The Child Thief 4: Little Lies

by Bella Forrest

His story had been a rough one, I remembered. He’d owned a construction company, or something? He’d had some sort of run-in with the government when he was younger. Had it been during a protest? He still bore a terrible scar.

  That reminded me of the suspicions I’d had earlier, in the Armory, though, and I tipped my head a bit. He’d given us the exo-suits. The same suits that Zion had later collected, and that I’d seen in the weapons building down the street.

  So what the hell was he doing here—and could it be that the connection I’d guessed at earlier was actually fact? I’d only met him once, and he’d been wearing a mask then, as paranoid about privacy as we were, and justifiably so, considering one of the other groups we were supposed to visit at the time had disappeared into a room we’d later found covered in blood.

  Now, I could see that he was incredibly good-looking, urban and sophisticated enough that he could have been the subject of a magazine centerfold. It was a face that looked like it was meant to charm, to smile. His hair was a soft, elegant sweep of silver, and he wore a deep blue suit that fit his muscular build perfectly.

  “Good evening, new brothers and sisters of Little John,” he said, his tone warm, his mouth smiling. He looked for all the world like he was… proud.

  “Montague?” I asked Jace “What’s he doing here?”

  He just shook his head, mystified.

  The man on the stage smiled even more broadly, like he’d heard what I was saying. “I’m sure you’re all wondering what I’m doing up here on this stage. I’ve met some of you already, of course.” He stopped to give my group a jaunty wave, and I smiled weakly up at him, still too confused to do much more than that. “But I know there are a lot of you who have no idea who I am.”

  He turned from the light abruptly and put his hands up to his face.

  For a moment, I wondered if he was in pain as he was scrubbing at his face, pushing several fingers through his hair, but then he turned back around.

  His face… was different. Less handsome in some ways, sharper almost, but still similar. It was like the man we’d been looking at had gone feral, his features growing more pointed. His hair was no longer a soft sweep, now mussed and sticking out in places. Yet, it still appeared intentional, still somehow expensive-looking, but less refined. Less gorgeous older man, more slightly dangerous man sitting in the corner of a bar telling the most amazing stories you’ve ever heard.

  There was a pain in my hand as Jace squeezed the living daylights out of it. His face was several shades paler, and his eyes were narrowed.

  “Jace?” I asked. “What is it?”

  He turned, confused and suspicious.

  “That’s Nathan,” he said.

  “That’s… Nathan?” Jackie asked from her wheelchair. Her voice was rough with pain and fainter than usual, but she was just as sharp as she’d ever been. I could almost hear the wheels already turning in her head. She’d been the only other member of our team who had heard Montague’s story.

  “He’s the man who gave us the exo-suits,” I said, for the benefit of the rest of the team. “Jace, Jackie, and I met him early on. It was that big house, remember, where Ant and Abe waited outside?” I looked back to the stage and the man on it. “So that was Nathan… posing as an ally of OH+.”

  Ant’s eyes grew wide. “That’s a little weird.”

  “Actually, it kind of makes sense,” I murmured, mind whirring. “If that’s Nathan, we know how paranoid he is. I bet he never goes out in public in his real face.”

  “So if he wanted OH+ to have fun toys to work with, it meant he had to find a way to get them to us,” Jackie said, following my line of thought. “But he was already in contact with all of us. Surely he could have just given us the suits and said they were for our next mission. Why the subterfuge?”

  “Because we were already in contact with him,” Jace said, his face caught somewhere between a frown of disapproval and a grin of admiration. “He couldn’t be involved personally, just in case. And we already know why. If that thing with Monty had been only a bit more organized, he could have ended up in the hands of the Authority. They would have recognized him in no time, and he would have been done for. So he never made his way into the city. He couldn’t be involved in any of our missions, other than to oversee things from afar. Putting on a disguise and showing us those suits in person—”

  It certainly explained how the Little John Armory had the same suits we’d worn on that mission. I didn’t add that, because I jumped right to the next—and more impressive—thought.

  “And doing it right under the Authority’s nose,” I continued. “Right in the middle of the government’s territory. Passing weapons to a squad he was going to sic on the government.” I shook my head in grudging respect. “That takes some guts.”

  Giving weapons to his hand-chosen warriors in the middle of a city teeming with Ministry and Authority agents had been the height of thumbing his nose at the government. Jace might have had a point, and Nathan might have just wanted to find a way to be more physically involved, but I was betting there was a lot more to it than just that. Popping up in the middle of their territory must have been an enormous personal victory, even if the government hadn’t known he was even there.

  Montague/Nathan was looking out over the crowd, enjoying the incessant murmurings. Now he put up his hands, gesturing for the crowd to be silent, and the noise trailed off.

  “If you’re all finished taking wild guesses at how I did that, who I am, or, in some cases, why I’ve done what I’ve done, I think it’s time to start introducing you all to the real Little John.”

  His voice had changed from that of a trickster to that of a businessman. Meanwhile, my brain was screaming about how I’d spent weeks mentally railing at him for putting us into impossible situations and then never being around when we needed him.

