Pulse fast, Peri scrambled for a way to make this work for her. Clearly Silas hadn’t told them about the chemical tracker. Opti was likely on their way, to find out where she’d gone if nothing else. And Opti was coming. She could feel it—brewing just over the horizon like a summer storm.
“Enough,” Fran hissed. “Get her on camera.”
That man shoved her again. Peri had had enough, and she spun, arms jabbing out with a palm thrust to break his nose. Brian fell back, screaming and clutching his face. Peri froze, cuffed hands in the air as safeties clicked off, but Howard only laughed.
“Someone get Brian a towel,” Fran directed tiredly. “Can we move forward, please?”
“Peri, this isn’t how I wanted to do this.”
It was Silas, and Peri’s expression blanked. Someone else had said nearly the exact same thing to her—right before her world fell apart the first time. First chance she got, she was going to run and keep running. But she wouldn’t leave without Silas. He’d brought her back, given her something to build herself on. His own people were turning against him. She didn’t know which side was right, but she knew how that felt. The alliance and Opti could tear themselves apart for all she cared.
Finally they got Brian behind the bar with a pack of ice. The new agent at her side was more polite, and Peri smiled at his gesture for her to continue, putting a sway in her hips as she made her way to sit in front of the camera.
“Please state your name,” Fran said, though it was obvious everyone knew who she was.
“Peri Reed,” she said as she settled herself into the white cushions and the technician adjusted the camera.
“You’re here to account for your crimes done under the auspices of Opti,” Fran began, careful not to get her face on camera, “your actions against humanity, and your efforts to reduce the inherent rights of every citizen. If found guilty, you’ll be taken from here and permanently stripped of your ability to draft.”
Peri’s head snapped up. “I thought this was to discuss what I had to offer you in exchange for asylum.”
Fran’s thin lips pressed as she scrolled through a tablet. “You thought wrong. We’re going to make you normal, Peri Reed.”
“I am normal.” Peri glanced at Silas, whose expression mirrored the surprise and horror she knew were evident on her own features. “The only way to eliminate my ability to draft will leave me unable to make any long-term memories, and that’s if you do it right. Pardon my concern, but you can’t possibly possess the equipment or the finesse. You’ll make a vegetable out of me.”
Fran put on a pair of diamond-encrusted bifocals and brought her gaze back from the hazy mountains, thick with the coming rain. “Your actions carry their own sins. You’re accused of the murders of Hans Marston, James Thomas, Daniel H. Parsole, Kevin Arnold, Thomas Franklin, Nicole Amsterdam, and, most recently, Samuel Smity.”
Seven deaths, most of them probably people who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It bothered Peri that she didn’t remember most of them. Taf had gone pale, and even Silas looked uncomfortable. “Hans beat his children and mutilated other men’s wives to convince their husbands to do what he wanted them to. I did the world a favor. Kevin Arnold was an accident. He didn’t move when I told him to, and someone shot him as he went over a fence. I don’t remember the rest,” Peri said, ignoring the rising murmur of outrage behind her. “You can’t try me for something you might have made up.”
“You’ve been linked to a multitude of corporate espionage events that resulted in massive illegal gains in the private sector,” Fran continued, peering down through her glasses. “I have them listed here, if you feel the need to refute them. Numerous accounts of theft or arson to eliminate records detrimental to Opti personnel . . . several mentions of technological terrorism. Most of them involving biological warfare.” She peered accusingly at Peri over the glass tablet. “We’re not sure what you were doing in old Russia, but I’m not liking that the Korean ambassador developed Legionnaires’ disease the same week you were there and died of complications. Here’s my favorite, though. Under the cover of installing a U.S.-friendly government, you set in power an extremist group who went on to commit a nationwide genocide, more commonly known as the White Plague.”
“That wasn’t me,” she whispered, going cold. “That was Nina and Trey.” She looked at Silas, seeing his empty expression. “I didn’t do that!” But a faint memory ticked in the back of her skull, a wisp of unfragmented memory of trying to sneak frightened people past a blockade as the night lit up in a fiery hell behind them. Maybe she’d been there, but it had been to stop it, right?
