“We’ll share,” she whispered, and he shifted her weight. “Here. Take a bite.”

His eyes lit up, and he held her securely on his lap as she angled the spork and sausage between his teeth. “I could get used to this,” he said around the mouthful, and relief dropped her shoulders. She hated it when she made a mistake this obvious.

It was all about routine. Routine wouldn’t bring her memory back, but she had to have stability to notice what was out of place—and she was making mistakes.

“Mmmm, good,” he said as he shifted her so he could help himself. “You know, Bill is really not happy about the knot. Wants us back ASAP.”

“Of course he does.” But her gaze went to the interstate. If something deeper than a memory knot cropped up, Opti could handle it. Fix her. Returning immediately was a good option. “What do you think? Back by noon?” she asked reluctantly, still wanting a defrag before she faced the couch warriors with their psych tests and evaluations. But if he was too tired …

Jack nodded, picking the walnuts out of the yogurt to eat them one by one. “If you drive. I gotta get some sleep.” He hesitated at her suddenly wide eyes. “I’m good to do a defrag, though,” he added, and Peri exhaled in relief.

It wasn’t as if she could force him, and if he had begged off because he was too tired, she would’ve had to wait. Most people at Opti thought the drafter was the ruling force in a drafter-anchor pairing, but the honest truth was, the anchor held the sanity of his or her partner—and every drafter knew it. “Now?” she asked, feeling as if they were running out of time.

Jack nodded. Pushing the half-eaten omelet away, he levered her up, his hands familiarly on her hips. A last bite of egg, and Peri took up the button. It was cold—as if it held nightmares. Jack closed the curtains, and she sat in his chair, the fabric still warm from his body.

A yellowish, amber light seeped through the thin fabric. It was like muffled sunlight, golden and warm. She sighed when he came up behind her, his strong fingers pushing into her forehead. Like a top-dollar massage therapist, he began to work the tension from her, starting at her brow, avoiding her bruise as he found and held pressure points until she exhaled the energy from her. The hot shower had eased her sore muscles, and Jack worked from her eyes to her forehead, to her jaw, to her cheekbones, and back again until Peri’s slight headache was gone. She stifled a moan when he turned to her neck and shoulders. There were lots of ways to calm the mind and body, but this was her favorite.

Peri was still holding the button lightly, her fingers flexing around it as Jack eased her tension. All drafters tied memories to objects to help make them real, but it was only the final timeline that was allowed to remain. In essence, anchors were creating a memory knot, but it was tamed and safe because there’d only be one timeline associated with it. That anchors could remember both was a wonder to Peri. Howcould there be two pasts? It didn’t make sense.

“We ate in the city at sunset,” Jack said, his voice low, almost unheard over the distant traffic. “Champagne, strong cheese, and crackers amid gold and pink light. You flirted with the waiter until he brought you a plate of almond cookies off the menu,” he said, and Peri smiled, thinking that sounded like her. “You drove the long way to the building so you could sing with the Beatles. We were the happy, tipsy couple when we entered, and no one gave us a second look. You timed me decrypting the floor’s main door. I was three seconds slow.”

But two minutes better than my best time, she thought at the memory of burning circuits. Her closed eyes twitched, and Jack’s words made her blood hum as the night became real.

“You sat, admiring the view as I worked,” he said, and she breathed easy, remembering the deep purples and shining golds of lights between the street and night sky, her confidence that they’d be back at their hotel by sunrise eating breakfast on their balcony and Jack complaining that she was poisoning him with health food.

“You pointed out the planes stacked for landing,” he said, and she drowsed, recalling her good mood. “You sampled the chocolate, everything going well. Then you heard the elevator, and you were feeling daring, so you left me.”

I left him. His worry twined about hers, magnifying it. An anchor had to be within a drafter’s reach to recognize a jump, and drafting out of his sight might have left Jack unable to bring back her memory at all. It must have been worth the risk, she thought, her grip tightening on the button, the holes sharp on her skin.

“It was the security guard,” Jack said, his touch returning to her jawline to work the new frown from her brow. Memories were coming back stronger now. She could feel Jack with her, their mental connection tightening until his emotion in her mind was as real and recognizable as hers. There’d been lights on the ceiling, doors opening that should have remained shut, a dangerous, aware lifter instead of a cream-puff guard.

Jack’s fingers fell away as their connection solidified and her closed eyes began to dart in earnest. Together they saw the man she had killed. She recognized his expression, gave Jack the knowledge that the guard had smelled like whiskey and sweat when they had collided. Jack felt her confidence when the guard opened the door, felt her pain when his fist found her eye. Peri’s heart pounded as she recalled the taste of her blood when he shot her, the smell of gunpowder, the shock of adrenaline. She was falling away from a man with gray hair….

And then Jack wrapped his mind around the blood, the pain, the scent of gunpowder, and the image of a confident man in a suit—fragmenting them. Peri’s breath came easier as the broken weave vanished, replaced by the memory of fear and the sudden give as her knife scraped on the guard’s ribs and found his lungs.