Frustrated, she rubbed her fingers into her temples. Even if she found her diary, she wasn’t sure she’d trust it now, written in her own handwriting or not. “You can’t track a SIM card,” she said again, but he was dead serious, and a sliver of worry cooled her anger.
“Maybe.” His gaze went distant behind her. She’d accuse him of girl-watching, but she was doing the same thing as she scanned the floor for Allen or Bill—or anyone who looked too perfect. “It takes a while to zero in on a tracker. Even if you’re tagged, we probably have some time.” His eyes flicked to hers. “Seeing as you broke Allen’s kneecap and fingers.”
She winced at his accusing tone, remembering Allen’s face pale under his black curls when she snapped them. “Fingers, yes. Kneecap . . . I didn’t hit him that hard. Forgive me if I didn’t want to end up in the back of a white panel van.”
Silas held up a hand in acknowledgment, and she relaxed. “Yeah. I got that part. Here.”
Her emotions swirled as he reached for his wallet and took out a handful of bills, making her feel as if she was at the mall with her mom. Holy crap, my mom. Allen had said she’d called her last week. She didn’t remember it, and the need to hear her mother’s voice almost hurt.
“I’d rather you use cash,” Silas said as she punched in her mother’s number. It probably hadn’t changed. “Get yourself outfitted for light travel. And I mean light.” He did a double take, realizing the phone was to her ear. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling my mom.”
“Are you crazy?” he blurted, reaching for it.
He pulled it from her ear, but she refused to let go, and they both held the phone over the middle of the table, neither one giving in. Peri could hear a woman’s voice on the end of the connection, and her face warmed. “You like that hand?” Peri said tightly. “You want to keep it?”
There was no easy way for Opti to track them down through her mother, especially through a new phone, and knowing it, Silas let go. Mollified, Peri lifted her chin and brought it to her ear. “Hi, I’m Belle Marshal,” Peri said, using the name of one of her mother’s longtime friends. “Can I talk to Caroline Reed, please? I can hold.”
“I’m sorry,” the voice on the other end said. “Mrs. Reed doesn’t have phone privileges.”
Peri’s lips parted in surprise. “Yes she does. I talked to her last week,” she said, and across from her, Silas grimaced.
“No,” the woman said again. “She hasn’t had a phone for over a year now. Who is this?”
Breath shaking on her exhale, Peri hung up. “Allen said I talked to her on Friday.”
“He lied,” Silas said sourly. “Everyone lies to keep you content and happy.”
Her eyes flicked up. “Funny. It only makes me pissed.” She hadn’t talked to her mother in over a year? A feeling of having been remiss slithered over her as Silas set a small stack of hundreds on the table. That’s right. I need to go shopping. But her earlier enthusiasm was gone. “You want me to pick you up anything?” she said as she stood, wanting to get away from his pity.
Still subdued, he shrugged. “You first. If no one shows, I might get a new toothbrush. If your phone rings, leave and meet me at the car dealership. The big one with the tent.”
Taking the cash, she jammed it into her pants pocket. “What if I draft?” she said, still trying to wrap her head around her mother. “It’s not hard to lose ten minutes.”
Nodding, Silas took the pen from his breast pocket and clicked it open. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. Even though she’d thought to do the same thing to herself, it still felt degrading when he wrote CAR DEALERSHIP on her palm. It both tickled and hurt, and she made a fist to hide it when he let go.
“Brilliant,” she said sarcastically as she left her hat and coat on the back of the chair.
Silas hunched over the dirty plates. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
“I can’t outfit myself in ten minutes. I can barely buy underwear in ten minutes, and I need a new coat, pair of pants. And a sweater, apparently.”
“Fine!” His brow furrowed as he began piling the remnants of dinner on top of each other. “Take my ten minutes as well. I don’t need anything like Ms. Princess does.”
“Yeah? You see those shoes falling?” she said in a huff, but her eyes jerked to Silas’s. Why had she said that? He seemed as surprised as she was, but then he shrugged.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his mood clearly soured. “It’s a, ah . . . Jack thing.”
