average human’s Reviews > Broken Breath > Status Update

Finn stretches lazily before tilting his head toward me, smirking as if he knows exactly what’s going on in my head. “You don’t really think I’m gross.”
Then, because he is the absolute worst, he reaches over and tugs my braid before pushing up to his feet, grabbing his bike, and heading toward the track.
I watch him go, my face still burning, and Dane sighs beside me. “You have to stop that.”
I tear my eyes away. “Stop what?”
He gives me a look. A big brother, I’m-about-to-ruin-your-life kind of look. “He’s ten years older than you. I think he’d go to jail if he even thought about doing what you just thought about him doing to you.”
I make a strangled noise. “I never said that I wanted to⁠—”
“Sure,” Dane cuts me off with a raised eyebrow, not buying my shit. “I’m just saying… that will never be a thing, and I don’t want you getting hurt over something that’s so far out of the realm of what’s possible.”
I scowl. “I’m not getting hurt.”
“Good. How about Steven?”
I blink. “Who?”
“Or was it Stefan?” Dane shrugs. “That guy from the junior league. The one who tried to get your number last week.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Ew.”
Dane grins. “Come on, he’s not that bad. He actually lands his jumps, which is more than I can say for half the guys you race with.”
“I literally just watched him eat shit on the track yesterday.”
He laughs. “Okay, fine, bad example. What about Payne? He’s a solid rider, and he just applied for a spot on our team for next year when you all move up to elite.”
“He did?” I shift my weight, thinking about the one guy in the junior league who doesn’t leer or talk over me, the only one who even comes close to Finn looks wise, though they’re nothing alike. Mason Payne is fast, focused, and quiet. He doesn’t look at me like I don’t belong, but only because he doesn’t look at me at all, even though I watch him probably too closely. He always rides angry, and somehow, I get that. “I’ve never even talked to him. It’s not like we’re friends.”
Dane shrugs. “That could change.”
Before I can change the subject, Finn rolls up, wiping sweat from his forehead. “What are we talking about?”
“Nothi…” I start, but a hiccup cuts me off.
Finn smirks. Fuck.
Dane grins up at him. “Alaina’s thinking about dating one of the junior league guys.”
“Oh yeah?” Finn’s brows shoot up, eyes flicking between us. “Thought she was too good for the junior league boys?”
I glare. “I hate you both.”
“Nah. You love me.” Finn chuckles, and then he’s gone, leaving me to suffer as Dane huffs a laugh beside me.
I am never coming to the BMX track again, unless he’s here.
Which is the fucking problem.

12%

Finn
Well, fuck.
I think I might be having a stroke.
Not from the race or the adrenaline, but from the absolute mindfuck who is tearing down the track right now.
Allen Crews.
Bracing my elbows on my knees, I force my gaze away from the rider in blue to the leaderboard where my name still blinks at the top.
It won’t last, it never does. I’m not winning shit, haven’t touched a World Cup win in years, and let’s be real, I’d probably break a hip trying to get there at this point, but that’s fine, it’s not why I’m here. Still, for now, I’m in the hot seat, which is a wonder by itself, considering how hard it was to concentrate after that.
At most races the hot seat is nothing fancy, just a shaded setup near the finish, three seats lined up like a podium for the fastest so far. First place gets the middle, second and third flank on either side. You sit there, every muscle tensed, pretending to relax while the mountain decides whether you’re staying or getting the boot. It’s purgatory with a view.
The metal beneath me creaks as I shift, stretching my fingers out against my thighs, and the crowd hums around me, a restless energy vibrating through the finish corral. The announcer is hyping up the run, but I’m not listening, my thoughts too loud as I watch the track.
I’d been suspicious from the moment I laid eyes on the rookie. That face had itched at my memory, like a song lyric I couldn’t quite place but knew I should remember. Too-familiar molten caramel eyes, a straight nose, full lips.
I know that face.
I know those eyes.
Because years ago, they used to seek me out across pits and podiums. Always bright, always wide and close to awe, like I was a goddamn rock star. Today, they did not look at me in awe, more like I was a speed bump in their way.
The face isn’t as young anymore, not as soft, or as baby-faced. The edges are sharper, the expression harder. It was different enough that I believed it was just a really fucking weird family resemblance. Dane has the same eyes, after all, the same nose too. I almost dismissed it. Almost.
Until that hiccup.
And now I’m watching Allen Crews rip through this track with a riding style I’ve only ever seen from one person in my entire career. A reckless, fearless, seventeen-year-old girl who wanted to be like her big brother so badly that she never learned how to be afraid.
Alaina.
My baby girl.
