Chapter 1

Chapter One

Declan

"Declan, time to go."

My life these days was measured in fractions of a second. The milliseconds it took my bike to start, change gears, the time from the gate drop to make the holeshot, lap time, the seconds behind the leader, and so on. And every moment on and off the track was scheduled. Practice. Workout. Qualifying heat times. Meals. And the never-ending prescheduled publicity and media appearances. Stacey was only doing her job, but I still grimaced as she bumped the back of my chair. "Come on. Media's waiting."

A young family with two elementary-aged boys reached the front of my line, which had snaked around the Fan Zone all morning.

"One more picture?" the redheaded mom asked. She had on ill-advised sandals and wore the sort of weary expression of someone who hadn't anticipated the amount of noise, dust, people, and walking at a motocross event.

"Please, Mr. Murphy?" The older boy had big eyes and ensured my butt stayed right where it was, impatient Stacey or not.

"Come on over here, kid. Let's let your mom get a fast pic." I motioned both kids over and smiled big, even as Stacey groaned.

"We're running out of time."

"Sorry, kids. That'll have to do." I shooed them away, but not before I slipped them a few stickers and promotional goodies, including coupons for the energy drink company Stacey worked for.

"Okay, that's done. On to media." Flipping her blonde hair over one shoulder, she adjusted her tight black T-shirt as I finally stood. She was on the move before I slid my chair under the folding table and was halfway to the exit of the Fan Zone when I caught up. "Thank God your family didn't come to this race."

"Why would you say that?" I was also relieved, but I didn't like her exasperated tone.

"There are like nine zillion Murphys, your dad has another trillion friends, and those friends all have kids, and you always spend way too much time and energy entertaining all of them." She exhaled hard as she wrapped up her rant, holding up her manicured hands. "You need this win, Declan."

"I know." I groaned as I followed her down the wide-access corridor under the stadium.

"Plus, you've said that things have been awkward with your dad since he started living with that guy."

"Denver. My dad's partner's name is Denver. They have kittens now…" I trailed off because no way was Stacey interested in my dad's domestic bliss. And yeah, I'd been a bit slow in accepting Denver's existence, but not for the reasons Stacey assumed. "Anyway, I get what you're saying. I need my head in the game today. No distractions."

My gaze drifted away from Stacey to a pair of arena girls—the women who held up sign placards at the start of a race. They were both in tight black pants and microscopic tanks as they juggled giant signs.

Stacey made a frustrated noise. "For the love of God, stop auditioning my replacement."

"I'm not." I adopted my most wounded tone. "Their signs were crooked."

"Uh-huh, and you're the one to fix it."

"You know I usually manage to stay friends with my exes."

I gave her a pointed look as she continued to click-clack her way down the corridor with purposeful strides in her designer boots. Stacey and I dated for a hot minute last spring. As with almost all of my friends-to-girlfriends, I thought things might be different this time, but our grand romance turned out to be a fling that hadn't survived a single racing season.

"We're friends." Stacey offered the fakest of smiles. "But this is also a business, and the sponsor isn't going to pony up more dough unless you take over as points leader and wrap up this championship."

She really meant that her days of using her influence over my biggest sponsor were done, and with never-ending competition for limited sponsorship dough, only wins mattered. And recent wins at that. A rider was only as good as his last race.

"Last week was a fluke." I'd suffered a bad start in the final race, played catch-up, then sustained a gnarly crash two-thirds of the way through the race due to some lappers who missed the waving blue flag and didn't move out of the way. Banged up and pissed off at the slower riders, I hadn't come anywhere close to the podium, and my prior trophies were starting to feel mighty dusty. "And the week before that." That one I blamed on my suspension not being precisely dialed in. Bike just hadn't felt right the whole ride. "But I've got a good feeling today."

"Excellent." Stacey motioned me into the media area, where the national TV reporter was already waiting, cameras ready to roll.

"Declan. Man of the hour. Way to win your qualifier." The reporter was Mark O'Shay, a former champion whose career was cut short due to injuries. He'd had two knee replacements and wasn't yet forty.

