And finally, she found it.
Shaking from the effort, Silas opened his eyes. For a long moment he studied her slender fingers twined in his. Delicate, but strong, he thought as he looked at his blocky knuckles beside hers. He listened to her breathe, thinking the smooth sound was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard. But everything he’d done would last only until her intuition picked away at it. She was too smart to allow such deception, even when she knew it was to save her life.
But that was not what pained him, even as she slept exhausted before him. As he’d sifted through her thoughts, aligning and hiding them, he saw within her that Allen might be right. She’d willingly become what they needed for this task, but she liked who she was, the power she held. Tricking death and walking away to a fast car and cocktails at thirty-four thousand feet had addicted her to the high of being bulletproof, to the point where she might not abandon it when the task was finished. The elegance and grace she wrapped herself in was a mask to hide the ugly truth. She’d become that which was needed, perhaps too thoroughly to come back from.
He found he didn’t care.
But he wasn’t done yet, and he closed his eyes and slipped into her mind again. He had to hobble her intuition in such a way that it would give her freedom as well as safety.
That his fix was going to involve Jack, the man she’d grown to love and then hate, was probably a fitting punishment for his own sins.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
The sound of a hushed argument pulled Peri from a deep, dreamless sleep. She stretched, eyes closed and luxuriating in a pleasant ache and the sensation of clean sheets on her bare skin. It was like skinny-dipping, and she sighed, not wanting to wake up.
“If you aren’t out of my house in five minutes, I’m calling Opti and I’ll have them here in ten!” a woman was saying, her voice familiar, but there was no face swimming up from Peri’s memory to go with it. She was comfortable, and her mind was as clear as if she’d just finished a task. To get up was too much work for too little payoff.
“Touch that phone, and I’ll shoot you,” a higher voice whispered, and Peri frowned at Taf’s anger. “Peri isn’t hurting you.”
There was a soft thump, and then Howard said, “Ma’am. Don’t make me tie you up.”
Peri’s eyes opened. The room was bright with sun and richly decorated in colors she liked. It was morning, and she didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. Someone must have taken her clothes off, because she never slept that freely. Maybe I drafted? But there was no recall itch in her mind, none of the unease that an unfragmented draft usually left her with. Frowning, she tried to remember how she’d gotten naked in a nice room like this.
The sound of an unseen door opening pulled Peri upright, and she tugged the sheet to cover herself. There was a glass of water on the nightstand, and she gulped it down in one go, then wiped a drop from her chin.
“You’re going to wake her. Can you do this downstairs?” Silas said in a hushed whisper.
Peri took a breath to call out, choking on it when a movement in the corner drew her eyes. Heart pounding, she tightened her grip on her empty glass and stared at Jack, sitting in the corner in a pressed suit and tie, just the right amount of stubble, a heat-filled glint in his eyes. It didn’t work. She was still hallucinating.
“Hi, babe,” he said, and Peri closed her eyes, willing the vision to leave.
“Go away,” she whispered, eyes flashing open when he cleared his throat. “You aren’t real,” she said, glancing at the door and the hushed argument beyond it in the hall.
Jack put an ankle on his knee and loosened his tie to look indescribably attractive. “At least you can think again,” he said, and a sliver of panic slid through her. Fudge on a stick, they’re starting to interact with me.
“She’s going to call Opti,” Taf said from the hall, her exclamation a whisper.
Silas sighed. “Karley isn’t going to call Opti. All of you get away from Peri’s door before you wake her up.”
“She will wake up, right?” the unknown woman said, but at least now Peri had a name.
Taf gasped, and Howard shushed her. “Of course she will,” Silas said. “I was able to do a few things last night.”
Do a few things? Peri’s gaze flicked from the door back to Jack. Her shoulders slumped as he wiggled his fingers at her, grinning madly. “Go away,” she whispered, setting the glass down so she wouldn’t throw it at him. “You’re not real. You’re not real. I killed you. You’re dead!” She didn’t remember a thing from Overdraft, but that’s what everyone had said she’d done. Every time she tried to remember it, it sort of . . . slipped away. The anger, though, the sense of outright betrayal at something she couldn’t recall—that was real. And if she felt that much betrayal, then she had probably loved him. For God’s sake, why can’t I ever find a nice man?
