The Child Thief 3: Thin Lines

by Bella Forrest

  We all fell quiet, and I figured we were all too tired, both mentally and physically, to keep thinking at such a furious pace. My body felt broken, my brain as if it would melt any second now. The others might not be in as much physical pain as I was, but they were certainly mentally exhausted. We took the opportunity to sit and stare out at the countryside for the rest of the ride.

  When a voice came over the intercom to inform us that we were approaching Trenton, the train began to slow.

  I swallowed, horribly uncomfortable at how exposed we were going to be the moment that those doors opened—and horribly aware that the second we stepped out of the train car, we were going to be running for our lives.

  3

  We got off the train doing our best to look as normal as possible. The moment we all reached the platform, Jace motioned for us to group up again.

  “We’re going to attract too much attention moving in this large of a group,” he whispered. “I want us to pair off or break up into sets of four, maximum. Zion’s apartment is about four blocks from here. The address is 323 Fifth Street, apartment number three. It’s on the third floor of a small, brown building, which looks more like a house than an office or apartment complex. Everyone get there as quickly as you can. But walk normally!” he added as people started to shift. “If you’re with someone who’s having trouble walking on their own, make sure you have a cover story for what happened to them, in case anyone asks. And remember, if you were in prison it means the Authority has pictures of your face. If you see an enforcer, turn your face to the ground or get around a corner to keep away from them. If you see anyone looking too closely at you, same thing. Get out of there first, ask questions later.”

  “And what about you?” Winter asked, her voice husky. “Where will you be?”

  “I’ll have Robin with me, and Ant and Jackie will be coming right after us,” Jace responded. “And we’ll be meeting you at Zion’s apartment, same as everyone else.”

  He stopped and stared at the circle of people.

  They weren’t prepared for this, I realized. Most of them were little more than techs. Computer people who specialized in things like hacking and firewalls. Sure, there might be a couple warriors here—Winter and Kory certainly fell under that category—and they might have joined a group that had vowed to fight the government in whatever way possible, but they had probably never expected that they would be on the streets, trying to hide in full daylight from the government after escaping jail. They’d also probably never thought that they might pay for their small rebellions with their lives.

  I knew I certainly hadn’t been prepared for this.

  Though, for me—and for Jace, Ant, and Jackie—things had changed while our friends had been in that prison. We’d been shot at, chased, and nearly killed, so we’d come to terms, at least a little bit, with the fact that we were outlaws now. The government was hunting us like animals, but for the others, this was all new and had to be terrifying.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said firmly. “Chances are that we’ll manage to get you into hiding, and you won’t have to worry about anything else today. Just get there as quickly as you can and try to keep your heads down. Do whatever you have to do to avoid notice. And don’t think any further than that. It helps if you don’t think about what might happen.”

  I saw faces clear at my words, shoulders relaxing a bit, and knew that it had been the right thing to say. One step at a time. That was all we could do for the moment.

  “Well, what about me?” Abe interrupted. “Who am I supposed to go with if my brother is with Jackie?” He gave Ant a look that I read as half betrayal and half jealousy, and I rolled my eyes.

  I’d already realized that Ant was going to have a problem with leaving Abe behind, courtesy of already having lost him once, and that we were going to have to deal with Ant being overprotective of his brother. I hadn’t thought about how the bridge went both ways—and that while they might have been attached at the hip before, they were going to be even worse now that they’d faced the threat of true mortality.

  Abe’s expression looked like he wasn’t willing to let Ant go without him.

  “Not really the time to get super clingy, bro, if you know what I mean,” Ant said quietly. “Believe me, I don’t want to leave you on your own, but once we’re out in the open, we’ll garner less attention if we’re in smaller groups.”

  Julia stepped up before Abe could respond and slipped her arm through his. “Besides, we’ve already claimed you.” She grinned. “You’re coming with Marco and me. I figure that you owe us some company, since we’ve had to live without you for so long.”

  Ant cast her a grateful look, and I almost laughed. With all the things going on right now, we were in the midst of a set of nerdy twins’ passive aggressive attempts to overprotect one another. It was ridiculous.

  Jace, it seemed, agreed. He tucked my hand under his arm, pulling me close—which absolutely did not send butterflies rushing through my belly—then divided a glare between the brothers.

  “If you two are finished proving that you can’t possibly live without one another, I think it’s time that we get going. Everyone have their groups?” At the grudging, hesitant nods from the team, he took a step forward. “Great. Ant, Jackie, you’re with us. We’re going first. Next group, wait at least thirty seconds before you step outside, and all groups after that, give it thirty-second intervals, so you don’t all end up on the street at once. If you’re in here, you can see whoever might be coming for you. Once you step outside, all bets are off. We’ll see you guys at Zion’s apartment. I’ll expect everyone there within twenty minutes.”

  He strode quickly from the group, with me in tow, and made for the exit. Moments later, we stepped out into the bright light, exposed for the entire world, and the Authority, to see.

  It was midday now, and the streets were somewhat populated, which was helpful. The fact that Jace was partially supporting me was going to get us noticed quickly, though.

