The Child Thief 3: Thin Lines Read online

  I strode into the small space and turned to my friends, who were either crowding into the cabin or standing outside, staring.

  “What are you doing just standing there?” I asked, surprised and frustrated. “It seems safe enough for now, but we don’t know how long that’s going to be the case. It’s probably only a matter of time before the Authority gets here and starts searching for us. It’s far away from the city, so I’m hoping it’ll be one of the last places they get to, but if they realize it belongs to me, and who I am—”

  “They’ll be here in a hurry,” Jace finished. “We need to gather as many supplies as we can as quickly as we can.”

  “And then?” Abe asked, staring around in what looked like a combination of shock and curiosity.

  “And then we deal with whatever happens next,” I said, already moving toward the kitchen. “We don’t have to have a plan to know that we need to get out of here as quickly as we can.”

  I didn’t have a lot of food, but I did have several boxes of Nurmeal left under the sink and a few bottles of the stuff in the fridge, as well as vegetables in the small garden outside. I had no idea where we were going to end up, but we would need food.

  Spotting my phone charger on the counter, I swooped over and plugged my phone in. I was already on low battery, and I didn’t want to be out of touch for even a moment. My phone had several messages waiting on it, some of them from Gabby, and my hand hovered over it for a second as I thought about answering them, but then I put it to the side. There would be time for that later.

  “I have blankets and extra sheets in the chest under my bed,” I called out from behind me. “Wherever we go, we’re going to need stuff like that. You guys officially have my permission to go through the house and grab whatever you think we might need.”

  “Just go through your house?” Ant asked from behind me, a note of discomfort in his voice. “But this is your stuff.”

  I grinned to myself at his tone of voice, then dropped to my knees in front of the sink. “Guess you’ll just have to take the chance that you might come across a pair of my panties, Ant,” I said over my shoulder. “I promise, though, I don’t keep anything that bites. Not in the house, at least.”

  I heard a pregnant pause behind me, but then they launched into action, knowing we had no time to waste, while I started digging through my largest kitchen cupboard, pulling out the boxes of Nurmeal I’d hoarded on weeks when I had more money left over from my check.

  “And charge your phones!” I called as an afterthought. “I have a charger right here on the counter, so everyone start taking turns! I don’t think we can afford to lose touch with the outside world.” My voice dropped, and I shivered slightly. “We need to know what’s going on out there if we’re going to be able to plan our next moves.”

  We took twenty minutes to gather supplies, stuffing things into a bunch of old boxes I’d had sitting around—and the duffel bags Jace already had with him—and focusing on things like food, medical supplies (what I had of them), and blankets. I still didn’t know where we were going to go next, or even how we were going to get this stuff there, but it was a start, at least.

  I also took the opportunity to get into the bathroom and wash my face with my own face soap. The orange-scented soap I’d always favored. I allowed myself to stand there and splash my face again and again, and to enjoy the feeling of clean water running down my cheeks. Then I turned and ran into my room to ransack my closet and pull out every piece of clean clothing I owned, intent on never going without clean clothes again. Even if I didn’t need it all, I had two other girls with me who also deserved clean stuff.

  Jace and Kory, meanwhile, made their way into my garden, and judging by the bounty they brought back, they’d stripped the plants of everything, regardless of whether it was ripe or not. With that and the Nurmeal, I figured we’d be okay for food for at least a couple days. As far as water went… Well, we’d worry about that when we got to wherever we were going—or on the way. This was a forest. Surely there was water to be had somewhere.

  Once everything was packed up, Jace turned to the rest of the group, his face dark and intense. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I have thoughts about where we go next. We know we need safety, and it would be best if we also had some sort of medical facility. I think finding Little John will give us a good shot at getting both of those things.”

  I nodded. “Which was why we were going for the library. To print out that timeline to get us started. But that timeline doesn’t exactly have an address or location for the organization itself,” I said, my mind running through what I remembered of the butcher paper on the wall. “It’s just a bunch of events. Places they think Little John hit for robberies or rescues, or things the government thinks they were responsible for. That’s not going to tell us anything.”

  Jace put up a hand to stall me. “It might tell us more than you realize. Especially with the minds we have in this group.” He gave Nelson a quick glance, and then continued. “The minute we’re settled, we’re going to be making that timeline one of our prime concerns. Little John has been too convenient, and too present in our lives, of late. I want to know who they are and what they want with us.”

  “And why, if they want us so badly, they didn’t just keep us when they had us on their ship,” I added, frowning. “They could have saved us an awful lot of trouble by actually saving us rather than only keeping us for the short term, and then dumping us to take care of ourselves.”

  It was the obvious question. The men in black had rescued us not once, but twice. And that was just the situations we actually knew of. Which meant, I assumed, that they had some interest in our safety.

  So why hadn’t they simply taken us back to their headquarters or whatever when they had us? Why had they put us down in that meadow at all? Could we really trust them, or were they going to keep hiding in the shadows and disappearing when we tried to figure out who they were?

