I woke up when the sun was already high in the sky, but I wasn’t feeling very well rested. I still had an hour or so before I had to be in the training warehouse for another health evaluation, so I decided to take a short walk. It was warm out, but I had to throw on a race suit later, so I threw on my lucky black compression shirt under a baggy white tee. I didn’t feel like I could keep any food down with how my stomach felt right now. It was either the poor sleep or the knot in my chest. I found myself exploring the campus, taking a stroll down the paved pathways weaving between the buildings, which was vibrant with all of the foliage in spring green. Drivers in race suits or exercise wear walked all across campus. They laughed, jostled each other around, some slinging their custom painted helmets around their arms. Others walking around held notebooks or tablets, and some staff or crew members wheeled carts of supplies or equipment along the pathways. A few excited academy drivers walked quickly behind their instructors, eagerly chatting with their supervisors and trainers. The air buzzed with energy, the campus feeling alive. I found myself approaching the grand, towering stadium entrance of the circuit track on the property.

I pushed past an employee’s only door and came out to a large paved lot with rows of small empty pavilions. I imagined that on the Touring Premium Series’ last race, here at this track, the pavilions were full of vendors and track workers. I walked past an empty pavilion, void of any activity during the off season, and grew close to the pitlane and the paddocks. I wandered past the empty garages and went through a chain-link gate until I reached the tarmac of the pitlane. The place was unusually quiet. Too quiet for a facility meant to be buzzing with speed and activity. I kicked a loose bit of gravel along the pavement as I walked the length of the pitlane on foot, taking in the subtle rubber scaring left on parts of the concrete. It was strange being here without the distant echo of roaring engines. It wasn’t the same without a car surrounding me, but there was something about standing here, in the dead center of it all, in the place that still smelled faintly like burnt fuel and burnt rubber. It settled my nerves. It reminded me of everything I had done to get here. Brought some sense back to the chaos I had grown used to.

Once I was done with my little adventure, It was time for my health eval. I went into the training building unattended, and there was a fitness coach who would figure out where I placed in terms of physical ability. I felt a bit unsettled by her perfectly cool and even attitude. The way she spoke made it feel like I was doing a proctored exam in college. After I finished 15 pushups, 20 sit ups, a minute long plank, and a mile run on a treadmill, I already felt ready to turn in for the day. Once we had cooled off with some simple yoga stretches, the coach retrieved the radio from her belt and tuned to a channel and asked for Lance. Soon the aforementioned well dressed man walked in. Today he had on another button up shirt, a white one, with khaki slacks and brown leather shoes that clacked annoyingly on the tile floor. He avoided my gaze, and didn’t even show much emotion towards anyone, treating me like I was invisible.

Lance’s voice was oddly cool and collected, as opposed to the last time I heard it. He leaned over to look at the notes the coach had written, who nodded when she was done and disappeared behind a door. “Come on, rookie. Go get a race suit on. Let’s get some real track times. There’s an old race spec Halcyon out there we get to use.” Normally I was excited when the supervisors let us out on the track when the veteran racers weren’t using it and there were spare cars for us to use, but now I just felt tired. The mechanic returned with a size medium white race suit. It smelled freshly washed.

I got dressed in the lobby bathrooms and met Lance at the front desk. Instead of taking the hour-long walk I had taken for my morning exercise, Lance walked me over to the multi-story personal vehicle garage.

“It’s a short drive, but it’s better than walking.”

“I walked there this morning. It’s not bad.” That was the only exchange we had before we trekked down the aisles of cars and came upon a royal blue 1960 Miroche Temper with two white racing stripes. It wasn’t a car that screamed ‘racing’ to me, but it was a fine ride. Lance opened the passenger door to a rich dark brown leather interior. He keyed the ignition and the old car purred smoothly, sounding like the loud, deep hum of a well balanced engine.

We arrived back at the circuit track I had walked on this morning, making our way through a tunnel under the stadium up to a road running parallel to the pitlane behind the lot I had walked through.

“Car is at the track already. Today we’re going to learn how to drive this car. Just get used to it.” I only nodded silently in response. We got out once we reached the paddocks, parking his Temper in one of the empty ones, and we found a decked out 2020 Halcyon with white paint and Miroche’s brand logo slapped across the side.