No one else rides like that, no one else threads the line between control and chaos so precisely, with a rhythm so wild it shouldn’t work, but always does. Or at least, it did until it didn’t.
If I’m good at something, it’s catching the rhythm of a racer. Some riders are all technical, all skill and precision, like a well-rehearsed riff. Others are raw power, more thrash than melody.
Alaina is “Still Waiting” by Sum 41. Fast, reckless, but there’s control in the madness. More go than technique, but that doesn’t mean she lacks skill. It just means she lets instinct lead the way.
I watch her hit the next section, a brutal rhythm of rocks, uneven landings, and a drop that forces most riders to check their speed, but not her. She stays off the brakes, lets momentum do the work, trusting her suspension to take the hit. Then, fuck me, she whips the back end of her bike midair, adjusting her line mid-flight like it’s just another Tuesday. It’s a move that should have sent her over the bars, a move that only works when you know exactly what the hell you’re doing. She’s good, way better than she was at seventeen, and even better than most of the guys out here.
Better than me for sure.
I can put down a solid time, maybe even shake things up for a minute, but I’ve been in this sport long enough to know where I stand. Fourth place. Always. And yeah, that’s not bad, but let’s be real, only the top three actually count. Hell, most days it feels like only first really matters. Everything else just blurs into almost, and I’m just barely never quite slow enough to drop into irrelevance.
Some of the guys here live and die by the win like it’s the only thing that matters, and without it, they’re nothing. I’ve never been that guy. I don’t race for the title, the paycheck, or the trophies.
I race because it’s music. There’s something about flying down a track, finding the perfect line, keeping tempo with the dirt under my tires that makes me feel alive.
And that’s why I can’t leave.
I don’t know who I would be without downhill racing.
Everyone calls me Grandpa Greer because at thirty-four, I’m the oldest racer on the circuit. They joke about it, but they’re not wrong. My body is a busted rental that’s creaky, taped together, and way past its prime. My knees ache before I even clip in, my back has more knots than a racecourse in Val di Sole, and don’t get me started on my wrists.
I know my time is up, but I’ve got something worth hanging on for.
I exhale, eyes snapping back to the track just in time to catch Alaina, no, Allen, soaring off a drop with that signature mix of control and recklessness. Pure Crews style. Must be something in the blood.
Dane was “Can’t Stop” by Red Hot Chili Peppers, smooth, clean, fast, but never desperate. He made it look easy, as if he wasn’t even trying.
That’s why we fit so well. We were on the track to have fun. Fun first, competition second.
I’d say I’m “Fat Lip” by Sum 41. I never had that killer instinct to win. I just want to be here, to live in the sound of it, to exist in the song.
But right now, Alaina is coming for the win, and judging by the way she’s tearing this course apart, she’s not planning on leaving without it.
The speakers overhead crackle before the announcer’s voice booms through the air. “What a run! Looks like this Crews is keeping the family legacy alive! Number seven is throwing in the flair here.”
What the hell are you doing, baby girl?
The final section of the track is brutal, but she threads through the rock garden, barely braking, and then she’s at the final stretch in a full sprint. She pedals harder, milking every last drop of speed until she launches off the final drop and lands so cleanly it’s insane.
“This is not just a World Cup debut, it’s a statement! The rookie has arrived!”
The crowd roars as she crosses the line, but she barely reacts. No fist pump or celebration, not even a glance at the screen, but I look at it.
And holy shit.
She just ripped a run so fast it blew mine out of the water.
Alaina brakes hard, tires skidding, dust kicking up like a goddamn smoke bomb. Then she swings her leg over the bike and rolls it toward Dane, who’s waiting off to the side. He just takes it, grinning, tapping the top of her helmet as he always used to, and nothing has changed, like this is still normal for them.
But nothing about this is fucking normal.
She finally pulls off the helmet, shaking out short, sweaty hair, her breathing still sharp. Sweat darkens the neck of her jersey, and there’s dust streaked across her arms, matching mine, as she walks toward the hot seat.
I shift over, making space for her in the middle seat, the one reserved for the rider who is currently sitting on top of the leader board. I slide into the second spot, which has already been vacated by the guy who was just a little slower than me. He waits a beat for the former third-place holder to get up, then drops into that seat without a word as the last guy disappears into the crowd.
Alaina drops onto the chair beside me, but I don’t say anything at first. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.
Seven years.
Seven years since Dane left.
Seven years since the Crews name vanished from the circuit.
In the moments between practice runs, in hotel rooms where the silence was too loud, in bars when the others laughed too hard and I wasn’t quite drunk enough to forget, and in those quiet spaces between races, I always wondered about them. What they were doing, or where they were. If they were happy.
