Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(17)

“No alarm,” I breathed in relief. Thank heavens.

“Alexy said no when Nathan offered it,” Jace answered. “Said something about not being as paranoid as Zion.”

He motioned for us to wait while he stepped in to look around. He appeared again a moment later and ushered us into a world filled with glitter and sunshine.

I would never in a million years have imagined it, but if Zion’s apartment had been all menace, then Alexy’s was all optimism. The place was done up in golds, yellows, oranges, and pinks, and the whole place screamed happy.

“So she only pretends to be a goth,” Jackie said from behind me. “Interesting.”

Jace disappeared again, leaving us to stare at the overly bright apartment, before striding just as quickly back into the entryway.

“And she’s not here,” he muttered, his tone dripping with disappointment. “Neither is Zion. Which means that we have no escape route. We’re officially on our own. I’m not even sure whether we can count this as a safe house, given what’s going on below us. I definitely don’t want to stay here any longer. Let’s get out. We’ll meet the others at the front door. Ant, find us the closest library.”

Ant dug out his phone and started typing, while my heart sank. No Alexy and no Zion meant that if they’d had an escape route, they’d taken it and left us behind.

Plan B it was.

I fished my own phone out of my pocket and thumbed through the pictures I’d taken of the timeline in the Authority prison. All still there, thankfully. All completely clear, thanks to the advanced tech of the camera.

If we were lucky, they would give us something—anything—that would show us a clear way forward. A way toward figuring out who Little John was and where we could find them.





6





We rushed back down the spiral staircase, but before we could go any farther, Abe and Nelson tumbled through the front door of the building, panting.

We stared in surprise at their entrance, before Ant and Kory bent down to help them up.

“What, you can’t get through the door like a normal human being?” Ant scoffed, yanking Abe to his feet.

“You guys are right on time,” I said, brushing past Ant’s snark. “We were just about to get out of here. Zion and Alexy are missing, which means we’re moving on to plan B.”

“The library,” Nelson said, and turned to look at Jace. “Right. So how are we getting there?”

Kory glanced out the window at the street outside. “That’s a good question. The crowd is still out there, and we don’t want to get mixed up in it again if we can help it. So that adds another level of difficulty here.” He frowned at Jace. “You’re sure there’s not a back exit out of here?”

Jace exhaled. “I’m pretty sure. I’ve been to Alexy’s a number of times.”

Kory stared at him, then looked past him, past the stairwell, and into the hallway that stretched toward the back of the building. He looked from right to left, up and down, and narrowed his eyes.

“Follow me,” he announced.

He shot past the staircase at the back of the building and made a sudden turn to the left into a doorway that I hadn’t even noticed. The door led to another set of stairs, which descended into darkness. Kory pounded down them, followed by Jace and me, then the others. After one flight, we found ourselves in some sort of basement. It was almost pitch black, and I stifled a grunt of fear. I’d never been a big fan of the dark. Particularly when it came with a side of creepy. Suddenly there was light, and Kory smirked at us from under a swinging single lightbulb.

Behind him was a door. Through its window, I could see stairs leading upward. Outdoor stairs.

“You were saying?” he asked with a cocky grin.

Jace ignored him and strode right to the door in question, looking up through the window.

“Looks like it leads to the alley behind the place,” he murmured. “How have I never found this before? I never even thought to look for a basement.”

“That’s because you’re always too busy trying to keep your nose clean.” Kory replied, pushing him gently to the side and lowering to his knees in front of the door. “You’d never think of something like this because you’re too good. I, on the other hand…” He winked, then inserted his own lockpicker into the doorknob.

I silently thanked whatever beings watching over us that Kory was a trickster rather than a good boy. If we could avoid the crowds at the front of the building, we would get out of here faster, with less risk of being found by the enforcers controlling the masses.

The lock on the door clicked, and Jace went through it a second later, not even waiting for Kory to stand. I grinned at the show of rivalry between them before shutting my eyes against the glare of the sun.

The alley was completely deserted, courtesy of the enforcers keeping the crowd on the other side of the building, and I was grateful that we’d managed to come up into an empty street rather than a crowded one. We didn’t have time to stand around staring, though, and Jace turned toward Jackie as soon as she reached the top of the stairs.

“Jackie, map your way to the library from here,” he said. “I have to admit it’s not a trip I’ve ever taken. We’ve got to enlarge those pictures.”