The Child Thief 3: Thin Lines

by Bella Forrest

  Just like they broke people who didn’t agree with them.

  I looked down, saw that the floor was only about ten feet away from me now, and realized that we were in luck. Corona had been using this chute, and right below me was a large rolling basin. A basin full of laundry. It would be dirty… but it would also be soft.

  I slipped down five more feet, then turned the safety off on my gun, pulled my knees sharply toward my chest, and allowed myself to fall the rest of the way.

  28

  I dropped into the bin full of clothes and froze, my gun up and ready in front of my face, my ears straining to hear anything at all. The room was dim and dusky around me. This was just the laundry room, and it wasn’t lit up, my mind said sharply. Would they even have bothered to search in here?

  Of course they would have, the other voice in my head said. They’re searching the entire place. Whatever they think Corona has done, they’re serious about finding her and no doubt punishing her for it.

  In that case, I replied rationally, wouldn’t the fact that the lights were off mean that they’d already searched in here? Because I didn’t think they were here anymore.

  Maybe they haven’t searched yet. Or maybe there’s someone in here, just waiting for you to step out of that bin, the horrible voice replied.

  I froze at that thought, every muscle tensed against the idea that there might be someone in the room with me. Someone with a gun, who had orders to shoot first and ask questions later.

  But surely if there had been anyone in here, they would have seen me fall and be dashing toward the laundry bin right now, gun out and ready to shoot. I brought my own gun up higher in front of my face at the thought, pointed outward, and waited a few more seconds.

  No one appeared.

  Rolling gently to my side, I managed to get my knees under me, and into a crouched, turtle-like position, then paused again. Still no movement outside the bin, at least nothing that I could hear. I breathed out through my mouth, preparing myself, then popped up to a kneeling position and scanned the entire room, my gun held up and pointing outward from me as I looked. I spun first one way and then the other, my breathing coming in gasps now, and strained my eyes, trying to see into the shadowy corners of the room.

  But I didn’t see anything. And I would have, if there was anyone in there, because the room was completely empty, save for the bin in which I was sitting, and a stackable washer/dryer set. Strange, I thought randomly. This house was so enormous that I’d expected at least a full-sized washer and dryer. Not that I’d been thinking about it, but now that I looked at them…

  Then again, all signs pointed to Corona having lived here by herself. Perhaps she didn’t need much in the way of space when it came to washing and drying. At the thought, the mystery around her deepened, but I put it to the side for after we got out of this mess.

  Life-saving efforts first. Escape second. Solving of mysteries could wait until we were miles from this place.

  I climbed out of the bin and dropped to my feet on the plain concrete floor. No fancy decorations in here. This room was purely utilitarian, which meant there was nowhere to hide if anyone came in.

  I turned and hissed up the chute, “Jackie! I’m all clear down here, but I don’t know how much longer we’ll be safe. Just drop the last five feet or so. There’s a laundry bin down here to land in.”

  I quickly adjusted the laundry bin so it was directly under the chute again, and three seconds later Jackie fell out of the ceiling and landed with a soft thump in the laundry. I reached in to help her out, anxious to get her out of the way before the next body came, and then helped Ant once he appeared, with Jackie’s assistance. We went through the same process four more times, and within a minute my entire crew was standing in the laundry room with me. Jace and Kory both had their guns out, and the three of us moved toward the door, motioning for the others to stay behind.

  I didn’t have my second-skin suit on anymore, and Kory had never had one, but we were the people with the guns, which meant we went first.

  Jace, who did still have his second-skin suit on, took the lead. He crept up to the door and pulled it open a couple of inches—just far enough to slide his hand and the ever-present hand mirror through the space so he could look around. He stared at it for several seconds, the muscles in his arm telling me that he was turning it, and a second later, he nodded.

  “This room isn’t attached to the kitchen, but I can see the kitchen to the right,” he whispered. “This opens up into a hallway, and I can’t see what’s on the other side. Where are the agents now? Has anyone been listening?”

  We hadn’t, but we all grew immediately still, tuning our ears to the sound of other people in the house.

  For a moment everything was still, and then a crash sounded directly above us, so loud that we all jumped and ducked, thinking the ceiling was coming down. Nothing further happened, though, and it quickly became obvious that most of the soldiers had moved upstairs.

  “They’re on the second floor,” I hissed. “And that means they’ve probably left guards at the doors, so with luck we won’t have to pass any. There are four floors in this place, and if they keep moving upward, that gives us a bit of time to get to the kitchen, find the basement, and figure out what the hell we’re supposed to do from there.”

  I was about to step out into the hallway when Jace put a sudden hand on my arm and yanked me back.

  “As long as they didn’t leave anyone in the kitchen to keep an eye on things,” he whispered cautiously. “We can’t be sure that all of them went upstairs, or even that they’re only at the doors. We can hope. But hope isn’t going to do us a lot of good if we end up rushing into a room where Authority soldiers are keeping watch. I go first.”

