~ Lucky Break ~
The Winter Competitions arena was all the way at the other end of the place, so I had to run to get there on time. Still, it was a couple of minutes past twelve when I came racing into the stands.
My spirits fell when I saw that the Riders had already ridden out and were being shown from different angles on the screen.
The arena wasn’t like any I’d ever seen before. Curved rows of wide, white padded chairs were set in groups of five unevenly all over the place, a small round table placed in front of each one. It was homey, except for the window in the back between the red and blue sections where you could get stuff like chips and hotdogs. The gigantic screen above center field was lifted high enough that no one would have trouble seeing it.
“Is Luke out there?” I whispered to Harmony as I sat beside her, knowing it was impossible.
“Yeah, that’s him with the purple flames painted on his snowmobile.” The camera was looking down at that moment over two Riders heading for each other.
“How did he make it in time?” I wondered out loud.
The North Havener had a giant rock in one hand and Luke was unarmed.
“What’s he doing?” I asked, desperately clutching Harmony’s arm. I wanted to scream for him to stop. I wanted to run outside and throw myself in between them.
At the last moment, Luke turned his snowmobile sideways and skidded hard enough forward that the snow was forced into a mound directly in the path of the Havener. Surprised, the rider in white jerked slightly to the side and hit the mound’s edge so that his snowmobile turned over mid-air and landed on top of him. Luke sped away.
Everyone around me booed and complained while, to my far left in the darker stands, everyone erupted in cheers and beat their feet against the ground.
I let out a breath and thought I would cry from the relief I felt.
“Relax, Kristine,” Sassy said, leaning over Harmony to hand me a bag of popcorn. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack if you freak out at every close call. They know what they’re doing.”
We watched the whole thing in slow motion as Connie informed us that, “Roman Armstrong is the first competitor out of the game.”
“Roman?” I asked. “Isn’t he our best player?”
“He’s been distracted since you got here,” Nadine said. “That’s what his coach told mine.”
I didn’t care. I didn’t even care that I would crush him completely in a matter of hours, because he was going to throw a deadly rock at Luke.
The picture on the big screen changed. It showed two doors slide open on the side of Southland Cinder High and a Cinder on a black snowmobile ride out. “The Southland Cinder High School Snow Rider, Titus, has entered the competition late.” North Haveners all around me began shouting their protests loud enough that we almost didn’t hear Connie say, “The penalty for this is that Roman Armstrong will be allowed to reenter the competition.” That turned them around.
Someone behind me let out a shrill whistle and then got everyone chanting, “Roman, Roman, Roman,” as we watched him roll over his snowmobile and climb back in.
“You’re kind of in the middle of this, Kristine,” Sassy said. “Who are you hoping will win?”
“Luke.” Even if he had left me confused and a little hurt only a few minutes before.
“You want your own school to lose?”
“No. I guess I’ll be happy either way.”
“Competitor Knight seems to be experiencing a problem. He will be leaving the game temporarily.” The screen focused on the black and purple snowmobile as smoke began pouring out of the back.
I stood up when I saw Roman riding toward him with the same big rock. “That’s not fair!”
I fell back from the deafening explosion that followed. Bright yellow scorched the arena as Luke’s snowmobile went up in flames and a thousand shredded pieces. The camera moved to focus on a motionless body lying facedown in the snow fifty feet away.
“LLUUUKE!” I let out an agonizing scream that drowned out Connie’s voice before I ran from my seat.
The fastest way to get outside was through the slit in the wall on the Cinder side. I tore through the blue section and into their dark arena hallway, hoping I would come out on the right side of the school at the end.
I swerved around two Cinders who were giving me peculiar looks, and slammed into a third one. He was a tall man wearing a belt loaded down with security guard stuff, so I figured that was what he was. We both fell back. I popped up and tried to keep going, but he grabbed my leg and said, “What are you doing over here?” harshly.
“I need to get to Luke.”
“Knight? He’s not in here. They’re racing outside, genius.”
I yanked my leg away. “There’s a tunnel to outside. I need to get to Luke!”
I made it a few running steps before I felt him grab me around my waist and roll me to the ground. “You can’t go running outside dressed like that. You’ll die.”
Two other men were making their way toward us.
“What do you care? One less Havener in the world.”
He grunted as I fought to get away. “Contrary to what you might think, we don’t want you dead. You’re a lot more fun alive.”
Hysteria rose inside me. Luke could be lying out there dead. I couldn’t lose him again. I kicked the man’s legs as I reached around and grabbed a fistful of hair.
