The Drafter (19 page)

Expression cross, she flopped back into the chair to stare at him, probably trying to figure out why he was here. There was a nasty-looking pen by her hand, and he watched as she shifted her fingers and drew it close. “I'm not a dirty agent,” she said, chin lifted.

“Then why did you run away?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Her eyes avoided his. “They think I'm corrupt. I'm going to prove I'm not.”

He snorted, sucking muffin crumbs out of his teeth as if he had all the time in the world. “Anyone who can do what you do is dirty.”

Eyes narrowed, she leaned toward him. “I work for the government. I am a soldier.”

Silas flicked a look at her hands, carefully flat on the table. The pen was gone, hidden somewhere. She'd never come with him unless she felt in control, and he looked at the ceiling, rocking his chair back on two legs. “Sure you are.”

Even expecting it, he jumped when she reached out, grabbed him by the coat, and yanked the chair down on all fours. “I am a soldier,” she growled. “Say it.”

Her hand gripped him just under his chin, both soft and strong at the same time. “Okay, you're a soldier.”

Satisfied, she let go.

“A corrupt soldier who hires herself out to the highest bidder,” he added, not liking that people had noticed and were watching.

“I might lose memories, but my morals don't change,” she said. “I wouldn't do a dirty job now, so I didn't then.” But her eyes became crafty, worrying him. “You need my help.”

Grunting, Silas put his arms on the table. Damn, he'd forgotten how good she was. “Something happened up there,” he said, tapping his coat where the tablet lay. “I want to know what. I think you do, too.”

“I'm not helping you,” she said. “You're trying to shut Opti down. We do a lot of good.”

“For the Billion by Thirty club, sure, but not for me,” he said with a bitter laugh. “Not for that guy at the counter. Opti is going down regardless of what I find. If you're corrupt, you're going down with it. If you're not, I'm the only one who can help you clear your name. Help me, and maybe you'll survive. Maybe walk away. Live your life.”

She didn't move, but he could see the thoughts sift through her, and he chuckled. “You think you can use me and lose me?” he said, and she flushed. “Go ahead and try. But keep this in mind, Peri Reed. I
knew
where you were going. I
know
what you need, and
I
can take you wherever your intuition leads you.”

“So why are you talking to me?” she said bitingly.

Right to the point
, he thought, fiddling with his coffee to make the heating circuits click on and off, until she noticed and he quit. “I, ah, need your help to get up there,” he admitted. “I don't have your skills.”

Peri's eyebrows rose. “You seriously think I'm going to
work
with you? Right after you told me you think I'm corrupt and a joke?”

“I never said you were a joke.”

“You said I wasn't a soldier,” she said. “I can't work with you. You're too tall to be subtle and you'll scream like a little boy at the first hint of trouble.”

Brow furrowing, Silas looked her up and down, crossing his arms to make his biceps bulge. “I can take care of myself.”

“You will slow . . . me . . . down,” she said, her finger tapping the table in time with her words. “Yeah, I see your pretty muscles, but I bet you can't run a mile without throwing up.”

His lip twitched. He wasn't built for speed, and he always felt like a hulk next to her slim quickness—even if his mind was as dexterous as hers. More so, maybe. “I'll keep up.”

She leaned in, daring him. “I'd be surprised if you've ever seen the inside of a firing range, Mr. Muscles. I. Can't. Use. You.”

Peeved, Silas leaned to within inches of her, his breath held as he quashed the thought that her eyes, a deep hazel that could morph into green depending on the light and her mood, were what had first attracted him to her—and they hadn't changed. “I'm actually pretty good with a weapon, but I'm not the one in trouble, Ms. Reed. You've been drafting, and you don't even know it.”

She jerked back, her sudden flash of angst making him almost regret his words. Face white, she scanned the noisy coffeehouse. “I have not,” she said, but her hands were under the table, probably holding that pen of hers like the security blanket it was.

