Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(89)

Another bike pulled out onto the road ahead of us, and then a minute later, another, and Jackie glanced at me, the reflective visor of her helmet showing me nothing but my own expressionless head.

“Our turn,” she breathed. “You ready for this?”

I nodded firmly, got a good grip on my bike’s handlebars, and started walking forward, Jackie matching me stride for stride. Within thirty seconds we were at the road, and five seconds later we were mounted on our bikes and hitting the ignition switches. Both bikes roared to life, and it took us only moments to get out onto the road and hit the gas.

Five seconds later, an Authority van came screeching around the corner ahead of us and slammed on its brakes, skidding sideways to block the road almost entirely, and Authority agents in blue jumpsuits started streaming out of the van, their hands up and guns already aimed at us.





35





I froze for a moment, shocked at what I was seeing, my brain refusing to accept what my eyes were telling it. No. No, no, no.

The Authority. How could they have found us? Had Corona’s place been bugged, and they somehow figured out our destination? Had they followed her all this way? Had they caught her?

What the hell was going on here?

It didn’t matter, I realized. The Authority agents were less than five hundred feet from us—and they were going to be a hell of a lot closer the farther we drove. They had guns, and though I also had one, strapped to my hip, I knew that one gun against twenty was a lost cause.

We had to reroute. Now.

“Robin?” Jackie asked in my ear, via the comm. “What’s our move?”

“Turn!” I screamed, yanking the handlebars of my bike to the left in a completely stupid move that should have tipped me right onto the pavement—and sticking my left leg out to support me through the turn, to keep that very thing from happening. I got halfway through the turn and revved the engine sharply, knowing that we were sitting ducks and open targets to those Authority guys right now, and ducked as low to the bike as I could.

Behind me, I could hear the tires of Jackie’s bike screeching and knew that she was doing the same, and probably doing a hell of a lot better than I was. My tires were bouncing, now, the rotations too much for the speed I was going, and I let up on the gas a bit to get them to slow down. The minute the back tire stopped bouncing on the pavement and I was straight again, I yanked my foot back up to its normal resting place, hit the gas, and sped forward, the engine roaring with power.

A split second later, Jackie was right next to me, hunched and staring intently ahead at the road.

Behind us, I could hear Authority agents yelling into a megaphone about putting our hands on our heads and dropping our weapons.

“Where are we going?” Jackie gasped. “Do you have any idea?”

“You’re the one in charge of mapping things,” I murmured back. “Map it!”

But she wouldn’t be able to do anything like that, I realized. Not with the way this situation was playing out. We were zooming forward in a straight line right now, but we were going to need to start taking turns soon, if we were going to keep from getting shot, and that wouldn’t allow her to casually use one of her hands to type the new location into her phone. I wasn’t even sure the mapping system would be able to keep up with us, considering how quickly we were moving.

“What’s going on back there?” another voice suddenly snapped, loud and worried in my ear. “Why aren’t you guys coming out after us?”

Ant. He must have waited to go right before us. I’d forgotten that he had a comm on as well, allowing him to hear everything that Jackie and I were saying to each other right now. As would Jace.

But they weren’t going to be any good to us, no matter how bad this got. There were only five of them, and there were at least twenty soldiers on our tail.

No matter what happened, those five had to get away. They had to. Coming back here would only get them in trouble, too.

“Authority agents,” I said, motioning to Jackie that we were going to turn right at the next possible opportunity, and to let me take the lead. It would be easier for me to just make decisions and her to follow than to try to sign my intentions at every turn. “They came skidding in before we got to the main road. No idea how or why, but we’re running the other way now.”

“I’m pulling over,” Ant said immediately. “What do you need? What can I do?”

“Stay away from this place,” Jackie shot back. She’d dropped behind me now, but I could see her bike in my mirror and knew that her front tire was probably only inches from my back tire.

If I went down, I was going to take her with me. But we had to stay close together if we were going to get away from the soldiers behind us.

“You coming back here is only going to mean there are more of us to take care of, and I can’t possibly worry about you if I’m going to worry about myself,” she continued.

I could almost hear Ant wanting to argue, but I cut him off just as we hung a right onto the street and sped up the road, looking for any route that might take us through the houses. Around us, I could already see people running out into their driveways and opening their windows, trying to figure out what all the noise was about. This was probably more action than this neighborhood had ever seen, and if we weren’t quick, we were going to have to worry about the citizens themselves trying to help the Authority.