Dirt Driven (Racing on the Edge Book 11)

by Shey Stahl

There had never been a moment in my life when I’d been more scared, desperate for answers. I pictured Rager’s face in my head, the image of him on the ground this morning, playing with the boys.

  Please, God. Don’t take him from us. I’m begging you.

  Lane ran a shaky hand through his hair. “He wasn’t conscious, Arie.” He swallowed, emotion building. His entire body was shaking, and I realized right then, I’d never seen Lane like this. So… nervous. “They said they’re taking them to Miami Valley.”

  “Okay, well…” I breathed in, though it felt constricted, my eyes darting around the pits and the thick cloud of dust the helicopter had left stirring. “What about Caden? Did he say anything? Was he awake?”

  Zac, who’d been the closest to Caden’s car, looked at me, Kinsley, and shook his head. He either knew and didn’t want to say, or didn’t.

  Kinsley was nearing a panic attack and I realized she still had the baby in the pack. I don’t know what happened, but in the commotion, she hadn’t given Grace over to Hayden like I thought she had. “I’m freaking out.” Kinsley sobbed, gasping for breaths. “Is he okay? Where are they going to take him?”

  Axel leaned close in my ear, his voice shaking. “It’s bad” was all he said to me as we exchanged a look. Zac had his arms around Kinsley, trying to soothe her, but nothing was working. I knew I had to do something more for her.

  I turned to Axel. “Get Lily and take the baby from Kinsley.” I reached for her, instinctively aware this was her first time in a position like this, and wrapped my arms around her. “My dad is going to get us to the hospital, and we’ll take it from there, okay?”

  She nodded, her eyes so wide and tears falling, but no words. It was then it dawned on me while my entire family was here, Kinsley and Caden didn’t have that. They traveled by themselves with their baby. His mom lived in California and Kinsley’s parents in Oregon. They hadn’t seen them since the start of the season when we were on the West Coast. And now her phone call to them tonight wouldn’t be a “hey, he won again.”

  Mom met us in the pits. “Hayden has the kids with her. We’ll keep them with us until we know more.”

  Dad nodded to Mom. “I’m taking the girls with me and heading to the hospital.” The roar of the helicopters began to drown out his voice as he held my mom close to him, kissing her lips once. “I’ll keep you posted. Lane, Tommy!” Dad yelled. “Get the haulers out of here and back to the hotel.”

  Everything burst to life around us at my dad’s voice. They loaded up the cars without another word and Dad took Kinsley and me into Dayton. Nothing was said the entire drive.

  It was on the drive I realized that I had two responsibilities tonight. My husband, and my job. By the time we reached the hospital, both Rager and Caden were already being treated. We found out quickly that Rager was in surgery for a head trauma and Caden the same. The severity of either was unknown.

  Immediately, a crowd had gathered outside the emergency room. Everyone wanted to know what was going on. I didn’t know what to say.

  Between the drive and the arrival, I called Alley to see what I needed to do. “What do I say?” I hadn’t dealt with this yet and had no idea how to word any of it with the press. My entire body broke out in a cold sweat and I cried with tears of fear.

  The last couple of weeks I’d been so caught up in not wanting to leave my kids or husband and fearing the worst that this was the last thing on my mind. And should have been in the forefront given on my husband’s career.

  Alley drew in a calm breath. “You tell them that JAR Racings’ Rager Sweet, driver of the Solar Seals number ninety-nine, and Caden Carson, driver of the nineteen Carson Construction, are being treated at Miami Valley Hospital. They’re in stable but critical condition for their injuries sustained during a race at Eldora Speedway. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers and ask that you respect the privacy of their family during this time. We will update you when more information is available.”

  I wrote down everything she said and typed up my press release.

  “Stay calm, Arie,” Alley reminded me. “That’s all you can do in these situations. I’m on my way to Dayton.”

  My voice shook. “Okay.”

  For the next three hours, I talked to the press. I answered phone calls and relayed information to the track where everyone had been waiting on their conditions. It all happened in a blink of an eye and felt like it was moving quickly. In the private waiting room I was in, I glanced up when the door opened, my phone in one hand and tissues in the other.

