“Ahhhhoow!” the guard groaned as he pulled the unbroken whiskey bottle out from under him. The flashlight rolled, sending shiny glints across the black panes of glass.
Jack frantically worked at the computer, his head low and blond hair hiding his eyes.
Enjoying the chance to take the big man down, Peri gathered herself to fall on him. Eyes wide, the guard jerked away, and she changed her motion into a heel jab that never landed, then fell into a ready stance between him and the handgun. We have to get out of here, like now.
The guard spun upright, fumbling for the radio on his belt. “Put a wiggle in it, Jack!” she exclaimed, lashing out with a crescent kick, a front kick, then a low strike to his knee as she drove the guard back—anything to keep him from his radio. She loved the adrenaline, the excitement, the knowledge that she had what it took to beat the odds and walk away without reprisal.
The man shook it off, and she lashed at his ear, lurching when she hit his jaw instead. A solid thump on her right shoulder sent her reeling. Peri stumbled, feeling the coming bruise. Anger fueled her smile. He was good and liked to cause pain. If he landed a clean strike, she’d be out—but beating those odds would only make her win more satisfying.
“Quit playing with him!” Jack shouted.
“I need to burn off some calories if I want cake tonight,” she said as the guard felt his lip, thoughts shifting behind his eyes when his fingers came away shiny with blood. Suddenly he ran for the door and his handgun.
“We’re having pie, not cake, and stay where I can see you,” Jack called.
She jumped the guard, snagging a foot before he reached the door. He went down, dragging her across the carpet. Chin burning and eyes shut, she let go when he kicked. Peri jerked away, gasping when the guard turned, looming over her with his fist pulled back.
“No!” Jack shouted as the guard struck her full in the face and her head snapped backward. Dazed, Peri wavered where she sat.
“Don’t move! Or I fucking shoot her!” the guard shouted.
She couldn’t see straight. The gun pointed at her held no meaning as she tried to figure out what had happened. Dizzy, she felt her face, jerking when the pain exploded under her fingers. But it focused her, and she looked at Jack behind the desk. Eyes meeting, they silently weighed their options. Jack had a handgun and she had a blade in her boot. They’d never needed extraction from local authorities in their entire three years together. She wasn’t planning on starting now, and certainly not getting fingered by a dirty rent-a-cop.
“You at the desk!” the guard barked, and Peri’s gaze on his handgun narrowed as she estimated the distance. “Come here where I can see you,” he said, one hand fumbling behind his back for his cuffs. “Hands up. You make a move to lower them, and I shoot her.”
Hands in the air, Jack edged out from behind the desk. He coughed, and the barrel of the guard’s gun shifted to track him.
“Bravo!” a clear, masculine voice exclaimed from the doorway.
The guard turned, shocked. Peri lashed out in a spinning kick. Impact against the guard’s hand vibrated through her even as she followed through and rose into a crouch and from there to a stand, the flat of her still-swinging foot slamming into the guard’s head.
Spittle and blood sprayed and the guard crashed into the coffee table. His handgun fell, and she kicked it to the far windows. Jack went for the man in the doorway. Knowing he had her back, Peri followed the guard down, fist clenched to hit him somewhere painful.
But the guard was out, his face bloody and his eyes closed. Resisting the urge to hit him anyway, she looked up as Jack shoved an older man in a suit into the office at gunpoint.
“Impressive,” the man said, nodding to the guard. “Is he dead?”
“No.” Peri stood. What the hell? she thought, unable to read Jack’s tight expression. This couldn’t be a test. They’d already had their yearly “surprise” evaluation job.
“Good. Keep it that way,” the man said as if he was in control, regardless of having no weapon, if Jack’s hasty but thorough pat-down was any indication. “I’ve been meaning to take him off the payroll, but I’d prefer unemployment over a death benefit to his wife.”
This isn’t how we do things, Peri thought as Jack shoved the man into one of the cushy chairs, where he fixed his tie, affronted. Peri looked from the slightly overweight man to his photograph on the desk, posing with a stiff-looking woman in too much makeup. This was his office. Bloody toothpicks, Bill will have a cow if I off a CEO.
