Flame (Fire on the Mountain #2) (26 page)

Focusing my undivided attention on the TV, I offer all the knowledge I have about freestyle motocross, which isn’t a whole hell of a lot. “They get three attempts, each scored on a scale of a hundred, and they keep the best one. He’s in the final group of riders, which is determined on preliminary rides, so this is it. Once this last group goes, we’ll know the final results. At the X-games, his winning score was a ninety-eight-point-five, which was his highest ever.”

He nods his understanding, also keeping his eyes on the action. The poor guy has listened to me talk about my Levi dilemma ad nauseam so much he probably feels like he personally knows the guy. He knows everything. The first run-in at Ember. Emilia and Gunner’s wedding, and brunch the morning after. The first time. Hot air balloons. Ghost hunting. Me kissing Emilia. Heart-to-hearts on top of Night Fury. Mercedes Donovan and Lance Foss. Sightseeing in New Orleans. The tearful goodbye. The jersey I sleep in every single night. And the still unopened envelope hidden in my top drawer.

Even Emilia doesn’t know about the envelope, unless Levi’s told her, and I think she would’ve asked me about it by now if that was the case. In the first few weeks after we got back, she constantly brought him up, asking me how I was feeling and if I’d changed my mind about trying a long-distance relationship, but as of late, she’s laid off a little. She and Gunner have been so busy setting up their new house and preparing for their trip that our most recent conversations have revolved around choosing paint colors and fabrics or itinerary planning, which has been a welcome reprieve.

I’m just not ready to read it yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be. The truth is James Levi scares the living shit out of me. In a measly two weeks’ time, I fell in deep with him . . . so deep that I felt like I was drowning and he was my only life preserver. The desire to depend on him nearly consumed me. Thankfully, I came home while I still had enough strength to pull myself out of the water. Weak, but not helpless. My heart cracked, but didn’t shatter. I’m afraid opening that envelope will be like diving headfirst back into the overpowering tide.

For now, I tiptoe around the shoreline, watching from afar with my pride and my fears. A sick form of self-torture.

“Ok, it’s his turn,” Rory announces as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “He’s gonna do the double backflip thing, right?”

“Yeah, the 501. It’s like his signature trick or something. He always does it on his first run; he says it intimidates the competition,” I reply, staring straight ahead. Perched on the edge of the cushion, an odd sense of unease settles in my gut, but I’m sure it’s simply the surplus of emotions coursing through me from seeing him again.

Levi pulls up to the starting mark, and I reach over and grab Rory’s hand, squeezing it tight as my knees bounce uncontrollably. It’s eerily quiet in the open-roofed stadium as the dirt bike takes off down the slope and across the red dirt, hitting the ramp at a blazing speed before launching high into the air. The first backflip is textbook, impeccably seamless, and once again, I’m amazed at how effortless he makes it look.

As the bike begins the second rotation, Levi turns his head to the side briefly, but then something goes wrong . . . he snaps his focus back to the front, but it’s too late. He violently slams into the ground, shoulder and face first, with the heavy piece of machinery pinning him down. Instantly, officials and medics charge the track, lifting the bike up and tossing it to the side as they attend to his crumpled body.

Time stops around me as my stomach contracts with a sickening lurch, panic oozing from my pores. My breaths are shallow, hindered by the gigantic steel wool pad lodged in the back of my throat, and my vision blurs from the pools welling up in my eyes. The second the first tear splashes onto my cheek, Rory gathers me in his arms and rocks me up against him, neither of us saying a word.

After the programming cuts to commercial, most likely to prevent any gruesome sight from being aired, I reach forward to grab my cell phone with trembling fingers and type out a text to Emilia.

Me: Please let me know he’s okay.

Curling back up into Rory’s comforting arms, I cringe when the first thing they do is replay the accident after the break. Again and again, they analyze the footage, trying to figure out what happened, but still not showing Levi or updating his status. I’m going to be sick.

The phone never lights up with a reply. The announcers move on to watch Lance Foss nail his gold-medal run, without ever letting us know what happened to the man who just lay broken on the track. And for the rest of the afternoon and evening, I coil up on the couch, refusing to move. Completely numb to everything else around me, I wait and wait and wait. More unanswered texts. More waiting.

But no news ever comes.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14

“LEVI, DUDE, WE’RE HERE.” GUNNER’S
deep voice pierces through my dreamless sleep. I open my eyes and stare at him, confused. “Time to wake up, man. There’s a car outside waiting for us, but I need you to walk that far if you can. Emmy and Rhino are already down there waiting with our bags.”

