Page 132 of The Wildest Ride

The gate opened. He and Sweet Suzy were through it not a breath later. Lil’d never seen a bull so fast in her life.

But Sweet Suzy wasn’t just fast. He was monstrously strong—the kind of bull they used as a model for posters about the ills of overbreeding. And he was wild.

Whereas Cortes had slowed as he transitioned from one move to another, Sweet Suzy moved fluidly from bucking to kicking, to spinning, and back around to bucking.

Lil held her breath. AJ held on.

Until he didn’t.

Time slowed as Sweet Suzy’s spinning flung AJ off his back. AJ landed in the soft dirt of the arena floor with a thud that echoed in an arena that’d gone quiet in its collective gasp.

Clowns ran out, but Sweet Suzy spared them no attention. Instead, he faced AJ, who still lay in the dirt about a hundred yards away.

Sweet Suzy stomped, bowed his huge head, and snorted.

He was going to charge.

He was going to charge and stomp.

And after that, nothing would matter.

Lil leaped over the platform. Landing was a painful shock to her knees, but she ignored it. She brought her thumb and forefinger to her mouth to let out a shrill whistle, infusing the sound with every nasty thought she’d ever had about a bull.

Whether or not the thoughts had anything to do with it, the combination worked. Sweet Suzy turned his giant skull in her direction and flared his nostrils, scenting her.

The bull roared and charged. The whole thing happening faster than Lil would have ever thought possible.

She held her ground, conquering every instinct that screamed at her to run. It was too late for that. To run was to get trampled. The bull neared and she held still and someone in the audience screamed.

When Sweet Suzy was nearly upon her, she jumped back, spinning her upper body out of the way of his horns along the way, but either her timing was off, or Sweet Suzy was even faster than she’d given him credit for. The sharp tip of one of his horns caught in the flesh of her shoulder, ripping through the leather of her granddad’s vest to her skin like butter. Seed beads flew everywhere, but she didn’t pay attention to them, maintaining the spinning motion through the pain, and through her granddad’s vest being pulled off her body, the leather of it still caught on the bull’s horn.

She was free, and the bull was momentarily distracted by the vest on his head and the crowd was cheering.

She looked over at AJ just as the crowd went silent again. AJ was unharmed, so that didn’t explain the crowd’s reaction.

Then she noticed the mounted catchers pressing themselves against the outer edges of the arena, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed behind her. She motioned for them to ride to AJ, but they didn’t move. Then she realized why.

AJ shouted her name. “Lilian!”

Sweet Suzy wasn’t distracted anymore. He was charging her. And this time she wasn’t going to be able to just dance away. His charge was too close and direct, and Lil’s weight was on the wrong foot. There was only one option.

She leaped.

Weightlessness was the primary sensation she noted. She felt as if the air had simply accepted that she was sailing through it. Sweet Suzy did his part, lowering his horns as he sensed the threat from above, giving Lil’s palms the perfect flat surface to land on and spring forth from again, twirling her body and twisting to land on her feet, behind the bull.

The arena erupted like Krakatoa.

Lil was frozen. Stuck, knees bent, boots buried in soft dirt, heart stopped. She knew she needed to move, that Sweet Suzy would turn around and she’d be in the exact same spot and she’d probably die, but she didn’t have any more in her.

But she didn’t need any more because AJ snatched her up, leaning over the side of a horse to hook an arm around her waist as he rode by like an ancient warrior snatching a maiden. Lil didn’t think to wonder where he’d gotten the horse from until after the clowns had ushered them through the gate and closed it behind them.

They were immediately encircled by a mass of people. Greenies, medical staff, and reporters were the most persistent, but AJ handled them by simply refusing to dismount.

The horse, high on adrenaline from being in the same pen as Sweet Suzy, was more than happy to oblige him, stomping out a perimeter of space around them.

“Back off,” AJ said. “She’s hurt. Medics first!”

A man and a woman hurried forward, both wearing crisp white shirts and black slacks, and helped Lil dismount.