Jeb's head hung.
He wanted Beth; his entire being knew that if he could have just a few minutes in her presence, everything would right itself.
However, there was so much wrong in the here and now that Jeb didn't know when he would be with her again.
His comrades faces bore a grimness he knew matched his own.
“What is this?”
“We thought you'd been deported with the others,” Calvin said.
Jeb stared blankly at the two.
“Newsflash, guys—we've been gone for five years,” Jacky said.
Calvin's face wore a stunned expression. “I—when so many of us were taken, I assumed you'd been one of them. We never dreamed that you were on a mission that lasted that long.”
Jeb dismissed their surprise.
He drew the shaking Daphne into his arms, turning his body to watch what others might be doing. It was the earliest part of the morning. He'd taken out three Reflectives, and aside from the girl who took the brothel money—they were alone.
It was a stroke of sheer luck, and he knew it. The stabilizer fire should have alerted people.
That it hadn’t spoke of the frequency of its use.
“Leave them. Let us return to my dwelling.”
Calvin and Kennet wore identical expressions, their eyebrows cocked.
Jeb was not asking.
Daphne huddled against him as they marched swiftly back the way they'd come.
Jeb would get fast answers, then he would seek Beth.
His body thrummed with the need.
*
Beth threw a forearm over her eyes.
“Okay, I give up.”
“Excellent,” Slade said and offered a hand.
Beth flattened her palms on the ground and pushed to her feet, ignoring his hand. He took it back.
Beth heard a sucking sound, and the young bloodling who'd been wounded by the lion nightloper was struggling to breathe through his perforated lungs.
She ran to him and got down on her haunches. Beth was greeted by frantic eyes.
She turned to Slade, a question on her lips, but he had just beheaded the nightloper.
The entire head, its mane matted with blood, rolled over and over again until it landed at her feet.
Beth shook with rage.
She stepped over the head and stalked over to Slade. A maddening smile on his brutally handsome face, he wore the nightlopers’ blood like war paint.
Beth never broke her stride; she slapped his face as hard as she could.
It was a hard strike.
Though Beth was female, ultimately, she was Reflective.
His face rocked back, and he staggered from the blow.
“I will not take your hand so you can drop me like garbage. I will not aid you in anything while you murder those that couldn't get to me—or abide how cavalier you are with the safety of your own people.” Her voice had grown lower with her fury, the last word etched in a vibrating intensity that was wrung out of her.
Beth's chest heaved, and she held her ground when every instinct told her to run.
He was the biggest male she'd ever encountered, but she readied her fists to the sides of her jaw.
“Do you think that bee sting of a swat you just delivered hurts me?”
Beth's hands dropped. “Yes.”
Of course it had; she'd given it everything she had. It would have broken a Three male's jaw like brittle glass.
“No!” he bellowed, and spittle and the loose hot blood of his enemies flew as he strode to her.
“I am bloodling, female! Not some weak Reflective.”
“Yeah?” Beth asked.
She kicked him square in his inflated testicles.
He crumpled where he stood.
Worked like a charm. All males had the same parts, regardless of the sector.
It had not been a glancing blow. She turned to run, and a fist met her temple.
“Thank you, Jasper—you just made things much easier.”
Beth made a small sound as she fell.
It sounded like regret to her ears.
She wanted to fight Ryan, just as she had the nightloper—she had just disabled her only protector.
Slade, her mind whispered miserably.
Beth's pride had endangered her.
Ryan had hit her soundly, and she remained in that state of weary consciousness, vaguely aware of the motion as Ryan scooped her from the ground and squired her away.
Her mind was in abject denial of her future.
She would be payment for Ryan's foibles.
*
They sat in a loose circle in the middle of Jeb's living room. He couldn't believe his ears, so Kennet was repeating the debacle.
“Inductee Ryan worked in collusion with another dissenting faction. Between the two of them, they produced a mass inoculation to induce twenty-four-hour comas. In pairs, they managed to reflect all of us out of Papilio.”
“And you?” Jeb asked, swinging his finger from one to the other.
“We professed to agree with their regime, knowing that we could infiltrate and take the entire thing apart piece by piece.”
“Five years?” Jeb asked.
“It is the two of us against a dozen of them. And we are the law in this sector, Jeb. The hidden corruption of Papilio has found its place,” Kennet said.
“And they are many,” Calvin added.
Jeb scrubbed his face, chancing a glance at Daphne, who was racked with cold sweat and shivering, though she lay covered with three blankets.
“Withdrawals. She's all hooked on drugs,” Jacky said.
Jeb paced, ignoring Jacky’s comment. “You say they're on Sector One.”
Calvin nodded. “And without jumping…”
Jeb nodded. It was like a slow death. Reflectives were meant to jump. Not jumping was a special torture.
“Ryan has some kind of gambling ring going on. I don't know what it is, but we suspect that it involves Reflectives being pitted one against the other.”
Jeb sucked in a breath.
Jacky stood. “You mean like cock fighting?”
The three males gave him frowns. “God, nimrods, not penises—like roosters. Pit bulls?” His brows hiked. “Yeah, and you're all so smart from Sector Ten.”