  Dad entered the room. He looked about the same—fear in his eyes and patience only he’d mastered over the years. “You should go talk to Kinsley.”

  “Why?” My heart kicked hard in my chest. “What happened?”

  “Caden’s out of surgery. Doesn’t look good. I’ll finish up with the press. Kinsley needs you.”

  Kinsley needed me? My heart dropped to what felt like the floor. Immediately my mouth was dry, throat tight. No, please no. Don’t say he’s gone. Not Caden. God, please don’t take him from her. Not before their life even began. For seconds before the words came, I prayed.

  I reached for his forearms. He held me steady as I stood and dropped my phone on the table. “What do you mean it doesn’t look good?”

  Dad’s gaze shifted from the floor to mine. “He has a skull fracture,” he told me, drawing in a quick breath. “It’s relatively minor. They went in and got the bleed taken care of. His neck is fractured at C7, but he broke his back, completely shattered T5 and 6, ribs, collarbone….” His voice trailed off.

  “Is he paralyzed?”

  Dad nodded. “There’s damage to his spinal cord. He’s leaking spinal fluid at T5, but they won’t know the extent until the swelling goes down and he’s breathing on his own.”

  There was some good news, but not what we’d hoped for. Of all the hundreds of scenarios we played out in our heads on the way here, at least this version he was alive and breathing.

  Immediately my thoughts went to Rager, knowing my dad hadn’t said anything about him. There was a loud whooshing sound in my ears when I asked, “And Rager?”

  Dad shrugged and ran his hand over his face. Stepping forward, he yanked me hard against his chest. I listened to his breathing and the sudden pounding of his heart when he whispered, “I haven’t heard anything yet, sweetheart.”

  I didn’t realize until my dad wrapped his arms around me, how badly I needed that hug from him. We’d never been in this position together. When Grandpa died, Dad had been dying. When Jack died, I had kept my distance and dealt with the press. And now here we were, together, navigating the unknown.

  I cried big fat ugly tears—tears that felt like they were never going to end when Dad held me closer. “I know this won’t mean much right now, but this is the race we’re in. It’s meant to be. You can’t change your finishing order. Every pit stop, every caution flag, every minute spent in the work area, and every lap led is for a reason.”

  Holding on to him tighter than ever before, I sunk into my dad’s embrace, his shirt smelling of methanol. It took me a minute, probably with more effort than I needed to process those words. It hit me in the stomach. Like a punch. A blow I hadn’t prepared for. No matter what we did, it wouldn’t change what happened to Rager or Caden.

  With my heart in my throat, I moved from the room to the third floor where Kinsley was with Caden. My eyes moved around the familiar dimly lit room. I’d seen my dad in a room like this, after a race, after tragedy and barely hanging on. I flashed back to him lying helplessly in the bed, hanging onto to what was left of his life while we worked through those caution laps.

  I hated that Kinsley was experiencing all this for the first time, and alone. She didn’t say anything when I entered the room. Quietly, she stared at Caden—a tube down his throat and so completely different than when I saw him twelve hours ago eating a donut and laughing.

  Some people might imagine you’d scream and cry after been given the
news. But sometimes, the only peace you can find was within the quiet.

  Kinsley drew in a ragged breath. “How am I ever going to explain this to him?” Her red eyes moved to mine. “I’m so thankful he’s alive, but is he? Can anyone be alive when the one thing they want in life is taken from them?”

  I didn’t have an answer for her. At least not one I thought would provide her comfort. I reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  Here, hours ago, I’d been so thankful for this lifestyle we had, and now it was slowly falling apart. As I sat there with Kinsley, a feeling of peace came over me as we stared at Caden, quiet and still, but in that moment, all I could do was pray, for him, for Rager, for us. Above all was an overwhelming peace inside me that everything would be okay. It was as if someone was inside my head, screaming at me, it will be okay.

