Not if I Save You First

by Ally Carter

  Logan is alive, Maddie thought again, and for the first time in hours she really let herself breathe.

  He seemed more mad than afraid. She’d never seen him look like that before. But maybe he looked like that all the time now. Maybe this was how he did teenage angst. Maybe all boys did. It’s not like she knew anyone to compare him to.

  But no. It was more than that. Logan was going to kill the man who’d taken him.

  Kill the man who’d hurt her.

  And right then Maddie’s biggest worry was making sure he didn’t get himself killed first.

  Logan ran his sleeve over his mouth. Or sleeves, rather. His hands were still cuffed, and he kept the energy bar in one, the canteen in the other. He had a feeling he should be savoring this, committing the feel of food and water to memory. He might not taste either one again for a very long time.

  “So what’s your name?” Logan wanted to sound casual, maybe crazy. A sane person would be terrified by now, he knew, ranting and rambling and promising to give the man with the gun anything he wanted.

  But Logan had learned a long time ago that there was nothing you could give a man with a gun to make him happy. Men with guns were only satisfied when they took. And Logan was going to hang on to the last of his self-respect for as long as he possibly could.

  So he took another bite and asked, “Is it Jimmy?” Logan plastered on a smile and looked back over his shoulder at the man who might have been his shadow if the sun hadn’t gone back behind the clouds.

  “Bob?” Logan guessed again. “Matthew, Mark, Luke? John? Larry? Steve?” He watched the man closely, and when the Russian’s eye twitched Logan was so proud of himself for seeing it that he might have laughed. “It’s Stefan, isn’t it?”

  Stefan didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Logan already knew he was right.

  He took a big bite of his bar and turned to keep on walking. “I met some of your countrymen once. Well, I didn’t so much meet them as I watched them try to kidnap my mother.”

  “Keep walking.” The words were meant to be a jab in the back, but Logan didn’t much care. Somewhere in that big wilderness there was a plane waiting on them. And a doctor just in case. Whatever his final destination, it probably wouldn’t be as cozy as the middle of those trees and rocks, lost among the rain and the temperatures that were both falling too fast for comfort. Somehow, Logan knew that very shortly this place and time might feel like a vacation.

  “These bars are good. You want a bite?”

  “Shut up!” Now Stefan was the one who looked like he was stuck somewhere he didn’t want to be, doing something he didn’t want to do.

  Logan shook his head. “Manners, Stefan.”

  But it was a mistake, because in an instant the knife was out. “Do you think you are cute? Funny? I need you, but I do not need your tongue. In fact, I see a great deal of benefit in relieving you of it right here. Right now.”

  A kind of wet-weather creek had sprung up during the storm as rainwater collected on the hillside, racing down toward the river below. When Stefan stepped forward, his foot landed in the water, but it was like he didn’t even feel the chill. His rage was so hot that Logan half expected to see steam.

  Logan held his hands up, stepped away. “Hey, I’m just making an honest offer.”

  Stefan glared. “I’m making an honest threat.”

  “I can see that,” Logan said somberly. “You’re obviously a man of your word.”

  “Walk,” Stefan ordered, and Logan did as he was told.

  It was only after a few steps that he exhaled, suddenly grateful that there wasn’t a knife in his back.

  “So just out of curiosity, what do you think I’m worth?” he asked when he just couldn’t help himself. “I mean, it isn’t often a person’s put on the open market. What is the going rate for presidents’ sons these days? Is it more or less than what you guys were going to get for my mother? Accounting for inflation, of course.”

  Logan didn’t know what to expect: The knife? The gun? Maybe a nice hard shove into freezing water? He couldn’t have been more surprised when the man said, “I did not take your mother.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Logan told him. “You were what? My age then?”

  He wasn’t much more than a kid now, Logan tried to remind himself. But kids are sent into war zones every day. Kids can be psychopaths. Kids can kill.

  Stefan straightened. “If I had tried to take your mother, she would have been taken.”

