Page 108 of Red Flag
“I’ll find you after,” he said, nodded and put on his helmet.
Though I couldn’t see him, I still felt his gaze.
Arabellaand I walked back together. She was tapping away on her phone as we went past the bikes roaring louder than ajet plane. “Shit.”
“What?” I asked, trying to not obviously look over her shoulder.
She stopped. “Dios mío!”
“What?” I asked more urgently, standing before her.
“Clara,” she said, eyes glued to her phone. “She’s in the hospital. She’s been in a car accident.”
“What hospital? How badly hurt?”
“She’s well enough to text, but…” She started walking briskly back to the pit box. “She said she’s got a cut on her forehead and she’s definitely concussed. They say she was lucky, some idiot drove her off the road!”
“Have they arrested them?” I asked at her side.
She shrugged. “She said they made a run for it. Fucking hell, I need to get to her. Her family are miles away.”
“Nix might—”
“If there’s one thing she doesn’t need right now, it’s Nix,” she snapped, shoving the doors open. “Sorry,Liv, I know it’s not your fault, but he hardly pays her any attention unless it gets him an interview.”
Well,yeah…
“He’s very private,” I disclosed.
She snorted. “I need to tellCris.”
But in the pit box, he frowned before ordering one of the secretaries to get her a taxi to see Clara.
Then straight back to the bikes.
For the race, I was so fidgety I couldn’t go back to my brother. I didn’t want to bring down their mood; I worried about Clara. The race went by so quickly that it felt like I had only sat for a second.
Nix won. Of course. He looked smug as he was interviewed,but I no longer hated that. He should be smug, he was fucking miraculous. He was thirty-nine points ahead of the other racers, having either won or come second place for all of the races but one.
But he didn’t look phased when Clara wasn’t there to kiss him. The commentators mentioned it in passing, referencing how they had spoken about her being absent on the grid earlier, too.
It wasn’t until he came back to the pit box to retrieve his phone from his locker that he noticed the sombre mood. “Who died?” he joked, scrolling through his notifications.
There was a divide in the pit box between those who knew Clara and Nix weren’t really in love and those who didn’t. It was clear in the looks they gave him.
Salihastepped forward to place a hand on his shoulder. “Nix, Clara’s been in an accident. She’s in the hospital.”
He slammed his locker closed. “What happened?”
“Someone drove her off the road,” Cris said.
“Shit,” he muttered, but his eyes fell on me. “Livid, drive me.”
It was ridiculous — I knew it in the moment — that my heart skipped at how desperate he was to see her.
He cared about her.
Jealousy reared its ugly head.
