The Operator

“It keeps out the bugs.” Allen pointed up, and Harmony’s expression shifted from wonder to anger to a deep-set fatigue and resignation.

“Of course it does.” She pulled her Jell-O closer. “Steiner is a dick.”

“And baby makes three,” Allen said, eyes alight as he started in on a sticky bun.

Watching them eat made Silas’s stomach hurt. Time was moving, and he had so little to spare. He had to get out of here. He had to tell Peri how bad the Evocane was before she shot up with a third dose. The stuff was not just highly addictive, but after enough exposure, it would kill you if you quit cold turkey, such was Bill’s zeal to keep his drafters.

Allen shoved a fold of bacon into his mouth, a happy mmmm making both Silas and Harmony look at him in envy before dropping to their respective bowls of oatmeal and Jell-O. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell Steiner she was addicted,” Allen said around his full mouth. “It might have gotten you out of the doghouse. If he finds out you knew before Atlanta, you’re really up crap creek.”

“Then he’d better not find out.” Harmony eyed his bacon-strewn plate. “Besides, they can’t fire me twice.”

“They fired you?” Silas exclaimed, and Harmony held up two fingers spaced an inch apart.

“This close. Are you going to eat that bacon?”

Allen started. “Ah, yeah.”

“Thanks.” She took a long piece, her eyes closing in bliss as she chewed. “I just flushed my career saving your ass. You can float me some bacon. You’re welcome, by the way,” she added with zero sincerity.

Silas snorted as Allen fidgeted. “Thanks.”

“My dad would be pissed,” Harmony said. “Everything wasted. I don’t know if it would have made any difference if Michael had been there and we had brought him in. Damn it, this sucks. I can’t believe I’m eating bacon!”

Silas sat unmoving, his need to find Peri growing stronger. If he wasn’t there to remind her of who she wanted to be, she would turn to Bill when she ran out of options. In the meantime, Jack would be filling her head with lies, luring her not only with the chance to remember her drafts, but also with some of her past that had been erased.

He looked at Allen and Harmony, knowing his assets lay there, thin as they were. Allen was eager to give a little back if Bill was the end goal, but so bruised and beaten that he’d be little help. Harmony wasn’t a team player—unless the team was doing what she wanted. He’d have to rely on chancy intel and even more chancy follow-through. It would take all of them—and put more than Harmony’s career at risk.

Silas took a deep breath and slowly exhaled; limited options or not, he had only action. “I have to get out of here,” he said softly, and Harmony looked up from her yogurt. “I have to get to Peri before she goes into withdrawal and contacts Bill.”

“Like they’re going to let you anywhere near the door.” Allen licked the pastry frosting from his fingers. “You don’t even know where she is.”

Harmony glanced at their guard and leaned over the table. “You’re kidding, right? Steiner has the Evocane locked up tighter than his daughter’s virginity.”

He stiffened, not liking their disbelief. It was too close to his own estimations. “I have a pretty good idea of where she might be. You going to help or not?”

Harmony flung a hand in the air, letting it fall heavily on the table in disbelief. “Peri Reed just busted Steiner up. Killed three men. My career is over; I’m not killing it twice.”

“Jack killed those three men, not Peri,” Silas said quickly. “She shot two men in the shoulder and ran. That’s all she wants. To be left alone. That was all she ever wanted.”

“Until she met up with Jack and they took off together.” Allen shook his head. “She’s gone, Silas.”

Silas forced his hands flat on the table so they wouldn’t turn into fists. Allen always was one to give up on her. “She’s gone, but she’s not gone back to Bill. And she won’t if she has half a choice,” he added when Allen cleared his throat. “Steiner put her on a kill list because of me,” he said, the guilt bringing his eyes down. “Because I couldn’t figure this out fast enough and she had no choice but to run or be put in his cell, knowing there was only one week between her and dying from withdrawal. This is my fault.”

Harmony was silent. Beside her, Allen shifted uneasily, clearly still hurting. “I told you, I can’t get to the Evocane,” Harmony finally said. “The accelerator, maybe, but not Evocane.”

“I don’t need it,” Silas said, scrambling to find a justification for them to risk their lives to help him get back to Peri. “Bill was right. I can’t duplicate the Evocane, but the more I dig into it, the more I think I don’t have to. She hasn’t been accelerated, so all I have to do is create something that addresses the addictive properties, a substitute to handle the withdrawal. She has no choice. Don’t you see that? Let me give her one.”

“She can have any choice, as long as it’s the one you want?” Allen said bitterly. “Let her go, Silas. Maybe this is who she is.”

Something very close to hatred trickled through Silas. “I’m not turning my back on her again. Evocane or no Evocane, I’m getting out of here. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to keep her alive. Are you going to help me or not?”