The Child Thief 4: Little Lies Read online

  Bright electric lights blinded me for a moment. They ran up and down the ceiling of an enormous and thoroughly modern room. Dozens of neatly made beds lined the walls, each with a curtain that could be drawn for some rudimentary privacy. Ten or so long dining tables ran down the center, scattered with a few dishes, knitting projects, and books, with chairs along each side like sentinels. Some seats were occupied by people of all ages. Because, yes, there were people. Lots of people.

  There had to be at least two hundred, from the oldest of the nuns, still in their habits, to children young enough to still be carried in their mothers’ arms.

  I gaped in relief at seeing them and glanced anxiously through the faces nearest to us for anyone I recognized. Jace was quicker, spotting Sister Isobel before I did.

  “Isobel!” he gasped, dropping my hand and heading toward the older-looking nun, who was standing amid the babbling crowd.

  She appeared, to my relief, to be healthy and very happy to see Jace.

  I rushed after him and arrived in time to see him taking her hands.

  “Thank goodness you’re okay,” he said. “What’s going on? What’s happened? Where’s Rhea?”

  She gave him a smile, but then turned to Zion. “Is it safe? Have we time?”

  Zion shook his head, hand clenching and unclenching around the key. “Not yet, and no. We must get the airships away from here, and fast, if we’re to protect you. Jace, make it quick,” he added. “Ask whatever you need to ask to reassure yourself and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  I’d never heard Zion sound so nervous before, not even when the raid on the Authority’s prison had gone wrong. I frowned. The fact that he was so stressed about the safety of these nuns—and us—was not what I would expect from someone there to arrest us.

  Perhaps he was telling the truth.

  “Sister,” I said. “What do you know of Zion? Is he here to take us to safety or not?”

  “And where’s Rhea?” Jace repeated, face tight with concern.

  The nun turned her kind, timeless eyes on us. “Rhea is not here,” she said, holding a hand up against Jace’s inevitable outburst of questions. “She’s been taken to a safer location. And I can assure you of Zion’s trustworthiness. He is working for the man I work with, the same man who brought Rhea to us in the first place.” She shared a look with Zion. “Yes, you can trust him.”

  “What do you mean Rhea’s not here?” Jace asked, his hands twitching.

  She hesitated, looking to Zion, who gave a minute shake of his head.

  “Evidently that’s not for me to tell you,” she said wryly. “Not yet. It relates to something much larger and more important than this convent.” She took Jace’s hand, stilling the vibration running through him, and gave him a firm nod. “She’s safe, I promise you that, and you’ll see her soon. I think you know me well enough to know you can trust what I say.”

  “Where exactly are we going?” Nelson asked. “And why aren’t you up on the surface?”

  Sister Isobel released Jace’s hand and turned to the rest of us, her demeanor shifting. It felt as if she’d taken off her mantle of comforter and was now getting down to the business of being an army commander. She drew herself up, straightening her shoulders.

  “From what Zion has told me, there is a strong chance you were followed here,” she said. “I’m sure you took every precaution you could, but we have to accept that you might not have been successful. If anyone from the Authority tracked you to here…”

  “Yes, we’ve already been over that,” I replied. “It is, evidently, the reason we need to hurry.”

  She nodded. “It is. You must leave, and you must take the airships with you. If the Authority hasn’t arrived yet, it’s because we’re lucky. If, or likely when, they do, they must not find you here. With luck, they won’t find us hiding.”

  She gave me a wry twist of the mouth, and I found myself grinning back at her, unable to resist this warrior nun.

  She gestured briefly to the ceiling. “If they do find us, we will send the children that way”—she pointed to a door I hadn’t noticed in the back wall—“where they will be hidden from view. And the Authority will find only us. They will hear how we, devout and innocent followers of Christ, were accosted by terrorists—that would be you.” She lifted one eyebrow at the irony of the statement. “We, of course, fled down here to escape. Apparently not finding what you wanted, you left, and we don’t know where you went.”

