“Amelia,” he said, taking his eyes off the path for half a second to examine the throttle, “how strong is your hair tie?”
“Uh, it’s pretty thick. I hate the ones that snap easily. Why?”
“I have a crazy idea. Give it to me.”
He pulled to a halt at the beginning of the straight, beside a gully, and killed the motor. Amelia handed him the hair tie. Behind them, the pickup whined, being driven hard. “What are you going to do?”
“Like you said, they’ll track us pretty easily once we ditch the bike, but not if the bike goes on ahead without us. They won’t know where to start looking. If I can get this thing on tight enough…” He engaged the throttle with one hand, and looped the hair tie around it once, twice, three times. It wasn’t tight enough—the throttle snapped right back into neutral. He grabbed it again and, straining, stretched it to a fourth loop. The throttle held in position.
“Okay, jump off,” he said to Amelia, climbing off himself. “The bike should take off as soon as I start it.” He leaned over, turned the key, and leaped back. The quad lurched forward, wobbling slightly as it picked up speed. It wasn’t going perfectly straight, but good enough. The track was level enough that it should bump along for a minute or two. The pickup was maybe sixty seconds away.
“Even if it goes fifty meters before it dies or crashes, that should be enough to confuse them, and the dogs. Come on.” Hetook the shotgun and plunged into the trees beside the track. He’d stopped at a spot that would quickly swallow them from view, and the brothers would be focused on the track ahead, anyway.
“Surely we can’t outrun the dogs, even if we get a head start?”
Tom took a hard left, heading for the largest stream. “But we can outwit them. They’re trained to track deer, not people. I know somewhere we can hide for a bit. And then we’ll need to walk to the village and get help. We’ll go through the moor, though it’ll take longer. The road’s too exposed—if they come after us in a vehicle, we’ll have no chance.”
Up on the track, the quad bike rumbled, while the pickup whined, fast approaching—the brothers had to be on the last rise before the descent to the straight.
“But the moor… Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Can be, but I know it well.” He skidded down a bank and held out an arm to help her. “It’s less of a risk than the road, under the circumstances. And better the moor than waiting around here. It’ll be days before anyone comes.”
“I, for one, would much rather leave than stay, knowing that at any moment someone could…” Amelia took a breath that didn’t seem to come easily. Anyone would be freaked out by the thought of being ambushed, but her experience would make it so much worse.
From the track came a thwack and a rustle of branches, then the quad motor cut out, leaving just the sound of the pickup. A relatively soft landing. Hopefully, the brothers wouldn’t look too close and see the hair tie.
“There’s a stream ahead,” he said. “The water will be almost at freezing, but if we take our shoes off and walk along it for a bit, it’ll lessen the chances of the dogs following our scent.”
The engine noise passed them and changed to an idling hum. The dogs started barking, and one of the brothers shouted at them.
Tom’s plan to walk through the stream proved better in theory than reality. Not only was the water so cold that it seemed to burn his bare feet, but it sent sharp, stabbing pains up his shins. By the tight look on Amelia’s face, he guessed she was feeling the same. Plus, concentrating to keep their balance amid the mossy rocks was slowing them down.
“Okay, that’s got to be better than nothing,” he said after what had to be less than five minutes. Frostbite was not going to be helpful, and going by the occasional distant bark from the dogs, it seemed the trick had worked well enough. He swiveled and headed for the bank, the boots he’d slung around his neck kicking him.
“How much farther to this hiding place?”
“Still a fair way—almost to the house.”
They dried off, put their shoes on, and set out in silence. He could see she was tiring. So was he. They couldn’t have slept much last night, and they were operating on minimal food and water. Not to mention the mental load. Once they were safe, he’d give her as long a breather as he could.
Finally, they came to a stand of enormous holm oaks, their evergreen canopy setting them apart from the threadbare trees in the rest of the wood.
“Here it is,” he said.
Amelia looked around. “What is? I can’t see anything.”
“Good.” He reached into the foliage of the nearest tree and unhooked a hidden rope-and-wood ladder. “After you.”
She took the ladder, peering up into the tree’s massive dark canopy. “Is it a tree house? I still can’t see anything.” He held the ladder steady as she climbed into the lower branches, a good seven feet above the ground. There, she could switch fromthe ladder to handholds and footholds nailed into the trunk. A dog barked, closer than he was comfortable with. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and followed her, fast. He pulled up the ladder and stashed it.
He climbed past Amelia, opened a hatch on the side of a timber hut built into the tree, and crawled in. Once you were inside, it was just large enough to stand up, in the middle.
“This is cute!” she whispered, creeping in and looking up at the old windows that were lashed together and sealed to make a pitched roof, through which the tree’s glossy leaves were visible. He raised a flap in the wooden walls and propped it up, giving them a window of sorts. The foliage had expanded since he was last up here, which provided better shielding, but also meant they couldn’t see as much. “Did you make this? Would the brothers know it’s here?”
“I doubt it. It was always our secret hideout—Eddie and me. Sometimes Connor.” He opened a cool box Eddie had once nicked from their mother, drew out two colas, and passed one to Amelia. “I assume cola doesn’t expire.”
“Liquid! Sugar! Bless you! You built it when you were a teenager?”
