The Drafter (57 page)

She stiffened at the clank of the fire tools, pulling her coat tighter about herself when Silas sat beside her. “You're a good person,” he said.

“Am I?” she said bitterly. Her past suggested otherwise, as did the growing ache inside her. She missed it, God help her, she missed it.

He ran a hand over his stubble, his eyes on Allen hunched over his phone and walking away as he talked in a terse, hushed voice. Nudging the door to the back room open, Allen slipped out. The silence grew. Peri's thoughts went to Silas holding her on the floor. She felt no shame for having fought him. She'd been out of her mind, and he'd known it. “Thank you for fragmenting the timeline.”

Silent, Silas reached into his coat pocket and held out a squat, tattered book. She didn't reach for it, and after a moment, he set it between them. “I saved this for you,” he said, his voice hiding something. “Along with a box of things you set by for when this was over. It's all from the year we prepped for this. We have some of your early talismans, too. Your life is not lost. Everything is there. You can remember who you were.”

Her jaw clenched, and she forced it to relax. She picked the book up, feeling the worn leather against her fingertips, knowing how supple it would be if she opened it. But this book wasn't her. She was so far from it now it would be like looking at someone else. “Thank you, but no,” she said, handing it back.

From the back, Allen's voice rose in anger, saying, “Screw you, Fran. You know shit.”

Silas folded his hands around hers, sealing the book in her grip. “Keep it for a while,” he said. “Stick it on a shelf. You may want it later.”

She was too tired to argue, so she wedged it in an inner coat pocket, vowing to throw it out as soon as she had the chance. “Is this my psychologist talking?” she said, trying to at least pretend that everything was okay, and he leaned across the distance between them, cupping a hand on her cheek and smiling. The hint of pain she'd always seen there was gone.

“Your friend,” he said.

Her gaze fell and he pulled away when the door to the back room swung open and Allen strode in, ticked. She could guess how the conversation had gone. Fran still didn't trust her. Hell, she wasn't sure she
could trust herself. Peri's emotions grew more and more erratic. Silas had said he'd been her anchor, but it made her feel utterly alone. He wasn't her anchor now, and after this long without one, she wasn't sure she wanted one. She wasn't sure she wanted anything anymore.

“Fran can eat shit and die,” Allen said, clearly angry. “Peri, you did good. Better than good. Opti is on the run and we're picking them up as we go. You're going to come work with Silas and me here at Overdraft to bring in the stragglers, and everything will go back to normal.”

It was getting harder to breathe. She didn't feel like she'd done anything at all. “Can I go?” she said suddenly, and both men stiffened in surprise. “I mean, there's no reason I can't go back to my apartment, right?” she amended, and Allen got a lost look on his face. “I need to think for a while,” she lied, just wanting to leave.

“Um, we were going to meet up with Fran in about half an hour,” he said slowly. “Lunch, that's it. Are you hungry?”

“She just realized what this whole mission cost her,” Silas said. “You really think she wants to eat? God, Allen, use your brain.”

“Hey! I'm just making sure she's not hungry,” Allen said belligerently, and Peri stood, cutting short his retort.

“Can I borrow your car?” she said, and Allen fished his keys out of his pocket. “Thanks,” she said, taking them from his slack fingers. Jaw clenched, she headed for the door, the weight across her shoulders growing heavier with every step.

“Are you coming back?” Silas questioned, and she hesitated.

“I, ah, sure. I just gotta get a few hours of sleep,” she lied, rubbing her forehead. It hurt. “Tell Fran thank you for the job offer.”

Allen scowled at Silas, his expression shifting as he turned to her. “I can drive you.”

“No, I want to be alone.” Head down, she went for the door. “See you tomorrow.”

Fat chance of that
, she thought, but it was something to say.

“She shouldn't be alone,” she heard Allen say. “What if she drafts?”

“Then she forgets,” Silas said. “Give her some time. She'll be okay.”

