Not if I Save You First

by Ally Carter

  “It’s going to be okay,” she told him.

  She kept her head down. She didn’t turn again.

  The rain was coming down more steadily, and it was possible that the man couldn’t even hear her, so she risked a little more.

  “They’ll find us soon. Don’t worry, Logan. Your team must have realized you were gone hours ago. You did a good job leaving a trail, and I left markers—really obvious markers. They’ll find us soon.”

  Maddie was sure of it. She knew it in her gut. She’d lived her whole life with a man devoted to protecting others, and there were some things that all Secret Service agents had in common. They were all smart. And tough. And when they took a vow, they meant it. There was a reason that the Secret Service was the only arm of the US intelligence community that had never had a traitor.

  Logan’s detail was coming. And when they got there, Maddie only had to make sure she got Logan out of the way.

  She turned her head. She smiled. She just wasn’t expecting the look on Logan’s face.

  “They’re not coming.”

  Logan’s voice was low and he kept his head down, his gaze on the slick ground before them.

  “Of course they’re coming, Logan. They’re good. I know those guys. Dad trained them.”

  “They’re dead, Mad.”

  Maddie’s steps actually faltered. There had been a little piece of her—a small sliver of light shining beneath the door of her mind, something telling her that hope was out there. Help was coming.

  There had been a tiny voice whispering that she didn’t have to do this alone.

  She wasn’t Logan’s only chance.

  She wasn’t on her own—not really. She just had to keep Logan alive until the grown-ups came to take care of things.

  But Maddie was the grown-up now, she knew, and she waited for the realization to hit her, for the panic to set in. But the panic didn’t come, and Maddie didn’t know whether to feel relief that she was prepared for this or sadness that being on her own was nothing new.

  If Stefan had killed two Secret Service agents, then he wasn’t just evil—he was also good at this. And Maddie didn’t know which thought scared her more.

  “Can your dad land in this?” Logan asked with a glance toward the sky that was growing darker, the rain that didn’t feel like rain anymore. Maddie tipped her head up and felt the tiny stinging stabs that told her that sometime in the past five minutes the rain had turned to sleet.

  Soon the ground would freeze, and the leaves and logs would be covered with ice and, eventually, snow.

  “Mad, can your dad—” Logan started to repeat.

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said. It was an honest answer. It also honestly scared her. “He won’t take a chance. I made him promise that he wouldn’t take any chances.”

  “Great.” Logan kicked a rock, sent it tumbling down the hill.

  Maddie knew exactly what it felt like.

  “Help’s gonna come, Logan,” Maddie said. Maddie lied.

  The weather was going to get worse and the night was going to be long, but the promise of help could be warmer than any fire, Maddie was certain.

  “Okay,” Logan said. “But even if he does land in this, what’s he gonna do? Drag himself through the woods to … what? Find us?”

  “Yes,” Maddie said.

  “He can’t find us.” Logan shook his head, but Maddie reached out and grabbed his arm.

  They both had bound hands, but that just meant that both of her hands gripped both of his, like they were sharing some kind of solemn vow.

  “I found you,” she reminded him.

  For a moment, Logan smiled. But then the smile faded. He shook his head and pulled away, started walking before Stefan could have an excuse or an opportunity to strike again.

  “You should have run, Mad Dog.”

  “I did run. Right to you.” She shrugged. “Someone has to keep you alive until help comes.”

  “Help’s not coming.”

  Maddie knew better than to argue. So she tried a different angle. “Who is he?”

  She didn’t look back as she asked it. She just kept her head down, her face shielded against the sting of the falling ice.

  “He’s Russian,” Logan said, as if that was all that mattered.

  “You mean like …”

  Maddie didn’t say six years ago. She didn’t have to. That incident was never far from her mind, and it couldn’t have been far from Logan’s either. It had changed both of their lives in so many ways. Logan might have been the one who’d been grazed by a bullet, but she knew they both had scars.

  “Yeah,” Logan said. “Just like that.”

  “What else?” Maddie asked. She needed details, data. Before the president went anywhere, an advance team spent weeks going over an area with a fine-tooth comb. Facts mattered. Information mattered. And Maddie needed every speck of it that she could get.

  “He’s got a sat phone,” Logan told her. “He’s been speaking to someone. He doesn’t know I can speak Russian.”

  “You can speak Russian!”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  This time, Maddie whispered. “You can speak Russian?”

  “Yes. I learned a lot in six years.”

  Maddie wanted to scoff and roll her eyes and yell at him and at the world, but she just kept walking. “Yeah. So did I.”

  When they passed a low bush covered with berries, Maddie said a silent prayer of thanks that the weather had been so wacky.

  She pulled a bunch of berries off as quickly as she could and pushed them in Logan’s direction.

  “Here. Eat these.” She helped herself to some as Logan eyed her.

  “They could be poisonous.”

  Well, the berries weren’t going to kill him, but Maddie’s look could have, so he did as he was told.

  “I don’t know who he’s working for,” Logan admitted. The berries must have hit his bloodstream, a fresh shot of sugar and adrenaline and hope that lasted until Logan admitted, “And I don’t know where he’s taking me.”