  Jace waved that away as unimportant for the moment. “If they didn’t want us safe, they wouldn’t have saved us,” he said. “And I’m certain that they’re somehow associated with Nathan. We need to figure out who they are and how to get to them before the Authority figures out where we are.”

  “And how exactly do you suggest we figure all that out?” Abe asked.

  Jace replied with a shrug. “As I said, we’ve got minds the Authority doesn’t. And a different point of view. We know Nathan; we know how his brain works. Maybe if we’re looking at it from the other side—just seeing the pieces the Authority has put together and matching it up with what we know—something will become obvious. And I have…” He stopped himself again, and I suddenly remembered how he’d hinted at something earlier and had stopped himself then, too. Was he keeping secrets from us? What wasn’t he telling us?

  “I have other ideas,” he said shortly. “I can’t talk about them, but I have other… potential options. I just don’t know if it’ll work yet. I need a place where I can sit and work some things out.”

  I stared at him, my lips parting. Well, that was really vague, and extremely unhelpful.

  “What exactly are you talking about?” I asked sharply. “I don’t mean to question you, but it would be a lot better if we actually knew that there was a real plan here, Hux.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then tipped his head in agreement. “You’re right. The truth is—”

  “Come out of there with your hands up!” a voice suddenly thundered from outside. “Robin Sylvone, we know you’re in there! You’re under arrest for crimes against the Compliance Authority and the Ministry of Welfare!”

  Jace’s mouth dropped open, and his eyes met mine with horror.

  The Authority had found us.

  We’d barely arrived and had taken only long enough to get some supplies. Yet we’d still stayed too long.

  14

  “The back door!” I hissed, already moving toward it as fast as I could.

  The only thing I could think a
bout was the fact that there were Authority agents right outside, agents who would have orders to either kill us on sight or take us in for questioning.

  I was quite certain that neither of those options ended with us still alive.

  Even worse, we didn’t know how many of them there were, or even where they were. I had seen enough to know that they wouldn’t have sent only one or two. No, those guys seemed to move in groups of about twenty—and they might have even more than that, given they were here to arrest dangerous jail-breaking terrorists.

  We had to get out of here. Twenty minutes to gather supplies and try to plan had been fifteen minutes too long. And now we couldn’t even go back for the scooters—it would mean going right past the soldiers in front of the cabin to get to them. That wasn’t happening. Not if we wanted to get out of this alive.

  “What back door?” Ant hissed back, falling in with me and rushing toward the rear of the cottage, despite the fact that he didn’t know what he was going for.

  “There’s a door in the back of the cabin,” I said, moving toward the place where I’d put my bed. “It’s right behind my bed.”

  And it was completely blocked. Of course. I’d never in a million years thought I’d need the door at all, which was why I’d placed furniture in front of it. Who needed a door in the back of a tiny cabin when you’ve got a perfectly good door in the front of it?

  Jace darted right past me to where my bed—a tiny twin, big enough only for my compact frame—sat long-ways up against the wall. He crouched down and threw his hip against the head of the bed, shoving it quickly out of the way while Ant and Abe moved in tandem to pull the chest at the foot of the bed out into the middle of the room. The bed caught on the chest that I’d shoved underneath it, which was sticking halfway out now, courtesy of someone having gone into it to get the blankets and sheets I’d promised, and Kory swooped in to grab that one and tow it backward.

  Ten seconds later, the bed was out of the way and the door was exposed: a rough rectangle in the wall that didn’t even have a doorjamb or frame on it. The door itself was made up of planks of wood that had been sealed together with some sort of glue, the doorknob rustic and old-fashioned.

  The thing didn’t even have a lock on it, I realized. I’d never bothered about securing it before, because the cabin was in the middle of the woods. No one came out here, so there’d never been any reason to worry about whether or not I could lock this door. I did wonder, though, what the door had been put there for.

  “We’ve got more men out here than you have in there!” the same voice shouted abruptly from outside. “Come out with your hands up, or we’re going to start shooting!”

  “Get the boxes!” I whisper-yelled at the others. “And Jace’s bags!”

  Everyone else jumped right into action, scuffling through the cabin to gather the four boxes we’d packed full of supplies, while I darted around the space, crashing into furniture with my stiff leg and trying to remember all the things I’d meant to pick up before we left. Chargers, I recalled. We’d need chargers, of which I happened to have a few (courtesy of my having broken and lost a couple of phones over the years). And my phone. And my tablet.

  Seconds later we were all gathered in the back part of the cabin, the others with their arms full of the boxes we’d packed, me with my hands full of not only my tablet computer, but my sewing kit and a small bag of chargers of various sorts and the phones that had been attached to them. Jace got to work on the door, turning the knob and pushing—only to find it stuck.

  I gulped, wishing desperately that I’d at least tried to open the thing at some point. What if it didn’t actually open? What if it was one of those doors that had been functional at some point, but had then been sealed or even built over?

  We’d have to go out the window, I realized. Because we definitely weren’t going to be able to use the front door. And I wasn’t even certain that the window would do any good. We’d have to go out one at a time, in the most awkward way possible. If there were Authority agents in the forest near us, they’d be able to pick us off as we appeared.

