Broken Hill Halo (Broken Hill High #2)

by Sheridan Anne

  Jackson searches the crowd as he waits for the race to get started which is when he locks that impenetrable gaze on me. He winks as though I’m in on his secret before howling with laughter and turning back to face the woman who walks up between their cars in the shortest skirt known to man.

  She looks at Nate, confirms if he’s ready before doing the same with Jackson.

  My nerves are shot.

  Nate races for fun. He races because he’s good at it, but this right here, this isn’t fun. This is the ultimate pissing contest which could end with either one of them hurt or worse.

  Jackson revs his engine like an arrogant asshole while Nate sits, playing it cool and studiously ignoring him. The woman holds her hand up and the crowd leans in closer with the anticipation of the race.

  Her arm drops and the cars lurch forward with a speed ridiculously crazy for a dirt track, a speed which only a talented driver could possibly handle. I know I couldn’t even dream of doing what these guys are doing right now.

  “Shit,” Jesse grunts beside me as I dive for his hand. I hold onto Jesse with all that I’ve got as I watch my heart and soul with wide eyes, speeding around the track.

  They hit the first corner and they both make it around, though it doesn’t seem as steady as either one of them usually drive, making it clear that this means more to both of them than just winning the usual Friday night race.

  Nate accelerates out of the corner a second earlier than Jackson and gains the slightest lead. Not a single noise comes from the crowd, not even a cheer or the occasional drunken idiot slurring out that he can do better.

  Jackson gives it more gas, keeping right up on Nate’s ass, just inches behind him. The next corner approaches and Nate doesn’t dare back off. He hits the corner and slides around it like he has a million times before, only Jackson doesn’t do the same.

  My eyes widen as Jackson focuses on a straight line towards Nate rather than getting his hunk of shit around the corner. He hits the gas harder and jolts forward before ramming into the back corner of Nate’s Camaro, sending him spinning out of control off the track. If he wasn’t in the middle of drifting around the corner, he would have been able to control a hit like that like I’ve watched him do so many times before, but this is different. This is not the kind of hit you recover from.

  Time slows down and I watch in horror as Jackson drives off, continuing his way around the corner while Nate’s back wheel hits a rock. The momentum of his spinning car flies over the top of the rock, making the car flip once. Twice. Three times.

  My stomach sinks.

  People scramble to get out of the way, terrified for their lives.

  My mind goes blank and all I can do is run. I run as fast as my legs can take me.

  I run to check that he’s still breathing.

  I run with my heart pounding, hoping I don’t have to go home and tell his parents that they’ll never see him again.

  I run, hoping this isn’t the end.

  Chapter 16

  “No, no, no,” I scream as I barge my way through the crowd of people, not giving a single fuck if I hurt anyone on the way. Jesse runs beside me, his hand still firmly in mine as we focus every ounce of our beings on getting to the twisted metal across the track.

  All I see is his broken and steaming Camaro which thankfully landed on its wheels. I race towards it, but Jesse is faster and ends up dragging me behind him.

  We reach his car and find some guy trying to break the door off to get Nate out. Jesse grabs the guy and throws him aside to do it himself. “Shit,” he grunts, looking through the window.

  Nate remains in his seat, bloodied and broken. I briefly wonder if anyone else around here got hurt but the thought is gone the second it enters my mind. I have to get him out of there.

  There’s glass everywhere and every single panel on the car is squished and broken. Not one single window remains intact. Feeling helpless, I run around Jesse and climb up onto the hood and scramble over the broken glass, ignoring the way the hot metal beneath screams at me.

  People stand around, some trying to help, others just gawking at the horror before them. I hear Brooke’s voice over the crowd. “Get down,” she yells. I know she’s screaming at me, but I can’t listen. Not now.

  I kick out what’s left of the broken glass and slide into the passenger’s seat beside my bleeding boyfriend. Blood trickles down his face and his eyes are barely open, but he’s alive. He may be in worlds of pain, but he’s ok for now.

