by Kim Harrison
“Did we get what we came for? How long did I draft?” Peri asked, numb as she looked at the dead man. She only killed someone when they killed her first. Damn it all to hell, she hated it when she drafted.
“Not long, and it’s in my phone.” Eyes pinched, Jack stuck his head out the door and looked around. The office beyond was quiet. “What do you remember?”
Less than I like. “Wait.” Peri knelt beside the dead guard, cutting a button from his uniform with the knife still bloody from his own death. It wasn’t a trophy, but re-creating a memory would be easier with a talisman to focus it on: blood, the feel of the sticky blade, the scent of gunpowder, and the taste of . . . chocolate?
“You made a reservation, right?” Jack asked, looking awkward in his concern. “Did you write it down? I don’t know why you insist on keeping our post-task date a secret.”
“Because it’s fun to watch you squirm,” she said softly, still trying to find herself. He was overly anxious, wanting to move and keep moving, but as she glanced at the dead man, she didn’t wonder why. Pulse slow, she felt the new aches settle in, clueless as she looked out the huge windows at the dark city. “What day is it?” she said, and heartache marred Jack’s handsome face as he realized how deep the damage was.
“We’ll check your phone. I bet you wrote it down,” Jack said, avoiding her question as he took her elbow and carefully helped her through the secretary’s office and into a maze of low-partitioned cubicles. “Do you remember where the elevators are? I have a lousy sense of direction.”
“I don’t remember the friggin’ task, Jack. What day is it!” she snapped, and he stopped.
Facing her, he gently turned her right hand up to show her a watch. She didn’t wear a watch. Ever. “February the seventh. I’m sorry, Peri. It was a bad one.”
Peri stared at the watch. It looked like something Jack might have given her—all black and chrome, having more functions than a PTA mom with twins, but she didn’t remember it. “February?” The last she knew, it was late December. “I lost six weeks! How long did I draft?”
Emotion flashed over Jack, relief and then distress. “Thirty seconds?” he said, putting a hand on the small of her back and getting her moving again. “But you created a massive potential displacement. You were going to die. The guard? He was the one who did it.”
And now she was alive instead of him. That was a lot of change to absorb. She was lucky she’d lost only six weeks in those thirty seconds. She’d once drafted forty-five seconds, but the changes made had been so small that she’d lost only the time her draft had created. Conversely, a tiny mishap after her final drafting exam at Opti had resulted in forgetting her entire last year at Opti’s academy. There were rules, but so much impacted them that estimating time lost from time rewritten was chancy at best.
“The car is outside,” Jack said as he led her through the dark to the elevators. Jack walked just a shade faster than she, falling into a well-practiced role of filling in the gaps in a way that wouldn’t make her feel stupid. If she didn’t move too fast, she could at least look as if she knew where they were going. There was an art to it, and they’d both had time to refine it. “We fixed the camera on the south elevator, right?” he asked as he hit the down button.
His nervous chatter was starting to get to her, but it was because he was worried, so she bit back her sharp retort, not wanting to make Jack feel any worse. Her body ached from a beating she didn’t remember getting, and her face felt as if it was on fire. Dancing was out, but they could still play some pool, relax before they turned to the task of rebuilding her memory. It was a tradition that stretched back almost to their first meeting.
They stepped into the elevator together, and she jerked when Jack was suddenly there, his arms around her and his lips beside her ear. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t your anchor. Seeing you get beaten up is hard enough, but being the only one to remember it is misery.”
He pulled back, and they shared a weak smile. Peri steeled herself against the wave of emotion that washed over her. She could cry later. But she wouldn’t. Holding the world together while a new timeline formed was her job. Witnessing and rebuilding her memory was his job—and had been for the last three years.
She took a slow breath as the elevator halted with a cheerful ding. She would have written down their reservation. The night was not entirely ruined, and she would appreciate a good wine and the release that flirting with Jack would bring. “What were we getting, anyway?”
Immediately Jack relaxed. “Remember that virus that Opti used to reinforce the United Nations’ pollution limits three years ago? It had an ugly stepsister,” he said. “I’m sorry, Peri. At least you didn’t lose the summer.”
A faint smile eased her worry, and she twined her fingers in his as they got out of the elevator. No, she hadn’t lost the summer, but if she had, she knew that she could’ve fallen in love with him all over again.
Get lost in the twisty-turny world of Peri Reed, government agent extraordinaire . . .
Because every hero, even the accidental ones, have a beginning.
Sideswiped
* * *
In the first explosive book in the Peri Reed Chronicles, Kim Harrison, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Hollows series, blazes a new frontier with an edge-of-your-seat thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.
The Drafter
* * *
ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kim Harrison, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows series, was born in Detroit and, after gaining her bachelor’s degree in the sciences, she moved to South Carolina, where she remained until recently returning to Michigan because she missed the snow. When not at her desk, Kim is most likely to be found landscaping her new/old Victorian home, in the garden, or out on the links.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Kim-Harrison
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MORE BOOKS IN THE PERI REED CHRONICLES
Sideswiped
The Drafter
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-5011-4555-1