Between Death (#6.5): Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance

by Blodgett, Tamara Rose

  Merrick's lips turned up.

  Beth rubbed her palms against the stiff denim she wore.

  Thank Principle a Reflective can’t scent emotion. However, Beth wasn't entirely sure what abilities Merrick possessed. All Reflectives could heal quickly—and Merrick could regenerate during a jump.

  Merrick was also excellent with a type of thrall, a common vampire trick, though it did not work on younglings. Reflectives did not possess any paranormal talent within their own ranks, but some had interesting anomalous talents.

  With the exception of jumping at anything that reflected, Beth had come up short. Even her super speed, strength, and other heightened senses were nothing exceptional in the ranks of her kind. As a matter of fact, her strength and speed were constrained by her gender.

  The paranormal talents of this sector were due to the brilliant but misguided discoveries of a geneticist named Kyle Hart. He had mapped this Earth's human DNA code, using an exhaustive process that had excavated the previously undiscovered paranormal markers. Exploitative Threes then discovered a chemical way to unlock that code, but only within the adolescent population.

  At that time, the Reflective had been placed on pointe. Sector Three Earth had gone from a sleeping to waking giant in the span of two cycles. Now Beth and Merrick were wandering a planet where everyone between the ages of fifteen and thirty could host any paranormal talent they could think of and a few they couldn't.

  Preparation was key.

  Meeting the AftD had been a real eye-opener. “That zombie was so gross,” Beth said.

  Merrick smiled. “Do you wish we had not helped?”

  “Watch your syntax.”

  Merrick frowned, clearing his throat. “Would ya have just dumped him?”

  Beth grinned at his efforts. “Not bad. But did you get a load of Bobbi Gale?”

  Merrick snorted. “She was as local as they come.”

  “She nailed us.”

  Merrick nodded. “Yeah, she did.”

  He scooted away from her and leaned forward, making her immediately self-conscious. Do I reek that bad? Something must have showed on her face because Merrick said, “I'm watching the other exit.”

  Right. Okay… Beth was acting like a regular female instead of a Reflective.

  She needed to nip that in the bud, as they said here.

  “That was a kick-ass jump, Jasper… even if you screwed the end.”

  Beth frowned.

  “Listen, I jumped with you. Yʼknow how hard that is.”

  “Of course I know.”

  A waitress with red hair came to their table. The color was not natural but was easier on the eyes than the rainbow hair on Bethany, who kept casting furtive glances in Beth and Merrick’s direction.

  “What'll it be?” The waitress’s nametag said Doreen.

  “Yeah, I'd like the special.”

  Beth's eyebrows rose.

  “How do ya want your eggs cooked?”

  Merrick hesitated. Finally he replied, “All the way.”

  Doreen kept chewing a wad of neon-green food inside her mouth.

  Nasty. Beth stifled mild revulsion.

  “Listen, pal, don't get cute. It's five in the morning. Over-easy, medium, or hard.”

  Merrick blinked.

  “We'll have them medium.”

  Doreen gave up on Merrick and turned to Beth, the reasonable half of the pair.

  Beth smirked.

  “Bread?”

  “Wheat,” Beth replied quickly.

  “Juice?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  “Citrus,” Beth replied, delighted to use her language skills.

  “I give up,” Doreen said, her paper and writing utensil protruding from ample hips.

  Uh-oh.

  “Grapefruit, apple, or orange?”

  “Orange,” Merrick piped in.

  “Great, a comedian.” She looked from Beth to Merrick. “Anything else.”

  Merrick grinned.

  Oh Principle.

  “Yes, I'd like to try these hotcakes.” He pointed to a beautiful graphic of five circular discs that resembled a pastry popular on Papilio.

  “Uh-huh,” Doreen acknowledged. Then the glob in her mouth came out and grew like a green tumor.

  It suddenly sucked back into her mouth, and Merrick jumped when it popped in an explosive snap.

  His hand flinched around his weapon.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Doreen asked.

  Beth was unfamiliar with the idiom.

  She could tell that Merrick thought that required a simple response. “No, there are no felines present.” He peered at her name tag. “Dor-reen.”

  She stared a hole through him.

  “Right, yeah—thanks for your order.” She sauntered off, shaking her head.

  “What was all that about?” Merrick asked.

  Beth shook her head. “I'm not sure. I thought I was fairly well-versed in this sector.”

  “Syntax,” he mocked, his eyebrow quirked.

  Beth glowered at him, wanting to give him the stiff middle finger.

  “I mean, they only live around eighty cycles, but maybe… there is a big gap between the younglings and old ones in terminology.”

  Merrick waved his hand. “I don't care. I want food.”

  Agreed. “I'm famished.”

  She licked her dry lips, wishing for a toothbrush, water, food, a cleansing… and not in that order.

  “I could eat a horse.”

  Merrick chuckled, scrubbing his face.

