Page 50 of Fast & Reckless
It didn’t matter, because he wasted no time following his orders. He shrank down, until he was one with the car, until he didn’t have hands and feet and a heartbeat, but four wheels and a powerful engine. The world fell away until there was only Brody’s car ahead of him, to be overtaken and dominated.
But every time he saw an opening and dove for the gap, Brody shifted his line, cutting off his avenue. At first it was just subtle, Brody lining himself up to take the best apex in the turn. Annoying, but predictable. But then he was moving across the track on the straights, something that would lose him time, but keep Will from passing.
“Goddammit!” he shouted into his mic. “The fucker is blocking me!”
“Yes, he is,” Paul said. “Try to stay right in this curve.”
Will stayed outside, and just as a path opened up in front of him, Brody slid over to block him.
“Fucking bastard!” While he was stuck back here, forced to drive at Brody’s pace, his rivals were rapidly gaining time on him, obliterating the time gap he’d fought so hard to create at the outset of the race. “I have the speed but I can’t get around him. He won’t let me.”
“He’s asking for a penalty,” Paul snapped, his voice icy with rage. “And I’ll make sure he gets one if he doesn’t back down.” Their conversation was being broadcast straight to Race Radio for everyone to hear, so Will knew what Paul was doing. He was laying down the not-so-subtle threat of a formal complaint ifBrody kept up his bullshit. But a complaint was only that, and it didn’t help Will now, when Brody kept weaving into Will’s path with every move he made.
“He’s in violation.”
“Tae’s talking to Race Control right now,” Paul said, his voice lethal. “He’s handling it on our end. Just look for an opening on yours and decimate that bastard.”
There was more going on than this single incident in this one race. Paul sounded like he was out for blood. This was personal. Well, that suited Will just fine, because now it was personal for both of them. He’d destroy that asshole—for Paul and himself.
When Brody swung to the outside to line up to take the apex of the next turn, Will hung back, giving him space to do it. And when Brody was all the way to the outside of the turn, Will cut right and stayed on the throttle, taking the turn hard and to the inside. It was tight, but he clung to the roadway as he ripped past Brody with only inches to spare, into the next turn.
Being on the inside of the first turn shunted him straight into the next turn, this time to the outside, and he headed straight toward the ideal point, where he could carry the most momentum. All he had to do was hit the apex and accelerate out of it. Except when he turned his wheels to the left, ready to lay on the accelerator, Brody was there. He’d chucked a dive bomb up Will’s inside that he had no chance of pulling off.
“What the fuck is he doing?”
Brody had no chance of overtaking him on this turn. He was there just to fuck with him. When Will felt a shudder rip through his car, he knew Brody had succeeded in doing just that.
“Contact!” he shouted into the radio. “He’s clipped my tire.” The back of the car shimmied horrifically. The onboardcomputer relayed the bad news. Tire pressure was dropping rapidly, and his speed with it.
“You’re almost to the pits,” Paul shouted. “Come in!”
“Goddammit. That’s a fourth pit.”
“Brody’s front wing is wrecked. He’s coming in, too. The boys are ready for you. Come in.”
Another goddamned pit stop. It would take a phenomenal bit of driving to make up for it. And fucking Brody McKnight. Yes, he was pitting, too, but only his third to Will’s fourth. They’d come out of this pit stop neck and neck. Except Brody had come in fast, on solid—if old—tires. Will had limped in on a flat. In overall race time, which is all that mattered, Will was behind and slipping farther back with every second.
He waited, pulse racing, heart pounding, as the pit crew changed out his tires. It took less than three seconds but it felt like three hours. Paul had left his customary position in front of the monitors and was standing in the pit lane, right behind the crew. His face was a mask of fury. He spoke, his voice crackling into Will’s headset. “I want you to get out there and rip him to pieces, Will. No mercy.”
“Don’t worry, Paul,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s done.” Will let loose with everything he and the car had, ready to visit retribution on Brody and anyone else who stood between them.
With ten laps to go, four drivers had taken time out of him during that pit stop. But Will had fresh tires, the softest, fastest tires. Within three laps, he’d fought back the time from three of them. But so had Brody, now on fresh tires, too. Relentlessly, he pushed the car, watching the engine rev to the red line.
Up ahead, Brody passed the last car of the front-runners, reclaiming the lead of the race. Will was a quarter of a lap behind him, the time he’d lost with that punctured tire.Finally, almost in slow motion, he passed the last car between him and Brody, clawing himself back to second place. Around one more turn, he could finally see the back of Brody’s car again.
Brody whipped into the next turn and Will momentarily lost sight of him. As he screamed into the double apex, trailing Brody, Will gave himself over to the car, trusting that it could handle what he was asking of it. He’d never gone into this turn at such speed before. The car shuddered. He could feel the rear end coming loose, the car threatening to spin off the track at any moment. Hands gripping the wheel, a quick twitch of opposite lock, playing throttle and brake pedal, slip angle, and turn radius against each other, he guided the car through the turn by sheer force of will and a soul-deep trust in the physics. When he powered out of the turn, Brody was right there, a mere three car lengths ahead.
Will buried the throttle. The engine screamed in response. Two car lengths. One. Paul was screaming in his ear. He was on Brody’s gearbox as he exited the last turn, whipping the wheel to the right, lining himself up to pass Brody.
The checkered flag flickered in his peripheral vision, and Brody made it under, half a car length ahead of him.
When the pit crew helped him up out of the car minutes later, he ripped his balaclava off, ready to let loose with his fury, but he was stunned into silence when he heard Paul unleashing a torrent of rage like he’d never heard from him before. Everyone was there, the pit crew, the mechanics, Tae, Harry, and the team strategist. They stood in a wary, silent semicircle with Paul as its explosive center.
“I will have his goddamned license!” Paul shouted, pacing the confines of the Lennox paddock. “He hit Will on purpose! You saw it, Tae!”
“I did.” Tae nodded in solemn agreement.
“I want him to get a penalty. He starts from the back of the goddamned grid at the next five races!”
