So, here is the new chapter. I said Friday, but people kept asking me for an update, so this is on you guys. Just saying. It's not my fault. Warning: major character death! No, I'm joking. Maybe. You will see. Enjoy!
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Joanna stared at the white ceiling above her as she had already done for hours when her alarm clock finally reminded her that she couldn't spend the day in bed, no matter how much she just wanted to hide under her covers forever, where she hopefully would be left alone. Nevertheless, Joanna knew that Kiwi would appear at her door sooner rather than later, should she not show up from breakfast.
Today was the race, so there was no way that she could stay in bed. Biting her lip softly, Joanna thought about Max's message. He reached out, wanted to talk with her again, it hurt. He shouldn't do that to himself.
She couldn't take her own life right now. Not any comments from other drivers or the media asking the wrong questions and certainly not some people who pretended to care about her but ultimately didn't. She had become fragile. It was all a little bit too much.
Maybe she always was fragile, but she was her whole life so well protected, she didn't even know it. Joanna always thought that the convent school was hell, but she hadn't known hell back then.
Her life has started easy, with a clear path to walk down. She walked alone, nobody was holding her hands, every step on her journey, but that was okay. Joanna didn't know it any other way, until the day some company joined her. Supportive and loyal friends. Joanna was happy until it all started to grumble.
Throughout the way she started making harder and more questionable decisions, making her life darker and darker. She hurt the people she loved until she was standing here all alone. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, but this is how it was. She couldn't change that.
Joanna rubbed her palms over her face and prodded the corners of her eyes, dabbing away the tiny teardrops forming there before they were able to fall. The Austrian was pretty sure she would break down and cry like a little girl before the day was over. But she couldn't allow herself such premature behavior. Emotions weren't to be displayed.
After a lengthy discussion with herself as to whether she should stand up or not, she finally moved, but as soon as her feet touched the ground, she was reminded of the problem which seemed to become ever-present. Feeling the pills underneath her feet, she tried her best to step over them and walk into the bathroom of her hotel room.
The Austrian sighed when she hardly recognized herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess. The dark circles around her eyes, which she couldn't even hide with a massive amount of makeup, weren't the worst thing about her current appearance. Her usually so beautiful stormy grey eyes seem to have lost their glamourous shine. They seemed empty of expression and dulled by grief.
Sighing heavily, she threw her powder brush back into her washing bag before she decided to head downstairs for some breakfast. Something to eat always lifted her mood, or it did in the past. Nowadays nothing seemed to lift her mood anymore.
The Austrian was about to leave the bathroom but turned around again. Joanna got the bottle of antidepressants. The pain medication wasn't doing its job any longer. But the Lexapro was helping to bring the numbness back into her bones. Leaving the bottle in the bathroom sink, Joanna got her phone before she flopped down on the bed again.
"Come to my room right now!!!" She texted a number she knew by heart and she hadn't to wait long for a reply despite the early hour of the morning.
"No, fuck you." That was all he answered, which caused Joanna to smile to herself. She hadn't expected anything else. The Austrian was used to this kind of behavior towards her.
"Wouldn't you rather fuck me?" She sent back, the provocation completely intentional.
"Are you serious? A fucking booty call? How old are you, five?"
Rolling her eyes, Joanna rested back against the bed, before typing a question."Do you want it to be one?" Another provocation and Joanna watched with a satisfied feeling in her stomach as the three little dots appeared, before they disappeared again, so she decided she would text him once again. Giving up on the conversation wasn't in Joanna's interest.
"And you're painfully aware of my age, darling." She fired off, prompting a response that didn't take long to come.
"Once again, fuck you." was all Mark texted her.
"Whatever, are you coming or not? I need help and all my friends love me too much to do what it takes." The younger Ferrari driver informed him, which Joanna knew would get the Aussie's attention. He was far too curious to not walk right into her trap. A few more texts and he would do whatever she wanted him to do.
"Do what it takes? Are you asking me to kill you, darling?" Joanna smiled at that. She wanted to write something along the line 'not today, but will hold you to your offer some day' but in the end, she didn't.
Knowing Mark as good as she did, Joanna knew that she had to be careful. If she overstretched the bow, Mark would drop her like a hot potato. She couldn't tease him without giving him at least something.
"More like to keep my demons in check so I'm not a danger for myself or others."
After sending that text, Joanna had to wait so long, she already thought Mark was ignoring her, but then she heard her phone vibrate on the duvet.
"I hate you." That was all Mark texted her before the three little dots appeared again. "See you in five." Read the second message which caused Joanna to close the app, before putting the phone away.
