Lion (20 page)

I woke late
the next morning in Hok’s guest bedroom with my mother’s head hovering over mine. Hok stood beside her. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was past noon.

My mom kissed me on the cheek. “Good morning, sunshine. How are you?”

I felt my face begin to flush with embarrassment. Fortunately, Phoenix, Hú Dié, and Jake weren’t there to hear her. I saw that Hú Dié had made her bed, and the guys had neatly rolled up the mats they’d slept on.

“I’m exhausted,” I said, “and please don’t call me that.”

“Sorry, dear,” she said, patting me on the head like a puppy.

I grimaced.

Hok smiled. “Your mother cares deeply for you, Ryan. You are a lucky young man.”

“I know,” I said, sitting up. “Thanks for coming to help us train, Mom.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said. “Hok told me about your adventures yesterday when she picked me up at the airport. I am very upset about Peter, and it took Hok a solid hour to calm me down. But as she convinced me, it is beyond our control. We must focus on the things that are within our grasp, like winning that race.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m really upset about Peter, too, and it’s not like we’re going to win. I checked the roster last night. More teams were invited to ride. Some of the guys are category
two
racers.”

“You certainly aren’t going to win with an attitude like that!” my mother snapped. “Don’t let thoughts about Peter distract you from your goal. You can think about him after the race. I bet he wants you to win even more than you.”

“But we’re not even category five racers and—”

“The reason you’re not cat five is that you’ve never participated in a sanctioned road race,” my mother said. “Categories and rankings mean nothing in this event. It isn’t even sanctioned. It’s a publicity stunt. However, it’s shaping up to be an important publicity stunt. There are already rumors of it becoming a full-blown event next year. Doing well next week could set the stage for big things to happen to the top finishers. Your father and Peter were in a position like this once, you know.”

“They were?”

“Yes. The race in which Peter wrecked was for all the marbles, so to speak.”

I frowned. “Oh.”

“Why the sad face? What happened happened. Good things did come out of that.”

“Like what?”

“You, for one.”

“Huh?”

“After Peter crashed, your father hung up his helmet. He decided to stop racing and focus on having a family. If he’d have continued riding, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh,” I said. “But Peter—”

“Peter accepts the hand life dealt him. You should, too.”

“Your mother is right,” Hok said.

“I guess,” I said. “I’m still worried about him, though.”

“Me too,” my mother said, “but we’ll see him soon enough.”

“Are we going to stay at his house?”

“Yes. The others tell me there is a hidden house key?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect. I’ve reserved a rental van with a bike rack. We’ll be leaving as soon as you and the others finish lunch. They’re in the kitchen right now. You should join them.”

“I will. What about Peter’s van?”

“It’s best to leave it where it is parked. Eventually, the police will tow it away. Peter can collect it next week. I’ll help him pay the fine if he wishes. If that DuSow character doesn’t keep his word, the abandoned vehicle will be important evidence in a police investigation.”

I sighed. “Maybe we should just go to the police now.”

“I don’t think so,” my mother said. “I’ve been on the phone with Phoenix’s grandfather, and he is convinced that we should let things play out ‘like the old days,’ as he said. He’s been around a very long time, and he seems to know a lot about criminals. He thinks going to the police is a
particularly bad idea because DuSow likely has informants within the force. I trust his judgment.”

“Phoenix’s grandfather is indeed intelligent,” Hok said, “and he is correct about informants.”

“If you say so,” I said. “Did you hear anything more about Lin Tan?”

“I called DaXing earlier this morning,” Hok replied. “I ended up speaking directly with Lin Tan. He is doing well, and his wounds have stopped their accelerated healing.”

“The antidote?” I said. “It worked? Does he know what you did?”

“It is very possible that it worked. His reaction last night led me to believe so. I convinced him this morning that he needs to stop taking dragon bone in order to heal properly. He hinted that he no longer wanted to consume it, anyway. I told him that he might be done with the substance for good—that he had ‘bled it out’ of his system. He seemed pleased with that. I do not think he will be taking it anymore.”

I glanced down at my
dan tien
.

“Don’t even think about it,” my mother said. “Hok told me all about the antidote and the poison in it. Who knows what kind of complications might arise from the substance. You aren’t going to be taking it anytime soon.”

“But Lin Tan is fine,” I said.

“We don’t know that,” Hok said. “You should at least wait awhile and see what happens to him before considering the antidote.”

“How much more do you have?” I asked.

“Enough for five doses, so put it out of your mind. We
will return to Uncle Tí’s schedule for weaning you from the substance. If the large dose you were given yesterday has thrown things off, we will adjust accordingly. Your mother and I have already discussed it.”

I looked at my mother.

She nodded.

“All right,” I said.

“Good!” my mom said. “Let’s get moving, sunshine. I’m anxious to see you guys ride.” She winked.

I rolled my eyes and got out of bed.

I joined the others in the kitchen and ate lunch while my mom picked up the van. Then we loaded the bikes and hit the road. Instead of going directly to Peter’s, my mom drove us to the race location, which wasn’t too far from Chinatown. The short, mile-long race route was posted online, and my mom had printed out a copy. We followed the route loop three times before we were satisfied. The race organizers seemed to have gone out of their way to select as many hills as possible. A section of the hill we’d ridden last night was even included. It was going to be tough.

The route passed within blocks of DuSow’s warehouse, and though we couldn’t see the warehouse from the route, we could see his docks from one of the taller hills. There was no sign of
The Strong Hold
.

Finally, we headed south. As we rolled into Peter’s driveway, Ms. Bettis was out walking her dog, and she waved to us. I’d nearly forgotten about her and my crashing Peter’s handcycle. It seemed like months ago, but it had been less than two weeks. Crazy.

