Page 10 of Broken Breath (Rogue Riders Duet #1)

CHAPTER SIX

Mason

The sky is already getting that pink edge when I crack open an eye and stare through the plastic window of the sprinter van’s roof bed.

I didn’t sleep for shit, my bloody thoughts wouldn’t allow it.

Fourth place.

That failure kept me company, spinning around and around like a chain slipping its teeth.

Dad is still snoring beside me, curled awkwardly on the thin mattress.

At least one of us is getting some rest.

Pulling my shirt away from me, I try to breathe deeply, to find a way to relax, but I can’t. The van is too damn small and hot, and I need out .

I shove the thin blanket off and push myself up, my back cracking in at least three places as I stretch. My spine feels like a misaligned derailleur, and my whole body is still sore.

Good. I deserve that.

Swinging my legs over, I drop down from the rooftop bed, landing softly on the cramped van floor. I duck to avoid slamming my head on the upper bunk, rubbing the back of my neck as I straighten.

I miss the team buses, the space, the proper beds. Not that I’d ever say it out loud.

Not that I have anyone to even say it to.

I glance around the van, the cluttered shelves and the tangle of tools and gear. Everything in here costs something, not just in money, but in sacrifice.

He gave everything up for me.

It’s what makes fourth place feel so unbearable.

Looking up toward the roof, I grimace at the sounds of Dad adjusting, trying to get comfortable in his sleep.

He traded his comfort and stability so I might have a chance to rebuild my life.

My career. I wouldn’t even be here, breathing in this stale, overheated van air, if it weren’t for him.

I wouldn’t get a chance at chasing the World Cup overall title, at clawing my name back from the mud it got dragged through.

To win enough money, enough redemption, to make starting over even a possibility.

Everything depends on that overall win now.

I pull on a clean shirt, the pressure in my chest making me dizzy as I brace a hand on top of the toolbox to steady myself.

Fuck, I have to do better.

Dad believed me when no one else did. When the world turned its back, when my name became something people spat, he stood there, his grease-stained hands tightly fisted, daring the world to come for us.

And it did.

We lost everything, some things immediately—the contracts, our plans for the future, and the respect of our peers. All of it burned, but then he sacrificed the rest. For me .

Our house in Redcar, the only place we have ever called home.

The garage with the busted heater and the walls papered with old bike parts and motocross posters from his racing days.

He sold the couch he always passed out on, the kitchen table we barely used, and even the crappy television to buy the van and cover our expenses this season.

And now it’s just Dad, me, the van, and the noise in my head.

We don’t talk about it. Any of it. We’re not a feelings kind of duo, but we don’t have to be for me to see what it costs.

He should’ve had more. He was head mechanic for my factory team, running his own crew and happy to do it. And now? Now he has to wake up next to a stack of tires and live out of a van with a son who is trying to duct tape his reputation back together.

After all the drama last year, what he needed was a break, a bit of peace, a damn garage with heat and a decent kettle. Instead, he got this.

Christ on a bike.

I press my palms into my eyes and hold them there for a long time. Then, I scrub them down my face, vainly hoping I can wipe away the overwhelming guilt.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay him.

Especially if I don’t start winning.

Yawning widely, I stretch my arms until my shoulders pop, then reach for my hoodie, dragging it over my head. The fabric clings for a second before settling against me. Something about it makes me feel better, comforting me in a way nothing else would.

I can race for him and me and fight like hell to make sure every second I spend on a track is proof that he was right to believe in me. To stay. To sacrifice.

At least I have time to recover before the next one.

Today is not important. Mondays never are.

That’s when they pack up the pits and hit the road.

Tuesdays are usually reserved for travel, maybe a half-decent nap when the roads aren’t garbage.

On Wednesdays, they set it all up again.

Thursday is track walk, picking apart every inch of dirt, root, and risk.

Then Friday for practice, Saturday for qualifying, and Sunday is race day.

We repeat the whole damn thing for three weeks straight, followed by one short break and the final gauntlet. It’s a short season with a brutal pace and zero room for error.

Good thing I already kicked things off with a massive one.

Quietly, I ease the van door open and step out into the cold bite of the Scottish morning. The air hits my legs like knives. Shorts and a hoodie were a stupid choice.

