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A few feet later, the ridge dropped away to a deep, crater-like depression I would never have seen coming. Erin yanked the dump cord, then yelped as the wind whipped over the flap, flattening it. I hung on with her, wrestling to keep the flap open.
“Come on…” Erin murmured.
The basket dropped far enough into the hollow to glimpse walls on either side of us. But the balloon rose high above, stillexposed to the wind. If we couldn’t dump the hot air fast enough, we would crash against the far side of the crater.
Whack!Every bone in my body felt the impact when we hit bottom. But the shock wave was transmitted to the balloon, which wavered, then toppled sideways.
The space around us was eerily quiet, though the wind howled overhead. Erin was a goddamn genius. But we still had to get the balloon down.
“Hurry! Get it!” she yelled.
In one quick sequence, she twisted the propane valve off, vaulted out of the basket, and started clawing her way up the crater slope to where the balloon wafted. It was starting to fold in on itself, but enough of the fabric remained aloft to act as a sail.
Erin grabbed a handful of fabric and hauled.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
“We might be able to salvage the balloon if we get in it now,” she grunted, grabbing another handful.
Duck and coverseemed like a safer plan, but hey. Erin was a woman on a mission.
For the next minute, I stumbled, cursed, and yanked, half stuffing, half rolling the balloon into the bottom of the hollow. All that time, the wind blasted by, not yet catching on to our evasive maneuver. Then, with an angry whoosh, the clouds swirled, backtracking to search for us.
“Hurry. Get some rocks to hold it down,” Erin hollered.
Normally, she was a stickler for neat, tidy rolling, insisting we ground crew re-do our work if it was less than perfect. Now, she settled for a bumpy mess — thank goodness.
I moved as quickly as possible, conscious of the swirling wind. Any minute now, it would find us, and I didn’t want to picture the havoc that would follow. Finally, I grabbed Erin’s hand and pulled her away.
“A little more,” she protested, grabbing another rock.
“Not that one—” I started.
Too late. That stone had been holding back several others, and moving it set off a rockslide.
“Shit.” Erin gaped as a huge boulder creaked toward us.
We both froze. The boulder was the size of one of those rideable lawnmowers — andmow downwas exactly what it would do to Erin and me.
My mind spun for something in Marine or agency training that could solve this one, because brute force couldn’t fight that kind of momentum.
And, damn. I only came up with one option. One taught by a grizzled, old, crazy-ass badger shifter at the agency. The guy was a mixed martial arts master — the kind who could break three bricks with his pinkie — who loved lecturing us on redirecting an opponent’s energy rather than fighting force with force. I’d seen it work too — once, when he’d tossed a bear shifter twice his size across the room using those principles.
Once. And that had been him demonstrating. The rest of us tried but failed miserably.
All that flashed through my mind in a nanosecond. No time for a better idea. Only action.
I raised my arms. Braced my legs. Sucked in a breath. The rolling boulder blocked out the sky above me while pebbles tumbling ahead of it pinged off my legs and chest.
Ow, ow, ow,andoof!
I reached out, slapping one hand against the boulder before the other.
Absorb the energy.The badger’s voice echoed through my mind.Redirect it.
I was sure the boulder would redirectme, but hell. I tried anyway.
Don’t try,my dragon gritted.Succeed.
