The Child Thief 3: Thin Lines

by Bella Forrest

  At that moment, Jace strolled back into the cave, another of those bowls in his hand, and dropped down to his haunches next to me.

  “Alrighty,” he said firmly.

  I glanced down at the offending limb, hating that I had to go through whatever it was he was about to do to me, but knowing that I couldn’t afford to ignore it any longer.

  It had been slowing me down toward the end of our trek up into the valley. I hadn’t been running as quickly as I should have, and I’d been fading fast. If it came to running again tomorrow, I might be in trouble. I might get my team in trouble.

  I wasn’t willing to do that. I wasn’t that stubborn or selfish.

  So I nodded at him reluctantly. Whatever he had, I was willing to consider it.

  Then he reached into the other leaf packet and pulled out what looked like… an enormous slug.

  If I could have backed up more than a few feet, I would have. I hated bugs. Hated them. And snails and slugs were worse. They were slimy.

  “What the hell do you think you’re going to do with that?” I asked, cringing. “How is a slug going to help anything?”

  “To start with, it’s not a slug. It’s a leech. And I have seven more of them. I was lucky to find so many, honestly. I thought I’d find one in the marsh around the edges of the pond, maybe two if I was lucky. But eight? Unheard of.”

  “And remind us all why finding eight leeches is so lucky?” Nelson asked, sounding as if she was on the verge of throwing up.

  I nodded, feeling similarly myself. I’d been willing to consider his fix, but that willingness was draining away rapidly. I definitely hadn’t thought it would include slugs.

  Jace moved toward me and gestured to my leg, and I shrank away from him and the blob he was holding.

  “Leeches are bloodsuckers,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “You’re not making me like them any better,” I said bluntly. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  He smiled suddenly. “The problem with your leg is the swelling. It’s coming from the blood pooling up against your muscles outside your veins. As I said, we’ve got to get that swelling down so your body can heal itself, and we need to do it tonight, while we’re safe. Tomorrow we’re going to be running again, and I need you to be able to keep up. The best way to fix it is to drain the free blood that’s floating around.”

  “Oh, boy,” I said, starting to get an idea of exactly what he was going to do. “And to drain the blood…”

  He held up the little creature in his hand and wiggled it slightly. “Exactly. The leeches.”

  I turned and heaved up the Nurmeal I’d drunk at my cabin. I couldn’t help it. The thought of having those things attached to me, sucking my blood…

  Then I felt something cold and slimy on my leg, and I whirled back around. Jace had already put one of them on me—right on my knee. It had… attached, or whatever they did, and was now sort of pulsating. I decided immediately that I couldn’t look at it or I would be sick again.

  “And this will help?” I asked, staring at the opposite wall. “This will get rid of the swelling and make it feel better? Make me able to run as fast as I normally run?”

  “It should do all of the above,” Jace said, moving back toward the leaf with the leeches in it.

  I looked down to meet his eyes. “Promise?”

  He gave me a nod. “Promise. And you know I don’t say that lightly.”

  I nodded back, his answer good enough for me, and looked up at the ceiling. “Then let’s get this done. How long does it have to last?”

  “Until they’re full and the swelling in your leg is down. After that, I promise you can call me every bad name you can think of for putting you through this.”

  I bit down on my lower lip, tried not to think about tiny fangs sinking into my skin, and started making a list of the names I’d call him as soon as I was free of the slimy bloodsuckers.

  19

  I limped to the mouth of the cave to stand near the fire, enjoying the thought that I no longer had slimy little beasties sucking my blood, and comforted myself with the idea that no one would be able to accuse me of slowing them down from here on out.

  Jace, as promised, had let the leeches stay on my leg until they fell off, one by one—it ended up taking about twenty minutes—and I’d looked down at the end to find that the swelling had indeed reduced. A gentle fingertip on the bruise proved that it still hurt, but the pain was manageable. The swelling had been the bigger problem, and it was gone now.

