The Drafter Read online

  Feeling ill, she staggered to the bar. Sandy made a tiny noise, looking scared as Peri moved to stand right before her. Frank, too, became oddly alert. “Shit, I’ve got a black eye,” she said as she caught sight of it in the mirror. She carefully prodded it, deciding it was a day old. They’d just come back from task, then. That would explain the aches.

  Just that small knowledge made her feel better. “Where’s Jennifer?” Peri asked, her flash of good mood dying when Sandy’s eyes darted to the man at the fireplace.

  Peri turned, her growing hunch that she’d overdrafted growing when the man on the hearth looked up, his eyes haunted. “Ah, what day is it?” Peri asked him weakly. Crap, the jukebox was gone, replaced with some new system she’d have to relearn.

  “Er, it’s Saturday now. I think.” The man glanced at Frank when the big man cleared his throat in warning. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you before. Are you okay?”

  Peri’s throat tightened. Something had gone very wrong. “No,” she said as she turned back to the bar, laying her arms flat on the smooth wood and dropping her head to hide her face against them. It was bad, really bad—so bad she felt sick to her stomach.

  “I’ll give it all to you later, but the guy you were watching tried to rob the place. He shot you. You drafted. He ran out in the second weave.”

  Why is it I can handle both when told, but remembering them will cause a psychotic episode? “I don’t remember you,” Peri said, her breath coming back from the bar warm and stale. She tensed at his footsteps, then jumped when his hand landed on her shoulder and fell away. A tear brimmed but never fell. Knowing he was still there, she looked up at the stranger with whom she’d been sharing her life for who knew how long. His glasses drew her, as if she should recognize them. “What year is it?”

  His smile faded. “Year?” The lump in Peri’s throat grew, and when she did nothing but silently stare at him, he whispered, “It’s February 2030. Valentine’s is next week. . . .”

  Peri’s stomach caved in and became a knot. Oh God. She’d lost three entire years. Someone had tried to kill her and apparently succeeded. That’d be the only reason she’d lost so much. Turning away, she held her breath. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.” Three years? How could I lose three years?

  “Oh . . . ,” the man said, and she jerked, heart pounding when he touched her again. She was angry, as if she’d done something unconscionably stupid. “I’m Allen. Ah, Allen Swift,” he said, his hand falling away with a guilty slowness.

  Taking a deep breath, Peri met Allen’s eyes. She didn’t know this man, but Frank and Sandy did, and she was tired of looking stupid. Besides, she’d lost time before. This man would help her find her way. “Can we go home?” she said, and Allen looked so relieved that she couldn’t help but try to smile back.

  Her hand in his felt okay as he helped her off the stool. She might not remember him, but he clearly knew her. “You have this?” he asked Frank.

  “Yes. You?” the big man answered. Sandy was still pale as she stood behind him, glancing at her feet again to make Peri wonder if she was avoiding broken glass. Her continued frightened silence behind the bar was odd.

  Allen took Peri’s coat from the bar. “We’ll figure it out. Peri, you’ve got the keys, right?” he asked as he helped her into it.

  Peri touched her coat pocket to find a fob. “Looks like it,” she said, doubting it belonged to the little Beemer she remembered. Her taste in clothes had improved in the last three years, and the coat was everything she liked. Allen pulled a gray scarf from a table and got her moving, and she paused, more curious than shocked at the blood on the door. With a small grunt, Frank hustled over and unlocked it, accidentally kicking the floor sweeper into the wall, where it gave a pained whine and died.

  “After you,” Allen said as he wound his scarf about his neck. The cool night air shocked through her as the door opened, and Peri took one last look at Sandy standing stiffly behind the bar. There was a strand of black hair caught in Peri’s fingers, and she pulled it free to let it drift to the cold pavement. Frank was watching from the open door, and Peri’s unease grew.

  “Ah, Allen?” Frank said. “I suggest you get Peri checked out before you go home. I’ll let Bill know where you are.”

  “I’m fine,” Peri protested, but Allen seemed to start, visibly collecting his thoughts.

