Page 43 of Knot So Fast
This is exactly what she used to do when she was younger and her parents tried to ground her or restrict her activities. She'd wait until everyone thought she was safely contained, then slip out her window and disappear for hours. The fact that she's reverting to old patterns even without conscious memory suggests that some things are truly ingrained in who she is.
I pull out my phone, knowing exactly who I need to call. If Auren is loose in the city with questions about racing and Formula One, there's only one person who might be able to predict where she'll go and what kind of trouble she might get herself into.
The phone rings twice before a familiar voice answers.
"Caspian."
COLLISION COURSE
~AUREN~
I'm racingthrough the winding one-lane road that cuts through the hillside like a serpent, my hands gripping the steering wheel with the kind of desperation that comes from needing to outrun your own thoughts.
The digital clock on the dashboard glows a harsh blue in the darkness, informing me that it's well past midnight now, after hours of driving aimlessly until I was forced to pause at a gas station and fill up the tank.
The car I'm driving is one of my favorites from the collection in the private garage—though it's the newer model of something I apparently truly loved for years before the accident. I only know this because I've been reading some of my own journal entries lately, trying to piece together fragments of a life I can't remember living. The handwriting is definitely mine, the voice familiar even when describing experiences that feel like they happened to someone else entirely.
Despite it already being over a year since I woke up in that hospital bed, I haven't summoned up the courage to read thejournal entries I wrote during the last six months before the accident. It's not that I'm not curious about what happened during those crucial months—I'm desperately curious. But every time I try to open those particular entries, my heart starts beating so fast it feels like it might burst out of my chest, cold sweats break out across my skin, and it's like I'm teetering on the edge of a full-blown panic attack.
I haven't even attempted to try again since that episode two months ago when I ended up hyperventilating on my bathroom floor, but meeting all these Alphas tonight—Kieran, Caspian, the constant presence of Lucius—and the strange familiarity of it all is making me want to push through that psychological barrier. Maybe I'm finally ready to be frightened by whatever reality I have to face about my past, because right now I feel like I'm stuck in this horrible limbo where I can't move forward and I can't go back.
My foot presses harder on the pedal, and my hand instinctively moves to the gear shift as I accelerate further up the twisting mountain road.
The engine responds beautifully, purring with the kind of power that makes my blood sing even when my mind is chaos. This is what I was born for—the sensation of speed, the perfect marriage of human reflexes and mechanical precision, the way everything else fades away when you're dancing with physics at the edge of control.
That's when I notice the first droplets of rain hitting the windshield, tiny specks that quickly multiply into a steady patter.
I frown as the realization hits me that this particular road isn't merciful when it gets slippery. The asphalt becomes treacherous, the curves become death traps, and smart drivers slow down and find somewhere safe to wait out the storm.
But the rain accelerates suddenly, transforming from a gentle sprinkle into a pounding deluge that sounds like bullets hitting the roof of the car. It's like a sudden storm has materialized out of nowhere, turning the night into a wall of water that my wipers can barely handle.
I curse under my breath as I try to clear the fog that's forming on the inside of the windshield, knowing rationally that I need to slow down, pull over, be the responsible adult everyone keeps telling me I should be. But there's this nagging urge deep in my chest that screams at me not to stop, not to slow down, not to give in to the fear that's been controlling my life for the past year.
My head starts pounding with a pain that feels different from a normal headache—sharper, more urgent, like something is trying to claw its way out of my skull.
And suddenly there's a voice in my head, crystal clear and absolutely furious, that doesn't sound like my internal monologue at all.
"We can't lose this. This is everything. The deals, the paparazzi, our whole lives rely on this race. Don't fuck this up for the team, Auren!"
The voice is male, harsh with desperation and anger, and it feels like a memory trying to surface through layers of protective amnesia.
My vision blurs for a moment, not from the rain but from something internal, some fragment of the past that's fighting to break through the walls my mind has built around those final months.
That's when the headlights flash directly in front of me, cutting through the rain like twin suns that sear my retinas and send panic shooting through every nerve in my body.
My eyes widen in horror as I realize I've drifted into the wrong lane, that there's another car coming straight at me at a combined speed that will turn this into a head-on collisionneither of us will survive. Time seems to slow down and speed up simultaneously as adrenaline floods my system and every survival instinct I possess kicks into overdrive.
"SHIT!" I scream, my voice raw with terror as I slam on the brakes with both feet, feeling the anti-lock system engage as the tires fight for traction on the rain-slicked asphalt.
I wrench the steering wheel hard to the right, feeling the car go into a controlled slide that's anything but controlled, the back end fishtailing as I fight to regain command of two tons of metal and momentum. The world becomes a blur of rain and headlights and the sound of tires squealing against wet pavement as I pray to whatever gods might be listening that I can pull out of this without killing myself or anyone else.
The car spins once, twice, the centrifugal force pressing me against the door as everything outside the windows becomes a kaleidoscope of darkness and reflected light. I can feel the moment when the tires find purchase again, when the laws of physics decide to show mercy instead of delivering the punishment I probably deserve for being so reckless.
Miraculously, impossibly, the car comes to a stop just inches from the guardrail that separates the road from a cliff that drops straight down into nothing. I can see the edge in my headlights, can feel how close I came to joining the statistics of drivers who pushed too hard and paid the ultimate price.
"Mother fucker," I curse, the words coming out in a breathless whisper as I realize I can barely breathe. My hands are shaking so violently that I just stare at them, watching my fingers tremble like leaves in a hurricane while my heart hammers against my ribs.
My eyes tear up, but instead of breaking down into the sobbing mess I probably should be, I laugh. The sound is wild and unhinged and probably indicates some kind of psychological break, but the adrenaline is rushing through my system like thepurest drug imaginable, making everything feel electric and alive and absolutely insane.