  After Nelson had bandaged me up, I’d given Jace a quick glance of gratitude, unable to decide whether I loved him for having fixed me or hated him for having exposed me to leeches, and then he’d disappeared, stating that he was going to put the leeches back where he’d found them before they dried out and died.

  I’d been pacing the cave ever since, trying to focus my mind on more important topics, and then decided to stretch my legs outside to assist with that. Walking always helped me think, and right now I was in desperate need of some brilliant ideas. We hadn’t gone over the timeline yet, but when we did, I wanted to be ready. Plus, the movement would be good for my leg.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket, turned on the flashlight, and set off into the darkness, mentally flipping through the problems at hand.

  The cave had given us a blessed break from the chase, but none of us had forgotten that the Authority was out there searching for us. And we couldn’t hide in this cave forever. The timeline might be able to provide some direction in regard to an escape—if we could somehow glean a location for Little John from it. Finding the elusive group might not be the easiest escape plan, but they had the ability to save us from this mess. They were at the top of my list of mysteries to solve.

  Them and Nathan.

  I’d walked about thirty feet into the forest by now, and though I suspected that the only things I’d find out here were my wolves, I didn’t want to chance it, so turned and started back toward the cave.

  “Dude,” someone suddenly called from the darkness in front of me.

  I jumped, wondering if the voice was talking to me, and then frowned.

  Just there, at the edge of the firelight, I could make out someone leaning up against a tree, his gangly arms crossed in front of him, his head down.

  Ant, my brain told me. Or Abe. I looked harder, and realized that it was definitely Ant. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but something about him had changed—enough, at least, that I could now tell the difference between them. Maybe it was in the way he held his shoulders, a bit straighter than before, or the fact that the last week had brought out a tension in his posture that also hadn’t been there before.

  I didn’t know who he was talking to, but it certainly wasn’t me, and I didn’t have any intention of standing here spying while he was having a private conversation. I lifted one foot to take a step in his direction, intent on letting him know I was there and walking past him back to the cave, when another figure suddenly emerged from the forest and leaned up against the tree next to him.

  Abe.

  Their silhouettes were exactly the same, but Abe had a spring in his step that Ant was missing.

  Abe reached a hand toward his brother, and Ant gave a choked sob and turned to his twin. He buried his face against his brother’s shoulder and began to cry.

  I stalled, then took several steps back so that I was hidden behind a tree, not wanting to be seen by either of them, and peered around it. I’d never seen anything but good-natured teasing between those two, and though they’d always seemed close, I hadn’t really seen them sharing any affectionate moments. This… Well, I didn’t want to be caught interrupting it.

  I glanced back into the cave, wondering if I needed to keep anyone else away, and wondering how I could get there myself, but saw that the others were all spread out on blankets and sheets, talking in low voices and drinking Nurmeal. Jace, I noticed, was eating raw vegetables instead, and my glance lingered on him f
or a moment as I wondered how he felt about living in a cave again.

  Then I turned back to stare at where Ant and Abe were standing and wondered how to get around them. Whatever they had to say to each other, it should be a private moment, and I didn’t want to intrude.

  But then I realized I had a problem. I was standing in the middle of a forest, surrounded by dry twigs and pine needles. I wouldn’t be able to sneak anywhere.

  “I can’t believe any of this is happening,” Ant said, his voice hoarse with tears. “I can’t believe I almost lost you.”

  “I can’t believe you have a girlfriend,” Abe replied. “And especially Jackie. You do remember how mean she’s always been to us, right?”

  I saw Ant shrug it off and grinned to myself. I wasn’t sure Ant had had any choice in the matter, honestly, because from what I knew of Jackie, once she decided on something, nothing was going to get in her way. If she’d decided that she liked Ant, he hadn’t stood a chance.

