Page 4 of Nothing But Air
Twenty feet. The crack ran true.
Twenty-five feet. Narrowing.
Thirty feet.
Thirty-five feet.
The crack ended.
Teague jammed his hand into the last good section and looked right. Eight feet of smooth shale. Pale in the harsh light. No holds. No cracks.
Nothing but air and a bad idea.
He pressed his radio. “Dispatch. Preparing to make the jump.”
Eden’s voice faltered. “Teague…”
He pitched his voice to carry toward the kid. “Hey—I need you to hold on ten more seconds. Can you do that?”
The kid managed a weak nod.
Teague studied the ledge. Six inches deep. Above it, a protrusion jutted from the rock—a knob the size of a baseball, darker than the surrounding stone.
If he could catch that…
He placed his last cam, clipped in, and visualized the movement. Crouch. Coil. Explode upward and out.
Don’t look at the gap. Look where you’re landing.
His heart hammered. Sweat traced his spine. His vision narrowed to that single point—the knob, the ledge, the exact spot his hand needed to catch.
He launched.
For one eternal heartbeat, nothing was beneath him.
Nothing but gravity and empty space.
His right hand shot out?—
Contact.
His fingers wrapped around the protrusion. Stone bit into skin. The impact wrenched his shoulder, pain spiking like white fire, but his grip held. His momentum slammed him into the wall, and his boots kicked until his right foot found the ledge.
He pressed himself flat against the cliff, gasping.
Solid. Real. Alive.
The kid was four feet away, eyes wide, the sharp smell of fear-sweat cutting through dry air.
Teague set a cam and took a deep breath as he clipped in. Then he keyed his radio, voice steadier than it had any right to be. “On the wall. Stable. Moving to subject.”
Eden’s exhale was audible. “Copy.” Her voice shook. Then steadied. “Nice of you to survive, Hamilton.”
“Didn’t want to ruin your day.”
“Too late for that.”
He almost smiled.
