Chapter 1 Collision
The steering wheel vibrated in my hands as I took Turn 5 at 180 km/h. The roar of the engine filled my ears, the scent of high-octane fuel burning in my nostrils. Monaco's street circuit was unforgiving - one mistake and you'd be kissing the barriers.
"P1, Aiden. Tyler's half a second behind you," crackled my engineer's voice through the headset. I clenched my jaw. Tyler fucking Walsh. The bastard had been riding my tail all race.
Then came Turn 7. The infamous harbor-side chicane. My tires screamed as I braked late, keeping my line tight. That's when I saw it - Tyler's car lunging into my blind spot.
"Jesus Christ!" I jerked the wheel, but it was too late. Metal shrieked against metal as his front wing clipped my rear left. My world flipped upside down in a kaleidoscope of spinning barriers and flying carbon fiber. The last thing I remembered was the sickening crunch of my helmet hitting the roll bar.
I woke to antiseptic smells and fluorescent lights. My throat burned like I'd swallowed gasoline. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest as I tried to sit up. That's when I noticed the hands gripping the bedsheets - small, delicate, with chipped black nail polish.
"What the..." My voice came out wrong. High-pitched. Feminine.
Across the private hospital room, someone else gasped.
I turned my head and saw myself.
Well, my body. Sitting up in the adjacent bed, blond hair matted, blue eyes wide with terror. The familiar tattoo of racing coordinates peeked above the hospital gown's collar. But those weren't my eyes looking back at me. The expression was all wrong.
The person in my body spoke first. "Oh my God." A woman's voice. Coming from my mouth.
Instinctively, my hand flew to my stomach, fingers slipping under the hospital gown. The moment my fingertips brushed the raised scar tissue just below my ribs, ice water flooded my veins. That was my scar. From the Silverstone crash two years ago.
But I was in someone else's body.
The other person - the woman now wearing my skin - was staring at her (my) hands like they were alien objects. When she looked up, I saw recognition dawn in those eyes I knew so well.
"You're..." She swallowed hard. "Aiden Cross."
I nodded, my stomach churning. "And you?"
"Charlotte Moore." Her voice cracked. "Lead singer of Violet Hour."
We sat in stunned silence, the heart monitors beeping in frantic unison. Nurses' footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Normal hospital sounds. Nothing about this was normal.
I remembered the crash. The music festival posters in the hallway suggested Charlotte had been admitted around the same time. But why were we... like this?
Charlotte (in my body) suddenly doubled over, clutching her (my) head. "Fuck," she groaned. "What the hell did they give us?"
"Drugs wouldn't explain this," I muttered, running unfamiliar fingers through unfamiliar hair. It was longer than I kept mine. Dark brown instead of blond.
The door creaked open. A nurse bustled in, clipboard in hand. "Ah, you're both awake! How are we feeling?"
Like I'm trapped in some fucked-up nightmare, I wanted to say. Instead, Charlotte answered for us.
"Confused," she said carefully, using my voice. "What... happened?"
The nurse's smile didn't reach her eyes. "You were both brought in after traumatic events. Mr. Cross, your crash looked much worse than it was. And Ms. Moore, your... episode at the music festival."
Episode? I glanced at Charlotte, but her expression (my expression) gave nothing away.
"You'll need to stay overnight for observation," the nurse continued. "Doctor will be round in the morning."
When she left, we stared at each other again. The silence stretched until Charlotte finally spoke.
"They don't know."
"Know what?"
"That we're..." She gestured between us.
I flexed the unfamiliar hands. "We should tell someone."
"And say what? 'Excuse me, nurse, but I think my soul got swapped with the rock star?'" Charlotte's laugh sounded bizarre coming from my mouth.
She had a point. They'd think we were crazy. Or on drugs. Maybe we were.
A sudden wave of dizziness hit me. I gripped the bedrails as the room tilted.
"You okay?" Charlotte asked.
"No." I pressed a hand to my temple. The scar on my - her - abdomen throbbed in time with my pulse. "We need to figure this out. Fast."
Charlotte nodded slowly. "First thing tomorrow."
But as the night stretched on, neither of us slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the crash. The barriers rushing toward me. Tyler's smug face before he swerved.
And now I was trapped in some musician's body, with no idea how to get back.
Across the room, Charlotte kept shifting positions, clearly uncomfortable in my taller frame. At one point, she caught me staring.
"This is so messed up," she whispered.
Understatement of the century.
Somewhere around 3 AM, the door creaked again. Not the nurse this time - the lights were off, and whoever entered did so quietly.
My pulse spiked. I pretended to sleep, cracking one eye open just enough to see.
A shadow moved between our beds. Tall. Holding something. Not hospital staff.
Then came the whisper. "It worked."
Before I could react, the figure slipped back out into the hallway.
I met Charlotte's wide eyes in the dark. She'd seen it too.
Someone had done this to us.
And they were still watching.