  She stressed the word “left,” and I understood the genius of the plan.

  It seemed they’d been preparing for our arrival ever since we’d been dumped in the meadow. They’d known we would eventually find our way to the convent. We’d just been too busy running for our lives to realize what a smart move it would have been to do so.

  Even better, their plan would protect them all, but only if we were gone before the Authority arrived. I looked around the room, at all the innocents hiding here that we’d inadvertently placed in danger.

  “Okay, we have to get out of here,” I said, immediately searching out the huddled group of my team hanging back by the door.

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” Zion said in a growl, already turning back toward the tunnel. “Satisfied?”

  I looked up at Jace, then to Ant, Abe, Nelson, and Kory. Henry was looking too shocked to contribute anything, and I considered how overwhelming this must all be to him. Now that he’d forced his way into our adventure, for reasons I still didn’t understand, he was probably on the Authority’s hit list as well, and I guessed he knew it. It meant we couldn’t leave him behind. Darn the luck.

  “Guys?” I asked, my voice sharpening. “What are we doing? Maybe it’s a case of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea”—I saw one of the nuns close by flinch and raised a hand in apology—“but I vote we trust Zion and get out of here, if only to keep these nuns and their charges safe. Who’s with me?”

  One by one, everyone nodded, except Jace. I gave him a questioning look and saw the conflict in his face.

  He might believe the nuns about the safety of going with Zion, but leaving this place without Rhea was going to be a struggle. I couldn’t blame him.

  “Jace, we’re going to where Rhea is, dammit,” Zion snapped. “Stop being so stubborn and trust me! Have I ever led you into trouble?” A quick, almost amused glance from Jace made Zion check his words. With the barest flicker of a smile he added, “Well, more than necessary, I mean.”

  The idea that he was being taken to his sister seemed to change everything for Jace, and he was turning and rushing toward the tunnel before the rest of us could even start to move.

  “If you’ve got Rhea, I’m in,” he grunted over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We fell in behind him, leaving the nuns behind. Darting into the tunnel, I sent up a quick prayer for their safety, not entirely sure who I thought would hear it, but feeling that if anyone was going to, it was going to happen in a place devoted to that sort of thing.

  I only hoped Zion could offer us as much protection as he claimed. It would also be useful if he started answering some questions. We’d gone too long without understanding the wider events we were caught up in. Now that we finally had somebody who could give us more information, I was going to get it out of him.

  I gritted my teeth, letting the urgency flow through me as we hurried once again toward the surface.

  3

  We emerged from the tunnel and sprinted down the aisle of the sanctuary. I ignored the aches and pains in my muscles, as well as the knee that wasn’t yet fully healed, and tossed a look over my shoulder at my friends.

  “Ant, you okay?” I huffed.

  He had Jackie tucked up tight against him, and though Abe was serving as his wingman, it didn’t change the fact that Ant was the one carrying an extra human being. Or that we were running full tilt out into the open where Authority soldiers might be waiting. We couldn’t afford for Ant to lag behind and get hi
mself or Jackie caught.

  “Fine,” he muttered through lips drawn back in a grimace. “What’s the actual plan?”

  “The plan is to get to our airship!” Zion shouted back over his shoulder, jumping the last step up to the door and jamming his shoulder against it to throw it open. “We’ve already got a man in yours, and he’ll be following us. But that’s not going to mean a damn thing if we don’t get there as quickly as possible. We’re lightly armed and will be outmanned if the Authority shows up.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Ant muttered. He pulled even with me right before I burst through the door myself, out into the courtyard of the convent.

  I was blinded by the sudden light, stumbling as I lost my vision. The moment I slowed down, however, there was a hand in the small of my back, urging me forward. I looked to my right, trying to see who was next to me, but could only make out a hazy form with a shock of brown hair.

  “Run!” Henry said. “I don’t know what’s going on here or what anyone’s talking about, but I do understand that if we get caught, we’re in trouble.”

