Thanks so much to all who reviewed the last chapter and encouraged me to get my act together and write the next one. Here it is at last, the next chapter!

A zillion thanks, as always, to Alaidh for her beta work on this chapter. She probably ended up reading this chapter about twenty times because I kept making changes! Where else could I find a beta with such in-depth knowledge of VW vans – or to those of us in Australia, the dreaded Kombi!

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DEEP

CHAPTER 15

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"Logan!"

His eyes opened suddenly. He'd fallen asleep again.

He looked across to find that Max had slid into the driver's seat. He wondered if she knew her own strength as her fingers gripped tightly on his arm to wake him.

"I'm awake," he told her quickly, trying to make out her expression in the dark.

Max was never one to waste words.

"We're screwed, Logan. Your car's gone."

His eyebrows lifted. "Gone?" he repeated. Maybe there was some other Manticore definition for the word gone, one that wouldn't leave him with this hollow feeling inside.

"Vamoosed, not there, missing, gone bye bye…"

"I think I've got the picture, Max," he assured her in his driest tone.

"I looked for tracks but once they hit the road it was too hard to tell which way they took it. I checked out the campgrounds – no sign of it anywhere."

"Well, we wouldn't want the mundane now, would we?" he murmured ironically.

"There's been nothing mundane about anything since we got here," Max muttered darkly, her thoughts boding ill for a certain X5 she knew.

Logan pulled Poggs's jacket tighter. It was damned cold in the van. "You think they took it into town?"

"My next likely choice," Max replied, still sounding annoyed. Looking across at Logan, she added in a milder tone, "But I thought I should swing back here first before I check it out."

"Don't know why you bothered. I'm not goin' anywhere, Max."

"We've still got the supersonic bus," she reminded him as she ran her hands over the large steering wheel in front of her. Her ears pricked at the underlying tone in his voice.

"Unfortunately, the supersonic bus doesn't run on air."

"You hear something?" Max's voice suddenly cut across his.

Logan stared outside. Against the darkness he could barely discern even vague forms of foliage.

Max's hand was already on the door handle, inching the door open. "I should do some recon before I go, anyway," she murmured as she slipped down from her seat.

"Knock yourself out," Logan invited her. The cramped, ancient confines of the old van were beginning to feel more and more like a prison.

Max threw him a look and was gone.

Left alone once more, Logan restlessly shifted position, all the while peering intently through the grimy windshield. He felt vaguely resentful towards Max and then felt vaguely ashamed of himself. After all, it wasn't her fault she had a better than perfect body.

I still wouldn't mind her eyesight, he muttered, nonetheless, as he reached forward irritably to shove the hanging half-broken sun visor out of the way.

"Dammit!" Sucking in a deep breath, he withdrew his hand like lightning. Hundreds of tiny red-hot needles were piercing the skin around the knuckles of his right hand.

Logan swore softly under his breath as he shook the hand, trying to rid himself of the stinging pain while his mind screamed a warning at him – a vivid flash of a spider calmly crawling from the drop-out med student's ear. Logan froze. The thought of those brown, furry spiders was bad enough, but the thought of them hovering just above his head in the dark was definitely bordering on downright creepy. And now I know that they bite.

What he wouldn't have given then and there to leap out of the van and walk away - no definitely run away - as far as possible. Not a good look, Logan, he had to admit as he wondered if he'd be able to think up some excuse to explain his undignified escape to Max. She who wasn't afraid of anything…

Putting aside his fantasies, he reached for the cigarette lighter he'd found before in the glove box. Not relishing the task, he carefully raised the tiny flame to the roof of the van and let the flickering, wispy flame show him the untold secrets of the dark.

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Max pressed on quickly into the night, determined to do her recon and satisfy her mind that all was well so that she could pursue the most pressing matter – transportation for her and Logan.

Transportation. Max made a face.

"You sure screwed up big-time, Max," she berated herself mentally yet again. "You shoulda come real that they'd jack his damn car."

