“This rocks!” Jacky said, looking around in awe-struck wonder.
Swell. Jeb was already second-guessing his decision making abilities.
Dawn broke across a thin blue sky, clouds like stretched and bleeding taffy danced across the horizon, and the mountains’ white caps were changing to red.
Madeline walked toward them. Jasper's jaw dropped, and Merrick was stunned. He had heard of such a thing but never seen it.
While Madeline wandered around, looking at everything new, she was unaware of the change that had come over her.
She swiveled her face to Jeb and Jasper. Her expression of wonder faded, turning somber.
“What is it? What's wrong?”
The waif that had been a Dimensional in Sector Three had blossomed into the full bloom of womanhood, no longer thin but robustly healthy, every curve in the right place.
Lush hair had replaced the unhealthy wisps, and her eyes were no longer blue-ish but an arresting deep purple, a navy ring bordering the iris.
“Damn—damn, damn,” Jacky said, circling her.
Madeline self-consciously smoothed her riot of hair. “Tell me this second what the problem is. Am I okay?”
Jeb thought she was more than okay.
Jasper gave him a sharp elbow to the side and he grunted.
“You're staring, asshole,” Jasper said.
His brows rose at the name.
“It's worth a stare. You can't deny it.”
Jasper just shook her head. He was right.
Madeline DeVere was incredible looking.
Jeb tensed, sensing an approach. All his abilities were heightened on his home planet. He moved in front of Madeline, and when Jacky tried to get cocky, he pulled the youngling in beside him.
Lance Ryan appeared, along with Jude Calvin and Dave Kennet.
What the fuck was Ryan doing off Sector One already?
Jeb didn't know but was forcibly reminded of his duty to The Cause when it was all he could do not to jerk Jasper behind him, as well.
He would have to let Jasper go.
Jeb couldn't Reflect properly when his mind was constantly on her protection.
“Well, hello, Beth,” Ryan said, his entire body tensed.
“Dial it down, Ryan,” Calvin said.
Jeb didn't like the look Ryan gave Calvin, but he said nothing.
He trusted Calvin with his life.
Ryan's face went from Jasper with nothing but disgust then moved to the youngling.
It settled on Madeline and remained there.
Ryan's eyes moved in slow perusal over her body, and when he finally got to Madeline eyes—hers were cast to the ground.
The heat of her embarrassment was clear to any fool with half a wit.
And Jeb knew Ryan was no fool, but a deliberate fuck.
Why Rachett hadn’t trashed him was anyone's guess. But after a thousand years, his commander was very aware of natural selection.
Jeb just didn't happen to agree.
“We felt the break in the continuum. Rachett sent us, Jeb.” Calvin didn't ask, but his eyes begged the question.
“Picked up some stray… Threes.” Ryan made an impressive stab in the dark.
“Yes.” Terse, one-word-only answers for that prick.
“Rachett's going to get a hard-on for this that'll never let go,” Ryan said.
Jeb scowled.
Madeline was looking at them all and asked, “Are we—are they going to hurt us?”
Ryan slung his stabilizer over his shoulder. A state-of-the-art mini-pulse machine gun, it had auto accuracy when the target was thought into the thumb pad.
He went straight to Madeline, and she back peddled, moving closer to Jeb.
“Don't be a shit, Ryan,” Jasper said.
“Get off my D, mongrel.” Ryan's eyes glittered down at Jasper while Madeline watched with frightened eyes.
Jeb bet Madeline wished she'd stayed in her own sector.
From where she sat, Papilio was more dangerous than the place she’d just left.
True.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Beth
“And you're going to make me?” he scoffed.
“I think we've been through this.”
Beth gave him the look the comment deserved.
His eyes narrowed on her.
“I thought—I thought you guys were all fine with each other?” Madeline asked uncertainly.
“How can you understand them?” Jacky asked.
“Understand what?” Madeline asked.
“Catch a clue. They're speaking that Latin crap.”
Jasper and Jeb looked at Madeline.
Ryan leered at Madeline.
“Don't,” Beth warned.
“I'm not going to hurt the female.”
“Right, that's why you've been cooling your heals in One.”
“I served my time, you bitch mongrel, so shut your fucking mouth.”
Merrick was on him, swinging the butt of his own stabilizer into his face, spraying blood.
Ryan staggered back, clenched his fist, and came after Merrick.
“If you were smart, you'd stand down,” Merrick said casually.
“He's not, Merrick,” Kennet said offhandedly.
Ryan hesitated, his hand covering his split lip. “You giving Jasper the beef injection?” he sneered.
“What a jerk,” Jacky muttered.
They ignored him.
“No,” Merrick paused, making sure he spoke in Latin in front of the youngling. “Who I fuck is none of your business, but it wouldn't be my partner. It goes against The Cause…”
“Yeah, yeah, Merrick… you're such a do-gooder. We all know the tenth.” He swiped blood off his mouth and spread it on his uniform.
Tenth: reconcile emotion for The Cause, not another.
Ryan looked at Madeline.
“I'll escort the female.”
Madeline shook her head, leaning against Jacky.
“He is the King of Putz. Yʼknow—I don't even have to understand Latin to know this guy's a dick.”
