reflection 02 - the reflective cause

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  She jabs Jeb in the ribs with a perfectly executed strike, playing his ribs like a keyboard. Jeb grimaces and slaps Jacky, sending him flying.

  Jeb whirls to Beth, a vein in his forehead pulsing in time to his rage.

  Beth bounces from foot to foot, her fists raised beside her jaw. Waiting.

  Jeb's anger leaks away, shame taking its place. His arms drop to hang loose by his sides. “I would never harm you.”

  She straightens, dropping her fists. “There's more to harm than using your fists, Jeb.”

  He looks at a bleeding Jacky on the ground. His Adam's apple makes a painful plunge inside a throat gone dry.

  “I'm sorry—he—I—” Jeb begins.

  “Shut up, Jeb,” Beth says, turning her back on him. She walks to Jacky and offers a hand.

  He slaps his palm inside hers, and she lifts him easily. Jacky's eyes widen as he bounces to a standing position. “Stronger than you look, Jasper.”

  A vague smile is gone from her face almost as soon as it appears.

  “Beth,” Jeb says, reaching for her.

  “Jeb,” she shoves her matted hair behind an ear, “I can't do us right now. I have to see where Rachett is. If there's a Rachett.” Beth sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. “And you need to control your emotions.”

  The warmth Jeb feels for her swells unbearably inside him at the small gesture of pain. Eyeing Jacky, Jeb ignores Beth’s dismissal.

  “I apologize.”

  Jacky spits blood. “Whatever, ya fuckinʼ hothead.”

  Jeb's jaw clenches and he keeps walking. When he reaches Beth he pulls her into his arms. “I'm so sorry. I didn't want to lose my temper. We were wracked with thoughts of our fellow Reflectives on One—you were there with only a pack of Bloodlings as protectors, and Ryan gunning for your death. I haven't had a moment's respite from my fear over your safety.”

  Beth relaxes slightly. “I think I liked it better when you didn't like me, Merrick.”

  “Jeb,” he corrects, hating the sheen of tears he has put in her eyes.

  Beth places her palms against his chest, allowing her forehead to rest lightly against his thudding heartbeat. “Don't touch Jacky again, or I'll have to kick your ass. He's not the enemy here. He's an orphan, for Principle's sake.”

  Jeb cups the back of her skull, his regret drumming between them. “Okay,” he answers simply.

  “How about a god-blessed shower in this place?” Jacky asks.

  They smile, breaking away.

  Jacky is always himself.

  Some things remain constant, Jeb thinks.

  His smile fades as he realizes how little has.

  *

  “Stay within sight, Beth,” Jeb instructs quietly.

  “Jeb.” Beth sighs in clear frustration.

  “Humor me,” he answers, swinging his gaze to hers.

  After a handful of seconds, she nods.

  Jeb stops short, and Jacky jerks to the tips of his toes to avoid a collision.

  “What the hell?” Jacky whispers.

  The beautiful sculpture of a shimmering bronze swarm of butterflies has been dismantled. Their bodies lie on the ground like wounded corpses.

  Beth covers her mouth as Jeb silently takes her hand.

  As they walk to the entrance, Jeb takes in the stains of blood where he beat Quaker using a dose of Reflective trickery.

  TCH is effectively deserted. Jeb carefully looks for others, and does see some of the many Reflectives Beth helped jump to their world.

  But the female Reflectives are nowhere to be seen.

  The money taker's station is upturned; Papilio currency floats like spent garbage in a breeze that whips through, whistling its despair at the leavings of their antiquated city.

  Grief strangles Jeb's chest. He hadn't allowed emotions to touch him when he, Calvin, and Kennet made their plan for the retrieval of so many, but now the stark consequence of his new reality was biting him in the ass, as Jacky would say.

  Jeb turns, hunting for the young man, and finds him caressing a fractured marble pillar that had stood unmolested for one thousand years.

  But it's Beth's grief that tugs at him without mercy. She shakes off his comfort and strides forward, her eyes ping-ponging across every surface as though the answer for the dissenters’ debauchery might spring forth.

  “How could they—devalue The Cause?” she asks to no one.

  “Beth…” Jeb walks to where she stands, her hands cupping her elbows, her face a mask of betrayal. Raw pain bleeds from her every feature.

