Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(92)

Suddenly, Jackie coughed and started trying to sit up.

“Oh my God, what the hell was that?” she asked hoarsely.

She froze about halfway up and collapsed back onto the pavement.

“Oh my God, I’m broken,” she wheezed. “Robin? Is that you? Something inside me is broken. I can’t… I can’t feel my legs very well, and I feel…”

“Well, you were just involved in an explosion,” I replied, leaning over her and trying to catch her eyes. Her gaze was wide and vacant, and for a moment I was afraid she’d somehow gone blind. Then her eyes spotted me and latched on, coming quickly into focus.

I grinned, unable to stop the feeling of relief that was rushing through me and reached down to scoop her up.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said, sliding my hands under her knees and then around her back behind her shoulders. “I’m sorry in advance for how much this is going to hurt, but we can’t stay here.”

To my surprise, she started struggling against me. “You’re right!” she huffed. “You’ve got to get out of here. Just leave me, Robin. I’m injured, and you’ve got to leave me behind and get yourself out.”

I leaned down and shoved my face in hers, daring her to look away from my gaze. “Not in a million years,” I said clearly. “I’m not leaving you behind, and that’s my final answer. Now, take a deep breath. Something tells me this is going to be unpleasant.”

I shoved my arms under her and lifted, and she cried out, but didn’t struggle any more. I sent a prayer of thanks up into the sky above me for how light she was, then staggered back toward my bike, moving as quickly as I could and sending another prayer asking that the Authority be far away.

I had no idea how I was going to get both of us onto that bike. I didn’t think she’d be able to hang onto me, and if I couldn’t put her behind me, I didn’t think this was going to work.

“Put me in front of you,” she breathed out. “Facing forward. You’re going to have to hug me to reach the handlebars, but it’s the only way we’ll be able to do this.”

I jerked, surprised at how lucid she was, then nodded firmly. I got to the bike and set her down gently, moving her so that she was straddling the seat, then threw my leg over the machine behind her and climbed on.

It was a tight fit, no doubt about it. But we were both small girls, and this way I could keep her between my arms. I was going to be exhausted by the time we got out of here, but I would have done that and a million times more to keep her safe.

I hadn’t been lying when I told her I wasn’t leaving her behind. My mind wouldn’t accept that as any kind of option.

I leaned forward, hit the ignition, stretched out to grasp the handlebars—with Jackie huffing a soft laugh at my difficulties—and then hit the gas and tore up the street, my eyes on the mirror, watching for Authority agents coming up behind us.



We got to the highway without anyone on our tail, and I turned right and sped toward Trenton, and the forest that was our current home base. More importantly, I got back on the comm.

“Where are you guys?” I gasped, my left arm already aching with the effort of holding Jackie up. She was definitely damaged in some way, and it seemed to be on her left side, because I couldn’t get her to sit up straight to save my life. She’d also stopped talking, and that made me really worried.

I hadn’t seen any blood, or anything that looked like burns, at least on the exposed skin. Her second-skin suit should have protected her from anything like that on the core of her body and most of her limbs. But a lack of injuries on the outside didn’t mean everything was okay. There were a whole lot of bones and organs inside that could have broken with a fall like that.

“Hello?” I asked more sharply. Where were they? What had they done, waited until we were really in trouble and then—

“Robin?” Jace suddenly asked in my ear. “Where are you? What happened? We heard an explosion, and one of the comms started fizzing out, making a bunch of noise.”

“That’s Jackie’s,” I said. “She was involved in an accident. I need you guys; where are you?”

“Fifteen minutes up the road,” he replied. “Is Jackie okay?”

I inhaled. Was it better to tell them now, or better to let them see it themselves?

“No,” I answered a moment later. “She’s hurt, but I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I took care of an Authority agent that caught up to us, and I don’t think the rest of them know exactly where I went, but they’ll figure it out, and fifteen minutes away isn’t enough distance from them.”

Fifteen minutes away wouldn’t even give them time to lose the sound of the bikes, I didn’t think. And I definitely didn’t want to be sitting there on the side of the road if they came after us. We needed more distance.

Then I remembered that there had been a copse of trees a bit further along. There weren’t many, and I’d discounted them as a permanent hiding place right away, for that reason. But right now, they seemed perfect. At least they were something other than sitting in an open field.

I shifted my grip with my left hand, flexing my bicep to keep the arm tense so that I didn’t drop Jackie, who was now leaning heavily across my arm, and revved the engine. More speed would make it more dangerous if she fell, but it would also get us to those trees more quickly.