Between Death (#6.5): Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance

by Blodgett, Tamara Rose

  Merrick and Ryan heard, Fi-rah!

  It was the one word that all cultures immediately understood to mean danger.

  It was more effective than stop, help, or any other word.

  It had Beth’s desired effect. Her assailant paused, still cradling her armpits, loosening his grip. She shifted the hilt of her dagger in her hand and punched it backward at whatever flesh she could strike.

  The sound of her hard blade striking an eyeball was unmistakable.

  She rotated and sprung up, seeing that her blade had indeed embedded in his eye socket. She jerked it out smoothly then dropped to the ground. Beth began tumbling down the ravine, the edge of which they’d been been perched on. She tucked the blade against her chest and crossed her arms as she rolled.

  When she came to a complete stop, she unfolded her body and stood. Bodies littered the ground. Ryan stood, staring down at her, and his very countenance reeked of his hatred for her.

  Beth sheathed the blade against her thigh. How she wished for a stimulator. But that handy weapon wouldn't have made the journey to Sector Thirteen.

  On powerful legs, Merrick began to descend the small knoll. Beth took a moment to admire him in motion. A thing of beauty, his sandy-colored hair was almost blond in the bright glare of this world's summertime. He came to stand in front of her, barely breathing after the fierce battle

  Neither said anything about Ryan’s attempt to kill them. The other Reflective stayed at the top of the hill, not acknowledging what had happened after Beth's escape down the small decline.

  Merrick didn't say anything for a few moments, and his eyes were like stranded storm clouds in the blood that covered his face.

  He reached out, and Beth flinched. Merrick ignored her and scooped something off her face.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He put his finger up, and a piece of gray clay the size of a pea stared back.

  “Brains,” Merrick said casually, flicking it off his thumb.

  Beth had a case of the quick swallows, fighting her rising gorge.

  Then she caught Ryan smirking down at her like the king of the hill.

  She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

  “Let's go,” Beth said instead.

  Merrick hid a small smile as they mounted the hill and began to weave between the dead bodies.

  Beth noticed the different modes of dress; some were of a modern Three origin. Actually, she saw clothing from every sector.

  The sectors occupied different times and parallel existences, but all were still Earths of varying degrees.

  “Those interfering asshole Zondoraes…” Beth muttered, and Merrick's brows rose. She couldn't help thinking that Thirteen would be so much safer if those criminals hadn't dumped Three scourge there. The worst insult: they'd fashioned a pathway that non-Reflectives could travel in, but not without health consequence.

  “Yes, we'll be dealing with them shortly.”

  “What does it matter? They're not bringing the technology here. They're just dumping the criminals.” Their scientists were bent on advancement to the detriment of their own world and the one the Reflectives stood in.

  Of course Ryan wouldn't see any problem with it. He must have thought it was such fun to engage with the Fragment.

  He was an efficient killer. After all, he had almost killed her.

  Merrick turned slowly to Ryan. “Before we jump, I am putting you on notice.”

  Ryan's eyes slimmed down on him.

  “Because of you, I missed a fine rut with a female Reflective of worth. You had to go and make the final play for another inductee and make it personal.”

  Beth couldn't believe this was about sex. She narrowed her eyes on Merrick with blatant disbelief.

  “So”—Ryan stabbed his own chest with a thumb, and Beth smiled when she caught sight of the nasty row of bruises on his throat he hadn't managed to heal—“you think I'm a cock-block?” Ryan snorted.

  Definitely a fan of Sector Three Earth idioms, Beth noted.

  “I don't think. I know,” Merrick answered.

  “That's just great that Ryan's attempted murder of me got in the way of your humping agenda.”

  Beth stalked off, leaving them to diminish the value of her life to an inconvenience.

  Merrick's voice stopped her. “We're jumping. I'm senior. Toss me a locator.”

  Beth's lips twitched. She hurled the locator.

  No tossing involved.

  Merrick smoothly caught the sphere. Only the tightening of his eyes let her know it had hurt.

  She raised her middle finger. “Sit and spin, boys.”

  They weren't the only ones that had a handle on foreign language. She was female, after all.

  Everyone knew females were the great communicators, regardless the sector. Beth was not going to be shut down by anyone.

  Especially Lance Ryan and the cock-blocked Jeb Merrick.

  Merrick put the sphere at their feet and turned to Beth, but she was already gone.

  She'd jumped before he set it on the ground.

  Unlike most, she didn’t need the locators to be still for her to travel.

  Her partner and his murdering sidekick could follow the end of her Reflective tailwind.

  *

  “Jasper!”

  She kept walking, Jeb Merrick could screw off. And? If there was any confusion, she had the map for him to find his way.

  “Hold on—Jasper!”

  Without actually losing dignity with a full-on jog, he was catching up. The bastard was well over six feet tall.

  She whirled around, and Merrick nearly plowed into her. His gold hair was curling along the ends, his fair complexion a ruddy slap against his cheekbones.

  Hell, he’d been invigorated by the jump.

  She folded her arms. “Weren't you stabbed, Merrick?”