“You’re right. I’m not real,” Jack said, and her eyes narrowed.
From the hallway, Howard said, “Jeez, Silas. You look like hell. You want a coffee?”
“Yeah. Thanks,” he said, and Jack rolled his eyes and made a blah, blah, blah gesture.
“Did it work?” Karley asked, halfway down the stairs from the sound of it.
“I won’t know until she wakes up. Mental scaffolds are not magic pills.”
Peri stiffened when Jack found her underwear laid out on a chair and held it up, eyebrows waggling. “Put that down,” she whispered. “Go away. You’re a hallucination.”
Jack obediently set it down. “True. But I’m going to keep you sane if it kills you.”
“You call this sane!” Peri shouted, then covered her mouth and looked at the door.
The thumping on the stairs halted. “I think she’s up,” Silas said, and Peri winced when the muted thunder of multiple ascending footsteps turned into silence, and then a hesitant knock. “Peri?”
Sheet held tight, Peri looked at Jack to keep his mouth shut, then the door. “Come in.”
Silas poked his head in, disheveled and stubbly. His hair was even worse, but somehow it made him charmingly accessible. “Um,” he started, clearly not seeing Jack in the corner. “How do you feel? You look better.”
Jack wrinkled his nose at Peri, and her heart pounded. “I look better?” she exclaimed. She was crazy. She’d trusted him, and now she was crazy. “I’m blue-lined insane!”
“Not if you’re yelling at me, you’re not.” Silas came all the way in, and Taf and Howard looked in around the door. It was only his relieved expression that kept her quiet when a woman she didn’t recognize pushed in past Taf and Howard. That, and she was still naked. The woman was dressed for the office, and she looked irate. Karley? Peri guessed.
“I’m still hallucinating,” Peri whispered, and Jack popped his cheek with a finger. She hated it when he did that, but she wasn’t going to look at him.
Silas flushed as the woman cleared her throat in rebuke. “Yes, I know,” he said, rubbing a hand over his stubble. Turning to the door, he said, “Can we have a few minutes? Get your stuff ready. We’ll be leaving within the hour.”
Taf gave Peri a thumbs-up, her relief obvious. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” Howard said, then yelped when Taf yanked him into the hallway. Their voices grew faint, and the confusion of last night whispered at the edges of her awareness. She frowned at Silas, knowing he’d done something, judging by his tension and Karley’s impatience.
It must be her house, Peri thought, wishing someone would introduce them.
Silas gave Karley a look as if asking her to leave, but she shut the door, feet planted firmly on the white throw rug. “I want to know if it worked,” she said.
“What worked?” Peri asked suspiciously, and Jack blew her a kiss.
“I’m your bag of magic rocks, babe,” Jack said, and she stifled her pique that he’d use a phrase from their past so glibly.
The woman arched her eyebrows mockingly, and when Silas remained uncomfortably si
lent, she said, “Hi, I’m Karley. Silas’s ex-wife. Silas was part of an experimental Opti program whose goal was creating fake memories for drafters.”
Peri looked at Silas. “What did you do to me?” Seeing his guilt, Peri turned to Karley. “What did he do to me?” she said, louder.
From the corner, Jack said, “I’m going to keep you sane, Peri.”
Silas gingerly sat at the foot of the bed. “The idea was to provide drafters with a cushion when they lost large chunks of their lives,” he said. “Give them temporary memories until they’d built up enough new ones to feel comfortable again. I quit when Opti began experimenting with giving drafters memories designed to make them react in a specific way.”
“As in making them corrupt,” Peri accused.
“I did say I quit.” A flicker of anger crossed him. “It was only supposed to help.”
It would explain how he’d helped her rebuild a memory he’d never witnessed. At least her hallucinations weren’t bleeding anymore. “What did you do to me?”
Silas looked at Karley, then her. “Why don’t you ask Jack?”
