The Drafter (51 page)

Silas hunched, straightening when his jacket pulled. “Sorry to hear that.”

Lips twisted into a smile, she looked at him and adjusted his hat. “But I'm here now, with you, Mr. Tomorrow.”

Silas's jaw clenched. Her smile was perfect, the sun making her skin glow and her eyes vivid. He wanted to bring it all back, every little thing. But there was nothing left. Allen had wiped it all away. And he had helped.

I should have told her that I loved her
, he thought, breath shallow. Maybe then she would have had a choice. But he'd hidden his love, giving her no choice but the one that Allen offered. And who wouldn't have chosen glory over an empty apartment? He was a fool, and all he could do now was try to give her the knowledge to save herself.

“You okay?” Peri asked, the sun glinting on the tips of her thick black hair.

“Fine,” he said tightly, eyeing the park's drones. They were low-Q and harmless, but he didn't like how easy it would be to slip a high-Q, facial-recognition one among them. “How is Jack doing? Is he here?”

Peri cast about as she wiped her fingers on a napkin. “No,” she said, sounding surprised. “And that makes you happy because . . . ,” she prompted.

Silas shrugged, not liking that he was telegraphing his mood so loudly. “It just means you're comfortable,” he said, hiding behind a sip of his drink. “And if you're comfortable, it's a good bet that no one is sitting in the stands watching us.”

Peri scanned the nearby stairs, but there were only fans to look at. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Jack manifests when you think something is wrong. He's not infallible, since he only knows what you suspect, but I trust your intuition more than, say, . . . Allen's word.”

She chuckled at that. “Yeah, I don't trust him either,” she said. “He knew my ass was LoJacked.”

Silas smirked, and she turned to him, head shaking. “Good God,” she said, not angry at all. “You're happy I don't trust Allen?”

He couldn't help his laugh, and her smile turned real. “I can't keep anything from you, can I? But you're not done yet with your hot dog.”

“Yes. I am.” She shoved the last bit in her mouth. Chewing fast, she swallowed, washing it down with a gulp of water before turning to face him. Silas's pulse quickened, but just then the inning ended and he
looked past her to the suddenly moving people. The announcer's voice was almost lost amid the thousand conversations starting all at once.

“Getting under the alliance blanket is going to be a little tricky,” Peri said in the new noise, glancing darkly at the man knocking into her on his way to the food court. “Opti found out I removed the tracker and made me ingest a new radiation marker.”

Silas's head snapped around. “What!”

“It's not that big a deal,” she said, almost amused as she leaned closer to be heard. “Don't freak out, okay? I can muddle it when I want with a little barium syrup.”

“They knew you were gone and didn't scrub you?” he asked, trying to wrap his head around this.

Peri's expression twisted wryly. “No.”

Silas's hands clenched so hard on his water bottle the cap cracked. She was chemically tagged? What the hell was he supposed to do now? They were using her, blatantly using her to get to the alliance. Cold flowed through him, and he ran a hand under his cap, scanning the moving people for black suits and sunglasses. “This is really bad,” he said softly.

“So I take a low-dose of barium syrup to mask it,” Peri said, her eyes narrowing as her confidence wavered. “Or wear a tin hat. It isn't anything we can't work around. Opti doesn't know I've broken their memory implants.”

Which was exactly what she would say if she really was working for Opti to bring the alliance heads in on a platter. Silas's chest began to hurt. Fran had told him Peri couldn't be trusted and to bring her in for “retirement.” He didn't want to believe it. He wouldn't.

But then Peri jerked to look behind her at that recently vacated chair. “Ahhh, shit on a shingle,” she whispered.

It had to be Jack, and a slithery feeling crept through his spine as she watched something that wasn't really there. “What is he saying?” he whispered.

Peri's eyes scanned. “That something is wrong and I have to go. I'm tending to believe him. Thanks for the hot dog. It was nice. Which way to the car?”

She stood, and he rose as well. “Uh . . . ,” he said unintelligently. But he had no plan, no thought other than to take her and go. And with the chemical tag, the alliance was doubly out.

