Fast & Wet (The Fast 2)

For the next hour, I refuse to have a panic attack. I don’t have twenty-four hours, but I set the alarm on my phone, and I give myself five minutes.

When that alarm goes off, that’s it. Panic and fear are going to have to take a backseat because I have to prepare and focus on the race.

It goes off just as the flight attendants ask everyone to put their seats in the upright position and stow their large electronics. We’re finally descending and landing.

When I push past the crowd on the jet bridge and race through the Austin airport, I feel the phone in my back pocket vibrating and catching up with cell signals, but there’s no time to stop running.

Exiting the airport doors, Makenna is waiting for me in her car, just like she said she would be.

“Go!” I cry out as my door shuts behind me. It’s pouring buckets, and everyone is driving like a complete idiot like Texans have never seen rain.

“Jesus, I should have brought an arc,” Makenna says as she navigates the traffic to the circuit. It’s not that far, but with my flight delay, there are only twenty minutes left until race time.

“Go around them, drive on the shoulder, hurry!” We aren’t going to make it in time.

Cole has not texted me back. Mila must have his phone already because he’s getting ready to get into the car.

I cannot bear the thought of something happening to him, ever. But not like this. Not with us not speaking.

Me, not speaking.

Finally, pulling into the Circuit of the America’s VIP entrance, we park the car in a grassy area that is now a swamp of mud and silt, and we race to the Pit Crew security gate.

They scan my access badge, and I fly through the metal turnstile.

“She’s with me,” I tell security when Makenna tries to follow.

“Badge?” The security guard asks again.

“I don’t…” Makenna stutters. We’re both dripping wet, waterlogged.

“I said she’s with me,” I argue.

“Lady, ain’t nobody getting through without a badge.”

“It’s okay, go,” Makenna says. “I’ll go through the regular entrance.”

I feel bad that she will have to now walk half a mile to the regular entrance, in the pouring rain, but there’s no choice.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her.

“Go get him,” she brushes me off.

Turning away, I slosh through puddles and run through tunnels and service roads trying to get to the team garage. I don’t hear the cars on track, yet it’s well past the two-o-clock start time.

It’s been twelve hours since I left London and days since I’ve slept. I am frozen to the bone, soaking wet, starving, and exhausted. But, all I can think about when I finally make it to the Imperium garage is that I don’t see Cole.

His car is there. So is Dante’s.

“Edmund,” I cry when I see him sitting on the pit wall under the awning and in his Imperium rain jacket.

“Emily!” his eyes are wide like he didn’t expect to see me. “Good lord, you look like a drowned rat!”

“Why aren’t the cars running? We can’t use the tires, Edmund. The silica, it’s corn, they’re not safe, where’s Cole, the molecular bond…”

“Slow down, slow down,” he interrupts my panting.

I’m so out of breath from running so far, I can’t get a full sentence out. Edmund starts leading me into the garage, where a couple of mechanics and engineers are sitting around looking bored.