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"You said in five. What took you so fucking long?" That was the first thing Joanna said as she opened the door due to Mark's knocking. Causing the Aussie to exhale slowly and in annoyance, he buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
"I don't want to be here in the first place so be careful." He warned Joanna while closing the door behind him and following the Austrian into her bedroom.
He watched as Joanna flopped down on her bed before his gaze drifted to the floor and the pills which were laying around, causing him to grimace. Mark knew Joanna and he knew that she had certain troubles, but normally she was able to keep them in check as long as she had something else to do. She was fine when she was able to plan against someone.
"I can see what you might consider your problem, but knowing you I would rather like you to clarify." The Aussie said while watching the younger Ferrari driver closely. Joanna sat on her bed, her legs pulled up against her chest and her arms rested on her knees.
"Something happened and because of that my doctor prescribed me some pain medication and sleeping pills but it's getting out of hand. I can't have a drug addiction, Mark. Do you know what that would mean for me, my career, and my reputation?" She questioned which caused Mark to sit down on the bed next to her.
"Have some ideas. What happened?" He wanted to know. The older one couldn't imagine something which could trigger Joanna like that. She always was in control of every situation. For a moment he thought this was part of one of her plots. Maybe she was playing him, lying to get something from him. An alibi? Maybe, he wouldn't put it above her to do such a thing.
"That's all that ... Haven't you been listening? I'm ruined, Mark. I'm done." Joanna raised her voice, tears threatened to fall from her eyes, but he still wouldn't bet she wasn't faking.
"Don't be so dramatic. Did your doctor know that you already had some struggles with drugs before?" He asked instead. Voicing his thoughts that she was just playing felt too hot. Should she really have a problem and he would say what he thought she was doing, it would end terribly.
"I thought it would be fine." The Austrian muttered before she reached out and took one of the pillows. Pressing it against her chest, but not moving otherwise.
"Of course you did," Mark said more to himself than to her, as he got up and started pacing through the room. Everything else seemed normal.
"I'm surprised your watchdog isn't here. Today's her free day?"
"Nah. I can't ask them for help. They love me but none of them can tell me no. But you can and I need you to do that." Joanna told him in what he thought was her honest voice, but Mark wasn't foolish enough to believe he knew her. He never knew her and he never wanted to know her either. What they had was destructive for both of them and somewhere on the way his heart got involved. Fucking him over in the process.
He felt himself get angry at her accusation. How dare she say something like that? He always claimed that he didn't love her but hearing it from Joanna had hurt. He never wanted her to even think about such things. He hated that she tried to bring order in the chaos of feelings and emotions. Why on earth couldn't she simply leave it?
"You're such a stupid bitch sometimes. Do you think I would be here could I say no to you? Do you think I would have run to your room like a lovesick puppy if I wouldn't love you in our own fucked up and wicket way?" Mark wasn't sure why he said these things, he wasn't sure what Joanna did to him, but it made him angry. He was so angry at her for being ... herself.
"Please, don't kid yourself. You don't love me, Mark." Joanna told him absolutely unbothered, but it was the little unbelieving laughed she let out that did it for Mark. Joanna did not take him seriously and it made Mark so fucking furious, he questioned why he came here in the first place. Mark knew better than anybody else that Joanna was an unthankful bitch and that she liked to ruin people's lives.
Mark didn't know how Joanna managed to gain so much power over the years, but he knew that she was dangerous and that nobody ever turned her down, not if they wanted to have a career in Motorsport, but Mark was so unbelievable fed up.
"You want help?" Mark asked her, which caused Joanna to look up. The Aussie wanted until their eyes met before he grimaced hatefully at her.
"Go to rehab." Was the last thing Mark said before he left her room and slamming the door shut behind himself.
Joanna on the other hand was confused. She didn't understand what had just happened. For her, all that she knew was that she had gotten over herself and asked for help, the only person, who had it in him to actually help her and he turned her down without a second thought.
Not knowing what to do with herself now. Joanna got up from the bed and walked over to her backpack. Getting the medallion she only ever worse when she was racing, but now she put the silver chain over her head and allowed the piece of jewelry to rest over her heart before sitting down on her bed again.
At that moment Joanna realized that too many doors are closed. All the possible paths she once could have walked down have vanished. There were only two left. Life and death. It was a simple as that. Either she will find a way back into life or she won't. She was at a final crossroads. Continue or stop. To want to live or to resign herself to the end. The door was about to close, Joanna knew that, but hadn't she been here once before?
It was a knock on the door, which pulled the Austrian away from her depressing thoughts, which caused her to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, before getting up to answer the door. As soon as she opened, she saw one of the cleaning ladies, which gave her a neutral look, not saying anything, before handing her an envelope.
Looking at the woman with a raised eyebrow Joanna was about to open it, but the woman stopped her with a hand on hers.
