Page 35 of Broken Breath (Rogue Riders Duet #1)
“Well, I’ll tell you how I feel. It makes me angry. So fucking angry, I want to scream.” Dane’s breath catches in his throat. “They erased you. Me. All of it. And no one even blinked. They deserve karma for it. Not World Cup wins.”
I look at the screen again.
Isaac Raine smiles into the camera as he sprays champagne across the front row of fans. The crowd roars as he raises the bottle like he deserves it.
“Don’t you feel anything anymore?” Dane’s voice cracks. “Tell me you’re still in there, Al. Tell me I still have a sister.”
I want to.
God, I want to.
He’s been with me through everything. He sat by my bed for days while I screamed in pain and begged for silence. He held me through the nights when my body seized up in spasms, when I thought I’d never move again. He fought the doctors, he fought our father, he fought everyone.
And now here he is, begging me to speak, to tell him how I feel. I owe him something, anything, really, but it’s just so hard to reach that part of myself again. My brain built walls around it to keep me from drowning, and now I don’t remember how to open the door. But I try for him.
“I used to,” I whisper. “I used to be…”
Somebody.
Now I’m nothing.
Nobody .
I drag my eyes away from the screen, from that life. That girl.
“I stopped breathing that day. Not only physically but mentally. Biking was my breath, and it’s broken.”
I press a hand to my chest, like I might feel something to contradict that, but I don’t.
“My breath is broken. And nobody can live with broken breath.”
My voice shakes, and my lip trembles, but I keep going. He doesn’t need to be broken, and I owe him this.
“He killed me, Dane.” The words barely make it out. “He wanted to kill me, and he succeeded.”
Dane flinches. “He didn’t kill you. He just…”
I glance at the screen again, where Raine is holding the World Cup overall trophy.
“Took the wins from us,” I finish for my brother. “Erased us.”
Dane nods slowly. “Then let’s take it back, give them the same fucking courtesy.”
He gives his back to the television, turning all his attention on me, his voice firmer now.
“You could train and get back in shape, back on track. If anyone could do it, it’s you.
Set your mind on it and take that win from Isla.
A couple of years from now, everything could look different.
” He softens a little. “I’ll help. I’ll train you.
Just help me out here, Al. Want it. Take back what’s yours. ”
“I don’t want it from Isla,” I snap, startling both of us with the intensity. “Fuck her. She’s a mouthpiece, a fucking pawn. This is his game. Raine’s.”
Dane’s mouth opens like he wants to argue, but then he stops, and a long silence follows. Just the sound of the television in the background, narrating Isaac Raine’s glory.
Finally, he says, “You know I’d help you take the win from him if I could. I would. But no matter how hard you train, you’ll never race in his categor ? —”
“What if I could?” I cut in, sitting up straighter, the idea sparking in my tired brain.
What if I could?
Dane blinks at me. But I’m already there, chasing it.
What if I could race him? What if I could get to the final gate, line up right next to him, and rip that smug-fucking-smirk off his face with nothing but speed?
“Alaina… what?”
“I’ve been erased. So maybe that’s the way back in, as someone else, not Alaina Crews, but just a rider. Clean slate. Let them think I’m gone, let them all forget about me.”
H e shakes his head, frowning in confusion, but I keep going.
“I race under a new name in the male category. Nobody would think twice, not if I do it right. I’d get my body there. Cut my hair, train like hell, and then… play the part.”
He’s silent, but I know him well enough to know it’s not because he thinks the idea is ridiculous. It’s because he’s calculating, measuring the odds and me.
“You think people won’t recognize you?” he finally asks.
“Let’s be honest, it will take me years to get there. They’ll forget Alaina Crews completely by then.”
His brows furrow. “That’s a lot, Al. And risky as hell.”
“But it’s doable,” I say, and there’s something wild in my voice now, almost alive. “This way, I don’t just beat Isla. I beat him, right in front of everybody, but he won’t even see it coming.”
My hip throbs in protest like it’s trying to ground me, remind me of everything that could go wrong, everything that has gone wrong, but I breathe through it, because pain means I’m alive.
Pain means I’m still in this. And if I have to bleed my way to that finish line to show the world what he did, to prove to him that I survived?
So be it.
He took everything from me.
Now I’m going to take everything from him.
Dane stares at me, his expression like he’s seeing a ghost come back to life. And then, he nods.
“If that’s what you want, then yeah. I’ll help. I can do that. We can do that.”
I exhale, and for the first time in a year, the breath feels real.
“And after that, it ends.” I look at my brother, but he’s gone as still as a statue. “When I’ve won, when I’ve taken what he stole and made him choke on it, I want to be done.”
Dane’s mouth opens, but I keep going.
“If I come back… if I train, if I fight, if I bleed and break and still claw my way to the top, if I make it all the way back just to crush him, then that’s it.”
I stare at him. Let him see it in my face, the honesty, the promise .
“I don’t want a life after that. Hell, I don’t have one anymore, not really.”
Dane’s voice is hoarse. “Alaina…”
“This isn’t about healing,” I whisper. “It’s about justice. Revenge . I want him to pay. I want him to see me win and realize he didn’t bury me, that he failed. That I’m still here, only to ruin him , and bury myself afterward.”
Dane looks like I’ve pulled the air from his lungs, but he’s seeing something else too. He’s seeing me, for the first time in months, sitting upright. Because for the first time since the crash, I want something. Not healing or peace, just vengeance.
Even if it means war.
Even if it means the end .
“Swear it,” I demand. It’s not fair, none of this is, but I need him to agree. I need permission to carry this weight without the expectation of surviving it. “Swear that when it’s done, you’ll let me go.”
His face crumples. “Don’t make me … ”
“Swear it, Dane.”
The silence that follows feels like a held breath, and the whole world is waiting to see whether he’ll break. And then, just loud enough to shatter me, he gives me what I want, what I shouldn’t want.
Like he always does.
“I swear.”