Nova (The Renegades #2) Page 13

  “I’m in the best shape of my life. What can you say for yourself?” I ragged on Alex.

  He pulled his shirt up, exposing six-pack abs. “I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah, well, let me know how those treat you at twenty-one thousand feet.”

  “Twenty-one thousand feet?” Rachel asked, her voice weaker than usual.

  With one glance at her, I could tell that she knew, and she wasn’t amused. Or impressed.

  “You want to board like a god, then you have to get closer to them,” Gabe answered, high-fiving Alex.

  “Wait, I thought we were just going to see the Everest base camp,” Leah said, her eyes narrowing on Wilder.

  He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry. I’m not going up there with them to board, just to watch from the advanced camp.”

  “You’re not?” she asked, clearly relieved.

  “He’s not good enough,” Rachel said quietly. “Not for what they have planned.”

  “Rachel!” Leah exclaimed.

  Part of me wanted to crow that she knew I was better than Pax, but the look in her eyes told me she wasn’t in the mood.

  “No, she’s right,” Wilder said. “Sure, I can snowboard, but this big-mountain free-riding stuff is way beyond me. Even I know my limits.”

  “How dangerous is it?” Leah asked.

  “It’s up there,” I admitted.

  “Leah told me you wanted to board up here, but I was hoping my first hunch was wrong,” Rachel begged me. “Tell me you’re not going for the Shangri-La spine wall?”

  “I promised I’d never lie to you again,” I answered. I wouldn’t. No matter how painful the truth was, that was all Rachel was getting from me.

  “We can’t even get your body down if something happens to you,” she whispered.

  She was right. If anything went wrong up there, it was twice as dangerous to try to bring a casualty down, but I had zero intention of dying.

  “I always did love the mountains,” I said with a lopsided smile. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  The blatant fear in Rachel’s voice got to me like nothing else could. The snarky, prickly shell she wore never intimidated me, because I’d always known what was underneath. Hell, the sharper her tongue, the harder my dick got. But seeing a glimpse of this Rachel, the soft vulnerability she kept so closely guarded—this was the Rachel I loved, the one who could break me down with a look or a touch.

  “I’ve spent the last year training for it. I’ve done Denali, the Alps, even headed down to South America to make sure I’m ready for this,” I assured her. “I just need a few days at altitude and then it will be manageable.”

  Sure, being at sea level for three months hadn’t done me any favors, but—

  “I’m not going to advanced camp. I’ll come back down with Leah and Penna.”

  Oh, hell no. “What? No. You’d kill to be in on something like this, even if it’s navigating from camp. I know you can’t board it, but this is the stuff you thrive on.” I needed her there, watching, supporting, keeping my ass in check.

  “The last thing you need is me up there distracting you. One stroke of bad luck—”

  “No.” I cradled her face, needing contact even though I knew she was likely to shove me away. “You are not bad luck, and no matter the shit we’ve been through—I want you there.”

  “Landon.” She closed her eyes and shut me out.

  I stroked her cheeks with my thumbs until our gazes met. “Besides, I’ll do better if I’m showing off for a pretty girl. I can’t exactly let myself fall on my ass in front of you.”

  She let her breath go on a ragged exhale. Her shoulders fell, but I knew better than to think she was defeated. “Fine.”

  The battle was won—for now. No doubt we’d have the same argument up until the moment I hiked up that ridge. “Good.”

  Alex cleared his throat, and I became more than aware that we were having a private moment in public. I released her soft skin at the same second she pulled away.

  “Okay, final mission brief?” Pax asked, sliding over the file I’d spent the last six months compiling. “This is your show now.”

  Damn straight, it was.

  This ridgeline was everything I’d been training for, and it was finally time for the plan to fall into place. Sure, there were ten thousand things that could go wrong. But I had Rachel with me, and that was one hell of a right.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rachel

  Lukla, Nepal

  “Switch with me?” Landon asked Little John after we’d gained our cruising altitude, which, when I thought about it, was going to be our normal altitude the day after tomorrow.

  Little John shot me a look, and though I rolled my eyes, I nodded. The plane was only big enough for the ten of us, one on each side down the length, and with Pax and Leah at the front, all the way to Bobby and another cameraman at the back, we were full.

  “Sure thing,” Little John answered, vacating the precious territory.

  So much for peace.

  Landon sat down and buckled in. I turned toward the window and looked over the scenery below. Nepal was heading into winter, but the fields at this altitude were still green, terraced in places and thick vegetation in others. Where we were headed, vegetation couldn’t survive.

  Then again, humans weren’t meant to, either.

  “Are you seriously going to try to ignore me?” he asked.

  Exactly when was my heart going to stop stuttering in response to his voice? “Just taking in the view. You should, too. It’s not something you see every day.”

  “Neither are you.”

  Ugh. Like that response. The one where my chest tightened and those stupid, naive butterflies danced in my stomach. I tried to kill the butterflies and turned to Landon. “It’s Nepal. How often do you plan on coming back?”

  He shrugged. “I can fly here any time, grab another flight, and watch the ground roll by underneath us. You…well, I have no control over where you are or when I get to see you. So I choose you.”

