Off Road Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Cover and interior images: LongQuattro/Shutterstock.com (tire track grunge); Alan Poulson Photography/Shutterstock.com (biker); grop/Shutterstock.com (forest outline).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Drake, Raelyn, author.

  Title: Off road / Raelyn Drake.

  Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2019] | Series: To the limit | Summary: Best friends Tanika and Wyatt face great danger when disaster strikes during a day-long mountain biking trip on unfamiliar trails.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018019484 (print) | LCCN 2018036303 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541541986 (eb pdf) | ISBN 9781541540354 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781541545533 (pb : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Mountain biking—Fiction. | Bicycles and bicycling—Fiction. | Best friends—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Forests and forestry—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.D74 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.D74 Off 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019484

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-45240-36622-8/16/2018

  For my parents, who inspired my love of the Pacific Northwest

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wyatt pumped the pedals of his mountain bike, his lungs burning as he neared the scenic overlook at the peak of the mountain.

  He and his friend Tanika had almost finished the grueling ride up the side of the mountain, zigzagging back and forth along the paved hiking path in the scorching midday sun to get to where the actual mountain bike trail started.

  With one last burst of energy, Wyatt reached the top of the trail and coasted to a stop at the stone wall that ran around the edge of the overlook. He flipped out the kickstand on his bike and took off his helmet. The cool mountain breeze was a welcome relief. Wyatt’s hair was matted with sweat.

  Tanika grinned as she parked her bike next to Wyatt’s. “Would you look at that view!” she exclaimed.

  “We should come here again,” Wyatt said.

  This was their first time at Evergreen Wilds Park. Their usual park was way too crowded now that it was summer vacation, and they’d heard that Evergreen Wilds had some great trails. And more importantly, it had fewer tourists. The view of the forested mountainside was definitely worth it so far, Wyatt had to admit. He grabbed a couple of granola bars and oranges out of his backpack, and they sat on the stone wall to eat.

  “Let’s not get too comfortable,” Tanika said after a while. She stood up, cramming the last of her orange in her mouth. “Like you said earlier, we should try to make it back before dark.”

  Wyatt looked at the dense forest around them. It was beautiful, but in the span of just their short break, the beating sun had been replaced with overcast skies. Even though it was still early afternoon, the sky was getting darker as fog was starting to cover the pine trees about halfway down the mountain. There had been heavy rain the day before, and Wyatt hoped that today’s rain would hold off until they got home—or at least off the trails.

  Rain or no rain, Wyatt was just as eager to get going as Tanika. Riding uphill had been slow and sweaty. But the downhill ride, with its exhilarating speed and jumps, would make it well worth it.

  There were three mountain bike trails that led down the mountain—one easier beginner trail marked with green signs, an intermediate-level path that was a little bit more challenging indicated with blue, and the advanced yellow path a little ways farther.

  “So do you want to go on the green or blue trail?” Wyatt asked as he put on his helmet and tightened the chinstrap.

  Tanika scoffed. “Beginner or intermediate? I was hoping for a real challenge. Why not the black diamond?”

  Wyatt looked over at the yellow trail marker indicating the advanced black diamond path and then back over at Tanika cautiously. “Seriously?” She was usually more confident than he was when it came to their ability, but this seemed extreme, even for her.

  “Yeah, why not?” Tanika responded defensively. She took out her water bottle and took a few swigs.

  “You should save more of your water,” Wyatt said, stalling.

  Tanika rolled her eyes. “I still have a third of the bottle left. It’s not going to take us that long to bike back to the car.” She took another swig and then stashed it in the water bottle holder on her bike. Wyatt took a small sip of his water and carefully returned the bottle to his backpack.

  Then he pulled out his phone to look at the trail map he had a screenshot of from the park website. “Look, I’m still a little tired from the ride up. Can we check out the intermediate trail first?” he asked, pointing at the blue line weaving down the mountainside on the map. “We’ll cross the black diamond trail a little ways down the mountain. If we do well on the intermediate trail up until that point, maybe we can branch off to take the advanced path the rest of the way down.”

  Tanika sighed but nodded her agreement. She looked over his shoulder at the map. “What’s that gray section?”

  Wyatt tapped the screen to zoom in. “It says ‘out of bounds.’ I guess they want us to stay on the marked trails.”

  Tanika smirked. “Yeah, like I’m going to miss all the cool obstacles on the trails so I can go ride through poison ivy and mountain lion scat in the woods.” She patted her jacket pocket and grimaced.

  “What’s wrong?” Wyatt asked.

  Tanika sighed. “I just realized I forgot my phone . . . again.”

  Wyatt tried not to roll his eyes. Tanika always seemed to be forgetting her phone somewhere, especially when they were getting ready to go mountain biking. “Where’d you leave it?”

  “I think it must be back in the car,” Tanika muttered. “Because I was texting on the drive here, but now I don’t have it. I must have forgotten to go back and grab it after we got our bikes off the back of your car.” She kicked a pebble on the ground, frowning.

  “Hey, no big deal, these things happen,” Wyatt said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “We have my phone in case of emergencies.”