“Yes, you have,” he said. “I wasn't lying when I said I used to work for Opti.”

Peri fixed him with a tight stare. “You trained to be an Opti anchor? You took Opti training and then left them to work for the alliance? Are you kidding me?”

Silas forced his hands to unclench. “Most of us at the alliance worked for Opti at some point. Until we realized it was corrupt to the core and left.”

“You washed out,” she said, and his eyes darted to hers.

“I quit,” he said tightly.

She was looking at him in distrust, but under it he could see her desperate need. He'd been playing on all the wrong triggers. She needed him like she needed a knife and a pistol. She needed him like a black suit and a fast car. He was a tool, a safety net. And right now, seeing the fear in the back of her eyes, he knew she'd do anything to keep him from walking out that door.

“Prove it,” she challenged him, but he could tell she badly wanted him to succeed.

“What, here?” he said, his attention traveling over the noisy throng.

Peri bit her bottom lip. “You don't have to bring it back, just tell me where I drafted. What did I forget?”

He almost had her, and he ran a quick hand over his hair as if thinking it over.

“Fine,” she said, and she stood, shocking him even as she wavered. “This conversation is over. Can I have your tablet, please?”

She stuck her hand out, expecting him to give it to her, but she froze when he took her hand in his instead. “You were seen leaving the bathroom,” he said, and she stared at him, fear in her eyes as his voice took on the singsong pattern of an anchor bringing back a memory. “It took three guards, but they got you down, and then you jumped. In the draft, you tripped a businessman into another to distract security and avoid them. That was right before you stole the coat. They caught you again at the top of the escalator until you drafted and hid at the jewelry stand until the family with the stroller showed up and you went downstairs with them.”

Slowly Peri sat, her hand loose in his grip.

“It took me a few minutes to get downstairs, but the next time you drafted was when Allen saw you at the coffee counter.”

Clearly scared, she pulled her hand away. “I didn't draft at the coffee counter.”

“It was tiny,” he said, pity reaching his voice despite his intentions. “A skip, if you like, turning away at just the right moment in the draft so he didn't see
you. Just now, before I sat down, you skipped about three seconds so that kid in the corner who looks like he hasn't shaved in a week wouldn't bump you. Peri, you escaped Opti. You're good, but it would have been impossible without drafting, and you know it.”

It was hard to tear her down like this, especially knowing how fragile she was, and Silas felt like an ass as he took in her pale face. “If you're lying . . . ,” she threatened.

His anger was gone, sponged away by her fear. “Where are you staying? I'll bring all three jumps back. If you like what you see, we can work together. If you still don't trust me—”

“Trust has nothing to do with it,” she interrupted. “You want to shut down Opti.”

“Trust has everything to do with it,” he said bitterly, and her eyes dropped. “Finding out what happened up there is the only way you're going to clear your name. What happens after that is secondary. Let's go.”

Chin lifted, she looked at him. “I haven't said I'd work with you.”

“Not with your lips, no.”

She grimaced, clearly thinking. “I don't have a place yet,” she said softly.

He had her, maybe not for anything longer than an hour, but he had her. He stood. “I do.” Feeling light-headed, Silas took up his hat and started for the door. Her Opti conditioning never to be alone would get her moving faster than anything else. Still, it didn't feel as good as he thought it would when she closed out her session on her borrowed Internet link and got to her feet.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked as she shrugged into her coat, that ugly, man's hat already on her head.

Silas's teeth clenched. “I'm not helping you. I'm getting the job done.”

Together they wove through the busy tables, and he fought with himself not to clear the way for her. He wasn't her damned anchor, and this association would last only until he got what he wanted. She paused at the door to drop her mug in the wash bin, and he leaned over her as he set his mug beside hers, breathing in her scent, almost hidden
under stale fear and worry, to whisper, “That, and I'm impressed at how you continue to function with minimal drafts. Not bad, Peri. Not bad at all.”