She couldn't help but wonder if Zack would have made such a stupid mistake. She couldn't help but wonder how differently things would've gone if he'd hung around.

Max moved silently amongst the trees, dark eyes missing nothing. She thought the noise she'd heard had come from somewhere ahead of the van. She'd checked that area out earlier in the day when Logan had been changing his clothes and she'd found only forest. Still, it never hurt to be sure. Deftly avoiding any branches that reached out to scratch at her face, Max was almost convinced that she'd come far enough to breathe safely, when the sound of a car engine starting up startled the silence of the night.

Max's breathing stilled suddenly. With disbelief she stared ahead to where the trees made way…for a road.

Can't anything go right? she fumed, wondering how fate had made her hide their van unwittingly so close to the winding, campground road and how it was that she'd failed to do a thorough recon the first time and realise her mistake.

Her eyes unerringly picked out the black SUV even as she heard the sound of muffled voices.

Instinctively, she looked behind to the forest where she knew Logan would be waiting in the hated van…impatiently…unprotected…in the dark.

It was amazing how tiny a light could pierce the blackness.

Max turned and ran.

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Without the least bit of enthusiasm for his task, Logan let the flickering light trail over the roof of the VW van, thinking he'd kill for one of those super-duper, never fail, unbelievably wide-beamed flashlights that Mulder and Scully always had at hand.

His throat tightened as he recoiled instinctively.

"So the damned things come out at night," he muttered grittily, angry with himself for being so ridiculously jumpy, and feeling a rush of unreasoning anger towards the spiders for being the cause of it. There had to be at least four of the brown, furry, fat-bellied horrors lurking around the edges of the windshield…and those were just the ones that he could see.

Mental images of spiders running up and down his legs had him hurriedly sweeping the tiny flame over the rest of his body, reassuring himself as he did that it was highly unlikely that Poggs had died of a spider bite. That was what he'd told Max, wasn't it? Why was it, that in the light of day, this theory had sounded a whole lot more plausible, he wondered, as opposed to how it sounded now while sitting alone in the dark in a spider-infested van?

What the hell do you know about South American spiders, anyway? his mind added corrosively.

"That they look a whole lot better when they're dead," he answered it, vindictively flicking one from his leg, with a speed that would almost do justice to an X5. Wondering if this was the one that had bitten him, he quickly shone the lighter on the floor to see where it had landed.

No doubt about it – the damned thing was mocking him. Rather than scurrying away into the darkness, it waited brazenly no more than an inch away from his right foot, close to the door, as if daring him to do something. So he did.

Letting go of the lighter, he grabbed his right leg behind the knee and lifted, raising his foot high enough from the ground so that he could hover it over the unsuspecting arachnid. With a satisfied tightening of his lips, he let his foot drop to the floor of the van. "Let's see how you like that…" he'd started to mutter with satisfaction when his eye caught sight of Max at the driver's door, wrenching it open.

He didn't have a chance to ask her what was wrong.

"We got a 911!" she snapped, turning the key in the ignition. Looking out the windshield, Logan could clearly see the light of another vehicle just before his head jerked back with the abrupt movement of the van reversing.

Logan looked across at her disbelievingly and yelled above the screaming of gears, "Max, we couldn't outrun a five year old on his tricycle in this thing!"

"Logan, we got bad guys with guns headin' our way. You wanna diss the van, you might save it for some other time when this baby's not our only ticket outta here," Max retorted, swinging the wheel hard to turn the van around so that they could head back the way they came.

Logan opened his mouth to protest at the stupidity of what they were trying to do then just as quickly shut it. It wasn't as if he had any better ideas and this was hardly the time for an argument.