But even as Peri thought it, doubt paralyzed her. Had she ever been anything other than Bill’s tool? Had she believed everything Jack had said because he’d rubbed her feet and made her dinner? Sick to her stomach, she looked up when Fran said, “How plead you?”
Silas stood, shoving the sudden hands off him. “How can you stand there as if you’ve never bought a drafter’s skills before, Fran?”
Fran covered her mic, and the tech guy jumped. “I am not on trial,” she hissed, furious.
“Maybe you should be.” Silas fell back into his chair, pushed by security.
“Everything I’ve done is for the benefit of mankind,” Fran said earnestly, but her face was red from more than anger.
“End justifies the means, eh?” Silas said bitterly, and from outside, thunder rolled between the hills. “You are a hypocritical elitist,” Silas accused, straining against the guards’ hands. “How dare you, Fran. She’s been used. By you most of all, turned into something she might not come back from. How dare you accuse her of this? You owe her!”
“Mother, this is not fair!” Taf exclaimed, pushed back to the windows with Howard.
“Fair doesn’t enter into it,” Fran said coldly as the three men kept him unmoving. “You’re correct in your diagnosis, though, Silas. There’s no way she can come back from this. She is a tool. And she needs to be destroyed before she brings us all down. You either perform the incision, or you will remain in alliance custody for the rest of your life.”
Peri was numb as the thunder grew and beat on her. Had she been blind to Jack’s lies for three years, or had she known and gone along with it?
“Uh, guys?” the tech geek said, eyes on the mountains as he stood over his tablets.
“I won’t do it,” Silas promised. “I’m not going to mutilate her so you can hide your guilt. She volunteered for this. Everything she’s done has been for the alliance. You have a responsibility to fix her!”
Volunteered? Volunteered for what?
“Guys! That’s not mine,” the tech guy said, pointing, and someone gasped at the massive high-Q drone hovering just outside the window. Three seconds later, a military helicopter thumped overhead. Behind it, half a dozen more rolled over the mountains. It hadn’t been thunder. It was a flight of Black Hawks, no insignia marring their sleek black shadows against the low clouds as they roared overhead and swung back around. Fast and light.
Fran paled. Spinning, she turned to Taf. A house alarm began to sound, filtering up through the stairway.
Opti was here.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Get them to the cars!” Fran shouted, hustling to the bar and physically pulling Taf to the elevator. “You”—Fran pushed an agent toward Taf—“escort my daughter to a secure location. I want Reed out of here. Now! Move!”
“Fran, it’s not Peri’s fault!” Silas shouted as he was shoved to the elevator.
A security man yanked Peri to her feet and all but dragged her to the carpeted stairs. A frustrated anger was spilling through her, but she wasn’t ready to act. She’d been ready to put herself at the alliance’s mercy—and they had condemned her. Going back to Opti wasn’t an option, but neither was the alliance.
“It is over, Silas,” Fran said as the elevator filled with Howard, Taf, Silas, and the bulk of the security. “Either she just gave us to Opti
, or they’re using her without her knowledge and will continue to do so within the alliance’s shadow. Either way, she needs to be ended.”
“I won’t mutilate her,” Silas argued with Fran as the doors slid shut to leave the tech guy panicking over his equipment.
“Downstairs!” Brian demanded, his nice white shirt bloodied by his nose, his Glock pulled and pointing at her. Peri turned, catching herself against the railing when he shoved her.
The thumping of the helicopters was a heavy pulse she could feel through the walls. Tension pulled like a ribbon through her, shredding her mental fog and bringing on a new clarity with each step. She was not going to an Opti cell, and she was not going to stay and be lobotomized by the alliance. There were two guards and one of her. Doable—even if she was cuffed.
“Keep going!” Brian said. “All the way to the garage,” he added, shoving her a third time as they reached the first landing. Peri caught herself with a little hop. Pissed, she put her back to the wall, staring at the two men with their weapons pulled. She could hear gunfire coming up from the great room. Someone was screaming. Opti had the house. She had to get out of here. Not without Silas.
