Chapter 11 #3
The engines she’d heard were getting louder.
They must be coming along the road. She risked a look back over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see anything apart from forest. And the trail that she and Rhodda were leaving through the undergrowth.
A trail that a child would be able to follow.
She swallowed the lump of fear in her throat and kept going.
Girard would have had a reason for sending them this way.
But that didn’t mean she had to just rely on him.
She needed to come up with a plan of her own.
Further into the forest, the undergrowth thinned out so that they were walking on bare earth and the trail they had been making disappeared.
Hallie heaved a sigh of relief, and then realised she couldn’t hear the engines any longer.
And she didn’t think it was because they were too far away.
The vehicles - perhaps other ATVs - had stopped.
Probably when they reached the crash site.
Her mind spun. Were the newcomers looking for Rhodda?
Or for Hallie and Girard? Or something else?
She and Girard hadn’t searched the overturned ATV, but it seemed unlikely that anything of value had survived the crash.
There was a body, though. Would the principal send men out to recover the body of one of his gunners?
Or perhaps they had been sent out to recover the ATV?
That made sense to Hallie, used to living in low city where resources like vehicle parts were precious.
Even burned and buckled, there would be parts of the ATV that could be stripped and re-used.
But that assumed it was the principal who had sent the newcomers.
If it was the governor that Rhodda seemed so frightened of, that changed things.
Someone who kept an eye on transport to the island would absolutely have seen the giant black helicopter that had dropped her and Girard off.
They might not have known exactly where, and there had been a storm the day before, so perhaps this was the earliest chance the governor had had to send people to investigate.
Loud voices sounded, stopping Hallie in her tracks.
Too far away for her to make out the words, but she could hear the anger in one and the calm in the other.
She thought she recognised the calm tone as Girard and her stomach sank.
Someone had found him, or he’d shown himself to the new arrivals. Impossible to tell from where she was.
Then the flat crack of a gunshot made Hallie flinch and drop to the ground.
She looked around, hearing another shot.
There was no one in sight. So whoever it was must be shooting at someone else.
Girard. There was more shouting, the tone still angry.
Hallie’s mouth went dry. She was quite sure Girard would not have fired first, no matter the provocation. So the newcomers were firing at him.
She got to her feet, hesitating a moment, torn between heading further into the forest with Rhodda, to keep the other woman safe, and heading back to make sure Girard was alright.
A small sound of pain and protest from Rhodda snapped Hallie’s attention back to her.
Hallie had stopped now, but before she’d been striding through the trees, almost running, trying to put distance between them and the road, and realised that Rhodda had been struggling to keep up, her hand pressed against her side again, fine lines fanning out across her face, expression pinched with pain.
Before she could say anything another shot rang out.
A larger, deeper sound, possibly a shotgun.
Definitely not Girard’s weapon. That made at least two - possibly three - shots aimed at Girard.
He might be fast. He might dodge a badly aimed bullet, but three of them? Hallie did not like those odds one bit.
“Leave me,” Rhodda said, voice a harsh whisper. “I’m slowing you down. Save yourself.”
“I’m not going to abandon you.” Hallie kept her voice low, coming to a stop.
She was breathing hard, too, not fully recovered from all the magic she’d used the night before.
She might not have any strong connection to the other woman, but she couldn’t imagine leaving anyone behind to just be caught.
But neither she nor Rhodda were in any shape to keep going for much longer.
And Hallie was worried about Girard. Thinking fast, she looked around, searching for somewhere that Rhodda might be able to hide.
And for the first time regretted the lack of undergrowth.
But there were a few trees nearby that had low-hanging branches and thick leaf cover almost to the ground.
“Here, can you get up on this branch? A little bit higher, up among the leaves if possible?”
“I think so,” Rhodda said. She managed, somehow, to pull herself up into the tree and then higher, so that she was completely concealed by the large, dark green leaves.
“Stay there,” Hallie said. She reached up, put a hand on Rhodda’s arm. “I’m not going to leave you. Stay there, quiet and out of sight, until Girard or I come and get you. I need to go and help him.”
“You’ll get yourself killed,” Rhodda said bitterly. “You can’t win against the gunners or the governor’s men.”
“We’ll see,” Hallie said, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. It was just her and Girard, after all, with one weapon each.
But she had to try. She couldn’t keep running. She wouldn’t keep running. It sounded like Girard was in trouble and she needed to find out what had happened to him. After that, she and Girard had been sent to find out what was going on and that was what she was going to do.
The determination gave her a much-needed spurt of energy and she turned on her heel, heading back the way she and Rhodda had come. At least, she hoped it was the right way.