The Child Thief 3: Thin Lines

by Bella Forrest

  Jace laid the address book out in front of him, open to a page that had several lines of writing on it, and I saw one sentence: Code Name Corona, Samsfield. And then a full address I didn’t recognize.

  “Nathan had a plan B worked out for me,” he said. “It was the first thing I thought of when we woke up in that meadow, because it was specifically labeled a plan I was to use only if the worst happened. I wasn’t supposed to even think about it unless I was in absolutely the worst possible position. At first, I thought that Zion and Alexy would be in their apartments, and that they’d be a better option. But then we couldn’t find them, and when Allerra went missing and I couldn’t get ahold of Boyd or Nathan, I knew we had to do it. The problem was that he left it in code, so that anyone who found it would think it was just gibberish, and I had to access certain parts of the web to decode it. Once I did, I realized what it was.” He looked up at me, his expression going back and forth between surprise and relief.

  “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

  “He’s given us the address of his second-in-command,” he said quietly. “I only know Corona by name, but I know she’s important, and I know she knows almost everything about Nathan’s operation. She’s the one he’s kept secret all this time. The one he’s hidden even from his own people. And he did it for exactly this situation.”

  “So she would be safe if the Authority found out about him,” I said, my voice as quiet as his. “So she could offer safe harbor.” I shook my head, clearing it of the surprise that came with Jace’s statement, and jumped right to the next topic. “So, when do we leave?”

  “First thing tomorrow,” Jace said. “I don’t want to travel in the dark. But I want to be on the road by the time the sun comes up. The longer we’re here, the greater the risk of getting caught. If we can get to Corona’s without the Authority catching on…”

  “We might actually be safe,” I breathed.

  I could only hope he was right. Because I was more than tired of running.

  21

  An hour later, we gathered in the cave again, Ant, Abe, Jackie, Nelson, and I were sitting close enough to the fire that we could feel its warmth, but far enough away that we weren’t in danger of random sparks.

  Jace had given us our plan for the next day, and we’d taken the hour after that to try to rest ourselves, savoring the peace while we had it. We had no idea whether we’d be able to find Corona or run into another dead end, and whether we’d end up back in this cave, or running from the Authority again. We all needed a moment to sit and stop thinking.

  I hadn’t had enough blankets for everyone, so the guys had voted that the girls got the blankets and then had taken the sheets and moved a bit closer to the fire themselves. We were now picnicking on what food we had brought with us and taking turns sipping water from a hollowed-out branch that Jace had found.

  Luckily it was summertime, which meant it was both lighter out than it would have been during the winter, and warmer. I wasn’t sure what we would have done if we’d wound up in this situation during the winter. Frozen to death, most likely. Although, Jace seemed intent on proving to all of us how handy he could be when it came to getting us safely through this outdoor living experience, with Kory acting as his sidekick.

  The two of them had just come back with more firewood and kindling when Ant asked the obvious question—and the one that Jace, Kory, and I probably should have all known was coming.

  “So how exactly do you two know so much about making fires and all that?” he asked, gesturing vaguely toward the fire. “Leaves as cups. Hollowed-out branches. Leeches.” He gave Jace a narrow-eyed look, and then turned it on Kory. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed how comfortable you are out here. What’s the deal?”

  Jace glanced at me, and I moved toward the fire to help him with the wood. It wasn’t the first time I’d built fires by hand either—my small cottage had gotten most of its heat from the fireplace—and though I wasn’t as comfortable in the woods as he was, the environment didn’t bother me nearly as much as it seemed to disturb Ant and Abe. Then again, I also knew we were there with people who had lived in the woods for their entire lives, up until about four months ago.

  Maybe it was time to let the others in on the secret as well. It was providing comfort for me in the midst of a truly horrible situation. It would do the same for everyone else. And was it really fair to keep that from them?

  Jace sighed and came to sit down next to me, sharing the blanket I’d laid out over the floor and then pulling an extra length of my sheet over his legs. “Well, it’s hardly the time to sit around telling stories, but I have to say that if we’re stuck here for the night—and safe—I guess it’s as good a time as any.”

