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.
She heard him land, but she kept running, her arms pumping, the din of the Reflectivesʼ screamed urgings spurring her on.
Two guards approached, and Beth dove, swinging low and hard, using her stature to her advantage. She brutalized the crotch of one and slammed her elbow backward into the stomach of the other.
They fell to the side of her like water off the bow of a ship.
She reached the door that led outside and thrust it open as she clapped her hand on the handle.
Beth threw herself in a running leap, clearing a bank of five, three-meter-wide steps.
She rolled in the air, landing with cat-like precision on the unforgiving gravel skirting the building. Small pebbles abraded her palms.
She rose, and Slade and twenty-odd bloodlings stood looking at her.
Icy adrenaline filled her veins as they moved around her in a loose circle. Slade’s face was set in stone—against her.
The doors slapped open behind Beth, and she put her back to Slade. She used her damp sleeve as already damp with blood to wipe fresh blood, grime, and sweat off her brow.
A bleeding Ryan strode out of the door. The man Beth vaguely remembered shoving on his ass gave Beth a big grin.
Let them come.
Shifting her weight, Beth flicked her eyes at the two guards; one had his hand by his tender groin, while the other glowered at her.
She'd thought Ryan hated her before. But that dislike had morphed into something else entirely.
The man with the grin began clapping.
Loud brittle strikes sounded, each one punching her sensitive eardrums.
“Bravo… my little hopper, bravo.”
The clapping abruptly ceased, and Beth tensed, ready for whatever they would deliver.
“I am Dimitri,” he announced.
Wonderful. The ring leader of whatever illegal crap Ryan was trying to use her to pay off.
Beth said nothing, her eyes pegged on the two guards and Ryan.
She was discomforted by how Ryan's gaze stayed locked on her like a trophy.
She could feel the bloodlings behind her like the electric conduit of hundreds of years before her time, a low thrumming energy working like a big battery at her back.
Beth swallowed over a parched throat.
Dimitri continued, “That was quite a performance.”
“I wasn't performing. I was escaping,” Beth clarified.
Troll.
“She needs a lesson of manners,” Dimitri said thoughtfully, and his guards muttered their assent.
“Dimitri,” Ryan began, “she is a female, but Reflective. You can't expect her to just roll over.”
Ryan set her teeth on edge. Even with the danger she was in, Beth still found room for anger. Oh now I am Reflective?
Dimitri turned to Ryan. “Oh? As you did?”
Ryan's face instantly turned to contained fury.
“It seems that she bested you.” His light mocking-gold eyes turned to Beth.
Nightloper, lion descent. Six feet seven, two hundred eighty pounds, snake-like reflexes. She sensed something else she could not identify, also a potential problem.
Dimitri certainly hadn't been fast enough to thwart her.
However, Beth wasn't arrogant enough to assume that the element of surprise would be on her side a second time.
If she had to face him in a real battle, he would hurt her.
But she would hurt him, as well.
It made her lips curl in a mocking smile.
“Look at her,” Dimitri commented, making casual progress as he descended the stairs, closing in on her position.
Beth held her ground.
She had nowhere to go, with bloodlings at her back and Ryan and Dimitri's guards at her front.
It was a juggernaut.
“She is a tiny hopper,” he continued, making a measuring gesture to his pecs with a hand.
“Yes, well, this tiny hopper,” Beth enunciated slowly, the sarcasm dripping off every word, “knocked you on your big ass.”
“A lesson in manners indeed,” he repeated, then he was on her, using the preternatural speed nightlopers were known for.
Beth fought with what little she had left, every move choreographed like a beautiful dance against him.
Her fists sang along his ribcage, tapping the bones like a fine instrument.
She peppered him with abuse everywhere that was soft and vulnerable.
Dimitri didn't grab her hair, but slapped her arms out of the way, flinging both by her sides, and Beth leapt backward in a midair summersault. He barreled into her body as she tumbled through the air.
She sank her hands into his neck and hung on like a tick on a canine, throwing her head forward in a brutal skull strike.
His hold broke and Beth fell, her head on numbing fire.
Something caught her before she hit the ground.
Beth craned her neck and locked gazes with Slade.
She used the moment wisely, pushing the apology he deserved into her eyes.
Beth banked on how she wore her emotions plainly.
The barest tilt of his lips told her he got it loud and clear.
“Don't dump me,” she whispered, her body bone tired, her stomach so empty she was beyond hunger, her head a gnarled knot of pain.
Beth managed a small smile at the private joke.
Slade brushed the sweaty hair from her forehead.
“Never, tiny frog.”
Beth closed her eyes, safe for that moment.
Who knew for the next?
*
“Principle dammit!” Jeb cursed, kicking his foot out, water droplets flinging back into the shallow part of the ocean of Sector One.
“I think we have more things to worry about than water-logged boots,” Calvin commented, his dark-blond hair vaguely red as the dawn spread across the mountain range of this quadrant.
