“Why are you crying?” Again.
Madeline hiccuped back a sob. “I'm so damn grateful, I simply don't have the words.”
Beth blinked. It made her resistance to sharing her domicile less frustrating. Madeline behaved like a person who'd never received a kindness in her whole life.
That sobered Beth in many ways, some which struck very close to home.
Beth didn't know exactly what to do with the gratitude so she ignored it.
“Let me show you your room.”
A smile tilted the corners of Madeline's mouth as she followed Beth, which irked her.
She hated being so easy to read.
Beth walked down the dimly lit corridor and depressed a tarnished brass thumb latch, pushing open the wooden door.
A miniscule window peered into the ancient woods behind the domicile, now kept in the deep shadow of night's invasion. Only the tops of the trees appeared to escape, reluctantly letting go of their silhouettes to the cape of true evening.
A long, narrow bed stood underneath the small convex portal of a single pane of glass. A tiny nightstand with a pulse light was centered atop the adjacent square wooden tabletop.
A scrolling design of metal loops took up the headboard in a chipped blood red. The quilt made by one of the Crafters snugged the corners and foot. A lone stuffed bear—the only thing Beth had been allowed to keep from her childhood—lay anchored amid two thick pillows.
Madeline walked over to a small bookcase opposite the bed and ran her finger over the spines of many tales of the dark fey, Beth’s favorite.
The dwelling was too ancient for anything modern like an integral closet, but there was a wardrobe against a corner that jogged to accommodate the tiny fireplace in Beth's chamber. It mirrored the room they stood in.
Beth went to the wardrobe and opened the pine doors, placing the backpack inside the bottom, noting a dozen empty hangers, starving for clothes, hanging on the brass rod.
She softly closed it and turned.
Madeline's face clenched to restrain her emotions. After a few deep breaths, she said, “This is wonderful. But…”
Beth frowned.
Madeline laughed. “Is there a bathroom here? Everything looks so antique-y.”
Beth's lips twitched. “Yes. We call it a cleansing room in this sector.”
It was Madeline's turn to frown. “That's weird.”
Beth shrugged. It was what it was.
“I'm desperate for a shower. I feel skanky and—yuk,” Madeline said, taking a subtle whiff of herself.
“I'm sympathetic.”
“Do you want to use the shower first?” Madeline asked, tucking back inside her turtle shell.
Principle but she is reticent.
“No, you go ahead and cleanse first. I will follow.”
Madeline's brows quirked. “You talk different here.”
Beth nodded. “I am home.”
“Are you speaking Latin?”
“What do you think?” Beth asked, curious.
Madeline shrugged. “I can't tell.”
Beth looked down at her feet, overcome with all the strangeness of the current circumstances.
Her face rose. “Yes,” she answered.
“Oh,” Madeline said. “I'm gonna go then and…” She indicated the corridor.
Beth answered, “Second portal on the left.”
Madeline hesitated. “Thanks.”
After a few minutes of silence, the commode flushed, and the cleanser was turned on.
The white noise of water drowned out the silence, and Beth walked to her sofa then plopped down in exhaustion.
She unlaced her boots and dragged her feet out of the shoes she'd been wearing for three days.
Sleepily, her mind reminded her that it had really been more like a month. That made her mouth crack into a sloppy grin.
The last thing she remembered was feeling dead on her feet.
Then it occurred to her she was no longer on her feet.
Beth fell into a deep sleep.
The butterflies stood guard over their charge, only the soft beat of their wings revealing their existence.
After a time, a large periwinkle butterfly floated downward with the expertise of practice and landed on the sleeping female Reflective.
It tucked its wings tight to its body and nestled against the soft crook of her neck.
Beth slept on, oblivious to the butterfly who gave her comfort while she dreamed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Hey, man! How do I turn this dumb thing on?”
Jeb cracked an eyelid. His every muscle ached, begging for more sleep. His eyes rolled over the countertop of his kitchen, where crumbs, a dirty knife still caked with too much peanut butter, and an open sack of bread stood like a contaminated island in the middle of his kitchen.
Jeb's eyes fluttered shut.
“Jeb!” Jacky yelled, two feet from his face.
He sat up in one motion, staring at the teen like imminent death. Just call him Reaper.
He was tired and hungry. He felt sore because he was, and if he'd thought he had escaped host duty, he was sorely mistaken.
Obviously, Jacky was on another sector zone for time.
“Hey, man… you look like ass.”
Jeb growled, and Jacky stepped back. He was at a safe distance and Jeb calculated how far he would have to reach to ring Jacky’s neck.
Instead, he scrubbed his face. He ran his finger through his long corkscrew hair. He longed for a close-shorn haircut, but his return jump to Three would require him to keep the mop for a time longer.
“Well,” Jacky asked, retreating one more step.
Definitely smart.
“It's second portal to the right.”
“Thanks.” Jacky gave him a considering look.
“You're not much of a morning person.”
Jeb glared at him.
“Fine, eff me.”
Jeb heard the door slam and sprang off the couch, flinging his arms to loosen the stiffness.
He padded in his underwear to the kitchen and wiped the crumbs off the quartz slab. After capping the peanut butter, he twisted the sack with the bread inside and neatly tucked the whole business inside his cupboard.