“I have what you came for,” the manicured, graying man said, his soft fingers reaching behind his coat to an inner pocket.
Peri lunged. Her knee landed between his legs and he gasped at the near miss. One hand forced his head back; the other pinned his reaching hand to the arm of the chair. “Don’t move,” she whispered, and irritation replaced his shocked pain.
He wiggled, wincing when she shifted her knee a little tighter. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t be here myself,” the man said, his voice strained but angry. “Get off me.”
“Nah-uh,” she said, fingers digging into his neck in warning, then louder, “Jack?”
Jack eased close, the scent of his aftershave familiar as he reached behind the man’s coat to slip free an envelope. It had Jack’s name on it, and Peri went cold. He knew we’d be here?
“Get off,” the older man said again, and this time, Peri eased back in uncertainty.
Jack passed his handgun to her, and she retreated to where she could see both the CEO and the downed guard. The crackle of the envelope was loud, and the older man readjusted himself, giving Peri a dark look. “What is it?” she asked, and Jack unfolded the paper inside and shook a pinky-nail-size memory chip into his hand. “Is it the files?”
Her attention shifted to the CEO when he palpated his privates as if estimating the damage. “No. I printed out the highlights to justify my request. You tell Bill that what I found warrants more than a paltry three percent,” he said, shaking his arms to fix the fall of his coat. “Three percent. I just saved his ass and he thinks I’m going to take three percent?”
“Jack?” Peri whispered, disliking her uncertainty. He knows Bill? What’s going on?
Face white, Jack angled the printed page to the faint light coming in the window. Fingers fumbling, he tipped the chip onto his glass phone. It lit up as the data downloaded, and Jack compared the two, going even more pale as he verified it.
The man leaned toward the side table, his gaze lingering on the foil hat before he took a chocolate from the dish. “You’re very good, missy. Watching you . . . I’d believe you myself.” He smiled, white teeth gleaming in the ambient light.
Jack looked more angry than confused. Peri’s gut knotted. The CEO knew Bill. Was he proposing a deal?
“You made a mistake.” Jack folded the paper around the chip and tucked it away with his phone.
The man snorted and put an ankle on a raised knee. “The only mistake is Bill thinking he can get something for nothing. He can do better. I only want a fair price for what I have.”
Shit, Peri thought, her alarm mutating to anger. He was trying to buy them. They were Opti agents. Drafters and anchors had to be trustworthy to a fault or the government that trained them would literally kill them. Drafting time was too powerful a skill to hire out to the highest bidder, especially now.
Fear settled in her like old winter ice, cracked and pitted, as Jack cocked his head at the angle he always had when he was thinking hard, and a weird light was in his eye.
“Jack?” she said with sudden mistrust. “What’s that list?”
His expression cleared. “Lies,” he said blandly. “All lies.”
The CEO bit into a chocolate. “The truth is far more damning than anything I could invent. It’s a list, lovely woman, of corrupt Opti agents,” he said as he chewed. “Your name is on it.”
CHAPTER
TWO
Peri’s finger tightened on the handgun, and she force
d her finger away from the trigger. Shock filled her, doubt and anger close behind. “Liar!” she cried, jumping at him.
“Don’t!” Jack shouted, and she landed on the man, pinning him to the chair and wedging the muzzle of the gun under his chin.
“You made that list up!” she exclaimed, and the man’s head jerked as she shoved the gun harder against him. “Tell him! Tell him!”
“Peri, get off!” Jack demanded, and Peri gasped at the echoing blast of a gun fired in close quarters. Pain was a stake of iron pounded into her chest, and she looked at the man under her, his eyes fixed on hers and his face unblemished. She hadn’t shot him.
Peri took a breath, agony stabbing her again. Oh shit, she thought, and then she fell back as Jack pulled her to the carpet. The guard she’d downed had shot her. Damn it, she was dying, the bullet still in her as she choked, bloody froth gathering at her lips as pain made it hard to breathe.
“What the hell are you doing!” Jack shouted at the CEO, Peri’s head cradled in his lap.
