Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(73)

“The laundry chute!” I exclaimed. “Perfect!”

I turned to the others and began speaking quickly. “This will lead right to the laundry room, which should sit right off the kitchen, or at least be close to it. And neither of those rooms should have a door to the outside in them. It just wouldn’t make sense. It’s going to be straight down, though, a sheer drop, so use your hands and feet—or even better, your feet and back—to brace against the sides of it on your way down, or you’re going to fall, and I can’t guarantee a soft landing. I’ll go first.”

I held out a commanding hand, palm up.

“Ant, gun,” I hissed. I’d handed mine back to Jace earlier, and now I needed to remedy that problem.

He didn’t even stop to ask me why, and a second later the gun was in my hand, the handle nestled comfortably against my palm. I felt a thrill of sudden confidence run through me but didn’t stop to appreciate it. The gun slid easily into the waistband of my shorts, and I nodded to the others.

“Wait for my signal, then give me about five seconds,” I told them. “I don’t care who comes first, but we’ve got to move quickly. Let me get into the laundry room and look around. If it’s safe, I’ll give you some sort of new signal. If it’s not, I guess you’ll hear shooting. Or me screaming. In that case, stay in the chute and try to get back up.”

That was going to be an impossible chore, and I hoped they wouldn’t have to try it, partially because if they were going up, it meant I’d been captured or shot. Worst-case scenario, indeed. I turned, threw the door of the laundry chute up, and reached in to grab the support bar I knew would sit at the top of the chute. I didn’t know much about construction, but this chute would lead all the way up to the top floor, and they’d put these bars across the tunnel right above each door, presumably for support.

Thank God we were only on the second floor. We would never have been able to get past them if we were any higher up.

A moment later I’d grabbed the bar and pulled myself through the door, and was dangling over the sheer drop of the chute. Below my hanging feet, I could see only dim light. Corona hadn’t turned on the lights in the laundry room, then. Not that big a deal, I told myself. I didn’t need to see what was down there. I just needed to get there.

I moved my feet to the wall in front of me and pressed the balls of my feet against it, my toes pointing upward at an extreme angle, and cringed. I’d spent large amounts of time in this position in my youth—either hiding to get some peace from the household or reading a favorite book—and had been able to maintain this pose for some time. But I’d been younger then, and I hadn’t had an enormous bruise on my thigh. Right now, I was glad that I wouldn’t be here for more than the thirty or so seconds it would take me to creep down the chute to the bottom floor.

I pressed against the wall and moved my body backward until my back was against the other wall—only about a two-foot space between my feet and my back—and waited until I thought I had everything set, then slowly let go of the bar above me, barely daring to breathe.

My weight held, and I sat there for a split second, wedged between the two walls, then realized that we didn’t have time for me to be taking so long.

“I’m good!” I whispered. “Lowering myself now!”

I grabbed the gun out of my waistband, checked that the safety was still on, and started to scoot down, shuffling my feet downward and allowing gravity to move my body for me, the gun held right above my knees. Once I started moving, I remembered how easy it was, and I started going more quickly. Above me, I heard someone moving into the chute, and looked up.

It was Jackie, and she was looking down at me with panic.

“Grab the bar over your head!” I hissed. “Use it to swing yourself in!”

She looked up, saw the bar, and nodded, and I looked back down below me. I didn’t have time to help her. I had to figure out what I was going to find down there, and how I was going to take care of it.

I started scooting again, allowing my body to move even more quickly now that I was getting closer to the bottom, and heard someone else entering the chute above me. I didn’t look up. Around me, I was starting to hear the sounds of the soldiers searching the house, and it didn’t sound as if they were being gentle about it. There were bangs and breaking glass, and they were shouting at each other, calling out that they still hadn’t found anything.

I took a moment to feel sorry about what the house was going through. If the artwork on the walls above was any indication, Corona had filled her house with beautiful and valuable things. And the Authority soldiers were breaking them without a thought.

Just like they broke people who didn’t agree with them.

I looked down, saw that the floor was only about ten feet away from me now, and realized that we were in luck. Corona had been using this chute, and right below me was a large rolling basin. A basin full of laundry. It would be dirty… but it would also be soft.

I slipped down five more feet, then turned the safety off on my gun, pulled my knees sharply toward my chest, and allowed myself to fall the rest of the way.





28





I dropped into the bin full of clothes and froze, my gun up and ready in front of my face, my ears straining to hear anything at all. The room was dim and dusky around me. This was just the laundry room, and it wasn’t lit up, my mind said sharply. Would they even have bothered to search in here?