“I know that.” Adjusting his seat back, Michael moved his briefcase onto his lap and opened it, setting the pink syringe of accelerant out of her reach in the door pocket. Her gut ached when she saw the single dose left in the Evocane vial, there among his pens and notepads. She wanted it, needed it, and, fingers trembling, she began to count the seconds.

“I must remember to thank Bill next time I see him,” Michael said as he filled his syringe with the Evocane. “All that Opti conditioning makes you very compliant.”

“Hey, how about topping me off here?” she asked, awkwardly shifting her coat sleeve up to expose her shoulder. “I scratched your back, you scratch mine.”

“There’s only one dose,” he said as he rolled up his sleeve. “God, I can’t tell you the last time I shot up in someone’s car,” he said, almost laughing as he jammed it into his bicep. “I’ve got to wait two minutes before I can inject the accelerant, right?”

Thank God for mistrusting fools. “Yeah, but in three seconds, it’s not going to matter.”

Michael’s eyes widened, but it was too late, and she breathed in, willing the blue sparkles that filled her sight to move faster, spilling through the car and coating the underground garage and tainting the setting sunlight spilling in the open door.

“No!” Michael howled, but with a smug certainty, she flung them back to the instant he had opened his briefcase to make his source of Evocane vulnerable.

Michael froze, squandering a vital half second, torn between her and what he thought was her goal. Terrified he was going to lose what he’d worked so hard for, he scrambled for the accelerant in the door pocket, too late and too stupid to stop Peri as she lunged, cuffed fingers grasping for the vial of Evocane.

Grinning, Peri showed him her cuffed hands, the Evocane tight in her grip. “You are such a dumb-ass,” she said, popping the soft plastic top and spilling it.

“You little bitch!”

A fist exploded against her face. Cowering, she hunched over the vial, breath held against the stars as she shook out every last drop, soaked up by the thick mats.

“You stupid fucking bitch!”

She gasped as he gripped the back of her neck and yanked her upright. Unable to focus, she bared her teeth in a grimace, her breath exploding out when he backhanded her middle with a heavy hand.

“Take your accelerator now, Mr. Asshat,” she gasped, eyes watering. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t,” she said, throwing herself against the door as he swung at her again. His fist hit her cheek, and pain radiated all the way behind her eye. “Go ahead and kill me!” she raged. “You do that, and Silas will never give you any of his Evocane. Ever! I told you I wanted Silas.” She stared at him. “And I will have him.”

Expression ugly, Michael let his hand drop. Peri’s heart raced, waiting for his next blow.

Michael hit the dash instead, and the car flashed a warning. “Yeah, that’s right,” Peri said raggedly as she wiped the blood from her nose with her sleeve, her hands still cuffed. “You either take me to Silas and let him go in return for your Evocane, or you get nothing.” Frustrated, she took a breath. “You hear me!” she screamed, fed up with dealing with him. “Nothing!”

But Michael was busy with his notepad, scribbling frantically before the fifteen seconds ended and they both forgot.

“I will kill you someday for this,” he whispered, going still when the world shifted red and time caught up and meshed.

Her eye hurt, but her gut was agony. Peri pulled herself out of her hunch, carefully touching her cheek to estimate the damage. She was still in cuffs and was missing the last fifteen seconds, but there was an empty vial at her feet. Michael’s confusion turned to virulent anger as he read a note, and she guessed that her idea to force him to take her to Silas for a new source of Evocane had worked. Please be close, she thought as the memory of withdrawal drifted through her.

Michael ripped his note free from the pad and crumpled it. Expression stoic, he clicked the pen closed and dropped both it and the notepad into the briefcase beside the unused syringe. The capped syringe of accelerant went into a front shirt pocket, and he put his hands on the wheel. It had worked. Hadn’t it?

“Well?” she said as they sat going nowhere, thinking that not remembering seemed like a small price to pay compared to her freedom. Her face and gut hurt from a beating she didn’t remember, but inside, she was singing. She’d forgotten, and it was like sweet water on a hot day.

Michael put the running car into drive, his hands gripping the wheel with a white-knuckled strength. “I get you to Silas. He gives me the Evocane. If you don’t run fast enough, I kill you both.”

“That’s all I wanted in the first place,” she muttered, wincing when they drove out into the setting sun and her eye ached. Shit, it was going to purple up. She just knew it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

There were at least three people at the fueling station that she could have signaled for help, but she sat meekly in her seat, pride and the shadows from the overhead light keeping her cuffs hidden. Michael slammed the quick-charge plug away, tapping his card to pay for it and striding back to the driver’s-side door with an air of excitement. The accumulated insults of alarms and security measures had left the batteries so low that the solar paint couldn’t keep up with the demand.

The sun was down, but fortunately they were only a few miles from Helen’s research facility. Getting to Silas was her main goal. After that, she’d be going by feel.