Page 105 of Flat Out
But the pain blurred my edges. Every corner was a hallucination—Morel’s breath in my ear, Santino’s hands forcing me still, Callum’s voice cracking when he admitted his anxiety. It all lived in the car with me, suffocating me more than the straps ever could.
Final minutes. I sat in P12, not enough. It was never enough. I was never enough. I would never be enough.
“Box now or push,” Henric said. His voice was even, but I could hear the gamble he was asking me to take.
My choice. Always my choice—except when it wasn’t. Except when men decided for me.
“Pushing,” I rasped. My chest heaved as I jammed the throttle, and I knew it was a mistake to push the instant I passed the pit lane, but I pressed on anyway.
The car bucked—pogoed, as Callum described—beneath me, and I felt it in every joint. The migration curve hit like a goddamn sledgehammer, the suspension bottoming out wrong, dampers tuned like they were meant to punish instead of protect. The packers snapped down hard enough to rattle my teeth. Each bounce felt like a battering ram slamming straight through my spine.
Everything Callum and I had found, and God he was right, he was right, he wasfucking rightand I should’ve listened to him.
But I kept going. The lap blurred. My vision tunneled, rain streaks slicing across the visor. Every correction was a war between reflex and sluggish limbs. My wrists were liquid fire. My temple pulsed in time with the engine. My breasts throbbed against the belts with every bump, sharp reminders that my body wasn’t my ally anymore.
Henric’s voice cut in again: “Car looks unstable. You feeling it?”
Something inside me snapped. “YOU SHOULD FUCKING KNOW SEEING AS YOUR MECHANICS TAMPERED WITH MY SETUP AND SUBMITTED FALSE COPIES TO THE FIA.” The words ripped out, unprofessional and furious, too loud for the comms.
I didn’t fucking care anymore.
They could take the car away, take my seat away, take my career away. I just wanted to sleep and not be in pain anymore.
Static filled the silence before Henric came back, stiff and clipped: “Copy.”
Across the line in P10. Safe. Barely. Again.
I slumped in the seat, head thunking against the headrest, chest rising and falling like I’d just run ten marathons. My body begged me to stop, to unstrap, crawl out, admit I couldn’t anymore.
But quitting wasn’t an option. Not for me, not ever.
My stubborn pride would probably be what got me killed someday. Not Morel.
The moment I rolled back into the garage, Henric was walking across the pit lane. He leaned over the cockpit, voice pitched low so the cameras wouldn’t catch it. “Aurélie, what was that on comms? You can’t throw around accusations without?—”
“Without proof?” I sneered, as I yanked my gloves off finger by finger. “You want proof, Henric? Want me to strip this suit down and show you the bruises Morel left on me ten fucking minutes before Q1 started? Would that satisfy you?” I tugged my sleeves down so he could see the finger-shaped bruises encircling my wrists.
He blanched, eyes darting toward the engineers like he prayed they hadn’t heard. I caught Rhea hovering a few feet back, pretending to busy herself with a monitor. My rage zeroed in on her like a heat-seeking missile.
“You think I don’t know?” I snapped, tears threatening. God, I was so fucking emotional and I couldn’t fucking stop it. “You think I can’t feel when my own setup’s been fucked with? Or that I don’t know which of you handed Morel the keys to do it?” My eyes locked on Rhea, her gaze flicking away, her jaw tight. “Go on. Keep hiding behind the false reports you’re submitting. I have all the evidence I need anyway. But don’t stand there and act like I’m crazy when the bruises on my body say otherwise.”
For a heartbeat, the whole garage went still. Only the tick-tick of the cooling brakes filled the silence. Then Kimi’s car rolled back into the garage as he wrapped up his Q2 session.
Henric swallowed hard, his voice forced calm. “Focus on Q3. We’ll talk after.”
I barked out a bitter laugh and turned my head forward, securing my gloves again. “Ouai. Après.”
My eyes fell shut, and I tried to find my zen, but I didn’t know what that looked like anymore. I just sat there and waited.
Then it was time for Q3.
The storm unleashed. Sheets of water hammered the track, a thousand needles pounding the halo, soaking through my suit. Rivers carved through the asphalt, pooling at apexes like landmines. I could feel every ounce of sabotage in my chassis, each bump down the straights hitting like a literal battering ram against my spine.
My body was slow. My mind was foggy. The painkillers dulled the sharp edges but left the fire roaring. My shoulders weakened at every correction. My wrists burned. I wasn’t fighting the car anymore. The car was fighting me.
“Delta’s high,” Henric’s voice chirped in my ear. “You need this lap. Clean. Precise. Easy does it, Dubois.”
Clean. Precise. Two words that didn’t exist in my world anymore.
