We were just pulling off the highway about three hundred feet from where the road that had once led to my cabin headed into the forest, and I didn’t see Ant and Jackie yet. I hoped they were on their way, because we didn’t have time to wait around for them.
“I did,” Nelson answered from the back of the truck. “He says they’re working on it. They’re leaving all the supplies behind, and the bikes. Says he figures we won’t need them anymore.”
“He’s right,” I confirmed. It would have been nice to have my things, but that was secondary at this point. Getting out of here was more important. I could buy new clothes later.
Maybe Sister Isobel would have something I could borrow. Something other than a nun’s habit, if I had my preference.
I was just wondering why no one else was saying anything back there, and about to turn around and check on them, when Ant stepped out of the forest, carrying Jackie.
I was out of the truck and running toward them before I had a chance to think, intent on helping him. He did have Jace’s backpack and one of the duffel bags—who knew why—and I took them both from him, then gestured toward the truck.
“Get in and go to the back,” I told him. “There are beds back there for Jackie.”
Ant gazed up at the truck, a frown covering his face.
“Who the hell is driving that thing?” he asked. “What did you do, pick up a new recruit?”
“Ant, this is not the time for jokes or stupid questions,” I said, pushing him along. “The Authority is likely on its way as we speak. Move!”
I gave him another shove, and he stumbled into a walk, then a jog, moving toward the truck. When he got there, I saw Jace move into the passenger seat and reach down to grab Jackie, pulling her gently up into the truck. He turned and rushed toward the back with her in his arms, leaving Ant to find his own way up into the vehicle. The minute Ant was out of the way, I climbed up myself, threw the bags I held down onto the floor between us, and pulled the paper from my pocket.
“We’re going to take this highway up to the 90 and head east there until we hit the signs for Starkston,” I told Henry.
“Starkston?” he asked, glancing at the paper in my hand. “I know exactly where that is. Pass it all the time.”
“Perfect,” I said, not caring to hear any further details about it. “Get us there as quickly as you can, but let’s try to be at least a little bit safe. I’m keenly aware that we’re driving a bomb right now, and I don’t want to die in a fiery explosion. We need to get to the forest right outside of Starkston. Ant, do you know which direction the forest is in, in comparison to the town?”
“North,” he replied. “It’s half an hour north, by foot.”
Henry, to my continued surprise, didn’t even argue. It was quite a change from when we’d been younger, and he’d had some smartass answer to any statement anyone made. He just nodded, threw the truck into drive, and pulled back out onto the highway.
“Just north of Starkston. I know the place. In fact, I know several different ways to get there. Seems like a good idea for us to take an unexpected route, don’t you think? Maybe multiple unexpected routes? Given the fact that we can probably expect company. Good thing you guys have me as a guide, eh?” He glanced at me and waggled his eyebrows, and I shook my head in frustration at his antics.
Then I remembered that he was literally putting his life on the line to help us, and that he’d volunteered immediately when he found out I needed help.
That was the part of him I’d fallen in love with.
The memory made me blush, and I turned and stared out the window, determined not to look at him again until I had my emotions under control. Of all the times for him to randomly show up in my life again, he had to choose now, when I didn’t have the emotional energy to protect myself!
“What the hell is going on here, anyhow?” Henry asked suddenly, dragging my thoughts away from my embarrassment and back into the real world. “Who are these people? How did you get involved with them, Robin?”
His voice had taken on a disapproving tone now, as if he were deeply disappointed in me, and I narrowed my eyes. Who was he to be questioning me?
I turned to him and saw, though, that he wasn’t actually questioning me. His face was creased with worry, and though he was keeping his eyes on the road ahead of us as he navigated the traffic, his face was turned toward me. He was concerned.
And it broke my heart, just a little bit. In another life, in another world, this boy and I might still have been together. We might have had our baby and found a way to keep her, and that might have kept us joined until we had time to grow up. Time to learn how to be a couple. Instead, we’d been ripped apart by things that had been almost out of our control.
“They’re my friends,” I said simply. “And how I met them really isn’t important. What is important is that they’ve become… my family. The people who matter to me more than anyone else.”
A sharp cough sounded out from the general direction of my left elbow, and I snapped my gaze down to see none other than Jace sitting there, his eyes staring stonily out the front windshield. He turned them up to me, and I saw the confusion there—and the pain—and realized abruptly how this must look. I’d practically jumped into this boy’s arms on sight, obviously having known him from some other life, and he’d saved us, and then I’d fallen right into the passenger seat so I could talk to him and sent my friends to the back. To Jace that must look like a whole lot of mystery and very little room left for him.
“Jace,” I said quickly, putting a hand out.
His own hand jerked up to stop me, blocking my gesture. “I just wanted you to know that Jackie’s asking for you,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically flat. “That’s all.”
He turned and melted back into the bedroom area of the truck without another word.
“What is his problem?” Henry asked with a snort.
I turned to him, not knowing how to even begin to explain the situation with Jace, and then turned back to the road as I tried to get my thoughts in order.
