Stunned, Peri let go, gasping for breath as she fell to the floor. I can’t let her get the accelerator, Peri thought. Knowing she was down, she reached her mind out, finding a still-point of motion five seconds in the past. Her mind would buffer itself by forgetting everything she’d changed the moment she caught up with the present, so she would change very little, and with a curious side step of mental gymnastics, she pushed a two-block area five seconds into the past.

The woman stiffened as if feeling it, and Peri held her breath, watching the flames from her candles flash blue. The tint jumped from molecule to molecule, the room hazed blue . . . then cleared . . .

And suddenly Peri wasn’t gasping for breath on the floor, but still on the woman’s back.

“Let’s try this again,” Peri muttered, her memory of the next five seconds very clear—for the moment—and she dropped off before the woman could smash her into the wall. Teeth clenched, Peri grabbed the woman’s long red hair and spun her, flinging her into the wall.

The woman hit with a thud and fell. “Ow . . .”

Panting, Peri dove for the accelerator, ripping free the Glock she’d taped to the underside of the couch.

God help me, Peri thought as time caught up and everything flashed an amazingly clear shade of red and settled.

Time again ran smooth. Peri stood firm as a familiar disconnection raced through her. The last thing she remembered was clinging to the woman’s back. Obviously she had drafted to rub out a fatal mistake, and in the doing had forgotten how she’d broken her choke hold, or how the accelerator had gotten into her pocket, or why the woman was sitting on the floor, shaking her head and trying to focus. Peri could guess, though, seeing as she was standing beside the couch with the Glock she’d taped under it in her hand.

“Move, and I’ll blow your head clean off,” Peri said, but the woman was staring at her from the floor, her green eyes wide and wondering.

“Whoa,” she said, narrow hand raised in submission. “What just happened? Kind of like déjà vu, only I remember it different, not the same.”

Peri hesitated, the Glock’s aim never faltering. “You felt that?” she said, shocked. Most people couldn’t sense it when she drafted. Jack could, which was why he was her partner. “Who are you? Is this some kind of Opti test? Bill? Are you listening? This isn’t funny.”

The woman snorted, cautiously sitting up and untangling herself. “No, it isn’t. Al put you up to this?” she asked as she wound her hair into a makeshift, messy bun and sat there, tired and blowing a missed strand out of her eyes. “Who in hell are you, small, dark, and deadly?”