He knew that Jasper was not fragile—she fought nearly as well as the men. But her packaging… did not match her abilities. That contrary quality attracted attention.
Jeb's eyes narrowed on the group of thugs who were already causing almost as much noise as their motorcycles had.
Jeb stood, flicking a glance to Jasper.
She tossed the napkin on top of her plate, and he frowned when he saw she had not finished her food. She could not afford to leave remnants. Principle knew when they would get their next meal.
He began to move toward the exit; he planned to pay then make their way to a body of water still enough to reflect.
He remained worried about the grayness of the day.
Sunlight—or full moonlight—was critical.
Jeb became aware of the void behind him.
He could easily scent Jasper; her natural feminine smell was so different from his other partners’.
Her adrenaline was a bitter undertone on his tongue. Jeb began to turn.
“You here to pay?” a young female asked.
He was halfway to seeing Jasper when she’d distracted him.
“Yes.”
His body finished its rotation, and his eyes found Jasper's then flew to the meaty hand that held her wrist.
Jasper was unafraid.
However it would draw attention they didn't need.
Jeb's guts ran hot with anger. He wanted the violence—he craved it. And no matter how much he reminded himself that Jasper was Reflective, it was part of the fabric of his basest nature.
Jeb found he couldn't shake off her female status as he should.
“Hey, buddy,” the girl said again.
“Yes,” Jeb snapped, reluctantly turning away from Jasper.
“Twenty bucks.” She swung a piece of paper out that had the number written on it.
In his haste to get to Jasper, Jeb made a critical error. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill out the pocket at his leg instead of the pocket high at his hip, where he'd put the smaller amount.
“Thanks,” she said in a bored tone.
Finally, thank fuck, Jeb thought, turning.
A male stood between Jeb and Jasper.
Jeb's heart rate ticked up.
“Yeah,” Jeb growled, slipping naturally into the demeanor of the sullen male of this sector.
He could not see Jasper, and he was holding over ten thousand dollars out in the open. The day was going to Hades in a handbasket.
“We're the local law around these parts,” the male announced.
Jeb assessed him instantly: six foot, two hundred twenty pounds, skilled at the weaponry of this sector, and an IQ of approximately ninety. He was just smart enough to be a problem and too dumb to recognize Jeb's destructive potential.
Syntax. “Yeah?” Jeb repeated, stalling for diction. “Which parts?”
The male hiked up his grimy pants; a paunch rode above his belt like an unwanted friend.
“Upriver, dick lick.”
Ah yes, their charming term for penis.
Sector Three did have some disadvantages. That would probably be the only attention his penis ever got: from himself. What female could abide his vileness?
“Why don't you go fuck yourself,” Jeb suggested calmly. He jabbed a finger into the male's sternum to underscore his words.
It staggered the male backward as Jeb plastered a grim smile on his face. The slow burning fire of violence inside of him flared to life—brilliant, hot, and ready.
Jeb had spoken in a low voice, filled with authority, and this slack-jaw had not responded to the comment.
However, the finger Jeb stabbed into his chest had worked beautifully.
The waitress and hostess began to back away.
Jeb estimated a five-minute window before the actual law for this quadrant arrived.
“Bruce!” a male behind the one glowering at Jeb screamed, as the moron in front of Jeb moved aside, giving him a good view of Jasper.
And he saw what had transpired while he'd been occupied with the lowlife who had just backed away.
“Keep moving,” Jeb said in clipped command.
In one hand, Jasper held the male’s hand, one of his fingers bent backward, his face pressed to the table, his elbow jacked behind his back. A citrus beverage laid claim in a sticky mess and was running over his mashed face.
Jeb smiled.
“Please, lady, I didn't mean anything.”
“Yes, you did. You call me lady now, but your actions screamed something entirely different.”
Jeb noticed Jasper had dropped her syntax like a hot iron.
Things were degrading rapidly.
She turned to Jeb, a brutal handprint against the pale skin of her face.
His fists clenched, and Jasper's eyes widened as she gave a small shake of her head.
Two came from behind her, one taking hold of her shoulder and she released the male she held and whirled.
The slap rang inside the eatery.
It was deliberate, for she could have broken his jaw with her fist.
“Release her.”
Jeb's syntax had departed him as well, and he found he didn't give a ripe fuck. However, he remembered the sector’s colorful metaphors without difficulty.
The male rocked back on his heels from the blow as the other that nearly had his finger broken, snapped to attention, wrapping Jasper in a hug from behind.
Jeb felt the wind of a strike meant for his face, and he leaned away, evading the punch by millimeters. He was at a disadvantage. His partner was fighting off five males, and he was one handed because he held the currency fisted in his right hand.
How did he assist Jasper and hang onto the money?
He didn't.
They'd seen Jeb pay and knew he had more money in the envelope.
But Jasper was in trouble.
He made a snap decision.
Jeb tore the bundle of cash out of the envelope and tossed it into the air.
