If I just get eyes on her, make sure she’s okay, I’ll be fine.
Dylan tracks my jerky movements as I unzip my race suit. “Are you not finishing the race?”
“That depends,” I answer.
I spot an EMT and push past Dylan.
Beck stands above her with his arms crossed and a mirror of the worry I carry on his face.
I’m out of breath when I step in line with him. “What’s going on?”
“What the hell are you doing?” Beck looks past me and sees the race still commencing. “Bro, the race!”
Having visual confirmation of her was supposed to make me feel better, but it did the opposite. My stomach tenses, and my heart continues to bang off the inside of my ribs.
It’s the exact feeling I had as a young boy when I watched my mom being taken by an ambulance. Only, she never came back.
I shake away the uncomfortable thought and lock onto Tessa.
She’s lying there on a stretcher, her rich brown hair a halo around her head. The color is gone from her face, the adorable pink always evident on her cheeks now white. Her head flops to the other side, a line of pain in between her eyebrows.
I step forward when the EMTs head for the ambulance, but Beck puts a hand on my chest and blocks my way toward her.
I bare my teeth, and he lifts an eyebrow.
“I’m going with her,” I announce. “Move.”
A second of tense silence passes between us. An entire race is happening at our backs, but neither one of us seems to notice.
“Gia,” Beck calls out.
She appears out of thin air like a witch.
“Stay and smooth things over with the media. Inform my brothers as soon as you can. Tell them we have it under control and to finish the race.”
He looks at me, and we take off into a full-on jog past the rest of the pit walls and their teams.
Pierce Racing is four down from us, my attention snagged by the red and yellow colors that I grew up wearing.
My dad glances at me briefly in between making calls to Beau on the track.
Time slows.
I recognize the look.
His smirk lacks remorse, and he remains unrepentant, already taking advantage of there being one less driver on the track–and a good one at that.
Anything to win, right, Dad?
Beck calls for a taxi, and I leave my father and Pierce Racing behind.
Once we’re settled, I stare after the ambulance in front of us as Beck texts his parents.
I’m certain, by now, the commentators have mentioned that there was a medical emergency on the pit call, and given the fact that I’m no longer racing, they’ll know it has something to do with our team.
“What exactly happened?” I ask, my gaze trained on the ambulance.
The lights aren’t on, and there is no siren, so that’s a good sign.Right?
