Chapter 9 #2
Tombstone's Revenge doesn't explode out of the chute.
He launches. Vertical, spinning, a whirlwind of drugged muscle and chemically amplified aggression that bears no resemblance to a normal bucking pattern.
My head snaps back, and the arena lights become streaks.
One second. The bull drops his front end and kicks so hard his back hooves clear five feet off the ground.
Two seconds. He reverses his spin with a violence that tears at my shoulder socket, and I feel something in my riding arm give way, a pop of tendon or ligament, followed by white-hot pain that races from my elbow to my fingertips.
Three seconds.
The bull sunfishes, torquing his body in a corkscrew that no animal moves through naturally. This is the drug. This is what they did to Hellfire's Revenge the night Tyler died. Amplified aggression, destroyed the animal's natural movement pattern, turned a predictable buck into chaos.
Four seconds. Halfway to the buzzer. My hand is going numb inside the rope wrap, and my riding arm is failing. Every counter-move I make is a half-beat late because the bull isn't following any pattern I can read.
Five seconds.
Tombstone's Revenge stops spinning and charges the arena wall.
Full speed, head down, two thousand pounds of animal aimed at the steel panels like a battering ram.
I bail. No choice. Throw my free leg over and jump, hitting the dirt hard on my left side, rolling as the bull slams into the wall with a sound that shakes the ground.
I'm up. On my feet. Moving toward the fence.
The bullfighters should be here. Red and yellow, drawing the bull away, giving me time to clear the arena. That's their job. That's the system.
The bullfighters aren't moving.
They're standing at the edge of the arena, positioned wrong, too far from the bull, too far from me. One of them glances toward the VIP section. Just a flicker, a fraction of a second, but I see it.
Paid off. Just like Vic said.
Tombstone's Revenge recovers from the wall impact and turns. His eyes find me. Not the random scanning of an agitated animal looking for movement. Focused. Locked on. The drug has turned his instinct from escape to attack, from bucking off a rider to destroying one.
He charges.
I run for the fence. Twenty yards. Fifteen. My knee buckles on the third stride, the old injury choosing the worst possible moment to remind me that bodies have limits. I stumble, catch myself, keep moving.
Ten yards.
The ground shakes with his hoofbeats. I can hear his breathing behind me, the wet, heavy snorts of an animal that's been chemically rewired to kill.
Five yards.
I reach the fence. Get my hands on the top rail. Start to pull myself up.
The impact catches me in the lower back.
Two thousand pounds of momentum focused through a skull and two horns, and my body folds around the fence like paper.
I hear something crack. Feel the fence give way beneath me.
Feel myself going over, then under, then sideways in a tangle of metal and dirt and pain that blankets everything in red.
I'm on the ground. On my back. The bull is above me, hooves stamping, horns swinging. One connects with my ribs, and the crack I hear this time is definitely bone. Two, maybe three ribs, snapping like dry wood.
The crowd is screaming. I can hear it through the ringing in my ears, a wall of sound that feels very far away.
Roll. I need to roll. Get under the fence, get small, get away from the hooves.
I roll. Pain detonates in my chest, my back, my riding arm. I'm under the bent fence rail, pressed against the dirt, and Tombstone's Revenge is still coming, slamming his head against the metal, trying to reach me. The fence holds. Barely.
Then other hands are on me. Slade Carrick is the first one over the fence, hauling me by the vest with the kind of grip you get from years of wrestling steers, his face blank and focused while other riders and stock hands scramble after him.
The bull is being driven back by people with cattle prods and panels, and the sounds of the arena start to separate into individual noises again.
Shouting. The announcer asking the crowd to stay calm. Boots on dirt. Someone calling my name.
I'm on my back in the dirt behind the fence, looking up at the New Mexico sky, which is the deep purple of late dusk with the first stars punching through. My chest is on fire. Every breath is a knife between my ribs. Blood in my mouth, warm and metallic.
Someone leans over me. "Don't move, Grant. The medics are coming. Stay still."
I grab the kid's arm. Grip tight despite the pain. "Tell Colt Holloway everything. Merrick. Thornton Livestock. Tell him Rainey has everything. Flint has copies. Tell him I wasn't wrong."
"Grant, you need to—"
"Promise me."
He nods. Scared, confused, but he nods.
I close my eyes.
Tyler's face comes first. Always Tyler. Bleeding in the Fort Worth dirt, trying to get the words out, dying with a warning stuck behind his teeth. At least I know what he was trying to say now.
Kenna's going to fall apart when she gets the call.
Dax is going to put his fist through a wall, then saddle up and go looking for someone to hurt.
And Colt, stubborn bastard, is probably already in his truck headed this way even though I told him to stay clear.
He'll finish this. He's too angry not to.
I think about Rainey. Her hands on her camera, her eyes on the world, seeing everything, missing nothing. The way she kissed me in the dark like she was memorizing my mouth. The way she said my name like it meant something more than the letters that make it up.
The warmth of the New Mexico night has begun to fade. The voices are thinning out, the pain pulling back like a tide going somewhere I can't follow.
Tyler, brother. I'm sorry I couldn't finish it.
But they will. Every stubborn, reckless, unbreakable one of them. Colt with his fury. Kenna with her grief. Dax with his fists. They're going to tear this circuit apart.
And whoever's at the top is going to wish they'd never touched us.
The ride isn’t over yet…
The truth cost blood.
The fallout will cost even more.
Coming next in the Southwest Sinners series:
Ride or Die
She came looking for answers about her brother’s death.
She found Colt Holloway instead.
Dark. Reckless. Untouchable.
The last cowboy she should trust… and the only man dangerous enough to help her survive what’s coming next.
Because on the Southwest Circuit, secrets don’t stay buried.
And neither do the dead.
Click here to preorder Ride or Die.