Page 35 of Before You Can Blink
I dropped one more kiss to her lips. “Always am.”
The bright lights in the arena were blinding, but I was locked in. I’d pulled Rampage for my ride tonight, and he had a reputation for being hell on hoofs. If you could manage to keep your seat for eight seconds, his half of the score alone was almost enough to shoot you right to the top of the leaderboard.
Already, he was visibly agitated, thrashing so violently he rattled the chute. If he was this pissed off now, he was gonna go feral when I hopped on his back.
The spotter assigned to me tonight caught my eye, his lips pulling into a thin line as he gave a slight shake of his head. The message was clear: if Rampage didn’t settle his ass down, they might deem him too dangerous to ride and sub in another horse.
I couldn’t have that. Not with the season I was having.
Every ride from now until the end of September was crucial. I needed to win as many purses as possible to squeak my way into a spot in the circuit finals.
Calmly, I stepped forward, placing my palm on the horse’s muzzle and stroking upward, murmuring, “Easy, boy.”
Rampage’s nostrils flared as he let out a sharp exhale, but his restless motion inside the chute halted.
“That’s it,” I praised. “I know you hate this part, but I’m hoping you’ll do me a solid and let me take a quick ride. Eight seconds is all I’m askin’. Promise I won’t linger any longer than that.”
One ofthe handlers stared at me in disbelief. “Sure you don’t wanna come work with us? If you think getting him in the chute is bad, you should see us tryin’ to load him into a trailer.”
Backing away from Rampage, I let out a chuckle. “No offense to the work you’re doing, but I prefer riding ’em instead of taming ’em.”
“Fair enough,” he replied with a dip of his chin.
“Ready to hop on?” Gary, my spotter for the evening, asked from behind me.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I climbed the side of the gate, waiting as the announcer called out my name and the horse I’d be riding.
Keeping a firm grip on the opposite side of the chute, I positioned myself over Rampage’s back. Gary held my vest tight, just in case, as I grasped the riggin’ handle and prepared to take a seat.
Sucking in a centering breath, I let it out slowly, pouring all my focus into the next eight seconds that could very well make or break my season.
Lowering my ass until it met firm muscle, I gave a nod to the attendant manning the chute and, in an instant, the gate was thrown open wide and Rampage burst into the arena.
At this point, a lot of it came down to muscle memory—my white-knuckled grip on the riggin’, my left arm held poised above my head, forcing myself to relax enough to move with the animal instead of fighting against its bucking—but there were still variables outside of my control. Horses were often unpredictable, and there were still times when, even if you came in prepared by having watched its past rides, that wasn’t enough to ensure you could anticipate its moves.
I’d been doing this long enough to know instantly this ride was going south. Right out of the gate, my head snapped back, crashing against Rampage’s rump as his hind legs kicked toward the sky. The collision caused stars to burst before my eyes, my vision swimming so badly I fearedI might get sick. The sudden dizziness stole my focus away from making sure I held tight to the riggin’, and before I knew it, my fingers loosened just enough to have me hurtling headfirst toward the dirt.
With my reaction time delayed by the head injury, I wasn’t able to protect myself from the inevitable impact. My shoulder made first contact with the unyielding ground, and an agony so blinding it stole my breath away flooded my nerve endings. It was like I was paralyzed; I couldn’t move a muscle from where I lay in the dirt, waiting for the medics to rush in and help me.
But it only got worse from there. I’d been so consumed by the bolts of white-hot lightning zinging through my shoulder that I hadn’t realized Rampage was practically on top of me. That was, until one of his hoofs came down square on my chest. I barely heard the crack of breaking bone over the primal scream that tore up my throat.
It was almost a relief when my world went black.
“Jett. Jett, buddy, can you hear me?”
I groaned at the sound of Murphy’s voice, which sounded distant, like it was at the far end of a tunnel.
“Jesus. Thought we’d lost you there for a minute.”
Cracking one eyelid open, I immediately regretted it when the bright overhead lights made it feel like an ice pick was stabbing my brain.
“Fuck,” I muttered. Or at least I tried to. It came out as a whisper-quiet wheeze that didn’t sound much like the curse I intended.
“Don’t try to talk. The medics were forced to put in a chest tube for your collapsed lung.”
That would explain why I couldn’t draw in a full breath.
“I was wondering why in the hell you didn’t move out of the way, but then they told me you’d shattered your collarbone and must’ve been in unimaginable pain. They’re gonna have to surgically repair it.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Pins and shit.”