Max gave him a swift glance in between navigating her way out of their hidey-hole. Multi-tasking, she quickly assessed their situation, analysing which direction they should take. Out on the open road, Logan was right - they wouldn't have a chance. Here, though, amongst the trees, Max hoped that her superior eyesight and reflexes just might almost even their odds. "Put your seatbelt on…this is gonna be a bitch…and stay the hell away from the door," she added with sudden urgency, noticing that it was no longer tied shut. Crap.

Logan grabbed both ends of his seatbelt, fumbling with them in the blackness of the cabin and the lurching of the van.

"You got that done?" Max's voice snapped at him in the darkness. She'd somehow managed to turn the van and Logan could hear the engine straining in its low gear as she pressed hard on the accelerator. Logan had a vague impression of dark shadows racing past his window, sometimes looming directly ahead of them as the old bus zigzagged its unwieldy way back through the forest.

"Logan!"

"Uh…yup," he got out distractedly, trying not to cringe as yet another branch did more damage to the impeccable paintwork. Turning in his seat he tried to see out the back. "Lights," he told Max succinctly as he turned back around, "still heading our way."

"These guys are really beginning to piss me off!" Max muttered under her breath as she shaved the bark off yet another tree. She'd been hoping for a bigger lead than the one she had. All too soon, she'd have to leave the relative safety of the forest…and then things might really get interesting. For several minutes, neither spoke as Max focussed on finding a way through the forest that would be difficult for the bigger SUV to follow.

A sudden lurch as they hit a ditch had Logan reaching forward to grab hold of the dashboard, quickly changing from his right to his left hand when his right one somehow refused to grip properly.

Max's eyes flickered in his direction again with a frown, her lips tightening as she concentrated on her driving skills.

Twisting in his seat again, Logan murmured, "I take it evasive driving skills were big on the Manticore curriculum." The lights were definitely further back this time.

"Oh, yeah. Big time," she agreed absently, thankful for the fact that parts of the forest had been cleared for campsites. An idea had been whirling in her brain for the last few moments.

"Logan, time t'make our move…"

Logan waited for her explanation, but all she said was, "If things get rough, you gotta hit the deck. Got it?"

"Max…" he immediately went to protest.

"These guys have got serious stuff, Logan. Your gun's a pea-shooter compared to what they might bring on."

"Ever heard of David and Goliath?"

"I don't remember Goliath having RPGs," Max told him bluntly.

Logan raised both brows at that. "Rocket Grenade Launchers! What the hell have I got us into here, Max?" he asked with quiet incredulity.

Max didn't answer. Taking the van up a slight incline, she sharply turned right and Logan soon realised that they were no longer bumping over ruts but driving along the comparative smooth surface of the campground road.

"You got a plan?" Logan asked, trying to keep the tension from his voice.

"I got a few trick-ass moves up my sleeve, yet," Max finally assured him with her ever-present X5 confidence.

"You wanna share?"

"I'm gonna try to get these creeps off our back," she answered cryptically, her eyes darting to the fuel gauge. She was glad that Logan couldn't see in the dark. The needle had been sitting on 'E' for some time. She could only hope that it worked with the same kick-ass efficiency as the latch on Logan's door.

"Are we back out on the road?" Logan's voice interrupted her.

"Yep."

"Max…"

"I don't tell you how to do your cable hacks; you don't tell me how to escape and evade."

Logan held back a sigh and kept his mouth shut. She had a point. Pity that fact didn't stop the churning in his gut.

With a wary eye on the door, Logan tried to relax, taking his hand away from the dashboard, letting his weight rest fully once more against the seat.

How long was this chase gonna last? he wondered, finding that adrenalin rushes on empty stomachs weren't such a good thing. On the other hand, the longer they kept any RPGs away from the VW, the longer their chance of staying alive.

A thousand thoughts raced through Logan's mind – why the hell would these guys have RPGs to track down a girl with a guy in a wheelchair in a beat-up van? More to the point, why hadn't they used them yet? Logan supposed that they must have been within firing range any number of times in the last few minutes.

Maybe someone would rather beat your head in like they did to Tex's, was his next happy thought.

