CHAPTER THREE

Beth

 

Beth's face fell. Merrick might have been her new partner, but he was definitely not friendly. He treated her like a child he’d had to rescue and feed.

If Beth could have been an independent, she would have chosen to do so straightaway. However, that wasn't the way of the Reflective. They were partnered for a reason. And though she had not officially been advanced from her inductee status to full Reflective, she suspected Commander Rachett would see it through.

He was a tough man shaped by experience, but he was fair.

That was why Beth was surprised that he hadn’t anticipated her jump when confronted by Ryan's contraband weapon. The prick.

Beth stubbornly adjusted herself in the bed. I’ll be damned if I ask Merrick. He was all but whistling from boredom.

“You can go. I'm fine,” Beth said, smoothing her palms down the itchy blanket.

Jeb let the front legs of his chair slam down, and it caused Beth to jump. “Nope… you're the new part of our little team, and I have to suck it up… kind of like a bad marriage.”

“You know, I guess you're having some residual from being at Three?”

Merrick shrugged his broad shoulders.

“It takes time to come down from the foreign high.” He winked and Beth felt a tension leave her that she didn't know she held. Merrick could be okay when he wanted to be.

“Where… have you…”

“I like Sector Thirteen best,” Merrick replied casually, his eyes flicking to hers then away.

“Not Earth?”

Merrick shook his head, leaning back in the chair again.

It tilted dangerously, his muscular weight causing it to creak as he laced his hands behind his head and regarded her thoughtfully.

“No, Earth's a pain in my ass. They have great language—colorful.” He gave a short laugh. “But they take a shit where they live. And the pollution, the crime… and I think we have a tech storm brewing that we'll have to address before too long. Actually, I know it.”

Beth held a secret desire to visit all the planets.

She looked at her clenched hands. Her greatest desire was not to police the planets they held steward over but to explore them.

She kept it to herself, along with the fact that she'd just dumped herself on Earth by random accident. That hadn't been a visit; it'd been a catastrophe.

She owed her five years of service to the Reflective, and then she was free to explore and find the one who was destined for her—a promised soul mate.

That is, if Beth survived her service.

The nature of the Reflective duties were always the issue. With a death rate of one in two, there was no guarantee that a Reflective would live long enough to claim the prize of his or her other half.

Still, the proverbial carrot dangled before them.

Beth raised her chin and leveled her stare at Merrick. He was not a chatty male. His words, like his actions, were economical.

He came from a family of pureblood Reflectives, and the old feelings of isolation kicked in. Beth did not look Reflective, she was female… and she was small even for her gender.

But Rachett had seen that essential spark within her and included her in the training.

She asked him, “Earth? We will be assigned there?”

He nodded. “Yes, it's only a matter of time. The handwriting's on the wall.”

He’d used an interesting idiom that heralded from the Earth people's Bible, a relic of prophesy. Their Bible was not unlike Papilio scrolls that spoke of the Principle. An intersecting bit of beliefs, she supposed.

“Why thirteen?” she asked, wondering why that planet held his interest most.

“I can't manipulate the Band.”

“Ah…” Beth instantly remembered her training of that world. A primitive people had been saved by a futuristic, but interfering, group from Three. Interesting domiciles on that planet, she remembered.

“So the challenge then?”

Merrick grunted in enigmatic response, taking a piece of candy out of his pocket. He threw it into his mouth, then jawed it around.

Without warning, the door burst open.

Merrick jumped from mid-lean, tossing the chair out of the way.

Lance Ryan entered, slapping the door against the wall.

 

*

 

Beth slithered out of the bed, lightly touching her toes on the cold tile of the hospital floor.

She scanned the room for anything to use as a weapon or possible escape.

Damn, her weapons were hung neatly from a new uniform at the back of a chair in the corner.

Of course they were.

Who needs weapons when there is an armed Reflective at the door? Beth narrowed her eyes. The guard had been bought and paid for by Ryan, obviously.

Beth's gaze bored into Merrick's muscular back, and her heart stuttered. Merrick would never go against Ryan.

They were most likely in cahoots. That was probably why Merrick had been so cavalier, feeding her and taking care of his injured partner as they were required to do in the event of mishap.

She was doomed.

Maybe not.

She took a deep breath, contemplating the unthinkable. Beth's eyes roamed the four corners of the room, trying to locate anything reflective.

But the hospital had been scrubbed of anything that could refract.

“Well, hi ya, Ryan,” Merrick greeted him like an old friend, still in full Earth dialect.

Ryan frowned.

“Get out of the way, Merrick.”

Beth backed up, moving toward the window, glancing outside.

She was at the metaphorical cliff again. She wasn't healed fully from the last jump. Her injuries would certainly be worse if she jumped again.

So few held Beth in any regard that it might have been her only free pass that Merrick had been sent to collect her.

No one would come a second time. Her jump would leave her trapped in a foreign sector void of her people, unable to travel decisively without locators.

Jumping was dangerous without a focus sphere.

She could end up anywhere… or any time.

Beth shuddered. But she supposed that fate was better than death.

