The Operator

“Put them on . . . or you don’t get out,” Michael reiterated.

She was going to get access to her car and, if she played it right, to Silas. And with that, she had another twenty-four hours to kill Michael and end this. There was no way in hell she was going to let him live.

Peri rolled her shoulders, stretching them. With a single foot, she reached out and pushed the unlocked door open.

Michael snarled, reaching behind his coat for his Glock. “Let me rephrase. Put them on, or you die. Right in the head.”

Sighing, Peri went to the cuffs, leaning over to angle them in through the holes. “Chicken ass,” she grumbled, the need to get to her car an ache. The cool steel ratcheted about her wrists, the alien feel of them never becoming familiar.

“Where is the accelerator?” Michael put his Glock away, and feeling as if she were still in a cage she stepped out, her feet cold on the bare cement.

“I’ll take you there,” she said. “You still have my car, yes?” God help her, if he didn’t, this was going to be the lamest jailbreak ever. His eyes lit up, and she added, “You wanted the pass code. I’ll put you into the system myself.”

A sly grin stole over him. “I’m driving,” he said as he snapped his briefcase shut and gestured for her to go first.

Stocking feet silent on the grimy cement floor, Peri proudly walked through the defunct manufacturing plant, through the break room with its posted signs about employee rights five years out-of-date, past old offices with computers bigger than a microwave . . . all the way to the covered garage. She couldn’t help her smile at the sight of her car parked sideways to the lines, a power-saving white this far away from the sun, but a frown took its place at the marring scratch on the bumper. “You towed it?” she asked incredulously. “You towed my car?”

Michael shoved her toward the passenger side, and she stumbled to catch her balance. “I didn’t have a choice. Someone locked it down in their efforts to shut off the alarm system.”

The car beeped a welcome as she put her cuffed hand to the driver’s-door handle and it read her thumbprint. “Don’t mess with my settings. It took me a week to get them perfect,” she warned as Michael pulled the door open wide, slipping his briefcase into the door’s panel pocket before manhandling her around the front of the car to the passenger’s side. Again he put her hand to the lock, shoving her into the front seat and slamming the door.

“Good evening, Peri,” the car’s computer said when her weight hit the seat. “There have been several incidents since you have left. Would you like me to detail them?” Ding.

Michael hustled back around to the driver’s side before she could stretch to close his door. “That’s going to change,” Michael said as he got in behind the wheel.

“I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?” the car said, and Peri grimaced.

“Shut up for a moment,” she said, not liking Michael touching her car. “Reeves,” she said, affecting an accent. “Cancel incident report. Disengage audio. Accept new driver as all-access. Assign new driver the name Mr. Asshat.”

The car dinged its acceptance and clicked off, and Michael stared at her. “Asshat?” he said, and the console lit up, recognizing him.

“You can change it after I’m dead,” she said, pulse quickening.

“Yeah? Well, my Aston will leave your girl car in the dirt,” Michael said, grabbing Peri’s wrist and angling her thumb to start it.

Her eyes closed in bliss at the aggressive barummm of the warming engine. “Silly boy. Fast doesn’t impress a woman,” she said, yanking her hand back. “Only power. And you don’t need my thumb anymore. It recorded your print when you opened the door, Mr. Asshat.”

“God, you are an insufferable bitch.” Michael adjusted the mirrors and fixed his settings as the primary driver. “Where are we going?”

She stifled a quiver, a thrill of would-he, wouldn’t-he be that dumb. “You brought a syringe, right? You’re going to want to shoot up with Evocane first.”

Michael thought about that for half a second, and then he smiled, getting it. “It’s here? In the car? They searched it.”

“They searched the safe,” she said, reaching for the shift stick.

“Hands off!” Michael exclaimed, and she jerked back before he could hit her.

“It’s hidden in the shift stick,” she said. “Lighten up.”

His hand came up fast, smacking her away again when she reached once more. “And engage your lame-ass emergency signal?” he said, and she sucked on her scratched knuckle.

“Oh, if only it was an emergency signal,” she mocked. “You want it or not?”

He studied her, then nodded. Adrenaline a sweet seep through her, Peri untwisted the knob, praying it was still in there. The knob came free, and she awkwardly reached two fingers in, angling like chopsticks, fishing. “Got it,” she said around a long exhale, then gasped when Michael snatched it from her.

“This is it?” he breathed, eyeing the capped syringe of pink-tinted accelerator.

She nodded, curling her fingers into a fist to hide their trembling. Hunger pinched at her, and withdrawal threatened, but right now, she was calm as she waited to see if everything lined up. She wasn’t going to let Michael kill himself before Silas was free. But the timing would have to be perfect.

“You need to shoot up with the Evocane first,” Peri said, trying not to show her tension.