Between Death (#6.5): Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance

by Blodgett, Tamara Rose

  “I will not deal with Slade's wrath because you want to enter the fray.”

  That was exactly what she'd been thinking. Principle dammit.

  Beth gave a disgusted snort, and he smirked.

  They take their sarcasm seriously here on One.

  The nightloper who had closed in from behind was definitely the wolf. Its snout drove long canines deep into Slade's shoulder as he battled the one in front of him.

  “Help him!” Beth said.

  If they finished off Slade, then she would have to face the three of them.

  “No. He is a bloodling. We do not interfere in this test.”

  Males! Regardless of the sector, they were all so sure of their superiority.

  “What damn test?” Beth screamed over the fighting as the lion nightloper broke away, leaving the wolf and bear to tear Slade to pieces.

  Great. Beth was there with a barely-out-of-adolescent bloodling.

  “Give me the female, bloodling—and your death will be swift. Or fight me, and it shall be creative.”

  Beth didn't like the sound of that raspy voice giving choices that were both bad.

  “Okay, let me down.”

  He let Beth slide to the ground and put her behind him protectively.

  “She is a bloodling… of no interest to you, nightloper.”

  Watching him nod was comical. A golden mane surrounded a face with a light covering of fur. His amber eyes were like fire.

  On Beth.

  He snuffled and gave her a hard glance. “No, I smell many things. But she is desirable because she is Reflective. They are neutral, as well you know.”

  Well finally, someone noticed. The neutral part wasn't good. It meant that she could be with any subspecies on One. Beth knew that in theory, but to have it dumped at her doorstep in the middle of an engagement was entirely different.

  “Stay back or die,” the young bloodling said.

  He sounded unwavering, confident.

  Beth could feel the racing pulse at his back.

  Short tortoise-colored talons sprang from the lion’s stubby fingers, and with a roar that hurt Beth's ears, he swung forward, burying all ten claws inside the bloodlings chest and heaving him aside in a practiced toss.

  A bloodling of Jeb's size.

  It left Beth vulnerable, with a seven-foot full-fledged monster in front of her. He swooped in to grab her, and she did the opposite of what he thought she would.

  Beth charged, punching out with her fist into his considerable groin.

  Another roar and shout followed.

  But he was down, and Beth leapt over him.

  His hand caught her ankle, and she fell like a dead bird from the sky.

  She hit the ground hard, her teeth coming together painfully. His panting breath was hot on her face.

  “Female.”

  Beth twisted her elbow and smashed it into that snub-nose snout. Blood burst like a geyser to join the blood that soaked her clothes.

  Claws punched to either side of her head, and Beth screamed—he had effectively caged her.

  She rolled, ducking under one of his powerful arms, and was plucked off the ground.

  Beth swung her head to meet the forehead of whoever had captured her and was dumped.

  Of course.

  She opened her eyes, and Slade stood above her, wounds decorating every surface of his body.

  His blood was black.

  *

  “Nice reception here, Merrick,” Jacky quipped.

  “Shut up, Three.”

  “Fuck off, ya turd.”

  Another inductee Reflective, Iver, hit Jacky in the back of the head with his gun.

  He fell to his hands and knees, and Jeb bellowed, moving forward.

  “Don't do it, Reflective.”

  Jeb met his eyes. “I will see your bones turn to dust.”

  He smirked.

  “No you won't. You and your little pet Three will do as we say. I didn't like that you worked over Quaker. He runs a tight ship here.”

  Jeb gave looks of disgust to Calvin and Kennet. He couldn't believe they would partake in this.

  Iver sank his fingers into Daphne's pale hair and jerked her back against him, groping at her breast, and a low sound of shame burst out of her mouth.

  Jeb could abide it no longer. His eyes scanned everything and caught on a surface that winked at him.

  Calvin lifted a mirror the size of a female's make-up compact behind Iver's back.

  Jeb's thoughts came together like a jigsaw puzzle of hope.

  Jacky caught his eye from the ground, a shining understanding running between them.

