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Then he hit one!His bike spun along the track. Somehow, he managed to regain control and right himself, but he was heading straight for a pylon. I turned my eyes away and gunned my engine. The edge of The Forest was justahead.

Icould feelthe force of the explosion behind me, and warning alarms chimed as debris hurtled across the track. I avoided the last pylon but a hunk of debris skipped across the tarmac ahead of me. I jerked the steering, but another piece struck my side. I lost control. My bike slammed on its side and started to spin across the ground. I saw Gregor's crash behind me in strobing flashes as my bike spun. The curl of black smoke, the fire, the mangledbike.

"Arthur!"Perry shouted. "Arthur! Deploy yourchute!"

Iactivatedmy emergency stop parachute and my bike jerked violently. I could see sparks flying up around me and a trail of thick, grey smoke. With the aid of the chute, my bike slid to a stop. Red warning lights flashed and the alarm continued to sound. The engine had died in the crash, so I cut the electronics and hit the door release. Nothing happened. The cockpit began to fill with acrid smoke. I released my paws from the control modules and hammered the door with my leg.Shit!It was jammed! I shifted back to human form and scrambled to look for the manual release lever. The smoke was so thick! I couldn'tbreathe!

Suddenly,there was a hiss, and the door flew open. Rain cut through the smoke, spattering my face with cold relief. Hands grabbed me and yanked me out, and I stumbled onto the wet pavement, my eyes burning and watering from the smoke. I looked back and could just barely make out the smoking heap that was my bike. Orange flames emerged from the side, and it was soon engulfed in fire. I turned back, the rescue crew helping me off the track. Sirens wailed in the distance. I saw a blurry figure running towards me. I wiped my eyes, and somehow the mixture of tears and rain water cleared my vision. It wasPerry.

He threwhis arms around me, hugging me so tight I could barely breathe. It was a good feeling. I wasalive.

"Icrashed,"I said,weakly.

"Youwon,"he said. A firetruck pulled up and started to douse my bike with water, and it was at that moment that I saw what had happened. A blackened trail across the asphalt traced the path my bike had skidded after I'd crashed—across the finish line. I'd slid across the finishline.

Idid it.Iwon.

The rain continuedto pour down, soaking us. As my senses slowly returned, and I realized that the crowd was on their feet, cheering, Perry took my face into his hands and kissed me. The cheers turned into a roar. It felt like I was still traveling at top speed, like everything was a blur around me. I kissed Perry. I felt his body against mine, his hands on my cheeks, the taste of his lips. He wasfree.

"We gotta getyou off the track!" a rescue crewman said, running up to us and ushering us off the tarmac, where my bike wassmoldering.

"Right,"I said, still in a stunnedhaze.

"Houndfang is fine,"he said. "Thought you might want to know. He's being transported to a healing clinicnow."

Imay have hatedhis guts, but I was glad he'd survived that horrific crash. In the end, he'd caused his own defeat by trying to sabotage me. He must've come to the same conclusion that I had: the winner was going to be decided by a matter of milliseconds. That possibility of defeat must've been too much for him tohandle.

We madeit under the cover of the garage pits. Someone wrapped towels around us. Hands slapped my back in congratulations. All I wanted to do was get out of there, to just be with mymate.

"Arthur! Perry!"

Our family was runningtowards us. Jupiter hopped down from Dimitrius's arms and reached us first. We scooped her up into our arms, and she hugged me around myneck.

"You won, Papa?"sheasked.

"Iwon, Jupiter,"I said. "Iwon."