  I dive across and try my hardest to release his seatbelt, but it’s jammed. “I need a knife,” I yell to anyone who’ll listen. My impatience gets the best of me and I scramble around on the hood for a broken piece of glass. “Don’t be stupid,” Aaron says before thrusting a pocket knife in my face.

  I hastily grab it from him and work on getting Nate out of here. “Tora?” Nate questions shakily as I try to tear the knife through the fabric of the seat belt. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” I tell him, not wanting to sugar coat it. “Where are you hurting?”

  “Fucking everywhere,” he groans.

  My eyes rake up and down his body for the hundredth time in the last thirty seconds and confirm that apart from the massive gash to his head and all the cuts and bruises, everything else miraculously seems to be ok. No broken bones or glass shards piercing anything. I’m sure there’s probably something hidden beneath the surface, but so far, he’s one hell of a lucky bastard. “Hold on,” I tell him. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  “Is anyone hurt?” he questions with another groan as he tries to get himself out.

  “Shhhhh,” I say, pushing him back into the chair. “Don’t move.”

  “Tora?” he demands with a pained cringe.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him as I get the seatbelt free. “I wouldn’t be surprised. There were a lot of people over here.”

  “Shit,” he sighs.

  I rip the seat belt off his body and look up to see how Jesse is coming along with the door. All the boys are still working their asses off and getting absolutely nowhere. “We’re going to have to go through the windshield,” Maxen says.

  “Fuck,” Jesse says as he looks in to me. “How're his legs? Is anything holding him down?”

  I’ve already checked, but I check again anyway. “No, you’re good to pull him out.”

  “What about his neck?” Parker demands.

  “It’s fine. We need to get him out,” I tell them, demanding that they hurry their asses up.

  Jesse and Max climb up on the hood as Brooke and Courtney work on getting everyone to move away and give us some space. Bec demands a few people give up their hoodies and lay them down on the grass to make somewhere safe for Nate to lay.

  The hood screams under the weight of the boys and I realize they’re going to have to do this fast. They lean down and try to stay out of the way as they each grab an arm. They pull hard, trying to lift his heavy frame out, but the steering wheel is in the way.

  I do my best to help maneuver him around all the obstacles and get his legs out from under the dashboard. They pull him up through the windshield and I pray there are no glass shards left to scrape against his stomach.

  He groans out as the guys get him up and help pass him down to Tyson and Parker on the ground. Jesse hops down after them while Maxen comes back and offers me a hand to help haul me up out of the car.

  I take it greedily before scrambling down by Nate’s side, to find him telling everyone to fuck off and leave him alone. “For fuck’s sake, Nate,” I yell at him. “Would you just lay down for two minutes so we can check you over? You could have internal bleeding or a fucking spinal injury for all we know.”

  “I’m fine,” he tells me. “A little whiplash and a cut on my head.”

  The second the words come out, my eyes flick back up to the blood oozing from the gash in his hairline and I search around for something to use to hold against it. I look up at Jesse. “Shirt,” I demand. His eyeb
rows pull down before realizing what I’m asking for. He throws it at me a moment later and I press it against Nate’s head, hoping the blood will slow soon.

  “You’re drowsy as shit,” Jesse grunts as he kneels down on Nate’s other side.

  “You would be too,” Nate snaps.

  “Just, shut up and let us check you out first,” Max says from Nate’s feet. “Then we can work out how the fuck we’re going to make this right.”

  Nate nods and goes quiet as he looks over my shoulder and focuses all his attention on his mangled car. His attitude slips away and my heart shatters for him.

  That black Camaro was his pride and joy and now it’s nothing. I can’t help but look back and take in the view he’s seeing.

  The car is completely destroyed. All the hours he spent putting this thing together. Shining it. Buffing it. Adding expensive music systems. Hell, learning how to drive. All for nothing. It’s a smoky mess. I doubt it would even be worth trying to save.

