(Anson Seabra - Robin Hood)
"LOGAN!" she screamed as Veronica felt Weevils strong arm curl around her and she was yanked backwards into the small room before she could open the door. Her body moving in the opposite direction of every nerve ending firing inside her wanted to rip herself free from the Neptune High bad boy hauling her towards the tiny wardrobe. She tried to fight him but he was too strong. Her eyes flooding with tears as she struggled to reach for the door. His hand reached for something she was holding and it took her stuttered mind a few moments to realize what he was searching for.
"Talk to me Dick… what's going on?" he demanded in a hurried hush.
"Was that gunshots?" Mac asked quickly.
"Was it? I don't know, why don't you get onto those cameras and check?!" he retorted in frustration, Veronica had stilled, her momentary outburst seemingly squashed by the greater instinct to get more information about the happenings going on.
"Where are you?" Dick asked.
"Oh… just having a great little midnight swim and trying not to be used for target practise... what the hell took you so long?" he countered.
"We weren't alone.." Mac explained as she clicked furiously through the camera feed to try and find the one to the conference room again, the system was on a loop that moved in a random sequence through the various cameras on board according to a sophisticated algorithm that she hadn't seen yet. It meant she had to flick thought the various feeds manually.
"Yeah? No kidding… look turn that boat around, come get us!" Weevil ordered.
"Screw you! We came to get Logan!" Dick snarled, his pulse was racing, their little encounter with the Russian Stan and Olly had left him a little shaken. There wasn't exactly much he could do as their designated Sail Away Driver but stand around with his proverbial dick in his hand until it was time to slice through the waves. Either the Coast Guard would be here in the next 27 minutes, or he was going to have to try and find his Inner Pirate and form a board party of One to go and finish the job.
He wasn't going to quit on his friend, and he had no intention of letting some Ruskie assholes kill any of his people tonight.
They were all gonna to live.
Logan was the Bill to his Ted… and this journey was BOGUS!
Not to mention he was slightly reeling from the unexpected enjoyment he'd found locking lips with his teams Girl with the Dragon Tattoo here… if they lived through this… he definitely wanted to check her for Tattoos. One person could ruin you for everyone else, and he had this awful feeling that something momentous had happened when he'd kissed her. Smart nerdy chicks had always been his Achilles heel... he stuck to dating cheerleaders… well… because they were easy and they knew the score.
Those slate-grey eyes looked up at him in panic.
"NO!" she yelped as she yanked the USB mp3 player out, a deafening silence surrounding them.
"What did you do?" he protested as watched the secret little hottie delve into her bag and pull out chain full of USB keyrings and begin fumbling through them.
"Not me…" Mac told him as she began to flick through keys and slotted one in, then hit several buttons.
"What's wrong with the cameras?" he demanded as he looked as several of the screens began to go blank. Feed after feed fading to blackness.
"We are sitting ducks here" Weevil cautioned over the radio.
"Hey! ABBY!" Dick said clicking his fingers and trying to get her attention as she focused on changing the usb keys.
"ITS MAC! AND IM BUSY!" she snapped at him, the encrypted keys should throw a firewall around her IP long enough for her to try another backdoor. She'd developed these codes along with some of her Hacktivist friends for their online protesting helping Sea Sheppard and various Green Peace groups.
She screwed up her nose and renewed her focus back to programmes in front of her, pulling up the cameras one by one, getting closer to the conference feed to where they held Logan.
"Where are you?" Mac asked, noting the absence of Weevil and Veronica on their cameras. Their original entry route into the smart tv apps had been blocked, she'd to get in via the Bluetooth enabled Alexa pods dotted around the room. Turning on the microphones and trying to get an idea of the rooms by using them as listening devices until the camera feed came back online.
"Crew cabin by those stairs… what's going on?" Weevil responded quietly, noting the lack of music blasting over the sound system.
"You're clear but there's guys searching around now, I'm guessing they found your stuff" Dick said as he looked at the tablet in his hand.
"And Logan?" Veronica pleaded.
"I'm almost through…" Mac told her, glad that the firewall seemed to have let her back in no issue until an alarm began to bleep from her tablet and Dicks Iphone 8.
***WARNING YOUR IP DETAILS HAVE NOW BEEN LOGGED BY KANE INDUSTRIES. YOUR SYSTEMS HAVE NOW BEEN FROZEN. FEDERAL AUTHORITIES HAVE NOW BEEN INFORMED OF YOUR LOCATION WARNING YOUR SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN DETAINED BY KANE INDUSTRIES. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO PROSECUTE ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT COMMITED DURING THE BREACH OF OUR SECURITY***
"SHIT!" Mac cried out as she began to desperately begin yanking the battery out of her laptop and tried to flip it back over and reboot her computer.
"Whats wrong?" Dick asked, as he crouched beside her.
