CHAPTER 9

The sun crept over a small tree behind their camp at 5:45 a.m. and splashed its light on Corin’s face, reminding him where he was. Seven thousand nine hundred and forty-one feet above sea level. But not for long. He stretched and breathed out a hard yawn. Too early for most Saturday mornings, but this wasn’t most Saturdays.

He was already awake—thinking about the jump—and the sunlight peppering his eyelids convinced him to get up. A hint of blue spruce filled his nostrils and the deep cold of the morning almost felt like splashing water on his face.

He glanced at the others. Still sleeping but he’d need to wake them as soon as he made coffee. Instant java yes, but it was still coffee. The forecast said no wind, but he didn’t want to take chances. This would be the lowest jump he’d done in two years, and he didn’t want any uninvited breezes to crash the party.

The lower the jump, the higher the adrenaline factor. He smiled and rubbed his hands together.

By the time the water boiled like a minicauldron, Tori had crawled out of her sleeping bag and sat on a boulder next to the Soto OD-1R Micro cooking stove.

“Morning,” Corin said.

“Barely.” Tori frowned at him. “Ugh.”

“I love you too.”

“Remind me.” Tori pulled off her stocking cap and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “Why did we hike for three hours yesterday to get up here?”

“Are you kidding? Look at this view.” Corin motioned to the stunning display of the Rockies in the distance. “Plus no one has ever BASE jumped from this spot.”

“I’m feeling better already.” Tori extended her coffee cup and Corin filled it halfway.

“No, I paid for a full cup. I need it to the brim.”

He laughed and complied.

“This coffee looks thin.” She stared into her cup.

“Jittery and jumping only should get close to each other in the dictionary.”

“Coffee doesn’t make me jittery. Jumping does.” She took a sip and grimaced. “Should I get the others up?”

Corin rubbed his head and squinted at her through the sun filling their small campsite. “The other night, when we were talking about that chair I got the other day, you said your parents would say it was made by Jesus.”

“So?”

“Do you think it’s possible?”

“That He made the chair the lady brought you?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know; why does it matter?”

“I took a good look at the thing yesterday. She was right. Whoever made it had considerable skill. It’s a fascinating piece. The quality is a little mind-blowing.”

Tori stood, drained the last of her coffee, and dropped her cup at Corin’s feet. “You’re making my head hurt. Too early for comic-book talk, okay?”

“Agreed.” Corin laughed and picked up her cup. “But not too early for jumping off a cliff. Let’s get the others up.”

Twenty minutes later Corin, Tori, and six others stood in a circle, arms and hands locked onto each other’s shoulders.

Corin glanced around at their bright eyes staring back at him. “Ready?”

In unison they chanted, “Some people snort for it, some people eat mushrooms for it, some people mainline java. All we gotta do to get that wonderful wired feeling is jump, baby, jump!”

The group broke up to put on their parachutes, and the only sound for the next five minutes was the cinching of harnesses and the deep breathing of people scared enough to feel like they had to pee, even if they’d gone two minutes earlier.

“All good?” Corin asked.

After hearing agreement from the other seven, he led them to the edge of the cliff, then put his arm around Tori. “You want to go first?”

“Be my guest.” Tori motioned to the edge and Corin laughed.

Tori looked over the drop-off. “This never fails to get my heart beating five hundred times faster than it should be.”

“Heart rate up without exerting yourself. It’s the noncardio, cardio workout,” offered another of the jumpers.

Corin looked over the edge and his heart pounded like an Olympic sprinter after running the hundred meters. No matter how many times he’d flung himself over the edge of a cliff, his hands still went damp the moment he looked down.

And every time an image of himself lying broken on the rocks below seared itself into his mind. And every time he pushed the image from his head and refused to give in to its morbid portent.

It was all part of the game. A game he had to play.

A game he had to win.

The canyon floor was only 465 feet below the cliff, which meant they needed to release their chutes almost immediately after jumping.

Which meant they had to leap out at least twenty feet away from the cliff to avoid having their chutes catch on anything sticking out from the cliff wall. Branches, rock outcroppings, everything.

Which meant there was no room for even tracing paper-thin errors.

It heightened the terror factor considerably more than most of them were comfortable with.

But it also shoved their brains into the higher reaches of the thrill-zone.