I sure as fuck never saw this coming, though.
The way she sits now, right fucking here, next to me, breathing the same post-run adrenaline, feels like a glitch in reality.
I keep stealing glances at her out of the corner of my eye, taking in what should have been obvious when I first laid eyes on her on top of the mountain.
She’s still small, but not in the way she was at seventeen. She’s filled out with some mad muscles. Alaina pushes up her jersey’s sleeves, and my gaze catches on her forearms. Black ink. A tattoo sleeve of flowers, spanning both arms, climbing up her skin.
Wildflowers.
Of course.
“Good job, rookie,” I tell her, testing, watching her for the slightest reaction, but she doesn’t even look at me.
She just gives me a sharp nod, eyes fixed on the leaderboard. She’s still panting, her breath coming in sharp through parted lips, and my gaze flicks downward, a passing glance.
She’s flat.
My brain hiccups.
She’s not supposed to be flat. Even the seventeen-year-old version of Alaina wasn’t flat, not that I was watching or noticing.
Fuck, no.
She was a kid, Dane’s baby sister. Yeah, I knew she had a crush on me back then. I mean, how could I not? But it had been cute. Funny.
Flattering.
And I was sure she’d grow out of it. Eventually, she’d meet someone, get a boyfriend, and move on.
Her eyes flick up sharply, like she can feel me staring, and when her gaze meets mine, there’s nothing soft in it as she frowns.
Yeah.
She definitely grew out of it.
I should stop staring, but before I can even figure out how the fuck I feel about any of it, the crowd starts to murmur, and we both turn to see Payne flying through the last part of the track.
He’s “Last Resort” by Papa Roach. Heavy, calculated, and full throttle. Every move he makes is practiced, as if he’s memorized the track in his bones, because Payne isn’t reckless. Still, he rides like he’s got nothing to lose.
Because he fucking hasn’t.
But he could be faster. He would be at least two seconds faster in each run if he’d take out some of the anger. Being angry makes him fast, yeah, but it also makes him push too hard in the wrong places. His melody is off. It’s not the right song for him.
Could I tell him that? Sure.
Will I? Absolutely the hell not.
Let the man suffer.
At the finish line, his bike kicks up dust as he brakes hard, and his time flashes on the screen, making Alaina suck in a breath because she just beat Mason Payne, two-time World Cup overall winner.
No one cheers for him, and there is no clapping. A few people even turn their backs, and not for the first time, I find myself thinking why the hell is that guy still racing?
“Twenty-one comes in second, missing the top spot by only 0.38 seconds to Crews!” The announcer booms.
This still means he beat me, so I shift again, moving from second place to third, making space for him. Normally, this would be the moment where I’d bump fists with the guy overtaking me. It’s just how it works, respect between riders, a quiet acknowledgment of the game, but I already forgot to do it with Alaina. And Payne?
Yeah. That’s not happening.
I don’t bump fists with rapists.
Not that he even looks my way. He doesn’t acknowledge Alaina either, just drops onto the seat, jaw tight, his eyes glued to the screen, tension rolling off him in waves because he knows exactly what’s coming. Two riders are left on the top.
Raine and Delacroix.
And if they ride like they usually do, they’re both going to wipe this podium clean. Which means Mason is going to be in fourth place. He won’t be in the top three for the first time in years. And from the way his gloved fingers flex, it’s obvious he’s not handling that well.
Being in fourth place never mattered to me. I’d made my peace with it a long time ago, but now it looks like I’m going to finish my last season in fifth, thanks to Alaina, and I don’t quite know how I feel about that.

Wait.
What the hell?
Why is Alaina racing Men’s and not Women’s?
The crowd erupts again, loud enough to jolt me out of my thoughts.
Shit! I blink, realizing I didn’t even see Raine ride. One second, I was caught up in my head, the next, he’s already across the line. I look up at the screen flashing with his time.
“Raine takes the lead! Crews is knocked off first place!”
He’s barely faster than Alaina.
I exhale sharply, shoving up from my seat.
Still, the hot seat is his now.
As I step off, I catch a muttered, “Fucker.”
It’s quiet, but not quiet enough. A single word, laced with so much bitterness it almost tastes like blood in the air. I glance back just in time to see Alaina shift over, making space for Raine in the leader’s seat. So it wasn’t aimed at me.
She curls her fingers into fists like she’s physically holding herself back from pummeling him. This isn’t about her losing a place on the podium or just frustration. It’s hatred.
I can’t say I like the guy either. The rivalry he had with Dane back in the day never stopped mattering to me, even after Dane left, but it’s more than that.
