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