Logan hadn't been able to sleep the night before, not with Maddie's small body pressed against his chest, resting in his bed. It was bliss honestly, holding her while she slept. Logan used the minutes to memorize everything about Maddie that he could: her smell, and feel of her skin, and the rhythm of her breathing. If he closed his eyes, he might miss something, and Logan was desperate to hold onto every possible second.
But the night was nowhere near long enough, and before Logan could bear it, streaks of gold were peeking through the window as the sun rose. Maddie rustled awake beside him, and Logan groaned inwardly. What he wouldn't give for just a few more minutes. And yet, Logan knew that no amount of time would ever be long enough.
Maddie rose, and walked over to the window. Logan followed and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her small body and letting his chin rest gently atop her head.
"It's time," Maddie said quietly. "You know the plan. By the end of the day, hopefully, this will all be over."
"I know I asked you to do this for me, Mad Dog," Logan choked out. "But I think we should call it off."
Maddie shook her head firmly. "That's just your fear talking," she said. "The adults aren't taking this seriously enough. We have to do something."
She turned to face Logan, and pulled his face down to her level, catching his lower lip in hers and kissing him deeply. Logan wished he could make the moment last forever.
He wished it didn't feel like she was saying goodbye.
Maddie reached behind her neck and undid the clasp on the necklace Logan had given her so long ago. She stood on her tiptoes and fastened it around Logan's neck, tucking it into his shirt.
"There," she said, satisfied. "Now you'll have me with you the whole time."
Logan clung to the comfort of Maddie's necklace, which still hung next to his heart, as he shivered in what could only be a cellar of some kind 10 hours later.
If Logan hadn't been so worried about Maddie, he would really have no choice but to laugh. For what felt like Logan's whole life, he had been lectured about how he had to follow every single instruction, or something terrible would happen to him. Logan had broken every single rule for more than a decade, but the only times he'd ever been kidnapped were when he'd been doing exactly as he'd been told.
Logan had followed all of Maddie's instructions to the letter. He hadn't breathed a word of the plan to anyone. He hadn't talked to Casey in weeks. He had hidden in the "treehouse" and waited for news. Logan had thought of a lot of ways Maddie's operation could go wrong as he counted the minutes in silence. The one thing he hadn't expected was to be kidnapped from inside the Gallagher academy.
Logan had been minding his own business when the secret passage-way into the treehouse opened up and a trim but intimidating middle-aged woman climbed out.
"Hello, Logan," she'd said calmly. "It's nice to finally meet you."
Logan had known the woman the moment she stepped out of the tunnel. He'd seen her face before, even if only in pieces. Her long dark hair tossed over her shoulder, staring into a window in Roseville. The shape of her ear out of the corner of his eye as he stood in line at the soda shop. Her cutting, calculating, dark brown eyes as she peered through the lobby door of the movie theater.
Logan instinctively backed away from her, but the room had too many corners, and the woman had placed herself solidly between Logan and the exit.
"I'd say welcome to the Gallagher Academy," Logan joked. "But it seems like you already know your way around pretty well."
The woman chuckled, the way the villains in movies always do when they are certain no one has any chance of foiling their evil plan. Logan kept studying the woman's face, unable to shake the feeling that he knew her from somewhere.
Think, he chastised himself. Now is the time to be a Gallagher Girl, goddamnit.
"It's a shame you're missing the craft fair tonight," she'd said jokingly. "But I have some pretty exciting plans for us."
It was the shape of her nose, the slant of her cheekbones, the way the corners of her mouth tilted up into a sneer, that jogged Logan's memory. Like he'd been staring at them all semester. And once the thought crossed his mind, everything made perfect sense.
The resemblance was so much more vibrant in person than it had been in Maddie's sketch. And yet he couldn't believe they'd been so stupid.
"Yeah," Logan smiled back, his inner politician taking control. "It was pretty great of your daughter Alice to arrange all that, wasn't it?"
The woman looked a tiny bit taken aback, but she hid it with a scowl. Logan's back reached the farthest wall from the woman, and she took a step closer. Logan tried to casually slide his hand into his back pocket to reach for his panic button, but the look on the woman's face stopped him.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she warned. "At least, not unless you want your pretty little girlfriend to be dead for real this time."
Logan's fingers stopped where they were, a few inches from his pocket. Maddie would tell him to ignore her. Maddie would tell him to press the button. Not to make it easy for himself to be kidnapped. But Logan had watched Maddie almost die before, and he couldn't shake the image of her seemingly lifeless body at the bottom of that ravine from his mind. Logan knew there was a really good chance the woman didn't even have Maddie, and all of this was an empty threat. But it wasn't a chance Logan was willing to take.