  “What about our cover story?” I hissed. “What are we going to say if someone asks why you’re helping me? I can walk on my own, you know.”

  “That we were out for a walk and that you stepped off a curb the wrong way and twisted your ankle,” he answered without missing a beat. “Maybe even that you got pushed over by a cyclist, bad enough to hurt you but not bad enough to call the medics. And, being the good boyfriend I am, I’m taking you right home so that you don’t hurt it any worse.”

  He paused long enough to give me a slow, exaggerated wink, and I tried to smile at him. I knew that he was trying to make me feel better and that his clownish act had worked before, but that was before I’d known what we were truly up against. Before the Authority had started gunning for us personally.

  Then we were on the street, and I was turning my eyes up to the buildings around us, to the traffic signals—which sent a wave of panic washing through me.

  “Oh my God, Jace, the traffic cams!” I whispered, squirming in sudden fear that we had already been caught on camera. I had completely forgotten about them, but now I remembered how much of a danger they posed. They’d been a Godsend when we had been looking for an airship landing in the middle of the city, because they recorded everything.

  Everything and always.

  We knew that the Authority had pictures of the people we’d just broken out of jail. We knew that they had facial recognition software, probably better than anything we’d ever experienced.

  And we knew that they had instant and constant access to the cameras that monitored the streets of the cities. The streets that we were now marching right through.

  No wonder they’d installed those cameras and then conveniently forgotten to give the public the access they’d promised. They’d probably never meant to make their access public at all. It had been nothing more than a convenient cover story.

  They’d only put cameras up at every intersection to keep an eye on every citizen in the nation. Particularly those who
were up to no good.

  Jace’s eyes went up to the traffic lights above us, and his face grew a shade paler. “Dammit, you’re right,” he breathed.

  We turned and rushed back into the train station, where everyone else was still gathered.

  “The traffic cams,” he said. “We forgot about them.”

  Ant moaned, and Jackie hit her forehead with the palm of her hand, cursing. The rest of the crew looked mystified.

  “Traffic cams?” Abe frowned.

  Jace shook his head, his eyes darting about the train station. “No time to explain in depth right now, but there are cameras affixed to every intersection and they are constantly recording. Cameras whose feeds go straight to the government.”

  Nelson nodded. “So what do we do?”

  “Well, we can’t talk in here, to start with,” I told her. “We have to assume that there are cameras in here too. If they have them on the streets, they’ll have them in every public place. Maybe even on the train we just took.”

  “I agree,” Jace said. “Let’s get to Zion’s as fast as we can. The same plan stands, but keep your hands over your face if possible. Shelter your eyes from the sun. If you have anything that you can wear around your neck, maybe up over your chin, like a scarf, wear it. Cough anytime you come across an intersection. And keep your faces toward the ground. Don’t look up. No matter what.”

  We gazed around at everyone. I didn’t have to ask to know that we were all thinking the same thing: we’d known that coming into the city would be dangerous. We just hadn’t thought about all the ways that we could be caught.

  Standing around in the train station was making getting caught even more likely. Jace rushed back out into the light, my body clutched to his side as if he could shield me by his will alone. Jackie and Ant hurried out a few steps after us.

  To my surprise, we almost immediately hit a massive crowd of people, and though I hated the press of them against me, I figured that they would help. The more people there were, the more difficult it would hopefully be for the Authority to pick out our faces.

  Still, it was confusing. Jace and I had been out on the street not two minutes earlier, and it hadn’t been nearly this busy. Why was it suddenly so crowded?

  I blinked, examining the mass of people. They were obviously factory workers, given their dress and lack of cleanliness, and they were shoving at each other, and us, as if their lives depended on it. As if they were in such a hurry to get someplace else that they couldn’t have cared less if they ran over other people while doing so. Everyone looked harried and stressed, and though I’d never known people to be overly polite when it came to getting through foot traffic, this group was unusually aggressive.

  In fact, if I’d had to guess, I would have said that they were panicked.

  “What the heck is going on here?” Jackie asked, shoving back against the crowd but making very little progress due to her short stature.

  Ant moved to put an arm around her, trying to shield her a bit. It worked, up to a point, but the people were still attempting to shove right through her, and through him. It was as if they didn’t even see my friends, or didn’t care that they were there.

  How was it that everyone was in such a rush to move away from the direction in which we were heading? Where were they going—or what were they running from?

  I was starting to worry that we were heading right toward some kind of danger, when I realized that we were actually heading away from the factories that lay on the outside of town.

  “They’re going back to the factories,” I sighed to Jace. “You don’t suppose—Ouch!”

  I stumbled when I stepped off a curb, and Jace put out a hand to catch me.

  “Just a little bit longer, Rob,” he whispered. “Once we get to Zion’s, we might think about getting you out of those pants to see whether your leg needs medical attention. Until then, try to use me for support.”

  I shut my mouth on the obvious response there—something about him having ulterior motives—and glanced ahead to see that Jackie and Ant had managed to stop one of the people so they could ask questions.

