Page 47 of Redline
"I’m not finished," I growl, though the buzzing is so loud in my hand now I’m worried I’ll drop my helmet if I try to pick it up.
Luka’s grip tightens just a fraction. His eyes are hard.Insistent."Shower. Now. I’ll walk Landon through sector three."
I hold his stare, the silence stretching until the pride finally gives way to the physical necessity of getting out of sight. I let out a sharp breath. "Whatever.”
I turn and stalk off toward the tunnel that leads towards the more private units. My boots ring out against the concrete, the rhythm matching the frantic thrum of my pulse. I round the corner, my mind already halfway under a stream of water and nearly plow straight into a wall of papers and folders.
"Whoa—watch it!"
I steady myself, my hand instinctively reaching out to catch her shoulder before I can remember I’m supposed to be avoiding her. Carter. She’s clutching a stack of technical diagrams to her chest, her hair hanging down the middle of her back, looking far too attractive for my liking.
"What are you doing here?" I demand, my voice still rough from the adrenaline.
She recovers her footing, adjusting the papers with a pointed look at my hand on her arm. I pull it back as if she’s gone incandescent. "It's a track, Dominic. People work here."
"Not you."
"My dad forgot some reports at the house," she says, her voice flat, professional—which is its own kind of insult after the other night.
She tries to shoulder past me, but I shift, cutting her off. I’m still wired from the track, that reckless electricity under my skin making me want to provoke something. "Since when did you become your Dad’s errand girl? You usually treat this place like a biohazard zone."
Carter pulls the stack of papers tighter to her chest, her eyes narrowing. "He was stressed because his lead driver thinks telemetry is a suggestion. I was helping. Move."
"Let me see them," I say, my voice dropping into that arrogant, demanding tone I know she hates. "If they’re about my car, I don't need Landon filtering them first."
I reach out to snatch the folders from her—a quick, aggressive move meant to assert a bit of dominance. But as my fingers close around the edge of the heavy cardstock, the hum in my hand turns into a total blackout. The signal just… stops.
My grip doesn't hold. The folder doesn't even move; it just slides through my useless fingers and hits the concrete with a dullthud, diagrams scattering across the floor like confetti.
The silence in the hallway is deafening.
I stare down at my hand. It looks normal, but it feels like a piece of wood attached to my wrist. My heart hammers against my ribs—not from irritation, but from a crawling panic.
Carter freezes. She looks at the mess on the floor, then her eyes flick up to my hand, then to my face. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn't even look annoyed anymore. There’s a flicker of genuine confusion in her expression, a silent'what was that?'that feels more invasive than if she’d actually asked.
"You're losing your touch," she says quietly, though the bite is gone from her voice. She reaches down to gather the papers. "Maybe the race took more out of you than you're admitting."
The irony of the comment lands square in my chest and doesn’t miss. She has no idea. She’s standing there thinking she’s landing a blow on my image, completely unaware that I’ve literally lost the feeling in my hand—that for a second, the connection between my brain and my grip just... severed.
I stare at her, forcing myself still through the surge of emotion clawing at me. I want to tell her that I haven't lost anything, but the dead weight at the end of my arm says otherwise.
"I’m fine," I snap, the word coming out like a snarl. I don't help her. I can't risk trying to pick up a single sheet of paper and failing again. I shove both hands deep into my pockets, the pressure behind my molars building into a dull throb. "The humidity in here is trash. My grip slipped. Don't make it a thing."
"I didn't say it was a thing," she says, standing up and tapping the papers into a neat stack. She gives me a final, hard look—one that feels less like a memory and more like a warning. "But if you’re done trying to break my father’s information, I’d like to drop it off to him now."
"Then do it," I mutter, side-stepping her. "Just stay out of my line of sight."
I walk away before she can say another word, my feet heavy as the tremor starts to take over my entire arm.
By the time I reach the shower, it’s no longer subtle—it’s a full, traitorous shake I can’t hide, not from anyone, not from myself. I crank the faucet anyway, shove my face beneath the stream like I can force it still.
The cold water didn’t do anything.
If anything, it only made the memory thicker. I stood under the spray, eyes closed, but I wasn't in a shower unit at a practicetrack. I was back in my bedroom, the wood grain pressing into her back while Carter’s hands were tangled in my hair. I could still hear the ragged catch in her throat—that high, breathless moan she made when I finally stopped talking and just took what I wanted. It had been frantic, desperate, and exactly what I needed before the opener.
Now, it was a haunting.
I leaned my forehead against the tile, my numb fingers finally stinging as the hit of the spray forced the blood back into them. I should have been thinking about the track. I should have been thinking about turns. Instead, I was wondering if she still had the faint mark, I’d no doubt, left on her hip.