"They found us… I'm locked out!" Mac sobbed.
"So get back in…" he glowered down at her calmly. He needed the Tempting Little Typist to get the cameras working so he could find out what that shot was.
"I can't!" she declared desperately, she had no way to help her friends navigate their way back off that ship. Big stormy grey eyes filled like rain clouds as she began to cry, turning helplessly to look at the boat.
"Talk to me Dick" Weevil ground out, a rush of male protectiveness wishing he'd stayed on that damn boat so he could check on the short brunette. His golden-brown eyes raking over Veronica, her face white with shock. The silence on the ship was deafening. The windows didn't open, port holes or something, they'd have to get out onto the guarded balcony and into the water from there. If they survived the jump… he vaguely recalled something about landing in the surface of the water from a great height shattering bones on impact.
Sometimes, quietness could be the loudest answer.
"We are working blind…" he answered, he didn't want to even think it… he had no idea what he'd been thinking when he'd sent them onto that Yacht with nothing but a dingy. Now it seemed foolish.
"Come get us" Weevil ordered. Dick glanced at his watch… 24 minutes until the cavalry arrived. He could feel the danger like a wire around his neck. Glancing over at the brunette still trying to unlock her computer system, as she rebooted his phone, her eyes flickered up to meet his.
"All the world will be your enemy… be cunning and full of tricks… prince of a thousand enemies" he muttered, remembering the words from a book his mother had given him after a trip from Europe the year after his parents first split.
"Be cunning… and full of tricks…" Dick said quietly into the radio. "Get back here… Veronica… COME BACK NOW!"
Logan would want her off that boat… the path ahead was like the light between broken mirrors, the pieces refracted around them, making it unclear.
Weevil herded Veronica out into the small corridor, guiding her towards the small ladder used by the crew to get to the upper deck for cleaning when a loud thud crashed into the corridor behind them, and a slim man slid down the stairs in a heap before being shoved in their direction by his assailant. Another shot fired and instinctively, Weevil yanked Veronica down for cover.
What the Hell?
Weevils mind reeled as the wheels began to turn, looking behind him, one hand clasped onto Veronicas forearm he pulled her back from the fight as he followed her gaze.
He looked up at the blood-streaked face of Logan as he slumped down the stairs, and appeared to be jumping out of the way as the sound of wood splintering thwacked behind him. Several more popping sounds followed as he jerked his body along the floor in the opposite direction of them.
Someone was shooting at him…
The slim man who had fallen down the stairs appeared to be unconscious and Weevil shoved Veronica behind him, blocking her view with his broad shoulders, while he assessed the situation.
The shots were coming from up the stairs…
"LOGAN!" Veronica gasped, and she was halted from rushing forwards by the Latino biker in front of her.
"ECHOLLS MOVE!" Weevil commanded, turning to shove Veronica in the direction they'd been heading. "GO!" he told her, a scowl emerging as he stared down at the end of the corridor. Several footsteps and shouts in something not English or Spanish called out as others rushed to their location.
Logan wouldn't make it…
He could barely hold himself up as his blood covered fingers slipped on the water-sealed wooden floor as he tried crawling away. His eyes looked swollen, like that time he'd seen Elec have a reaction to his peanut allergy.
Fuck!
He charged past the door to the staircase, slamming it closed with his shoulder as he surged forwards, grabbing Logan and trying to haul him upwards. Veronica close behind.
What the HELL was she doing? He'd told her to go…
Heavy steps bounded down the stairs, a flurry of angry Russian as a large man stepped through the open door, his hands lifting as he ejected a clip from the gun he was holding and reached for his holster. Weevil cursed under his breath and tried to kick the door to the cabin, the guy outweighed him by almost 100 pounds and very primal instinct in his brain screamed FLEE.
He slammed at the the door beside them trying to get it to open when he felt Veronica grab at his clothes, her desperate hands ripping into his hoodie.
What was she DOING?
He barely had time to process as she stood firm, legs planted, grip tight and pulled the trigger of the flare gun point blank at the muscled giant that made him look puny in comparison. The red flare bounced around the small space before smacking into the fire extinguisher, sending a fog of clouds around them.
"You are El Diablo?" Logan muttered as he clasped eyes on his companion.
Clearly the guy was out of it.
"Unless you wanna click your Heels three times and get us off this damn boat, shut up" Weevil retorted. He'd lost sight of Veronica in the chaos, falling into a corridor he didn't recognise.
"Where are we?" Logan slurred.
"Are you drunk?" Weevil asked in disgust. He looked like Hell but they gave him hard liquor before they tortured him?
"Are you REAL?" Logan quipped, clearly the guy was having a hard time holding it together, as he began to for lack of a better term… frisk him to check if he was really there.
