Page 37 of Wild Ride

I reach the fence. Get my hands on the top rail. Start to pull myself up.

The impact catches me in the lower back. Two thousand pounds of momentum focused through a skull and two horns, and my body folds around the fence like paper. I hear something crack. Feel the fence give way beneath me. Feel myself going over, then under, then sideways in a tangle of metal and dirt and pain that blankets everything in red.

I'm on the ground. On my back. The bull is above me, hooves stamping, horns swinging. One connects with my ribs, and the crack I hear this time is definitely bone. Two, maybe three ribs, snapping like dry wood.

The crowd is screaming. I can hear it through the ringing in my ears, a wall of sound that feels very far away.

Roll.I need to roll. Get under the fence, get small, get away from the hooves.

I roll. Pain detonates in my chest, my back, my riding arm. I'm under the bent fence rail, pressed against the dirt, and Tombstone's Revenge is still coming, slamming his head against the metal, trying to reach me. The fence holds. Barely.

Then other hands are on me. Slade Carrick is the first one over the fence, hauling me by the vest with the kind of grip you get from years of wrestling steers, his face blank and focused while other riders and stock hands scramble after him. The bull is being driven back by people with cattle prods and panels, and the sounds of the arena start to separate into individual noisesagain. Shouting. The announcer asking the crowd to stay calm. Boots on dirt. Someone calling my name.

I'm on my back in the dirt behind the fence, looking up at the New Mexico sky, which is the deep purple of late dusk with the first stars punching through. My chest is on fire. Every breath is a knife between my ribs. Blood in my mouth, warm and metallic.

Someone leans over me. "Don't move, Grant. The medics are coming. Stay still."

I grab the kid's arm. Grip tight despite the pain. "Tell Colt Holloway everything. Merrick. Thornton Livestock. Tell him Rainey has everything. Flint has copies. Tell him I wasn't wrong."

"Grant, you need to?—"

"Promise me."

He nods. Scared, confused, but he nods.

I close my eyes.

Tyler's face comes first. Always Tyler. Bleeding in the Fort Worth dirt, trying to get the words out, dying with a warning stuck behind his teeth. At least I know what he was trying to say now.

Kenna's going to fall apart when she gets the call. Dax is going to put his fist through a wall, then saddle up and go looking for someone to hurt. And Colt, stubborn bastard, is probably already in his truck headed this way even though I told him to stay clear. He'll finish this. He's too angry not to.

I think about Rainey. Her hands on her camera, her eyes on the world, seeing everything, missing nothing. The way she kissed me in the dark like she was memorizing my mouth. The way she said my name like it meant something more than the letters that make it up.

The warmth of the New Mexico night has begun to fade. The voices are thinning out, the pain pulling back like a tide going somewhere I can't follow.

Tyler, brother. I'm sorry I couldn't finish it.

But they will. Every stubborn, reckless, unbreakable one of them. Colt with his fury. Kenna with her grief. Dax with his fists. They're going to tear this circuit apart.

And whoever's at the top is going to wish they'd never touched us.

The ride isn’t over yet…

The truth cost blood.

The fallout will cost even more.