Page 6

Chapter 6

Crash And Burn

ARES

I t’s race day and my head isn’t in the fucking game.

“Ares?” Adam, our chief mechanic, waves a hand in front of my face to get my attention.

“Huh? Sorry, can you repeat your question?” Or at least I assume he asked me a question.

I’ve been staring without really seeing anything for several minutes. All I can think about is a pair of big, intense green eyes staring into my soul last night.

My lips burn at the memory of what I almost did when I walked Zara back to her room.

I wanted to kiss her with every fucking cell in my body, but I know I did the right thing.

The fact that she’s too young is just the tip of the iceberg of the mountain of reasons why kissing her would have been a terrible idea.

She kissed my brother last night. They were all over each other. Then she kissed Lev. While she knew her loser ex-boyfriend was watching.

Zara doesn’t know what she wants. She’s clearly spiraling. She’s taking crazy risks and messing around just to get attention. I want no part in that. I wanted to kiss her, yes. But not unless I could be sure that she was attracted to me.

Her voice reaches me as she’s laughing with Chance and Lev by the refreshment table on the opposite side of our paddock.

I watch her saying something to them, pointing to the public restroom just outside the racers’ area.

I almost walk there to tell her that she can use the bathroom in our RV, but I focus on answering Adam’s question instead.

“We don’t really know if it’s going to rain. Keep the wet bike ready for a swap if it does. I’m not going to bother if it’s just a drizzle. What did Atlas say?”

Adam chuckles. “The same thing you just did. Levin wants to do what you guys decide.”

I nod. “Fine. Then keep our wet options ready for a quick swap if we need it, but we’ll go with our main bikes for now.”

I don’t let myself look for her until we complete all our pre-race checks. When my eyes finally check the spot where she was standing earlier, there’s no sign of her.

She might have gone to sit with Chance and Dad in the VIP area. Heather is gone too; my brother’s girlfriend never misses a chance to butter up our old man. If it was up to her, they’d be married even before she turns eighteen. I’m glad her parents would never allow it.

I have nothing against Heather. Anyone can see how much she adores Atlas. We’ve known her our whole lives. She’s literally the girl next door. Sometimes I just wish my twin hadn’t gotten so serious so quick with her. He says he knows she’s the one, and if he’s happy, I’m happy for him. But how can you marry someone, how can you choose forever, without knowing anyone else?

I’ve dated a few girls, nothing serious so far. But I think learning what you don’t want is just as important as knowing what you think you want.

“Ready to take Bridgeport?” Atlas clasps my shoulder, passing me my helmet.

I smile at my twin brother. “As ready as I’ll ever be. Heather gone to sit with Dad and Chance?”

He nods. “Yeah. She was gonna go powder her nose or something first.”

“Girls,” I chuckle. “I’ll never understand why they go to the bathroom together.”

My brother shrugs. “I think it’s a safety in numbers thing. Chance asked her to go after Zara, anyway. Fox has been blowing up her phone all morning with text messages. He should be getting ready for the race,” he says as we hear the five-minute call. “But it’s better safe than sorry. That guy’s a fucking loose cannon.”

As if summoned by Atlas’s words, we see Fox riding past our garage on his way to the starting line. His face is covered by his all black helmet, but he flips us off on his way out of the racers’ paddock area.

“What a fucking douche.” My brother snorts, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah. I never liked him. He’s always rude on and off the track. But I had no idea he was a violent piece of shit.”

Atlas’s eyes search mine; it’s like looking into a mirror and I know immediately what he wants to say.

“Don’t worry, I know the fucker has it out for me after I kicked his ass yesterday. I can take him.”

He nods. “I have no doubt you can, brother. Just be careful though, ok? We have just a couple of races to finish and win the League and then we’re off to Europe. Heather can’t wait to visit on every school break. We don’t want an injury to derail our dreams.”

I reassure him. “I’ve got it. If that motherfucker wants to hurt me, he’s gonna have to catch me first. We both know that I’m way faster than him.”

Atlas dons his helmet. “You’re right. Just watch out, is all I’m saying. I have a bad feeling about this race.”

His words sound ominous, but I shake that feeling off.

It’s my biggest regret. I should have told him to sit this race out.

I should have told him to go get Chance and have him finish this one for our team; after all, he qualified and got the pole position yesterday.

Instead, I make my way to the starting line and take my spot behind my brother.

Bridgeport is a relatively short race; twenty laps for a total of sixty miles. The track has a shape that resembles an hourglass or two joined funnels, but it’s warped like in a surrealist painting. The most challenging part is where the track narrows in the middle; the two sections of track that form the neck of the hourglass are separated by a small patch of grass. Barriers should have been erected for safety reasons, and if this was a MotoGP event, there would have been some extra safety measures in place.

The Super League is relatively new and while the organizers claim that safety is at the forefront of their plans with every event, I’ve seen several things that need work.

The safety barriers in this particular racetrack are one of those things.

I focus on the race that’s about to start. Another racer tied with Chance yesterday and earned the pole position, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

If he doesn’t show, that gives me an advantage because I have just Atlas to pass to get to the front.

Of course, mine is just wishful thinking. The new guy shows up on an all black Aprilia.

He doesn’t have the best bike on the track. That model is fairly old, and unless they modified it to an inch of its life, it’s no match for our cutting-edge motorcycles.

However, the guy is skilled. I have never seen anyone ride like that. Daring and yet surgical with every curve, every turn.