  Jeb felt like crying for the first time in his life. His gratefulness was so acute that it manifested physically.

  The tears ached to fall, burning and stinging his eyelids.

  He jumped.

  It was the fastest reflection he'd ever executed.

  Iver had taken one lascivious breath, his foulness all over the female. And in the next, Jeb had broken the wrist that would touch a female Reflective against her will.

  Jeb drove his elbow into Iver’s nose while he ripped the stabilizer out of his hands and slammed the barrel into his belly.

  Blood poured out of Iver’s nose. His eyes were wide, with the stabilizer barrel pressed against his guts.

  “Go ahead,” Jeb ground out. “I only need one word, one movement to splatter your worthless entrails all over the steps of our once-great Cause.”

  Iver tensed.

  “If you reflect, I shall follow.”

  Jeb punched him in the jaw, and he slumped.

  Jeb's eyes went to Calvin and Kennet.

  “Report.”

  “Let's get out of the whole”—Jacky looped his hand around—“fucking middle of everything. Kinda exposed!”

  Jeb hoisted the Three up.

  Jacky kicked Iver.

  “Dick. Ya don't treat chicks like that.”

  Daphne stood shaking like a leaf.

  “I need more opium.”

  Jeb's head hung.

  He wanted Beth; his entire being knew that if he could have just a few minutes in her presence, everything would right itself.

  However, there was so much wrong in the here and now that Jeb didn't know when he would be with her again.

  His comrades faces bore a grimness he knew matched his own.

  “What is this?”

  “We thought you'd been deported with the others,” Calvin said.

  Jeb stared blankly at the two.

  “Newsflash, guys—we've been gone for five years,” Jacky said.

  Calvin's face wore a stunned expression. “I—when so many of us were taken, I assumed you'd been one of them. We never dreamed that you were on a mission that lasted that long.”

  Jeb dismissed their surprise.

  He drew the shaking Daphne into his arms, turning his body to watch what others might be doing. It was the earliest part of the morning. He'd taken out three Reflectives, and aside from the girl who took the brothel money—they were alone.

  It was a stroke of sheer luck, and he knew it. The stabilizer fire should have alerted people.

  That it hadn’t spoke of the frequency of its use.

  “Leave them. Let us return to my dwelling.”

  Calvin and Kennet wore identical expressions, their eyebrows cocked.

  Jeb was not asking.

  Daphne huddled against him as they marched swiftly back the way they'd come.

  Jeb would get fast answers, then he would seek Beth.

  His body thrummed with the need.

  *

  Beth threw a forearm over her eyes.

  “Okay, I give up.”

  “Excellent,” Slade said and offered a hand.

  Beth flattened her palms on the ground and pushed to her feet, ignoring his hand. He took it back.

  Beth heard a sucking sound, and the young bloodling who'd been wounded by the lion nightloper was struggling to breathe through his perforate
d lungs.

  She ran to him and got down on her haunches. Beth was greeted by frantic eyes.

  She turned to Slade, a question on her lips, but he had just beheaded the nightloper.

  The entire head, its mane matted with blood, rolled over and over again until it landed at her feet.

  Beth shook with rage.

  She stepped over the head and stalked over to Slade. A maddening smile on his brutally handsome face, he wore the nightlopers’ blood like war paint.

  Beth never broke her stride; she slapped his face as hard as she could.

  It was a hard strike.

  Though Beth was female, ultimately, she was Reflective.

  His face rocked back, and he staggered from the blow.

  “I will not take your hand so you can drop me like garbage. I will not aid you in anything while you murder those that couldn't get to me—or abide how cavalier you are with the safety of your own people.” Her voice had grown lower with her fury, the last word etched in a vibrating intensity that was wrung out of her.

  Beth's chest heaved, and she held her ground when every instinct told her to run.

  He was the biggest male she'd ever encountered, but she readied her fists to the sides of her jaw.

  “Do you think that bee sting of a swat you just delivered hurts me?”