Peri looked him up and down, his fear feeding her own. “I
gave
you Jack's list. You've got what you want.”

Silas's brow furrowed, and he took her elbow. “What you brought us wasn't Jack's list.”

Her face went white. “Yes, it was. It had to be,” she insisted as the music blared. “It was on my cat. His collar is the only thing that survived my apartment.”

Silas shook his head. “It was a listening device.”

Her lips parted, and he saw her world fall apart in the sheen of her eyes. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “They heard everything.” Her eyes shot to his, panicked. “They know everything we said! That I'm lying to them!”

A part of Silas was relieved. She was afraid. She was telling the truth. “No they don't,” he tried to soothe her, but her arms were stiff under his hands. “The unit was damaged. You said you got it off your cat. Well, those things can't take being outside for long. Opti hadn't had a chance to change it out. They didn't hear us, but Peri, it wasn't the list, and the alliance won't trust you.”

Peri's wandering attention came back to his. “They'll never believe me,” she said, and his fear swelled when he saw her new determination. She was going to run. She was going to try to do this on her own.

“I have to go,” she said, pulling away from him.

“Where?”

“I don't know,” she said. And then she simply walked away.

“Peri!” he called, but someone had cut in behind her, and he had to wait. In three seconds, she was gone, out the way she'd come in.

“Move!” Silas pushed past the man on the stair, ignoring the angry protests as he shoved through the tight inflow of people. Peri's slim form slipped gracefully past the throng like water while he was more like the rock everyone else was crashing against, but finally he was through the crush and in the cool underbelly of the stadium.

“There you are,” he said, spotting her weaving through the crowd
to an exit. He saw her note the two men at the exit gate. They were in suits and lacked the park's lanyard identification, and she smoothly turned and went the other way.

Shit
. She was in flight mode, and he lurched after her, calling her name when he caught up to her so she wouldn't overreact.

“What do you want?” she rasped as he touched her elbow and she spun, shocking him with her wet eyes. “I don't need an anchor. I don't need anyone.”

“You're right,” he said as he brushed a finger under her eye, and she moaned and turned away. “You don't
need
anyone,” he said, pulling her to a stop again. “But that doesn't mean you need to be alone.”

Lips parting, she let that spill over her, her shoulders losing their tension and her eyes showing her heartache. “I don't want to be alone. I want to sit in the sun and eat another damn hot dog. I want it to be done, Silas. I want it to be done!”

“We can figure this out.” Still holding her arm, Silas looked over the moving throng as the announcer began his between-inning patter. “Together. Trust me, Peri. One more time.”

She took a breath to answer, but he already saw it in her eyes. And then she jerked, her attention going over his shoulder. “Gun!” she shrilled, shoving him back.

Silas's arms pinwheeled as he caught his balance. His head snapped up. Peri was poised for flight, and a red-fletched dart skittered on the floor between them.

“Run!” he said, grabbing her elbow and yanking her into motion.

Peri sprang ahead, slipping from him as Silas pounded behind her. The two attendants followed, one yelling into a two-way. “I didn't know they were here,” Peri got out between breaths, when she'd slowed enough that Silas could catch up. “Opti wasn't supposed to be here.”

“It's not Opti. It's the alliance,” he said. “No, keep going!” he shouted, pushing her to an employees-only door, when she almost stopped.

“Why are we running?” she asked as they spilled through it and into a quiet hallway.

Grimacing, Silas dead-bolted the door, starting at the sudden pounding on it. “Come on. This has to lead somewhere.”

“You told me you were alliance,” Peri said as she jogged beside him. “Are you or not?”

“I am,” he ground out. “It's Fran, Taf's mother. She'd rather believe that you bewitched her daughter into believing your lies than that her daughter might be a better judge of character than she is.”

“Taf?” Peri bit her lip as she recalled the young woman. “I don't get it.”

They turned a corner and Silas eased their pace, looking for an exit. “Fran is the head of the alliance. Taf ran off with you instead of backing up her mother. There was a gun involved, and Fran's pretty pissed off about it.”

