The Child Thief 3: Thin Lines

by Bella Forrest

  But now they’d come right to the doorstep of my home, shot at my friends, and blown me into the sky with some kind of explosive weapon. That was personal. They were after us by name, and they were destroying our houses. Our lives.

  They hadn’t been after us specifically before. Now they were.

  The thought drove fear right into my very bones, in a way I’d never realized was even possible.

  “Robin,” Jace suddenly hissed.

  I jerked my focus back to the scene in front of us to see that the wolves had come to a complete stop. They were now milling about in front of a piece of rock that jutted sharply up out of the soil and rose at an angle, up and up and up, into the canopy of the trees… and from there into the sky, I assumed.

  The rock was also completely blocking our path.

  I cast a glance to the left of our group, and then the right. The chute had narrowed since the last time I’d looked, the rock walls much closer on either side. Which meant we were effectively trapped against a dead end. Just as I’d feared we would be.

  Jace halted, and a second later Ant, Abe, Jackie, Nelson, and Kory were all standing around us as well, their mouths hanging open in awe.

  “They’re climbing,” Jace suddenly said.

  I turned back toward where the wolves were standing, confused, and then saw it. I’d looked at the piece of rock so quickly before that I hadn’t taken in any details except for its size and general angle into the sky. Now that I was paying attention, I realized that there was a ledge, less than three feet in width, and the wolves had started using it to pick their way up the rock, still in single file. The ledge didn’t seem to turn at all, but moved steeply up the rock’s face, climbing up into the trees and beyond.

  “How the hell does that thing have a path carved into it?” Abe breathed.

  “Weather,” Jace answered with barely a pause. “It’s the only possible answer. We’re too far out in the wilderness for that to be manmade.”

  We stood staring as the wolves climbed, and within thirty seconds the first wolf had disappeared into the canopy of the forest.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” Abe said, his voice slightly panicked. “We are not going up that thing. There’s no way! We don’t even know where it leads!”

  Then a shout rang out from behind us, and Jace turned quickly to him.

  “We don’t have a choice, Abe,” he said. He gestured to the left and right. “We’re in a gorge, surrounded by rock. Forward is the only option. Up is the only option.”

  Abe gazed up at the rock, then whirled around at the sound of a gunshot.

  He looked at Jace, and a second later he nodded, his chin growing firm.

  “Up, then,” he said. Then, without breaking the connection with Jace, he added, “Ant, you go ahead of me. You’re carrying more weight than I am, and I want to be able to catch you if you slip.”

  There was a sigh from Ant, and then we were moving toward the rock face in front of us, Jace hissing directions at the group.

  “I’m not sure exactly how far back those Authority soldiers are, but they’re going to have trouble tracking us without the help of a trail through any underbrush. If they find this place—and that’s a big if—I don’t want them to have any idea that we’ve gone up rather than somehow doubling back and heading out of the gorge. Their first assumption will be that we’ve backtracked, because unless they notice that narrow ledge, they’ll never believe we tried to climb sheer rock. That means moving fast, so we’re out of sight before anyone gets here. Robin and me first. Kory, you bring up the rear. Don’t be afraid to use your gun if you need to. If they see us, our cover’s going to be blown anyhow. Everyone else, move as quickly—and carefully—as you can.”

  We reached the base of the rock, and I looked up at the face of it, my heart thundering in my ears. Sure. Just climb up a ledge in the side of a rock with no ropes or anything to catch us if we started to fall, and do it in a hurry, with people who wanted to kill us rushing up behind us from the forest. No problem at all. This was going to be—

  “Robin, you’re going first,” Jace said grimly. “I would put you behind me so that I’m the one who comes out first, but I won’t be able to help you if you’re behind me. Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you with my hands on your hips for guidance.”

  I nodded, still wordless. Hands on my hips. Good. Guidance: also good.

  Another shout from the forest jolted me into action. I stepped quickly forward onto the ledge. The quicker we go, the quicker we’re done, I told myself firmly. Just one foot in front of the other.

  Jace’s hands dropped onto my hips, moving forward and backward until he found a good grip, and then we were heading upward, our bodies pressed tight against the rock face, our feet shuffling along on the rock below.

  I kept my eyes on the path ahead, moving along more quickly than I could have imagined possible, and did everything I could to ignore the rapidly increasing drop to my left. I tried to think about my feet, and Jace’s hands on my hips. If anything happened, he would catch me. Just keep your thoughts on that and everything should be fine.

  “You’re doing great,” Jace’s voice said from behind me—accompanied by a sudden squeezing of his hands on my hips—and I was suddenly fighting the urge to squirm at the feel of his hands on my body. The realization of where exactly those hands were.

  Oh sure, it was fine before, and now you’re going to make a big deal of it, I told myself firmly. Get it together, Robin!

  A few moments later we had reached the canopy of the forest, and here I did look away from the path, amazed at how beautiful it was. I’d climbed trees when I was a child, of course, but I’d never seen this sort of tree up close—and certainly never when it was full of birds and squirrels. We were in a combination of oaks and pines, the small, rounded leaves of the oaks sliding in between the thin needles of the pines in a dance of complete opposites, the smell sharp and green in my nose. It was like entering an entirely different world.

