Racing Into Your Heart

CHAPTER 4

In Bahrain, the desert heat hit Lena like an open oven.

She stood at the end of the pit lane in her race suit with her helmet under one arm and watched Ethan's car roll toward the final qualifying run. Forty thousand fans screamed behind the barriers. Every screen in the circuit showed their two faces side by side.

"Last chance," Nina said in her ear. "Ethan has pole by four hundredths. You need a perfect lap."

"I know."

"Do not take a risk in turn ten. The track is still hot and the grip is a lie."

"I know."

"I am saying it in case you forget."

"I never forget."

"That is exactly what worries me."

Lena smiled behind her visor. Three weeks of testing, three weeks of nonstop press, and Nina had become the only person in the building she trusted completely. After the telemetry scare in Silverstone, they had quietly changed all of Lena's access codes and moved her data to a private server. The leak had stopped. At least, it looked like it had stopped.

She did not allow herself to think about the photograph hidden in the inside pocket of her bag. Or what Ethan had said about her father's hands.

The lights on the pit exit turned green. She hit the throttle.

The lap came together like a song. Turn one, perfect. Turn four, perfect. She braked later than she ever had, dived into the long right hander and felt the car grip as if it had been welded to the track. By the final sector, her mouth was dry and her breathing was loud inside her helmet.

"Purple," Nina whispered. "Purple, purple, purple."

She crossed the line and the screens flickered.

P2. Lena Morgan. Plus 0.011.

Eleven thousandths of a second behind Ethan.

She punched the steering wheel and swore for ten seconds straight. Nina laughed so hard the radio crackled.

"You are a monster," Nina said. "You know that? You are an absolute monster."

"I am second."

"You are second on your first qualifying at Valkyrie, in a car you have driven for three weeks, beside the reigning champion. Lena. Breathe."

She breathed. Then she saw him.

Ethan stood beside his car in the pit lane, helmet off, hair damp, watching her. He lifted one hand in a slow, mocking salute. She lifted her middle finger in reply, hidden behind the camera, and was fairly sure he laughed.

The press room was a zoo.

Sixty reporters and a dozen cameras were crammed into a small white room with two chairs and a table. Lena and Ethan sat at opposite ends of it, as far apart as the layout allowed.

"Lena," a woman in the front row began, "there are rumors you and Ethan are involved."

"No."

"Ethan?"

"No."

"Then what is the photograph from Silverstone?"

"An argument," they said at the same time.

The room burst into laughter. Lena glared at the table. Ethan stared at the ceiling.

"You seem to agree on a lot," the woman said slyly.

"We agree on nothing," Lena said.

"We agree on one thing," Ethan said. "She is a very annoying driver."

"And he is a very overrated one."

Another wave of laughter. Cameras flashed. In the back of the room, near the door, Isabella Laurent stood with a microphone in her hand and an elegant smile on her face. She caught Lena's eye and lifted a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

Lena felt something cold slide down her spine.

After the press conference, she could not sleep.

She tried. She lay in the dark hotel room for two hours watching shadows slide across the ceiling. At midnight she gave up, pulled on a hoodie and walked out onto the empty circuit.

The paddock was silent. The huge hospitality tents glowed pale under the floodlights. Beyond them, the long straight stretched out like a black river, and beyond that the desert sky was thick with stars.

She walked onto the track itself, feeling the warm asphalt through the soles of her sneakers, and stopped at the start line.

"You are going to get arrested."

She did not turn around. She had known he would come. Somehow, she had always known.

"Security knows me," she said.

"Security knows me. They have never heard of you."

Ethan walked up beside her. He wore a grey t shirt and dark jeans, hands in his pockets, hair a mess. In the dim light, without the cameras, he looked younger and more tired than she had ever seen him.

"Why are you out here?" she asked.

"Same reason you are."

"Which is?"

"Because the car is the only place that makes sense."

She did not argue. They stood together in silence for a long moment, looking down the straight.

"Why did you say it?" Lena said finally. "Six years ago. On television. You knew what that would do to me."

He was quiet for a long time.

"Because I had to."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only one I can give you right now."

"Do you know how many doors closed in my face after that clip? I slept in a car for eight months, Ethan. I ate noodles for dinner for two years."

"I know."

"You do not know anything."

"I know that you kept going." His voice cracked, a tiny fracture in the smooth surface. "I know that every time you fell, you stood up. I know that I watched every single race you ever ran."

She turned. He was already looking at her.

The air between them thickened. Somewhere in the distance a generator hummed. His gaze moved over her face, slow and unguarded, from her eyes to her mouth and back again. She could not breathe. She could not move.

He lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.

"Lena," he whispered. "I am sorry."

Her lips parted.

"Do not," a rough voice said.

They sprang apart.

Dom Reyes stood twenty feet away at the edge of the track, a flashlight in one hand and a toolbag over his shoulder. His face looked gaunt under the floodlights. He was not looking at Ethan. He was looking at her.

"You should not be out here," he said. "Either of you."

"Dom," Ethan began.

"Go to bed." Dom's eyes did not move from Lena's face. "Lena. Tomorrow, in the race. Be careful."

Her stomach dropped. "Careful of what?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked over his shoulder at the dark paddock as if someone might be standing there.

"Just be careful," he said hoarsely. "Please."

He turned and walked away.

Race day.

The grid was a wall of noise, a fever of heat and engines and twenty cars lined up in a perfect row. Lena sat strapped into her seat, hands tight on the wheel, her heart beating in time with the countdown.

Ethan was on pole, two cars ahead of her. She could see the back of his helmet.

"Radio check," Nina said.

"Loud and clear."

"All systems green. Tires are good. You are going to be fine."

"I know."

Her father's spanner was warm against her chest, tucked under the collar of her suit. She touched it once through the fabric.

Five red lights. One by one, they blinked on.

She took a long breath and pushed Dom's words to the back of her mind.

The lights went out.

She launched. The world became engines and noise and speed. She slid through the first corner, side by side with the cars on her left and right, and found a gap on the exit.

Then, on the dashboard in front of her face, a tiny amber light blinked.

Once.

Twice.

It was a light she had never seen before.