“That looks like a real talisman,” he added, his hands on his hips as he looked at the bent picture. “Too bad Silas folded it. You want me to fix it?”
“You can do that?” she said, and he ran a finger down the picture, making it whole and unblemished in her mind.
Wow, she thought, an odd feeling spiraling up through her. Breath held, she picked it up, her mind having erased the fold to leave a pristine image. Her trembling finger traced her contented smile, and as she wished for that same peace to find her now, a memory of Jack and herself unfolded itself in her mind like a rose opening to the rain.
“Peri!” Jack exclaimed as she shuddered. The heat of a thousand summers slammed into her. Her heart pounded, and she heard the chanting of ancient words, felt the haze of raw alcohol fermented from the roots of plants she’d never seen before, smiled up at Jack in the contented lassitude of knowing that they were touching the ages, part of an endless circle.
It was a memory, a real memory, and she clutched the picture to herself. “Oh, Jack,” she whispered, not wanting to open her eyes and see the cruel travesty that Silas had cursed her with. Jack was dead. She didn’t remember how, or when, but she knew that she had loved him and he had been her anchor.
Allen was the imposter. Silas was telling the truth. It had to have been a memory knot, but instead of fear, it filled her with hope. Silas was right.
Jack . . .
Peri’s eyes opened, and she sobbed once—only once—at the hallucination, his head bowed as if he was feeling the same pain. She’d killed him after finding out he’d lied to her for three entire years. It hurt looking at him—even if it really wasn’t him. “You once loved me,” he said softly as she propped the photo up with the reverence she reserved for her talismans.
Blinking fast, she nudged the photo straight. Allen was lying to her. Bill was lying to her. She wanted Silas to be telling her the truth, but that memories could not only be destroyed but created from nothing was almost too scary to think about. They could make her whatever they wanted. She had to get out of here before they made her into something she wasn’t.
Suddenly she had to find out. “I have to get out of here,” she whispered.
“How?” Jack sat down, dejected, feet spread wide. “Silas said you were tagged. If you leave, they’ll just track you down.”
Peri ran her fingers in a quick staccato across the shelf. “Time to do a scar tally,” she said, pace fast as she strode to the bathroom.
Heart pounding, she waited for the light to flicker on. In a sudden flurry, Peri stripped down to her bra and panties, feet appreciating the heated tiles. The shoulder burn was the newest. That she had no memory of it was disturbing, especially when Silas claimed they’d burned her apartment. The scar on her knee was from learning how to ride a unicycle when she was twelve. The one on her forehead just below her hairline was from running into a door. The jagged punctures on her arm were from a guard dog. A long one on her thigh was a knife wound. Jennifer had been her anchor at the time and she’d been livid. But for the others, she didn’t have a clue.
Fingers sliding from her skin, Peri’s smile faded. There was a lump on her elbow that might or might not be a scar, and a tiny line on her shoulder, out of sight unless she used a mirror. “Well?” she asked the hallucination now standing dead center in the open doorway. The line on her shoulder was almost nonexistent, but it looked fairly new, and if they did it right, it wouldn’t leave any scar worth seeing.
“I think me being dead is a real shame, babe.”
Peri’s eyes met his in the mirror. “Stop it. Is this it?”
He shook his head. “No. There’s a newer one on your ass.”
“No way!” Peri spun in a circle trying to see it. “How do you know?”
“You felt it in the tub,” he said, and she thought back, remembering noticing a tiny bump the size of a rice grain the last time she took a soak.
“Are you kidding me?” she muttered, fingers palpating the smooth skin to find a hard knot. How was she going to get that out? She couldn’t even see it.
“You could ask Silas. . . .”
Frustrated, she set the mirror down, yanked her panties back up, and grabbed Allen’s robe hanging on a hook.
“Oh, babe,” Jack protested as she tied it closed.
“I’m not running around his apartment naked,” she said, tugging open a drawer and pawing through the masculine stuff to find a scalpel, razor blade, anything. She blinked at the two-pack of condoms, thinking it was better than finding drugs. Then she found the drugs, taking a moment to study what they were, first relieved, then concerned when they weren’t recreational but medicinal, heavy hitters to put a person down fast.
