Page 115 of Never Enough

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2022

Nemo

“Well, this is another fine mess I’ve gotten myself into.”

“Shut up, blondie,” the dark-haired Pilis Kader grumbled.

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Nemo looked at his current situation—lashed to a timber in the passage and a bomb vest attached to him. “I think that’s a given already.”

“You have an awful smart mouth for a dead man,” Hemeda Kader observed.

“Better smart and dead than dumb and alive.”

He knew he was pushing buttons he really shouldn’t push, but it’d been way too many days of him missing to think that Tribe wasn’t going to need some help finding him. By goading them this way, he hoped he’d distract them so that they didn’t tie the knots so tight. Then he’d have a little bit of hope of getting himself free of this nonsense. So far, it didn’t seem to beworking. He already couldn’t feel his fingers from how tightly his wrists were lashed.

There had been a Plan B, but Heckle and Jeckle destroyed that when they dislocated both of his shoulders and then tied his hands behind him.

You’d think they’d get it by now that I can do that to myself. How many times have I put them back in after they’ve popped them out?

Plan C was dangerous, but it might be his only opportunity to get out of there on his own.

Five minutes later, he was by himself in the barely lit tunnel. He’d been stuck in some weird places over his years as a thief, but this one was probably the scariest. Nemo didn’t feel fear often, but he had to admit this was certainly a situation where it was warranted.

He was just about to put Plan C into action and run the risk of bleeding out by slicing open his wrists on the zip ties in order to get out of them when debris started showering down on him. It was just fine grit, but it was annoying, and it burned when it hit his open wounds. “Sonofabitch, that stings!”

“Quit complaining, burglar boy,” came a voice from above.

Gem popped out of a fissure about ten feet above him. Right behind her came Steel.

“Jesucristo, you’re always such a crybaby.”

“Gem, what the fuck are you doing down here?”

“Saving your ass, apparently.”

“How did you get out of Zimbabwe?”

Sounds of gunfire began in the distance, with muted yells echoing down the passage toward them. Steel suggested, “Perhaps we could save story time for when we get the hell out of here and somewhere safe. I’ll work on the right-side ropes,ojona.”

He cut off to the side and began working on cutting through the restraints.

“What the hell did you just call her?”

“Something I knew would piss you off so that you’re too angry to feel the pain when your limbs come free,” Steel admitted.

“Cerberus,” Gem called over the communications. “We’ve got a problem. He’s got explosives strapped to him.”

“Copy that. On my way.”

“Great. Now I’m really going to get blown sky-high,” Nemo grumbled. Then blood began rushing to his fingers because Steel had cut through the zip ties. “Fuck!”

“Told you,” his friend commiserated.

Another body moved itself out from the fissure. “Well, well, well. The fish has truly been fried,” Cerberus snarked.

“Shut up, bird brain, or we’ll all go up in your pile of ash. Get this thing off me.”

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