the driver's personal manager rolled into one incredibly annoying package.
He's got that particular tone that rich people use when they're talking to service workers—like we're somehow fundamentally less human than they are.
I sit up on the creeper, pulling off my gloves one finger at a time with deliberate slowness.
When I finally deign to look at him, he's standing there in his crisp polo shirt and pressed khakis, arms crossed like he's a disappointed parent about to deliver a lecture.
"No," I say flatly.
His eyebrows shoot up.
"Excuse me?"
"No, I can't work faster." I swing my legs off the creeper and stand, brushing my hands down the thighs of my coveralls. They're baggy enough to hide my frame, stained with grease and god knows what else.
Perfect camouflage.
"There's a whole fucking process for this type of stuff. You want me to skip steps? End up like the last tech who worked faster?"
The temperature in the garage feels like it drops about ten degrees.
Pemberton's face goes an interesting shade of red, but he doesn't say anything. Can't say anything, because we both know exactly what happened to the last tech who cut corners to meet deadlines.
Louis Chen.
Twenty-six years old.
Dead in a fireball at Silverstone because he didn't properly torque a fuel line connection, and nobody caught it in the post-work inspection that he also rushed through.
"Thought so," I mutter, crouching down to gather my tools.
"Damn right there's a process," pipes up Jenna from across the garage. She's elbow-deep in another car's engine bay, her dark curls escaping from under her cap. She’s one of the few “legit” females here, being a Beta that doesn’t get in Alphas’ way since they can belittle her all they want.
"You want us to sign off on a death trap, hire someone else. "
"I'll take my time and deliver a car that won't kill anyone, thanks," Marco adds, not looking up from his tablet. "Revolutionary concept, I know."
The other members of the pit crew murmur their agreement, a united front of technical competence against management pressure. It's one of the things I actually like about this job—the crew doesn't tolerate bullshit, even from the higher-ups.
Pemberton's jaw works like he's chewing on something bitter.
"The competition—"
"Is so far out that we could rebuild this thing from scratch and still make it," I interrupt, straightening up with my diagnostic scanner in hand. "Only competitions happening right now are the virtual leagues, and let's be honest…your driver clearly sucks at those."
The garage erupts in barely suppressed laughter.
Even Marco snorts, covering it with a cough that fools absolutely no one.
Pemberton's face progresses from red to purple.
"You can't—"
"What? Tell the truth?" I tilt my head, the picture of innocence despite the oil smudge I can feel on my cheek.
"I'm just a simple tech, sir. I only deal in facts and data.
And the data says your golden boy placed eighteenth in last week's sim race.
Behind a fourteen-year-old from Brisbane and someone whose username is literally 'NotEvenTrying. '"
"Fucking savage," Jenna whispers gleefully.
"Maybe he should focus less on his practice schedule and more on his actual driving," someone else suggests.
The mood in the garage has shifted from tense to something looser, easier.
This is what I love about pit crews—we're all slightly feral, running on caffeine and spite, united by our shared suffering under demanding drivers and clueless management.
I'm opening my mouth to make another comment when the garage door slams open hard enough to rattle the tool cabinets.
"Where's my fucking car?"
And there he is.
Dante Moretti. The driver. Six feet of entitled Alpha wrapped in a designer racing suit, his dark hair artfully tousled like he just stepped out of a cologne commercial. He stalks into the garage like he owns it—which, technically, his family's money sort of does—and the temperature shifts again.
This time it's not awkwardness.
It's aggression.
Every Omega instinct I've learned to suppress over the years screams at me to make myself smaller, to submit, to show throat. My suppressants keep the biological imperative at bay, but they can't do anything about the learned wariness that comes from years of navigating a world hostile to Omegas.
"Car needs to be ready for my practice session in twenty minutes," Dante demands, not even looking at me.
His eyes scan the garage like he's doing a headcount of peasants.
"Champions don't make themselves. I need seat time."
I roll out from beside the car, wiping my hands on a rag that's probably dirtier than my hands.
"Car needs time and a test drive to ensure it's safe," I say, keeping my voice level and my face bored. "Unless you want to be Louis Chen 2.0?"
That gets his attention.
His head snaps toward me, and I finally get the full force of his glare.
He's conventionally attractive in that boring, symmetrical way that wealthy families breed for. Strong jaw, perfect teeth, eyes the color of expensive whiskey. But there's a cruelty in the set of his mouth that no amount of good genetics can hide.
"The fuck did you just say to me?"
I sit up, crossing my legs and reaching for my water bottle, where I left it on the toolbox. "I said—"
His boot connects with the bottle before my fingers can close around it, sending it skittering across the garage floor in an arc of spilled water.
The garage goes silent.
I watch the bottle roll, leaving a wet trail across the concrete, and something hot and violent surges in my chest. It's not fear—I learned a long time ago that fear is useless. It's anger, pure and incandescent, the kind that makes my vision sharpen and my pulse steady.
I look at my empty hand.
Then, at the water bottle, now lying in a sad puddle near the tire rack.
Then slowly, deliberately, I raise my eyes to Dante's face.
Well…that’s not very nice…
"Interesting choice," I say mildly.
He looms over me, probably thinking his size and Alpha presence are intimidating.
"Do you have any fucking idea who I am?"
I sigh—long, exaggerated, the kind of sigh that says I'm dealing with a particularly stupid child—and start the process of standing up. My knees protest after spending the last hour flat on my back under a car, but I force my movements to stay smooth and unbothered.
Once I'm upright, I brush my hands down my coveralls again, taking my time, making him wait.
Then I tilt my head and look at him like I'm examining a particularly unremarkable piece of machinery.
"All I know," I say, voice thoughtful, "is that you're a cocky motherfucker who just kicked my water bottle."
His eyes narrow.
I continue like he hasn't made a sound.
"Which means you clearly want the tech crew to be dehydrated so we can make stupid errors.
Like, say, putting two cables into the wrong sockets.
Or maybe encouraging an early deployment mechanism by the slightest bit of pressure.
" I pause, letting that sink in. "But hey, you didn't hear that from me. "
The implication is clear: you want us to fuck up your car? Keep treating us like shit and see what happens.
His face goes through several interesting color changes before settling on a mottled red.
"You little—"