Blue Crush (28 page)

I zip my sweatshirt over the tight blue running shirt with “Mudder and Destroy” screened on the front, the same as the guys. Lewis insisted we wear fast-drying, formfitting clothes for the race, explaining how the mud and water get absorbed by plain T-shirts, weighing a person down. Black yoga cropped capris complete the outfit.

Because of the prizes this year, coordinators are treating the race like a triathlon. I pinned my number to my shirt and drew it down my arms and calves. I’ve got blue face paint fingered over my cheekbones like the guys specified, to make it easier to spot one another. Eye black below my eyes will help block the glare and the blue zigzags crisscrossed over my calves are a Washoe symbol for good luck.

Cali unzips my sweatshirt and inspects my wounded arm, twisting it front and back, examining the symbol I added there.

“It’s Washoe for good luck,” I tell her. “The guys thought it would be a nice touch. I put it on my arm because—well, for obvious reasons.”

Even without the bruise, my arms are my biggest weakness. I’m not built like a man and nothing will change that, not even the mini-guns I’ve developed through Lewis’s training. I’m competing against a bunch of beefy dudes who climb vertical walls with their pinkies. I’ll blow past them running, because I’m not encumbered by all that muscle and I’m fast for a girl, but the arm obstacles are gonna hurt.

“You sure you’re up for this?”

I shift my elbow and admire the vibrant coloration from where Drake squeezed me. My body has recovered for the most part from the attack. The rest of me is another story. “It’s sore, but mainly it just looks bad. I actually think the bruise makes me appear hardcore, which I consider a bonus.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m worried about your arm, but I was thinking about what happened …”

“I’m okay.” Sort of. Not really. I’m not sure I’ll ever fully get over what Drake tried to do. Things could have ended up so much worse—the anxiety of knowing how close he came to truly hurting me has me waking up at night in a cold sweat. “I feel better moving forward. If I sit at home depressed and scared, he’s won, you know?”

“I wasn’t only referring to Drake,” she says pointedly. My heart sinks. She’s referring to the fact that Lewis hasn’t been by.

She shakes her head and drags me out of the bathroom. “We’d better get going. Jaeger’s got the car running. Fred just picked up your mom. He arrived on the first flight in this morning. Everyone’s pumped—” She gives a little hop at the front door and claps her hands together as I grab my phone and ID.

I’m jittery with nerves so that explains my adrenaline rush, but seriously, how does Cali have this kind of energy in the morning? It’s not human. Her excitement and the knowledge that
everyone
will be watching isn’t helping my nerves.

No pressure.

We pull into the packed parking lot below Heavenly in Cali’s sporty new car, courtesy of her hot, generous boyfriend. I’m really not jealous of the car, but the devoted, loving boyfriend? Hell, yes.

Jaeger bought Cali a car because he wanted her safe, and because he has insane money and can afford it. He was worried about her bumming rides off people after the last ride she received from a classmate put her in the hospital. It was her classmate’s friend in the car who slipped a drug into her mocha. Jaeger isn’t being too cautious. He wants to take care of her and there’s something so romantic about the gesture it brings tears to my eyes. I’m totally overemotional and it’s not helping my warrior appearance.

I could have had that kind of love. Maybe. Lewis
would
have been a devoted boyfriend—except where Mira was concerned.

I made the right choice.

The lifeless ski lift chairs flicker in the sunlight like metal skeletons against the brown landscape as we make our way through the throng to the check-in table. In a way, the mountain is a graveyard without winter snow. I sign in with the organizers and move to the center of the crowd, bathed in competitive adrenaline.

The air around me shifts, crackles, sending a tingle down my skin, a higher energy than the existing buzz of activity. I know he’s close before I catch sight of his head several inches above those of the other competitors. As it did the first night we met, his presence disarms, dizzies.

I watch from a dozen feet away as Lewis approaches our team. His body is painted like mine, but he pulls it off, as if he’s meant to wear face paint and fight battles. The fitted clothes show off every muscle and smooth line of his masculine frame, passed down from generations of Washoe bred to hunt the land beneath our feet.