The CEO stood, and she could do nothing, pinned by a thousand-pound weight. Oh God, it hurts. But Jack was here. She’d be okay if she could hold it together long enough . . . to draft.
“She’s on that list,” the man said, pointing down at her like God’s avenging angel. “She can’t walk out of here knowing she’s been marked. I’m doing you a favor. Bill owes me. He owes me big.”
“You cretin,” Jack snarled up at him. “She won’t remember any of this in about thirty seconds. You think we don’t know her past? Who she is? That doesn’t mean she’s not useful! She’s a goddamned drafter! You know how much she’s worth? How rare she is?”
What . . . what is he saying? He thought she was . . . corrupt? Selling her skills to the highest bidder? Oh God. Her name was on the list?
And then the pain grew too much. Adrenaline pooled, tripping her over the edge and jumping her brain into synaptic hyperactivity. She was going to draft. She couldn’t stop it—and it would save her life. Again.
Eyes widening, she felt the tingle of sparkles gather at the edges of her sight, flooding her as she breathed them in, swirling through her mind until she breathed them out—and with a soft hush of gathered energy, she jumped into the blue haze of hindsight.
Peri’s vision flashed blue and settled as her mind fell into knowing. Her breath came in without pain, and she knew it for the blessing it was. She was drafting, and she stood before the CEO, watching as he reached for a chocolate. Fear made her aim shake. Her name was on Jack’s list? But how? She knew who she was, and she wasn’t a dirty agent.
Peri looked at Jack, his expression tight. He was frustrated and angry, but at the CEO, not her. As an anchor, he knew they were rewriting the last thirty seconds, unlike everyone else, who would never even notice the small blip apart from perhaps a faint sense of déjà vu. Until time meshed, she’d remember everything. Afterward, she’d remember nothing until Jack returned the final timeline to her—and now, she had a doubt.
“Jack?” she whispered, terrified of what her gut was telling her. He was angry, not shocked—as if he’d already known. But how could she be something she knew she wasn’t?
Jack turned away, and her fear redoubled.
“The truth is far more damning than anything I could invent,” the older man said as he bit into a chocolate, oblivious to the new timeline forming. “It’s a list, lovely woman, of corrupt Opti agents. Your name is on it.”
She was not corrupt. A fire lit in her. Screaming in anger, she pivoted to the guard crawling slowly toward the windows and his forgotten handgun.
“Peri, wait!” Jack lunged to knock the gun spinning from her.
Panicking, the guard scrambled for his weapon. Peri shoved Jack out of her way. The guard scooped up the Glock, and she kicked him into the window. Snarling, he brought his gun down on her and she snapped a front kick to his wrists. The gun went flying.
Face ugly, the guard grabbed her around the neck and slammed her to the floor. Peri’s eyes bulged as she tried to breathe. One hand clawed at his grip, the other reached for the knife in her boot. Stars spotted her vision as she jammed it into him, angling it up under the ribs. If she died in a rewrite, she’d be dead. It was him or her.
Gagging on his own blood, the guard rolled away, hands clenched to his chest.
Free, Peri sat up, hands on her neck as she rasped for air. The strong scent of whiskey wafted from the guard. She coughed, bile-tainted chocolate blooming bitter at the back of her throat.
“How am I supposed to explain this!” the CEO shouted, standing over the guard, who spilled bubbly blood from his mouth as he panicked and began to choke.
Jack stomped back to the desk and scooped up Peri’s short-job bag. “Haven’t you ever heard of the chain of command? We know who she is. We always have. You really fucked this up.”
“Me?” the man exclaimed, voice rising. “I’m not the one who killed him.”
“I don’t kill anyone who doesn’t kill me first,” Peri wheezed. Beside her, the guard gurgled, not quite suffocated in his own blood yet—but close.
The CEO spun to stare at her. “What?”
“Get out,” Jack said, and Peri jerked away when he reached to help her stand. “Go hide under your secretary’s desk. I don’t want to have to explain you when she snaps out of it.”
“Snaps out of what?” The CEO’s eyes widened. “Then it’s true? She can change the past? Are we in a draft? Right now? But it feels real.”
