Instead, I jolt when someone bumps into me, something blunt ramming right into my shoulder.
“What thefuck, bro?” Hatley hisses out and I jerk around in time to see his fist cock back.
“No!”
I jump in front of him, his body crashing into mine as his arm hooks and his fist lands somewhere behind me.
“Mother fuck, Emmett!” Adrenaline spiking, my breath pumping, I push at Hatley’s chest even though he’s yelling. It makes me cringe. “I almosthit you.”
“You shouldn’t be h-h-hittinganyone,” I stumble out and push him again, forcing him an arm’s length away.
“But he said—”
The roar of the crowd drowns him out and makes my ears ring.
It feels …wrong.
I flip my gaze back to the track and it’s like everything’s moving in slow motion as bikes speed back around the corner. Kick up dirt clumps as they skid.
A flash of green has my stomach dropping.
The white noise of voices morph into shouts. Curses.
And that’s when I hear it.
The cracking smash.
The scrape of metal on metal.
The bang of bikes colliding.
Crashing.
Piling up and releasing smoke.
“Tristen.”
The bleachers empty, shoes pounding pavement and dirt, and I watch as Hatley’s back gets smaller and smaller. It pumps as he runs toward the collision, the muscles flexing with each pounding step.
Meanwhile, I stick to the spot like my soles are epoxied to the cracked cement beneath them. My breath leaves me like I don’t need it to live. My heart racing in my ribcage, forcing the adrenaline through my veins too fast for me to grab it. To use it.
Nononononono.
“Tristen,” I whisper over the fist in my mouth and flinch when the final bike collides with the pile of wreckage and bodies.
The resulting silence that falls over the track is deafening. Piercing.
Overwhelming.
My heart thumps.
One beat. Two beats.
Then it all comes rushing forward. The noise resumes. The pop of flames echoing. The shouts of people trying to help.
“Grab them!”
“Get him out! Get him out!”
