“Uh-oh, fresh meat’s getting pissy,” she taunted. Slap, slap.

I swear to God…

“Can’t take the heat, rook? Not tough enough?” Slap, slap.

Fuck. You.

“Whatcha’ doin’ out here, baby girl? Need your mommy? Or maybe you’re a daddy’s girl?” Slap, slap.

My skates screeched to a halt and my forearms rammed into her torso with every ounce of rage I had. As she flailed backward into the middle of the track, my entire body slammed into hers to help her to the ground.

In the next moment, several skaters toppled over us and I heard a yell of pure agony. Flat on my stomach, I looked up to see several sets of Skintastics skates crowded around me, making sure I stayed where I was. I ignored them and kept looking to see who’d cried out. Now I could hear them repeating, “Shit, shit, shit!”

“OH! That’s gonna be a problem for Daya Doo Wop, folks! Definitely nothing legal about that hit. Looks like one of the Honeys is hurt from the melee too.”

Following the coarse language, my eyes finally found the source. It was Lena. She was on her back several feet ahead of me, holding her knee. Kat and Dom were at her side, asking her questions and trying to keep her from sitting up. A medic had already rushed out to check her over.

As I started to get up on my hands and knees to go over to them, one of the Skintastics blocked me, which started a whole other thing. By the time the refs had teased us all apart and ejected Slappy Hands and me, Lena was being led out, rolling along on one skate, between Kat and Dom.

I hated not being on the track and not being able to check on Lena, but I also felt like I might do something even worse if I stayed out there. On my way to the bench, I got more than one “nudge” from the Skintastics players. When I looked over, I noticed Kat glaring at me from her place next to Lena.

She couldn’t really be mad at me for thumping that girl, could she? Like she wouldn’t have done the same thing?

I sat my ass on the hard bench. As furious as I was, I wished I’d hear Bee or Yolanda yelling some obscenities at me from the stands, but it didn’t sound like they were here. I scanned the Crash Zone and spotted Shanti, though. Apparently she wasn’t interested in what was happening on the track. She was too busy talking to some girl with one of those annoying haircuts that looked messy but you knew they’d spent forever making sure it looked like that.

I wanted to look away but kept watching her, hoping she’d look toward me. And then she did. And I immediately shifted my gaze to the track, like a fucking coward.