Page 18 of Twisted Trails (Rogue Riders Duet #2)

CHAPTER TEN

Alaina

Hiccup.

Dammit.

The whir of my rear wheel spins steadily beneath me as I’m perched on my bike at the top of the mountain, locked in the final few minutes before call-up to the last race of the season, and trying desperately to find the zone.

But of course, Finn won’t shut the fuck up.

“You’re grinding like a retiree at a Zumba class,” he says, arms folded as he leans against a tent pole, smirking like he knows exactly how to get under my skin.

“Finn,” I snap. “Shut it.”

He just chuckles, unbothered. “You gonna make me?”

I don’t even hesitate. I unclip, swing off the bike, and stomp toward him. “Yes. Yes, I fucking am.”

“Oh shit.” Finn’s eyes light up as he pushes off the pole and takes off running across the warm-up zone. “Catch me if you can, Al!”

The entire prep area is full of juniors on rollers, coaches on radios, mechanics with torque wrenches, and everyone stops to look at the commotion Finn and I are causing .

I chase him anyway because fuck them.

They already hate me, might as well give them a show.

Finn’s laughter rings out, bright and stupid, and I grin despite myself while we zigzag through the maze of tents and trainers. I even knock over a couple of cones as I barrel after him.

“Stop, you damn children!” Dane’s voice follows us. “This is not the fucking place!”

I glance over my shoulder and laugh at him, but Finn is still just ahead, his red cap flipped backward, blond strands bouncing as he dodges a mechanic. I nearly catch him, but then I skid to a stop when someone rounds the corner and steps right into my path.

Mason Payne.

Panting, I look up at him, but he doesn’t move, just tilts his head a little, eyes dragging down and back up like he’s scanning me, before there’s a tug at the corner of his mouth—a barely-there smile.

Heat blooms in my cheeks, and I’m about to look away when Finn barrels back into view, grinning like an idiot, and scoops me up and over his shoulder before I can escape.

I squeal, pounding my fists against his back. “Finn!”

“You’ve got a race in five, baby girl.” He’s already walking back toward my bike. “Can’t have you spending all your energy trying to murder me.”

“Put me down!”

“Say please.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s my girl.”

“I swear to God,” Dane pants, his chest heaving as he finally catches up, “I’m going to staple your feet to the ground, Speedbump.”

I’m pushing myself halfway upright, and the blood is roaring in my ears from the run and the view, which, unfortunately, includes Finn’s very smug ass.

“Oh, don’t act like you’re the fun police,” he throws over his shoulder to Dane with a grin, turning to face him.

Which also turns me, and I catch movement too close to my setup. Isaac Raine is crouched low beside it, gloved hands brushing over the rear linkage. Checking something?

What the actual?—

“Finn—” I start, but Raine has already straightened and dusts off his palms before sauntering back toward Isla.

She’s off to the side, arms crossed, face twisted in that permanent scowl she wears.

Raine starts talking to her, gesturing sharply, but she just rolls her eyes, flicks a dismissive hand in his direction, and turns away, heading for her own bike.

Was he checking my suspension settings?

Trying to give her an edge?

Typical Raine bullshit, probably thinks she can match my line if she copies my setup.

I snort. Good luck with that.

Finn shifts again beneath me, and the motion makes my stomach lurch.

“Getting sick here,” I mutter, elbowing him hard in the shoulder.

“Yeah, man.” Dane grunts, finally catching his breath. “Put her down before she pukes on your back.”

Finn laughs, then he sets me down way too gently for someone who just hauled me over his shoulder like a sack of gear. When I’m back on my feet, he catches the end of my braid and tugs at it, and my traitor of a diaphragm seizes on instinct.

Hiccup.

Of course.

His smirk widens. “There she is. ”

Fucking butterflies, a full-blown stampede in my stomach.

I glare at him, or at least I try to, but it comes out more like a flustered squint. “I hate you.”

“You’re welcome.” He’s still smiling like he’s the reason the sun decided to come out this morning. “You needed to loosen up.”

I hate that he’s right.

But as I turn back to my bike, something inside me shifts.

Just a flicker.

And I ignore it.

I hiccup.

Or at least, I think I do.

