In the event, it was quite simple. She told her friends she was going out with her family, her family she was going out with her friends, sneaked out of the house with a backpack containing jeans and a sweatshirt an hour before she planned to leave, and then waltzed out dressed up to the full with her usual Saturday purse. She recovered the backpack from the hedge once she was out of sight of the door, and caught the bus to the track.

There were a lot of people there. Not an empty parking space in sight, queues waiting to get into the stands, and a pair of security guards watching the entrance to the team facilities.

"Where are you going, miss?"

"I'm with ISO Racing."

"Yeah, right."

It went rapidly downhill from there, and Sam was on the verge of turning away and joining the queue for the stands when the guard's eyeline shifted disconcertingly to somewhere above and behind her right shoulder.

"Hey, aren't you that ISO driver? You're mighty late."

"Tell me about it. Come on, Sam."

Sam gave the guard her best bright smile and, not quite believing her luck, followed Jason through the double doors to the corridor behind the pit lane. She didn't know how much prep time the drivers normally had, but she had to presume it was more than ten minutes. Jason certainly wasn't hanging about. She had to almost run to keep up with him, and he obviously wasn't in the mood for discussion.

.

"- have to do what we can. If only Jason -"

"Did I hear my name?" Jason stepped into line of sight, and Ed's face lit up as though Christmas had come early.

"Get changed, man! Five minutes is all you've got. Carl, reset the car for Jason. Move!"

"Which one?" Carl asked, hesitating.

"Two, of course! Dunno why the kid wants car two, but if he wants it, he gets it."

"What about me?" That was Luis, all suited up, helmet in hand.

"You?" Ed barely glanced at him. "Watch him. You might learn something. And stay out of the way!"

Luis looked as if he might object, but the older man had clearly forgotten he existed. Instead, he came over to her. "Damn prodigal son," he growled. "Let's see how well he does on no practise, not even a warmup. Stupid decision, if you ask me."

Sam didn't respond. The first race was under way, and she was lost in a world of speed and noise. She'd not realised quite how terrifyingly close the cars came to one another, how little space there was, the split-second judgement needed to find a gap to move into. Right now, she couldn't understand how anyone could possibly want to be out there.

To her total astonishment, the race finished with a chequered flag rather than a twenty car pileup. All around her were looking rather disappointed, and it wasn't until Jeff pulled into the previously occupied bay that Sam realised that the other car had gone.

"Seventh," said Luis in disgust. "And they say I need to watch and learn. Well, let's see how Wonder Boy does."

"Jason's next?" Sam scanned the pack of cars making its way to the starting grid. "Which one's he?"

Luis stared. "Navy, silver doors, red number 2. I thought you worked for this outfit?"

Sam flushed. "Work experience."

"Oh." He paused. "So, are you applying for the job?"

"What?"

The smile was definitely condescending. Sam decided Luis was more than a little happy to have found someone junior to him.

"The apprenticeship. Come on - there's advertisements plastered everywhere. You'd have to be blind to miss them. This one." He pushed a flyer into her hand, and Sam cast a quick glance at it.

"Oh - that job. Hadn't really thought about it. I have to graduate first."

"Don't wait too long. The closing date's in a couple of weeks, and I like having you around."

Sam took a step away from him. Luis was most definitely not her type. She was saved from an awkward situation by the start of the race - finding a better vantage point was surely to be expected, and she was very grateful that Luis didn't follow her.

Despite several well-meaning attempts from various ISO Racing personnel to explain the tactics, Sam struggled to make any sense of the race until late on, when all the cars had made their stops. At that point, suddenly Jason was in front of everyone, and nobody even looked like getting past him.

The car which Sam had polished so hard pulled back in, grimy, scratched, and with a couple of good dents, and Ed was at the driver's side to help a triumphant Jason out of the car. A brief exchange, and abruptly Ed was waving for help, a second man was on Jason's other side, and Sam belatedly realised something was wrong, grabbed the chair she'd been sitting on, and took it over to them in a hurry.

Jason sat down with a gasp, rested his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands. Sam was starting to feel concerned when he sat up, reached for the drink someone had brought, and downed it in three gulps.

"Okay, son?" Ed asked him quietly.

"Yeah."

"When's the last time you slept?"

There was a rueful smile. "Wednesday - I think."

"You need better work conditions."

"I'll ask Spectra to only attack during office hours, shall I?"

Ed sighed. "Point taken. Now go rest, okay? I don't want you back in a car until you've slept."

Jason pushed himself to his feet. "Yes, mom."

"And the rest of you can stop standing about! Ten minutes until car three hits the track. Jump!"

"Is there anything I can do?" Sam found herself saying.

Ed barely spared her a glance. "No."

Sunday was a truly miserable day. Her mother had found a set of magazine articles on how one could become a fully qualified beautician without needing academic credits, and insisted on reading them out loud, complete with commentary on how ideal this would be for her. Sam, meanwhile, sat there, a cold lump in her chest, unable to understand why she wasn't delighted. Her mother, reading about how someone just like her had made her dream come true, and all Sam could think about was getting away to decipher the flyer burning a hole in her pocket. Every comment from her mother, and all she could see was the disbelieving raised eyebrows from her current colleagues that anyone could even consider thinking this mattered. She'd known for five years that she wanted to be a beautician, had never doubted it. The doubt was there now, deep, nauseating waves of it. She didn't want to spend her life painting toenails. She wanted to spend it making cars go fast.

She'd never had a moment of icy clarity like that before, and thankfully it coincided with her mother coming to the end of the article in question. Sam managed a smile and a word of thanks, took the magazine, and headed for her room.

Twenty minutes slow, word-by-word deciphering of the flyer, and she knew she couldn't do it. Her grades weren't even remotely good enough. Her experience consisted of the last five days, and she didn't even have a driver's permit. Sam balled the offending leaflet and hurled it at her bin. One short phonecall later, and she was on her way out, smile pasted on her face, to meet a couple of friends and discuss hairstyles.

Only the previous week, she'd have enjoyed every minute of it. Even now, it was fun - but Sam kept having to bite her tongue. She couldn't talk about what she wanted to, pass on precisely what Carl had said when he'd walked into the door, enthuse over the difference changing the timing chain had made to car one. They wouldn't have understood the words. She wanted to be with people who did - not all the time, but regularly. The thought of never being involved again was horrible.