Chapter 1 - The Edge“Dad… I’m scared.”
Ethan’s voice barely survived the wind.
At ten years old, he looked impossibly small against the Colorado sky, a child swallowed by a harness, straps, and a parachute pack that felt twice as heavy as it had when Grant had tightened it around him fifteen minutes earlier.
Below them, the mountain simply disappeared.
Ethan stared over the cliff.
His stomach dropped before his body did.
He stepped back.
“I’ve never jumped before.”
Grant stood behind him.
For most of the morning, Ethan’s father had been smiling.
Not his real smile.
Ethan knew the difference.
Grant’s real smile showed in his eyes. It appeared when his football team won or when a client signed a big contract.
This smile stayed only around his mouth.
“Relax,” Grant said. “You can do this.”
Ethan looked back at him.
“Can we go home?”
“We drove three hours to get here.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
Grant placed one hand on Ethan’s shoulder.
Ethan flinched.
Grant noticed.
Something changed in his face.
Only for a second.
Then the friendly expression returned.
“Your mom will be proud of you,” Grant said. “Your grandparents too. Everybody keeps treating you like you’re fragile. Today you prove them wrong.”
Ethan wiped his cheek with the back of his glove.
His mother, Sarah, had never called him fragile.
She had called him careful.
There was a difference.
His grandfather Robert always said fear was the body’s way of asking the brain to pay attention.
Ethan wished Robert were standing there now.
“I don’t want them to be proud.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“I want to go home.”
The wind snapped against Ethan’s clothes.
He backed farther from the cliff.
“No. I can’t do it.”
Grant stared at him.
The pretending stopped.
His jaw hardened.
“Ethan.”
“No.”
“Get back to the edge.”
“No!”
Ethan turned as if he might walk toward the trail.
Grant stepped into his path.
For the first time that morning, Ethan understood something that had been waiting silently inside his fear.
His father was not disappointed.
He was angry.
Not because Ethan was refusing.
Because something was going wrong.
Something Grant had expected to happen wasn’t happening.
Grant pointed toward the cliff.
“If you won’t jump…”
His voice became quiet.
“…I’ll push you.”
Ethan froze.
For half a second, he thought it was another one of Grant’s terrible jokes.
Then he saw his father’s eyes.
“Dad…”
Grant moved closer.
“Turn around.”
“Dad, don’t.”
“Turn around.”
Ethan shook his head violently.
“I’ll do it another day. I promise. Mom can come. Grandpa can—”
“Your mother has nothing to do with this.”
Grant grabbed his shoulders.
Ethan screamed.
“Dad!”
Grant spun him toward the drop.
Ethan planted his boots against the rock.
“Please!”
The word came out broken.
Grant leaned close enough that Ethan could feel his breath beside his ear.
“You were supposed to make this easy.”
Ethan stopped fighting for one terrible second.
Supposed to?
Before he could understand the words, both of Grant’s hands struck his upper back.
The world tilted.
Ethan’s boots slipped over loose stone.
“DAD!”
Then there was nothing beneath him.
The cliff vanished above.
The mountain rushed past.
Sky.
Stone.
Sky again.
Ethan screamed until the wind stole the sound from his mouth.
He remembered one thing from the hurried lesson Grant had given him.
A handle.
Pull.
He reached blindly.
His fingers missed.
The ground below seemed enormous.
Closer.
He tried again.
Something tore loose behind him.
A violent jerk twisted his body sideways.
Fabric cracked above him.
For one wild instant hope flooded through him.
Then Ethan looked up.
The canopy had not opened correctly.
It bucked and folded in the wind.
He was still falling.
“Mom!”
The mountain spun.
Branches appeared below.
Ethan threw his arms over his face.
There was a deafening crash of needles and wood.
Then pain.
Then silence.
Far above, Grant walked slowly to the cliff edge.
He looked down.
He did not shout Ethan’s name.
He did not reach for his phone.
He did not run toward the emergency trail.
He simply watched the empty air beneath him.
The wind moved through his hair.
Then the corner of Grant’s mouth lifted.
He smiled.
For eighteen minutes, he did absolutely nothing.
May you like
And four hundred feet below him, hidden inside a shattered pine on a narrow shelf of rock, Ethan opened his eyes.
Something on his wrist was blinking red.
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