The Child Thief

by Bella Forrest

  “Well, well, well. Look who’s here,” Marco remarked, spotting me as I approached.

  “Hey,” Jace said, turning to face me as he set the suit down on the ground, that boyish smile of his lighting up his unmasked face.

  “Hey,” I replied brightly, clearing my throat and feeling determined not to let it throw me off. I made my way over to stand next to him. “Could you hand me one of those babies, too?” I asked Marco.

  He’d just been reaching down to grab a bottle of water but turned at my request and gave me a considering look. “Depends on how nicely you ask,” he replied primly.

  “Pretty please with three cherries on top.”

  “Make that marshmallows,” he said, before lugging one toward me. I reached out to grasp it as soon as it was close enough and gently set it on the ground next to Jace’s.

  A moment later Marco was dropping out of the aircraft and closing the hatch. He tossed me the keys. “You can lock up after you’re done. And leave the keys with Cianna. She’s working late tonight. Nelson or I will collect them from her later.”

  “Got it,” I said, stuffing the keys into the pocket of my jacket and zipping it up. “Cheers, Marky, see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Oh, and don’t mess up the soles of those suits. Julia and I spent a whole night on those modifications.”

  “Ah.” I glanced down at the feet of the suits and saw that, indeed, an extra layer of rubber had been applied to them to soften the noise of footsteps. Which would make me feel a whole lot more comfortable wearing them in any secretive situation. “Of course we’ll be careful,” I said. I gave Marco a squeeze on the shoulder as he passed, then turned my attention back to Jace.

  He gave me another brief smile, then dropped his gaze to the suit. “Thanks for coming out,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” I replied coolly, setting my eyes on the suits as well. “I could do with some more practice, too. So, um. How do you suggest we get over to the park with these things?”

  He shrugged. “It’s only about five minutes away. Marco suggested we head out the back entrance of the compound. Apparently it leads to a narrow alley that connects directly to the park.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense.”

  A quiet fell between us as I shrugged off my coat and Jace took his off, though I wanted to think it wasn’t the awkward kind of quiet, as I helped him adjust his suit to fit him. His fingers accidentally brushing over mine, as we both moved to push the same button, sent an unignorable tingle up my arm, but other than that, I figured I was doing well. Especially considering our proximity.

  Eventually I climbed into my own suit, and we pulled our coats over the suits and the hoods high over our heads, so that if we did pass anybody, we wouldn’t look quite so weird. There wasn’t much we could do about our metal legs and feet; hopefully people would think we were on our way to or from a costume party or something. Or were just really drunk. At least we wouldn’t sound so clunky in them now.

  We kept our visors up, allowing the fresh night air in as we left the compound and walked briskly down the alleyway, our footsteps amazingly soft against the pavement. And sure enough, the alley bled into the park.

  Jace immediately set his sights on the large field, which held several frames of high monkey bars and other strength-training apparatuses designed for adults. There were no lampposts nearby, but it was a clear night, and the light of the moon was ample for our purposes.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked in a low tone.

  “I think so,” I replied with a grin, glad that my mind had something solid to focus on for the evening. One of my motivations for coming here had been to force myself to get more comfortable around Jace, but awkward silences could occur around anyone if neither party had proper engagement. These park toys were a meaty challenge we could both sink our teeth into, allowing me a distraction for the moments when that awkwardness did resurface.

  My confidence that this evening was going to go well further bolstered, we took off at a jog toward them, our metal feet crushing the grass and sinking into the soft soil with every step. We stopped when we reached one end of the monkey bars, and I took a step back, letting Jace go first. He drew in a deep breath, flexing his fingers, and then positioned himself directly beneath the first bar, before leaping upward. His aim impressed me as his hands connected with it, but then they lost grip a second later, and he came thudding back down.

  He sighed, shaking his head ruefully.

  “Hey, second time’s the charm, right?” I said with a grin. I knew he was still uncomfortable with this kind of high-level technology, despite how well he’d gotten the hang of the suits’ mechanisms, and I wanted to encourage him to develop his confidence. It was going to be super important tomorrow; the workings of the suits needed to come as second nature to us because we wouldn’t have the mental bandwidth to worry about them, with so many other moving parts and things on our minds. Like getting ourselves out of the building alive.

  Bending his knees slightly, Jace tried again, and this time, to my pleasure, his grip held.

  “Woohoo!” I whistled.

  He grunted in response, then swung his legs slowly back and forth, until he’d built enough momentum to reach for the next bar. When he gripped it and transferred his weight, his hands held firm again, and I moved forward to stand at the side of the frame, staring as he progressed through the line to the final bar.

  “Whoa,” I said as he touched back down on the ground. I actually hadn’t expected him to get through all the bars in one shot. Rubber wasn’t built into the suits’ fingers or palms (though we were supposed to be equipped with handgrips tomorrow), so they could be a little touch and go. But he’d impressed me. Maybe he had a natural affinity for physical challenges like this, thanks to his upbringing in the wild.

  He straightened and threw me a triumphant-bordering-on-cocky look. “Your turn.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “After that performance? You trying to embarrass me or something, Mr. X?”

