Page 131 of The Wildest Ride

Lil had laughed. She wasn’t laughing now. Then it was her granddad’s voice she heard in her head, less a memory than a transmission:Pour it into the ride.

A calm settled over her. The fear, the confusion, AJ, her father—it was all going into the ride. The resolution settled in her chest like an anchor and she stepped onto the platform sure.

The arena erupted, thousands of girls pinning their hopes on her.

The knowledge was a burden, but she welcomed the pressure, she bore it repeating her mantra, even as she lowered her body on the back of an angry man killer.

Pour it into the ride.

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Clinging to a rock in a river of lava. That was what Cortes felt like. He was tall and broad and creamy, and so full of rage that the whites of his eyes were tinged pink. His was a focused and controlled emotion, so primal and timeless that the small braided bull rope seemed about as useful as a wad of floss in the face of it.

But that couldn’t matter, because it was time to go.

She wrapped the rope around her right hand, weaving it through her finger to shore up her grip. She’d sacrifice the hand to keep her grip.

She lifted her arm, fear rising in her gorge along with it, but she poured it into the ride.

Whatever she had, this bull could handle it, and when it was all poured out, all she would be left with would be her calm center. There’d never been a bull that could beat that yet.

She took a final breath, deep and slow, then nodded. The gate sprang open and she and Cortes exploded into the arena.

He was the biggest thing she’d ever ridden. She gave her body over to his power, releasing resistance wherever it arose. His bucks and turns were hard enough to break her neck. Her hand screamed, but she held.

Cortes leaped, thrashing his head and tail in opposite directions as he did it, violently whipping her from side to side, but he couldn’t shake her. Not when she’d found it.

Her center. The thing that let her stand on the ball.

The ball had been Granddad’s idea, and just like then, he was there with her now, lending his weight to her seat through his beaded vest. The faint weight was his hand, holding her to the bull, every single bead a piece of training and advice and love, tiny reminders of his gifts to her, assuring her that like each and every one of those who’d come before her, she’d been given everything she’d ever need.

Cortes spun like the devil but Lil held her center. Spotting was useless, impossible on a spinning bull in a sea of people. You had to ground in something deeper than that. Something inside that wasn’t twirling around like a windmill.

When spinning didn’t work, the bull began a punishing seesaw of kicks and jumps. Lil willed her body to be as fluid as possible, to flow in time with the bull’s harsh switchbacks like a river through a canyon.

And then the buzzer sounded. Catchers and clowns rushed out and soon after she cracked open her fist and slid onto a horse in front of a cowboy in a green button-up.

Her score lit up the jumbotron: 98. The highest score possible on Cortes.

The arena erupted in enormous sound.

Lil Sorrow had beaten an unbeaten man killer and gotten a perfect score doing it.

Not only that, but for the moment, she held first place. AJ was up next, though, and like the producers had somehow rigged the draw, AJ had picked the one bull with the power to beat her.

If he beat Sweet Suzy, he’d gain enough points to trump Lil, perfect score or not.

She felt a strange sense of peace at the thought. Either way, the whole thing would be settled, once and for all, in about eight seconds. AJ was already on top of Sweet Suzy when she returned to the platform. He didn’t look in her direction, but she sensed he knew she was watching him.

He was beautiful. His eyebrows were thick and dark and drawn together in concentration. His five-o’clock shadow suited him, highlighting the hard lined architecture of his face that was so often obscured by his wicked dimple.

His hat was cream and looked like it’d been made specifically for him. It probably had.

He was a rich cowboy and he looked it.

Sweet Suzy was tawny and even more massive than Cortes. AJ didn’t look small in comparison, though. He looked powerful and controlled, like he had it in him to beat the bull with muscle alone. She didn’t doubt that he did.

And then he nodded.

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