Chapter 2: The Sacrifice

The promise Ashton made to his father, to seek speed and to finish the race was easy to keep. The promise he made to himself, to keep his mother from finding out, was getting harder every day.

He was eighteen now, a blur of muscle and silent rage, competing in illegal street circuits and low-level regional tournaments. He didn't race for trophies; he raced for the dwindling stack of Euros that would pay for the garage rent and the spare parts. His car, the one Marco bought, was an extension of his own defiant heart: patched, loud, and unforgiving.

The only reason he wasn't starving or caught was owed to the wit of his older sister, Elena.

Elena, now twenty-two, had inherited their father's quiet strength but none of his reckless hope. She was a fortress. She continued to work her two shifts at the downtown laundromat, but now she also took on extra cleaning jobs in the upscale hotels near the coast. Every spare cent, every smuggled meal, every late-night distraction for their mother fell to her.

One evening, after the heavy scent of incense had settled following their mother's fervent prayers, Elena slipped into Ashton’s small room. The floorboards creaked beneath her weary steps.

Ashton was asleep, his chest rising and falling to the rhythm of a man exhausted by hiding and by speed. She stood over him for a long moment, watching the shadows play on his face.

She leaned down and placed a thick, rolled wad of cash and a tattered, stamped envelope on his bedside table.

Ashton woke instantly, his hand grabbing her wrist. "What is this? Are you crazy?"

"Lower your voice," she whispered, pulling her arm away. "It's nothing. Just a small investment."

"This is months of your work, Elena. I told you, I’m managing." Ashton replied.

"Managing what, Ashton?" Her voice was low, taut with exhaustion and worry. "Managing to keep that old rust bucket in the garage? I saw the entry fee for the F0 Rookie League, you're not any closer to covering that... especially with the official qualifiers starting next month. This... this is what Papa would have wanted."

"It's too much," Ashton insisted, as she ran her hand through his hair. "If I take this, you have nothing."

Elena sat on the edge of the bed. She wore the look of a person who had already made the calculation and accepted the price.

"I sold Papa’s watch," she admitted, her gaze dropping to the floor. "The one he kept for the day you would win the F0 title. It was just a small piece of metal, Ashton. This," she tapped the envelope, "is your ticket to leaving this favela forever. You win this league, you get noticed, you get sponsors. You get out. That’s what Papa wanted... a life better than chasing criminals or washing rich men's suits in hotels... get us all out of here"

Ashton picked up the heavy wad of cash. It felt like a stone, dense with sacrifice. "I don’t know if I can do this, Elena. If I fail, this is all for nothing. You'll have lost everything."

She lifted his chin with a calloused finger. "You are not allowed to fail. You drive like a mad man, Ashton. Smart. Ruthless. And you have the devil in your foot... Use it."

That night, the dream of Formula Zero ceased to be a shared ambition. It became a profound debt. Ashton submitted the paperwork. He was in. He was going to race in the Formula Zero Rookie league.

For the next few weeks, Ashton lived and breathed racing. He was faster, more focused, driven by a desperate need to justify Elena's impossible sacrifice. He trained every morning before sunrise and practiced late into the night at abandoned airstrips outside the city.

Later that day when night fell...

The small kitchen smelled overwhelmingly of Dona Sofia’s famous feijoada, a rich, smoky dish that was always reserved for special occasions. Tonight was the unofficial launch of Ashton's career. He was eighteen, Elena twenty-two, and their mother was pretending not to notice the atmosphere of feverish excitement.

Dona Sofia slid a generous portion onto Ashton’s plate. "Eat this. God demands you fuel your body, even if I still pray he steers your soul away from those metal coffins."

Elena kicked Ashton lightly under the table, her eyes twinkling. "Mama knows you need your strength, Ashton. She just doesn't want to admit she's feeding a champion."

Sofia scowled, but her eyes were soft as she watched her son eat. "I feed my children, Elena. Nothing more... do not put crazy ideas in his head, it was hard enough dealing with you during your teenage phase"

Elena rolling her eyes says "ideas that are already there... and what do you mean mama? i was an angel"

Ashton looked from his mother’s tired, worried face to his sister's defiant, hopeful one. He took a slow, deliberate bite of the rich stew.

"No words from you hmm?" Sofia asks while looking at Ashton.

"It's perfect, Mãe," he said, and the simple truth of the meal seemed to bridge the gap between their fear and his future, creating a rare moment of fragile peace.

"What's perfect?" Sofia asks.

"Our little home" Ashton replies.

"...Definately not your food Mãe" Elena blurts out with a smirk to which Sofia gently smacks Elena on the shoulder as Ashton laughs out in joy.

That night Ashton went out to the abandoned airstrip outside the city, it was he’s church, his track, and his confessional. It was flat, cracked asphalt, scarred by old landings, but to him, it was Monzzaa. It was Silverrock. It was the only place he felt truly free and truly responsible.

He wasn't racing against anyone but the clock and the ghosts in his mirrors. His mother thought he was at work; Elena thought he was asleep. But here, under the bruised pre-dawn sky, Ashton was transforming rage into precision.

He had no telemetry, no pit crew, and no advanced data. His only feedback came from the car itself, the shriek of the tires, the shudder of the gearbox, the feel of the engine vibrating through his seat. He trained himself to listen not just with his ears, but with his spine.

His specialty wasn't raw speed; it was control. He would take a corner repeatedly, not trying to hit the fastest time, but trying to hit the exact same speed and angle fifty times in a row, until the line became muscle memory, ingrained deeper than any formula.

That night, the mist rolled in thick and white, covering the tarmac like fresh milk. Visibility dropped to near zero. Most drivers would pack up, but Ashton saw an opportunity.

He closed his eyes, pressed the accelerator, and drove.

He drove purely by sound and feel. He listened to the engine's tone to gauge his speed, felt the slight pull of gravity to judge the radius of the turn, and used the subtle shift in the air temperature against his skin to anticipate the boundary of the asphalt.

He emerged from the fog fifteen minutes later, drenched in sweat, his heart hammering, but exhilarated. He hadn’t touched a cone. He hadn’t spun out. He had driven the perfect lap blind.

It wasn't magic; it was the calculus of control. He learned that when you have nothing left to lose, you have absolute freedom to push the limits, because the worst thing has already happened. The grief over his father’s death and the desperate need to save Elena were not distractions, they were his new, cold focus.

"You don't just drive the car," he muttered to the steering wheel, wiping the condensation from his face. "You become the driven..."

This relentless, self-taught discipline was the secret weapon he would take into the Formula Zero Second League, a profound, almost supernatural ability to read the car, the track, and the air, forged in isolation and desperation.

The next night Elena comes back home late, she walks up the creaking wooden stairs of their home and walks past their mother's room, and into Ashton's room. Her tired face illuminated by the single bare bulb. She had a pile of crisp new racing gear, gloves, boots, and a fireproof balaclava that she’d spent half her wages on.

"I had to tell Mama they were for a hotel chef who needs fire protection," Elena whispered, smoothing the new fabric.

Ashton ran his hand over the slick, professional material of the gloves. "She's going to find out eventually you know."

"Let her," Elena said, her voice dropping to a fierce murmur. "... i guess my rebellious teenage years are still on..."

Ashton and his sister both chuckle...

"You're racing for all of us, Ashton. For the chance to give her a house that doesn't smell like other people's laundry. For the chance to finally talk about Papa without her crying." Elena replied.

Ashton pulled her into a quick, fierce hug. It was their silent pact: she was his anchor in the favela, and he was her ticket out.