  He gave me a smirk, then stepped back and watched as I climbed up the slats in the side of the frame—not able to reach the bars by jumping directly from the ground, like he was able to.

  To be honest, I was actually feeling a bit pressured after his performance. Like this had suddenly become a bit of a competition. I didn’t usually consider myself the competitive type, honestly. Except when it came to sports. Back in school, I’d been the girl who would rather get her eye gouged out trying to get a ball through a loop than step back and let another player try. And I guessed that side of me was resurfacing now, although I wasn’t even sure where it had come from. Perhaps it had stemmed from the family I’d grown up in, where high achievement had been expected. Or maybe I’d inherited it from one of my biological parents.

  Either way, right now, I was going to see exactly how well I could stand up against a caveman.

  A controlled smile unfurled on my lips as I focused on gaining a solid enough stance on the frame. I took a moment to try to gauge my aim at the bars as best as possible, and then launched off.

  I cursed as I missed, and landed on the ground with a thud, just as Jace had done the first time.

  “Hey, second time’s the charm, right?” Jace quipped, and it was my turn to shoot him a rueful look, before climbing back onto the frame.

  “I got this,” I remarked. I focused again before leaping, but failed a second time, my fingers slipping off the bar. “Gah!”

  Jace chuckled as I mounted the frame a third time, and thankfully, my hands had now caught on to the technique, and I was spared the embarrassment of another fall. Soon I was swinging across the frame, my metal fingers clanging over the bars while the muscles in my arms strained. I was now determined to make it all the way across like Jace had. And I did, about thirty wobbly seconds later.

  Jace broke out in a metallic round of applause when I dropped to the grass and, grinning, gave him a small curtsy. “Told you I could,” I pouted.

  “I
never doubted it,” he retorted.

  I chuckled, then glanced at the next apparatus—some kind of tightrope walk—feeling determined to conquer this one, too, and in fewer tries. “Shall we continue?” I asked.

  Jace nodded, and we jogged over to it.

  I let him go first again, wanting to see how he coped with it before I gave it a try, and he ended up having a little more trouble with this one, given his heavier build. Okay, a lot more trouble. It took him seven attempts to make it across successfully, and by the time he finally did it, we were both laughing. Hard.

  “There’s some stuff bears just aren’t good at,” he muttered, brushing his hands against his coat, and I laughed again, the memory of Rhea’s gift resurfacing in my mind.

  On the subject of Rhea… for some reason, it felt like forever since we’d visited her. Even though it had only been a handful of weeks. Then again, it somehow felt like forever since I’d met Jace, even though it had been less than a couple of months.

  “So, your turn,” he announced, bringing me back to the present, and I shook my musings aside.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, raising an expectant brow. Which, again, I found a little bit intimidating. He’d sucked at this, so he didn’t exactly have a leg to stand on when it came to judging me, but still, I felt the urge to not fail in front of him.

  “Okay, mister. Watch and learn,” I murmured. I walked up to one end of the metallic tightrope and carefully positioned myself on it, my hands closing around the barriers on either side.

  Once I got going, placing one leg painstakingly in front of the other, in a near-perfect line, I realized that, to be fair, it was pretty tricky, even with the rubber soles. We didn’t have quite the same mobility and control over our balance as we had without the suits, which made this quite a challenge, so I was proud of myself when I got to the other end on my first try. And I let Jace know it.

  I gave him another curtsey, stooping a little lower this time. A bit too low, actually, because I suddenly lost my balance and went tumbling forward.

  My hands shot out instinctively, digging into the soil and easing my fall, and a soft laugh escaped my throat once I got over the initial shock. It had been a gentle landing, though I could definitely see how falling in these things could hurt, if one tumbled a larger distance or from a different angle. Our torsos were strapped in, keeping us in place to a certain extent, and there wasn’t padding throughout the interior. You could certainly get bashed about if the fall was too violent.

  As it was, I doubted I’d get more than a slight bruise. Though Jace clearly didn’t realize that, as he came rushing over, a concerned look on his face.

  “Hey, you okay, Robin?” he asked, bending down and holding out a hand.

  I accepted it, my metal fingers entwining with his, and let him help me back to my feet. And suddenly I found myself less than a foot away from him, my face mere inches from his, his deep, honey-brown eyes glistening with concern in the moonlight.

  “Uh, yeah. Thanks,” I managed, my suit suddenly feeling too warm for me, my lungs lacking breath. I forced a smile, needing to diffuse that serious expression on his face. But for some reason it remained there, those deep amber pools locked on me.

  What was probably only a handful of heartbeats stretched out and felt like a full minute, and I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it when his gaze dropped for a flicker of a second to my lips.

  All I knew was that I needed to step back. Now.

  I did so more abruptly than I’d intended, turning sharply away and catching the tip of my right foot in the soil. I stumbled into an awkward stagger as I found my footing, only just avoiding falling over a second time, and then forced out a laugh, needing to make light of it all, even while my temperature escalated.