“Brian, push me again, and I’m going to jam your balls into your esophagus,” she said, inviting him to try.
“Yeah?” He reached for her. Leaning back into the wall, Peri kicked up and out. Brian screamed, doubling over to put his head conveniently within her reach. Cuffed hands clenched around themselves, she slammed them down on the back of his head.
“Hands up!” the first man screamed, and she head-butted him, sending him cascading down the stairs in a pinwheel of arms and legs. His handgun went off, and plaster flaked down.
Jaw clenched, Peri dropped to Brian, her cuffed hands searching for the key. “Thank you,” she sang out merrily when she found it, unlocking her cuffs and taking his weapon before leaving him in a puddle of misery.
She found the second man groaning on the second-floor landing. “Now, aren’t you glad you weren’t shoving me?” she said as she locked him to the railing and took his weapon, too.
“Don’t leave me here,” he said, eyes desperate and holding pain as another flurry of gunfire rang out. It sounded like a war down there, and Peri watched through a narrow window as another of those big helicopters landed, its blades assaulting the air to make it beat like a heart about to explode. Twelve people in assault gear got out and ran to the nearby barn.
From below, more gunfire sounded. “Come back with my daughter, you sons of bitches!” Fran screamed, and Peri went cold.
Silas.
He’d been with Fran in the elevator. Numb, Peri ran down the stairs to the great room. The biting scent of gunpowder grew thick, and she jerked to a halt as she reached the end of the stairs and looked beyond.
The elevator stood open, riddled with bullets and splattered blood. An alliance guard was facedown before it in a pool of blood. The front door was shot to hell and missing, fire-suppressive smoke drifting lazily through the landscaped grounds beyond it. Five men in Opti-issued gear were crouched behind an upended couch, changing out their clips as they prepared to reopen fire on a small cluster of people pinned in the kitchen. It had to be Silas and Taf. There hadn’t been time for anyone else.
“Now!” one of the Opti men yelled, and four agents stood together, peppering the kitchen with fire as they slowly advanced.
“Will someone give me a friggin’ gun!” Fran screamed from behind the stove, and Peri strode forward. If Silas was hurt, she was going to lay down some serious pain.
The man who had remained behind the couch looked up at her. Mouth open in surprise, he raised his weapon. He was too slow, and Peri’s foot connected with him, knocking him back. His weapon arched into the air and she caught it, using its own momentum to smash it into the man’s windpipe. Gagging, he dropped, his hands clutching his throat as he choked.
The butt of the rifle smacked her free palm, and she checked the clip and the safety in one smooth motion. Good to go, she thought, wiping the man’s spittle off it before bringing it to her shoulder and shooting out the drone hovering in the middle of the room. Spinning wildly, it crashed into the fireplace.
“It’s her!” someone shouted, and all hell broke loose as Silas bellowed in fury and came out from behind the counter, big gun blasting.
Peri shot once, twice, and actually hit someone on the third try. Shrapnel peppered her, and she ducked behind an overturned desk. “Mmmm, nice,” Peri whispered as she stretched a foot out and dragged two discarded handguns into her reach.
“Get off!” Fran screamed in outrage, wrestling with a man. Teeth clenched, she dropped out from his grip, pulling him off balance and knocking him to the floor. “Will someone give me a goddamned gun!”
“Here!” Peri shouted, checking the clip and throwing one to her.
Fran caught it, and Peri gasped when someone grabbed her from behind. It was Brian, and a jab to his kidney and then his throat, and he was out again—this time for good.
Peri’s leg hurt, and she ran her hand down the side of her calf. Sticky? Her fingers were red.
Crap. When did I get shot?
“Fall back! Fall back now!” came faintly through the gaping doorway, and Peri’s head snapped up. It was Bill, and if he was leaving, he had something he wanted, because he sure as hell didn’t have her. Ears ringing and the stink of gunpowder thick in her nose, Peri sank back down behind the desk, her hand clamped on her throbbing leg as she watched a man crawl to the door. If Bill was here, Allen probably was too. This has potential.
