The Island(87)

Because that was the price she had to pay. To keep the kids safe, she had to abandon Tom.

The sky to the west was crimson.

Night was coming.

All this time, Tom had been getting more and more agitated. He had finally worked out that they had given him a dud walkie-talkie.

He got it now.

He’d thought the O’Neills were really going to let them go, but when they’d taken him out here, whatever he’d seen had made him realize it was a trap.

Heather watched through the binoculars as he struggled and failed to get to his feet.

“They’re here! Run, Heather! Take the kids and keep running!” he yelled from broken lungs and collapsed back into the chair.

Two of the men hiding in the dirt immediately got up with their shotguns. Two others stayed put but moved enough so that she clocked them.

There were four of them dug into the ground around the tree; they’d been waiting for her in prepared foxholes.

Clever. Matt’s idea, no doubt.

Heather didn’t run.

Didn’t move a muscle.

“Thank you, Tom,” she whispered.

She lay down next to the rifle.

The O’Neills were waiting to spring a trap.

She could wait too.

Patience was her weapon.

She turned off the walkie-talkie and lay there.

Finally, big Ivan climbed out of his foxhole and waved to the others.

“I’m calling this, lads,” he said.

There were four of them, just as she’d thought: Matt, Kate, Danny, Ivan.

Kate took the opportunity to throw up. Matt leaned over and dry-heaved. “Bloody bitch!” Kate said. They all looked sick. The water had poisoned them, and Heather was glad they’d had to lie there so long feeling terrible.

Ivan walked over to Tom. He was carrying something in his hand.

His plan B.

It was a jerrican of gasoline.

“This is your last chance to do something, Heather!” he yelled into the spinifex. “Whatever your plan is, Heather, it’s not going to work. We’re bringing more dogs tomorrow. We will find you.”

“No cops have come looking for you, Heather! No one has any idea you’re here! We’ll bloody get you,” Kate said.

“This is petrol, Heather. You really want me to do this, or do you want to give up? Last chance!”

Heather swallowed hard.

“All right, then, watch this!” Ivan said as he poured the gasoline over Tom. They were going to burn him alive in the chair.

She had only one round left. She couldn’t kill all four of them.

She knew what she had to do.

It was terrible, but there was no other choice.

Could she do it? She ripped off her T-shirt, wrapped it around the barrel, and tied it over the muzzle. She took aim.

The T-shirt would do nothing about the noise but it would help conceal the muzzle flash.

“For real this time, Danny,” Ivan said.

Danny lit a cigarette, took a puff, and threw the cigarette at Tom. There was a vast yellow fireball, but before Tom could even cry out, Heather shot him in the heart.

The shot echoed around the clearing.

“Where?” Ivan yelled.

“Anyone see?” Matt asked.

No one had seen.

Matt threw a blanket over the body to smother the fire.

The Toyota Hilux came with its bullet-cracked windshield and its leaking transmission. They threw Tom into the back.

“What’s your plan, Heather?” Ivan yelled. “We’re bringing more dogs! No cops have been round looking for you! No one’s looking for you here! You’re never getting off this island. Never!”

“That’s right!” Kate said and they got in the Toyota and they left.

Still she waited until it was fully dark.

“You nearly got me,” she whispered as she put Petra’s singed, ripped T-shirt back on. She slid backward through the grass. It was her and them now. She’d get off the island or die trying. When she was half a mile away from the cave, she turned south to gather more shearwater eggs. The tide was very low. Her sneakers sank softly into the wet sand.

Was that the moon? A brand-new moon after the dark of the moon?

Yes.

A sliver of beautiful white sickle moon defiantly upside down.

She got the eggs and headed home.

When she reached the burned plateau she took a last look at the one-tree hill.

“Goodbye, Tom,” she said.





44



The land had become dark.

A deep, dark ticktocking in time to the rotating stars. Olivia sat under the foliage of the eucalyptus trees. Dusty, dry, kind of ugly leaves, but each one a miracle engine that had spent the day converting light into food.

Birds in a V formation.

Starlight on the water.

She thought about Heather. Worried about her. She’d been wrong about her.

She sat on a root and cried. She cried about herself and her mom. She cried about her dad.

He was her dad, after all.

But Heather would get her and Owen out, not him. She knew that. She had to look after her little brother.

In the cave she could hear Owen cooking the snake by the fire. There wasn’t going to be much meat, he’d said. It was all bony and gross. But that was OK.

Olivia stood and peered into the darkness and waited for Heather.