CHAPTER TWO

 

Beth rolled out of her self-imposed tunnel of fire and ice without finesse or regard to safety.

Her reaction wasn't too different from that of brave soldiers cornered at the edge of a cliff. As the enemy closes in, do they stay and get slaughtered? Or do they jump, hoping to live and fight another day?

Beth had jumped.

She'd leapt at a spinning blade that made her nauseated to track. She’d known what the landing would be.

However, she'd been at the theoretical cliff as Ryan’s knife beared down, not a soul to stand in her defense.

Beth exited the tunnel like an infant during a birth gone wrong.

She hurtled out of the sucking chasm that quantified the pathway that only Reflectives could travel and tried to loosen her body, remembering Rachett's words:

 

“Behave like a drunk imbecile when you land—every piece of you loosen,” he'd said, and Beth remembered the truth in his pale eyes. “Remember, the Principle guards drunks and small children.”

 

There'd been good-natured laughs all around—but not at this moment.

Beth knew she would land without forethought.

I'll heal.

Her body naturally tensed for landing, and she knew to resist that instinct.

Pain lanced her as she was purged from the end of the pathway. And Beth fell. Hard.

The crushing impact stole her breath.

She lay on a pebbly surface of rough stone, watching cumulus clouds form deep ripples in the blue sky as her lungs begged for oxygen.

The temperature was sultry. Her fingertips burned against the surface of the stone.

Her chest opened to the insufferable heat and Beth took great whooping gulps of oven-like air.

“Mommy, mommy,” a youngling called out.

Oh no, Beth thought, experimentally moving her toes, witnesses.

A loud roaring filled Beth's ears, and she tried to move to find its source, but she could not force her body to cooperate.

Two forms blocked the fluffy white clouds, their shadows cooling her. The little one had long blonde hair, too much brown to be truly light. In one hand, she fisted a bear, and the thumb of her other hand was in her mouth.

“Why is the lady in the middle of the road?”

Good question. Beth tried to move and moaned through a hiss of pain. Back's broken. Her situation was almost as bad as Ryan trying to have her meet the Maker.

A woman, too young to be the child’s mother, leaned forward. “Are you okay?”

No, I've fractured some vertebrae, and I'm on the wrong damn planet, but otherwise, things are just great. Beth did a mental eye roll and began to review their diction.

All sector language had been hammered into her from the time she was five cycles.

English, twenty-first century, Sector Three—Earth.

“Yeah,” Beth croaked in English through her teeth.

The planet was a Hades of a lot different than its simulations. Beth hadn't jumped, except for brief explorations, and had never encountered other beings other than when she'd traveled when she was five.

That had not gone well.

The little girl cocked her head and gave Beth a strange look.

Better work on my accent.

The woman moved out of her line of vision and the roaring gnashing gears became unbearable.

What in the inferno is that?

Beth screamed in pain when she tried to move herself, vulnerable and laid out Principle knew where.

“Shhh.” The little girl touched her arm with sticky hands. “Mimi be right back.”

Boots crunched closer, and Beth tensed.

She could do nothing, but it was difficult to not act the warrior even as injured as she was.

A male of considerable size moved in front of her and Beth assessed him. Six feet, two hundred pounds. He moved with a languid peace, and she knew instantly that he could handle himself in a moderate engagement.

All Reflectives assessed. It was part of who they were.

Beth was pleased by the knowledge that he would not last in a match with her, though he had her by nine inches and ninety pounds.

He stooped; his light brown eyes were kind.

“Well, little lady, looks like someone's dumped ya here.”

He spit a stream of brown liquid to the side.

Clever male. Beth's lips curled.

Then he touched her, and she shouted,  “Do not!”

She panted, her hands gripping his shoulders. “Move me,” she finished.

He smiled.

“You're not staying in the road, girl.” His eyebrows shot up to a fine bristle of dark-blond hair circling his head like a golden down. Beth tried to shift and cried out through her clenched lips.

“No, no… girl. Hold your horses.”

Beth searched around for animals. Seeing none, she turned back to him.

“Literal little thing, ain't ya?”

Another brown stream followed the first, and Beth wrinkled her nose. Vile.

“Jeremy… we can't just leave her here.”

With her eyes, Beth followed the woman named Mimi.

Beth scanned her vitals. A light film of sweat dewed her forehead, and she wrung slick hands over and over in a nervous roll of reaction with a swamped pulse as if she had a bird trapped at the hollow of her throat.

Beth's eyes went to the small one, and she gave her a tired smile. The male—Jer-e-may…? Jeremy—had slipped his hands underneath Beth's back.

His eyes widened.

“She's full of blood, Mimi…”

The young woman came forward, her eyes searching Beth's body carefully, and too late, Beth understood what Mimi was looking at.

Her sparring uniform was still whole, spattered with blood and bearing an emblem that was as foreign as she was in this world.

“Let's take her to the hospital,” Jeremy determined, and Beth stiffened as he lifted her.

Three's could never study her body. They would find things they shouldn't.

Beth screamed as agony tore through her.

That was when Merrick made his entrance, and all Hades broke loose.

