The Drafter

  “Peri,” he pleaded. “Please. I need to do this.”

  Maybe I deserve to be left in the chaos of my own creating, she thought.

  “You do,” Jack whispered, his breath sending her hair to tickle her neck. “I’m going to take you there. Right now.”

  With a sudden twist, the entire night came back in a flash. Both timelines sparkled in irreconcilable clarity. She gasped, jumping to a stand. Her pulse thundered as she spun to Allen, his mouth gaping as he stared at her from his chair. He wasn’t supposed to be in a chair. He’d been by the bar, throwing Frank’s rifle to her.

  “I shot him!” she cried out, staring at the stage where Jack had fallen, his belly punctured. Slick blood covered the floor, smeared where he’d gotten up. Terrified, she looked at her blood-covered hands. But her chest had a hole in it, and she staggered. The mirror was broken, and Sandy’s soft sobs rose from behind the bar.

  Scared, Jack ran for the door. In her mind, she lifted the rifle to her unblemished shoulder and blew a hole in his back.

  “He’s dead!” she groaned as the memory of Jack slid to the floor, unhelped and uncared for. No one was moving to save him. Not even her.

  “Allen! What the hell are you doing! You want her in MEP?” Silas shouted.

  “She used the framework you left to twist control from me! What did you do to her?”

  Peri turned to the bar. Panic joined her confusion when the mirror was unbroken and Silas stood there instead of Frank. She backed up, eyes darting for a way out.

  “Easy now,” Allen called, and she spun. Silas moved, and her eyes flicked to him. Both men were between her and the door. She was trapped.

  “Stay back,” she warned, fixated on the space on the floor where Jack had died. “Where’s my rifle? I had a rifle!” Spinning, Peri looked at the door, shocked to see it clean and unblemished. Her heart thudded as she whirled to the stage. There was no blood. But she had shot Jack. “Someone tell me where Jack is!” she screamed.

  Silas came forward, hands raised in placation. She kept moving, looking for a way out.

  A tiny, rational part of her knew she needed to stop, but instinct kept her backing up almost into the fireplace. She could go no farther, and she grabbed a fire poker.

  “Peri, relax,” Silas said calmly, and she jabbed the poker at him to keep him away.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he,” she said, iron held tight. “Is Jack dead?”

  Angry, she took a step forward, and Silas shifted. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, and then she swung at him. Swearing, he blocked it, twisting the iron from her grip. She screamed, furious when he grabbed her wrist and spun her into a submission hold as they went down and hit the floor together.

  “Call Fran,” Silas said to Allen as he wrapped his legs around Peri in a wrestler hold, and she howled, flinging her head back. He leaned out of the way and she hit nothing.

  “Hold still,” he grunted, binding her with his own arms and legs. “Just. Hold. Still,” he panted, gripping her tight. “It’s okay. Allen fucked up your defragment, but it’s my fault. I never should have done what I did. Remember me. Remember me, Peri, and let me in! I’m your anchor! Trust me, damn it!” he shouted, angry. “Be still and let me fix this!”

  “Let go . . . ,” she wheezed, gasping when he reached into her mind as if it were his own and pulled up an image of Jack standing before the door, his gun smoking. It was aimed at her, and her chest felt as if it was being squeezed to a singularity. “Jack!” she screamed, and froze as she felt the memory burn to ash, the edges of it folding in on itself until it was gone. Under it was the memory of Jack running for the door, leaving her as if the last three years together had meant nothing. Then her, blowing a hole in his back.

  “Oh, God, no,” she moaned, knowing it was true. She had gone to Opti to find the corruption, but she hadn’t been able to break from it and had become the tool she’d gone in to expose. He’d never loved her, not really, and she sobbed as Silas crumbled the memory in the fist of his mind and it was gone. But the pain remained, staining the folds of her brain.

  Silas has done this before, and then a flash of insight poured through her, flooding the very gaps that Silas had just made. Allen had been in Opti to protect her, playing the part of the corrupt Opti agent to keep her safe. He’d been there to allay Bill’s concerns at her lapses as she balanced on a knife’s edge. Only now did she realize why he’d never tried to defragment anything. She knew him, and he’d been afraid he’d missed something when she’d agreed to let him erase all memories of him . . . and Silas.

