Unforgettable (Talented Saga #6) (3 page)

“
Francie! Alana! Run!”
someone screamed.

Cotton seemed to be
clogging her ears, muffling the noises around her.
Francie and Alana must be the other two Chromes
who were hiding in the shadows
, she
thought through the haze.

A popping noise, followed by a crack
that sounded like a tree limb snapping jarred Pint back to reality.
The damned place was burning to the ground around her.

“
Abort. Abort. We’re coming
out hot,” Pint wheezed into the comm unit.

A profound dread overcame her when
there was no response.

“
Jaylen? Lilliana? Libby?
Someone answer me!” Pint screeched, rolling to her side.

Smoke rises, stay
low
, Pint thought as she crouched on her
hands and knees, gun in one hand. She crawled towards what she
hoped was the door. After only a couple meek shuffles, Pint’s arm
landed on something that felt like a leg. 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 thought.

The Duke was going to have her
head.

“
Pint?” Artie urged her for
an answer.

“
No, leave him. We don’t
have a choice. Let’s go.”

The pair climbed through the open
window and on to the fire escape. The warm, fresh air surged into
her lungs and Pint was able to think more clearly. The first thing
Pint noticed was that Hugh was not there.

“
Hugh, where are you?” she
snapped into her comm unit.

“
Three buildings over.
Girl’s heavy as brick. She better be worth it,” Hugh
replied.

“
She’s Created, Hugh. She’s
worth every little ounce,” Pint shot back, hating that the words
were true. “How’d you get across?”

“
Look down. Third level,
there’s a makeshift crossing from that building to the next. I’m
thinking we can get to the rendezvous point this way.”

Pint looked down. Sure enough, a metal
ladder connected the two buildings’ fire escapes. She was already
in motion when a blur of activity in the window caught her eye.
They’d been spotted.

“
We’ve got two runners!” an
American voice shouted.

Pint didn’t look back, she’d already
wasted too much time. They needed to move. Team leader or not, if
she wasn’t at the van in seven minutes, Jaylen would give the order
to leave without her. They’d already have the merchandise, once
Hugh arrived. And Pint had no intention of being UNITED’s newest
prisoner.

Small and agile, Pint had no
difficulty making it across the ladder. Artie, too, was light on
his feet and made it across with relative ease. Pint spared a
glance up at the window to the fifth floor flat, just in time to
see two men climbing onto the fire escape.

“
Get rid of the ladder,”
she ordered Artie. “Don’t want them pursing us.”

With one great thrust, Artie shoved
the rickety bridge free and sent it careening thirty feet to the
street below. Then the two Poachers set off into the night to find
their colleagues.

“
WHAT
THE HELL
happened here?” Erik
Kelley asked, knocking a burnt can with the toe of his boot. “Did
you guys do this, or did they?”

The fire had been contained and
eliminated hours before, leaving behind charred bits of blanket,
broken plates, and random debris. Oh and the stench, of course. Eau
de burnt wood.

Erik wouldn’t admit it, but he sort of
liked the smell—it reminded him of a campfire. Thoughts of roasted
marshmallows and melted chocolate filled his head. He smiled,
almost able to feel her soft skin beneath his fingers as he brushed
dark curls back to kiss her cheek.

“
You’re all sticky,”
her voice said inside his head.

He traced one chocolate covered finger
over her bottom lip.

“
And now so are
you,”
he told her, right before bringing
his lips to Talia’s and tasting the sweet confection for
himself.

Abruptly, the scene in his mind
changed, obliterating all thoughts of his girlfriend and their
outdoor getaway just three nights before.

The campfire smell shifted to one of
burning chemicals, as if the wind had simply changed direction.
Blue-green fire blazed in Erik’s mind, swallowing the landscape in
a sea of iridescent flames. Agonized screams sliced through the
air, assaulting his eardrums. Erik’s hands flew to the sides of his
head, as if the small gesture was enough to stifle the pleas of the
dying. Soldiers, consumed in flames, writhed in agony, their bodies
spinning and contorting in a horrific imitation of puppets whose
strings were being pulled too harshly.