  This time, Maddie smiled. “That’s okay.” She plopped a berry in her mouth. “I do.”

  Dear Logan,

  Someday I’m going to write a book: How Not to Die in Alaska—A Girl’s Guide to Fashionable Survival.

  I bet you don’t know that a bobby pin can make an excellent fishing hook. You may think you can use just any kind of mud for mud masks, but trust me, you CAN’T! In a pinch, nothing starts a fire like nail polish remover.

  And don’t even get me started on the lifesaving properties of a good pair of pantyhose.

  So I know a lot, in other words.

  I just don’t know why I’m still writing you these letters.

  “I want you to get away.”

  At first, Maddie wasn’t sure that Logan was talking to her. He could have been talking to himself, after all. He used to do that when they were kids. He’d mumble under his breath during tests at school or while they were eating snacks on the stairs or even while they huddled together in a tent on the lawn of the White House, pretending like they were on safari.

  Maddie was used to the sound of Logan’s voice, low and under his breath when he didn’t think anyone was listening.

  But Maddie was always listening.

  “Maddie? Listen, I want you to get away.”

  “Shh,” she warned, but she didn’t look back at the man with the gun. And the knife. And the mysterious vendetta or cause.

  “I’m going to undo the cuffs,” Logan said. He gestured to the pocket where he’d placed the key. After the kiss.

  Maddie absolutely did not let herself think about the kiss.

  “He won’t be expecting it. When I jump him, you can—”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You’ve got to leave me, Maddie.” Logan risked a glance behind her. “He’ll hurt you.”

  They couldn’t stop.

  It was getting too dark and the rain wasn’t rain anymore. Ice was fall
ing from the sky and collecting on the ground, covering fallen logs and the layer of leaves that blanketed the forest floor. Rocks were slick and sharp beneath their feet.

  Maddie absolutely did not have time to stop and tell Logan he was an idiot.

  But she really, really wanted to.

  Mostly, she wanted him to feel as awful as she did.

  “I’ve been hurt before, Logan. I’m getting pretty good at it.”

  But before she could turn and saunter off into the forest, point made, Logan took her hands in his. “They need me alive, Mad. They don’t need you. They will hurt you.”

  “You need me,” she said.

  She watched the words wash over him, sink in. She saw how badly he wanted to shrug and argue, say that he didn’t need a stupid girl to help him.

  Which just showed how badly the opposite was true.

  “You don’t get it, Mad—” he said instead.

  “No. You don’t get it.”

  “Maddie—” Logan started, but Maddie was already turning around.

  Shouting, “Mr. Kidnapper Man?”

  She could practically hear Stefan’s groan, but he still asked “What?”

  “I need to go,” she told him.

  His gruff laugh cut through the air. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “No.” Maddie crossed her legs. She bobbed up and down in the age-old way of two-year-olds everywhere. “I mean I need to go go.”

  Maddie never had the chance to learn Russian, but she knew a curse word when she heard one, no matter the language.

  Loosely translated, it meant girls are so annoying.

  On this, at least, he and Logan seemed to have found common ground.

  “Fine,” the man spat out after a moment. “We break.”

  They’d reached the side of the hill where the vegetation was thicker and the wind wasn’t as strong. Maddie moved toward the thick bushes that were quickly turning white with ice.

  “Stop!” the man yelled. Reluctantly, Maddie turned.

  She actually rolled her eyes.

  “Um … I’m mad at him”—she pointed at Logan—“and I don’t know you, so I’m gonna need a little privacy.”

  The man looked at Logan again, as if he needed someone to explain stupid American females to him, but Logan only shrugged.

  “Look,” Maddie said, “I get it. You’re a bad guy. You might not have any qualms about killing people, but I bet even you have the decency to let a sixteen-year-old girl pee in peace.”

  “Maddie …” Logan warned, but Maddie wasn’t in the mood to listen.

  Instead, she stepped closer to the man with the gun.

  Stefan was strong. Athletic. Young. And he moved with such sure, easy grace that Maddie might have been impressed under any other circumstances. But these circumstances were far from normal.

  In a flash, the knife was in his hand and he was moving toward her. Maddie saw Logan register the movement, but Stefan was too fast and too strong. When he grabbed her bound wrists and thrust the knife toward her, she didn’t fight it. Even as Logan screamed “No!”

  In the next moment Maddie’s wrists were free. Blood was rushing back to her cold hands and they started to tingle and burn; she moved her fingers just to prove that she still could.

  Logan, on the other hand, stood staring.

  The man jerked his head toward the bushes and kept his knife on Logan.

  “If you run, just remember: There are parts of him I do not need at all.”

  Pushing through the thick brush, Maddie heard her name. She spun back to look at Logan, who looked like maybe he’d never see her again.

  “I’m not worth it,” he told her.

  She smiled. “I know.”

  Then she turned and pushed through the trees. Ice clung to branches, weighing them down and covering the forest in shiny, frosty sequins. It was like the whole world had been bedazzled, and Maddie could at least appreciate that aspect of it.

  She was just starting to push aside a particularly shiny limb when something bolted out in front of her.

  No.

