Free Titans by Victoria Scott

saddle … on a Titan.
    “You look like an empress,” Magnolia declares.
    “An empress who’s going to fall on her rear if she doesn’t grip those handlebars tighter,” Rags says. “Are you ready to ride?”
    I answer him without speaking, because somewhere between the ground and this place above the rest of the world, I’ve lost my voice. After a few moments, I find it long enough to say, “I’m sorry about being difficult yesterday.”
    “Yesterday is gone,” he replies, adjusting the stirrups. “Let’s take him out.”

There’s only one starting gate stall, and the Titan and I are in it. The horse stomps its feet and bangs its back end against both sides, anticipating its first track run in who knows how long. Maybe its first track run, ever.
    There I go again, thinking of it as a thing with feelings.
    “I’m not going to give you any instruction other than to keep the horse in the safe zone,” Rags says. My eyes fall on the performance gauge, and the stretch of green I have to play with. Fair enough. “Don’t worry if you have a hard time getting him to accelerate or turn or whatever. Just get a feel for what it means to stay in the saddle. If at any moment you get afraid, push the brake bar up slowly. Slooowly .”
    I can barely hear him above the blood thrumming in my ears. The Titan slams against the starting gate, and I can’t help but agree. It feels like I’ve been back here an eternity, like I’ve spent my whole life in this exact spot, waiting to feel the breeze off a track slice through my hair.
    When Barney’s hand closes over the steel rod to open the manual gate, I close my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Try to quiet the voice that says I won’t be able to do this. I lean forward in the saddle and hear the leather adjust to my weight, smell the scent of polish Barney applied this morning. Then I push the smaller black button to ready the machine. When a faint red light grows in color, signaling the Titan’s readiness, pledging power and action, I lose my mind with excitement. I touch the gas bar, and the Titan produces a low whirring sound.
    Everything falls away. My best friend is speaking, but I can’t hear her. Sparks are flying off the Titan as it clashes against the gate, but I don’t feel a thing when they hit my skin.
    Rags provides one last nugget of advice. Something about staying in the saddle.
    But all I see when I look ahead is my grandfather standing in the distance. His face is the same ashen color it was when I returned home to our apartment, the day my family failed me. The day I failed my family. Grandpa is trying to speak, but can’t. I’m fumbling for his heart pills, something Dani should have remembered, but I know it’s too late. I know he’s dying, but there’s nothing I can do to help. There’s nothing I can do.
    But when that starting gate slides open, it’s as if that old, helpless Astrid slides away with it.
    Now I am Astrid with a Titan beneath her.
    I am invincible.
    Unstoppable.
    I push the black turbo button— Manual transmission . Go! —and the Titan runs. He’s slow to start, much different from the same horse I saw yesterday running on his own. But a quick push of the accelerator, and he’s off, gaining speed. His head jerks up and down with the pounding of his steel hooves. He’s not even a fraction into the safe zone, and it feels like we’re flying impossibly fast. The landscape whips by. The trees and ground blur into a brown mass. There’s a turn coming up, and I grit my teeth, terror swimming through my veins. We won’t make it. The Titan will skid out, flip, and I’ll go flying.
    My right hand pulls away from the handlebars and shakes above the brake lever. I have to slow down. I must. But as we barrel closer to the turn, I think back to the races I’ve watched. Those Titans were going three times as fast, maybe more, and they closed those turns with ease. At the last minute, I push up on the accelerator and ease the