Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(97)

“I never even thought of it, honestly,” I told her. “There were just so many other things that we had to take care of, and then we were constantly running for our lives from the Authority. Plus, with Corona, we thought we’d had a plan that had actually been set up by Nathan. We would have been stupid not to try it.”

“Well, I guess those are fair excuses,” Ant said. “The question stands, though: where is the place?” He sent a worried glance back toward Jackie, his brow furrowed. “And how do we get there with Jackie in tow?”

“Around four hours from Trenton, the last time we went,” Jace said bluntly. “That was by train and then by taxi. Neither of which is an option for us.”

Ant stared at him, all the hope draining from his face.

“Four hours?” Abe gasped. “Hell! If we’d known about that days ago, we could have been there by now! We should have started trying to get there right away!”

Jace put up a hand to stop the quick stream of exclamation mark-laden sentences. “I know, and believe me, I wish we had. But as Robin just said, we thought we had a better option. Something that was a sure bet and already organized, and probably required a lot less travel.”

“And something that didn’t work out so well,” Abe reminded him, his words blunt. “Something that ended up getting Jackie hurt. So now we’re going to be attempting that four-hour trip with a wounded girl on our hands. While still trying to hide from the Authority.”

Right, that was enough of the Ant and Abe show for the moment. Them blaming Jace was going to get us precisely nowhere.

“Enough of the whining,” I said sharply. When Abe rounded on me, I put a hand up to stop him. “Cut it out, Abe. It’s not helping. We’ve got a wounded Jackie, and we know that we can’t stay here much longer. We know that the Authority is on our tail, and that we’ve got a long distance to travel. So how about you put your mental energy into figuring out how we’re going to take care of all that, rather than blaming Jace for having made a perfectly reasonable decision at the time?”

Ant shot me a betrayed look—and Jace shot me a thankful one—and the entire group felt like it got right down to business with the problem at hand.

We had a destination in mind, and the fact that we were guaranteed safety in that destination made me feel a whole lot more secure. We just needed to solve the issue of transportation.

“So, we all agree that we can’t take public transport,” Kory said, cutting right to the chase and giving each of us a steady, even look.

“What if we took the bikes?” Ant asked, sounding as if he’d suddenly happened across the best idea possible. “We already have them, and we know they’ll make the trip. They’re all in great shape. I mean, except Jackie’s. And maybe Robin’s.”

I exhaled, having already written off the idea. “Do you want to drive that far trying to support Jackie?”

He shrugged. “We could split up that responsibility. I take her for a while, you take her for a while—”

“And do you think it’s a good idea to transport her in such an exposed manner? The bikes are great, but they don’t exactly offer a lot of protection when it comes to someone shooting at us,” I said, cutting him off.

“Especially when we don’t all have the fancy suits,” Nelson added. “No, we need something else. Something better. Something that gives us more protection, and a quicker trip. Hopefully a gentler trip, too, so we’re not damaging Jackie more than we need to. And something the Authority will never expect or think to look for.”

We all sat for a moment in the glow of the firelight, our minds moving through the problem. We were already restricted in our movements, thanks to the Authority swarming this whole area, and we had no money to make any kind of purchase. We also couldn’t afford to travel too far with Jackie’s injury. Where could we get something that the Authority wouldn’t expect? My first thought was to steal a car or something, but then I realized that we would never be able to take it all the way to the convent. If we stole anything, the enforcers would be notified and would know to search for it—and they’d notify the Authority.

No, we needed something that the enforcers and Authority couldn’t trace.

“The airship!” Ant suddenly exclaimed, his face gleaming. “It’s perfect! It’s smooth, so it won’t be tough on Jackie, and we know exactly where it is—and it’s far enough away from here that the Authority might not have found it yet.”

“That’s the obvious answer, but it’s far enough away that it’s going to be difficult to get to it,” Nelson said. “Plus, it’s out of gas. Marco and Julia said as much when we met them in the meadow.”

“And we don’t even know if it’s still there,” Jace added.

“Hmm. But Marco and Julia did hide it, remember?” I said. “It was covered in brush when we walked past it, and in the middle of a wooded area. There’s a chance the Authority didn’t find it. Why would they have been looking for it right there, anyhow? It might…” I paused, my thoughts flashing by and forming themselves into a highly unlikely—but not impossible—plan. “It might work.”

Ant snorted, his optimism evidently tamped down at the reminders of the problems with the airship idea. “Oh, sure. No problem at all. We can’t go anywhere or do anything without the Authority latching onto us immediately, but that won’t stop us from getting an airship’s worth of gasoline from someplace.”