His head swivels, his gaze snagging mine and holding it as I approach. My heart beats a spastic rhythm, my eyes darting away and landing instinctively on the hillside. Being here with him—it’s too much. I miss him and he’s beautiful in this place.

Lewis glances in the direction of my gaze as he steps toward me. “Hallowed ground. That’s what we’re competing on,” he says.

I focus on the wiry lifts and decomposed hillside—and then I see the rest. Wood logs halfway up the hill—an obstacle?

Competitors aren’t allowed information about the course layout, but Lewis has done this before. He knows what to look for and he knows the land, having grown up here. “Is this another spooky story to freak me out?”

He shrugs. “It’s true. This place was used for rituals.” His mouth purses. “Not sure which, maybe the spirit babies.”

Spirit babies? What the hell? I’m stressed about the race and more than a little shaken up by what happened with Drake. I don’t need to worry about man-eating birds or Native American Chucky dolls coming after me.

Lewis pulls out a jar of blue face paint from a small backpack. He reaches inside the container and runs a warm finger down my neck. My body jerks in a shiver, as if the absence of his touch these last couple of days has me craving him. His broad hand grounds me on my good arm and he finishes the design, his fingers gentle.

My gaze strays to his eyes and he returns the look with such intensity, I forget where I am for several heartbeats. “What’s it for?” I finally manage. I’m guessing he created another symbol, but I can’t see my neck.

He shoves the jar in his pack. “Protection. Prosperity.” He paces a few feet away and checks in his bag with the coordinators.

Tears well behind my eyes. What is my problem? So I was almost raped, my absent father suddenly appeared in my life, and the guy I’m in love with is too overburdened for a real relationship. Okay, that is all pretty fucked up, but I can’t let it cripple me now.

I drop my head back and gaze at the blue sky. I will not compare the painted protection symbol Lewis gave me to Jaeger’s purchase of a car for Cali. They’re not the same. They can’t be. I’m reading things into it because I want to be with Lewis, even if it’ll hurt me in the end.

We attach anklets that track our times and Cali squeezes the bejeezus out of me. “Good luck!” she shouts, trilling her tongue in catcalls to me and my teammates from the sidelines.

I line up at the start. We’re one of the last heats, our times clocked by the anklets and broken down by men and women. Since we’re one of the final groups, we should know right away how well we did.

Lewis approaches my side. “The guys and I decided to pair off. You’re with me.”

My gaze shoots to him. “What?” He’s staring straight ahead, ignoring me. “Lewis, what are you talking about?”

“Get ready. They’re about to start.”

Our teammates pair off as well. “You could have asked me. We’re not a good fit,” I tell him, frustrated.

Lewis heightens every frenzied atom inside me, putting my entire existence into a state of overstimulation. He’s not the calming presence I need right now. Definitely the worst partner I could have asked for.

His jaw tightens, his gaze flickering to me. “You were wrong, Genevieve. Wrong about how much you mean to me.”

“If I’m wrong, then why did you leave when I explained I needed more?”

“What you said about Mira was right. I haven’t put enough effort into getting her some help. I had things to work out and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

What’s he saying … God, I can’t think about this right now. It will consume me and I need all my faculties for the race.

I focus on the barren hill. “That’s not why I think you should pair with someone else. You should have chosen a teammate who can keep up with you.”

“I did,” he says and takes off.

A heartbeat later I realize the gun has gone off, and people are bursting past me.

Crap!
I sprint to catch up, forcing my panicked breaths into a steady rhythm, relaxing my hands that had tightened at Lewis’s words.

The first two miles are uphill and once I get my breathing in check, I’m able to catch up with energy to spare. This isn’t the time to overanalyze what he said and what it means for us. If I don’t concentrate on the race, I won’t get through it.

The crowd is one large mass and I can’t tell where our heat begins and another ends, but we’re passing people left and right. I focus on staying relaxed and conserving energy for speed and tracking the ground, which is riddled with rocks and divots capable of spraining ankles and knocking a person out of the competition.

The first obstacle we approach is the one that looks like a playground monkey bar set, except it goes uphill. Swinging bars immediately follow. Both obstacles are slicked with mud and oil.

