Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter (19)

Maddie

Maddie wasn’t as cold as she should have been, and that was just one of the things that scared her.

The first sign of hypothermia was the shaking. The second was when the shaking stopped. Her first winter, her dad had sat her down and gone through it all. How important it was to stay warm. How staying warm didn’t matter if you couldn’t stay dry. She knew the most dangerous thing about the cold wasn’t what it did to your body; it was what it did to your mind.

There were lots of cases of people getting so cold that they thought they were warm. They’d pull off their coats and shoes. They’d run out into the snow and the ice. Hypothermia made you stupid, and in Alaska, stupid would almost always get you killed.

That was why Maddie tried to pretend she was steadier on her feet than she was—why she kept talking, praying that her words wouldn’t slur.

They had to keep walking. Keep moving. Because the rule of the wild is simple, and the order is not up for debate.

Shelter before fire.

Fire before water.

Water before food.

Food before pretty much anything else.

So step one was shelter. And the trees no longer counted.

“Keep an eye out for caves,” she told Logan. “And sometimes you can crawl into the big trees, nest in around the roots. But we have to be careful.”

“Because of bears?” Logan asked.

“And wolves,” she said. “Wolves like places like that.”

“Oh. There are wolves now. Yay,” Logan said.

“If we find a big rock or something with shelter on one side, we can cut some brush and make a lean-to. We need cover. We have to get dry.”

It felt like she was talking to herself—like when she was a little girl and she didn’t want to go to sleep. She was always stubborn, her father told her. She’d chatter away for hours, and the heavier her eyelids got the louder she talked. She was doing it again, she knew, but this time she didn’t care.

“Which way is the bridge?” Logan’s voice was filled with concern as he stopped and surveyed their surroundings.

It was pitch-dark, of course. But a little moonlight filtered through the trees, and in a way the snow was a good thing. It covered their tracks and reflected what light there was, and their eyes had adjusted to the darkness. They could walk a little farther. But Logan didn’t sound so sure.

“I’m turned around.” He sounded panicked. He cursed. “Mad, I’m turned around.”

“North is this way,” she said. “The river’s behind us, but it bends. We’re okay.”

“But where’s the good bridge?”

“Behind us,” she said. “He won’t catch us. Not yet.”

Maddie knew what Logan was thinking—fearing. She knew because she was thinking it, too. She stopped and looked up at him.

Which was a mistake.

Because he was even more handsome than he had been when he’d climbed out of the helicopter, all clean and styled and official.

Now it looked like he needed to shave, which was more than a little scary because

(A) Logan shaved!

And (B) it turned out, when pretty tall, pretty handsome boys needed to shave they became less “pretty” and more … handsome. Which was its own particular brand of terrifying.

His eyes seemed brighter in the darkness, his senses more alive. She tried not to remember how warm and safe she’d felt in his arms, but she kept looking up at him, trying to see her friend there. But her friend—her Logan—really was gone. And this boy—this almost-a-man—wasn’t nearly as easy to hate as Maddie had been pretending.

Maybe that was why the trees started to swirl, why the sky began to spin.

She just knew that a moment later Logan’s arms were around her again, and he was saying, “Whoa there.”

“I’m not a horse,” Maddie managed to mutter, but her heart wasn’t in it. Even she could hear the words slur.

“Yeah. True. So maybe I need to give you a ride.”

She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. After all, slang was constantly changing and Maddie had missed six whole years of teenage evolution. In Maddie’s world, it was basically 1890, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. So she had no idea what Logan was saying, but then her feet were off the ground and she was back in Logan’s arms and he was walking.

“Put me down!” She hit him on the shoulder, but the blow just glanced off. Because he was so big. Or because she was so weak. Or both.

It was probably both, Maddie realized with something resembling indignation.

She was going to be really mad at herself as soon as she woke up. But that was later. Right now, sleep sounded so much better than fighting.

Sleep sounded like the most brilliant idea in the history of the world.

It had started snowing again—harder now—and Maddie let herself turn her face into the expanse of Logan’s broad chest, burrow into his warmth.

She didn’t want to close her eyes, but her eyelids had a different opinion on the subject.

She was floating again, drifting. Her shoulder didn’t hurt. Her stomach didn’t growl. But the forest kept swirling, faster and faster, and Maddie was perfectly willing to go swirling down the drain with the rest of the world.

But then she felt something jerk. Bounce. She started awake.

“Stay with me, Mad Dog.”

Logan was there—that was right. It wasn’t a dream. Was it?

Maybe it was.

“Maddie, stay with me!” he said again, and Maddie remembered she was in his arms and they were walking.

No. Logan was carrying her.

Logan, whom she hated. But then she thought about the bridge, the look in his eyes when he’d asked What letters? and Maddie’s hate faded. It got covered by the blowing snow.

“Logan?”

“Yeah?’

“You’re gonna wear yourself out,” she told him.

“No, I’m not. And you’re going into shock, Mad.”

Maddie changed her mind again. The new worst part about their situation was that he was right. And he knew it.

“The bullet went straight through. I’m—”

“Stubborn,” he finished for her. “When was the last time you ate anything?”

“There were the berries,” she told him.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, and Maddie knew he didn’t have a whole lot of room to talk. It’s not like he and Stefan had hit a drive-through on their trek through the forest.

Maddie wanted to argue. But she decided to argue with her eyes closed.

There really was something inherently peaceful about being carried. No wonder babies seemed to like it.

“No. Not that easy,” Logan said, and shook her again, like he wanted to toss her up in the air and catch her but he changed his mind at the last minute—just a jarring little bounce where she never even had to leave his arms. “Keep talking to me, Mad Dog. How else are the should-be-hibernating-by-now bears going to know to get out of our way?”