  “It just happened,” he said quietly. “I don’t know when it did. We were together so much, and the world was suddenly so dangerous, and she just seemed… It was like she was the only thing I recognized. The only thing that was truly safe. The rest of the world had turned upside down and inside out.”

  “You’re telling me,” Abe answered quietly. “Seems like it was only yesterday that we were fighting about whether or not to join Nelson’s club in the first place.”

  “You didn’t want to,” Ant said, laughing quietly. “You said it would just lead to trouble.”

  Abe gave his brother a soft shove with his shoulder. “And it looks like I was right,” he said. I could hear the grin in his voice and could picture exactly how it spread across his face. He’d be gloating at having won some sort of bet between the two, and also probably feeling successful about having made Ant laugh. “Though not even I could have imagined this much trouble.”

  “You have no idea what it’s been like,” Ant said, his voice turning serious. “What it was like. Running through that forest outside the warehouse, not knowing where you were or if you were even still alive. Then getting on the ship with Alexy and Zion and picking up team member after team member—but none of them was you. We saw Winter captured, did she tell you that? We saw those soldiers jump her, pin her to the ground, and take her away. And all I could think was that they might have done that to you. That you might have been stupid and fought them, and they might have killed you…” His voice broke.

  “They got me right away,” Abe said simply. “Right outside the warehouse, in the parking lot. I didn’t have time to fight them. Didn’t have time to think of anything clever to say—which was probably what saved my life, now that I think about it. But do you think it was any easier for me? I was locked up in a plastic box for a week, Ant! A week of not knowing where you were or what had happened, thinking maybe you were dead, or maybe you’d been captured and they were just keeping us apart. We had no idea what they were going to do with us. They just threw us in those boxes and then left us there. No information, nothing, until the day they decided to make those videos. Nelson figured they were making them to show who they had, and we figured they were sending that to someone, but we had no idea who might be on the receiving end.”

  He paused and turned to his brother.

  “I was sure you guys were dead until you showed up in the prison last night. And it almost killed me.”

  My heart broke for the two of them, and I realized abruptly that I hadn’t even asked any of our friends who’d been imprisoned what they’d gone through. We’d just woken up in the meadow that morning and immediately started running. This was probably the first time Ant and Abe had had a chance to talk about it.

  I couldn’t begin to imagine what the two of them were feeling right now. And though Ant had talked to us about it while we were working on ways to rescue our friends from jail, I hadn’t thought too hard about what he’d been going through. I definitely hadn’t thought about whether our friends in prison had wondered about us. I’d been too busy trying to figure out a way to get them out of there.

  It must have been torture for the brothers. And I didn’t want to watch any more of their reunion scene. It was a huge invasion of the privacy they deserved.

  I was about to attempt to start moving again when the sudden crack of a twig made me jump. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t my foot that had made the sound, but Jace’s. He was striding right toward Ant and Abe.

  “You guys seen Robin?” he called, giving them a rather wide berth, but obviously intent on entering the trees.

  Ant straightened abruptly and started wiping at his face, while Abe stepped protectively in front of him.

  “Nope,” Abe said quickly. “You sure she’s out here? We were just… getting some air,” he finished lamely.

  Jace, bless his soul, acted like he believed them, and let it go. “I figured,” he said. “Yeah, I saw her walk out here a while ago. Pushing her leg to the limit already, no doubt. She’s probably off running with the wolves or something.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her,” Ant replied. “Her faith in them is downright creepy.”

  Jace laughed. “Got us to shelter, didn’t it? I’m not going to complain about her methods.”

  Ant and Abe nodded, still seeming as if they were uncomfortable at having been nearly caught in the midst of showing their emotions, and stood shuffling their feet, until Jace gave them the excuse they were obviously waiting for.

  “You two must be exhausted,” he said. “Why don’t you go in and claim a couple of blankets? We need to go over the timeline tonight, and I have some other research to do, but there’s no harm in getting comfortable before we start.”

