Page 54 of Twisted Trails
And maybe I couldn’t say yes to him the night he asked a week ago, because I didn’t have the strength to look him in the eye and promise it out loud.
But I whisper it now, even though it’s only to myself. “Okay, Dane. I’ll try.”
My eyes keep drifting back to the lavender print across the room, the one that’s slightly crooked and probably always has been, but now it feels symbolic. Tilted.Off. A little like me.
There’s a knock at the door, and I guess it might be Luc checking on me again, or Dane, maybe back from wherever he went to cool down after breaking Finn’s face.
My voice feels thick when I say, “Come in.”
The door creaks open, and there’s the sound of footsteps, then a pair of black jeans stops just inches from myface, my upside-down gaze tracing the seams of them like they might spell out a name.
They don’t have to.
I know.
Startled, I look up, and Mason is staring down at me, his expression unreadable at first, but then he tilts his head, and there’s the barest tug at the corner of his lips that might, in another life, be called a smile.
“Mason,” I say, my voice too breathless as I push myself upright in a rush, legs folding awkwardly beneath me, and my oversized T-shirt slipping off one shoulder.
My heart trips over itself because I wasn’t ready for him to be here, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of how messy I must look, sitting here in just that old Offspring tee and shorts that barely cover anything.
Mason doesn’t comment, though, just grabs the chair from the desk, flips it around, and drops into it. He rests his arms across the top and meets my gaze without blinking. He doesn’t ask a question or even say hi. He just sits, waits, and watches me, making me squirm under his gaze. I think he’s not here to interrogate or accuse me, but to listen, maybe even to understand.
I can read in his gaze that he’s giving me one chance to explain before whatever fragile thread between us finally snaps. I swallow hard and feel the sting behind my eyes before I even speak.
And then I do.
I tell himeverything.
About how I saw Isaac Raine standing near my bike that day, his hand brushing something on the frame, and about how I didn’t say anything at the time, even though I had a weird feeling.
I tell him about the pain. Not just the pain from the crash—though God knows that nearly killed me—but alsowhat came after. The pain that made me scream in a hospital bed and bite down on towels so I didn’t wake up the whole ward.
I tell him about losing everything. My spot. My name. My body.
And then I tell him about the plan.
How Dane and I spent seven years putting it together, seven years of brutal training, and all we did to make Allen Crews real.
How I chopped off my hair, wrapped down my chest, changed my voice, and my entire goddamn existence.
I tell him how I studied Raine’s lines and dissected every second of footage I could find, how I trained until I bled, and how I planned every inch of this comeback for revenge.
I tell him I came back totakesomething.
To make Raine feel the helplessness he forced on me.
And when I’m done, when the words have left me hollow and shaking, and more naked than if I’d stripped down to bone, I finally meet Mason’s eyes again.
He hasn’t looked away once.
Which gives me a weird feeling because I told himeverything.
Except for the end. The part where I planned to win and vanish. Take the gold, wreck Raine, and disappear into nothingness before anyone could catch up because it’s not the plan anymore.
Somewhere between the first start gate and this moment, something shifted.
I changed my own story today.
