Chapter 2
The edge was two steps away. Dustin took one.
Below him, the valley stretched out like an open hand. Two thousand feet of nothing between him and the ground. Most people looked at a drop like that and felt fear.
Dustin didn’t feel fear.
Ironically, he felt grounded.
Standing at the edge of the platform, he ran his gear check one more time. Harness: secure. Chute: packed and verified. Helmet: on and strapped. GoPro: blinking. Altimeter: set.
“Sixty seconds!” someone called from behind him.
He didn't turn. He knew the production crew was back there. Cameras, lighting rigs, a dozen people in headsets running around with clipboards. Apex Energy was filming this jump for their summer campaign, which meant everything had to be perfect. The angles, the timing, the branding.
God, the branding.
Dustin caught a glimpse of it in his peripheral vision: a massive inflatable duck, twenty feet tall, swaying slightly in the wind.
It was wearing sunglasses and a backwards cap, because of course it was.
Who didn’t love a giant duck with sunglasses and a stupid cap giving the audience a thumbs-up?
This was the official mascot of Apex Energy, present at every shoot like a cursed heirloom Dustin couldn't get rid of.
Tyler would have loved the stupid thing. That was the worst part. He would have gotten at least fifteen ironic selfies with it and made it his profile picture for a month.
“Thirty seconds!”
Dustin rolled his shoulders. Breathed in. Breathed out. He forgot about the duck.
This was his favorite part now.
The part he never got tired of. The last few seconds before the jump, when everything went quiet inside his head. No sponsorship obligations. No interviews. No emails from his father pretending he hadn't walked out on the family years and years ago.
No empty chair at the breakfast table.
Just the wind. The edge. The fall.
“Fifteen!”
He stepped closer. Toes at the edge now.
“Ten! Nine! Eight—”
Dustin jumped at seven.
He always did. The countdown was for the cameras. The jump was for him.
The world rushed up to meet him, and for three perfect seconds, he was exactly where he belonged.