Hmmm…hardly comforting.

Max stole a quick look at Logan's profile, sensing his attempts to relax. Without a doubt the comparative smoothness of the road was an easier ride for him, but she knew that all too soon they'd have to return to zigzagging through the trees. Just maybe…if their luck held…they'd lose their quarry…if they didn't run out of gas…if the van didn't die on them…if the RPGs stayed silent…if the clouds covered the moon…

Max winced. Those aren't exactly what you'd call kick-ass odds, Max.

"I've seen worse."

"What?" Logan frowned at her in the darkness.

"Nothing." Her voice was curt. He didn't have to know her doubts.

Max's eyes darted to the rear-view mirror - the road behind remained dark and empty.

How much time, she wondered, hastily sliding a damp hand along her thigh before returning it to the wheel. Maybe one more corner before she'd have to hit the forest dirt again. Better give Logan the heads-up.

"Hang on, Logan. Things are gonna get bumpy again."

"Max, this isn't gonna work."

The certainty in his voice gnawed gratingly at her growing doubts. She didn't want to hear them verbalised.

"You gotta better plan?" she snapped, pushing her foot down even harder, desperate to use the advantage of a relatively smooth road to put as much distance as possible between the SUV and themselves. Just a bit more time…

Logan's sigh spoke volumes. "Max, there's only one road outta here!"

Max froze for a moment, then her eyes widened. Stupid, stupid. "Dammit. I shoulda thought of that before!"

Logan stared at her, wondering if he dare let even the tiniest sliver of hope lighten his mood until her, "Hang on tight!" had him reaching out with both hands to the dashboard to brace himself. Even then he nearly fell from his seat as the van swerved left, instead of right as he'd anticipated.

"Change of plan I take it?" he prompted loudly above the engine's roar.

"There's another road outta here," she informed him with great satisfaction, "And they'll never be able to follow us."

Logan frowned. "I didn't know there were any other roads by the river."

"There aren't."

"Then…?"

Logan suddenly felt himself go cold. Did she mean what he thought she meant?

Max flicked him a glance before sharply turning the wheel to dodge a huge oak tree. Her words were cool, persuasive...but hovering under the surface was a raw urgency. "We've gotta step to the real. This baby's running on empty. Those smartasses know we're jammed up. I bet they figure it's only a matter of time before they nail us…and they will. Logan, our luck isn't gonna hold."

Logan clutched at straws. "We ditch the van?" he suggested, hopefully.

He knew the answer even before he sensed her shake her head in the darkness.

"Even with me pushing you, we'd never move fast enough to get away from here." After a beat she added, "And I can't hide the wheel tracks from your chair."

Logan glanced behind. All he could see was an inky blackness. He felt trapped…no… he suddenly realised that what he felt was fear. He knew what she was hinting at.

"I can't swim that far," he stated quickly.

Max brushed his worry aside with typical Manticore confidence. "You don't have to. All you gotta do is hang on to me. Revved-up girl, remember?"

Logan stared outside, seeing nothing as a thousand doubts tore through his mind.

Max's voice cut through the cacophony of voices in his head. She sounded so unerringly, supremely confidant that for a moment he began to believe that just maybe this would all work.

"All we gotta do is let ourselves drift downstream. We get far enough away from here so that they can't follow us. Once we've done that, we find you a good hidey hole while I swing back and find your car."

Logan breathed out slowly. Max made it all sound so easy.

"The river should be dead ahead," she announced confidently, still pushing the van as hard as she dared. Well, I hope it is, anyway. She wished now that she'd done some recon in this area. She had no idea what to expect. They were well upstream now from the campsite where Poggs and the others had camped. She knew they'd have to deal with whatever they found, but for Logan's sake she hoped that the river in this area would be easily accessible for him. She hadn't failed to notice how quiet he'd become. His tension seemed to be radiating towards her in waves.

She quickly wiped her other damp hand along the thigh of her leg. Where the hell was the riverbank?

