Page 101 of The Island

“Do you think we could climb down here?” Heather asked Olivia and Owen.

Owen shook his head. “Look at it. It’s limestone, isn’t it?”

“What does that mean?” Heather asked.

“It’ll crumble in our hands and we’ll fall.”

“How far do you think that drop is?” Heather asked.

“Three stories,” Olivia said.

“No. Two, two and a half,” Owen said.

“Twenty feet, I think. A twenty-foot drop into sand,” Heather said. “Do you think we could do that? It’s either that or go back the way we came.”

“We’ll break our legs,” Owen said.

“It’s sand. From the top of the jungle gym on Alki Beach to the sand, that’s about ten feet, isn’t it?” Olivia said.

“It’s not that high. And even if it were, this is twice that! And there might be rocks here we don’t know about,” Owen said.

Heather lay down flat on the ground and looked over the edge at the cliff’s face. Owen was right—it was nearly vertical, and the rock looked powdery, treacherous. She examined the sand down there on the beach. There didn’t seem to be any rocks. “Shh,” Heather said.

From deep in the sky’s silence, there was something coming. Something ringing that alarm bell in the fight-or-flight mechanism of her animal brain.

A vibration, like the twang of a longbow string, like the hum of an arrow.

She stood and listened.

“What—” Olivia began but stopped when Heather raised a finger.

Yes.

Over the barking dogs.

Over the sea.

The hunter was always finding new ways to hunt.

The prey needed to adapt quickly to survive.

What was that? What—

“Hit the deck, guys! Get cover. It’s a drone.”

They rolled into the spinifex just as the drone flew parallel to the shore, its tiny helicopter blades buzzing, its fish-eye-lens camera scanning 360 degrees around it.

It looked for them. Like a hawk looking, a hawk that knows only boredom and hostility and implacability in its tiny light-filled brain.

The drone flew lazily along the coast and looped back over the heath.

It hovered and buzzed and mocked.

Heather held her breath.

The drone did a figure eight in the sky over their position.

Had they been seen?

---