Page 36

TWENTY-SEVEN

C risto’s small waiting room was white and clinical; the bare walls occasionally trembled from phoenix screeches.

She’d helped wrangle Sav into a transport engine from the race and had hurried to the hospital with Dira and Rahn. By the time they had piled in, Bekn was sitting in a brown armchair, head between his knees.

He looked up as they approached. “He’s already in surgery.” Bekn’s grave eyes met Rahn’s. “You were right to have him brought here. Thank you.”

They all reached for Bekn, as if to protect him from what lay beyond the hospital doors. Kel hoped he couldn’t feel how hard her heart was pounding.

Kel could still hear the static ringing in her head, and Coup’s screams—echoing over and over.

As she slumped into the seat next to Bekn, the static grew louder, mingling not just with Coup’s screams, but also Oska’s, and the voices she’d heard the last time she was in a room like this. Waiting for her father to reappear.

“Canen hires the best specialists across Salta. Coup will be fine,” Rahn whispered. “He’ll be fine.”

Dira squeezed Rahn’s hand. They shared a smile, though Rahn’s face was chalk-white.

“I knew he’d pull something like this,” Bekn murmured. “It was only a matter of time.”

Dira nudged Bekn’s side. “It’s not your fault. We all got a little cocky after the last win.”

Bekn shook his head. “No—you don’t understand. He’s been getting away with reckless stunts like this for so long. He just doesn’t care anymore.”

Numbness spread through Kel. “What do you mean?”

Bekn was silent, almost long enough for Kel to apologize for asking. Before she could take it back, Bekn whispered, “He thinks it’s his fault. That I stayed on Cendor after Mom died.”

Dira and Rahn exchanged looks, and the lump in Kel’s throat grew thicker.

“I was meant to go to a university in Ascira,” Bekn continued, his head ducked, as if he spoke to himself. “To study business. But I stayed with Coup after she died. I stayed for both of us. Coup… he thinks he owes me for that.”

Bekn’s words slotted together in Kel’s mind. She could see that alternate future, so clearly. Cendor was a home for those comfortable with jagged walls. Ascira, as much as Kel hated the tourism isle, suited Bekn’s aspirations much better than Cendor ever would.

She recalled the truths she’d forced from Coup when they’d walked through the conservation center.

I owe Bekn. And I can repay that debt through CAPR. So, for now, debts overrule self-preservation.

“I used the money I’d saved for school to support us. He thinks earning back the money will make things better. But even if he did, I don’t think he’d ever stop.” Bekn’s voice broke. “I don’t think he knows how to anymore.”

None of them said a word. Kel leaned on his shoulder. She tried to quiet her own breathing, tried to ignore the ringing in her ears. Part of her had already known there was something darker lurking beneath Coup’s arrogance. But it hadn’t mattered, as long as they won.

“Bekn Coupers?”

They all jolted to their feet as a man in blue scrubs appeared through the door.

“Is Coup all right?” Bekn breathed.

The man’s brown eyes looked at the clipboard in his right hand.

“He’s going to be okay. He came in with fourth-degree burns across his abdomen.

He has a broken tibia-fibula and we had to reset his shoulder.

” He looked up. “But he’s out of surgery and should recover in a few days.

As far as CAPR injuries go, this is far from the worst I’ve seen.

He’s already awake, and asking for all of you. ”

Bekn sagged against Kel. Kel tried to focus on the doctor’s voice as he continued talking.

She was still waiting for the real doctor to charge through those doors and tell them that they’d done everything they could, but nothing had worked.

Coup was gone. His body was empty, like her father’s.

His CAPR injuries too deep, like Oska’s.

The doctor held open the door at his back. “Follow me, please.”

Bekn, Dira and Rahn rushed forward in a flurry of limbs. Kel didn’t move. She couldn’t convince herself that this was real. She knew what lay on the other side of those swinging doors.

Coup, broken and bandaged—because of her.

He’d won the race. All because she’d told him to impress her.

The static morphed into fractured screams. Her heart pounded harder than it should have, for a rider she barely knew. For someone she’d hated .

Somehow, she had let Coup , the swaggering, mocking rider of her nightmares, crawl beneath her skin, far deeper than Oska had, in a way that stole her breath.

And now, Kel couldn’t do it. She couldn’t look at Coup and think about the tangled fear and desperation rushing through her. What it might mean.

So, Kel turned and walked back out of the doors she’d come through.