Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter (5)

Maddie

“Come here, kiddo. There’s something we need to talk about.”

The last time Maddie’s dad had said those words she’d found herself on three planes (each progressively smaller than the last) within a week. So, needless to say, she wasn’t the good kind of excited as he pulled up a chair at their old, battered table.

Maddie had never really understood why they had four chairs. It’s not like they did a lot of entertaining. Not unless you counted the time Maddie had forgotten to lock up her cereal in an airtight container and a bear had tried to break through the cabin’s front door. Which Maddie totally did not count. That bear hadn’t been invited and would never be welcome again.

So she didn’t really trust the look in her Dad’s eyes when he glanced at the empty chair that wasn’t stacked high with library books.

“Where are you going this time?” she asked because she knew him well. Too well.

It had been just the two of them since Maddie was three and her mom had died. And that was before they’d moved to the middle of nowhere. For six years it had been just the two of them. If Maddie didn’t know her father, she didn’t know anyone. There were no other options.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said quickly. Guiltily. “Or, well, I’m not going right now.”

“Then what is it?” It took a lot to scare Madeleine Rose Manchester. She’d seen her father take a bullet. When she got up to go pee in the middle of the night she usually carried a revolver. Fear and Maddie went way, way back, but she’d never seen her father look quite like he looked then.

“Nothing’s wrong, kiddo. It’s just that … I’m expecting … I mean … I heard from DC.”

That, at last, stopped Maddie’s heart from racing. At that point, Maddie’s heart wasn’t beating at all.

Maddie thought her father had burned that bridge, salted the earth, gone as far off the edge of the map as possible, and then dropped straight down and landed here, smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

“You’re not going back,” Maddie blurted because, it turned out, there was something worse than moving to a place where your best friends were either fictional or fur-covered. There was knowing your dad might take another bullet. “You quit,” she reminded him.

“That’s right, kiddo. I did quit. And they wouldn’t have me anyway, even if I wanted to go back. Remember.” He patted the leg that still ached sometimes and pulled aside the collar of his shirt just far enough for her to see his second-biggest scar.

“Yeah.” Maddie laughed. But it wasn’t funny. “Kind of hard to forget.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo. What I’m trying to say is … the president and the first lady are sending us a surprise.”

For a moment, Maddie couldn’t help herself. She thought about the ice-cream sundaes that the White House chef used to make. She remembered one time when the first lady let her try on the shoes she’d worn to the inaugural ball. She could almost smell the new leather of her favorite chair in the White House screening room.

So when her dad got up and walked to the door she wasn’t really following him, not consciously. She just couldn’t stay behind.

Maddie could never stay behind.

“What’s the surprise?”

As soon as they stepped off the porch, Maddie felt it. Or maybe she saw it. Heard it? She couldn’t be sure. She just knew that something big was coming. Ripples spread across the water of the lake, and the trees started to toss and sway.

Glacier silt lined the banks of the lake, and it swirled like sand, stinging and blinding. A part of Maddie knew what she was going to see long before the helicopter appeared, hovering over the trees and then dropping softly to the ground.

“What kind of surprise, Dad?” Maddie asked again as his arm went around her, pulling her tight. Maybe she knew the answer. And that’s why she pulled back, why she squeezed her eyes shut. It had nothing to do with the wind that swirled around her, full of silt and gravel and leaves.

Maddie knew that as soon as she opened her eyes, she was going to see a ghost.

But it turned out she didn’t have to see him to know him. She just had to hear the words, “Hey, Mad Dog.”

It’s really her.

Logan shook his head for a moment. He couldn’t be sure if he’d said the words out loud or not. Probably not. He glanced up at Mr. Manchester, studied his face. Definitely not. Maddie and her father weren’t looking at him like he was stupid. They were looking at him like he was different.

And he was.

Some guys hit puberty and turn into football players or wrestlers or big, hairy creatures who look like science-lab experiments or something. Logan had just … grown. Everywhere. It felt like his fingers were a foot long. His feet seemed always at risk of bursting out of his shoes. His pants and his shirts, too. He was like the Incredible Hulk except not green and not quite so angry.

Oh, he was definitely angry. But he could also feel it fading a little. Like he was still in the helicopter, looking down on the lake and about a million acres of wilderness and the tiny dot that was his destination. Logan’s anger looked smaller from there, like it was a long way off. And now there was only him and Mr. Manchester and a girl he used to know.

“It’s you.”

This time he for sure said it aloud because Maddie’s dad glanced at her, then held out his hand for Logan.

“Good to see you, Rascal.”

