Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(11)

Just as Jace’s house was absolutely him.

Whatever else it might mean to be a part of Nathan’s core group, it seemed to come with free rein in terms of decor, and in Zion’s case, clearly a great budget.

“God, this place looks like a ball of testosterone exploded,” Jackie murmured, turning slowly as she took in the room. “What do you even call this? The Blood and Evil Look?”

Jace let out a soft laugh. “Whatever it is, it’s Zion down to the toes. Though, every time we met here, it did give me a headache.”

He frowned and glanced around more closely before walking quickly into the hallway. I could hear his footsteps moving from one room to another—and then the sound of something being dragged across the floor, and the abrupt slam of a door.

“He’s definitely not here,” he muttered when he returned. “I’ve checked all the safe spots, and he’s not hiding anywhere in the apartment. Doesn’t look like he returned from the mission and then left again, either. At least, not from what I can tell. Nothing thrown around, no signs of quick packing or anyone returning from an adventure that might have wounded them.”

He frowned again and was just opening his mouth when there was a clatter of footsteps from the staircase, followed by Julia, Marco, and Abe shoving their way through the door.

“What’s going on?” Marco gasped, his plump cheeks flushed. “We heard some sort of crazy screaming when we were coming through the door downstairs. What was that? Did it come from you guys?”

“It did,” Ant replied. “From this apartment, when we broke in. Evidently Nathan’s people have fancier security measures than we realized.”

Julia cast her gaze from one side of the room to the other and lifted one elegant brow. “Well, how classy,” she said. “It’s no wonder Zion doesn’t come with a woman attached, if he lives in a place that looks like this.”

Abe, meanwhile, was staring at the apartment with his mouth hanging open. It occurred to me that this was his first real exposure to what I’d started to think of as the underground part of OH+. This was the part that we still didn’t understand, but that undeniably went deeper than the original OH, and that we certainly hadn’t become a part of. I’d seen some of it in Jace’s apartment and in the way that Cloyd, Zion, and Alexy looked at each other. I’d seen the amount of tech that those three conveniently had access to, and I’d suspected for some time that there was more going on than we’d been told.

But for Abe, it was all brand new—the idea that one of our friends would have an apartment decked out this richly.

“What the hell have you guys gotten into?” he asked quietly, echoing my thoughts. “Who are these friends of yours?”

“That’s not important right now,” Jace replied. “What is important is that this particular friend isn’t currently home.” He quickly lifted one hand to fend off Ant’s opening mouth. “I’m hoping that he’s with Alexy and that they’re at her apartment, which is equally secure. We need to get there next and find out, because if they’ve blown out of town already, it means that they’ve taken whatever escape plans they might have had with them, rather than waiting for us.” He glanced at the door, where Winter and a couple of techs had just shown up, and then toward Nelson and several others, who were trudging up the steps.

I heaved a quick sigh of relief at seeing Nelson and turned my gaze back to Jace.

“Shouldn’t we get going? What if someone heard that alarm?” I asked. “What if it somehow alerted a security team?”

Jace shook his head. “This building has been soundproofed, so there’s no chance of anyone outside having heard it, first of all. Secondly, if it led to a security team, it would be Nathan’s security team. And if they got here, it would be, presumably, to save us. That said, from what Zion has told me, this alarm is for one reason and one reason only: to warn him if someone was trying to break in.”

I exhaled. That made me feel slightly better, but the main problem remained. The guy wasn’t here.

“So what now?” Marco asked, still breathing heavily.

“Get into Zion’s box of tricks, get disguises for Jack and Abe, and then get out of here. At least, that’s the plan for Robin, Ant, Abe, Jack, Jackie, and me,” Jace said. “We’ll get to Alexy’s and pray that she and Zion are there. If they are, we find out what we’re doing next. If they’re not… well, it will give us another safe house, at least.”

I nodded, though I still felt bothered by the lack of direction, and then remembered the other complication.

“What about the list of addresses?” I recalled that list of five hundred addresses with no names attached. “It was housed in the OH+ portal—which has been taken down, by the way. Or rather, is now inhabited by the Authority.”

I added that last bit for the sake of those we’d just rescued from prison, who all turned toward me. We hadn’t even taken the time to explain what had happened while they had been imprisoned: OH+ being hacked, the techs that we had tried to find, the traps in the OH+ portal, and Gabby’s break-in, using software that Robert had given her. How we had found the lists of names and addresses and suspected that the Authority had started searching for them. How the Authority soldiers had chased after us when we had tried to find them. How Little John’s men in black had rescued us at the last minute, which made our run-in with them outside of the Authority’s compound our second experience with the organization, rather than the first.