I retrieved Peter’s spare key from its hiding place, and
we put the bikes in the garage. This included the bike Jake had “borrowed” from DuSow. For some reason, DuSow hadn’t taken it back when he and his goons left Hok’s, so we brought it with us. My mom asked Jake if he wanted her to buy him a new one, but he said, “No way!” He thought the bike would give him good mojo when racing against DuSow’s team. I hoped he was right.

My mom
had
purchased, however, handlebar-mounted bike lights for us. She got them back in Indiana, and she brought them with her on the flight. She also brought small gear bags to hang beneath our bike seats so that we could carry a cell phone and identification in case we ever got into a wreck. We unloaded these things, as well, and headed into the house.

The first thing we did once we were inside was rock-paper-scissors to take showers. I got to go first. It took me ten minutes to wash all the San Francisco road funk out of my hair. Vented helmets were great for airflow, but lousy for keeping bits of asphalt, dirt, and flying insects out of your scalp. The hot shower felt awesome.

After I’d finished, I sat down with my mom and my computer tablet to try to find places for us to train at night.

“We need a well-lit subdivision for the first few nights,” my mom said, “then progressively darker ones to mimic the race route conditions you’ll experience.”

I used Internet map software to identify possible nearby locations, and then daytime satellite images to help determine which subdivisions had streetlights and which didn’t. However, as I’d seen last night in San Francisco, just because
a street had lights didn’t mean they worked, so we’d have to do a little reconnaissance.

Which is exactly what we did.

After everyone was cleaned up, we grabbed some food at a local restaurant and headed out. We drove for hours first in daylight, then darkness. We found a few suitable subdivisions, a couple of which had hills. None of us were looking forward to riding those hills, but we knew we had to in order to simulate the race conditions.

We discussed race strategy as we drove, and my mom explained the importance of our working together.

“Criteriums are solo races,” she said, “but a rider can increase his or her odds of winning dramatically by working with others.”

“Yeah,” I said, “Peter told us that. But is it legal?”

“It’s frowned upon by certain crit riders, but it isn’t against the rules. The primary advantage to forming your own pack is protection. Criteriums are quite physical. Riders jostle for position the entire time, with elbows and knees flying freely. Pack members can protect themselves better by forming walls or wedges to keep the other riders away, depending on the situation.”

“What about equipment?” Hú Dié asked. “I modified my bike before I raced in a criterium, and it helped a lot.”

“You won’t be able to do that,” my mom said. “Serious crit racers use custom bikes with a shorter wheelbase to help them steer quicker and control the bike better overall. They’re more cramped and uncomfortable to ride than a regular road bike, but the race is only an hour, so the discomfort is worth it. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time
to find someone to chop up your bikes and put them back together in time for the race.”

“I can do it,” Hú Dié said.

My mom shook her head. “I know you build bicycles and Peter has a shop right here, but besides cutting sections out of the frames and welding them back together, you’d have to make other modifications. It’s complicated.”

“It’s not that bad,” Hú Dié said. “I’d just have to cut down everyone’s cranks so that our toes wouldn’t bump the front tires on sharp turns. I’ve done it a bunch of times for cyclocross racers. It worked great. Let me give it a try. I’ll do my bike first and show you.”

“She’s very good,” Phoenix said. “Fast, too. If she says she can do it, she means it.”

“I give in,” my mom said. “I’ll let you modify yours, Hú Dié, and we’ll see how long it takes you and how well it performs.”

We got back to Peter’s, and Hú Dié went straight to the garage while the rest of us went to bed. I wasn’t at all surprised when I woke the next morning to find that Hú Dié had been up all night, modifying her bike. It worked perfectly, and my mom was blown away. She gave Hú Dié the green light to do the same thing to ours. Hú Dié went to sleep, asking to be woken up a few hours before we’d have to go train in the dark.

We fell into a routine from that point on, following Hú Dié’s lead of sleeping most of the day and staying up most of the night. My mom thought it would help us have more energy for the nighttime race, and she was right.

When race day came, we felt great. We’d trained as hard as we could, and since my mom’s experience with bicycles came from my dad and Peter, her coaching drills were very similar to Peter’s. We’d polished the skills we’d already been working on, only this time in the dark, and we continued to gel as a team, learning how far each of us could push before burning out. Jake blew us all away with the progress he’d made, and I didn’t have any significant dragon bone issues after going back to the schedule Uncle Tí had made for me. We were ready to race.

Or so I thought. I began to have second thoughts once we arrived at the starting line.

Our opponents were animals. I’d never felt intimidated when racing before, even when I’d trained with members of my uncle’s cyclocross team. However, these guys were different, like my mom said they would be. They were all intensely focused, and many were jacked up to the size of NFL running backs. Their bodies had been forged for power and speed as opposed to endurance like most riders.

Hú Dié walked around with a big, goofy grin on her face, batting her eyes at just about every guy who passed. Jake and Phoenix, however, looked as worried as I was.

Worst of all, it was raining. Leave it to my luck for sunny California to be hit with showers the night of the big race. Hok had told me it rained in San Francisco more than southern California, but I hadn’t paid it any mind.

I thought about her and frowned. She’d called earlier
to tell us that she wouldn’t be attending the race. She said that she would only be a distraction for us, especially since DuSow was bound to be here. She didn’t want to risk a confrontation.

The race was going to be broadcast live over an Internet feed, and Hok said that she was going to watch us that way. She was also going to record it so that, according to her, we could relive our victory again and again. Looking around me, I was pretty certain I’d never want to see that recording. We were going to get creamed.