Page 95 of Rogue Riders Duet

His face crumples. “Don’t make me…”

“Swear it, Dane.”

The silence that follows feels like a held breath, and the whole world is waiting to see whether he’ll break. And then, just loud enough to shatter me, he gives me what I want, what I shouldn’t want.

Like he always does.

“I swear.”

EIGHTEEN

My body is absolutely wrecked.

Here in this dark hotel room, I should be exhausted enough to have passed out as soon as my aching body hit the bed after the last three days—race day, then that long-ass drive with the blown tire, pit setup, practice, and physio.

But my brain won’t shut up because it’s full of her.

Of Alaina.

My phone lights up the dark room as I hit replay, because for once, I’m not mindlessly scrolling to keep my loneliness at bay. I’m rewatching the crash.

Her crash.

The video is grainy, some ripped feed from an old broadcast uploaded to YouTube. It’s one of those “Top 5 Gnarliest MTB Wipeouts” compilations that gets passed around for clicks. Alaina Crews is number two, and I almost smile at that, wondering if she’d be pissed for not even being first place in this.

The frame stutters, the camera cutting just before the drop. The blue and white of her jersey flashes past the trees, and then she flies like she had fucking wings and trusted the air to catch her, the way she always did.

Then comes the landing, and her bike just fucking breaks beneath her. It doesn’t skid out or twist wrong. It snaps. Just folds under her, abruptly giving up and sending her flying again, through the air she just trusted, before she hits the tree trunk with her left side at full speed.

I flinch, just like I did the last twenty or so times I watched this.

It hurts the same every damn time.

If I didn’t love this sport so much, I’d send this video to Rachel and Kevin as a warning. As a way for them to understand the risks, maybe then they’d reconsider before diving headfirst into this career.

Not that I have any new ideas or sponsors to offer them. I still have nothing in hand, which is why I’m torturing myself with this video. It’s easier to spiral into the complex feelings that Alaina Crews stirs in me than to confront the uncertainty of my future and theirs.

The camera cuts to an overhead view of the track, and when it switches back, Alaina is already surrounded by medics, lying on the ground, her body jerking. Her gloved hands claw at her throat like she can’t breathe, and blood blooms under her jersey, blotting out the white like ink in water.

Then the feed cuts to the crowd’s reactions. The girls in the hot seat are wide-eyed and frozen, hands over their mouths as they stare up at the monitors.

Except Isla Raine, that is, whose expression is blank.

And then the shot changes one last time, to the helicopter rising above the trees, lifting Alaina’s broken body away.

I remember watching it from the top of the track with Dane. The second air betrayed her, she hit that tree, and he was on his bike, taking the maintenance trail down the mountain. He didn’t look back, wait for me, or give me time to catch up to figure out what the hell had just happened.

I guess I’d been frozen too.

By the time I made it to the bottom, he was long gone. I called him over and over again after that, but he didn’t answer. After the race, I went to the hospital, but they wouldn’t let me in.

Wasn’t family, my ass.

I had every right to be there. I’d been part of them, racing with Dane, laughing with Alaina, practically living out of each other’s gear bags for four seasons straight. But there wasn’t a shared last name on my ID, and Dane still wasn’t picking up his fucking phone to vouch for me.

So I was left outside, with no updates or explanations, only to pick up information from whispers and rumors like everyone else.

And then they were gone.