Shattered: An Extreme Risk Novel (16 page)

“Come on!” Logan crows, wheeling toward the door with a huge smile on his face. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah, let’s go!” Luc echoes, as he shoves me toward the door. “Last one to the snowcat has to carry the gear to the top.”

Fuck. It’s like the whole world really is conspiring against me.

It’s a throbbing inside of me.

A clawing need.

An empty fucking hole that I never thought I’d fill again.

That I never wanted to fill.

Except I did. God, I did.

I’m standing at the top of Alto del Arpa looking down at virgin powder, a virgin fucking chute that’s never even heard the word piste. We’re way backcountry, in terrain loaded with cornices and ramps and my mouth is fucking watering, my whole body shaking with the need to drop in. The need to just fucking ride.

I knew it was going to be hard to do this, knew it wouldn’t be easy to stand up here and remember everything I’ve been fucking missing for seven long months.

But I didn’t think it’d be this fucking difficult, either. But it is. It’s torture.

Like fire skimming along my nerve endings.

Like razor blades skating through my veins.

Like coming unwound, my body shattering into a million pieces that can never be put back together.

That’s how badly I want it. And how badly it’s going to hurt when we leave here and I have to give it up all over again.

For a second, just a second, I think about not doing it. About not riding the chute. About
not boarding at all. I think about saying fuck it and just walking away.

It’d be easier.

Less painful.

More honest.

Except I look behind me and they’re all there. Logan and Tansy and Timmy, Z and Ophelia, Cam and Luc. They’re all watching me, waiting, and I know I don’t have a choice, know I never did.

“You want the camera?” Luc calls, but I shake my head. I’m usually the one who loves to record this stuff, to put it on the website for the fans. But I haven’t touched the website in seven months and this … this just feels too personal for anyone else to see.

I already feel way too vulnerable as it is, my emotions on display for Z and Luc and Cam to read so easily. The thought makes the ache inside me worse and I know it’s now or never.

Fuck it. It’s now.

I brace myself, push off, and slide right over the edge of the world.

Behind me, I hear the others calling my name, yelling encouragement. I block them out—not because I don’t appreciate the support, but because I can’t listen. Not now. Not to them. Not to anything, really, but the pounding of my heart and the blood rushing through my veins.

It’s a fast ride, the snow fresh and slick beneath my board. But that’s good, exactly as I want it. Because if the powder is taking all my concentration, then I can’t think of anything else. Can’t worry about anything else. Not about Logan or Tansy or a future I can’t even begin to picture.

I’m bombing the mountain, building up speed ’til I’m going wicked fast and end up hitting a cornice pretty early. I launch myself off the top of it, pull a cannonball, where I grab the front and back of the board at the same time and spin straight into what has to be a seventy-foot drop. It’s fucking sick, fucking amazing, and then I’m slamming into the snow hard, knees bent to absorb the impact, and that’s it.

Adrenaline rips through me, adrenaline and excitement and a fucking rightness I haven’t felt since December. This is what I’ve been missing like a phantom limb. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

I shove all the doubts, all the worries, all the fears, into the back of my mind and just ride. I just fucking ride.

The chute curves and I throw my body into it, shifting my shoulders and my hips and the board just enough to make the cut. There are no trees up here to worry about slamming into, but there are rocks. Huge fucking boulders that would end me in seconds if I hit them.

I torque around the first one, then slide between two into a narrow, rock-lined chute with sides so close I’m nearly scraping them with my shoulders. I hunch a little to give myself more
room, curving inward, then laugh when I realize the chute ends with a fucking ramp.

I bend my knees, get a little closer to the ground and then I’m right there.

Going off the edge.

Falling.

Flying.

It’s the best fucking feeling in the world.

I bust out a 1080 reverse double cab and then grab the back of my board and hold on for fucking life as I fall the rest of the way. Fifty feet, seventy-five, a hundred. A hundred and fifty. Where’s the ground? Where’s the fucking ground?

I crane my head, look over my shoulder and there it fucking is, right below me. I slam into the snow, hard, fling myself forward to keep the momentum going. I’m fucking free, fucking flying, and it’s never felt so fucking good.

There’s another turn up ahead followed by another narrow chute, then what I think is a pretty gentle slope. It’s a good place for me to stop, easy to get a snowmobile to, easy to get me back up to the top. But fuck that. It’s been so long and this feels way too good to stop and I know,
I know
, I’m riding this bitch all the way down the fucking mountain. I’ll worry about how I get back up later.

I slam out of the chute going faster than I should be. Eighty miles an hour heading toward eighty-five, ninety. Ninety-five. I should slow it down—I know I should—there’s just too much risk going this fast. But I don’t give a shit. Not right now. This is just way too fucking much fun.

I bend my knees a little, go into a partial tuck to reduce air drag so I can go faster.

Faster and faster and faster.

I whip through the valley, shoot off the edge of another wicked cornice and pull out a backside rodeo 1260 before slamming back into the mountain. I plow right over the gentle slope I should stop at, my momentum carrying me all the way through it and over the edge of a wicked natural ramp in seconds.

I do a double front flip—just for shits and giggles—brace for impact. I hit hard, with only a second to get my bearings before I’m going over another sick cornice, this one bigger than all the others put together.

I feel it as I go over, feel the snow shift weirdly under my board, and I know what’s going to happen even before it does.

Fuck. Shit. Goddamnit.

I don’t even bother pulling a trick this time, just aim for the fucking ground. When I hit, I’m tucked low for speed and push it, using every ounce of strength I’ve got to go faster than I ever have before.

I don’t look back—I don’t dare—but I hear it coming up behind me, a fucking freight
train tumbling off the mountain as the cornice crumbles straight into a fucking avalanche.