  He’s going to have to start from scratch or just buy one already completed.

  The days of Nate’s famous matte black Camaro are gone, along with it, the fantasies of hundreds of teenage girls over Broken Hill.

  I reach out and take his hand in mine. His eyes slip from the car back to me and I see nothing but devastation. “It’ll be ok,” I tell him. “Even if I have to rebuild the bastard myself.”

  He lifts his lip into a half smile to make me feel better about the situation, which is ridiculous, I should be the one trying to reassure him, though, I’m not sure that’s even possible right now.

  People start to disappear as they quickly realize the party is over. Cars fill and leave the track, nervous about police and emergency services being called, not wanting be caught at a place like this. So within the space of five minutes, there are only a few cars left on the huge property, though, it doesn’t go unnoticed that one of those cars is Jackson’s.

  We’re only able to keep Nate down for a few minutes before he’s forcing his way back up. I demand he sit down as I can tell from the way he wobbles that he’s still dizzy, but he’s not having it.

  Someone finds him a bottle of water and he downs it in all of two seconds before looking at his brother, who’s staring at him with a fierce glare. “I don’t need an ‘I told you so’ right now,” Nate says.

  “You shouldn’t have raced him.”

  “You don’t think I know that,” Nate growls.

  “I’m just saying, man. Your ego nearly left me an only child.”

  “Don’t,” Nate snaps. “Not now, Jess.”

  Jesse lets out a heavy sigh before turning his attention on the mangled mess of metal. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Why don’t you go home and get the trailer? We’ll figure it out from there.”

  Jesse nods and goes to walk off when a smug voice calls from behind our group. “Fucking shame that is,” the irritating voice says.

  Nate spins on his heel and it’s clear as day, he’s no longer dizzy, all that’s going through him now is pure rage. Jesse is beside him in the blink of an eye as the rest of the boys fall in line the same way they’ve done a million times before.

  I go to stand by him, but he pulls me away and pushes me off towards the girls. Clearly, this is not somewhere he wants me to be right now. “Get out of here, Tora,” he tells me, not wanting me to be in the crosshairs if fists were to fly.

  “Don’t talk to my girl like that,” Jackson says with a sick grin.

  His comments are ignored as Jesse glares at him. “You got a lot of fucking nerve coming over here,” Jesse says, stepping out in front of Nate.

  “What do you mean?” Jackson says. “I was just coming over to check everything was all good here.”

  “You mean you were coming over here to gloat about the fucking mess you’ve caused.”

  “Caused?” he scoffs. “I was trying to win a race, just like Nate was. I didn’t cause shit. It’s not my fault the moron can’t control his ride.”

  Nate shoves his hand up and barges Jesse out of his way before racing forward. “You rammed me off the fucking track,” Nate growls, ready and prepared to take the fucker out.

  It takes all of the boys to hold him back and I have to grin at the way Jackson steps back out of Nate’s reach. A few of the lingering guys that I recognize from the public football team race in and grab Jackson, desperately trying to pull him away, knowing just how dangerous Nate can be. “An eye for a fucking eye,” Nate promises with a growl as Jackson is pulled away.

  The public boys get Jackson in his car before my boys let Nate go. “Fuck,” he roars.

  I race into him and place my hands on his shoulders. “Calm down,” I tell him, hating seeing him like this. He takes a deep breath and tries his hardest to let it go. “We’ll get him back. Like you said, an eye for an eye.”

  He looks back to his car. “I fucking hate this.”

  “I know, you do,” I say. “But losing your shit isn’t going to help.”

  “It’ll make me feel better,” he grunts.

  I roll my eyes and tug on his hand. “Come on,” I say. “Why don’t we go check out the actual damage and work out a plan while the boys get the trailer?”

  He doesn’t respond but allows me to lead him over to the car. It doesn’t go unnoticed how he grunts under his breath and cringes with every step he takes. The guy is clearly in a shitload of pain and it kills me that he won’t take a moment to allow his body to catch up.