  Someone.

  And Maddie didn’t think about anything else.

  She screamed.

  When Logan heard the scream, he thought that it was over.

  He just wasn’t exactly sure what “it” was.

  Maybe this long, terrible trek to an even more terrible fate. Maybe the fear that had been growing inside of him for hours.

  But, no, Logan realized. What was over was the charade he was playing that Maddie wasn’t the most important thing in the world to him right then—the idea that she hadn’t been that for ages.

  He didn’t look at the man with the gun for permission. He didn’t think about himself. He just burst through the dense trees and bushes, sliding over the slick ground, not caring about the ice.

  It was a scream of shock and terror and it didn’t matter to Logan what might happen to him. All he knew was that the bravest girl in the world sounded terrified.

  And it was all his fault.

  “Maddie!” he shouted, but he didn’t hear anything back.

  It was almost night, and the only light was that of a quickly fading dusk.

  “Maddie!”

  “It’s okay.”

  When Logan heard her voice, he stopped and bent at the waist, hands on knees. He thought his heart might beat out of his chest.

  “Maddie, where—”

  “It’s okay,” a voice yelled. “It’s just me.”

  The man who pushed through the brush wasn’t as tall as the kidnapper, but he wore a thick coat and a wide-brimmed hat that kept the sleet at bay. He smiled at them, like maybe he’d been looking for them for hours.

  But he hadn’t. Logan could tell.

  “Sorry to scare you folks. I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone else out here. I can tell I’m not the only one.”

  Logan felt Stefan’s eyes on him, saw the subtle shake of his head.

  Then Logan noticed the firearm in a holster at the other man’s waist.

  “Which begs the question, what are you folks doing out here?” the man asked.

  Logan saw Maddie standing just past the man’s shoulder. He could actually see her thinking, planning.

  “Nature hike,” she said, and Logan felt Stefan coming up behind him. He felt the gun at his back.

  “What are you doing here?” Stefan asked.

  “Oh, just checking on things before the storm settles in and makes itself at home,” the man said. He was dressed like a forest ranger. It made sense that some people would be posted in this vast wilderness, but Logan had never imagined they might cross paths with one.

  “I think you folks are a long way from where you’re supposed to be,” the man said. “No one should be out here on a night like this.”

  There was some kind of war waging within Stefan—Logan could feel it.

  Logan had pulled the sleeves of his jacket down to protect his freezing hands, and that, coupled with the dim and fading light, meant that the ranger probably had no idea that Logan’s hands were bound. Maddie was running around, apparently free.

  Did this man know that he’d just stumbled upon the kidnapping of the century? Had some kind of alarm been raised? Was every ranger within a hundred miles out looking for the first son right then?

  Or was this simply sheer dumb luck?

  “Are you lost?” The ranger looked right at Stefan. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Yes,” Stefan said. “I do.”

  But he wasn’t talking about the route they were taking, the best tricks for staying warm and dry.

  Stefan’s voice had taken on an otherworldly quality as he said it, as if he’d been pulled back into some deep sleep.

  Then he raised his gun.

  He fired.

  Once.

  Twice.

  And the ranger fell.

  “No!” Maddie yelled, rushing toward the man. She clawed at his body, trying to turn him over, pull his face o
ut of the ice and the mud. Trying to help him.

  But he was too big and Maddie was too small, too cold. And Stefan was already there, ripping her away from the man and slinging her across the ice-covered floor of the woods.

  She scampered back, crawling away. As if it were possible to escape, but whatever hope she might have had died when Stefan grabbed Maddie by the arm and jerked her to her feet.

  When he pushed her toward Logan, she didn’t say a word. She just threw her arms around Logan’s waist and held him tight.

  They held each other as if it might possibly be the last thing they’d ever do.

  He didn’t think a thing about it when she slid her hands beneath his jacket except to register that her hands felt warmer than they should, that they felt right. That maybe it was all worth it just to have this moment.

  “I was so scared,” he told her. “When you screamed, I …”

  But Logan trailed off when he felt her slide something beneath the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back, where the tail of his coat would hide it.

  He pulled back and looked down into her eyes.

  And he knew.

  He risked a quick glance at the ranger’s body on the ground.

  The empty holster.

  Logan wasn’t sure whether he should be happy that they had a gun now or mad because this was almost as disappointing as the kiss.

  Dear Logan,

  Remember when we were friends?

  I do. But sometimes, honestly, I’d give anything to forget.

  Maddie

  The gun rubbed against the small of Logan’s back with every step he took. It didn’t scrape. It didn’t hurt. It burned.

  He’d never understood the phrase burning a hole in your pocket until then. He’d never known just how much self-restraint could hurt.

  But his hands were bound in front of him, and he couldn’t easily reach the gun without unclasping his cuffs. And Maddie had told him not to. In a way, she was far scarier than the very ticked-off Russian.

  She wasn’t even breathing hard as they climbed. Her footsteps never faltered, even once the ground was covered with sleet. Maddie knew that terrain.

  But, most of all, Maddie had a plan.

  If there was anything close to a home court advantage, she had it, and Logan tried to be smart. He tried to be patient.