The Reflective
Author: Tamara Rose Blodgett
Date: 2014-07-30 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Science Fiction; Paranormal Romance; Romance; Paranormal; Time Travel; Fiction; Magic; Dystopia
Description: Those born Reflective are the only beings with the ability to jump between worlds. With The Cause firmly entrenched by years of highly stylized military-type training in combat of every kind, they use their natural born ability for inter-dimensional travel to police worlds where wrongdoing has overtaken civility. As an elite Reflective, Jeb Merrick finds himself partnered with a rare female Reflective. Merrick is convinced that she can do nothing but slow him down. Beth Jasper is small, in both stature and mindset. When they are thrust together as partners, Merrick vows that she will receive t

Table of Contents

THE REFLECTIVE A Reflection Series Novel Book 1

CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DEATH WHISPERS A Death Series Novel Book 1
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
THE PEARL SAVAGE A Savage Series Novel Book 1
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
REAPERS A Druid Series Novella Volume 1
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12

THE REFLECTIVE

A Reflection Series Novel

Book 1

New York Times
Bestselling Author

TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2013-14 Tamara Rose Blodgett

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

www.tamararoseblodgett.com

TRB Facebook Fan Page

Cover art by Phatpuppyart.com

Editing suggestions provided by Red Adept Editing

CONTENTS

Synopsis

Series by
Tamara Rose Blodgett

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TRB NEWS

BONUS NOVEL SAMPLING

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Synopsis:

Those born Reflective are the only beings with the ability to jump between worlds. With The Cause firmly entrenched by years of highly stylized military-type training in combat of every kind, they use their natural born ability for inter-dimensional travel to police worlds where wrongdoing has overtaken civility.

As an elite Reflective, Jeb Merrick finds himself partnered with a rare female Reflective. Merrick is convinced that she can do nothing but slow him down. Beth Jasper is small, in both stature and mindset. When they are thrust together as partners, Merrick vows that she will receive the same neutral treatment as a male. Merrick cannot allow the unlikely union of Beth Jasper to get in the way of finding his prophesied soulmate.

Beth discovers she is partnered with the cockiest of all pureblood Reflectives and struggles to maintain her composure with a hostile partner whose loyalty she doesn't possess.

Can the Reflectives uphold The Cause, reach a point of compromise and find their chosen soul mates?

DEDICATION

Sarah Drum

The only limitation is the one you put on yourself;
never give up~

Series by
Tamara Rose Blodgett:

The BLOOD Series

The DEATH Series

Lycan ALPHA CLAIM 1-6

The REFLECTION Series

The SAVAGE Series

Vampire ALPHA CLAIM 1-6

&

Marata Eros:

A Terrible Love
(New York Times bestseller)

The DARA NICHOLS Series, 1-8

The DEMON Series

The DRUID Series

Lycan ALPHA CLAIM 1-6

The SIREN Series

The TOKEN Serial

Vampire ALPHA CLAIM 1-6

The ZOE SCOTT Series 1-8

THE CAUSE

First:
Right the Wrong

Second:
Bear No Injustice

Third:
Change Not What Must Be

Prologue
twenty years before

The midwife made her way along ancient cobblestoned streets, her shoes catching in the crevices though Principle knew, her shoes were as sensible as they come.

As was her occupation.

She would arrive in the birthing ward at exactly eight a.m. for her twelve-hour shift. Of course, it would not be twelve hours—it would be for however long the woman labored.

And if a Reflective were born ....

Just the thought of the potential for that caused a nervous thrill to flutter deep within Florence, as it did each time she worked.

The Reflective newborns must be swaddled in special non-reflective blankets. A baby would not be lost on her shift because it was a prodigy who jumped at a mirror or other reflective surface left uncovered.

Dear Principle. She shuddered, thinking about what the punishment would be for that. As it was, midwives couldn't use any surgical instruments that were not brushed stainless steel, and since the last unfortunate incident, the midwives had since moved to an all-ceramic surgical unit.

Florence swept up the massive steps. The rise of the treads was so low the stairs felt more like a gentle slope than true steps.

The sparkling flakes of charcoal that clung to the thick white granite reminded her that the sun still shone brightly, though their version of autumn would soon be here.

A shadow fell over Florence, and she twisted to look at the sky, her foot on the top step, her hand on the solid brass door handle that opened to the birthing center.

