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Runner 501 – running in memory of his father, who lost his life far too young.
Runner 444 – raising money for a local child carer, to give them a much-deserved holiday.
So many worthy stories. So many people with ‘whys’ bigger than themselves, willing to endure physical hell to shine a light on a cause that means something to them.
Listening to them makes me nervous. I know how much this race already means to people. Boones did that. But he can’t be trusted to keep them safe.
My phone buzzes with a text.Medical tent.SOS.
Fuck. It’s already beginning.
5
Adrienne
Seven years earlier
Yorkshire
‘It’s about your son. There’s been an accident,’ the policeman says.
I struggle to my feet and follow the uniformed officers to their car, my whole body shaking. Someone – the race director maybe – throws a Mylar blanket over my shoulders and I hug it tight round me.
Everything – the win, the pain, the horrid shouts at the end of the race – is shoved from my mind. I feel like I’ve been plunged through a hole in ice. ‘What’s happened to Ethan?’ I ask, my words coming out in a stutter as I’m ushered into the back seat. I’ve barely spoken in thirty hours and my voice sounds unnatural in my own head.
The officer in the passenger seat turns round. ‘Your son is in hospital. His father is with him.’
A moan, involuntary and primal, escapes my lips. When I didn’t see them at the checkpoint I should have waited. I should have known something was wrong. The last call I made had gone to voicemail …
That’s when it hits me. My phone. When I take it out of my pocket, I see the screen is smashed. I press the ‘on’ button but it doesn’t come to life. I might as well havebeen carrying a brick for all the use it gives me. It must have broken beneath my weight when I slipped and fell on the frozen ground at mile eighty-two.
The officer is speaking, but only a certain amount slips through my fog of fear and worry. I get the gist, though: Ethan had been riding his trike back from the park when a car mounted the kerb at speed and knocked him down. They were looking for the vehicle and driver now.
‘But … but he’s OK?’ I ask, my throat constricted.
‘He’s stable. I don’t have any other updates.’
‘Can you drive any faster?’
At the hospital I leave the officers in my dust, racing up to the paediatric unit. In the waiting room I catch sight of Pete talking to a nurse in scrubs.
‘How is he?’ I blurt out.
‘He’s OK,’ Pete says. ‘He’s sleeping right now.’ He looks ashen, shaken.
‘I need to see him. Where is he?’
‘Room fifty-five,’ says the nurse.
I don’t waste another second, rushing down the hallway to find the room. I take a breath before opening the door. I don’t want Ethan to see my panic.
He’s lying in the bed, so small and fragile. He looks beaten up – a bandage across his head and his arm in a sling, his cheek red raw and grazed. I sit on the bed next to him. At the movement he curls towards me.
I choke, my heart breaking at the thought of him being in pain. At the fact that I hadn’t been there for him. I reach out and stroke his cheek, feeling his soft breath on my fingers.
After a few moments, a doctor knocks and asks me tofollow him outside. I’m reluctant to leave Ethan’s sleeping form, but I need answers. He leads me to a small room, where Pete is waiting – and he’s no longer alone. The police officers are back, and they’ve been joined by a woman in a dark grey trouser suit. She flashes a badge at me, introducing herself as DS Flintock.
Her eyes narrow as she takes me in, but my mind is too scrambled to interpret her expression. I’m only looking at the doctor.