CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘Are they okay?’
Josie didn’t answer. She was likely gone from her comms, getting ready to receive Rosinder back to the aviary.
I tapped into the team comms. ‘Are they okay?’
‘We’re waiting for an update.’ Hector’s voice was clear and calm.
Bad news. It could only be bad news. Good news was shared immediately, bad news was delayed. The Bolls had hurt Bach and Rosinder, Gottyk’s sister.
Gottyk took us back to the start–finish line.
The cliff edge thronged with people despite the vicious rain.
Volitant staff and team crews tried to make space to receive the returning dragons.
In the midst of it all I could see the white Mirendi dragons being corralled by their riders, their white scales and white armour reflecting the bright floodlights that lit the mountainside.
My heart pounded, my blood rushed in my ears.
I directed Gottyk towards them.
‘Thorne, return to team base.’ Hector could see me diverting from the Kiestral crew.
I continued our descent towards the Mirendi team. They wouldn’t get away with it.
‘Thorne?’
They could bully me all they wanted, but they’d targeted a dragon. No. I wasn’t going to let this slide. My career was about to be over anyway. Thorne was waiting in the wings ready to expose me. So why shouldn’t I go out on my own terms?
The crowd scattered when they saw us. Gottyk landed and skidded on the frost, sending grit flying. I dismounted, my boots cracking on to the ground.
‘Gordi!’ The voice-changer made me sound like Thorne, but it didn’t hide my tone.
Both of the Bolls turned around to face me. Their dragons watched too, rumbling at the challenge. The media casting teams pointed towards us, leaning as far over the barriers by the finish line as possible.
I strode across to the Bolls, seething. Everything they’d done this whole season built up, pulling me across the space towards them. They’d raced dirty, they’d bullied Colly and now they’d taken out Rosinder and Bach. I wouldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let it go. The score needed to be settled.
‘Thorne! Back to base!’ Hector had done away with being calm.
My fingers found the catch under my helmet. It hissed upon release. The cold air bit at my ears as I hauled it off my head and threw it to the ground at their feet. I was done with being told what to do.
‘You want to mess with a Kiestral rider, you mess with me!’ I stalked towards them, getting up close to the tall and broad idiots.
Their helmets were still on, faceplates down. Hidden and protected. I grabbed one of them by the lip of the chest plate, I didn’t care which, and yanked them forward. The height difference felt like nothing. In that moment I could have crushed the Kuramines with all the rage I had.
Next to us, the other Boll popped his faceplate up. Mac. His dirty blond stubble warped around a grimace.
Gordi spoke from inside his helmet: ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m the rider you were trying to pick a fight with just now, but you missed.’ I jerked him down to my level, so close that the rain from his helmet dripped on to my face. ‘Let me help you with that.’
I shoved him back and raised my armoured fist. A Ballenir rider appeared and blocked me, the number seven painted on his shoulder and helmet. Theo. He used his whole body to move me back, gripping my shoulders.
‘Not worth it. So unbelievably not worth it, Paldon.’ His voice was harried, talking directly into my ear.
It was too late though. Gordi was ready for the fight I’d started. He surged forward, Mac following him and trying to grab his arm. He swung for me, ignoring the fact that Theo was between us.
I shoved Theo out of the way, swapping places so I was the one to take the hit.
The full force of a Volitant suit of armour cracked across my face.
My head sang a note I’d never heard before.
My cheek felt hollow and a faint trickle of warmth danced down my face before being washed away by the rain.
I skidded ass first on the ground, my armour taking the impact.
I licked my lips. Blood. I rose up and looked right at Gordi. I smiled.
‘You want to try that again while I’m not being held back?’
All hell broke loose.
Gordi and I went for each other’s throats.
Mac charged forward too, but Theo launched into him, taking him to the ground with a body slam.
The Mirendi crew hemmed in on us all, pulling at armour and pushing us both together and apart.
Dragons roared, though from a distance. Someone had the sense to rein them back.
My left eye blossomed with pain, my right saw nothing but Gordi’s hand as he dug his fingers into my face. All until a streak of blue flew into Gordi’s side. I dropped to the floor.
‘I’ve got your back, Lena!’ The words cracked into a high pitch. It was Colly.
Why and how I had no idea. He bounced off the side of the much bulkier Gordi, but it didn’t stop him. He reached out a hand and pulled me up from where I lay on the floor.
