There weren't many places to go on the island. She knew he didn't have a boat. And she was positive, down to her core, that Dane wouldn't abandon her if he knew she was in danger.
No one on the island could possibly have missed the helicopter. If the noise didn't give it away, there was the stabbing spotlight, visible for miles.
Which meant that he either wasn't on the island, or hewason the island and he was unable to get to her. Which likely meant he was trapped or hurt.
These were the thoughts running through her head as Mira squirmed toward the woods, eyes squinted against the whipping wind, lashed by thrashing grasses and trying to ignore the stickers stabbing her elbows. But her mind was tormented with visions of Dane, shot by a sniper from above, hurt so badly that all he could do was crawl into cover, too injured to cry out or try to find her ...
But no, that made no sense. If they had shot him, they would know he wasn't in the cabin.
Could there betwogroups of mercenaries on the island, who weren't talking to each other? Maybe rival groups?
That can't be! It's not a big enough island!
At every moment she expected to feel a bullet in her spine, but then the welcome shadows of the trees fell over her. Finally she dared to stand up, clinging to the trunk of a pine tree. She looked back.
From here, she could see the cabin from an angle, front and side, and her stomach dropped with horror. There must be at least two dozen people—all in tac gear, all armed—surrounding the small building. Several people with guns were covering the windows. By now, however, they had clearly figured out that the cabin was empty. She saw some of them forming up in the front yard into what could only be search parties.
Horror tied her stomach into cold knots. Through it all, one thought was clear.
I have to find Dane before they do.
But the impossibility of it made her want to cry. He could be anywhere on the island or even in the water. It made more sense for her to get to the hiding place Dane had shown her and wait out their search.
You have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help anyone else.If she was shot or detained, she could do nothing to help him.
But she couldn't bear to go hide without at least trying to search for him. It felt cowardly.
Perhaps it was possible to do both.
She began to move, darting from tree to tree. Soon she found the forest path. By now, she was far enough away from the helicopter that the searchlight was left behind, so she moved as quickly as she dared in the dark, stumbling on the unfamiliar path.
Glancing back, she saw a sight that was terrifying yet strangely beautiful. The great dark bulk of the helicopter hung above the cabin, with the searchlight stabbing down in a pure white beam. It looked like a photograph.
Below it, she glimpsed several flashlight beams raking the woods. The search teams were coming. Her throat went dry.
With the only light coming from behind her, it was nearly pitch black under the trees. She found the garden by stumbling into the fence, almost upsetting everything they had worked so hard to fix.
"Dane?" she whisper-called, not daring to shout in case some of the mercs were close.
She felt her way around the fence in the dark. She knew the trail continued because Dane had said so—The path keeps going to the top of the island—but she had never been there.
She found it mostly by touch. When the trees opened up around her, she knew she was on it. Stumbling, nearly blind, she felt her way forward. She could only assume she was going the right direction because the ground was tilting upward underfoot.
The tone of the helicopter's engine changed. Mira looked back in alarm.
The helicopter was rising and turning. At first she thought it was leaving, but then all it did was reposition itself so the spotlight could sweep the area immediately around the cabin.
Oh, why hadn't she thought of that? There was no reason for it to stay at the cabin now that they knew Dane wasn't there. It made more sense to use its powerful spotlight to aid in the search.
Once the spotlight reached her, they would surely see her. She was running out of time. She stumbled along the dark path, and only realized that she had reached the highest point of the island when the land very suddenly tilted steeply downward beneath her feet.
"Dane!" she called again.
There was, as before, no answer.
Somewhere below her in the dark, she could hear the hiss and crash of the waves. Mira looked behind her. The spotlight swept back and forth, systematically searching the island one sector at a time.
She wasn't going to find Dane like this, short of randomly tripping over him by pure luck. And she would only be a liability if caught. If she was to remain free and help him, she must get to the hiding place he had shown her.