“Here’s a helmet. Make sure the radio is on. Go ahead and get in. Make sure you strap in properly.” Lance handed me a plain white helmet and I tucked it under my arm. It had been almost a year since I got to sit in a real race car. I opened the door and slid inside, buckling the five point harness snuggly around me. I flicked the ignition switch, and the wonderful flat 6 engine came to life beneath my grip.

Lance stood outside near the box, gesturing to me to pull out of the paddock.

“You’ve done this before, right?” His tone was teasing.

I rolled my eyes. “Duh.”

“Go to the first position starting box. Do one hot lap for a baseline.” I drove to the starting line as instructed and Lance’s voice now came on over the radio inside the helmet. “I’ll be timing you myself. On my marks, alright? Ready?”

“Ready.” Lance counted down, and at ‘go’ I did a decent enough launch, dropping the clutch and punching in the gas. The tires chirped, barely gripping, and then they hooked. The car surged forward like it had been holding its breath. My body snapped back from under the harness, its grip putting pressure on my chest. The Halcyon’s engine roared behind me, its song rising in pitch. I didn’t brake too hard into turns, I didn’t know this track at all, and kept my focus on scanning the track and learning its turns. I could feel every miniscule bump buzz through the steering wheel, through my arms, and through my spine. God, does that feel good.

I cruised back down the pit lane to my box to find Lance, and he looked up from a stopwatch.

“A minute 57. Pretty good.” The compliment didn’t feel genuine with his flat voice. I just drove back to the box where Lance watched me pull in. I got out of the car and took my helmet and balaclava off, running my hand through my tangled hair.

“You don’t seem thrilled with your results.”

I shrugged and put the helmet under my arm. “Oh I’m just absolutely amazed.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head. I was tired of this weird little game he was playing with me.

“Are you really?” He raised his brows.

“Cause I’m not. I lied.”

“Lying’s bad, kid.”

“Don’t call me that. I hate it.” I found myself getting irritated again. My chest wrenched itself back into a knot. What was it about him that made me so damn irritated?

“Don’t raise your voice at me.” Once I realized I was unknowingly picking up volume, I snapped my mouth shut, not wanting to say something stupid again. I muttered out a “sorry” and clenched my teeth.

Lance gave me a crisp chilled bottle of water and a five minute break. Once it was done, Lance got me back in the car, and I drove out to the starting line. I was brought to the starting line of the circuit track and Lance gave me instructions through the radio in my helmet. He told me to take the primary route for 3 laps, all of them as quickly as I could without crashing.

“They taught you about racing lines, right?”

I dug my nails into the fabric of my suit gloves against the steering wheel. “Of course, I’m not stupid.”

“Didn’t say you where. You’re the one who said that.” I shot him a glare in my side mirror from my place by the starting line and closed my eyes after I put the car in park to force myself to relax. Just let go. Ignore him.

“Ready?” Lance’s voice crackled as it came over the comms.

“Sure.”

“Alright then. 3. 2. 1. Go.” I dumped the clutch and tried to take the route as best as I could, not caring much for time just yet since I was still unfamiliar.

I skidded around the first sharp turn and braked a bit so I wouldn’t spin out, preferring not to hit the barriers on a test run. I picked up a lot of speed on a wide curve and braked hard for the hairpin I could see coming up. I tried to ease into the hairpin early on, but I felt a twitch in my brakes and my back end broke loose. I tried to correct the slide, but I was sent too far over and scrambled to correct that too, my hands flying across the rim of the steering wheel. I could hear the engine churn as it banged off the limiter and I quickly began spinning circles as I lost control of all of the wheels and spun out in the middle of the track. At least I didn’t hit anything. Really? On the first run too? Idiot. I sighed, shifting back into first gear, and drove slowly out of the hairpin down the straight before accelerating down the last few turns and sweeping through a chicane easily. I felt the car lose a bit of traction on one more turn, but nothing was as bad as the hairpin.

I slowed down to line up again but Lance called out on the radio.

“No, keep going! Just do the next two laps. I’m still timing you.” I floored it and took the track one more time, skidding here and there, but making sure to take the hairpin at a crawl to avoid another embarrassing incident. The last lap I avoided skidding all together, taking my time with the turns and taking what I thought to be a perfect racing line, fearful that if I didn’t, I might do worse than my first lap. Lance had his arms crossed and he squinted at me confused.

“What was that first lap?”