No usable blade. She tried the kitchen next, pulling drawers out to expose the cavern behind them as she searched. She found the weapons cache behind the microwave, and she whistled, drawing Jack closer as she used a dishtowel to reach in and pull out the largest.
“That’s a semiautomatic night-fire scout,” the hallucination said, his gun envy showing.
“How do you know?” Peri said as she set it back in its cubby. “I don’t know that.”
“Your unconscious does,” he said. “You must have been listening when I made out my Christmas list.”
Maybe I was, she thought as she struggled to put the microwave back in place. But now she was curious, and she began searching in earnest, her anger fueling her as she found weapon after weapon tucked away behind drawers and false-backed cupboards. Ten minutes later, Peri came up for air, evidence of her rummaging subtle apart from the soot spotting the hearth from her investigation of the flue. She’d found a passable emergency surgical kit in the laundry closet, but that was the least of her new treasures.
They never should have left me alone, she thought, as she took the kit and a roll of paper towels and returned to the bathroom. Her heart thudded as she slipped out of Allen’s robe and carefully laid out what she needed.
Again Jack hovered in the doorway, brow pinched in concern. “Best to do it fast,” he offered. “Pretend it’s a dart. You’ve been hit with those before.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Peri awkwardly shifted her bare ass up onto the counter, twisting her torso to try to see. “Am I in the right spot?”
“Like I’d know?”
She sighed, feeling the muscle with one finger and holding the scalpel awkwardly between a finger and thumb. They were cramping up, but she held her breath and made a cut. Blood flowed, and she exhaled as she set the scalpel on a paper towel and grabbed an antiseptic wipe. She hissed as it met her skin, but the cut was bleeding like a stuck pig, and she quickly pulled several more paper towels free and applied pressure.
“Ah, babe . . .”
“Shut up,” she muttered, feeling ill as she dabbed the blood until it slowed. Fingers squeezed her skin, her stomach lurching when a rice-size piece of something slid out.
Lip curled in distaste, she set the tiny chunk of electronics aside as she managed a wad of gauze and tape. The cut was small, but a regular Band-Aid wouldn’t be enough. Only after she had Allen’s robe around her again and checked to see that her blood was on nothing but the scalpel and the paper towels did she look to see what she’d pulled out.
“They gave me a goddamned butt bug,” Peri said, nudging it with a finger before she cut another piece of surgical tape and stuck the bug to it.
“You did good, Peri. I’m proud of you.”
Pissed, she looked up at Jack. He was sunburned now, his blond hair streaked as if from the desert and dirt on his nose. Resolute, Peri padded into the bedroom and taped the bug to the underside of the bed. Carnac was under there, his eyes big and scared from her taking everything apart, probably. Her butt hurt as she got up off the floor, but she was more angry than anything else.
Peri quickly returned to the bathroom to gather the evidence of her surgery and take it to the fireplace. It started with a whoosh, and she sat beside her box of treasures that were not
hers. Carnac leapt up onto her lap, and she absently petted him. With the tracker out, she could move freely, but she’d have to remember to take it whenever she left so as to maintain the illusion it was still in her. “How am I going to fix this, Carnac?” Peri said, brow furrowed. “Who names a cat Carnac, anyway?” she added, a hand running all the way to the base of his tail.
And then her head snapped up. Jack had named him. Carnac was their cat.
“Jack?” she whispered, not seeing him, and he appeared in the kitchen with a bottle of wine in his hand. “You named Carnac, right?”
He nodded, and she gave the cat a hug. She knew it. She didn’t know how, but she knew it. No one had claimed him. He had walked into her life as if he knew her because he did. He was her cat, and he was real. Those weren’t hourglasses on his collar, they were dagazes.
Silas said something about a chip with corrupt Opti agents.
“Check his collar,” Jack said, but she was already fingering the clasp. The little bell tinged to make Carnac jump away when the collar slipped free. “Opti couldn’t find it because it was on the cat. It’s the only thing that still exists from our apartment.”