  Silas? she thought, feeling his stark determination as he manhandled her memory of the night back to the forefront of their joined thoughts, but she refused, seeing within him a faint image of a wind-calmed boat stuck in the middle of a lake, of laughter and music—and a toast to a future success. In a sudden wash, she realized it was Silas’s memories she was seeing, a shadow of their joined past during the year they’d spent together preparing to take Opti down. They’d both been there, Allen and Silas, countless nights spent over take-out and schematics and personnel files, of flirting banter at the rifle range, and the keen bite of testing each other’s dexterity skills in the gym. Allen had been there too, but she’d agreed to the year-long preparation because of Silas. She’d loved him, but he hadn’t loved her back, and she had no reason to say no when the year of preparation was over and the game was ready to be played. She had loved Silas, and she’d agreed to let that die. Wanted it to, maybe, when he hadn’t noticed that she’d fallen in love.

  You loved me? Silas thought desperately, and she groaned when he wrenched her thoughts back to Overdraft, flipping through them with a frighteningly cold intensity, burning everything to ash. Memories of the night at Overdraft flared into short-lived, doomed existence, ugly emotions feeding them as oxygen fuels a flame. And though the memories were destroyed, the emotions lingered to coat her mind like smoke on the ceiling. It should have been cleansing, but all that grew from the fading memory of the night was a heavy depression. She’d done this to herself. She had forgotten love. And for what? Glory?

  Jack was right. She was a bad person.

  Her fight to be free collapsed into a soft trembling.

  “Is she okay?” Allen whispered, and Silas’s hold on her eased, both the arms he had wrapped around her and the mind he had entwined with hers. Her heart ached as he let go. She was alone. She’d done it to herself.

  “That depends,” Silas said, and the cool air of a deserted bar touched her skin where there’d once been warmth. His arms slipped away, and she huddled on the floor where he left her. The scrape of his shoes on the yellow floor serrated through her as he went to get her coat and draped it over her. “Give her a minute to catch up.”

  Catch up. That was a good idea. She felt as if she’d been away for a long time and had come home to find everything changed. She was the one who was different, the truth making her feel ugly and ashamed. Forehead on her knees, she wondered what she was going to do now.

  Tilting her face, she saw Allen and Silas sitting on the hearth. Silas’s back was bowed in fatigue or sorrow, or maybe both, she couldn’t quite tell. Allen looked guilty. Did he know she remembered him? Did he know she knew about the year they’d been together, the three of them planning and agreeing to this? That she’d asked him to destroy all memory of it?

  “Thank you,” Allen said raggedly. “That construct you put in her felt self-aware.”

  “It was.” Silas didn’t look at her. “There were enough latent memories of Jack for it to be fully realized. It had to be for it to be flexible enough to keep her sane until the memory could be defragmented. It’s gone now.”

  What kind of monster am I that I could have given up on love so easily? For glory? They remembered her, and all she had was disjointed images. But if not for them, she’d still be Opti. She would have continued to accept the lies she’d molded about herself, be what Opti said she was. She was the sum of what she’d done, and she
’d done so much that was ugly and wrong.

  Exhaling, she pulled her head up, knowing she must look hideous with her hair mussed and her eyes red. “Jack is gone,” she said, edging up to sit on the low hearth, feeling his absence to her core, shivering as she recalled his breath on her neck, the way he made her feel powerful, dangerous—alluring.

  Peri was at a loss, not knowing what to do next—not today, tomorrow, next week, or even five minutes from now. When she’d known nothing, she’d had goals and ideas. Now that she knew the truth, she was detached, distant, drifting aimlessly. Numb. Not remembering love.

  Silas poked at the fire, and she flushed as she remembered hitting him with the iron. Peri, you’re better at this than me. You want to take a go at it? Had there been firelit nights between them? She didn’t remember any.

  “You never would have done any of those things if you’d known the truth,” he said, and a lump filled her throat. It was hollow psychobabble bull. She didn’t believe a word, and anger began to edge out the numb feeling. She had blinded herself. Jack had been right. She’d enjoyed it.