He was lying, about what she couldn’t tell. “A Jack thing?” she said, hand on the table.
Avoiding her, he focused on the arcade behind her. “The asthma comment means you don’t remember crap but it’s easier to say that than ‘I don’t know.’ Shoes falling is probably you warning me that it’s not over yet. Like waiting for the second shoe to drop?”
“A Jack thing,” she said flatly, and when he stayed silent, she grabbed that ugly hat of hers and walked away. She’d spent the last three years with Jack. She knew she’d loved him. How long was it going to hurt when things like that kept popping out of her mouth? I hate psychologists, she thought as she shoved the man’s hat in the trash and continued on.
Feeling Silas’s eyes on her, she put a little extra wiggle in her step, not wanting him to know how shaken she was, but when she looked back, he was on the phone, arguing with someone—probably about her. Peri’s steps slowed as her anger faltered. Despite the difficulty he’d had this afternoon simply getting her to relax, he was one of the most talented anchors she’d worked with, Opti’s best trainers included. Cavana had taken almost a month to rebuild a draft he hadn’t seen; Silas had done it in one session.
But we both knew what we were doing, she thought, wondering if that was the difference as she glanced at her palm and Silas’s cramped, somehow familiar handwriting. Every passing moment made her less prone to forget where they were going to meet. She had six hundred bucks in her pocket and a serious lack of wardrobe. Easy peasy.
The next twenty minutes spent in retail therapy went almost as far as dinner in restoring her mood, and using the 3-D image simulator to try on six outfits and a new coat simultaneously made it painless. It took longer to find a manager to accept the cash payment, and after waving good-bye to the bemused but happy salesclerks, Peri trundled her new carry-on filled with a week’s clothes back into the corridor. Her boots clunked, and her fingers played with her new felt pen on a necklace. It was made of plastic and chintzy, but it felt right and gave her a sense of security.
Her smile faded when she saw Silas stand up from a nearby bench and make a slow, hands-in-pockets beeline for her. Peri’s fingers twitched for a knife that wasn’t there. Heart pounding, she scanned the mall, seeing only kids wandering around not buying anything.
“You bought a roller bag?” he asked, lips quirked as he eyed it.
“You said light,” she snipped back, but it was obvious something was up. “What is it?” she said as he came even with her.
Saying nothing, he took her new coat from her, and then the roller bag. She let it go by force of habit before mentally kicking herself. “I can pull a roller bag,” she said, reaching for it, but he shifted it smoothly to his other hand, out of her reach.
“Opti has a field force here,” he said.
Peri’s breath hissed in, habit keeping her moving forward, not a bobble in her pace, not one furtive look behind her. “No,” she breathed. “Bill?” she asked, smiling as if nothing was wrong. If Opti was here, they were watching them this very instant.
Silas looped an arm in hers and slowed her even more. “Not that I’ve seen. Just Allen. Him and about half a dozen operatives dressed like salesmen and secretaries. I’ve been watching them watch you. I should have known you’re chipped.”
A slimy feeling slipped down her spine. “Excuse you! I’m not chipped like a dog.”
“Then how did they find you so fast?”
“Maybe you called them?” s
he said, knowing it was untrue, and he snorted. Somehow she managed to keep her free hand swinging lightly, her gaze fixed on the macaroon shop at the end of the hall as she went through her assets to find she had almost nothing. I’m chipped? My own people chipped me?
“They knew exactly where you were when they rolled in,” Silas said. “The mall cops are gone, but I think Opti would rather collect us in the parking lot. That’s why I didn’t call you.”
Us. He said us. The fish and rice sat heavy in her. Opti was after her, and she was relying on a man who wanted to see the end of everything she found any worth in, who was helping her only until he got what he needed to end Opti. Who was going to shut down the cyberterrorists if Opti was gone? Find the lost planes? Kill the sadistic dictators?
But right now, he was all she had. “Thank you,” she whispered, shoving her panic down. “Don’t let me leave my luggage behind in the fight. It cost more than the rest of my clothes put together. If we go far enough, fast enough, they will lose time zeroing in on me.”
