The Child Thief 5: Ghost Towns

by Forrest, Bella

  At that he finally began to slow, but his face was panicked when he turned back to face me again.

  “Robin, we can’t hide here. We have to keep running!”

  He whipped around and began to speed up again, his right foot splashing into a black puddle in a pothole, and I continued to run after him.

  I couldn’t think of a reason why agents would be in Millville. They might be patrolling to find people, which would put us at a huge disadvantage no matter where we hid. And no matter what, we looked suspicious running away from them. The only safe option was to get out of Millville.

  But the agents were coming quickly. My watch showed that they were at the factory now. If we were lucky, maybe they’d notice the broken window and decide to search the factory for intruders or looters. But if they didn’t see that detail, or if they did and started splitting up in an attempt to find whoever had done it, they could be coming down the main street any second. I whipped my head back around to look. A bend in the road blocked my view of the factory. But my watch showed that agents were there and they weren’t stopping.

  I turned. There was a strip of very barren woods on the right side of the road, but it was barely enough to provide us with any cover. It was only a couple of feet wide and mostly made up of dead trees and waist-high weeds. On our left was the apartment building. That’d be the first place the agents would look if they were patrolling. Which meant we didn’t have a choice.

  I inhaled a deep breath and pumped my legs as hard as I could. In a few seconds, I had caught up to Jace. In a few more seconds, I was past him. I was going to take the lead and hope that Jace would catch on to where I was headed.

  I veered off to the right and crashed into the underbrush just as the sound of military trucks hit my ears. I didn’t have time to look back, but I heard a second crash into the tangled growth as Jace followed me. I sat down quickly in a tangle of weeds and yellowish grass and tried to make myself as small as possible. I could hear more of the truck sounds now: the aluminum frame of the vehicle creaking, the splash of water as tires hit the potholes… and then the horrifying squeal of brakes. They were stopping right beside us.

  Jace crawled over quickly to sit beside me, barely covered by the grasses and brambles. I didn’t turn my head to face him as he got closer. I didn’t know how well hidden we were, but I knew the agents were within a hundred feet of us, and I didn’t want to risk any more motion than necessary. Jace grew still once he reached me, and then we both crouched, frozen, as silently as we could.

  If we hadn’t truly been trapped back in the factory, we certainly were now. But this was the best option. If we had attempted to outrun them for another five seconds, we would’ve been spotted on the road. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing, but panic was fighting to take hold of me. How were we going to get back to the airship now?

  Jace’s hand found mine. I looked over at him from the corner of my eye, trying hard not to move my head. He was staring straight ahead, his breathing now calm and almost undetectable, and he was so immobile that he looked like a predator stalking prey and preparing to pounce. But I felt more like the prey.

  I let myself exhale deeply but soundlessly, trying to push out all the fear with the breath. All we could do now was hope that we were covered, and that the agents would move on quickly.

  Through the sound of blood rushing in my ears, I heard voices.

  “Blue team, first floor. Red team, second floor. Green team, third floor. Orange team, fourth floor.”

  It was a gruff male voice speaking with military directness. I could hear heavy boots hitting the broken road and moving away from our hiding place. Then I heard the heavy creaking sound of a door. It sounded like they were going into the apartments.

  I squinted and tried to see through the yellow grass in front of me. When I cocked my head slightly, I could see the military truck through tufts of weeds. One agent was left behind—presumably the man who was giving orders. He was dressed in standard Authority blue and was standing in front of the armored truck and surveying the outside of the apartment building. With his face turned away from us. I slowly turned to Jace to speak to him.

  Jace’s face turned as well, and our eyes met.

  “This might be our only chance,” he whispered, his lips barely moving.

  I nodded, moving my head as slowly and imperceptibly as I could. There was only one agent to evade now. Our chances of getting by undetected were significantly higher while all of the other agents were still in the apartments and preoccupied with their search. Even then, we were at risk of an agent glancing out of an apartment window and seeing us from above. We had to go now.

  There was a wide-open area behind us, on the other side of the thin strip of undergrowth that Jace and I were hiding in. It might have been a meadow if Millville weren’t so polluted. But instead it was an expanse of black, oily mud, pocked with sparse sprouts of thorny weeds. If we could get through the brush quietly enough, and into the mud, we could crawl a few hundred feet and get to thicker woods, which would cover us on our journey back to the airship. Our only hope was that the thin median of grass between us and the agent on the road would keep us hidden until we got to the woods and could start moving faster.

  It wasn’t a good plan, but it was all we had.

  Jace slowly lifted a hand up to his chest and then balled it into a fist. I looked closely at him, wondering what he was going to do next, but he was staring intently through the brush. He must’ve had a view of the agent. A few long moments passed, and then his thumb popped out of his fist and quickly jerked back, gesturing behind him. He was giving me a cue. I was going first.

  I turned in the brush and started to crawl toward the clearing. It was impossible to be both quiet and fast; you could only pick one at a time. I sacrificed silence for a brief burst of action as I pushed out of the grass toward the mud, still crouched low to the ground. The rustling of the brush filled me with fear again. What if the agent was looking right at our hiding place? What if he could hear the sound of my escape?