  Allen handed her a drink, his phone pressed against his ear. She took it by rote, uncaring. “Yes, she’s fine. A little depressed, but what did you expect?” he was saying, talking to Fran maybe? She’d been the one to okay this long-running, deep-undercover op. Peri still didn’t believe she’d ever been alliance. She must have been someone else five years ago. Naive. Stupid, certainly.

  She stiffened at the clank of the fire tools, pulling her coat tighter about herself when Silas sat beside her. “You’re a good person,” he said.

  “Am I?” she said bitterly. Her past suggested otherwise, as did the growing ache inside her. She missed it, God help her, she missed it.

  He ran a hand over his stubble, his eyes on Allen hunched over his phone and walking away as he talked in a terse, hushed voice. Nudging the door to the back room open, Allen slipped out. The silence grew. Peri’s thoughts went to Silas holding her on the floor. She felt no shame for having fought him. She’d been out of her mind, and he’d known it. “Thank you for fragmenting the timeline.”

  Silent, Silas reached into his coat pocket and held out a squat, tattered book. She didn’t reach for it, and after a moment, he set it between them. “I saved this for you,” he said, his voice hiding something. “Along with a box of things you set by for when this was over. It’s all from the year we prepped for this. We have some of your early talismans, too. Your life is not lost. Everything is there. You can remember who you were.”

  Her jaw clenched, and she forced it to relax. She picked the book up, feeling the worn leather against her fingertips, knowing how supple it would be if she opened it. But this book wasn’t her. She was so far from it now it would be like looking at someone else. “Thank you, but no,” she said, handing it back.

  From the back, Allen’s voice rose in anger, saying, “Screw you, Fran. You know shit.”

  Silas folded his hands around hers, sealing the book in her grip. “Keep it for a while,” he said. “Stick it on a shelf. You may want it later.”

  She was too tired to argue, so she wedged it in an inner coat pocket, vowing to throw it out as soon as she had the chance. “Is this my psychologist talking?” she said, trying to at least pretend that everything was okay, and he leaned across the distance between them, cupping a hand on her cheek and smiling. The hint of pain she’d always seen there was gone.

  “Your friend,” he said.

  Her gaze fell and he pulled away when the door to the back room swung open and Allen strode in, ticked. She could guess how the conversation had gone. Fran still didn’t trust her. Hell, she wasn’t sure she could trust herself. Peri’s emotions grew more and more erratic. Silas had said he’d been her anchor, but it made her feel utterly alone. He wasn’t her anchor now, and after this long without one, she wasn’t sure she wanted one. She wasn’t sure she wanted anything anymore.

  “Fran can eat shit and die,” Allen said, clearly angry. “Peri, you did good. Better than good. Opti is on the run and we’re picking them up as we go. You’re going to come work with Silas and me here at Overdraft to bring in the stragglers, and everything will go back to normal.”

  It was getting harder to breathe. She didn’t feel like she’d done anything at all. “Can I go?” she said suddenly, and both men stiffened in surprise. “I mean, there’s no reason I can’t go back to my apartment, right?” she amended, and Allen got a lost look on his face. “I need to think for a while,” she lied, just wanting to leave.

  “Um, we were going to meet up with Fran in about half an hour,” he said slowly. “Lunch, that’s it. Are you hungry?”

  “She just realized what this whole mission cost her,” Silas said. “You really think she wants to eat? God, Allen, use your brain.”

  “Hey! I’m just making sure she’s not hungry,” Allen said belligerently, and Peri stood, cutting short his retort.

  “Can I borrow your car?” she said, and Allen fished his keys out of his pocket. “Thanks,” she said, taking them from his slack fingers. Jaw clenched, she headed for the door, the weight across her shoulders growing heavier with every step.

  “Are you coming back?” Silas questioned, and she hesitated.

  “I, ah, sure. I just gotta get a few hours of sleep,” she lied, rubbing her forehead. It hurt. “Tell Fran thank you for the job offer.”

  Allen scowled at Silas, his expression shifting as he turned to her. “I can drive you.”

  “No, I want to be alone.” Head down, she went for the door. “See you tomorrow.”

