The Drafter (43 page)

“So, how you doing, Allen?” Bill asked, and Allen glanced at Peri with a tentative smile.

“Better by the hour, Bill. Better by the hour,” he said, and Peri warmed.

The man at the bar turned, sitting to face them with his arms over his chest and a disapproving expression.

“You'd better get a doughnut before they're gone, Peri,” Sandy said, and Peri took one even though she wasn't hungry.

Finally Bill sat down, and Peri slowly exhaled. “Well, how is she?” Bill asked.

Sandy's entire demeanor shifted toward the professional. She looked at Frank, and he gestured for her to be forthright. Peri's heart thumped. “She's lying about her nightmares,” Sandy said.

“I am not!”

Allen took her hand. “Peri, I'd never leave you.”

Sandy made a tiny puff of sound. “It's not about you anchoring her, it's about her needing more backstory for her life. Shut up, Allen. I'll get to you in a minute. The nightmares aren't unusual. It's her wandering attention I'm concerned about.”

“My attention is fine,” Peri said, purposely not letting her gaze go to the man at the bar.

“And she hasn't mentioned it,” Sandy said almost hesitantly, “but I think she still harbors a grudge against the alliance.”

Peri worked to keep her breathing even so as not to show her anger. “Silas Denier almost killed Allen,” Peri said, and Frank gave Bill a sideways look, his thick arms crossed over his chest. “And I'm supposed to pretend it didn't happen? Allen will heal, but my three years are gone, so, yes, I'm pissed. You going to put me in the hole because I'm pissed?”

Bill's eyebrows were raised, and Allen's hand slipped from hers in a silent rebuke. She'd probably just hurt her case for returning to active duty, but she didn't care.

“Just forget I said that,” Peri said as she lifted her paper cup of hot milk and caffeine. “I'm fine. I'm happy. See?” She took a long drink, trying to minimize her anger while in front of three psychologists, her boss, and Allen.

“You are not
fine
,” Sandy said, and the man at the bar nodded in agreement. “But moping around here isn't doing you any good. You need to go do something.”

Breath catching, Peri looked up.
Is she serious?

Allen beamed. “See, Bill? Sandy thinks it's a good idea. We need to get out of here. My cast comes off today. Give us something. I can do my physical therapy in the car.”

Anticipation coursed through her as she looked at the faces around her, the first she'd felt in months. It felt good, so good.

“Hold up.” Bill raised a thick hand. “Nothing happens until I hear Frank and Sandy tell me she's good to draft.”

Peri stifled a shiver when Sandy glanced at Frank, and when Frank nodded, Allen made a fist, pumping it once. “Yes-s-s-s!” he said softly.

“There's been minimal change in Peri's state these last few weeks,” Sandy said. “I think the only way to shake things loose is to let her go. My larger concern is Allen.”

Allen looked up, shocked, as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” Sandy pointed an accusing finger at him. “You need to let go of the shared past you and Peri have. Your reactions are confusing her, causing more trouble than her missing memories. If you don't treat her as if she's trustworthy, she never will be.”

Allen seemed to shrink down into himself under their hard gazes. “It's harder for me than you. I'm with her all the time.”

Frank's hand twitched, and Sandy reached to still it. The man at the bar turned his back to them, and Peri wondered if more was being said than it seemed. “Allen,
you
are holding her back,” Sandy said. “Peri is highly intuitive, and she knows you're not accepting her. Now, are you
going to admit you have a problem and work with her to overcome it, or are you going to sit there and blame her for everything? She's trying. Are you?”

Miserable, Peri wondered if this was why she hadn't felt accepted. Her anchor was sitting right next to her, but if he didn't trust her, then he wasn't there at all.

“I'm sorry,” Allen said, and a lump swelled in her throat when he pulled her into a hug. “Peri, I'm so sorry. She's right. I've been treating you as if you're suddenly going to remember everything, and it just doesn't work like that.” Peri let her head thump into him, breathing his scent and letting go of her fears. “Give me a chance,” he whispered. “I just need some time.”

