Brett Battles - Little Girl Gone

“He wants us to stop,” Daeng said.

“Don’t!”

Daeng kept them moving forward as fast as possible, the front of the boat flying out of the water, then bouncing hard against the river with each swell.

As the other pilot was yelling at them again, Logan saw something directly in front of their boat. “Watch out!”

But his warning came too late. By the time Daeng started to turn, they had already traveled into one of the floating islands of vegetation. Logan heard the propeller chew on some of the vines, then catch and stop cold, killing the engine at once.

The other boat slowed as it approached, then stopped beside them, just outside the vine trap. Logan kept his back to them, hoping they could somehow get out of this without Ryan getting a look at him. Because if that happened, and Ryan reported back that Logan was here, the people who had Elyse might decide it was time to cut their losses and make her disappear forever.

“You speak English?” Ryan asked.

“Little,” Daeng said, falling easily into a Thai accent.

“What about your friend there?”

“No speak.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Looking for? Mai khao jai . Don’t understand.”

There was a pause, then Ryan asked, “What were you doing?”

“Doing? Fishing. On boat.”

“I don’t see any fishing equipment.”

“Fall out when you chase us.”

“Right. Sure. What were you doing?”

“I tell you already,” Daeng said.

“You there in the middle. What were you doing out here?”

Logan didn’t move.

“Hey, I bet you do speak English. Tell me what you were doing? You were looking for something, weren’t you? I could tell.”

Logan continued to act like he couldn’t hear him.

“Move us in closer,” Ryan said to his pilot.

The motor on the other boat throttled up for a moment. A few seconds later, there was a bump, and the boat Logan was in rocked back and forth.

“Why were you out here?” Ryan said, his voice only a few feet away. “Hey. I’m talking to you. Turn around.”

Logan continued to stare out at the water.

“Tell him to turn around,” Ryan said.

The pilot spoke in Thai, relaying the command to Logan.

Slowly, Logan rose, his back still to Ryan.

“Turn around,” Ryan commanded.

When he didn’t move right away, Ryan grabbed Logan’s shoulder, then pulled at him. Logan resisted for a moment, then finally turned.

A second passed before recognition flashed across Ryan’s eyes. “What the hell? You? ”

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do anything stupid again,” Logan said, then slugged him in the gut.

He’d hoped the blow would send Ryan over the side of his boat, but Ryan caught himself, then swung his gun around, its barrel making a quick arc that would end with its muzzle pointed at Logan’s chest. Before that could happen, though, Logan leaped at him.

There was no way for Ryan to stop their combined momentum this time. He went into the river, and Logan went with him.

They plunged several feet beneath the dark, muddy surface, their arms intertwined. Logan tried to push Ryan away, but Ryan fought back, using his gun as a club. He landed one blow, but on his second try it slipped from his hand, and fell toward the riverbed.

His lungs screaming for air, Logan pushed away from Ryan, then broke the surface, gasping. A second later, Ryan came up, too.

He took a few rapid breaths, then said, “How the hell did you find us?”

“Where’s Elyse, Ryan?” Logan asked.

“Nowhere you’ll find her.”

“Where is she?”

Ryan started to laugh, but it quickly died in his throat as Logan began swimming toward him. He immediately started moving away, but he was a mediocre swimmer at best, and no match for Logan. He seemed to sense this, because just before Logan got to him, he stopped.

Pulling up just short of Ryan’s reach, Logan began treading water. “You’re coming with us. I don’t want to hurt you, but if I have to, I will.”

The arrogant laugh was back. “You don’t get it. I already reported in that I was pursuing a suspicious boat. The others’ are out looking for me now. They’ll probably be here before we even get out of the water.”

“Which way did you tell them we were going?” Logan asked. “North?”

Ryan said nothing.

“Take a look around. You see those lights right over there?” Logan pointed at the east shore. “That’s right about where you originally spotted us. We’re already past of that point now. This current’s moving pretty quickly, too. In a few minutes we won’t be able to even see them anymore. And your friends? They’ll just keep going in the other direction.”

Ryan tried to keep his face blank, but he was doing a bad job at it.

“We’re going to swim back to the boats, and you’re going to come with us,” Logan said.

Ryan looked at him for a moment, then gave a reluctant nod.

As they neared the boats, Logan saw that Daeng had moved into the one with the working motor.

“Where’s the pilot?” Logan called out, not seeing the guy who’d been with Ryan.

“Swam off right after you two fell in.”

Suddenly concerned, Logan said, “Which way did he go? We’ve got to get him before he gets to shore. If he tells them about us…”

“Don’t worry,” Daeng said. “He won’t. He’ll be concerned they’d blame him for you getting away. I guarantee you he’ll lay low until they’re gone.”

This didn’t completely relax Logan. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am.”

As Ryan neared the boat, Logan said, “Get in.”

“You should let me go,” Ryan told him. “I promise, I won’t say anything to anyone.”

“Get in the boat.”

“Come on. What are you going to do, huh? Beat me up? No matter what, I’m not going to tell you anything.”

Logan swam in closer. “Get. In. The. Boat.”

Ryan glanced down at the water, resigned. As he turned and reached out, Logan thought he was going to grab the hull and pull himself in, but instead he put his hand on the side and pushed himself under.

Logan immediately dove after him, then blindly reached out, grasping at the area where he thought Ryan might be. His fingers brushed against a pant leg, but it quickly slipped away. He swam beneath the hull, and reached out again. This time he got a hold of Ryan’s foot for half a second before it kicked out, and he lost his grip.

The breath he’d taken before going under had been a quick one, and as he passed under the bottom of the boat, he could feel his air running out. He found the hull with his hand, then followed it up until his head broke the surface between the two longboats.

As he breathed, he looked for Ryan, but there was no sign of him.

“Did I miss him? Did he come up?” he yelled at Daeng.

“I haven’t seen him.”

Logan had to find him. Unlike the pilot, Ryan would definitely go back to the others. He expelled all his air, then took as deep a breath as he could, and went back under.

He knew Ryan had to have come up for air somewhere. There must have been a break in the vines, or perhaps there was space on the other side of the boat that Daeng and Logan had been on. That was something he could check.

He passed under the hull of the second boat, then felt his way back toward the surface, but he was blocked before he could get there by a solid wall of vines. No way Ryan could have come up there.

Just as Logan was about to move his hand off of the vines, he felt several unnatural tugs. He tried to get a fix on which direction they had come from, then pushed back down, and propelled himself under the floating island.

He used one arm to power his swim, and the other to search for Ryan. For the first few seconds, the only things he touched were stray vines dangling down below the mass. Then the back of his hand knocked against something definitely not vine-like. As he turned his wrist to get a better angle on it, it pulled away, but not before he got the impression he’d come in contact with a leg.