Page 58 of Knot So Lucky

"Only... Cale... and Roran... touch..."

I'm trying to sayonly Cale and Roran know, trying to convey that he can't tell anyone, can't expose me, can't?—

But everything suddenly spins.

The world tilts sideways in a way that has nothing to do with being upside down in a crashed car and everything to do with my brain deciding it's had enough of consciousness for the day.

My eyes roll back in my head.

My body goes limp in the safety harness, all the tension flooding out as my muscles stop responding to commands.

The last thing I'm aware of is those soft green eyes widening in alarm, and the scent—that impossible, perfect, right scent—filling my lungs one more time before darkness consumes everything.

CHAPTER 10

Calculated Chaos

~ELIAS~

"Are you okay?"

The question leaves my mouth before my brain fully processes what I'm seeing.

Storm-green eyes stare back at me through a spider-webbed windshield, wild with shock and something that looks dangerously close to panic. The driver is suspended upside down by the safety harness, smoke curling around them in lazy spirals that suggest heat but not immediate fire danger.

My heart is still hammering from the near-death experience—watching several thousand pounds of racing prototype launch into the air above my head while I crouched like an idiot trying to save a kitten that had no business being on a test track.

The kitten in question is currently tucked against my chest, small heart beating rapidly against my palm. I can feel it purring despite the chaos, the vibrations oddly soothing against my ribs.

I'm trying to remain calm. Trying to process what just happened with the analytical detachment that usually serves me well in crisis situations.

The pack's foster kitten—a tiny black ball of chaos we'd rescued from a dumpster two weeks ago—had somehow snuck into my equipment bag. Must have curled up among the spare cables and diagnostic tools while I was prepping for today's observation visit to the Apex Racing facility.

I hadn't noticed until one of the techs pointed toward the track with alarm, yelling something about an animal. By the time I looked up, the kitten was sitting in the middle of the racing line, and there was a car screaming toward it at speeds that would have turned the small creature into a red smear.

I didn't think.

Just ran.

Ran onto an active test track with zero regard for my own safety, because some fundamental part of my brain decided that saving this kitten was more important than self-preservation.

I'd crouched down—stupid, so fucking stupid—and scooped up the tiny body just as I looked up to see the racing prototype bearing down on me.

For one crystalline moment, I was certain I was about to die.

Then the car was flying.

Actuallyflying,the chassis twisting sideways through the air in a maneuver that should have been impossible, the undercarriage passing over my head with inches to spare while I stared up in absolute shock.

My eyes locked with the driver's for what felt like an eternity but was probably less than a second.

Storm-green eyes wide with determination and fear and absolute focus.

Then the car was past me, tumbling end over end in a symphony of screeching metal and shattering carbon fiber. The sound was deafening—the crashes, the skids, the violent protest of materials being subjected to forces they were never designed to withstand.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion and real-time simultaneously.

The final impact. The car skidding to a stop, inverted and smoking. A moment of terrible silence that felt like the entire world holding its breath.