Or maybe it was in my head.
I looked back.
That was all it took.
The front tire hit something hard.
The bike lurched.
My body lifted.
For one breathless second, I was weightless under a sky full of stars.
Then the desert took me.
Pain cracked through my shoulder first, then my hip, then my skull, then everything at once. Dirt filled my mouth. Brush tore at my jacket. Something hot and wet slid down my temple. The bike skidded away from me with a horrible metal scream, then stopped somewhere in the dark, engine coughing, dying, ticking like a bomb that had lost interest.
I lay still.
The sky wheeled above me.
Stars blinked in and out.
The fire glowed behind the brush, orange and wrong, painting the smoke from beneath. People were still screaming. Sirens were closer now. Too close. My ears rang. My hand burned. My ribs hurt when I breathed.
For a few seconds, I didn’t know who I was.
Mandy.
Destiny.
Rourke.
Whore’s daughter.
Biker’s daughter.
Firestarter.
Felon.
The words circled like vultures.
Then my body moved without permission. I rolled onto my side and gagged, coughing smoke and tequila and whatever poison had been in that blunt into the dirt. Tears streamed down my face, but I didn’t think I was crying. My body was just leaking because it didn’t know what else to do.
I pushed myself up.
Bad idea.
The desert spun.
I fell back against a scrub bush, biting down on a cry as thorns caught my jacket and hair.
“Get up,” I whispered.
My voice sounded small.
I hated that.