"I can't see it," Logan muttered, squinting through the windshield.

Max checked the rear-view mirror for what seemed like the hundredth time. Darkness.

"It's there," she insisted. "We probably just can't see it because of all this damned green stuff."

Logan twisted in his seat to look behind, briefly gripping the handhold on the door before he quickly thought better of it, when his world changed to a slow motion movie reel.

Max, who was still pushing the van as hard as she dared, saw an opening between two bushes and headed straight for it.

Her sudden scream to Logan of, "Hold on," rang with piercing clarity above the engine as Max raked the gears and swung the wheel hard left with everything she had.

Logan, turning with alarm to the front, had the fleeting chance to notice vaguely that they were no longer surrounded by trees, before the van yawed drunkenly as it tried to turn at an angle that was never intended by its designers.

Lips stretched taut, Max held fast to the wheel, willing the VW to respond.

She'd found the river with her usual efficiency. She'd nearly driven them straight into it – from a twenty-foot drop.

As soon as she'd broken through the trees, she'd seen the drop to the river. Feeling like not just her heart, but her lungs as well had jumped into her throat, she'd yanked instinctively on the wheel. She knew there was no way she'd be able to stop the van before the front wheels had disappeared over the edge if she simply tried to brake. She also knew that the VW van would be more than just pissy with the kind of treatment she was dishing out – she doubted very much if it could deal with it at all. What she didn't have time to assess was the fact that the vegetation that crowded impenetrably almost to the cliff's edge barely left a car enough width to pass.

Logan felt himself being inexorably drawn towards the now-swinging-wide passenger door as the van teetered precariously. With rapidly growing alarm he realised that the VW no longer sat on four wheels.

We're going over, his mind yelled, as he frantically scrambled to find a better handhold.

He had a fleeting glimpse of black, black water somewhere below him through the open door as the van seemed to balance like a circus elephant, on both its right wheels.

Then, unpredictably, in mind-numbing slow motion, the old VW bus miraculously righted itself with a jarring lurch as all four wheels came back into contact with the ground.

Max swiftly braked as fast as safety would allow. Hemmed in by thick bushes on their left, she didn't dare move another inch in the van. She knew their two right wheels had to be teetering on the very edge of the cliff.

Logan let out a long, shaky breath, hardly daring to speak as he purposely kept his eyes averted from the dark water below him that he could see through his partially open door.

Max grinned across at him. "Told you it was a supersonic bus."

Logan opened his mouth to reply, but his stomach had lurched with a cold, immobilising fear.

Max reacted without hesitation. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she reached across to Logan as the unstable edges of the sandy cliff top crumbled under the sudden, unaccustomed weight.

This time, gravity had its way.

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"No, Max!" Logan called frantically as he saw her unbuckle her seatbelt and move to his side. She'd be in as much danger as he was now.

"Shut up, Logan, and hang on," Max yelled back, grabbing him by the waist of his jeans, while she used her left hand to anchor herself to the steering wheel.

Logan flung out his arm, trying to brace himself against the doorway.

This is not good.

He held his breath, pressed his lips together hard and tensed every muscle that he possibly could.

The first movement over the side had been slow, almost lazy but, as the engine stalled, the van kicked out like a bucking horse. The passenger door swung wide like a broken wing and Logan had a hazy glimpse of the danger waiting to greet him below. It wasn't going to be a soft landing.

Logan looked away and closed his eyes tight for the briefest of moments. The memory of trips to amusement parks with his cousins flickered crazily through his mind.

He'd never liked the rides. He'd always wondered what madman came up with the idea that it would be fun to dangle in the air and see the ground seemingly miles away. What nutcase had figured it would be a thrill being thrown upside down in a cage with only a few screws between him and a horribly quick plummet to the ground below?

He had a pretty good idea there'd be no one waiting at the end of this trip to ask him if he'd enjoyed his ride.

