Free Hell's Belles by Megan Sparks Page A

on it with all of her weight. A bolt of pain shot from her ankle like lightning.
    Wincing, Annie tried to stand up, but her ankle wasn’t having it.
    With a groan, she crumpled back onto the track.

The rest of the girls stopped skating and Coach Ritter hurried over. “Give me your foot,” she said gently. “Easy, easy . . .” Gingerly, she removed Annie’s skate.
    â€œOuch!” Annie yelped, wincing.
    â€œSorry, kiddo.” Coach Ritter, who was also a registered nurse, lightly pressed her fingertips to Annie’s ankle. “Can you move it?”
    Annie attempted to wiggle her left ankle, but pain exploded all the way up her leg. She could see that her skin was already discoloring to an awful purple color, and her ankle was beginning to swell.
    â€œIs it broken?” Annie asked, her heart sinking.
    â€œI don’t think so,” said Coach. “It looks more like a very bad sprain. But just to be on the safe side, I think you should have it X-rayed.”
    Annie felt a twinge of panic. “At the hospital?”
    Coach smiled. “No, at the yogurt shop. Free soft serve with every CT scan!”
    In spite of her pain and embarrassment, Annie laughed.
    â€œThattagirl,” said Coach. “I’m sure it’s gonna be fine, but better safe than sorry, right?” She began unlacing Annie’s right skate, then turned to the side of the track where Jesse was standing and called over to him. “Jesse, will you call an ambulance, please? And Annie’s dad?”
    Looking concerned, Jesse nodded and whipped out his phone. Then Liz and Lauren skated over to help Annie hobble off the track.
    On her way, she made eye contact with Dee Stroyer.
    Dee didn’t even look sorry for goading her, which was the whole reason Annie had been so careless in the first place.
    Still, it was Annie’s own fault for letting anger cloud her judgment. She was the one who’d been skating like a reckless maniac.
    As her teammates helped her to a bench, Annie’s ankle continued to pound. It felt like it had swollen to ten times its normal size, and it burned as though it were on fire.
    And the worst part was that Annie had no one to blame but herself.
    Correction: the worst part was that she wasn’t going to be able to skate on it for days. Maybe even weeks. Even before the ambulance arrived, that much was obvious.
    Carmen had run to the first-aid kit for a cold pack, and Sharmila had taken off her sweatshirt and bunched it up like a pillow so that Annie could lie back on the hard wooden bench.
    â€œI sprained my wrist last year,” said Holly. “It’s pretty miserable at first but it’ll calm down in a couple of hours. You’ve just gotta tough it out.”
    A moment later, the paramedics arrived and bundled Annie onto a stretcher.
    The girls — Belles and Rollers alike — all wished her good luck. Dee Stroyer was the only one who said nothing.
    The paramedics carefully transported her to the ambulance. Lauren climbed in after Annie to hold her hand on the way to the hospital. Just before the doors closed, Jesse ran up.
    Annie smiled weakly. “I crashed and burned, Jesse.”
    â€œHey, there’s a Savage Garden song called ‘Crash and Burn.’”
    Annie laughed.
    â€œGlad to see the pain hasn’t affected your sense of humor,” said Jesse with a smile.
    â€œDid you get ahold of my dad?”
    â€œYeah. He’ll meet you at the ER.” He met her eyes and held them. “Take it easy, okay, Annie?” he said softly. “You’re gonna be fine.”
    Annie nodded. Then the doors closed and the siren blared and she was off.
    The ER wasn’t very busy on a weekday afternoon. In the waiting room, Annie and Lauren struck up a conversation with a woman who’d suffered a deep cut in her thumb while slicing onions for a salad. The only other patient was a construction worker who’d fallen off