The Drafter

Shocked, Peri looked down at the unconscious man, not knowing how he’d gotten that way or how she’d moved across the room. The dart gun was in her hand. An empty syringe was jammed into his leg. Damn it! I’ve drafted!

 

Scared, she smacked her hand against her boot sheath to find her knife still there. Then she looked at her palm for a note she hadn’t written, her fingers closing into a fist as she listened to the silence and waited for the nightmare to begin. Her heart pounded. Nothing. Slowly her fist opened as she exhaled. She was okay. Silas’s patch job had held through a draft—this time. “Jack?” she breathed, anxious for an answer. Her head hurt as if someone had yanked on her hair. Strands of it were drifting to the floor.

 

Gasping, she fell into a defensive crouch when Jack stood up from behind the desk. “You drafted,” he said, grim-faced. “Move. It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember.”

 

“How long?” she whispered, grabbing the heels of the Opti agent and dragging him behind the desk.

 

Jack looked down at him and shrugged. “Hell, babe. I don’t know. You didn’t lose more than the draft, though. Thirty seconds?”

 

“How about that,” she said, remembering what Allen had said about Opti being able to artificially scrub time from her when she drafted. Damn it all to hell. It’s true.

 

A tinny voice calling her name pulled her to the square of black plastic kicked across the floor. It wasn’t her original wire, and figuring it belonged to the man she’d just downed, Peri scooped it up as she went for the stairs. “Peri! Are you there?” It was Howard, and a second wash of relief took her.

 

“I’m fine.” She put her back to the fire door and leaned into the stairwell, listening to Howard babble as she took a quick look up and down the hall. “Howard. Relax,” she said, interrupting him. “I drafted, but I’m okay.” Peri opened the door wider, and Jack went before her, taking the stairs two at a time until he waited at the fire door. “I’m going up now,” she said. “Get Taf and leave. Don’t wait for me. I’ve really pissed them off. I’ll see you over the border. Tell Silas I’m sorry and that his patch works.”

 

“Peri, you can’t do this alone. It’s too dangerous—”

 

She didn’t have time to convince him. Dropping the radio on the stairway, she stomped it into silence. Feeling his eyes on her through the scope, she went up the stairs and fished out her card key. It seemed stupid—needing a key to get into her own apartment—but she’d had the door reinforced and it would be easier to break a hole in the wall than to knock the door from the frame.

 

She ran down the hall, tapping her card key and turning the knob in a single fluid motion. There was no sound, and a ribbon of light showed from under the door. Images of a matted maroon carpet flashed in her thoughts. Shoving them aside, she went in.

 

She froze just inside the door. Lips parted, she stared at the brightly lit, demolished apartment as emotions fought to be recognized. Shock, dismay, heartache … anger. It didn’t even look like her place. Everything was off the walls, her shelf where she put her talismans empty. Broken furniture and clothes made a pile in the middle of the room. The ceiling had been pulled down to expose the ductwork, and light fixtures dangled from wires to make the glow shine in weird patterns. The blinds had been jerked from the windows and piled in the corner, taking up an astounding amount of space. Blackout film had replaced them—blocking the view in, but not the view out—and Detroit glittered past the bare windows. Just as well she’d told Howard to leave. He’d never know if the lights were on or off.

 

“Change settings. Warm,” she said softly, but there was no cheerful ding. Peri came in a step. Jack stood before the pile, his head bowed over a shattered picture. Even the plants had been uprooted, the dirt scattered and the vegetation abandoned to wilt and die. They’d destroyed her home, her security, the way she found herself after every draft.

 

“I’m sorry, babe,” Jack said, and her anger at what they’d done grew heady, strong enough to taste it, sour in the pit of her belly. He had no right to tell her he was sorry. He was why her life was screwed up. But the sliding thump of sound from the bedroom brought her attention around.

 

“No weapons. They don’t know you’re here yet.” Jack dropped the picture and lurched after her. “Watch your control. He didn’t do this. Don’t kill him, Peri.”

 

“What do you care?” Peri snarled under her breath. Ticked, she shoved the bedroom door open, barely registering the savaged mattress and holes in the walls when she saw the man in a black suit standing before her dresser, holding up one of Jack’s shirts as if measuring it for size.

 

“Hands off!” she yelled, launching herself at him.