“Where’s my daughter!” Fran screamed as she fired on everyone running for the door. Peri ducked, and when she looked up through the sifting dust, the crawling man was unmoving, his neck contorted at an unnatural-looking angle.
“I said fall back!” Peri heard Bill cry out again from outside amid more firing.
“You okay?” Silas called as he found her, looking fantastic with that semiautomatic rifle propped on his hip. It was pointed at the ceiling, but smoke was coming from it, and he put his hand up when Fran screamed at him, gun shaking as she pointed it in their direction.
“Shit, Fran! It’s me!” he shouted at her. “Get control. They’re leaving.”
“They have Taf!” she raged, face red and coiffed hair flying. Fran was looking at Peri, and she felt herself blanch, sitting half behind a desk and holding her leg as it slowly leaked. “They have my daughter,” Fran said, her voice breaking as she fell against a shot-up couch and let her weapon slip from her. “Peri, please. Get her back for me. They’re going to use her, hurt her until I give them whatever they want. She’s my daughter!”
Peri’s hands were red as she ripped the silk couch throw to bind up her leg. The bullet was still in there, but it hadn’t cut though anything but muscle. Fran might be domineering, obnoxious, and simply wrong, but she loved her daughter. Maybe they could find something together that Peri had no hope of finding with her own mother. “Okay,” she said, and Fran almost sobbed.
“You’re shot,” Silas said, pale, and Peri pushed him back with a bloody hand before he could touch it. Why did they always try to touch it?
“I’ll be fine.” But her stomach lurched when she tightened the knot. “I’ll get Taf,” she said as she stood, reaching for the desk when vertigo threatened. She could pass out later. It doesn’t matter that I don’t remember why I care about her. I feel. I know.
“Thank you,” Fran whispered, and Peri glanced at the ceiling when a loud, ominous thump came from above. Dust sifted down.
“You can’t do this,” Silas protested. Peri edged around him, weaving through the broken glass and chipped stone for the door, but her pace slowed at a stabbing pain. It’s not that bad, she told herself, her grip on her weapon slick with sweat. “I’ll find her.”
“Damn-fool woman.” Silas kicked a fallen chair out of the way as he strode after her. His eyes were pinched with stress, and he glanced at Fran before taking Peri’s arm and slowing h
er down. “Peri, don’t shoot Allen,” Silas said, and she squinted at him. She could smell the house burning, and smoke was rolling down the stairs like fog. Fran was losing more than her daughter today. The house was a wash.
“Why not?” she asked him, and he stared blankly at her. “Why can’t I shoot Allen?” she asked again as they paused on the porch. Thunder, real thunder this time, rolled back and forth between the hills. Two men and a woman were running to the helicopter waiting to the left of the pool. Well, the men were running. Taf was kicking and screaming.
“Help me get that bird in the air,” she said, bringing her rifle up.
“Peri!” Silas shouted, and then her ears went numb as she fired half the magazine at it.
The helicopter took off at the first clink of a bullet, long before Bill reached it. He slid to a stop, pushing Taf at Allen when he turned to the house and saw her standing on the threshold of the burning house. Clearly angry, he shoved them both toward the nearby detached show garage.
“Where’s Howard?” she asked as she lowered the weapon. She’d try to take them both out from here, but she wouldn’t risk hitting Taf.
“Doing his doctor thing,” Silas said, and then he sighed and started down the log steps. “Well, let’s get them before they steal one of Fran’s cars.”
Shaking her head to get her ear to work, Peri limped after Silas, following the sounds of Taf screaming insults as she was dragged through the manicured gardens. There was a thump of a door closing, and Taf’s protests were gone.
“I’m serious. Don’t kill Allen,” Silas said again as they approached the building, where a shiny red Ferrari gleamed just past the glass garage doors.
“Look, my ear isn’t working really well right now, but I could have sworn you just said don’t kill Allen.” Peri tried the heavy door, finding it locked.
“That’s exactly what I said,” Silas said as she limped to the front of the garage, eyeing the midlife-crisis mobile through the first glass garage door. “No!” he shouted, hand raised as she lifted the Glock this time.