"What is that?" The Austrian asked as she stopped in her movements. Joanna was far too clever to trust a stranger, but as she saw the double infinitive symbol dangle from the neckless of the woman, Joanna knew she could trust her. She was one of her spies.
"An early Christmas present." The woman replied monotonously. Taking in her features, Joanna recognized her. The last time she had seen Alice she had another hair color and wasn't disguised as a cleaning lady.
"Thank you, Alice," Joanna said, which caused the woman to nod before she pushed the little kart with the cleaning supplies in front of her and walked down the hallway of the hotel floor. Joanna waited a few more moments, making sure nobody had seen the interaction before she entered her room again and closed the door firmly behind her, the envelope pressed against her chest.
Open it slowly, Joanna got the USB stick which was hidden inside, before gathering her laptop from the bottom of the suitcase and sitting down on the bed with both objects. A few moments later, her laptop was ready to work, which caused Joanna to push the USB inside, waiting for the files to pop up and pop up the did.
"That's something else, indeed," Joanna muttered to herself. Not many things could, but this, this pt a smile on her face, but not a good one. A wicked one. This little USB stick gave her back a lot of power, which she thought she had lost and it is going to be so much fun using it.
Checking the time on her watch, Joanna got up from her bed pushed the USB into her jeans pockets, before getting her backpack and leaving the hotel room. The pills on the floor and in the bathroom were long forgotten. She had something to do before anyone else beat her to it.
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Pacing around in her room, Joanna threw a glance every once in a while towards her backpack. She knew that there were still some pills, she had put the bottle in there, should she ever need some in case of an emergency and now they were tormenting her mind.
Joanna had played her cards, she tried to take advantage of the information she has received everything else didn't lay in her hands. From now on all she could do was wait and pulling some strings to prevent other players to act as well, but so far, Joanna was sure she was the only one to know about this kind of information and she watched as the seed she had planted started to grow. Joanna only hoped they grew fast enough to stop other people from acting. But the time window was not yet closed. A talented player could still snatch everything out of her hands.
"Fuck it," Joanna muttered to herself before getting over to her backpack and taking two pills. The dose made the poison and she could handle herself with this dose.
As soon as she had swallowed the medication Joanna heard a knock on the door which meant that it was time for the driver's parade. A tradition Joanna could normally do without but today it was the perfect opportunity to see if her plan would work or not.
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"Breath. Just breath." Joanna told herself quietly, as she eyed the lights of Hamilton's Mercedes in front of her. Doing her best to not lose focus Joanna thought the terrible headage.
No matter what games they were playing off track, now was the time to show the others what kind of driver she was. Joanna wanted this stupid third win in a row.
They were already racing for quite some while and Joanna knew that she had the fresher tires but they needed to do something if she wanted this win. She knew she needed to overtake him now, or her chance was over. But Joanna was in need of Seb's help, if they wanted to make sure, that the podium was in the hand of the Ferraris. This is why a gentle smile spread out on her lips as the team told her that Seb, had overtaken the driver who was currently place three, and left Daniel behind.
Now he was heading for her and Lewis to assist her in taking over the lead. That is why she focused on the road again and took a few more deep breaths.
"Just breath." She mumbled softly to herself like a mantra.
"What was that?" She heard Matteo's voice ask her on the radio, but she just shook her head before replying. "Oh, nothing. I wasn't aware, that I pushed the radio button. No need to worry."
As soon as she saw Seb behind her, she took her chance to speed up, while trying to get in front of the line. With ease, she overtook Hamilton before she set about extending her lead even further. She went into the sprint to the finish line when a safety car phase was declared, so she took her foot off the gas a bit.
"What's going on? Where is Seb? Did he not catch up with Hamilton?" She asked after a short glance back, to see nobody was coming after her not even Hamilton's Mercedes or as expected Seb's Ferrari. She heard a few people talking to each other, but not directly into the microphone, which made the woman frown before pulling her eyebrows together worriedly. Joanna knew something had happened that they just didn't want to tell her. Which only increased her anxiety for her teammate.
"Joanna, we need you to focus," Matteo told her, which let her heart nearly stop. He never blocked up like this. So properly everything went to shit.
"Don't bullshit me. What happened to Seb, you don't want to tell me?" She asked while still holding the speed the safety car was giving, but nobody wanted to tell the woman what had happened just behind her back. Nobody was going to tell her. About the massive crash, her teammate and a few of her friends were taken out by.
"Joanna, red flag. Red flag. Follow the safety car inside." The Austrian did as she was told, not asking any more questions. She would see what had happened in a few moments anyway. She would know what had happened in a few moments.
