God, the branding.
Dustin caught a glimpse of it in his peripheral vision: amassive inflatable duck, twenty feet tall, swaying slightly in the wind. It was wearing sunglasses and a backwards cap, because of course it was. Who didn’t love a giant duck with sunglasses and a stupid cap giving the audience a thumbs-up? This was the official mascot of Apex Energy, present at every shoot like a cursed heirloom Dustin couldn't get rid of.
Tyler would have loved the stupid thing. That was the worst part. He would have gotten at least fifteen ironic selfies with it and made it his profile picture for a month.
“Thirty seconds!”
Dustin rolled his shoulders. Breathed in. Breathed out. He forgot about the duck.
This was his favorite part now.
The part he never got tired of. The last few seconds before the jump, when everything went quiet inside his head. No sponsorship obligations. No interviews. No emails from his father pretending he hadn't walked out on the family years and years ago.
No empty chair at the breakfast table.
Just the wind. The edge. The fall.
“Fifteen!”
He stepped closer. Toes at the edge now.
“Ten! Nine! Eight?—”
Dustin jumped at seven.
He always did. The countdown was for the cameras. The jump was for him.
The world rushed up to meet him, and for three perfect seconds, he was exactly where he belonged.
CHAPTER 3
Greg emerged into the mortal world at the bottom of a cliff.
Immediately, he felt disoriented.
The mortal world wasloud. There were peopleeverywhere, running around with headsets or drinks or cameras. Tech was scattered around the area. A bit further away there was a catering tent and a row of coolers with the Apex Energy logo on them. And towering over all of it, a twenty-foot inflatable duck in sunglasses, swaying gently like it owned the place.
Greg stared at it.
The duck stared back, thumbs up, giant and unblinking.
What was going on here?
Greg looked down at his clipboard. He was in the right place. He was here for someone called Dustin.
Where was Dustin?
Led by instinct, Greg looked up at the platform on top of the cliff, barely visible against the sky.
There was a figure standing at the edge.
Was that…?
It had to be. But if Dustin was up there, why had Greg emerged down here?
Unless…
Oh.
