He settled. He closed his eyes for a microsecond.
In the darkness behind his eyelids, he didn't see the gold buckle. He didn't see the crowd.
He saw a pair of dark eyes. A woman in a white coat, looking at him with a disappointment so profound it felt like a physical blow.
Elena.
He shoved the image away. He shoved it down into the black box where he kept his father’s funeral, his brother’s anger, and the memory of the day he left.
He opened his eyes. The world narrowed to the patch of hair between the bull’s horns.
He nodded.
"Let's go."
II. The Centrifuge
The gate didn't open; it exploded.
One moment, Ryder was stationary, a potential energy coiled in a steel box. The next, he was kinetic.
Widowmaker launched.
The sensation wasn't riding. It was surviving an earthquake. The bull hit the arena dirt and turned ninety degrees in the air, a massive, impossible torque that tried to rip Ryder’s arm out of the socket.
Stay square. Chin down. Toes out.
Ryder countered. He threw his free arm back, using it as a rudder, fighting the centrifugal force that wanted to launch him into the third row.
One second.
The crowd was a blur of static. The noise was gone. In the eye of the storm, there was only the sound of the bull’s breathing—a wet, guttural roaring—and the creak of leather under extreme stress.
Two seconds.
Widowmaker spun left. A flat, dizzying spin. The G-force pressed the blood into Ryder’s feet.
Ryder leaned into the well. He was dancing on the back of a hurricane. He felt light. He felt perfect. This was the high. This was the place where the past couldn't reach him, where he was just a body moving through space, untethered to regret.
Three seconds.
The bull reversed.
It was a move called the "fade." Widowmaker stopped the spin instantly and dropped his front shoulder, fading backward. It was a move designed to snap a rider's neck or pull him over the front end.
Ryder anticipated it. He sat back, driving his spurs into the bull's neck, anchoring himself.
Four seconds.
"He's got it!" the announcer screamed, his voice penetrating the fog. "Ryder Stone is putting on a clinic!"
Ryder grinned. He felt the gold buckle against his stomach. He felt the vindication.
Five seconds.
The bull jumped. High. A vertical leap that defied physics for an animal of that mass.
Six seconds.