Joanna's mind was spinning like crazy. She kept slowing down before she lay back a bit more in her seat. She played through scenarios of what might have happened. Maybe Seb was stopped by Daniel and Max who he just couldn't get past and he was fine and some other drivers had a shunt. But deep down inside she knew that this was a lie she was telling herself so she wouldn't collapse right now. In a racing car that drove way too fast to handle bad news. But her gut feeling told her that something had happened to Seb.
"Are they out of their cars!" She demanded to know, as she felt the first tears appear.
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Christian Horner bit his lips absent before looking again at the screen repeating the images of the accident. How Seb was about to go past Hamilton on the inside when Hamilton lost control and took Vettel out. The two pilots' crash was terrible, but the fact that they haven't warned Ricciardo, Verstappen, and Rosberg soon enough made it even worse. Daniel drove right into Seb, before crashing against the wall, where Hamilton's broken car was. Max could barely avoid the Aussie before he landed a bit further into the wall. Nico was less lucky, he bumped into Seb's car, which had just come to a standstill and made it spin again. Nico himself then collided with Daniel's car, who was already getting out. Knocking him down from his car, but he got up again, with shaky legs and a shocked expression on his face, after he had ripped the helmet off his face. Fighting for air.
The first thing Daniel did, was a scramble over to his teammate's car, making sure he was alright, but Max was not. "Max. Max come on. Don't you dare to die on me. Joanna will never forgive us if you do!"
The young Dutch was unconscious, which is why he tried to wake him, but there was no use. Dan was just so thankful, that his friend was still breathing. Well, he hoped what Max's chest was doing was breathing.
"Nico?" He screamed over his shoulder, seeing the older man coming over as well. "We need to get him out. What's about Seb and Lewis?"
"I ... I dono. Is Max alive? Oh god, Lewis." The German trembled like crazy, which Daniel soon noticed, why he climbed over the rest of Max's car to be able to lift the Dutchman from the other side.
"Listen to me. I know this is a lot, but we have to get Max out of the car and off the track." Daniel told him. Nico nodded before reached under Max's arm, making sure his head stayed stable.
"Just over to Seb. There we lay him down, then we help the others." Daniel decided for both of them, before carrying Max over to where Seb sat, with only one shoe and holding the side of his head despite the helmet which was still in place.
As soon as they've put Max down on the ground, Sebastian mode over to check on the young Dutch, while Nico ran off to see if Lewis was alright, which caused Seb to call out that Lewis was alright but stuck in the car and that they need some help to get him out.
"Is he breathing?" Daniel asked scared which caused Sebastian to lean over Max after getting rid of his helmet, before opening Max's race suit and pressing his ear against his chest.
"Yeah, for now. Where are the marshalls and the medical car?" The German wondered out loud, which caused Daniel to look up as well. Why on earth was nobody here to help them?
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Christian watched the screen, where Max's care was shown. It was nothing more than a pile of ruins from which Daniel and Nico had pulled the badly injured man before bringing him over to the side of the track. As far as he could see when they took off his helmet, the young Dutchman was not conscious. He was sure he would never forget Max's bloodstained face again. It will haunt him in his worst nightmares.
He swallowed hard as he saw that the first car which came back to the pitlane was the one of the Austrian. She stopped in the pitlane where they told her to, which coincidentally was right in front of the Red Bull garage.
Christian didn't know what to do. His body moved on its own. Towards Joanna to immediately help her out of the car, as she stopped next to him. Christian knew that Joanna and Max had something going on, but he couldn't imagine how she must feel right now.
The Austrian took her helmet off and gave it to a random person from Ferrari, who came running, not caring even the slightest bit. Her grey eyes were glued to the screens where she saw the repetition of the accident. She had dropped her gloves, which she had already taken off before she held her hands in front of her face. Her beautiful blue eyes were filled with fear and terror.
Joanna could feel her heart breaking into a thousand pieces as she saw Lewis's car hitting Seb's and Max following close as well Dan and Nico. Hot tears made their way down Joanna's cheeks. The otherwise so strong and tough Austrian had disappeared and left behind a terrified girl, who just had to watch the love of her life being pull out of his smoking car, but when they took off his helmet and she saw his bloodstained face, she was sure she was about to collapse.
She wasn't strong enough to lose Max. She wouldn't survive if Max died.
Joanna felt sick, everything was spinning, so she just clinched tight on Christian's arm, who had slung an arm around her shoulders, as Andrew run over to them, catching the Austrian right as her legs gave in under her, holding her upwards, but she was about to lose consciousness. Andrew could see it, Joanna was barely awake now.
"It will be alright. It will be okay." He murmured into her hair, but Joanna wasn't buying it. Nothing was okay, no everything was so far away from alright.