Free Web NovelChapter 88: Chapter 88 She made him struggle
_Rowena’s POV_ fгeewebnovёl.com
The crowd had opinions before I even got in the car.
I heard them from the staging area. Not the words exactly, just the tone of them, that particular mix of amusement and dismissal that people used when they had already decided on an outcome and were just waiting for the track to confirm it. A woman in the competition.
A woman facing off against Kaelen Varkos in the first round. The commentary wrote itself and most of the crowd had already written it.
I purposely chose Kaelen as my first opponent. It was a 1v1 process for the first rounds before the general race.
I was going to use this medium to punish Kaelen dearly.
I put my helmet on and got in the Ferrari.
The interior settled around me the way it had during my practice runs at Silas’s private track the day before. Everything in the right place. The wheel at the right height. The seat adjusted to my measurements. Silas had been thorough about all of it and I had been grateful for the thoroughness because familiarity mattered in a car at competition speed.
I ran through the checks without rushing.
Outside the car the noise of the crowd was a continuous background pressure. Inside the helmet it was reduced to something manageable, present but not intrusive, the way background noise became background noise when you had something specific to focus on.
I focused.
Everyone cheered for Kaelen to win. Foolish move. I bet they bet on my loss.
Kaelen’s car was in the lane beside mine. I didn’t look at it. If I had known he was joining, I’d have studied his driving record the previous evening, what was available publicly, but it was okay. I’d adjust. I remembered what Silas had been able to pull from the competition history database. But I knew Kaelen was good. He also had strong instincts, high risk tolerance, the kind of driver who won on aggression as much as technique. He would come out fast and he would expect to establish dominance in the first sixty seconds. I read that under 2 minutes.
And I had no intention of giving him sixty seconds.
The signal fired.
He came out exactly as I expected. Hard acceleration, immediate lane pressure, the opening move of a driver who wanted to set the terms of the race in the first corner and intended to do it through sheer force of presence.
I let him think he was setting them.
For the first forty seconds I stayed close but back, just far enough that he could see me in his rear camera but not so close that he needed to actively manage me. I wanted him to feel comfortable.
Comfortable drivers made predictable decisions and predictable decisions were easy to work with.
Soon, the first corner came.
He took it wide the way aggressive drivers took corners when they were confident, claiming the maximum line, not worrying about what was behind them because what was behind them was behind them.
I took it tight and came out ahead.
Not by much. Just enough. Just enough to put his car behind mine and change the entire frame of what the race was from that point forward.
The crowd noise changed. I felt it even inside the helmet, a different quality to it, the shift from dismissal to attention.
“They’ll definitely lose their money.” Kyra laughed hard, maniacally as she steadied my focus even more. She was clearly enjoying this, so was I.
I pushed forward.
The Ferrari did what Silas had told me it would do, which was everything I asked of it and then a little more. The engine had a voice that I had already learned to read during the practice session and right now it was telling me there was more available if I wanted it.
I wanted it.
I opened it up on the straight and the car responded and the gap between my rear and Kaelen’s front grew in a way that was not gradual. It was decisive. The kind of gap that communicated something beyond just race position, that communicated the difference between two drivers’ actual capabilities when neither of them was holding back.
Kaelen pushed. I felt his car coming in the rear camera, closing slightly on the next corner sequence where the track tightened and the line choices became more complicated.
I went through the sequence without slowing.
Of course I didn’t do it recklessly. I did it precisely. Each corner taken at the exact limit of what the car could carry through it cleanly, which was a number I had been calculating since the practice session and which I was now executing with the calm that came from having done the preparation correctly.
He couldn’t close the gap.
He pushed harder and it didn’t close.
Then I extended it. freewёbnoνel.com
The crowd below had stopped being dismissive. I couldn’t see them but I could feel the change in the noise even through the helmet and the engine, that specific roar that crowds produced when something was happening that they hadn’t expected and had decided they were glad to be witnessing.
Three minutes into the race Kaelen’s car was a fixed point in my rear camera that was not growing larger.
I remained calm. No one knew this, but my father was a crazy driver. He instilled everything in me and my brothers before his passing, but I was never the type to act rashly, I kept it at bay. Now, I’d show Kaelen what he missed.
There was no room for anything except the track and the car and the next decision. Everything else, the crowd, and the morning.
I pushed through the final sequence and crossed the line.
The noise hit me when I slowed the car and it was not the noise of a crowd that had been proven right about their predictions.
It was the noise of a crowd that had been proven completely wrong and had found, in that wrongness, something they hadn’t expected to enjoy as much as they were enjoying it.
I pulled the car to the staging area and sat in it for a moment before taking the helmet off.
Outside the car Kaelen’s team was already in the position they had arrived in, standing near their bay, looking at the track. Looking at where their driver was and where I was and the distance between those two things.
I chuckled, seeing Kaelen struggle. Good, he deserved it.