Calvin and Kennet stood, six and a half feet of finely honed warrior Reflective muscle.
“Okay, eff me. Chill your shit out. What I'm saying is—we have the same crap in American.”
“Is it sanctioned?” Calvin asked.
Jacky made a disbelieving noise. “Hell, no.”
“This isn't, either. If it is fighting to the death…”
“It'd be bad,” Kennet gave Calvin a significant glance.
Jeb stared at them both. “Ryan took Beth to Sector One.”
The two had matching sick expressions.
“She's female.”
Jeb nodded. “It is the worst place for her to be, besides Thirteen.”
Silence fell.
He knew Calvin and Kennet were neutral at best about Beth. But they needed to know.
“My timepiece has run out, and I have found my soul mate.”
“Finally! A piece of joyous news.”
Calvin grinned at Jeb, looking around as though Jeb might have squeezed her into his back pocket.
Kennet continued to give Jeb a hard look. The wheels of his mind turning were clear on his countenance. Like Beth, his thoughts were plain to all who saw him.
Jeb saw when realization clicked into place.
Jeb's silence probably played a part.
“No,” Kennet said quietly.
Calvin gave him a sharp look. “What…?” He turned to Jeb.
“Okay—who the hell just died?” Jacky commented, his eyes moving to each Reflective's face.
They ignored Daphne as she moaned in the background, muttering requests for drugs.
“It is Beth Jasper.”
Calvin sat back on the couch. “You can'
t be serious.” His patent disbelief irked Jeb.
“As if I have a choice what the Principle dictates.”
“He's right,” Kennet said.
“Who gives a ripe shit?!” Jacky said. “They’re supposed to be together. That clown Ryan jumped her to this criminal planet with… what the hell is there?”
“Bloodlings and nightlopers,” Jeb supplied. And Principle knows what else. They'd only scratched the surface of cautious exploration.
Jacky paused.
“Scary shit,” Jacky said, then announced, “And you dudes are worried about Beth being half-Reflective? Get it together, dudes!” Jacky stabbed his finger at the ceiling.
“The boy is right,” Jeb began, and Jacky scowled.
“If we can find Beth…” He hesitated, “When we find Beth, she has the ability with a big enough water source, to jump all the Reflectives back.”
“Harmony could be restored.”
Quiet filled the space.
“This is so Hallmark moment, guys.”
They looked blankly at Jacky.
“Nevermind,” he muttered.
Jeb turned back to Calvin and Kennet. “There's a chance if we go now.”
Jacky whirled around, one name on his mind. “Maddie!”
The pause choked them.
“Where is she?”
The two Reflectives were silent.
“Let me guess—Sector effing One, right? With all the creeper dudes…”
Jeb nodded. He knew what their silence meant: affirmative.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cold water hit Beth's face, going up her nose and knocking her off the perch she'd been half-conscious on.
She sat straight up, sputtering.
Ryan's grinning face greeted her.
She coughed and spit water out of her mouth and nostrils.
Beth clamped down on her panic, channeling the adrenaline for when she might need it because her ravenous hunger stole her reserves moment by moment.
“Wakey, wakey, mongrel.” Ryan's grin broadened.
“I really hate that you can't get my name right.” Beth swiped the last of the water out of her eyes.
Ryan had been overconfident, standing too close to Beth, and she lashed out, kicking him dead center in the jaw.
That open self-congratulatory smile was wiped away in a wash of blood.
Heal that, prick.
She'd never wished more strongly for combat boots. Her bare foot was just not as effective.
Ryan spun, trying to take her foot, but she was slightly faster than he was because of her smaller body mass.
She avoided the trap of his snagging fingers and leapt off the table she'd been on.
Ragged faces of Reflectives were behind bars in every corner her eyes visited.
Beth shelved her shock and searched for a means of escape. Precious seconds had ticked by as she’d taken in the cells that held her fellow Reflectives.
Low and narrow windows sat just below where the stone walls met the twenty-foot ceiling.
Bars prevented escape while meager light and ventilation leaked through.
Beth dismissed the unclimbable walls of stone immediately—no footholds.
Her assessment took three heartbeats of time she couldn't spare. She found the door and bolted, her heart full for her fellow Reflectives she left behind while fleeing.
Beth could not help them if she didn't escape.
Ryan caught her by her long hair and dragged her backward.
Beth gritted her teeth to stop from crying out.
He wound her hair around his wrist and jerked her face close to his. Beth presumed he was going to say something he thought was clever.
She surprised him, grabbing the back of his skull, and jerked it as she brought her knee up. She smashed his newly healed nose and the mess she'd made of his mouth.
He wailed, letting go of her hair, but it remained twined around his forearm as his hands automatically went to cup his nose, dragging her backward a second time.
Beth spun in the opposite direction, unwinding her hair. Then she ran.
Ryan staggered after her, calling her names far worse than mongrel.
She hit the door, and cheers from the captive Reflectives drowned out Ryan's agony.
Beth jerked open the door and was met by a huge male of indeterminate lineage.
She reacted instantly, smacking him open-palmed in the middle of his chest then pivoting in the opposite direction.