Jeb scanned the peaks all around them, the spikes of the tops like arrows against a lightening sky. Peach and tangerine crawled across the tops, tinging them like weapons dipped in blood.
Jacky came to stand beside him. He lifted a foot. “Dry as a bone.”
Jeb smirked, clapping him on the back, and he lurched forward a step. “Clothes fit a mite better, too.”
Jeb was pissed he hadn’t been able to keep the trajectory of the land better focused. Some of them had landed in shallow water.
Not Jacky. “Yeah, thanks. Keep your hands to yourself—hell.”
Jeb gave him the once-over: pants too long and big around the waist, cinched with a Reflective utility belt—all matte black—and a Reflective sparring top. The shirt fit loose on Jacky, but was meant to be worn tight to the body so the fabric didn't get in the way of movement and jabs. Jacky’s muscle structure wasn't quite a man's yet.
The faint outline of a butterfly was still visible on the old sparring shirt. Though it had been washed many times, the vaguest touch of unfurled wings and multi-c
olored shimmer remained at the breast.
It made Jeb's heart heavy.
Kennet spoke up, his eyes the most common color of a Papiliones—lagoon green, pale with streaks of muddied gray. “My pulse indicates we're in the Zimmer Quadrant.”
Jeb put his hands on his hips, thinking. “And intel says?”
“That this… ‘illegal fighting’ is in the York Quadrant.”
“Of course,” Jeb said bitterly.
“Okay, this means dick to me. What are all these places?” Jacky asked.
“Is he normally this…”
“Yes,” Jeb answered curtly.
“Principle, it's annoying,” Calvin said.
Jacky frowned, rubbing the spot where Jeb had thumped him. “Yeah? Try this on for size. What's annoying is being the Papilio bitch. I get to be a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed shit. Yeah—like I'm so for that program?” Jacky delivered the tirade so matter-of-factly that Kennet barked out a laugh.
“Stupid, this Three is not.”
“Yes,” Jeb agreed.
“God, you guys catch on fast.”
They frowned at Jacky.
Calvin put the strap of his all-ceramic stabilizer on his shoulder, hefting the weight until it hung perfectly, with a practiced motion.
“What we have here is a ten-kilometer click to find the center of the illegal cage fighting. The bulk of our Reflectives are housed there. Beth Jasper is key.”
“Why?” Jacky asked.
The men shifted their weight, then Jeb finally spoke. “She is a jumper for whom there is no comparison. Whatever she cannot do as well as her male counterparts, she makes up for in unparallelled reflection functionality.”
Jacky grinned, laughing.
“I can see that just twists your noodles, guys. A mere female”—he waggled his brows—“trumps ya on the old jumpathon. Yeah, that rankles.”
Calvin glared at him, his hands fisting.
“I want to strike him.”
“Feeling's mutual,” Kennet agreed smoothly.
“He speaks true,” Jeb said.
“Why is it such a big deal—” He made a whoo-hoo sound in his throat. “That Beth is better? Is it all because she's a chick?”
He searched their faces, and Jeb dropped his gaze.
“God! You guys are supposed to be so advanced, but you slave out your women—not dealing with liberation here.”
“This isn't helping,” Jeb commented.
“Which part? The part where ten percent of the ʽgreatʼ Reflectives did the moral dunce cap and took leave of their senses, ruined Papilio, and nabbed the rest of you guys? Or the part where you beat a good woman down who could have helped?” Jacky gave them steady eyes.
“’Cause I gotta say, I'm confused dudes.”
Calvin stalked off, and Kennet came to within kissing distance of Jacky. “I am sorry that your family has been murdered.”
Jacky held his tongue, though his eyes sparked with anger.
“However”—Kennet's finger went to Jacky's chest—“do not think my empathy is boundless. You are a foul-mouthed, impudent adolescent that needs a swift kick in the head to make you a man.”
“Yeah?” Jacky leaned forward into that pressing digit, apparently unintimidated by the five-inch-height and forty-pound-weight difference. “You need this foul-mouthed Three, Reflective Kennet.”
Jeb walked to the pair before they came to blows. It would be Jacky for whom it would end fatally. It was not the role of the Reflective to mete out life lessons to people from other sectors, no matter how enticing.
“Kennet,” Jeb began.
The Reflective's hands flexed. Then he backed away, expelling a disgusted noise.
“You need me,” Jacky repeated, crossing his arms.
“Yeah? Explain,” Kennet said, clearly disbelieving.
“I know the bad from the good.”
Jeb and Kennet stared at him as Calvin strode back. “Tell us.”
“You guys call me a ʽSensitiveʼ.” His gaze locked on them. “On Three, I'm an Aura Reader. I can always nail the butt munches from the cool people.”
Jeb cocked his brow.
“And?” Kennet asked.
“I'll know who we can trust, bright one.”
“Jacky,” Jeb warned.
“Well—God, he's the most stubborn listener on the planet.” Jacky’s eyes bounced around the general vicinity.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I'm gonna go there—on all the sectors.”