  Beth could see, and feel, his fatigue. It matched her own.

  “What is their obsession with animals here?”

  She gave a weary laugh that was more like a cackle, so when Doreen showed up with water, Beth asked for a pitcher in between hiccups.

  “Slow. Drink it slow.”

  Beth's eyes shifted to Merrick.

  “Right—disease.” She'd almost forgotten.

  He nodded and slid an inhibitor tablet across the table.

  She swallowed the opaque oval pill with water that was contaminated, as their food would be.

  This world still used artificial manipulation on their food and water sources. It was a shame. They were a hundred years away from sanitation that didn't deplete the Earth's own resources.

  The Reflective could do nothing for that. It broke the third directive: Change not what must be.

  It was one of the most difficult directives to follow. There was so much they wished to accomplish, yet meddling was disallowed.

  The hotcakes came, and Beth explained the minor difference between hotcakes and pancakes.

  “That's an eastern-region phrase.”

  “Right,” Merrick dismissed, pouring a slow-moving hot amber liquid over the stacked discs.

  He shoveled the first mouthful and sighed, and Beth laughed.

  “Males!” she said under her breath.

  “There is more of me than you.”

  “Uh-huh,” Beth said, taking a delicate bite of her egg, when she would have liked to fold the plate in half and funnel the entire meal down her throat.

  Merrick stared at her and cut off a piece of the steaming dessert disguised as the morning meal.

  “Open,” he commanded.

  Beth didn't think he fed his other partners.

  She didn't say so.

  The tenderness Merrick had displayed when she was injured had seemed out of character to what she understood him to be.

  She was so starved for any kindness from her own kind that she popped open her mouth and closed her eyes, going against her better judgment and experience.

  Flavor exploded in her mouth, and she closed it, moaning in bliss as the mix of creamy, fluffy warm goodness with a kick of maple filled her mouth to bursting.

  She smiled through the pancake and opened her eyes.

  Merrick's expression was curious, then he seemed to take interest in something else.

  Beth had a moment to wonde
r what his face had been trying to tell her before the roar of noise filled her ears. She glanced outside, swallowing the thick lump of pancake.

  With a teeth-thrumming rumble, two-wheeled transports crawled up alongside the curb of the eatery. She saw fifteen different vehicles of similar design—she struggled to remember the name for them on Three.

  Merrick supplied the word without her asking.

  “Motorcycles.”

  “Oh,” she said, hating the noise. Beth wanted to slap her hands over her ears.

  “They're awful.”

  “Many years ago, we had something similar.”

  Beth remembered the history: they destroyed everything, polluting the world, killing the precious butterflies.

  Papiliones traveled by hover transport, but she could not fault this sector for not yet having the technology. It simply wasn't their time.

  Though the primitiveness was painful to endure.

  Merrick's head snapped to the right, his eyes narrowed at the rainbow-haired hostess and their hostile waitress.

  “I don't like this,” Merrick said as the first male who’d arrived by motorcycle strutted into the eatery.

  Beth assessed the females inside.

  “They're scared.”

  “Yes,” Merrick said, keeping the steady consumption of his food moving.

  He had a plan.

  “What do we do?” Beth asked.

  “Eat up,” he said.

  “Then?”

  “Nothing.”

  He turned to her, using the paper that lay underneath the flatware to cleanse the corners of his mouth.

  In the pale morning light, Beth noticed a shadow of wheat peppered Merrick's square jaw; the cleft of his chin suggested a darker gold.

  “Finish,” he said.

  Beth chewed then swallowed mechanically, her eyes pegged to the entrance as more of the Threes came through.

  She smelled something.

  Merrick's eyes focused on the signs of her distress.

  Beth knew he could count her heartbeats and respiration, smell the adrenaline increasing, and see her pupils dilate.

  His palms flattened on the table.

  “What is it?” He tossed the last of the polluted water down his throat and Beth saw the knot of hard flesh all males had plow up and down his neck.

  His unnerving gray eyes darkened like a coming storm.

  Females were known to have a slightly better sense of smell.

  Beth was no exception.

  “I smell gun oil.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jeb considered Beth's color and overall wellness to be restored. She would be as fatigued as he was, but they still had a chance to get out of their current situation unscathed if they played it right.

  He racked his brain.

  The cleansing room had sported a mirror. However, without a locator, its surface was too small to use for a jump. It would be their stupid luck to end up in an even more remote place than the one Jasper had already placed them.

  No, we still need to find a greater body of water.

  Damn.

  Most males of this sector seemed to be intimidated by Jeb’s persona. He and Jude Calvin had made hundreds of inductee jumps together, and unless they were Sensitives, Threes gave the men a wide berth.

  However, though Jasper wasn't classically beautiful for Papilio, she held a sort of fragile quality that circled true beauty, never quite landing, and was appealing nonetheless.

  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 differ
ent.”

  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.