WORKING FOR THE KNIFE ━ lando norris.

III. Plight Left Unsatisfied

   

  

   

( ACT I. ── The Becoming )
chapter three / Plight Left Unsatisfied

   

   

   

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Annika woke up on the morning of the Bahrain Grand Prix with a bad taste in her mouth. She rolled over onto her pillows and struggled to take a full breath, preparing herself to rise.

It was never, ever as bad as it was first thing in the morning.

She lifted herself onto her elbow and agony shot through her stiff neck, red-hot iron hooking into her spine, her jaw, the base of her skull. For a moment she felt as though she would pass out. She tried to rise, and the feeling vanished. Rising to sit was difficult, surprisingly so, and she failed. She felt terrifyingly weak, the muscles scaling her spine resisting even the simple command to sit up. The effort to finally find herself upright was enough to leave her winded, and she had to stop for a moment, breathing hard.

It took up to ten minutes for her to regain her full range of motion, steadily working the stiffness out of her neck until she was able to move her head side to side without resistance.

She swallowed ibuprofen for the pain and took a shower.

Matt would be knocking on her door soon, ready to hand over a printed itinerary of what to do and what not to do in preparation for the race, what she would be doing in the hours between now and then, and how to behave.

As she was brushing her teeth over the sink in her hotel room, her phone began to buzz with a familiar ringtone, one reserved only for the people closest to her. She accepted the FaceTime call and spoke around her toothpaste, "Guten Morgen, Greta."

"Scale of one to ten, what do you think my chances are of getting Mum to agree to let me drop out of school and travel the world with you?" Her teenage sister appeared on the screen, her face barely illuminated in a dark room. As the night owl she always had been, Annika was not surprised that she would still be awake at 3am on a Saturday.

Annika spit out her toothpaste. "I think you have a better chance for getting raptured."

"Come on, be serious."

"I am," Annika laughed as she wiped her mouth. "You are fourteen."

"You could be my guardian. Let me do online school. I'd get to live all over the world and still get my education and stuff."

"Keep dreaming."

"If you asked Mum she would say yes."