"Thanks."

I tried hard not to look at the cane Mark kept off to the side. Injuries were an inevitable part of this brutal sport I loved, but seeing such stark proof always made me slightly nauseous. I answered Mark's technical questions about the qualifying heat, which had indeed been a satisfying win for me. Despite the cold weather sweeping through the region, my bike had felt dialed in all day with good track conditions. The tricky layout was favorable to my riding style, and I couldn't wait to get back out there.

"Always a pleasure to hear from you, Declan." Mark nodded as the interview wrapped, and we waited for the signal that filming was complete. As soon as the camera operator set aside her equipment, Mark clapped me on the shoulder. Despite numerous hand surgeries, his pinky finger still had a weird angle to it. "Now, go make that gate drop."

"You know it."

Only too eager to move along, I didn't need Stacey prodding me this time. I made my way back to my mechanics. My lead dude, Joey, was deep in concentration as one of his helpers revved the engine. I trusted them to have the bike ready, so I focused on getting myself in the right headspace as I located my gear. I found the perfect hype tune, an uplifting anthem from the ads for one of my favorite first-person shooter games.

I kept my big noise-canceling headphones on as I switched to my race boots and readied my goggles and gloves. A frigid breeze swept through the mechanics' area, making me wrap my parka tighter around me. Needing my muscles to stay loose and warm, I did some jumping jacks. As riders headed to the starting line, I blocked out everything other than my music, visualizing the perfect race. My hands flexed, adrenaline starting to gather, body eager to ride.

At my gate, I removed my coat and handed over the headphones and my phone to Joey. Taking deep, slow breaths, I fastened my helmet and lowered my goggles into place to do my site lap and check track conditions.

Once back at the gates, I swapped goggles before Joey helped me engage my starting mechanism.

"Get ‘er done." Joey gave me a solemn nod that hid his snaggle-toothed grin. We didn't say good luck or anything like that. No empty praise between us. This was work for the whole team, and they all counted on me to do my job.

"Let's go racing." The announcer yelled as the engines revved, the last seconds of the countdown ticking away.

I've got this. As soon as my gate dropped, my good feeling from earlier became an utter certainty that the race would come to me. Rather than a chaotic rush of milliseconds fighting for the holeshot, the start unfolded in slow motion, a clarity of senses that allowed me the sort of precision I could usually only visualize over and over in the lead-up to each race.

This was real life, not a video game or a practice track, yet everything came easily to me. I had the first gate pick and used that to my advantage, seeking the easiest, fastest path to the holeshot. I jockeyed for position, finding the outside line my team and I had chosen after the qualifying heats.

Having the lead coming out of the first turn—the holeshot—was more than a point of pride. My team loved to drown me in stats, and their numbers were clear. When I got the holeshot, I won. A bad start tended to doom me to playing catch-up to the leaders and making stupid mistakes.

Getting the holeshot made my already revved adrenaline rush like shot-gunning three of my sponsor's trademarked energy drinks. My whole body buzzed, hands tingling, but my track awareness had never been higher. We'd been at this track for the better part of a week, and I knew exactly which jumps I wanted to triple and how fast I wanted to hit the whoops.

My timing was a thing of beauty, and by the end of the first lap, I'd started pulling away from the field. Everyone else could fight for second place. No one could keep up with me. Not today.

Lap after lap, I flowed around the track, one with my bike, as though I were on my thousandth lap back at our practice track. Each obstacle came easier than the last. As I accelerated out of the corner toward the finish line jump, I was already anticipating coming around for another lap closer to victory. While approaching the jump, however, I lost traction and cross-rutted, my wheels falling into separate ruts, not allowing me to hit the face of the jump square. The second my tires left the track, I just knew.

I couldn't save this one.

There was no time, no way.

I was falling.

Faster and faster.

Plummeting to the dirt.

Tumbling, rolling, crashing, slamming, metal crunching, pain taking over swiftly and violently.

Not today. The thought fluttered through me right before my world went dark and cold.