“Nope, can't do that, you colossal fuckup.”

Beth turned around, her mouth agape.

Did I just hear Merrick right? She had, judging by the expression on Lance Ryan's smug face.

That awareness in Ryan’s expression was beginning to leak away.

And Merrick's delivery had been the most comedic of all. He’d spoken as if he were commenting on the weather and had found it fine.

“Let me pass, Merrick. No one wants her to live.”

Beth's eyes met his over Merrick's shoulder. “You'd be doing the world a favor if you took a coffee break right now. Just let it happen.”

Merrick planted his feet, his arms loose at his sides, and regarded Ryan like a bug. Beth had moved into his peripheral vision. She'd also caught sight of an outside streetlamp through the window.

Its glass solar panels shone like a black mirror.

Ryan somehow knows, knows I ready myself. My desperation is plain to whoever searches for it.

Her body bore the scars of his physical bullying. Her mind held them, as well.

Heat climbs, searing her insides, Beth's heartbeat is a whoosh of blood in her ears.

Ryan's eyes snagged on Beth, then with a roar, he surged forward.

Merrick pivoted on his right foot. Already focused on her mark, Beth saw them as only a pinpoint in her vision.

The shining ebony at the crown of the lamp beckoned.

Then she heard the crack of bone against bone, and blood arced up, hitting the ceiling with such force that it rained back down on the men.

The sound stopped everything—her focus, her jump.

Beth stood frozen as Merrick went toe-to-toe with Ryan.

 

*

Jeb

 

Honorless fuck.

Jeb was disgusted the guard at Jasper's door had let Ryan through. He was even further disgusted that she’d considered jumping without having sufficient time to heal. Being a sensitive Reflective, he could sense jumping readiness.

During the battle in the coliseum, he had sensed Beth’s jump before anyone else had. He possessed her signature now.

Ryan charged, and something in Beth's expression gave her away. It would be the first thing he would teach her as her partner: a blank face.

Beth didn't have one. A shadow of her every feeling clouded her face. She was, as the people of Sector-Three Earth were fond of saying, an open book.

Ryan was a dirty fighter—no surprise there—who thought to take hold of Jeb and unbalance him.

Ryan latched onto Jeb's wrist and attempted a foot sweep.

Jeb countered, twisting his wrist viciously in the opposite direction of the hold, breaking it instantly as he grabbed Ryan's forearm. He stepped into the fight, not away.

As he jerked Ryan into the circle of reach, he swung his fist into Ryan's jaw.

Always engage, never retreat.

The Reflective motto, he thought with sour pleasure as Ryan moved with him, an apt dance partner in their mutual violence.

Ryan head butted Jeb in a deft, hard move with perfect timing.

It rang Jeb's bell, but his skull was hard, and he spun his cocked fist, driving it a second time the short distance from his hip to Ryan's jaw.

And like perfectly cracked glass, his jaw rocketed back, spraying blood onto the ceiling as his teeth speared his own tongue.

Jeb popped his flattened palms into Ryan's chest as though he wanted to launch him into the wall or stop his heart.

Ryan slammed into the wall, his head smacking the surface

Jeb stalked toward Ryan, his fists like meaty hammers of punishment.

Barely breathing, Ryan slid down the wall, his eyes at half-mast.

“Are we done here, Ryan?” Merrick asked.

Ryan gave the smallest nod possible, his mouth a yawning horror of blood and gore.

Merrick turned to check on Jasper.

The sun's final rays backlit her, bathing her in red light like a watercolor of blood. It ran down her arms, accentuating her delicate build, and instead of looking sinister, it did the opposite.

She seemed terribly fragile.

“Merrick!” Beth screamed.

He dropped down and spun.

Ryan was above him, a small dagger in one hand, coated with blood.

His own blood.

His fingers found the wound and came away slick.

Merrick saw red.

“You fucking pussy,” he hissed.

Ryan smiled through a mouthful of his own blood and spit it to the side, where it splattered like dumped paint on the pure-white tiles.

“I'm a pussy that just fucked you.”

“Not yet,” Merrick said.

Fuck it, I’ll heal on the way. He’d kept his gift a secret, though Ryan would be enlightened forevermore.

As light as a feather, a smooth rectangle of paper-thin mercury-coated ceramic slipped out of his specially made pocket in Merrick’s pants. He tossed, and it landed on top of their mixed blood on the floor.

It provided a single destination jump.

Ryan's expression showed true fear as Merrick punched the blade from the younger man’s hand. It hit the floor with a jarring clatter of metal against ceramic.

Ryan reacted as all instinctual Reflectives would have—he ground his fist into Merrick's knife wound.

But Merrick was already on point.

His eyes held on the flat surface of the locator even as he winced in pain.

He grabbed Ryan's collar, fisting the material tightly.

They jumped—only one did so willingly.

Merrick could hear Jasper calling his name down the tunnel the Reflectives traveled.

 

*

 

Jeb had found himself a dandy of a slope, his fist still attached to Ryan, where it continued its brutal hold.

Jeb went ripping down an embankment of sharp prairie grass that sliced and poked as they mowed through it, finally landing on their backs at the bottom.

