Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(94)

And we didn’t know where we could find it. Our only real shot had disappeared along with Corona.

“From there we figure out what our next step is, because going to some random address where we may or may not find safety is no longer an option,” I said, striding toward my bike. “Ant, can you manage Jackie?”

“I got this,” he said, scooping her up and moving toward his bike.

Kory and Nelson headed for their bikes, and after Ant nudged him, Abe jumped up and moved toward his as well. We put them into neutral and rolled them out toward the highway, then paused for a moment to stare back toward Samsfield, our gazes alert for anything that looked like it might be an Authority van.

“The sooner we’re out of here, the less chance they have of catching us,” Jace murmured. “Let’s ride.”

We took about twenty seconds to hop on our bikes and rev the engines, and then we were shooting forward, getting up to speed and merging back onto the highway, Ant and his precious package in our midst.

“Ant, you on your comm?” I asked once we were driving again.

“Yep,” he answered shortly.

“You have any problems, you ask for help. Don’t play hero.”

“Got it,” he said.

We spaced out a bit and sped forward, each of us doing whatever it took to avoid the cars around us. And I had one thing on my mind: trying to figure out where we could go to find safety and medical facilities. Because I could see that Jackie had passed out again, and I knew for a fact that even with all our supplies, we wouldn’t be able to fix whatever had happened to her.





37





By the time we got back to our forest, my body was humming with tension and fear. I didn’t like coming back here again, and I really didn’t like coming back here with a wounded Jackie. We knew that the Authority was in the area.

We just had to hope our hiding place would be good for another few hours.

“As my dad used to say, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” Jace told me when I said something to him about it. “Going back to the same place doesn’t make me happy either, but until we can get Jackie stabilized, I don’t want to chance going somewhere entirely new.”

He motioned us forward with his chin, and everyone began to roll the bikes toward our set of trees, Jace in the lead. I followed Jace at first, but quickly fell back to try to help Ant, who was rolling not only his bike but also a floppy and relatively uncooperative Jackie. She hadn’t regained consciousness during the drive, and she looked pale and inert now—two things that seemed wholly unnatural, given how animated the girl had always been.

I gulped, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the situation, but tried to pull myself together. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen one of my friends hurt. It was just the first time I’d seen them hurt this badly.

“What can I do to help?” I asked, watching him as he struggled with the double load.

He grimaced. “Get her to sit up. Get her to be okay,” he said.

I swallowed. We hadn’t even discussed the possibility that we were doing more harm than good by moving her around like this when we couldn’t tell what was wrong with her. For all I knew, we were doing permanent damage, like paralyzing her or something.

I yanked my thoughts away from that. Get her to a safe place. Try to figure out what was wrong and what we could do. And then decide where we could find someone who could fix her, if we couldn’t.

One step at a time. That was all we could do.

“Just walk on the other side, I guess,” Ant said. “If she falls that way I don’t have to worry about trying to catch her or keeping the bike from falling on her.”

I nodded and fell in right beside him, so that my left side was covering Jackie while my bike rolled along on my right.

“What do you think is wrong with her?” he asked, his voice breaking a bit.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly. “But I’m guessing Jace will know something we can do to hold her over. And we’re going to find her help soon. I promise.”

I could hear Ant gulp, but he didn’t answer, and we walked in silence after that, moving quickly through the forest to keep up with Jace.

What felt like two hours later, but was probably less than one, we were coming upon our hiding place, and I turned my eyes toward the enormous, drooping oak trees. Seven of them, right in the middle of a copse of stately pines, like squatty mushrooms next to giant, soaring towers. I couldn’t have been happier to see them. I turned my bike naturally to the one where we’d stayed last night, but Jace held up a hand and stopped me.

“That one,” he said, pointing to the one that stood exactly in the center of the copse.

“We’re moving?” I asked, surprised.

“We are. I want to be closer to the inside of the copse. We’ll have longer to prepare if the Authority shows up, and more options for getting out of here,” he said firmly. “It’s a lot harder to surround the entire set of trees, and if they search the one where we’ve been staying and don’t find us there, they’ll have to take their time searching the other ones before they get to us in the middle.”

I tipped my head in assent and changed my direction. It made sense. I just wasn’t looking forward to carrying the supplies over from the other tree. My arms were still exhausted from having supported Jackie during the short drive from Samsfield to the spot where I’d met the others.