Then he heard Max's voice, unbelievably calm considering their situation. "Logan, hold fast. We're going down."

Down. Not a word he wanted to hear right now.

His left hand clutched tightly to his seat down by his leg, but already he could see both legs lifting, sliding as the van tipped further and further.

Down…down…down.

Max held fast to Logan but, once the van slipped over the edge, she knew he was in trouble. The van was now slipping down the side of the cliff and Logan's legs were being dragged towards the open door.

Logan stared down through the doorway, his face setTime seemed to have slowed. He tried to brace himself, but he felt himself twisting in his seat as Max's grip dragged him further backwards. Hopelessly he waited for the final crunch, certain that, if nothing else, he was going to break both his legs.

He cringed…ready…ready…

The sound hit his senses first as the passenger door hit, then buckled as the weight of the van followed it to the ground, tearing it from its hinges.

Logan had stopped breathing. His legs would be the next things to strike the rocks.

Metal ground with finality to a shrieking halt. Logan had a vague impression of his body crumpling like cardboard…then nothing.

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Logan slowly returned through a blanketing dark fog. He grimaced, wondering hazily why his neck was at such an odd angle. Almost before the question was completely framed in his mind, the events of the previous few moments came crashing back and his eyes flew open. "Max."

Dazed, lying on his back and surprised somewhere at the back of his mind that he seemed to be more or less in one piece, his hands probed uncertainly in the darkness.

"Max!" he called to her urgently, only to repeat the word with a mixture of uncertainty and relief as he realised the weight resting on his chest was her head.

His hands searched further, finding strands of silky hair covering closed eyes.

A soft groan had him letting out a sharp breath of double relief. "Thank God," he murmured, never having meant the words more than he did that moment.

Logan drew in a long, shaky breath. His relief that she was alive meant that he could focus on their situation and look for some means of escape. That's what he told himself in the gloom, anyway, as he tried to make sense of their current situation despite the hammering in his head.

Even in the dark, he could see that things weren't good.

The hated VW van was well and truly trashed but at the moment he couldn't take much satisfaction from the fact.

He knew the van had landed hard. It was only a testimony to its indestructible tendencies that the crate was still more or less in one piece.

Slowly, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. He could just make out Max's head resting on his chest by raising his head a little. It bothered him that she was so still. "No bragging this time, Max, about how well X5s recover?" he asked with some regret.

Getting no response, he lifted his head a little higher, realising as he did so that something uncomfortably hard had been digging into the back of his skull.

From what he could gather, he was lying more or less in the now open doorway, legs crammed awkwardly, half bent, in the narrow space. Who knew what had happened to his passenger-side door. He cursed the darkness - it was just too difficult to make sense of anything…or maybe it was because of the ringing in his head.

Groggily he put a hand to the back of his head, gently touching the area where it throbbed. His alarm grew when his fingers came away wet

Blood?

No, that didn't seem right.

Water?

This time his hands felt either side of his body.

No doubt about it; he was lying half-submerged in icy cold river water.

Strange.

The thought crossed his mind that he really should have noticed the water pooling around his body well before this.

He took a deep breath, briefly letting his head loll back to give his neck some relief.

Water, water, everywhere…

Logan's eyes snapped open as he realised his mind had been drifting…dreamily floating away to who knew where.

His left hand felt for his glasses. Yes, they were still there. Then how come everything seemed so intangible…so disturbingly surreal? It was as if his mind couldn't process the things his eyes were seeing.

Bracingly, he told himself, You're not dead. Max isn't dead. That's good…right?

A surge of hope flickered through him when he heard Max softly groan again and he felt her head move but there was no sign of a complete return to consciousness.

Using his hands to explore again, he felt around in the dark, determined to take an analytical stock of his situation. He was definitely lying in a few inches of water; beneath his shoulders he could feel a mixture of what seemed to be rocks and sand. When he looked up, he could see Max's door closed shut above his head.

