Maddie knew what her father’s job was. In fact, it had been her grandfather’s job even before that. Turns out, she came from a long line of people who were made to run toward the shots—to step in front of the bullets.
She’d just never really understood why.
But then Logan’s mom was in a food cart and her dad was ducking behind a tall stack of water bottles wrapped in plastic, shooting the gun she’d never seen him fire.
It all happened in a second.
And it seemed to take a year.
“Daddy!” Maddie screamed even though she knew not to distract him, to get in the way.
“Maddie!” She felt Logan’s hand on her arm. She heard her name screaming from his lips. But her father was still running toward the gunmen, and something about that seemed so fundamentally wrong that, for a moment, she could only stand there. Waiting.
All through the White House, sirens screamed. Logan’s panic button had a GPS tracker, so the rest of the Secret Service would be there soon, Maddie knew. They were probably already blocking the exits and barricading the gates.
The president would be halfway to his underground bunker by now. But Maddie was still standing in that corridor, watching her father run. Fire. Fall.
One of the Russians was down. Maddie could see him sprawled at the end of the hallway.
Blood streaked across the floor, and Maddie couldn’t help herself.
“Daddy!” she yelled again. She wanted to run to him, but Logan’s grip on her arm was too tight.
Her new charm bracelet bit into her wrist as Logan pulled her into a doorway that offered a little cover, but not much. She should have been running, dragging the first son in the opposite direction—toward safety. But Maddie couldn’t take her gaze off her father.
He was up again, limping forward and firing more. At the end of the corridor, a door opened. Bright light flooded the hall and there was shouting and running, more agents filing in from that direction.
Behind her, Maddie heard the heavy tread of running feet. The cavalry was coming. The Russians were surrounded.
But an animal is never more dangerous than when it’s trapped. One lone Russian remained. For a moment, he was just a dark shape silhouetted against the glare of the bright lights. He stood perfectly still as he raised his gun and leveled it at Maddie’s father.
Then the man smiled and, as if pulled by a magnet, the gun moved, to point directly at where Maddie and Logan huddled together.
The man shouted something in Russian—the words echoing off the hard floor and tile-covered walls. Maddie didn’t know what he’d said, but she knew what he meant:
That it wasn’t over.
That his cause was just.
That, someday, all of civilization was going to know—and fear—his name.
For a second, the world stood still, and then he pulled the trigger just as Maddie’s father jumped between the man and Logan.
And fired.
At first the Russian stood, mouth gaping, as if he couldn’t quite believe that someone would have the nerve to get in his way. To fire back. To go against whatever master plan had brought him to that place and time.
But then he looked down at his chest, at the place where blood was starting to ooze from beneath his ugly tie, and he dropped to his knees. Then to the floor.
He didn’t move again.
“Rascal!” someone shouted, and Maddie could feel the world change as the rest of the Secret Service swarmed around them.
“The first lady!”
Maddie’s father’s voice sounded faint, like he was half asleep, and yet he was still dragging himself toward the box. Blood trailed behind him, and Maddie couldn’t be held back any longer.
She pulled away from Logan just in time to hear Charlie yell, “Maddie, you and Rascal stay right there!”
The agents were everywhere, a virtual wall between Maddie and Logan and the men who lay, not moving, on the floor, and Maddie knew Charlie wasn’t keeping the two of them from danger. He was trying to keep them from the blood and the death and the things no ten-year-old should ever see, but Maddie was already crawling through the agents’ legs, pushing toward the place where her father lay, too still on the floor.
There was so much blood.
She was going to ruin her dress.
But Maddie didn’t care, so she crawled faster. When one of the agents gripped her around the waist and tried to pull her back, she kicked harder.
Two of the agents were pulling the first lady from the big steel box. She was limp and deathly pale, and everything was wrong.
Everything was so, so wrong, and Maddie had to fix it.
“Let me go!” she snapped at the men and women around her. “Let me—”
“Mad Dog?” Logan’s voice was behind her, too soft and too faint—and that was why she turned.
“I got something on my tux,” he said, looking down at the red spot that was on his white shirt and spreading quickly. “I promised I wouldn’t get dirty,” he said, then fell hard to the floor.