  Jace crouched, put his shoulder firmly to the door, and pushed, the muscles of his legs straining against his pants, and I held my breath.

  “Careful,” Kory breathed. “We don’t know if anyone is behind the cabin, and if you go bursting out, it’s bound to draw attention.”

  “Why the hell do you think I’m going so slow, rather than charging the damn thing?” Jace muttered through clenched jaws. “And we have to risk it. This is the closest exit to the forest. It’s literally the only way out of here. We’re going to have to make a run for it regardless. We might as well do it from the best possible position.”

  Then, quite suddenly, the door gave way and Jace stumbled, almost falling through the now-open space. Abe dove forward to catch him, Ant moving at exactly the same time, and between the two of them, they kept him on his feet.

  Jace regained his balance, grabbed the hand mirror from his pocket, and snuck it carefully through the opening, going as slowly as possible. He angled it first one way, then the other, and then straight ahead of him. Then he ducked back in and turned to glance at the rest of us.

  Outside, it was eerily quiet, as if the Authority agents had either decided on another manner of getting us to come out, or were now working on their plan B, which might very well include forgetting any negotiation tactics and just pulling out the big guns. My gut told me we had to move quickly, because we had to be out of that cabin before they started shooting into it to get to us. Even if they were behind the cabin already, waiting for us, it would be a quick dash for us to get into the woods, and once we were there, we’d have coverage and it would be harder for them to hit us.

  At least we wouldn’t be sitting ducks. We’d be running. Which sounded a hell of a lot better than crouching down in here, waiting to die.

  “I don’t know what the owner of this cabin has been doing, but this door was sealed by something,” Jace whispered, fingering the frame and then quickly looking at his fingers. “The Authority might not have been able to see it.” He glanced at me, frowning. “That doesn’t mean that they won’t be back there, waiting behind the cabin, but we can’t stay here.” He glanced at Ant and lifted both eyebrows. “You still have what I gave you?”

  Ant nodded once, not bothering to reply, and Jace nodded back, then looked at Kory. “And you?”

  Another nod from Kory, and then another from Jace. He picked up his two duffel bags and threw them over his shoulders, then put his backpack on backward so that it covered his chest.

  “You two come out directly after me,” he said, heading back toward the door. “Take care of anyone you see. Don’t bother with the chest. Aim for the face. They don’t have armor there. Everyone else, follow them closely. Don’t wait. No matter what you hear.”

  He turned and darted out the door without saying anything else, and seconds later Abe shoved a box into my arms and got right behind me, his hands on my shoulders. Ant was just rushing out of the door after Jace, followed by Kory, and then Abe was telling me to run and shoving me out the door in front of him, his body bent over me and sheltering me as we ran.

  And then my feet were flying over the ground below us, buoyed by the desperation of knowing that we were hunted animals.

  The Authority agents started shooting at us the moment we were outside of the cabin, and Abe ducked lower over me and screamed for Jackie and Nelson to make it quick, then surged forward. Ahead of us, I could see Ant, Kory, and Jace taking aim at something in the trees, and realized that they all had handguns out, and were shooting ahead of them as they ran. Kory turned and shot at something behind us, just as another bullet whizzed past my head, and I ducked, wishing Abe, Kory, and Nelson had the skintight suits. The suits didn’t stop bullets completely, but they were good at deflecting, and anyone without them was so exposed, so vulnerable. If they went down, I didn’t know what I’d do. I didn’t know what any of us would do.

  A
nother bout of shooting came out of the trees ahead of us, and we swerved into the trees to the right and started to rush through the underbrush, Abe’s breath heavy beside me. I could still hear shots to the left of us, though Kory seemed to have hit whoever was shooting from the other side of the cabin, and I knew that those shots would be drawing the Authority agents who might have stayed at the front of the cabin right toward us.

  It didn’t sound like there had been many enforcers behind the cabin, and that meant the bulk of the team had been up front. And were bound to be on their way.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I panted. “Those agents are going to be on us in a second.”

  I reached up, grabbed the comm device from Abe’s ear as he ran, shoved it into my own, and hit the button to turn it on. The biggest problem with this exit was that we’d been split up, which meant I had to figure out where my friends were before we went much farther. I didn’t want us scattered in the woods. If we were running for our lives, we were running together.

  “Get behind a tree and stop,” I told Abe.

  He gave me a shocked glance, but then nodded, found a large tree, and pulled up behind it, his back to the trunk, his chest heaving for breath. I jerked to a stop next to him, dropped the box I’d been carrying, and leaned up against the trunk as well.

  We waited for a second, and when a body came hurtling past us, I reached out and snagged them by the back of the shirt. Jackie fell at our feet, the box she’d been carrying dropping to the ground and her face drawn up in a scowl as she got ready to scream her head off. The moment her eyes met mine, she shut her mouth and nodded, and I turned back in the direction from which we’d come. I could hear more crashing from the underbrush, and with luck…

  Yes. Another body. I stuck a hand out before she got to us and knocked her right off her feet, then dragged her around the tree to take shelter with us. Nelson. With another two boxes.