Mel bumped her shoulder into mine. “Ready to break some hearts?”
“Only structurally,” I said.
Robin skated past, grinning. “Bells, you look feral.”
“Hydrated and vengeful,” I shot back at her.
I looked over at Eleanor. This was only her third Bout. She still had the green panic. “You ready to knock’em all down, Slayerella?”
She adjusted her helmet and bit down on her mouth guard before a fist bump. “Let’s do this.”
The whistle blew, and we took the track. The first jam hit fast and brutal. Cataclysm’s jammer was quick. She was small, slippery, and aggressive on the inside line. I dropped low, braced, and took the impact square through my hips.
The collision sang up my spine. Good.
I pivoted, catching her again, driving her toward the outside boundary where Sonia finished the job.
The whistle blew, and points were divvied. The crowd erupted.
I grinned despite myself. This was structured. This was teamwork and controlled impact. No matter what the Beast himself thought about derby, this is the chaos that quieted my mind.
Time for the second jam. I held the line with Robin, shoulders locked, skates digging into polished concrete. Cataclysm tried a whip maneuver. I anticipated it and shifted just enough to collapse their opening.
“Wall!” I shouted.
“Wall!” they echoed.
The jammer slammed into me full force. For a split second, the world narrowed to muscle and force and balance. She bounced. I held. The whistle shrieked.
We rolled off the track, breathing hard.
“That’s my blocker!” Mel yelled.
I saluted her.
By halftime, we were up by twenty.
Sweat dripped down my spine. My thighs burned. My lungs felt scraped raw.
I loved it.
The second half blurred into motion and noise. Cataclysm came back hard in the final quarter. Aggressive pushes. Desperate attempts to crack our formation.
I saw it before it happened. Their jammer cut inside unexpectedly. Robin pivoted late. I lunged to compensate. My left skate clipped at the wrong angle.
My knee twisted under the weight of impact. There was a sharp, bright pop. Then white. I hit the floor hard. The sound of the crowd distorted. The world tilted sideways. For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
“Belle!” Mel’s voice cut through the noise.
I tried to sit up, but regretted it immediately. Pain shot up from my knee like a live wire.
“I’m fine,” I gasped automatically.
I was not fine.
The ref skated over, hand raised. The whistle blew again.
Eleanor crouched beside me. “Don’t move.”