“You want to fight?” he said as if disappointed. “Even if we could get out of here, we have to extract that chip or they’ll just find us again. I’ve got this under control.”
“I have a chip in me, and you tell me you’ve got this under control?” she said pleasantly, her teeth bared at him as she smiled for the passing people. There were two Opti agents by an escalator, and Silas’s grip tightened again.
“I can get it out of you,” he said, his anger not directed at her for once. “We can do it here. It’s all set up. All I need from you is a little trust.”
That phone call, she mused, searching her intuition, but it was as if she didn’t have any. Nothing. She was coming up empty. She had to trust him. Or rather, she had to trust her gut, and her gut was saying he wasn’t lying to her, even if logic said he was. “Okay,” she said, and he exhaled. “But I’m not so good at trusting others.”
“I’ve noticed.” His lips twisted wryly, and he turned them down a hallway. “Keep walking. A man named Squirrel is waiting for you in the women’s bathroom.”
Peri’s doubts rushed back. “Squirrel?” Was he serious?
“We all have lives outside of this,” he said, his grip pinching her elbow. “He looks like a janitor, okay? Just go in, and he’ll take the chip out.”
“Just like that? You want me to go into a bathroom and let a janitor cut me open?”
Silas slowed to a stop, and she stared at him. Did he have any idea what he was asking of her? The bathrooms were next to the main entrance, and there were people there, people watching them without watching.
“I’d take you to his office, but not when you’re chipped. Peri, please. Squirrel and I go a long way back. He’s a good man.”
“Tell me his real name, then,” she demanded as she counted the agents. Six? Seven? She was twenty yards from the door, twenty from the bathroom, and nothing felt real anymore.
“No can do. But I’ll come in with you if it will make you feel better.”
There was a CLOSED banner across the bathroom entry, the door propped open with a wooden wedge. Two men and her alone in a bathroom? “No. I can do this,” she said. Great. What if I draft? What if I forget and run out of the bathroom and give Allen a huge hug?
Silas sighed and handed Peri her coat. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll see you in five minutes.” Snatching up her wrist, he rubbed a thumb on her palm over the words he’d written, smearing them. She nodded, cold, as she understood what he was saying. He might not be there when she came out. She’d have to get to the dealership on her own. Screw it. I can do this.
“Don’t forget my luggage,” she said, and then, chin high, she strode toward the bathroom. One of the men by the main door was talking to himself in a whisper, and she fixed her gaze past him, pace never faltering. She couldn’t resist a quick look back as she ducked under the tape cordoning off the bathroom. Silas was on a bench, slouched and feet spread wide as if waiting.
“Bathroom is closed,” a wiry man with dreadlocks and dark skin said as her boots clunked on the chipped tile. “Don’t they teach you how to read at that high school of yours? Get out. I’m not going to lose my job because you have to pee.”
“Squirrel?” she whispered, not liking how pale her face was in the mirror’s reflection.
Immediately the late-thirties man sighed as he propped his mop up against the dented janitor cart. Hands on his hips, he made a show of looking her up and down. His eyes were scary-bright, and she didn’t like how they lingered on her black eye. “You’re smaller than I thought you’d be,” he said, his accent marking him as from the South, maybe Louisiana.
“Uh, sorry?” she fumbled, not liking that the janitor cart was stained from chemicals and covered with torn stickers. She liked it even less when he opened up an old toolbox, but was reassured when she saw packets of clean bandages and doctor stuff. Peri came closer. His hands were scrubbed to a soft pink, and they were smooth, not the hands of a janitor. The door was open, but Silas would let them know if someone was going to come in.
“You work for the alliance,” she said, alarmed when he lifted a panel and brought out a wand. “How do I know you’re not chipping me?”
Expression wry, he handed her a hand mirror. “You can watch. Stand still. Arms out.”
She put her coat down, noticing that he’d dried the sinks when she draped it over one. “What is that?” she asked when he ran the wand over her.
“It’s a chip finder from my office,” he said, and she almost turned until he grunted at her to stand still. “I’m a vet in my other life.”
Peri frowned as he wanded her back. “Opti doesn’t chip their personnel like dogs.”