Calvin's chin jerked back, his hand on his hips. “And you presume it will work here? This is Sector One. Abilities don't always transfer.”
“Yeah?” Jacky asked, undaunted. “What if they have more traction instead of less?”
Silence met his statement.
Jeb turned from the group without a word, beginning the trek to the York Quadrant.
Blisters would tear his feet apart as his socks and boots worked against each other in the damp muck of his shoes.
He heard the other follow.
They were an unlikely group but necessary.
Jeb tried to keep The Cause firmly trenched in his psyche, but it warred constantly with his soul, which was bound to Beth.
That compulsion was even stronger than The Cause. Jeb knew that was why no Reflective could ever serve both The Cause and a soul mate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Slade handed Beth into the arms of another bloodling.
“You again,” she said, and the young male smiled. Not a hint of scarring remained from his encounter with the nightloper lion.
“Be still, hopper.”
Dimitri went nose-to-nose with Slade, and they were evenly matched in size. “Do not make this your war, bloodling. She is one female.”
Slade’s smile looked more like bared teeth than any bid for humor.
“I found her first,” Slade replied neutrally.
Beth wanted to laugh, except the serious faces gave her pause. Is there some arcane sense to this?
“You claim first rights?” Dimitri asked.
“No fucking way!” Ryan burst in, plowing through the guards as if they were cornstalks. “I brought Beth Jasper here as payment for my debt.”
Dimitri raised a deep-gold brow. “Yes, thank you, hopper, but you also lost her.”
There was a significant pause.
Beth stirred against the young bloodling, and his arms tightened around her like steel bands. Though he was not nearly as big as Slade, he was still a foot taller than Beth, and he weighed more than she cared to contemplate.
Beth would have to be willing to hurt him to escape.
And for what? To gain of a handful of meters before one of the groups took her down again? Beth's body ached, and her reserves were at such a low level that she was light-headed. Reflectives were efficient fuel burners, and she was running on empty.
Beth unwillingly settled and watched Dimitri and Slade barter.
“What recompense is required?” Slade asked carefully.
Dimitri knotted his hands behind his back and walked a short distance away, feigning thought.
Beth recognized theatrics when she saw them.
He spun around as though struck by a sudden logical course of action. “My colleague speaks true that he was returning her as payment for his debts.”
Colleague now.
Beth's eyes narrowed.
Ryan's face went from pained anger to smug satisfaction. Beth wanted to kick him in the chops again. Even though her entire instep was swollen and bruised, she knew it would be worth it.
“How much is the debt?” Slade asked.
Ryan glanced at Beth. “Much.”
“I was not speaking to you, toad.”
Beth understood the insult immediately, as did Ryan, whose upper lip curled back.
Slade beat his own chest, which appeared light gray in the moonlight. Beth saw that it was actually a pale ivory—not unlike her own.
His eyes had not changed; the dark-obsidian pockets of
secrets stared at Ryan, challenging him.
“If you feel froggy enough…” Slade whacked his chest again, leaving livid marks of red. “Feel free to jump on the lily pad.”
They love their amphibian metaphors here.
Beth realized Papiliones had been wrong to think One so behind their own. While their technological advancements were limited, that hadn’t hindered their innovation.
It was frightening in its immediacy and volatility.
Ryan stepped forward, and Slade met his charge.
“Males,” Dimitri bellowed, stepping between them.
Beth would have never stepped between a charging Reflective. It was one thing to fight in self-defense and quite another to beg for death.
Dimitri's arms strained against their chests, his elbows locked.
“We shall come to terms, then you may beat each other to pulps with my blessing.”
“I don't need your blessing, slaver.”
Dimitri and Slade locked gazes.
“I am part nightloper, as you know.”
I was right.
“It doesn't matter. You are first and foremost a slaver. You buy and sell flesh. You fight flesh. It is what you do.”
Slade stepped back.
“Coward,” Ryan said under his breath.
Slade's hand swept out, hitting the Reflective in the temple. It had been a casual flick of his wrist, yet Ryan stumbled back a step.
Dimitri held Ryan back. “Do not provoke the bloodling, or I will give him the female, and the debt you owe me will take much more to pay off.”
Ryan's pale-bluish-green eyes lit on Beth with demonic fire.
He stopped fighting Dimitri.
Dimitri turned to Slade. “You will fight Lance Ryan of the Reflective to the death.” His eyes became hooded. “The winner will take the female.”
Like Hades.
Slade said nothing, spreading his legs and crossing his arms.
“No,” Ryan seethed.
“Afraid?” Slade asked, his tone thick with the amusement that was so irritating.
Beth could stand it no more. She moved to Slade's back and the bloodling let her go.
She put her hand against the breadth of him, and Slade didn't move, as though he had felt her approach.
Maybe he did.
“Don't,” she cautioned Slade; she didn't need a champion.
Her eyes met Ryan's.
savage 07 - the dark savage Page 69
