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Giving my team one last smile, I pulled down the visor on my helmet and started the car. The feel of the engine vibrating below me mellowed out the nerves that were threatening to make me throw up what little food I’d had earlier.
I’d made it here. That was something my dad would have been proud of.
The fact that Rupert Ballantyne and Dan Baker thought I’d slept my way onto a team was beside the point. I hadn’t. I’d done the time on the tracks. I’d clocked up more hours iRacing at home than was probably healthy. I’d sweated my way into this spot, and I was going to enjoy being here.
We rolled out onto the track, and all too soon, came the words over the radio. “RACE. RACE. RACE.”
Time to go to work.
It was a fucking mess. A win here could send any of us into the playoffs,and we were all driving like we knew it. I’d barely missed a huge wipeout earlier, when #34 went into the wall and got himself all the way around. I was twelfth back in the pack, all but landlocked in place, but there were still ninety-six laps to go. Anyone could get it.
Both of my teammates were ahead of me, running fifth and sixth, according to the team radio. My job was to be the little yappy dog snapping at the heels of the people who wanted to take them out.
No one wanted me to win. I couldn’t win, not really. But I’d be fucked if I wasn’t going to try.
The thing I loved most about the sport was the unpredictability of it, and when another huge smash had smoke flying into my windshield, electricity raced through my veins. I dodged the cars ping-ponging around the track, just in time to see a car bounce off the outside wall, flipping end over end as it rolled into the infield. Just a flash of color, but it made my heart pound.
“Whose car was that?” I demanded over the radio.
“Just checking,” came the voice of Tyler, a gruff older man in his fifties. “It was Willtot.”
My heart thundered. It was bad. I knew it was bad. We saw crashes every single fucking race, but some just made your blood freeze. “Is it rough?”
“Yellow flag, Tally. I’ll let you know when I know.”
As the cars slowed, I couldn’t help but look over. The car was on fire, but that was okay. We wore fire suits for a reason. He could still be okay.
“Get out. Get out. Get out.” I chanted the words under my breath as the safety cars raced in, fire extinguishers already out as they landed on their feet to extinguish the blaze.
“Red flag.”
Almost out of muscle memory, I stopped my car, angling it infield. “Ty. Is he out?”
“Not yet.” Something in Ty’s voice had me on edge.
Why the fuck wasn’t he out yet? “Come on, Buck. Come on.”
I kept half an eye on the track, enough to see the paramedics fly to the infield. I could hear my blood whooshing in my ears.
No, no, no. “Ty, tell me what’s going on!”
“They’re choppering him out. It seems serious.”
Fuck.
“Hold your position and then come in.”
I watched helplessly as two medics loaded Buck onto a stretcher and tore out of the infield, even as the track maintenance team cleaned up the debris from the crash. The amount of cars remaining in the race had nearly halved, with eleven cars knocked out by that crash. I couldn’t care less. Not when I knew deep down that something was really wrong with Buck.
“Yellow flag. Maintain position, Tally.”
Distracted, I didn’t even remember replying to Ty’s directions. Instead, I lost myself in the pattern of the drive.
The second I climbed out of the car at the end of the race, I ripped my helmet off my head. “Is there any news?”
No one would meet my eyes. Every single person in the pit had something they needed to do right then, and dread washed over me.
“Someone fucking tell me!”
