Chapter Twenty-Three
Amelie
Monty is the first one to notice that we’ve arrived, and he waves us over with a reassuring smile.
He’s wearing running gear – shorts despite the freezing weather – and I immediately spy the knot tattoo on his left thigh as he stretches.
His shorts are far too short for a guy his age anyway, and seeing Stepdaddy dearest doing lunges threatens to bring my breakfast back up.
Kalen and Slate smile in welcome at me, but Onyx just smirks. Asshole. He doesn’t think I can do this. I flip him the bird and the others chuckle.
The entire time this exchange has taken place, I’ve been under the intense scrutiny of an old man, whom I’m presuming is Grandpa Knox.
He seems to be giving me a very thorough once over and my skin crawls as his dirty old pervert eyes rake over my body in a way which makes me twitch to punch him.
Sawyer grasps my hand as we come to a standstill before them all.
Is it just my imagination or has he stepped a little closer to shield me from his Grandfather?
“Amelie, I hear you have been training hard,” Monty says as a form of greeting, looking pleased. Before I can reply though, I’m interrupted by the old perv.
“You’re late,” Pops snaps.
I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but much to my surprise Onyx quickly jumps in and diffuses the situation.
“Grandfather, how about we get this show on the road? We don’t want the Bransons complaining that we don’t know how to run an event.”
“Bransons?” I ask in surprise, but I’m ignored.
“You’re right.” Grandpa Knox sighs, giving me a withering look like it’s all my fault. “Let’s go.”
As I watch Onyx and his grandfather head off to get the event started, I notice Baxter leaning against a tree in his usual get up.
I wonder why he isn’t dressed to compete.
He smiles and winks at me before pulling his sunglasses over his eyes and taking a long drag from his cigarette.
I snort back a laugh at the ridiculousness of the sunglasses. They’re so...un-Baxterlike.
“Attention, everyone!” the announcer shouts through the microphone. There’s a squeal of feedback, and I wince.
Slowly, the hubbub around us dies down and everyone turns to face the speaker on stage, whose loud voice is being amplified over the entire field thanks to a state-of-the-art PA system. “Welcome to the annual Snaidhm family obstacle course.”
I frown at the strangely pronounced word. Is it a name? I don’t know the term at all. It sounds foreign, but I couldn’t tell you what language. The pronunciation is somewhere between spleen and slain to my ears, but over a mic in a noisy field, I could be way off base.
Onyx and his grandfather have joined us again. The old man is muttering under his breath and shooting me dirty looks, and Onyx looks about ready to kill him. Huh, I guess there’s no love lost there between them then. I’m firmly on Team Onyx with this one. First time for everything.
“Every year we mix things up a bit, and this year we have a massive twelve mile course which you have four hours to complete. For those who don’t know, there will be points deducted for various infractions, but most of you are aware of how the points system works.”
“We have people stationed at each obstacle and you will accumulate points individually, then those will be tallied to your family total. At the end of the day we will have individual winners and of course, the overall winning family.”
“Everyone break off into your family groups. We have people coming around now to hand out gear. See you all at the finish line.”
A young guy wearing a ‘staff’ shirt and carrying a box approaches us and starts handing out black shirts with ‘Knox’ on the back in white writing. It makes me uncomfortable. I’m a Rossi, not a Knox, and the shirt reminds me of Laura’s power play with my limo driver. Sawyer sees my hesitation.
“Hey, it’s fine. You’re one of us because we chose you, not because of her.”
The sentiment is nice, but I’m not though am I? With so many secrets, lies, hurt and betrayal between us all. Not that I say that. I shoot him a small weak smile instead.
“I still don’t get how this works,” I whisper to Sawyer, worried and nervous. I didn’t expect there to be so many people here. I’m glad I put in extra training now, but I still don’t want to make a fool of myself.
“Each team must have a leader, and it’s usually the grandparent or the eldest of the family. Each team has six competitors.”
“But there are seven of us.” I frown.
“Girly, that is because you are not on the Knox team,” Pops declares with a cold smile that doesn’t reach his dead fish eyes. “You are on Team Ruck.” He says it like it’s a dirty word, the lowest of the low, and Onyx snorts. I flip him off again, determined not to let him get in my head.
