Page 2 of Colt
All of a sudden, there’s a sharp pain in my ribs, and I realize the fucking worst has happened. Stone Cold whips his head underneath me, catches me, and flips me back up into the air.
Then, as I’m coming down again, he lowers his head, grinding my midsection down into the arena dirt as I hit. This isn’t a benign shaking off of the rider. This is intentional destruction.
He comes down on me as he lowers his head and rakes his horns against me again. I feel something hot and wet on my face. For some reason, I think it must be bull snot until I put my hand there and it comes away dark red, and I realize this motherfucker is tearing me to pieces.
I look up into the stands just for one second, as he continues to ravage me.
I’m getting killed in front of my family.
My guts are about to be all over the arena. With no glory to be had.
Chapter Two
Allison
I’m screaming. Screaming and screaming. I’m watching from the stands while Colt Campbell dies.
There’s a feeling inside me, persistent and horrible, like a piece of myself is being torn away from my body with every pass the bull makes over Colt’s ragdoll frame.
Which makes no sense, but it’s a sensation so strong I’m almost overwhelmed by it.
Nobody seems to be able to get the bull away from him.
The bullfighters are doing everything they can, and men on horseback have the bull lassoed by the horns now, trying to at least draw some of that animal’s fire back onto them.
Finally, they have the bull bound up enough that he can’t keep going back in on Colt. The crowd is in a frenzy, and the woman next to me collapses against the man she’s sitting next to. I think she might actually be unconscious.
The announcer is saying something about ambulances, about emergencies and protocols, but his words fade out into anindistinct buzzing. I can’t process language anymore. All I see is Colt. Lying there, broken. Completely ravaged by that animal.
I don’tlikeColt, but I’m a human, and so is he. I would feel devastated watching this happen to anyone. Plus, he’s my stepbrother, and I love his mom. Cindy has been so good to me for so many years, and
His mom, my stepmom, ran out of the stands with my dad, and I’m just there, frozen. Gentry, my brother, is sitting beside me, holding onto my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“No.” I’m not. There’s a pit in my stomach I can’t imagine ever going away. I don’t know what to do next. I’m frozen.
Gentry tugs on my arm. “Let’s go. We’ll figure out where they took him. I assume Dad and Cindy went there. Then we can get to the hospital. Cindy will probably go in the ambulance with him.”
I look back at the arena. At the dirt, dark, and wet with his blood.
I don’t know how a person can bleed that much and not have bled their whole soul out.
“Do you think he’s alive, Gentry?” My lips are numb as I ask the question.
He stares ahead, his face waxen. “I don’t know, Sprite.”
I’ve never seen my brother look like this. Like he might throw up, or like he might cry. He and Colt are so close. Best friends, honestly. They have been since before our parents married each other. They kind of parent-trapped them, honestly. It was the best thing that ever happened to Gentry. The worst thing that ever happened to me, for reasons that I’ve never wanted to talk about.
But as difficult as my relationship is with Colt, seeing him hurt like that…
I’m floating above myself. Now that I’m done screaming, my whole body feels like it’s a husk. I’m dimly aware that we’vestood up and are walking out of the stands, headed toward the medical triage center that was set up, because even though this so rarely happens, it can.
By and large, it’s usually people, attendees of the rodeo, getting treated for heatstroke, or getting bandaged up after some fistfight has erupted.
It’s rarely the riders. But when it is, it can be serious. Deadly.
I’ve always known that in theory. That what he does is dangerous.
Now it feels far too real.
