Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(106)

“That’s it, really,” she said. “Once we have fuel, we get the airship loaded, and we get airborne. And from there, we get the hell away from here.”

“Hopefully before anyone from the Authority shows up,” Jace added, finally coming to life and adding to the conversation. He looked up and met my eyes head on. “And then we get to our destination. And pray to God that the Authority isn’t watching the skies too closely along the way.”

I gave him a shy smile, still feeling somewhat guilty about Henry, and nodded. It was good to have Jace’s voice in the conversation again. It made me feel as if we might actually be able to pull any of this off.





42





We came screeching to a halt just off the Starkston exit. Henry threw the truck into park and looked at me in the passenger’s seat, then at Ant, who was standing between the seats, his phone in his hand. He was plugged into Henry’s portable charger—a privilege he’d earned by being the one in charge of finding our airship for us.

He looked down at his phone, frowned, and then looked up at the view in front of us.

“That way, I think,” he said, pointing toward the right. “According to the map I’m looking at, it’s about fifteen minutes that way.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, immediately distrusting the vagueness of the statement. “We don’t have time for this to be a mistake, Ant.”

It was the truth. We had no idea whether the Authority had been following or tracking us on our journey here. If they were after us in vans, there was a chance we’d gotten away from the truck stop early enough that they were still a fair distance behind us. If Henry was right about his alternative routes, there was a chance that we’d managed to bypass any blockades—or additional forces—they might have set up. We could have been extremely lucky when it came to ground forces.

But I wasn’t stupid enough to assume that this was the case. Plus, that luck would have been completely discounting the possibility that we were also being tracked by air. We knew the Authority had airships. It didn’t take a big jump to assume that they were tracking us by air as well as land, and the more time we spent sitting around, the more time they had to potentially catch us.

“I’m sure,” Ant answered, his tone firm. “I recognize the area, and I know this is the way we came. Starkston is that way”—he pointed left, then right—“which means the ship is that way.”

I nodded. He had more at stake than anyone else, given his commitment to Jackie. I trusted him to be responsible right now, when it was most important.

Henry, bless him, didn’t even wait for Ant to finish speaking. He’d already shoved the truck back into gear and was turning right—directly into the grasses that surrounded us. There was a huge bump, the truck groaned more loudly than it had before, and everyone inside of it—except for Henry—jumped and looked around, terrified that something had gone wrong.

We were, after all, driving a portable bomb. I hadn’t forgotten it, even if Henry had.

Then we rumbled forward over whatever it was we’d hit, and into the grasses, and the ride became slightly more even. The land we were passing through was relatively simple, thank goodness—mostly grassland with an occasional patch of soil or gravel, and Henry didn’t seem to have any problem getting the truck over the changing terrain. In fact, he was operating the steering wheel like he’d been born to do it. He kept his eyes on the land in front of us, and I divided my gaze between him, our way forward, and Jackie, who was still lying in the bottom bunk. She was growing paler, I was sure of it, and when we hit a particularly bad bump she shifted and groaned, though she was still asleep.

All this movement was bad for her. Never mind the bouncing that came with riding in a truck this big. We had to get her into something gentler, and then to a doctor. I had no idea how long the flight to the convent was going to take, but it would inevitably be smoother, and perhaps that would help to improve her situation.

I just hoped that ride was simple. If the Authority was tracking us via airship, we were going to have a battle on our hands once we got into the sky.

“There’s your forest,” Henry suddenly said from beside me.

I whirled back to face the windshield and saw the copse of trees we’d marched through the morning we found ourselves deserted in the meadow. God, it seemed like that had been at least a year ago, now. Before we’d been hunted by the Authority. Before we’d been labeled terrorists. Before we’d been completely alone in the world, without the steadying influence of Nathan or Zion or Alexy—and without the promise that Little John would be there to get us out of any scrape we managed to get ourselves into.

Henry rolled up to the forest, and I tried desperately to think of how long we’d walked through it. How far away was the airship? Would the hose even stretch far enough?

“I don’t suppose you can drive through the trees,” I said, not coming up with any answers to my question.

Henry shrugged, his face tense. “I can. It’s going to make one hell of a mess, though, and it’s going to be an easy path to follow. And it’ll definitely be bad if we get stuck somewhere. This isn’t a bulldozer, you know. Easier if I go around.”

He gestured to the left, and I saw, to my surprise, that this group of trees didn’t stretch indefinitely. In fact, it ended about five hundred feet from where we were sitting.