“We’re going to be turning here,” Henry said after a beat. “Just so you know. From here on out we’re going to be taking routes that you might not be familiar with. I just didn’t want you to think I was kidnapping you or something. As tempting as it might be.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, still feeling thoroughly distracted.
I turned back to the road ahead and saw that he was indeed turning onto a highway that I’d never even been on before—and taking the turn more quickly than I thought he should. The tires skidded, and I found myself grabbing at the armrests, horrified that we were about to tip over, but Henry kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road, acting like this was something he did every single day.
A moment later we were on a new road, safe and sound, our speed matching that of even the smallest cars around us. I wondered if it was smart or safe for us to be going this quickly in such a large vehicle. Then I thought that it would be even less safe to be caught by the Authority, who might be behind us right now.
Henry must have noticed my increased tension, because he slanted me a glance. “It’s okay, Robin. I know you’ve put your life in my hands here, and I’m going to do everything I can to get you to safety. I’m taking alternative routes that I think will make it harder on the Authority.”
I sat back, heart racing. Maybe I should just trust him, believe that he knew what he was doing. He’d been driving for… well, at least long enough to get his driver’s license for a truck like this, and he was getting us out of the area as quickly as he could—just like I’d asked him to. He was taking us on a route that would evidently be unexpected. He knew the Authority was after us.
He’d never let me get in trouble before. Well, until we went to my parents. And I wasn’t sure I could really blame him for that.
Needing a distraction, I got up and stumbled toward the back, finding walking very difficult in a vehicle that bounced this much. Jacki
e had asked for me, Jace had said. But I figured that she could wait for a moment longer. I stared quickly from one end of the bedroom to the other and found Jace in the pilot chair in the corner. Facing the corner. His shoulders were hunched over as if to protect himself, and his chin rested on his hands. His face was within inches of the wall, and though I reached for him, my heart shouting at me to go and make amends somehow, I felt another hand grasp my arm to get my attention.
I turned to see that it was Jackie, reaching out to me from the bed on which Ant had laid her.
“Leave him for a moment,” she whispered, her voice raspy. “He doesn’t think anyone else can see how upset he is, and he won’t thank you for drawing attention to it.” She glanced at me and gave me a healthy eye roll—her specialty. “Boys. They expect you to take care of their hearts, but God forbid you actually make them admit that they have feelings! He’ll come to you when he’s ready to be taken care of. Count on it.”
I sighed at that and dropped to my knees, hoping she was right. I didn’t have enough experience with men to know one way or the other. I’d only ever had two romantic interests in my life.
And I was somehow stuck in a truck with both of them. Go figure.
I turned my thoughts to Jackie just to escape the irony of that and scooted closer to her.
“How are you feeling?” I whispered.
She snorted right back at me. “What the hell did you guys do, put me on some kind of bouncy ride?” she asked hoarsely.
I smiled and put a hand to her forehead. Burning up. I had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t seem like a good sign. Then again, at least she was still warm. I supposed that was pretty much the best I could hope for, given the situation.
“We’re getting you out of Trenton and to a place where you’ll be safe,” I murmured. “And that has better medical facilities than the forest.”
“Wouldn’t be tough,” she said with a cough. “I’d also like better nurses, please. Maybe even a real live doctor.”
I did laugh, then, and drew back a bit. “We’re going to get you all of that. But rest for now. I’m guessing you have some time to sleep before we start moving you around again.”
“So full of mystery,” she said sarcastically. But her eyes drifted shut, and I could see that she was thankful for the prompt to sleep.
Whatever was going on inside her body, it had to be stripping her of whatever energy and nutrients she had, and we hadn’t exactly had a lot to eat over the last couple of days. The more rest she got, the better. With luck, we’d have her to the convent before she woke up again.
I got to my feet and headed for the others, who were sitting in a group on the floor. I dropped down next to them, my head hurting with the stress of the last hour. The stress of the last week.
“What’s our plan once we get there?” I asked.
I noticed that Jace wasn’t looking at me, and my heart twinged a bit at that, but I put it to the side for the moment and looked around at everyone else. I wanted to have a plan figured out well before we got to where we’d left the airship, so we could hit the ground running. This was no time to play things by ear.
“We have to get the truck close enough to the airship itself to run a hose from the tanker to the fuel tank on the ship,” Nelson said. “We aren’t going to have time to ferry gasoline by some small carrier. The ship will drain half of this tanker if it’s empty enough.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. Henry?” I called toward the driver’s seat. “Can this thing go off-road? Will we be able to drive it to where we left our next… vehicle?”
There was a brief pause, and then: “Depends on what sort of land we’re talking about. If it’s dry grassland, no problem. If it’s a swamp, absolutely not.”
“Definitely grassland,” I said. “What about a hose for fueling something else up? Got anything like that?”
He snorted. “’Course I do. You can use the hose I always use to transfer fuel from the tanker to wherever it’s going.”
I looked back to Nelson, the initial question answered, and waited for the next step.
