Page 9 of Broken Breath (Rogue Riders Duet #1)

I want to open my mouth and make a sound, call for Dane, but something is blocking my throat, something thick, and panic overrides the pain as it surges in my chest. My heartbeat lurches, and the beeping I faintly registered around me suddenly picks up speed.

I can’t breathe.

No, that’s not quite right.

Something is breathing for me.

My eyes fly open, but I regret it instantly. Everything is too bright, blinding white. There’s a ceiling, machines, and the slow, mechanical hiss of air being pushed in and out of my lungs. Hospital. I’m in the hospital because of the crash.

Memories slam into me. The jump. The impact. My bike buckling beneath me. The snap of metal, then the violent, helpless feeling of being thrown through the air. The world spinning. The trees. The rocks. The moment I was finally no longer in motion.

The pain.

The remembered shock of it has me nauseous, but I can’t even gag. I can’t even turn my head because I can’t fucking move.

A shadow shifts beside me. A blurred, hunched shape. Dane. He’s here. I don’t need to call for him.

His head is down, forearms braced on his knees, his dark hair falling into his face as his shoulders shake. He looks fucking wrecked. I want to ask if he’s okay, if he won his race, if he’s a legend yet, but he hasn’t noticed that I’m awake, and I can’t talk.

His phone is propped on his knee, and I register the voice coming from it. It must be on speaker.

“And what does that mean?”

Dad.

“Her injuries are extensive.” The doctor standing on the other side of the room answers him, startling me.

“She suffered multiple fractures, including the left femur and three ribs, and had a comminuted fracture to her left hip. The impact also caused a pneumothorax… her left lung collapsed due to a puncture wound from a branch.”

My stomach twists. That’s why I can’t breathe on my own, and there’s that feeling in my throat. It must be a tube helping me breathe.

“The damage to her left kidney was also significant,” the doctor continues.

“We had no choice but to remove it. There was internal bleeding in the abdomen as well, and we discovered extensive damage to her fallopian tubes during surgery. We did what we could. She’s stable now, but it was close.

If she hadn’t been airlifted when she was, we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation. ”

A beat of silence, then my father’s voice comes again, his tone just as clinical as the doctor’s, only colder, and even more detached. “And her prognosis?”

“She’ll recover, but it will take time. Months of rehabilitation, probably multiple surgeries.” A short pause follows, then, “She’ll never race professionally again.”

If I could breathe, that would’ve taken all my air.

Never race again.

Never.

No.

No, no, no.

This was supposed to be my year. I was supposed to win, supposed to take the title.

I was supposed to go elite.

It was mine.

And now, it’s gone?

Just like that?

I try to make a sound. A desperate, panicked sound, anything to tell them I’m here, I’m awake, I can hear this, and I refuse the words being spoken about me, but nothing comes out. The ventilator hisses, the machine beeps, and my father exhales.

“I see.” That’s it. Not a single question about me, about how I am, or if I’m awake or in pain. “I’ll make arrangements for her education.”

Arrangements. To him, I’m just a problem to fix. My life hasn’t just been shattered into pieces, and I’m not even right here.

Rage joins the party with panic and pain, right beneath the helplessness, the deep, crushing grief, and I’m screaming inside. Clawing at the edges of this body, this bed.

Dane rubs a hand over his face. “She hasn’t even fucking woken up, and you’re talking about school?”

“There’s no reason to delay this. She won’t be racing anymore, so it’s best to set her up for the future.”

I want to scream, to rip the tube from my throat and tell him to go to hell.

But I can’t.

I can’t fucking move. I can’t do anything.

Dane grips his phone tighter, knuckles going white. “Do you even care?” His voice is barely above a whisper, but it shakes. “Do you even care what this will mean to her?”

“I’ll leave you to it.” The doctor exits the room, and then there is only silence before Dad breaks it with a heavy sigh.

“Of course, I care. What do you want me to say, Dane? You knew exactly what this sport could do to people when you begged me to let her race with you. When you told me you’d look out for her.

” I can’t even wrap my head around what he just said.

Did he just put the blame on Dane? “Emotions won’t change reality.

The sooner she understands that, the better. ”

Dane’s head snaps up, anger flashing through his bloodshot eyes.

“Fuck you,” he grinds out. “Just… fuck you.”

The line goes dead, and Dane drops his phone onto his knee.

Then my brother breaks, and sobs tear out of him, the force of them shaking his entire frame.

Dane never cries, not even when I broke my arm when I was six and he was sixteen, and he had to carry me three miles home, but he’s crying now, because he fucking knows what I just lost.

I want to tell him it’s okay, that I’ll be fine.

But that would be a lie.

I don’t know how to exist without racing. Without purpose. Without wind in my face and fire in my chest and the finish line ahead of me.

So I do nothing.

Because there’s nothing left to do. I’m trapped in a body that no longer feels like mine, with pain, weight, and silence where speed used to live.

So, I lie there, broken and still in the dark that has no light left, and my brother chokes on grief that sounds too much like goodbye.