“You’re not coming with us,” Silas said, his voice muffled as he stuck his head back into the ceiling. “We’re going to tie you up and leave you here for Steiner.”
“You need me, Peri. You are not leaving me here!” Jack said, louder.
Half in and half out of the bathroom, Peri sighed. “No,” she said reluctantly. “We’re not.”
“Peri . . .” Silas complained as he came back down off the chair, putting two knives, a Glock, several magazines, clips, tactical sound bombs, and a handful of small-radius EMP grenades into her satchel and giving it a shake to settle it all.
Smug, Jack took a dollar out of his wallet and tucked it behind the frame as if it was seed money. “Suck it up, couch warrior. I’m more useful than you.”
But that wasn’t it. She might not be able to dump Jack in the trash like a ball of yarn and walk away, but she was not letting him back in her life. Not now, not ever. “No weapons,” she said, and Jack grinned as if he didn’t care. “No phone. If we feel like tying you up or locking you in a closet, you go without complaint. Got it?”
“Sure.” Jack flopped onto the couch to wait.
She retreated into the bathroom, unable to tolerate being in the bloody, filthy clothes a second longer if she had clean ones. Silas caught the door as it shut, clearly wanting a private word. “Don’t start,” she said, knowing just by the slant of his brow where his thoughts were.
“You’re going to leave him in the arena, right?” he said softly, his feelings of helplessness almost palpable.
Her eyebrows high, Peri slipped her hand behind his coat, watching him start when she took out the capped syringe. It was the accelerant, and her first flush of disappointment that it wasn’t Evocane was lost under a sudden desire to use it—become what she could be, something other than this broken thing that could be used. “Silas,” she choked, torn.
He covered her hand, glancing at Jack before angling himself deeper into the bathroom. “I didn’t bring it for you. I took it so Steiner can’t use it. It might help me create an Evocane substitute. It’s poison. You know it.”
She nodded, not liking the ugly feeling of want as he took it out of her hand and hid it away again. “You mind if I carry it?” she asked.
He resettled his coat about his shoulders. “I do, actually. Look, I know I’m not the best agent, but I can do more than bring you a new set of clothes and your phone.”
His belief that he was not fast or nimble enough to keep up cut her to her soul. “I don’t need his help. We need his help,” she said, cupping his face with his hand and drawing his eyes to her. Emotion plinked through her, and feeling uneasy, she looked over his shoulder to where Jack played with the remote. “At least for the moment.”
Silas let go, grimacing. “And the second we don’t, we leave him behind.”
“Absolutely,” she said, believing it to her core.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The cracked lime-green vinyl seats of the Pinto, which was currently parked outside a fuel station, smelled like crayons. Peri’s lip curled as she tried to decide whether she wanted to touch the vent to angle the warm air from the running engine to her, or just live with the damp chill that gripped Detroit despite the afternoon sun. Jack’s sigh was heavy from the cramped back, and her eyes shifted from the refueling station’s twin glass doors to him. He’d wanted to jack a BMW using her phone and an app that connected him to the owner’s security company, but she’d nixed it, wanting the less obtrusive, no-computer Pinto instead—even if it was a POS.
Silas was inside, changing her Harley fund into p-cash connected to a new, neutral phone. She’d pulled into the upscale hydrogen station under the excuse that there would be little traffic, but the reality was that she’d wanted to get a closer look at the new Jaguar parked under the refueling kiosk, the pack panel open as the black expended cylinders were exchanged for shiny new white ones.
It hadn’t taken her long to realize how badly she’d chosen when the government drones began to drop in and take off from the quick charge on the roof. Apparently Detroit had given the Feds a place to recharge their surveillance drones in exchange for subsidizing the expensive hydrogen stations, technology still so new that stations couldn’t survive on their own. She was making mistakes, either from fatigue or worry, and she didn’t like it.
A woman with two kids came out of the associated convenience store, squinting at the sudden light and cold. Fumbling for their hands, she headed for the nearby rail stop. The wind gusted, billowing her coat and drawing Peri’s attention to the nearby fallow green space where last year’s faded banners flapped, put there to discourage the local deer population that made their home amid the skyscrapers and light commerce. A new species was evolving, smaller, less sensitive to noise and dogs, and having the occasional white coat. They kept the environment students at Detroit University busy charting their slow, steady domestication.
A whining hiss gave her warning, and Peri lowered her head as another drone dropped in.
“He’s taking too long,” Jack said, and her thoughts went to the smut stick she’d found at her apartment. Adding a little facial-recognition deterrent would only get her noticed, though.
“I’ll go in and see if he needs some help,” Jack added.
Peri smoothly slipped Silas’s Glock from the satchel and angled it toward him, the flat finish glinting dully in the sun. “Stay in the car.”