Page 62 of The Island

Indigo sky. Cirrus clouds. Crows watching them through two hundred feet of heavy air.

Someone behind them. Hard breathing. Close. Closer. Someone gaining on them.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look—

Heather looked.

Petra, red-faced, panting.

No one else on the hill yet.

“Hans?” Heather gasped.

“He went down to them.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“They’ll kill us. I tried to tell him—”

“Did he tell them we were up here?”

“I don’t know. Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

Yet another gunshot and the sound of a car revving its engine. Heather tried to listen as she ran. She’d grown up with vets and their cars on Goose Island. Men who didn’t talk about war or pain or loss talked about cars. She drove a stick. She knew engines. She knew gearboxes. That whining noise was the Toyota Hilux’s 3.0-liter V-6 straining hard as it drove up the slope in first gear.

Hans had told Matt that they were up here, and the O’Neills were coming to find them.

She scanned the terrain for any conceivable bit of cover.

There was nothing.

They were half a mile from what seemed to be mangrove trees to the west and farther than that from a clump of eucalyptus trees to the north. There was nothing around them but featureless heath. No hiding places.

Shit.

That slope had been pretty steep. Maybe the Toyota wasn’t going to make it. She strained to hear. Nope, it was still coming. If they could—

Owen tripped and went down face-first into the red dirt. He pulled down Olivia, and Heather fell too.

“Ow!” Owen yelled.

“Are you OK?” Heather asked, trying to get a look at his face.

“Don’t touch me!” he said, batting away her hand.

“She was just asking if you were OK,” Olivia said.

“Jesus Christ! I’m OK, I just fell!” he said, panting.

Petra crouched next to him. “You’re OK,” she said.

The engine was really screaming now. Heather peeked over the grass and saw the big black snorkel air intake of the Toyota creeping over the brow of the hill.