Lights Out

PROLOGUE

Prologue

Downhill Mountain Bike Youth Championship, Scotland

I’M GOING TO WIN. I can literally feel it in my bones. I’ve never been so sure of my body or my control of the bike. Even in these conditions, with the combination of Scottish mizzle and nine pairs of tyres churning up the track, I know instinctively where my wheels are going to land every time I send a drop or carve a berm. I’ve never made such a perfect descent before. Mud sprays everywhere and I smile behind my full-face helmet because I know that I’m going to win.

I dodge round a tree root, float over a rock garden, whip my bike at a ninety-degree angle, and then I’m out of the pine trees and flying towards the finish line. I can see the timer above it: 3 minutes, 4.7 seconds, almost two seconds faster than my last competition.

Take it one race at a time , Dad’s voice warns in my head, but my heart thunders anyway because I can taste victory like popping candy on my tongue. Just one more drop, a smooth slide to the finish, and I’ll be Downhill Mountain Bike Youth Champion of Great Britain. This is it, the moment I’ve spent nine years training for, ever since I met my first pump track age seven.

I lower my head, shift my weight backwards and spread my elbows wide as I pick a line into the last drop. It’s an easy one, a six-foot wooden platform built for spectacle not skill, a way to grab air and impress the crowds gathered at the railings below. That’s where Dad will be, screaming his lungs out, ready to tell me he’s never been so proud. This will be his victory too, the first good thing to happen to us in three years.

I hit the edge of the jump and my front tyre skids sideways.

It’s so unexpected that for a moment my brain can’t process what’s happening. I try to compensate, but my bike jackknifes and I lose my grip on the handlebars, my body hurtling over the top of them like I’ve been shot from a catapult.

Wash out , I think, as the world tilts on its axis and I hit the ground, shoulder first. It’s compacted dirt and feels hard as concrete, even through my body armour.

Somewhere, somebody screams, but it seems to come from a long way off. Mum? The idea is comforting until I realize it’s also impossible.

I try to sit up because that’s what you should do, isn’t it? Get back in the saddle as quickly as possible. But my limbs feel numb and there’s a man in a neon vest running in my direction, waving his arms and yelling at me not to move. I glare at him because I don’t appreciate being shouted at, especially when all of my dreams have just been shattered, but the effort is so exhausting I have to close my eyes.

The next thing I know, a woman with a large red bag is crouching by my side. She wraps a collar round my neck and tells me everything’s going to be OK, which is honestly hard to believe, but what do I know?

I thought I was going to win. I was so totally sure of it.

Now I’m just another DNF.