Prologue

                                    

                                          
Elle Reynolds, a 24-year-old Monegasque young woman with a passionate love for motorsport instilled by her late father Alain Reynolds Dubois. Her early years were characterized by love, harmony, and an unchanging routine that made her accustomed to a comfortable life on the outskirts of the microstate on the French Riviera. Monaco was charming, a small country you could explore by sight by looking at your four cardinal directions, and for a young girl, it was a cozy place to live in. She grew up speaking French at school and home with her mom, while her dad taught her the ropes of the English language. Over the years, life circumstances had forced her to learn Italian, but she never grew fond of it, although, she thanked the language for making it easier to learn and understand Spanish later on.
 It was a happy but busy life for the girl, whenever she wasn't at school, she was traveling all around Europe with her father, a well-known motorsport engineer who started his career with Ducati; slowly, his knowledge and ambition made him become quite the character over at the factory in Maranello. Yes, THE Maranello. Alain was a head engineer for Ferrari making him have to travel constantly and for long periods, but he refused to move closer to his work, after all, he wanted to give his young daughter a chance at the stable life he never had. Unfortunately, that dream had to be cut short due to a tragedy that struck the family when Elle was just 7 years old. 
Elle's mother, Elise Moreau was left bedridden by a stroke at the young age of 33, most of her physical abilities were gone and she was practically incapacitated. Putting a halt on his career for the love of his life, Alain drained his savings on treatments for Elise, although doctors advised otherwise, he hoped a miracle could occur. Sadly, that didn't prove to be the case and only 4 months later, Elise passed away as a consequence to the sequels her multiple strokes had caused. 
Stricken with grief, the now two-party family tried to live a normal life, but they soon realized without Elise, it was going to be near impossible for Alain to support Ellie financially and take care of her if they stayed back in Monaco. Yes, moving far from home was hard, but having Elle and work close proved to make this whole single-parenting task a whole lot easier. And it was made even easier when Elle's father discovered her to be a motorsport enthusiast, she was a little fanatic, but there was nothing that could make her as excited as Formula 1. 
The pinnacle of motorsport, renowned for high-speed, ultimate engineering and utter defiance of laws of physics; formula one featured only the best drivers; those who had spent most, if not all of their lives fighting for a seat, breaking innumerable records to make their name mean something to all the fans around the world. It transcended borders, lakes and oceans. She recalled visiting many karting races, and truthfully, she had always wished her father allowed her to get on one but, you see; the bad thing about having her father as an engineer, was how he studied the life taking accidents and faults in security the cars had. Elle grew up knowing how dangerous the sport was, Alain was clear on reminding her it every time she asked to get on a kart, or at those strange occasions where they experienced an F1 crash in person. 
That was life for the next couple years, school was lonely, but she had two friends stuck to her at the hip. Two girls who had approached her on her first day of school as she sat lonely at a table outside the classrooms, she recalled:
  "Are you new?" The first girl in pigtails asked 
Elle nodded, her long black hair covering half of her face. Alain had attempted to style it, but he had certainly not caught up to the whole -stylist- thing yet. 
"I like your backpack" The second girl added, Elle smiled, turning to the lighting McQueen shaped backpack her father had gotten her a couple weeks ago as an apology for moving away from home. 
"Thank you, I like your shoes" Elle pointed to the pink shoes with a bowtie the second girl wore. All three of them smiled.
"I'm Emma" the kid with the pink shoes said "And this is Addie" pointing at the girl with the pigtails.
That had been enough, enough to make them inseparable for many years. Going through the rest of elementary and all through middle and high school together. 
Ah, memories...
Elle often wondered what had happened to them, she just hoped they were doing okay; stable job, happy family...alive and well. 
Now, there's one more thing you need to know about Elle. 
She grew up being told she had a mature mentality compared to what many expected for her age, for her, that was never a compliment, on the contrary, it was a reminder of how life had forced that maturity upon her. She hadn't asked for all this, all the trauma she had gone through, everything she endured, or her utter self-disregard. There was one thing clear for her, everything had made her grow faster than she should've, and maybe that was the reason she made so many mistakes in her early adult life.