Unforgettable (Talented Saga #6) Read Free

Her eyeballs stung and
she didn’t want to open her lids to see who the leg belonged to,
but Pint knew she had no choice.
    “ Bollocks,” Pint swore when
she recognized Benson’s boot.
    An arm closed around her waist from
behind. Pint thrashed against the attacker’s hold, trying to break
free as she was hauled to her feet.
    “ Damn it, Pint, it’s me,”
Artie growled in her ear. “We’ve gotta get outta here!”
    “ Benson’s down,” Pint
replied, calming instantly with the knowledge she wasn’t the only
Poacher still alive.
    “ Leave him. We’ve enough to
deal with.”
    “ Bollocks!” Pint repeated.
“We can’t just—”
    Artie began dragging her backwards,
sputtering, away from the front door and further in to the
flat.
    “ You know as well as I we
have to leave him, now don’t be unreasonable,” Artie said. Between
the smoke inhalation, her head still smarting from its rendezvous
with a wooden floor, and his proper logic, Pint knew he was right.
She wasn’t in any condition to go another round with new
opponents.
    “ Got one!” Hugh panted
victoriously through the comm unit. “Gonna take her down the fire
escape. But we’ve got us company.”
    “ We’re coming to you,”
Artie replied.
    The heat was becoming unbearable. Pint
was convinced she’d be coughing up soot for days.
    I’m demanding a pay
raise, Pint thought bitterly. She’d known
these raids were dangerous, more so than the usual ones since these
Created Chromes were like nothing the Poachers had ever
encountered. Still, this was just ridiculous. She was a member of
the family after all. Risking life and limb to collect the filthy
mutants was beneath her.
    “ Holy crap!” someone
screamed behind her. “What the hell is happening?”
    Pint froze. Newcomers. UNITED? She
hoped not.
    Even though poaching was illegal, it
had been overlooked by the international organization for years. In
Europe. Here, in Chrome-friendly America, it was not likely to be
tolerated.
    “ 97 th and Renard. Ten minutes.”
The words crackled through her comm unit.
    “ Oy that’s a hike,” Artie
grumbled. “Come on, Pint! Better get moving if we’re gonna make
it.”
    Pint nodded, unsure if Artie actually
saw the gesture or not. He pulled her forward, urging his team
leader to snap out of the daze she was in.
    Once out of the main living quarters,
the air was clearer and visibility much better. Pint gulped the
fresh air and tugged at her mask to cool the scorching skin
underneath. She straightened and shrugged out of Artie’s grip,
embarrassed that he’d needed to come to her rescue. Pint hated
feeling helpless. Sensing her mood shift, Artie didn’t fight her
and just let go.
    “ There,” he said, pointing
towards an open window at the end of a short hallway, past several
doors that probably lead to bedrooms.
    Sizzling sounds came from the living
room, as though water had been thrown to douse the fire.
    “ Three—no, four—bodies,”
she heard someone say in an American accent. “And one’s armed.
Like, really armed.”
    “ Move, Pint,” Artie
growled, his eyes darting to the clouds of steam behind them. Once
they cleared, the Poachers would be in plain sight to whoever it
was in the living room.
    “ UNITED, you think?” Pint
asked quietly, pausing just as she reached their only hope of
exiting the building.
    “ Don’t know. Don’t care to
find out. Unless you wanna go back for Benson? It’s your
call.”
    “ What’s going on? Are you
all going to make it out?” Jaylen’s voice came from her comm
unit.
    Pint debated for the blink of an eye.
Leaving Benson behind was protocol in these situations. Capture was
a risk they all took willingly, and Benson knew not to talk if
taken into custody alive. But the Duke had been clear. The
Americans couldn’t know that the Poachers were hunting on their
land. If they tied Benson to her organization, whether he talked or
not wouldn’t matter.
    I’ve botched this whole
thing up , Pint