Nora
Macau is unforgiving.
The circuit is a snake of asphalt squeezed between buildings and the sea, with no escape routes. Only barriers and concrete ready to bite.
I'm glued to the tail of Peter Walsh's Liberty King. His exhaust spews heat at me, going 280 miles an hour. I'm looking for a spot to attack him.
Then everything breaks.
A sharp noise, like a gunshot. Peter's suspension arm gives way. The car swerves violently to the left, hits the wall with a brutal impact, and bounces back to the center of the track, turning into a fireball.
"Nora! Red flag! Slow down!" Mei Ling shouts over the radio.
I don't slow down.
I see only flames.
And it's not Peter Walsh in that car.
It's Adriano.
The black smoke.
The hands pounding desperately against the plexiglass.
The marshals stand behind the barriers, too slow, too afraid of interrupting the live television broadcast.
The smell of burning flesh and melted plastic still wakes me at night.
"Adriano!"
The scream escapes my throat without passing through the radio.
I slam on the brakes of the Crimson Lotus. The tires screech, the car swerves wildly and stops a few meters from the inferno. I unbuckle my seatbelts with frantic movements, open the door, and jump out.
"Nora! No!" Zuri shouts from the radio.
I don't listen.
The heat hits me like a wall. It burns my face through my balaclava. I run toward the burning Liberty King while the other cars whizz past me like ghosts at 300 miles an hour.
Peter is screaming inside the car. His hands pound against the cracked glass, just like my brother did.
I grab the fire extinguisher from the Lotus and unload all the white powder onto the flames. The thick smoke enters my lungs. I cough, my eyes burning, but I slide my arms through the twisted metal.
"Get out! You have to get out, damn it!"
My fingers find his shoulders. He's stuck. Fire licks my hands, the pain is excruciating, but I don't let go.
Zuri comes running, a huge shadow. Without a word, she pushes me aside and with brutal force grabs Peter, ripping him from the cockpit just as the fuel tank explodes.
The shock wave throws us all to the ground.
I lie stretched out on the hot asphalt, my breathing ragged, my hands black with soot and blood. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it's going to break my ribs.
Peter is beside me. Alive. His legs burned, his face smeared black and red, but alive.
He looks at me with wide eyes, in disbelief.
"You... you pulled me out," he gasps, his voice torn by the smoke. "Why?"
I don't answer. I can't.
Because for a moment it wasn't him.
It was Adriano.
And this time I didn't let him burn.
Zuri kneels beside me, his enormous hands controlling my face and arms.
"You're completely crazy," he murmurs, but his voice trembles. "You could have died."
The emergency sirens are arriving. The blue and red lights dance on the asphalt.
I close my eyes.
The burning smell still fills my nostrils. But for the first time in a year, it's not just pain.
It's also relief.
Peter Walsh, The King, weakly takes my soot-stained hand.
"I owe you, Black Swan," he whispers. "A debt I can never repay."
I don't say anything.
I look at the Macau sky above me, clouded by smoke.
And for the first time since this all started, I feel something other than anger.
Something that feels dangerously like hope.