Everything is still around me. There are no generators humming, no engines kicking, and no voices drifting from the team tents.

I check my watch to see it’s only four in the morning.

That’s all it takes to circle me back to failure.

Fourth-fucking-place.

Only the top three get the glory, the big checks, and the spotlight. Just a few more seconds. Hell, one cleaner line, and maybe we wouldn’t be stretching groceries to the end of the week or praying quite as hard that the van doesn’t die on some godforsaken back road.

Maybe Dad would look at me with hope in his eyes.

But I blew it.

And yeah, part of me wants to pin it on the rookie, wants to say his wild line threw me off, that he came out of nowhere and messed with my head, but the truth is uglier. It was all me.

I hesitated. I second-guessed. I played it safe for one fucking second too long, and in this sport, that’s all it takes to lose everything.

My hands curl into fists, knuckles aching with the need to hit something. Anything. The silence around me is too loud, pressing in like it knows what I’ve been trying not to think.

They’ll never forget what they think you did.

Shite.

I clench my jaw so tight it hurts, trying to crush the thought before it grows teeth, hanging onto the one truth that has gotten me through this.

I am not a rapist.

I know that. Dad knows that. But the circuit? The sponsors? The teams that dropped me like a virus? They only know whispers, forum posts, and one girl’s lies.

Part of that is my fault. I didn’t fight back hard enough when she pointed the finger at me. I shut down instead of shouting, which let them write my story for me.

And now I’m the guy nobody wants to sit next to, and what’s worse, I’m not even winning, not even earning the hate anymore.

Just existing in a void and failing quietly.

I whip around and drive my foot into the back tire of the van.

Hard. Pain rockets up my shin, white-hot and blinding, but I don’t stop.

I slam it again and again, harder each time, annoyed as hell that it barely makes a sound as I try to beat the uselessness out of me.

If I hurt enough on the outside, maybe the inside will finally shut the fuck up.

If I can’t win, what the fuck is this all for?

What’s the point of me?

An unexpected noise cuts through the quiet around me, snapping me out of the same bloody loop of my failures, and I glance toward it, feeling vicious.

Mini Crews .

That could be the perfect outlet.

He’s the reason I came in fourth.

He’s just visible in the faint light of dawn, crouched in front of the blue school bus parked maybe fifteen meters away. He hasn’t noticed me yet, so I just watch him.

I’ve been doing that a lot lately.

Eventually, he sets his flashlight down, spilling a beam across the pavement. I clock the mess of bike parts spread out around the guy, and realize it’s his bike, fully torn apart in front of him like he’s dissecting it.

What the hell?

Yeah, we all tweak our setups for brake tension, suspension, maybe a part swap when something feels off, but tearing your whole rig apart? On the freezing ground? At four in the morning with nothing but a bloody flashlight?

That’s not fine-tuning. It’s a breakdown on every level.

Dad always says racers shouldn’t wrench their bikes. Get too close, and you stop seeing the cracks.

Another clatter sounds as he fumbles with whatever the hell he’s doing.

Seriously, has this kid ever held a tool before?

Something about his incompetence soothes my anger. Douses the flames.

I saw him before the Cup started, racing in smaller events. He never spoke to anyone, never removed his helmet, acting like some kind of quiet shadow moving through the ranks and didn’t want to be seen.

But somehow, I always caught him watching me. I took note of it, somewhere in the back of my mind, bracing for him to be like the rest, looking to get a piece of the scandal. Curious to get a glimpse of a rapist, maybe, but he didn’t press me, and I started looking closer at him.

Something in his eyes was different from the others. No disgust. No fear. Not even pity, either. Just something else. Something I couldn’t read.

He’s off. Haunted, even.

I knew that before I even saw this.

He has the same look that I catch in mirrors, the kind you wear when your whole story changed in one breath, and no one stuck around to hear the ending.

Dad talked to Dane Crews during one of these earlier races and found out the kid is his cousin.

Of course he is.

Lucky bastard, having Dane-fucking-Crews backing him up. After everything that went down too. That whole mess with the crash and the bike mods, the fallout.

If I thought it would go well, Dane would probably be a good person to talk to about all this shit, but I know it wouldn’t. How could it?

But he was gone, vanished from the circuit, and now he’s back, dragging the knockoff version of him around, like he did with his little sister years back.