  Fat chance of that, she thought, but it was something to say.

  “She shouldn’t be alone,” she heard Allen say. “What if she drafts?”

  “Then she forgets,” Silas said. “Give her some time. She’ll be okay.”

  The Opti logo in the stained-glass window mocked her, and it was all she could do not to punch it. Angry and depressed, she stiff-armed the door open. The bright light was a shock. She’d forgotten the sun was up.

  “But she’s a drafter. Drafters are never alone.”

  “She is,” Silas said, and Peri’s heart lurched at the truth of it. “She can handle herself. You want to make her mad? You just keep following her.”

  The door finally shut behind her, cutting off their heated conversation. Peri hesitated in the cement-and-pillar silence as she scanned the parking lot. The bordering trees were finally starting to leaf out—except for the one in the corner. It was as dead as she felt, reminding her of her favorite tree at her grandparents’, the one sheltering a long-forgotten grave. Depressed, she took her phone from her back pocket and left it on the planter where they’d find it. Her chest hurt. She felt so alone, and being with other people made it worse.

  There was a huge space in her where Jack had been, a space that had once been warm but now held only bitter ash. Behind it was a gap of about a year that she’d probably never have back. She hadn’t even missed it until now, hidden by Silas, obliterated at her request by Allen. A year to fall in love, maybe. And she’d destroyed it.

  Chin rising, she strode to Allen’s car, feeling the wind cut under her coat as she fastened it shut. The leather upholstery was cold as she got in behind the wheel. Putting the car in drive, she spun it around and cut across the fading lines for the exit.

  The sudden tears caught her off-guard and she blinked fast as she pulled into traffic, making a right because it was easy. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she didn’t want to go to that ground-floor apartment. Her gut was so tight she felt sick. Everything she remembered was Opti, and Opti was corrupt. She didn’t remember the past that everyone kept telling her about. The past she remembered was one of hurting people and ending lives—and of feeling powerful doing it.

  Sniffling, she wiped a hand under her nose. It was post-fragment blues. She’d get over it.

  But her heart jumped when a dark shadow sat up in the backseat.

  “Hi, babe,” Jack s
aid, and she touched the brakes, head jerking forward and back.

  “Damn it!” Peri shouted, checking her mirrors to see if anyone had noticed. “I want you to leave. Leave me alone!” It hadn’t worked. He was still there in her head!

  “Alone?” Jack snickered. “That’s the last thing you will ever be. Just keep driving.”

  He leaned over the back of the seat, arms draped along it, and her shock turned to anger.

  “Where am I going, Jack?” she said bitterly. “I have a past that I don’t remember. Not just one, but two. I have people telling me they’re my friends, but the only friends I remember are corrupt Opti agents. I am a corrupt Opti agent, but I’m also an alliance officer with a military retirement plan I don’t remember setting up! Where am I going, Jack? Where?”

  He tightened his tie and fixed his hair in the rearview mirror, almost laughing at her. “Wherever you want, babe. You’re the one calling the shots. On one side you have a well-funded, poorly organized do-gooder organization destined for failure. On the other, you have massive political pull, an almost godlike authority, the ability to make real change . . . and me.” He smiled in a way she’d once found charming, and her stomach churned. “I’d take the latter if I were you. It’s more fun.”

  Jaw clenched, she looked at him through the rearview mirror. Silas’s efforts hadn’t worked. This . . . thing was still with her. Allen, she remembered suddenly, had always been better at destroying memories. Good God. I can even smell him, she thought, his aftershave pinging on a hundred lost memories.

  “I talked to Bill,” Jack said, his breath coming and going on her neck. “Agents are coming in, finding him, looking for answers. Opti isn’t dead, not by a long shot. I told him you might still come home. You know Opti is where you belong. It’s why you’re out here driving with no destination. If you were alliance, you wouldn’t have walked away. You would have told the alliance that you have a chemical tag in you. We can go back to the way it was, only I won’t have to lie to you anymore. We were good together, weren’t we?”

  Peri’s lips parted when he touched the back of her neck to move a strand of her hair. His lips met her neck, wet and warm, and tingles spread in a wave when he pulled on her skin, sucking, promising more.