The stupid idiot boy with the sexy stubble had a point.

She turned her head to look up at him. He didn’t even seem winded even though Maddie knew that she was heavy—she worked so hard and had so much muscle that she couldn’t possibly be light.

“Logan?”

He glanced down at her. “Yeah, Mad Dog?”

“What did you mean? When you said that your dad hates you.”

He walked on for a little while. There was nothing but the sound of his new boots crunching in the snow and the ice, the breaking of twigs and the wind in the trees. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she’d actually said the words aloud or not. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe this was the dream.

“Logan?” she said again, her voice softer than it should have been.

“I meant that the president hates me,” Logan said at last, but it didn’t make any sense. Nothing about anything made sense anymore to Maddie, not the least of which was why Logan was talking about his father like the man was a stranger.

“No, Logan. I know your dad, remember? He—”

“You don’t know my dad, Mad Dog.” Logan sounded like a man who wasn’t in the mood to fight anymore.

Logan sounded like a man.

“But …” Maddie wanted to argue, but she didn’t remember how. She just knew that sleep was the most wonderful thing in the world and the boy who was carrying her wouldn’t let her do it.

“You know who he was when he was hanging around with your dad. You know who he is when the cameras are rolling. When the cameras aren’t rolling …”

Maddie knew what he was saying then, even though the words didn’t make any sense. Even though they might very well have been a part of this very cold, wet, and utterly surreal dream. She was going to wake up any moment and curse herself for letting the fire go out.

But the hurt in Logan’s voice … She shifted and looked up. The pain in Logan’s eyes was real.

“I’m smarter than he is. Did you know that? They had me tested. And my scores were … They were really high.”

“You sound like that’s a bad thing.”

“Do you know what he said? When they got my scores? He said ‘Now you don’t have any excuses.’”

“Excuses for what?”

Logan shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. “Imperfection. They had quantifiable proof that I could be perfect if I just wanted to be.”

“Logan—”

“So I stopped wanting to be.” He looked down at her, fat white snowflakes clinging to his dark lashes. “But there was one time I wish I had been.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if I’d been just a little smarter, I could have stopped them before your dad got hurt. And if your dad hadn’t gotten hurt, then maybe …”

He couldn’t say the words, so Maddie said them for him. “Then maybe I wouldn’t have left.”

Logan walked faster then, with new purpose. As if the wolves were on their heels.

“It’s not your fault, Logan. If it hadn’t been for you, your mom would have been taken. She probably would have died. You’re the one who saw her dress. You’re the one who remembered to press your panic button and get help. You saved her.”

He looked down at her. “I lost you.”

Maddie didn’t know what to say to that. He wasn’t walking anymore. He was just standing in the snow and the cloudy streaks of moonlight, staring down into her eyes like maybe it wasn’t too late to go back, do it all again.

But there were no second chances. Life didn’t work that way, and Logan, genius that he was, was smart enough to know it. So he looked back to the trees and kept walking.

“I don’t know why, you know?” Maddie’s voice was faint, but she ran a hand across Logan’s chest, like she was trying to feel his heartbeat through his coat. “One day he was in the hospital and the next he was coming home. But he wasn’t home. Not really. He just told me to pack a bag and the next thing I knew we were here and we had other lives.”

“Your dad loves you, Mad Dog.”

There was awe in his voice. And envy.

Maddie hated every word.

“Logan, no. You’re wrong. Your dad loves you, too.”

Logan laughed then, and it was colder than the wind.

He started walking faster, away from the man who was chasing them, away from the risk that, in a way, had been on his trail for six long years and might never, ever stop.

“Rest, Mad,” he told her.

“I thought I was supposed to keep talking.”

“Yeah.” Logan laughed a little. “I forgot who I was talking to.”

“We’re going to be okay.”

Maddie was an excellent liar. When you talked as much as she did, you get good at saying all kinds of words. She could even convince herself most of the time. She’d gotten especially good at that in the past six years.

It’s not that cold in here.

Elk meat is delicious and tastes like chicken.

It’s almost impossible to get sick of salmon.

(Even though it is very, very possible to get sick of salmon.)

But the biggest lie was this: I don’t even need people anymore.

Maddie needed her father. And Maddie needed Logan, even when he was just a memory or a name on a letter. Even when he was just someone to hate. Long before he was the boy who bound her wounds and kept her warm and carried her through the forest, she needed him.

Her darkest, deepest fear was that a part of her always would.

“You’re not shaking anymore,” Logan told her, looking down.

With the snow still falling and the ice in the trees, it was almost beautiful. It was almost like a dream. The good kind, for once.

“Mad?” He couldn’t hide the worry in his voice or in his eyes. “You’re not shaking anymore!”

“I feel fine,” she told him.

“No. You don’t feel anything. That’s worse.”

“It feels better,” she said, even though she knew that he was right.

“We need to get you to a hospital.”

“There is no hospital, Logan. There’s no help.”

“Then what is there?” he snapped. He didn’t mean to. Maddie could see the remorse in his eyes as soon as he said it. He opened his mouth, as if to apologize, but then it felt like a movie again.

The snow stopped falling.

The clouds actually parted.

The moon sliced through the darkness, like a spotlight through the trees.

And there it was.

It was covered in ice, and snow had blown up against it, a drift that might have hidden its silhouette. But Maddie knew the shape of a roof when she saw one. Maddie knew miracles when she found them.

“There’s that,” she said, and Logan followed her gaze to the tiny cabin that sat a little higher on the hill.