by Ally Carter
Logan hadn’t thought that Maddie could go any paler, but she did. She swayed a little again, and he remembered her head and her shoulder. She was so small. She’d lost so much blood.
“I’m sorry if my letters were such a burden to you. I’m sorry I was anything to you.”
Logan would have rather faced Stefan, the snow, a bear—anything but the look in Maddie’s eyes before she turned from him. The bullet looked easy in comparison to the pain that he had caused. When she reached for a pan that had overturned and was lying on the dusty floor, she winced, and he bolted toward her.
“Let me,” he said, but she climbed to her feet without help.
“We need snow,” she said, and Logan knew she wasn’t asking for help so much as she wanted to be alone.
“I’ll do it,” he said, then he took the pot and went outside. She needed a minute. He needed a minute. Those were the lies he told himself, but the truth was they both needed the past six years back. Only six years would do.
Logan filled the pot with snow, then pushed it around and dumped it out a few times to try to clean the dust away. Then he filled it with the cleanest, freshest-looking snow he could find, brought it back inside, and set it on the stove.
Maddie didn’t face him.
Her coat and shirt were off and drying by the fire. She stood in her tank top, twisted at a strange angle, wincing.
“Maddie?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
“You’re not fine,” he told her, and forced her to turn around. She’d found an old first aid kit and a bottle of booze and was trying to pour it on her wound, but the angle made it hard.
“Let me,” he said, taking the bottle from her and pulling away the pieces of fabric they’d tried to use to stop the bleeding. He tossed the bloodiest of them in the fire, but when he opened the bottle and held it over the wound, he hesitated.
“This is going to hurt,” he said.
And the look in her eyes almost killed him. “I’ve been hurt before.”
When the alcohol hit the bullet wound, Maddie didn’t even wince. She didn’t say a word as he bandaged her up and put more wood on the fire. This was the same girl who’d once talked nonstop throughout the entire flight from DC to London, but now she acted like she’d never speak again.
“Maddie …”
She was moving then. There were some blankets on a shelf and Logan sighed with pleasure. When she found a pair of sweatpants and a flannel robe he almost wept with joy. But when Maddie started to undress, he panicked.
“What are you doing?”
“We’ve been in the freezing rain and snow all day, Logan. The fire isn’t going to do us any good if we’re both wet through. We’ll chill. We will never get warm if we don’t get dry, and we won’t get dry if we don’t …” She trailed off but gestured at her body. It was okay. Logan knew exactly what she was saying.
“Turn around,” she told him.
“Mad, I don’t know …”
“If you want to die, keep your clothes on. If you want to live long enough to get out of this mess, then turn around and strip. Put those on.” She tossed him the sweatpants and a blanket. They were musty and cold, but they were also dry, unlike every layer of his clothing.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a pale arm disappear into the robe.
He could hear Maddie moving a little, saw her laying out her clothes near the fire. Steam actually rose from her jeans and she leaned down to put another log in the stove. It was still far from hot in the cabin, but he wasn’t shaking anymore and neither was she.
So he did as he was told, stripping off his wet things and then slipping into the sweatpants and wrapping the blanket around his shoulders.
“Come here,” she told him.
The snow in the pan was melted, and Maddie found something like a cup and dipped it in, brought the warm water to Logan’s lips.
“Tasty,” he said.
Then he took the cup and got some water, held it out for her and she sipped. It felt like some kind of ritual. Like maybe now nothing could tear them asunder.
“We’re not going to die here,” Maddie told him. Logan held his hand over hers around the cup and took another sip.
He couldn’t look away from her. “Of course not. That would be a terrible way to die. Your hair would be stuck like that. Probably forever.”
She hit him on the shoulder, but she was smiling, and everything inside of Logan began to thaw.
He took another sip of water, then offered one to her. The water was starting to warm him from the inside, but Logan’s stomach was still empty. It growled, the sound filling the little shack. Outside, the wind howled. There was a tiny window with grimy glass, and Logan could see that the snow had started to fall again.
“That’s good,” Maddie said, following his gaze. “It should cover our tracks and hide the smoke from the fire. We should be safe here.”
Maddie looked around the tiny shack again, four walls barely thicker than cardboard, a hard wooden floor, raised a foot off of the frozen ground. But there was that black stove and a large stack of wood and a pot full of warm water, and that was enough to save their lives.
When she looked back at him, something in Logan broke in two because Maddie—his Maddie—was there, in that glance. Her full bottom lip started to tremble in a way that he knew had absolutely nothing to do with the cold.
“We’re gonna—”
“Hey—”
They both spoke at exactly the same time. Logan smiled at her. “After you.”
Maddie sank down to the hard floor, to the place where the fire was the hottest, right in front of the stove’s open door. The wood was turning red and sparks flew occasionally, but Maddie didn’t scoot away. She just wrapped her arms around her legs and brought an extra blanket around her like a cape. She looked like a superhero: Survival Girl. Logan had no doubt she’d save the day. In fact, she already had.
He sank down beside her. His raincoat wasn’t far away, and Logan could tell that it was already dry, so he pulled it close and draped it around both of their shoulders as they huddled closer to the fire.