  It wasn’t a boast. It wasn’t a threat. It was a simple fact of life, and Logan couldn’t keep from saying, “I believe you.”

  “Good. Now walk.”

  The man stepped in front of Logan, as if to lead the way.

  But with every step the echoing pulse that had been beating inside Logan’s head for hours grew louder and louder.

  Maddie is dead.

  Maddie is dead.

  Maddie is—

  When Logan stumbled over one of the big rocks near the stream, his hands plunged into the freezing water, breaking his fall.

  Maddie is dead, he thought one more time.

  Before Logan even realized what he was doing, his cuffed hands were digging into the ground. He was kicking at the rock that was big, but not too big. It was jagged, and even with his cold hands Logan could feel the sharp, perfect edges.

  With the sound of the rain hitting the leaves and the gurgling stream it was almost too easy to sneak up on the man. Logan knew he had one shot. If Stefan didn’t go down immediately, there’d be a fight, and then the knife and the gun would come into play. Which was fine. Logan didn’t care about getting stabbed, getting shot. Logan only cared about the weight of the stone and the timing of his step.

  He raised his arms high overhead, said a prayer—

  And saw it.

  He had to blink, certain that it was a mirage—a sign. But it wasn’t the kind of sign he was expecting, so he stepped a little closer, certain that there couldn’t really be a piece of gold dangling from a tree limb, there in the middle of a storm in the middle of nowhere.

  Had Stefan seen it? Maybe he thought it strange but insignificant.

  After all, he hadn’t chosen that charm bracelet six years ago, placed it on his best friend’s wrist.

  He didn’t know to stand in the rain and whisper, “Maddie.”

  Logan told himself that she must have left it there, lost it ages ago.

  But no. The bracelet was too clean and the forest was too large and the girl was too tough to die that easily. Logan should have known.

  “What are you doing back there?” Stefan’s voice came cutting through the mist, so Logan dropped the rock and grabbed the bracelet.

  He held the canteen to the leaves that were dripping rainwater like a fountain.

  “Refilling the canteen!” he shouted.

  “Less water. More walking,” the big Russian yelled.

  Stefan didn’t see the way Logan scanned the woods around them, looking for a girl who was far too careful to be seen.

  He had no idea he was outnumbered.

  Dear Logan,

  I’m very sorry to hear that you are in a coma.

  Or maybe you have amnesia.

  Or you lost the use of your writing hand and are learning to write with your other hand, which we both know would be saying something since even with your good hand your penmanship is atrocious.

  Or, wait, maybe the White House is out of paper.

  Oh my gosh! Is the White House out of paper?! You’d think that would be in the newspapers that my dad brings, but I could see where it might be a national security risk. No wonder the press is keeping it hush-hush.

  Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.

  Who am I going to tell?

  Maddie

  Logan’s coat was red. Which was a good thing. For now. There’s a reason the redcoats were pretty much doomed during the American Revolution. He stood out like a beacon among the huge trees and big rocks and leaf-covered groun
d that was getting slicker and slicker with every passing moment.

  So Maddie didn’t have to get too close to keep them in her sights. Plus, Logan must have made it his mission to kick every rock and break every branch he came across. Maddie was glad of it. As soon as the agents realized he was missing they should be able to track him down.

  If the agents realized soon.

  If the light held.

  If the tracks didn’t wash away.

  If the whole forest didn’t fall asleep beneath a blanket of snow and ice.

  Someone has to come help, she wanted to scream.

  Someone other than Maddie.

  She heard the man yell something at Logan—“Less water. More walking.”

  And the air around Maddie got even colder. She knew the accent even if she didn’t know the voice. It was one she still heard sometimes in her nightmares. On those nights, Maddie slept with her back to the wall and her hatchet by her bed. If her ghosts followed Maddie to Alaska, that was fine, she told herself. She was going to be ready.

  But now she was hunching down behind a fallen log and watching as Logan and the kidnapper kept going.