He cried out in pain, finally letting go. “All men to section three, section three, right now!” he shouted into a radio.
The other two ran at me as I hurried to the tunnel. Each one tried to stop me, but I fought like I’d never fought before. For Luke. I could hear them all chasing after me as the two doors came into view.
Someone came at me from the side. My shoulder slammed into the ground. More and more men came to hold me down. “You’re not going anywhere, so just calm down.” The fat man who’d pushed me over pressed my shoulders against the cold stone floor.
I was out of my mind with fear and grief. “NO! NO! NO! I don’t want to live without Luke!”
“You’re not thinking straight. If you ran outside like this, you’d be a human icicle, okay? You’ve got to calm down.”
“Luke,” I moaned, tears pouring over the sides of my face.
A voice came on every man’s static radio at once. “Titus is being taken to a hospital room. He was on Knight’s ride. They’re showing it right now.”
Five of the guys got off of me, leaving two to hold me down against the hard floor.
“Hear that? Knight’s fine,” the first man I’d encountered said. “So no more trying to run outside. Are we okay letting you up?”
“Yes, yes, let me go.” I fought to get up again, this time so I could see that Luke was safe for myself.
The two men looked at each other and leaned back, letting go at the same time.
I ran through the nearest opening into the Cinders’ stands. Up on the screen, I saw him. Luke was putting his helmet back on and climbing on his snowmobile. It cut back to the Cinder being carried away on a stretcher. I cried harder as I laughed. It was like he’d been brought back from the dead.
“What are you doing here, Fayre?” a girl asked callously.
Looking over at one of the black half-circle sectionals and the menacing girls sitting on it, I realized I was surrounded by Cinders. I would have been a lot more afraid if I hadn’t just discovered the guards set in place right outside the arena to protect us as well as their own.
“Nothing.”
I turned around and left the stands. Still mostly in shock, I returned to my seat beside Harmony and stared at the floor, going through it all in my head.
“Lucky break, huh?” Sassy asked.
I tried to tell myself to look over at her, but a whimper came out instead.
“Kristine?” Harmony asked, putting her arm around me.
Leaning over, I sobbed into her shoulder. I was trembling, I realized. It was my mother’s death all over again, having to watch him fall and die. I loved Luke, and I wasn’t strong enough to go on without him. In only a few days, seven of the happiest days I’d had in years, he’d become my life force. I couldn’t shake the anguish I’d just suffered.
It took me several minutes to pull myself together enough to look back at the screen. Even after that, I stayed close to Harmony with her arm around me as I watched, terrified something would go wrong.
But I saw that Luke could take care of himself. Four North Haveners had already been overthrown and Roman had taken out three Cinders. I watched Luke shoot out from behind a snowdrift right in front of someone and hit them so they flipped over. That player was out. Then he came flying up behind another North Havener and pulled him right off his snowmobile with one hand. That only left two on our team, Roman and the girl Snow Rider, Kelley Bridge.
Roman knocked a Cinder out cold with a different rock. Kelley managed to knock a Cinder off his snowmobile with a stick. Then a Cinder rode past her and pulled her off by her ponytail, which had come out of her helmet, dragging her a few yards before he let go.
“This is brutal,” I said, sitting up for the first time.
“Yep,” Sassy said. “It’s kind of a Cinder sport. They started it, and it’s their favorite part of the competitions, but there’s always enough guys from our school who get into it to keep a team going. Kelley’s the first girl to join.”
The three remaining Cinders did their best to dethrone Roman, but he somehow took down two.
“Only one remaining competitor from each school,” Connie said. The screen split and showed each one. “North Haven’s Roman Armstrong and Southland Cinder’s Knight. Who will come out victorious? It looks like we’ll soon find out.”
The Snow Riders approached each other from different ends of an expanse of snowy field. The screen slowly zoomed in, keeping them each at the edge the entire time. It reminded me of two jousters as they got closer and closer. Neither had anything but themselves to fight with.
I could see Roman getting ready to kick Luke. I hoped Luke saw it, too.
The sides of each snowmobile must have scraped against the other as Luke shoved Roman’s leg out of the way with his foot and leaned way over to grab him around the neck, lifting him right off his seat. Roman’s snowmobile and body flew out from under him as Luke threw him down in the snow on his back.
A sound almost as loud as the earlier explosion beat against my ears as the Cinders stood up and roared like thunder.
Luke had won the Snow Riders’ competition.