  Jesse disappears with Tyson while the rest of us stay behind. Maxen and Nate manage to wedge the hood up before the boys start looking over the engine. “Sorry, dude,” Maxen says. “This is fucked.”

  “I was afraid of that,” he grumbles as he reaches in and grabs something that’s clearly been dislodged from the rest of the engine. He turns it in his hands before tossing it back in. “Fuck.”

  “What’s the damage?” I ask as I join him a moment later.

  “It’s scrap metal,” he grunts.

  “You can’t save the engine?”

  He lets out a sigh and reaches up to grab the hood. “Nope,” he grumbles as the hood comes tearing down before dislodging from the car altogether and clattering off the side.

  “What about the interior?” I ask.

  He shrugs his shoulders. “Most of it’s salvageable.”

  With that, he pulls me away and we sit down on the side of the hill, just staring at the car the used to be so important to him. Nobody says a word and it’s almost as though we’re mourning for the loss of a family member.

  An hour must pass when Nate lets out a sigh and pulls me into him. “So, what’s the plan then?” I ask him, hoping it’s not too soon.

  “I don’t know,” he says as he rests his head on top of mine. “The smart thing to do would be to start over. Buy a new one and do it up to my needs, but I’m pretty damn attached to this. I’m trying to work out what it would take to fix it. It kills me seeing it like this.”

  “Why don’t you take it home and sleep on it? Right now, probably isn’t the best time to be making decisions.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  I rest my head more firmly against his chest. “You kind of scared me,” I tell him. “Are you still hurting?”

  He silently nods his head and refuses to meet my eyes before letting out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “It wasn’t my intention to flip the car twice.”

  I can’t help but scoff. “Three times, actually.”

  “Shit,” he grunts. “I promise. I won’t do that to you again.”

  “Do what? Race?” I question. He nods his head with a hint of sadness behind his eyes. “Don’t do that,” I tell him. “I want you to race. It makes you happy. I just don’t want you getting caught up with dickheads like Jackson and nearly killing yourself. Just… I don’t know, make better choices.”

  “Alright,” he laughs as I spy Jesse’s Range Rover coming into view with a huge trailer on the b
ack. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “And you’ve got yourself a trailer.”

  He looks back over his shoulder and groans before shaking his head. “Damn it. Why’d he bring that one?”

  I can’t help but grin to myself as he lets go of me and walks back toward his car. I spend the next hour, laughing quietly with the girls as we watch the guys work out how to get the car up onto the trailer without the car actually starting or a ramp to roll it up on it.

  Chapter 17

  At school on Monday morning, the corridors are nothing but endless chatter about Nate’s accident. Everywhere I go, there’s someone telling their own version of the story. At the beginning of the day, it starts with a story pretty similar to the real one, but by lunchtime, the story pretty much reads like a TV drama. They had a fist fight before they challenged each other to a race, where apparently, I was the prize. Jackson was winning the whole time and Nate drove off the road to avoid the embarrassment of losing to Jackson.

  I walk past Jackson in the hallway and can’t help but shoot a glare his way as he spouts his bullshit about Nate being in the wrong to a group of junior girls, who I’m pretty sure are in the dance squad. “There she is,” Jackson says a little too loudly as he points me out. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  I stop in my tracks and turn towards Jackson, ignoring the girls around him as I storm forward. “What do you want to know?” I demand. “How Jackson here rammed Nate’s car and pretended he didn’t do a damn thing? Or maybe how he destroyed a car that Nate spent over a year building? Hell, maybe you’re a little curious as to how he nearly killed my boyfriend?”

  “Ahhh….” one of the girls cut in.

  I ignore her as I continue tearing Jackson a new asshole. “Maybe you’d like to hear about how this douchebag won’t back off when I tell him I’m not interested even though I know it’s all a game to get under Nate’s skin. I mean, are you that threatened by him? You could have killed him.”