Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(67)

Before she could even finish, Ant hit the gas and pulled his scooter out onto the street, then revved the engine and shot forward, Jace and me cruising along after him. Behind me, I knew, Kory and Nelson would fall into line, with Abe in the rear.

The streets here were wide and airy, the houses around us built in a modified ranch style, each of them done in shades of red, taupe, and brown, so that they looked like a color-coded village. Each had a large, sweeping green lawn, and many of them sported copses of trees in front of the houses—both for increased privacy and a place for kids to play.

I’d been right in my memory of this place. The rich area was exactly the sort of place where adopted children were sent, to grow up rich and forget about their histories as they learned to circulate in the upper crust of society. Several of the trees had treehouses in them, and I paused for long enough to smile at the thought that the parents who lived in those houses cared enough about their kids to build houses in the trees.

Then the smile died, and I frowned. Those weren’t their kids. Those were kids they’d taken. Kids they’d maybe even ordered, if what we’d found in that Ministry warehouse was true. And though I was glad they were treating the children well, that didn’t change the fact that the kids had been confiscated from their parents.

Surely the adoptive parents knew that. It was a standing philosophy of the CRAS, and part of the Burchard Regime’s main platform. There was no way for the rich to have missed it, or to be misconstruing the truth.

Was there?

Jace jerked the scooter to one side, and I looked up from my musings to see that Ant had turned into a driveway and stopped. Jace followed quickly, and within thirty seconds we were all sitting on our scooters, staring up at the house we’d been sent to by Nathan’s directions.

It looked like every other house on this block. Probably like every other house in the entire development.

The Burchard Regime had taken control of all construction when it came to power, and they liked consistency. Which meant all of the poor areas—all the tenements and factories—were built out of old-fashioned red brick, with small windows and unimpressive doors. If we were lucky, the poor areas got some variety from the stone the regime used sometimes to build, and even, occasionally, whitewash.

The rich areas, on the other hand, got all the color and size. And all the grass. But all the houses in specific areas were painted the same colors and built in the same style. I didn’t know why, and I’d never bothered trying to figure it out. The government did things the way it did them, and we’d been taught for so long not to ask any questions that eventually it became habit.

Still, it surprised me to know that one of Nathan’s contacts was in this sort of area. Who was she, and how had she come to be in contact with Nathan, a man who was fighting the very government that made it possible for her (if she did indeed live in this house) to have the life she did?

I gazed up at the building, noting the taupe walls and red shutters, with the adobe-colored roof and enormous front door, and shook my head.

If she had enough money to afford a place like this, surely it meant she also had a way to get us out of the city and into safety.

“We can’t just leave these scooters parked in the driveway!” I hissed. “If the Authority is here and they’re looking for them, this will lead them right to her door!”

We grabbed the scooters and pushed them quickly toward the detached garage. The builders had for some reason left a space between the house and the garage, and it was exactly the right size for four scooters.

I shoved ours in first, and the others followed, and after a moment we had them at least somewhat responsibly hidden.

“Shall we?” I asked quietly. I glanced up at Jace and lifted an eyebrow. “Is there some sort of etiquette for this? Should we wait here or something?”

He reached out, grabbed my hand, and tugged me toward him. “If you think I’m walking in there by myself, you’re crazy,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”

We filed nervously up to the door, climbing the three steps it took to get there, and then stood, staring at it for nearly a minute.

“Well, this is going to get us nowhere,” Jackie finally snapped.

She took two steps forward and rapped sharply on the door. When there was no answer, she rang the doorbell. Three times.

A second later, a female voice that I could only describe as harried called through the door. “Who is it? Who’s there?!”

Jace and I shared a nervous glance, and then he cleared his throat.

“Um… My name is Jace Huxley, and… Nathan sent me.”

There was a crash on the other side of the door, and then it flew open, emitting a blast of cold air and the smell of something burning.





25





A woman’s hand appeared through the door and grasped around frantically. She yanked Jace into the house, then gestured for the rest of us to follow, and leaned out the door and glanced frantically around before slamming it shut again and moving to push an armoire in front of it.

Jace, after watching for a moment in confusion, quickly moved to help her.

Once that was done, she turned to us, and I actually got to see what she looked like. That was when I realized that she was beautiful. She had ivory skin, with deep raven hair, though there was a white strip running back from her right temple, as if she had a scar there and the hair had turned white in response. Her eyes were large and deer-like, and though she looked delicate and overly feminine, something told me that this wasn’t a woman you messed with.