She heard him land, but she kept running, her arms pumping, the din of the Reflectivesʼ screamed urgings spurring her on.
Two guards approached, and Beth dove, swinging low and hard, using her stature to her advantage. She brutalized the crotch of one and slammed her elbow backward into the stomach of the other.
They fell to the side of her like water off the bow of a ship.
She reached the door that led outside and thrust it open as she clapped her hand on the handle.
Beth threw herself in a running leap, clearing a bank of five, three-meter-wide steps.
She rolled in the air, landing with cat-like precision on the unforgiving gravel skirting the building. Small pebbles abraded her palms.
She rose, and Slade and twenty-odd bloodlings stood looking at her.
Icy adrenaline filled her veins as they moved around her in a loose circle. Slade’s face was set in stone—against her.
The doors slapped open behind Beth, and she put her back to Slade. She used her damp sleeve as already damp with blood to wipe fresh blood, grime, and sweat off her brow.
A bleeding Ryan strode out of the door. The man Beth vaguely remembered shoving on his ass gave Beth a big grin.
Let them come.
Shifting her weight, Beth flicked her eyes at the two guards; one had his hand by his tender groin, while the other glowered at her.
She'd thought Ryan hated her before. But that dislike had morphed into something else entirely.
The man with the grin began clapping.
Loud brittle strikes sounded, each one punching her sensitive eardrums.
“Bravo… my little hopper, bravo.”
The clapping abruptly ceased, and Beth tensed, ready for whatever they would deliver.
“I am Dimitri,” he announced.
Wonderful. The ring leader of whatever illegal crap Ryan was trying to use her to pay off.
Beth said nothing, her eyes pegged on the two guards and Ryan.
She was discomforted by how Ryan's gaze stayed locked on her like a trophy.
She could feel the bloodlings behind her like the electric conduit of hundreds of years before her time, a low thrumming energy working like a big battery at her back.
Beth swallowed over a parched throat.
Dimitri continued, “That was quite a performance.”
“I wasn't performing. I was escaping,” Beth clarified.
Troll.
“She needs a lesson of manners,” Dimitri said thoughtfully, and his guards muttered their assent.
“Dimitri,” Ryan began, “she is a female, but Reflective. You can't expect her to just roll over.”
Ryan set her teeth on edge. Even with the danger she was in, Beth still found room for anger. Oh now I am Reflective?
Dimitri turned to Ryan. “Oh? As you did?”
Ryan's face instantly turned to contained fury.
“It seems that she bested you.” His light mocking-gold eyes turned to Beth.
Nightloper, lion descent. Six feet seven, two hundred eighty pounds, snake-like reflexes. She sensed something else she could not identify, also a potential problem.
Dimitri certainly hadn't been fast enough to thwart her.
However, Beth wasn't arrogant enough to assume that the element of surprise would be on her side a second time.
If she had to face him in a real battle, he would hurt her.
But she would hurt him, as well.
It made her lips curl in a mocking smile.
“Look at he
r,” Dimitri commented, making casual progress as he descended the stairs, closing in on her position.
Beth held her ground.
She had nowhere to go, with bloodlings at her back and Ryan and Dimitri's guards at her front.
It was a juggernaut.
“She is a tiny hopper,” he continued, making a measuring gesture to his pecs with a hand.
“Yes, well, this tiny hopper,” Beth enunciated slowly, the sarcasm dripping off every word, “knocked you on your big ass.”
“A lesson in manners indeed,” he repeated, then he was on her, using the preternatural speed nightlopers were known for.
Beth fought with what little she had left, every move choreographed like a beautiful dance against him.
Her fists sang along his ribcage, tapping the bones like a fine instrument.
She peppered him with abuse everywhere that was soft and vulnerable.
Dimitri didn't grab her hair, but slapped her arms out of the way, flinging both by her sides, and Beth leapt backward in a midair summersault. He barreled into her body as she tumbled through the air.
She sank her hands into his neck and hung on like a tick on a canine, throwing her head forward in a brutal skull strike.
His hold broke and Beth fell, her head on numbing fire.
Something caught her before she hit the ground.
Beth craned her neck and locked gazes with Slade.
She used the moment wisely, pushing the apology he deserved into her eyes.
Beth banked on how she wore her emotions plainly.
The barest tilt of his lips told her he got it loud and clear.
“Don't dump me,” she whispered, her body bone tired, her stomach so empty she was beyond hunger, her head a gnarled knot of pain.
Beth managed a small smile at the private joke.
Slade brushed the sweaty hair from her forehead.
“Never, tiny frog.”
Beth closed her eyes, safe for that moment.
Who knew for the next?
*
“Principle dammit!” Jeb cursed, kicking his foot out, water droplets flinging back into the shallow part of the ocean of Sector One.
“I think we have more things to worry about than water-logged boots,” Calvin commented, his dark-blond hair vaguely red as the dawn spread across the mountain range of this quadrant.
Jeb scanned the peaks all around them, the spikes of the tops like arrows against a lightening sky. Peach and tangerine crawled across the tops, tinging them like weapons dipped in blood.
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