Then he spread his suggestion over the males. He hoped some were susceptible, though his power to push minds didn’t work as well on the intellectually inferior. He didn't know why.
“Pick it up,” Jeb said in a voice full of power, full of intent.
Three of the five faces of the males went blank, filling with Jeb's will as they bent to pick up the currency. The fourth stood as though dazed.
The fifth, an angry spot of color riding high on his chest, charged Jeb with a roar.
Bruce, the ill-fated brains of the gang.
Of course.
Jasper screamed, high and piteous, and Jeb plowed forward, swinging Bruce into one of the building's support columns. It buckled with the toss of that two-hundred-pound-plus body.
The male who had embraced Jasper slid to he floor, his skull broken by the neat head crack she'd given it.
However, her torso was unprotected from the blows that rained down from a frontal attack, by the pair who remained.
Jeb was stunned by the males’ savage treatment of a defenseless female.
His body went numb with purpose.
Jeb tasted their death on his tongue.
Jasper was beaten but not done; she clutched the lip of the cheap table that was attached to the wall and kicked her legs out as the men tried to deliver more blows.
Her feet made contact, striking one in the chest.
The man flew backward, landing against the wall about fifteen feet away, denting it with his body then sliding slowly down to the floor.
His blood and brains leaked behind him like a snail trail of red gore. The bits of what had given him life were now a wake of gruel outside his dying body.
Jeb reached the advancing man just as his hand grabbed Jasper's throat.
Jeb broke it with a striking chop at the wrist.
Jasper's face jerked forward from the blow, and she executed a slow spin, her face an alarming purple color.
Jeb caught her before she fell, his worried gaze on her face.
&nb
sp; “Behind you, Merrick,” she whispered, despite her abused voicebox.
He swung out blindly, letting Jasper fall gently behind him. There had been ten men, and they'd incapacitated five.
The five who remained rushed Merrick while his partner lay gasping behind him.
“Stop!” he said, shoving his control into their minds.
Three stopped; two would need further convincing.
Using his hands, Jeb cracked their skulls together. He could have done more, but there were simply no humans with that level of raw strength. The law of this quadrant would come, and the force he and Jasper had used would be inexplicable.
They'd already blown their prime directives to Hades. Jeb wouldn't deliberately make it worse if he could prevent it.
They slumped, landing one on top of the other.
Satisfied by their lack of movement, Jeb whirled and crouched.
He laid his fingers against Jasper's pulse.
She was unconscious. He tucked her against his chest and rose. It was simple; she weighed nothing.
He looked with regret at the sea of money, then the two females, who were looking at him as if he were an alien. Nothing could be truer.
Jeb almost smiled in the midst of the chaos.
“It's your lucky day, ladies.” His gaze flicked to the currency strewn between the bodies, blood, and guts.
“The cops are coming,” Doreen stated then snapped the wad of green, making him wince.
“You—come,” he said to her.
Her face went blank, and she moved to him on jerky feet, not unlike the zombie they had saved, but not nearly as graceful.
She was a borderline push.
“Stuff my pockets with the currency—now.”
“Currency?” she asked with the blankness of intellect depravation.
“Money,” Jeb spat.
“Oh.”
She leaned down, grabbing the currency. Doreen hesitated before putting it inside his front pockets as though it caused her pain. Then she stuffed his pockets to the brim.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
“Stop,” he said, and Doreen came to a comical halt.
Her body was half bent in preparation to jam more money into his pockets, her wide, obedient eyes on his.
“Forget me,” Jeb said, striding to the back exit, the one he'd pegged as the best escape route.
“Okay,” Doreen answered.
His unconscious partner cradled against his chest, Jeb paused in front of the female who had a version of Jasper's name.
“I won't forget,” she said defiantly.
“Yes, you will,” Jeb said, giving an internal shove that made his mind feel as though it were coming apart. A slow mudslide of pain settled in and began to throb.
Her face went slack as if she’d had a stroke, and Jeb left the building with grim resolve.
He clung to the hope that he had not done harm to the females.
But as he looked down at Jasper, he knew that sacrifices were part of their job, and there was no comparison between the worth of a female Three and a Reflective, even though she was female.
Beth Jasper must live.
Jeb would see to it.
His partner’s safety was his job, though with each passing minute, his concern started to feel as if it were motivated by something else, which he had never believed he could give a female for any reason—loyalty.
*
Beth groaned, her body twitching, causing her teeth to clench in agony. Her chest was on fire with pain.
“Stop,” she whispered to whatever was causing the horrible jarring.
“I can't,” Merrick replied.
She opened her eyes to the dizzying blur of a green landscape rushing past.
A surge of nausea followed, and she clawed against him to escape.
She could feel his pace slow.
“Put me down!” Beth said, and he did gently.
Beth rolled over, digging her fingers into the mossy undergrowth of woods, and threw up.
She didn’t stop until every single thing she had consumed in the eatery was evacuated from her stomach.
