My foot slipped on a grassy patch, splitting my legs into a half-split and pulling my inner thigh muscle. Fuck, that hurt. Without looking back, I scrambled up and kept running.
At the last turn, I bolted toward the shed area and hid behind the mound of plastic garbage. Breathing through my mouth, I waited. The jungle was quiet. No one was after me. I had either lost them, or it was Hunter. Where was he? He could have steered to the boat, or to confuse Tom’s men, taken off in a different direction from me. Damn it. The workshop was a short distance from here. Crouching, I left my hiding spot.
In the blackness, it was anyone’s guess where the fucking hammers were on the workbench. With stealthy hands, I palmed the surface, only twisting once to see if anyone was advancing at me. My fingers brushed over the cold metal of the hammer’s head. I seized it.
Teaming up with the jungle’s darkness, I hid to catch my breath, my eyes trained on the lone sailboat in the bay, its lights twinkling in the distance. I wished I knew where Hunter was. The thought that he was hurt, or worse, made the hairs on my arms stand up. I should have not listened to him and stayed to help. But I had to believe Hunter was fine. He was smarter and stronger than all three morons, and he knew the island better than any of us. He would meet me at the beach, like we decided. I had to move forward with our original plan.
Taking a breath, I readied to run the last stretch to the dinghy—about four hundred feet. I stepped out from the woods. My dirty white T-shirt reflected the moon’s light. I retreated. The moon wasn’t full, but it was too bright for me to race freely on the beach. Anyone could spot me.
Gripping the hammer’s wooden handle, I crept in shadows outside the jungle, where the sand mixed with pine needles and low creeping vines. Soon, the outline of piled loot on the beach came into view, and near the waterline, the dinghy patiently waited for someone to take it out. That someone was going to be me. It was another hundred feet before I could reach it.
I made it to the spot where Hunter and I had huddled behind trees earlier. Only thirty yards left to go. I licked my dry lips and took off.
A body slammed into me, knocking me off my feet sideways.
The hammer flew out of my hand.
Curse words punctuated their labored breath as they drove the side of my face into the sand, seizing my arms behind my back. A devastating mix of panic and anger filled my veins, and I wrenched my arm out, only to get pushed deeper into the sand. A heavy weight crushed my ribcage. He didn’t reek like roadkill in summer days. Tom? Jack?
I spat sand out of my mouth and hissed at the pain in my arm. “Let me go.”
Jack laughed and yanked me to my feet. He was awfully strong for a small man, or I was too tired to fight.
“Tom wants to talk to you,” he said.
“Where is Hunter?” I asked, digging my feet into the sand.
“Just walk.” He shoved me forward.
“Where is Hunter?” I repeated.
Before Jack had tackled me, the hut had been dark, but now light oozed out of the closed shutters as we approached it, shadows shifting inside. I paused the last step, my eyes meeting Garry’s, who stood at the door, holding a flashlight and blocking most of the entry.
“Can you move?” I asked, shielding the bright light with my hand. He didn’t step away. Asshole.
“Go on,” Jack urged me with a shove.
The porch planks groaned as I squeezed by Garry, avoiding any unnecessary contact, my heart beating unpleasantly hard. This was the first time I had seen the room after Jack had raided it yesterday. A flashlight on the desk threw a direct light into the space. Bookshelves and drawers were mostly empty, their items thrown on the floor, and the bed moved away from the wall, its mattress crooked.
“Sydney,” Hunter said, and I turned, my eyes landing on him standing by the sofa. He sported a bloody bottom lip, and his right cheek was swollen. My body went weak as if I had seen a ghost, and I wanted to cry. My shoulders sagged with relief that he wasn’t hurt—badly.
“I almost reached it.” I hid my face into Hunter’s chest, wrapping my arms around his waist. A multitude of brown and green marks covered his beige T-shirt as if someone had dragged him through a grass field.
“You were very brave,” he said, embracing me.
“Next time we run together,” I whispered.
His low chuckle vibrated in his chest. “Okay.”
“I’m a little disappointed that you took all day to finally run away,” Tom said, walking in. He took the same spot at the table as the last time, lit the lantern, rotating the knob until it didn’t turn any further. The flame spitted and sputtered, and after a few seconds, the wick flared to life, throwing a gloom of light at his face, where a streak of blood ran down its side. His eyes were cold and calculating and held a lot of anger.
“I don’t know how you didn’t go blind reading all this shit,” Tom said and stacked his feet on a chair, crossing them at the ankle. Then he lowered the gun next to the journal and flipped through the large notebook until he stopped on the page with a sketch of the island. A second later, he turned and squinted at the map on the wall with all the pins we had forgotten to remove.
Jack moved to the desk and picked up my father’s urn.
“Please don’t touch that,” I said. “That’s my dad’s ashes.”
The man’s eyebrow stippled with false pity, his one good eye focusing on me. His hand unscrewed the top and took it off. “That’s so sad that your daddy is dead.” He flipped the urn upside down. “Oops.”
