Renegade Runner Nicole Conway (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

didn’t dare look back to see how close. Forward—finishing—was all I focused on.

As I closed in on the finish line, I let out a primal shout and poured every last drop of speed, strength, and spirit into my legs. My feet flew. The engines bellowed, rattling my teeth and boring into my brain. All the anger and pain burst to the surface.

Mom.

Enola.

Phox.

I shut my eyes tightly and let it all go as I crossed between the two giant obelisks and straight into the glimmering ribbon of light …

… about five seconds before Sienne’s ship.

36

AFTERMATH

Whatever happened after, I couldn’t remember. The last thing I saw was the salty ground rushing up to meet me as I collapsed. Noise erupted from everywhere at once. Motion. Chaos. Hands grabbing me. Sunlight catching off metal. The smell of something tinged with strong chemicals.

And then nothing at all.

Lost in the dark, my mind pitched and flailed for control—for consciousness. I needed to go back. I needed to get to Phox. What if he was still alive? What if I could save him? Where was he? I needed to see him!

“PHOX!” I cried out as my eyes flew open again, everything seeming to skew into focus all at once. From where I lay on my back, my arms and legs tethered to a stiff bed in the middle of a mostly-empty, clean white room, I screamed his name over and over until I couldn’t breathe.

A door along the far wall slid open suddenly, and four tall figures in long, gray-and-blue robes rushed in, their faces obscured by hoods with something like surgical masks over their noses and mouths so I couldn’t see who they were. All I could see were their creepy, turquoise eyes.

They steered shiny metal carts that floated soundlessly and displayed a vast array of tools and syringes. Not one of them spoke as they tightened my bonds. A smaller, more femininely-shaped one held up the same sort of emergency syringe-thing Phox had used on me while treating my wounds.

Nope.

No. Freaking. Way.

I spat right in her face. “Get the hell away from me,” I hissed, my hands writhing in the straps around my wrists. “Let me go! Where is Phox?! I said let me go!”

“It’s all right,” a smooth, masculine voice called from the doorway, tinged with an accent I couldn’t even begin to identify.

All four of the figures—doctors, nurses, whatever they were—paused and looked up.

I looked, too.

Leaning into the room with his arms crossed, a tall, leanly-built, human-looking man cast me a knowing stare. He gestured to the group of robed figures, who quickly departed without ever saying a thing. A strange, almost wry smile ghosted over his sharply-angled features.

My chest still heaved with fitful breaths as I glared at him. “Let me go. I have to find him. I have to see Phox!”

That mild, bemused smile spread wider over his lips but never reached his own bizarre, turquoise eyes. “You think he’s still alive?” he asked calmly as he cruised into the room.

My heart wrenched. Tears welled in my eyes. “H-He is. He has to be.” I couldn’t stand the idea of any other alternative.

“Interesting.” He stroked his pointed chin as he stopped at my bedside. Tipping his head to the side, he considered me as some of his neatly cut, stark black hair fell across his forehead. “Very well, then. I’ll take you to him.”

The man’s strange teal-colored eyes seemed to glow with ethereal light as he moved around my bed, unfastening each of the straps that tethered my wrists and ankles. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized my bodysuit—the one I’d worn in the race—was gone. In its place, I’d been dressed in what basically amounted to a thin, white hospital gown made of a strange, shimmery material.

My bare feet met the cold, pristinely clean floor and my long, golden hair fell over my shoulders as I shakily got to my feet. Staring down at my legs and arms made my breath catch. I was covered in black, purple, and green bruises. More of the clear bandaging had been applied to my leg, arm, and the rest of the superficial cuts and scrapes that flecked me from head to toe.

I shivered in the cold air as I followed the man to the door, keeping a careful distance and leaning to peer out the doorway before actually going through it. A long, blank white hallway lined with other doors was lit by clean white light. The sterile smell of chemicals mixed with the faint, coppery scent of blood. Or maybe that was just the residual taste of it in my mouth. I couldn’t be sure.

“Is this … a hospital?” I dared to ask as I shadowed his steps, passing door after door.

“Something like that.” He didn’t look back as he strode on, his arms still crossed and his expression casually serene. “This is a temporary medical facility set up near the completion point for the Renegade Run specifically to care for the winning teams.”

My hands clenched at my sides. Winning teams? So … it hadn’t been a dream. Or my imagination. I had finished the race.

“I … I won,” I realized aloud.

He cast me a quick, curious glance. “You did,” he verified.

My stomach fluttered. What did that even mean? Studying my peculiar guide didn’t give me any clues. There was something refined and frigidly handsome about him, despite the fact that his sleek dark clothes paired with a calf-length black coat trimmed in electric green made him look a little like a villain from Tron or something.

When he turned to glance down at me again, as though checking to make sure I was still following, I noticed the faint glimmer of something odd along his right cheekbone. A strange hexagonal pattern caught in the light like fish scales, barely noticeable unless you were looking hard. Strange. Not a tattoo. It seemed more like a skin graph or something.

I was about to ask about it—and who the hell