  “Not like we can go anywhere right now. Not safely, at least,” Jackie said.

  My shoulders grew tense at the thought, and I turned worried eyes to the mouth of the cave. The wolves were out there, I knew—but so was the Authority. And though I hoped the wolves would make a noise if the soldiers got too close, we were also sitting in a cave. Sitting in a literal dead end.

  Jace, noticing my tension, reached out and took my hand, bringing my attention back to the conversation within the cave.

  “Be that as it may,” he said, referring to Jackie’s comment, “we’ve been through… well, more than a lot, together, and it feels…” His voice drifted off as he seemed to think about what he was about to say, and then he nodded to himself. “It feels right that you guys should know who I am, really. I want you to know.”

  I could feel the ripple of tension run around the circle and forced myself to smile to dispel the nervousness in the cave.

  “You don’t have to be so dramatic,” I teased, shoving him a bit with my shoulder. “The way you say it, it sounds like you’re about to admit to being a spy for the bad guys or something.”

  He laughed and dipped his shoulder to touch mine in thanks, then started again. “Nothing like that. You asked me who I actually am, and the truth is that until four months ago, I lived in a cave.” He stopped to allow the others to take that in, then continued, laughing at the looks on their faces. “You heard right. I was part of a small commune that escaped society. Escaped the CRAS, specifically. My parents and their friends knew that they wouldn’t be allowed to keep their children, thanks to their incomes, and they weren’t willing to accept it. So they ran.” He left the story there, awaiting the questions he must have known would come, and after a moment of silence, several shot through the air.

  “They just up and left? How? How would they have managed that?” Nelson asked. (Of course, I noted to myself, she was probably doing research.)

  “A real-life caveman?” Abe asked, leaning forward. “Cool!”

  Jackie, of course, just snorted—and she put all of her attitude into that snort, so that it seemed to say not only, “Of course you’re a caveman; that explains so much,” and also, “You’re lucky we even let you hang out with us.”

  Ant frowned, though, and leaned back, considering. “Well, that explains a whole lot,” he noted quietly.

  Jace, for some reason, chose to answer Ant’s comment rather than any of the questions. “Meaning?”

  Ant tipped his head to one side and then the other. “Well, your apartment, to start with. No one could have gone into that thing and thought you’d been raised in the city. It was underground, and there were no windows! The ideas you had about computers and how to work them. The disconnect in how you explained things when we found out that OH+ was down. Trying to start scooters with a lockpick. But mostly the way you walk. It’s so quiet it’s almost creepy.”

  Jace laughed and shrugged at that, accepting it as the truth. “I guess you learn to walk quietly when you grow up having to hunt for your food,” he allowed. Then he turned and grinned at his friend. “Right, Jack?”

  Kory lifted one eyebrow at Jace. “Jack, eh?” he asked. “If we’re coming clean, seems like it makes sense to come all the way clean.” He turned to the rest
of the group and gave a mock bow. “I’d like to officially introduce myself. My real name is Kory, second name Albertson. I did indeed grow up in the forests and mountains. My parents were best friends with Hux’s.” His face fell into a frown at that, and his voice died out a bit.

  Ah, I thought, my heart breaking a little bit at the change in him. So, his parents had been killed during the raid as well. It made sense, but I’d never really considered it. Now I wondered if he carried that scar as deeply as Jace did, and if he’d managed to save anyone. Could it be that he had a sibling at the convent as well?

  Ant looked from one of them to the other, his eyes narrowed in thought. “And where are your parents now?”

  “Dead,” Jace said bluntly. “All of them are dead. Most of the people we used to live with are dead, actually. Only a few of us survived.”

  Then, much to my surprise, he dove right into the story he’d told me—with some additional details now, like where Kory had been when it all happened, and the fact that Denver and Cloyd had also had families in the area.

  “That’s how we ended up… well, in Trenton, at least,” he finished quietly, his eyes on the ground. Then he looked up at everyone else, bringing himself out of the story and back into the present. “And that’s how we ended up with Nathan. He brought us to town, gave us our papers, got us places to live…”

  “Wait, what about Zion and Alexy?” I asked. “He got them places to live too, and we know how important they are to him. Were they up there with you guys as well?”

