The Child Thief 4: Little Lies Page 19

  With that in mind, I put on a burst of speed, caught up with Corona, and yanked her arm hard enough to pull her to a standstill. The rest of the group came to a jumbled stop behind us.

  “We can’t go back into the holding center,” I said, pushing as much authority into my voice as I could. “If we go back in there, we’re going to be caught. Even if they don’t see through our disguises immediately, they’ll hold us for longer than the masks last, and then we’re done for. We’ve got to get out through the hospital instead.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, cast a quick glance at Myrna, and then nodded. “You’re right.” Balancing on one foot and then the other, she stripped herself of the stilettos, holding one in each hand, heels pointing out, as if ready to strike out with the metallic points.

  “Myrna, we’re taking a different exit,” she said. “I suggest you come with us.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, instead taking off in the opposite direction, away from the door into the holding center and back toward the nurse’s station. We all followed, including Myrna, who evidently came to the conclusion that her position in the holding center wasn’t worth risking her life.

  We sprinted toward the nurse’s station once more, earning another set of surprised glances, and Corona shouted to one of them as we approached.

  “Exit? Which way?” she huffed.

  A nurse, a youngish woman with short brown hair and cheeks as pink as roses, quickly scanned her fellow nurses and then pointed over her shoulder. “Through the delivery ward,” she answered. “We have a door on that side so women can get into the rooms as quickly as possible. And so the—”

  “Shanna!” one of the other nurses said tightly.

  “And so we can try to get some of them back out with their babies before it’s too late!” the nurse named Shanna shouted out after us.

  We didn’t pause to thank her for the information. We were already well past the station, bursting through the doorway to the delivery rooms and running down the hall, our shoes squeaking against the floor. Corona had lost her hat and wig somewhere, her hair now streaking out behind her with her speed, bare feet slapping the linoleum. Anxious and confused faces were popping out of the doors around us, some of them asking what was going on and why the alarm was sounding off.

  The sound of aggressive male voices swelled behind us, saying things like “Everyone freeze!”, “Compliance Authority!”, and “Who’s come through here?”, as if the nurses were the ones who had been causing the problem.

  I didn’t have to look to know what I’d see. They’d be wearing navy-blue jumpsuits and helmets with reflective visors. They’d also have guns. I hoped they wouldn’t use them in a hospital, but then again, the government had made their feelings about the lower class very clear a long time ago.

  “Please let them stop and talk to the nurses, please let them stop and talk to the nurses,” Gabby was chanting over and over as we ran.

  I gulped. This was the first time we’d put her in this much danger, and I wanted to punch myself for not having left her back at Edgewood, where she’d have been safe.

  “Savannah, we’ve got a problem,” Corona’s unsteady voice said in my ear.

  I remembered Savannah’s promise about getting us out of here in a hurry if we found ourselves in trouble. The problem was, if my mental map was correct, we were on the wrong side of the campus. We’d been going in a straight line down the hallway, heading directly away from where Savannah and our getaway vehicle were parked. We’d then walked even farther away once we got into the hospital, which meant the exit we were now heading toward was a whole building away from Savannah and her airship. A very large building away.

  We’d managed to trap ourselves. There were Authority soldiers on our heels, and it was a pretty sure bet they had orders to take us in for questioning—which would be unpleasant, to say the least.

  How did I always find myself on missions that went wrong? And why did I always end up so far away from the airship supposed to be rescuing me?

  24

  We burst through the exit at a run, but slowed immediately to an almost normal walk, having appeared in the middle of a busy sidewalk. I should have realized we were so close to a city, considering we’d just been through a hospital.

  A few people were startled, but no one really noticed us despite our sudden appearance.

  Even with the Authority right on our heels, we couldn’t exactly go dashing through crowded city streets in search of rescue.

  “We can’t get to you,” Corona said into the comm. “Think of something else. And be advised that we have an extra member.” She ruffled her hair and pulled the slacks of her pantsuit down her hips a little more so her bare feet weren’t as obvious. “Walk briskly but don’t draw attention,” she continued, talking to us now. “Use the comms to communicate if we’re separated.”

  In single file when we had to be, but walking in twos and threes where we could, we wove our way through the crowds.

  “Stay together,” Corona told us again, this time over the comm link. “I don’t want anyone being grabbed. If someone tries to grab the person next to you, hold on to them like your life depends on it and shout for help.”

  “What will that do, except get more of us taken?” Alexy asked. She had her right arm threaded through my left arm, and I had my right arm threaded through Jace’s left. He was towing both of us along and was sure to act as an anchor in case anyone did try to grab us from behind.

  I threw another look over my shoulder and tried to see through the crowds. “Why the hell didn’t we think about the fact that Savannah and company should have been in the air watching, in case we had to come out the wrong side of the building?” I asked breathlessly.

  “I didn’t exactly plan to come out of the wrong side of the building,” Corona said from in front of me. She stumbled on something and cursed, using words I’d never heard before, and my respect for her went up several notches. However, I noticed she was now limping badly, leaving a smear of blood on the concrete each time her left foot touched down.

