The Child Thief 2: Deep Shadows Read online

  “Someone want to tell the rest of us what’s going on, or are we just supposed to guess?” Ant asked quietly. “Because I’m pretty sure we’re wasting time here. Those of us who have been paying attention heard Gabby when she said that we weren’t going to have a lot of time between her getting the video and the Ministry knowing that we’d accessed it.”

  “What’s she doing with your sign-in, Hux?” Cloyd asked quietly, his temper seemingly under control again.

  Jace thought about it for a moment, but then shrugged, as if he’d decided that whatever secrets he’d been keeping from Cloyd, they weren’t important enough to maintain.

  “We needed it to get into OH+,” he said simply. “How did you think she got in there? The site was frozen. We needed a hacker to break into it, and we needed an admin’s password. I’m not even remotely qualified to do it and Gabby is, so I gave her my password to use.”

  Cloyd reared back, his face furious.

  “And who gave you permission to do that? Did she talk you into doing it? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen her make a move that put us all in danger.”

  I glanced at Ant, my mouth open in surprise. What on earth was going on here? Were they having a fight about who had more… power? Sure, they were both admins, and at the top level, but… this was ridiculous. I felt like I was watching two guys fighting over a girl or something. I was sure I was the “she” Cloyd meant, but they weren’t fighting over me in any sort of normal sense.

  Did Cloyd not like me? Was that it?

  “Hux—” I started.

  He put a quick hand on mine and shook his head, indicating that he didn’t want me to get involved.

  “Boyd, I don’t know what it is you think I’m doing, but I can guarantee you that I didn’t do it lightly,” he said, his voice calm and even. “And I can also guarantee you that I didn’t do it as a rebellion. Nor did Robin have anything to do with it. It wasn’t a reckless move; it wasn’t even a badly thought-out move, so I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that judgment to yourself, rather than applying it to people I’ve come to think of as my friends.”

  Cloyd narrowed his eyes, seemingly unconvinced.

  “You know we’re not allowed to give those passwords out,” he said, his voice barely above a snarl.

  Jace shrugged, then gave him his most charming grin.

  “I know, but since I was acting on Nathan’s orders, I thought it would be okay. Wouldn’t you agree?” He waited to see if Cloyd would add anything, and when he didn’t, turned back toward the phone. “Now, Gabby, you were saying?”

  27

  Gabby cleared her throat, obviously just as uncomfortable with what she’d just heard as the rest of us.

  “Right.”

  She paused for a moment, and I didn’t push her, assuming that she needed to collect herself again. We were putting a lot of pressure on a young girl. The conflict between Jace and Cloyd couldn’t have helped, particularly because Cloyd had made it sound as if he somehow blamed Gabby. I hoped she wasn’t beating herself up over it, but I didn’t want to say anything with Cloyd sitting across the table from me, glowering.

  Jace didn’t seem to be prepared to give Gabby as much time as I was.

  “We need to get moving here, Gabby,” he said quietly. “Whatever that video is, I doubt it’ll come with a long or generous timeline. The sooner we know what it is, the sooner we can figure out what to do about it.”

  I nodded and pulled my phone toward me. I put the call with Gabby in the background so I could pull the app I’d need to the forefront of the screen. We’d been using it too much, I felt, but since Nelson had created it independently of any of the portals the Ministry now had access to, I’d just assumed that it would be safe. It only existed on our phones and had no online source. What were the chances of the Ministry being able to find it at all?

  Regardless, it was possibly the only secure thing we had right now, when it came to communications. For the moment, we had to risk it.

  There was a pause as my phone recalibrated for the app, and then Gabby started to speak again.

  “Okay, here we go. I’m piping the video to everyone’s screennames on our encrypted app, so expect something to show up right… now.”

  A series of synchronized beeps indicated that we had indeed all received a message, and I glanced down at my phone. It looked so innocent, just an indication that there was a new message from Gabby on the app.

  Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to indicate that we might be about to watch a video that could be something as simple as a message, or something as horrible as our friends being executed.

  “So everyone has the same thing,” Gabby continued. “What I want is for you all to go to that message and download the video that’s attached. Once you’ve got the video up and ready, wait for my signal. I’m thinking it’s a good idea for us all to watch it at the same time, just in case. I’ve had to get creative in terms of copies of the video, so I don’t know whether whatever program they used will know that there are copies and destroy them all if one finishes before the others.”

  She stopped talking, and we all touched our screens to start the download. We looked up at each other.

  “Moment of truth, I guess, huh?” Ant murmured.

  I nodded mutely, both anxious and impatient to watch the video, and turned my eyes to Jace.

  He stared at me for a moment, and I could see his amber eyes reflecting my nerves.

  “I’m scared,” I breathed, sliding my hand over to take his.

  “Join the club,” Jackie muttered, leaning into the shelter of Ant’s right arm.

  Down the table, I saw Allerra’s eyes grow even larger, and Zion put a protective arm around her. Alexy’s face was stiff and serious, but she didn’t seem to need anyone’s support. Cloyd just looked like his typical stoic self, while Julia and Marco were both wearing the blank-slate stares they’d always adopted during our missions.

  “Everyone ready?” Gabby asked, and I suddenly wondered whether she should watch this at all. If this video was what I feared it was, I didn’t want her to have to see it, particularly if it included the new love of her life, Robert.

  But it wasn’t my place to stop her. She was one of us now, and that meant she had the right to know what we’d gotten ourselves into. The entire, sordid mess.

  “Wait,” I said, suddenly wondering if the video would include something that we needed to look at again. If these were going to spontaneously delete the moment we watched them, but also included information we could use in the future…

  “Julia, I’m going to record your version of the video with my phone,” I said, leaning toward her. “That way we’ll have a copy if we… I don’t know, need it for something.”

  She gave me a confused look, but it cleared a moment later as she saw the logic. “This video might show us something we can use.”

  She nodded quickly and leaned toward me while I cleared out of the app, leaving the explosive video where it was, and went to my camera. I scrolled to video, stood up, held my phone at an angle so I could see Julia’s screen, and nodded.

  “Got it,” I said, hitting the record button.

  “Let’s do this,” Jace said firmly. “On my count.”

  Everyone lifted their hands to allow a finger to hover over their phone screens and waited.

  “Three, two, one…” Jace murmured.

  We touched the phone screens, and the video started to play.

  It started with a girl I didn’t recognize sitting in a dark, creepy room. The walls behind her were of gray or black cinderblock. They appeared weathered, as if they’d been there for ages, and hadn’t been washed in just as long. It was hard to see much more, since there didn’t seem to be any light filtering through the shot.

  In fact, it seemed the only illumination was being generated by the camera. It was pointed directly at her face.

  Were they… Were they keeping our friends in the dark?

  My blood grew cold at the
thought, and I shivered. What if they were? What if they were keeping them in places with no light, and no fresh air? And what if they were alone, none of them knowing what was going on—or what was going to happen?

  Before my thoughts could truly take off, the girl looked right into the camera and said her name.

  “Charlie,” she said in a monotone. “Code name CharlesInCharge.”

  She didn’t look like she’d been beaten up, which was a relief, but I didn’t know her name, or recognize any of her features—dark, shoulder-length hair, a pert nose, and large eyes.

  I assumed she was a tech, but she wasn’t one of my friends. Not one of the people I was so desperately waiting to see.

  Next up was a guy, though, and this one I did recognize, at least partially. He’d been on the raid with us, part of the decoy team. Unlike Charlie, he’d seen some rough treatment, either during his capture or during his time in the Ministry’s company. He was sporting a black eye and a bruise that ran up under his short, blond hair. His blue eyes, though, were defiant.

  “FreddyMercury,” he intoned firmly. “Fred to my friends.”