No, no, no. Not here. Not
now,
Erik thought, squeezing his eyes shut
and willing the memory away.

It wouldn’t stay gone for long,
though. That scene haunted his dreams at night and woke him
screaming in the predawn hours more often than he cared to
admit.

“
Talia,” Erik whispered,
unaware he’d spoken aloud until her soft voice answered.

“
Right here,” she called,
sounding blessedly distracted.

The nightmares were no secret, at
least not from Talia Lyons. She was the one he turned to when the
darkness outside brought out the darkness within. His girlfriend,
the love of his life, had been amazing, and the only reason he was
still functioning at all. Still, he hated worrying her. And if
Talia knew how often memories of the fight in Bethesda surfaced,
the memories of all the people who died, she would worry. And those
weren’t even the worst ones.

Erik blinked his turquoise eyes open
and focused on the job he was supposed to be doing. Talia crouched
three feet away, examining a frayed wire.

“
Electrical fire, I’m
guessing?” she said, looking first at Erik and then at Ray, the
UNITED agent who’d been first on the scene.

The tiny Manhattan apartment was
swarming with UNITED agents now. Some were members of Ray’s team,
others members of his and Talia’s. There were even a couple of
local cops who’d responded to the fire.

“
Definitely electrical. One
of the Created we found and sent to containment is an Electrical
Manipulator, among other things,” Ray said.

“
Was anyone hurt?” Talia
asked and stood, small hands fisted on her hips.

“
Of the three Created we
recovered, none will have lasting damage. A little smoke
inhalation, some minor burns, nothing too serious,” Ray
replied.

“
Three? I thought there
were four?” Erik asked without thinking, then winced inwardly at
the mistake.

He was pretty sure that Victoria
Walburton, UNITED Councilwoman and the person he and his team were
directly under, had said four people were taken into custody. But
his short-term memory had more holes than Swiss cheese these days
and it was possible he was misremembering. If so, Talia would
notice. Hiding his increasing mental issues from Talia became
harder with each ticking second.

“
Four people total, but
only three Created,” Ray said. “We don’t know much about the fourth
guy. He was heavily armed, though. Like ready-to-do-battle armed,
you know?”

“
Not the other three,
though?” Talia asked, brows drawing together in confusion. “I mean,
they were just kids, right?”

Ray laughed good-naturedly.

“
Kids? That’s rich—you
calling someone a kid. How old are you anyway?”

Talia scowled, purple eyes bright with
agitation. But it was Erik who took the other agent’s words to
heart.

“
Listen,” Erik snapped.
“She’s been through more than you can even imagine. She’s done shit
that no one should have to. Until you can add ‘dismantled a corrupt
organization’ or ‘saved the lives of thousands of children’ or
even
one
of the
other things she’s accomplished to your resume, I’d suggest keeping
your mouth shut.”

Erik hadn’t realized how close he’d
moved to the other man until Ray stepped back, palms held out in a
placating gesture that nearly sent Erik over the edge.

“
Easy there, killer,” Talia
forced a laugh. “I’m sure Ray was just kidding. Right,
Ray?”

Her voice had an edge that Erik knew
well. Talia looped her arm through Erik’s and he instantly began to
calm. He knew what she was doing, using her Talents to soothe him.
Erik hated that he’d become so worked up that Talia felt the need
to intervene. He hated that she was in his head and knew the
trouble he had staying in control of his emotions.

“
Sorry. Seriously. I get
it. She’s a badass. You’re a badass. I’m only half a
badass.”

Ray took another step back from the
lethal couple. He’d been with UNITED for ten years, recruited after
three years with the now defunct TOXIC. In all of that time, they
were the two most frightening people he’d ever encountered. Talia
Lyons and Erik Kelley were legendary, and Ray was just glad they
were on UNITED’s side. This was the first time he’d met them in
person. Hopefully the last. Something about the pair was deeply
unsettling. No one should wield the type of power they each did in
their own rights. It was almost as though you could feel it
emanating from their compact bodies.