  A sudden scuffle sounded out from behind us on the path, and I turned my gaze quickly toward the rock and back, peeking through the crack of space between Jace and the cliff, worried that something had happened.

  Instead, I saw that Nelson was almost right on top of us, moving up the path like a lizard, with her belly to the rock face and her back to the drop. She turned her eyes up to me and gave me a quick grin.

  “Less chance of looking at the fall,” she whispered.

  Then she froze at another scuffle behind us and turned her head to look backward on the path.

  “Ant, you okay?” she whisper-shouted.

  There was a long pause that made me bite my lip in worry. What if the scuffle had been someone else slipping? What if the weight of the boxes had been too much for one of the boys? What if—

  “Fine,” Ant called back, his volume subdued. “Just climbing up the side of a rock with two boxes in front of me, which makes it impossible to see where I’m putting my feet. Plus, the Authority is after us with big-ass machine guns, ready to shoot us down on sight. Just fine… How much farther does this thing go?”

  “Can’t see,” Jace whispered back. “I can barely see the tail of the last wolf at this point. More climbing, less talking! We can’t lose them now!”

  He pushed me more quickly up the path, and the leaves of the trees around us started brushing against us, growing around the rock as they did. For just a moment it was almost easy to forget that we were hundreds of feet in the air, just a step away from falling to our deaths. Instead we were in a world of greenery and noise, and cool, soft wind that was refreshing against my cheeks. It was breathtaking.

  Then we broke through the canopy and into the air above it, and we could see where we were.

  “Holy crow,” Nelson gasped, staring past Jace and me and into the distance.

  I nodded, entranced by the view. Wilderness for miles and miles in that direction, with nothing but trees and mountains on the horizon. It was wild and unbroken, and right now
, in the dying light of the day, utterly peaceful. No men with guns. No jails. No political wars that you didn’t understand.

  Then, just as suddenly, the path swung sharply to the right, and I was faced with an immediate step downward. I took it, then stumbled at the landing and jolted forward several steps, through a tunnel of red rock that came very close to my sides, and then out again, into open space.

  I moved forward a bit to give the others room to get out of the tunnel, and looked around, both terrified and amazed. We’d made it to the top of the rock, where the view was even more phenomenal, and were standing on a large, flat spot, with plenty of room for all of us to gather. Jace turned and put a hand out to help Nelson out of the small chute that led up from the trail, hauling her up to stand next to me.

  Then I noticed that up ahead of us, the wolves were already disappearing into another gulley in the rocks, their tails moving in tandem as they filed into the darkness, and I realized that we were just at the start of our journey. We might have come up the face of a rock, but the wolves weren’t home yet.

  “At least it looks flat that way,” Jace said.

  I took the lead on my own this time, leaving Jace to help Ant and Abe with the bags and boxes, and the others to continue following. My gut was telling me that the wolves would lead us to safety, and we couldn’t afford to lose them. I couldn’t hear the Authority agents anymore, and once I entered the new culvert, the only thing I really heard was the echoes of our footsteps, but I knew they were back there.

  I hurried along the smooth ground, wondering whether this path was some sort of stream during the winter, and glanced up at the sky to notice that late afternoon was starting to fall above us. We needed to hurry. Darkness would be helpful when it came to hiding from the Authority, but not so helpful when it came to keeping track of the wolves.

  I strained my eyes on the path ahead of me, trying to figure out where the wolves had gone—or how far ahead they were—and had all but given up, positive that we’d lost them, when we ended up in a wide clearing, with trees surrounding us once again. I stuttered to a stop, too surprised at the sudden change of scenery to process it at first, and looked around, confused.

  This forest looked exactly like the one we’d just left. What was this, a second, elevated version of the forest? Was it possible that there was just some big elevation shift here that I’d never even known about?

  And where were the wolves?

  Then I realized that we weren’t in a forest, but rather a large basin surrounded by more mountains. There were trees growing here, yes, but it was, in essence, just a valley. A valley in the sky.

  “Oh my God,” Jace said, coming to a stop next to me. “We were right. They led us to safety.”

  We rushed through the forest toward the nearest side of the valley, no longer needing to look for the wolves, and reached the wall of the basin about twenty minutes later.

  By that time everyone was walking, too tired to continue with the run. I noticed that no one was talking at all, either. We’d been through more than our fair share of action in one day, and even with the food we’d shoved down our throats at my cabin, we needed calories and water and a chance to recover from the adrenaline that had been powering us for too long.

  The adrenaline rush that had started last night, I realized, with those first explosions outside the Authority complex, and had continued all the way to right now, with barely a pause.

  When we came to a stumbling stop in front of the first cave we saw, I was almost too relieved, and too tired, to appreciate it properly. Then I glanced at the others, and my logic kicked back in. We needed shelter, immediately. Especially if the Authority managed to find their way up that rock and through the gulley to this forested valley.