  I bit my lip and nodded, grateful again to have him along. I’d evidently become the person who rushed right into danger without thinking about it enough, thanks to my overwhelming need to get out of here quickly. The idea that there were soldiers upstairs who would shoot us on sight was completely overshadowing what I’d always thought of as my more practical nature.

  Though, I was starting to realize that maybe my nature had never been all that practical in the first place. The last two weeks had showed me that I was more impulsive than I’d admitted. But right now, I needed to be smart and play it safe.

  “You first, me second,” I said quietly, taking a step back.

  He gave me a single nod, pulled the door open wider, and stuck his head through it slowly, turning his gaze first one way and then the other. He brought one hand up behind his back, extended all five fingers, and started counting down. Five, four, three, two, one…

  Then he darted through the door, and I went right after him. I could hear the shuffling of bodies after me, and assumed everyone else was coming as well, and then we were darting right through another doorway and into the kitchen.

  This kitchen was nearly as big as the one we’d seen in the Authority’s compound, and I had a sudden sense of déjà vu.

  “Why exactly are we always running from Authority soldiers and finding ourselves in kitchens?” I muttered, moving past the large marble island in the middle and searching the wall for a door that might lead into the basement. This kitchen seemed to be made up of windows more than anything else, as if it was an extension on the house or something, and I was just thinking that I must have guessed wrong when I noticed another hallway leading out of the far corner. I darted for it, tripping on a barstool in my haste to get past, and a second later I’d found exactly what I was searching for.

  A door that screamed basement. Even in a house this big and fancy, they hadn’t bothered to make this door attractive. After all, it only led to the basement—the place to store your bags of potatoes and Christmas decorations. Maybe the lawnmower that you didn’t want to keep in the garage. The door was a utilitarian gray, the paint matte and unattractive.

  It looked exactly like the door to the basement at home, and I felt abruptly sick to my stomach
—and more homesick than I could have imagined possible. I hadn’t seen that door in two years. The last time I’d seen it, I’d just returned from summer camp at the lake, and had been taking my luggage down to the basement for storage. I’d had the most exciting, freedom-filled summer of my life, and my head had been full of sunshine and warmth. I’d been positive that I was in love with Henry, and was picturing some sort of spring wedding with daisies as the flower.

  I hadn’t yet known that I was pregnant. I hadn’t yet known that life as I knew it was about to end abruptly, with the only father I’d ever known actually shooting my boyfriend.

  I shook my head firmly, jerking myself out of the memory, and put out a hand to shove the door open. I had to get myself under control, mentally, or I was going to get us all caught.

  The door opened into an extremely dark stairway, and I yanked my phone out of my pocket, hit the flashlight function, and darted forward. If this basement was like any other basement, then the only light was downstairs, no doubt a single bulb hanging from a length of twine. People just didn’t put money into fancy lighting for such an unimportant room.

  We slid and scrambled down the stairs, the seven of us running into each other and getting tangled up in the dark, and I was surprised when we got to the bottom of the staircase without falling. I shoved my phone up in front of me and shone the flashlight around the room, looking desperately for the hanging lightbulb I was sure had to be there somewhere, and four other phones lit up to help me look. Then the place was suddenly flooded with light.

  I jerked to the side and turned my eyes to the wall, certain we’d been caught, to see Jackie standing there looking at us like we were all idiots.

  “Normal people look for light switches on the walls,” she hissed. “Have you guys lost your minds?”

  Her eyes roved scornfully over us, then went past me … and widened in shock.

  “Oh God!” she breathed. “Would you look at that?”

  I whirled around, terrified that she’d found something awful, and nearly fell over when I saw what she was talking about.

  Fifteen sleek black motorcycles sat in a row against the far wall of the basement, their matte black paint sucking the light up, their chrome edging reflecting it back at us. They were absolutely gorgeous—and looked completely deadly.

  And Jace was right. They were about five million times better than the scooters we’d arrived on.

  They also each had a helmet propped up on the seat, and I didn’t have to try mine on to know it would be a perfect fit. Somehow, Corona would have known that. She’d guessed at exactly what we’d need and supplied it.

  I couldn’t wait to get to a safe place and start to pick that woman’s brain.

  “I guess your contact came through for you after all,” Ant said, his voice awed. “Oh my God, are those really for us?”

  A clatter of pans falling was his only answer, and we all jerked back into movement.

  “Hell, they’re in the kitchen,” Jackie hissed, rushing toward the motorcycles. “Whether these are here for us or not, we’ve got to go. If they belong to someone else, they’re going to have to deal with us borrowing them for a bit.”

  We each raced to a bike, and I found the keys already in the ignition of the one I’d chosen. I looked up at Jace to find that he was holding a hand up, telling us to wait.

  “Helmets on. We all start them at the exact same time, and not until we know how to get out of here,” he said sharply. “The minute they hear these engines, those agents are going to know that we’re down here. I don’t want them figuring it out until we’re on our way up and out.”

  We all slid the helmets onto our heads and then turned and stared around us, looking desperately for the door. Surely there was a door here somewhere.

  Then Jackie coughed and pointed, and I saw what she was talking about. There, at the far end of the basement, was a ramp leading right up toward the ceiling. And at the top of it, a wide door attached to a motor.

