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No one thinks to tell me about the crash, not until an hour after it’s happened. Even then, no one goes out of their way to

tell me directly. Why would they? No one knows we’re friends, let alone... whatever we are.

I’m caught by a reporter on my way out of a press conference, a bright red microphone pushed into my face.

“Got a second, mate? Great.”

Obediently, I stop walking and plaster on a look of interest. If it were anyone else, I might have made an excuse and kept

on walking, but James Riley is a retired F1 driver, one of the greats from the eighties.

“Well done out there today, Travis,” he says, in his bright English accent. “P4, you must be pleased with that.”

“Yeah,” I say, swallowing down the uncomfortable prickle of nerves that always surfaces when I have to talk on camera. “We

had a few issues in practice yesterday, but yeah, a bit better today.”

“Talk to us about that,” James says. “You and Matty—” He moves aside as a man and woman in Crosswire Racing gear step past us. “You and Matty both had some problems out there yesterday—”

“—see the replay?” the woman asks. “Nichols’ car—”

At the sound of his name, my entire body goes cold, like someone’s doused me in ice water. Her tone is tight and horrified,

as if something awful has happened. I turn toward them, panic spiking my pulse, but James’ question drowns out most of the

man’s response. I only catch three words.

“—killed on scene.”

“—if the weather holds out,” James finishes. He’s holding his mic expectantly, waiting for my response, but all I can hear

is—all I can think is—

Killed on scene.

They can’t mean—

He can’t have been—

James is staring at me, a bemused look on his face. I know I need to answer, but I can’t hear anything beyond the rushing

in my ears. The man’s words are stuck on repeat. Killed on scene. Killed on scene. Killed on scene.

“Did something happen?” I blurt out, in a thin voice that doesn’t sound like mine. “Did something happen in F2?”

James looks around, his forehead wrinkling. “I don’t know, mate. I’ve been in a meeting all morning, just stepped out two

minutes ago.” He glances at his camerawoman, but her face is as blank as his.

“Excuse me.” My words come out harsh and strangled. I push past them, my fingers clumsy as I fumble for my phone. It takes

three tries to open the F2 live timing app, and another three to navigate to the updates. I feel sick, literally sick, as

it loads, then my brain sort of freezes when I see what’s there.

Nothing.

The last live update was forty-three minutes ago. Martinez gets past Rourke to claim the lead on lap one. #livewithf2 #formula2 #circuitpaulricard.

After that, nothing.

I refresh.

Nothing.

My feet start moving again, carrying me toward the outside. If it were a minor crash, they would’ve posted about it. If they

aren’t posting about it—if they aren’t posting anything —

It means dying. It means death.

Killed on scene, the man said.

Nichols’ car, the woman said.

There’s a roaring in my ears, drowning out all other sound. Someone tries to approach me. I push past them. Someone calls

my name. I ignore them. A door opens and I’m momentarily blinded by sunlight. Sunlight and silence. The F2 sprint race was

supposed to start after F1 qualifying—a change in the usual order of things, to try to entice more fans to stick around and

learn about Formula 2—but right now, the whole track is eerily silent. How long has it been like this? I went into a press

conference right after qualifying, but surely I should’ve noticed the silence fall?

My stomach lurches as I remember the end of the press conference. I thought it had ended sort of abruptly, but I hadn’t bothered

to wonder why. I’d just been grateful it was over. I even laughed at some smart comment my teammate, Matty, made about it.

I force myself to keep moving forward. The grid is almost empty, and that’s not right, either. I look to one of the big screens,

and it’s blank.

Dear god, it’s fucking blank.

The few people left in the pits are huddled in twos and threes, arms crossed and faces somber.

No one’s smiling. No one’s laughing. I pass a group of fans on a pit lane tour and they swing their phones around to take pictures of me, but even that reaction is strangely muted, as if they aren’t sure they’re being appropriate.

My eyes seek out a familiar face, finally latching on to a mechanic in Harper clothing. He’s talking to a blond girl whose

forehead is lined with concern.

“What happened?” I demand. The girl blinks at me, startled.

“Huge crash in F2,” the mechanic says. “They airlifted, like, six drivers out.”

An icy wave crashes over me, numbing me to my fingertips. Six drivers. There are twenty-four drivers in F2 this year. That

means there’s a one-in-four chance that one of them was—

“Five drivers,” the blond girl corrects. “One of them was cleared by the medics here.”