Maybe it’s just a phantom echo of the memory lodged somewhere in the back of my throat as I blink up at the lavender print across the room.

The frame is a little crooked. Just enough to bug me, but I’m too tired to fix it.

My head hangs off the foot of the bed, gravity pulling at my face until everything feels heavy and upside down, which, honestly, fits.

Because how the hell is it still the same day?

Dane punched Finn.

Luc held me while I broke.

My dad told me he loves me.

Just like Finn did.

And it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t hit me this hard after what he did, but it does.

Because somewhere deep inside, I’m still seventeen and spinning on top of a mountain, so in love with a guy who wouldn’t stop teasing me, even when the world was about to tilt, and now, here I am, lying flat on my back, staring at a crooked picture of lavender and wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do with everything I’m feeling.

I close my eyes, breathe in.

Lavender and laundry detergent.

Breathe out.

Just air.

But it still aches, and my brain won’t shut up. It’s eight in the evening, and I’m wrecked. I should be passed out by now. I want to be, my whole body feels hollowed out, like I’ve been scraped raw and filled with static, but sleep, or even calm, won’t come.

Today was just too much, but honestly, I think it would’ve been way worse if élise hadn’t taken me to her therapist. She even came into the room with me when I hesitated to go in alone, then just sat there quietly and held my hand.

I didn’t want her there at first, didn’t want anyone hearing the mess in my head, but then we got there, and my chest started to close up, and suddenly her hand was the only thing keeping me tethered.

She didn’t flinch at anything I said or let go of my hand, not even once, and the therapist, God, she was so nice . She spoke English just as well as élise and Luc do, and she had that kind of presence that makes it feel okay to breathe again.

We didn’t get to everything, of course, not even close. One hour couldn’t undo the pile of shit I’ve buried over the years, but for the first time, I didn’t feel like I had to hide my pain.

She gave me medication, just a starter dose, nothing heavy, but enough to maybe help. She said it’s okay to use painkillers responsibly, that being in pain all the time isn’t strength, it’s survival mode, and that I deserve more than that.

I checked, and both the now-stronger painkillers from my broken fingers and the antidepressants won’t trigger the doping screens, so I’m okay with taking them for a while.

We’re going to do video sessions three times a week for now, but she said we’ll cut back when I start feeling stronger.

When , not if . That mattered.

What stuck with me the most, though, is that she told me to give Dane my promise when I told her about it.

She said sometimes, when things are really bad and someone is standing too close to the edge, therapists make what they call a safety contract.

It’s not legally binding, and it’s not magic, but it’s a promise, a commitment to stay.

To survive the night, the week, the month, and to call for help when the dark closes in.

It’s something to hold onto when everything else feels like it’s slipping.

My promise to Dane could act the same way—be a vow to give life a real shot. To try surgery, keep showing up to therapy, take the medications, and talk, let people in, even when it hurts, especially when it hurts.

And maybe I couldn’t say yes to him the night he asked a week ago, because I didn’t have the strength to look him in the eye and promise it out loud.

But I whisper it now, even though it’s only to myself. “Okay, Dane. I’ll try.”

My eyes keep drifting back to the lavender print across the room, the one that’s slightly crooked and probably always has been, but now it feels symbolic. Tilted. Off . A little like me.

There’s a knock at the door, and I guess it might be Luc checking on me again, or Dane, maybe back from wherever he went to cool down after breaking Finn’s face.

My voice feels thick when I say, “Come in.”

The door creaks open, and there’s the sound of footsteps, then a pair of black jeans stops just inches from my face, my upside-down gaze tracing the seams of them like they might spell out a name.

They don’t have to.

I know.

Startled, I look up, and Mason is staring down at me, his expression unreadable at first, but then he tilts his head, and there’s the barest tug at the corner of his lips that might, in another life, be called a smile.

“Mason,” I say, my voice too breathless as I push myself upright in a rush, legs folding awkwardly beneath me, and my oversized T-shirt slipping off one shoulder.

My heart trips over itself because I wasn’t ready for him to be here, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of how messy I must look, sitting here in just that old Offspring tee and shorts that barely cover anything.

Mason doesn’t comment, though, just grabs the chair from the desk, flips it around, and drops into it.

He rests his arms across the top and meets my gaze without blinking.

