“What, here?” he said, his attention traveling over the noisy throng. Peri bit her bottom lip. “You don’t have to bring it back, just tell me where I drafted. What did I forget?”
He almost had her, and he ran a quick hand over his hair as if thinking it over.
“Fine,” she said, and she stood, shocking him even as she wavered. “This conversation is over. Can I have your tablet, please?”
She stuck her hand out, expecting him to give it to her, but she froze when he took her hand in his instead. “You were seen leaving the bathroom,” he said, and she stared at him, fear in her eyes as his voice took on the singsong pattern of an anchor bringing back a memory. “It took three guards, but they got you down, and then you jumped. In the draft, you tripped a businessman into another to distract security and avoid them. That was right before you stole the coat. They caught you again at the top of the escalator until you drafted and hid at the jewelry stand until the family with the stroller showed up and you went downstairs with them.”
Slowly Peri sat, her hand loose in his grip.
“It took me a few minutes to get downstairs, but the next time you drafted was when Allen saw you at the coffee counter.”
Clearly scared, she pulled her hand away. “I didn’t draft at the coffee counter.”
“It was tiny,” he said, pity reaching his voice despite his intentions. “A skip, if you like, turning away at just the right moment in the draft so he didn’t see you. Just now, before I sat down, you skipped about three seconds so that kid in the corner who looks like he hasn’t shaved in a week wouldn’t bump you. Peri, you escaped Opti. You’re good, but it would have been impossible without drafting, and you know it.”
It was hard to tear her down like this, especially knowing how fragile she was, and Silas felt like an ass as he took in her pale face. “If you’re lying …,” she threatened.
His anger was gone, sponged away by her fear. “Where are you staying? I’ll bring all three jumps back. If you like what you see, we can work together. If you still don’t trust me—”
“Trust has nothing to do with it,” she interrupted. “You want to shut down Opti.”
“Trust has everything to do with it,” he said bitterly, and her eyes dropped. “Finding out what happened up there is the only way you’re going to clear your name. What happens after that is secondary. Let’s go.”
Chin lifted, she looked at him. “I haven’t said I’d work with you.”
“Not with your lips, no.”
She grimaced, clearly thinking. “I don’t have a place yet,” she said softly.
He had her, maybe not for anything longer than an hour, but he had her. He stood. “I do.” Feeling light-headed, Silas took up his hat and started for the door. Her Opti conditioning never to be alone would get her moving faster than anything else. Still, it didn’t feel as good as he thought it would when she closed out her session on her borrowed Internet link and got to her feet.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked as she shrugged into her coat, that ugly, man’s hat already on her head.
Silas’s teeth clenched. “I’m not helping you. I’m getting the job done.”
Together they wove through the busy tables, and he fought with himself not to clear the way for her. He wasn’t her damned anchor, and this association would last only until he got what he wanted. She paused at the door to drop her mug in the wash bin, and he leaned over her as he set his mug beside hers, breathing in her scent, almost hidden under stale fear and worry, to whisper, “That, and I’m impressed at how you continue to function with minimal drafts. Not bad, Peri. Not bad at all.”
Blinking, she looked up at him, the slight praise clearly meaning more than it should. “It’s patently obvious you don’t like me, Silas, but I’m not corrupt. And I’m the only way you’re ever going to find out what really happened, so how about lightening up a little.”
He smiled bitterly as he pushed open the door. “I could say the same thing.”
Her head was up as she went out before him, and he belatedly realized he’d opened the door for her, a common enough courtesy, but one he’d vowed he wouldn’t do. The cold wind blew up from the street, and she hunched deeper into that coat she’d stolen. “This is very bad for my asthma,” she whispered.
“Excuse me?” he blurted, the phrase from their past shaking him to his core. She still uses it? Maybe there is something left after all.
But her eyes held only confusion. “Um. I just say that … sometimes,” she muttered, her melancholy deepening.
Hunching into his coat, he pointed up the street. Silent, she fell into step beside him, clearly not realizing that she’d lengthened her steps into matching his suddenly slower pace so they would strike the same beat even if she was a good eight inches shorter.
God almighty, he thought, trying to shift his pace back to his normal length and failing. She was beside him, and yet not, missing a man she didn’t remember, one who had lied to her for three years, mourning him even if she had killed him.
And he was going to try to bring that back?