  Tanika gave him a small smile. “This is why I keep you around, Wy.”

  Her grateful look made Wyatt feel guilty for getting annoyed with his friend. It really isn’t that big of a deal, he reminded himself. They probably wouldn’t need a phone anyway, and if they did, they had his.

  Tanika hopped on her bike and gestured to the blue trail marker. “You first,” she said. She was grinning now, the embarrassment of forgetting her phone replaced by eager anticipation of the ride ahead.

  Wyatt returned her grin and started down the trail, pedaling hard to gain some initial momentum. Then as the trail sloped downward and gravity took over, Wyatt shifted forward and coasted.

  The trail twisted and curved down the side of the mountain, cutting a narrow path through the woods. It would rise and fall in a series of gentle waves, then curve sharply so that Wyatt had to lean into the bend so much that his handlebars were inches away from the dirt. It was like being on a roller coaster.

  Wyatt
savored the adrenaline rush. The trail was really living up to the hype. If this was the intermediate trail, Wyatt was tempted to try the advanced trail. Tanika would definitely want to give it a run, but even Wyatt was pretty sure they could handle it.

  They had been riding bikes together since sixth grade, and while Tanika was a fearless rider, Wyatt always had the nagging thought in the back of his mind that something could go wrong at any moment. His caution prevented him from wiping out as much as Tanika did, but sometimes he wished he could just shut off his anxiety and truly enjoy the moment as he was riding. Whenever the trail dipped without warning, it was hard to tell if the fluttering in his stomach was fear or excitement.

  A flash of orange caught his eye to the left—a sign on the side of the trail to indicate the first big jump takeoff.

  Wyatt’s heart beat a little faster as he pedaled to accelerate, visualizing himself landing the jump perfectly. He leaned forward into the ramp, then shifted his weight from his hands to his feet, his body uncoiling like a spring as his bike left the ground. He felt the weightlessness of flight and then the landing of a perfect jump.

  Wyatt grinned, feeling more confident about the bike ride now that he had warmed up on that first jump. He continued down the trail, hearing Tanika whoop excitedly as she hit the jump behind him.

  They sped down the mountain, and after his third successful jump, he was starting to feel much more relaxed on the unfamiliar trail and got into the flow. He usually didn’t like to ride blind on an unknown trail, but this trail was well marked with signs to indicate the next challenge. And besides, he was enjoying himself too much to worry.

  Wyatt rounded a bend in the trail and his heart dropped as he saw that the trail in front of them was a mess of mud and twigs and rocks. He skidded to a stop with a warning shout. Tanika braked hard behind him, nearly losing control of her bike.

  “Yesterday’s rain must have washed the trail out,” Wyatt said. “We have to get off our bikes and walk to make it through.”

  Tanika groaned. “That will take forever. There’s hardly any trail left. The rain swept half of it down the mountainside.” She looked around and pointed at a second trail that branched off from the main trail. “That part looks much drier.”

  Wyatt looked where she was pointing. The second trail was narrower, but it certainly looked safer than the swampy main trail.

  “Didn’t you say the advanced trail connects with the intermediate trail?” Tanika asked. “I bet this is it.”

  Wyatt bit his lip in thought. “Maybe . . .” he said.

  “If we try to get through that muck on the intermediate trail, it will be dark by the time we actually get back,” Tanika pointed out.

  Wyatt glanced at the dense trees around them. In the overcast afternoon light, the woods had started to look gloomy.

  “Wouldn’t it be marked though?” he asked. “They don’t want anybody accidentally ending up on the advanced trail if they weren’t ready for it. I don’t see a sign anywhere.”

  Tanika huffed. “I’m sure it’s the black diamond trail. But if you don’t believe me, then fine,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Waste our time by getting the trail map out to double check.”

  Wyatt prickled at Tanika’s mocking tone. He wasn’t nearly as confident that it was the trail. But he had to admit that it was a clear path branching off the intermediate trail, just like he had seen on the trail map.

  Wyatt thought about checking his phone anyway, but Tanika was already staring at him impatiently. She always said that he worried too much. Maybe she has a point, he thought.

  Besides, he didn’t really want to spend an hour slogging through the mud when he could be flying down the mountain on his bike.

  “Fine,” he said at last. “But don’t get overconfident. We have no idea what the jumps and obstacles are like on this course.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know the drill,” Tanika said. “I’ll go first this time, and I’ll take it easy. I promise,” she said. But the grin on her face made Wyatt seriously doubt it.

  The new trail was much steeper and rockier, and whenever he jolted over a rough patch, Wyatt had to fight to keep control of the bike. He was glad he had let Tanika go ahead of him. He knew she was probably going way too fast, but at least he had a heads up whenever he was approaching a big jump or obstacle.

  Wyatt thought it was a little strange that the obstacles on this trail weren’t marked with colorful signs like before. But Wyatt hadn’t been on a lot of advanced trails. Maybe the lack of signs was part of the challenge on a difficult course.

  Either way, he wasn’t enjoying the ride as much as he normally did. He made an effort to loosen his white-knuckle grip on the handlebars as the trail plunged steeply. He tried to brake lightly, but he was still picking up speed like crazy. At the bottom of the hill, the trail curved so much it nearly doubled back on itself.