  Beth's hands dropped. “Yes.”

  Of course it had; she'd given it everything she had. It would have broken a Three male's jaw like brittle glass.

  “No!” he bellowed, and spittle and the loose hot blood of his enemies flew as he strode to her.

  “I am bloodling, female! Not some weak Reflective.”

  “Yeah?” Beth asked.

  She kicked him square in his inflated testicles.

  He crumpled where he stood.

  Worked like a charm. All males had the same parts, regardless of the sector.

  It had not been a glancing blow. She turned to run, and a fist met her temple.

  “Thank you, Jasper—you just made things much easier.”

  Beth made a small sound as she fell.

  It sounded like regret to her ears.

  She wanted to fight Ryan, just as she had the nightloper—she had just disabled her only protector.

  Slade, her mind whispered miserably.

  Beth's pride had endangered her.

  Ryan had hit her soundly, and she remained in that state of weary consciousness, vaguely aware of the motion as Ryan scooped her from the ground and squired her away.

  Her mind was in abject denial of her future.

  She would be payment for Ryan's foibles.

  *

  They sat in a loose circle in the middle of Jeb's living room. He couldn't believe his ears, so Kennet was repeating the debacle.

  “Inductee Ryan worked in collusion with another dissenting faction. Between the two of them, they produced a mass inoculation to induce twenty-four-hour comas. In pairs, they managed to reflect all of us out of Papilio.”

  “And you?” Jeb asked, swinging his finger from one to the other.

  “We professed to agree with their regime, knowing that we could infiltrate and take the entire thing apart piece by piece.”

  “Five years?” Jeb asked.

  “It is the two of us against a dozen of them. And we are the law in this sector, Jeb. The hidden corruption of Papilio has found its place,” Kennet said.

  “And they are many,” Calvin added.

  Jeb scrubbed his face, chancing a glance at Daphne, who was racked with cold sweat and shivering, though she lay covered with three blankets.

  “Withdrawals. She's all hooked on drugs,” Jacky said.

  Jeb paced, ignoring Jacky’s comment. “You say they're on Sector One.”

  Calvin nodded. “And without jumping…”

  Jeb nodded. It was like a slow death. Reflectives were meant to jump. Not jumping was a special torture.

  “Ryan has some kind of gambling ring going on. I don't know what it is, but we suspect that it involves Reflectives being pitted one against the other.”

  Jeb sucked in a breath.

  Jacky stood. “You mean like cock fighting?”

  The three males gave him frowns. “God, nimrods, not penises—like roosters. Pit bulls?” His brows hiked. “Yeah, and you're all so smart from Sector Ten.”

  Calvin and Kennet stood, six and a half feet of finely honed warrior Reflective muscle.

  “Okay, eff me. Chill your shit out. What I'm saying is—we have the same crap in American.”

  “Is it sanctioned?” Calvin asked.

  Jacky made a disbelieving noise. “Hell, no.”

  “This isn't, either. If it is fighting to the death…”

  “It'd be bad,” Kennet gave Calvin a significant glance.

  Jeb stared at them both. “Ryan took Beth to Sector One.”

  The two had matching sick expressions.

  “She's female.”

  Jeb nodded. “It is the worst place for her to be, besides Thirteen.”

  Silence fell.

  He knew Calvin and Kennet were neutral at best about Beth. But they needed to know.

  “My timepiece has run out, and I have found my soul mate.”

  “Finally! A piece of joyous news.”

  Calvin grinned at Jeb, looking around as though Jeb might have squeezed her into his back pocket.

  Kennet continued to give Jeb a hard look. The wheels of his mind turning were clear on his countenance. Like Beth, his thoughts were plain to all who saw him.

  Jeb saw when realization clicked into place.

  Jeb's silence probably played a part.

  “No,” Kennet said quietly.

  Calvin gave him a sharp look. “What…?” He turned to Jeb.

  “Okay—who the hell just died?” Jacky commented, his eyes moving to each Reflective's face.