He turned around, and the lathered peanut butter mocked his normally sterile surfaces.
Their current living arrangement was so not going to work.
The boy had atrocious manners and a tongue that never stopped with insults, both inferred and actual. On top of it all, he was not even Reflective. All of it plucked at Jeb's innate sense of dignity.
He jammed an empty coffee cup into the pulse dispenser and selected cappuccino. If he didn't have something special that morning, he would never make it through the day. He would spoil it for everyone who came into contact with him with his foul mood.
As the smell of the brew filled the kitchen, Jeb heard the soft sound of the sunflower showerhead, like rain falling, from his cleansing room.
He frowned.
Hope that brat doesn't dirty up the whole place.
Too late.
Jeb leaned against the doorjamb of one of the only modern domicile complexes in Barringer.
It was completely square and built with modern materials that mimicked the old. Papiliones were proud of their fourteen- to sixteenth-century architecture.
Jeb thought the looks were okay, and he understood the need to preserve their history, but he had refused to deal with drafts, noise, and lack of function. The first thing he'd done upon moving into his dwelling was take it down to the studs and make every wire, gadget, and inclination of the pulse variety.
He sipped his delicious morning solace and surveyed his guest’s accommodations, which looked as if a cyclone had torn through it.
The coverlet from the bed was strewn haphazardly, bunched tightly into a corner of the bed.
Socks so dirty they could walk to the clothes holder stood at disgusting attention, mid-heave in the center of his tile
d floor.
Whatever drink the boy had consumed the night before had left a wet ring on the thick glass-topped integral bar that ran the length of the headboard.
When Jeb had said yes to housing the boy until their return jump, he had not considered it very carefully.
He wondered how Jasper was faring with Madeline.
“There's no towel!” Jacky wailed from the cleansing room.
It’s going to be a long visit.
*
Jeb fell into step beside Jasper.
She looked as tired as he felt.
“How'd your night go?” she asked, but something about the tilt of her mouth let Jeb know that she had an inkling of just how shitty it had been.
“I'm thinking you got the good end of the stick.”
Jasper grinned.
“Maybe,” she confirmed.
Jeb glared at her, not seeing the humor. “Oh, come on, Merrick. When's the jump?”
One long week away.
Waiting at least a week was mandatory between jumps. He almost felt as if he could have gone two weeks before going back to Three. It'd left an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth—and an unexpected houseguest.
Jasper stopped.
“Principle, you look depressed.”
He was, but Jeb would soon have the cure.
“I—Principle… that boy.”
Jasper's lips quirked. “He's a handful.”
“That's the understatement of the world.”
“Pull up your big-boy boxers, Merrick.”
He stopped, pegging his hands on his hips. “I see someone is still enjoying the Hades out of Three lingo.”
Jasper laughed. “Yeah, but you walked right into it.”
“Walked right into what? And why are you using Three language?”
Ryan looked between them both. Jeb narrowed his gaze on the flippant Reflective. Without realizing it, he’d stationed himself protectively in front of Jasper. When he noticed, he moved aside.
Ryan flicked his eyes to the movement and smirked.
“I don't answer to you, Ryan.”
“Yeah, I got that. What about her?” He moved his jaw in Jasper’s direction. “Seems she leads your around by your dick, if you ask me.”
“Yet—he didn't, Ryan,” Jasper said.
Jeb knew a preparatory stance when he saw one. Jasper was keyed to fight, and Ryan certainly seemed as if he could bring it again.
What is this extreme animosity between them?
“Settle down, Ryan.” Jeb turned to Jasper.
“Jasper.”
She glared at Ryan then turned passive features to Jeb.
“Let's not involve Rachett. Ignore his stupid ass.”
“I'm far from stupid, Captain Merrick.”
His official title sounded like slur coming from Ryan's mouth. He hated addressing him officially.
He obviously hated Merrick.
That was fine. Merrick crossed his arms, smiling wide. “Listen well, Inductee Ryan.”
They stared at each other.
“I don't know what this pissing contest is between you and fellow Inductee Jasper, but I want it to cease and desist.” His eyes went from Jasper to Ryan, who stood with an uneasy space between them.
“You spent a month of fun at Sector One.”
Ryan's face became granite at the mention of One.
“You say you're smart? Then act like the IQ you have rather than your boot size.”
Ryan's expression soured.
“You're not my lead. I don't have to show you anything but pat civility. You lead with Jasper.” Ryan took an irritated swipe against where his inhibitor timepiece disc lay beneath his skin.
Jeb stepped into his personal space. As tall and muscular as Jeb was, Ryan was his equal in size.
Ryan didn't put his finger on Jeb's chest, but it hovered there.
“Stay out of my fucking way, Captain Merrick.”
Using the heel of his palms, Jeb slapped Ryan's chest, knocking him backward. “You get off my dick, and stay away from my partner, or we're going to have words.”
Ryan leaned toward Jeb, a vein throbbing in the fair skin over his temple.
“And it won't be the talking kind.”
Ryan had all the contained violence of a Reflective on high combative alert.
