Page 108 of Reckless Hearts

Something fragile and desperate and beyond fixing.

Because I realize, in that moment, no matter how much I love them…If I stay here, someday, I’ll lose them too.

Just like I lost him.

And I won’t survive it.

That night, while they’re still laughing about it over burgers and soda, I start looking at boarding school applications.

Chapter 37

Colt

Something’s feltoff all day. A twitch in my fingers. A tension in my gut I couldn’t shake. The kind that clings to your ribs like a storm coming. And it doesn’t go away when the gate swings open. If anything, it slams harder into me, riding shotgun with instinct, warning me I’m already too late.

Within two seconds, the bull twists left when I’m braced for him to go right, and I know instantly: I’ve fucked up. The momentum throws me off-balance, my weight sliding off his flank. The ride’s a bust—I’ve lost my seat. I swing my leg over, ready to dismount, but just as I lift into the air, the bull’s hips snap upward with a violent buck.

The impact sends me flying a good two feet, spinning mid-air. I reach for the rope, my only lifeline, but as I come down, my shoulder wrenches outward, and the tension snaps tight. The coarse fibers bite into my skin, locking me in place. The same rope that’s supposed to keep me safe is now the thing chaining me to eight hundred pounds of fury.

I jump in rhythm with the bull, doing my best to rotate my body and free my hand. My feet scramble to keep pace. Everytime I miss his rhythm, the jolt rips through my shoulder and up into my neck.

I’ve trained for this. Spent years learning the rhythm of chaos, how to move with it instead of fight it. But there’s no balance to find this time. No timing, no groove. Just blind instinct and the crushing reality that this might be the one ride I don’t walk away from.

Four bullfighters close in. I hear them shouting, but their voices are muffled, drowned out by static in my ears.

If eight secondsonthe bull is dangerous, eight secondshung upis fucking terrifying.

I just have to hold it together until they get me out.

Hands grip my back, hauling me upward. I’m inches from freedom when the bull senses it. He whips toward the inside, veering directly at the bullfighter trying to save me. The guy’s forced to let go, or he’ll be gored.

His grip slips from my vest, and in the next second, I’m airborne again. The rope snaps taut, my hand still pinned beneath it, trapped against the top of the bull’s flank, where it cuts across my palm like a vise.

My body whips forward, feet nearly parallel to my shoulders, joints screaming as I’m slingshotted into the dirt. I hit hard, and pain detonates through me.

My arm yanks with the full force of my weight, the stretch tearing at every tendon, every socket. My legs drag behind me, boots scraping trenches in the arena floor, but there’s nothing to catch. No leverage. Just the churn of hooves and dust.

I can’t get my feet under me.

Can’t lift myself.

Hooves crash down inches from my thighs, kicking up a storm of grit that blinds me and burns in my lungs.

The bull twists again, savage and sudden. My shoulder tears open with white-hot pain, and then he rears.

All that weight comes down on my leg, the sickening crunch reverberating down my shin.

A guttural scream rips from my throat, but even that pain feels distant, muted by the sheer chaos flooding my brain.

My body’s being slammed over and over. The hooves are still too close, and with every buck, I’m jerked skyward, then slammed down like a rag doll.

I’m going to die like this.

The realization doesn’t hit like fear. It hits like grief.

I always thought I wasn’t afraid to die. I thought I’d stare it down, cowboy up, go out hard and fast.

But this isn’t that.

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