  A moment later, Kory stepped in and swept her off her feet, cradling her against his chest like a child.

  “Pardon the overfamiliarity,” he said. “But I don’t think we want to leave a trail.”

  Corona looked at him wordlessly, then nodded and wrapped an arm across his shoulders so she could see behind us more clearly. “I don’t mind being carried,” she said. “As long as you get us to the other end of this building before we’re found.”

  We picked up the pace as much as we could, keeping to the side of the Ministry building. I could see the end of it up ahead, the bright white fading into a more normal brick building at the corner. I fixed my eyes on that endpoint and told myself it wasn’t too far now.

  We didn’t waste any further breath on speech, each of us knowing that nothing we said right now was going to matter if we didn’t get to the corner of the building. An awful thought struck me as we approached the final block.

  “What are we going to do if the airship’s not there?” I asked, letting go of Jace and Alexy for a moment and sliding sideways between two people intent on running me over. Once I was through them, I secured both arms to my teammates again and allowed Jace to continue to sweep me forward.

  “What do you mean?” Jace asked, breath coming in short puffs.

  “I mean,” I said, “the security breach fingered us as interlopers. The Ministry is going to figure out the airship is, at the very least, flown by someone they can’t call a friend. That security team might have turned around and gone to try to arrest Savannah and her crew.”

  “Crap,” he muttered.

  “Protocol is for her to have taken to the sky the moment I told her we had a problem,” Corona said, overhearing my concerns. “She won’t be sitting on their tarmac waiting for them.”

  “And what about us?” I asked.

  “Protocol also calls for her to be waiting for us,” Corona answered. “There’s a fi
eld on the other side of the tarmac, and we marked it as the meeting place if anything went wrong. She’ll be within range of that field. Once we reach it, she’ll do whatever she needs to do to pick us up.”

  “I never thought I’d hate a word as much as I hate the word ‘protocol’ right now,” Alexy snapped.

  “At least it means we have a way out of here,” Jace answered. “Without it, Savannah and her team would probably already be in Authority hands, and we wouldn’t even have an airship to count on.”

  Alexy snarled in his direction, and then we all fell silent again, making for the corner where we would turn.

  I just hoped the field in question was closer rather than farther away. Another glance over my shoulder still didn’t show me any blue jumpsuits on the scene, but that didn’t mean they weren’t coming. And in this crowd, I didn’t think we’d see them before they got to us.

  We were all-out running when we got to the field, past the point of trying to be subtle or to fit in, and the moment we hit the tall grass, Corona started shouting orders.

  “Savannah, we’re in the field now! Get down here and pick us up, if you please!”

  There was a short, panic-inducing pause, and then a bout of static.

  “Corona, we’ve got you on our radar and we’re on our way down. ETA, two minutes. I’m going to throw out hooks and lines for you. Team, get those hooks onto your bodies using anything you’ve got, and hold on as tight as you can. This is going to be a bumpy pickup, but we’ll get you reeled up as quickly as possible.”

  We heard the roar of the airship’s engines, its form stealthed and hidden from view, and eight hooks on lines swung down out of the sky. We each grabbed one, pushing it through our belt loops or circled around our waists, depending on what we were wearing. Then Kory and Jace gathered as many of us as they could hold—Jace taking me, Gabby, and Nelson, and Kory taking Alexy, Myrna, and Corona—to try to keep us as steady as possible on this part of the journey.

  “Savannah, we’re ready!” Corona shouted, her voice laced with tension.

  We had no warning before the lines yanked us into the sky. The one wound through my belt loops dug painfully into my waist, cutting off circulation and breath in one tug. I held my breath, feeling like I was going to be torn in two before we reached the ship.

  Jace’s arms helped to steady us some, but we were all being dragged in clothing never meant to hold this sort of weight or tension. I felt one of my belt loops pop, then another. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to hold on if my jeans broke the rest of the way, but I also wasn’t willing to just give up. Not without a fight.

  “My belt loops are breaking!” I shouted. “I’m going to be holding on with my hands soon!”

  “Relax, you’re almost to the ship,” Savannah’s voice came back.

  Relax. Ha. That was easy for her to say, all safe in the pilot’s seat.

  Then, quite suddenly, the airship appeared over our heads. We went flying through the door and hit the floor, tumbling and rolling across as we tried to cushion ourselves and keep from banging our heads against each other.

  Jace, Gabby, Nelson, and I came to a stop, all of us lying on top of Jace. I finally released the breath I’d been holding, then sucked another one in.

  “I never, ever want to do that again,” Alexy moaned from the other side of the ship.

  “I second that,” Nelson replied.

  I laid my head on Jace’s heaving chest, torn between laughter and tears, and let myself breathe for a moment, his heartbeat thundering under my ear. His arms came up and around me, and I relaxed further, wondering whether I could stay here for the rest of the flight home.

  The thought of the flight home brought me back to reality. I pushed myself up off of his chest firmly enough that he oofed in surprise and dashed toward the door. Corona was already hanging out the side with Ajax, her eyes scanning the sky around us.

  “Have you seen any Ministry ships?” Corona was asking. “Anything at all?”

