WORKING FOR THE KNIFE ━ lando norris.

XVI. My Small Liberty

    

    

   

( ACT II. ── Uncertain Waters )
chapter sixteen / My Small Liberty

   

   

   

✷ 　 　　 　 ·
　 ˚ * .
　 　　 *　　 * ⋆ 　 .
· 　　 ⋆ 　　　 ˚ ˚ 　　 ✦
　 ⋆ · 　 *
　　　　 ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧　✵
　 · ✵

   

   

   

After not even managing to reach Q3 the previous day, Annika was in no place to begin hoping. But as she flew past the checkered flag in her teammate's slipstream, she was grinning from ear to ear. "We have it, don't we, Lyndon?"

"We have it. P2 and P3 for Lewis and yourself. Beautiful drive."

"Woohoo!" Annika shouted with joy as she passed the grandstands, waving to all the cheering spectators. "Somos los campeones, mis amigos," she sang, "y seguiremos peleando, hasta el final,"

"Maybe after Formula One you should consider a career in performance," Lyndon commented in amusement.

"Do I not already have one?"

"Clever."

"Ah," she sighed happily. "Super, super work, everyone. Super drive from Lewis. Thank you guys."

She rolled to a stop in parc fermé for the second time in a row and pulled herself up out of her car. She climbed up and held her fists up to the grandstands. Her face hurt under her helmet from smiling. She clapped her hands together and then held up two fingers, two in a row, and held them up even as she jumped down from her car on light feet.

With Max she shared a friendly fist-bump, and Lewis, she hugged. He rocked her left and right for a moment before pulling back, one hand still squeezing her shoulder, and held up two fingers to mirror her previous celebration. It was so loud that he couldn't have heard her if she tried to speak, so she squeezed his shoulders in return and jumped up and down excitedly.

There was no way of hearing, but she thought he might have been laughing. He put his arm around her back and turned both of them towards the cameras, patting her shoulder once more before departing for the weigh station. Annika followed, sharing hugs and high-fives with the team beyond the barriers as she went.

There was no better feeling, truly. At least, not one that she had ever experienced. She was pretty certain that the day she waved the Finnish flag as fireworks exploded above her would be the best day of her life.

From Kimi Räikkönen of the 2000s and 2010s, to Annika Räikkönen Accola of the 2020s, there was no better path to follow, in her opinion. Someday she would be a world champion like her father. It was a steadfast assuredness, something that had crept up on her as she aged, something that required no deliberation anymore; it was simply fact in her mind. Anything that came after it was a blurred future for now ─ she had nothing pre-written beyond that. No plans. None. This was it. Her only path.

Helmet off, breathing the warm air of Spain, she took a microphone and approached the cameras, waving her hand up once again to the grandstands. The host of the interviews today was Nico Rosberg, the man who had once been in the same place she was now, walking those same footsteps.