Krystal’s eyes ping-ponged back and forth between all three of them. “This is good? We’re going to be all right? We’re going to survive?”

“No doubt. It’s just like taking a stroll through Riverside Park,” Peter said.

“Twenty feet out,” Corin said. “That’s our target distance. Which means you sprint as hard as you can toward the cliff’s edge and push off with your foot like a trampoline when you jump and you’ve got two seconds max before releasing your chute. There shouldn’t be any wind in the canyon, but if there is, it will be updrafts that will help us, not hinder.”

Corin looked around at his friends. Rush time. “Anyone want to say a prayer?” Wow, this chair business was frying his brain.

They all laughed except for Krystal. “I think that’s a pretty good idea.”

Corin looked at her. “Are you serious?”

“You weren’t?”

“Not really.”

“I’m scared.” Krystal hugged herself. “This is the craziest thing we’ve ever done. Jumping from this low is . . . crazy.”

“We’re just upping the rush a little.” Corin smiled. “Nothing to be scared of.”

“Just death.”

“I’m not scared of dying.” He looked toward the edge. “Not at all.” He ignored the increase in his heart rate that seemed to beat inside his head instead of his chest. “The only thing I’m scared of is not living while I’m still alive.”

The instant Corin said he wasn’t scared of dying, a shadow seemed to drown out the sun and his mind felt like it was wrapped in lead pulling his head to the ground. Where was this coming from? He wasn’t scared of dying. It’s what allowed him to dance on the razor’s edge without slicing his feet open. It’s what freed him each time he jumped or rode or luged or glided or took part in any of his insane adventures.

He shook his head and swallowed. Time to roll before his mind told him another lie. “Let’s do it.”

Corin strode back twenty steps, spun on his heel, and without hesitating sprinted toward the edge of the canyon, every step pumping another nitro-shot of adrenaline into his veins. Launch codes were locked and loaded. Ten feet. Three. None.

Go!

An instant later he was airborne, wind racing past him like a hurricane, the river and the shore below rushing up to meet him like a giant silver snake ready to strike.

One thousand one.

On thousand two.

He should pull.

No, half a second longer.

Pull! His mind screamed.

A little longer.

What are you doing!

Corin stared at the ground streaking toward him at warp speed, a surge of panic ripping through his body and he released his chute. Too close. He’d waited too long. Why wasn’t his chute opening?

C’mon!

A second later his chute opened with a familiar thwap, sounding like a muffled shotgun blast arresting his free fall.

Twenty feet till impact. He would hit the ground hard. Fifteen. He gritted his teeth and pulled hard on his side cords to give himself as much lift as possible.

“Uhhh!”

He landed hard in a tiny grass clearing fifty yards from the edge of the river and rolled to lessen the impact.

It didn’t help much.

That hurt.

He rolled to his left like a slug and stared at a row of rocks three feet to his left. That would have hurt even more. A lot more.

He stood, stepped out of his chute, and squinted up at the others floating down.

“Whooooohooooooo!” Tori’s scream echoed off the canyon walls. Then Krystal’s, then the rest of them.

Corin grinned. Another good time enjoyed by the crazies he called friends.

TORI’S FOLDED ARMS and scowl complemented her silence nicely, but after half an hour of it Corin was through. “I’m tired of getting a blast of freezing air from your left shoulder. Do you mind turning up the heat?”

“Very clever.”

“Are you going to tell me what you’re ticked off about?”

Tori pulled her feet off the dashboard of Corin’s truck and turned in her seat, keeping her arms locked to her chest. “I know we’ve only been dating for three months, but I’ve grown to like you a lot in that time.”

“Me too. What’s your point?”

“You almost killed yourself today.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Do you want me to call the other six witnesses to the stand who let out a collective gasp as they watched you this morning?”

“They actually gasped?” Corin grinned. “Cool.”

“It’s not funny, Corin.”

“I think you’re overreacting.” He flicked on his headlights for safety and pulled on his right ear. “I was fine.”

“What is it with you?” Tori turned back and stared out the passenger window. “You want to kill yourself? Do you have some death wish you haven’t told me about?”

“No.”

“Then what were you doing out there?”

What could he tell her? There was always the truth. Might as well.

“I honestly don’t know.” He gripped the steering wheel hard.

But I need to find out.