Not if I Save You First

by Ally Carter

  His eyes were black and his lip was swollen, but he sounded exactly like himself when he ordered, “Get out of here, Mad.”

  “But, Dad—” Maddie drew out the word. “I just got here. You never let me have any fun.”

  “You were dead,” the Wolf said. He almost sounded impressed. Then he tightened his grip on the knife. “And soon you will be again.”

  But before he could pierce her father’s skin further, Maddie’s dad threw back his head, catching Boris on the chin and knocking him off balance.

  Her dad’s hands were bound, but he moved like that was his preferred way of fighting as he threw himself at the old man, knocking him to the icy ground.

  He was rising, leveraging himself over the Wolf when a shot rang out from the distance, and Maddie’s father collapsed, blood spreading across his back.

  “Maddie!” Logan’s shout echoed across the lake, and Maddie spun. Froze. Because there he was, racing toward her.

  He was supposed to be safe and warm and halfway through his sixth bowl of soup by now. He was supposed to have sent the Secret Service. He was supposed to have forgotten all about Maddie. Again. But he hadn’t, and she honestly didn’t know whether she should love him or hate him for it.

  Boris was righting himself, pushing aside the limp form of Maddie’s father, and Maddie saw the look in his eyes as he realized that the first son was walking willingly into camp, his hands over his head.

  “Take me!” Logan shouted.

  Another shot rang out, ricocheting off one of the big, flat rocks near the water. Then Boris shouted something in Russian and the firing stopped.

  And Logan walked on, like this was the moment he’d been waiting for. Like this was the most important moment in his life. And maybe the last.

  “I know who you are,” Logan said. He kept his gaze locked on the old man. “You’re the great Wolf. Your son came to start a war. He died a soldier’s death. This man shot him.” Logan pointed to where Maddie’s father lay on the ground. “Because it was his job to protect me. It was always about me. My father. My mother. It was about my family then. It should be about my family now. So take me.”

  “I intend to,” the Wolf said.

  “But let the soldier and the girl go. One son for one son,” Logan said, and for a moment it looked like the Wolf might laugh. Then Logan said, “Let them live to tell your story. Let them turn you into a legend—not just in Russia, but all over the world.”

  This, at last, seemed to make the old man wonder.

  Maddie was aware of the guards pulling themselves upright, coming toward her. One of them gripped her too tight by the arm, shook her a little just to prove he was a big, tough guy as he ripped the rifle out of her hands.

  But the Wolf said something in Russian and the man’s grip loosened. Then he let go completely and forced her toward her father with a shove.

  “Tell them,” the Wolf said. “Go tell the world how the first son died.”

  Maddie looked at where her father lay on the ground, bleeding. Then to Logan, who had dropped to his knees. The Wolf strode toward him with purpose. It was almost ceremonial, almost sacred.

  Logan wasn’t the first son. He was a sacrificial lamb as he knelt at the old man’s feet.

  “Logan,” Maddie warned, but he just smiled at her.

  “Dear Mad Dog,” he said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t write back sooner. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you. I missed you every single day. Love, Logan.”

  “No!” Maddie’s scream pierced the air, but the Wolf was already bringing his blade to Logan’s throat.

  “A son for a son,” the Wolf said. He pulled back the blade.

  Then stumbled. Staggered.

  When he glanced down at his chest he seemed more confused than in pain. He looked from the knife in his own hand to the blade that was stuck hilt-deep in his chest, right where his heart would have been if he’d had one.

  The old man seemed so confused as he dropped to the ground beside Logan.

  Then he looked at the girl.

  Her arm was still outstretched. Follow through was everything, after all. And even she hadn’t been vain enough to bedazzle both her favorite hatchet and her favorite knife for throwing.

  Her aim had been dead on.

  For a moment, the only sound was the crackling fire. The hired guns didn’t move, like they had no idea how to live in a world without the Wolf.

  Then a soft voice said, “Mad Dog?” Her father stirred. The trance ended. And the Russians seemed to realize where they were and who they’d almost killed.

  The two of them came then, rage and fear seeping out of them. The man with the rifle raised it, preparing to shoot. Just as the shot rang, Maddie dove, sliding across the snow and ice, reaching for her father.

  She braced for the impact of the bullet, the stinging and the burn, but it was the Wolf’s guard who was falling. His rifle dropped useless to the snowy ground, and Maddie looked back to see Stefan running from the woods, another rifle in his arms.

  “Guess Stefan found the fourth guard,” Logan said.

  The other man had picked up the Wolf’s knife, though, and he brandished it like a sword.

  “Drop it,” Maddie told him.

  “You are unarmed. And a girl.”

  “She’s the girl who killed the Wolf,” Logan told the man. “And she’s not alone.”

  Maddie smiled. It was sweet. She felt almost sorry for calling him an idiot. But then she realized what he’d said and that it was true. She wasn’t alone. For the first time in six years she didn’t have to rely almost entirely on herself. She had her father back, and Stefan. And Logan.

  Maddie didn’t let herself wonder how long it would last. It was enough that it was true for now.

  Then Logan looked up at the overcast sky, and Maddie realized the full depth of his words. Helicopters filled the dim horizon like a flock of birds. The sun was almost down, and soon ice and snow and glacier silt would be swirling in the air, blinding them.

  Maddie threw her body over her father, but he pushed her aside, smoothed her hair. “I’m okay, Mad Dog. I’ve had worse.”

  And those were the words that finally broke her.

  Tears streamed down her face and she cried in awful, eye-puffing, skin-blotching, gut-wrenching sobs.

  “I’ve got you, Mad Dog. You’re okay.”

  But was she okay?

  She couldn’t help herself. She looked at Logan.

  “Uri and another guard are tied up in the woods,” he reported.

