Page 109 of Flat Out
“Fraser! What the fuck are you doing?” Dom barked, grabbing my shoulder and turning me around.
I shook him off and took off in a sprint down the pit lane, breaking who knew how many fucking rules to get to the Luminis garages.
Ivy was in Aurélie’s bay, standing at the edge so she had a clear view of the pit lane entry, pale and frantic. Kimi was in his car, visor up, gold eyes wide and haunted as they met mine. Neither of them had answers, I could tell by their faces.
I grabbed the nearest Luminis mechanic by the collar. “Tell me,” I pleaded through gasps, shaking him. “Where the fuck is she?”
“They’re… they’re still extracting?—”
The word detonated inside me. Extracting. Trapped. Helpless. Too late.
A roar filled my head, a whooshing so deafening it drowned out everything else. My chest seized, lungs clawing for air that wouldn’t come. The floor tilted under me, vision narrowing until all I could see were black spots flashing across the edges.
My knees buckled. I doubled over, palms slamming onto my thighs, bracing hard because I physically couldn’t stay upright. My heartbeat hammered so violently it shook my whole body, every pulse feeling like a countdown to losing her.
My nightmare played on loop. I shoved it away, but it came rearing back stronger, the image painfully vivid in my mind. My knees buckled and I fell back into the wall behind me, holding myself up with sheer will.
“Callum.” Ivy’s voice cracked. She tried to touch my arm. I flinched like she’d burned me. “She’s okay.”
“They said that about me.” My words came broken, breathless, half sob. “In Montreal—they said I’d be fine while I was burning alive. Do I look fine? Do I, Ivy? Because I don’t feelfine! I don’t feel fucking fine! It was that goddamn death trap of a car–”
There was a burst of static over the comms. “Driver is out of the car. Repeat, driver is out of the car.”
I froze. The whole garage froze.
Out. She was out.
But no follow-up. Nocondition. Nothing to say she was walking, talking, breathing.
“Alive?” I choked out into the air, into the void. “Is she alive?” I looked to Ivy for answers, and she turned and pointed at the monitors in the bay.
I stepped closer.The monitors.Of course. They’d be tracking the crash.
The replay flickered. The rear of her car snapped out, the angle difficult to correct even in the best of conditions. She spun out before crashing sideways into the barrier, sparks flying and water splashing and carbon fiber breaking apart brutally. And then, fucking hell, her hands slipped from the wheel.
No, they didn’t slip. She let go.
My heart stuttered, skipping too many fucking beats to ever be normal again.She let go?
No. No, not her. She never let go. Not my Aurélie. She fought everything. She held on with teeth and nails and fire.
And yet… there it was. In full color from her onboard camera, it was undeniable. Her fingers slackened. The wheel spinning out of her grasp, and she didn’t try to fucking stop it.
She let go.Oh God, my stomach threatened to upheave all of its contents. She fuckinglet go.
The world narrowed to that single truth. If she let go, it meant she couldn’t fight anymore. It meant it was worse than I could fathom. It meant I could’ve lost her right there. My chest cinched so tight it was like reliving the crash in my own body, every nerve screaming.
The footage went on, merciless, showing her—my Aurélie—clutching a marshal’s shoulders as three of them dragged her out. She sagged between them, legs like water, helmet still on, head hanging low. They half-carried, half-walked her to the safety car. She collapsed onto the seat, still folded in on herself.
Relief hit me like a freight train, vicious in its own right. I realized I was shaking so violently I couldn’t have driven another lap if I wanted to.
I stayed rooted there with Ivy, both of us locked on the monitors. My lungs still refused to work properly, breath sawing in and out, but at least she was alive. Alive.
But then the rage kicked in.
I shot daggers at every Luminis jacket I saw. At Henric, at the engineers, at Rhea pretending to busy herself with wires. My voice was a snarl when I turned to Ivy. “What the fuck happened before she got in that car? Did you know? Did anyone fucking know?”
Ivy’s throat bobbed. She lowered her voice, so soft I had to lean in. “She came back before qualifying. She was shaking. Mumbling. Something was off.”