  But Logan had stopped. And turned. And Maddie knew he’d found the bracelet.

  Which meant Phase One was working. If Logan knew she was alive and she was here, then maybe he would stop acting like an idiot who didn’t care if he got himself killed.

  It had taken all of Maddie’s strength not to scream when Logan had picked up the rock and crept toward the gunman’s back. Logan was ready to kill, and Maddie couldn’t blame him. In Alaska, people hunted to survive all the time. But Alaska was also the kind of place where being stupid would kill you, and Maddie knew they might have only one chance. They had to make the most of it.

  When Logan’s red coat moved farther out of sight, Maddie left her hiding place and went to the deep tracks that Logan had left in the muddy ground. Then she picked up the end of the log she’d been hiding behind. It had been down for years, she could tell, rotting and decaying in the near constant moisture, and it was almost light as Maddie picked it up and swung it around. She dragged her knife through the bark, drawing an arrow and pointing the way.

  Her dad would know that the log had been disturbed. Even if snow gathered on the top, any idiot would be able to see the arrow on the side, high enough that the snow and ice shouldn’t cover it.

  Someone had to see it.

  Maddie told herself that her father would be landing soon. Logan’s detail was probably out right then, searching and calling for reinforcements.

  Soon. Someone would catch up with her soon.

  Unless her dad’s job had complications …

  Unless his plane broke down or the storm came in faster than anyone was expecting …

  Unless no one realized they should be looking in this direction …

  Unless somehow, for some reason, she couldn’t keep Logan in her sights …

  Help has to come, Maddie told herself for what had to be the thousandth time.

  But there are things you tell yourself. And there are things you know. And Maddie knew that the only person she could depend on was herself.

  But that’s okay, she thought. I’m usually enough.

  Maddie took one last look at the marker she was leaving behind, then pulled her hood tighter around her face and started up the hill.

  She had to keep up. Or, better, get ahead. The best hunting always happened when the prey came to you. Maddie could lie in wait. She could be prepared. She could have a plan and then hope and pray that Logan’s stupid boy brain and stupid boy ego didn’t get in the way of what she already knew would be a perfectly logical, smart-girl plan.

  But first Maddie had to figure out where.

  Not where Logan and the kidnapper were. But where Logan and the kidnapper were going to be.

  That was Phase Two. And without Phase Two there could never, ever be a Phase Three. Which was important because Phases Four through Twenty were pretty much “hope” and “pray” and “try to get really, really lucky.”

  “Where are you … ?”

  Maddie trailed off when she heard the sound of the water. The hill they were on was steep and rough, and one whole side was more like a cliff than a mountain. As Maddie crept toward it, she knew even before she pushed aside the thick green branches of the evergreens what she was going to see.

  This part of Alaska was full of rivers and streams—massive ravines cut by glaciers centuries ago and dug deeper by the water that ran through them almost all year long.

  The waterfall was proof of that.

  The kidnapper could hide out in this forest for days if he wanted to. The Secret Service would have satellites trained on the cabin, but the mountains were covered with trees. As long as they kept walking—kept covered—then they were invisible from the sky. Which was smart. But the kidnapper had to know that someone would find them eventually. Logan was the president’s son, after all. People would be looking. Lots of people. And soon.

  So they had to be planning to get Logan out of there. Out of Alaska. Judging by the kidnapper’s thick accent, probably even out of the country. After all, Russia was pretty close. Closer than the rest of the US.

  But there were no roads in this part of Alaska. Which meant they had to take Logan out by boat or by plane, and they were moving away from the coast, which meant plane.

  Which meant …

  Maddie looked back at the waterfall, the deep, rough ravine that ran between the mountains, and just like that she knew where they were going—and what she had to do.

  But how—how was another question entirely.

  She was so busy thinking, running through options and possibilities, pros and cons, that she didn’t pay attention to where she was stepping, not until it was totally too late.