Blinking, she looked up at him, the slight praise clearly meaning more than it should. “It's patently obvious you don't like me, Silas, but I'm not corrupt. And I'm the only way you're ever going to find out what really happened, so how about lightening up a little.”

He smiled bitterly as he pushed open the door. “I could say the same thing.”

Her head was up as she went out before him, and he belatedly realized he'd opened the door for her, a common enough courtesy, but one he'd vowed he wouldn't do. The cold wind blew up from the street, and she hunched deeper into that coat she'd stolen. “This is very bad for my asthma,” she whispered.

“Excuse me?” he blurted, the phrase from their past shaking him to his core.
She still uses it? Maybe there is something left after all
.

But her eyes held only confusion. “Um. I just say that . . . sometimes,” she muttered, her melancholy deepening.

Hunching into his coat, he pointed up the street. Silent, she fell into step beside him, clearly not realizing that she'd lengthened her steps into matching his suddenly slower pace so they would strike the same beat even if she was a good eight inches shorter.

God almighty
, he thought, trying to shift his pace back to his normal length and failing. She was beside him, and yet not, missing a man she didn't remember, one who had lied to her for three years, mourning him even if she had killed him.

And he was going to try to bring that back?

S
ilas's hotel room was in one of Charlotte's high-rises, twenty-fourth floor, corner suite. The elegance of the elevator alone had made Peri feel like a homeless woman, still dressed in her traveling black slacks and that woman's borrowed, no,
stolen
coat, and a hat that smelled of its previous owner. She knew she wasn't smelling that great either after sixteen hours on a bus. The couple in the elevator with them hadn't said a word, with their perfume, cologne, and expensive jewelry. No one could make you feel inferior without your permission, but she was usually the one in the upscale fashions, and the knockoff coat wasn't doing it for her—not when Silas had the real thing, reminding her of black cars and laughter over sparkling wine.

Getting to his room and finding that it had all the niceties did almost as much to relax her as the shower she'd insisted on taking before letting him near her again. She was still hungry, but at least the caked eyeliner was gone and she didn't stink. Even better, the steam had gotten most of the wrinkles out of her clothes. A real anchor would have gone downstairs to the boutique and purchased something else for her to wear, but washing her underwear and socks in the sink would do—for now.

Clean and dressed, her feet in hotel-supplied slippers, and her wet hair bumping about her ears, Peri sat in a cushy chair away from the
window and tried not to think about the thin sandwich she'd gotten out of a vending machine eight hours ago. She was confident that damp clothes weren't her usual attire when defragmenting memories, but sitting in a strange man's hotel room wearing nothing but a robe wasn't going to happen. The blinds were angled to block most of the light bouncing in off the neighboring tower and her head rested on a pillow smelling of new fabric. Silas's fingers pushed at her temples with firm, professional strength. Clearly his claim to be an anchor was valid.

His comment yesterday about blind trust bothered her. She'd been a fool, not just for walking away with Allen, but for working with Jack for three years and never suspecting they were doing non-Opti-sanctioned jobs, ignorant of enough that she fell in love with the man. Because even though she couldn't remember him, there was an ache.

“This would go faster if you unclenched your jaw,” Silas said drily, and Peri forced her shoulders down. His touch on her temples was not invasive, but her mind was too full.

“How long has it been since you've done this?” she countered.

“None of your business.”

Peri exhaled in a long, slow sound. That he smelled like leather and his fingers felt like a cool ribbon of water somehow wasn't helping. “I don't think you were ever in Opti.”

“I was there,” he growled. “How can I be expected to work when you won't relax?”

“How can I relax when I'm
starving
!” she exclaimed.

His fingers pulled away and she opened her eyes to see him stomping across the blind-darkened room to the bed. Shoulders hunched in anger, he picked up the bedside phone. “I swore I wasn't going to do this,” he said, punching a number with savage ferocity. “I was
not
going to do this!” he added, glaring at her as he brandished the receiver.