Chapter 4 Beat Me

I don’t mean to fall asleep.

One moment I’m rewriting the small-firm valuation formula for the fourth time.

Next thing I know, my alarm’s shrieking somewhere under a mountain of highlighted textbooks and I have zero memory of putting my head down.

I just lie there. The alarm keeps going. I let it.

The door flings open, no knock at all.

"Anna Vale." Nadia’s voice slices right through the sleepy haze. It’s that tone she’s used since we were little, and I refused to get up for school. "If you make me climb these stairs a second time, I will pour that alarm clock into your cereal."

"Five minutes."

"You said that four minutes ago." She’s already crossing the room, pulling the curtains wide open. The gray morning light smacks me in the face, cold and personal. "Up. Now. Whatever war you’re fighting with those books, you can fight it after you eat something."

I peel my face off a page about tax law and squint up at her. "How do you know I’m fighting a war?"

"Because you only study like this when you’re trying to prove someone wrong." She yanks my training kit off the hook and tosses it onto the bed. "Eat the granola bar on your desk. Braid your hair properly this time—not whatever nest you call a knot. And Anna—" she pauses by the door, her voice soft now, "—win, whatever this is. Then sleep."

She’s gone, and I’m left staring at the ceiling, heart pounding. She’s right. This is a war. I just haven’t told her who I’m fighting.

I braid my hair in the bathroom, faster than ever. Shove half a granola bar in my mouth on my way out. The air is cold when I hit the street, tires hissing against wet asphalt, my chest burning already.

The ridge is always empty this early. That’s the whole point.

Except it’s not empty.

Dylan’s already at the base of the climb, hunched over his handlebars like he’s been awake as long as I have. Judging by the steady, focused look on his face, he probably has.

He glances over when I pull up. He’s not surprised. Not smug, either, which almost makes it worse.

"Couldn’t sleep?" he says.

"Get off my route."

"Your father owns the road. Technically, it’s his route." He straightens and rolls a shoulder. "But if you want to make it personal, we can make it personal."

"Fine by me."

"Top of the ridge." He nods up at the climb, the long brutal switchback ending at the water tower. "First one there gets to say I told you so."

I don’t bother answering. I just clip in.

The first hundred meters are silent: just gears clicking, just breathing. Then the real climb hits.

"You’re pacing wrong," he says, barely out of breath. It makes me want to hurl my bike at him. "You’ll blow up before the switchback."

"Worry about your own legs."

"I am." Just that. "Yours are the ones about to fail."

I push harder, just to shut him up. Four seconds later, he matches my effort, so easily it’s like he was never working to begin with. My gears snap through the cassette, the only honest sound besides our lungs.

My hamstrings are screaming by the second switchback good screaming that burning past the smart zone into something dumb and stubborn.

Dylan rides right there, shoulder to shoulder, not giving an inch. Patient, infuriating, completely unfazed.

"You studied all night," he says. Not a question.

"How would you know?"

"Because you’re riding like someone trying to outrun a guilty conscience." He glances over. I catch something almost like respect in his eyes, quick and gone. "Good. Keep doing that."

"Don’t tell me what to do."

"Then stop proving me right."

The switchback comes up fast, sharp enough to be dangerous if you don’t handle it. I see my opening and take it, cutting hard inside and forcing him to either hit the brakes or crash.

He doesn’t let up.

He holds the line beside me, tire to tire, close enough that I can hear our wheels buzz together. For one split second, the guardrail is right there, and I could taste rust in the air.

His rear tire jumps a little on some loose gravel, just a flicker, but I hear his breath catch and something sharp in my chest catches, too. There. He’s not made of stone.

"Move," I snap.

"You move." His voice is rougher. Good.

Neither of us moves.

The corner tightens. My own back tire loses grip for a second, sliding out. And for just a flash, I’m not thinking about sponsors or midterms—I’m thinking about my dad at the kitchen table, the words you are my heir and the board won’t sign off, and how none of that matters if I end up in a ditch. Instinct wins out over stubbornness. I ease off just a hair, fall behind him through the apex.

He doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t need to. We both know what almost happened, and we both know who let up first. But I caught that tremor in his breath. Before this war is over, I’ll make him feel it again.

At the top, my legs are jelly, my lungs on fire. Dylan’s still half a wheel ahead.

He rolls across the line first not by much, but enough.

I drag in behind him, chest heaving, thinking about my dad pacing in the living room, about my name still on the boardroom chair, and I hate how much it costs me to watch Dylan Cross beat me, just one more time.

He’s already unclipped, leaning over his handlebars, wiping sweat off his face like he’s fine. But I hear it the slight edge to his breathing.

"Class starts at five," he says, not even glancing over. "Try not to fail your pop quiz today."

I don’t have breath to answer.

And from his face, I can tell he already expected that.