Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(91)

I wasn’t. I hadn’t put mine back on after we took it off to doctor my leg. Suddenly my back felt like an enormous target, extremely vulnerable.

“Ant!” I shouted, when he didn’t respond.

“I’m working on it,” he said. “It’s just hard when you guys are moving so fast. But it looks like you’ve got another street one house away from you. Keep going straight, bust through another fence, and you should be out on a street that runs between houses. They have streets every three houses in that neighborhood. The good news is that my mapping system shows that everyone has gone back into their houses, so you don’t have to worry about hitting people.”

Bust through another fence. No problem.

“And from there?” I asked. “How do we get to the main highway?”

“Turn left,” another voice said.

“Jace,” I gasped.

I could almost see him nod, and the expression of grim determination he would be wearing.

“Yep. Heard what was going on via the comm. We’re all back here with Ant. Get out of there,” he said simply. “The road Ant told you about will take you up to the main highway. If you have to turn, turn right, and then left again at the next street. Every street leads to the same place. It’s laid out like graph paper. Impossible to get lost.”

“And it might be impossible to lose the Authority,” I replied grimly.

We reached the fence, and I ducked down, praying to anything that could hear me that this wouldn’t be the end of the chase, and took a deep breath just as I hit the wood.

My bike blew through it with a distinct and fairly scary stutter, and then I was skidding on pavement, my eyes moving back and forth with panic as I tried to figure out whether we’d come out on a street that was clear. I moved the handlebars to the right and the left, trying to regain control of my bike, and then turned to the left.

No Authority agents. Clear street straight ahead of us. We had a straight shot to the highway. If we’d managed to lose the agents behind us.

We took off up the street, no doubt breaking every speed limit in the entire neighborhood, and I watched the mirror on my bike anxiously, terrified of seeing that van pull into the street with us. We were making one hell of a racket, and it would only take slowing down and listening in order for them to find us. But that couldn’t be helped. If we managed to get out to the main road before they did, and get out of there quickly enough, I thought we might pull it off.

And if we did that, I’d spend the rest of my life thanking the lucky stars that had been watching over us.

True, they’d know we’d gone to the highway. But if we were gone long before they arrived, they’d have to guess at which direction we went. And they might guess wrong. Or they might not be able to catch up with us at all.

Then I saw him. It wasn’t the van, and it wasn’t even a group of soldiers. One guy on foot had managed to follow us through the backyards. He must have seen the hole we made in the fence and known exactly where we’d gone. He came tearing out of the last yard, turned to the left, saw us, and immediately dropped to his knee and brought his gun up.

A split second later, Jackie’s motorcycle exploded.





36





I swerved to the side of the road, came to a screeching halt, and jumped off my bike, knowing that no matter what had just happened to Jackie, I had to keep my priorities straight.

That agent had to die. And I was the only one here to take care of him.

I dropped to my knees and scooted behind the bike to take away his target, then yanked the gun from my hip and brought it quickly up to eye level.

Another bullet came flying my way, courtesy of the agent, but it went wide and hit the bushes behind me, leaves exploding out in a cloud around my head.

I straightened my gun. To my surprise, my hands were steady, my eyesight as sharp as it had ever been. And he was close enough for me to know that I could hit him. I could even see his face, since he wasn’t wearing a helmet. And that was the horrible part. I could actually see what he looked like—which was a big deal, considering I was about to kill him.

But it also meant that I could see that he wasn’t speaking. He hadn’t had a chance to call this in yet, and if that was true, it meant that taking him out would set us free. Sort of.

Plus, something seemed to be wrong with his gun. I didn’t know whether he was out of bullets (was that even possible?) or whether it had jammed, but he was knocking it firmly against the heel of his palm now, his expression panicked.

I narrowed my eyes, steadied my aim on his chest one more time, and pulled the trigger.

Two seconds later he dropped to the pavement. And he didn’t move again.

I leapt to my feet, leaving him for dead, and sprinted toward where Jackie was lying on the ground, part of her clothing smoking slightly. The remains of the bike were now spouting flames about twenty feet away from her. She’d been thrown off it immediately, far enough away from the fire that I hoped it meant she wasn’t too badly burned. Though, my bigger hope was that she was still alive.

Skidding to my knees, I put a hand to her forehead, then to her neck, and held my breath, straining against the world around me as I prayed for a pulse. Something—anything—to show me that she was still alive, still with us.

I was also praying for it to happen before more agents showed up. We were in the least defensible situation ever right now.