The Operator

A lump rose in her throat, and she fought it. He’d given her the Evocane knowing what it would do to her, he had let her walk away knowing her path would lead to more trouble, not less, and he stayed behind to muddle her trail, helping her the only way he could. And for what? So he would feel that ache and guilt again when her choice was utterly gone and she was dead or Bill’s tool once more? She couldn’t do this to him again. He felt too deeply, too long.

I never seem to have a choice, she thought as the pinch of need grew. She had two hours until she had to dose up, but unless she wanted to risk a full withdrawal while dealing with Michael, she’d have to shoot up now—in front of Harmony. It bothered her.

“You miss him,” Harmony said softly, misreading her grimace.

“Silas?” Peri fumbled in her pocket, the click of the injector pen sounding loud as she uncapped it. “I hardly remember him,” she said, trying to make light of it as she tugged her waistband down and jammed the tip into her thigh. The prick of the lance turned into a dull ache. “But he remembers me,” she said, voice strained. She was good for another twenty-four hours.

Harmony was still looking at her when she glanced up, the woman’s expression unreadable in the unlit, snow-caked streets of abandoned Detroit. “Not Silas. Jack,” Harmony finally said. “You know . . . you thought he was driving the car?” she prompted.

Peri’s lips parted, her first hot refusal dying. Apparently she did miss him—in a way. “You’ve never worked with anyone before, have you?” Peri said, feeling like a drug addict as she tossed the spent injector into the trash.

Harmony’s expression became closed. “All the time. I’ve never been afforded the chance to work alone.”

“I mean, worked so closely and for so long with someone that you know each other’s moods, methods. How fast he can hot-wire a car or that it takes him thirty seconds to subdue someone expecting it, five if they aren’t.” That he likes his coffee with four inches of ice when it’s hot and he curses in Spanish when his cell phone craps out. That he knows where your shoulder cramps after a morning at the range, and to turn up the TV when that commercial with the goat comes on.

“You still love him,” Harmony said, looking angry—misled, maybe.

Peri stared across the car at her, wondering whether Harmony was having second thoughts and that Peri might run to Opti as Steiner had predicted. “Enough to kill him, sure,” Peri said lightly. “And if I ever see him again, I’ll do just that.”

Harmony’s shoulders eased. Silent, she took a side street, cutting across the snow-covered parking lot of a sporadically lit Wally World. It was almost empty, not with the hour but from neglect. Glancing behind them, Peri settled into the cushions. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re doing this.”

Harmony shrugged as she parked under a light that was in view of one of the security cams. “You know that glass ceiling that doesn’t exist anymore? I hit it two years ago.”

Peri took in her guilt, but not knowing what it was there for. “No,” she said. “I want to know why. Right now. You don’t throw your career away trying to save it.”

Harmony turned the engine off. Hands landing back on the wheel, she stared out the front window. “He butchered my team with less thought than he’d give slapping a mosquito. He did it because they didn’t have the information he wanted. That doesn’t deserve to walk around.”

Peri’s thoughts sifted through the cracks in her fragmented mind, catching on emotions without faces attached to them. This, she understood. “I figured it was something like that.”

“Those were good people,” Harmony said, her grip on the wheel white-knuckle tight. “He took everything from them, everything they had, everything they would have: days, years, births, promotions. I survived because I was a woman and that bastard saved me for last. Like dessert.”

“Fair enough,” Peri said, wishing she’d stop talking. Too many emotions were trying to surface, making her ill with fractured memories.

“Besides, with me losing my team, my glass ceiling just turned into cement. Steiner might forget about it if I come back with Michael.” Harmony reached for her purse, clearly not sure she believed it herself. “I don’t care if you forget. People forget battle trauma all the time.”

Peri didn’t know what to think about that, so she muttered a soft “Thanks. You need to run in for ammo?” Her gaze went to the big-box store, wondering whether that’s why they’d parked there, but Harmony chuckled and unlocked her door.

“I’m not taking my car into the arena. We walk from here.”

Walk? Through the arena? At night when there’s a perfectly good car? But then again, taking a car into what was supposed to be an abandoned area would get them noticed, too. Not liking either option, Peri looked out the front window across the weed-choked railroad tracks to the low cluster of boarded-up commercial buildings. Behind them was even more dilapidated, unlit, and condemned low-rent temporary housing originally built to get the homeless and displaced off Detroit’s streets before reconstruction had begun. None of it had been intended to last more than a decade, but not everyone had left when new housing had been built.

Calling it the arena had been the cops’ idea. The concept was good, but it hadn’t gone well, and the mostly deserted area had become a haven for drugs, prostitution, and gangs. Every electoral year there was a push to get it cleaned up, but the way the cops figured it, if all the bad apples were in one basket, it was easier to catch those trying to sample the fruit. Cops seldom came into the area, and never at night unless they were in well-armed packs with high-Q drones and riot gear.