Page 2 of Off the Grid

I won though, right?

I took a podium though, right, Spencer?

I finished high in the points though, right?

That’s what he says with a smile, a wink, and then a ruffle of my hair before turning out the lights. “Victory is sweet” is then repeated before he clicks the door closed so I can fall asleep and dream one day of being just like him.

“Goddammit, Riggs,” Gunther mutters again.

I take another bite of candy floss and grin from ear to ear. I’ll get to use the GD word tonight when I tell Dad what Gunther said. He never makes me pretend.

Mum gets mad at that.

Dad will hold his finger to his lips to tell me to say it quieter so she can’t hear.

Gunther says something else. Loudly. But between the whoosh of the crowd and another person’s shout, I can’t make out what it is.

There’s a scream. Then gasps.

I look up at the wall of people in front of me.

Then I look where they’re looking—the big television overhead.

Smoke and parts are flying everywhere.

Tires.

Gravel.

Blue parts.

Dad’s car parts.

It’s quiet in the booth. I rip my headphones off but it’s still silent.

“No. No. No. No.” My mum repeats the word softly. Over and over as she shakes her head back and forth, her hand to her chest.

If I’m ever in an accident, watch my hands, son. If they’re moving, that means I’m okay.

They’re not moving.

I stare at them. Waiting for them to move.

Then the fire erupts.

Then my world changes forever.

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CHAPTER ONE

Camilla

My shoes squeak on the slick floors of Moretti Motorsports headquarters. The hall from the reception to my dad’s office is like a timeline of our F1 history from the 1960s through to the present. Pictures line the walls. The livery for each year. The drivers under contract. The victories had.

I move slowly through the walking museum, taking in the pictures around me while reliving some of them in my mind too. The moments only a young girl would remember. Being on my nonno’s shoulders as he walked through the paddock. Hiding behind my father’s legs as he listened in on drivers’ meetings. Looking up at podium after podium with a Moretti driver on it and worrying if the spray of champagne touched my skin in any way, that I’d get drunk and be in trouble.

I can feel him here with me in these halls. My nonno. His broad smile and rumbling laugh. The sour sting of the lemon drops he’d let me sneak out of the container he always carried with him. The way he’d lean over and explain something in my ear so I’d understand. How my little hand disappeared inside his. His curse-filled verbal tirades when the car went into a wall or spun across a chicane. The way he’d lift a glass after a race and toast his drivers.