Chapter Text
You’d always hated sand.
Not the storybook kind - rolling golden dunes and whispering winds. No, this kind of sand. Mean sand. Clingy sand. Sand that wormed its way into your socks, your mouth and your soul. This sand didn’t feel like nature. It felt like a nightmare.
Your thighs ached. Your water was warm. And your horse, Mercy, had been judging you for at least the last five miles. She let out a loud, theatrical snort, as if to announce her disapproval to the entire desert. You didn’t blame her. You’d stopped keeping track of distance a long time ago. Now it was just wake up, ride, maybe potentially don’t die, repeat.
Sometimes, when the wind was quiet, you caught yourself missing your old life, but then you remembered what that life was.
The sun was beginning its slow descent toward the horizon. Your hand rested loosely on the reins, eyes narrowed against the glare. The pack had thinned since morning. Most of the other racers had disappeared ahead, their tracks still faint in the dirt. You could see the smudges of their passing, speckles of dust rising into the heat shimmer.
Too desperate to win. Or too stupid to slow down.
Probably both.
But you weren’t here to win.
You were here to finish something. Or find something. Or maybe lose something in a place no one would come looking. You weren’t picky.
They said the Steel Ball Run brought all kinds together: gamblers, drifters, washed-up gunmen with one good eye and a death wish. Some were in it for money. Some for glory. Some because there wasn’t anywhere else left to go.
You’d stopped lying to yourself about which one you were. Maybe all of them. Maybe none.
The race had already stripped most people down to the bone and it had barely even started. But you… you came stripped already. You came to test a theory: that it couldn’t get any worse.
And okay, maybe that was a tad dramatic, but weeks in the desert did that to a person. So did bad memories. And saddle rash.
“Quit looking so smug,” you muttered, nudging Mercy gently with your heel.
She ignored you and kept her pace steady, ears flicking as if in agreement with some private thought. You let her have it. She was smarter than most people you’d met, anyway.
The desert stretched on in rust-red silence. The sun beat down with holy fury, and the wind had teeth. You pulled your bandana higher over your face, trying to keep the grit out of your teeth.
It didn’t help. Not really.
Somewhere in the wind, you thought you could almost hear voices - faint, more feeling than sound. They sounded like memories. The kind you’d buried. The kind that never stayed gone for long.
You didn’t want to listen. So instead, you thought about dinner.
There might’ve been dried meat left in your pack. Might’ve. More likely dust and regret. The real threat was the can of beans you’d been ignoring since Utah. Every time you saw it, it felt like a personal attack. Like God’s punishment, in edible form. Sure, you were struggling, but this can of crusty beans was taking struggle meal to a new level.
You’d made it this far without cracking.
You weren’t about to let legumes win.
You were mid-delirious fantasy about chucking them off a cliff when you spotted movement up ahead.
A rider.
Tall in the saddle, loose and still. He wasn’t moving too fast, but he rode like someone with purpose.
The pink caught your eye first. Not the soft kind, not the sweet kind. It was rich and deliberate, just sharp enough to be remembered.
Underneath, a striped shirt. Fitted gloves. Clean boots. A wide-brimmed hat drawn low. Everything about him felt… intentional. Not a thread out of place.
You’d seen him before. Once, maybe twice.
Hot Pants.
He didn’t draw attention the way other riders did. Not because he tried to stand out, but because he never stumbled trying to fit in. You weren’t sure if people respected him or just didn’t know what to make of him, but either way, they kept their distance. Maybe that was what made him interesting. Or maybe it was just the fact that, for all his quiet, you still remembered him.
You weren’t sure if he was handsome or beautiful, not that that mattered. The race would wear that down soon enough.
He didn’t look back. Just rode on, steady and unreadable.
You didn’t speed up.
But you didn’t slow down either.