Page 57 of Protecting the Flame

By now, they were all yelling. Even Hunter was screaming, his right arm sticking out of his empty window and waving in a frantic semaphore. The drone hovered a moment, seeming to take in the scene, before slowing drifting away, heading for the woods and, probably, the fuselage beyond. God, she hoped Mattie had kept that fire going.

“Give me your radio,” she said to Will, who’d come up alongside. Depressing the send, she shouted into the mike, “Mattie, Mattie! Are you outside? You got the fire going, right?”

“Emma?” Mattie sounded alarmed. “What’s wrong? No, I’m inside, with Mom. Are you all—”

“There’s a drone, there’s a drone! Get outside, right now! Make sure they see you!”

“Oh!” There was nothing for a few moments, probably because the girl was squirming through their tunnel. Then: “I’m out and…oh, here, here! I’m down here! Emma, should I light my flare, too? So they know?”

“No need if you’ve got the fire going, Mattie.” Will was close enough that when she turned, they could’ve brushed lips. “But if it’s hovering, write the number six in the snow, okay? They need to know how many of us there are.”

“Okay.” Ten seconds. “Okay,” Mattie came back. “I did it. I don’t know if it’s looking, but it hasn’t left. It’s spending a lot of time looking at the plane…oh, it’s turning, starting to head back your way.”

Now that she knew what to listen for, she heard the buzz well before the black arrow of the drone came into view. It was still going slowly, sketching a wide circle in the sky. “We see it. Good work, honey.”

“Does this… Emma, it means they found us, right?”

“Yes, it does.” She was grinning like a maniac. “We are saved.”

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