  But then I was out of the brush and into the mud. It was so viscous that I barely made a noise as I hit it on my hands and knees. I immediately began to sink into it.

  Then the smell hit me.

  I gagged at the raw, rotten scent of sewage. It was overpowering. I swallowed hard and tried to breathe through my mouth, but it only made the effect of the scent stronger. If the sound of the brush didn’t attract the agent, the sound of heaving definitely would. I closed my eyes and tried to steady myself.

  Suddenly Jace came silently out of the dry grass and hit the mud behind me. I held my breath to listen. Silence. The agent hadn’t seen or heard us so far, or if he had, he wasn’t coming yet. So it was time to execute phase two of our escape plan.

  I lifted a hand gingerly out of the muck. There was a slight sucking sound as I pulled my fingers away from the sticky blackness, but I didn’t think it was loud enough to carry over to the agent. I picked up my knee behind me and repeated the motion: another sickening suction noise, but low enough to keep going. I heard Jace start to move behind me.

  We were in for a long, miserable crawl.

  With every slow, agonizing movement, the smell of the filth seemed to hit me anew. I could feel my stomach contracting with nausea, and the only thing that kept me going was the thought of the airship being close enough to reach. If we could make it through the mud and into the woods, we had a good chance of making it all the way to the airship.

  I heard Jace audibly gagging behind me and swallowed heavily. We were in the same miserable predicament.

  At that point, the sound of voices floated over the brush to reach us again.

  “Blue team reporting. All clear.”

  Oh, no. The agents were clearing out of the apartments floor by floor already. I didn’t know how many agents were on each team, but a steady stream of conversation was now audible, and I thought I heard at least four distinct voices.

  The more agents
there were on the street, the higher our chances were of being heard or seen, so I picked up the pace slightly. We were almost to the woods.

  “Robin,” Jace whispered behind me.

  I kept going, but I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to let him know that I was listening.

  “Red team reporting. Clear,” came a clear voice from the apartments.

  “Robin, they might search the huts,” Jace continued quietly.

  I thought about the statement. If the agents were searching the apartments, that meant they were likely looking for people who had been left behind or who had managed to keep themselves hidden. That meant the huts would be another prime searching spot—and that meant the agents would get very close to our airship. They might even get close enough to bump right into it.

  And if they got there ahead of us, they could get between us and the airship. We could be blocked from leaving Millville.

  “We’re going to have to go faster,” Jace finished. “Look at the cover up ahead.”

  I looked along the line of brush that led to the woods, offering us concealment on our slow journey. It was noticeably thinner about ten yards ahead. And there was a complete opening before we hit the woods. We’d be much easier to spot without that sparse tree cover. We were going to have to move even more quickly than I’d realized.

  “Green team reporting. Third floor is clear,” a new voice sounded behind us.

  There was only one team left now. And they could be out any second. We were almost to the woods, but if the agents finished up and traveled by truck to the huts, they would be able to spot us through the thin spots. If we waited too long, they would pass us and get to the shantytown before we could. And then we’d be cut off from getting to the airship for our escape.

  “Orange team,” I heard over my shoulder, but I didn’t take the time to listen to the rest. I half stood from my crawling position and started moving as quickly as I could in the deep mud. I was less worried about moving undetectably now, and more worried about getting to the airship before the agents did.

  I could hear Jace following behind me. We were no longer as quiet as we could be, and we were standing higher and making ourselves more visible to the agents. But we had to get to those woods, and through them, before the agents behind us started moving.

  We were still too slow. The sound of the truck’s engine started up, filling the air behind us. They were coming down the road now.

  “Run,” I said without turning my head. I stood all the way and made a beeline for the denser cover of woods that we were about to hit, the mud flying around me. We were no longer hidden. We were in full view of the street.

  The truck hit its accelerator behind us, and I began to hear shouting. The truck was trying to overtake us, and I was certain that all the agents were in it. Were they going to try to run us down?

  Then there was a noise like a firecracker popping, and a bullet whizzed past us. I crashed into the woods right at the sound of the second shot.

  The truck ground to a halt. It couldn’t follow us into the woods, but agents would no doubt be pouring out of it with their guns drawn. I didn’t turn around to confirm that theory.

  Jace pulled out in front of me, and I knew well enough to follow him closely. His sense of direction was much better than mine, an effect of living for so long out in the woods. He would know the best way to get us back to the airship.

  A bullet hit a low-hanging branch right beside him, and it exploded into wood fragments and dust. We increased our pace.

  I could see the huts up ahead to our left. We were close to the airship now, but the guards were right behind us. If they made it to the airship before we could safely take off, they could use the flight path on the ship to trace right back to Edgewood. We had to be quick in our escape. Thank goodness I had Jace and his built-in compass to lead me. These woods were dark and confusing. I might never have found my way back if I accidentally stepped off the original path we had taken.

  I watched Jace reach into his pocket in front of me and pull out a small remote: the airship controller. It was still in stealth mode, so we couldn’t see it. But we’d see the hatch opening, and we had the airship’s coordinates marked on our watches to find it.

