The joke was on her, really, because Maddie knew that she would never, ever forget what had happened in Alaska.

When Maddie finally crept back to her room at 1:30 a.m., her roommates were fast asleep. That was probably for the best, Maddie thought. Alice, Tiffany, and Olivia certainly weren't the friendliest people, and they seemed a bit resentful that she had been foisted upon them. Maddie suspected that, as Alice had predicted, she was going to be far too busy to really get to know any of them.

Before today, Maddie had never sat in a room full of thirteen year-olds and been undeniably sure they were all smarter than her. She felt like she was running down a hill, too fast, just waiting for that moment when she would inevitably lose her footing and gravity would take over.

Maddie silently got into bed, but couldn't fall asleep. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. If there was one thing you got used to in Alaska, it was darkness, and Maddie still had near-perfect night vision as a result of the six years she'd spent there.

She counted the cracks on her ceiling (which didn't take long, since the Gallagher Academy had been rebuilt only five years earlier), conjugated the 30 Swahili verbs she now knew, and counted backward from 10,000 by multiples of three. When none of that worked, she took out her new pad of evapopaper and began to write.

Dear Dad,

You said I belonged here. And I really want to know what you meant. Did you mean I belonged because I can throw a hatchet 50 yards with dead-accurate aim? Did you mean that I saved the President's son from a near-kidnapping, so I'm basically a secret service agent now? Or did you mean that I belong here because Mom went here?

I wish you'd told me more about Mom, instead of just shipping me off to a school where my roommate whose mother is on the board apparently knows more about me than I do.

I guess you never even told me why you never talk about Mom. I just always assumed it was because it hurt you to think about her. Well the game is up, because today I learned to stop assuming.

And you really owe me an explanation.

Love, Maddie

Maddie didn't intend to send the letter, but writing it comforted her nonetheless, and she was finally able to settle into a restless sleep.

"Maddie?" Logan's confused voice woke her from her fitful dreams, as she tried to figure out what Logan was doing in her room, and how he could have possibly snuck in without waking her roommates.

Then she felt the cold hard tile floor beneath her palms, and startled awake.

Maddie was on the floor, on her comforter, and she had no idea how she had gotten there. And that was terrifying. For as long as Maddie could remember, Maddie had remembered everything. She couldn't be sure if it was a product of her lineage, or simply the result of growing up with Michael Manchester, but it was a fact nonetheless. And yet, somehow, she had traveled from her suite to what looked like the faculty hallway, and she couldn't remember any of it.

"This is your room, isn't it?" Maddie asked, already knowing the answer. Logan nodded, and concern started to spread over his face.

"How did I know that?" Maddie wondered out loud. She must have pieced it together from walking around earlier that day, she reasoned. She'd known Logan was staying in the faculty wing. At some point earlier that day, she must have learned where the faculty wing was located, and her brain had subconsciously charted a map to Logan.

"Mad. . ." he started slowly, coming to kneel beside her. "What are you doing here?"

Maddie drew her knees to her chest, and refused to meet his eyes. "Protecting you?" she offered, because it seemed like the most reasonable explanation. Why else would her brain direct her toward Logan in the middle of the night? "Maybe?"

"Maddie," Logan asked gently. "You don't know how you got here, do you?"

Maddie shook her head. Logan stared at her in bewilderment.

"Mad, it's 5 a.m.," he continued. "Go back to your room. Try to stay there. You need your rest. We'll talk about this later."

Maddie slowly lifted herself off the floor and rolled her comforter into the smallest possible ball (which still wasn't very small). Maddie's bones ached with a tiredness she hadn't felt in a long time, and she had to agree that Logan was right about one thing - she did need her rest.

Maddie didn't begin to wonder where Logan had been going at 5 a.m. until she bolted upright in her bed at the sound of her alarm two hours later. And the minute the thought crossed through her mind, she began to panic. She grabbed for her uniform, and started to pull it on, before she noticed Tiffany casually watching her from across the room.

"If you're looking for your boyfriend, don't bother," she said quietly, clearly trying not to wake Olivia, who was still asleep nearby. "He's at the dining hall eating a big breakfast. Probably needs it after his run this morning."

Maddie froze, her skirt on, but still over her pajama bottoms, and stared at Tiffany.

"It's on the intranet," Tiffany explained with a shrug. "Some of the Freshmen started a "where's Logan" thread, and now they just stalk him around campus in real time. There's been talk of developing an app, but I'd give it until at least the end of the week."

Maddie breathed a sigh of both relief and horror that the Gallagher Academy's entire student body was tracking Logan's every move. She couldn't be sure if this was exactly what the Headmistress and Logan's parents had wanted, or a massive violation of his privacy.

"Speaking of boyfriends," Tiffany asked innocently. "Where were you last night?"

"Studying," Maddie responded. "I have a lot to study."

"Sure," Tiffany smiled. "I'm convinced you were studying until 5 a.m. I'm sure you definitely weren't curled up in Logan's bed."

"I wasn't," Maddie said, truthfully. "And he's not my boyfriend."

Tiffany shrugged, a clear statement that she didn't believe a word of what Maddie had said, and turned back to her laptop. Maddie finished pulling on her uniform, and gathered her school bag, before the conversation could get any stranger. "I'll see you in CoveOps," she said, as she slipped out of the suite. Tiffany raised one eyebrow in response, but didn't say another word.