Page 74 of The Island

Damn it.

So this was it, was it?

The giving-up place?

She’d always wondered where that would be.

Not after a twenty-hour waitressing shift. Not when that truck rear-ended her and totaled her Honda. Not when she got appendicitis and had to drive five hours to the VA hospital in Tacoma because she knew she couldn’t pay the bill at the Bellevue Clinic.

It was here, on a slip of a beach on an island off the coast of Australia.

What the hell was up with that?

She saw Olivia coming around the bend in the bay as if someone was chasing her. Oh, shit, this really was—

Caught between—

But Olivia had an expression of grim satisfaction.

Something was—

Olivia reached them, breathless.

“What?”

“Around the next corner, there’s a line of rocks just offshore, about fifteen yards offshore. We can wade or swim out there and hide and let them get past us,” Olivia said, panting.

Mouth almost too dry to speak, Heather nodded.

Petra nodded too. They would have to move fast. Ivan and the kids were coming up the beach.

“Owen, we’re going to be OK,” Heather said. “Just a little bit farther.”

With renewed vigor, Petra and Heather carried Owen through the mangroves and around the bend. And, yes, just off the coast, there was indeed a line of rocks.

“How will we do this?” Petra asked.

Heather tried to answer but she couldn’t form words. It had to be over a hundred degrees away from the shade of the mangrove trees. They’d be exposed to the full glare of the sun out there on the rocks, but what choice did they have?

She swallowed a few times to get saliva in her mouth. “You go with Olivia. I’ll swim Owen out. Just help me get him into the surf.”

Petra nodded and they manhandled Owen down to the water.

“Go,” Heather said. Petra and Olivia began swimming out to the rocks. Heather flipped Owen onto his back.

“Just relax, Owen. It’s gonna be OK,” Heather whispered into his ear. She crooked one arm around his neck, and, keeping his head raised, she swam into the bay.

The water was cold, but swimming with Owen was easier than she’d expected. She swam on her side, kicking with both her legs and pulling back hard with her right arm. In ten brisk strokes she reached the rocks, big black jagged boulders sticking out of the water.

She swam behind them.

“There’s a little ledge on this rock here, see if you can put him on that,” Olivia said from somewhere.

The ledge was only the size of a bookshelf and it sloped downward at thirty degrees, but the sea had worn it smooth and between the three of them, they managed to get Owen onto it. His eyelids were fluttering and there were white flecks on his lips. Where he wasn’t sunburned, he was pale and his skin was cold to the touch.

Heatstroke, exhaustion, dehydration…

He needed water and food and rest and shade very soon or he was going to die. The rest of them would be dead soon after.