  “Let's get out of here. Go back to our domiciles and get…” Jeb offers.

  “What? Supplies?” Jacky spins, torqueing his body to one side. “Yeah, I'm seeing lots of regular stuff happening. We're gonna have to go back to the ʻhunt and gatherʼ bullshit.”

  Beth looks between the two of them. “He might be right. Did you?” Horror dawns over Beth's face.

  “What?” Jeb asks in alarm, scanning the perimeter. He sees no threats.

  “My butterflies!” Beth cries.

  Then she runs.

  What butterflies? “Beth!” Jeb roars, tearing after her.

  He yells to Jacky, “Follow!”

  “Yes, sir, your majesty!” Jacky says.

  Jeb doesn't have time to bludgeon Jacky again, however tempted he is.

  Beth leaps at the first mirrored streetlamp solar panel she can.

  “No—Beth!” Jeb bellows.

  They might not be stable. Jeb has no way of knowing. Yet that unknown potential doesn't keep him from jumping after her.

  Jeb turns, slapping his hand around Jacky's forearm. His mossy-green eyes bulge, then Jeb is tearing them forward, leaping into a fifty centimeter square then into the next.

  The leap-frogging method feels natural to Jeb. However, it has the opposite effect on Jacky, who begins to vomit after only three jumps.

  “Pudwacker! This sucks!” He bellows in Jeb's ear as they hurtle the ten seconds between streetlamps.

  Jeb winces. Sounds are amplified in transit.

  They land in an ungraceful pile. Jacky bends over, and a third stream of bile shoots out of his mouth.

  He'll live.

  Jeb's eyes are already on Beth's domicile.

  A door closes with a loud click as he watches. She's already inside.

  “Come on,” Jeb says, heading toward the shared domicile.

  “Are ya okay, Jacky? Do you have jumper's sickness? Can I get you something to take away your fucking nausea!” he screams at Jeb's back.

  Jeb turns. “I don't have time for your self-pity. We must find Beth and get sustenance. In that order.”

  Jacky stares at him. After almost a full minute, he comments, “You're a jackass. You were a helluva a lot more fun when you didn't have a soul mate and you had to use my words. Now, you’re just a stuck-up, Latin-speaking pain in my ass.”

  Jeb groans. I don't have time for this!

  He stalks directly to the door and rips it open. Jacky jogs to catch up and manages to jam a sneakered toe inside the door before it closes.

  Jacky fights to open the heavy door.

  Jeb has to return and open it for him. He throws the heavy gallery-height door wide and it smacks into the wall.

  Small flakes of plaster float to land at their feet, and Jacky steps away from Jeb.

  First sentient thing he's done.

  “Exactly how strong are you guys?” Jacky asks, scooting through the doorway and studying the steep staircase.

  The door swings shut behind him with a clank.

  “Four times stronger than the average human male on Three,” Jeb recites by rote.

  Jacky hooks his fingers through the belt loops of the too-big Reflective uniform and blows his longish hair out of his eyes. “Well, you're a real winner, beating the shit out of an almost eighteen-year-old Three. I never had a chance, ya douche.”

  Principle, help me.

  Jeb turns. “Hear me. This”—livid, he swings a palm around the
tight space of the foyer—“is entirely too much for me. I'm hungry, tired, and dirty. And my soul mate is not within sight. In the economical words of your sector, I'm knackered.”

  Jacky's slow grin just pisses Jeb off more. He claps Jeb on the back. “I gotcha, ya big sloppy turd. When things go to hell, you can't keep a stiff upper lip.”

  “What?!” Jeb brays.

  “I'm making fun of you, doofus. You're speaking like a Brit. You really screw up the linguistics, pal. But I'll forgive you if you can stop acting like a dickbag for, like”—he looks up, cupping his chin—“two minutes.” His eyebrows jump. “Think you can manage that?”

  Jeb's not sure. If he were with anyone but Jacky, perhaps he might have.

  Jeb turns on his heel and heads up a steep flight of stairs, going straight for a door with a number two on it.

  “Can ya?” Jacky asks. “Because you're consistently pissing me off.”

  Jeb looks down at him.