  It made a certain sort of sense, given the relationship between Alexy and Zion, and Nathan’s attachment to them. From what I knew, Nathan treated Jace and particularly Cloyd as if they were his family, and the only other people he seemed to care about that much were Zion and Alexy—though Zion and Alexy definitely got more toys than Jace did. But that much affection… surely it was because they all fell into the same group.

  But Jace shook his head firmly. “No, I’d never met them before I moved here,” he said. “I got to know them better when we were planning the jailbreak, same as you, and I got the idea that they were part of a circle even more important than mine. We were in on the same meetings, but they… Well, they were definitely higher up on the food chain than I was. Maybe even higher than Boyd, though you can never tell him I said so, because he’ll hate it. They’ve certainly known Nathan longer than we have.”

  “I thought you were one of the inside guys, though,” Ant said. “You go to all his private meetings.”

  “I’m still an outsider,” Jace responded. “True, I’m on the inside meetings, but only because Cloyd… well, you guys would know him as Boyd… has told Nathan that I have value. Cloyd is the inside man there, not me. He’s the one who knew Nathan first.”

  “I guess that explains quite a lot as well,” I murmured, thinking through what I knew of Cloyd. The man had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide, and particularly when it came to Jace’s interactions with Nathan. Or Jace making a decision that didn’t sit right with him. “So if he knew Nathan first, is he the one who coordinated everything?” I asked, my mind jumping to all sorts of conclusions. How had he found Nathan? What sort of deal had he made? How was it that he’d just happened to have friends who were people Nathan had been interested in?

  The conspiracy theories were virtually boundless.

  Jace just shrugged, mostly disinterested. “Cloyd arranged the whole thing, made the introductions, and gave us a way out,” he said. “At the time, I was mourning my family and trying to take care of my sister. I really wasn’t thinking about much else. I’d known Cloyd my whole life, though, and had always respected him. It didn’t take much more than that for me to agree to the plan. I just knew Nathan was a godsend. We didn’t have any idea who to turn to or where we were going to go. We knew that our settlement wasn’t safe anymore, with the CRAS after us. Nathan gave us an… option.”

  “What’s your real name?” Nelson asked quietly.

  Jace smiled at her. “Jace Huxley. And my sister’s name is Rhea. She’s at a convent near here. An arrangement which Nathan also set up. I couldn’t bring her into the city. Not with the work we were doing. It was just too dangerous. So, Nathan gave her a safe place to go.”

  “I had a sister once,” Jackie said, her voice unexpectedly intense. “Didn’t get to keep her long, though… She was so tiny, so fragile. She loved to hold onto my finger when she was going to sleep.” She smiled a slow, dreamy smile. “She was four years younger than me, and I was sure we were going to be best friends. Everyone said we looked the same.” Then, suddenly, her face turned dark. “Then the Ministry came and got her. One night, middle of the night, they just showed up and banged on the door, shouting. We all slept in the same room—didn’t have enough money for a house that had more than the one bedroom—and it woke us all up. Mom, Dad, and I all ran to the front door. We were afraid there was a fire or something like that, because they were shouting that they were emergency officers and that we had to open up.”

  She sobbed and shut her mouth. Ant put his arm around her and drew her to him until her head nestled up against his shoulder. The rest of us kept quiet while he rubbed her arm, and when she continued, her voice was stronger again.

  “They grabbed my sister right out of my mom’s arms,” she said. “Held her up against some scanner thing they had, and then did fingerprints on her. Said they were the Ministry, and per CRAS standards the baby was being taken and sent to a family that could afford to keep her. Said my parents hadn’t passed the test for being able to keep their own child.”

  She sobbed again and turned her face into Ant’s chest.

  “I ran,” she continued, her voice muffled by his shirt. “I ran away that night, sure that they were going to come for me too. I mean, I didn’t run far. I was only a kid. But I got out of the house and hid in the backyard for a whole day, watching the driveway to see whether they were coming for me. My parents hardly even noticed. They were too distraught over losing the baby. I went home when I got hungry, though. We moved after that, to another city, where my dad could get a better job. But I never stopped being scared.”

