Chapter 24
Emmett
The edges of the bandages are itchy.
I know picking at them makes it worse. It frays the sides, loosening the threads holding it all together.
But I can’t not mess with them.
It’s loud, the raging of several motors all competing for the same space. All falling into the same worn-out line, the tires kicking up more and more dirt with each roaring rotation.
Feet fling out, boots making contact with ground and bikes alike as they whip around a corner and race to move up. To get closer to the finish line.
And right in the middle of it all is Tristen on his dark green bike.
My heart kicks up when a competitor’s tire rams into his back one and he wiggles.
Nononono.
He straightens out and guns it into the straight away, sailing right over the bumps in the path like they’re not even there with his ass raised from the seat.
How does he do that?
A piece of fabric rips off from my palm, and I step up on the bleachers when I lose sight of Tristen.
“Hey! Down in front, man.”
Hatley whips around next to me and scowls at the person that spoke. “Leave him alone.”
“Fuck you and your friend. Get him out of the way.”
My shoulders rise and I duck my head closer to my chest.
“My bad,” I whisper and step back down, the height of the hills Tristen is racing over too high to see anything.
There’s a tremble to my fingers when Hatley yells back something I don’t pay attention to.
Voices rise behind me, and I tug on the strings of the hood, closing the fabric in around my face until there’s nothing but dirt in my field of view.
Focusing on the bbbbrrrrrggg in the distance, I can almost imagine seeing that green bike come around the corner, cross the line first, and the race to end.
Instead, I jolt when someone bumps into me, something blunt ramming right into my shoulder.
“What the fuck, bro?” Hatley hisses out and I jerk around in time to see his fist cock back.
“No!”
I jump in front of him, his body crashing into mine as his arm hooks and his fist lands somewhere behind me.
“Mother fuck, Emmett!” Adrenaline spiking, my breath pumping, I push at Hatley’s chest even though he’s yelling. It makes me cringe. “I almost hit you.”
“You shouldn’t be h-h-hitting anyone,” I stumble out and push him again, forcing him an arm’s length away.
“But he said—”
The roar of the crowd drowns him out and makes my ears ring.
It feels … wrong.
I flip my gaze back to the track and it’s like everything’s moving in slow motion as bikes speed back around the corner. Kick up dirt clumps as they skid.
A flash of green has my stomach dropping.
The white noise of voices morph into shouts. Curses.
And that’s when I hear it.
The cracking smash.
The scrape of metal on metal.
The bang of bikes colliding.
Crashing.
Piling up and releasing smoke.
“Tristen.”
The bleachers empty, shoes pounding pavement and dirt, and I watch as Hatley’s back gets smaller and smaller. It pumps as he runs toward the collision, the muscles flexing with each pounding step.
Meanwhile, I stick to the spot like my soles are epoxied to the cracked cement beneath them. My breath leaves me like I don’t need it to live. My heart racing in my ribcage, forcing the adrenaline through my veins too fast for me to grab it. To use it.
Nononononono.
“Tristen,” I whisper over the fist in my mouth and flinch when the final bike collides with the pile of wreckage and bodies.
The resulting silence that falls over the track is deafening. Piercing.
Overwhelming.
My heart thumps.
One beat. Two beats.
Then it all comes rushing forward. The noise resumes. The pop of flames echoing. The shouts of people trying to help.
“Grab them!”
“Get him out! Get him out!”
The thing on my chest thunders and I lurch forward, unglued from the pavement, the too-big shoes making it impossible to run. I trip two steps closer with held breath. Closer. Close enough that the scent burns my nose and heat of the flames lick at my skin.
“Tristen!”
“Get him back!” someone yells, and another bystander reaches for me, clasping onto the baggy hoodie and pulling. I yank right back, freeing myself with a yell.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
I keep running. Tripping. Falling over debris and felled bikes. The Band-Aids stain with black as I climb over shit, my pant leg ripping when I snag. My sleeve sizzling when I get too close to the flicker of orange.
I don’t stop until I catch Hatley’s light hair, half smudged with soot or oil.
“Ten! Knock it off!” he yells and my brows furrow deeper the closer I get. “Ten.”
Squeezing through the small crowd, my heart stutters at the sight of Tristen’s bloodied lip and cocked back arm.
“No! Stop!”
I rush forward, but I don’t make it between them before Tristen’s knuckles connect with the guy's jaw. Crimson sprays from his mouth as he stumbles back and Tristen squares up for another round.
“Tristen.”
Pushing between them with burning eyes and a roll to my stomach, I grab at the blood staining his hands. Hook my arms around his elbows. Anything to get his sight to meet mine.
I regret it when it does.
Brown eyes are bloodshot and dilated. Both brows busted. A sheen of sweat coating his dirt-smeared forehead. A flare to his nostrils and a snarl lifting his lip.
His helmet is missing. So are his gloves.
But it’s not the physical details I pick out that make me regret getting so close.
It’s the look.
How those kind eyes that have watched over me, that have watched his best friend, have turned to something nightmarish. Like he doesn’t even see me.
Like I’m not even here.
“Tristen …” It comes out weak. Quiet. So damn pathetic between the insults the other guy keeps throwing out. “Please don’t.”
He jolts, his eyes darkening, and wraps up my grip.
“Step back, Em.”
I shake my head and swallow hard even though he’s trying to push me aside. “No.”
“He made me wreck Envy,” he says so low that it sends a distressed shiver down my spine.
“I-I-I’ll help you fix her.” I lick my drying lips and hold his grip right back. “Just please stop fighting.”
There’s a moment. A stretch of silence where he stills, his sight trained over my shoulder, his pushing halted. It feels like he’s going to listen. To stand down. That he’ll stop putting himself in harms way.
But then he opens his mouth.
“He talked shit about you.”
I rear back. “Me?”
His eyes flash again. His jaw gritting tight enough to make the muscle jump.
“Nobody talks shit about mine, Em. Nobody.”
Mine…?
The statement catches me so off guard that my grip on his hands loosens and he jerks free to brush past me. I don’t recover fast enough to catch his right hook before it lands on the guy’s jaw, breaking skin, and spraying more blood all over.
The momentum sends the guy to the ground with a yell and Tristen hovers right over him.
“Keep your fucking mouth shut. You hear me?”
There is a groan from the guy on the ground, some kind of affirmative, but I don’t catch any of it as a wave of nausea rolls right over me so hard that I barely fight it back.
There’s blood … it’s everywhere.
I swallow back the bile that rises and turn away. Ball my fists up. Ignore the way they crack with caked blood.
“Emmett.”
I don’t stop walking, even when Hatley starts following me.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” I sniff, angling away so he doesn’t see my face. “You could have stopped him.”
A sound bursts from deep in my throat and I swallow it back.
“Sometimes shit gets handled the old-fashioned way out here, man.”
“Then why yell at him to stop, if this is normal?” I scoff the last part, and it’s watery.
“Because normally we don’t go fists first. But then I realized who it was, and I know he’s a dick. Dude deserves it. Tristen always has good reasons to do the shit that he does. He believes in it. Therefore … I trust him.”
My eyes automatically roll, and it dislodges a tear I’m quick to swipe away.
Then what the fuck is he doing with me?