She sounded sad. Disappointed. Lonely.
Logan looked out over the vast, empty darkness. Of course she was lonely. She’d been alone out here long before they were alone out here together.
“Maddie, I’m real,” he whispered, and ran a finger across her forehead, tucking a stray hair underneath the shelter of her tightly drawn hood.
“No,” she said. “You died.”
Then Maddie drew a deep breath and shuddered, wincing in pain. When she closed her eyes, he could almost feel her start to slip away again.
“No! No, stay with me, Maddie. Mad Dog! Wake up!”
Logan was screaming, but he no longer cared who heard him.
“Stay with me, Mad Dog,” he tried again. He shifted her in his arms like a baby who is trying to learn to sit up. “Maddie!”
“Logan?” she said, and she sounded a little more like herself. Which meant she sounded a little like she hated him. It was the sweetest sound that he had ever heard.
“Where’s your coat?” she asked.
“You’re wearing it,” he told her. He didn’t even try to hide his smile.
“You’re an idiot,” she said, trying to push herself upright, trying to take his coat off, he could tell, and give it back to him. But as soon as she moved, she winced. He could see the pain on her face, hear it in her voice as she cried out.
“No, Maddie. Don’t move. You’re hurt.”
“Logan …” He could tell she wanted to argue. Even frozen and bleeding and half dead, Maddie wanted to argue. Then she remembered. “I was shot.”
“Yes,” he said, then tried to smile. “Your shoulder hurts, I know.”
Maddie nodded as if remembering. He did know.
“How long was I out?”
“An hour? Maybe less. Probably less. But it felt like forever. I carried you away from the bridge and—Maddie, stay still. I’ve got you.” He adjusted his grip on her, even though he knew he should get up. They had to keep moving. The sweat was drying on his body, and soon he would start shaking. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to get her to safety or, at the very least, get her warm.
“We can’t stay here, Logan,” she said as if reading his mind. “We’re sitting ducks here.”
“He’s on the other side of the river, remember?”
But Maddie had finally pushed herself upright. She had to face him. “That man’s not the most dangerous thing in Alaska.”
Five minutes before, Logan had been certain he’d never been more afraid in his life, but something in Maddie’s voice changed all that. She knew what she was talking about. She’d survived here for years. And the way she was pushing herself off his lap, the urgency with which she pulled off his coat and her own told him that this mattered. So he didn’t argue.
“There were berries,” she said.
“Yes. Do you want me to find some. I can …”
But Logan trailed off when Maddie started stripping. He knew he should have argued, but he’d lost the ability to speak at all.
It was well below freezing, but Maddie didn’t stop. She just peeled off layer after layer until she could see the piece of Logan’s T-shirt that he had shoved inside her clothes in hopes of stopping the bleeding.
She turned her back to him.
“Is there an exit wound?” she asked.
Numbly, Logan nodded.
“Is there?” she snapped, and he realized she couldn’t see him well.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Get some snow. We have to wash the blood off.”
“Maddie, I don’t care about a little blood. I care that you’re going to freeze to death.”
“It smells,” she said.
“I don’t care that you stink, Mad.”
“The bears are awake, Logan,” she practically snapped. “There were berries today, remember? Which means they haven’t run out of food yet. They should have started hibernating by now, but the climate is all screwed up and winters are so much shorter and … the bears are awake. Did you know bears have one of the best senses of smell of any predator on the planet? Polar bears can follow a scent for thirty miles. Grizzlies and black bears are almost as good, and we are surrounded by grizzly and black bears. Now help me wash the blood off.”
“They could be hibernating,” he told her.
It took a beat for her to answer. And it scared him.
“They’re not” was all she said.
“But—”
“I saw one. Earlier today. When I was following you guys. I had to be quiet, which violates rule one of life in Alaska: You always want a bear to hear you coming. But I couldn’t let you guys hear me coming, so … I saw one.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She pushed his worry away. “I’m fine. He wasn’t interested in me. But now that the weather’s turned …”
“Oh,” Logan said.
Maddie looked at him. “You think I stink?”
“No. I … Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Maddie reached down, pulled the knife from her boot, and started cutting away the pieces of her shirt that were the bloodiest.
Even in the moonlight, Logan could tell that Maddie’s skin was as white as the snow. He might have called her Snow White. He might have joked or teased, but she was starting to shake again. He could tell she was struggling to stay upright.
But the bullet had passed right through her shoulder, and the wound was clotting well. They tore up her base layer and used it to scrub away the blood as best they could. When they were done, she handed him the pieces of her shirt and the part of his that he’d used to stanch the bleeding.
They’d been walking parallel to the river, but upstream. Logan just hadn’t known where else to go.
So Maddie took the bloodiest of the rags and wrapped them around a rock, tying them over and over. She walked to the tree line and pulled back her arm to throw, but she winced and almost went to her knees. She would have if Logan hadn’t caught her.
“I’ve got you,” he said. She looked back at him, over her good shoulder. He could have sworn she let him take a little more of her weight, leaned into him with a little more softness.
He snaked his hand down her arm, then took the bundle from her hands.
“Let me.”
He pulled back his strong right arm and threw as hard as he could.
In the center of the river, where the current was strongest, the water hadn’t iced over. That was where the bundle landed. Logan knew it without seeing it, without hearing the telltale plop.
The bundle was gone. The rags were at the bottom of the river. But Maddie was still in his arms and she was still shaking.
They’d cut away the blood-covered portion of her clothing, and he helped her pull everything else back on. When he tried to zip her into his coat again, she shook her head.
“You need it,” she said.
“You’re in shock, Mad. You have to get warm.” He tried again to wrap the coat around her, but Maddie was gaining her stubbornness even if not her strength.
“You’re bigger than I am.”
“Exactly.” He shook the coat out again and reached for her.
“Which means if you go down, we’re both in trouble. I need you, Logan.” The words hurt her. But she said them anyway because there were too many things in those woods that could hurt them. Maddie wasn’t the kind of girl who was willing to be killed by a secret. “I need you to be okay.”
Slowly, Logan nodded. He pulled on his coat and zipped it up, placed the hood over his head.
“Now what?” he asked her.
She was finally bundled inside her own clothes and standing on her own feet, but they were both running on fumes.
“We walk,” she said, then gave one last look across the river, to the place where some unknown man hunted them for some unknown reason. “We try to get as far away from here as possible.”
Dear Logan,
Did you know grizzly bears are always brown and black bears aren?
??t always black, but black bears are never grizzlies?
I know a lot more than that, you know. But I’m not going to tell you because you never answer my letters.
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 tha
t 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.”