“That’s because it is.” Pissed, Jack picked up the gun—the one that had killed her. “It’s the first draft that’s false—or will be, rather, after she finishes writing this one.”
“You know who she is and you still trust her?” The man hunched over with his hands on his knees as he peered at her. She hated his wonder, his amazement—but if he knew about drafters, he was dead.
“With my life.” Jack checked the pistol and snapped the cylinder closed. “In about ten seconds, she’s not going to remember anything but what I tell her. Now, will you go hide? I don’t want to have to explain you.”
Peri sat on the floor, her fingers clenched in the flat carpet as she shook. She’d thought she was capable. She’d thought she was strong. But she was vulnerable. People were the sum of their memories, and apparently hers were whatever Jack told her. They hadn’t come here to find the virus files. They were here to secure a list of corrupt Opti agents—and Jack didn’t have a problem that her name was on it. Maybe she was corrupt. How long? How long had this been going on?
“Who else has the list?” Jack said, glancing at his watch.
“No one. I assumed Bill would be . . . reasonable,” the CEO said, voice faltering, and Peri’s eyes flicked up with knowledge of what was going to happen. He knew about drafters, and that was unacceptable. Jack would contain the information—whatever the cost.
The CEO’s eyes widened as Jack aimed the guard’s pistol at him. Peri watched, numb, as the older man lurched for the door, almost making it. The sound of the gun firing jerked through her. She gasped, the burst of air clearing her thoughts and sending her hand to her middle. Legs askew, she leaned against the desk as her lungs ached. She’d been shot in the original timeline, but that’s not why her chest hurt. They thought she was corrupt? She’d given Opti everything!
Jack vanished into the outer office. She could hear him dragging the suited man away, and still she sat. “Stupid deserves to die,” Jack said in anger, and then he was back, avoiding her eyes in the dim light as he wiped her print from the top of the lintel. The gun was next, set carefully in the guard’s outstretched hand after he wiped it clean.
She looked up as Jack extended a hand for her to rise. Scared, she recoiled. She’d know if she was a dirty agent—wouldn’t she? “Jack,” she whispered, wanting to believe there was another explanation. “I’m not corrupt. He’s lying.”
Jack dropped to kneel beside her, his arms enfolding her like a warm promise. “Of course you aren’t, babe. That?
??s why I killed him. You’re safe. No one will know. I can fix this.”
Shocked, she stared into his eyes as she felt time overlap and begin to mesh. For an instant she saw herself on the floor as she choked to death in the original timeline. The guard was standing, and the man in the suit watched it all as Jack held her head in his lap.
“This is very bad for my asthma,” both she and her shadow-self whispered, one dying of confusion, the other just dying confused.
And then time mended and everything flashed the most beautiful red, scrubbing it away.
Peri pushed back, her heart pounding as her shoulder thudded against the leg of a desk. Jack was kneeling before her, and she looked at a door and the green light blinking on the locking panel. She was on the floor of a midnight-dark corner office. Her chin hurt, but the rest of her face was in agony. A bloody knife lay beside her, and a man in a security uniform twitched not three feet away, his life’s blood soaking the carpet.
“It’s okay, Peri,” Jack soothed, and she scrambled to her feet before the blood could reach her, slowing when she realized everything hurt. “It’s done.”
I drafted, she thought, looking at her palm to see J IN OFFICE. She’d left him? Heart beating fast, she picked up her sticky knife, conscious of Jack’s sudden wariness. She’d left him but she’d made it back, obviously, and he would return her memory of the night’s events.
A security guard was dead. Her knife thrust had killed him—she recognized the entry wound as one she knew. A handheld radio hissed, and a Glock lay in the guard’s grip. She smelled gunpowder. They were in a high-rise, the thirtieth floor at least. It was night. They were on task. She’d drafted to rub out a mistake, and in doing so, had forgotten everything. Charlotte? she wondered, spotting the crown building out the window.
“Did I die again?” she whispered.
“Pretty close. We gotta go,” he said, and she winced when he touched her elbow. Her short-job bag was under his arm and she took it, feeling unreal.