  “It’s the factories,” the woman was saying, her voice rushed. “They’ve given us a bunch of new rules. No tardiness is acceptable, particularly not when we’re returning from our lunch break. If we’re late, we’re terminated immediately. Some people are saying that the termination includes something being put on your permanent record. I saw a man being fired yesterday just for asking a question the manager didn’t like.” She gave Jackie a panicked look. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I can’t afford to lose this job. My husband lost his last week, and we’re barely able to afford food.”

  Then she was gone, lost in the rest of the crowd as if she’d never stopped.

  Jackie turned wide eyes toward me, but I shook my head. Sure, the factories had always been a hard way to make a living. The rules were strict and the punishments severe, but I’d never seen them being this specific or demanding before.

  It sounded like the rules had just become a whole lot stricter, and the punishments a whole lot scarier.

  I remembered the article I’d seen on Jackie’s phone earlier, when she had been searching the news sites for a public bulletin out on us. It had been about new rules in the factories. I hadn’t had a chance to read the article, but now that I really thought about it, I was wondering about the reasons behind such changes.

  “Why would they suddenly alter the rules like that?” I asked. “Their system works. They have plenty of labor, and everyone did what they were told. Why would they start punishing their workers like this?”

  “I don’t think they’re punishing them, per se,” Jace replied after a pause, pushing through the crowd with me shuffling along right behind him, using his body as a shield. “Seems like they’re exerting more control and getting rid of those who don’t succumb to that control. Putting it on their permanent records means that those people are going to be marked for life.”

  “But why?” Jackie sidled up to Jace and used his large body as a shield as well. “They already control the poor class. Why become even stricter?”

  “Don’t know,” Jace muttered. “But that’s not our problem at the moment. Right now we have other fish to fry. We’re only a block from Zion’s, but it’s going to take us forever if we have to keep fighting this crowd. Turn left here. We’ll take a longer route and hopefully avoid all these people. This many humans in one spot makes me nervous.”

  He took a sharp left at the next street and picked up the pace, with Ant and Jackie jogging behind us to keep up. I clutched at Jace’s shirt, doing my best to maintain speed.

  We were in the middle-class part of town, where the skilled professionals did business; shops and offices peppered the street, with the occasional dwelling shoved in between or above them. I could see a number of signs hanging overhead, indicating the businesses below, and remembered how I had been on track to become one of those business people inside them. I’d been in school, studying, and though I hadn’t yet decided on a specific field, I’d known that I had a future and that it would be safe, regardless of what I chose to do.

  I had been a completely different girl. A Robin who had no idea how the real world worked. A Robin who could never have imagined what I was going through now.

  Jace took a sudden right and dashed up an alley lined with orderly, overly neat trashcans that looked more like storage devices than trash receptacles. I watched them fly by, wondering how much farther we had to go, until we came skidding to a stop.

  In front of me I saw a building that did indeed look like a house. The bottom floor had a sign for the offices of a lawyer, the second floor had curtains in the windows, and the third floor window appeared to have blinds made of—I blinked, confused. The blinds looked like they were reflecting the sunlight.

  “Are those blinds made of… metal?” My eyes widened.

  “They are,” Jace confirmed. “Just one of the security measures that Nathan put in place f
or Zion and Alexy. My apartment, of course, doesn’t require them,” he added, grinning.

  I watched as he pulled his backpack around and started digging through it. Seconds later, he had the lockpicking device in hand and was bending toward the back door that we needed to enter.

  “So you don’t have a key?” Ant asked. “I thought you and Zion were close. On the same team and all that.”

  “This is my key,” Jace retorted. He fit the lockpick to the doorknob, shifted it a bit, and then pulled the trigger. There was a click in the door. He lifted his eyebrows at Ant and then turned the knob. “Works every time.”

  Ant snorted and brushed past him, Jackie on his heels.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “Third floor, right? Where are the stairs? If Zion is up there lounging around in his apartment, I have a thing or two to say to him.”

  “Stairs are on the right,” Jace answered. He reached out and grabbed my arm. “And we need to move quickly. I don’t want to spend any longer here than we have to. If Zion’s not here, we need to get to Alexy’s.”

  I nodded and then hurried after Ant and Jackie, whom I could just see disappearing up the stairs. We caught up with them on the landing of the second floor and all ascended to the third floor together.

  There, we found another door at the end of the staircase and another lock.

  “Ant, take her,” Jace said quietly, noticing me stagger a bit after our climb up the stairs.

  Ant held out an arm without question, and I found myself in the less-desirable position of being held up against Ant’s bony frame. I wondered how he and Jackie managed to fit together, then put that out of my mind and turned to where Jace was fitting his lockpick to the doorknob.

  “Shouldn’t we, you know, knock?” Jackie whispered. “What if he’s in there?”

  “If he’s in there, then he won’t be surprised that I’m coming in by picking the lock rather than knocking,” Jace replied. “If he’s in there and he’s smart, he’ll be hiding, and he won’t answer the door, no matter who’s on the other side. You never know who might be compromised or who might come up the stairs with enforcers at their back.”