It’s the way he smirks when he sees me, like he took something from me, because he did in a way. Some losses don’t happen on the track.
Raine doesn’t even acknowledge Alaina as he takes his seat, like none of this is surprising, but she looks at him, and fuck, if looks could kill.
I scan the finish area until I spot Dane again, still standing off to the side, Alaina’s bike propped against the fence beside him. I don’t think. I just move, and by the time I reach Dane, my hand is already wrapping around his upper arm, yanking him away from the crowd.
“The fuck, Greer?” He stumbles, but I don’t slow down, just keep walking, dragging him with me.
He grumbles under his breath, adjusting his stride to keep up. “What the hell is your problem?”
I don’t answer, not with half the fucking circuit standing around, and not with cameras, racers, and reporters lurking. Not when I have about a thousand-fucking-questions ripping through my skull, and I need every single one answered now.
“All right, enough.” He yanks his arm back when we make it back to the gondola station. “Jesus, Finn, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
I guide him forward and shove him through the nearest door, my palm flat against his back as I force him inside the dim, sweat-stale locker room. The second we’re in, I scan for people. It smells like damp jerseys and exhaustion, but at least it’s empty.
Slamming the door shut behind us, I lock it.
Dane straightens, rubbing his arm where I grabbed him. “You wanna explain what the fuck that was?”
“What the fuck that was?” My voice rises as I turn to him. Is he fucking serious? I step toward him, my pulse pounding in my ears. “Bringing her here? Letting her race the men’s World Cup disguised as a guy? What the actual fuck?”
Dane doesn’t even flinch. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Hell, he doesn’t even blink. He just crosses his arms over his chest, looking at me like I’m the one being unreasonable.
“Why?”
Dane just stares at me, and the following silence is thick and suffocating. I exhale sharply, dragging a hand through my hair before leveling my gaze at him. “Why would you let her do this?”
Dane still doesn’t answer, but I know him. I know him better than I know myself. His hands curl into fists at his sides, just like Alaina’s had. He’s physically holding the words in, and he needs to talk, but something, probably loyalty to his sister, is keeping him from it.
“You said I was still your best friend. You’re still mine, too, Dane. Nothing changed. Us against the rest of the world, and yeah…” I shake my head and let a slight smile tug at my lips, “… I count your Velcro little sister into that. I always have.” His shoulders go rigid, but I push on. “I will not tell anybody. Not even her if you don’t want me to. You can talk to me, Dane.”
Dane’s arms stay crossed as he keeps silent, and it seems they’re the only thing holding him together, but I can tell he’s balancing on the edge of letting go. I give him another pleading look, and finally, the tension in his shoulders loosens, the weight of whatever he’s holding pressing down too hard for him to keep carrying alone.
He blinks down at the floor, then drags a hand over his jaw. “We’re here because we think Isaac Raine fucked with Alaina’s bike before the crash.”
Dread washes over me. “What?”
Dane doesn’t look away. “You heard me.”
No. No, I fucking didn’t. Because that’s not possible.
“That’s…” I shake my head, “… that was a material failure. A Crews Bikes failure. Everyone said so. It’s why…”
Why the team shut down.
Why the factory closed.
Why Dane walked away from the sport, and I lost contact with my best friend.
And why Raine and his sister managed to grab the titles.
I drag my thumb across the corner of my mouth. Jesus.
“That’s what he made it look like, yes.” Dane watches me intently as it all clicks into place in my head, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the throat.
I never questioned it. Not once. The bike failed her. It was tragic, devastating even, but it was an accident.
“Alaina never believed it.” Dane exhales again, shaking his head. “She said something felt wrong the second she dropped in, but she had no proof, and no one was listening. No one cared. Everyone just wanted to move on, especially Dad.”
Right. Their fuckwit father.
“And he just let you guys do this?”
He laughs bitterly. “Of fucking course not. He doesn’t even know we’re here.”
“What? How are you here if he didn’t pay your way through?”
“My prize money, but Alaina doesn’t know that. She thinks Dad begrudgingly helped us out to be privateers. And I swear to God, Finn, if you tell her this, I’m going to push you down the mountain. Without your bike.”
I barely register the threat. It’s all too much. “Before you disappeared, you said you wanted to buy the team from your Dad. You⁠—”
“That dream is dead and buried,” he cuts me off. “But I haven’t just been sitting on my ass and watching you all these years. I studied finance, and after this season, I’ll join the company.” He shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “I’ll be fine.”
“You never wanted to be like him.” It comes out as an accusation.
