Chapter 2 The Champion

MAYA POV

“You’ve been overdriving the entry into Turn Four,” he said without looking up. “Every single lap.”

“Good morning to you too. At least say hello before you start complaining.”

He finally turned. Same unreadable face from yesterday. “You brake too late, then correct with the wheel instead of the throttle. It costs you two-tenths and it’s going to cost you more when the tires start to go.”

I dropped my bag on the chair harder than necessary. “I’ve been driving that corner my entire career. I know what it does.”

“You know what it used to do. This car isn’t the one you crashed in.”

The words landed heavier than he probably meant them to. Or maybe exactly as heavy as he meant them.

I climbed into the simulator seat without answering. He didn’t try to stop me. Just walked over, adjusted something on the side panel, and stepped back.

“Again,” he said once the screen came up.

I attacked the lap the way I always did, early throttle, late braking, forcing the car to listen. The numbers looked decent until Turn Four. Same mistake. Same correction. Same loss of time.

Nico’s voice stayed level. “Again.”

I did it again. Same result.

“You’re still—”

“I know what I’m doing,” I snapped, already talking too fast. “You don’t get to stand there and act like you’ve never pushed a car past the edge. That’s how you win championships. You attack. You don’t just sit back and wait for the race to come to you.”

He was quiet for a second. Then, almost gently, “I control the race. But you try to murder it. Both methods work. Yours just breaks more things.”

I laughed once, sharp. “God, you’re so fucking irritating.”

“Yes I know.”

“Good. At least we agree on something.”

Before either of us could say anything else the door opened and Adrian Mason walked in like he owned the oxygen in the room. Same easy smile he always wore, same way of looking at people like he’d already decided if they were worth his time or not.

“Still trying to murder every corner, Baudelaires?” he said.

I felt some of the tension leave my shoulders. “Only the ones that deserve it. Are you here to watch me suffer or do you actually have a reason?”

“Both.” He leaned against the wall, glancing at Nico, then back at me. “Heard the champion got assigned babysitting duty. Thought I’d come to see if the rumors were true.”

Nico didn’t react. Just turned back to the screens.

Adrian lowered his voice a little. “You look better than last year. Still got that same reckless thing in your eyes though.”

“Some of us didn’t have the luxury of taking a full season off to recover our image,” I said, but there was no real heat in it. Adrian had always been like this—light, quick, never treating me like a novelty or a tragedy.

He grinned. “Fair. Don’t let him turn you into a robot. The sport’s already full of those.”

He left a few minutes later with a casual salute. The room felt quieter after he was gone. Nico hadn’t said a single word the entire time Adrian was there. He just watched.

Evelyn came in next, tablet under one arm, coffee in the other. She took one look at my face and the set of Nico’s shoulders and immediately understood the temperature of the room.

“Give us a minute,” she told him.

To my surprise, he nodded and stepped outside without argument.

The second the door clicked shut Evelyn sat on the edge of the desk and studied me the way only someone who had seen me cry in a hospital bed could.

“You had another one, didn’t you?”

I looked away. “Don’t call it that.”

“Then stop pretending I’m stupid.” She kept her voice soft. “Your hands were shaking when you got out of the car yesterday. I saw it. You don’t have to protect me from it, Maya. I’ve known about the episodes since the first month after the crash.”

I rubbed my thumb across the seam of my glove. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not. And that’s okay. Just… don’t shut me out. Not after everything.”

I managed a small smile. “You’re the worst best friend. You never let me get away with anything.”

“Someone has to keep you honest.” She squeezed my shoulder, warm and familiar, then stood. “I’ll be on the radio. Try not to kill the virtual car.”

When Nico came back in I was already strapped into the simulator again. This time the flash hit harder.

Turn Three. The screen blurred. Suddenly I wasn’t looking at pixels. I was looking at gravel and sky and the shape of his car rotating in front of me. My breathing went shallow. The wheel felt wrong in my hands. Too light. Too far away.

I didn’t notice I’d stopped steering until the simulator shut down completely. I ripped the headset off. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

Nico stood beside the seat, one hand still on the emergency cutoff. His voice stayed quiet. “You weren’t seeing the screen anymore.”

“I was fine.”

“You weren’t.” He didn’t move closer. He just stayed where he was. “You don’t have to prove you’re not afraid every single lap.”

Something hot and defensive rose in my chest. “You don’t know what I have to prove.”

He looked at me for a long second. Longer than felt comfortable.

“I know,” he said. And that was all.

I got out of the seat before I could ask what the hell that meant. Grabbed my bag and walked out.

I was halfway down the corridor when I heard voices coming from the small office near the end. The team principal’s low murmur. Then Nico’s.

I slowed without meaning to. “...if she’s going back to that track,” Nico was saying, “someone needs to tell her what really happened.”

I stopped walking. The door was half open. Through the gap I could see the side of Nico’s face. He turned at the exact same moment, like he had felt me standing there.

Our eyes met. The principal kept talking, oblivious. Nico didn’t look away from me.

I stepped closer to the doorway, heart hammering for an entirely different reason now.

“What really happened?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He just held my gaze, reserved and silent, while the question hung between us like a live wire.

Nico knew too much. And right now, he wasn't staying silent because he had nothing to say.

He was staying silent because he had no idea how to tell me that the truth I'd been living with for two years, might never have been the truth at all.