 

*

Jeb

 

Jeb folded his arms across his chest mummy style and felt the final twist when he would be expunged. Then he flung his arms wide at the last moment, moving his legs as though he were walking in midair.

Soon enough, his feet would meet something solid.

He hit the ground, his shins singing with the impact. Jeb was grateful it wasn't a slope but a manmade material. He could have gone ass over tea kettle if he'd landed on a hill.

He had.

Jeb ran at a full-out sprint to shake off the momentum of the jump, then slowed to a jog, then a walk.

He shook out his palms, restoring the feeling in his extremities. He knew from experience it would be a full minute before he was fully rejuvenated.

He stopped, closing his eyes.

Reflectives’ hearing was the finest of any being, save vampires.

Jeb heard Jasper scream, and his head snapped in that direction.

He did not slow upon seeing the three humans that hailed from Sector Three.

He gauged the century to the decade from their clothing. Then he determined the year when the male who posed the greatest threat spoke.

“What the hell is this?” The male rose, cradling Jasper, whose face appeared more pale than usual.

Jeb let his sensors run from his body like tendrils, feeling her injuries. She was badly hurt from the fall: L-1 and 3 were fractured. Jasper's foot twitched, but her legs remained immobile.

Her dark cautious eyes found him.

“Merrick,” she rasped.

Jeb mentally revised his superficial diagnosis. Her vocals were compromised, and he determined through greater psychic exploration that C-2 was damaged, as well. He exhaled loudly.

“Jasper,” he greeted.

He executed his internal exam of the male who held his yet-to-be-assigned partner, and Merrick found him wanting.

Jeb dismissed him to assess the females. One—caucasian, early twenties, five feet six, one hundred thirty pounds—held the hands of a youngling, perhaps four years of age.

He dismissed them as well.

Threats processed and noted, Jeb crossed his arms, folding them over his awful, classic twenty-first-century garb of stiff denim that made his balls feel like prisoners in a greenhouse and thieved his mobility.

However, they were the clothes of… Jeb looked down at his locator fashioned of mercury: 2030.

He had been to Sector Three many times. He wrinkled his nose as he detected the levels of pollution exceeding those he was accustomed to.

“This is my wife. I'll take her to…” Jeb considered his vocabulary carefully. “To seek medical treatment.”

He smiled, pushing it into his eyes. Humans liked that. It settled them like colts about to run. They hadn't seen his landing, so his lies should work.

The male's brows dropped over his eyes like a brick.

“I don't know who the hell you really are, but your ass just dropped out of the sky, and whatever claim you have on this young woman is null and void, Jack.”

Jack?

“Is he an alien?” the youngling asked, with wide, distrusting eyes.

Fuck.

Beth grimaced. “Smooth, Merrick, way to blend in.”

Jeb scowled at her, stalking toward the male, who did not back down.

Does he not know that Jeb Merrick is a warrior of The Cause? Of course not. However, it was imperative only that Jeb know.

The Code ran through his mind, a blend of language from thirteen worlds, policed by only one.

 

The Reflectives will advance nothing, protect all, exploit the evil for what it is and defend The Cause without exception.

 

“Yes, I know it looks a little out of the ordinary.”

The youngling popped a thumb into her mouth.

It was not going well. He would have to extract moments from these humans’ brains. He gave a disgusted sigh; extraction was his least favorite task. It was akin to mental rape, or the thrall the vamps were known for.

Jeb calculated the distance at ten meters.

“Jasper, I need the distance.”

The male glanced down at Beth, and she extracted a small silver sphere that glinted in the late sun of the day like captured silver.

Jasper held up the marble, and Jeb narrowed his vision on the warped and glossy pewter finish.

He could do a jump with something that small from his distance.

Heat washed through his body as Jeb pushed his being toward the sphere.

He could see his pale gray eye reflected even at that distance.

The concentration to jump took seconds.

Jeb thought only of the sphere. When nothing but the shape was in his mind, he spun out toward it. His body snapped like a rubber band and flashed to Jasper in a heartbeat.

Suddenly, Jeb was nose to nose with the male.

“Give me the woman,” Jeb commanded, his mental dominance sliding into the male before him.

His arms went loose, and Beth began to slide out of his grasp.

Jeb caught Jasper easily as the male, slack jawed, awaited new orders.

Jasper bit her lip to keep from crying out, and Jeb tucked her arm under his own. He looked at the people who stared at him. His gaze shifted to the youngling; nothing could be done with her.

The younglingsʼ resistance because of their age was renown.

He worked on the man and woman until they believed they had pulled over from fatigue and that his appearance was no more than a bad dream.

The youngling was different.

He sent the young one's protectors away and dropped to his haunches easily, though Jasper lay like a dead weight within his hold.

“Don't… hurt her,” Jasper whispered in their native tongue, gritting her teeth against her pain.

Her eyes fluttered as she fought fatigue. She was badly injured and her body was trying to heal itself through rest.

“I am not a savage.”

“I have heard stories,” she replied in Latin.

Jeb was disgusted that Jasper would think him capable of harming a youngling.