Mr. Manchester shook his hand like he was a man, but something about it made Logan feel more like a kid than ever. He’d been through probably twelve pairs of sneakers since he’d last seen the man, but in Mr. Manchester’s presence Logan felt as if he might be ten until the end of time.

“You, too, sir,” Logan said. He watched Maddie listen to the words. She didn’t say a thing.

“How are your parents, Logan?” It was the first time Mr. Manchester had ever called him by his first name. It made Logan pull back for a moment, rethink things. Remember that Maddie’s dad wasn’t the head of the president’s detail anymore. Now he was just Logan’s dad’s friend. And this wasn’t supposed to be fun.

“My parents are well, sir. The president’s blood pressure was a little high the last time I saw him, but that’s to be expected.”

“Yes. I imagine it is,” Mr. Manchester said, then smiled.

“Is that why they’re punishing you?” Maddie asked. “I mean they are punishing you, right? Why else would anyone come here?”

Logan watched her speak. Her voice was the same, but her mouth was different. Why had Logan never noticed her mouth before? Her bottom lip was fuller, but the top lip was shaped like a little bow, and he couldn’t decide which lip he liked more. He knew he was going to have to do a lot more looking in order to choose. And it suddenly felt imperative that Logan choose very, very well.

He was aware, faintly, of Mr. Manchester shifting, saying “Maddie” like it was some kind of warning. “Logan’s parents just asked if he could come here for a bit,” her dad finished.

Logan wondered how much Maddie’s dad knew. It was clear Maddie knew nothing. Not about Logan repeatedly slipping his detail or Charlie getting fired. Not about the poker club he’d been busted for running out of the Lincoln Bedroom last February, or how he’d gotten really good at forging his father’s signature and had sold ten thousand dollars’ worth of stuff on eBay before someone at the State Department figured out what he was doing and shut him down.

Logan had started six different social media accounts in the names of former presidential pets, and three were still operational. But if the sixteen followers of @SocksTheCat were wondering why Socks suddenly had so many … well … socks (and jackets, and an old copy of The Call of the Wild) no one was saying so.

No. Maddie didn’t know about any of that. Maddie only knew that they used to be friends, and she looked like maybe that was a decision she might have come to regret.

Logan turned back to Mr. Manchester. “I’m glad to see you looking so well, sir.”

Maddie’s dad laughed and slapped him on the back. “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Logan smiled, but Maddie’s voice was cold. “That’s not funny.”

And Logan remembered.

Blood. Cold tile and the way the shots were quieter than they should have been, and yet the sound seemed to reverberate forever.

“Mad, it’s okay,” her dad said, but Logan got the feeling that it wasn’t—that it really wasn’t okay at all.

“How have you been, Mad Dog?” Logan asked, but Maddie just glared at him.

“Awesome!” she said, but Logan was 98 percent certain she was being facetious. It quickly became 100 percent when Mr. Manchester said “Mad” and she spun on him.

“I’d ask if I could go to my room, but I don’t have one.”

Then she turned and headed toward the house.

But it wasn’t a house. Not really. From where they stood, Logan could see a wooden porch and a steep roof over rough wooden walls made from logs that looked as big around as boulders.

Mr. Manchester’s hand was firm as it landed on Logan’s back. “Come on in. Let’s get you settled.”

Another helicopter was dropping to the ground just then and silt and gravel whirled, spinning in the air. Mr. Manchester had to shout over the noise.

“You go on!” Two agents were hopping out of the helicopter. “I’ll get these guys set up.”

Mr. Manchester shoved Logan’s bags into his arms and pushed him toward the cabin. And Maddie.

Logan could hear men shouting. A crew was already unloading huge crates, and someone was setting up a tent. Soon there’d be cameras in the trees and a secure satellite signal trained on this location. But only two agents were staying behind. Logan’s dad had been adamant about that.

There would be no chef. No housekeeper. No butler or driver or even someone to wash his sheets. Logan wasn’t on vacation. He would have a two-agent detail because that was the minimum, but other than that, his parents would have been just as happy to drop him off in the middle of nowhere and forget about him until the country had a new president.

A pair of small boots sat beside the door of the cabin, so Logan stopped on the porch and took his off as well. When he knocked, the door swung open, and he couldn’t help but ease inside.

Logan wasn’t really sure what he’d expected. Maybe a moose’s head over a roaring fire, a bear-skin rug and steaming mugs of hot chocolate. But it wasn’t like that.

There was something like a kitchen in what could have been a small hallway, with a stove and a curtain on a rod. Instead of a fireplace, he saw a black stove with a big pile of wood stacked not far away. There were shelves covered with books. A few small, dirty windows and floor lamps provided the only light. There were two doors. Through one, he saw a bed and a dresser. The other went out the back through the kitchen.