  Maddie heard the snap almost at the same moment that she felt the pain.

  And then she found herself leaping, falling, and skidding across the uneven ground and rolling through the mud and the muck. Water was seeping through her jeans, and Maddie knew she needed to get her feet under her but her left leg felt like it was on fire.

  It wasn’t, though. It was just cut and bleeding. Her jeans were ripped and Maddie was almost afraid to pull back the denim and examine the deep stab wound in the side of her calf. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Maddie knew this like she knew her own name.

  In a weird way, she’d been lucky, Maddie realized as she forced herself upright and hobbled to the old, rusty trap that had been set at some point in the past fifty years and then abandoned. The mechanism must have rusted through the decades. That’s why Maddie had a flesh wound and not a leg that would never really work right again.

  For a second, she just stood there, breathing too hard, feeling lucky to be alive.

  Then her breath grew deeper and her heart started beating hard for an entirely different reason.

  She might be bloody and hungry and covered with mud. She might not have friends, teachers, classes, cell coverage, adequate food (for the moment), or any prayer of finding help anytime soon.

  But—Maddie smiled—she did have a plan.

  Dear Logan,

  It’s been two years. Seven hundred and thirty days since I sent my first letter. I’m not going to lie to myself anymore. You probably think you’re too important to bother writing me back. I guess you lied, too, when you said we’d be friends forever.

  I’ve learned a lot since I moved to Alaska, but the most important thing is this: Any friend who doesn’t write back isn’t your friend at all.

  So good-bye from Alaska, where I am the most important person for twenty miles in any direction.

  (I’m the only person for twenty miles in any direction.)

  Maddie

  Logan had thought he couldn’t get any wetter or any colder, but he’d been wrong. So very, very wrong. Like the kind of wrong he was when he bet Maddie that he could eat all the ice cream in the White House deep freeze and then found out they were pr
eparing for a state dinner and had a hundred gallons.

  He made it through half of one huge tub before she took pity on him and made him stop.

  He never wanted to feel that way again, but Logan was so cold, so sick. His feet hurt and his head hurt and that energy bar had turned to acid in his stomach. He might have thought Stefan had poisoned him except he knew for certain that Stefan’s bosses were going to need him alive.

  When the man pulled to a sudden stop, Logan almost knocked into him.

  When Stefan said “We rest here,” Logan almost wanted to cry with relief. It was only the weight of Maddie’s bracelet in his pocket that kept him going.

  He was walking as slowly as he could, but they’d been going for hours. More than once, he’d started to just sit down, stop walking. But Maddie was out there somewhere. Watching. Logan wasn’t about to let her see him cry.

  As soon as the kidnapper slid off his pack and sank onto a huge boulder, Logan dropped to a fallen tree.

  On any other day, Logan might have walked from the clearing and looked out over the huge hills and narrow valleys, the massive wilderness that spread out before him like something from a movie. He was on an epic quest, he told himself. Any moment now, reinforcements were going to show up and he was going to save the maiden in distress.

  But Logan had to laugh when he realized that he was the maiden in this scenario. And he didn’t care one bit.

  When the phone started ringing, it was a sound from another century—another world. There are no phones in Mordor, Logan wanted to snap before he realized: It’s the phone.

  “Da,” the kidnapper said, answering it. He didn’t bother to turn away from Logan, lower his voice.

  “Get here!” the man shouted. Even if he hadn’t understood every word, Logan would have known that Stefan was angry. Something wasn’t going according to plan.

  “No!” Stefan snapped. “A boat will take too long. We cannot reach the coast now. There is no time. We must have the plane and the doctor.”

  A beat passed while Stefan listened and Logan worried.

  Whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying, it made Stefan stare at Logan, not just with hatred, but with fury. As if Logan had personally killed his dog, burned his house, and ruined his future. Logan was the thing that went bump in the night as far as Stefan was concerned, and Logan made a point of remembering that—of reminding himself that maybe not everyone wanted him taken alive.