  “Mmmm. He’s right,” he said, thin fingers touching the side of his long nose as he scanned the nearly empty lot. “You hit your head. It won’t take long.”

  “It will take all night,” she complained. “I don’t need to go in.” But he was ushering her forward, his hand familiarly on the small of her back. It didn’t feel wrong there, but she didn’t like being pushed. “I haven’t changed my apartment in the last three years, have I?”

  “No.”

  “Is my mom still alive?” she asked, the cold night making her bruised eye throb.

  “Yes. You called her yesterday. Now, will you please get in the car?”

  She had talked to her mom? Clearly things had improved. Either that, or gotten much worse. “Sure. Which one is it?”

  Allen took the fob right out of her hand and clicked it. Across the way, a sleek black car flashed its lights. “Maybe I should drive,” he said in sudden avarice, and her eyes widened. Holy shit, it’s a Mantis. I own a Mantis?

  “This is ridiculous, I’m fine,” Peri complained. “Allen, give me my keys back,” she protested when he held them out of her reach like a playground bully.

  “No, I’m driving,” he insisted, and she gave up, hands in her pockets as she stomped beside him.

  “This is really bad for my asthma,” she muttered, angry and becoming depressed.

  Allen started, turning to her in surprise. “Asthma? I didn’t know you had asthma.”

  Peri blinked at him, confused. Why did I say that? “I don’t,” she said as she pulled her coat closer. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

  Kind of like her life.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  She’d had to reinstate Allen into the car’s system before he could drive it. That hadn’t bothered her as much as Allen not knowing what she’d had her Mantis in for or why the technicians had accidentally blown him out. A Mantis, she thought in satisfaction, wondering what color palette she’d programmed into it. You couldn’t even get on the purchase list unless you’d lived in Detroit for ten years.

  ’Cause only those who never gave up on her should be allowed to play with her toys, Peri thought, as the bright neon of one of Detroit’s casinos came and went between the e-boards, green spaces, and community gardens lit like a fairyland for the night.

  Uneasy, she glanced at Allen as they slipped into an industrial park. She felt as if she’d left something behind, like her wallet or a sweater. Or maybe a gun, she thought, stealthily feeling the edge of her boot to find her knife. Her angst was growing, but she dismissed it, knowing it was likely the shock of losing so much time. She was fine, damn it!

  But the unease only grew worse as they took an easy curve and Opti spread before them, two empty lanes of dim lights and stiff regulations at two in the morning. “I don’t want to be here,” she protested, even as she dug in her purse for her ID. An odd pane of glass caught her eye, and with a shock, she realized it was her phone. Glass? I’ve got glass? Cool.

  Allen slipped his ID from a shirt pocket. “I can tell,” he said as the woman on duty stepped forward. “You hit your head. I’m not letting you go to sleep until you get checked out.”

  “I’m fine,” she complained as the snow-crisp air slipped in his lowered window, but she dutifully showed the security woman her ID across the expanse for her to scan it. “A good night’s sleep would do me more good than being here.”

  “Let me do my job,” Allen said, the bitterness catching the security woman’s attention. “We’re going to the med offices,” he said to her, though he didn’t have to. “She overdrafted, and I want her checked out.”

&
nbsp; Overdrafted, as in losing too much memory to function properly, Peri thought. Bullshit. She’d probably lost large chunks of time before. And therein lies the problem. . . .

  The woman waved them through, and Allen’s grip on the wheel tightened as he drove toward the small Opti infirmary across campus from the larger office building. His frustration was obvious in the occasional glimmer of a streetlight. “I know you’re tired, but you drafted twice in twenty-four hours. I want you checked out before I go mucking about in your head.”

  I drafted twice? Uneasy, she dropped her glass phone into her purse to figure out how to use later. “You think I might MEP?”

  He didn’t answer, worrying her even more. MEPs were usually preceded by multiple drafts with no time between to sort things out, but occasionally old damage or a memory knot could trigger it. Peri suddenly felt fragile.

  “I don’t want to muddle it up,” he said softly, the car slowing as he pulled up right before the door of an unassuming three-story building. “I’d feel better if we checked your synaptic activity levels.”

