“I’ve got you,” I murmur, my hand sliding down to cover hers, grounding her even as my focus locks in.
The gate is set.
The rider nods.
And then it goes wrong.
It sticks. Just enough to throw everything off and when the gate finally snaps open, the bull doesn’t break straight. It surges out crooked and hard, the timing off in a way that looks small if you don’t know what you’re seeing.
I know.
The rider doesn’t have a chance to settle.
His weight shifts wonky from the start, his grip fighting to catch up instead of leading. I can see it on the rider's face. This was not right.
The bull twists, violent and fast, and the rider goes with it for half a second before everything unravels.
He’s thrown hard.
The sound of him hitting the ground cuts through the crowd in a way that doesn’t belong in something meant to be entertainment. For a split second everything stalls, like the entire arena feels it at the same time.
Then it explodes.
Shouts. Movement. The pickup men charging in, pulling the bull’s attention away as the rider scrambles, not fast enough, not clean enough.
Too close.
Way too close.
I pull Hadley back a step without thinking, my arm tightening around her as the chaos unfolds in front of us. My heart hammering so hard it drowns out everything else for a second.
“That’s not right,” she whispers, her voice small against the noise.
“No,” I say, my eyes locked on the arena. “It’s not.”
Because this time it isn’t a feeling.
This isn’t a bad ride.
It’s the same thing as before.
Only worse.
My gaze snaps to Jace before I can stop it. He’s already moving, already halfway toward the chute, his posture sharp, focused in a way that tells me this confirms something for him, not surprising him.
He suspected this.
And now it’s not a question anymore.
Around us, the announcer tries to smooth it over, his voice steady but strained, filling the space while the rider is helped up and the arena resets like nothing just went wrong.
But it did.
And this time, everyone felt it.
I can see it in the way people shift, in the murmurs that ripple through the crowd, in the way the energy doesn’t bounce back as easily as it did before.
My pulse spikes, sharp and relentless, because I’m standing here with my daughter in the middle of it.