Ryan's eyes narrowed on Jacky. “You brought a Sensitive.”
“It's a long story, Ryan.”
“Rachett got four signatures. He knows you brought some Threes back.” He reached out, grabbing a piece of Madeline's hair, and she cringed against Jacky.
“Back off, numb nuts,” Jacky said.
Ryan dwarfed him by a foot in height and a hundred pounds of lean muscle.
“You've got brass balls, youngling,” Ryan said.
“Switch to English, ya toad.”
Ryan glared. “I understand every word you utter, cretin.”
Beth saw Merrick smile and chuckled.
It was perfect beyond measure—comeuppance by the plateful. Beth was contemplating leftovers.
“Stop touching Madeline. If you have to ʽtake her to your leader,ʼ take away, but stop being a jackass about it.”
Ryan dropped the piece of hair and gave Madeline a speculative look, which Beth didn’t like.
Ryan had tried to kill her so naturally, she didn't like him.
They moved through the upscale neighborhood of Barringer. She was not the perfect specimen in Papilio and definitely not the perfect Reflective. The elite who lived in Barringer had never welcomed her. She escaped being heckled only because she was Reflective. It was the unspoken backwardness of Papilio. They thought themselves so enlightened compared to other sectors. In reality, her world still had improvements to be made.
Ryan took Madeline's arm, and Beth knew she was terrified of him. She need not be. It was only Beth he hated.
Beth had met Ryan's parents at the Reflective ordination. They'd been aloof to the point of being indifferent toward him. His father was especially cold.
She imagined his home life had not been ideal, not that it gave him license to kill another Reflective.
“Stop pulling away—I will not hurt you,” Ryan said in Latin, and Beth remembered something from befo
re.
“You don't require English?” Beth asked Madeline.
The group slowed for the questioning.
“I heard you as though you were speaking English. If Jacky hadn't said anything, I would've thought you guys were all just still speaking English.” Then she laughed, pointing at Merrick. “Except—he always sounds…”
“Stiff?” Beth offered, and Merrick scowled.
Madeline laughed, and Ryan watched her.
“What is she?” Ryan asked as he gently dragged her behind him.
“They call them Dimensionals on Three,” Merrick told him reluctantly.
“Well, isn't that interesting. Because somehow, you two fuckups got home without a locator, toting two Threes, one who's a Sensitive and another who's…”
“A Dimensional,” Madeline admitted quietly.
Ryan turned her to face him.
“Cut the shit, Ryan—just turn them in to Rachett. He'll square it right up,” Calvin said.
“Yeah, but we've got time,” Ryan said.
“We don't need to hash this out here,” Kennet added, scanning the perfection of the Barringer Quadrant.
“It's okay,” Madeline said, her voice breathy.
Everyone stopped in their tracks when she burst into tears.
The men stepped back and looked to Beth, who had not shed many tears in her life.
“What?” Beth asked. “You think because I'm female I have some inside track?”
“That's usually how that chick crap works,” Jacky said.
Beth rolled her eyes.
“You wanted to take her, so you take care of it, Ryan.”
Ryan stepped forward. “What… what ails you?”
Beth grinned. This is rich. The great Ryan was about to be brought down by a female's tears.
“I'm scared. I'm scared of you,” she said, glaring up at him through the hair that had fallen forward. “I'm scared of going back, only to be hurt again.”
Ryan pushed the hair back from her face, and Merrick gave Beth a hard glance. She lifted a shoulder. She didn't know where her would-be murderer had carved tenderness from.
“Who has hurt you?” Ryan asked, bending down from his considerable height to peer into her face.
“She's got a shit stepdad who beats the hell out of her when he piles on the booze.”
Ryan jerked back from her, giving Merrick a quirked brow.
Merrick spread his palms. “We came upon her abuse by a Three male… and Jasper taught him an apt lesson in manners.”
Ryan's hands clenched into fist. “What did you do?”
His voice was low. His concern for a female he didn't know was so much more than his transgression against her.
The irony didn't escape Beth.
“I subdued him.”
“Then she kicked him in his testies,” Jacky said in a pleased tone.
The males winced.
Ryan didn't.
“Good,” he said slowly and tucked Madeline up against him. No longer did his hand latch onto her arm, but went around her slender shoulders instead.
“He won't hurt you ever again.”
“What about the rest of you?” she asked, a tremulous shiver making her body tremble.
Ryan shook his head. “No—no male will hurt you here.”
“Why? What's to stop them?” she asked. Beth understood and it was a fair question from a Three.
“Because I'll kill him.”
“Oh,” Madeline said.
After a moment, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and allowed Ryan to escort her to The Cause.
*
Beth strode up the familiar steps that rose out of the pavilion and intersected The Cause headquarters.
The traditional shape of a butterfly appeared between the words The and Cause. Centered beautifully, it had been etched and re-etched several times over the last millennium.
The Threes stopped, mouths agape. Beth followed their gazes and guessed that the building was a sight to behold for the first time.
The architecture was very much like the ancient buildings of Three's Greater Quadrant of Rome. Pillars flanked its entryway, and marble columns in a burnished apricot supported a triangular pediment that heralded the entrance.