  “What was her name?” I asked softly, remembering how much it had meant to Jackie every time we rescued a baby and returned it to its parents.

  “Scarlett,” she said. “And I’m Delilah Jacqueline. Well, back then I was. The minute I got out of that house and got to choose for myself, I became plain old Jackie. Delilah never quite fit.” She sat up and blinked at me through stubborn, tear-filled eyes, and I nodded.

  Jackie might be a lot of things, but she definitely wasn’t a Delilah.

  “Got to keep my brother,” Ant jumped in, saving Jackie from saying anything else. “Don’t know how or why—especially with what we know now, about how rarely they keep siblings together. But we went to the same parents. Decent people,” he said, looking to Abe, who nodded. “A doctor and his wife. Lots of money. Had a few other kids. I never really understood why, though, as they didn’t seem to care for us that much. Didn’t feel like a real family, you know? They were always sending us to nannies and schools and stuff, rather than taking care of us themselves. It was like they just took us in as a favor to the government.”

  “You got to stay together?” Nelson asked, and I glanced at her, realizing that she hadn’t been with us when we’d heard this part of the story before. I already knew that Ant and Abe had been adopted and that they’d somehow managed to stay together. I’d already gone through the surprise of it… and the jealousy at knowing that they had someone of their own blood and DNA in their lives. Someone that they were actually related to, rather than someone they’d just been thrown together with.

  Abe nodded. “We figure there must have been a mix-up at the hospital, or the collection center,” he said. “Maybe they didn’t label us right, had us down only as a pale-haired boy. Maybe one employee grabbed him, and then another grabbed me, neither of them realizing that there were actually two of us, and we got handed t
o the couple that adopted us separately. Whatever the case, it probably shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and our parents obviously didn’t complain.”

  “Why do I have the feeling this doesn’t have a happy ending?” I murmured.

  Ant laughed. “Because you know us. The minute we realized that we looked exactly the same—and that we looked nothing like the other kids in the house, and nothing like the adults who kept telling us to call them Mom and Dad—we started asking questions. Not like it’s a big secret how the CRAS works. We’d learned all about it in school and knew what the answers were ahead of time, but the people we lived with hated talking about it. It was like they thought it was dirty, or some sort of secret. They didn’t have any biological kids, so maybe they were embarrassed that they couldn’t have them and had to adopt poor kids instead. I don’t know. But we… Well, we ran away the first chance we got. What were we, fourteen?”

  “Thirteen,” Abe corrected him. “We ran away twice and got caught both times. Caught and punished. The third time, when we were fifteen, we got smart and did it the right way. Actually made a plan ahead of time and knew where we were going and what we were going to do once we got there. Knew how we were going to support ourselves, and how we were going to keep from being caught. Neither one of us wanted to be sent back again.”

  “And you’ve been, what, looking for your real family ever since?” Kory asked.

  Ant and Abe gave him long, identical looks.

  “Wouldn’t you?” Ant asked.

  “And your real names?” I asked. “As long as we’re all giving our real identities…”

  “Ant and Abe are our real names,” Abe said, grinning. “Or at least, they sort of are. I’m Abraham, he’s Anthony. Only thing is our last name, which isn’t actually Lincoln. Last name of Richards. For now.”

  I stared at them, surprised at this incredibly serious side of them, and how similar their story was to mine, in some ways.

  “My real name’s Robin, too,” I said. “Robin Sylvone. At least…” I smiled at Abe. “For now. That’s the name the people who adopted me gave me. I don’t know where I came from. No idea about my family or who they were. I’ve seen some of my paperwork, though, and I know I was taken at birth. My real parents must have been incredibly poor—probably never even had a shot at keeping me. I was adopted by a man high up in the government and grew up on a rich street. Got everything I ever wanted. I actually liked my mom, though my dad was… intense. Had a lot of other kids around me. Kids that I loved like brothers and sisters. And that was enough, until I was a teenager and started thinking for myself. Then I rebelled. Fell in love, got pregnant. When I told my parents I was going to have a baby with a boy I hadn’t married, the man who’d been my father had my adoption revoked.”