Then he trained that vision on Jasper. “Stay out of my fucking way, mongrel.”
“Thanks for the love.” Jasper fluttered her fingers at him.
Ryan cursed and spun on his heel, diving off down the ancient main street. His back straight, his uniform without a wrinkle, he looked back as he got farther away.
Jasper release a breath that sounded suspiciously like relief.
“Don't incite him.”
“He brings out the best in me.”
Jeb stared at her.
“I don't think so—no.”
*
Jeb walked beside Jasper, a companionable silence stretched between them. Ryan had gone, and they made their way without hopping, just enjoying the casual exercise.
Autumn had rolled in seemingly overnight, and the deciduous trees’ leaves bragged their flaming colors of orange, scarlet, and burnt yellow along the sidewalks of the Barringer district.
“Just tell me, Jasper.”
Her silent answer was long enough that Jeb slowed, but she spoke, and he kept walking, his eyes on the old buildings. The Cause Headquarters towered in the distance.
“We were young ,and I was sparing with the other candidates.”
“How many cycles?”
“I'm a year younger than a lot of the males.”
“For Principle's sake—why? Why would Rachett put you forward early.”
“I tested in.”
Jeb did stop then. “At five cycles?”
She nodded. He whistled. “Damn—that's young.”
“Yeah,” she answered, blowing a strand of hair out of her face that had loosened from her usual braids.
“So,” she continued, looking at him sideways, and Jeb noticed her eyes were nearly black. Her irises hid her pupil like an ebony watercolor. Most people of Papilio were fair-complexioned, with light eyes. Beth’s combination of dark hair and eyes was unusual. Jeb decided that Jasper's looks had grown on him. The more he was around her, the more interesting she became.
“I was twelve cycles, and he, thirteen.”
Jasper had switched to Latin, seemingly without realizing. She liked the Three dialect so much that she often spoke it on Papilio, even when she wasn’t practicing for jumps to Sector Three.
He suspected she had digressed into Latin under stress. The memory alone had visibly shaken her.
“He took me aside—kissed me.”
Jeb felt his face tighten. Obviously, no Reflective pairing would ever be tolerated. They would have been very aware, even then.
“And?”
She slowed then stopped walking. “I reacted badly. I slapped him. He tried to convince me we could be something. Something secret.”
“Ah.” Merrick gave her a sideways glance. “He thought to have a little black-sheep booty?”
Jasper faced him. He'd just stepped in a pile of shit. His words had been ill-chosen.
But she surprised him. “Yes. As crude as your understanding is—that was exactly it. I am—”she waved her palm around—“an enigma.”
Jeb palmed his chin. “He wanted a go at the forbidden. And you told him no.”
Her dark eyes grew impossibly darker.
“Yes,” she agreed quietly.
They began to walk silently toward TCH.
Jasper said nothing for a time, then, “I had rejected him, and I'd let it pass. But he'd not forgotten.” Her eyes met his then slid away. “He was chosen to spar with me, and I didn't understand…”
She held her breath and Jeb answered for her, “His potential for cruelty.”
She exhaled in a rush.
“I was hospitalized for three days.”
Jasper turned to hi
m and lifted the bottom of her uniform shirt. The tail of her button-down navy-blue blouse came untucked, and she rolled up the hem to reveal a vaguely heart-shaped scar.
Jeb could feel his heartbeat pulse at his forehead.
They stood like that in the middle of Main Street with her shirt raised to expose skin like alabaster, unmarred except for the puckered scar tissue, now a faint pink.
“What is that?” Jeb asked quietly.
Jeb turned away when he saw water fill her eyes but heard her answer nonetheless.
“His heel.”
Her words etched their way across his soul, never to be forgotten.
The knowledge undid him.
*
Jeb
Jacky and Madeline watched the sparring with wide eyes as Jeb dove for Jasper's legs. She flung him on his back, and the wind sailed out of his lungs as if he were a beached whale.
Damn, she’s good at defense. But her offense needed practice.
He fought without breathing, which was never an easy task, then jerked her against his body easily and rolled over on top of her.
The soft mat cushioned her against true injury.
Protect. He fought his caution so that he could spar with her like a partner ought.
She took advantage of his hesitation and nailed Jeb in the stomach with the hardest part of her body, as she'd been trained to do, driving her elbow deep into his gut.
Jeb doubled over as she stood, confident in his loss.
Despite his shortness of breath and bruised ribs, his hand snaked out, latching her ankle and jerking it from underneath her.
“Jasper!” Madeline shrieked.
“Shut up, Maddie. I wanna watch.”
“No! He'll hurt her.”
“No, he won't—don't be such a girl about it.” Jacky’s undertone of uncertainty gave Merrick pause.
Jasper landed on her back, slapping her palms on the mat to soften the fall. She kicked him with her free leg, and Jeb captured that ankle, twisting it. She countered, rolling in the direction of the twist and sitting up and forward as she did, then punched his shoulder to dislodge him.
Pain exploded from the strike, all knuckles and speed, aimed for that vulnerable part where the shoulder dips into the arm.
He simply scooped her up and tossed her.
Jasper shrieked, landing hard on the mat, no arms fast enough to catch her fall.
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