Logan nodded, then slowly moved his hand to his pocket and removed the panic button, holding it in front of him. He tossed it across the room to the woman, who caught it in her palm.
"It's Rosalie, right?" Logan said with a smile. "Rosalie Sinclair?" Logan watched the woman's jaw tense at his words, and he knew he was right. He bit back a smirk as he said good-naturedly, "I just figure if you're going to kidnap me, we should at least be on a first name basis."
The woman stared at Logan in silence, not quite sure what to do with him. That was okay, Logan thought. No one had ever really known what to do with him, and he could usually use it to his advantage.
"I just have to ask you one more thing before we leave, if that's okay," Logan started, but he didn't wait for an answer. "The day you followed us around Roseville, you were in town for the board meeting, weren't you?" he continued. "That's why no one took Maddie's sketch seriously, isn't it?"
The woman studied Logan for a moment, before she nodded slowly.
"You're smarter than people give you credit for," she said, in a way that didn't really sound like a compliment. "But now it's time to get out of here. And if you know what's good for your girlfriend, you'll cooperate."
"I hear you," Logan said, holding his palms up in a gesture of surrender. "Let's get this show on the road."
Logan had watched as the woman hung his panic button on a lamp 200 feet inside the tunnel entrance, and tossed a burner cell phone into the shadows. Logan had followed the woman through the tunnels, careful to accidentally touch every single surface he could, drag his feet as much as possible, "accidentally" walk through every cobweb he could find. The woman clearly knew the tunnels better than Logan, because it hadn't taken nearly as long as he'd expected for them to reach the exit. Even though every second felt like a year, maybe six minutes, maximum, had elapsed by the time Logan saw daylight glittering in the distance.
When they reached the tunnel's opening, Logan felt the woman nestle a small gun into the small of his back and firmly take hold of his shoulder with her other hand.
"Really?" Logan asked with fake outrage. "Man, I thought we were developing a rapport here."
The woman didn't say anything, but pushed Logan on until they stopped at a nondescript, dark green sedan, that had been carefully hidden in the woods. Logan honestly wasn't really sure how it had gotten there, since it didn't look like it could go very far off-road. The woman raised the trunk and looked at Logan.
Logan cringed away. "Please don't mess up my face," he begged. "It's really the only thing I've got going for me."
"You've been cooperative so far, I suppose," the woman shrugged. "So I guess napotine it is."
And then Logan had woken up who even knew how much longer later in a pitch-dark room. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, and tried to assess his surroundings. The floor and the walls were brick, and the air was damp. His hands were bound in front of him, with a knot he was pretty sure he could work free if given enough time.
There was no sign of Maddie.
Logan wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, really. Maybe it meant she was safe, and rallying the troops back at Gallagher. Maybe it meant that she didn't even know he was gone yet.
But maybe it meant she was already dead.
Logan listened hard, but he didn't hear anything. Not voices. Not animals. Not traffic. Not a single thing that would give him an inkling as to where he'd ended up. Logan sighed, heavily, and leaned his back against the wall, while he settled in to work on the knot.
And that was when he heard it. The barely audible creeeaak of rusted hinges being pried open. A soft thud, as a small body dropped to the floor. Soft footfalls, moving slowly, cautiously, above his head.
Maddie.
Logan's heart raced as he thought her name. He rose to his feet, stood on tiptoes, and stretched tall, knocking his bound hands against the ceiling beams. Just twice. Just enough for Maddie to hear. Then he swayed, hard, and found his way to the floor again. Either Rosalie had hit him with an absurd amount of the drug, or they'd traveled way less far than Logan thought.
It didn't matter now, though. Maddie would free him, and together they would escape and go to the authorities.
At least that's what Logan thought would happen until he heard Rosalie's crisp, villain voice from the floor above. Followed by a click as she cocked her weapon in Maddie's direction.
"Madeline Manchester," she said happily, the sneer evident in her voice. "Well, well, I've been waiting a long time to meet you."
"I expected as much," Maddie responded, and Logan could almost hear her shrug through the floorboards. "I'm sure you didn't think I'd let you just keep him," she laughed. "Although I can't say I'm not tempted somedays."
Logan heard the woman cross the room toward Maddie.
"This way, then," Rosalie said calmly.
Logan heard Maddie's footfalls grow closer. A door opened. For a moment, there was a flash of light, and Logan could see Maddie's profile on a steep staircase across what was clearly a small cellar.
"Watch your step," Rosalie smirked, as Maddie tripped down a few stairs. "Make yourself comfortable. We're just waiting for one more guest. I'm sure it won't be long now."
The light disappeared. A lock clicked. Maddie stumbled across the room and settled on the floor next to Logan.