  It was the hair that I recognized, because he’d tipped it blue at some point, and it had been sticking out of the mask he’d been wearing. I’d thought it was so stupid at the time because it was easy to identify. Turned out I was right about that. That blue-tipped hair was cast up against the horrible, dark stone of a prison somewhere—a prison he was in because we had been unable to save him.

  My heart broke a little bit, and then the screen flashed to a slight boy in glasses. He was also in relatively good shape, but very young.

  “Dusty,” he breathed. “Screenname DustyBottoms.”

  And then another, and another.

  More people I didn’t know.

  Paulette.

  Athena.

  Tilly.

  Ciello.

  All of them clean and unwounded—all of their names ones that I recognized from the list of techs we’d been following. They’d taken many of them, as we’d initially suspected. Or rather, as we’d hoped. It meant that they hadn’t all been killed.

  Suddenly, Nelson was on the screen.

  I nearly sobbed in a combination of horror and relief. She looked horrible. Her glasses were gone, and I could tell that she was having trouble focusing her eyes. Half of her curly brown hair had been burnt almost to her scalp, and she had bruises running across her right cheekbone and up into her temple.

  I’d never seen her out of disguise, of course, because she’d been such a stickler for privacy, but I recognized the brilliant green of her eyes, and the shape of her face. I’d always suspected her hair had been a wig, but it seemed I’d been wrong about that. She had worn a false nose and heavily lined eyes with smoky eyeshadow during our missions, but there was nothing that could hide those eyes. Not even her glasses had been able to tone them down. I’d always noticed her rounded cheeks and thought she probably had a baby face.

  Now I could see that I’d been right.

  Chubby cheeks and a tiny nose, topped off with those enormous green eyes. She was gorgeous, my friend, right there on the screen—and she looked like she’d almost died in the explosion that had decimated her office.

  “Nelson,” she said, her voice cracked. “Nelly to my friends.”

  She looked right into the camera, and I had the sudden feeling that she was trying to pass us a message, if only I could figure out what it was.

  I knew one thing for certain: we were going to get her out of there. That girl was a member of our team, and my friend, and there was no way I was going to leave her to her fate. I knew it down to the innermost depths of my bones.

  Kory came next, and I felt Jace’s hand spasm in mine at the sight of his friend. Kory had obviously put up a fight before he’d let the Ministry soldiers take him. Both eyes were blackened, and we could see the top of a sling that ran over his left shoulder. They’d done something to that arm, or he’d been fighting hard enough that they’d had to damage it to take him down.

  Good for him, I thought. Even on camera, his spirit was unbroken. He lifted his chin up, gave a bit of a grin, and tipped his head a bit.

  “Jack,” he said clearly. “Just Jack.”

  Winter appeared, her face bruised as well, but her spirit equally strong. She had a messy, chin-length red bob, and it looked like she’d been fighting, given the scratches all over her face, but her long nose was unbroken, and her almond-shaped eyes were clear. She lifted one eyebrow and turned those eyes up to above the lens of the camera, as if she was daring whoever was behind the camera to rush her.

  “Winter De Ville, checking in,” she said in her rough alto. She straightened her shoulders and gave the camera another look.

  I grinned, unable to help it. The woman had always come across as tougher than nails, and I could tell that she was giving the Ministry agents the what-for. I almost felt sorry for whoever had to deal with her on a daily basis.

  Austin appeared on the screen, and then June, Samantha, and George—all people who had been on our decoy team. There was no Abe, and I could feel the tension radiating off Ant from two seats down.

  Next up were several other techs: Naomi, Liverpool, Ross. Then Smith (whom they apparently didn’t kill as we’d feared), and finally a dark, boyish-looking man who appeared to be in his late teens or early twenties. He had small eyes and rounded cheeks, and there was something faintly oily about him…

  Through my phone’s speaker, I heard Gabby gasp.

  Ah, I thought. This is Robert.

