The Island(61)

“I stepped in something,” Owen said.

“What kind of something?”

“Something metal.”

Oh God.

“Owen, I want you to—”

“I’m lifting my foot.”

“No, wait!”

“It’s OK. Crushed soda can.”

Heather breathed again. “Be careful. I know they’re coming but we have to go slow.”

Slow.

In case…

In case…

And there it was. Not unexploded ordnance but an iron animal trap, its ragged jaws rusted but still terrifying-looking. She imagined it was there to catch dingoes or foxes or something.

If she hadn’t seen the sign, she or one of the kids could have run right into it. She picked up a stick and shoved it in the ground next to it as a marker. “Owen? Olivia? Do you see this thing to the left? It’s a bear trap or something. Stay clear of it! Keep in my footsteps.”

The kids followed Heather. She made sure they gave the trap a wide berth.

And eventually they were past the makeshift range.

It had slowed them down. Fifty yards in twenty minutes. They had to really hoof it now.

“This way!” she said and on they went, parallel to the shore.

All the old tunes:

Thirst.

Sun.

Dogs.

They had gone another quarter of a mile before Heather realized that she had miscalculated again. The shoreline had sunk gradually to their left and on their right a ravine had widened and deepened. For the past ten minutes they had been running on a peninsula that came to an abrupt end at a cliff.

Heather, in the lead, almost ran straight over the edge before catching herself.

She appraised the situation and swore. They could try and get down the cliff, which looked steep and dangerous, or they could retrace their steps back to the range, with its ordnance and mantraps.

The cliff was the apex of the triangle. There was a vertical drop to sand on one side and rocks on the other.

“Do you think we could climb down here?” Heather asked Olivia and Owen.

Owen shook his head. “Look at it. It’s limestone, isn’t it?”

“What does that mean?” Heather asked.

“It’ll crumble in our hands and we’ll fall.”

“How far do you think that drop is?” Heather asked.

“Three stories,” Olivia said.

“No. Two, two and a half,” Owen said.

“Twenty feet, I think. A twenty-foot drop into sand,” Heather said. “Do you think we could do that? It’s either that or go back the way we came.”

“We’ll break our legs,” Owen said.

“It’s sand. From the top of the jungle gym on Alki Beach to the sand, that’s about ten feet, isn’t it?” Olivia said.

“It’s not that high. And even if it were, this is twice that! And there might be rocks here we don’t know about,” Owen said.

Heather lay down flat on the ground and looked over the edge at the cliff’s face. Owen was right—it was nearly vertical, and the rock looked powdery, treacherous. She examined the sand down there on the beach. There didn’t seem to be any rocks. “Shh,” Heather said.

From deep in the sky’s silence, there was something coming. Something ringing that alarm bell in the fight-or-flight mechanism of her animal brain.

A vibration, like the twang of a longbow string, like the hum of an arrow.

She stood and listened.

“What—” Olivia began but stopped when Heather raised a finger.

Yes.

Over the barking dogs.

Over the sea.

The hunter was always finding new ways to hunt.

The prey needed to adapt quickly to survive.

What was that? What—

“Hit the deck, guys! Get cover. It’s a drone.”

They rolled into the spinifex just as the drone flew parallel to the shore, its tiny helicopter blades buzzing, its fish-eye-lens camera scanning 360 degrees around it.

It looked for them. Like a hawk looking, a hawk that knows only boredom and hostility and implacability in its tiny light-filled brain.

The drone flew lazily along the coast and looped back over the heath.

It hovered and buzzed and mocked.

Heather held her breath.

The drone did a figure eight in the sky over their position.

Had they been seen?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

It hung in the sky and then tilted its body toward the sun and headed east.

“Did they see us?” Olivia asked.

“I don’t know.”

Bloodhounds and a drone and an entire extended family after them on a small island—Petra’s sacrifice would buy them at most only a few hours, Heather thought wretchedly.

“We can’t go back. We’ve got to get down here,” Heather said. “There are two ways to do this. One, I lower you as far as I can and then drop you the rest of the way into the sand. Two, I jump down there first and try to catch you guys when you jump.”

“If you lower us, you won’t drop us until we say OK, right?” Olivia asked.

“I’ll hold you until you tell me to let go.”

“Then I vote for the first way,” Olivia said.

“Owen?” Heather asked.