He'd thought of Thirteen—and that’s where they'd landed.

Merrick was, of course, in perfect health, having healed completely during the jump. The glory in that was Ryan was yet unaware of Jeb’s mended state of affairs.

Merrick jumped to his feet and immediately kicked Ryan in the ribs.

“I swear to Principle I will leave you in this place if you do not retire your vendetta against Beth Jasper.”

Ryan spit more blood into the pasture grass that speared his back. “What… you want the half-breed?”

Jeb said nothing. Fool.

Ryan looked up at him.

“She is assigned to me, and she is injured. I can't help who I get partnered with any better than you can. I will not stand by and let you kill another Reflective because of your jealousy.”

“I am not jealous of that mongrel,” Ryan growled, coming to his hands and knees.

“I suffered through her inclusion for the past fifteen years,” he offered as a lame excuse.

“No.” Jeb gazed at the worthless Ryan. “I'm sure the reverse of that is true.”

“Earth lover.” Ryan spat at his feet.

Jeb rolled his eyes, pegging his hands on his hips. “Yes, I do enjoy Earth. Your point?”

“My point is she could be anything… she is not fully Papilion. Does that not bother you?”

“I am not looking to breed her but to partner her.”

“That is all females are good for.”

This is useless. Ryan was a lost cause, but Jeb could teach him caution. He did not wish to look over his shoulder for the next five years while partnered with Jasper.

Ryan stood, wisely keeping a respectable distance from Merrick.

“Where the hell are we?” His eyes narrowed on Jeb. “Where did you bring me?” He whipped his head around, taking in the faraway opaque dome-shaped structures.

A great forest stood to the north of their position.

“Sector Thirteen,” Jeb replied coolly.

Ryan's face paled. Jeb imagined that took some doing.

He grinned.

“This is the most dangerous sector you dick.”

Jeb shook his head. “Not the most dangerous.” No one traveled to One by choice—that was a death wish.

Jeb noted that he was not the only Reflective who had picked up the local Earth dialect with some precision.

Ryan lowered his voice as though anyone could hear them in the middle of the wilderness of this world.

A whisper of cloth against wheat made Merrick turn.

How wrong I was.

Things instantly went from teaching a lesson to survival, as was often the way of a jump.

A group of men of various sizes, ages, and bearing circled Merrick and Ryan, just out of striking range.

“Who the hell are they?” Ryan asked, suddenly less combative toward Merrick than he'd been moments before.

“The Fragment,” Jeb answered, sliding his remaining dagger out of the weapons pocket of his trousers.

Made of ceramic, it was designed to survive a jump, as metal could not survive Reflective journeys.

The cold porcelain was smooth, with a specially arced tip. It was serrated on only one side.

One of the men in the group called out, “Join us or die.”

Ryan said, “I don't know this dialect. I have only used the high language of Thirteen.”

“Just another reason why Jasper should remain.”

“Fuck me—why?” Ryan asked, one eye on the group, which was closing in, and the other on Merrick.

“She is fluent in all sectors.”

Jeb moved forward, hoping to injure enough men so that he could escape. They did not want to find themselves buried within the knot of the Fragment.

They took no prisoners.

 

*

Beth

 

Rachett tore into the hospital room, and Beth nearly climbed out of her skin.

The air still rippled with residual disturbance from Merrick's jump.

“Where is Ryan?” Rachett barked.

Beth took a deep breath. “He jumped with Merrick.”

Rachett's jaw moved back and forth. “No… Merrick would not take a jump with Ryan.”

“I don't think it was voluntary.”

They looked at each other.

Rachett seemed to notice Beth was in a hospital gown, flashing her backside to the window behind her.

“The residual still remains,” she said quickly, throwing her palm toward the shimmering air pocket between them.

Rachett studied the area, locked onto something and drove his palm through it in a slicing gesture that ended in his cupped fingers bringing the air back to his nose.

He waved that little bit he'd collected back and forth in front of his face.

“What signature?” Beth asked, moving to stand in front of him, her eyes on his hands as he smelled the air.

His face fell into grim lines. “Sector Thirteen.”

Rachett turned to Beth. “You're so damn hot to jump, jump that.”

Beth took a step back. “But… I'm a female. I don't have clearance for that sector.”

Everyone understood how treacherous that sector was. It had a terrible shortage of females, an estimated one to every fifteen males.

She would be delivering herself into the lion's den.

“Afraid?” Rachett taunted.

Beth stared at him. “I've never been afraid a day in my life.”

Anxiety is not fear.

“That's my girl. Now”—he touched her shoulder so briefly that Beth thought she imagined it—“get Ryan back. We have somewhere he needs to go.”

Beth paused then hit the affirmative decisively. “Yes, sir.”

He laid the universal locator on the hospital bed. Its sheen reflected the spattered blood on the ceiling. Rachett’s eyes followed hers.

When they lowered to meet hers again, he made no comment.

Rachett never asked once if she was well enough to jump… or if she wanted to.

Beth was Reflective, and that was answer enough.