"Fuck… shit… Veronica!" Weevil called out, propping Logan up against the wall while he looked at one of those ship plans… it was basically like a car blueprint, right?
They were… 3 floors up from where they needed to be… and it appeared like he was on the wrong side of the corridor, when he'd grabbed Logan. She was probably already half way down there by now.
"You're really here…." Logan said, sobering, squinting at him through his bruises.
"Fraid so" Weevil grumbled as he looked him over for injuries, listening to the sounds of the thundering footsteps as he dragged Logan towards the cold air as he got him outside.
They had to move…
"JUMP!" he heard a masculine voice call from behind him. Dick was driving the escape boat alongside them.
Looking down he realised the radio was still clipped to his Hoodie.
"I can't… Logan's hurt…" Weevil refused. He couldn't swim… and Logan was barely conscious.
"Then I'll meet you in the water" Dick assured him and he looked down to see Casablancas pulling off his life vest and grabbing a small orange floatation device, as he spoke quickly to Mac. Weevil tried to argue, but he'd already jumped from the boat. Cutting through the water like he belonged on Baywatch.
Fuck…
"Is that Dick?" Logan asked, his weight heavy around his neck.
"He wants us to jump" Weevil told him as they both looked over the rail.
"Voz'mi ikh!" a deep voice commanded and the door furthest from them opened.
"JUMP!" Logan ordered as he shoved Weevil off him. He had no idea what the hell was going on, or how or WHY Eli Navarro, his sworn enemy and rival was here, saving his ass.
Had Jake Kane suspected Weevil of Lillys murder too? Were they both prisoners?
"I hate you, Echolls" Weevil ground out as he helped the other man climb the rail, grabbed onto him and propelled them both over the edge.
"Dick Casablancas! You cannot leave me here!" Mac shrieked, cursing him as she grabbed the wheel and kept the course he told her to keep, just north-west of the end of the ship, looking ahead she saw the other Russian Yacht were readying their speedboat again, both the two men from before were hurrying down the steps towards the small vessel.
Drama played out in the waves as Dick secured the life-vest to Weevil, and threw a life-ring around Logan before he turned and began to swim straight for the front of her boat.
Oh no…. was she going to collide with them?
What the HELL was Dick Casablancas thinking?
It was then she noticed the small red cord tied to the end of the rail beside them.
Had he tied himself to their boat?
Weevil clung to the barely closed life vest as he was dragged at speed behind the boat like it was water sport. An arm around Logan who was trying to stay inside the life-ring as they battled the waves. Dick was pulling himself forward, toward the boat like he was part dolphin, yelling to Mac to slow down a little as he grabbed the side of the rail like he was Poseidon himself returning to tame the seas. When he'd thought of escaping the Blue Moon, he'd kind of had visions of him storming through the waves with Veronica like a bad ass on one of those Jetskis.
"I got it!" Dick said and nodded towards a device on the side of the boat, it looked like a fishing reel?
"Haul them in!" he called over the waves. He needed to get them back into the boat before he could swing around and get Veronica.
"How did you find me?" Logan asked as Dick helped pull him onto the boat and then Weevil.
"Dude… there's easier ways to win a girl back…" Dick joked, trying to catch his breath.
"Where's Veronica?" Mac asked, and Logan felt his blood run cold at the sound of her name.
"She was with you?" he asked the Hispanic teenager in horror. He hadn't seen her during their escape, then he remembered fragments, the chaos, the fight… the gunshots.
"We got separated" Weevil said, his voice was hollow.
"She knew the plan..." Dick replied as he steered the boat faster, looking at his watch.
13 minutes…
She had the life-raft… she had her life-jackets… their were multiple exits and they had jetskis on board… and right now. Logan was hurt, his shoulder looked like he'd been grazed by a bullet, but damn, he looked like hell.
There were two angry looking Russians charging towards their boat. They needed to haul ass to safety. He hated leaving her behind, but he had people to save, and she was Lilly's best friend and Duncan's fricking ex-girlfriend.
He'd been banging her Mom.
He had to put faith in the idea that no way Jake would allow anyone to hurt her.
She would have to tough it out on her own.
"Sorry Veronica…" Dick whispered quietly as he pushed the boat into full throttle and headed back towards the rougher waters that the small speedboat wouldn't be able to handle to put some distance between them.
"What are you DOING? You can't just leave her there…." Mac cried out.
Be cunning and full of tricks…
(Author note. This one is a little slower paced than say Getting Baked or Induratize thyself Logan Echolls... for anyone needing a break, All sorts of Caring and I Wuv You Beary Much are good prequels to this story. As Alfred Hitchcock said... to love your audience is to make them suffer. But I promise I wont make you all suffer too long. I'm practising with character POV and segmenting story structures.. makes this one drag on a little part, but it will be worth it in the end)