Page 147 of The Island

She knew what she had to do.

It was terrible, but there was no other choice.

Could she do it? She ripped off her T-shirt, wrapped it around the barrel, and tied it over the muzzle. She took aim.

The T-shirt would do nothing about the noise but it would help conceal the muzzle flash.

“For real this time, Danny,” Ivan said.

Danny lit a cigarette, took a puff, and threw the cigarette at Tom. There was a vast yellow fireball, but before Tom could even cry out, Heather shot him in the heart.

The shot echoed around the clearing.

“Where?” Ivan yelled.

“Anyone see?” Matt asked.

No one had seen.

Matt threw a blanket over the body to smother the fire.

The Toyota Hilux came with its bullet-cracked windshield and its leaking transmission. They threw Tom into the back.

“What’s your plan, Heather?” Ivan yelled. “We’re bringing more dogs! No cops have been round looking for you! No one’s looking for you here! You’re never getting off this island. Never!”

“That’s right!” Kate said and they got in the Toyota and they left.

Still she waited until it was fully dark.

“You nearly got me,” she whispered as she put Petra’s singed, ripped T-shirt back on. She slid backward through the grass. It was her and them now. She’d get off the island or die trying. When she was half a mile away from the cave, she turned south to gather more shearwater eggs. The tide was very low. Her sneakers sank softly into the wet sand.

Was that the moon? A brand-new moon after the dark of the moon?

Yes.

A sliver of beautiful white sickle moon defiantly upside down.

She got the eggs and headed home.

When she reached the burned plateau she took a last look at the one-tree hill.

“Goodbye, Tom,” she said.

44

The land had become dark.

A deep, dark ticktocking in time to the rotating stars. Olivia sat under the foliage of the eucalyptus trees. Dusty, dry, kind of ugly leaves, but each one a miracle engine that had spent the day converting light into food.

Birds in a V formation.

Starlight on the water.

She thought about Heather. Worried about her. She’d been wrong about her.

She sat on a root and cried. She cried about herself and her mom. She cried about her dad.

He was her dad, after all.

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