  But you didn’t. I shut down the thought. It wasn’t going to do us any good to hash out the same stuff again and again.

  “You know how impossible this is, right?” I asked him across the aisle.

  “What? Me talking to you?”

  I almost snorted. “No. You trying to ride this ridge. We have, what? A week?”

  “Six days left,” he answered. His eyes looked blue against the gray beanie he wore, and there wasn’t a trace of worry to be found.

  “Right. We lucked out that the visibility was good enough for us to make this flight. What are we going to do when we can’t get up to base camp the day after tomorrow?”

  “Take another day to acclimate to altitude. Lukla is at nine thousand feet—the extra day won’t hurt.”

  “Right, and what happens when the helicopters can’t make it to Pangboche? When they can’t make the flight to base camp? Then to advanced camp? What happens when we can’t see the ridge and the weather rolls in?”

  “Rach, I can’t solve a problem that doesn’t exist yet.”

  I shook my head. “You have too many variables, and on a trip like this, you can’t afford them.”

  “I can’t afford not to try. We’re here. The timing coincided with the week the program gave us for optional excursions. What would you have rather I done?” He looked so relaxed, so at ease with the fact that he was putting his life on the line.

  “Oh, I don’t know…maybe come back when you could have devoted all the time you needed to a trip like this, instead of working it in while we happen to be docked in India? This isn’t something to take lightly.”

  Twenty-one thousand feet meant that one bad choice, one slip, one second would end him—and any chance, no matter how slim, of us healing the rift in our past. Twenty-one thousand feet meant help couldn’t come, and I couldn’t even deliver his body to his mother…if she so much as knew who I was.
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  He reached across the aisle and unfisted my hand, stroking his thumb across the line of indentations my fingernails had made in my palm. “This documentary we’re making—we’re each going after one thing. This is mine. I’ve planned for this, trained for this, and am prepared for this.”

  “How can you possibly be prepared for this when you’ve been on a cruise for the last three months?”

  “In the last year I’ve spent time in the Denali, the Tetons, and the Alps. I’m not a stranger to free riding. You of all people know that.”

  My eyes dropped from his, and I pulled my hand away, remembering why he hadn’t been around when I’d initially met Wilder. So many things would have been different if he’d been there to begin with. But I wasn’t thinking about that, because if I couldn’t move on from the past, it was going to kill any chance I had at the present.

  That’s what I’d told myself the last two years, and it had worked well.

  “You’re in shape?” I asked.

  “Would you like to see?” he teased, his eyes taking on that mischievous glint that I’d always loved. Liked. No love.

  “I’ll pass, but thanks.”

  “I’ll just have to keep offering.”

  “Can you please take this seriously?” I asked.

  “I take everything about you seriously.”

  “Not what I meant. Alex? Gabe? They’re good enough to go with you? You found a pilot willing to get you that high?”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Be careful. You keep asking those questions and I’m going to start to think that you care.”

  God help me, I do care.

  He sighed. “Yes, yes, and yes. If there were an issue about any of this, I wouldn’t do it. I might be a little reckless, but I’m not stupid.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “God, I’ve missed you.” The yearning in his voice echoed the little voice in my soul that I couldn’t keep gagged.

  The aisle between us was too much space and not enough.

  We were told to prepare for landing, our quick, half hour flight at an end. I shifted my attention to the ground below. The mountains rose above us, beautiful and just as ominous as the tiny runway carved into the side of the rock.

  “Holy shit, is that the runway?” I asked, seeing a small strip of pavement beneath us. It was the shortest one I’d ever seen.

  “That thing is wicked!” Gabe yelled from the row ahead of us.

  “Fuck me,” Paxton said.

  “I totally forgot you weren’t a fan of flying,” I called up toward Wilder.

  “It’s actually one of the most dangerous runways in the world,” Landon told Gabe. “It’s not just the altitude, but the runway runs right into the mountain if we don’t stop in time.”

  “Not helping!” Leah barked at Landon.

  He just laughed.

  I looked forward and saw Leah taking Wilder’s hand. Landon offered his, and I rolled my eyes. “It takes more than a landing to scare me.”

  He shook his head with a grin, and I clutched my armrests until we landed.

  “Welcome to Lukla,” the captain said as we taxied to a stop.

  “Nine thousand feet,” Landon said.

  “Twelve more to go,” I answered.

  “That’s my girl, always looking up.” He paled the second it was out of his mouth, and his eyes flew wide.

  I needed to get away from him. Now. Grabbing my backpack, I stood, thankful the aisle had cleared and it was my turn to get off the plane. “Yeah, well, that girl learned that you have to look down. It does you no good to keep your eye on the sky if no one is waiting for you when you fall.”

  “Rachel…”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I retreated—ran away.

  Checking in to our little hotel, I chose the room farthest from his.

  At dinner, I sat at the other end of the table.

  At night, I locked my door.

  But how was I supposed to lock my heart?

