Page 114 of Close Contact
My hands fell from the wheel, unable to remove it from the column to get myself out. I tried to reach for it again, for anything, but my hands wouldn’t move.
And I knew I was stuck here.
Help. Help would be on the way soon.
I’d latched her helmet. I’d told her to be careful. I didn’t think I’d be the one who wouldn’t come back. She’d asked me to come back to her, and I failed her.
Her face flickered in my mind—bright and unyielding.Loving.
Tell her I’m okay, I thought.Just tell her?—
And then, the world went black.
The race had beena grind from the start. I’d managed to hold my position in the points, but it felt like every lap was a battle against the car, the track, and my own frustration. Callum wasn’t faring much better; he’d fallen back after the pit cycle, though I’d stayed close enough to keep him in my sights. We were both still strong contenders, but it wasn’t our most dominant performance.
Ahead of me, Callum’s car danced with its usual precision, smooth and unshakable. My gaze flicked between him and Morel’s car up ahead, its orange livery easy to spot even as it zigzagged defensively. Morel was struggling—his older tires and erratic driving style were a disaster waiting to happen.
My stomach tightened as I watched Callum close the gap. His overtake was textbook—clean, mechanical perfection. It should’ve been easy, but then Morel moved, forcing Callum to swerve to avoid a collision, but Morel kept pushing.
Time slowed.
Callum’s front wing clipped Morel’s rear tire, and in an instant, everything went wrong. His car spun violently, the momentum ripping it off the ground. Sparks flew, and I barely registered the debris flying toward me before a chunk of his front wing slammed into my halo with a sickening thud. My hands instinctively jerked the wheel, sending my car skidding off the track and into the grass.
“Shit!” I swore, fighting for control as my tires dug into the soft earth, spinning twice before stopping. But my focus wasn’t on my car anymore. It was on his.
Callum’s car flipped once. Twice. Then again. Red and black shredded across my vision like a nightmare on repeat. My lungs seized. I couldn’t blink. Couldn’tbreathe.
The barrier didn’t stop him—itfoldedaround him, metal shrieking as it crumpled like paper. His car vanished into the fence.
Time shattered. All I could hear was my own heartbeat crashing in my ears, the world blinking in and out as if I was watching it through water.
When it finally stopped, it was pinned—half on the fence, half crushed against the tire wall. He was nearly upside down, not moving.
All that damage done in a matter of seconds.
I had a flashback to Étienne’s crash, but what I felt then was dim in comparison to what I felt now. Maybe that made me an awful person, but Callum was myeverything.
“Red flag, red flag,” my engineer said in my earpiece. “All drivers are to return to the pit lane. Incident on turn nine. Driver in the wall. Vanguard Racing, number seventeen.”
“No, no,no—” It wasn’t even a word anymore, just a sound. A scream torn from somewhere deep in my chest as my hands clawed at the radio, shaking so badly I could barely press thedamn button. “That was Callum—is he okay? Please tell me he’s okay!”
“Standby,” my engineer said, calm and infuriating. “Safety team will be en route. Stay in the car, Aurélie.”
Stay in the car? Like hell I would.
He needed help.
The average time for the safety team to arrive was two minutes. What if he didn’t have two minutes?
I ripped the steering wheel off its column and yanked at my harness, the straps biting into my shoulders as I freed myself. Then came the HANS device, and I was free. The world around me was a blur—marshals waving red flags, engines roaring, the distant wail of sirens. None of it mattered. My car was still drivable, but I didn’t care.
I climbed out, my legs unsteady as adrenaline surged through me. I couldn’t feel my legs. They were moving, sure, but it was as though they weren’t mine. The world tilted beneath me, and I tasted copper at the back of my throat. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t behim.
Not thisagain.
Étienne’s crash had been violent. But this? This was personal on a deeper level. The kind of fear that turned you inside out, lived in your bones forever, shredded your vital organs and threatened to suffocate you.
The grass beneath my boots felt foreign. The ground was too soft and unstable as I took off in a dead sprint. I paused at the edge of the track as I watched the last of the drivers pass slowly before launching myself into motion again.
