Chapter Twenty #3
Thorne fires back instantly. “Fuck that. I’m going back.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m fucking closest—”
“And there are other riders still on an active course.” Andre’s voice cracks like a whip. “Medical and marshals are responding. You turn around or stop somewhere unsafe and I could have another fucking rider down. Keep moving.”
“Andre—”
“I am not losing another one of you!”
That silences everyone.
Even Thorne.
My hands are shaking so badly I can barely keep the headset against my ears.
“Wolfe?”
Nothing.
I try again.
“Wolfe, come on.”
Nothing.
Then Sayshen is there.
I don’t see him cross the bay. One second I’m standing beside Andre with both hands locked around my headset, and the next my brother is at my side, one hand gripping my shoulder while the other comes around my back like he’s ready to catch me if my legs give out.
“Echo.”
I can’t answer him.
Reign and Revel are right behind him now. Revel looks completely wrong without some smart-ass comment sitting on the edge of his mouth, face gone pale and blank while Reign stands beside him with his jaw clenched tight.
Sayshen’s hand squeezes my shoulder. “Talk to me. What happened?”
I shake my head because I don’t know how to explain something my brain still refuses to understand.
Wolfe was talking.
Two seconds ago he was fucking talking.
Talking means alive.
Alive means there’s still something to fix.
My mind grabs onto that and refuses to let go.
Andre’s radio crackles.
“Red flag.”
Revel closes his eyes.
Reign looks down at the ground and swears under his breath.
Sayshen pulls me a little closer, but I wrench my attention back to Andre and grab his forearm.
“Did they get to him?”
“They’re responding.”
“That’s not what I asked. Did they get to him?”
His eyes meet mine. “Yes.”
“Is he conscious?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then ask.”
“I am.”
“Ask again.”
“Echo—”
“Please, Andre. Ask.”
His face twists for half a second before he turns back to the radio.
Everything after that becomes waiting.
The worst fucking kind of waiting, because there’s nothing for me to do with my hands and no machine to open up and fix.
Nobody knows where to stand.
Revel paces beside me until Reign catches his shoulder and keeps him still. Sayshen stays close at my back while Andre tracks the three riders still on course and keeps trying to get information from race control.
I stare at Wolfe’s number on the screen.
It doesn’t move.
All I can hear is his last voice through the comm.
At least I got to know you both love me.
No.
That is not how this fucking ends.
He was conscious. He was talking. Medical is there. People survive crashes like this. They fix broken bones, stop bleeding, put people back together.
That’s what you do when something breaks.
You find the problem and you fix it.
Andre’s radio crackles.
He turns slightly away from us, listening.
I watch his face change.
His jaw tightens first, then his eyes close for one second.
My stomach drops.
“What did they say?”
He lowers the radio.
I’m already shaking my head before he turns around.
“No.”
“Echo…”
“No.”
Andre takes one step toward me, his own eyes red now.
“They couldn’t save him.”
Everything inside me goes still.
I shake my head again. “Check again.”
His face tightens.
“You heard them wrong. Call them back.”
“Echo—”
“Please.”
The word comes out so small it nearly breaks me.
“Just fucking check again.”
He doesn’t.
Because there’s nothing left to check.
His radio crackles again and Andre turns immediately toward the timing screens. Talon, Draygon and Thorne are still out there.
That thought nearly folds me in half.
I lock my eyes on their numbers instead.
Talon gets back first. The second the bike stops, he tears off his helmet and looks straight at Andre, then me.
His face empties.
“No.”
Andre doesn’t answer.
Talon turns away, both hands going over his head as if he can physically hold himself together.
Draygon comes in next.
He’s off the bike almost immediately, helmet gone, gloves ripped free as he searches the paddock.
For Wolfe.
Then he sees me.
He starts toward me, but I shake my head before he reaches me. I need him so badly it hurts, but if he touches me now, I’m going to break, and Thorne is still out there.
Draygon understands.
He stops a few feet away and stays.
Then we wait.
Thorne’s number keeps moving until suddenly it doesn’t.
My heart jumps into my throat.
Andre leans closer to the screen. “Timing delay. No incident.”
I stare at the number until it updates again.
“He’s coming in.”
The sound of Thorne’s bike reaches us first.
He comes into the paddock hard, gets the bike stopped and rips his helmet off before anyone can reach him.
His face is wet, and he looks straight at Andre.
“Tell me.”
Andre can’t.
Thorne turns to me instead.
For one horrible second, he doesn’t look like Thorne at all. No grin. No sarcasm. No attitude.
Just scared.
“Echo.”
My throat closes.
He steps closer.
“Tell me he’s alive.”
I can’t.
And I watch him understand anyway.
The helmet slips from his hand and hits the ground between us.
He doesn’t look down.
Neither do I.
Wolfe is gone.