Or hobbled. Danny was moving on his one good leg, using his rifle as a crutch, while holding Lara against him. Blood dripped down his temple, and there were cuts along his right cheek. His neck was covered in blood, as was almost the entire right side of his clothes.
“Jesus, Danny,” Gaby said. “How are you still alive?”
“It’s not mine,” he said. “Well, most of it isn’t mine.”
She didn’t have to ask whose it was. Lara had a field tourniquet wrapped around most of her left shoulder and right thigh. Blood was already seeping through them, and she leaned back against the wall and sighed, catching her breath and somehow managing to grin back at Gaby anyway. She didn’t have her rifle and her hip holster was empty.
“They threw a grenade into the lobby,” Lara said. “Looks like we’re going to have to redecorate.”
“Let’s get some better wallpaper this time,” Gaby said, trying her best to smile back. “Are you okay? Where’s your rifle?”
“Lost it. My Glock, too. Got this big piece of shrapnel in my shoulder, though.” She touched the bandage over her thigh and shook her head. “And I think I was shot here. I don’t remember.”
“She was shot down there,” Danny said. “I’m the one who wrapped it up. Trust me, that was a bullet hole.”
“If you say so,” Lara said.
“I do, I do. And I also say we gotta go.”
“Where?” Gaby asked. “Lara told Blaine to leave in the Trident, remember? The exit points are useless now.”
“The beach,” Lara said. “There are boats on the beach, remember?”
They left the hotel through the same side door she had used earlier and stepped back out into the chilly night. The world looked different behind the night-vision goggles attached to her head. She thought things were surreal peering behind the scope mounted on her rifle, but it was nothing compared to actually wearing one of the NVGs she had taken from one of the soldiers.
Gaby went outside first, then let Danny and Lara move in front while she brought up the rear. She wasn’t looking forward to returning to the beach and seeing all those dead bodies again, but they didn’t have any choice now. Blaine and the Trident were already moving and the last thing Lara wanted was to stall them, to make them vulnerable again. There were too many people on board. The kids, the adults…and Nate.
As they moved away from the hotel, they could hear isolated bursts of gunfire continuing from the other side of the island. It was difficult to pinpoint the location, almost as if the battle was constantly moving.
Gaby pulled her earbud out of her ear and disconnected the wire before keying the radio. “Blaine, come in.”
“Jesus, are you guys still alive?” Blaine said. His anxiety came through her radio’s speakers loud and clear, along with the brap-brap-brap of machine gunfire in the background, echoing what they could hear from across the island.
Gaby held the radio out for Lara, who said into it, “We’re heading to the beach for one of the boats. Is Keo with you?’
“No, I thought he was with you guys.”
Lara exchanged a brief look with Gaby, then she said into the radio, “We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point as planned, Blaine.”
“Good luck! We’ll wait as long as it takes!”
“See you soon.”
Gaby clipped the radio back on. “What about Keo?”
Lara glanced across the hotel grounds. Gaby saw the conflict on her face.
“Keo’s resourceful,” Lara said finally. “He’ll find a way off the island. I’m more worried about us.”
“Don’t forget, the guy’s half-dolphin,” Danny said.
They continued to the beach, moving as fast as Lara and Danny could manage, while essentially keeping each other from falling. Gaby wanted to lend a hand, but she was their only security at the moment and she had to make do with keeping an eye on them while also scanning the blackened grounds.
Soon, they had left the hotel behind and were moving down the cobblestone pathway that cut through the woods. She could already feel the colder air from the beach wafting up in their direction. She shivered slightly before realizing it wasn’t from the dropping temperature. No, it was the prospect of seeing those bodies lying across the sand one more time. She had wanted to avoid that at all costs, but that was impossible now.
“Watch your step,” Danny said in front of her.
“Why?” she asked, turning around and almost stepping on a helmet.
The owner of the helmet (or, at least, one of the possible owners) lay in front of her among a pile of dead men in black clothing. There must have been two dozen of them, their arms and legs draped over each other’s bodies and limbs, like friends that had fallen asleep during some kind of commando sleepover.
Gaby flinched. She always knew this was part of the plan, that the objective was always for her, Danny, and Keo to kill as many as possible on the beach while funneling the rest into the pathway where Lara and the others laid in wait for them. But knowing and being faced with the reality of what they had done…
She pulled the NVD off and sucked in a lungful of cold air.
“Gaby,” Lara said. She was standing with Danny on the other side of the bodies looking back at her. “Come on, we have to go. There’s no telling how many more of them are running around the island. Sooner or later, they’ll find their dead friends at the hotel and start looking for us.”
She nodded and started moving again, but made sure to go around the dead as much as she could, skirting along the edges and doing her best to ignore the lingering smell of almost-vomit on her lips.
The bodies, the death, the blood…
All of it made her glad they were abandoning the island, despite doing everything possible to hold it. Even if they had been successful and repelled the attack, she wasn’t sure if she could look at Song Island in the same light ever again. In the morning, the dead would still be there, and the knowledge she had contributed to the body count weighed on her.
She had helped to do this. One year removed from high school. If her friends could see her now, she wondered what they would say. Would they be impressed by her growth or horrified by what she had become?
And what was that? A shooter? A killer? A survivor?
Even she didn’t know for sure—
Bang!
She was almost beyond the pile of dead and looking back to make sure she didn’t step on a pale arm covered in blood when the gunshot exploded behind her. She spun around, lifting her M4, just as Danny and Lara collapsed to the ground in front of her.
There had just been the one shot, so her mind couldn’t reconcile why both of them were falling. That quickly gave way to the sight of the dark figures standing at the other end of the pathway, blocking the exit to the beach. With the night-vision goggles dangling around her neck instead of over her eyes, all she could see were shadows. Although she couldn’t make them out, she could see the rifles in their hands just fine, and they were all pointed at her. That wasn’t entirely true. Four of them were pointing weapons at her, but the fifth one — in the center — was pointing a handgun at Lara and Danny.
She waited for them to shoot, to get it over with. She would fire back, even knowing she had no chance of surviving this, especially at this range. She could probably take out one, maybe two. If Danny or Lara weren’t too badly hurt, they would chip in. Together, maybe the three of them could kill the rest, or enough to make this a pyrrhic victory.
“Gaby,” one of the silhouettes said. It was the one in the middle. He had lowered the handgun and was looking across the darkness at her. The way the others flanked him, she guessed he was their leader.