Dream Sky Read Online Free PDF Page B

reached the edge of a four-lane divided road. He checked both ways for movement, but saw none.
    What the hell? Pax shouldn’t have gone any farther than this.
    “Pax! Shout if you can hear me!”
    Not a damn thing.
    He decided to cross the road and keep going north for a few blocks. If that didn’t work, he’d try east and west.
    “Pax! Can you hear me? Pax!”
    All remained silent, until he neared the point where he’d planned to turn back.
    It wasn’t a voice he heard, not even something rapping against the ground to get his attention. It was an engine, and by the sound of it, one belonging to a large vehicle, like a…
    …bus .
    Relieved, he started jogging back down the street. He was still a good half block from the divided road when a tour bus came speeding through the intersection. He slowed, surprised. While he had clearly seen Pax behind the wheel, the older man had not been alone.
    The people Pax worked with must’ve shown up early, Robert decided.
    He sprinted back to the buildings in front of the port, and reached the ocean-side corner of the passageway moments after the bus pulled to a stop. He was just about to step into the clear when the vehicle’s door opened and Pax stumbled out.
    Robert paused, still mostly hidden behind the building.
    The second person to exit was a man carrying a rifle. He shoved the weapon’s stock into Pax’s back, prodding him forward. Four more people piled off—two men and two women. The men and the younger woman were similarly armed.
    They had a desperate look to them as they conferenced at the end of the dock. The talk seemed heated, one of the men gesturing angrily at Pax. Then a man and the armed woman ran down the dock and disappeared onto the ferry. Robert could see them moving quickly through the boat, and knew they had to have been looking for him. When they returned to where the others waited, the man shook his head and the woman said something.
    The guy who’d shoved Pax shouted a curse and turned Pax away from the water, not quite angled at Robert, but close enough.
    “I know you’re out there!” the man yelled. “I saw you and your buddy come in! So you might as well show yourself.”
    Robert didn’t move.
    “Here’s the thing,” the man continued after a moment. “We’re taking your boat. Now your friend says he can drive it for us, but you were the one behind the wheel of the one you two came in on, so I’m thinking you’re the pilot. Or captain. Whatever. I think your buddy here is useless. So, unless you want to watch me kill him, I need to see you walking over here.”
    What the hell was wrong with these people? They didn’t look sick. Shouldn’t they have been happy to find others alive?
    “Thirty seconds,” the man announced, “or I swear to God I will shoot him in the back of the head, and we’ll try to figure out how to sail this thing ourselves.”
    “I told you I can do it,” Pax said, his voice not quite as loud as the other man’s. “My friend’s long gone by now. He’s not coming back.”
    “Is that right?” The response was yelled so Robert could hear it. “You the kind of person who will just leave your friend to die?”
    Robert didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want Pax to get hurt, but who was to say these people wouldn’t kill both him and Pax if he did as they asked? Robert’s main responsibility was to those still on Isabella Island. Without him, they would never get off. Of course, without the ferry, getting everyone to the mainland would become infinitely harder.
    “Goddammit! Where the hell are you?” the man screamed. He grabbed the back of Pax’s shirt and shoved the end of the rifle into Pax’s neck. “I’m fucking serious! Show yourself!”
    One of the man’s companions came up and said something Robert couldn’t make out.
    “I know what I’m doing!” the agitated man shouted. “I know what I’m doing!”
    “I can pilot the boat for you,” Pax said, his voice surprisingly