Peri was smiling as he pushed back, but she dropped her gaze when he looked at her lips as if he was going to kiss her.
Not in front of Bill, Frank, and Sandy!

“Okay,” she said, feeling as if something had shifted. Everything seemed possible now. It had to get better.

“Ahh, hell,” Frank said. “Give them something, Bill. Something that involves sun and very little clothing. They need to get out and find themselves.”

“I just wanted to hear you say it.” Bill reached behind his coat for a red-rimmed, short-life tablet and an envelope sporting Opti's logo.

“Where are we going?” Allen said as he took them.

Bill smiled at Peri's clearly eager expression.
Finally
. “Let me know if you're comfortable. Forgive me if it looks too easy, but Opti can survive you taking cream-puff tasks for a while. Besides, your knee is going to need several weeks of rehab.”

Must be first-year stuff
, she thought, leaning to look when Allen peeked past the flap to see boarding passes, then punched his Opti code into the tablet. It lit up, the small countdown at the top showing they had seventy-two hours before it scrambled its motherboard, destroying any electronic evidence of their task.

“Come on, Frank.” Sandy stood to pull him into her wake. “Let the professionals get to work.” She grinned at Peri. “It's good to see you where you belong, honey.”

Peri's smile froze as Sandy's last word echoed in her mind. Sandy had called her honey before, but it hadn't been nice. Suddenly Peri realized Sandy had noticed, and she forced her expression to brighten until Sandy turned away.
Jeez, am I that paranoid?
Frank and Sandy were good people. She'd known them since her first days in Opti.

“First drink is on us when you get back,” Frank said. “Knock 'em dead, Peri.”

She took a breath to answer, hesitating when the guy at the bar slid from the stool to leave—head down as if depressed. Peri stifled a shiver, not knowing why. Small, positive noises came from Allen as he looked everything over. “This is nice,” he said. “Bill, we'll take it.”

Bill stood. “I'll leave you to it, then. Peri, do you want us to move your things to Allen's while you're gone?”

“Sure,” Peri said, vowing that she was going to make this work. The cold fact was that drafting came with the risk of losing memories, and it was only a matter of time before you lost a large chunk as she had. She had survived. Her relationship with Allen would, too. “Yes, please,” Peri said, leaning over until she bumped Allen's shoulder and cast him a significant look. He gave her a preoccupied smile. At the bar, a flash of light intruded as the blond man left.

“Good!” Bill said, satisfaction—and maybe relief—etching his few wrinkles. “See you in a couple of days, kiddo.”

“Yes, Dad,” Allen said cheerfully, and then his gaze went past Bill to include Frank and Sandy. “Thank you. I think this is going to be better than I ever thought.”

A warm feeling came over Peri, as if her life was finally oriented to the right place. Bill inclined his head, spinning on a heel to the door. She was going back to work, and it felt good.

“So . . . ,” Peri drawled as Allen gathered everything into a pile. “Where are we going?”

“Not what are we doing?” he said, scanning a highlighted map.

Her hand touched the screen and it blanked, forcing him to look at her. “Where are the tickets to?”

Allen's expression went wary. “The West Coast. Why?”

Excitement stirred. West Coast. Opti wouldn't check on them
until they were a day overdue. “You can get on that plane if you want, but I've got other plans.”

Allen's brow furrowed. “Peri.”

She leaned in, her voice hardening as she said, “I want the man who took three years of my memory and tried to kill you. I want Silas Denier.
He
is the reason I'm having nightmares, and as long as he lives, I'll never be able to.” Heart pounding, she leaned back, watching Allen think it over. “I don't think you'll be able to, either.”

Allen's long face was a bank of emotion. “I know where he is,” Allen said, and her breath caught. “You aren't the only one who wants to see him in the ground and forgotten.”

P
eri crouched amid the dry, waist-high grass, settling her weight onto her ankles in such a way that her feet wouldn't go to sleep or her legs tire. She could hold the position for hours, and anticipation trickled through her, bringing her alive as she studied the black silhouette of the abandoned building against the lighter darkness of the sky. Silas worked there. It was the only building standing within a mile, and looking away from Allen's shadow shifting about the foundations, she lifted her gaze to the tree above her, seeing the first stars among its dead branches.