There was nothing but the howling of the wind and the cracking and popping of the burning wood. And six long years of unanswered letters and even more unanswered questions.
“Mad—” Logan started just as Maddie said, “Remember those little cheese biscuits the White House chef used to make?”
Logan forgot what he was going to say. He laughed instead. “Remember them? I had one two days ago.”
She turned to look up at him. “I miss those.”
He looked down into her huge eyes. He pushed a curl away from her face. “I missed those, too. I missed them more than I can ever say.”
And they both knew that they weren’t talking about biscuits anymore.
When Logan put an arm around her, she didn’t pull away. This time, she leaned into him. Maybe for warmth, but Logan didn’t think so. He tried to wrap the jacket tighter around her, but then he bolted upright and moved away.
“I almost forgot.”
He reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out a bunch of berries, held them toward Maddie like an offering. “Are these the good kind?”
“Yes!” Maddie said, then launched toward them. She put one in her mouth and chewed, then smiled. “These are a kind of cranberry, but be careful. There’s a poisonous berry that looks a lot like them. So if we find more tomorrow, check with me before you eat anything, okay?”
“Okay,” Logan said. He wanted to smile, watching Maddie talk. It was almost like old times.
“I’ll catch something to cook in the morning. I don’t think we’re far from the river. There will be fish.”
“You can do that?” Logan eyed her. Maddie eyed him back, a little offended.
“I caught a Russian killer.”
Logan ate another berry. “Point taken.”
They ate in silence for a while. When Maddie stopped to lick the juice from her fing
ers, Logan couldn’t help himself.
He blurted, “I thought you were dead.”
Maddie stopped eating and looked up at him. “I’m not.”
She put a finger in her mouth again, and Logan told her, “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” she asked, almost with a shrug.
“Don’t die on me again. Ever.”
Her hair was drying quickly in the heat of the fire, and it was turning into curls. He tugged one of the rings gently.
“Okay,” she told him.
“And don’t come back for me again. No matter what happens. I want you to run. To save yourself. Don’t do something stupid just to get me a key. Even if your key delivery system was … unexpected.”
“You don’t mean that, Logan.”
He laughed. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting it. I promise.”
“No.” She pushed his hand away. “I mean … I’d do it again.”
“So would I,” Logan said, and then he couldn’t help himself. He was leaning closer, drawn toward her like a magnet. Maddie was his true north, and he couldn’t turn away from her then, not if his life depended on it.
Even if hers did.
He was growing closer and closer and then her lips were on his again, warmer now. She tasted like snow and berries and it was the sweetest thing that Logan had ever known.
When he pulled away he kissed her again on her forehead. Her blanket had fallen and the robe gaped a little, so he placed a quick kiss on the stretch of skin between her neck and the strap of her tank top—not far from the place where she’d been shot.
Maddie was shot, Logan reminded himself, then pulled away. But when she lay down before the fire, Logan could do nothing but spoon himself behind her, pull as many of the warm blankets around them as possible.
She put her head on his chest, and he put his arm around her shoulders and it was the single best moment of Logan’s life.
Only one thought was able to ruin it.
“Mad, what happens tomorrow?” he asked.
The fire cracked again, and sparks flew.
“Tomorrow we make a phone call.”
For the third time in two days, Maddie woke up feeling like she was lost inside a dream.
She was too cold, but also too hot. An unfamiliar weight was draped across her waist, and she really, really needed to fluff her pillow. But then Maddie’s eyes flew open, and she saw a stove that was full of hot coals and not much else. She shivered and realized that she was wearing her base layers and a threadbare robe and lying on a scratchy blanket. There was another blanket and some coats on top of her. But the most disturbing things were the arms. Two of them. One was beneath her head and one was wrapped around her waist, heavy and sure. And her hand was holding its hand and something inside of Maddie swore to never, ever let it go.
It wasn’t a dream, Maddie realized. And she couldn’t decide whether that should make her terrified or ecstatic.
Then there was a too-deep voice in her ear. “Good morning.”
Maddie bolted away like maybe she’d been stung. “Yes. Um. Good morning.”
Logan pushed upright. At some point in the night he must have gotten up to check his clothes, because he was wearing dry jeans and socks, a white T-shirt stretching across his broad chest.
Very broad.
Oh, so utterly broad that it didn’t look at all like the chest that he’d had when they used to go swimming at the White House.
The sun was up, and light filled the little shack, filtering through holes in the walls and the roof and the small, grimy window. But they’d lived. And as soon as they were out of this mess Maddie was going to come back and fill this place with so much firewood and kindling that it might crumble under the weight of it all.
Then she realized Logan was eyeing her like maybe she looked as awful as she felt.
“What is it?” she blurted.
“I didn’t know it was possible for hair to even point in that direction.” He reached for her head, but she batted his hand away and he burst out laughing.
Maddie tried to run a hand through her hair, but her curls were too wild and windblown. It was all she could do to tuck it behind her ears.
“Better?” she asked.