  He saw Tanika’s bike wobble dangerously as she launched herself off a rock that jutted out in the middle of the path. Wyatt made a split-second decision that he wasn’t up for a jump like that and steered his bike to the side of the rock.

  He hadn’t seen the tree root next to the rock. The impact as he hit it jarred him so hard he felt his teeth rattle, and before Wyatt could even register the fact that he was crashing, it was already too late.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The treetops and the ground swapped places, and Wyatt tried to bail from his bike as he realized he was flying through the air. But his leg caught the edge of the bike and turned his controlled fall into a dizzying somersault. He hit the ground so hard it knocked the breath out of him. His bike stopped tumbling, but the hill was so steep that Wyatt slid and rolled another thirty feet before coming to a stop.

  He wasn’t sure how long he lay on his back, sucking in shallow, panicky breaths and staring up at the little patches of pale gray sky that were visible between the branches above him. The trees seemed to be spinning, and Wyatt couldn’t decide if that was just normal dizziness or if he had hit his head.

  It took a moment for the reality of the crash to set in. When it did, he became aware of something running through the undergrowth toward him. Someone shouted his name, and he realized it was Tanika.

  “Are you all right?!” she shouted as she got closer. “Wyatt?” She dropped to her knees next to him. “Wyatt? Hey, talk to me. Talk to me so I know you’re okay.”

  Wyatt wasn’t sure he had ever heard Tanika sound so worried before. “I’m fine,” he said, although it came out as more of a croak.

  Tanika’s words tumbled out in a rush. “I heard you scream and then there was this awful thud and when I turned around I couldn’t even see you because you had gone off the side of the trail, and I found your bike all smashed up—”

  Wyatt blinked a couple of times. He hadn’t even realized he had screamed.

  “—but at first I couldn’t find you,” Tanika continued, “so of course I was freaking out, but I saw your neon blue jacket through the trees, thank goodness. Do you think you can sit up?”

  Wyatt groaned at the thought, but unless he was numb from shock, he didn’t think he had seriously injured himself. He slowly pushed himself up with Tanika’s help. He was going to have some serious bruises and his ribs were a little tender, but he could move his arms and legs without too much pain, and it didn’t hurt when he turned his head side to side.

  “Your helmet isn’t cracked, so hopefully that means you didn’t hit your head too hard,” Tanika remarked. “How many fingers am I holding up?” she asked, and held up a closed fist with mock seriousness.

  Wyatt snorted. “Zero,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  Tanika’s mischievous laugh cut off abruptly and her eyes went wide. “Wyatt, you’re bleeding.”

  Wyatt saw now that at some point in his fall he had cut up his arm. The sleeve of his jacket had been ripped to shreds and beneath it there was a long gash on his arm. It ran from his shoulder to his elbow and oozed dark red blood.

  “Ugh,”
Wyatt groaned.

  “We’ll need to get that cleaned out,” Tanika said. Now that she seemed to be over her initial fear for Wyatt’s safety, Wyatt was impressed at how calm and collected she sounded. But his friend had always been good in a crisis. Wyatt just hoped that if he spent enough time preparing, he wouldn’t have to deal with a crisis at all.

  But this trip wasn’t exactly going according to plan.

  “I have a small first aid kit in the side pocket of my backpack,” Wyatt said. He leaned forward gingerly so that Tanika could access his backpack and winced at the stinging pain in his arm and ribs.

  Tanika sorted through the contents of the first aid kit. “It’s not much more than a few bandages, some cotton balls, a roll of gauze, a small pair of scissors, and some antibiotic ointment,” she said.

  “Better than nothing,” Wyatt said.

  Tanika poured the last of the water in her water bottle over the wound to wash away the dirt and debris. Wyatt gritted his teeth against the pain, but he was relieved to see once the cut was clean that it actually wasn’t as bad as he had first thought. It sure hurt a lot, and he would probably have a scar, but at least he wasn’t going to bleed out in the middle of the woods. Not yet, anyway.

  Tanika had him hold his arm up over his head until the worst of the bleeding stopped and then wrapped his injured arm in gauze.

  “You look like a mummy,” Tanika said with a snicker. “Or at least your bandaged arm does. Do you think you can stand?” she asked, going from funny Tanika to calm-in-a-crisis Tanika like flipping a switch. “We should try to get back up to the main trail. I’ll grab your bike from the bushes on the way and we can see what kind of shape it’s in.”

  Wyatt clipped his helmet to his backpack and then looked up the steep incline he had tumbled down. Just the thought of climbing back up it made him groan, but he knew they couldn’t just stay at the bottom of the hill.

  Making it back up to the trail was difficult without the full use of one of his arms. He didn’t seem to have twisted or broken anything, but the cut stung and sent sharp jabs of pain shooting up his arm if he moved it too suddenly or tried to use it to pull himself up the incline. With Tanika’s help, Wyatt managed to scramble back up to the trail, grabbing exposed tree roots and jutting rocks to keep his balance at such a steep angle.