Page 116 of The Island

It had to be at least a ten-minute flight back to where Matt was with the dogs. It had been hovering here for five. If he wanted to keep it, surely he would have to fly it back soon.

He’d made a mistake, showing himself. He should have hovered a couple of hundred feet up. Trailed her from the sky as long as he was able.

She smiled at the drone’s camera.

“What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?” she said.

The drone bobbed in the wind.

“A stick,” she said.

The drone dived toward her; she ducked, and it soared into the air and headed south.

“Must have heard that one before,” she muttered as she waded into the surf. She swam nervously north for two hundred yards and carefully walked onto the shore via rocks. The sharks had spared her.

She circled back to the heath the long way and took an even longer way back to the cave entrance.

The dogs were definitely coming. They would spend a lot of time on the beach.

That little diversion might buy her and the kids a few hours. Perhaps enough to get them through to nightfall. She hoped so.

She entered the cave. “Kids?” she said.

No answer.

“Kids!”

“We’re here. Is that you, Heather?” Olivia said, coming around the cave dogleg and holding the rifle.

“It’s me.”

They sat together by the pool and waited and watched the fire’s embers, and time continued on its silver arrow toward the end of the universe.

They couldn’t hear dogs or people or anything.

The O’Neills could be just overhead, or they could be a mile away.

They waited. And waited some more. Waiting in the sand by the pool in silence.

It was like one of those submarine movies. The men in the tin can bracing for the ship to drop a depth charge…

Finally, when she thought perhaps three hours had gone by, she crawled back to the cave mouth with the rifle.

The sun was going down.

No sign of anyone.

She listened.

No yelling.

No dogs.

She scanned the horizon with the binoculars. No one. She went back to the underground spring and told the kids that they were safe for the night. They would be back tomorrow. The dogs would not be so easily fooled by her swimming and would certainly find them tomorrow.

But that meant they had tonight.

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