Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(35)

It was the obvious question. The men in black had rescued us not once, but twice. And that was just the situations we actually knew of. Which meant, I assumed, that they had some interest in our safety.

So why hadn’t they simply taken us back to their headquarters or whatever when they had us? Why had they put us down in that meadow at all? Could we really trust them, or were they going to keep hiding in the shadows and disappearing when we tried to figure out who they were?

Jace waved that away as unimportant for the moment. “If they didn’t want us safe, they wouldn’t have saved us,” he said. “And I’m certain that they’re somehow associated with Nathan. We need to figure out who they are and how to get to them before the Authority figures out where we are.”

“And how exactly do you suggest we figure all that out?” Abe asked.

Jace replied with a shrug. “As I said, we’ve got minds the Authority doesn’t. And a different point of view. We know Nathan; we know how his brain works. Maybe if we’re looking at it from the other side—just seeing the pieces the Authority has put together and matching it up with what we know—something will become obvious. And I have…” He stopped himself again, and I suddenly remembered how he’d hinted at something earlier and had stopped himself then, too. Was he keeping secrets from us? What wasn’t he telling us?

“I have other ideas,” he said shortly. “I can’t talk about them, but I have other… potential options. I just don’t know if it’ll work yet. I need a place where I can sit and work some things out.”

I stared at him, my lips parting. Well, that was really vague, and extremely unhelpful.

“What exactly are you talking about?” I asked sharply. “I don’t mean to question you, but it would be a lot better if we actually knew that there was a real plan here, Hux.”

He stared at me for a moment, then tipped his head in agreement. “You’re right. The truth is—”

“Come out of there with your hands up!” a voice suddenly thundered from outside. “Robin Sylvone, we know you’re in there! You’re under arrest for crimes against the Compliance Authority and the Ministry of Welfare!”

Jace’s mouth dropped open, and his eyes met mine with horror.

The Authority had found us.

We’d barely arrived and had taken only long enough to get some supplies. Yet we’d still stayed too long.





14





“The back door!” I hissed, already moving toward it as fast as I could.

The only thing I could think about was the fact that there were Authority agents right outside, agents who would have orders to either kill us on sight or take us in for questioning.

I was quite certain that neither of those options ended with us still alive.

Even worse, we didn’t know how many of them there were, or even where they were. I had seen enough to know that they wouldn’t have sent only one or two. No, those guys seemed to move in groups of about twenty—and they might have even more than that, given they were here to arrest dangerous jail-breaking terrorists.

We had to get out of here. Twenty minutes to gather supplies and try to plan had been fifteen minutes too long. And now we couldn’t even go back for the scooters—it would mean going right past the soldiers in front of the cabin to get to them. That wasn’t happening. Not if we wanted to get out of this alive.

“What back door?” Ant hissed back, falling in with me and rushing toward the rear of the cottage, despite the fact that he didn’t know what he was going for.

“There’s a door in the back of the cabin,” I said, moving toward the place where I’d put my bed. “It’s right behind my bed.”

And it was completely blocked. Of course. I’d never in a million years thought I’d need the door at all, which was why I’d placed furniture in front of it. Who needed a door in the back of a tiny cabin when you’ve got a perfectly good door in the front of it?

Jace darted right past me to where my bed—a tiny twin, big enough only for my compact frame—sat long-ways up against the wall. He crouched down and threw his hip against the head of the bed, shoving it quickly out of the way while Ant and Abe moved in tandem to pull the chest at the foot of the bed out into the middle of the room. The bed caught on the chest that I’d shoved underneath it, which was sticking halfway out now, courtesy of someone having gone into it to get the blankets and sheets I’d promised, and Kory swooped in to grab that one and tow it backward.

Ten seconds later, the bed was out of the way and the door was exposed: a rough rectangle in the wall that didn’t even have a doorjamb or frame on it. The door itself was made up of planks of wood that had been sealed together with some sort of glue, the doorknob rustic and old-fashioned.

The thing didn’t even have a lock on it, I realized. I’d never bothered about securing it before, because the cabin was in the middle of the woods. No one came out here, so there’d never been any reason to worry about whether or not I could lock this door. I did wonder, though, what the door had been put there for.

“We’ve got more men out here than you have in there!” the same voice shouted abruptly from outside. “Come out with your hands up, or we’re going to start shooting!”

“Get the boxes!” I whisper-yelled at the others. “And Jace’s bags!”