Peri pushed back, her heart pounding as her shoulder thudded against the leg of a desk. Jack was kneeling before her, and she looked at a door and the green light blinking on the locking panel. She was on the floor of a midnight-dark corner office. Her chin hurt, but the rest of her face was in agony. A bloody knife lay beside her, and a man in a security uniform twitched not three feet away, his life’s blood soaking the carpet.

“It’s okay, Peri,” Jack soothed, and she scrambled to her feet before the blood could reach her, slowing when she realized everything hurt. “It’s done.”

I drafted, she thought, looking at her palm to see J IN OFFICE. She’d left him? Heart beating fast, she picked up her sticky knife, conscious of Jack’s sudden wariness. She’d left him but she’d made it back, obviously, and he would return her memory of the night’s events.

A security guard was dead. Her knife thrust had killed him—she recognized the entry wound as one she knew. A handheld radio hissed, and a Glock lay in the guard’s grip. She smelled gunpowder. They were in a high-rise, the thirtieth floor at least. It was night. They were on task. She’d drafted to rub out a mistake, and in doing so, had forgotten everything. Charlotte? she wondered, spotting the crown building out the window.

“Did I die again?” she whispered.

“Pretty close. We gotta go,” he said, and she winced when he touched her elbow. Her short-job bag was under his arm and she took it, feeling unreal.

“Did we get what we came for? How long did I draft?” Peri asked, numb as she looked at the dead man. She only killed someone when they killed her first. Damn it all to hell, she hated it when she drafted.

“Not long, and it’s in my phone.” Eyes pinched, Jack stuck his head out the door and looked around. The office beyond was quiet. “What do you remember?”

Less than I like. “Wait.” Peri knelt beside the dead guard, cutting a button from his uniform with the knife still bloody from his own death. It wasn’t a trophy, but re-­creating a memory would be easier with a talisman to focus it on: blood, the feel of the sticky blade, the scent of gunpowder, and the taste of . . . chocolate?

“You made a reservation, right?” Jack asked, looking awkward in his concern. “Did you write it down? I don’t know why you insist on keeping our post-task date a secret.”