  “Robert,” he said, his voice somewhat nondescript. “Screenname RobPocket.”

  I closed my eyes in recognition. I’d seen him around OH+ before the raid, and I hadn’t been impressed. He was one of the members who had seemed to be more intent on arguing and insulting other users than solving actual problems.

  Definitely not the man I would have wanted for Gabby.

  Not that it mattered.

  Abe finally appeared, as the last in the lineup, and I exhaled in relief. He looked… fine, as if he’d barely been touched. I hoped with everything in me that he was putting all of his charm to good use, wherever they were. Ant had always been the mouthier one, and with luck, Abe was keeping that side of his personality quiet and just getting along. We needed them alive and undamaged if we were going to rescue them.

  “AbeLincoln,” he said clearly. His face then broke out into a bizarre set of facial movements, and I frowned in confusion, before Ant let out a snort of laughter.

  A secret message, I guessed. A twin thing.

  I hoped it actually meant something other than “you suck for being out there when I’m in here.”

  Then the viewpoint on the screen changed, as the cameraman whirled the camera around on himself. He was wearing a blue, featureless mask that made him look like he was more monster than human, and I involuntarily shuddered. Jace squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back in answer.

  “We are members of the Compliance Authority, and we know what you’ve done. We know what you saw. We know what you think you know. And as I’ve just shown you, we also have a number of your colleagues. We will not be lenient. You are deemed a danger to the government, and therefore the nation. Turn yourselves in and we will be generous. We will arrange for you to be moved out of the country to a secure location, where you will be set up with money, jobs, and new identities. You will never again be allowed to enter this country, but the Authority will leave you to live in peace. Refuse, and your friends will be executed as a public display. You have until Friday to respond. The execution will be scheduled for Friday at noon.”

  The video ended abruptly and vanished from our screens.

  I stopped recording and stared at my phone, my mind wiped completely blank by what I’d just seen.

  Friday.

  We only had until Friday to come up with a plan, get whatever we needed for it, and figure out where our friends were being held and how to get into the building.

 
; It was Tuesday evening.

  “Well, that was…” Jackie murmured.

  “Yeah,” I managed, unsure whether I even had words for how much had just exploded all over us. Our friends were definitely in jail—but we’d known that much before the video confirmed it. The deadline had not been something we were counting on. That didn’t mean we could sit around and cry about it.

  “Okay,” Jace said, his voice somewhat subdued. He was still in shock at seeing Kory in that situation. “So that was… a lot. What are we going to do about it?”

  “Well, they don’t seem to be torturing anyone from our team, so that’s something,” Alexy volunteered quietly. “It means they’re not trying to get information out of them. Or if they are, our friends are giving it up right away rather than making them work for it.”

  I turned to her, appalled.

  “That doesn’t sound like good news,” I cried. “Also, why would those soldiers have to torture our friends for information? They already have everything they need, because of their attack on Nelson and her equipment.”

  Alexy nodded, her face uncharacteristically serious and intense.

  “Still, it works in our favor that our friends aren’t in immediate danger.”

  “Not in immediate danger?” Ant asked, seeming like he was about to choke on the words. “The Ministry just gave us a pretty tight deadline, in case you didn’t notice. They’re going to kill them in three days unless we give ourselves up! And while we’re at it, what the hell is the Compliance Authority? How and why do they have our friends?”

  He gulped and turned quickly from one face to the next, obviously starting to panic.

  Jace put a hand up to calm Ant and nodded.

  “Ant, I get it, and believe me, inside I’m freaking out just as much as you are. I’ve never heard of the Compliance Authority. Anyone else?” He looked around, but all he got were blank stares, and I had to admit that I wasn’t going to be any help there, though I had some guesses.

  “Must be the government’s… I don’t know, security force?” I guessed. “Their secret, private army? Something even scarier than enforcers, I’m guessing. That’s probably their jail, and those were probably their forces that were after us in the forest.”