  His uncertainty bothered her more than anything else, and she looked straight ahead as he turned the car off. Her gaze went to her broken nail, and her pulse throbbed at her eye and at the back of her head. Her hip was bruised, and her shoulder had been wrenched. The faint scent of gunpowder lingered in the seat cushions. Her Mantis could be cleaned and the sundry hurts in her body would mend. The damage to her mind . . . that’s where the darkness lay.

  Seeing her unmoving, Allen set a tentative hand on her knee. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, but his smile held doubt, and she was glad when he took his hand away.

  They got out at the same time, the doors shutting loud in the crisp, snowy night. Opti’s infirmary building looked like all the rest. There weren’t many Opti operatives, and their unique ailments didn’t take up much room.

  Allen held the heavy glass door, and she murmured her thanks as she went in, too tired to smile at the receptionist. Allen could be personable for both of them. “Special needs,” he said by way of explanation, but Peri was already following the teal line on the floor. Allen jogged to catch up, the cadence telling her he ran regularly. She felt only a minor flash of irritation when he looped his arm in hers to slow her down. He was only a few inches taller, and that seemed odd somehow. Muscle memory never vanished, and her suspicions tightened.

  “Why are you in such a hurry?” Allen said, and she forced her pace to ease.

  “Sorry,” she said, and the large man in a lab coat riffling through his paperwork glanced up at them and away. The guy was tall without an ounce of fat on him, his tie loosened as if at the end of a hard day, but his face was clean-shaven—only hours ago. He’d be good at subduing unruly patients. Maybe that was why he worked nights.

  Stop it, Peri. She was seeing assassins in the shadows, but all she had to go on at the moment was intuition, and it was in overdrive. “I can’t believe anyone is here,” she said when they turned the corner and the man was out of earshot. “It’s two in the morning.”

  “You don’t think Frank called ahead?” he asked. The teal line made a sharp left to a glass door and window wall. Beyond it was a tiny waiting room with an efficient-looking woman in purple scrubs behind the reception counter. She’d be in a suit during normal work hours, but things relaxed on the night shift as she’d have to do everything from file the paperwork to draw blood. It was Ruth, and Peri didn’t have to fake a smile as she and Allen went in.

  “Peri,” Ruth said as she stood, her relief obvious. She vanished behind a wall, and in half a second she was coming through the heavy wooden door that separated her from the waiting room. “I just heard,” she said, giving Peri a hug that was so honest Peri’s eyes shut as she basked in the other woman’s warmth. “I’m so sorry. You okay?”

  Peri nodded when Ruth held her at arm’s length and searched her expression. “I’m okay. Really,” she added when the nurse looked doubtfully at Allen.

  “Hi, Allen,” she said as she let go of Peri, and paranoia pinged at Ruth’s guarded tone.

  “She hit her head, but it’s the proximity drafts I’m worried about,” Allen said, his tone just as telling. He didn’t like Ruth, either. “I’d like to get moving on this. Is Bill here?”

  Ruth frowned, her pique obvious at his implication that she was slowing things up. “No,” she said, pushing open the heavy door and leading them back. “We’ll have you out of here in an hour, though. Get your synaptic baseline and send you home. No need to check you in.”

  “Thank God,” Peri said softly, feeling the late hour all the way to her bones.

  “Bill is only a few minutes out,” Ruth was saying as she led them down the hall past dark offices and diagnostic rooms. “He must have been putting in a late night.”

  Peri’s gut tightened, but if it was because of Bill or the diagnostic room Ruth was ushering them into, she couldn’t tell. Allen filed in behind her to stand just inside the door.

  “Jewelry off,” Ruth said brightly, moving about with quick efficiency, her short black hair swinging as she turned a soft, indulgent chair for Peri. “And your jacket. Here’s a bin for you. I’ll be right back to get your drip started. Bill wants to watch the diagnostics, so as soon as he gets here, we can get going.”

  Peri took off her coat and gingerly sat in the big chair, her shoulders easing as she sank into the soft cushions. The low-ceilinged room had a flat brown carpet and drapes on the walls as if there were windows. There was no examination table, but there was a little desk with an outdated computer plug-in beside the etherball, and a trash can for hazardous waste. A second door probably led to an adjacent room. There was a mirror on the same wall—clearly a one-way for observation. It was desperately trying to be a comfortable room, but the diagnostic tools were ruining it.

