Free Vengeance (Twenty-Five Percent Book 3) by Nerys Wheatley Page B

ring piercing designed to look like part of the body art.
    “Everett, be nice,” Jean said, looping her arm around his waist. “Would you two like anything to eat or drink? I’m not sure if the power’s on, but I can make you coffee or tea if it is.”
    Everett slid his arm around her, sliding his hand down to rest on her backside.
    “I don’t need coffee.” Alex turned to Micah. “Do you want coffee?” Was it his imagination, or had his voice become unnaturally high-pitched?
    Micah snapped his gaze from Everett’s hand and shook his head just a little too rapidly. “No, I don’t need coffee.”
    Jean rolled her eyes. “Oh, boys, we’re all adults here.”
    Alex winced. “We have nothing against... I mean, what you do is...”
    To his relief, Micah stepped in. “What he means is could you at least put a shirt on?”
    Everett chuckled, leaned down to kiss Jean’s cheek, gave her other cheek a squeeze, and walked back up the stairs.
    Jean watched him go, her gaze squarely below his waist, then sighed as she turned back to Alex and Micah. “He’s just so refreshing and... energetic.”
    “Okay,” Alex said breezily, “so we’ll just quickly tell you why we’re here and get out of your way.”
    Jean led them into a small, cosy living room with a wood-burning stove nestling in a stone fireplace and a mild, but not overwhelming, feeling of chintz.
    “What can I do for my two brave lifesavers?” Jean said, sitting on a sage green sofa and demurely pulling her dressing gown over her knees.
    “Well, we really came to see if you knew where Everett had gone,” Micah said, lowering into an armchair, “but apparently he hasn’t gone anywhere.”
    “No, he hasn’t gone,” she said. She smiled wickedly. “But he’s come ...”
    “Don’t,” Alex said, holding his palm towards her. “Just... don’t.”
    “But it’s so much fun,” she said, laughing.
    She seemed to have recovered well from the trauma of being trapped in a car for four days just feet away from hundreds of eaters. Alex was happy for her, he really was. He just didn’t need to know how she’d got over it.
    “What do you need Ev for?” Jean said.
    “No,” Everett said, walking into the room. He sat next to Jean. Thankfully, he was now wearing a blue plaid shirt. “The answer is no. You are not having the Sea Holly.”
    “It’s just a precaution,” Alex said. “If things go to plan we won’t need you or the boat at all.”
    “Don’t care, the answer is still no.”
    “Of course we’ll help,” Jean said, “in any way we can.”
    Everett gave her a pained look. “Babe...”
    She placed one hand onto his thigh, still looking at Alex and Micah. “Just tell us what you need us to do.”
    Ten minutes later they returned to their bikes on the road.
    “It’s nice that Jean is happy,” Micah said. “After what she went through, she deserves it.”
    “She does,” Alex said, tucking the partner of the two way radio they’d left with Jean into his backpack.
    “I am never going to unsee that tattoo though,” Micah said, a haunted look on his face as he stared into the distance.
    Alex shuddered. “It was like a car crash. I desperately didn’t want to look at it, but I just couldn’t look away.”

7
     
     
     
     
    It was a rare stroke of luck that Boot had chosen somewhere easy to find to spend the night.
    In the absence of any mobile signal, and therefore Google maps, Alex wasn’t sure how they would have found a more exclusive and elusive hotel in the centre of Cambridge. But then again, he assumed the centre of Cambridge was packed with eaters, much like Sarcester had been before most of them left. The university students wouldn’t have been back from the summer holidays by the start of the outbreak, but there were still over a hundred thousand permanent residents in the city. Far fewer than in Sarcester, but that was still a lot of potential eaters.
    They reached the rendezvous point Lieutenant Dent had chosen at