  “It's just a flesh wound,” he answered without a hint of a smile.

  More Earth humor.

  Beth wasn't laughing. “What the Hades was that back there?”

  “That was diffusion, if you'd been paying attention instead of storming around like a female before her cycle.”

  Beth wanted to gut him where he stood, but she jammed her hands on her hips instead. “I was not ʽstorming aroundʼ.”

  Not too much.

  Merrick cocked an eyebrow.

  “Really,” he drawled.

  “Yes, really. Ryan's tried to kill me… what? Twice?”

  Merrick nodded. “But now we've got a gentleman's understanding.”

  Oh, Principle, this is rich.

  “I make him think that I have to suffer through our partnering, for the sake of some advancement… while trying to get in Daphne's panties…”

  Daphne, the slut of Papilio. That should be easy. Beth scowled at him.

  “You can't dismiss his attempt to murder me. I won't act for The Cause only to look over my shoulder for one of our own to disable me at a moment's notice.”

  He took Beth off guard with, “Nice neck jab.” He grinned down at her, white teeth blazing at her embarrassment.

  With supreme effort, Beth resisted putting her hands to her flaming face.

  “Thanks.”

  There was an awkward pause. “I've already been to Rachett.”

  Beth's chin jerked up, meeting his gaze. “And?”

  “I don't think anyone's going to be murdering anyone.”

  His smile faded.

  Beth stepped closer. “What?” Her eyes searched his face thoroughly.

  “Sector One incarceration.”

  She inhaled a sucking gasp. “How long?”

  “Thirty.”

  Thirty days in Sector One for a Reflective would be….

  Merrick had been following the thought processes that flowed across her face like emotional water.

  “Torture?” he said lightly.

  She gave him a sharp look. “Yes.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Sorry?”

>   Beth shook her head slowly. “If it keeps him away from me, then it's worth it.”

  An evil grin spread across her face.

  Merrick quirked a brow. “What?”

  “And… look at it this way—he can't be blocking your cock if he's not around, can he?”

  Ruddy color spread up his neck, climbing to his face, and he frowned.

  So, the unflappable Jeb Merrick could be embarrassed.

  “Give the whore of Babylon my regards.”

  “Daphne isn't a whore,” Merrick said in a low voice.

  “I never said her name,” Beth replied, walking away.

  Jeb stared after her, palming his chin.

  He hated how she got under his skin.

  There was no denying that if she had been male, he would not have felt compelled to protect her.

  And therein lied the problem.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Beth pulled out the slim, hard pulse, nearly the size of the playing cards the people of the Adlaine Quadrant used for poker. She pressed her thumb to the bottom center. The screen lit up, and she swept her finger across.

  Jasper, Beth. Sector Ten Papilio.

  Characters bled to the top of her viewing screen like green cream rising to the top of black milk then scattered across the surface. Those random symbols burst then coalesced into a single word:

  Initializing.

  Beth swept the word aside and thought her request.

  She touched her thumb to the pulse dock pad briefly. The Brain Impulse Technology created a conduit between her thumb and brain, which allowed her thoughts to travel like the sensation of pain following nerve endings.

  The instantaneous transfer was completely secure within the confines of her thumb-secure entry and unique brain signature.

  The device was a new conquest built from old technology on Papilio. A small rectangle of nubby high-density polymer manufactured on Sector Three, its synthetic composite closely mimicked a natural polymer, so it could travel on the Reflectives’ person during a jump.

  Each Reflective had been assigned one from the correct era to blend on jumps where pulse tech was in use.

  Reflectives would soon be traveling to the sector that had created it second to Papilio. Reports had been trickling in that the tampering of Earth's adolescent population had become alarming.

  The color threat for that sector had risen from orange to red.

  The scientists would need to be stopped.

  Gary and Joe Zondorae were men without honor. They did not seem to adhere to the motto that Merrick was so fond of saying: do not shit where you live.

  If only he would take his own advice.

  Beth glanced at her small screen. Seeing the answer, she released an explosive sigh.

  Merrick will meet you at 01:00- Rachett

  Beth hated the night shifts. They were almost like the healers who worked at the medical clinics that dotted so much of their planet.

  Though sickness was rare because of Papilio’s medical advancements, prevention was a priority for their sector.

  So many diseases of the sector they would soon visit could be prevented by simple but strict adherence to diet and, of course, the Inhibitor. If not for the built-in auto immune repression, the horrible diseases that had ravaged Sector Three would tear through Papilio as well.

  Beth grimaced, thinking about cancer, arthritis, and other diseases caused by the body's own power wielded against itself. Many times, she had studied what life had been like before the Inhibitor's conception.

  Beth shivered. There was no point of reference for those dark times, and she was glad of it.

  Beth had some time before her meeting with Merrick. She thought her salutation to Rachett.

  Her thumb lingered a few seconds after his terse reply.

  Roger that—Rachett

  In the end, she kept her comments to herself.

  Beth felt beat up after her return from Sector Thirteen—Spheres. The unexpected engagement on the heels of her narrow escape from Ryan and being injured in the coliseum had been arduous.