  “Nothing,” Ajax answered. He had binoculars out, searching the sky above us and the ground below us. “I haven’t seen any sign of any pursuit, in fact, which seems very odd.”

  “Very odd indeed,” Corona murmured. She glared at the sky around us as if she was angry at it for keeping secrets, and then stormed toward the cockpit.

  “Savannah, Lux, anything from the front?” she shouted. “Do you have eyes on any government ships?”

  “Nothing,” Savannah’s voice said through the comm. “We haven’t seen anything. Whatever you did in there, it must not be worth sending the ships up.”

  I frowned. We’d set off an alarm, and we’d heard Authority soldiers in the hospital. We’d brought Myrna with us, so they hadn’t caught anyone. Surely, they’d seen much of what happened on their cameras and had realized they were now down one employee in the holding center.

  Why wasn’t there anyone chasing us?

  “Well make sure you keep the stealth mode on, Savannah!” Corona shouted toward the cockpit. “There might not be soldiers coming right at us, but they could be relying on the satellites to root us out.”

  There was an Alexy-like snort in the comm link. “Well, what do you know, Little John is finally training their pilots in something other than dramatic pickups and drop-offs.”

  Corona gave a semi smile, then gestured for everyone to gather together in the middle of the passenger area. She collapsed into a sitting position, groaning, and I saw that the sole of her foot was oozing blood.

  “All right, now the drama is over, let’s get down to business. What did you guys see in there? What notes did you take? How is Asus different from Gem, and what are we going to need to plan for if we want to get through Smally successfully?”

  Alexy snagged a medical kit from the wall to tend to Corona’s foot as the rest of us sat down, counting on Savannah to see us safely back to Edgewood. As we each shared notes, voices still trembling with adrenaline, I marveled at Corona’s composure and wondered if I’d ever be able to recover from a mission that quickly.

  Then I thought about the look on that girl’s face in the holding center’s school, and I started outlining for Corona what I’d seen… and how I thought we could use it.

  25

  By the time we arrived back at Edgewood, our masks were melting off in clumps, leaving us all looking eerily ragged. The effect was supported by the weary slump of our shoulders.

  We stumbled out of the airship and onto the Edgewood tarmac in a huddle, Myrna giving Corona a supportive arm to lean on as she hobbled along with her bandaged foot. I was relieved to see a car waiting to take us back to the Hall; the frantic action of the last few hours had left me almost unable to stand.

  Savannah, Ajax, Rio, and Lux stayed to shut everything down with the airship while the rest of us, too tired to even speak, piled into the car and collapsed into the seats.

  The trip back to the Hall was quiet, all of us lost in our own thoughts. Once we arrived, Corona gave us a command that didn’t quite match the one we’d received the day before.

  “I suggest you take dinner in your rooms, though you are of course welcome to go to the dining room,” she said, managing to stand solo, her left foot swathed in white bandages. “But I must insist you keep the events of today’s mission between us. Much of what you saw today is not common knowledge, even amongst Little John, and it would upset many people to hear about it. It could also endanger some of our further movements. You’ll find that each of our teams oversees different things. Mixing teams or making all developments common knowledge would affect how the entire organization runs. I suggest that, from here on out, you speak of your missions only to your team, to me, or to Nathan, to avoid the risk of damaging any of our initiatives. I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow regarding our next steps.”

  “I don’t think we’re at risk of damaging much when we barely know anything about why we’re doing this. Or what we’re supposed to do in Smally. Or what that has to do with Little John’s larg
er goals.” I said, fighting past my fatigue. “Because I don’t think any of us believe this is only about children. Not anymore.”

  Corona sighed. “I can tell, Robin, that you’re going to be one of those people who asks good questions which deserve answers, but they are answers I’m not at liberty to give quite yet.” She reached out and clasped me briefly by the shoulder. “When everything comes together, and you have all of the information you seek, the change you will bring about at the head of this team will be truly revolutionary.”

  I shifted, uncomfortable at the little bead of warm pride her pronouncement sparked in me.

  Then she stepped back. “For now, however, I’m going to have to insist you keep those questions to yourself.”

  I frowned at that, curious at her insistence. Training teams for specific missions made sense, but making sure those teams didn’t talk to each other seemed way beyond paranoid. It seemed… wrong, somehow.

  Corona turned toward Myrna, taking the older woman by the hand and ushering her toward the kitchens.

  “Come, Myrna,” she said. “We’ll get you some food. And then I’m afraid there are people who will want to talk to you. We don’t extract assets often, and the knowledge you hold is valuable. With luck, we’ll be able to delay much of your debriefing until tomorrow. I’m afraid, however, that I can’t promise anything in that regard.” She gave the other woman a rueful smile, and they walked away, their heads angled together in consultation about what was going to happen next.

  I watched them go. Why were we still not being given crucial information? Corona said she believed in her teams having as much information as possible, yet she had just told us, straight to our faces, that she was keeping us in the dark about a whole range of things. How were we supposed to do our jobs if we didn’t know what those jobs were? How were we supposed to agree to fight for Little John when we still didn’t know what the fight was?