I was breathing a bit hard as I parked in the pit box. “Shut up. The old place didn’t let me on the track for like a month. I’ve forgotten how to drive already.” I ripped off my helmet, peeled off my balaclava, and shook out my hair.

“What? Not even for basic training? Practice? I dunno, like a follow up to the academy training?” Lance raised his eyebrows with a look of disdain.

“Pff, what practice? I just told you, they didn’t let me on the—”

“What fuckin’ idiots. God, Miroche has been slacking…” Lance crossed an arm over his chest and rested his other elbow on it to rub the bridge of his nose. “Great. Just… Fantastic. Race car who hasn’t been on the track.”

“I said it was just for a month! I’m just rusty. I’ve been on the track. I’ve been on the track loads in the academy.” He shook his head, seemingly displeased at the other facility’s practices. At least we shared our hatred for the people back in my old place.

I grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off the back of my neck.

“So,” I grabbed another water and chugged the whole bottle, “what’s next?” Lance was silent for a bit and he turned to look out towards the rest of the tangled circuit track.

“Follow me. Stay behind me. Don’t pass me, don’t crash into me.” I only nodded. Am I going to have to sit behind this guy at traffic speeds? Lance went to fetch his car, parked nearby in another empty paddock, and he drove out to the starting line. He picked up to 60 and took one of the tight windy interior turns that I hadn’t been on yet, slowing to 40 and taking the outside of a turn. He let his right tires run over the curbing and accelerated out of the turn. He slowly picked up to 70, then 80 as we took a wide left turn before he took a turn that suddenly veered left. I watched as the chassis of his old car rolled away from the turn, but he rode the curbing and flew out of the turn perfectly. My rear tires screeched, the car not breaking loose thankfully, but I slowed down and eased up on the brake, just enough that I could correct easily and pick up speed to catch back up.

When we got back to the starting line, we slowed down and coasted. Lance glanced across his car at me before coming on over the radio.

“You know when to use your brakes? Or forget where the pedal was?”

“Do you always have to taunt me?” I gritted my teeth and my grip tightened on the steering wheel. Lance leaned his

“Take a joke, kid. Look, I can’t help you if you don’t help me.” I held my tongue for a moment before replying.

“I don’t know.” I pressed my lips together.

“Hell you mean you ‘don’t know’?”

“I mean I learned about trail braking, but I always brake too hard or not enough or something. Aren’t you the one supposed to teach me braking techniques anyway?” Lance visibly sighed and nodded before he gassed it at 75 through a medium s-curve, managing to take it quite straight. I followed suit, letting my tires go over the red and white striped curb as he did.

“You’re oversteering out of the turn 5 hairpin.” His voice came on suddenly, startling me enough to flinch, as we passed the starting line again.

I sneered. “Yeah, well, the back end of this car is really twitchy compared to what I’m used to.”

“Then smooth out your throttle pressure. Feather it, don’t manhandle it.”

“I am being smooth!”

Next pass was faster, and when we came back around, Lance had some more sage advice. “You’re missing the apex on every other turn.”

“It’s hard to see with the glare on this visor.”

“Then get used to it. The sun isn’t going anywhere.”

I rolled my eyes. “Geez, thanks for the sympathy…”

“You’re shifting too early on the straights.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “How can you even tell?!”

“I can hear the engine. You aren't pushing the car close enough to its peak powerband. That’s just below the redline for this one.”

I threw one of my hands up in frustration. “I’m just trying to save the gearbox, alright?”

“Save it for after you’re fast. This is a training center, we have a bunch of parts for these practice cars.”

“Okay okay! I get it, geez.”

After going around nearly every inch of the tarmac, we pulled back into the pit boxes we were using. I got out of the car and ripped my head gear off, tossing it on a table in the paddock and reaching for my water. Lance slid out of his car, taking his glasses off to clean them with a cloth from his pocket before putting them back on.

I held my hands out beside me as I questioned him, “So was this just you berating me the whole time?”

Lance paused and eyed me, eyes narrow but brows raised questioningly. “You didn’t receive much criticism in the past, did you?” He leaned against the paddock wall, one leg crossed over the other with his hands in his pockets.

I crossed my arms and leaned forward a bit. “What?”

“I’m not ‘berating’ you, I’m doing my job as your crew chief. You’re just takin’ it that way.” I was taken aback. I straightened up and walked over to the table my helmet sat on, half-sitting on it with my arms out behind me for support.