  Another bullet hit a tree in front of me at almost the exact height as my head.

  Please. Please let us make it to the airship. I wanted to meet Juno someday. I wanted to find Hope. I wanted another day on this planet to keep fighting against the powers that be. I wanted to watch the Burchard Regime crumble.

  I didn’t want to die.

  A hiss sounded in front of us, only yards away, and I could see motion in a clearing up ahead. It looked like a door was opening into another dimension—all I could see was a hatch popping up out of thin air. The stealth mode made the airship almost perfectly invisible. But now I could see the comforting space inside of the ship.

  Jace slowed to let me pass, and I sped past him and up into the hatch of the ship, Jace bounding quickly in after me. The hatch began to close, but before it could, a bullet roared in and ricocheted off the cabin wall.

  I ducked and gasped.

  “I’m driving!” Jace yelled.

  I wasn’t going to fight him on that.

  He threw himself into the pilot chair and quickly flicked on the ignition, then wrapped his hands wrapped around the controls as the airship roared to life.

  “Hold on!” he shouted over the rumble of the thrust vectors.

  I leapt into the copilot chair and strapped myself in just as Jace pulled down on the controls. I felt a crushing weight from above as we shot straight up into the air.

  I whimpered involuntarily. It was a terrifying feeling to gain so much elevation so quickly. I didn’t think I had ever moved as quickly in my life as I was moving then. But then Jace worked the controls, and the weight on my shoulders was relieved. I jerked back into my seat.

  “So long, Millville!” Jace yelled.

  We were shooting through the sky now, moving over miles of forest in the span of seconds. So long, Millville, I thought with a mixture of relief and sadness.

  19

  “Ironfield is next,” Jace said, his fingers moving over the screen on the control panel to set the flight path coordinates.

  I breathed deeply and tried to focus on what he was saying. Ironfield. It was difficult to imagine flying into another abandoned town when we had almost been killed in the first one. I was also worried about our cover being blown now. The agents had seen us in Millville. Did they realize we were exploring abandoned cities? Would Ironfield and the other towns have heightened security or agent presence now in anticipation of us?

  “No enemies on the GPS in Ironfield yet,” Jace said, seemingly thinking the same thing I had just been. “But I guess now we know that doesn’t mean they won’t show up unexpectedly.”

  He looked over at me with concern.

  “The important thing is that we made it out okay. We’ll know to be more cautious in Ironfield and the other towns,” he said.

  “But how do we know they aren’t going to start laying traps for us?” I asked him. “What if they’ve just realized people are investigating the disappearances—or actually expected it?”

  “We can’t know for sure,” Jace replied. “But we also don’t have any real reason to believe they’ll be expecting us in the other towns. They have nothing explicitly tying us to Little John.”

  That was true, but what reasons would we have had to be in Millville? The agents had a right to be suspicious, and since the government surely knew by now that Little John had kidnapped a team of Ministry executives, they were probably on high alert. But what choice did we have? We could either risk continuing or give up and go back to Edgewood. And the latter definitely didn’t appeal to me. Nathan was relying on us to find information. Not to mention, I felt closer to finding my parents than I ever had.

  “I guess you’re right,” I conceded.

  He smiled. Sweet, brave Jace. He was always try
ing to make me feel better when he knew I was worked up. But it was hard for me to return his smile. I stunk like fetid garbage, I was covered in an inch of muck, and I was holding a useless latex disguise.

  Jace and I had torn off the masks as soon as we were safely away from Millville, and I noticed now that mine was ripped down the middle. It must’ve happened when we were traipsing through brush and thorns.

  I put the mask back on and asked Jace if it was still usable.

  “Yeah,” he replied, cocking an eyebrow, “if you’re cool having only one eye and half a nose.”

  So one of my disguises was effectively ruined. And we had only made one stop so far.

  I leaned back in my chair and tossed the latex disk behind me. At least we had an hour of flying time before we would be risking death again.

  “I think I know what might make you feel better,” Jace said.

  I cast a sidelong glance at him, doubting whether anything was going to make me feel better at the moment. I was grateful to be alive, but I could barely stomach the smell we were putting off inside the airship. I was sore and exhausted from our escape, my mind was still reeling from the information I had found on Juno, and I was terrified at the prospect of walking headlong into a government trap in Ironfield.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You leave that to me. Why don’t you try to rest before we get to Ironfield? I’ll fly us there,” Jace said, his flirty, jovial self again.

  I smiled weakly in return. Maybe I would try to rest before we landed in Ironfield. At least I wouldn’t be able to smell myself in my sleep.

  I stood and headed back to the row of passenger seats to lie down. After tossing and turning for a while to find a comfortable position, I finally closed my eyes to try to relax. But the rest was brief and spotty. I couldn’t turn off the thoughts racing through my head. If Helping Hands wasn’t a government organization, then why were Authority soldiers patrolling Millville? And why was it so important to make sure no one had been left behind? Where did they take all those people, and why? And was Juno part of the group that got evacuated?