  They ignored Daphne as she moaned in the background, muttering requests for drugs.

  “It is Beth Jasper.”

  Calvin sat back on the couch. “You can't be serious.” His patent disbelief irked Jeb.

  “As if I have a choice what the Principle dictates.”

  “He's right,” Kennet said.

  “Who gives a ripe shit?!” Jacky said. “They’re supposed to be together. That clown Ryan jumped her to this criminal planet with… what the hell is there?”

  “Bloodlings and nightlopers,” Jeb supplied. And Principle knows what else. They'd only scratched the surface of cautious exploration.

  Jacky paused.

  “Scary shit,” Jacky said, then announced, “And you dudes are worried about Beth being half-Reflective? Get it together, dudes!” Jacky stabbed his finger at the ceiling.

  “The boy is right,” Jeb began, and Jacky scowled.

  “If we can find Beth…” He hesitated, “When we find Beth, she has the ability with a big enough water source, to jump all the Reflectives back.”

  “Harmony could be restored.”

  Quiet filled the space.

  “This is so Hallmark moment, guys.”

  They looked blankly at Jacky.

  “Nevermind,” he muttered.

  Jeb turned back to Calvin and Kennet. “There's a chance if we go now.”

  Jacky whirled around, one name on his mind. “Maddie!”

  The pause choked them.

  “Where is she?”

  The two Reflectives were silent.

  “Let me guess—Sector effing One, right? With all the creeper dudes…”

  Jeb nodded. He knew what their silence meant: affirmative.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Cold water hit Beth's face, going up her nose and knocking her off the perch she'd been half-conscious on.

  She sat straight up, sputtering.

  Ryan's grinning face greeted her.

  She coughed and spit water out of her mouth and nostrils.

  Beth clamped down on her panic, channeling the adrenaline for when she might need it because her ravenous hunger stole her reserves mom
ent by moment.

  “Wakey, wakey, mongrel.” Ryan's grin broadened.

  “I really hate that you can't get my name right.” Beth swiped the last of the water out of her eyes.

  Ryan had been overconfident, standing too close to Beth, and she lashed out, kicking him dead center in the jaw.

  That open self-congratulatory smile was wiped away in a wash of blood.

  Heal that, prick.

  She'd never wished more strongly for combat boots. Her bare foot was just not as effective.

  Ryan spun, trying to take her foot, but she was slightly faster than he was because of her smaller body mass.

  She avoided the trap of his snagging fingers and leapt off the table she'd been on.

  Ragged faces of Reflectives were behind bars in every corner her eyes visited.

  Beth shelved her shock and searched for a means of escape. Precious seconds had ticked by as she’d taken in the cells that held her fellow Reflectives.

  Low and narrow windows sat just below where the stone walls met the twenty-foot ceiling.

  Bars prevented escape while meager light and ventilation leaked through.

  Beth dismissed the unclimbable walls of stone immediately—no footholds.

  Her assessment took three heartbeats of time she couldn't spare. She found the door and bolted, her heart full for her fellow Reflectives she left behind while fleeing.

  Beth could not help them if she didn't escape.

  Ryan caught her by her long hair and dragged her backward.

  Beth gritted her teeth to stop from crying out.

  He wound her hair around his wrist and jerked her face close to his. Beth presumed he was going to say something he thought was clever.

  She surprised him, grabbing the back of his skull, and jerked it as she brought her knee up. She smashed his newly healed nose and the mess she'd made of his mouth.

  He wailed, letting go of her hair, but it remained twined around his forearm as his hands automatically went to cup his nose, dragging her backward a second time.

  Beth spun in the opposite direction, unwinding her hair. Then she ran.

  Ryan staggered after her, calling her names far worse than mongrel.

  She hit the door, and cheers from the captive Reflectives drowned out Ryan's agony.

  Beth jerked open the door and was met by a huge male of indeterminate lineage.

  She reacted instantly, smacking him open-palmed in the middle of his chest then pivoting in the opposite direction.