Page 93 of Rogue Riders Duet

Something sharp stirs inside me because I should be there. I was supposed to be there. But they took everything, and now I’m here. Useless. Forgotten. While they celebrate. While he wins.

“How does that make you feel?” Dane asks softly after a moment, his eyes glued to the screen. I don’t answer, making him shift beside me until his gaze finds mine. “Alaina. Doesn’t that make you angry?”

I move my eyes to the ceiling, to the five hundred and ninety-nine different patterns in the wood I know by heart, since I’ve counted them endlessly.

“Well, I’ll tell you how I feel. It makes me angry. So fucking angry, I want to scream.” Dane’s breath catches in his throat. “They erased you. Me. All of it. And no one even blinked. They deserve karma for it. Not World Cup wins.”

I look at the screen again.

Isaac Raine smiles into the camera as he sprays champagne across the front row of fans. The crowd roars as he raises the bottle like he deserves it.

“Don’t you feel anything anymore?” Dane’s voice cracks. “Tell me you’re still in there, Al. Tell me I still have a sister.”

I want to.

God, I want to.

He’s been with me through everything. He sat by my bed for days while I screamed in pain and begged for silence. He held me through the nights when my body seized up in spasms, when I thought I’d never move again. He fought the doctors, he fought our father, he fought everyone.

And now here he is, begging me to speak, to tell him how I feel. I owe him something, anything, really, but it’s just so hard to reach that part of myself again. My brain built walls around it to keep me from drowning, and now I don’t remember how to open the door. But I try for him.

“I used to,” I whisper. “I used to be…”

Somebody.

Now I’m nothing.

Nobody.

I drag my eyes away from the screen, from that life. That girl.

“I stopped breathing that day. Not only physically but mentally. Biking was my breath, and it’s broken.”

I press a hand to my chest, like I might feel something to contradict that, but I don’t.

“My breath is broken. And nobody can live with broken breath.”

My voice shakes, and my lip trembles, but I keep going. He doesn’t need to be broken, and I owe him this.

“He killed me, Dane.” The words barely make it out. “He wanted to kill me, and he succeeded.”

Dane flinches. “He didn’t kill you. He just…”

I glance at the screen again, where Raine is holding the World Cup overall trophy.

“Took the wins from us,” I finish for my brother. “Erased us.”

Dane nods slowly. “Then let’s take it back, give them the same fucking courtesy.”

He gives his back to the television, turning all his attention on me, his voice firmer now. “You could train and get back in shape, back on track. If anyone could do it, it’s you. Set your mind on it and take that win from Isla. A couple of years from now, everything could look different.” He softens a little. “I’ll help. I’ll train you. Just help me out here, Al. Want it. Take back what’s yours.”

“I don’t want it from Isla,” I snap, startling both of us with the intensity. “Fuck her. She’s a mouthpiece, a fucking pawn. This is his game. Raine’s.”

Dane’s mouth opens like he wants to argue, but then he stops, and a long silence follows. Just the sound of the television in the background, narrating Isaac Raine’s glory.

Finally, he says, “You know I’d help you take the win from him if I could. I would. But no matter how hard you train, you’ll never race in his categor⁠—”

“What if I could?” I cut in, sitting up straighter, the idea sparking in my tired brain.