Page 52 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
“You’re favoring,” he pants out.
Shit, am I? It’s not too much of a strain to pass him.
But I don’t shake Josh the way I expect to. He’s still on my heels, his labored breaths as loud as my own. The posts and the comments swarm through my mind as if Josh is yelling them at the back of my head.
“If this is true, he shouldn’t be a Legacy!”
“This isn’t all he’s hiding.”
“More soon.”
I lengthen my stride. Because being easy on my injury means I’m not moving fast enough. A sharp, burning current of pain radiates from behind my kneecap and up my thigh. Still I push.
I push until sweat pours off me. Until my lungs get sticky. Until the thoughts of what I’m up against are shoved back, back, back.
Until I’m nothing but breath and pain and regret.
As soon as I cross the finish line, I collapse.
CHAPTER THIRTEENCLARANOW
REID CROSSES THE FINISHline to a cacophony of applause. Only I seem to know he’s going to fall a second before he crashes to the ground.
The gasps from the crowd are drowned by the roaring in my ears. I sprint toward him, but I can’t get through the bodies that have surrounded him.
“Is he okay?”
“Oh my god, did he faint?”
His voice, ragged and winded, breaks through. “I’m fine.”
“Reid?Excuse me!” It’s Coach Rousseau, and he’s shoving his sweaty arms through the crowd now that he’s finished the race, too.
I can’t see anything over their shoulders, but I can hear Reid. I lift my camera high, hoping to capture the scene to check if he’s really okay.
“Dad, I’m fine. I tripped.”
After a moment, Coach pulls him to standing and Reid waves to thecrowd, who applaud in response. His palm and elbow are scraped from the fall. He pushes his noninjured hand through his hair as he walks slowly—really slowly—toward his dad, who’s holding out a water bottle for him.
Reid takes a long pull, then hunches over again. He scolded me whenever I did that, telling me that position restricts breathing. He knows better. I zoom in more to catch his hand squeezing his left knee.
He’s not winded. He’s hurt.
He’s gripping his knee so hard his entire hand is bright white. His dad is right by his side, saying something into his ear. Reid shakes his head and straightens to standing. I get closer and watch his lips move through the viewfinder.
I swear I’m fine, Reid mouths.It’s just sore.
Whatever is going on, I think it might be serious. And Reid is pretending it isn’t. What did that Legacy Lore post about him say?
“But given his mysterious absence from the course this season…”
It hits me then, the grimaces and the stiff way he sat down on the ground last night. He didn’t injure it by falling, he fellbecausehe’s injured.
And he ran anyway.
Because he doesn’t want anyone to know. I wanted to believe that Legacy Lore was right to expose the truth of this program. But at the cost of the people in it? If Reid is actually injured, that means whoever it is has real intel. Is airingrealsecrets.
Furious heat shoots through me.