“Don’t worry, sis, we promise we’ll be nice.” Kalen smirks. He thinks he’s smart, but I’m going to kick his ass. I’ll make sure of it.
The announcer starts to speak again, asking each family to head to the start line, while all the Rucks need to meet at the stage area.
Slate has been awfully quiet and I’m wondering if Onyx filled him in on what happened this morning.
Aside from the brief welcome smile, he hasn’t met my eye. I can’t worry about that now though.
Sawyer tells me he will be waiting for me at the finish line.
He squeezes my hand in an encouraging manner and I lean in to kiss him.
I make sure to give them all a show, remind them what they’re missing, and hopefully rile dirty grandpa up a bit.
He already seems to hate me, so I don’t see the problem in pushing his buttons some more.
Breaking apart from Sawyer, I head to the stage area where there are around twenty or so guys my age all standing around.
Some are stretching, others are bouncing on the balls of their feet, hyped and ready to go.
A handful I think I recognise from school.
Without fail, they all eye me wearily. I recognise Taco from the fights, and he comes to stand next to me.
I give him a small smile. I guess we’re friendly-ish.
Friendly enough anyway. I make a mental note to keep away from the guys from Knox Academy on this course; I don’t need to give them another excuse to hurt me.
I’ll just have to make sure they don’t catch me.
“Watch out for Bastian,” Taco says, nodding towards the prettiest, most athletic member of our group. “He may look like a pretty boy who’s never done a day’s work in his life, but he’s never lost anything and he always plays dirty.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” I say, nodding my chin at him in respect. He winks and turns his attention to the guy now throwing shirts our way. I’m last to get one and it’s way too big. I have no time to complain, so I just loop the front through the neck and tie it off.
“Rucks, you will be starting the course fifteen minutes after everyone else. We’ve had a bigger turnout than expected and don’t want any of you lot getting in their way.
” The announcer's eyes are looking solely at me.
My eyes blaze with challenge in response.
Does anyone want me here? I have no idea why the guys all insisted I take part in this, but I know that I have a lot to prove.
A whistle blows, loud and shrill, and all of the official participating families begin to race.
Some of the Rucks cheer various people on and it's immediately clear that like me, everyone in our small group has been invited here by a family. None of the Rucks have tattoos, all of the runners do. I may not know exactly what’s going on, but I’m smart enough to know that this is some sort of recruitment drive for the tattoo club.
Hmmm, needs a catchier name. The Tattooed Twats?
The Knot Knobs? I snort at the idea of calling Grandpa Knox a knot knob.
Maybe I’ll try it out over dinner tomorrow.
My attention is drawn back to the race, and although I can’t see the full course, I can see a few of the obstacles that await me.
They look tougher than anything I’ve faced before, making the Knox practice course seem like child’s play.
I don’t even need the giant white lettering on the back of the t-shirts to tell me that my guys are out in front.
I’m not surprised. Sawyer is incredibly fit and Onyx is so competitive he trained us all like a drill sergeant.
Surprisingly, Monty and Grandpa Knox aren’t too far behind.
I didn’t expect the old man to actually race, but I’ll begrudgingly admit he’s doing well. Especially next to all the young blood.
Internally, I cheer for Sawyer and the rest of the team too.
My traitorous heart wants team Knox to do well, my competitive spirit wants to kick their asses.
There’s no way I can catch up with their head start though, so I’ll just have to try my best to accumulate points.
Not that they explained how to do that to us newbies.
I glance around the crowd beside me once again.
Everyone looks so focused and sure of themselves.
No one is having doubts or questioning what the hell is happening here.
They look like they signed up for this and once again I’m the odd one out.
Fifteen minutes goes by way too fast, and no one besides Taco acknowledges me.
I’m fine with it. I’m still reeling over the twelve miles.
That’s like...twenty kilometres. Fuck. I know Onyx and I have been running a lot, but not those kinds of distances.
I’m hoping the training has done something, given me magical powers maybe.
I refuse to fail, but I’m gonna need a miracle to get through this.