  …

  “Do I need to find you a teapot?” Leah asked the next morning, sitting down next to me in a small courtyard outside our hotel. The morning was clear and crisp, in the low fifties. It would only get colder as we headed up to today’s higher elevations. Base camp ran around freezing this time of year. I leaned against my pack, mentally preparing myself for the day. The pavement beneath our feet was made of broken cobblestones, and the colored flags waving above our heads had the same vibrancy as the blanket we rested on, the same as the temple we’d visited yesterday. I’d taken hundreds of pictures, tried to absorb every detail about the small village that was the gateway to Everest.

  “I do not need a teapot,” I promised. “Besides, we agreed that those were for after we got through hot water. I’m still steeping in mine.”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and curled her legs under her. “I bought you one in Istanbul. Figured it would be for having to stay behind when you got sick. But I think this might be more appropriate.”

  I really looked at my best friend, the healthy color to her cheeks, the smile she was quick to show, the fact that she only had her legs covered because it was fifty degrees up here and not because she was scared of what anyone thought of her scars. It had taken a lot of teapots to get her here—too many times I wasn’t sure she was going to pull free of the depression that had held her under when her high school boyfriend died.

  “I’m glad you’re happy,” I told her. “Really and truly. What you and Wilder have…” I shook my head. “It’s precious.”

  She reached over and squeezed my hand. “I want you to be happy, too. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be here around Landon, but I can tell that you’re not happy.”

  “Happy is a relative term,” I said with a forced smile. I could put up with Landon—with the rending of my heart—if it meant Leah stayed here with Wilder.

  “Stop. Stop faking it. Stop telling me you’re fine and agreeing to stuff you don’t want to do because you think it’s what I need. You don’t have to take care of me anymore. I’m okay. I need you to focus on you. Be honest with me.”

  As if they were a physical thing, I felt my defenses slide away. Leah and I were too close for me to lie. “I think you were right. I’m not sure I ever got over him.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “You were so busy taking care of me that I don’t think you ever really stopped to process what happened. He left, and within weeks we were at Dartmouth and you went from full-time heartbreak to full-time caregiver.” Her forehead puckered. “That was a lot to ask of you.”

  “Never.” I covered her hand with my own. “You are my best friend, and the only good thing to come out of what happened with Landon. Maybe it was all supposed to be this way. Maybe he was supposed to leave me so I could find you and you could find Wilder. Maybe it’s all part of some big cosmic plan.”

  “Or maybe…” She looked away.

  “Maybe what?”

  Her nose crinkled. “Don’t kill me, okay? Maybe you’re supposed to be here—with Landon. I’m not saying you have to be with him, or have to give him another chance. I just think that this guy really hurt you, and I hate him for it, but I’ve also gotten to know him over the last few months, and the same things that are broken in you are broken in him, too.”

  “His dick seems to work just fine.”

  “Yeah, well, I think that’s just a form of self-medication.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her.

  “I didn’t say I agreed with it. Look, you have five days with him—no class and no distractions. Maybe you stop letting him leave, stop running away, stop protecting yourself. Maybe you use this time to either put him in your past…” She shrugged.

  My eyes narrowed. “Or…”

  “Or maybe see if there’s a future.”

  “Leah,” I growled. She of all people knew what he’d done, the condition I’d been in when we met.

  “Oh, look, there’s Pax!” she said in overexcitement as Wilder
appeared.

  “Coward,” I whispered.

  “Just pushing you the way you pushed me,” she said as she stood. “Whether or not you are willing to admit it, this is what you need.”

  I pouted as my best friend walked off with the love of her life, no doubt to go have another of the extended make-out sessions they were always caught in the middle of.

  Okay, maybe I envied that—not Wilder, of course, but the connection. The ability to touch someone you loved, hold them, know that you were more than a physical gratification.

  I looked up at the bright blue sky and wished it wasn’t Landon’s face, Landon’s body, Landon’s touch that came to mind when I pictured that feeling. I knew Leah was right just as certainly as I knew that I’d never gotten over Landon.

  But letting him in was easier said than done.

  My instincts warred with each other the moment I saw him, my fight-or-flight response kicking in. But maybe it really was time to see what emotions were under those instincts, if I could manage to shut them down long enough to see.

  “You ready to go, Rachel?” Little John asked from the doorway.

  “I think I am,” I answered, gaining my feet.

  He wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we walked toward where the others had gathered. Penna stood between Gabe and Alex, her crutches bracing her weight. Bobby directed the camera guy, who I’d learned last night was named Mike, while Wilder, Leah, and Landon talked to a group of Sherpas.

  “How you doing with that one? No bullshitting.”

  “Do you believe in the curse?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  He stopped before we got to the group and looked down at me. “The one about you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. I was there. When he came back…” He glanced over to where Landon stood. “He was destroyed, like one of those Jenga towers. Too many of his pieces were missing. He wasn’t stable, he wasn’t focused, and he wasn’t safe. It wasn’t because of you, Rachel. It was because of what he did to you, the parts of himself that he left behind. I don’t think any of us realized the extent of what he felt about you until he turned into this shell. You are not a curse. You were his compass, his North Star, his constant. And then you were gone.”