“Who—” The word doesn’t come out right. I swallow and try again. “Who was airlifted?”

“Parrot,” the mechanic says, at the same time the girl says, “Nichols.”

“Yeah, Parrot and Nichols, Costa, Theriot... and McDougall, I think,” the mechanic finishes.

I walk away from them. Stumble away, maybe.

There’s a horrible searing pain spreading through my chest. My lungs won’t work right. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

No, I have forgotten how to breathe.

For a minute, a full minute, I stand there totally paralyzed. Then a little voice rises in the back of my mind, the same voice

that hollers at me when I’ve done something stupid in my car, or when I’ve snapped at the team over something that isn’t their

fault.

What the fuck are you doing? the voice demands. Get to the hospital!

I start moving again, pushing back through the doors and pounding through the halls to get to my room. By some miracle there’s

no one around, not my trainer, not my teammate, not anyone. I grab my jacket and car keys and then freeze with one hand on

the door. I can’t roll into the hospital in race gear. Someone could see—someone could realize—

It takes me two minutes to strip out of my Harper gear and climb into jeans and a gray T-shirt, and it’s only as I’m sprinting

through the parking lot and jumping into my car that I realize those two minutes might mean the difference between seeing

him alive and seeing him dead. My heart starts hammering even harder, and as I wait for the security guard to let me out of

the lot, my brain is stuck on the thought that I might’ve just thrown away my last chance to see him alive, all because I’m

terrified someone might guess why I’m there.

I’m out onto the highway before I realize I have no idea where I’m going. My hands shake as I punch in the numbers for the

only radio station that might give me some news. Sky1 turns on mid-sentence, and I feel the first words as a thud in the center

of my chest.

“—with live updates from Circuit Paul Ricard. Lisa, tell us what’s going on,” says the reporter.

“Well, John, it is very quiet, very quiet here as we try to come to grips with what we’ve just witnessed. Absolutely devastating

crash in Formula 2, and as you know, five drivers were airlifted out just over an hour ago.”

Airlifted where , I want to scream. A car honks behind me, and I realize I’m driving like a maniac, straddling two lanes as I type “hospital” into my GPS while trying to catch every word Lisa says.

I pull over, because I think I might kill someone if I don’t.

The GPS is coming up with two—no, three hospitals nearby.

H?pital Aubagne, H?pital Maisonneuve-Talon, Medical Center Les Oiseaux.

.. god, the further I zoom out, the more hospitals pop up.

“For folks at home who might not know,” the male reporter says, “Formula 2 is the motor racing league just below Formula?1.

The cars are slower than Formula 1 cars, but can still reach speeds of nearly two hundred miles an hour, isn’t that right,

Lisa?”

“That’s right, John,” Lisa says. “We’ve just heard that two of the drivers at H?pital Nord have been triaged with only minor

injuries, but there’s no word yet on the other three—”

I punch in the hospital’s name before she’s even finished the sentence, and the radio is interrupted by Siri, who tells me

to stay straight for thirteen miles. I force myself to look around at traffic before I pull back onto the highway. H?pital

Nord is thirty-five minutes away. I take another breath as Lisa’s voice starts up again. I want to kiss this girl, whoever

she is. I want to drain my bank account and send it all her way. Two drivers with only minor injuries.

I force a deep breath into my lungs, then another. The male reporter is asking Lisa to tell us what she saw, and I turn the

radio up higher to hear.

“Well, all five cars were quite close coming off the straight. It looked like Parrot locked up just after turn one, then his

car was hit by Nichols and Costa, who were wheel to wheel. It looked like Costa was trying to overtake Nichols when they hit

Parrot, and then Theriot and McDougall were caught up in the wreckage—”

The wreckage . I’m gripping the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles are white.

In my mind’s eye, I try to imagine the crash.

Parrot’s car locking up, then getting hit by two cars going a hundred and fifty out of the straight.

.. he must be one of the drivers who’s in trouble.

But if Theriot and McDougall were just “caught up in the wreckage”.

.. if they were coming up behind the crash and had to swerve out of the way.

.. does that mean they were the two that walked away with minor injuries?

Fuck, I think I might be sick.

“He’s fine,” I say out loud, as though that can make it true. “He’ll be fine.”

Siri interrupts the broadcast again to tell me to make a turn, and for the next twenty minutes I can barely hear any of the