  “We’re gonna be okay,” I told her, trying to find comfort for her, and me. “We’re in this together and we’re gonna take it minute by minute, okay?”

  Her tired eyes drifted to Caden. “Okay.”

  I didn’t know what else to say to her. I couldn’t even bring myself to believe what I said.

  Kinsley briefly let go of Caden’s hand to wipe tears from her eyes on a waded-up tissue. “Have you heard about Rager yet?”

  “He’s still in surgery.” I thought of Rager, and my dad, Caden, Grandpa Jimi, Jack… everyone I’ve ever prayed for. But one thought remained the same. Rager. I felt him with me in that second, as if his fingertips were on my back, guiding me through this and reassuring me if these were my last days with him, his presence would be the last thing I felt. I could recall the sound of his laughter, the way he smirked and the weight of his body on mine. I let his whispers, his I love yous I’d heard this morning be the soundtrack to my silence now.

  Thermal Resistance – Temperature rise per unit of power loss.

  We’d been here so many times you’d think it would get easier. It didn’t. Every time was like the first. My brother Axel once told me that you can’t predict your life. You could hope it would turn out one way, and then when it didn’t, you’re left spinning out of control. There was a high that came with winning. But there was always a low. You couldn’t stay that high forever.

  Was this our low? Again? How much heartache and suffering could one family endure before they threw in the white flag and said, that was enough.

  Time crept by, minute by minute, hour by hour where I feared the worst. I sat with Kinsley trying to make sense of the race and how it happened. It had been live on DIRTVision but removed immediately at our request. I watched the replay, twice, as I hadn’t been looking when it happened. It didn’t show who Caden got into with when he was leading the race and at about four seconds in front of Rager. Whatever happened, while Caden had done a series of snap flips, Rager hit him on the top of the roll cage, having nowhere else to go.

  Hours after we’d heard about Caden, I still didn’t know Rager’s condition other than he was still in surgery for a head injury.

  I feared the absolute worst. Brain damage. I’d seen it happen to other drivers before. One minute they’re the same, the next their life was altered forever as well as those around them.

  As the sun began to stir in the sky and fill the black with shades of blues and lighter shades, I stepped outside for some fresh air. On a bench near the emergency room doors, I hid from the media hovering, and skipped through the thousands of messages I had on my phone. I couldn’t even bear to open a single one of them.

  I went through my photos from yesterday morning. I wasn’t even sure why because the instant I saw his face on my phone, I started crying again. Impossible to stop tears that had my nose running and snot stuck to my cheeks. Why did I do that to myself? Maybe because when you’re down, you reminisce about the good times?

  There, on my phone, were hundreds of photos of this last year from when we left the shop in February, the group photo we took of the entire team in front of JAR Racing, to the ones of Rager with the kids. From Volusia, to Calistoga, Vegas, Tulare, Pevely… Devil’s Bowl, the selfie we took alongside the freeway when Caden zip-tied their air ride to make it to the next city. Or outside that shady truck stop between Perris and Tucson where Caden accidently locked himself in the bathroom with a lot lizard and refused to ever use a public bathroom again. I still have the picture of him stripping down to his boxers and throwing his clothes in a dumpster.

  I swiped past the ones of Devil’s Bowl when Dad threw the snake at Rosa and she began plotting his murder. The ones of Caden and Kinsley on the floor of Dad’s hauler holding their newborn baby. And deleted the ones Willie took of his dick again.

  Speaking of him, he sat next to me on the bench outside, tired eyes and a half-assed smile. “It might be a bad time to point this out, but Rager’s going to make it.”

  “How do you know?” Tears formed in my eyes.

  “Because he once told me I’d never see you naked as long as he’s alive. And I would never get that lucky, so he’s going to make it. Either that, or he’d probably kill me first to assure that doesn’t happen, and then die. But I don’t think that will happen. He’s too badass to die.”

  “Willie?”

  His shoulders rolled forward as he looked over at me and sighed, as if he too was exhausted. I noticed he was drinking a beer, at four in the morning. “Yeah?”

  “Shut up.”