Blinking hard several times, the fuzziness disappears as my eyes dart around the inside of the private jet and the memories from the last twenty-four hours come pouring in. World Championships . . . flash of yellow . . . something wrong with the bike. Then, waking up in an ambulance . . . a blur of tests . . . poking . . . drugs . . . sweet, sweet darkness. At some point, I remember getting on the plane and Emmy Sue telling me we’re going home. After that, it’s all black.

“Fuck. I’m all fucked up,” I croak, my throat as dry as the Mojave Desert. I feel like I just woke up from an episode of
The Twilight Zone
. “Where are we? What time is it? Shit . . . what day is it?”

“We’re at a small airport outside of Breckenridge,” he replies, glancing down at his watch, “and it’s a little after two in the afternoon on Sunday. Remember we were eight hours ahead in Germany, so time-wise, we only lost about four hours in the air.”

As I attempt to stand from the leather captain’s chair, a sharp pain shoots through the entire right side of my body, causing me to wince and grasp onto the armrest. I curse under my breath as I stare down at my mummified arm and torso, then grit my teeth and power through the movement, knowing the discomfort is ninety-five percent mental. Pain is only weakness leaving the body, and damn it, I’m not fucking weak. This shit is only temporary . . . fuel to power through my recovery and get right back out on the dirt.

“I fucking know Foss had something to do with this shit. He was way too damn friendly all week to not be up to something. I was too focused on beating his ass to pay much attention,” I grumble as I join Gunner in the aisle, still a little wobbly on my feet. “Any reports back on the bike diagnostics?”

“Not yet. They said we should know something late tonight or tomorrow, but even if it does come back that something was tampered with, there’s no way we’ll ever be able to prove it was him,” he warns, keeping close to me as we exit the plane into the cool autumn afternoon.

I follow him down the metal stairs and to the waiting Tahoe, trying my best to ignore the intense throbbing in my arm. “Yeah, I’m fully aware, but I just
need
to know for my own peace of mind
.
I need to know that little cock-sucker was so fucking scared of me that he had to cheat to keep his damn title, which will make next year’s victory even sweeter.”

He opens the back passenger door for me and I cautiously slide onto the seat, tipping my chin at the two in the backseat. “Hey, guys, sorry I wasn’t much for talking during the flight,” I joke, “but hey, we got to fly in style on the way home.”

Emmy Sue leans forward and brushes my hair out of my face, smiling sweetly. “You needed to rest, honey. Besides, Gunner and Rhino made sure to drink your share from the open bar and to watch all three Hangover movies in your honor, dubbing you as Phil, Gunner as Stu, and Rhino as Alan.”

I try to laugh, but it feels like someone’s taking a metal bat to my ribs, so I stick with a grin. At least my handsome face was mostly spared in the crash. I can live with a few broken bones, torn ligaments, and bruised ribs.

“So what’s the plan? Do we have one?” I ask, unsure of where exactly we’re going as we take off onto the highway.

“Back to our place for now,” Gunner replies. “Tomorrow, you have an appointment with an orthopedist in Denver at eleven, and we’ll find out exactly what timetable and restrictions you’re looking at. Since you were planning on staying with us after the World’s anyway until you found a place of your own here, Emmy has a room all ready for you, and we’ve got plenty of space for Rhino to stay as long as he wants to as well.”

Nodding, I accept his answer as a good start to a plan, but he forgot one key part.

“When do I get to see Dakota?”

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15

I LOOK LIKE SHIT, PROBABLY
the worst I’ve ever looked in my life, including that time my junior year I got mono and didn’t get out of bed for four weeks. Unfortunately, I feel even worse.

If I eat, I feel like I’m going to throw up. If I don’t eat, I feel like I’m going to throw up. When I sleep, it’s filled with nightmares of me chasing something through a forest, only to lose it when I run into a massive ocean that appears out of nowhere. Then I suddenly wake up and all I can think about is him. Levi. My Hulk. I need to know he’s okay. I’m freaking the fuck out.

Class this morning was a joke. I’m not sure why I attempted to go, as all I did the entire time was stare at my phone, hoping and praying for some kind of information. It’s been forty-eight hours, and the only things I know are from internet reports that claim he’s stable and currently undergoing tests.

I’m not sure if he’s still in Munich or here, but I’m assuming Germany, since Emilia hasn’t replied to my multiple texts. When I finally do talk to her, I’m probably going to lose my fucking shit for leaving me hanging like this. Even though I pretend I don’t have feelings for Levi, she knows better and has to realize I’m going crazy with worry.

Yet somehow, the world keeps spinning around me, and I’m expected to keep functioning. Don’t these people realize the stress I’m under right now?