He focused on the girl, but Jasper's comment rung inside his skull unpleasantly.

“Little one,” he began, switching to English. “Who do you think we are?”

The little girl looked carefully at Jasper.

Then her eyes moved to Jeb, and she looked unafraid.

“Angels,” she replied with the logic of a four-year-old.

Jeb went through his mental inventory, looking for the meaning, and though they were not the perfect heavenly creatures the girl thought they were, it was a safe identifier.

Jeb smiled at her.

“That's right,” he lied smoothly as he cupped his large hand over the back of her head.

“Thank you for your watch care after my partner.”

She nodded, though she thought the angel spoke oddly.

The lovely people blinked away like falling stars in the middle of a little-traveled road, while her relatives sat like corpses in the cab of Uncle Jeremy’s truck.

She stared until twilight descended and her adult relatives finally awoke as though they’d just had a deep sleep.

 

*

 

“Principle, that was close,” Jasper whispered.

She flicked her eyes to Jeb's and added, “I think you hurt me worse on the return.”

“Your grateful attitude blows me away.”

“I hate Earth vernacular.”

“Tough, get used to it.”

Jeb sat beside her, his mind on that hot Reflective he'd had to leave behind instead of giving her what she clearly needed.

Basically, he hadn't gotten his rocks off because he'd had to chase Jasper down like a skipper. Jeb understood he wasn't being entirely fair. If Jasper hadn't leapt, she would’ve been killed. Still, his fun had been curtailed, and it made him exceedingly grumpy.

He plowed his fingers through his tousled hair and expelled a frustrated breath, leaning back in the chair near her bedside.

“Please, I'm hungry,” Jasper said, her upturned lips telling Jeb that she was pleased by his temporary slave status.

Jeb glared at her as he spooned another mouthful of the gelatin into her full lips, now marred only by a shallow cut and a yellowing bruise. Days of healing had taken only hours.

Her back would be fully mended by the morrow.

A glob of the green goo sat on one plump lip, and he scooped it off and stuffed it into her mouth.

Not that it would keep that sharp tongue at bay.

“What of Rachett?” Beth asked. She gnawed thoughtfully at her bottom lip in between bites, giving away her emotions.

Jeb busied himself with stirring the green translucent grub. It jiggled obscenely as he loaded another spoonful.

Jasper put her palm up to ward off another bite, and he noted how small—and strong—her hands were.

Jeb dipped his eyes to the bowl then set it down. “He attends to Ryan.”

Jasper put her face in her hands.

Go ahead, cry, weak female, Jeb thought uncharitably, his old prejudices vying for position.

But she simply swiped at her face, raw with healing wounds.

“Attends to… or disciplines?” she asked, a defiant hook to her chin.

He grinned despite himself.

Beth Jasper obviously knew the tenor of their commander. “A little of both, I imagine.”

Jasper did not smile; she appeared serious, and Jeb found his smile fading as he looked into her delicate face.

Her eyes were as hard as his own.

“Ryan will retaliate.”

Jeb nodded. “If he was smart… he would not. It was a clear victory. But he will not be pleased to have been bested by a female.”

“It is not that I am female,” Jasper commented.

Her brown eyes laid hold on his gray ones, and he cocked an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest.

“Then what is it, for I know you die on the vine to tell me.”

Jasper rolled her large eyes in her head. “It is that I am better.”

Jeb inclined his head, conceding the obvious. “As a jumper.” He stood, throwing out his hands. “I have not seen the like.”

Suddenly, Jeb whirled around. Overcome with curiosity, he gripped the ceramic bars on the hospital bed. His movement caused the thin snaking plastic tube that bit her flesh with a needle to sway like an undulating snake.

Jasper smiled. “And only Rachett truly knew what I was capable of.” Her hands toyed with the many threads of the unraveling border of the wool blanket that covered her.

“Why? It is a rare gift, to jump into something that small. Why would you not spread the proof of that talent far and wide?” Jeb asked, twirling in a neat circle in the middle of the room.

Jasper met his eyes, and Jeb saw something there that caused him to stop moving.

“Because,” Jasper whispered, “that was not small.”

Jeb felt the air still in his lungs as he moved nearer to her bed. “Look at me, Jasper.”

Her gaze rose, unwavering and dark, full of secrets.

“The six-inch blade in motion… that is not small?”

Jasper shook her head.

Jeb pulled a chair across the floor, and it shrieked in protest as it scraped the floor. He twirled it around and sat in it backward. “Tell me.”

The air left her lungs, and she whispered the truth for the first time since their Commander had discovered what she was capable of, since that day when she had leapt into the locator sphere.

“Mist,” she answered.

Jeb put a fist over his mouth to stifle a noise.

They were in such trouble. Not he… but a partner that could jump through mist particles? His eyes couldn’t even track something so small because of their sheer diminutive size. It did not bode well.

She leapt by intuition. Somehow, she knew it reflected and could jump into the body of the mist? Unheard of.

And she was female besides.

Who is Beth Jasper, and what is her purpose?

She looked at him with guarded hope, and the look he returned was everything he felt—dislike.