Page 94 of Knot So Lucky

Not a simulation.

Not a test drive.

Not some virtual qualifier where consequences are measured in pixels rather than championship points.

Anactual racewith real stakes and real competitors and real fuckingfirst place.

My hands are trembling as I navigate the cooldown lap, following the designated route that leads back to the pit area. The adrenaline is still flooding my system with intensity that makes everything feel hyperreal—colors too bright, sounds too loud, my own heartbeat thundering in my ears like a war drum.

I'm stunned.

Completely, utterly shellshocked by what just happened.

The car slows as I coast into our designated spot, the engine's roar dying to a rumble that vibrates through the chassis one final time before I kill the ignition.

Silence descends.

Not actual silence—the pit area is chaos incarnate with teams celebrating or commiserating depending on their results, media crews scrambling for position, officials coordinating the post-race protocols.

But internal silence.

The kind that comes when your brain shorts out from too much stimulus and just... stops processing.

I lift myself out of the car with movements that feel mechanical, disconnected from conscious control. My legs are shaky when they hit the ground, muscles protesting after nearly an hour of high-G-force cornering and constant tension.

Then I look up at the massive scoreboard dominating the facility.

1ST PLACE - RORY LANE - APEX RACING

And beneath the text, filling the display in high definition that's probably broadcasting to every screen in the facility and beyond:

My pit tech entry photo.

The one they took six months ago when I first joined the team officially. Where I'm wearing grease-stained coveralls and safety goggles, hair mussed from a day spent under cars, expression caught somewhere between exhausted and satisfied.

RORY LANE- Pit Tech turned... what?

Driver? Champion? Walking scandal waiting to detonate?

It seems like the announcers suddenly clock the discrepancy at the exact same moment I do.

"Wait a damn minute—" The first announcer's voice booms through the facility speakers, confusion evident in every syllable. "RoryLane? NotRoranLane?"

"Are we looking at this correctly?" The second announcer sounds equally baffled. "The entry listed Roran Lane as the driver, but the photo showing is—that's definitely the pit tech?—"

My attention jerks away from the scoreboard as movement in my peripheral vision resolves into Cale Hart running toward me at full sprint.

Still wearing his helmet. Racing suit splattered with track debris. Moving with the kind of focused intensity that usually precedes violence.

Oh fuck.

I groan, taking an instinctive step backward even though there's nowhere to run.

"If you're going to kick my ass, please don't do it in front of the entire world."

Cale reaches me in a heartbeat, pulling his helmet off with one hand while the other shoots out to grab my arm.

"You're so dead," he says, but there's no heat in it. Just breathless disbelief and something that might be pride.