He swings up onto the rail and settles over the bull with a kind of controlled precision that doesn’t look rushed or reckless. It looks practiced, deliberate, like he’s accounting for something no one else out here can see.
His free hand rests easy, his grip set tight, his posture balanced in a way that should make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
Because I know what can go wrong now.
And I know he knows it too.
The handler reaches for the gate. For a second everything slows in that way it always does right before the release, the noise of the crowd pulling back just enough to make room for the moment that matters.
The gate snaps open.
The bull launches hard, twisting out of the chute with a force that jerks my focus even tighter, but Jace stays with it, his body moving with the motion instead of fighting it. The rhythm locks in almost immediately, his timing clean, his weight centered in a way that tells me he’s not reacting.
He’s anticipating.
The bull spins, kicks, changes direction, and for a split second my heart stutters, waiting for that hitch, that delay, that wrong beat I’m braced for now.
It doesn’t come.
Eight seconds stretches long enough that I feel every one of them, and when the buzzer finally cuts through the noise, the release hits like a shock through my system.
He clears the bull clean, hitting the ground on his feet and moving out of the way in one smooth motion that makes the crowd surge back to life around us.
Hadley cheers, loud and proud, bouncing beside me like she can’t hold it in. I manage a breath that feels like it’s been stuck in my chest since the gate opened.
He’s more than fine.
And still…
Something about it doesn’t settle the way it should.
Because as he straightens and turns, his attention doesn’t go to the crowd.
It goes to the edge of the arena.
To the same place mine keeps drifting.
And even from here, I can see it in the way his posture shifts, just slightly, just enough to tell me this wasn’t just another ride for him.
It was part of something.
And whatever that something is…it’s not over yet.
Another name comes over the speakers before the noise from Jace’s ride fully settles. The shift in the arena is almost immediate, like the night is determined to keep moving whether anyone is ready for it or not.
I try to follow that rhythm, to let the crowd pull me back into the flow of it. The tight feeling in my chest doesn’t ease. If anything, it sharpens, because now I know what I’m looking for, and that makes everything harder to ignore.
The rider steps up, confident, familiar with the routine, and nothing about him looks off as he swings into position. The crew moves around him, hands quick, practiced, doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.
Except they’re not.
I see it before it happens, in the way one handler adjusts the rope and pauses a fraction too long.
My pulse spikes.
“Mom…” Hadley says, softer now, her fingers curling tighter around the rail.
