Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(103)

At that point I remembered the thing that I had hated about him: his inability to settle down and be a reasonable or responsible person. He’d always been looking for the next adventure, the next rebellion, and he’d been flighty enough that he’d do just about anything if he thought it would be a good time.

Going up against the government must have seemed like the perfect adventure. Bigger than anything he’d ever done before. And it was also completely not going to happen. Not only because I didn’t want the awkwardness of having him and Jace in the same place, but also because I truly didn’t want to see him in danger.

The idea of him getting hurt because of me was uncomfortable enough that I shied away from it immediately, without giving myself time to consider why it hurt so much.

“No, Henry,” I said firmly. “I’m not putting you in danger like that. I’m not risking you, because I would never be able to forgive myself if anything happened to you. You can’t come with us. We just need the truck.”

“And we need to hurry,” Nelson cut in, looking away from us and toward the restaurant about two hundred feet away. “Because people are starting to notice us. And we can’t take the chance that they’re people who have also seen the posters in there.” She turned her eyes to me, her face deadly serious. “We’ve got to go, Robin.”

I bit my lip, my entire list of priorities suddenly shifting gears, and turned back toward Henry. He was, to my consternation, grinning widely.

“If you have to go, you have to go,” he said triumphantly. “And I guess that means you don’t have time to argue with me. I’m coming with you. I left you once. I’m not doing it again.”

I glared at him, seeing the ruse for what it was, and then also saw people running toward us from the restaurant. I whirled to look at them and saw that they were just truck drivers, but the fact that they were running toward us in that manner could only mean one thing: they’d recognized us.

Nelson was right. We had to go.

“Fine!” I snapped, realizing that I was quite possibly sealing a contract for a guaranteed headache until we could get rid of this boy again. “But you’re driving! And don’t think this means you get to try to take over this mission and make it some crazy adventure of your own!”

I jumped up into the cab without a backward glance and sank into the passenger seat. I was the one with the directions to the airship. I would be in the front, where I could do the directing.

And I didn’t want to take the chance of Jace interacting with Henry any more than I could help it. I hadn’t missed the anger and confusion in his eyes when I glanced his way.

The rest of my team jumped up into the cab and scuttled toward the back of the truck, and Henry leapt in after them, turning the key of the ignition before they were even seated. It seemed like it took forever for the truck to fully start up, and even longer for him to adjust the many gear sticks it took to get it moving, but we were jerking into movement before the people who’d run out of the restaurant had reached us. Henry pulled the truck into a slow, ponderous U-turn, the vehicle creaking and groaning like it was being put through torture and bouncing like nothing I’d ever felt before, and then he hit the gas.

It wasn’t a fast acceleration, but it was powerful. By the time we got to the gate of the parking lot, he was lumbering quickly along and people were jumping out of the way. I could see up ahead that whoever owned the lot had closed the gates to the place, evidently in an attempt to stop us.

Henry busted right through them, hit the highway, and started taking my directions to the forest.





41





By the time we arrived at the spot I’d indicated on the highway that passed the forest, my eyes felt like they were going to fall out of my head, they were so tired of staring into the extended side mirrors.

No vans had showed up behind us yet, and between keeping a look out and dancing around Henry’s rapid-fire questions about what exactly was going on, the drive went more quickly than I could have imagined. But I was still terrified that I would see an Authority vehicle at any moment—or worse, a whole herd of them.

We also had to hope that they weren’t approaching us from the sky, where we couldn’t see them.

“Nelson, you called Ant, right?” I asked tensely, my eyes flitting to the sky and scanning as much of it as I could from my angle in the seat.

We were just pulling off the highway about three hundred feet from where the road that had once led to my cabin headed into the forest, and I didn’t see Ant and Jackie yet. I hoped they were on their way, because we didn’t have time to wait around for them.

“I did,” Nelson answered from the back of the truck. “He says they’re working on it. They’re leaving all the supplies behind, and the bikes. Says he figures we won’t need them anymore.”

“He’s right,” I confirmed. It would have been nice to have my things, but that was secondary at this point. Getting out of here was more important. I could buy new clothes later.

Maybe Sister Isobel would have something I could borrow. Something other than a nun’s habit, if I had my preference.

I was just wondering why no one else was saying anything back there, and about to turn around and check on them, when Ant stepped out of the forest, carrying Jackie.

I was out of the truck and running toward them before I had a chance to think, intent on helping him. He did have Jace’s backpack and one of the duffel bags—who knew why—and I took them both from him, then gestured toward the truck.