He had no idea what shape his legs were in but, at least, miraculously, they hadn't been crushed when the van hit the rocks. He hazily remembered that he had Max to thank for that. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, was an image of her grabbing hold of them at the very last second. He winced at the thought, putting a reassuring hand to her head. He didn't like to think that she'd been hurt for his sake.

He and Max had slipped completely off the seat thanks to his seatbelt proving to be next to useless in an emergency and Max having undone hers.

A gurgling sound in the uncanny quiet of the upturned van quieted his thoughts. Was it his imagination or had the water level risen since he'd first noticed it?

Scrambling for a handhold, he grabbed the side of the upturned seat, his right hand beneath him, and strained to pull himself into a sitting position, careful to make sure that Max's head rested on his lap, well above the water level.

He wondered dryly if Manticore rescue scenarios covered one like their predicament. He wondered when she'd wake up. He wondered if she'd wake up. He wondered why everything in front of him seemed to be swaying.

He didn't know how long he sat there with his senses doing crazy things but eventually it penetrated his mind that it wasn't nearly as dark as it had been.

Logan closed his eyes and took several long, deep breaths. This was not the time to be passing out, not if he was right about the water level increasing.

Start thinking, Logan, he told himself sharply. A slight movement from the head on his lap raised his hopes. "Max," he called to her, the seriousness of their situation lending an undisguised note of urgency to the word. When she didn't respond he tried scooping a bit of water onto her face with his right hand. He thought he saw her eyes flicker but he let out a grunt of exasperation when there was no other response.

He could still hear the gurgling sound of water moving, pooling, forcing its way into the car. It was now noticeably nearer the dark head on his lap. Logan could feel the first stirrings of something close to panic rising in his throat. He had to change Max's position, get her higher somehow.

He quickly changed his handhold, getting a firmer grip on the overturned seat with his left hand, then leaned across her shoulder and hooked his right hand under her arm. "Come on, Max," he muttered, as he tried to haul her into a sitting position, arm and back straining to take her weight. He tugged at her inert form as long as he could before he had to let go and give his arm a rest, letting go an oath of frustration when he saw for all his efforts she'd hardly moved.

He let his head tilt back and eyes close for a moment, but the continual faint gurgling of water wouldn't let him relax. Anxiously he checked the level again with his hand. Max's hair was now noticeably wet and those parts of his legs which lay more or less flat were almost totally submerged.

He grabbed at Max again, his racing mind trying to work out how deep the river was likely to be at this point. He knew the water would force its way in until it reached the river's depth but he had no idea what the river was like this far upstream.

Logan looked above his head.The only way out of the van would be through the driver's door that presently faced skywards, he realised, as he grunted with the effort of raising Max.

This time when he stopped he was breathing hard but at least Max's head now rested more or less against his hip and that bought him some time. Time for what? his mind taunted him.

"Time for us to get outta here," he informed it determinedly but the last word died a sudden death. Someone was moving outside the van.

Logan could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he waited in silence, every other part of him perfectly still as his mind fired a thousand scenarios at him.

What would they do to them…a burst of gunfire? Maybe they'd just hold his head under the water – much simpler…who'd suspect a natural drowning? The most galling aspect of all this was that he didn't even know what they were dying for – nothing more than an altruistic desire to give some meaning to a drop-out med student's death. Had it been worth his life – even worse, Max's life?

His grip tightened on her protectively as he stared out through the shattered windshield. The distortion made it impossible to discern anything else other than the vague outline of at least one pair of legs.

Logan's face showed nothing of his inner turmoil as he heard the unmistakeable sounds of someone climbing onto the van. His expression didn't change when he heard the sound of the driver's door being wrenched open and he could clearly see a hand holding a gun. Mesmerised, his eyes locked on the now open space above his head, Logan waited…and finally his expression changed to one of surprise.

Logan could hardly recognise the voice, but he was sure that it was him that had uttered the word.

"Zack?"

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To be continued…