Goddamnit.

I swerve, try to get off the path, but it’s impossible. I’m more than halfway down the mountain at this point and it’s all wide open chute heading straight down. A fucking perfect roadmap for the avalanche. Shit.

Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do but fucking ride this bitch and hope I’m going as fast as I think I am.

I bring my arms in, tuck low to the ground, do everything I can to increase my speed. If I can get close to the bottom it’ll be okay. The slope’ll even off, slowing down the snow until I can get clear of it.

But the base of the mountain’s still quite a ways away, and there’s another cornice in my very imminent future, one that the avalanche is sure to trigger even if I don’t. Fuck.

I pull up a little, try to hit it just right, and then I’m going off. Seconds later—fuck, it’s getting close—I hear it break under the weight of the pouring snow, and then the freight train is right behind me, nipping at the fucking edge of my board.

I can see the base of the mountain now, the chute widening hugely into a valley lined with gigantic boulders arranged in a haphazard line. Thank God.

I aim for the rock farthest to the left, angling my board straight at it. The ground is rockier here, though, the snow looser, and it slows me down, trips me up. I pray my board can handle the rough terrain—if it can’t I’m dead and I know it—and I just throw myself into it.

The boulders are coming up fast and any other time I’d be stopping, pulling back, trying not to careen straight into them. But if I stop now, the avalanche fucking wins and I’m not doing that. I’m not fucking leaving Logan alone, not after everything that kid has fucking been through.

Not going to happen.

Thirty seconds before I hit the boulders, I pull out of the tuck. I keep my muscles loose, my knees bent, and just before I’m there—just before I become a fucking hood ornament to a rock the size of a Mack truck—I jump.

Thank God for Luc and his obsessive love of street style.

Thank God for all the hours he dragged me to practice jumping rails and Dumpsters with him.

Thank God seven months isn’t long enough for my body to forget fifteen years of training.

I clear the top of the boulder, scrape against it on the backside. But that doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s better, because it brings me down. I hit the snow left shoulder first, feel the jarring impact of it through my whole body before I start to roll.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I’m kicking out of my board even as I’m spinning ass over teakettle. The second I’m clear, I reach out, hands like claws, and try to dig into the snow. Try to stop. But I’m going too fast. Goddamnit.

The freight train is closer and I know this is it.

Like I don’t have enough problems, another row of boulders looms fifty feet ahead of me—huge, imposing, immovable. I’ve got the fucking avalanche behind me, nipping at my ass, and the boulders in front of me just waiting to pancake me. Neither is a particularly pleasant image, so I shove them both out of my mind and try not to panic.

Every survival video I’ve ever watched is running through my head at the same time, a bunch of white noise that makes no fucking sense to me at all. But instincts I didn’t even know I had kick in and I stop clawing at the snow and start trying to control my random tumbling. I aim between two of the biggest—and closest—rocks and pray I’m not so dizzy from the spinning that I’m seeing an opening that isn’t fucking there.

The rocks are getting closer and I know this is it, the last chance I’ve got. The fucking avalanche snow is too close—it’s right behind me—and there’s nowhere for me to go. Nothing left for me to try.

Somehow—I don’t know how—I manage to squeak between the two boulders. I throw my hands out, claw at one of them, feel my gloves rip against its rough surface. At the same time, I dig in with my feet, punching them straight down into the snow beneath me.

It works. Somehow it fucking works and I careen to a stop. The world is spinning around me, but I’ve got no fucking time for that. No fucking time to catch a breath or think or do anything but scramble to my knees and try to make it behind the boulder before all hell breaks loose.

Because the fucking avalanche is on me and I’m about to get buried.

Eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes.

The words are a fucking mantra in my head. That’s how long I’ve got. Eighteen fucking minutes to get myself out or for them to find me. Eighteen fucking minutes before my chances of survival go way the fuck down.

Goddamnit.

I duck behind the boulder, just as the fucking avalanche hits. It crashes over me, around me, filling my fucking senses with snow, snow, snow. It’s all I can see, all I can feel, all I can hear.

All I can breathe.

It goes on forever. Or at least it feels like it, as I huddle against the rock, clinging to the back of it like it’s my only shot at salvation. Maybe it is—it sure as fuck feels like that.

Seconds pass, minutes, as the freight train roars over me. I tell myself to close my eyes,
that I don’t want to see, but it’s a lie. Because even here, in the middle of what might very well kill me, this avalanche is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

Wild. Free. Unstoppable. An immovable force of nature that has my heart stuck in my throat and my stomach turned inside out.

The snow surrounds me, buries my legs, my waist, my chest as the avalanche roars past. Then somehow it’s gone, moving on, the sound fading just enough that I can think. And I’m still alive.

I’m buried up to the middle of my chest, but the boulder broke the impact of the snow, kept me from going under completely.

For long seconds, I can barely comprehend it. I can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but sit here and try to prove to myself that I really am alive.

When it sinks in, when it really hits me that somehow I managed to make it through, I throw my head back and I laugh. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

“Oh, fuck.” Z says it grimly and I don’t get it. At least not at first.

We’ve spent the last couple of minutes standing at the top of this mountain, looking down at Ash as he tears up the snow in his bright yellow and blue snowboarding gear. He was doing really good, too, and I was enjoying watching him, despite all the crap between us, right up until he went around a curve in the mountain about ninety seconds ago and disappeared.

I thought that was normal—that he was just following the terrain—but judging from the anxious way Z, Luc, and Cam just started peering over the edge of the cliff, something’s gone wrong. Even Logan looks freaked out, wheeling his chair way too close to the edge to get a better look.