It felt as though her bowels had emptied, as well.
Beth rolled away, clutching her sides. Cool fingers pressed against her face.
It heated with her embarrassment. She’d just thrown up like a weak female, after being carried while Merrick ran.
She couldn't stand to see his eyes filled with the condemnation she was sure he would have for her.
Beth took a shallow breath that made her bite her tongue in agony. Her ribs were broken.
She had a punctured lung.
Her assessment continued. She also had internal bleeding.
Maybe I have bigger things to worry about than Merrick’s opinion.
She opened her eyes and met Merrick's gaze. His eyes were pale gray inside the gloom of the deep forest.
“Merrick,” she croaked then gasped.
He lifted her upper back, taking her hand.
“I am here.”
She closed her eyes against his compassion. She didn't want his pity, either.
“Are you well enough to jump?” His voice pierced her consciousness, and she realized with a start that she had slid into semi-consciousness.
Beth shook her head, and her gorge rose from the movement, her head swimming.
“No,” she whispered, hating how weak she was.
“The sun is out, and there is a body of water beside us, though it rushes.”
Beth could hear the sound, a great white noise of a thousand butterfly wings.
She floated.
“No—Jasper!” Merrick said in a harsh command. “I can pulse Calvin.”
Beth's eyes flew open.
Another inductee? She couldn't bear it.
“No,” she clutched his shirt, the cloth rough under her fingers.
“I can save you if you jump in this body of water.”
Seconds ticked by while she reconciled the current disaster.
“Take me to it.”
Merrick picked Beth up, and she bit her lip. Her muffled cry of pain was not wholly contained, and Merrick flinched but kept moving.
He hiked down an embankment, never slowing.
When Beth's breaths grew closer and more shallow, he laid her on the small pebbles along the edge of the water.
The Skagit River—it came to Beth like the fuzziest memory. Her mind was swallowed by cotton.
The sun broke through the clouds and hit the river. Tiny reflections like fractured crystals sparkled across its surface.
“Take my hand,” she told Merrick.
Beth had no confidence it would work. The reflections came and went, winking in and out of her line of sight.
Reflectives, who were immortal only in their own world, could die in other sectors. Beth Jasper lay dying on a pebbled shore far from her home.
Then Merrick's large warm hand was in her own.
The last thing she saw was a bright diamond of herself, flung for her retrieval and subsequent jump.
Her hand convulsed inside Merrick's, and they were gone.
Muffled shouts in the distance quieted inside the vacuum of the pathway.
Fire and ice beat down on Beth's abused body.
Safety was all around her, for Merrick held her fast.
Beth slept as her body traveled to whatever location she had thrown them.
It was not Papilio.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Beth was better prepared as they landed, tossing herself away from Merrick and rolling in the air. She spread her arms wide for balance, her eyes wide open.
Beth was running on solid ground before she knew she'd landed. She slowed to a walk then stopped, turning to look at Merrick.
His arms came around her, and she jumped from the unexpected contact.
“You're well.”
Merrick gave her a good once over, making sure she was indeed in one piece.
She nodded. Her near-death on Thr
ee had been even more terrifying than her potential death at Ryan's hand.
They broke apart awkwardly, and Merrick turned away from her.
Neither said anything.
“Don't make it personal, Merrick,” Beth said.
It was the bravest utterance she'd ever made. She didn't want to push away the first Reflective who had ever been decent to her.
He didn't respond as she’d thought he might.
“I'm trying.”
Beth was stunned, forgetting her surroundings. They could have been in the pit of doom, and she would have disregarded it.
“What are you saying?” she asked quietly. He couldn't… could Merrick have feelings for her?
No male wanted Beth. She was a mongrel Reflective. Merrick had been in the panties of every woman who resided in Papilio.
No, something else is at play.
He turned, and his eyes were hard specks of pewter. His hands went to his hips, and Beth was struck by his sheer size.
Merrick dwarfed her, but he did not diminish her.
He rolled his shoulders into a shrug. “I care.”
Beth nodded. “Of course, we're partners… I feel the same.”
Merrick met her eyes, blowing out an exhale like a windstorm. “I… I don't think we can partner any longer, Jasper.”
It was a sucker punch.
He’d had her back, he'd saved her, and he’d healed her with the last jump. They were a good team. She was the best jumper of their kind and an expert foreign-sector linguist. Merrick was renowned for his weaponry skills.
He could regenerate in a jump and heal those who traveled with him.
Beth filled her lungs; ribs and internal organs whole and well.
“No,” she said immediately.
His eyes flicked to hers then away. “It is not that you're not a superb Reflective…”
“Then what?”
“I can't get past the gender issue.”
Beth's chin jerked back.
Merrick scanned their surroundings.
“Let's find another place to talk about this.”
She searched for something more suitable. They were in a small quadrant and had captured the attention of dozens of younglings.
They'd landed in the middle of a youngling educational center.
Marie Sortun Elementary the building read.
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