The Operator

Silas’s attention sharpened on her. “I’ll crack this, Peri. I can do it.”

But that wasn’t why she was crying. She wanted to remember her drafts. She wanted to be free of being forced to trust by necessity, not desire. And if she couldn’t have that, she wanted to have the ability to just walk away. But what she had was a horrifying need pushing her into more and more desperate acts. “Maybe I should just take the accelerator. At least then I’d have value,” she whispered.

“Don’t.” Silas sat beside her, his weight making her slip into him. “We can get around this. I should have told you before, but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad.”

“Bad?” she said hotly. “You think that was just . . . bad?”

His head cocked and he jerked her into him, his relief making his mood soft. “Don’t get mad at me for my word choice,” he said as he coddled her, protesting, into his arms. “You haven’t been accelerated, so all you need is the addictive stuff. I can do that.”

“Yes?” A glimmer of hope sparked, wavered, and threatened to go out.

“Promise,” he said, his arms around her becoming more sure, more grateful, almost. “I should have told you earlier, but I wanted to get LB’s opinion on it first.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, eyes closing as she gave in and felt herself melt against him, his warmth finally easing the last of the shakes. She felt loved, her emotions paper thin. Something tickled the back of her brain. His arms around her felt familiar, like home. From the year Allen had erased, she thought, swallowing hard. Why had she been so stupid? Opti was officially ended, and she was still fighting the same war.

“You make it really hard to love you, you know that, don’t you?” Silas whispered as LB left, closing the door behind him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

LB’s back room seemed a lot nicer when she wasn’t half-delusional with withdrawal, and Peri sat on the edge of the bed in a borrowed T-shirt and dried her hair as she waited for Silas to come back with her clean clothes and maybe some of that pasta she could smell. The soft conversation from the big playroom had long vanished, replaced by what sounded like a Disney movie. It was surprisingly soothing. LB had something unique here. It wasn’t a family. It was bigger than that. A community, maybe?

But even as she thought it, her contentment slowly shifted to an uncomfortable unease. Stretching, she reached for her phone on the bedside table, and the flexible glass lit up at her touch. She had only twenty-four hours before withdrawal hit her again. Twenty-four hours, and way too much to do.

Tossing the towel to the couch, she finger-combed her hair, wondering whether getting Bill hooked on the stuff might be a suitable revenge—the son of a mother-sucking ass-wipe bastard.

She felt as if she’d been beaten up, making it hard to tell what was symptomatic of trying to fight her addiction, and what was from the bumpy car chase. She wanted to go out and find Silas, but not dressed only in a T-shirt, so she settled back to wait. Her diary still lay at the foot of the bed, and after a moment she pulled it close, wondering whether LB had succumbed to reading it in her absence when more pages slipped free, needing to be jammed back in place like her forgotten memories in her mind.

Settling back against the headboard, she turned to the last unread pages.

Silas and I spent the weekend together, sort of a retreat before the last push and the team is chosen. It’s what I’ve been working my entire adult life for, and I’ve never been more confident in the people I’d be working with. I trust Silas and Allen. But now I’m having doubts, not about the mission, but what it is going to do to Silas. For the first time, I’m seeing him without the shadow of Summer on him, and I don’t know if I can do this to him. Not again. He was happy yesterday, and I realize that sounds simple, but for three entire days, there was not a shadow of guilt or regret on him. It made me feel more than good that I might have had some small part in him finding that. And it wasn’t just the sex, which is never just sex for him but almost a holy commitment. It was the way he sheltered his happiness, as if he knew it wasn’t going to last and he would be lost and alone again.

Allen will be inserted into Opti with me, but Silas, especially now, with the emotional ties we’ve been making, will be relegated to the background. I don’t know if I can ask him to bear the burden of remembering when I forget.

But it’s too late now. I can’t back out, and certainly not because I might love someone. I’m going to give this journal to Silas so he can look back at it and know that what we had was real even if I don’t remember it. I hope it helps him understand so he won’t wall himself off from love as he did when Summer died. Silas should have these thoughts, my thoughts, because he is, and forever will be, my anchor, the only one who I trust to remind me of who I want to be when there is nothing left.

Please, don’t give up on me.

Peri swallowed. She should’ve walked away from the task. She should have let someone else do it. But pride had stopped her, and it had ruined too many lives, most of all Silas’s. And here she was, poised to do it again. How much pain can a soul survive?

A soft knock jerked her head up. “Peri? You decent?” Silas said, and she flushed, jamming the diary under her pillow.

“Come on in,” she said, and the door opened, bringing in the noise from the TV. “Mmmm, smells good,” she added, and Silas padded closer in his bare feet, his face stubbled, dressed in jeans and a raggedy borrowed T-shirt with a plate of takeout food on a Mickey Mouse platter in one hand. Their cleaned clothes were tucked under an arm, and seeing his quiet contentment, her guilt grew deeper. It hurt seeing him there, his lumpy feet poking out from under his borrowed, frayed jeans and nothing but worry in his tired eyes. He loved her, always had, and she only now was ready to believe that she deserved it, now when she had nothing but trouble to offer him.