Lance sighed. “You know most of the drivers I’ve hung around are thrilled whenever someone gives them advice. They know it’ll only make them better.” I clenched my teeth together and swallowed.

“Yeah,” I took a breath and spoke as I exhaled, “but most teachers aren’t this damn rude…”

Lance let out a sharp exhale, almost a laugh. “It’s me, right? You don’t believe I’m a real race car driver, is that it?” He squinted his eyes and tilted his head now as he stared at me. “That’s why you asked before, hmm?” I hung my head, shifting my weight to one hand on the table I rested on, to scratch an itch on my head. I was unable to hold his intense stare anymore.

He continued, “That’s alright. That’s what they thought the first time I showed up to race for the GP in the old Temper over there.” The—! That’s one of the most well known races out there. On one of the most famous races ever.

He sighed. “Look, I may not be the fastest driver anymore, but I’m still one of the most nimble because I know how to control the car the way I want. That’s why I did technical tracks.” Lance stood up away from the wall and turned back to his car to take another lap. “Tired yet?”

“Never.”

We rode along the track once more, but this time Lance took the track faster, fluctuating around 120 miles an hour. He was able to take all of the curves steady without losing traction or tipping over, and not having to shift gears often or lose much speed. At one point he was so far ahead of me, I couldn’t figure out if I should stay in a lower gear to take everything slowly and not have to brake as hard or if that’d make the gap worse.

“Are you alright over there?” Lance’s voice came on the comms. I looked to my right and Lance was driving in the opposite direction of me on the other side of the hairpin.

I wrinkled my nose as I tried to hold back a sneer. “Yeah, sure.”

After three final laps around the track at full tilt, we parked back in our pit boxes and got out. I knew I would be sore tomorrow after driving this much after a prolonged break.

“So,” Lance leaned back on his car’s hood, his legs crossed, “what did you learn?” I took a deep breath and sighed to ease the tension in my chest.

“I’m complete shit at driving.” Lance snickered and stood up.

“Interesting observation.” I held my tongue, my lips curling in disgust, not feeling like getting yelled at again for back talk. “Park the Halcyon inside the paddock, and close the roll up door. Let’s head back.” Lance noticed my face twisted up and the way I clenched my gloved fists, judging by the way his eyes flicked across my stiff form. I walked off to close up shop, my tired feet falling heavy on the tarmac.

Lance brought me to his office that was situated on the upper floors of the main building. It was a sparse and empty office, with books lining one wall behind his desk, and a floor to ceiling window to the right. The door was to the left, clear glass so you could see out into the hallways at the other offices.

“You’ll start out with a lot of simulator work to get your endurance back up again.” Lance squinted at a clipboard from behind his office desk. “Need to work back up to constant stress on your body. We can get you running, a bit of cycling, and maybe a few goes in the lap pool. We’ll get you doing some flexibility training with our yoga instructor, and find you a spot with the massage therapist to make sure you feel nice and loose and make sure those muscles are doing okay.” Lance took the paper off the clipboard and slid it across his desk, which had a primitive schedule for all of these activities jotted down on it. There’s a lap pool here? I looked back up at Lance when I had scanned the schedule.

“When do I get to go on the track—?”

“You’ll get to. Soon.”

I sat back in my chair, hands clasped together. “When is ‘soon’?” Lance looked down at papers in front of him.

“You can’t just go straight out there, we want to work you up gently into hard driving. You feel like straining your legs in the middle of intense pedal work during a race? Or cramping up your arms while you're steering?” I looked away and shook my head. “That’s what I thought.” Lance pushed his wheeled chair away from the desk and stood up to leave. “Oh, and I forgot. You have an appointment at 4 today to see the optometrist. Just to make sure you can see alright.” I rolled my eyes. I can see perfectly fine, thank you. Probably better than you can. Tch. “I know your medical chart says you can see, but we need to update it along with your other medical history.” Dammit, it’s like he heard what I was thinking.

The appointment wasn’t long after our brief meeting in Lance’s office. I walked out of the optometrist with a score of 20/20 vision. The optometrist told me to go tell Lance and to give him the prescription paper, but I was not keen on seeing him at the moment. I stopped by his office and slid the prescription paper the eye doctor gave me into a small inbox next to his door. I quickly showed myself the way out and headed outside. I looked around at a few drivers walking along the paths to get from one place to another, some maybe going to get an early dinner, but no one seemed to be watching. I was still uneasy around all these new staff and other drivers from all these other divisions. It was better than the crew back in Killead at my old facility though. Lots of the drivers there were stuck up and rude.

