Page 92 of Crash Course Omega
Even with my knowledge and training, it's not enough to get the hang of it when we shoot around the corner and fire into the straight, even at just 130kmph.
I don’t want to wait for them. As long as I tune out the director when he shouts in my ear about his precious shots, I can enjoy myself.
And it’s way more fun trying to catch up to the alpha females than it is hanging back to make sure the stunt crew can keep up.
I’m amazed none of them have crashed already.
“Harmony!” the director snaps. “I want you at the front of the drivers, spread out so that they are behind you in pairs!” I groan at his instruction and pull off the pedal, switching down my gears, looking longingly at the alpha females as they fly off.
I wind down to 100kmph, staring at the huge strip of track that’s just calling me to slam my foot down.
The cars don’t like to go slow, and the tires are going to complain when we speed back up again. They aren’t designed to heat up and cool down and then heat up again just because a director wants a good photo.
It would make more sense just to park the cars on the track and edit them to make it look like they were racing, but he wants to make a mock trailer to get more sponsors as well.
I sigh, trying to breathe through it. It’s like locking a horse in a stable when it has already prepared itself for a race. I’m not supposed to be trapped like this.
“Have you got your photo? Can I go again?”
“No, we need you to record more corners.”
“Can’t I just do a few laps? It’s not safe for us to drive like this, especially when the Valkyries are going to catch us up from behind.”
“Harmony,” he says in the same tone my dad uses when I’ve made a stupid decision. “You are under contract to follow my directions. You can make suggestions, but my orders take priority.”
And that’s only because my manager was so desperate to get me out of the limelight for at least a week that he signed it without thinking what it meant. Such as driving like this.
We are too far away from the pits, but I’m tempted to just pull into one of the run-off areas and stop in protest. I might infuriate the director but, in the end, I’m Harmony Grace. If I left the project, he was essentially fucked.
“Fine,” I say shortly. “What do you want?”
“This time, you need to overtake a stuntman on that sharp corner.”
“You mean the hairpin?”
“Whatever it’s called. Make sure you’re going as fast as you can. I want to capture the sound of the engines as well. The camera crew is already in place; you just need to do it at the right speed.”
“And then I can drive how I want?”
“As long as we get the shot.”
“Fine,” I say again, clenching my jaw as my hands squeeze the steering wheel.
His version of ‘fast’ is 80kmph, and I don’t want to do a hairpin like that. Not that I can’t; there’s just too much going on. And I don’t know how prepared the stunt crew actually are for maneuvers like this.
I’m not bothered at this point. I just want to get ahead and race with the girls. I have a feeling they will have a go at the director and overwhelm him with their sheer force as soon as they find out he held me back. It feels good to know that they’re there, along with my alphas.
“Are the other drivers ready?” I ask him as I speed up towards the corner. They keep on my tail, and I can’t see directly behind me to find out what is going on.
As we shoot into the hairpin, I get myself into position on the left side of the track, getting ready to overtake. A stuntmancomes from my inside, but he hasn’t accounted for tire heat, or brake wear, or anything that he wouldn’t have had to focus on when he was just training on the VR routes. And one bad steer is all it takes.
I tap my brake, trying to avoid him as he mistimes it, going wide, sailing left and clipping my left wheel hard as we hit the exit of the hairpin.
A thump suddenly shakes me in my seat, and my heart plunges. I only have a second to correct myself as my car skids onto the gravel, but it’s no use. The wheel bursts, I have no traction, and I spin, holding on for dear life, twisting so furiously that I think my helmet is going to fly off as I wait for the inevitable.
Regret suddenly swells up inside me as I know I’m going to crash.
I wish I’d kept talking with Maddock. If I believed he wanted to change and try, if I told him how I really felt about him, maybe my heart wouldn't squeeze so hard in pain and fear.
