Page 22 of Rogue Riders Duet

And yet, there it is, on its side, abandoned.

Splintered carbon.

Blood slicking my gloves.

Lungs screaming.

I can’t breathe.

My air is gone, and everything inside me seizes as my ribs clamp down. Noise crashes into me and presses against my skull but doesn’t reach me because I’m somewhere else. There isn’t any air there, either.

But there is pain.

So much pain.

That’s the first thing I feel.

A deep, crushing ache that pulses through my body, dull and distant at first, coming from somewhere outside me. Then sharp. So fucking sharp. It slices through me, spreading outward from my ribs, hip, and leg from fucking everywhere.

I can’t move.

I try. I think I try, but nothing happens.

My arms don’t work. My legs don’t work.

Fuck.

I want to open my mouth and make a sound, call for Dane, but something is blocking my throat, something thick, and panic overrides the pain as it surges in my chest. My heartbeat lurches, and the beeping I faintly registered around me suddenly picks up speed.

I can’t breathe.

No, that’s not quite right.

Something is breathing for me.

My eyes fly open, but I regret it instantly. Everything is too bright, blinding white. There’s a ceiling, machines, and the slow, mechanical hiss of air being pushed in and out of my lungs. Hospital. I’m in the hospital because of the crash.

Memories slam into me. The jump. The impact. My bike buckling beneath me. The snap of metal, then the violent, helpless feeling of being thrown through the air. The world spinning. The trees. The rocks. The moment I was finally no longer in motion.

The pain.

The remembered shock of it has me nauseous, but I can’t even gag. I can’t even turn my head because I can’t fucking move.

A shadow shifts beside me. A blurred, hunched shape. Dane. He’s here. I don’t need to call for him.

His head is down, forearms braced on his knees, his dark hair falling into his face as his shoulders shake. He looks fucking wrecked. I want to ask if he’s okay, if he won his race, if he’s a legend yet, but he hasn’t noticed that I’m awake, and I can’t talk.

His phone is propped on his knee, and I register the voice coming from it. It must be on speaker.

“And what does that mean?”

Dad.

“Her injuries are extensive.” The doctor standing on the other side of the room answers him, startling me. “She suffered multiple fractures, including the left femur and three ribs, and had a comminuted fracture to her left hip. The impact also caused a pneumothorax… her left lung collapsed due to a puncture wound from a branch.”

My stomach twists. That’s why I can’t breathe on my own, and there’s that feeling in my throat. It must be a tube helping me breathe.

“The damage to her left kidney was also significant,” the doctor continues. “We had no choice but to remove it. There was internal bleeding in the abdomen as well, and we discovered extensive damage to her fallopian tubes during surgery. We did what we could. She’s stable now, but it was close. If she hadn’t been airlifted when she was, we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation.”