The Drafter

by Kim Harrison

  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 wi
th 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.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  “Peri! 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.

  “Peri!”

  Still on the ground, she spit the dirt from her mouth and turned her head. Silas? He was in the grip of two men as they moved to get him in a van. He was cuffed and there was a new welt on his cheek. Was it Opti who had her, then? Oh God, how had they known she was lying?

  She kicked fruitlessly at them as they hauled her up. Her teeth clenched when they tossed her into the van as well, and she landed on Silas. His elbow jammed into her gut and she lost her breath even as she struggled to find her knees. The door slammed shut, and she fell when the van accelerated fast.

  “Peri, stop fighting. You’re making it worse. I’m not going to let you go into MEP.”

  Peri wiggled until she was off him. There were no windows, and she pressed into a dark corner, trying not to fall as the van rocked. The hum in her ears and the drugs in her system made her nauseated. She knew that she’d set out to talk to Silas and buy her freedom, but she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here or what had gone wrong.

  At the other side of the van, Silas slowly got himself upright. “You drafted,” Silas said breathlessly. “Just relax and breathe. It’s going to be okay. Opti doesn’t have us. It’s the alliance. Turn around. Let me get that audio blocker out.”

  His voice was soothing, but she mistrusted it. “Alliance?” she whispered as the van leaned into a long curve that said entrance ramp. “Then why are you cuffed? You said you were alliance.” She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten to the ballpark. The unreasonable fear wound tighter about her heart and squeezed. She couldn’t breathe, and she pulled her knees to her chin and dropped her head, trying to relax.

  But the harder she tried, the more the panic grew, the unknown hammering at her, eating her alive. It was that patch job. It was falling apart, and when it did, she’d go crazy. She was going crazy.

  “Look at me.” Silas knelt before her, but she stared at the ceiling, terrified. The van was running full-out on a straightaway. She had no idea where she was going. She wanted to draft and keep drafting, but the drugs in her wouldn’t let her, and she hung in a hell of her own making of doubt and panic.

  He inched forward, and her eyes shot to his. “Peri, I’m an anchor,” he said calmly, and she recoiled as far into the corner as she could. “You know I am. I was there when you drafted. I can bring it back, and with that, the rest will return. Trust me. At least let me get that earplug out.”

  Her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t swallow. Trust no one. “I can’t,” she whispered, confusion swirling through her, muddling her thinking.

  “You have to,” he said, inching closer, his eyes showing his pain from his bound wrists. “Listen to your gut. It was a tiny draft, but you’re teetering on collapse. Look at yourself. This isn’t you. Undo my hands. Let me help.”

  “I can’t,” she said, almost pleading for him to help her, but he had turned to show her his back. His fingers looked swollen, the binding too tight.

  “Please,” he said, and she saw the bent nail in his grip. “I know you’re confused, but I can fix this. You have to trust me.”

  Her heart was thudding and she felt sick with the motion both outside and inside her head. “Okay,” she whispered. “But if you make one move I don’t like, I’ll kill you for real.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, and she carefully moved to put her back to his. His fingers felt cold when she touched them, and he hissed when the nail slipped, gouging him. But
his sigh was real when she finally got the tab wedged and he pulled out of the zip cuff.

  “Your turn,” he said, and she jumped when he plucked the earplug out and the hum ceased. She was freed even faster, and she rubbed her wrists as she backed to her corner, that same unreasonable fear cramping her chest.

  Scared, she shook her head, warning him off. “You stay back. Hear me?”

  “Do you remember how you got to the ballpark?” he asked as he took her hand, not letting go when she tried to pull away.

  “Let go. Let go!” she demanded, her fear hesitating when he turned her hand over and put that nail in it as a talisman. Her breath caught, and she stared at it as half a lifetime of protocol and effect beat on her. She wanted to remember. He was an anchor, and she was out of her mind. “I don’t remember how I got to the ballpark,” she finally groaned, desperate. She needed to trust him to survive.

  “That’s okay,” he soothed as he took her other hand, a spot of calm in her chaos. “It was only ten minutes ago. That’s within normal tolerance. It’s just shock. When you calm down, it will come back on its own. Do you remember shopping?”

  “Yes,” she said, the relief enormous as she looked at her clothes, remembering. That had been this morning. She hadn’t lost everything. It was going to be okay. And she began to calm—to think.

  “Peri, let me in,” he said softly, his urgency a thin thread.

  Not knowing why, she closed her eyes and nodded. Exhaling, she felt his presence slip in behind hers, gasping when his masculine shade of thought colored her memory of her trip to the mall. He was there, with her, and her shoulders slumped in relief so deep it hurt.

  “It’s okay,” Silas was saying, but she hardly heard him as a thick exhaustion covered her, swimming up from nowhere. “You’ve only lost fifteen minutes or so. Let me bring it back.”

  “Make it stop,” she mumbled, hardly aware of him in her thoughts as he turned her memories that way. “Please make it stop.”

  “You were running with me,” he said, and she saw it through his mind. “It was the alliance, and I told you why they were after us.”