14 #4
Nat was surprisingly gentle with her, holding her hand as she stepped out of the shower. They tiptoed together across the tile floor.
But as soon as they reached the bed, Nat pushed her down and pinned her there, hands on Asta’s elbows.
Asta’s body throbbed with the pain of her injuries, but if she stopped Nat now, she would have to leave.
And outside of this room, her guilt was waiting.
Nat’s kisses came one after another, hard and furious, driving everything else away.
When she let Asta go free and rolled away, waiting for her on the other side of the bed with a wild look in her eyes, Asta followed despite the complaints coming from her injured body.
She reached for Nat and kissed her with desperation, but Nat pushed her back down to the bed and began to work her way down Asta’s belly with little bites and kisses.
Asta gave all her attention to what Nat was doing, blocking out Dr. Isley’s accusations and Felix and the river – all of it.
What they were doing felt like a race, as if they were daring each other to go faster and harder, damn the danger, damn the consequences. It was like they were hurling themselves off the roof of the building, free-falling, the ground too far below to matter.
Asta borrowed a pair of warm-up pants and a windbreaker from Nat and hobbled back to her own suite, rumpled jumpsuit over her arm, helmet in hand.
The pain in her back and leg was so bad now that she almost gave up and lay down on the sidewalk, but somehow she found herself standing at the door to her room, key card in hand.
The first thing she spotted when she walked through the door was that the illusion on the counter had changed. She moved closer to see Carmine perched on top of the Needle, white-hot flames spewing from his mouth and a tiny Asta clinging to his back, her fist in the air.
There was a new bouquet of flowers beside the tulips. Yellow roses streaked with red. Asta took out the white card tucked under the vase, her name scrawled on the front.
Congratulations on your win today, the card said. But from now on, it’s Nat’s race.
It was signed, Your friends, the Bruces.
What was that supposed to mean? Nat’s race?
You’ve had your fun, Ek, they seemed to be telling her. Now it’s Nat’s turn.
Well, good for Nat. What did they want her to do about it?
Asta pocketed the note and made her way sluggishly back to the track to watch the rest of the Standard Western Class Prelims; the second heat had come and gone while she and Nat were otherwise occupied, but there were still two left.
She found a vantage point high up in the stands and slouched her aching body into a seat, only half of her attention on the races.
She was supposed to be there to study her competition, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be a threat.
Felix won his heat, of course. But within twenty minutes of the checkered flag, she had forgotten who else had made it through – aside from Pikki.
Asta hoped Pikki would be placed in her semifinal.
She would enjoy trouncing her on national television.
But all the while, Asta couldn’t stop thinking about the note.
Something about it bothered her. She pulled it out once or twice during the race, though mostly she just left it in her pocket where she flicked it with her thumbnail.
It was a lousy congratulations, that was for sure.
Were they really asking her to hold back in favor of Nat?
Asta thought back to the day Hummer had offered her the job. She tried to remember if Hummer or Tru had suggested any such thing during their training sessions. Had Hummer implied it when he lent her the money to get here? Had she just missed it somehow?
All she had ever wanted was to spend her days on the back of a dragon.
She had done everything in her power to get here because winning the Grand Prix meant that she could ride for the rest of her life and no one could stop her.
She thought, once she got here, that it would be simple, just a matter of racing.
She knew how to clear hedges, trenches, and scrambles.
But all of a sudden, she was facing obstacles she had not anticipated and did not know how to get over.
All of Asta’s worried thoughts – her doubts about Nat, her fear of failure, her guilt about Felix and her anger at him for throwing away what they could have had together – swept over her in a flood.
It was nonsense, feeling this way. She had won her prelim and she had gotten laid – not bad for a day’s work.
Sure, she had nearly been torn to shreds out there, but she had made it through.
That was what mattered, right? Her dream was still alive.
She should be ecstatic. But she felt like she was drowning.
Far below, tractors pulled mechanical conditioners over the track, evening out the surface. Little figures in Silverscale uniforms scurried around the course, resetting for the last heat.