Page 35

TWENTY-SIX

T he audience quieted, ever so slightly. Kel didn’t know if it was shock or anger keeping them at bay. Newcomer teams never won races of this size, and no team—novice or ranked—ever moved that fast.

Bekn and Kel raced down the benches and elbowed through the dense crowd. Savita was still hovering above the concrete finish line, struggling to lower to the ground. Panicked bodies were running back and forth beneath her.

“Get out of the way!” Kel screamed. “Clear the space for her to land. He’s injured !” Her voice broke on the last word.

Bekn turned to the nearest uniformed CAPR officer. “Get help,” he said, in an eerily calm voice. “Get a council emergency van here, now .”

The officer swallowed, nodded, and ran toward the CAPR booth. Moments later, Dira and Rahn appeared behind Kel. Dira’s eyes were dark, focused; searching for options. Rahn’s mouth moved in a blur as she spoke into her tele-comm. But no one could help Coup until Savita landed.

Kel tilted her head up and waved into the sky. “Coup! Bring her down!”

As she waited—hoped—for a response, she realized that the ringing in her ears wasn’t white noise, or the ghost of Oska’s screams. It was static. Coup’s comm was broken.

Kel cupped her hands around her mouth and tried again, “ Savita! Land! Now!”

Sav screeched in defiance, but her wings slowed. Though Sav obeyed few verbal commands, Kel knew Sav understood her tone. The phoenix’s flames began to soothe against her feathers. Slowly, with three beats of her sprawled wings, Savita landed on the concrete beside Kel.

Coup was slumped to the side of the saddle. His leathers were tattered and ashen, smoke rising from the fabric in charcoal waves. His arms hung limply. His buckles— thank the Alchemists —were still looped around his legs, holding him in place.

As fast as they could, Kel and Bekn undid the buckles.

Kel pushed Sav’s head away as her phoenix tried to nuzzle her, unaware of the surrounding chaos.

The metal buckles were scalding, even beneath her gloves—but Kel didn’t care.

She didn’t care if her hands caught fire.

She didn’t care if the entire crowd burst into flames. Coup couldn’t die .

Memories flared in her mind. Her father, broken and hollow. Oska, torn and mangled. Now Coup. She wouldn’t survive it. Not Coup—

Camera flashes jolted her back, and she fought the buckles with trembling fingers. When they finally came free, Kel shook Coup’s leg. “Coup? Can you hear me?”

No response.

Coup’s limp body tumbled free of the saddle and into her arms. She almost dropped him, but then three pairs of hands helped lift him off the ground. She looked up to see CAPR paramedics. Their expressions were unreadable as they lifted Coup onto a nearby stretcher.

Kel ran to his side, coughing through waves of smoke. Her eyes watered, struggling to make sense of what they saw.

The front of his uniform wasn’t ashen or damaged.

It was seared into his flesh.

Where Coup had been pressed directly against Savita’s heat, Coup’s thick leathers had melted away. The gray shirt he’d worn beneath was gone, too, burned away to flaking skin, charcoaled tissue and white, fatty muscle across his abdomen.

Coup’s right leg—the leg that had been crushed by the blood phoenix—was bent at an angle. The skin around his neck was red and blistering.

Kel couldn’t bear to look. But even if she closed her eyes, she could smell the burned leather, hear the sizzling flesh.

Two CAPR officers covered his stomach with a metallic blanket.

“Is he… Is he alive?” Bekn stuttered.

A health officer placed a hand on Bekn’s arm. “We’re doing everything we can.”

Kel’s vision swam.

Slowly, she looked over to Savita. She felt a broken, exhausted relief to see Dira standing beside Sav’s neck, trying to coax the last few flames from her feathers.

Kel felt like she was drowning. Fear sharpened her senses and woke her muscles. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

CAPR riders were often injured. Death loomed over every race.

Coup knew the risks. Kel did, too. It was why—as team members had come and gone like the seasons—she had never let herself truly care for anyone other than Dira.

Savita. She’d felt that kind of loss before, and she’d vowed never to again.

Though Oska had crawled beneath her skin, she tried to think of the Asciran girl as little as possible.

But seeing Coup’s flayed body beneath her, hearing him heave in deep, rasped breaths, burst a dam inside her. Something new and raw and all-consuming.

The paramedics moved around Coup’s stretcher as a van appeared through the commotion, the rear doors swinging open.

“Where are you taking him?” Bekn demanded. His hands were balled at his sides, shaking.

The black-haired woman turned to Bekn. “There’s a council hospital just a few miles away.”

“You’re taking him to Cristo Industries,” Rahn cut in, still holding a tele-comm to her ear. “Canen Cristo will be treating Mr. Coupers.”

The paramedic lifted a brow. “That’s not CAPR policy. We can’t—”

Rahn held out her tele-comm. Silently, the paramedic accepted the device and pressed it to her ear.

Whoever was on the other end spoke quickly. The paramedic gave a short nod, then glanced back to the rest of her team.

Into the tele-comm, she said, “Of course, Mr. Cristo. I understand. We’ll bring the van to your facilities immediately.”

Rahn moved toward the van, but Bekn blocked her path. “He needs the closest hospital, Rahn. I don’t care what Cristo wants. My brother is—”

“Coup has a much better chance of recovery in Canen’s facilities. Trust me.” Rahn’s face contorted. “Canen has his own private hospital and team of specialists on hand. I’ve seen patients recover from burns like this in days. Cristo will cover all expenses. Please, let him help.”

Bekn was quiet for a moment. Kel glanced around, trying—failing—to find Cristo in the frantic crowd.

Rahn’s face was too calm. Perhaps that was why Bekn finally said, “Okay. No one’s touching him without talking to me first.”

Rahn nodded and moved aside to let Bekn climb into the van with Coup. Kel tried to follow, but another paramedic blocked her path.

“Only one person can ride with us. You’ll have to find your own way,” the man said in a clipped tone.

Kel was about to say that she’d climb on the van’s roof if she had to, when Savita shrieked behind her. She swallowed something thick. Sav still needed caring for. As comfortable as she was around Dira, Sav wouldn’t let Kel leave, not in a new environment.

Kel let the CAPR paramedics flood into the van. Lights flashed. The siren blared clear a path through the scattered crowd.

Then Coup was gone.