  Jacky's foot is poised on the first step as Jeb stands before Beth's locked door.

  “I'll try,” Jeb concedes through his teeth.

  His gaze moves to the door. The silent compulsion to find and be with his soul mate is all-encompassing. He can't think of anything else.

  Jeb depresses his thumb at the pulse dock beside the medieval door, and a low chime thrums through him and Jacky.

  Beth tears open the door with such force, her hair lifts around her smiling face.

  Jeb smiles automatically in return.

  He's desperate for good news—anything to balance the desolation that sucks at their marrow.

  “Maddie's here!” she squeals.

  Jacky shoots forward like an arrow—into the waiting arms of a malnourished and frightened Three.

  Jeb and Beth embrace and she whispers, “I think it might be okay, Jeb.”

  Jeb wouldn't go that far, but it's a start.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Slade

  “Does she know, Bloodling?” the slaver's eyes narrow on him like a demon's.

  “No. Do you not think if she knew, she would have been so willing to hop away with the Reflectives?” Slade asks the obvious.

  Dimitri smirks.

  Slade yanks his longish hair into its customary club at the base of his skull, wincing as he does.

  That fuck Ryan damaged every surface of his body. Even bleeding out three nightlopers had not set things perfectly to rights. While Slade was busy recovering, Beth had jumped.

  “We had an understanding, Slade. Did we not?”

  Prick. “Yes,” Slade hisses through fangs that sprout with his emotions.

  “Tsk, tsk, Slade. Find the hopper. Bring her back to her home world.”

  Slade does not wish to hurt Beth Jasper. She has the bravest heart of any being he has ever encountered. He does not want to be the one who stops its beating.

  He also does not wish Dimitri's threat against the Bloodlings to come to fruition. Their women have been captive since the great uprising after the death of Beth Jasper's mother.

  The King of the Bloodlings, Slade's sire, had a warrior so fierce, he could kill twenty nightlopers with his own hands.

  Then a female who reflected into the wrong sector compromised the warrior, Gunnar. Her death robbed him of his mind.

  After the death of Slade's sire, Gunnar, Beth's father, was imprisoned.

  Nothing consoles him, and he is too dangerous to set free.

  With Slade's sire dead and their greatest warrior imprisoned, a slaver raid crippled the Bloodlings’ force of the warriors.

  Now Dimitri holds the strings to Sector One. He enslaves the Bloodling females while their race dwindles without the normal birthing of offspring.

  Beth Jasper is the key.

  If Slade wins her trust then delivers her to Dimitri, he will release the Blooding females and allow the dying race to flourish once more.

  It's rudimentary.

  Except, Beth will become Dimitri's queen. Part Bloodling, part Reflective, she is a perfect blending of the species. Their offspring would bring all three species together. A being who is part nightloper, Bloodling, and Reflective could travel to other worlds and dominate them one by one.

  Dimitri's progeny would be unstoppable. A Reflective is a neutral vessel. A Reflective who is also Bloodling is two thirds of the way to being a perfect catalyst for the domination of the thirteen sectors.

  Beth can free the Bloodling race forever.

  But Slade’s heart and mind will fail him with that choice. He clenches his fists, casting his eyes to the floor to hide the slide of his emotions across a face normally steeped in blankness.

  Slade still remembers Beth's delicate body against his own—and her plea that Slade protect her from Ryan.

  “Do not let him have me,” she asked in a voice breathless with exhaustion.

  It made Slade harden to think of her body. Her voice.

  Everything that she is.

  Slade resists the truth, for it is too damning. He wants Beth Jasper for himself, to breed her and keep her as his mate.

  “Will you do it, prince? Will you fetch the hopper for me?”

  Slade's chin jerks up. He carefully schools his expression to nothingness once more. Though Dimitri's nostrils flare hard to catch the scent of Slade’s emotions, he will be unable to.

  Slade is of royal blood, after all, and has a fine ability to scent-mask.

  Dimitri watches him closely.

  Slade leans back in a hard chair, and it groans under his weight. “Of course.”

  His eyes narrow at Slade. “Do not fuck her, Slade, or I will cut off your prick.”

  Slade’s heart speeds, but he sneers, “Is that all you think of?”