  Henry. Still watching out for me, even amid all this, and my heart squeezed at the thought… then took off hammering again as it remembered I wasn’t seventeen anymore, and didn’t have time to stand there getting mushy about my first boyfriend.

  “Where’s your ship?” I shouted at Zion, who was starting to pull ahead.

  “Just follow me!” he shouted back.

  Depending heavily on Henry’s momentum pulling me forward, I focused only on Zion’s back. In the distance, outside the gates, I could just see our tiny airship.

  I didn’t know where Zion’s man had come from, but he was obviously well and truly ensconced in our ship now, because it was shuddering in preparation for take-off. I could hear the machinery roaring with effort as the new pilot threw it into its most powerful mode. It hovered for a moment or two, then found its wings and shot into the sky.

  I hoped we were right to trust Zion and he did have a way to get us out of here. Because our one and only means of escape had just been taken by someone we didn’t even know.

  Zion did have a ship. It was enormous, like the one we’d seen at the jail when Little John rescued us from our rescue gone wrong, all gleaming copper and purple details. Its large wings swooping out from the sides guaranteed better altitude capabilities, and the engines hanging from those wings had to be capable of far greater power and speed than our little airship. It looked as though it would easily hold two hundred people, as well as weapons.

  I just hoped wherever we were going had real beds. With clean sheets and blankets. I wanted to sleep for a week. Everyone did.

  The airship in front of us already had its ramp down and the door open. There was someone inside, and they were gesturing for us to hurry—as if we could go any faster than we already were.

  I staggered up the ramp and through the door, Henry and I supporting each other equally now. The sudden change of temperature, from the warmth of the outside to the cooler and more sterile air of the ship, had me closing my eyes in relief. Here. We were here. We’d made it, and now we just had to—

  A cannonball hit me in the side, the force of it driving all thoughts from my head. On reflex, I put my arms up to block whatever had just crashed into me and stumbled back several steps. That was when I realized the cannonball was shrieking.

  “Oh my God, I never thought I’d see you guys again!” It whirled away from me, rushing toward the others in my group. It swept past Jace and into Kory, and then flew toward Abe, before coming to a screeching halt in front of Ant.

  “What happened?” Alexy—for Alexy it was—asked in a hushed tone, eyes on Jackie. Then her hands were rushing over Jackie’s body, feeling, probing, as she searched for the reason for the stillness.

  With that, Alexy shifted from the screeching, deliriously happy girl, back into the warrior I knew. Her face—now sporting shorter bangs, which went, I supposed, with the recently shaved side of her head—became filled with fury.

  “Has she been shot? Did the Authority do this? I’ll kill them. I’ll—”

  “You’ll get this ship in the air before they get here is what you’ll do,” Zion called from the doorway, the thunder in his face matching hers. He slammed the door shut and hit a button on a panel by the door which, I assumed, given the sound of gears and sliding metal, retracted the ramp. “We’ve got to leave now. Or did you forget the plan?”

  She gave him a look that told him exactly where he could shove his orders—and that she’d be happy to do the shoving for him if he was going to be shy about it.

  “I never forget a plan, Zion,” she said coldly. “And, since you seem to have forgotten who you’re talking to, I suggest you sit your ass down before I remind you.”

  Everyone watched with wide eyes and bated breath at the unexpected display of tension. Zion narrowed his eyes and prepared to answer her.

  “Unless I’m mistaken,” I cut in, not wanting to hear what he was going to say, “we’re in a hurry. How about we leave the chest-thumping for some other time?”

  There was a moment when both burning glares were fixed on me, and it took all I had to stand tall and face them down. Finally, Alexy nodded, the half of her bob she’d kept swinging into her face for a moment.

  “Right,” she said. “I’ll get us in the air. Once we’re up, I want to hear where you guys have been and what you’ve been doing.”

  She moved into the cockpit without another look at Zion, already calling out orders to the four other crewmembers I saw on the ship. They’d come very scantily staffed, which seemed odd if they were running a rescue mission.