  Now that he was in front of us, though, something about him came off as not only charming, but also… trustworthy. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he gave off an aura of being someone who never did anything without a good reason. Add to that the fact that he had been in the middle of it with us—and in disguise, no less—and my feelings were starting to change.

  No wonder Jace trusted him as much as he did; no wonder so many people were following him into battle; no wonder so many people seemed to be funding and supporting him. He was the head of an organization like this… and yet he’d risked his life to stick it to the government, and personally make sure a brand new set of recruits had what they needed for their first mission.

  “Since you guys are new here, I want to start off by telling you a little bit more about myself. After all, I’m the reason you’re here. I manufactured situations to which you flocked, preying on your desire to change the world for the better, and then I more or less kidnapped you. I’m obviously a horrible person.” He paused and allowed the nervous laughter in the room to die down a little bit, and then his voice changed again—from joker to businessman.

  I wondered if I would get used to it. The change was so quick, so effortless, that it was as if he was taking off one mask and putting on another, flipping between them too fast to keep track of.

  “My story, then. I’ve been told it’s not safe for me to share it, but I think you guys deserve to know who I am, and why I’m doing what I’m doing.” He walked forward, stooped down, and sat on the edge of the stage, his legs swinging in front of him. The crowd shuffled forward, trying to get closer to him. Like moths to a flame.

  Beside me, Jace shook his head. “If I hadn’t known it was Nathan before, I certainly would now.” At my questioning look, he gave me a wry smile. “He’s a good guy. At least, he always has been to me.” He looked back to the stage and the man perched on the edge of it. “But he’s an even better showman. It’s why so many people look to him as a leader.”

  My impression of Nathan was growing and changing every second. I’d always thought him sort of negligent, but now I was starting to think I’d been mistaken. S
omething told me he was one of the smartest people I was ever going to meet.

  “I was born into a very wealthy family,” he began. “And as anyone can tell you, being born into the lap of luxury makes it a whole lot easier to continue to be wealthy. You have better opportunities, better schooling, better contacts, and, most importantly, more money with which to make your start at life. The wealthy have always gotten wealthier. It’s just the way economics works. Still…” He gave a rueful yet charming shrug, then swept his gray hair back behind one ear. “I didn’t ask for that life, and it didn’t take me long to look around and see that it gave me a whole lot more than just an easier start. Sure, my dad’s money helped me go to school and start my own construction company. It gave me a foundation from which to grow. But did that mean I should be allowed to have so many more rights than people who hadn’t been born as lucky? Did it mean I should be automatically awarded the ear of government officials, the bigger house, the safer neighborhood?” A pause. “Did it mean I should be allowed to keep my children when so many people my age weren’t allowed the same?”

  His voice had gone hard toward the end of his speech, and I could see the anger in him. The crowd around me was rallying to it.

  Oh yes, he knew exactly what he was doing. And, boy oh boy, was he good at it. The problem was, I couldn’t dislike him for it. Because so far, I agreed with everything he’d said.

  “I saw the inequalities. I saw how the Burchard Regime was hurting people. Hurting our society. And our history,” he said. “I had money, and I had safety. So, I decided to change things.”

  He grinned out at us, and I could have sworn his eyes rested on Jace, and then on me, for a little longer than anyone else. “I know what you’re thinking. It couldn’t have been that simple. It couldn’t have been that easy. And you’re right. It wasn’t. It took an enormous toll on my family. On my wife, and my baby daughter, and eventually on my company. I built an organization, the same one that owns the hall you’re standing in right now, and we started finding little ways to hit out at the government. Little knives we could stick into them. Little rebellions we could carry out. Maybe nothing big enough to visibly change anything, but it was a start. A first step.”

  He paused, and I could see the pain across his features, the lines around his mouth growing deeper as the memory of sorrow or difficulty came back to him.

  “But it was enough to seriously anger the government, and I wasn’t as careful then as I am now. They hurt me. Badly. I was forced to give up that life and go underground to protect my family. And to protect Little John, which I’d come to think of as family.”

  He got up and walked backward, then pulled the tail of his shirt out of his pants and lifted it up to his chest, to show his belly. The scar I remembered from before, the one real thing in his charade, streaked across his skin. Although old, it was still vicious, a testament to the physical injury he’d once had.

  “They tried to kill me. And I knew they’d do it again if I gave them a chance. I vowed I never would. I vowed I would take them down before they took me. That I’d return the country to what it once was. A land of freedom, where every man, woman, and child had a chance to make of themselves what they would, rather than the government making the decision for them.” He dropped his shirt but didn’t tuck it in again, creating even more of a rumpled, dangerous image. “And I’ve been working toward that ever since. I brought you here because you’re all fighting similar battles. I’m hoping you’ll join me in mine, because together, we have a better chance at winning than we ever did apart.”

  The roar of the audience was answer enough, and I roared with them, roused by some emotion I couldn’t quite name. The idea that we were part of such a large movement, the feeling of finally being a piece of something important, expanded and grew in my heart.

  This was what we’d been heading toward, then. Thank goodness we were finally here.

