—Natasha's POV—
The world did not simply go quiet. The sound was sucked away, leaving a vacuum of disbelief so profound it felt like a physical pressure on the eardrums. The unified, shrieking roar of the two engines did not climax; it was severed, cut short by the stark, undeniable reality of the timing board.
Two identical numbers glowed side-by-side. A tie. In the century-old, blood-soaked history of the Full-Moon Run, it was an event with no precedent, a paradox that left the very laws of their world hanging in the balance.
For me, standing frozen at the edge of the roaring crowd, the result was not an abstract concept. It was a cataclysm that ripped through my body. The moment the blurred forms of silver and black crossed that white line in perfect, impossible harmony, a violent,