  It was as good a question as any to start with.

  “Well, Zion, we followed you. We got on your ship. Time for some answers, and don’t give me any more half-truths or vagaries. I am far too tired to put up with it.” I paused and lifted both eyebrows, waiting for him to answer, to give me anything of substance, and was surprised when he just shrugged.

  “So you’re the mouthpiece now? Who’d have thought it?”

  Jace shifted in a way that indicated he was still capable of some amount of violence if necessary, and Zion’s mouth quirked.

  “I’ll answer what questions I can,” he said eventually, “but not until you’re all buckled into your seats. There’s every chance we’ll end up in an air battle, and I don’t want anyone bouncing around in here, causing a distraction.” He cast a quick glance at Ant, and then nodded toward Jackie. “Get her into one of those stretchers up against the walls and strap her in as tight as you dare. Any idea what’s wrong?”

  Ant, who was already moving toward one of the promised stretchers, shook his head. “There was an explosion that took out her motorbike during a chase. The burns are minimal, but we think…” He paused as he laid Jackie down. “We think there’s something wrong inside of her.”

  I dropped into a seat, fumbling with the safety belt, but heard Zion humming in thought.

  “Well, if it’s internal bleeding, there’s not much I’ll be able to do here except give her some pain meds, get her on an IV, and hope she hangs on until we get to HQ.”

  I looked up to see him carefully inserting a needle into Jackie’s arm and then stringing a bag of clear fluid on a stand, Ant hovering over him.

  “Will that fix her?” Ant asked hoarsely.

  “No,” Zion said, never one to mince words.

  Ant’s face crumpled.

  Evidently realizing he had pulled the guy’s last hope out from under him, Zion put a hand on Ant’s arm.

  “Go get yourself into a seat,” he said more gently. “The pain meds will help her to sleep better, and as soon as we get to Edgewood I’ll make sure she gets the best medical care we have.”

  Ant didn’t look convinced, but he nodded, frowning and wiping a few tears away. He ran his hand across Jackie’s dirty, tangled hair one more time, then came to sit next to me.

  I took his hand in mine once he was settled.
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  “She’ll be okay,” I said, giving it a squeeze. Then I turned back to Zion. There wasn’t much we could do about Jackie right now, but as long as we were going to be stuck on a ship with Zion, he might as well start answering some questions.

  “Start talking, Zion,” I said, looking across the body of the airship to where he’d taken the seat facing me. “Answers. Start with what the hell Edgewood is.”

  Jace took the seat on the other side of me, and I gave him a grateful glance before taking his hand with my spare. I might not trust Zion, but I trusted Jace with my life. His presence reminded me we were in this together.

  Zion gave me a long look. “Edgewood is where we’re going. A safe place,” he said, catching my narrowed eyes. “But most of this story isn’t for me to give, in any case.”

  “You can tell them some of what we know,” Alexy said as she exited the cockpit and rejoined us.

  I gave her a confused look, and she gestured dismissively.

  “Auto drive, supplemented by several of my co-pilots,” she said. “This ship is advanced enough to take care of itself, and I want to hear what you have to tell us.”

  “Where is everyone else?” I asked bluntly. “We left a lot of friends in Trenton. A lot of our people. And when we tried to get in contact with them, there were no answers.”

  “They’re already safe,” Zion said, keeping eye contact in an apparent effort at transparency. “We picked them up the day after the raid, probably just a few hours after you left them.”

  Well, that was news. I welcomed the idea that the others were all safe, but it made me question anew how Little John had managed to find them but not us.

  Nelson spoke up, a few seats down from me. “What do you mean, you picked them up? You just happened to know where we’d put them and made the casual trip there?”

  He put a hand up in peace. “We had some surveillance tech in my apartment,” he said. “I needed to know who was going in there in my absence, and when it showed about twenty bodies that hadn’t been there before, it was easy to guess you guys were using it as a safe space. We got teams on the ground and got there as fast as we could, but you’d already left.”