Chapter 66

The Overseer knew he was being followed. He’d hunted enough animals and men in his life to know the sound of pursuit intimately. He ran with abandon, heading for the coast. If he could flag down the patrol boat, he could still escape.

Seeing a number of the clones trying to flank him in the lowlands, he turned for the hills, ducking into the foliage and scrambling up the rocks that covered that part of the island. He realized all too late that he was taking the same route as the escapees he’d hunted down just two weeks before. He burst from the foliage into the same clearing, staring out at the sea over the same cliff.

He stepped to the edge in hopes of finding a route to climb down. He saw no path that would get him past the first section. What he did see—for the first time—was an indentation in the rock, an opening. Glancing at the edge of the cliff he saw wear marks caused by a rope or cable rubbing back and forth. Tracing the line back he found an anchor hidden behind a small boulder.

He suddenly realized how the clones had escaped him and it dawned on him that they were more intelligent, more organized, and more unified than he’d ever imagined. Perhaps he’d underestimated them. Perhaps they were not just—

An arrow hit him in the gut, punching through his torso and sticking out though his back, two inches to the left of his spine.

He dropped to his knees, mouth open, gasping for air. He looked up to see one of the clones coming his way. He was bleeding from the shoulder. The crimson liquid had soaked his shirt and now covered his hands, with a smear of it on his face. He stepped closer while drawing another arrow. Close enough for the Overseer to see the last digits of the tattoo painted across his neck. It was the number 16-21-6. A clone brother of the man called Five, who had escaped the island.

“—Savages,” the Overseer muttered, finishing his earlier thought.

The bow was drawn back, and the next arrow hit him square in the chest, puncturing his heart and ending his life.