Chapter 2She Pulled The Plug On Me

"This race only happens once a decade, Jamie! You’ve spent your whole life waiting for this. You can't just quit because Beau is a lying prick!"

Coop tried to grab my phone, but I shoved him back and locked myself in the basement workshop with the car.

I gritted my teeth, inspecting every inch of the chassis. Even if there was a mole in my team, even if someone leaked the blueprints, a car is more than a drawing. If a single bolt is tightened a fraction too much, the data changes. How could Beau have identical telemetry?

And more importantly, if the cars were the same, why did mine explode while his took the checkered flag?

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to remember the day of the crash. Beau was a master of the "pouty influencer" look, always surrounded by a phalanx of fans and cameras. He never got near my car.

But his "plus one" that day...

It was Ivy.

My heart felt like it was being crushed by a cold, iron fist. Eight years. I thought we were building a life; she was just scouting the target.

I didn't have time for the heartache. I stood up, grabbing a wrench.

I began to strip the car. I had spent three years on these parts. I loved them like they were my own flesh and blood. But as I looked at the sleek carbon fiber, all I saw was the image of my parents’ bodies on the pavement.

My hands moved faster.

Once the "perfect" version was dismantled, I dragged a crate out from the back of the warehouse—the original prototype. It was raw. It was brutal. It was the design I’d dreamt up before I started overthinking, before I tried to make it "marketable."

It was a beast of a machine, devoid of the delicate refinements Beau had stolen.

In two hours, I had it rebuilt. It wasn't as polished, but its output was terrifying. It was a predator, crouched and ready to kill. I sent the new data to Coop.

Beau couldn't have this. Nobody had seen this version except me in the middle of a fever dream three years ago.

I finally let myself breathe.

Then Coop walked back in. He didn't look happy. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

"Jamie... Beau just posted his 'early concept' thoughts on his vlog. The data... it's a match. Again."

"That's impossible!" I snatched the phone.

On the screen, Beau was looking wistfully at a sunset. "Honestly," he said to the camera, "I almost went with my first draft. It was perfect, in its own rugged way. But someone broke into my trailer and stole the primary drive. I had to pivot to the new design just to stay in the race."

I refreshed the official site. Beau’s specs had changed. They were identical to the prototype I had just finished twenty minutes ago.

My blood ran cold.

The parts I used for this version weren't even on the market anymore. I’d salvaged them from an old junkyard in the Midwest and spent months hand-polishing them. One specific gear had been weathered by rainwater in a way that made it fit the housing with a unique, imperfect seal.

It was a one-in-a-billion fluke of physics.

And Beau had the exact same specs.

I opened the hood and pulled that gear out. It was still warm from the test fit.

Was this it? The source of the fire?

I remembered the years of silence in the hospital. The sound of Ivy’s laughter as she told Beau how easy it was to fool me.

I walked over to the industrial furnace we used for heat. Under the confused gaze of my mechanics, I threw the gear into the flames.

I wasn't going to play fair. I was going to survive.