11. Chapter 11
11
Chapter 11
CAMILLE
I miss another race to attend Dixon’s wife’s funeral.
Because it’s London, it rains, and we’re a small group attending. Amy cries on my shoulder and Dixon thanks us with an empty, hollow voice when we leave.
I can tell he spoke to her about dying, giving her permission to pass, peace to move on, and it’s clear he regrets it, feels her loss more than ever.
Would take it back for just another second with her.
Two other things happen that week.
In Hungary, Finn misses out on a podium finish by one spot, coming in fourth, and I finally submit my proposal for the Silk Road documentary to WebFlix Max.
And they are considering it.
My stomach swoops at the prospect.
Now, sunning my face in the August Dutch sunshine, I’m happy to be back and filming.
Jay taps me on the shoulder and the world rushes in.
“Sorry.” He smirks when I startle .
I reach up to rub my neck, returning the smile. “What’s up?”
“They’ll line up soon.”
I nod and follow him through a throng of spectators towards a small golf cart. We’re filming the grassy banks and smaller stands today. Jasper de Vries’ face is everywhere in the sea of orange. Velocity banners and energy drinks abound. We’re filming his family in particular, who perch on the grassy bank overlooking the track. They brought a huge beach umbrella and a ton of sweet snacks for the kids, who are snacking away on stroopwafels and poffertjes. Jasper’s wife, also from the Netherlands, welcomes us warmly. Her name is Lotte, and she has a ton of freckles and a shy smile. They have two young boys, both dressed in their father’s colours, and her parents and his parents are present, all of them making a day of it.
Jay frames her to one side of the screen, her happy family in the background, playing and laughing, the grownups all full of nerves.
I give her a nod.
“We prefer to watch from here when he races in the Netherlands. It’s a tradition. He used to watch from here when he was a kid, with his parents.”
She explains how the pits make her nervous. The noise upsets the boys. She prefers watching from afar.
Her family graciously offers us refreshments and insists that they’ll be present when we film Jasper and Lotte at their house in two days’ time. The two families enjoy each other’s company and spend a lot of time together.
“At our house, of course.” Lotte laughs.
Jasper has a huge sports car collection that the two older gentlemen help maintain, what with him travelling so much.
“Someone needs to look after the cars.” His father winks at the camera.
It’s great footage.
We film them as the race kicks off and then we hit the golf cart again to make our way over to the fan zone, but a massive wail goes up all around us.
It startles both me and Jay who crane our necks towards the track.
There’s been an accident. At the bend right before the one where the de Vries family staked their claim for the day.
I can’t help it, I tense up.
It’s the Vanderbilt colours, and Lachlan Reid braked too late in the corner, spun out, and hit the barrier. Debris peppers the track.
I give a sigh of relief when I see him standing next to the car, out already and removing his helmet.
But my relief is short-lived.
At impossible speeds, a Temporaush and a Peakstone car take the corner. The first driver swerves dangerously to avoid a large piece of body panel from Lachlan’s car, the driver behind him following suit. The slipstream from their cars sweeps up the panel and whips it, spinning into the air, where a second later Finn collides with it. It flits in under his car and doesn’t come out the back. Sparks fly up into the air as his car gives a dangerous wobble and then spins out, twirling violently and relentlessly until it crashes into the barrier, more panel work exploding into the air. Flames envelop the back of the car.
I can’t breathe. I take a tentative step forward, my whole body shaking, wanting to do something, not knowing what. I feel my whole body go numb from shock.
Fans scream in fear and a trackside safety crew vaults the fence with fire extinguishers already pluming out clouds of white powder that billow in the slipstream of another car that passes by, slow now that the message has reached all the drivers.
Finn jumps out of the car and steps away from the flames as the safety crew converges and puts out the flames.
My throat aches as I make an animalistic sound at the sight of him.
He’s fine.
Jay swivels when he hears me and takes in my face, makes to turn towards me, but I wave him off. His camera is pointed at the crash site below, still filming.
He turns back but keeps me in his sight from the corner of his eyes.
A warm hand closes around my upper arm. I turn to find Lotte concerned at my side. She must have heard me and come over.
Her eyes rove my face, and she gives me a deep look of pity and sympathy and draws me close, hugging me tight.