The Opti logo in the stained-glass window mocked her, and it was
all she could do not to punch it. Angry and depressed, she stiff-armed the door open. The bright light was a shock. She'd forgotten the sun was up.

“But she's a drafter. Drafters are never alone.”

“She is,” Silas said, and Peri's heart lurched at the truth of it. “She can handle herself. You want to make her mad? You just keep following her.”

The door finally shut behind her, cutting off their heated conversation. Peri hesitated in the cement-and-pillar silence as she scanned the parking lot. The bordering trees were finally starting to leaf out—except for the one in the corner. It was as dead as she felt, reminding her of her favorite tree at her grandparents', the one sheltering a long-forgotten grave. Depressed, she took her phone from her back pocket and left it on the planter where they'd find it. Her chest hurt. She felt so alone, and being with other people made it worse.

There was a huge space in her where Jack had been, a space that had once been warm but now held only bitter ash. Behind it was a gap of about a year that she'd probably never have back. She hadn't even missed it until now, hidden by Silas, obliterated at her request by Allen. A year to fall in love, maybe. And she'd destroyed it.

Chin rising, she strode to Allen's car, feeling the wind cut under her coat as she fastened it shut. The leather upholstery was cold as she got in behind the wheel. Putting the car in drive, she spun it around and cut across the fading lines for the exit.

The sudden tears caught her off-guard and she blinked fast as she pulled into traffic, making a right because it was easy. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew she didn't want to go to that ground-floor apartment. Her gut was so tight she felt sick. Everything she remembered was Opti, and Opti was corrupt. She didn't remember the past that everyone kept telling her about. The past she remembered was one of hurting people and ending lives—and of feeling powerful doing it.

Sniffling, she wiped a hand under her nose. It was post-fragment blues. She'd get over it.

But her heart jumped when a dark shadow sat up in the backseat.

“Hi, babe,” Jack said, and she touched the brakes, head jerking forward and back.

“Damn it!” Peri shouted, checking her mirrors to see if anyone had noticed. “I want you to leave. Leave me alone!” It hadn't worked. He was still there in her head!

“Alone?” Jack snickered. “That's the last thing you will ever be. Just keep driving.”

He leaned over the back of the seat, arms draped along it, and her shock turned to anger.

“Where am I going, Jack?” she said bitterly. “I have a past that I don't remember. Not just one, but two. I have people telling me they're my friends, but the only friends I remember are corrupt Opti agents. I
am
a corrupt Opti agent, but I'm also an alliance officer with a military retirement plan I don't
remember setting up
! Where am I going, Jack? Where?”

He tightened his tie and fixed his hair in the rearview mirror, almost laughing at her. “Wherever you want, babe. You're the one calling the shots. On one side you have a well-funded, poorly organized do-gooder organization destined for failure. On the other, you have massive political pull, an almost godlike authority, the ability to make real change . . . and me.” He smiled in a way she'd once found charming, and her stomach churned. “I'd take the latter if I were you. It's more fun.”

Jaw clenched, she looked at him through the rearview mirror. Silas's efforts hadn't worked. This . . .
thing
was still with her. Allen, she remembered suddenly, had always been better at destroying memories.
Good God. I can even smell him
, she thought, his aftershave pinging on a hundred lost memories.

“I talked to Bill,” Jack said, his breath coming and going on her neck. “Agents are coming in, finding him, looking for answers. Opti isn't dead, not by a long shot. I told him you might still come home. You know Opti is where you belong. It's why you're out here driving with no destination. If you were alliance, you wouldn't have walked away. You would have told the alliance that you have a chemical tag in you.
We can go back to the way it was, only I won't have to lie to you anymore. We were good together, weren't we?”

Peri's lips parted when he touched the back of her neck to move a strand of her hair. His lips met her neck, wet and warm, and tingles spread in a wave when he pulled on her skin, sucking, promising more.

Holy shit, he's real!

S
hocked, Peri yanked the car to the left, careening into an empty parking lot where the ferry docked. Jack cried out in surprise as he was flung against the door. Heart pounding, she stomped on the brakes and he hit the back of her seat, swearing. Keys still in the ignition, Peri lurched out of the car, heart pounding.