  Just as Nathan was putting his hands up to quiet us, Corona came rushing onto the stage, her face tense. She strode to Nathan and whispered something in his ear.

  All the showmanship went right out of him. His face grew still, his eyes losing their public shield, and he turned back to the audience.

  “I’m sorry, friends, I’m going to have to leave you now. I ask you all to get back to your rooms and get a good night’s sleep. Feel free to visit the kitchens again if you’re still hungry. I’ll see you in the morning. We’re going to be starting your training immediately.”

  With that, he walked off the stage with Corona, speaking rapidly, his hands flying through a series of gestures, leaving us staring after him, the adrenaline that had been rushing through our blood turning to dust.

  13

  We all stared at where the leaders of Little John had just disappeared, our raucous cheers dying away.

  Then Alexy was amidst our group, ushering us toward the door.

  “I guess that’s the end of the show for tonight,” she said tensely, dividing her attention between the door ahead of us and the stage behind us.

  “What just happened?” I asked, my hand tangling with Jace’s as we moved as a group to the exit of the ballroom, my voice just as tense. I cast one more glance around the ballroom, and caught sight of Henry’s back as he walked away with a different group of people.

  A part of me cringed, knowing we’d driven him away, in one way or another. Another part sighed in relief that he’d found other people to hang out with. He wasn’t a bad guy. But he wasn’t going to be allowed to go on any missions with us, given his unknown status. He was also part of my past. I still didn’t know whether he was going to be allowed to play a part in my present—or my future. Better if he was making new friends, rather than giving me a hard time for leaving him behind.

  “I’m not positive,” Alexy replied, “but I’ll get as much information as I can after I drop you guys off at your rooms, and report back. I’ve been named your team liaison, which means I’m in charge of getting you the information you need. In the meantime, I vote we get out of here before we get crushed by everyone else trying to get through these doors. It’s easy to get stepped on in situations like that.”

  “You don’t want to get stepped on? Try being in a wheelchair and incapable of getting out of the way in time,” Jackie grumbled from around hip-level.

  I dropped my eyes to see her sitting next to me, Ant at the handles of her chair and Abe striding menacingly along next to her, ready to do battle with anyone who even thought about trying to bump into her.

  “Looks like you don’t have to worry about that. You’ve got twin soldiers at your beck and call,” I said, grinning.

  She snorted. “Those twin soldiers are only as good as their attention span, and I’m so broken I don’t want anyone touching me at all.”

  I grew sober and hunched down so I could talk to her as we walked—and rolled—toward the door out of the ballroom.

  “Speaking of that. How are you feeling? What have the doctors told you? When can you come back to us? Are you on your way back to the hospital right now, or—”

  “Robin,” she interrupted. “I feel broken about twenty ways to Monday, and I’m on a whole cocktail of pain meds. There are many pieces of me that wish I were still asleep because that way I wouldn’t know how much it hurts. How about you restrict yourself to one question at a time? Keep in mind that I’ve already had this from Ant and his version of double trouble.”

  I had to keep myself from laughing at her definition of Ant and Abe, and nodded. “You’re right… sorry. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I was run over by that semi-truck you forced me to ride in.”

  I winced. Still, it was good to hear some of her trademark sassiness in the statement. “Yeah, sorry about that. Desperate times and desperate measures.”

  That earned a slight grin from her, and I felt a thrill of success. Then I reached for the next question, the one that really scared me. “What have the doctors said about… what’s wrong?”

 
The grin got bigger. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not going to die on you. But I think I’m going to be sidelined for a little bit. I’ve got contusions in places that should never be bruised, like my kidneys and my lungs, though I think they’re replacing something more serious with the word ‘bruises’ so as not to scare me. But there’s nothing really broken. I’m just sort of… crunched.”

  “And the timeframe?” I pressed, trying not to let my relief show too clearly in my voice.

  At that, the grin died. “Like I said, I think I’m going to be sidelined for a bit. I don’t like it, but I wouldn’t be able to keep up with you guys. Not with the way my body’s feeling right now.”

  She was right. I didn’t like it. But I could also see the wisdom in it, so I let it be, and told her the only thing I thought was really important.

  “I miss you. I don’t like the idea of going out there without you. Just so you know.”

  A sideways grin appeared on her face, and she glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “You don’t have to tell me you’re scared to be without me, Robin. I already knew it.”

  I laughed as we passed through the doorway and back into the hallway, well ahead of the rest of the crowd, due to Alexy hurrying us along. However, there was a pair of hospital orderlies waiting just outside, hustling toward Jackie as soon as they spotted us.

  I watched their approach with grim acceptance and moved to the side so they could have access to the back of her wheelchair. Ant, on the other hand, given the look on his face and the way his hands were flexing, had decided to put up a fight. Abe was standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

  “Oh my God, you two, get a grip,” Jackie mumbled, though I could see she was secretly pleased at the attention from her two personal white knights.

  The orderlies split up, one dropping to his knees in front of Jackie to take her vitals while the other moved to take control of her chair. Or at least, that was what she was trying to do.