End Times (16 page)

But Owen had already cleared the last jump and was heading into the final stretch. He dipped through the hairpin turns, wheels turning up elegant sprays of dirt, and crossed back over the starting line into his second lap.

Daphne realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out in a shaky rasp and pulled her knees into her chest, trying to redistribute some of the cold racing through her blood. The girls around her were silent—in her peripheral vision she could see their teeth nervously chewing frosted lower lips.

Trey swung his bike crazily through the final hairpins, wheels fishtailing in the dirt. His desperation was obvious going into the second lap. He took the straightest path possible through the first turn, veering wildly and flinging mud in the spokes of Doug’s precious rims. He seemed to throb with rage at Owen, who was already sailing across the first jump, torqueing his front wheel to let the extra air carry him into the next turn.

Trey gunned the jump too soon and almost flipped on the landing, his front wheel ramming painfully into the earth. There was a collective gasp in the bleachers and the angry scream of Trey’s gears as he forced his rear wheel to the ground.

He jostled over the whoop like a cowboy losing a fight with a bucking bronco, each tiny bump tossing him farther forward on his seat until he was nearly over the handlebars going into the next turn.

“Sit back, fool!” Hilary hissed. Her voice was strained and frozen in the chilly evening. Down at the starting line, the guys were shouting similar encouragements, yelling for him to get it together, sit back, grab the bike with his knees.

“Beat him, you goddamn pansy!” Daphne heard Doug screech.

Trey jerked his body back as the bike surged forward, a beast determined to throw its rider. The wheels slid to the right, lilting at a forty-five-degree angle as Trey struggled to regain his balance. He was heading for the big jump, trying to ramp up speed on the incline even as he flailed back and forth on the seat. Owen had already crossed the finish line a second time and was coming up behind him, cruising comfortably. It was clear to everyone who the better rider was . . . everyone, it seemed, but Trey.

He launched into the jump, just clearing the lip and barely getting any air, and landed with a thud at the lowest point of the dip. As he yanked furiously at the gears, Owen rocketed over his head, the chrome accents on his bike twinkling like stars.

Trey sizzled with anger. He lurched over the whoop and slammed open the throttle, flinging himself into the turn.

His wheels skidded away from him, sending up a geyser of dirt. He threw himself into the skid, but it was too late—the bike went screaming off the track, tumbling over itself once and then again as Trey held desperately to the handlebars, refusing to let go and admit himself the loser once and for all. He trailed behind the bike, his body flapping in the dirt: first orange, then brown with dust, then streaked with red.

A wail went up from the starting line as Trey and the bike, by then one intricately tangled object, crashed to the side of the track. There was a silent, collective moment of horror as they thundered to a stop in a pricker bush. Trey lay still, beaten and bloody with the bike on top of him, custom rims still spinning.

Daphne had already gotten to her feet when the tangle of limbs and hot metal burst into flames.

THE fire shot red and angry into the sky. It consumed the pricker bush in moments, filling the air with thick plumes of acrid black smoke. Crouched in the bleachers, somewhere between sitting and standing, Daphne watched the outline of Trey’s body flicker in the blistering heat, helmet melting into the flames as the bike glowed a molten crimson. He lay motionless—if the impact hadn’t killed him, it would be only minutes until the fire did.

Up ahead on the track, Owen cut his motor abruptly. In the sudden silence, the only sounds were the dry crackling of flames engulfing the bush, the bike, and the boy. Everyone seemed frozen in disbelief, useless and immobile. A fireball rolled out from somewhere deep in the inferno and exploded into the air, obliterating the bike’s gas tank with a boom that resonated deep in Daphne’s stomach.

Owen leapt off his bike, knocking it to the side. He took a shaky step toward Trey, then another. Silhouetted against the flames, he looked larger than life and black as oil—his skin glowed with a dark energy that seemed to rob the night of moonlight, to soak in all the heat and noise from the flames. He walked toward the fire without flinching, beyond where it seemed possible for a human to go.

Daphne waited for him to turn or crumble, to start coughing and drop to the ground, but he stood straight and tall. Eddies of flame lapped at his boots as he reached toward the fire, his steady hand glowing with an unnatural dark light.

Janie screamed a high, haunted note. That broke the spell. Suddenly everyone was rushing and scrambling, running in all directions and yelling and swearing. Doug led the pack, barreling onto the track with the force of a dump truck, eyes squinted against the glare in angry slits. Just as Owen’s hand started to pass through the flames, Doug tackled him, yowling with rage as they thudded to the ground in a cloud of dust. His fists were everywhere, oversize feet kicking at anything they could reach, massive knee pinning Owen to the ground.

“Doug, stop!” Janie cried. Daphne grabbed her hand, cold sweat prickling the backs of her knees as they rushed down the incline, slipping on dirt and patchy grass.

Doug grunted heavily as he swung at Owen, grimacing as his fists landed on leather, packed dirt, and flesh. Owen squirmed beneath him, trying to wriggle out from under his bulk, only his helmet protecting him from the force of Doug’s fists. Both of his arms were pinned, his legs flailing uselessly under Doug’s weight. As he struggled, he seemed to glow with an even darker luminosity, as if the heat from the nearby fire was inside his skin and trying to escape.

