Chapter 14 - Sabotage in the Pits
Mia finished three seconds behind Chloe—a massive deficit in sprint racing. When she rolled into the equipment paddock afterward, her eyes were burning with unshed tears. She threw her gloves onto the floor mat and refused to speak to anyone, even me.
"She told me you did it on purpose," Mia choked out when we finally reached the privacy of our locker stall. "Chloe said everyone knows you wrecked the car to get away from Dad's family, and that my legs are the price you made me pay."
A white-hot rage flared in my chest, terrifying in its intensity. "Mia, look at me!" I knelt down, seizing her trembling shoulders. "That is a monstrous, disgusting lie. The crash was an accident. I would have died ten thousand times over before I let a single scratch touch you. Do you hear me? Never let their poison take root in your mind."
Mia buried her face into my shoulder, sobbing quietly as the tension of the past few days broke open. I held her tight, feeling the small, sturdy muscles of her back—muscles forged through hundreds of hours of grueling physical therapy, tears, and stubborn resolve.
"Tomorrow is the official ranking trial," she whispered against my neck. "If I don't beat her time tomorrow, I won't make the traveling team."
"Then you beat her," I said softly. "Not with anger. With everything you are."
Early the next morning, an hour before the ranking trials were scheduled to begin, I walked down to the Academy's locked storage bay to inspect Mia’s racing chair. The room was dim, illuminated only by early dawn light filtering through the high clerestory windows.
As I approached Mia’s bay, I froze.
The heavy chain-link gate of our locker had been pried open. Mia’s custom racing frame was sitting crooked on its stand. When I rushed forward and touched the left axle quick-release pin, it slid out loosely into my hand.
Someone had loosened the primary bearing collar and filed halfway through the steering damper linkage. If Mia had taken the banked turn at twenty-five miles per hour, that wheel would have detached instantly, hurling her face-first into the concrete barrier wall.
May you like
This wasn't petty jealousy anymore. This was attempted murder.
***
