His lungs expanded. Air rushed in—sharp, medicinal. Antiseptic. Bleach. The sterile smell of a hospital.
Something soft pressed against his skin. Fabric. Gauze. Layers of it wrapped around his arms, his chest, his neck. Bandages. Everywhere.
He tried to open his eyes.
Light exploded against his eyelids—white and searing. He squeezed them shut, wincing. His head throbbed. Everything throbbed.
Slow. Take it slow.
He cracked one eye open. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, too bright, too harsh. White ceiling tiles. The steady beep of a heart monitor somewhere to his left.
I'm alive.
The thought should have brought relief. Instead, it brought questions.
How? How am I—
"Yali?"
The voice cracked. Raw. Desperate.
He turned his head—slowly, because even that small movement sent pain shooting through his neck—and saw her.
His sister.
Maya sat in a plastic chair beside the hospital bed, her face pale and streaked with tears. Her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen from crying. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.
"Yali," she whispered again, and this time her voice broke completely.
She lunged forward, grabbing his hand—his bandaged hand—and held it like she was afraid he'd disappear if she let go.
"You're awake. Oh God, you're awake."
Behind her, his uncle stood. Tall. Broad-shouldered. But right now he looked smaller than Yali had ever seen him. His face was drawn, haggard. Gray stubble covered his jaw. His eyes—those hard, practical eyes that never showed weakness—were wet.
"Kid," his uncle said, and his voice was thick. "We thought... we thought we'd lost you."
Yali tried to speak. His throat was dry. Scratchy. He swallowed, wincing at the pain, and tried again.
"I'm... I'm okay."
But the voice that came out wasn't his.
It was higher. Lighter. The deep timbre he'd developed in his late teens was gone, replaced by something that sounded like—
No.
He looked down at his hand—the one Maya was clutching—and froze.
It was small.
Not just thin from injury or malnutrition. Small. The kind of small that didn't belong to a twenty-three-year-old man.
His fingers were slender. Delicate. The bandages wrapped around them looked too big, like they'd been sized for someone else. Someone older.
He pulled his hand free from Maya's grip—gently, because she looked like she might shatter—and stared at it.
The calluses were gone. The thick, rough patches on his palms that had built up over years of gripping wrenches and hauling engine blocks. The permanent grease stains under his nails. All of it. Gone.
These weren't his hands.
His breath quickened. He looked down at his arms. They were wrapped in gauze, but he could see the shape beneath. Thin. Too thin. The muscle definition he'd built from years of physical labor had vanished.
What the—
"Yali?" Maya's voice was small. Scared. "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer. Couldn't answer. His mind was racing too fast.
He threw the thin hospital blanket off his legs and looked down at his body.
His legs were shorter. Thinner. The frame beneath the hospital gown was narrow. Underdeveloped. Like someone who hadn't finished growing yet.
No. No, this isn't—
"Yali, you need to lie back down," his uncle said, moving closer. "You've been through hell. The doctors said—"
"What happened to me?" Yali's voice cracked—that wrong, too-high voice. "What happened to my body?"
Maya and his uncle exchanged a glance. Confused. Worried.
"What do you mean?" Maya asked carefully. "You're... you're hurt, but you're going to be okay. The doctors said—"
"How old am I?"
The question came out sharp. Desperate.
Maya blinked. "What?"
"How old am I?" he repeated, louder this time.
"You're... you're fifteen, Yali. You know that."
Fifteen.
The word hit him like a physical blow.
He was twenty-three. He'd been twenty-three when Death Fury killed him. When the Mustang exploded. When he burned alive.
But now—
Eight years.
The God of Speed hadn't just brought him back to life. He'd rewound him. Stripped away eight years of his existence and dumped him back into a body he'd outgrown.
His mind was still twenty-three. Still carried the weight of those years—the grief, the trauma, the hard-won knowledge of how cruel the world could be.
But his body?
His body was a child's.
"Yali, you're scaring me." Maya's voice trembled. "What's going on?"
He looked at her. Really looked at her. She was younger too. Thirteen, maybe fourteen. Her face rounder. Her eyes wider. She looked exactly like she had eight years ago.
This isn't real. This can't be—
But it was. He could feel it. The weight of this body. The way his legs felt shorter when he shifted them. The way his chest rose and fell with breaths that felt too shallow.
"The accident," his uncle said quietly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Do you remember the accident?"
Yali's jaw tightened. "What accident?"
"The car," Maya whispered. "You were... you were in a car. It exploded. They found you in the wreckage. You've been unconscious for three days."
Three days.
Not eight years. Three days.
"The doctors said it was a miracle you survived," his uncle continued. "The burns... they were severe. But you're healing faster than they expected. They don't understand it."
Yali looked down at the bandages covering his arms. Beneath them, he could feel his skin. It didn't hurt as much as it should. The pain was there, but it was distant. Manageable.
The God of Speed.
This was his doing. The resurrection. The younger body. The accelerated healing.
All of it.
"Yali." His uncle's voice was firm now. Grounding. "I need you to tell me what happened. Who did this to you?"
Death Fury's face flashed through his mind. That cold smile. The detonator in his hand.
You're going to pay for that. Every second of it. Tenfold.
But he couldn't say that. Not to them. Not when they were looking at him like he was fragile. Like he might break.
"I don't remember," he lied, his voice—that wrong, fifteen-year-old voice—barely above a whisper.
Maya squeezed his hand again. "It's okay. You're safe now. That's all that matters."
Safe.
The word felt hollow.
He wasn't safe. He'd never be safe. Not until Death Fury was dead. Not until he won that championship. Not until he figured out what the God of Speed wanted from him.
But for now, he nodded. Let them believe the lie.
Because the truth—that he'd died, been resurrected, and sent back eight years into a body that didn't belong to him—would destroy them.
And he couldn't do that to them.
Not yet.