“Uh-huh,” the man said, and the wand beeped.
No. Shocked, she pulled the hand mirror up, turning her back to the row of mirrors. Her heart pounded, and the ugly feeling of betrayal slid through her. It was high up on her shoulder, where she’d had a mole removed four years ago. They’d chipped her.
“Well, at least it’s not in your ass. Can you slip your sweater down a little?”
She spun, horrified, and he ducked his head, smiling. “I know what I’m doing,” he said as he put the wand away and snapped on a pair of purple gloves. “I’ve got a license to practice medicine. It’s the vet degree that’s fake. It’s easier to get regulated meds as a vet. You can watch. That’s why I gave you the mirror.”
Feeling the urgency to her core, she slipped her sweater farther down her shoulder. The mirror shook in her grip, and she used both hands. She’d been chipped, and that bothered her more than anything she’d learned in the last day.
White-faced, she stared at her reflection. His hands were warm on her back, his pressure firm as he palpated the skin. She saw it in his eyes when he found it, his gaze meeting hers through the reflection past his swinging dreadlocks. “You’ve done this before?” she asked when he took a scalpel from its wrapper.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Brow furrowed, he touched her back again, swabbing it down to make a cold spot. “Sorry, but there isn’t time to numb it.”
She nodded, and then her breath caught as he cut. Her stomach clenched, and she watched the blood flow. The pain was tolerable even as he pressed on it.
“Tell me if you get woozy,” he said. “It’s not a big cut, but people are funny. Lots of pressure now.”
Her teeth clenched as he pushed as if trying to get a sliver out. The hand mirror shook when something white and red slid out of her, the size of a grain of rice. Moving fast, he grasped it with a wad of gauze. “Here,” he said, extending it to her. “You going to pass out?”
“No.” Her shoulder throbbed, then burned as he cleansed it. The gauze was in her grip, the stark red and white riveting.
“You okay?”
His voice was kind. Peri set the gauze on the shelf under the mirror to tug her sweater back into place. The tape over it made a bump, alien and reminding her of what they’d done. Bill had chipped her. “I?
??m fine,” she said, but inside she was reeling, not from the cut or the blood, but in the realization that if Silas had been right about this, maybe he was right about everything else.
“We’ll send them on a chase,” the man said as he collected his things. “All part of the service. Liz will be here in a second, so don’t hit her, okay? You might pull your tape off.”
Pulse fast, she leaned against the sink. Her world was coming apart, and there was no one to catch her. How did this happen? The chip sat on the shelf, and she checked her phone. Five minutes. It seemed longer, and she gathered her coat to leave, the need to run strong.
“Whoa, hold on,” the man said as she headed for the door. “Wait until Liz gets here. How long since you’ve eaten?”
Liz? Bet that’s not her real name, either. “Just a few minutes ago.”
“Mall food,” he said in disgust. “Did you sleep last night?”
“On the bus,” she said as a dark-haired woman wearing a bright blue nylon coat walked in. Her eyes were exaggerated with swirls of soot to confuse the facial recognition software, and Peri’s brow furrowed. It would be hard to match that with what Squirrel had in his cart.
“Hi, Squirrel,” the woman said brightly, her expression souring when she saw Peri. “You’d better be worth it,” she said as she belligerently handed Peri a stick of body paint.
“That’s enough,” the man said sharply, and Peri clicked the soot stick open, leaning into the mirror to apply it. “If you don’t want to help, you shouldn’t have come.”
“Oh, I’ll help, but I’m doing this for Silas, not her.” The woman shrugged out of her blue coat and handed it to Peri when she straightened, looking for approval. “I owe him.”
But the approval never came, and Peri stiffened when the woman snatched up Peri’s new coat with an appreciative sound. “If you hurt Silas, I’ll be all over you like a rabid dog,” Liz said, settling into Peri’s coat with a smile. “Oh, this is nice. If they catch you, I’m keeping it.”
“I saved his life once,” Peri said. “I’ll do it again.” Am I really that short? she wondered as she slipped the soot stick into a pocket to keep, but their heights were nearly identical.