  However, Beth knew what it meant to be Reflective. Beth considered how many times Commander Rachett had said that battle, politics, and justice waited for no man—or woman.

  Beth slid her pulse into the pocket at her left buttock of her navy-blue uniform. She carefully secured the hidden button by touch. The pulse was not something any Reflective wanted someone from a planet with lesser technology to get their hands on. It would have disastrous results, and it went against the prime directive of The Cause.

  The Reflectives were not meant to advance the technologies of their sister sectors but to protect those who could not defend themselves from the technologically advanced sectors might use to exploit them

  Beth had sufficient time for a drink at the local watering hole from where she hailed. It was the most anonymous spot in this quadrant. No other Reflectives would be caught slumming there.

  Beth had spent her very-early childhood there. One of the only spots she had not been hated.

  The ancient streets of the lower quadrant of Adlaine welcomed her. Cobblestones laid five centuries ago still remained, though the wear from a million treads had softened their hard edges.

  Twilight bled across the landscape of rich-green rolling pastures and beautiful vineyards holding the promise of early summer grapes for harvest.

  She imagined all the planets had the same view, though none left her as warm as this one.

  Soft streetlights illuminated the steps before her. They snapped on as light escaped along with the day, and the night replaced it like a blanket of black velvet.

  Beth huddled within herself, her thoughts deep and faraway.

  She became aware of footsteps behind her, and instantly, she gauged the distance between the door of the tavern and the person shadowing her.

  She estimated that her safety net was too far away.

  Beth stopped suddenly, and the footsteps did as well. Her eyes flicked to the tavern sign that swayed in the soft breeze of summer. She could just make out the outline of a butterfly in a puddle of light cast from one of the streetlamps.

  Her heart raced, and she put one hand on her thigh dagger.

  “Don't.”

  Beth whirled, the blade in her hand.

  But Merrick's was there first, the tip pressed just shy of breaking the skin underneath her jaw.

  He tsked her. “Slow, Jasper… so slow.”

  His eyes tightened when her palm gently squeezed his testicles.

  She smiled.

  “All right,” he conceded and stepped away.

  Merrick scowled at her. “Not fair, Jasper.”

  “Not so slow after all.”

  They regarded each other for a pregnant heartbeat.

  “I could have cut your throat.”

  Beth cocked her head. “And—I could've been the ultimate cock block.”

  Reflectives’ strength was renowned. Pound for pound, Beth was fighting an uphill battle against a Reflective male. But a non-Reflective would have had their hands very full.

  Merrick placed his hands on his hips, brows pulling together. “I'm not looking. My timepiece has not assimilated.”

  “Clearly,” Beth said in a droll tone.

  Each Reflective bore an internal device that prohibited the thread of their one true soul mate from being plucked. It guaranteed five to eight years of service to The Cause. Then, and only then, would they be free to explore sectors where their mate existed.

  No other Papiliones were ever a match for a Reflective. Beth had determined that it might be a way to ward off inbreeding. Because they were Reflectives, they alone within their world had the potential to meet their perfect match somewhere outside their own sector. The Reflectives needed that knowledge to continue on: that there was something more than just fighting, policing, and killing.

  She walked toward the tavern, leaving Merrick to his own devices.

  She would have her drink and meet him in—Beth studi
ed the sky again, where Venus hung like a captured jewel in the ebony tapestry of the night—four hours. It was near oh nine hundred at present.

  She had plenty of time before the jump.

  Merrick could try to incite her and test her prowess, or he could tie on a drink or two.

  Beth almost felt him decide as he slowly followed her to the tavern.

  The lower quadrant wasn't known to support The Cause. Beth turned around and looked at her arrogant partner.

  She couldn't imagine why.

  ***

  Jeb followed Jasper, loathing that she’d managed to get the drop on him.

  He could still feel her small hand on his nut sack, and he shifted his weight, watching her retreating back. The sensation had not been nearly as nice as when Daphne had rolled the same set of balls in her mouth before laying claim to his dick. Now, that had been… sublime.

  It was too easy to forget that Jasper was Reflective. Her fluid and delicate movements were almost dance-like as she hopped the rough curb and opened the massive tavern door, a hangover of wood and pounded metal fasteners from medieval times. Even the weathered and dangling sign begged to be modernized.

  The name mocked him; as did everything about this lower quadrant of Adlaine.

  Babcock, the sign read. The old name was respected in this quadrant, though Jeb was not. Reflectives were feared here, and that was not the same as respect.

  He tore open the heavy door, and it swung out slowly, revealing the dim interior, where a dozen pairs of unfriendly eyes latched onto him.

  His uniform marked him as Reflective, and that was enough. However, Beth seemed immune, already knocking back a shot.

  She'd been in the place for mere seconds. The bartender must have had it waiting in one hand, poised for her entrance.

  She slapped the small glass down and flicked a finger at the rim, and Jeb’s ears pricked unpleasantly as Beth caught his expression and winked. The sensitivity of a Reflective's hearing was common knowledge.

  With every gaze in the place fixed on his insignia, he stalked over to the empty stool beside her and sat down.