  He was trying to make me laugh, but instead, I cried and laid my head on his shoulder. He kissed the side of my head and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Okay.”

  For some reason, I let this wild, beer-loving, crazy, mullet-wearing dude who joined JAR Racing one day and became a morally challenged big brother figure in my life, comfort me.

  WITH MY STOMACH tied in knots, I made my way back inside the hospital.

  I talked to Lane again, and my dad who both hadn’t left the hospital yet. They both said Rager came around as they removed him from the car. He asked for me.

  The fact he’d spoken made me feel better to know they’d had a response from him. The doctor I’d spoken with earlier before we did the press release this morning, assured me Rager’s head injury was minor, but needed immediate repair and took some time due to bleeding in his brain. He also had four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and had broken his right ankle in two spots.

  Lane wrapped his arm around me, his lips pressed to my temple. “He’s gonna make it. He’s too bad ass not to.”

  It was the second time I’d heard that this morning and in my heart I wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t easy to put aside my fears and believe it. I returned Lane’s hug, hoping I was providing comfort to him too. Rager was his best friend.

  Pulling away from him, the exhaustion crept in and I yawned. I still hadn’t slept. I couldn’t. I wanted my husband to be okay and I wanted my babies. Mom had the kids with her at a hotel nearby and I couldn’t stop thinking about their tiny cute faces. They must have been so scared.

  Alley arrived shortly before five in the morning and I met her in a private room. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll take care of everything with the media. You just be here for Rager and Kinsley,” she told me, motioning to the waiting room behind her.

  I nodded. “What do I say to her?” I rubbed my hands over my tender face. I’d been crying so much it hurt to touch my eyes. “I feel like any minute she’s going to start telling me this is my fault or Rager’s.”

  Alley rested her hand on my shoulder and one under my chin. “She’s a race wife… or girlfriend. She understands that this kind of thing is racing related.”

  But did she? I’d known Kinsley for a year now, but only recently gotten close with her when she started traveling with Caden full time in February. I had no idea if she’d suddenly be mad at us over this, and the anxiety of not knowing was killing me. I felt horrible for her.

  A doctor came out while Alley and I were in the hallway talking. “Mrs. Sweet?”

  Holy shit. Please be good news. Please! “Yes.” I nodded and he
stepped forward.

  “I’m Dr. Shook.”

  “Is my husband okay?”

  “Rager’s out of surgery and doing well. He’s stable.” He leaned his shoulder into the wall, and sighed. He was probably exhausted. “He’s up in the ICU recovering. I was able to repair the fracture and cauterize the bleeding. He has some swelling, but it’s minor. We have him intubated to let the lung heal and sedated to allow for the swelling to come down. I put in a drain, but I don’t see any reason for concern with the head injury. But, it’s a brain injury. You can never be too careful with them, or think you know how someone will react.”

  There was a touch of relief, but not enough to control my pulse. My cheeks were hot as I listened and tried to understand that hours ago I was watching him race. “And his lung?”

  His expression relaxed. “It’ll take a few days for it to repair. The collarbone is a clean break, should heal nicely along with the ankle. He’s very lucky it wasn’t worse.”

  Caden wasn’t so lucky.

  “When can I see him?”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s give them some time up there to get everything set up. They’re busy tonight, but then you should be able to see him. Once the swelling goes down, we’ll take him off the anesthesia and he’ll wake up soon after.”

  The doctor left after that and Axel approached. I noticed in the waiting room behind him that Tommy, Lane, Willie, and all the other JAR Racing guys were there. “What’d he say?”

  “He’s stable. Fractured skull, collapsed lung… that seems to be the worst of it.”

  Axel drew in a deep breath. “How’s Kinsley holding up?”

  I glanced back into the room we’d been in, away from the waiting room. Though she wanted to spend all her time in Caden’s room, they wouldn’t allow it and asked her to leave while they performed an MRI on his neck. In the private waiting room, she was staring at her phone in her hand. “As good as can be expected.”

  His jaw worked back and forth. “This shit never gets easier.”