“Everything is okay,” she whispers, her arms fierce as she holds me close. “Today, everything is okay. Now, let it go.” She draws back and looks at me with clear blue eyes. “Let it go now, and never think of it again.”
I laugh. It has a hysteric edge to it.
“If you don’t,” she says slowly and softly, “you will resent him for the rest of your life.”
“You can’t have a family and be a race car driver,” I say. And I know that it’s true.
Lotte shakes her head. “If that’s true for you, walk away now.”
It’s only when I fell down onto my hotel bed and wept that I realised I had never asked her why it wasn’t true for her.
* * *
FINN
It takes me back to Texas like it always does. Texas circuit, fifteen years ago. That day I was loose, easy. All the excitement and energy exhausted, I had fucked a girl the night before, went three rounds and hardly any sleep.
I can’t remember her face, but I can remember that she had liked my accent.
Qualifying the day before went well, and I was P four on the grid that day, and roaring for a first position finish. I passed Rheese on the way to the car and flipped him off. He was furious.
I grinned.
We started grand, and I overtook the two cars ahead of me easily. Back in those days, Velocity was still an up-and-coming brand, and it suited me just fine. They were throwing money at their problems with reckless abandon, and I was raking it in.
“Easy,” Felix had cautioned over comms. “We’re only just halfway.”
I had already lapped most of the drivers and up ahead was Stanley Everton.
My fucking hero.
Taking him on was surreal. It was making my blood rush through my head. Felix was cautioning me again.
“Cool, calm and collected,” he admonished me.
He was right. I was pushing it.
I gave a deep breath in, blew it out slowly and loosened my white knuckles on the steering wheel. But I was already too fast.
Later, they determined it was a tyre failure or debris on the track. Either way, when I took the corner, I lost control of the car. It went into a skid. Intuitively, I fought it, counter-steering and opening the throttle to gain traction.
All it was, was a second, that felt like a lifetime.
The car slid clean off the asphalt and barrelled over the runoff area. I had pulled on the steering wheel, hard, to get the car sideways, because it’s better to hit the barriers like that, rather than nose first.
Safer.
I managed, but when the wheels caught the curb, it vaulted me ten feet into the air and clean through the link fence like it was nothing.
Another second. Another lifetime.
The car was still spinning. It did three full revolutions before it plowed into the crowd of spectators.
People. The sickening crunch of hitting human bodies.
When I went through the fence, it tore through my fuel lines. Fuel sprayed through the air. It ignited almost instantly.
That I was still conscious was a miracle. The flames spurred me into action. I undid my harness with numb fingers and reached up to pull myself from the ruined car, but arms reached inside, pulled me free. Strangers with big eyes and shaking hands.
They had scattered. Wounded people were being dragged away by their friends and family. The man who had pulled me free turned towards the car.
I followed his terrified gaze.
I saw her long legs, motionless. She was wearing white sandals with plastic sunflowers on the straps.
Then, with an almost deafening whoosh, sound returned to me, and I heard the screams of those around us, the angry hiss of the fire, and the keening wail of a small child.
She was burning. I could smell it.
I leapt over the car. I was wearing the suit. it would protect me. Her skin was exposed to the flames. I knelt down low to see what I could do.
A spectator whipped away the keening child, and they ran, fearing an explosion.
I should run too.
She was pinned and unconscious. Fuel had spurted over half her face. It was on fire, melting before my very eyes. I had nothing to help her with.
I whipped the top half of my suit off and dived over her, pressing the material over the raging flames trickling all over her skin.
I managed to put it out.
The flames danced over the shoulder I had exposed to free enough of my suit to put out the flames on her.
Instinct makes you flinch away from pain.
I did. I had no control.
Flames immediately leapt up around her again. Her skin was thick and swollen, charred, bursting at the cracks.
I fought my instinct to pull away, drew the material over her face again, shielding her from the surrounding flames. Seconds, and I smelled my flesh burning.
I couldn’t bear it. Every nerve ending inside me screamed at me to pull away from the agony the flames caused over my skin.
I had to abandon her and get away .
I couldn’t.
The heat overwhelmed me. I couldn’t breathe without it burning my lungs.
I thought I was dying, and when I could bear it no longer, the plume of the extinguishers billowed over the both of us and I passed out.