Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(21)

8





We rushed into the coffee shop right over Jace’s house, and I immediately breathed a sigh of relief at having arrived. Jace had told me that the owner of the shop was a friend of Nathan’s, and that Nathan had secured a promise from the guy to protect Jace. I didn’t know Nathan, so I had no idea how much faith to put in his friend or the loyalty of the relationship, but Jace had seemed sure of the arrangement. Which, for now, had to be good enough for me.

The first thing I did was glance toward the table in the corner—the one where I’d last seen Allerra, when we dropped her off here on our way to our date with the Authority jail. I wanted to see her here, safe. I wanted to rush over to her, ask whether she’d known about any escape route, and hear that she knew exactly where we were supposed to go and what we were supposed to do.

Maybe even hear that she knew how to get in touch with Nathan and Little John. Where to reach Zion. How to get us to safety.

But the table was empty.

“She’s not here,” I murmured, gesturing with my chin.

Jace looked at the table, then scanned the entire seating area, frantic at this additional disappearance.

“Maybe she’s locked herself in the bathroom?” Jackie asked hopefully, then rushed over to the restroom and darted inside.

She returned a few moments later with a grim look, and I exhaled.

“Dammit,” Jace said.

I nodded at the comment, but had to admit I didn’t feel completely surprised. Nothing had gone right since we’d woken up in that meadow, so why would we have found her here? Zion and Alexy were missing; Cloyd and Nathan were ignoring our calls; no one was answering texts…

And now we had confirmation that the Authority was after not just the people we’d broken out of prison, but us, too. And they evidently had photographs.

I put that thought away immediately, not yet feeling ready to process all the implications of it, and glanced around the place. It looked like a normal day in a normal coffee shop, with patrons sipping their coffee while reading books, looking at magazines and their phones, and even playing chess. It didn’t look like anything special. Hopefully the Authority agents wouldn’t think to search for us here.

We made our way quickly to a table in the back, and I passed my gaze over the place again. I also didn’t see Ant or the others. I hoped they were in the library making prints, and not in some van on the way to prison.

I was frowning and about to say something about the others when they walked right through the doors, large stacks of paper in their hands. I sat up straight and waved at them, and they approached and fell into chairs, looking as relieved to see us as I felt about seeing them. And given the large amount of paper in their hands, I was guessing they’d been successful with printing out the timeline. Which meant we at least had a start on our next step.

Ant walked right to Jackie, pulled her up out of her seat, and wrapped her in his arms.

“I’ve never been so happy to see you,” he murmured. “When you didn’t show up at the library, I just knew I was going to have to break into another jail to rescue you.”

I couldn’t see Jackie’s face, but I could imagine the grin she was wearing, and the way she was feeling inside.

“So?” Kory asked, dropping into a seat next to Jace. “We did our job. We have the timeline. But you guys just disappeared. What happened? Have you found Allerra? Did she know anything?”

“Not quite,” Jace replied, his voice low and tense. “We were about two blocks away from the place when we ran into an Authority agent.”

Kory sat up straighter and stared at Jace. “What?”

Jace nodded. “Yeah. And he knew who we were. He kept looking at his phone like he was matching our faces to pictures he had there. Even pulled out a badge and shouted that we were under arrest.”

“And can I just note how insanely scary that badge was?” Jackie cut in. “It was 3-D, reached right out toward us like it was going to grab us and take us to jail itself.” So that hadn’t been my imagination.

“But you guys got away,” Kory said.

“So it would seem,” Jace muttered. “But I don’t think we have much time to hang around in the city anymore. The public might not be looking for us, but the Authority agents definitely are, and this one wasn’t even dressed in the usual blue jumpsuit. He looked like some businessman just out for a walk.”

“That means they’ve got people under cover as well,” Kory said. “That’s fun.”

“Exactly,” Jace continued, giving Kory a pointed look. “And I’m willing to bet that they have spies as well. Which means we can’t know who’s harmless and who’s not. I don’t think anyone followed us here, but it’s only a matter of time before we see another one of them. We’re going to have to think of something better. Allerra isn’t here, which means we’re officially out of people to search for, and people who might know about any plans Zion or Alexy had for us after the jailbreak. We have to figure out how to move on by ourselves. But we can’t stay in the city. It’s too dangerous.”

At that moment, the volume on the coffee shop’s TV was turned way up, and we all whirled toward the counter where it sat. To my utter horror, it was a news program—and it was talking about the jailbreak from the night before.