“It’s not much, but it’s home.”

Maddie didn’t sound ashamed. She just sounded … different. Angrier and more serious somehow. She was supposed to be rolling her eyes at him, teasing him about how big he’d gotten or how silly he was to have come all the way to Alaska and not have brought her a single piece of official White House chocolate.

Maddie was supposed to be smiling. But the girl in front of him looked like maybe she couldn’t quite remember how.

“Where’s your room?” he asked because he had no idea what else to say.

“Above you.”

That’s when Logan saw the little ladder beside the door, the loft that sat above the main room, a bright quilt over a small bed.

“That’s cool,” he said.

“Whatever.”

“No. I mean it,” Logan said. He’d been living at the most famous house in the world for seven years, and in its own way this small cabin was nicer and happier than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would ever be. “This is nice, Mad Dog. It’s … warm.”

“That’s because Mad’s got a good fire going!”

Only then did Logan realize they were no longer alone. Her father was pulling a stack of books from one of the chairs at the table. When Logan turned, he saw a cabinet with sparkly dresses that were two sizes too small for the girl he’d just met. There were old copies of teen magazines and a bottle of fingernail polish by the window. Right beside a hatchet that appeared to have sequins and rhinestones all around the handle.

“Maddie.” Logan practically exhaled the word, finally seeing something of the girl he used to know in the angry young woman with the utterly fascinating mouth.

“What?” she asked.

“I—”

Logan knew he was supposed to say something. Pay her a compliment. Maybe grovel. His father always said that women expected a great deal of groveling, but Logan didn’t know what to say. And, luckily, at that moment a totally different noise filled the air.

Ringing.

When you live in the White House, your whole world is one nonstop chorus of ringing phones, but something about the sound didn’t belong in that small cabin.

There were no power lines. No phone lines. No water lines or gas lines. Maddie’s world was pretty much line-free. Confused, Logan stole a glance at his best friend, but she wouldn’t look at him.

Which meant she probably wasn’t his best friend anymore.

The phone rang again, and all Logan could do was watch as something passed between Maddie and her father, a don’t-pretend-you’re-capable-of-ignoring-that look.

“I’ll call them back,” Mr. Manchester said. “Now, Logan. Are you hungry? I make a pretty mean pot of chili and Maddie’s got some—”

“Base to Ridge Center. Ridge Center, do you read? Ridge Center, this is Base.” The voice that filled the air was scratchy, and it took Logan a moment to see the old-fashioned radio that sat on a cluttered desk. “Ridge Center, do you read me?”

“Go ahead,” Maddie told her father. “It must be important.”

“Sorry, guys,” Maddie’s dad said as he sat on an old metal office chair and spun, reached for the microphone and answered. “Hello, Base, you’ve got Ridge Center. Go.”

“Hey … Center. We’ve got a storm … in.” The woman’s words were spiked with static, coming in fits and starts.

Maddie’s dad just laughed a little and pressed the button on the microphone. “It’s Alaska, Base. Storms are always moving in.”

It took a moment for the woman to answer. “This one’s not so normal.”

Maybe it was the tone of the woman’s voice or the eerie, crackling static that filled the cabin, but Logan thought he could actually feel the air change when Maddie’s father looked back at his daughter.

He pressed the button on the microphone. “How not normal?”

After a beat the woman answered, “We need you to … a run tomorrow morning before … hits.”

Logan watched Maddie’s face. It wasn’t disappointment. She didn’t roll her eyes. But it was like a string ran between her and her father, something pulled too tight for too long. He was afraid that it might snap.

“No can do, Base,” her dad said. “I just got home.”

Home. This place in the middle of nowhere, this building that was something between a cabin and a shack. This was home. And Logan wondered if Maddie felt the same.

“I’m sorry, Mike. I wouldn’t ask if … emergency. We’ve got a group of scientists that were supposed to … resupplied in three days, but if this thing is half as bad as … won’t make it then, and … needs medication. This thing might be bad enough that we can’t make it in after, and—”

“I read you, Base.” Maddie’s dad’s gaze never left his daughter’s. “I’ll leave at first light.”

Logan heard a door close, but more than anything he felt Maddie’s absence. In a way, he realized, he’d been feeling it for years.

“I’m sorry,” Logan said, and he meant it. He really did. He was sorry that he’d ditched Charlie. Sorry Charlie had been fired. Sorry that he’d come here and upset whatever fragile ecosystem Maddie and her father had made for themselves.

But most of all Logan was sorry that Maddie no longer smiled when she looked at him. He was sorry that the girl he used to know was gone.