  “I left a man unconscious on that ridge,” Stefan said, pointing in the direction from which he’d appeared.

  “Where’s your sister?” she asked.

  “In the plane,” he said, then looked longingly at it.

  “Can you fly?” she asked him.

  “A bit,” he said.

  “Then go.” Maddie didn’t stop and think about the words, what they meant or how far the aftermath might follow them. She just knew that he’d been there for them in the end, and he was right. He’d taken the closest thing the US had to royalty. He might never see the sun.

  “Get in the plane and leave. Now. Float it out around the bend and then take off as soon as you’re out of sight of the choppers. Fly as low as you can, and we’ll cover for you, but you have to get out of here. Now. Get your sister to a doctor and then go to ground and stay there. Both of you.”

  “Maddie …” Logan started, and she spun on him.

  “Right?” she asked.

  Logan put the yellow sat phone and its charger in Stefan’s hand. “We’ll call you when the coast is clear.”

  “Dad?” Maddie asked.

  “Do it” was all her father said.

  Then Stefan was running through the snow, and the plane was roaring to life and floating away while the helicopters looked like hornets on the horizon.

  But Maddie stayed on the icy ground, holding tight to her father.

  “The Wolf’s dead, Dad. It’s over. I think
it’s really over.”

  He looked up at her. “I’m sorry I never told you. I didn’t want to scare you. You were just a kid and you’d been through too much. I’m sorry.”

  “Shh. Save your strength. Help’s coming. We’re going to get you well and then go home.”

  Home.

  It wasn’t until the helicopters landed and two dozen agents in full SWAT gear swarmed the beach that Maddie realized she actually wasn’t sure where that was anymore.

  To whom it may concern,

  I don’t know what brought you to this little shed, but I hope you’ll be happy here—for however long you need to stay. I’ve taken the liberty of restocking the woodpile and bringing some new blankets and a few dishes, some matches and a mirror (because even though you may be the only person for twenty miles in any direction, most people feel better when they know what their hair looks like).

  Help yourself to the canned goods—that’s what they’re here for.

  But, most of all, be careful and take care of this place. It’s special to me.

  Maddie

  (and me, too—Logan)

  It was the first week of January, which, in Maddie’s experience, meant five layers. So no wonder she couldn’t help but feel incredibly underdressed. Her skirt was too short. Her tights were too thin. Her shoes weren’t even waterproof, and no matter how many strongly worded emails Maddie had written in protest, she had been strictly warned to leave her hatchet and both of her knives at home.

  So Maddie was basically naked, in other words, as she stood outside the tall fence, looking at the wilderness that lay on the other side of the electric gates.

  It was unknown terrain filled with potential predators, and Maddie didn’t like the looks of it one bit.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, pulling back. But she didn’t go far before there was an arm around her waist, holding her firmly against a body that, if possible, had gotten even taller.

  Logan looked down at her.

  “Of course you can. You’re Maddie Freaking Manchester. You caught a Russian kidnapper with a bear trap and a tree.”

  “Technically, I caught one Russian with a tree. I only wounded the second Russian with a bear trap.”

  “See? You’re a natural. You’re gonna fit right in.”

  “No.” Maddie pulled back, tugging Logan’s arm and trying her best to keep him in place when he started for the entry. “I can’t do it. I don’t belong here.”

  “Your dad needs surgery, Mad Dog. And physical therapy. And to sit through about a million debriefs. When that’s all done, you can go back. I promise. But in the meantime you can’t stay in Alaska by yourself. So please, stay here. With me? Please.”

  It all sounded so great in theory, but there was traffic on the street—cars and trucks whizzing by so fast that Maddie felt a little dizzy. The sidewalks were filled with people who never looked up from their phones, all of them seemingly in the middle of nowhere. But they weren’t.

  Maddie knew what the middle of nowhere looked like, felt like. It didn’t smell like bus exhaust and it didn’t taste like a breakfast that came from a bag.

  Maddie’s fingers itched and she wanted to run, but all she could say was “Logan, I don’t go to school. I do worksheets and read library books and chop wood all winter. Seriously. If anyone in there needs some wood chopped or a generator repaired, then I’m their girl, but—”

  “Mad Dog.”

  Logan cupped her cheeks with his big, warm hands, made her look up into his eyes.

  “You’re my girl,” he said, and then he kissed her, right there in front of their school and his Secret Service detail—right in front of the world. So she kissed him back again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Until he pulled back and looked into her eyes. “If anything goes wrong in there, I’ll save you.”

  She took his hand. “Not if I save you first.”

  In many ways, this is the most research-heavy book that I’ve ever written, because, in many ways, it’s also the most realistic. Always before, I’ve written in worlds largely of my own making, but Alaska is a very real, very vast, very fascinating place, and I felt the need to get it as right as possible.

  To that end, I went where people should always go for reliable answers: to librarians!

  So I’d like to offer my most heartfelt thanks to Ida Olson, Elizabeth M. Nicolai, and Andrea Hirsh for their help in understanding life and survival in rural Alaska.

  I’d also like to thank “Klondike Kevin,” the guide who showed my family around Skagway and told us that the groundwater could kill us, thus making me desperate to set a book there.

  Finally, I have to thank Kristin Nelson, David Levithan, and the wonderful team at Scholastic as well as all the amazing authors I harassed for a solid six months to try to get the title just right. I owe you, each and every one!

  Ally Carter is the New York Times bestselling author of the Embassy Row series, as well as the Gallagher Girls and Heist Society series. Her books have been published all over the world, in over twenty languages. You can visit her online at www.allycarter.com.

  Copyright © 2018 by Ally Carter

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  First edition, April 2018

  Cover art © 2018 by Sean Freeman

  Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-13416-2

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