“That’s it, really,” she said. “Once we have fuel, we get the airship loaded, and we get airborne. And from there, we get the hell away from here.”
“Hopefully before anyone from the Authority shows up,” Jace added, finally coming to life and adding to the conversation. He looked up and met my eyes head on. “And then we get to our destination. And pray to God that the Authority isn’t watching the skies too closely along the way.”
I gave him a shy smile, still feeling somewhat guilty about Henry, and nodded. It was good to have Jace’s voice in the conversation again. It made me feel as if we might actually be able to pull any of this off.
42
We came screeching to a halt just off the Starkston exit. Henry threw the truck into park and looked at me in the passenger’s seat, then at Ant, who was standing between the seats, his phone in his hand. He was plugged into Henry’s portable charger—a privilege he’d earned by being the one in charge of finding our airship for us.
He looked down at his phone, frowned, and then looked up at the view in front of us.
“That way, I think,” he said, pointing toward the right. “According to the map I’m looking at, it’s about fifteen minutes that way.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, immediately distrusting the vagueness of the statement. “We don’t have time for this to be a mistake, Ant.”
It was the truth. We had no idea whether the Authority had been following or tracking us on our journey here. If they were after us in vans, there was a chance we’d gotten away from the truck stop early enough that they were still a fair distance behind us. If Henry was right about his alternative routes, there was a chance that we’d managed to bypass any blockades—or additional forces—they might have set up. We could have been extremely lucky when it came to ground forces.
But I wasn’t stupid enough to assume that this was the case. Plus, that luck would have been completely discounting the possibility that we were also being tracked by air. We knew the Authority had airships. It didn’t take a big jump to assume that they were tracking us by air as well as land, and the more time we spent sitting around, the more time they had to potentially catch us.
“I’m sure,” Ant answered, his tone firm. “I recognize the area, and I know this is the way we came. Starkston is that way”—he pointed left, then right—“which means the ship is that way.”
I nodded. He had more at stake than anyone else, given his commitment to Jackie. I trusted him to be responsible right now, when it was most important.
Henry, bless him, didn’t even wait for Ant to finish speaking. He’d already shoved the truck back into gear and was turning right—directly into the grasses that surrounded us. There was a huge bump, the truck groaned more loudly than it had before, and everyone inside of it—except for Henry—jumped and looked around, terrified that something had gone wrong.
We were, after all, driving a portable bomb. I hadn’t forgotten it, even if Henry had.
Then we rumbled forward over whatever it was we’d hit, and into the grasses, and the ride became slightly more even. The land we were passing through was relatively simple, thank goodness—mostly grassland with an occasional patch of soil or gravel, and Henry didn’t seem to have any problem getting the truck over the changing terrain. In fact, he was operating the steering wheel like he’d been born to do it. He kept his eyes on the land in front of us, and I divided my gaze between him, our way forward, and Jackie, who was still lying in the bottom bunk. She was growing paler, I was sure of it, and when we hit a particularly bad bump she shifted and groaned, though she was still asleep.
All this movement was bad for her. Never mind the bouncing that came with riding in a truck this big. We had to get her into something gentler, and then to a doctor. I had no idea how long the flight to the convent was going to take, but it would inevitably be smoother, and perhaps that would help to improve her situa
tion.
I just hoped that ride was simple. If the Authority was tracking us via airship, we were going to have a battle on our hands once we got into the sky.
“There’s your forest,” Henry suddenly said from beside me.
I whirled back to face the windshield and saw the copse of trees we’d marched through the morning we found ourselves deserted in the meadow. God, it seemed like that had been at least a year ago, now. Before we’d been hunted by the Authority. Before we’d been labeled terrorists. Before we’d been completely alone in the world, without the steadying influence of Nathan or Zion or Alexy—and without the promise that Little John would be there to get us out of any scrape we managed to get ourselves into.
Henry rolled up to the forest, and I tried desperately to think of how long we’d walked through it. How far away was the airship? Would the hose even stretch far enough?
“I don’t suppose you can drive through the trees,” I said, not coming up with any answers to my question.
Henry shrugged, his face tense. “I can. It’s going to make one hell of a mess, though, and it’s going to be an easy path to follow. And it’ll definitely be bad if we get stuck somewhere. This isn’t a bulldozer, you know. Easier if I go around.”
He gestured to the left, and I saw, to my surprise, that this group of trees didn’t stretch indefinitely. In fact, it ended about five hundred feet from where we were sitting.
“Was the meadow actually on the other side of the trees, or was it just in the middle of them?” I asked, of no one in particular.
“It was on the other side,” Jace answered, coming up next to me and placing his hand possessively on my arm. “I looked around, wondering exactly the same thing, while you were still trying to figure out if your leg would work or not. There were no trees behind us when we left.”
“Around it is,” I told Henry, sliding my hand up to take Jace’s.
He squeezed mine in a show of support—and, I hoped, forgiveness for the situation. He had to know that I hadn’t planned for Henry to show up when he did.
The Child Thief 3: Thin Lines Page 32