The bastard slit my throat! he thought, not even having felt it happen.
Flat on his back, Bill stared at the ceiling. Panic, new and unreal, washed through him in time with his pulse as his blood ran out and his brain began to falter.
Michael stood grim and bloody above him, blotting out the light as the rifle exploded again and again. The scent of gunpowder threatened to make him cough, and the cries of his men filled his ears. And through it all, Michael fired with an ease that belied his pale face.
Goddamn it, he’s shooting up my entire house.
And then it was silent except for Bill’s pained gasps. He jerked when a heavy hand gripped his throat, stopping the outflow. His sight grayed when Michael leaned over him, his eyes hard. “Now, old man,” Michael breathed heavily, “tell me the truth.”
The fucking cretin was insane. But he’d known that. “I-I did,” he rasped, sucking in air as if he were drowning.
“Are you sure?”
Bill spasmed as Michael eased his grip and a soft warmth flooded over their hands pressed to his neck. “Draft!” he choked out.
An ugly smile crossed Michael’s face, and he pressed down, ending the flow. “The truth.”
He wouldn’t remember anything when the draft ended, but if Michael wasn’t satisfied, he wouldn’t draft at all. “I have,” Bill said. “She’s trying to kill you!”
Michael leaned back and the light struck him. “I think she’s trying to kill you,” he said. With a sideways smirk, he let go.
Bill shuddered, gasping for air as his body thought he was drowning. He killed me. The son of a bitch killed me, he thought, and then the pain vanished with a sideways twist of déjà vu.
Michael had drafted, and Bill’s oxygen-starved brain floundered as it tried to cope until, with the sensation of breaking ice, everything flooded back with a crystalline certainty.
Bill groaned as time reset. He staggered, finding himself again behind the counter. His pistol was before him. His hand flashed to his neck, not the weapon, and his attention jerked to the door. “Don’t shoot!” he bellowed before his men could come in, his arms raised. “Goddamn it, the first person who shoots Michael is going to get my foot up their ass! Get out. Get out!” he shouted, and Michael, who would remember both timelines until they meshed, smiled.
Still resonating with the fear from his narrow miss, Bill held a hand over his neck. Michael had drafted over his ninety-second ceiling. Twice as far as Peri had ever managed. “How long have you been able to do this?” he whispered, still shaking.
Michael smiled like the devil himself. “Ask them to leave.”
Bill left the handgun where it was. “You heard him. Get out!”
The door was busted, but they backed off. Michael sat on the pristine couch, cradling his rifle, and Bill came closer, anger pushing out the fear. The little prick had tried to kill him.
“So what are we doing, Michael?” he said, feeling vulnerable in his boxers.
Michael took a pen from the coffee table and wrote on his palm. Leaning back, he took his rifle in his hands. His smile said he thought he was in charge. “There’s a way to keep you from scrubbing me when I snap out of this.”
Bill sat across from him. The absolute whiteness of his hands after the bloody gore of them was riveting. “Yeah?” he said, tired.
“Yeah.”
Bill looked up at Michael’s swift motion, not even getting a cry out before the butt of the rifle hit him square on the temple.
He woke up flat on the floor, his face pressed up against the thick pile carpet. It was silent except for a soft, feminine whimper, and he levered himself up, wiping the drool from himself.
Dead men ringed his living room, blood radiating from each one like broken flower petals. Michael was sitting pretty in the middle of it, the scent of gunpowder choking. Susanne was tied to a dining room chair, her eyes red but looking unharmed. It had to be very like what a drafter experienced after a jump, and he wondered how long he’d been unconscious. He’d be damned if he’d ask. Judging by the tears on Susanne’s face, at least ten minutes. By the dead men, not much more than that. And my house is shot to hell again.
“You had to kill them all?” Bill complained, and Michael shifted his posture.
“They didn’t trust me.”
Bill levered himself up onto a chair, ignoring Susanne’s muffled but increasingly loud demands for help. “Why should I?” he asked, rubbing a tired hand over his head.
“Because I knocked you out instead of killing you.” Still holding his rifle, he showed Bill his palm. KILL PERI, NOT BILL was scrawled across it. “You want to fill in the blanks?”
Bill stood. Shuffling to Susanne, he untied the knots on her wrists. “You want to quit taking out my hired help, maybe?”
Susanne yanked the sock from her mouth. “Bill, you suck. Don’t call me again. Got it?” She stood, pushing Bill out of the way as she stormed over the downed agents and out the broken door. She was still in that black negligee.
Michael smiled, and as the electronic whine of Suzanne’s car went faint, Bill strode to the bookshelf and poured himself a shot. He downed it in one go, feeling it burn his throat and give him distance from what had happened. But the memory of his blood warm on his fingers wouldn’t go away, and he looked at Michael, the cold hatred in his eyes hanging heavy in him. The man was certifiable, dangerous—and exactly what he needed to get this done. But for the first time, Bill wondered whether he’d survive it.