Dawn Laps at the Brickworks Track

Tessa Rourke, 17, chalks the lanes of a cracked cinder track behind Dunmore's shuttered brickworks for nine dollars an hour. She also runs the 800 for the Kilnmen, a seven-athlete club that trains in borrowed spikes. Her rival is Marcus Bell, 18, the Hallam star who has humiliated her on the river-town circuit for years. On a foggy morning, Tessa sprints onto the bridge road during a training run, and Marcus swerves his scooter to miss her. He wakes with a spinal cord injury. Hallam quietly drops him from its roster. Tessa never tells anyone she was on that bridge. Then the clock starts. In 28 days, the parks board votes to pave the Kilnmen's track into a truck lot unless the club posts a state-qualifying time at the Ridgeline Invitational. That meet is also Marcus's only chance this year to be classified for wheelchair racing. He arrives at Tessa's track in a loaner racing chair and demands that she train beside him. He wants a rival, not a nurse. Her uncle Gil, who coaches the club, is secretly backing the sale. Marcus's mother wants him safe at home. And Marcus has the bridge-camera footage on his phone.