I leap for the first rung and almost slip and fall in a muddy gully. That little shake-up has my head entirely in the game and not on the man a few feet in front of me, skipping bars two at a time like Tarzan. I can’t skip bars, but I trained for the greased apparatuses. A technique that involves speed and grip adjustment gets me across the initial set. Lewis is nearly to the next obstacle, a wall a quarter of a mile away, by the time I exit the second.

My first test of upper body strength is made of flat, vertical boards smeared in mud from competitors who didn’t make it through the monkey bars without a bath. My heart sputters in a panic. The wall is twice Lewis’s height.

A sudden image of him above me at the cascades runs through my mind, along with the split second when I nearly fell to my death.

Lewis waves with frantic full-bodied arm movements for me to hurry, and I shove aside my fears, pump my legs at full speed, and leap onto the wall. He boosts my foot, propelling me up until I loop a leg over the top. This is why I didn’t want to partner with him. I’m slowing him down.

A random stranger boosts Lewis and he reciprocates by giving the guy an arm lift to the ledge. Okay, maybe we all need help in this competition.

“Go!” Lewis shouts in my ear and shoves me over the other side.

Son of a bitch! He had climbed to the top of the wall and helped the guy in the time it took me to wiggle around without falling, and that’s what I do anyway.

Bales of hay cushion my fall, but I land hard, jolting my spine. Lewis rolls off beside me and beelines it for the next obstacle.

I stumble after him, passing people along the way. Even at this stage, competitors look haggard.

A bottleneck up ahead blocks my view of the next hurdle and it’s not until I’m nearly upon it that I get a good look. The ice bath.

A girl in front of me enters the water and screams.

No sweat. Lewis prepared me for this with the Cave Rock torture. Of course, what I remember about that day isn’t the cold water, but the way he warmed me afterward.

Focus!

I clamber over the side, and—
Holy mother of God!
My limbs lock, hands curling into claws. I’m in the Arctic, ice cubes burning my flesh. I clench my teeth and book it to the other side, my arms and legs moving like sticks as I bump into bodies attempting to get the hell out.

Hurling myself over the end, I flop like a fish and land on my ass with a sting. Hop-sprinting, I attempt to circulate warmth into the popsicles that are my legs, and head for the mud ditch just ahead.

People exit the brown moat, groaning and covered head to toe in splatter. A few unfortunate souls look like swamp monsters.

My first step inside explains why contestants appeared to be moving in place. The mud acts like quicksand. With each step, I stumble and sink, the bottom sucking my shoes like a sponge. My quads burn, my back aches—this is by far the most strenuous obstacle up until now.

Our team planned for walking through mud by lacing our shoes snugly and triple-knotting so we wouldn’t lose them. I emerge on the other side exhausted, but with all my clothes. I’m covered in brown goop and shaking because the mud was freaking cold, and after the ice bath, I really didn’t need it. I ignore the chunk of dirt I swallowed and jog, picking up speed as my limbs warm.

I’m not sure if others have dropped out, or simply lag behind, or if I’m in between heats, but the competitors along this swath have thinned. Lewis appears strong just ahead and is rapidly approaching the obstacle that psyched me out during training, because there was literally no way to prepare for it.

Dangling live wires hang from a wooden edifice, constructed for the sole purpose of shocking the crap out of people.

Some runners slow, possibly to determine how others cross successfully.

I kick it up a notch.

Lewis looks back. “Chin tucked, arms in front. Run hard!” he yells before bursting into the wires a few seconds ahead of me.

We couldn’t train for the electrodes, but we talked about them. Lewis and Zach agreed the best strategy is to not slow. You slow, you’re more likely to get hit by a pulse.

I’m doing as Lewis says, running full force when a guy on my left, using some sort of dodging strategy, jerks with a yelp and drops like a stone.

Shit!
My pace falters, fear messing with my head. A zap spears my bad arm, radiating pain down my side. I scream and nearly fall.

Hands braced on my knees, I look up, blinking. My side got hit by a pulse, that’s all. My arm is not in fact falling off.

Lewis is yelling from the other end for me to run. I raise my arms in front of my face and battle cry my way out and into his arms. He squeezes me to his chest—then shoves me with a hard push onto the next stretch of the race.