The Operator

“Peri,” Allen muttered, anxious and ready to help. Bringing him with her would be impossible, and she fought the urge to give him a chaste kiss good-bye.

“Thank you,” she said instead, voice throaty as the need to be gone warred with the knowledge she might never see him again—and that even knowing that, he would do everything he could to help her disappear.

“Whoa, look at that,” the driver said, and Peri’s head came up as he slowed in response to the van swerving ahead of them. It righted itself before slowing at the reinforced gated lock across the road, making her wonder whether Jack had tried something last-ditch that hadn’t worked. The driver’s radio crackled to life, laughter and the sound of Jack’s pained grunts spilling out before Steiner smiled and relaxed.

Her eyes on the self-satisfied man, Peri gave Allen’s cold hand a squeeze, seeing his good-bye in his eyes. “Give me a count of forty-five,” she whispered, and Allen casually leaned back, his hand slipping away as he looked over the van. In forty-five seconds, she would draft. It would put her on the right side of the gate, her plan to manipulate Michael into killing Bill still in her mind even if she lost the time between. Anything after this point, though, would likely be lost.

One: Peri carefully watched the guard across from them, feeling in her imagination the smoothness of the Glock’s butt in her grip, how it would feel to fire it, kicking back with the scent of spent gunpowder. The van eased to a halt under the lights. Voices grew loud, and the clatter of the opening gate was harsh as Steiner cleared them. She felt powerful and broken at the same time, knowing she could get out of this, but without an anchor to bring it back, that she’d never remember how she’d done it.

Ten: She stifled a shudder when the scanner went over them, front to back, and everyone’s badge briefly lit at the ping. Her foot would take out the guard, and her fist would bring down Steiner. The driver and second guard would be shot, but not fatally. Harmony . . .

Oh, God. She’ll think I’m betraying her.

“I want them both in ankle cuffs the instant we hit the yard,” Steiner said as they inched forward and the security gate slid shut behind them. They were within WEFT’s fences, and she smirked when Steiner relaxed, clearly thinking there was no way out.

“Sir,” Harmony protested as the van pulled to a wide security door and stopped. Six men in snow-camo coats waited under the harsh security light. Five went to the van where Jack was, a loud commotion rising when the van’s wide back door swung open. Beside her, Allen quietly hyperventilated, guessing how this was going to go down and bulking his oxygen up.

Thirty: She sat unmoving when their side door rattled open and Steiner swung out onto the pavement. She could hear shouted demands for Jack to get moving. “Sir!” Harmony launched herself out of the van after Steiner, her loud protests echoing off Opti’s thick walls.

“Out. Now,” the guard across from her said, and she stood, remembering where he had been sitting and how it would feel when she launched herself at him in about fifteen seconds. She held a hand to Allen, and he eyed her from under a low, pained brow.

“For what it’s worth, thank you for coming for me,” he said, his voice soft with guilt.

“Thanks for saving my ass in St. Louis,” she said, and he smiled, fitting his hand into hers, cold from the ice pack and knobby. He groaned when she pulled him up and they made their way to the opening. Moving slow and careful, Allen held on to the van as he lurched to the salt-stained asphalt.

“Five seconds,” he whispered, and her pulse quickened.

She looked across the fenced-in yard to where Jack was being manhandled out of the van. Counting the original four guards in the van, there were now nine men circling him to her one, and she laughed at how badly they misjudged her. Cool steel glinted in the security light, and she looked up, her breath obscuring the few stars that made it through Detroit’s light pollution.

“Not another word, Beam!” Steiner exclaimed, his implacable calm finally cracking.

Ticked, Harmony stalked to the wide door being held by another agent, an irritating whine of an alarm obvious. She vanished inside, and a knot of worry tightened. Three seconds?

“You don’t have to push!” Jack complained, and Peri’s eyes flicked up. She froze as their eyes met and Jack, his hands cuffed before him, made a “well?” gesture. Peri froze. Does he think I’m going to save him, too?

“Detroit!” Steiner shouted, clearly cold as he stomped toward the doors in his light WEFT jacket. “If I wanted to work at the North Pole, I would have signed up to be one of Santa’s helpers! My God! Why is it so cold? Who knows where my office is?”

“Now, Peri.” Allen took her hand. “I’m going to miss you.”

But she couldn’t look away from Jack, hating his crafty, knowing look.

“Tell Harmony I’m after Michael,” she whispered, his hand slipping from hers when the guard behind them gave her a shove. “And to not find me. And Silas that . . . I’m sorry.”

“Go,” Allen whispered. “Or you’re going to miss your window!”

As if somehow knowing, Steiner turned, his face suddenly slack as he stood in the doorway. But it was too late, and giving in, she flipped him off, smiling as he bellowed for someone to down her. He had forgotten drafting worked backward, and it was going to cost him everything.

Reaching out with her mind, she found a still-point of distraction, forty-five seconds in the past. Her breath came in, and she used it to expand her reach, wrapping her psyche around a three-block area. She could go wider, but she didn’t need to. Eyes opening, she watched the light spilling from the hot flood lamps drop an inky blue to hit the ground and billow up until it dissipated through the world and everything stopped.