Bree’s lungs forgot how to work.
The lights went out.
The bikes launched.
Sound became a living thing, slamming against her chest, echoing through the metal under her feet. Hank held the lead into turn one; his start clean, his line perfect. The pack behind him jostled and shifted, two bikes nearly touching into the second corner before sorting themselves out.
The first lap blurred by in color and noise and flickers of the timing tower.
H. JAMES – P1.
MENDES – P2.
KROLIK – P3.
Bree’s fingers bit into the aluminum bench.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Do what you do.”
She had thought watching the tech inspection from the safety of her room that morning had been nerve-wracking. This was something else. Every time Hank disappeared behind the dunes, her heart stopped; every time he appeared again on the front straight, alive and flowing and in control, her heart restarted with a lurch.
On the third lap, Mendes closed in.
He took a fraction more curb through the fast sweeper; his bike twitching, correcting, the gap shrinking on the screen’s little timing graphic. By the end of the back straight, he had tucked into Hank’s slipstream, so close Bree could barely see the space between their bikes.
“Don’t you dare,” she muttered.
Hank did not flinch. At the next braking zone, he held his line with almost stubborn discipline; did not lock up; did not run wide. Mendes tried the inside; he had to back out or risk contact.
People around her jumped to their feet and shouted. A boy a few seats down waved a handmade sign with twenty-four scrawled across it, the ink slightly smudged.
It went on like that, lap after lap. Mendes attacked; Hank responded. Sometimes the gap grew; sometimes it shrank. The commentators filled the spaces with analysis, tire degradation, fuel loads, and the mental game.
Under it all, Bree felt that same low hum of dread she had carried for so long. The knowledge that things could go wrong in an instant, that someone else’s recklessness could still undo skill and caution and preparation, or by a bit of bad luck.
Only this time, someone had already removed the worst odds from the table. She had seen to that. The Red Dragons’ stolen advantage was sitting in an evidence locker somewhere, not hidden in a frame.
It helped. Not enough to make her calm, enough to keep her from folding in on herself.
Halfway through the race, a gust of wind kicked sand across the far section of the circuit. Several bikes wobbled; one ran wide, through the runoff, then rejoined safely.
Julie stayed planted.
Hank changed his line by inches, not feet; the adjustment so precise it looked almost casual. His body moved with the bike, loose but connected; a rider in harmony, not fighting for survival.
Bree let out a breath she'd been holding.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, you’ve got this.”
With four laps to go, Mendes finally made a pass stick. He dived late into the left before the front straight, back tire chattering, the bike on the edge of grip. Hank ceded the corner instead of forcing it, tucked in behind, and waited.
It hurt to watch his number drop to P2 on the board.
It would hurt more if he let pride put him on the ground.
“Smart,” she murmured. “Be smart.”
He waited two laps.
