“Easy now,” Allen called, and she spun. Silas moved, and her eyes flicked to him. Both men were between her and the door. She was trapped.
“Stay back,” she warned, fixated on the space on the floor where Jack had died. “Where’s my rifle? I had a rifle!” Spinning, Peri looked at the door, shocked to see it clean and unblemished. Her heart thudded as she whirled to the stage. There was no blood. But she had shot Jack. “Someone tell me where Jack is!” she screamed.
Silas came forward, hands raised in placation. She kept moving, looking for a way out.
A tiny, rational part of her knew she needed to stop, but instinct kept her backing up almost into the fireplace. She could go no farther, and she grabbed a fire poker.
“Peri, relax,” Silas said calmly, and she jabbed the poker at him to keep him away.
“He’s dead, isn’t he,” she said, iron held tight. “Is Jack dead?”
Angry, she took a step forward, and Silas shifted. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, and then she swung at him. Swearing, he blocked it, twisting the iron from her grip. She screamed, furious when he grabbed her wrist and spun her into a submission hold as they went down and hit the floor together.
“Call Fran,” Silas said to Allen as he wrapped his legs around Peri in a wrestler hold, and she howled, flinging her head back. He leaned out of the way and she hit nothing.
“Hold still,” he grunted, binding her with his own arms and legs. “Just. Hold. Still,” he panted, gripping her tight. “It’s okay. Allen fucked up your defragment, but it’s my fault. I never should have done what I did. Remember me. Remember me, Peri, and let me in! I’m your anchor! Trust me, damn it!” he shouted, angry. “Be still and let me fix this!”
“Let go …,” she wheezed, gasping when he reached into her mind as if it were his own and pulled up an image of Jack standing before the door, his gun smoking. It was aimed at her, and her chest felt as if it was being squeezed to a singularity. “Jack!” she screamed, and froze as she felt the memory burn to ash, the edges of it folding in on itself until it was gone. Under it was the memory of Jack running for the door, leaving her as if the last three years together had meant nothing. Then her, blowing a hole in his back.
“Oh, God, no,” she moaned, knowing it was true. She had gone to Opti to find the corruption, but she hadn’t been able to break from it and had become the tool she’d gone in to expose. He’d never loved her, not really, and she sobbed as Silas crumbled the memory in the fist of his mind and it was gone. But the pain remained, staining the folds of her brain.
Silas has done this before, and then a flash of insight poured through her, flooding the very gaps that Silas had just made. Allen had been in Opti to protect her, playing the part of the corrupt Opti agent to keep her safe. He’d been there to allay Bill’s concerns at her lapses as she balanced on a knife’s edge. Only now did she realize why he’d never tried to defragment anything. She knew him, and he’d been afraid he’d missed something when she’d agreed to let him erase all memories of him … and Silas.
Silas? she thought, feeling his stark determination as he manhandled her memory of the night back to the forefront of their joined thoughts, but she refused, seeing within him a faint image of a wind-calmed boat stuck in the middle of a lake, of laughter and music—and a toast to a future success. In a sudden wash, she realized it was Silas’s memories she was seeing, a shadow of their joined past during the year they’d spent together preparing to take Opti down. They’d both been there, Allen and Silas, countless nights spent over take-out and schematics and personnel files, of flirting banter at the rifle range, and the keen bite of testing each other’s dexterity skills in the gym. Allen had been there too, but she’d agreed to the year-long preparation because of Silas. She’d loved him, but he hadn’t loved her back, and she had no reason to say no when the year of preparation was over and the game was ready to be played. She had loved Silas, and she’d agreed to let that die. Wanted it to, maybe, when he hadn’t noticed that she’d fallen in love.
You loved me? Silas thought desperately, and she groaned when he wrenched her thoughts back to Overdraft, flipping through them with a frighteningly cold intensity, burning everything to ash. Memories of the night at Overdraft flared into short-lived, doomed existence, ugly emotions feeding them as oxygen fuels a flame. And though the memories were destroyed, the emotions lingered to coat her mind like smoke on the ceiling. It should have been cleansing, but all that grew from the fading memory of the night was a heavy depression. She’d done this to herself. She had forgotten love. And for what? Glory?
Jack was right. She was a bad person.
Her fight to be free collapsed into a soft trembling.