Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(41)

“How the hell does that thing have a path carved into it?” Abe breathed.

“Weather,” Jace answered with barely a pause. “It’s the only possible answer. We’re too far out in the wilderness for that to be manmade.”

We stood staring as the wolves climbed, and within thirty seconds the first wolf had disappeared into the canopy of the forest.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Abe said, his voice slightly panicked. “We are not going up that thing. There’s no way! We don’t even know where it leads!”

Then a shout rang out from behind us, and Jace turned quickly to him.

“We don’t have a choice, Abe,” he said. He gestured to the left and right. “We’re in a gorge, surrounded by rock. Forward is the only option. Up is the only option.”

Abe gazed up at the rock, then whirled around at the sound of a gunshot.

He looked at Jace, and a second later he nodded, his chin growing firm.

“Up, then,” he said. Then, without breaking the connection with Jace, he added, “Ant, you go ahead of me. You’re carrying more weight than I am, and I want to be able to catch you if you slip.”

There was a sigh from Ant, and then we were moving toward the rock face in front of us, Jace hissing directions at the group.

“I’m not sure exactly how far back those Authority soldiers are, but they’re going to have trouble tracking us without the help of a trail through any underbrush. If they find this place—and that’s a big if—I don’t want them to have any idea that we’ve gone up rather than somehow doubling back and heading out of the gorge. Their first assumption will be that we’ve backtracked, because unless they notice that narrow ledge, they’ll never believe we tried to climb sheer rock. That means moving fast, so we’re out of sight before anyone gets here. Robin and me first. Kory, you bring up the rear. Don’t be afraid to use your gun if you need to. If they see us, our cover’s going to be blown anyhow. Everyone else, move as quickly—and carefully—as you can.”

We reached the base of the rock, and I looked up at the face of it, my heart thundering in my ears. Sure. Just climb up a ledge in the side of a rock with no ropes or anything to catch us if we started to fall, and do it in a hurry, with people who wanted to kill us rushing up behind us from the forest. No problem at all. This was going to be—

“Robin, you’re going first,” Jace said grimly. “I would put you behind me so that I’m the one who comes out first, but I won’t be able to help you if you’re behind me. Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you with my hands on your hips for guidance.”

I nodded, still wordless. Hands on my hips. Good. Guidance: also good.

Another shout from the forest jolted me into action. I stepped quickly forward onto the ledge. The quicker we go, the quicker we’re done, I told myself firmly. Just one foot in front of the other.

Jace’s hands dropped onto my hips, moving forward and backward until he found a good grip, and then we were heading upward, our bodies pressed tight against the rock face, our feet shuffling along on the rock below.

I kept my eyes on the path ahead, moving along more quickly than I could have imagined possible, and did everything I could to ignore the rapidly increasing drop to my left. I tried to think about my feet, and Jace’s hands on my hips. If anything happened, he would catch me. Just keep your thoughts on that and everything should be fine.

“You’re doing great,” Jace’s voice said from behind me—accompanied by a sudden squeezing of his hands on my hips—and I was suddenly fighting the urge to squirm at the feel of his hands on my body. The realization of where exactly those hands were.

Oh sure, it was fine before, and now you’re going to make a big deal of it, I told myself firmly. Get it together, Robin!

A few moments later we had reached the canopy of the forest, and here I did look away from the path, amazed at how beautiful it was. I’d climbed trees when I was a child, of course, but I’d never seen this sort of tree up close—and certainly never when it was full of birds and squirrels. We were in a combination of oaks and pines, the small, rounded leaves of the oaks sliding in between the thin needles of the pines in a dance of complete opposites, the smell sharp and green in my nose. It was like entering an entirely different world.

A sudden scuffle sounded out from behind us on the path, and I turned my gaze quickly toward the rock and back, peeking through the crack of space between Jace and the cliff, worried that something had happened.

Instead, I saw that Nelson was almost right on top of us, moving up the path like a lizard, with her belly to the rock face and her back to the drop. She turned her eyes up to me and gave me a quick grin.

“Less chance of looking at the fall,” she whispered.

Then she froze at another scuffle behind us and turned her head to look backward on the path.

“Ant, you okay?” she whisper-shouted.

There was a long pause that made me bite my lip in worry. What if the scuffle had been someone else slipping? What if the weight of the boxes had been too much for one of the boys? What if—

“Fine,” Ant called back, his volume subdued. “Just climbing up the side of a rock with two boxes in front of me, which makes it impossible to see where I’m putting my feet. Plus, the Authority is after us with big-ass machine guns, ready to shoot us down on sight. Just fine… How much farther does this thing go?”