The Operator

Fear slid through her as Peri looked in to see Silas standing at a lab bench, horrified as he watched the monitors in the ceiling corners showing three dead people.

Saying nothing, Michael shot the lock, and Peri’s nose wrinkled at the scent of burned electronics. Kicking the disengaged door in, Michael yanked her after him.

Silas already had his hands up. “Don’t shoot. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You think?” Michael shoved Peri at a lab bench, well away from the open door. “I’m sure they didn’t give you any weapons, but it’s a lab and there’s all sorts of things in here that can kill you.” Holstering his weapon, he lit a Bunsen burner with an Opti lighter. “This has possibilities.”

Eyes roving the lab for assets, Peri pushed the hair out of her eyes, her cuffs clinking. Silas might be in Helen’s lab, but she was betting Silas wasn’t making Evocane. No, if she was lucky, he was making the modified version with all the addictive properties and none of the active ingredients. All she had to do was get Michael to take it. Too many ifs. I’m tired of this.

But a pang went through her, guilt that she was going to kill Michael with the very thing he most desired—what they both did.

“Peri? You okay?” Silas asked, not moving from where he’d been when they had come in.

Smile mocking, Michael pushed her toward a high lab stool. “Sit,” he said. “Stay.”

Lips pressed together, she did, able to feel the heat from the burner five feet from her.

“Now.” Michael turned to Silas, his fake smile gone. “Evocane. She said you had some.”

“Ah, I don’t—”

Peri gasped as Michael wrapped an arm around her neck, pulling her off the stool as he reached for the burner. It glinted six inches from her eye, and she tensed, ready to act as a strand of hair smoldered. Okay. Maybe killing him with what he wants will be easier than I thought.

“Wait!” Silas took a step forward. “Don’t hurt her. Please. I don’t have the accelerator. Evocane won’t do you any good!”

Peri struggled to breathe, pulled off balance and her back twisted. “He has the accelerator. Give him the stuff you made for me, Silas. I’ll be okay!” she choked out, and then she could breathe as Michael shoved her up and away.

She hit the bench. Turning, Peri tossed her hair out of her eyes. Silas stared at her, knowing what she was asking. His eye twitched when she nodded. Let him die from a psychotic episode of remembering twin lines. The bastard deserved nothing less. “Peri, it’s for you,” he said, his reluctance obvious, but not for the reason Michael probably thought. Silas was going to feel responsible for his death, but it wouldn’t be his doing. Peri had planned this, twisted Michael into it.

“So where is it, little professor?” Michael said pleasantly as he adjusted the burner. It made a dry hiss. Silas’s big hands clenched, and Michael cocked his head in warning, daring him to try anything.

“Give it to him,” Peri said. “I made a deal. If I got him accelerated, he’d let us go.”

“And we’re trusting this?” Silas grumbled, but he turned, his lab coat furling as he went to a glass cabinet. Unlocking it, he brought out a palm-size, white plastic bottle.

“Try again, little professor,” Michael said, taking a new grip on her. “I’m not snorting that.”

“It’s Evocane.” Silas’s jaw was clenched at the half lie, and Peri hoped Michael thought it was only Silas’s reluctance in handing it over. “If it is a maintenance drug, it should be less obtrusive. Ideally it will be a pill. I haven’t had enough time with it is all.”

Michael’s brow furrowed in mistrust, his gaze flicking to the monitors still showing an empty parking lot and bloodied lobby. “A pill?” Michael questioned, and Peri jerked herself free of him when his grip eased. She pulled herself up against the lab bench, not moving as Michael set the burning flame aside.

“You expect me to trust that?” Michael said, gesturing with his Glock. “When you’re sitting in the middle of your lab of poisons?”

“I’ll take it,” Peri blurted, hoping she didn’t look desperate, but the pinch of withdrawal was becoming more insistent.

Michael gave her an askance look, his thin lips quirking in an odd smile. “Feeling a little anxious, are we?”

“I said I’d take it,” she repeated. “It’s the only way you’ll know that it’s the real stuff.”

“I suppose it’s better than you drooling all over the counter.” Michael gestured for Silas to back up. “Tell me how much she needs,” Michael said, and Silas glanced at the scale, focus going distant as he mumbled his way through a weight calculation. “How much!” Michael shouted, and Silas jumped.

“Six grams. About six grams. You need six and a half,” he said, clearly worried as he started to sweat.

“Six grams.” Michael tared the scale. “I haven’t used one of these since high school.”

Peri tried to catch Silas’s eye as Michael began tapping powder onto it. That she was going to ingest it first was suddenly not that appealing. It was the modified Evocane, right?

“Here you are, Peri. Time for your meds.”

Her hands shook as she took the little wax paper tray, suddenly unsure. But Silas wouldn’t give her anything to hurt her. “You aren’t funny. You know that, don’t you?” she said. “The reason anyone laughs is because you’re the only one with a gun.”