In the near distance, the interstate made a dull-roar ribbon of light, but here, amid one of Detroit's deconstructed zones with the discarded fast-food wrappers and cigarette butts, it was utterly dark, the waning crescent of a moon giving no light. There was no electricity, no water. Everything that could be stripped had been. Everything not of historical value had been knocked down. New surveys had redrawn lines and sunk markers for parks, public transportation, and adequate parking. The bulldozers and train-car Dumpsters had come and gone, to leave the quiet stillness of waiting in the empty streets and vacant lots. Even the gangs avoided the deconstructed zones, needing something to break, deface, or steal.

But Peri liked the feeling of latent strength and endurance that lingered in the weedy gutters, especially when the occasional historical
building was left to anchor the coming new development, the structure stabilized and wrapped with razor wire until enough backers could be found to turn the water and lights back on and the buses and new elevated tram brought life back to old Detroit.

Eastown
, she thought as her eyes returned to the ugly stone and marble building behind the razor wire. The 1930s movie palace turned music arena had been little more than a crime trap and a place to get and use recreational drugs. Most of Eastown's elegance had been stripped by the time she'd stood among its blue musty seats and screamed with the rockers, but the ceiling had been exquisitely painted in a Neo-Renaissance style, and the common areas in marble had an elegance that couldn't be obscured by graffiti and misuse.

Silas
, she thought,
won't be the first to die under the dome
.

As if her thought had pulled him, Allen's dark shadow darted from the broken edifice, his steps almost silent on the gritty street, then vanishing utterly as he found the ruined soil choked with bits of broken building and beer tabs from the seventies. In the distance, a drone passed between her and Detroit, illegal at this hour but too far away to be of concern.

“Well?” she asked when he joined her under the tree with his weight off his bad knee.

“Not bad. Some razor wire. But once we get past the chain-link fence, it's an easy in.”

“Good.” The feeling of being a team that had begun in Overdraft had strengthened, and Peri waited, easy, enjoying the sensation of coming action. Allen was almost a different person as he crouched beside her and used his night glasses to scan the top of the old building: his anxiety was gone, the hesitation. He had, she realized, the same drive to action that she did, the same need to prove to himself that he was capable. Together they were going to get the job done, Bill be damned.

“I'm glad you're here,” she whispered, and he lowered the glasses, his eyes in the dusky light showing his surprise.

“I wouldn't have it any other way,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze.

The need to apologize swam up, but she didn't know how to frame
it. Instead, she lifted her gaze to the few stars that had braved Detroit's light pollution. “Orion is nice tonight,” she said, remembering a sky so filled with stars they took her breath away—but not who had been with her or where they'd been. It was enough.

Sighing, he looked up. “You were always better than me at finding your way in the dark.”

Her chest hurt with the need to make this work, to become whole again.

But then he shifted to ease the stress on his knee, and the moment was gone. “Shouldn't be long now,” he said. “If we're lucky, we can make our flight. Bill will never know but for guessing at the obituaries.”

She wanted this—wanted it badly—but still . . . “Did it ever occur to you that we're doing a non-Opti-sanctioned task?” she asked.

“One job on our own doesn't make us dirty.” Allen turned to the interstate, the strip of glowing lights feeling as far away as the moon. “It's not as if we're doing it for money.”

If you're not doing it for money, then you're doing it for kicks
echoed in her thoughts, lingering to make her uncomfortable. “He's like a sliver I have to get out. Once he's dead, I can let it go and move on, but I don't feel like me. He took three years of my life and shoved you off a balcony. I need . . .
closure
,” she said sarcastically, thinking she sounded like Sandy.

“Let's make it fast, okay?” Allen said. “No talking. Not even ‘You're being held accountable for what you did.' We do it and get out. He doesn't even need to know we're there until he's dying on the floor. Three minutes—in and out.”