Page 46 of Double Apex

In another lap I’m more certain this is the right strategy. I suspect other teams will regret having panicked. I’m feeling my tyre degradation, but the rain is clearing.

“Were we correct?” I ask Phaedra, knowing she’ll understand my meaning.

She chuckles warmly. “That’s plan D for ‘damned straight,’ Legs.”

On lap 31, I box for hard tyres. The rain has stopped and a dry line is forming well. For several laps, the grip is still so precarious that my stomach is in my throat, but my unease dissipates as conditions improve and Phaedra tells me Olsson and Powell are making another pit stop. Suddenly I’m in first place—the car and my spirit both flying, a win in sighton my sixth race with Emerald.

For the next twenty-three laps, I lead the race.

I’m a force of nature.

Though my focus is 100 percent on the dozens of details rushing at me simultaneously, in the background of it all, a foundational pulse thrums through me: the presence of Phaedra.

We’re an unstoppable combination.

A good drive already has the intense flow-state exhilaration of falling in love. The only thing that could top it is falling in loveduringa race.

Shooting out of the tunnel on lap 54, I’m headed for Nouvelle Chicane—about to lap João Valle—when disaster strikes.

He makes a pointless, jerky move as I’m alongside him, sending us careening in two directions like colliding billiard balls. A shuddering slam brings me to a halt, mind spinning, the hiss of adrenaline in my ears, loose tyre bouncing across the track in my peripheral vision.

“What thefuck?!” I shout, staring at the scarred barrier in disbelief as what’s happened catches up to me. My heart is tripping in my chest. I smack the steering wheel with one hand, swamped with grief over the perfect win my race engineer and I were reeling in together.

“You’re okay, Cos?”

“I’mnotfucking okay!” I snarl. “That halfwit daddy’s boy sent me into the wall! What was he trying for with that shit? Harrier told him to get out of my way, yes?”

“Race stewards are looking into it,” Phaedra says, her voice smooth and certain.

My teeth grit in frustration. Behind me on track, cars edge past the sprawl of post-wreck detritus. I force myself to breathe slowly.

“Just glad you’re all right,” Phaedra adds, conspicuously neutral, though I can hear the tension in her tone.

I shake my head, eyes squeezed shut, mourning the loss of my victory.

So damned close…

“We had it,” I groan. “We fuckinghadthis one.”

“Next time, Cos,” she tells me. “We’ll get it next time.”

My eyes open as it connects with me, what she’s said:

We’ll get it next time.

We.

After the final-lap debacle in Bahrain just two months ago, she said,You’llget it next time…

I can’t help a little smile inside my helmet as I climb out of the car.

14

MONTRÉAL

EARLY JUNE

PHAEDRA

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