Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(62)

He shared a glance with Kory, and I put it to the side, not wanting to think about the fact that they were talking about the guns—and shooting whoever was left with the scooters.

“Right, so we’ll say the scooters are even still there, and we manage to get through whoever the Authority left with them,” Abe said. “Then we’ll assume that we’ll be able to hotwire them again. What then?”

“We get to Samsfield,” Jace replied. “And we already know what we’re doing there. I even have an address. Any more questions?”

He paused for a moment, waiting for anyone to add anything, but silence was his only answer, and he nodded once, accepting that everyone was in agreement.

A moment later, he was barking instructions at the rest of us in regard to what we were taking and what we were leaving—just enough, it seemed, to make the Authority believe that we were coming back—and within ten minutes we were walking out of the cave with Jace’s backpack, a couple of guns, all the blankets and sheets we’d been using the night before, and a large, strong stick for me to use as a crutch in case walking became too difficult. We were leaving behind more than I was comfortable with, including some of our food, but we couldn’t carry it all, and there were important reasons to leave it behind.

With luck, we wouldn’t be coming back up to the forest at all, because Corona would be ushering us to safety.

I rushed through the forested valley after Jace with that thought pushing me along, and before long we were in the chasm, Jace taking out his compass to guide us.

“How do you even know which way we came from?” I asked, struggling to keep up with him on my still-not-quite-right leg.

“Natural sense of direction,” he replied. “I’ve spent most of my life figuring out how to tell north from south and east from west without using a compass. The sun is there”—he pointed right toward the sun—“and when we got here last night the last glow was there.” He pointed in a different direction. Then he pointed in the first direction again. “That means that’s east, where the sun is rising, and there”—a finger in the second direction—“is where west lies. We were walking right toward the sun setting last night, so we’re reversing that now. Once we get into the forest below, it will be trickier. That’s why I have this.” He held up the compass and gave me a quick grin, and I shook my head.

“We’d be totally lost if it weren’t for you,” I told him.

“I get that all the time,” he replied with a chuckle. Then he strode ahead of me, toward Ant. “Ant, do you have your gun ready? We’re about to hit the gorge that leads out of here, and then the trail down the rock face. I don’t know what we’re going to find in the forest below, but I want to be prepared for anything. That means having the weapons within easy reach.”

Nelson appeared at my side and shoved her arm under mine to support me. “How’re you holding up?” she asked.

“You don’t have to help me,” I said, laughing, but she shook her head.

“You were helping me. That’s how you got shot. Figure it’s fair play for me to give you a hand.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” I said, leaning on her a bit more heavily. Then I remembered that I hadn’t yet really talked to her since we rescued them. And I had questions. “You know, we went to your offices after we got back from the raid. To see whether you were somehow still there.”

She glanced at me, her eyes wide. “Well, that was suicidal. After what you heard? You must have known that the Ministry—or the Authority, I suppose—would have spies watching it.”

We hit the chasm, then, and the ground turned rocky. I grunted and leaned still more heavily on her. My leg was better than it had been, but as long as I had the offer of support, I was going to take it. Maybe it would help me save my leg until I really needed it later.

“I was actually forbidden from doing it, for that very reason,” I told her. “Nathan forbade me from trying to find you.”

“So you went against his orders,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, Robin.”

“Of course I did!” I said. “I needed to see whether you were still there!”

She shot me a grin. “I appreciate that. And what did you find?”

I remembered that burnt-out shell of a building in the night, the beams rising up from ashes. The smell of barbequed meat. The destruction in Nelson’s offices.

“They burned the entire thing,” I said quietly, picking my way carefully across the ground between the walls of rock. “There was nothing left. I mean, just ashes. We were lucky to get out of the building without falling from your floor down to the ground.” I paused, trying to figure out how to ask the next question. “We found your hard drives, though.”

“How many?” she asked.

“Only two. We got them back to Ant’s, but they were both fried. Couldn’t take the heat, he said. But the third…”

“Is hidden,” she finished. “I was afraid something like that might happen. It was why I made three copies in the first place. But then I realized that it would be stupid to leave them all in the same spot. What if the building was destroyed? Or someone found them and destroyed them?”

“You do have the third one still!” I said, relief coursing through me. I’d thought she must, but until I’d heard it from her own lips…