  “Seems like you should’ve been the one to give me lessons on these things,” I said, feigning another laugh. I set my focus on the next obstacle along, desperately needing another distraction. I didn’t want to say it had been a mistake to come here with him, when I’d been having such a great time. But that had just been a little too intense for comfort.

  “So, the next one?” I suggested, injecting strength into my voice. “We’re kind of slacking.” I shot a glance and a smile back at him, needing to reassure myself that the moment had passed for him too, but while he returned my smile with one of his own, I sensed it was just as forced as mine.

  “Oh, yeah. Sure,” he replied, and I did my best to ignore the slightly disappointed note in his tone—because it could very well have been my imagination playing tricks on me again.

  And that was all we needed. Another distraction.

  The next obstacle was several lines of stepping stones, which grew farther apart the farther you went along the course, and on reaching it, we each boarded a line each and started to move along the stones. But things got a little too dicey once we neared the end, where the stones were unreasonably far apart, and I decided to drop out, not wanting to risk damaging the suit, or myself, before the big day tomorrow. I’d done enough stumbling for one evening.

  Jace decided the same, and then I suggested we experiment with speed a little, before calling it a night. There were other obstacles we could’ve tried, but it was getting late, and I was starting to feel the urge to return home. We had a big day tomorrow, and we ought to be well rested.

  So we agreed to half an hour longer, and set about walking, jogging, and sprinting across the grass. It only took about fifteen minutes for me to start panting hard, however, and I sank to the ground, needing a few moments to catch my breath. Jace joined me for a break and seated himself a few feet away from me, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

  “That was a good ‘un,” I said, leaning back on my hands and fixing my gaze determinedly on the stars.

  “Do you know how often the suits need to be recharged?” Jace wondered in a low tone.

  “They’re recharged automatically via movement, from what I read in the manual,” I replied, thrilled to latch on to the subject. “They don’t need to be plugged into a power source unless they haven’t been used for ages. Which isn’t the case with the ones Montague sent along. Apparently the batteries need to be changed every five years, but judging from the manufacture dates on the soles of these, we won’t have to worry about that for a long time. They’re only, like, less than a year old. There’s some kind of maintenance required, too, I think, once every few months, both to the battery and to the suit in general. Though, again, we shouldn’t need to worry about that. I’m pretty sure Montague will be handling it.”

  I trailed off, realizing I was spouting out more information than he probably wanted.

  “I see,” Jace murmured after a moment, and from the corner of my eye, I caught him frowning slightly, then leaning back on his hands too. “Well, I guess that’s pretty swell.”

  “Yeah. They are pretty cool, aren’t they?”

  I dared to look back at him, and he nodded, his amber gaze holding mine for several long heartbeats.

  And then his lips were slowly parting.

  “Robin, I…” he began, his voice low.

  And my face snapped instinctively back toward the open field. I held my breath, his tentative tone making my whole body still, the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end. Whatever he was about to say, I both desperately did and didn’t want to hear it. Which confused the hell out of me.

  But then he heaved a sigh, and I realized that my reaction had been too abrupt, too hostile. More so than I’d wanted it to be. Even though I had wanted to pull away.

  And I sensed that now, whatever he’d been about to say, I wouldn’t get to hear it.

  “I wanted to wish you good luck for tomorrow,” he concluded, his voice roughening some, and confirming my suspicion. “I know we’ll see each other before things go down, but it’ll be rushed. So, yeah, good luck.”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding, feeling simultaneously relieved and intensely disappointed. Whatever had been on the tip of
his tongue, it obviously hadn’t been that, and while I really had no right to feel anything but glad I didn’t have to deal with it… God, I didn’t know how to help it.

  I nodded slowly, trying to beat back my conflicting emotions, and finally daring to face him again. “And you,” I said, pushing out a smile.

  But he wasn’t looking at me now. His eyes were on the ground, his hand picking absently at a tuft of grass by his thigh. And I feared right then that I might have hurt him.

  Could he really be feeling something for me, more than just friendship? Might he have had an ulterior motive for inviting me out here this evening, just as I’d had one for coming, and wanted to talk to me about… something?

  What had he been about to say, before I’d so tactlessly cut him off?

  I worried now that I would never know. Even though it shouldn’t have worried me, because I’d already decided to cut him out.

  And yet, another part of me, the part closest to my pounding heart, couldn’t help but fear that I was making a huge mistake.

  30

  That night was rough. I tossed and turned, willing myself to fall asleep, but my evening with Jace haunted me. The way he’d acted differently after I’d done what I’d done. The way he’d avoided eye contact. The way we’d parted on a more awkward note than I’d even thought possible.

  I’d gone to see him to decrease the tension between us, not increase it, dammit! I didn’t know how I’d managed to let things go so badly.

  But I didn’t have time to unpack it now. Not before tomorrow. Maybe not ever.

  The plans for the mission burning through my brain didn’t help my insomnia, either. I kept going over it, running through all the things that could go wrong. I had to keep reminding myself that this first mission wasn’t in direct conflict with the government. That we were just dealing with regular criminals, and that it would all be worth it in the end. Not only for the children we would help, but for furthering our plans. Because we would have taken our first step together as a group, proving that we could work with each other.