Page 107 of Sing Me Home
Charlie knelt down and wrapped her in a hug, as she helplessly watched Bowen and Griffin rolling around in the dirt.
“I’m gonna kill you!” Griffin screamed.
“Get off me!” Bowen raged. “She kissed me first, jack weed! She doesn’t want you!”
“That’s not true,” Maggie sobbed. “It’s not true.”
But that kiss told a different story.
Finally, everyone else arrived, prying them apart. Dad and Holden hauled Bowen off to the side. Griff—tears streaking his dirt-dusted cheeks—thrashed like a bucking bronco trying to break free, determined to pulverize Bowen into the ground. It took Blue, Theo, Ash,andJames to hold him back.
“You’re dead to me!” he seethed at Bowen twenty feet away. “Dead!”
Lemon stepped in front of him, holding his face. “No. Don’t say things you’ll regret,” she soothed. “Hey, now. Calm down, Griff. Calm down.”
Dad caught my eye and tipped his head toward the trail, signaling for me to take Charlie and go.
I can’t, I mouthed.
Go! He jerked his head, his expression intense. Yeah, yeah, I got it. There was nothing I could do here and Charlie needed this money.
Little did he know, she didn’t need it as much as he thought.
I did.
thirty-four
Charlie
Aunt Peyton knelt in the dirt next to me and Maggie. “I’ve got her,” she said, pulling Maggie into her arms.
Someone hooked their hands under my armpits and pulled me to my feet. Cash.
“We need to go,” he whispered, tipping his head toward the trail.
I looked at the wreckage all around me—from Bowen, to Griffin, to Maggie, then at my family’s heartbroken faces. “But?—”
“We need to win this race.” He tugged, trying to get me to move. But how could I leave when this was happening?
Uncle Ford caught my eye and flicked his head, a stern order to go.
So I went, one foot in front of the other, saying nothing, my mind on the devastation behind me. Cash was silent too but he kept checking over his shoulder, like we were outrunning the devil himself.
There was no more laughter or light-heartedness. Every obstacle was done with stealth precision, getting it finished as fast as possible. He didn’t wait for me to try and climb the Bender on my own—a metal ladder with a series of wide rungs that bends you backwards, making it harder and harder to climb. He just tossed me up as high as he could and then took a running leap himself, scaling the rungs like a monkey.
It was the same for the Helix, rolling mud and dunk wall, the Hercules Hoist, and the A-frame cargo.
When we came up the hill to the final stretch before the fire jump that was the finish line, the non-racing members of our family, consisting of Mom, Cate, Liam, and all the littles too young to compete, stood behind the waist-high wall cheering us on.
“Yes! That’s my girl!” Mom yelled.
Liam stood next to her clapping, wearing a frown.
Cash chuckled. “Liam, annoyed that yet again, his contract kept him from having fun with the fam.”
I pushed her bottom lip out and gave him a sad smile. His frown only deepened.
“You guys won!” Mom cheered as we got closer.