Feeling unreal, she paced back and forth between the car and the dock. Jack was in Allen's car.
He's in Allen's car!

She froze when the back door opened and Jack got out. Her injured leg hurt, and she felt her empty pockets. She had no phone, no knife, nothing.

“I shot you . . . ,” she said, then went colder yet when he stretched, rubbing the back of his neck as if embarrassed. He was alive. “What are you doing in Allen's car?”

“I was going to kill him. A little payback between him and me. This is better.”

She began pacing again, trying to figure this out. “Damn it, Jack. How long have you been watching me?” she asked. She hadn't killed him. He was there. Alive.

Shoulders rising and falling, he leaned against the car. His fair hair fluttered in the wind off the river when he turned to look up the road the way they'd come. “Not long. It's amazing what you can come back
from. Sandy kept me alive until the ambulance got there. Three weeks in intensive care, and then Bill had me in the hole after that, hoping I'd tell him where the chip was with the list.” He touched his chest, smiling. “I never told him, Peri, because I love you, even if you shot me. I did shoot you first, after all. It's still in your damn knitting needle.”

Her eyes flicked to his, reading the lie about love, but the truth in where the chip was.
My needles?
she thought, seeing how the Opti-approved stress relief might have survived to stick with her. Her project bag was with her cat at Allen's.

“Bill let me out after you pulled that tracker out of your ass and started complaining about Allen. It wasn't until yesterday that he needed me, though. Needed us.” He chuckled, head shaking in mock dismay. “What an epic failure, losing most of his force and all his credibility. Not to mention his free movement.” He smiled, confident and full of himself. “It's good to be needed. Bill says you talked to me when you were alone. That's sweet. I knew you loved me.”

“Damn it all to hell,” she whispered, cold. She had loved him, loved the way he made her feel, but everything was tied to a past that was
wrong
.

“I missed you, babe, but I knew you'd come back. The alliance is a joke, and you're better than them. Opti is power.”

He flicked the top of Allen's car—nice, but nothing like the sleek icons of power she'd always had—the best of everything, and when it wasn't, they got on a plane and found it. Bill might have lost a lot yesterday, but his house was now spotlessly clean and he was already setting up shop again, this time unburdened by government guidelines and the illusion of legitimacy.
And he wants me to come back
.

“Get out of here,” she whispered. “If I ever see you again, I will kill you. Then draft so I can do it again.”

But his smile grew wider. “Not without you. Come on. You want this.”

Oh God. He was right. Jack would fill her up, infuse her with feelings of warmth and strength. She couldn't move when he pushed himself off from the car. Her heart thudded as he got closer, and she backed up a step, but only a step. Eyes closed, she felt the wind off the bay
shift her hair when he tucked it behind her ear. He was real. She hadn't killed him. And . . . she knew him. He knew her past.

“That's right,” he whispered as he leaned in, kissing her so softly it sent a shiver through her. “You remember us. Maybe not everything, but enough. Remember the hotel? The last time we made love?”

Her shoulders eased as his arms went around her, familiar and right. He smelled of his aftershave, and she knew exactly how his stubble would feel. Her rising hand shook, and her chest clenched when she touched his jaw. He was home. It made everything else, the guilt, the shame, and her longing, pale under its force. She had nothing, and he held it all, a return to when she was strong.

“I gave you everything, treated you like the deadly princess you are,” he whispered, his fingers easing her tension away as they ran under her ear to the base of her neck, reminding her body of the feel of him. “You'll never find that from anyone else. Come with me. I can bring everything back. Everything. You won't need talismans—I'll be your talisman.”

She ached for the feeling of being cared for, loved. It would be so easy.

Stop!
a tiny part of her screamed, flickering under the wave of contentment Jack breathed into her. It had been so long. So long.
So tired . . .

“Peri!” a distant voice called, and Jack stiffened.