Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(58)

“So what next?” I asked, after a moment. “How do we make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else? That is what we’re doing here, right?”

Jace shook himself back into the real world as well and glanced around the circle of faces. “Samsfield,” he said simply. “That’s the only answer we have to those questions right now. As for the people we’ve already lost… Have we all still not heard back from the rest of the team?”

Everyone pulled out phones and started checking various communication routes, but there was a unanimous shaking of heads. I was sure we’d probably all expected it, honestly, because we would have heard our phones go off. I’d taken a moment to type a quick text to Gabby after we finished with the timeline, and had sent her all the pictures to get started on researching whether there was news of those raids in the papers, and I’d received a confirmation of receipt—and a note to be careful because she was evidently “going out of her head,” whatever that meant.

But she was the only one who had been answering me.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “And we’re going to have a bigger problem soon. My phone is running out of battery, and there’s not exactly a plug out here for charging. Not to mention a coverage problem. Before long we’re not going to have any way of contacting the outside world. We’re going to be legitimately underground.”

Then I looked up, frowning. “Hold on, Jace, you have Nathan’s personal number, and he has yours. If you’re so important to him, why isn’t he trying to find you? And why hasn’t Little John sent someone after us? I’m not saying they’re related, but they’ve never failed to save you before.”

Jace held up his shattered phone. “Even if he is—even if they were planning on it—I’m not traceable anymore,” he said quietly. “I suspect that some of the phones had bugs on them, which is how Little John found us so easily, but if mine did, it’s toast. I’m sorry, Robin, but we’re not going to be able to count on any help from that quarter.”

A chill settled into my bones as I gazed back at him, the only answer to his statement a chorus of howls from outside.





22





Moments after the wolves stopped howling, Jace rose to his feet.

“Start gathering the supplies we won’t need in the morning,” he announced.

“Huh? What?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

He heaved a deep sigh, as if he’d come to a conclusion that he very much disliked, and looked around the cave. “As convenient as this place is and as much as I hope we find Corona tomorrow and she solves everything, we can’t count on it. And I don’t want to be coming back here again if we can help it. We know the Authority is searching the area, and we know they may have found the rock face below. If they find their way up, it only leads to one place.”

“Our valley,” I finished. He was right, though I never would have admitted it if he hadn’t brought it up.

This place felt safe because it was so far removed from the forest below, where my house sat. But the truth was, the Authority was searching the entire area, and they knew we were here somewhere. They weren’t going to let any stone go unturned.

Or unclimbed.

The rest of us groaned, got to our feet, and started moving around gathering what we thought we could do without for the night. But it was more difficult than it had originally sounded. What did we keep and what did we leave? What was actually necessary?

“Keep enough food for the morning,” Jace said, seeing my hands hovering over our small store of Nurmeal. “One bottle for each person. And keep the vegetables. They won’t travel, so we’ll eat them in the morning. Pack the medical supplies. Pack the timeline. Keep the blankets because we’ll need those tonight.”

“And where exactly do you think you’re going to leave all this stuff we’re packing up?” Kory asked.

“In the trees by the ledge,” Jace answered, sounding as if this was the most logical thing in the world, and like Kory should have known the answer already.

Kory gave him a long look, then started laughing. “In the branches?” he asked, shaking his head. “You think the Authority won’t notice that?”

Jace gave him a quick grin. “Our parents never did.”

“Except something tells me the Authority is going to be looking more closely for us than your parents would have looked for anything,” Abe noted.

Kory snorted. “If you think that, it’s obvious you never met Jace’s mother. You never saw how seriously she took it when he stole her things and hid them to get back at her for not letting him do what he wanted. Hiding things in the trees was one of his favorite tricks. But it did always work.” He shook his head, and then started moving quickly through the cave, gathering things and putting them into a pile, or shoving them into the boxes.

I watched him moving, then turned my eyes to Jace, unsure whether to laugh or cry at this sudden glimpse into what must have been a truly unique childhood.

Then, shaking my head, I started packing things into the box in front of me.

If we were going to stay in the forest, moving to another location was the only smart choice, and having our supplies out of this cave would make for easier collection. We couldn’t leave them here for the Authority to find.