  I didn’t think they would, at least not tonight. But if they did, I didn’t want to be caught standing around, just staring at an opening in the side of a cliff. We needed a defensible position.

  “What now?” Abe asked, staring at the yawning mouth of the cave.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on the flashlight against the impending gloom. It was almost dusk at this point, the shadows long and taking over the ground in the forest. It was going to be pitch black soon, and the cave we were about to enter was even darker than the forest around it.

  Hopefully there wasn’t a bear or cougar sleeping in there.

  “Think there’s anything else in that cave?” I asked Jace quietly.

  “Doubt it,” he replied with confidence. “I’m guessing this valley is the territory of the wolves, and nothing else would sleep this close to them… I don’t know where they’ve disappeared to, but they evidently don’t have a problem with us being here. We need shelter. There’s a cave right in front of us. Seems like an obvious decision.”

  I nodded, glad for the reassurance, and turned the end of the phone forward so that the light shone ahead of us to break up the darkness. Several steps took us to the mouth of the cave, and I could see that, although the ceiling was relatively low, the cave was also deep, traveling farther back than the beam of my flashlight. The walls were rough with stones and soil, and stalagmites and stalactites peppered the edges, dripping down from the ceiling and rising up from the ground, almost meeting in some places. It was beautiful and spooky; exactly what I would have thought a cave would look like.

  Not that I’d ever spent much time thinking about caves, or what it would be like to sleep in one.

  “Okay,” Jace said, moving ahead of me into the cave. He took the backpack from his chest and the duffel bags from his back and dropped everything he’d been carrying on the floor behind a column of rock. Then he turned to us. “Anyone with supplies, take them about twenty feet into the cave and stack them there. We want them far enough from the mouth of the cave that the wolves aren’t tempted to claw into them. Abe, get some blankets out of whichever box has them and make a nest here. Nelson, find the medical supplies. Everyone else, keep track of anything you use and keep everything in one place. We’ve got limited supplies and can’t afford to waste or lose anything. We don’t know how long it’ll be before we can get somewhere we can restock.”

  We all got to work quickly. The boxes were inserted between two columns rising from the ground, along with Jace’s bags, and packed in a way that made it relatively easy to get to each of them, and a second later Nelson was rifling through my meager medical supplies, looking for anything we might be able to use for the small bumps and bruises we’d come up here with. And, I suspected, for the bruise on my leg, which was now starting to swell a bit. Jace had stepped outside the cave to listen for signs that anyone might have followed us.

  I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me this was where we’d end up, but it looked like—for the moment, anyhow—this was our new home.

  By the time the rest of us arrived back at the mouth of the cave, Jace had appeared with an armful of wood—which meant, evidently, that he’d been multitasking—and was stacking it in a rough pyramid shape, then stuffing smaller twigs, leaves, and dead grass into the spaces between the larger branches. He glanced up at the roof of the cave and nodded to himself, apparently satisfied with where he’d put the wood. When he noticed me watching him, he indicated the stack of kindling.

  “We’ve got to have the light to take a look at anyone who’s injured,” he said casually. “And for warmth once the cold sets in.”

  I nodded, feeling grateful that the universe had at least provided us with the perfect guides for this situation. I was dead positive that the rest of us didn’t know the first thing about living in the wild, but, having been cavemen for their entire lives, this had to feel like going home to Jace and Kory.

  Jace looked past me, and I turned to see that Kory had gotten into the food stores and was handing out a bottle of Nurmeal to anyone who wanted one.

  I watched, then remembered what we hadn’t brought, and turned back to Jace. “I don’t suppose you have some sort of magic water-finding technique? It’s th
e one thing we didn’t bring, and something tells me we’re going to need it soon.”

  He smirked. “As a matter of fact, I do. It’s called using my eyes. We passed a small spring on the way here, and it had a pool attached to it. Give me five minutes.”

  I nodded and got to work with everyone else, helping to unpack the bags and boxes so that everything was within easy reach. I was just going through the first duffel bag, when I came across the prints of the timeline, and paused.

  The timeline. In the rush to get away from the Authority, I’d forgotten about it, and I suspected everyone else had too.

  But this could be our ticket out of here. It was, I suspected, a big part of the reason we were in trouble, since it seemed to connect directly to the raid we’d done on the warehouse, which the Authority seemed to think was somehow the work of Little John.

  Little John, the organization that seemed to have been both helper and unintentional enemy, given the mess they’d managed to put us in.

  In that way, I guessed, they were a lot like Nathan himself. Constantly getting us into scrapes and then failing to get us out again.

  I shook my head and put the timeline to one side. We could deal with that later. I knew that it would be a main goal tonight. Right now, I wanted food and water, and maybe even some sort of bath.

  17

  I turned around, planning to get myself a bottle of Nurmeal and maybe some of the veggies, and jumped when I found Jace standing right behind me, a serious look on his face and two bowls constructed out of large leaves in his hands.