My feet slid on the slick stone, the riding boots not doing much for my grip.
Colly stood shoulder to shoulder with me.
Or as close as he could with nearly a foot of extra height.
Gordi rallied and swung another fist at me.
I ducked, Colly caught his arm and I dived for the waist, tackling the Boll down.
I wanted to hurt him so badly, to tear him limb from limb, but inside his armour there was nothing I could do. I laid into him anyway, punching down at his faceplate as I straddled him. Every slight I’d received since I was eight years old was repaid in a punch to Gordi’s armour.
A hiss, red light, followed by a bang. And again. Flares were being shot into the air. It broke through the chaos long enough for us to be peeled away from one another. Someone hauled me up and away by the back of my armour. I resisted, but then saw who it was.
Quinn had his faceplate up and had both me and Colly by the collars of our armour. The rest of the Prevere team surrounded us, cutting us off from Mirendi.
‘Theo.’ My chest was heaving. I couldn’t see him through the press of people.
Quinn nodded and left us in the care of his team. He put his faceplate down and cut through the crowd.
‘That was kind of awesome,’ said Colly next to me, sounding way too happy as he popped up his faceplate. ‘Was it obvious it was my first fight or did I do okay?’
The bizarre, totally Colly question brought me out of the bloodlust. I gave him a light punch on the arm. ‘You did great.’ I looked up at his young face. ‘Thank you.’
He beamed down at me like a ray of sunshine in the middle of the frosty hellscape.
I tried to smile back, but the results weren’t great. Half of my face was numb – probably for the best given the amount of damage Gordi had done.
Quinn reappeared, Theo by his side. My stomach twisted until he lifted his faceplate. He was completely unharmed.
‘Your faced is fucked,’ he said, smirking.
The asinine comment sent a wave of relief through me, soothing my frayed edges.
‘So’s yours,’ I replied. ‘Nothing to do with the fight though.’
‘The secret is out then.’ Theo ran a glove over his helmet, his habit of messing with his hair unstoppable. There were half a dozen scuffs in the paint – a gift from Mac Boll. I hated it. Punching Theo was my right, no one else’s.
‘You knew?’ Hurt poured from Colly’s voice. ‘I wouldn’t have told anyone!’
I believed him. It was a sad truth that by the time I’d found myself with something like an actual group of friends that it had all fallen apart.
Quinn’s eyes flicked between me and Theo. He was asking all the questions in his head, likely working through the past few weeks to add up mine and Theo’s behaviour.
Before anyone could ask more of us, the crowd parted. A white-haired and bearded man in waterproof layers was like a storm cloud rolling into us. Felix Lancel, the Prevere team boss. He thumbed over his shoulder.
‘Inside.’
It was time to face the consequences of my actions. My heart maintained its pace, my hands didn’t shake. A resolve solidified inside of me – there was nothing I regretted about what I had done.
At least not yet.
Once we were outside of the protective bubble of the Prevere crew the crowd pressed in around us. The force feedback on my suit made sure I felt every hand and elbow as the journalists tried to pull me into interviews as we pushed past them to get to the atrium.
‘Lena!’ Out of the many cries for my attention I recognized one – Josie.
She was stuck behind a cluster of Kiestral crew, all with looks of confusion and horror on their faces.
‘Look after Gottyk, please!’ was all I had time to reply before I was swept inside the mountain.
The noise quietened once we were behind the giant wooden shutters. The warm air hit my face, bringing it back to life. The pain from the fight crept in inch by excruciating inch. It blossomed out from my raw cheekbone, down to my jaw and up into my eye, which felt like it was about to close up.
From the look of it, all riders had been pulled inside.
Ellas Ruan and Jas Thokan stood off to my right, arms folded and on their hips, respectively, looking too professional in their Victrolia green armour to even want to be associated with the mess.
To my left was Theo, not having strayed far. Omar was examining his helmet, tutting.
Colly was very animated – his hands were quick and fluid as he spoke to Quinn, who was nodding along, but had his gaze fixed on me instead.
My hand reflexively went to my face as pain bloomed harder with the hot shame that joined the physical hurt. I’d not regretted a single moment since my choice to take Thorne’s suit, but seeing the face of a friend so stoney after learning my secret … it was enough to make me doubt.
The Bolls were being chewed out by their team boss – Kristoff Pierce. He was gesticulating wildly, sometimes pointing over at me. ‘The wrong fucking one! How hard is it—’