She hesitated as Jack stood, stretched, and ambled forward, a grin on his face as he tightened his tie as if getting ready for work.
“He’s here, isn’t he?” Silas said, his eyes wide. “Damn it. If he’s not, it didn’t work.”
“Jack is dead,” Peri said, stifling a shiver when Jack leaned close, blowing on the skin below her ear.
“What is real, anyway, babe?”
Okay, she was filled with feelings of betrayal, but how could she be angry at a hallucination in John Lobb shoes and an Armani suit?
Karley shifted her weight and looked at her watch, impatient in her makeup, heels, and dress jacket. “Peri, will you just ask Jack? I have to be at work in forty minutes, and I want all of you out of here before I leave.”
Jack gestured as if in invitation, and at Silas’s encouraging nod, Peri cautiously faced Jack, not liking that no one else could see him but they all knew he was there . . . leaning casually against the dresser, perfect in the sun and dancing motes of dust. And I killed him.
“Jack?” she said, feeling stupid. “What’s going on?”
Jack beamed, but his bad-boy charms that had probably once attracted her felt tired. “I’m a spitball of psychiatric bullshit. Silas melded me to your intuition so that any time you begin thinking about those twin timelines he left crashing about in your skull, I can distract you.” He leaned close, and she froze as the scent of his aftershave sifted through her. “But, like your intuition, I will show up any . . . time . . . I want,” he whispered.
Fear spun her to Silas. “You left twin timelines in me!”
“Peri, it’s okay,” Silas soothed as he reached out.
“Fragment them!” Frantic, she pushed his hands away. “Fragment them now!”
But he caught her wrists, bringing her to a frightened stillness. “If I do, everything we’ve worked to achieve for the last five years is gone. We need what’s in your head to clear your name and bring Opti down. You’re okay. Just relax and breathe. You’re not insane.”
Not yet, anyway. Peri looked down at his grip around her wrists. “I can’t believe you did this,” she said. But he was right. The confusion was gone. The conflict of emotions she’d been dealing with the last few days had settled into a faint ember burn. She hated Jack, enough to kill him, apparently. Sandy, Bill, and Frank, too, were on her new shit list. But when she tried to remember why, she was . . . distracted before her mind could . . . circle back and recollect.
It was the oddest sensation, and Peri pulled out of Silas’s hold. “Well, I guess Jack’s right then,” she muttered, and Silas nervously stood.
“About what?” he asked.
“That he’s a spitball of psychiatric bullshit.”
Karley laughed long and loud, and somehow it made Peri feel better. “Oh, I like that,” the polished woman said as she glanced at her watch. “Nicely done,” she added as she gave Silas a peck on the cheek. “I didn’t think it was possible. Now, get out of my house.”
“It’s just a Band-Aid,” Silas said, still uneasy. Peri wasn’t happy, either. “You have to be really careful until you get a few days of base memories. I don’t want you to risk drafting.”
“So why am I seeing Jack?” she demanded as the hallucination began arranging her underwear again. “And how can he answer me? Talk back and everything?” Silas had saved her, but she felt fragile, as if a sneeze might destroy everything.
Silas’s brow eased. “Think of him like a mental cop on the corner. I needed the flexibility and awareness your intuition would give, and it manifests as a hallucination because disembodied voices in your head can lead to, ah, more problems.”
“I’ll bet.” It made sense, but she still felt like his personal science project. “Why Jack?” she asked. Just saying his name felt slimy, her cooling hatred toward him tempered with hints of past tasks, of danger shared, of good times—before it fell apart.
“You’d rather it be your mom?” Silas said, and her eyes widened as the horror of that slid through her. “They’re the only two people you listen to.”
“Jack is fine,” she said. “But I don’t trust either one of them.”
Silas stood, and Karley edged toward the door. “I said listen to, not trust.” Silas’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “I know this is hard,” he said, his voice low. “But if I destroyed both timelines, we’d have no way to clear your name or bring Opti down.”