  “But how do we open it?” Abe asked, panicked.

  I was about to shake my head when I saw something on the wall next to the ramp. I jumped off my bike and ran toward the wall to find that it was just… a button. In a pad. Embedded in the wall.

  I turned and stared at Jace, my thoughts full of questions, and he nodded. “That’s got to be it,” he said firmly.

  I whirled around, jammed my finger down on the button, and heard the door above me engage and then start rolling upward. It took me five seconds to get back to my bike, and ten seconds later we had the bikes started and were roaring up the ramp, through the door, and into the light of freedom.

  29

  None of us stopped when we hit what turned out to be another driveway at the back of the house. Instead, we tore out onto the street behind the houses, never pausing to look back, and raced up the street, Jace in the lead. He swerved right at the first corner and kept going, turning at random as we came to streets and racing through the development, the large, colorful houses flying by us in blurs of red and brown. I was ducked so low over the handlebars of my bike that I could feel the seat jamming into my belly, but I didn’t sit up. I didn’t slow down.

  I prayed that those agents in that house were ignorant of what had just happened. I prayed that they’d been making enough noise that they didn’t hear our engines or the door we’d opened. But we couldn’t be sure of that. Not until we were far enough away to stop and determine whether we’d been followed.

  Once we’d been driving for ten minutes, Jace pulled into a parking lot, coasted to where a row of trees would hide us from the main road, and killed his engine. The rest of us followed suit, and then sat there, breathing hard and taking our helmets off, then staring at each other.

  “I swear, I’m starting to feel like we’re living in some sort of movie,” Nelson said, her voice hoarse with tension. “And not the good kind. The kind that you watch and think, ‘Man, I’m glad my life isn’t like that.’ Are we actually riding motorcycles that we just found in your contact’s basement? In what world does this happen?”

  “In a world where we’re being chased by an authoritarian government that steals people’s babies and sells them, I guess,” I said, giving her a quick grin. Then I turned to Jace. “So, what’s the move, Captain?”

  He glanced at the street behind us, his eyes intense. “I want to see if they’re following us,” he said quietly. “I can’t see how they would have missed us starting so many bikes in the basement of the house they were actively searching, and I don’t know how they would have missed seven motorcycles tearing up the street at high speeds. But I didn’t see any immediate response from them, and I’m figuring that if we’re lucky, we took enough turns and got out of there quickly enough that they might not know where to go, even if they saw us leave. It would have taken them some time to get back to the main driveway and get their vehicles started. If we’re lucky…”

  At that point, we heard sirens in the distance, and all of us ducked. That sort of sound only came from one thing: government law enforcement cars.

  “Either someone in this neighborhood has called the cops for some inane reason—maybe on us, come to think of it—or those agents did in fact see us, and now they’re giving chase,” Ant said shortly. “And I’m guessing, given our luck, that it’s the second of those two options.”

  “I agree with you,” Jace said, leaning down and staring at the road. “The only question is whether they’ll come this way, or whether they’re just going to canvass the area randomly.”

  “Either way, I don’t think we can afford to sit around and wait to see,” I said, my skin feeling itchy at the concept. I hated being a sitting duck. Now that we’d figured out how to take action, and I had the confidence of a gun at my hip, I was ready to run.

  “I say we get the hell out of here. If they’re canvassing the neighborhood, they’re going to find this spot sooner or later. I don’t want to be sitting here when they do.”

  Jace gave me a nod
of acknowledgement, and that was good enough for me.

  “Jackie?” I said, turning to her. “Can you get the map up to get us back to the forest, quickest way possible?”

  She winked and took out her phone, typed for a second, and then held it up. “Got it,” she said, and held out her hand. “Ant, my comm, if you don’t mind.” He jerked it out of his pocket and tossed it to her, and a moment later she had it in her hand and was looking at the group. “Everyone with comm devices, turn them on. I’ll lead. The rest of you, don’t lose us.”

  She popped the device back into her ear and hit the power switch, and I watched as Jace, Kory, and Abe turned theirs on as well. Jackie gave everyone a minute to get ready and get their helmets back on, and when she had nods from everyone, she turned the ignition on her bike again, hit the throttle, and roared off into the street.

  The rest of us followed, my bike cruising just to the left of Jace’s, Nelson on my other side. Ant and Abe were right in front of us, and Kory rode behind us, so we’d have someone with a comm on if we got lost. I had my gun out still, and I knew Jace and Kory had theirs as well.

  We weren’t too far from the outskirts of town, and once we hit the main highway, it would be a fairly simple ride to get back to the forest. I just hoped we could get out of there before the Authority picked up our trail. We might be riding something a hell of a lot better than the scooters we’d had, but something told me the Authority soldiers would be on bikes—or in cars—that were even faster. They did, after all, have the government’s money at their beck and call.

  I didn’t want us pitted against them when it came to speed. As long as we got out of town quickly enough, we shouldn’t have to.

  I stopped myself there, not wanting to think about the fact that we had to come back out into the world tomorrow—and hope that Corona was still alive to keep her word that she would get us to safety.