Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(4)

A shiver ran down my spine.

“Where are we going to go?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Back to Trenton.” Jace said firmly, picking up his pace. “Anyone with phones, get on the encrypted app and see if you can get through to the people we’re missing. Ant, use your GPS to figure out where we are and where the closest train station is. I know where Zion and Alexy live, and that’s where we’ll start. We need to get the full story from them—along with an idea of what the hell we’re supposed to do next.”





2





It didn’t take us long to figure out that we had been well and truly deserted. We must have sent hundreds of messages on the encrypted app and through text as we marched into the forest, but no responses came back.

“Alexy, Zion, Allerra… even Boyd. None of them are replying to me,” Jackie muttered as she hurried to keep up with Jace, who was walking so quickly that I was having to limp-jog to keep up. “The messages are being delivered, but they’re not looking at them. Or if they are, they’ve figured out a way to do it without sending me confirmation that they’ve been read.” She scowled thunderously at her phone, and I felt a moment of sympathy for Zion and the others if we ever found them. You didn’t ignore Jackie unless you wanted to pay for it later, and now was not the right time to push her.

What I couldn’t figure out was why Zion and Alexy would have deserted us. Where had they gone, and why? I’d thought we were a team. I’d thought we were on the same side, but we’d woken up and found them gone, without a trace or any indication of what had happened.

Jace glanced at Ant, who was marching on my other side. “Ant, what have you got for us on the GPS readings?” he asked. “Where are we, and how quickly can we get to a train station?”

Ant didn’t bother to look up from his phone, and I twisted a bit to glance at him, wincing at the twinge in my leg as I did so. I’d been right—it was getting better as we walked—but every so often, I made a move that made it feel fragile.

“I can see where we are,” Ant said, interrupting my thoughts, “and the good news is that those Little John dudes put us down pretty close to a town with a major train station. Starkston, according to the map I’m looking at. About an hour by train from Trenton. Would have been nice if they’d actually taken us somewhere useful, but—”

“But they couldn’t have known where we would have been safe,” Jace finished for him. “And they weren’t exactly subtle, considering they were flying the largest airship I’ve ever seen. I don’t like it any more than you do, but putting us down in a meadow out of sight of any town was probably done specifically to keep us safe. After all—”

“We don’t know who might be looking for us,” I said.

That was the truth of the matter. We might be relatively secure right now, if you didn’t count the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere and had no idea where we were supposed to go or what we were supposed to do, but that didn’t mean that we would be safe once we reached civilization. The chances of us not being on some sort of public watch list were very slim.

“If they’d dropped us off in town, and if the government has gone public with our faces, we might have been arrested before we even woke up,” Jace confirmed. “We can’t know for sure yet, of course, but we need to assume that there are orders to report in and hunt us down.”

At that moment, to my surprise, Jackie let out a loud snort. “Listen, Hux, I don’t know where you’re from or what they did for fun there, but of course we can know for sure.” She typed madly on her phone, then shoved it in his face. Or rather, she shoved it as close to his face as she could. Given how short she was, it was more like shoving it at his chest.

I saw that she’d gone to the number one news site on the web.

“Take a look at that,” she said. “Front page news. And there ain’t nothing about us. Just a story about new factory regulations in terms of attendance and some sort of large celebration the government is planning for the anniversary of the regime change. The Authority might be searching for us, but they aren’t doing it publicly yet. Which means we have some security, for the moment. But we’d better move quickly. Before they decide they need to take the manhunt public.”

Jace took a deep enough breath that I wondered if he was going to argue, but then he just nodded.

“Okay.” He called out a range of orders. “Gabby, can you end the comm link for us? I don’t want anyone else picking up on it. It doesn’t look like there are any public notifications about us yet, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be, and we don’t have any time to waste. We’ll get in touch with you when we’re somewhat more settled. I want the healthy members of the team supporting anyone who’s wounded, and I want us moving in double time. Ant, you’re in charge here, because you have the map. Lead the way.”

I saw Ant straighten his shoulders and lift his chin at the increased responsibility.

“Right,” he murmured. “Guys, we’re twenty to thirty minutes’ walking distance from Starkston, according to my GPS. Per the train schedule, there’s a train that leaves the station in fifteen minutes, going to Trenton. We’re going to be on that train come hell or high water. Everyone stick as close together as you can, in a tight group. We don’t have time to lose anyone. Let’s move!”