“My apartment,” she muttered, standing up fast and slowing when her butt throbbed. There was a magnifying glass in the bathroom, and she turned the bathroom lights up high and angled it on the collar, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Nothing. A feeling of desperation crept into her. Maybe it was hidden behind the embroidery, but she doubted it even as she felt for any telltale bump.
“The bell,” Jack suggested, and she twisted it under the light. Her breath fogged the glass. Impatient, she wiped it clear with the cuff of Allen’s robe.
“Something is stuck on the inside,” she whispered. A chip? she thought, eyes widening as she saw that was exactly what it was.
She pulled back, vertigo washing through her as she felt her life spill through the cracks of the lies, settling into a new, unknown pattern. My God. What if it’s all true? Peri’s heart pounded, and she clenched the bell until it bit into her palm.
“It’s probably encoded. Call Silas,” Jack said as he took a sip of wine that didn’t exist.
Her head dropped, and her hand slowly opened. She’d washed the ink off, but enough of a shadow remained to read it. To trust him was asking a lot.
“You don’t trust him?” Jack asked, and she brought her head up, staring at the ceiling as if it held the answer.
“I’m going to have to,” she whispered.
Jack turned to the door and her eyes widened at the sound of a car in the lot. Allen? He was back already?
“Shit,” she whispered, panicking as she rushed to attach Carnac’s bell to her key chain. Stuffing it back in her purse, she ran to the photo of her and Jack, a feeling of indecision filling her as she held it. There was nowhere she could keep it safe, and she couldn’t risk it turning up and raising questions. “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said as she dropped the photo into the fireplace and the flames licked the paper. I’m so sorry. But I do have you. I can never forget you.
“Hi, Allen!” Peri called out, turning with a smile as the front door opened. “You think I could have some space in the bathroom for my things? Two drawers, maybe?”
I can do this, she thought as he smiled back and held up a bag of cat food and ice cream. Even without an anchor.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Peri held her phone to her ear as she sat at the kitchen bar and chased the last of the marshmallow clovers around the bowl. She’d always eaten the clovers last, ever since she was a little girl. To give me luck for the day. And I need the luck, she thought, listening with half her attention to the phone ring. She wanted to meet Silas and give him the chip, but contacting him would be tricky and she couldn’t do it from her apartment.
Her phone had a bug in it, which was fine so long as she said the right thing. Allen was in the bedroom, drugged from his own pharmaceutical cache after she got him relaxed enough last night not to notice the needle. They were high-quality drugs and he’d wake with no headache, no bad taste, and no reason to check the levels of the tiny bottles. Good news was he’d be out for about four hours. Bad news was that the drugs were probably there to be used on her.
“Hello. Opti Health.”
She slid off the stool. Carnac twined hopefully about her feet, and she set the bowl of sweet milk on the floor. “Ah, hi. This is Peri Reed. I’m calling for Allen Swift and myself,” she said as she went to the window and peeked out the blind. “I’d like to switch our morning appointment to this afternoon. We had a late night, and he’s got a headache the size of Montana.”
The busy street was empty of any Opti presence, not even a drone. There was no need, not with that tracker telling them she was still in bed. She had to talk to Silas.
“Yes, ma’am. Three thirty, okay?” came the operator’s voice, and Peri closed the blinds.
“Yes. We’ll be there.” Leaving her phone on the counter, she went to check on Allen.
“Sleep well, sweetheart,” she whispered as she checked his pulse. “I’d bring you back a doughnut, but then you’d know I’d been gone.” Turning, she looked at her reflection in the mirror, seeing the fatigue under the highlights and base. “Where’s my effin’ two weeks off, Bill?” she whispered as she touched up the heavy eyeliner trailing a good three inches off the sides of her eyes. It was overly dramatic for eight in the morning but, along with the artful cheekbone contouring, would change her face enough that the street cameras wouldn’t tag her.
Satisfied, she tucked her pen pendant beneath her shirt and tugged the hem of the jacket she’d put on to try to hide a garish, flower-patterned top. Her eyes narrowed at her hair bumping about at her shoulders. Her mother would like it, but it needed to be cut, a liability in a fight.