  “I don’t want to leave,” Allen said, looking helpless beside the door, and Ruth seemed to soften as she pulled the shade on the one-way mirror.

  “You can stay.” She smiled at Peri, halfway out the door. “I’ll be back with your IV.”

  Needles, Peri thought glumly as the door shut, and Allen sat in the chair beside the door. It was placed carefully—set on the outskirts and not very comfortable—to imply that he was allowed to be here but would have no power. He was here on sufferance.

  Neither of them said anything as she took off her pen necklace, setting it beside her purse in the plastic bin with a picture of a mountain pasted to the bottom. A watch was next, and then her magnetic-backed earrings that wouldn’t rip out in a fight. Reluctantly she set her knife beside them. Peri eased into the chair, the watch especially catching her eye. She wondered how long she’d had it. She never wore watches, especially one with so many gadgets. This one looked brand-new. Significant.

  “I’m sorry this happened,” Allen said, his voice low as if someone might be listening.

  Peri handed him her coat and he draped it on the back of his chair. “Shit happens.”

  He shifted his feet, hunched over his knees. “I’m sure we can bring something back.”

  Three years? The silence of the building soaked into her along with his obvious doubt. Her head was scrambled like Sunday morning eggs. You couldn’t bring back three years, and she didn’t know if she even wanted to try. What could have happened that I’d lose three years?

  Allen straightened at a rattle in the hall. Peri tried to smile but only managed not to frown as the door opened and that same man from the hallway came in with a bag of saline drip on a stand. A tablet was tucked under his arm, in startling contrast to his buff physique. His tie had been straightened, and the familiar packaging of a sterile IV kit showed from his lab coat’s pocket. Peri’s pulse hammered, and she took a steadying breath, quelling her paranoia.

  “Hello, Ms. Reed,” the man said, his voice professionally bland as he ignored Allen apart from a cursory, somewhat peeved look. “I’m Silas. Ruth asked me to get your IV started while she prints up some paperwork she forgot.�
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  “Sure.” Peri nervously tucked her hair behind an ear before she began to roll up her sleeve. Her scraped knuckles caught her eye, and a flash of scratched parquet flitted through her thoughts. I will not MEP. I will not MEP.

  “And you are?” Silas said to Allen as he set his tablet on the desk.

  Allen shifted in his seat. “I’m, ah, Allen. Her anchor.”

  “If you’re staying, you need to be quiet. I don’t want you screwing up the results.”

  Allen leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed resolutely over his chest. “I know how to be quiet.”

  Satisfied, Silas sat in the rolling chair as if it were a throne, cracking his knuckles as his tablet connected. She wondered if his nose had been broken once or twice, which wouldn’t surprise her, with his brooding manner and the iron-pumping arms stuffed into his lab coat. Even so, it only added to his rugged good looks. He had just shaved, and the spicy pine of his aftershave was . . . different but good.

  Exhaling, he typed into his tablet with surprising facility. She leaned to peek, and he turned it so she couldn’t. Her memory loss–induced paranoia fluttered. He’s wearing dress shoes.

  Eyebrows high, he ripped the IV package open and swabbed her inner elbow. “Rough night?” he said sarcastically.

  “That’s what they tell me,” she said, then added a dry “Ow?” as the needle went in.

  “Sorry.” Smile insincere, he taped the needle into place. “You have nice veins. They’re popping right up there.”

  “That’s because I don’t poke them all the time,” she said, and at the door, Allen shifted his feet. Peri glanced up, having almost forgotten he was there.

  Silas used too much tape, and she watched him set up 2cc of something from his pocket into the drip port. Immediately her aches retreated. Shit, it was good stuff.

  Peri watched the drip, enjoying the lassitude plinking into her in time with the drops.

  “Does it wear off fast?” Allen asked, his wary tone sparking dully through her. She’d tell him to shut up so she could enjoy her high, but it seemed like too much trouble.