He doesn’t ask a question or even say hi.

He just sits, waits, and watches me, making me squirm under his gaze.

I think he’s not here to interrogate or accuse me, but to listen, maybe even to understand.

I can read in his gaze that he’s giving me one chance to explain before whatever fragile thread between us finally snaps. I swallow hard and feel the sting behind my eyes before I even speak.

And then I do.

I tell him everything.

About how I saw Isaac Raine standing near my bike that day, his hand brushing something on the frame, and about how I didn’t say anything at the time, even though I had a weird feeling.

I tell him about the pain. Not just the pain from the crash—though God knows that nearly killed me—but also what came after. The pain that made me scream in a hospital bed and bite down on towels so I didn’t wake up the whole ward.

I tell him about losing everything. My spot. My name. My body.

And then I tell him about the plan.

How Dane and I spent seven years putting it together, seven years of brutal training, and all we did to make Allen Crews real.

How I chopped off my hair, wrapped down my chest, changed my voice, and my entire goddamn existence.

I tell him how I studied Raine’s lines and dissected every second of footage I could find, how I trained until I bled, and how I planned every inch of this comeback for revenge.

I tell him I came back to take something.

To make Raine feel the helplessness he forced on me.

And when I’m done, when the words have left me hollow and shaking, and more naked than if I’d stripped down to bone, I finally meet Mason’s eyes again.

He hasn’t looked away once.

Which gives me a weird feeling because I told him everything.

Except for the end. The part where I planned to win and vanish. Take the gold, wreck Raine, and disappear into nothingness before anyone could catch up because it’s not the plan anymore.

Somewhere between the first start gate and this moment, something shifted.

I changed my own story today.

I don’t know how I’ll make this work yet. I have no idea what the new plan is, what I’m going to do when everybody figures it out, or what I’m going to do about Dane, Finn, Luc, and Mason. But the fact that I need a new plan, that I can still make plans, makes my heart flip in my chest.

Mason holds the stare, the weight of it settling like gravity between us, and we sit like that for a long beat.

Then he stands, pushes the chair back into place, and straightens to his full height. I sit up straighter, too, my heart suddenly beating even harder, because I have no idea what’s about to happen.

Is he going to cuss me out again?

Or leave and tell the UCI what I just told him?

“I’m…” I start, then falter. My voice cracks around the edge, so I try again.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you by not telling you the truth sooner, but I couldn’t.

” My hand twists in the hem of my shirt, my fingers knotting tight.

“I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. Not even my nobody.

That could have cost me my disguise, and it’s not only me in this, it’s Dane and… fuck .”

I glance up at him, at his dark, beautiful eyes.

“I know I was wrong, I should have told you because you would’ve kept it quiet, you would’ve had my back.

I know that. It’s not like I didn’t trust you, I do trust you, and I know I shattered that trust, but if there was anyone I could have told…

” I trail off, all the word vomit finally coming to an end when I whisper, “… it would have been you.”

Silence falls for a long moment, and I’m unable to look him in the eyes again.

But then he steps forward and reaches for my good hand, warm and calloused fingers wrapping around mine, and pulls me to my feet.

I almost stumble into him, but he keeps holding on, and then we’re standing toe-to-toe, black boots to my bare feet, and his eyes lock on mine like he’s searching for something.

Consent, maybe?

I nod, even though I don’t know what he’s asking for .

But it doesn’t matter, because a second later, he pulls me into his chest, arms tightening around my body in a way that makes everything inside me cave.

I hug him back instantly, so fiercely my fingers hurt, and like I’ve been drowning and finally found something solid.

My arms go around his waist, my cheek presses into his shoulder, and I feel his heart beating rapidly.

He squeezes me even tighter as one of his hands lifts to stroke over the back of my head, fingers brushing through my hair, and making me let out a breath of relief.

He doesn’t hate me .

“Okay,” he murmurs, still holding me tightly. “What is your next step?”

“Telling this to everyone else. They know a lot but not everything.”

“I’ll be there.” Mason presses a soft kiss to my temple, so light it makes me shudder and melt.

I was so scared of losing him.

So fucking scared.

“We’ll survive this, Bambi,” Mason murmurs, his lips still against my skin.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I don’t know how yet, but I’ll survive this.