Striding into the kitchen, she removed a drawer to reveal Allen’s knives hidden behind it. She’d made her choice last night in her search, and she slipped the slimmest into her boot sheath. Purse over her shoulder, she checked to be sure the door would lock before she stepped into the hall. The air was pleasantly cool, and after a quick look up and down the hall, she wedged a fortune cookie slip between the door and the jamb, placing it a finger’s span above the floor to tell her if anyone had entered or left while she was gone.
The streets were alive, and she enviously eyed the occasional steaming cup of coffee as she made her way to the elevated train. She hadn’t slept well beside Allen. Inconsistencies kept pinging against the top of her brain. It wasn’t so much what she remembered as what she didn’t. She recalled eating a meal, but not buying the food to prepare it with. She remembered jogging in the park with Allen, but not where she’d gotten the shoes she’d been wearing. She could remember the movies they’d gone to see, but not waiting in line for the tickets or getting the popcorn she ate. They’d lied to her. The people she’d trusted her entire adult life had lied to her, filling her with memories and ideas that were not her own—and she was pissed.
It was a short ride to her old apartment at Lloyd Park, but as she got off the sky way, her steps faltered. Everything was familiar: the neon, the tidy streets, the commons with clusters of people enjoying the spring morning at the fountain. She knew what she’d see when she looked down the side streets, the trendy shops the same as they were five years ago. The feeling of coming home hit her, a sensation lacking in the rooms she was living in now. This was where she’d felt secure, knowing every side street and alley, every dress shop and boutique, every trendy restaurant. And it hurt.
“It’s okay, babe,” Jack said, seeming to take an extra-long step to suddenly be there.
“Yeah?” Startled, she sniffed back a tear, shocked to see it. “I always liked this neighborhood,” she added as she turned to her old apartment.
“Me too. Ahh, I hate to say this, but you’re being followed. Ever since the train.”
Of course I am, she thought sourly, scrambling for a lie that Opti would believ
e and wondering where she’d slipped up.
But there was no fear, only anger. Eager for it, she took a quick left into an alley, putting her back to the wall and fishing out her pen. Cap between her teeth, she scrawled GO TO ALLEN’S to hide Silas’s number in case she drafted. She didn’t need an anchor. She could function alone.
Jack peeked around the corner as she recapped the pen and tucked it away. Hands in fists, she planted her feet firmly on the stained concrete. Masculine, fast-paced steps were coming, and she clenched her teeth so she wouldn’t bite her lip.
Silent, she attacked as the man spun into the alley, planting her foot into his gut. He fell back with a surprised grunt, and she followed it with a fist to his chest, knocking him into the wall. Teeth clenched, she grabbed his shoulder and shoved him upright so she could see his face.
“Ow-w-w-w-w,” Silas groaned, and shocked, she let him go.
“Silas?” Face warm, she backed up. Silas was hunched over, his back to the brick wall; then he slid to the cold concrete to look like a mugged businessman in his dressy coat, pressed shirt, and tie. Silent electric cars and Sity bikes passed at the end of the alley, not seeing them.
“I didn’t throw Allen over the balcony,” he rasped, one hand on his middle, the other out in an attempt to placate. “Let me explain. God bless it, I think you cracked a rib.”
Embarrassed, she winced. “I thought you were Opti. And I didn’t hit you that hard.”
He looked up, his eyes holding recrimination, and she belatedly reached to help him. He waved her off, refusing to take her hand as he pulled himself upright, expression sour as he brushed his coat off with short, angry motions.
“Hey, um, are you okay?” she said. “I’m sorry I hit you. Both times. You should know better than to follow me.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Silas felt his ribs. “What are you doing here? Jesus, you look like a pirate with all that eye makeup.”
“It helps throw off the facial recognition,” she said. “And I was looking for a clean phone to call you on.” Her fingers curled to hide the message to herself. “There’s one in the lobby of my old apartment, and they won’t give me any guff about using it. I want asylum.”