Peri pulled her coat tight across her shoulders, her spirit low and her shot leg throbbing as she sat at Overdraft’s bar. The place was empty but for Allen banging around in the back room and Silas at the fireplace. He was trying to get a fire going to warm the place up, but Peri could tell he wasn’t laying it right. All the heat from his matches and half-burned paper was not being trapped—wasted up the flue. A part of her wanted to slide from the stool and fix it. Another part, the indifferent, complacent part of her, didn’t care. Her focus blurred when he swore under his breath, his words tickling something in her brain. She’d heard him swear at a fire before. Her memories had more holes than Swiss cheese. It could be anything.
“You’ll never be rid of me,” Jack said as he tucked behind the bar and helped himself to a mug of beer. She knew he wasn’t here. She knew he wasn’t filling up a glass. She knew he wasn’t downing it with his Adam’s apple bobbing and a thin ribbon of beer escaping to run down his chin—but it sure looked as if he was.
Jack was a constant reminder of everything she hated about herself: her insecurity, her dependence on others, a show of strength that was just that—a show, nothing more. And she wanted him gone, even if that meant she’d never have a memory of what had happened that night. She’d killed the man she loved. Why would she want to remember that?
“You think Allen wiping that night will do any good?” Jack mocked as he leaned over the counter. The beer spilled onto the bar surface, and Peri wondered if she’d feel anything if she wiped her hand across it. “Opti is in you, babe. You liked it. You were powerful and that turned you on. Now you’re nothing but a dangerous liability who can’t remember shit. That’s why you didn’t tell the alliance they were coming. You want to go back.”
Peri’s eyes flicked past him to Silas swearing over his fire. The government, embarrassed at the unfolding story, had granted the alliance control of Opti’s shutdown, and at Fran’s urging, Silas was taking up management of Overdraft, maintaining a way for Opti’s anchors and drafters to come in without reprisal. “I can’t get this stupid thing to light,” Silas grumped. “The instant this place starts making money, I’m ripping it out and putting in a gas burner.” He straightened, sighing when the gray smoke turned black and vanished.
Restless, Peri spun the stool, her disjointed attention landing on the oddest of things: one of the bulbs in the lotto kiosk was out, three of the tables had claw feet while the rest did not, and the wall-size gaming screen in the lounge was making an almost unheard squeal of faulty electronics. Her attention went to the clock on the microwave behind the bar, and at exactly noon, the at-table menus all reset—just as she knew they would. Why do I know this stuff?
A thump from the back room made her jump, but it was just Allen, and he shouted he’d found a footstool. Silas stood dejectedly before his defunct fire, his hands on his narrow hips as he waited for something to happen. “Peri, you’re better at this than me,” he complained as he wiped his ash-coated fingers on his jeans. “You want to take a go at it?”
“Sure.” Peri slid from the stool. Leaving her coat at the bar, she halted when she realized she’d not only drifted from her intended path, but that she couldn’t bring her eyes to the dance floor.
Frowning, she forced herself to look at her feet, heart pounding as she inched them out farther. But her attention wandered…. A dark presence at her shoulder became Jack, insufferably confident as he looked at the same chunk of yellow floor, whispering, “You’re never going to be rid of me. You like who Opti made you into, and I’m going to haunt you until you accept that. You’re bad, just like me, and without me, you’re nothing.”
“Liar,” she breathed. Wavering, she stared at the floor. Her head throbbed, and Jack chuckled. Something had happened here. She knew this. She would remember it.
“Peri?”
She looked up, the world cycling outward in shock. Allen and Silas both looked at her in concern. Her hands were in fists, and she shook her fingers free. “Did I draft?” she asked, not remembering Allen coming back in, and Silas shook his head, clearly worried. Allen’s weak smile was uneasy, and Jack, still holding his beer, snickered, brushing by her with arrogant confidence.
“You’ll never lose me, Peri. But go ahead and try. You’re more fun when you’re fighting.” Smirking, he sat on the raised hearth, patting the stone beside him.
“You were trying to break the loop,” Silas said as he put a log on the fire—which promptly collapsed. “The sooner we get this done, the better.”
“You think?” Anxious, Peri took the brown plastic footstool from Allen and set it clunking down before a straight-back chair pulled before the fireplace. Jack snickered when she sat on the low stool, her knees almost up to her elbows.
The silver threads in Jack’s black shirt glinted as he crouched beside her, whispering in her ear. “So many bad things we did, you and me. I’m going to be here, babe,” he said, tapping his temple. “Reminding you of every single one of them, because you enjoyed it. And you think you’re going to let it go? Never. Not my girl. Bill is right. You’re the best, and you don’t let your best go. Ever.”