"Set!" Rev the engine, feel the Kawasaki tremble like a living thing.
His hand drops. "Go!"
I don't think. Just move.
First gear screaming, clutch release, the bike lunging forward like it's been shot from a cannon.
Ducati Boy is fast—I'll give him that.
He takes the lead out of the gate, that expensive machine eating up asphalt.
But speed isn't everything.
It's knowing the track, knowing your bike, knowing exactly how far you can push before physics stops being a suggestion and becomes a demand.
The first turn comes up fast, a hairpin that's claimed more than one racer.
Ducati Boy brakes too early, too hard.
Textbook racing, probably learned on a real track with real safety equipment.
I brake later, harder, leaning so far my knee almost kisses the pavement.
The Kawasaki screams in protest but holds.
I take the inside line, cut in front of him, hear his engine roar as he tries to compensate.
Too late.
I'm ahead now, and I know this track.
Every bump. Every crack. Every place where the asphalt turns to gravel and you have to choose between speed and survival.
The Menendez brothers are behind me somewhere—I hear their Harleys rumbling, too loud, too slow for this.
Torch is in my mirrors, closer than I'd like.
Yamaha woman is nowhere.
Probably crashed on that first turn.
Second lap.
My hands hurt from gripping the bars, my thighs burn from holding position, and I've never felt more alive.
This is it.
This is the only time I'm not drowning in guilt about Elfe, about my family, about the information I fed to a man I thought loved me.
This is the only time I'm just Hell.
Just a girl on a bike, racing toward nothing and everything simultaneously.
Ducati boy makes his move on the straightaway.
His bike is faster than mine on pure speed—that's just physics.
But the next turn is coming, a sweeping curve that requires nerve more than horsepower.