I followed the path from the racing center building, past the medical offices, between the flat parking lot and towering personal vehicle garage, and approached a huge warehouse. I’m talking absolutely massive. It must’ve been the large building you see on the GPS when you enter Miroche HQ’s address. This must be the engineering warehouse. The place where every Miroche vehicle is designed, some are built, many are maintained.

I pushed past a set of double doors and was greeted by a wide hallway with a tall ceiling. I strolled down the long corridor, the hum and ticking of machinery growing louder the more I walked. None of the many signs on the walls said I couldn’t be here, but it was clear that this wasn’t where most of the drivers like to hang out and lounge. I turned down an intersection in the hallways, and everything looked the same. The walls were unpainted and unsealed cinder blocks or bricks, and the support beams in the ceilings and walls were all exposed. There were many large double doors, and a few rollup doors along the long hall. The floors were stained with oil and there were a few storage crates or tool boxes beside some of the doors. Somewhere deeper inside the building, I heard the clattering of metal and the low voices of a couple staff members, too focused on whatever they were working on to notice me.

I ducked into one of the rooms with an open roll up door, and it extended into a large room with what looked like a frame puller to the left and a car chassis half covered by a tarp to the right. It had fluorescent tape all over it and was held up by a two post lift, just a foot or so off the ground. There were small windows at the top of the wall across from the roll up door I had come in through. The air here was thick with the scent of brake clean and burnt rubber. It was familiar, almost comforting in a way. It smelled like my garage back in highschool, when all I used to drive was a shitty old 1990’s Miroche Aura that barely ran. I leaned against the doorframe under the roll up door, arms crossed as I just listened to the background hum of a distant mechanic using an impact gun. The quiet was growing on me. No shouting, no stopwatch, no Lance.

Eventually I sat on a nearby crate, just watching the shadows stretch longer and longer across the oil stained concrete floor, the afternoon slowly slipping by. I easily lost track of time. For once in my life, my mind was quiet and it wasn’t a cacophony of a million different thoughts. I watched the shadows grow so long they eventually faded away, I tried eavesdropping on a conversation that sounded like it was miles away, and stared at that chassis to figure out what car it had come from without going over and looking at the VIN.

Eventually I snapped out of my trance. I glanced toward the small windows near the ceiling, and the light outside had darkened, fading into that dark, amber glow that only shows up when it’s somewhere between dusk and nighttime, but the sky wasn’t fully dark yet. I blinked a few times. All of the mental noise came back, reminders of things to do, the laundry I needed to sort back in my room, the dull ache of that knot that was almost always in my chest.

“Shit.” It’s almost night. I muttered curse words to myself, standing up too fast and getting a bit light-headed for a moment as I tried to keep my legs from giving out.

“What time even is it?” I patted down my pants looking for my phone. I’m not wearing my pants. I’m still in the race suit. My phone, keys, wallet, everything are all in the locker room.

I jogged through the maze of dim hallways, retracing my steps past the many doors with crates and boxes outside of them until I saw a red glowing exit sign. I pushed past the double doors and burst out into the open air. Dusk had crept in dast, everything was tinted blue and the lamps across the property lit up the paths with warm light, some still flickering on in the parking garage towering above my head. Crickets had started up in the grass near the trees dotted along near the paths.

I slowed down and cut across a back lot for one of the office buildings toward another main sidewalk, keeping my head down and hoping I could make it back to the offices or my dorm before anyone realized how long I’d been gone. I took a shortcut between the medical building and the staff offices when I could hear footsteps. I rounded the corner to get onto the sidewalk too fast and nearly collided with someone before I could judge how close they were.

“Woah, what the—!” a familiar voice barked. I stumbled backward, clutching my shoulder that had collided with the speaker, and who else but Ace caught me by my elbow and righted me on my feet.

I looked up from rubbing my shoulder. “Ace?” There were a couple other security guards in matching uniforms a few meters away. When Ace recognized me, he grabbed both of my shoulders in each of his large hands.

“Where have you been, Smokey?” Ace’s voice was a mix of relieved and annoyed. One of the security staff behind him shook his head, muttering something to the other guard.

