Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(57)

“And you’ve been, what, looking for your real family ever since?” Kory asked.

Ant and Abe gave him long, identical looks.

“Wouldn’t you?” Ant asked.

“And your real names?” I asked. “As long as we’re all giving our real identities…”

“Ant and Abe are our real names,” Abe said, grinning. “Or at least, they sort of are. I’m Abraham, he’s Anthony. Only thing is our last name, which isn’t actually Lincoln. Last name of Richards. For now.”

I stared at them, surprised at this incredibly serious side of them, and how similar their story was to mine, in some ways.

“My real name’s Robin, too,” I said. “Robin Sylvone. At least…” I smiled at Abe. “For now. That’s the name the people who adopted me gave me. I don’t know where I came from. No idea about my family or who they were. I’ve seen some of my paperwork, though, and I know I was taken at birth. My real parents must have been incredibly poor—probably never even had a shot at keeping me. I was adopted by a man high up in the government and grew up on a rich street. Got everything I ever wanted. I actually liked my mom, though my dad was… intense. Had a lot of other kids around me. Kids that I loved like brothers and sisters. And that was enough, until I was a teenager and started thinking for myself. Then I rebelled. Fell in love, got pregnant. When I told my parents I was going to have a baby with a boy I hadn’t married, the man who’d been my father had my adoption revoked.”

Nelson, who knew about the fact that I had lost my child, reached out for me and took my hand. “Oh my God, that’s how it happened?”

I nodded. “The CRAS took the baby within days of her birth, and her father left pretty soon after that. I ended up in the factories… and then I found Nelson.” I gave her a fond grin, thinking about how that first connection had changed everything for me. How she’d taken such a chance to meet me and invite me into her group, giving me another shot at a family. “And that led me here.” I looked around at the rest of the team, surprised and fascinated by how close I suddenly felt to them.

I’d spent two years obsessed with privacy, terrified of anyone knowing my real name because of what they might give up if they were ever arrested. And then the worst had happened, and my friends had been arrested—and had not given up my name, because they hadn’t known it—and I’d come out the other side knowing that privacy wasn’t the most important thing.

Friendship and family were.

And those were exactly what this government was trying to take away from us.

“Nelly, I think you’re the only one left,” Ant said, lifting an eyebrow in her direction.

She gave us all a soft smile. “I guess I must be the only one here with the background I have,” she said. “Born into the middle class. I actually grew up with my real parents, and a younger brother. We were a happy family, for the most part, and I don’t have any complaints about my childhood. But my dad… didn’t agree with the Burchard Regime. He didn’t agree with CRAS, the Ministry, any of that. He didn’t know about the Authority, I don’t think, but if he had, he would have hated them. He was a schoolteacher by trade, but at night he was a revolutionary. Always coming up with ways to fight the man, going to secret meetings. He had an entire office that I wasn’t even supposed to know about, and the one time he caught me in there, he grounded me for six months. Then one night the enforcers showed up at the house.” She stopped talking suddenly and closed her eyes. “I grabbed my brother, and we ran. I knew enough to know that my dad wasn’t going to survive it if the enforcers ever showed up. I was surprised when they involved my mother, too.”

After a long pause, she went on. “When my brother and I got back, my father was gone, and my mother was lying in the entryway, dying. The enforcers had shot her trying to get my dad to tell them what they wanted to hear. She wouldn’t let us take her to the doctor—said she couldn’t allow us to endanger ourselves. She sent us into the closet in her bedroom, and behind it we found a hidden safe. There was new paperwork for us in there, along with the addresses of people we were to go find. I took my brother to one of the addresses, dropped him off, and haven’t seen him since. Too afraid to get him in trouble by showing up there again. Never saw my dad again, but I’m sure he’s dead. And I became Nelson Peters. Nelly to my friends. Had a baby, but she was taken three years ago. I’ve been fighting to find her ever since.”

I bit my lip. I’d never even known there were people fighting the government until I met Nelson. No wonder she’d been so wrapped up in it—it ran in her blood. “Real name?” I finally asked.

“My parents called me Natasha,” she said. “But I prefer Nelson. Natasha… I’m not that girl anymore. It’s been a long time since I’ve answered to that name.”

A long silence followed this announcement, and I gazed around the circle, wondering exactly where we were supposed to go from here. A group of wounded soldiers, each with our own twisted and damaged background… each with a vendetta against the government that had destroyed our childhood.

But then I shook myself. We didn’t have time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. We all had baggage, yes, but that was all the more reason for us to keep fighting. To take down the government that had done this.