Dane lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah, well. I was in my mid-twenties then. Stuff changes. I’m doing this for Alaina, not for me. It’s good to be back, and it’s good memories, some of the worst and some of the best, but that’s all this is. Memories. I don’t want this anymore.”
I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry.
I don’t want a life outside of this.
Does that make me the weirdo? Or him?
“How does she even know it was Raine?”
“She saw Isaac near her bike before her run.” Dane exhales sharply. “There’s no footage of him touching it, no hard evidence. But the mechanics who looked at the wreckage said the failure was weird. It wasn’t just a snapped frame. The suspension had been tampered with.”
My stomach churns. If that’s true and Raine actually did that… if he sabotaged her bike knowing exactly what could happen…
“Why the fuck didn’t anyone say anything?”
“Because it was easier to blame the bike and say the frame failed. That Crews Racing was reckless, and we should have never been building our own frames. That our ego was the reason she almost fucking died.” Dane scoffs. “So they did, and Dad let them. I did, too, because honestly, shutting everything down was easier than fighting back, especially while Alaina was trying to recover.”
The headlines blur in my mind. I remember the scandal, the debates, the fucking drama. People argued about safety standards, about whether Crews Bikes had been too aggressive in their designs. I also remember how the whole thing just disappeared, along with the Crews name.
“This is Alaina’s way of getting revenge.” Dane’s voice is deadly serious, and my eyes snap to his. “She wins. She beats Raine. And then she tells the world exactly who she is.”
My heart slams against my ribs. “She’s planning to out herself?”
“Publicly. Right in front of the UCI, the teams, the media. She’s going to take the podium, take the title, take everything from him. And then, she’s going to rip off the mask and tell the world exactly who just handed him his ass. She wants to humiliate him because we all know his pride is where it’ll hurt him the most.”
Jesus-fucking-Christ.
I scrub a hand over my face. “You guys have money. You could have investigated. Hired lawyers.” I gesture wildly toward the door, toward the fucking racecourse, as if that somehow explains everything wrong with this situation. “Why the hell would you make her risk herself, her entire fucking future for a goddamn vendetta?”
They will never let her near another UCI race again after this.
Dane’s nostrils flare, and I think he might lash out at me. Instead, he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You think I let her do this? You think I had a fucking choice?”
“You’re her big brother. She adores you and would do anything you tell her to do.” I glare at him. “Of course, you had a choice.”
“No, Finn.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t.”
“So, what? You’re saying she made the choice for you?”
“I’m saying if I hadn’t helped her, she’d be dead.”
What?
I take a step back as if denying his words, but Dane doesn’t stop.
“You think I don’t know how stupid and dangerous this is?” His voice rises. “You think I want to be here? Watching my little sister throw herself into this insane-fucking-mission knowing damn well it won’t do what she thinks it’ll do for her?” He steps toward me, eyes blazing. “You think I wanted to walk away from my whole fucking life only to come back seven years later to find her standing on the same goddamn mountain, chasing down the same goddamn ghosts?”
I fight the urge to step back as he continues his tirade.
“If I hadn’t helped her, she wouldn’t be here, Finn. And I don’t mean here as in Fort William.” His voice drops a register and becomes rougher. “I mean here as in alive. Alaina didn’t live after the crash. She survived. Barely.”
And where the fuck was I? Sitting in hotel rooms, scrolling past headlines, wondering why they didn’t answer my calls.
“You don’t know what it was like after. You don’t know what it did to her. All the pain and the surgeries and the broken dreams.” His hands curl into fists at his sides, and his eyes go distant with the memory. “You don’t know how many nights I sat outside her door, too fucking scared to go to sleep because I didn’t know whether she’d still be breathing when I woke up.”
His eyes fill with tears, and my nose starts to burn in the tense silence that follows.
“You could have called me, Dane,” I say eventually, my voice barely above a whisper. “I would have been there for you.”
I called him every day for at least a year, but he never picked up, not even once, so I stopped.
I shouldn’t have.
“She was gone, man. Gone. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing you could have done.” He swallows. “Nothing but let her have this.”
“So this whole thing, this disguise, this insane fucking plan…”
“It fueled her.” Dane’s eyes drop to the floor. “She lived because of this. She got out of bed because of this. She trained, she rebuilt herself, she became unstoppable. All because of this. Because of spite. She’s only alive because she had this to fight for, and I’m not only terrified of what happens when she wins this. I’m terrified of what happens after.”
I blink and take an involuntary step backward. “What do you mean?”
Dane lifts his gaze, and his eyes are hollow.
“What will happen to her when she has nothing left to fight for?”
Well, fuck.