“Huh? I’ve just been—”

“Dude,” Ace’s eyes widened in a ‘seriously?’ type of look, “Lance was about to file a missing persons report! What happened to you?” He looked me up and down, scanning my body like he was looking for wounds or anything. “God, you’ve been gone nearly all afternoon! I was trying to find you after your appointment because Lance was looking for you!”

I stepped backward out of Ace’s grip and rolled my eyes. “Of course he was looking for me. If he needed me after the appointment he should’ve told me before the appointment.”

Ace just shook his head. “He’s pretty unhappy right now. I’d make it quick. He’s in his office.” He tilted his head in the direction of the main building.

I pressed my lips together in an unpleasant smile. “Right. Thanks, Ace.” I began off again, jogging back towards the racing center building.

“Where on god’s green earth have you been, rookie?” I grimaced as I walked into Lance’s office, not even a moment to get settled. I stopped in the doorway, not bothering to sit down.

“Walking. Getting exercise.” It was dark now outside the office windows. A stark contrast to Lance’s warmly lit office.

“Uh huh,” He narrowed his eyes on me, “Did you not stop to think you should’ve checked in with me? Come and see me after appointments to let me know what’s going on? Have you not done that at all before?”

I threw up my hands, exasperated. “I gave you the papers, left them at your office, is that not enough?”

Lance sighed, his raspy voice sounding like a growl. “I’m going to be filing a complaint at your old place. These smaller facilities don’t know shit about discipline. I can’t believe this is what Miroche has come to.” He took his glasses off and started rubbing the bridge of his nose as he hung his head. “And don’t go running off—”

“I didn't run off anywhere! I was here the whole time!”

He looked back up at me quickly, his eyes narrow and brows furrowed angrily. “Yes, but no one knew where you were! You could’ve been dead for all I knew.” Lance’s lips lifted in a slight snarl.

“I didn’t know anyone needed me! If I knew I’d have—”

“You are so irresponsible. I don’t know who raised you but—”

My pleading turned to instant rage, a sharp sneer spreading on my lips. “Don’t you fucking dare talk about ‘who raised me’. Keep my parents out of this. They had nothing to do with any of this.” I clenched my fists.

There was a pause as Lance looked at me with a cold stare. “Well then, maybe if your parents had been around to teach you what consequences are, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

I was glaring hard now, my lips twitched in a growl as I clenched my teeth. My mind was blank and I was filled with hot anger bubbling under the surface.

“Yeah? Well maybe if you weren’t a miserable, nit-picky piece of shit, I might actually learn something like how to be nice.” Lance’s eyes bore into me still, and he huffed out a stiff, mocking laugh before continuing.

“You know you don’t scare me with that lil’ tough guy attitude. I’ve seen kids half your age take on more responsibility than you ever will in your entire goddamn life. Kids with real scars, real loss, a real reason to be miserable. You’re not intimidating. You're just embarrassing yourself thinking you can fight your way out of everything and have it all go your way.” My lips quivered as I snarled, shifting my jaw side to side, and tried to hold back tears that threatened my eyes.

“You wanna lecture me about consequences? Sounds like someone’s been drowning in theirs for years. Go ahead and keep yelling about it. Must’ve really screwed something up bad if you’re so obsessed with it. At least I’m not the one wasting what’s left of my life yelling at rookies to feel better about my own failures. At least I’m out here actually driving and trying to build something real.”

Lance dropped his snarl and his eyes went cold as they bore into me. I could almost see him snap, but he only fell calm, all anger leaving his body. It was almost eerie how quickly he switched from enraged to collected.

“Get the fuck out of my office. Tell Miroche to go find you a new crew chief.”

I laughed. “Gladly. Thank god you quit. I didn’t want to have to fire you. Might look bad on your resume.” I spat my last remarks at him and whipped around to leave. The sole of my shoe screeched from the sudden force of turning as I started off towards the main lobby downstairs. I hoped I left a rubber mark on his shiny, polished office floor.

Ace found me dragging my feet as I stormed down to the lobby. “Hey Smokey, are you alright?”

“Just bloody amazing.” He knew it was a sarcastic remark because he looked at me with concern. He sat next to me in the lobby as I waited behind another driver asking the receptionist a question.

Ace tilted his head toward me a bit. “What happened?”