  “Yeah,” Abe said. “Ant, I think he’s right. We should, uh, rest.”

  “Rest, of course,” Ant said, and though he was trying to hide the smile in his voice, I could hear it leaking through. Abe might not know Jace well, but Ant did, and he most certainly saw through the ruse.

  The twins began a quick walk toward the cave, passing Jace and leaving him in the darkness behind them, and once they were out of earshot, Jace turned back toward the forest.

  “You can come out now,” he called softly. “And I don’t want to know any of what they were saying out here in the dark.”

  I laughed softly, surprised that he’d been alert enough to know where I was, and walked quickly toward him.

  “Just the stuff you say to your brother, I guess, when you’ve been separated from him for a week, and when you didn’t know until last night whether he was dead or not,” I murmured.

  Jace nodded. “If I thought my sister was in danger, it would kill me.”

  “And they both spent the entire week not knowing,” I replied. “I don’t know how they stood it.”

  He shrugged. “Probably harder for Abe than for Ant. The one good thing about being kept constantly on our toes by the Authority is that none of us had a chance to slow down enough to think about how it made us feel.”

  I sighed. That was absolutely the truth. For the most part, we’d all been so busy running for our lives that we hadn’t had a chance to parse through the emotion of it yet. Survival was the only motivation. Emotions had been put to the side, to be dealt with later.

  “So, what’s next?” I asked, knowing that it wasn’t later yet. We were still in the middle of survival mode. We didn’t have the choice of relaxing.

  Jace gave me a nod. “I have some research I have to do. I have… a plan, but I need to know where we’re supposed to go to execute it. And in the meantime, there’s the timeline. I’m not sure how much longer we’re going to be able to count on safety up here. The sooner we know what we’re doing, the better.”

  I nodded and fell into step next to him as he walked back toward the cave. The timeline. Right. As for safety…

  That was also going to have to come soon, I suspected. Because until we were in a more secure position, with either Nathan or Little John, we couldn’t
count on it.

  20

  We returned to the cave to find that the others had been discussing the very thing we were about to dive into—thanks, no doubt, to the fact that Ant and Abe had tipped them off. The moment we were past the fire, Nelson looked up at us from where she already had the papers with the timeline out of Jace’s bag and tidied into a stack.

  “So, the timeline,” she said. “We agreed it’s the logical place to start, right?” She pulled out her phone and my tablet and gave me a grin. “And I figured that we would be doing some research. In which case, I’m going to commandeer this bigger, fancier device and leave all of you to your puny little phones.”

  Jace put up a quick hand. “The timeline for you guys, yes,” he said. “But I have other research I need to do. And I’ll need a device. Since my phone is…” He gestured helplessly at the wreckage that was his phone, and Nelson nodded.

  “Take mine,” she said, throwing it at him. “The combination is 137398. Just don’t send out any flirty texts or call any numbers you don’t think I’ll like. Remember, I’m watching.” She gave him a serious glare, and though I wasn’t quite sure what it was about, Jace chuckled and shook his head.

  “I will treat it with the utmost respect,” he said solemnly. “And I’ll fully expect you to be watching over my shoulder.”

  Then he reached down into the bag at his feet, grabbed the unlabeled address book he’d been so relieved to find in his apartment, and made his way back to the fire, his fingers already flipping through the pages, his face lowered over it, reading intently.

  I watched him, still curious about why he was blocking us from whatever search he was doing, and wondered if it had anything to do with the plan B he’d started to tell us about in the cabin. The plan that I was sure he’d been referring to several times during the day, and that he’d stopped short of giving us any details about.

  What was he hiding? And why was he hiding it? Given what I knew about the deeper layer of OH+—which I’d begun to refer to as the shadow side in my head—I was assuming it had something to do with Nathan and security. Perhaps even Little John, though I didn’t think Jace would know if that larger organization was connected, as it didn’t seem that he’d taken the step into Little John, himself. At least, not that he knew of.