I’ll have to watch out for him, if I want to place on the podium today. Lev might be on my team, but he’s another contender. In theory, he should let me pass him, because I have more overall points in the league. It’s team work at its finest. But there’s no use in him letting me pass, if I have no chance to get one of the top three spots.

I’m glad when the race starts. Since last night, I’ve been in my own head way too much. Concentrating on the race is a welcome respite.

Everything goes reasonably smoothly during the first half of the race. I’m riding close to the two pole position starters. Atlas and the new guy are riding neck and neck.

I have to give it to the guy. He has speed and stamina. However we place today, I want to shake his hand. His name is JJ Smith, he wears the number seventeen, and I think he’s running solo. He has no team next to his name, no place in the racers’ paddock. He must be fairly local if he managed to race without a garage to support him. Just bringing his bike would have been difficult without a team if he’s coming from out of the county or from out of state.

By the three quarter point of the race, our positions seem locked.

Atlas and Smith are battling it out for the first place. I’m behind them, ready to pounce if they make the tiniest mistake.

Lev and Fox are fighting for the fourth place behind me. I’m sure they’re both waiting for their opportunity to overtake me if I fuck up, and I have no intention of giving them that satisfaction.

The air on the racetrack has gotten heavier; the humidity has increased since the race started and I feel a bead of sweat trickle down my spine inside my race suit.

The smell of a race is very distinctive, rubber, exhausts, adrenaline. A new scent, however, invades my nostrils; that typical earthy, wet smell that precedes the rain.

Fuck. I hope the weather holds just a little longer. Changing bikes now could be a fatal mistake and give the racers behind me a golden opportunity to take my spot and fuck me over.

Racing on a wet track with the wrong bike and the wrong tires can be just as risky, though.

Accidents can happen in the blink of an eye at these speeds, and the racetrack becomes like a slip ‘n’ slide in record time.

I shouldn’t have hoped for the weather to hold. Murphy’s Law is a real thing, I swear.

The second I think we’ll be able to finish before it starts raining, the first few heavy drops start falling in front of me and pepper the top of my helmet.

These last few laps are always super fast, and the rain doesn’t change that.

No one seems to want to take the risk to change bikes at this point, so I need to be extra careful.

The rain can be a wild card and cause accidents. The racers behind me will be ready to exploit any opportunity to pass me.

Atlas is having the fight of his life at the front. The new guy, Smith, doesn’t seem intentioned to give him an inch. He’s a pro at facing every corner and curve at full speed, leaning into them with remarkable agility.

A BMW without a race assigned number comes out of nowhere, cutting in front of me right before I’m about to enter the narrowest part of the track.

It’s a miracle we don’t collide, but my front wheel slips on the wet asphalt and I have a split second to decide whether to risk hitting another driver or run into the gravel trap that borders this section of track.

The Super Bikes League has made a name for itself for being one of the most dangerous competitions in the world; one of the main reasons is the lack of air fences in some of the racetracks we compete on.

Thankfully, the gravel trap has had the desired effect of decreasing my speed; so when I lose my grip on the handlebars and fly off my bike, my race suit and my helmet are enough to protect my vital organs.

I hit the asphalt hard, however, and the wind is knocked out of me. It takes me a second to get back up—just onto my knees. My legs are shaking too much to support my weight right now—but I wish I had stayed down.

Everything happens so fast that as I watch the events unfold, my brain struggles to decode what I’m seeing.

The unmarked bike travels at breakneck speed and hits another bike. It’s the number seventeen. Smith doesn’t see the other rider coming until it’s too late and he flies off his bike in a similar way to how I just did.

The difference is that I avoid a collision by the skin of my teeth, while the direct contact at such high speed throws him off like a rag doll.

Smith must have a guardian angel because rather than hitting the ground, or being run over by another racer, he ends up hitting a giant inflatable can of energy drink that belongs to one of the sponsors. The air in the prop acts de facto as an air fence, absorbing the shock of the hard impact.

His bike, however, is still skidding on the asphalt, posing a threat to all the other riders.

My eyes follow the guy who hit Smith, who’s speeding diagonally through the track in an attempt to get away, and cuts in front of Atlas.

My brother swerves to avoid him, to no avail, and struggles to control his motorcycle on the slippery track.

He would have probably been ok and able to come out of the narrow funnel, but Fox chooses that moment to try to overtake him.

His BMW advances in the exact moment when the other Beamer cuts in front of Atlas and there’s nowhere for my twin brother to go, but off of the track.

I watch in horror as his bike skids out of control and Atlas is thrown off at high speed.

He crashes against a concrete wall that separates the paddock area from the rest of the circuit where the public is allowed.

His bike falls flat on the ground, still spinning out of control, like a toy discarded by a capricious toddler.

“Fuck!” I yell.

The other racers are all slowing down as the race stewards signal to the director that he needs to stop the race.

Smith is nowhere to be seen. His old Aprilia is abandoned in the middle of the racetrack.

The Beamer rider who caused all this chaos has vanished into thin air.

A rescue crew rushes toward the still form of my brother.

Someone is screaming when it becomes clear by the paramedics’ body language that they can’t do anything to help Atlas.

I don’t even realize that the blood-curdling screams are coming from me until Lev and Chance run to my side.

My little brother wraps me in a crushing hug. “Ares,” he sobs. “He’s gone. Atlas is gone.”

From that moment, I feel numb. I vaguely know that people are talking to me.

I can’t see or hear anything, not really.

Half of me has just been ripped out and the only thing I notice is Fox’s Beamer riding over the finish line of a race that was canceled in the exact moment my world ended.