A FEW DAYS AFTER SHE HAD TAKEN NICK TO THE TAP party, Taj geared up in a Santa Monica school yard for the qualifying rounds for the Vancouver tournament, one of the most respected annual skateboarding contests. Even the pros attended. Only those who made it to the final rounds at the regional level made it to Canada, glory, and skater history.
Div and Deck were already there.
“Check it out—we got sponsors!” Div said, holding aloft a new board decked out with dozens of stickers for Lost Angeles, an up-and-coming skateboard company based in Venice Beach.
“Big pimpin’.” Deck grinned, pointing to his Lost Angeles logo T-shirt.
“Nice.” Taj smiled.
“If we get flicked in a magazine, we get five hundred cash. Plus, each sticker in the photo is fifty bucks. Twelve stickers is six hundred bucks, even if it’s in the same photo,” Div explained proudly.
“And if we make it through, they’ll pay to send us to Vancouver, maybe even Tampa,” Deck added, meaning the biggest tournament there was—Tampa was the mother lode. Mount Everest. Even if you didn’t place at Tampa, just the fact that you were there was enough to send your hits skyrocketing.
“So what else did they send?” Taj asked. She’d heard about the sponsor packages—large cardboard boxes that came with tons of loot.
“A coupla boards, some shoes, T-shirts. But Deck’s already sold half of his for drinks and smokes.” Div smirked.
“Typical.”
Taj squinted against the sun, waiting for her turn while her friends lined up by the half-pipe. They were wearing their matching Lost Angeles T-shirts, and the logo was all over their shorts, their shoes, even their socks. Not to mention screaming out of their boards. For their sake, Taj hoped they got shot for something. They looked like walking billboards.
Most skaters didn’t even care about the checks—the cash prizes that came with third, second, and first place. It was about footage—kids and adults watched videos millions of times online, traded the most popular ones, studied them for moves. It was about infamy, admiration, a certain kind of fame.
Sure, some skaters ended up with MTV shows or their own Xbox video, but most kids simply craved the respect of their peers rather than a taste of the limelight. Choice video footage of Taj doing a half-cab off a nine-set that Deck had shot in a secret spot off Manhattan Beach had been accessed on TAP more times than the latest Tony Hawk video.
Div flubbed her aerial, and Deck fell down hard on a full-pipe loop, but Taj rolled down, feeling good, feeling the adrenaline high. Now she had to just set up for the jump—but at a sharp turn the wheels suddenly locked, tipping her head over feet down the ramp, crashing down into the concrete. There was a gasp from the crowd, and when Taj opened her eyes, she was confused as to what she was doing on the ground.
“Are you hurt? Don’t move!” a med tech advised, checking Taj’s pulse.
“I think I’m okay,” Taj said, gingerly lifting herself up. She waved to the crowd to indicate she was all right, and limped off the course. She was bleeding from both knees and her elbows, and there was a gash on the side of her head.
“Oh my god, Taj, are you okay?” Div asked, rolling over. “What happened?”
“Dude, that was one wipeout,” Deck marveled.
Taj picked up her board and checked the wheelbase. “I’m not sure—I think the wheels locked,” she said, turning it over. “Wait a minute—these aren’t my wheels.”
“Are you sure?” Deck asked.
“Yeah, look. I just got new wheels put in, and look, these are already concave. And the wheels I got were red—these are black.”
“Are you saying someone changed them?” Div asked incredulously. “Just to fuck up a competitor?”
“I don’t know,” Taj said, holding the side of her head and still feeling dizzy. But somehow she didn’t think the faulty gear was due to a skater having a Tonya Harding moment.
She went to the bathroom to clean up the wound, and opened her backpack.
Inside was a note.
YOU BROKE THE RULES. WE BREAK YOU.
THIS IS YOUR FIRST WARNING.
Fuck! Why had she brought Nick to the ritual? What had gotten into her? Now she was really in trouble.