Page 14 of Cold Ignition

The man huffed a quiet laugh. “Not the same drivers.”

That was when the energy shifted.

It rolled through the canyon like a change in pressure—subtle at first, then undeniable. Conversations dipped. Heads turned.

A matte black GT-R eased into position at the starting line.

It didn’t arrive loudly. It didn’t need to.

The car sat low and wide, every line of it purposeful, the kind of build that spoke of precision rather than excess. It didn’t look like something meant for the street.

It looked like something designed to win.

“That’s Atua,” someone said quietly.

The name meant nothing to Keanu.

The reaction did.

The driver stepped out, tall and loose in his movements, dark hair pushed back as he spoke with someone near the start line. There was an ease to him that didn’t come from arrogance—it came from certainty. Like the outcome had already been decided somewhere in his mind.

Then the passenger door opened.

The second man stepped out with a different kind of presence—leaner, sharper, his stillness more deliberate. Where Atua moved like water, this one held himself like a blade.

“And that’s Lykos.”

Keanu’s gaze sharpened slightly as he watched them together.

“They run as a team?” he asked.

“Most of the time.”

It showed.

Even from a distance, the connection between them was unmistakable—not competition, not hierarchy, but balance. The kind that came from long familiarity, from knowing exactly how the other moved without needing to ask.

Interesting.

“You thinking about it?” the driver beside him asked.

Keanu glanced at him, then back to the line.

“Winning?” he said, sliding into the driver’s seat.

A faint smile curved beneath the helmet, unseen.

“Always.”

The race started when the flare burned bright against the night sky, then dropped to the canyon floor.

Engines roared to life all at once, the sound violent and immediate as the canyon erupted into motion. Keanu’s world narrowed the second his foot hit the accelerator, everything outside the car falling away until there was nothing left but the road, the machine beneath his hands, and the split-second decisions that would decide everything.

The Hellcat surged forward, power snapping through the chassis as he cut through the pack with practiced precision. The canyon walls closed in fast—sharp turns, blind rises, rock faces waiting for mistakes.

Ahead of him, the matte black GT-R moved like it belonged there.

Atua didn’t fight the road. He flowed through it, every corner taken with an ease that bordered on the unreal. Lykos sat low in the passenger seat, his attention split between mirrors and terrain, reading the race in a way most drivers never could.