“Ready?”
She nodded and watched as he stepped into his bindings. Then he reached out and took her hand.
She held on as they slid down, her heart a fist in her chest. Overhead, the blue sky arched over the mountains.
“Remember, stay balanced, flex your knees, and keep your eyes on me.”
She nodded.
He considered her one last moment, then squeezed her hand and jerked his board forward.
In a second, he’d cleared the cliff, arms out. She heard a shout, something like a whoop, and couldn’t help but move forward a little to peer over the edge.
“Are you okay?” she shouted.
“I’m down and it’s perfect.”
She couldn’t see him from here.
“C’mon, Ella, let yourself fly!”
Right, yes.
She slid down the mountain, her breath caught, and—
Just before the edge, she tried to pull up. Wait, no!
But despite the fact that she’d cut hard, her momentum kept going.
She flew off the cliff. Soaring, her arms windmilling.
Look for Gage.
She saw him below, waving and hollering, and somehow she found her feet below her. She landed in a poof of snow, bounced, and found herself up on her board, fighting for balance.
Headed straight for Gage.
“Whoa, slow down—”
She edged hard to cut out of it, and he leaped out of the way a second before she would have taken him out.
The momentum tossed her into the snow.
Gage landed beside her, on his back.
And then, he was laughing. His voice low and sweet as the sound bubbled out of him. “Oh, El,” he said, sitting up on his elbows. “I wouldn’t exactly say that you stomped that landing, but—well, I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
He looked over at her. “All right, now we just have the Great White Throne—”
A shot reverberated in the air, and Ella looked up, trying to locate the sound. Gage sat up.
The entire cornice cap above Weeping Wall, right where she’d cut hard above the cliff trying to stop herself, was cracking.
“Get up!”
Gage nearly vaulted to his feet, reached over, and somehow grabbed her by the waist. “The wall is coming down!” His hand was on her back, pushing.
“What?”
“It’s a slide—get moving!”
The wall gave way and dropped.
Get off the mountain. Get off the mountain.
The words thundered in Gage’s head as he pushed Ella in front of him. “Sideways—we need to ski out of the track of the slide!”
He didn’t look back—the roar of the snow crashing toward him had his heart slamming against his ribs.
Ella cut downhill, and he raced after her, grabbing her arm.
“This way!” He angled right, because to go left would be to cross in front of the slide.
But right led them over the ravine. A ten-foot fissure in the snow cut by frozen river and razor-edged granite walls.
However, they could sail right over it if they worked up enough speed.
“Faster! Stay on your edge but keep your weight centered—don’t carve!”
He probably didn’t need to tell her that—Ella possessed enough board skills to teach fast-gliding. Instinct, really, kept him shouting.
That and the sheer panic of knowing what it felt like to get caught in a slide. The pressure of the snow as it crushed your ribs, wrenched your shoulder out of socket. The suffocating cold—
“Don’t slow down!”
He hazarded a glance uphill. The slide careened down, gathering momentum, taking out spindly, high-altitude pines, tumbling over rocks. And while they’d slid mostly out of the zone—
“No! Gage, are you serious?”
She’d spotted the gully.
“Take it fast—we’ll launch off—it’s a sweet landing on the other side, I promise.” Although, in reality, he’d never taken it, only studied this route. Instead he’d opted for the nearly straight drop of the Great White Throne, a series of cliff drops, each about three to five feet down a face of nearly a hundred feet.
“Gage!”
Just in time and with the lead snowballs overtaking them, the edge of the ravine came up at them.
“It’s all about the speed, Ella. Spring off the top, get lots of boost. Let’s hit this!” He hunkered down, hit the lip, and sprang off, riding the air.
Next to him, out of his peripheral vision, he saw Ella mimic him.
He didn’t know if he’d call what emerged from her mouth a scream, but it definitely lit something inside him. Adrenaline, a little goofy fear, and a whole lot of pure crazy panic that bubbled out in unexpected terror-filled fun. He landed, cut hard to slow his speed, and saw her stomp her landing just a little behind him.
He glanced behind, further back.
The slide had turned, slowed at the ravine, but it had enough momentum to make the leap.