Page 56 of Josephine and Clay

The bull spins left now, a nasty switch that should’ve been manageable if I’d been where I needed to be. I’m not. My weight drifts. My free arm cuts wild, trying to catch balance that isn’t there.

The next buck comes lower but harder, all brute force and bad intent, and it jerks me forward enough that my hand nearly comes loose.

Panic flashes white hot through my chest.

I clamp down, drag against the rope, try to haul myself back to center.

The bull gives me nothing.

He drops his front end and kicks up behind so fast the whole world snaps under me. My body pitches sideways. One leg loses contact. My shoulder tears hot. My grip finally breaks the wrong way.

And then I’m gone.

There’s no graceful way to describe being thrown.

One second you’re fighting for it, the next there’s nothing under you at all. Just air, dirt, and a sick, hard realization that you’re no longer in charge of where your body lands.

I hit awkwardly.

My right foot catches under me while the rest of me keeps going, and the force of it twists my leg in a direction no leg was ever meant to go.

The snap is loud enough that I hear it over the crowd. A sharp, wet crack.

Pain detonates through me so fast and so bright it doesn’t feel real at first. Just impossible white heat, blasting up from my lower leg to my spine, so violent it wipes the breath straight from my lungs.

I don’t scream, or at least, I don’t feel the sound rip from me.

The sky flashes black at the edges. Sound goes weird and watery, the roar of the stands dropping far off as if somebody shoved my head underwater. I try to sit up, and my body answers with another burst of agony so savage it almost knocks me out cold right there.

“Fucking hell…”

I fall back into the dirt, chest heaving, vision pulsing in and out. My hat’s gone. My glove’s half off. Every heartbeat slams pain harder through my leg until I can’t tell where the break ends and the rest of me begins.

Somewhere nearby the bull is still moving, hooves pounding, men yelling.

I can’t lift my head enough to track him.

Hands are on me suddenly. Fast and firm. Keeping me down.

“Stay still.”

“Don’t move, don’t move.”

“I got his shoulder…”

Medical team.

Bullfighters.

Voices stack over each other while I grit my teeth so hard my jaw feels might crack too. I force myself to look down.

Big mistake.

My lower leg is wrong.

Bent at a sick angle inside my jeans, boot twisted outward in a way that makes bile claw up my throat.

I suck in through my nose and nearly black out from the effort.