Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(60)

The night around me shattered into a million pieces, and I could have died of embarrassment and frustration. What was I thinking, to let him get to me this way? Of course he was just talking about going to sleep, and I was stupid to have expected anything more.

I nearly flopped over away from him, too mortified and frustrated to care about how it looked, and honestly angry—at both him and myself—for the way this was going. Had I been crazy to think there was more happening here? Maybe so, but the way he’d touched me before had made me think…

He leaned toward me until our faces were only inches apart, and whispered, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to sleep right now. Even if it would be the smarter thing to be doing.”

I gulped and nodded, unable to find my voice, and finally replied, “I don’t want to sleep, either.”

A squeal suddenly sounded out from the other side of the cave, and we both jumped, and then quickly put space between us as if we’d been caught doing something wrong. I glanced across the cave, wondering what had happened, or who had caught us, but only found Ant sitting up and looking around, horrified.

“Was that you?” he asked me, his eyes enormous.

“Nooo,” I said, trying to figure out exactly what had happened. Had that been Ant squeaking in his sleep?

He looked around dazedly, as if he was trying to get his bearings again, and then lay back down and went immediately back to sleep next to Jackie—who, I noticed, hadn’t moved through the entire ordeal. I frowned at that, wondering if it was something I should be concerned about, but then Jace scooted downward and rested his head on my shoulder, taking a deep, stuttering sort of breath.

“Tell me what you’ll do when this is all over,” he said. “Where will you go? What do you want to be once you’re finished being an outlaw?”

I almost laughed. Such a simple-sounding question, and yet there were so many layers to it. It certainly wasn’t a question with one simple answer. I reached up to run my fingers through his long hair, and though it was gritty now with dirt, I didn’t stop. I dug my fingers into his scalp and began to massage him, and he groaned deeply.

“God, don’t stop doing that,” he said. “But answer the question. Just keep rubbing my head while you do.”

I grinned. “The only thing I’ve wanted for the last two years is to find my daughter,” I told him, starting at the beginning. “That’s why I began working with Nelson in the first place. I was hoping she might be able to help me. And then I realized what we were doing, and what it meant, and I guess… I guess I started splitting my time between wanting to find Hope and wanting to fight the government that had taken her. The government who had taken a lot of babies. A lot of the time those two things have really been the same goal, you know? After all, the government is why I don’t have her anymore. And now…”

He shifted his head so he could look directly at me. “And now we’re on the run from that same government, and you’re worried that you might never find her. And that she might never even know about you,” he finished for me.

I nodded, tears coming to my eyes. I hadn’t thought about it like that, but he was right. I’d never known my parents, and the thought that my daughter might never know about me, about who I’d been and what I’d looked like…

“It’s not fair,” I whispered. “I never even got to hear her speak. She saw me smile, she looked into my eyes, but she’ll never remember that. They’re not just taking our children, they’re taking our hope.”

He reached up and stroked my jaw. “We’ll find her,” he said quietly. “If that’s what you’re searching for, then we’ll find her. I’ll make sure of it. I don’t want you to be scared or think you’re alone in this. No matter what happens, I’ll be here to take care of you.”

His eyes closed, then, and his head grew heavier, and within minutes his breath was slow and even again, the breathing of a happy, relaxed man. His cheek grew warm and sticky against my skin, but I didn’t move him. I turned my eyes up to the darkness, where the ceiling of the cave melted into shadows, and let my eyes go fuzzy, then closed them.

Outside, the wolves continued to howl, and a part of me stayed tuned in to the sound. But most of my brain relaxed, noticing only Jace’s head resting on my chest, the rest of his body pressing against me. And a part of me that had been wound up ever since the jailbreak began to slowly unwind, my heart thudding to the beat of his, my breathing slowing to match his.

I’d never thought about a future that held anyone other than Hope. I’d never bothered putting anyone else in that picture. Now I wondered whether I’d ever be able to think of a picture that didn’t have Jace in it as well.





When I woke up the next morning, the sky a predawn gray outside, he was still lying on me, and I stayed there for at least ten minutes, just enjoying the feel of him and the sense of peace it brought me. I knew I was going to have to get up soon, but for a moment, I lay there with the sun still just a smudge of light filtering between the trees outside the cave, and enjoyed life. Enjoyed what it would be like if we were normal people living a normal life. Well, not entirely normal, because we would be sleeping in a cave, but even so.

“Are you guys going to lie around all day, or are we going to get going?” Nelson suddenly said from right above us, her eyes staring down at me, caught between a laugh and a glare.