Jacky and Madeline walked forward. She ran her fingertips over the life-sized sculpture of a swarm of butterflies in flight as they just begin to unfurl their wings.
As though summoned, a shadow dropped over the group, and they came in a single drove.
Every butterfly within a ten-kilometer radius descended, which was not uncommon when many Reflectives came together.
However, they glided to Madeline, ignoring everyone else.
Her arms rose unconsciously, and Ryan stepped back, allowing the precious Papilio namesake to surround her.
Madeline didn't fight the hundreds of butterflies that landed on her arms, covering her head and face, and leaving pockets of space for her eyes.
She appeared to be a living, breathing butterfly.
Several heartbeats of beauty passed, while Beth held her breath at the spectacle.
Then they were gone, launching as slowly and beautifully as they'd landed.
Their soft wings sounded like rushing water and Beth closed her eyes, missing her zoo inside her domicile.
Madeline gazed at them until the last one was beyond sight.
“What the hell was that about?” Jacky asked, his words harsh, his eyes soft.
“That is the greeting for our return to this building. The Cause.” Merrick's eyes were still on the sky.
“What's ʽThe Causeʼ,” Jacky asked, stepping outside the covered entrance and looking at the etched words.
“It is the reason Reflectives exists.”
“Not always peaceably,” Beth said, studiously avoiding eye contact with Ryan.
“Yeah, no shit. I totally got that issue,” Jacky said, his eyes on Ryan and Beth. “But why did they all cover Maddie and that?”
“She's new. They welcome her.”
“They recognize her as a Reflective?” Ryan asked. “But she claims Dimensional as her talent.”
“Let's go,” Merrick said quickly.
“No—wait,” Ryan said and the group hesitated.
Beth wanted to get away in case Ryan went sideways and suddenly caused another problem with two civilians at its center. She and Merrick had brought the Threes. Ultimately, she and Merrick were responsible.
“Yeah. You guys have to find a mirror or something. Maddie here”—Jacky swiped a thumb in her direction—“just think it, and off she shoots.” Jacky shook his head, dumping unruly hair over his eyes.
Madeline was still watching the hole in the sky the butterflies had left.
Ryan's lips flattened. “What the Hades?”
Madeline stepped back from him. Kennet and Calvin, who had been silent, wore the same shocked expressions.
“What?” Jacky said to the shocked faces. “Did I step on somebody's puppy or something?”
Beth nodded. “No—but close.”
Ryan drew near to Madeline but didn't touch her. Calvin and Kennet sidled up and flanked her without being asked.
Beth followed them into the building she had not revisited since the finals—when Ryan had tried to murder her.
*
Beth passed through the three-meter-tall doors last, taking the rear position automatically.
Rachett stood, a furrow like a canyon centered between his eyes.
A minute of absolute silence rolled out. Even Jacky seemed to sense how much he needed to not shoot his mouth off right then.
“What in the blue fuck is happening here?”
Rachett was using English. Things were bad if he had switched to the Three's mother tongue.
Rachett's face cut in Merrick's direction.
“Report—and it better be good.”
“Sir,” Merrick took a deep breath, and Beth thought he seemed tired. They hadn't slept for going on forty-eight hours.
“Jasper and I completed the Zondorae mission successfully.”
“Well, thank fuck. At least you didn't screw that six ways to Sunday.”
Rachett's command of English was profound and made Beth feel like an infant by comparison. He was pissed and using the entire arsenal he had at his disposal.
It was impressive.
Ryan, Calvin, and Kennet stood at attention, as did Beth.
“We've had a time break, and it's been thirty-two days since your jump.”
Merrick's face mirrored Beth’s surprise.
“How?” Beth asked.
She'd never heard of such a big divergence between her native sector and Three. That was why Ryan was already back from One.
He'd simply already served his incarceration.
“We're not sure, but it's an unmitigated clusterfuck.”
“Merrick,” Rachett barked.
“We had several altercations…”
Rachett's eyes drove down his form.
“You look well.”
“Yes, sir, but Jasper…”
“What happened?”
Rachett had not yet acknowledged the Threes.
Merrick told the story in great detail. He stuck to the facts and kept it brief.
Even condensed, it sounded awful.
“This is a major problem.”
Merrick stood stoic; a rock of honed discipline.
Beth didn’t feel very disciplined. She was beaten, had suffered various injuries, and felt tired to the core.
She wanted to sink into the deep basin in her cleansing room and allow the lavender salts to soothe her nerves. The butterflies would land on the copper rim, and she could pet their iridescent wings and…
“Jasper!” Rachett yelled, and the echo of his voice pierced her ears.
She'd been sleeping where she stood.
“Yes, sir.” She snapped herself out of exhaustion with great effort.
“Do you concur with Merrick's rendition of events?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You missed your jump—for the undead.”
Oh Principle.
Beth felt her cheeks burn and fought to not look away. “Yes… sir. He seemed to be a nobleman.”
“You mean in stature or integrity?”
Beth hesitated for a handful of seconds.
“Both. I—we…” Merrick gave the barest nod. “We couldn't leave him to the devices of those criminals.”
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