  Dimitri tilts his chin, and golden eyes that speak of his lion heritage seem to debate the ceiling of the lair. “Mostly.”

  “You are pathetic,” Slade says, fantasizing about beheading Dimitri with his bare talons.

  A smile ghosts the slaver's lips. “You can hide most emotions, but lust is the strongest of all, and you reek of it, my friend.”

  Slade stills, and Dimitri leans forward. “I would love to feel flattered, presuming you wish to pierce me with your sizeable attributes, but I have it on good authority, you fancy your sex from the fairer persuasion. So it is just the mention of Beth Jasper that gets you salivating like a rutting bull.”

  Slade can't deny it, but he clamps down on his rage, and his apparent desire for Beth, with an effort. Casually, he leans back in the wooden chair, lacing his hands behind his head, and lifts a shoulder. “She is tempting, I'll admit, but she's just a hopper.”

  Dimitri steeples his fingers beneath his chin. “Just a hopper?” He shakes his head, a sound of disbelief escaping his lips in a soft hiss. “This is where you stumble upon your words, Bloodling.”

  Slade remains silent, continuing his feigned nonchalance.

  “She is so much more than the sum of her genetics. Beth Jasper is the key to your females. She is the ultimate manipulator of Gunnar—the greatest war strategist of the millennium. Do you not think if he knew his union had produced a daughter, he could not be controlled?”

  The legs of his chair slam brutally against the stone floor, and Slade points at Dimitri. “You said you wished to have the Reflective female for your own sexual depravity. Not as a tool to manipulate a grief-crazed Bloodling warrior.”

  Dimitri nods happily. “Yes, and do not belittle my intentions toward the lovely Beth. She will be treated as the queen she is. But why not put a cherry on top of the lovely cake of opportunity?” He folds his hands, letting them fall on the surface of his ornate desk of stone.

  “Beth Jasper is a Reflective warrior. She will not submit.”

  Dimitri’s lips thin into a wicked grin, and he spreads his palms. “Now where is the fun in that?”

  Slade feels as though his head will explode. He must leave or kill Dimitri, but not until the negotiations are over.

  “You will release half of our women befo
re I travel to take the hopper.”

  Tiny frog, Slade's mind whispers. He ruthlessly shoves the endearment aside.

  Beth Jasper is a means to an end. He can't let their shared blood, or desperation for a female of his own kind, sway him. His duties to his people must take precedence.

  Dimitri inclines his head. “Will your men be able to stand the feminine flesh served up once more after such a long hiatus?”

  Slade stands, clearing his throat in disgust. He's had enough. “If you had not kept our females from us for two decades, there would be no concern to voice.”

  A sly smile overtakes Dimitri's face.

  “However, unlike the nightlopers, we do not rape and abuse our females.”

  Dimitri's smugness vanishes. “We do not harm our females, as a rule.”

  Their hate-filled gazes lock.

  Neither mentions the catastrophe of the faction of criminal nightlopers who would have gang-raped a group of barely grown nightloper females for sport.

  If it had not been for Slade and a few other Bloodlings who were in the right place at the right time, it would have gone into the archival history of a brutal and unregulated race.

  “Enough!” Dimitri bellows into the sharp acoustics of his den.

  Slade rounds the corner of the stone table, and their chests meet.

  “However it occurs—it does,” Slade says. “The Bloodlings will not be rapists of their own females. Send the females to our coven—unharmed, and you have a deal.”

  Slade steps back, arms loose and ready in case Dimitri finds a purpose for the meeting other than demonstrating his control over Slade.

  Dimitri's face flushes a dull red underneath golden skin. He's majestic in his rage, but all Slade can see is the evilness of his machinations against anyone outside of himself.

  “It was happenstance that Beth Jasper fell into our laps,” Slade reminds him, breaking into the taut moment.

  Dimitri whirls away from him. “Then it is most fortuitous for your precious females that she did.”

  Slade tenses. “Did you crush the spirits of our women, you horrible fuck?”

  Dimitri turns, a sliver of his face lit in profile from the poor lighting of the den. “What do you think, Bloodling?”

  Slade grinds his teeth and walks out, giving Dimitri a hard shoulder swipe as he passes.