I mumbled, “Looks like this facility isn’t gonna work out for me afterall.”

Ace’s eyes widened. “What? After it took them months to find Lance for you?”

I threw myself back into my seat. “I can’t fucking stand him! All he does is talk shit like he’s some big shot.” I threw my hands up in exasperation before crossing them. “He quit and I fired him all in one breath. I’m done dealing with him. I don’t care if I have to take a bus all the way back to Killead tonight. It’s over.” Ace grimaced and quietly reversed to leave.

The receptionist seemed shocked when I told her I didn’t think I was fit for this team I was trying out, and she only said she’d note it down and tell corporate at a reasonable hour in the morning. I left without another word and headed to my dorm. So much for being a pro driver and wasting my time and effort on the racing academy. I should go back to doing the Starbound Street Run and go try the Meimo Autobahn race again. The payout for those was pretty good. I walked alone back to my dorm that was still crowded by the unopened boxes of old racing memorabilia and highschool artifacts.

My eyes landed on the only item I took out of its box while searching for clothes this morning. A framed photo of my parents that I always made sure was somewhere I could see it, no matter where I went. With the tears that had been threatening to fall, the photo was a bit blurry. If they were still here, this wouldn’t be happening to me. I’d still be back home. Probably going to college instead of racing like an idiot. Not having dinner alone every night. Having something to look forward to everyday. Without thinking too much about it, I scribbled out a note on a piece of packing paper I ripped out of a box and slipped it into Ace’s dorm in the cover of darkness. He wouldn’t be in there for a while yet, he was still patrolling the campus for his evening shift. I didn’t want him to find it too soon anyway, I needed some time. Without thinking, I ripped open a small cardboard box and picked through it to retrieve my wallet and a set of keys. A set of keys I hadn’t used in a long time.

I didn’t plan to run tonight. No really anyway, aside from writing a note to Ace so he would know I wasn’t dead, and that it was my fault if I did die. After everything that happened, after the words I spilled and the quiet that had followed, I couldn’t sit still. My chest was tight and I needed to drive as much as I needed to breathe air. I grabbed my lucky black band hoodie, slipped out of the men’s dorms, and started walking. I didn’t even bring my phone. I didn’t need anyone tracking me that easily. About half an hour of walking later, I was cutting across the edge of town, toward an area I used to know well before I was put into the confines of the racing academy and then the old racing center. I approached an industrial district, the sketchier side where business was bad, and headed toward a strip of abandoned storage units that never got auctioned out. One of these half-abandoned units still had something of mine. Something I kept near and dear to my heart.

I’d left my car here months ago, between my transfer from the racing academy to Miroche once that company got its hands on me. I only say ‘half-abandoned’ because the place was legally out of business. But it wasn’t totally dead, at least the locals would tell you as much. It was loosely managed by one of the bigger street racing crews that ran races through the valley. I used to win for them in college, back before academy, and back when my name meant something other than just another wannabe professional race car driver. They owed me a few favors for putting them on the leaderboards, so when I needed somewhere quiet to stash my old car, no one asked questions.

The metal roll up door creaked as I pushed it above my head. There it was. Covered in a thin layer of dust, maybe, but beautiful. And it was mine. The blue paint still bore a few tiny knicks and dings from races long since passed. I ran a hand over the hood and grinned. God, I missed my old KR90 Dart. Sometimes the worst decisions just feel way to right.

Surprisingly the car still ran, albeit rough. I pulled out onto the nearest highway, the Dart humming beneath me. Before hitting the interstate, I stopped at a quiet gas station on the outskirts of Silkeholt and topped off the tank. I ran into the small store to grab some oil to top off, and I gave everything else a once over. Just making sure the old Dart was still running well enough after sitting for so long. Once I was back on the road, I slipped into the far left lane, letting the car get some much needed exercise. The hum of the passing cars morphed in my mind into the distant roar of race engines. It almost felt like I was already racing. The Rihktan 24 Hour. Maybe the Rihktan Grand Prix. I let myself pretend for a minute.

I didn’t have a plan. I just needed to go. But somewhere along the drive, a name floated into my head. Keihaki. A place I’d only ever heard about in late-night stories, half-whispered in auto-shops and back alleys. They said it was a haven for the real street racers. I never got the chance to see it for myself, since I ‘belonged’ to another street scene. But I wasn’t far now. Oh how I missed the street scene.