Page 115 of Hyperspeed
It was shorter than some of the other tracks, so we were doing seventy laps rather than the average fifty.
Each one was a constant fight. We had to adapt to every change in light, dodge other racers in claustrophobic tunnels, and pray the next blind corner didn’t end with a rockslide.
Up until lap sixty-one, the race had been mostly straightforward, marked by just two major incidents.
The first happened on lap three, when a rookie lost control speeding over a patch of ice and took out another racer. The second occurred on lap forty-two, when Dray swerved to avoid a falling rock but ended up crashing into the ravine beside the road.
According to Zylo, two incidents was a low number for this track. During qualifying, he’d told me the highest he’d ever seen was eleven, and only four drivers had crossed the finish line that day.
So yeah, while it’d been tough, and my rear wheels had lost traction more than once, I was feeling pretty positive.
Kai checked in a few laps ago, but we’d both agreed beforehand that we wouldn’t speak too much. We didn’t want to distract each other on such unstable terrain.
The race seemed to stretch on forever, and my body felt like lead. The shifting light gave me a headache, and even under multiple thermal layers, I was freezing.
I was in sixth, while a driver from Pulse was up ahead in fifth, a five-second gap between us. Cassiopeia from Nebula Shifters was behind me, a little too close for comfort.
I shot into the mouth of the cave just as the light vanished. Total darkness swallowed the tunnel, and I cursed under my breath. Even with Iskari eyes, I was almost blind, with no way to tell if it would last five seconds or five minutes.
The only thing I could rely on now was instinct, and the low, creeping growl of Cass’s engine behind me.
She’d been tailing me too close for too long; I could feel her hovering at my rear like a shadow with teeth. My fingers twitched over the comms button. I was tempted to snap at her to back off, but the drivers’ radio was public and I didn’t want my request to be misinterpreted by anyone listening in.
Dray might not care who heard, but he wasn’t trying to improve the reputation of an entire species.
So I said nothing. Just clenched my jaw and kept going, waiting for a sliver of light at the tunnel’s end.
Cass veered right. I caught a flicker of motion and realised too late that she was trying to overtake. In a tunnel this tight, with zero visibility, it was suicidal.
Kai called me reckless, but this? This was plain stupid.
Screw it. I hit the comms button.
“Cass, what the fuck—”
A sharp crack snapped on my left, and my dash lit up red.
Damage to the left wing. Shit. I’d drifted too close to the wall, too busy clocking Cass’s dumb move to react in time.
Heart pounding, I yanked the wheel to the right, hunting for space. No jolt. No impact. Maybe I’d cleared her.
Then came the screech.
Tyres shrieked through the dark, ricocheting off stone like a scream.
My stomach flipped.
The light surged back, blinding and brutal, just in time for me to catch Cass slamming into the wall.
The impact crumpled the metal, folding her front end like foil. Tyres shredded and spun, bouncing loose. Her engine gave one tortured growl before it blew. Fire swallowed the wreckage, the blast lighting up the cave like a supernova.
My breathing turned shallow, and my heart hammered against my ribs. I wanted to scream. To puke. To stop.
To run into the fire and drag her crumpled body out myself.
The cave wall split where she’d hit it. A jagged crack tore upward, racing the length of the ceiling as I neared the exit, and I just made it through.
Then the roof gave way.
