Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(23)

But we didn’t have time for sensitivity. Not now. My hand shot out and clenched his wrist, and I squeezed hard.

“Hux. We need a way out of here!”

I could feel everyone else leaning in toward him, and in the background, could hear the man named Walter still on the phone, giving our physical descriptions.

As if the Authority even needed them. They had us on camera, for God’s sake. They knew exactly what we looked like. And probably our names, and definitely our addresses, and, for all I knew, the names of all our siblings and where we worked, as well. This clinched it—we were absolutely never going back to our old lives, now. Nowhere to go from here but straight forward. As quickly as possible.

“Hux!” I hissed.

Finally, he turned to me, and I saw the mists of doubt and betrayal quickly clearing from his eyes. “Right,” he said, snapping out of whatever daze he’d been in. “I-I do have a backup plan. Nathan had warned me in the beginning that something like this might happen at some point. We have to get downstairs to my apartment, though, to get the things I need. The Authority is clearly on their way, and I’m under orders not to leave anything behind that could identify either myself or Nathan.”

“Go down to your apartment, are you crazy?” Ant hissed. “That’s an even bigger trap than this place! We have to get out of here, pronto, and get somewhere far away from town!”

Jace glanced at him. “Out of here, yes, but I absolutely cannot leave without the things I have down there. Particularly now that we know Zion and Alexy are gone. It will go faster if I have help, but if the rest of you want to leave ahead of me and meet me somewhere later, be my guest.”

“I’m staying with you,” I said immediately.

“Me too.” Jackie said, arching an eyebrow at Ant in expectation.

After a second of hesitation, Ant nodded. “If she stays, I stay. You guys?”

“He doesn’t even have to ask,” Kory replied, his face gone dark and serious. He turned to Abe and Nelson. “And as for you two, you’re too beat up and lost to be allowed to go anywhere on your own. So we’re all staying.” He widened his eyes at Jace. “How are we going to do this, Hux?”

Jace jerked his head in a nod, his body tense. “Okay, I’m not sure what Walter thinks he’s going to do, but he can’t stop all of us if we’re running at him at the same time. He’s only one guy, after all, and I don’t think anyone else in here is going to step in to help him…”

He looked around the room, his eyes ending up on the front door.

“Just follow me.” He stood up and rushed for the door.

None of us needed to be told twice. We were already halfway to our feet from tension and darted after him, knocking over chairs and customers, pushing and shoving when people got in our way. Behind us, we left a trail of broken coffee cups, chairs on their sides, and shouting people.

Walter screamed into the phone, “They’re getting away! They’re running right out the door!” His voice cracked on the high points, and I could hear the rabid need to chase after us in his tone.

It just made me run faster. My leg hurt, and every time I ran into something I seemed to be hitting the bruised part again, but nothing would be worse than being caught by the Authority. I skirted past a chair with an old lady in it, turning sideways so I would fit between her and the wall, and then darted forward, around another table and in between a couple standing near it. Beside me, Ant hurdled a table—followed closely by Abe—and Jackie ducked down and pumped her arms as she ran like a tiny bull for the door in front of us.

I hit the open door a split second before I heard Walter slam the phone down and scream even more loudly. “Get them! Don’t just sit around, those are terrorists! Stop them!”

I knew he’d be coming after us, but some part of me also realized that no one else was even trying to stop us. It would have taken little more than an outstretched leg or hand to have tripped or grabbed any one of us, but the people were letting us go. They might not be helping us, exactly, but they also weren’t hindering us.

I shot through the door to find Jace already turning right and rushing for the stairs down to his apartment. Ant, Jackie, and I flew down the steps after him, leaving the others to follow as quickly as they could. By the time I got there, Jace already had the door unlocked and was rushing into the apartment.

“Last person in, close and lock the door!” he shouted.

He ran into the apartment, grabbed some things from the kitchen, and then ran back and set them next to the doorway. Gas bombs, I saw when I glanced down. He’d been keeping gas bombs in his kitchen?

“But not until you throw these out! Pull the firing pins, toss them up onto the sidewalk, and then slam the door and lock it!”

Nelson and Abe had appeared by this point, and when Kory came running through the door, I grabbed the gas bombs myself, yanked all three pins out, and lobbed them up to the sidewalk above me—and right at Walter, who had appeared there, his face red from screaming. He stared in surprise at the bombs dropping at his feet, and I slammed the door just as they went off.

I couldn’t help but hope that one of them had somehow damaged his legs. The gas should put him to sleep immediately, but if his legs were out of commission it would be a guarantee that he couldn’t come after us. Maybe an injured man lying on the sidewalk would even slow down whatever enforcers were on their way.