“Swell. I ran off with the daughter of the head of the alliance? They're never going to believe me,” Peri said bitterly. “Why are you just telling me this now?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Silas smart-mouthed. “I couldn't wedge it between you cracking my rib and the hot dog.”

The sudden crash of the distant door slamming behind them jolted them into motion.

“Go!” Silas shouted, pushing her.

Peri sprinted ahead for the fire door, hitting it full-force since fire codes would have it unlocked from this side. The heavy door thumped into the wall, and Silas ran after her, skidding to a stop when three men straightened from a car waiting in the sun.

“Get her!” one cried as weapons were pulled.

Silas's heart seemed to stop as Peri continued to head for the wide square of light and her freedom, going full-tilt off the raised platform to roll upright and running upon landing. Her hat was gone, and her black hair gleamed when she reached the sun and the men at the car.

“You in the black! Stop!” one shouted, and Peri hesitated to look back for him.

“Don't shoot her!” Silas shouted, knowing the pause was fatal. “For God's sake, Peri, don't draft! You might go into a full MEP!”

Two men crashed into him from behind, knocking him down and wrestling his arms behind his back. But his eyes were fixed on Peri, his
eyes closing in heartache when she slowly rose from her crouch and yanked a dart from her arm.

“No!” Silas shouted as she staggered . . . and then . . . drafted before it could take hold.

Silas gasped, shocked at the breadth of her reach as she yanked everyone in a half-mile radius into a blue haze of hindsight. His mind seemed to expand as time became malleable, and with a sudden pop he could almost feel the world reset with a crystalline clarity of lost chances.

“P
eri! Wait!” Silas shouted as he ran onto the loading dock, and Peri spun, putting her back to the Dumpster and edging deeper into the shadows instead of into the sun and her freedom. She was drafting, and for the first time, a new fear slid between her thought and her reason. Silas thought she was going to go into MEP? If Silas's tinkering didn't hold, she wasn't only going to lose her past, but her mind
.

“Stop!” Silas exclaimed as two men fell on him, and Peri backed farther into the alley. “I can talk her in. You're making this worse.”

“You shut up,” the man holding him said, kicking his knees out from under him, and Peri crouched, reaching for her pen pendant and jerking it open
.

TRUST NO ONE
,
she wrote, eyes fixed on the two men creeping closer with the caution of Bushmen circling a lion. She shifted the pen's position to gouge.

“No!” Silas protested as she silently rushed them.

“Watch it!” someone cried, and Peri crashed into the nearest man. He shouted, dropping out of her way when the pen buried itself deep between his shoulder and his neck. Teeth clenched, she shoved him at the other man, the jolt of her breakaway lanyard snapping through her. She darted left at the pop of a weapon. She was going to make it. She was going to make it!

And then the world hiccupped. She was running. Men were shouting
behind her, and she didn't know why. But she didn't slow down, confused as she zigged when a red-fletched dart pinged on the window of the car she was passing. Heart pounding, she looked at her palm.

Trust no one
.

It made perfect sense and none at all. She'd come here to buy her way into the alliance, but she didn't remember talking to anyone. She'd lost at least ten minutes, maybe more. But it was that she might have damaged Silas's patch job that struck fear into her. She'd be fine if she could just . . . get away!

“Jack?” she shouted, and she saw him thirty feet up the street, gesturing for her.

“Don't stop!” he exclaimed, and she gasped when a man came out from behind a car and she plowed right into him, crashing them both to the pavement.

“No!” she howled as a dart hit her and her arms were pulled behind her. She fought until there were two, then three men sitting on her. Someone held her face to the ground, and her eyes screwed tight when a foam insert was wedged into her ear. A hum of sound stifled her ability to draft. She couldn't breathe, and finally she gave up, her heart thudding and adrenaline making her head hurt. She clenched her fist to hide the writing on her palm—her fear—even as a plastic strip ratcheted tight about her wrists behind her back.