Tired, Peri put her forehead on her drawn-up knees. It was hard to be angry with him, even if it was unconscionable for an anchor to leave twin timelines in a drafter. He was right; she was alive. “How long until you can fragment one of them?” she asked, her words muffled.
“It depends on how long it takes to, ah, find that original list.”
She lifted her head, a faint sense of purpose growing. “It has to be in my apartment. We can do it tonight.” Peri wanted this done, and done fast. Silas’s patch job was just that.
Karley was on her way out, but she hesitated on the threshold, shaking her head at Silas’s inquiring glance. No? Did she just tell him no?
“Not yet,” Silas said, and Jack, forgotten in the corner, laughed quietly as Peri’s eyes narrowed. “You need to build some memories before you can risk your mental state. I don’t know what will happen if you draft. You can stay here with Howard and Taf.”
“You are all leaving.” Karley pointed at the unseen front door. “Right now.”
Peri began to get out of bed, hesitating when the sheets rubbed her bare skin. “You need your list. I need my talismans. They can give me the cushion I need. Keep me from a MEP.” Her heart pounded as she said what they were all thinking, none of them saying.
“It’s not worth the risk, especially if all we have to do is wait a few weeks.” Silas pushed Karley out the door, the woman protesting hotly.
“I’m not waiting a few weeks!” Peri exclaimed. “Besides, it’s a little late to be flying the flag of not wanting to stress my mental state.”
“Opti is camped out at your apartment. We wait.” Silas had a hand on Karley’s arm, forestalling her complaints. “We’ll get you some new IDs to keep you off Opti’s radar. You need at least three months of solid memories before you can risk another draft. You’re going over the bridge this afternoon.”
I’m not going to hide out in Canada, either. “What do Taf and Howard think about this?”
“I’m sure they’ll agree,” he said calmly.
“Last time I checked, that was doctor-speak for you’ve not told them yet,” Peri said, and Karley chuckled and went downstairs.
Sighing, Silas came back in. “I don’t want to risk it,” he said, his concern obvious. “Add an unexpected jump to what you’re running with, and you might go into MEP. We have time.”
She frowned, thinking he was being overly cautious. The answers were right there, and she wasn’t waiting three months to ransack her own apar
tment.
“Silas!” Karley shouted from downstairs. “Let her get dressed! I have to go to work!”
An old irritation pinched his brow. “Coming!” he shouted out the door, then softer, to her, “Your clothes have been washed and are on the chair.”
“Thank you.” Waking up naked was a small price to pay for clean clothes.
“I’ll see you downstairs, then.” Silas shut the door behind him with a soft click. From the hall came a muffled “Karley, did you throw out all my clothes?”
Peri listened to the garbled response, and when Silas’s steps were gone, she turned to Jack. “Where did you stash that list?” she asked hesitantly, thinking it was stupid talking to a hallucination who knew nothing more than she did. But there was no way she was going to hide for three months. Not when she had an apartment with five years of talismans just a drive away.
“You don’t know, sweetheart,” Jack said. “If you did, I’d tell you. But it has to be in the apartment. Get me in there, and I can probably find it.”
That didn’t make her feel as good as she thought it would, and she slid out from between the sheets, grimacing when Jack made a wolf whistle. It was just a hallucination, but thanks to a thousand forgotten memories, it was going to act just like Jack would, and damn her if she didn’t start to understand why she’d blinded herself for three years. He was perfect.
A perfect mistake, she amended as she pointed at the chair for him to put her panties back down so she could pick them up. “Jack, what do you think about Silas?”
Jack snorted. “You think he’s a mistake, too, babe,” Jack said, which made sense since, as her intuition, he wouldn’t know anything she didn’t already.
But it was still nice hearing Jack say it.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
“Canada?” Taf’s hand extended out the car’s window to Silas, who was standing resolutely on the curb, fake IDs in hand. The short spring coat he’d gotten from Karley was open to show his pinstripe shirt and tie. Karley, apparently, hadn’t thrown anything away. The tips of his hair from under his hat shifted in the faint breeze off the river, and his freshly shaven face was reddened from more than the cold. Angry, he wouldn’t look at Peri, stewing in the backseat.