“Oh, much,” he said with so much sarcasm she hit him again. Just for good measure.
But then they both stopped smiling, stopped laughing, and Maddie realized they were still holding hands. It was like they had frozen that way, dried together in some kind of knot just like her hair.
“Did you sleep okay?” Maddie asked, even though she couldn’t remember whether or not she’d asked it already.
“Yes. I slept perfectly.”
“Oh. Okay. Uh …” She looked down at the place where she’d spent the night, wrapped up in him. “Your arm didn’t fall asleep, did it?”
“No.” Logan shook his head. The awkward was palpable. Maddie was practically drowning in it, but Logan seemed as cool as the wind. “My arm is perfect.”
Then he pulled the blankets and the coats back over Maddie and went to put more wood on the fire. He froze in the act of putting a log on the coals and asked her, “Is this okay?”
Maddie glanced at the dirty window. “I think so. It looks overcast and it’s still spitting sleet. No one’s gonna see a little more smoke.”
“Good.” He tossed the log onto the fire, then hopped on the cold floor, jumping over Maddie’s legs to land behind her. He sunk down and dragged her back into his arms and wrapped the blankets and coats around them both again. It was like a cocoon. Outside the blankets, the world was cold and scary and awkward. Seriously, Maddie thought. A person could spontaneously combust from so much awkward. But inside the blankets the world was warm and safe and she didn’t have to think about anything. Not about Russian kidnappers or unanswered letters. Not about the bullet or the fall or the lie that hurt more than anything else.
She wanted to close her eyes and sleep again, but when she moved, her shoulder felt like fire and a fresh wave of nausea ran through her body, and she knew that sleep wouldn’t save them. For six years, mornings had started with chores, and Maddie knew that she could lay there in Logan’s arms and make believe. Or she could get up and do something about it.
So Maddie got up.
“Logan, do you remember the map?” she asked before even really realizing that she’d been thinking about it. Even though some part of Maddie’s brain had never stopped thinking about it.
“Yes,” he said slowly. It was like he was wise to Maddie’s cocoon analogy and he was very much Team Stay Inside Where It’s Warm.
“Good,” Maddie said.
At some point someone must have tried to make this little shack a home because one wall was covered with peeling, faded wallpaper. Maddie reached for her jeans and pulled them on. They were filthy and stiff but they were dry. She slipped off the robe and pulled on the second of her three shirts, then walked to the wallpaper and ripped. A piece came off in her hands.
There were pieces of old burnt wood around the base of the stove, and Maddie found one that turned her fingers black and handed it to Logan.
“I want you to draw it—as much of it as you can. I want to see what he sees.”
She reached for her boots.
“Where are you going?” He acted almost hurt, like he didn’t want to be left behind. Again.
“I’m going to go see what I can catch to eat.”
“I’ll go with you,” Logan said, looking around and starting to pull on more of his own clothes.
“No.” When Maddie realized she’d snapped she tried to soften her voice. “It’s better if I go alone. I need the map. And we need food and we don’t have enough time, so—”
“Mad Dog, it’s okay.” He nodded toward the door. “Go. Bring home the bacon.”
There wasn’t any bacon.
But there was a stream filled with fish, and Maddie had braved the cold long enough to pull off her pantyhose and catch some (a feat she never could have done in front of
Logan).
An hour after she’d left she was warm again and in front of the fire. Logan was sitting beside her and they both looked at the fresh fillets that laid atop the big, flat rocks that Maddie had placed directly on the red-hot coals.
“No offense to the White House culinary team, but that’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled,” Logan said.
They would have both been perfectly willing to eat the fish raw and call it sushi, but the smell was doing Maddie almost as much good as the fire. It was warming her from the inside out. Or maybe it was just the way Logan sat closer to her now, their arms touching. Sometimes his hand was on her back. A time or two she caught herself leaning against his chest. When their hands touched neither moved away, and they just stayed like that.
Was that weird?
Or was it more weird to move her hand now for no apparent reason? Maddie knew the protocol for moving the president from the Oval Office to the Situation Room during a national security crisis, but she didn’t know exactly how long one could—or should—touch the first son before one was at risk of offending the touchee or embarrassing the toucher. Or even really which one she was. She didn’t remember touching him, after all. She just kind of was.
She just kind of couldn’t stop it.
And, Maddie was starting to realize, neither could he.
“Tell me you forgive me, Maddie. Please. You don’t even have to mean it. Just say it. For now.”
“Logan …”
“I thought I was doing it for you.”
And, with that, Maddie finally found it easy to move away.
“I needed you. I didn’t have anyone.”
“Which is better than having someone who’s just going to get you hurt,” Logan said, then looked around the cabin and laughed. “Lot of good that did you.”
“Logan?” Maddie said, and slowly he turned to her.
“Tell me you forgive me, Mad Dog. Lie if you have to. I can’t go out there thinking you don’t know how much I … How much we … I need you to know that I’d do anything for you. Even give you up.”
“Logan.” Maddie looked up and found his eyes. The fire crackled and the snow fell, but all Maddie could ask was “What did he say? When he was on the phone?”