With what little strength he had left, he jerked his body forward, his shoulder connecting with Doug’s chest. Doug’s mouth opened in a cavern of surprise as the impact shuddered through him—and then he was in the air, as high as he’d ever gotten on his bike, all six feet and 240 pounds of him cartwheeling backward. Doug’s arms and legs waved helplessly before he landed on his back several feet away, launching a cloud of dirt into the air.

“What the—?” he bayed, clawing at the ground as he struggled to sit up. He spat dirt and glared at Owen, eyes hateful slits. “What the hell are you, man?”

“Baby!” Janie ran to him, mud splattering the backs of her calves. She got to her knees and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

Doug stared at her, jaw trembling, as if he’d temporarily forgotten who she was. Then he buried his head in her chest, quaking like a volcano, muffled sobs erupting from between her breasts.

“Shhhhh,” Janie cooed, stroking his crew cut. “You’re okay, baby. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“He killed Trey!” Daphne heard him sob into her chest. A crowd gathered around them, eyes darting nervously from the couple embracing on the ground to the fire still lapping at Trey’s blackened body. She saw Hilary take out her phone and call 911, her voice detached and oddly formal as she explained that they’d need an ambulance at the motocross track.

The air stank of burned rubber and singed hair, and Daphne had to sit down suddenly in the dirt, stomach churning. Earlier that evening, she and Trey had been drinking beers on Doug’s tailgate. Now he was dead. The image of him rolling into the pricker bush, limbs and chrome entangled in a bloody mess, played over and over in her head. She had to will herself not to be sick.

She couldn’t escape the feeling that the whole thing was her fault. If she hadn’t rejected Trey . . . if she hadn’t turned around and gone riding with Owen . . . if she’d insisted that Trey not race . . . maybe he’d still be alive. Her mother’s words echoed in her head:
You’re a murderer—you know it and I know it and the Lord knows it.
Maybe Myra was right. Now she had two deaths on her hands . . . and unlike Jim, Trey had done nothing to deserve it.

A few feet away, Owen stirred. He sat up and looked at Daphne, dazed. His skin no longer glowed in the firelight—in fact, he looked paler than ever.

“Are you okay?” he asked groggily.

“I don’t know.” A cold sweat had soaked through her tank top and she was shivering violently, her stomach cramping with grief. “I can’t believe he’s . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word. Instead she watched Owen pat his arms and legs, checking for broken bones.

“What about you?” she asked. “What happened back there, anyway?”

Owen shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I passed him on the jump, and next thing I knew he wasn’t behind me. I wanted to help him, but then Doug . . .” he trailed off, trying to piece together the details.

“You threw him,” Daphne prompted. “You sent him flying. How did you even do that?” It still didn’t seem real that Owen could have tossed Doug off of him like that—he was smaller, he was pinned, and even if he was twice Doug’s size, it didn’t seem physically possible to throw a human that high and that far, with that much force.

Owen shrugged. “Adrenaline, I guess. I’ve heard it can make you crazy strong.”

“I guess,” Daphne said. She’d heard stories of mothers lifting cars off their children, of kidnapping victims clawing their way out of locked basements, but it was still difficult to believe.

From off in the distance an ambulance wailed, the faint ululation growing louder and closer as red shadows began to chase each other over the low hills and across the sky. Then the Carbon County volunteer fire department was there, dousing the fire and carefully covering Trey’s charred remains with a sheet while several police cars screeched into the parking lot. The county sheriff circulated the crowd, issuing tickets for riding drunk and reckless endangerment, warning the shell-shocked crowd that if they were caught drinking and riding one more time, the track would be closed permanently.

Up in the parking lot, engines roared to life as the crowd departed one by one. Doug sat huddled in a blanket, clutching a bottle of water and answering questions from the local sheriff, Janie still standing with a protective arm over his shoulders.

“Hey.” Daphne looked up to see Owen standing beside her. “You want a ride home?”

She looked over at Janie—she and Doug were still deep in conversation with the sheriff, and between the two of them she was pretty sure they could talk all night. She knew she should stay with them. But she could feel her answer forming, hurling forward with the force of a geyser.

“Yes,” she said.

She stood and brushed the dirt off her pants, and together they headed for the parking lot.

HER face, reflected in the window of his truck as they drove silently through the dark night, looked like a ghost. It flickered in and out of focus as Owen navigated around turns and over potholes, making her feel like only half of a person, like she belonged to two worlds: the cozy daytime world of Janie and the Peytons, and a dark underworld where human life could be snuffed out as fast as a dirt bike skidding through a turn.

“It’s not your fault.”

Owen’s voice was soft and somber in the quiet cab, but it still made her jump.

“What do you mean?” she asked, even though she knew. He’d seen her talk to Trey before the race, and he must have guessed how responsible she felt for his death.

“I’ve been riding motocross for most of my life,” he said. “And I’ve seen plenty of people get hurt on the track. People get stupid or careless; they don’t know their own limits. It’s never anybody’s fault but their own.”

Daphne nodded, biting her lip. She knew, rationally, that was the case with Trey, that he’d accepted a challenge he shouldn’t have and refused to back down when he was in over his head, but she couldn’t pin the blame on him. He was dead, and she was still alive.

Owen sighed, his hands resting loosely on the steering wheel. “I’ll just keep telling myself that,” he said softly. “I never should have gone up against him. That was one time winning wasn’t worth it.”