Brett Battles - Every Precious Thing

Logan kept quiet.

“I thought not. The picture, then. The one of the other woman you were showing around. That’s why, right?”

“You should know,” he said. “You beat up my friend because he was showing it around, too.”

Off to Logan’s side, Frisk had started looking at his boss every few seconds, as if he were waiting for a visual order to pull the trigger.

“Now why would we have done that?” she asked.

“Look, I know you’re helping Diana and Sara, and you think that my friends and I are some kind of danger to them, but we’re not here to harm them in any way.”

She stared at him, the look on her face curious. After a moment, she said, “Then why are you here?”

Something was not right, he realized. He’d made a mistake somewhere, figured something wrong. Can it be…?

Beside him, Frisk was taking even longer looks at his boss, a smirk growing on his face.

“Well, Mr. Harper? Why?” she asked.

He considered his response. “Sara’s a friend, that’s all. We were just trying to find her.”

Her look of curiosity was now one of pity. “I don’t know if that’s the truth or not, but I will tell you that you’ve been working under a misconception. I’m not helping Diana and Sara. I’m looking for them, just like you. The only difference is, I’m going to find them. You and your friend are a complication that has no value to me.”

Logan was right, but he had no time to process the bigger picture of what that might mean. He checked Frisk again. While the man was pointing his gun at Logan, he was once more looking at Dr. Paskota.

“Are you saying you had nothing to do with the man in the hospital?” Logan asked.

“Mr. Harper, I think we’re-”

Logan grunted, “Now,” and dove to his left, slamming into Frisk’s legs and knocking the gunman to the ground. He grabbed the man’s hand that was holding the gun, wrapped his free arm around the man’s waist, then rolled with him side over side quickly into the trees.

Behind him, several shots rang out.

“Let go of me, you son of a bitch!” Frisk yelled.

Logan punched him in the jaw and slammed the gun hard into the ground, catching the man’s fingers between the grip and the dirt.

Out of reflex, Frisk’s hand opened.

Logan immediately twisted the weapon free and whipped it into the side of the asshole’s head. Frisk fell against the ground, stunned.

Staying low, Logan scrambled deeper into the darkness of the woods. When he was a good fifty yards away, he stopped and looked back.

Someone had turned on the sedan’s headlights, lighting up as much of the forest as they could. He could see Frisk stumbling toward the car, but wasn’t sure where the others were. What he really wanted to see was the area where he and Dev had been, but several trees blocked his sight line. He moved quietly to his right until the view opened up.

No body on the ground. Good . Dev had at least made it into the trees.

Logan checked the car again, searching for the remaining men. One was helping Frisk get inside the vehicle, but the other two were still nowhere to be seen.

A sound, low and soft.

An ever-so-subtle crunch.

A footstep, carefully placed on a pack of dried pine needles.

Logan waited for another one, but none came.

His eyes having adjusted as best they could to the darkness, he picked out a path that went in a large arc around the area where the car was parked, and over to the side where Dev would have gone. He needed to find his friend to make sure he was all right.

Between steps, he stopped to listen. Once he heard a twig snap, but it could have been caused by the wind in the trees. Another time he heard Frisk groan back at the car.

As he neared the top of the arc, he caught sight of a boulder just ahead. It would provide excellent cover, and perhaps there was even a crevasse or hole where Dev was hiding.

Logan came around the backside of the rock, farthest from the car. His instinct was to whisper Dev’s name, but he couldn’t chance it so he moved in closer. It wasn’t one boulder, but several piled together on the edge of a small depression. Keeping his newly acquired gun in front of him, he checked the spaces between the rocks but saw no one there.

He glanced up. The top of the pile was about twelve feet above him. If he could get up there, he’d be able to see where the others were. He scoped out the easiest route, then put a foot on the rock.

Almost instantly he knew it was a bad idea. Not because the rock was unstable or anything like that, but because of the gun muzzle that was suddenly resting against the base of his skull.

Logan was pretty sure he could twist out of the way and get control of the weapon without getting hit. But when it came to pistols anywhere near his head, pretty sure wasn’t something he wanted to test.

He raised his hands, his own gun pointing at the sky.

“Set it on the rock,” the person behind him whispered, the words almost like breaths. “Slowly.”

As he started to comply, the muzzle came away from his head, and he could hear the person take a quick step backward.

He placed his pistol on the rock.

“To your left.”

Improvising, he started to turn as he moved.

“No. Keep your eyes on the rocks.”

Not seeing a choice, he complied. His gun was now a sizable lunge away.

“Far enough,” the voice whispered. “Now sit.”

He hesitated, confused. He had expected to be immediately marched back to the sedan.

“Sit.”

This time he did so.

Silence descended. In the distance he thought he could hear another footstep.

After nearly a minute, he said, “What are we do-”

“Quiet.”

From his position, the only thing Logan could see was rock. He tried not to think about anything, focusing all his energy on being ready to react at a moment’s notice. Hopefully, whoever was behind him didn’t know that Dev was out there, too.

A distant, angry voice broke through the stillness, and was followed moments later by the sedan’s doors slamming shut. The car’s engine grew loud enough to be heard, then it faded into the distance as the vehicle drove away.

What the hell?

“Who are you?” the person behind him asked. Not a whisper this time.

Surprised, he turned without even thinking about it.

“Don’t!”

But it was too late. He’d seen her.

Diana Stockley was crouched next to a tree ten feet behind him. In her hand was a pistol. She looked nervous and scared, not the combination Logan wanted in a person pointing a gun at him.

“I promise I won’t try anything,” he said, continuing to hold up his empty palms. “Why don’t you put the gun down?”

“No. Who are you?”

“I told you at your bar. My name’s Logan. Logan Harper.”

“That’s a lie. Who are you, really?”

“That’s not a lie. I’d show you my driver’s license, but the others took my wallet.”

“Convenient.”

“If you were watching us, you know they did.”

She stared at him, tight-lipped, but allowed the barrel of the gun to point a few feet to Logan’s right.

“Tell them to leave her alone and not to come looking for her again,” she said. “Make sure you tell them she’s not theirs. Not now. Not ever. Understand?”

“I don’t know who you think I am,” Logan said. “But the last thing I want to do is hurt Sara.”

The woman stared at him. “Don’t you dare say her name. You don’t have that right.”

“I’m only here because of Sara’s husband.”

She looked confused. “Her husband?”

“Alan,” Logan said. “And her daughter Emily, too.”