Chapter Text
The race had settled.
Not quiet—never that—but into something precise. Predictable. The kind of rhythm where every movement had intent, every call had weight, every lap built cleanly into thae next.
“Mode strat five, Charles. Tyres are good.”
“Copy.”
His voice was even.
It always was.
Lap 30.
Far enough in that nothing was accidental anymore. No opening chaos, no cold tyres to blame. Just pace. Just control.
Ahead—two cars.
Close enough that Charles wasn’t just following. He was reading.
The way Max positioned on exit. The slight adjustment Lewis made on entry. The space between them narrowing, not by much, but enough to matter.
Charles tracked it automatically—line, speed, intent.
Everything where it should be.
Until it wasn’t.
It happened in a moment so small it should have been nothing.
A shift.
A fraction too much.
Lewis moved.
Max held.
And Charles saw it—perfectly.
The exact point where it went wrong.
Lewis’ front-left touching Max’s rear-right.
A clean, terrible contact.
For half a heartbeat, the cars stayed together.
Then Max’s snapped.
Violently sideways—rear stepping out in a way that wasn’t recoverable—and instead of losing speed, the car kept it.
That was wrong.
That was the first thing that hit.
It wasn’t slowing.
It wasn’t catching.
It was going.
Charles’ breath disappeared.
Too fast. Too sharp.
His hands tightened on the wheel as the Ferrari followed through the corner, but his focus had fractured completely, locked ahead. His eyes tracked the car as if it was in slow motion.
The back of the car lifted up, pushing the car into the air, alost like a grotesque dancer, twirling around without a car in the world.
Max was still trying.
That was the worst part.
Tiny corrections—micro-adjustments that only another driver would see. Fighting the rotation. Fighting the physics.
It wasn’t enough.
The angle got worse.
The speed didn’t drop.
The trajectory fixed—straight, unyielding, toward the barrier.
And before the impact—
before the sound—
Charles knew.
This is bad.
Not a spin. Not a lock-up. Not something you drive away from.
Bad.
“Max— Max—”
He didn’t realize he was saying it into the radio.
The impact detonated through the air.
A sound that didn’t belong on a racetrack—metal, force, something breaking at speed.
Charles flinched, hands jerking on the wheel as the car ahead slammed into the barrier, the force of it snapping through him like he’d been hit too.
The world didn’t snap back.
It stretched.
Fragments of motion.
Debris.
The way the car stopped—wrong. Completely wrong.
Too still.
Too final.