Page 37 of Escaping my Dragon

My cheeks flamed again. “What can I say. The fresh air suits me.”

“Not complaining,” he murmured with a chuckle. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking you should get lots of fresh air again today.”

“Keep talking like that, and we won’t make it outside.”

His smile almost had me dragging him back to my room.

“Like I said, insatiable.” He stood. “I’m going to head over to the helipad. Meet me there when you’re ready.”

Heading upstairs, I passed Joslyn’s room, with its door wide open. “I’m just going to get my gear on. I should only be a few minutes,” I stated in passing.

“Perfect,” she replied, head down, sorting through the pile of clothes on her floor.

Inside my room, as I put on my layers, my gaze strayed to the rumpled sheets on my bed. Would we end up leaving later today? I kind of hoped not. Not just because I’d not yet finished gathering data for the show, but because of a certain captain. One night definitely hadn’t been enough.

Joslyn poked her head inside my room. “Ready?”

“Let me just get on my boots.”

With clomping steps, we headed down, meeting a bundled Vernon by the main door. We headed on foot over to the helipad and were soon on our way in a more compact craft just large enough for the four of us, lifting into the bright blue, sunlit sky. No clouds or snow today, which meant I had a clear view of Mount Erebus.

“Volcano seems to be steaming more than usual,” I remarked, the microphone on my headset capturing my words despite the noise of the rotors.

“Looks like the ground is exhaling too,” Joslyn added, her camera aimed through the glass.

I frowned at the thick layer of fog at the base of Erebus and the other mounts. Hopefully nothing to worry about. After all, I hadn’t felt any new quakes since yesterday.

The helicopter headed for the mountain, slipping through a pass between peaks. The trip to the falls took about twenty minutes and was well worth it. The sight of the natural wonder had me exclaiming, “It’s stunning!”

Joslyn gagged. “Only if you like a murder scene. Holy shit, it’s like the glacier had its artery cut and is spewing blood.” An apt comparison for the liquid jetting forth emerged vividly red.

Noah’s voice came through the headset. “Let me know when you’ve got your aerial shots done, and I’ll set us down close by so you can grab samples.”

I swear Joslyn took her sweet time recording, asking Noah to do several passes over top and then across the front. By the time the chopper landed, I already had my sample kit ready. Tests had already shown the water to be red because of high concentrations of iron in the salt water that oxidized the moment it spewed forth from the glacier. The rusty water proved a shocking contrast to the white all around.

It didn’t take long for me to fill a few vials with Joslyn filming me doing it for posterity. I posed in front of the falls with a microphone for a few improvised sound bites that would likely need some heavy filtering due to the rushing and crashing of the spilling water.

When I’d done my part as host, I clapped my mittened hands. “Ready to head back?”

“Not yet. I want to get some more footage.” Joslyn, with Vernon in tow, wandered off to explore and record some more. I had to bite my lip lest I yell at them to hurry up. They’d know the root of my impatience—AKA the handsome man who stood by my side staring at the crimson gush.

“It’s wildly beautiful, isn’t it?” he remarked.

“Yes, but I can see why people theorize about it being alien. The brilliant red amidst all the snow is jarring.”

“Nature can be wondrous.”

“And frightening.”

He guessed my cause for concern. “You’re worried about Erebus.”

“Aren’t you?”

“A little, to be honest. I was informed shortly before we took off that some of the monitoring sensors in and around the Terror Rift went offline.” The rift being a crack that ran from the base of Erebus under the Ross Sea to the Transantartic Mountain.

I whirled on him, mouth rounded. “Offline, as in taken out by sudden lava activity?”

“That hasn’t yet been determined.”