Nemesis Unlimited [1] Sweet Revenge Read Online Free Page B

Jack moved quickly to the window and climbed out. Cold air bit through his damp, thin uniform and the moors stretched out dark and empty beneath a sky just as barren. This time of year, he wouldn’t last the night on the heath. Without shelter, he’d be nothing but frozen meat by morning.
    These damned Nemesis people better have something lined up, or we’ll all be freezing our arses off.
    He balanced himself on the worn brick, then clambered down the wall. Glancing up, he saw Marco watching him from the window. Likely making sure he didn’t cut and run.
    Once the ground was near enough, he jumped the rest of the way down, landing in a crouch. Simon waited nearby, his gaze never resting, body poised for movement. The bloke looked like a toff, but he didn’t carry himself like one. More like a soldier, or a thief.
    Jack, too, kept his every sense alert, tense as piano wire. The screws were just inside—he could hear them questioning men in the taproom of the inn. Just hearing the scrape of Lynch’s voice sent hot fury through Jack’s muscles.
    “I ain’t going back,” he muttered.
    “You won’t.” Simon’s words were clipped. “So long as you keep to the terms of our arrangement.”
    Before Jack could ask just what the hell that arrangement might be, Marco dropped down from the window, quiet as a serpent.
    Whoever these people were, they had impressive skills. But it wasn’t the two men Jack thought of. He could hear Eva inside, the low, clear notes of her voice plucking along the back of his neck.
    “Time to run,” Marco said. He nodded toward the west, a long stretch of open moorland that led to nothing. Nothing that Jack could see, at any rate.
    “You can’t just leave her in there.” He wasn’t about to carve Eva’s name into his arm, but it didn’t feel right abandoning her to the warders. There had to be at least eight screws in there. She was only one woman. Bad odds.
    “Eva can take care of herself,” Simon answered.
    Jack looked back and forth between the two men. They held fast to the shadows, but he could see enough of their faces to read complete confidence there. Confidence in Eva.
    He shrugged. She wasn’t his woman. Never would be. If these blokes thought nothing of leaving her with a pack of edgy warders, he wouldn’t stop them.
    “My legs itch,” he said. “Only thing that cures ’em is a run.”
    Simon nodded once and darted off. With Marco right on his heels, Jack followed, plunging into the darkness. It felt good to move again, despite his exhaustion. Too long inside prison walls had given him a permanent hunger for action, the need to feel his lungs and muscles burn from use.
    Yet as he sped into the night, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of Eva, all alone, facing down a gang of warders on the hunt.
    Hope she’s as strong and clever as these blokes seem to think. She has to be.
    *   *   *
    Eva made her way down the stairs, careful to keep her pace brisk but unhurried. She was just a guest drawn from her room by the fuss downstairs. Her time constraints were narrow, needing to give the others a decent head start, but not so much that she’d have trouble catching up with them.
    Her hand glided along the wooden rail worn smooth by generations of guests walking up and down these same stairs. The wood felt as solid as Dalton looked. He had the immovable will of an ancient oak, too. She could only hope he was following Simon and Marco’s orders, and hadn’t tried something stupid or obstinate, such as attempting to escape.
    She reached the ground floor and, following the sounds of commotion, headed toward the taproom. Fixing a curious but vacant expression on her face, she entered the large room. A group of warders were gathered there, their dark blue uniforms incongruous in the cheerful taproom. She recognized the hard eyes of professional guards, almost as dangerous as the clubs most of them carried.
    Two of the warders were armed with shotguns, and the men in