A swarm of butterflies, so thick it blocked the cerulean of the sky, dropped false night all around her as they flew through the rectangular vents that fed the ventilation system in warmer months.

The ports were a deliberate architectural feature that allowed entry to the only creature in their world that could identify a Reflective

So many.

Florence stood in stunned wonder. She had witnessed butterflies come to mark the birth of a Reflective, but never in such a great number.

Their importance was such that her world was named in their honor: Papilio, Sector Ten.

Their path created a rainbow of iridescent color, which poured like water through the narrow vents that had been carved in the solid stone of the birthing center.

All who lived in their world were born in similar structures.

However, Florence was one of few birthing center workers who had seen the highest incidence of Reflective births. She had requested placement to this one. After a five-year waiting period, she’d been assigned to the most prestigious.

She snapped out of her reverie as the last of the mingling kaleidoscope of insects funneled through the slits underneath the eaves of a copper roof, now aged a deep verdigris.

Florence tore open the heavy door.

She didn't hear it clank behind her as she ran the length of the corridor to the floor that housed laboring mothers.

*

Florence burst through the swinging doors as a man and a woman stood over a cradle.

Confused, Florence skidded to a stop.

What is this?

This... appeared to be the parents in front of a babe so new that some of the vernix still coated the wee one, her arms swinging as she howled.

Two nurses, one at the end of her shift and one in training, hung back.

Oh, for the love of all that is good. She stalked over to the newborn.

Florence halted as the sight overtook them all.

Their breath.

Their thoughts.

Everything but the scene itself melted away for those who witnessed the post-birth spectacle.

The butterflies descended, floating in a lazy spiral as the opalescent sunlight washed over their multicolored wings.

The chubby arms of the baby girl swirled and pumped, slowing as the butterflies drew nearer, and her echoing screams gradually grew quiet.

The insects lighted on the rails of the basinet in a portentous group, their wings moving in a steady sweep to maintain balance.

Their appearance froze the parents’ breath in their throats.

The moment swelled and grew in the stillness of the nursery, where rows upon rows of cradles pressed against the other. The parents watched the butterflies flutter precariously on the polished sides of the newborn's bed, landing only on hers and no other.

Their appearance was beautiful… final.

Florence strained to hear the mother's voice.

“She is Reflective,” she said in a sorrowful tone.

Her mate squeezed her hand so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“Yes,” he replied, just as gravely.

Their gaze met in perfect understanding of what the future held for their daughter: a life as mercenary, hunter and hunted.

This was an honor and privilege among their people.

Florence closed her eyes in sympathy. A female Reflective—every parents dream… and nightmare.

*
five years later

Beth shot the plain glass marble across the stretch of earth, watching the glass orb tumble and spin as it met the others she’d shot in a smack of hardened glass. It swerved at the last moment, ricocheting off a shooter, and came to stand where she'd intended.

All the other children her age could play with any marble they chose, but she possessed no mercury-coated marbles.

Beth Jasper was a solitary girl.

But not one who lacked intelligence. Beth had felt the sadness from Papa and Mama and knew she would soon leave for the building that had a big shining silver papilio above the entrance.

Mama and Papa had taken her there the previous week to meet with a man who had a nose like the water birds that gathered near her family's pond.

His nose made it very difficult for her not to giggle. Beth sometimes had a problem with laughing when she shouldn’t.

Beth had observed and stood watch over her new surroundings, remembering what her adoptive parents had told her.

Beth, you must let us do the talking. Under no circumstances should you volunteer to train for a combative role. There are alternative roles for female Reflectives.

Beth crinkled her face at the memory. She understood all of what they wanted of her, and she would not shuffle papers and sit behind a desk, looking like the dolls she had given up playing with.

All Reflectives were far more mature than their human counterparts from the other twelve sectors.

Beth spoke like a teen, though she was five cycles. She puzzled through things that confounded adults.

She was faster, stronger, and brighter.

Beth was female.

When Commander Rachett of the Reflective Militia, who operated under The Cause leaned forward and delved deep, he tried to pierce young Beth's very soul. She met him halfway.

Her small body leaned boldly toward his, unafraid.

In their people's ancient language of Latin, he posed the question: What role will you fill within The Cause, young Beth?

Beth narrowed her eyes, and Rachett's eyebrows raised slowly.

He had studied her, no doubt because she was a half-breed, and female besides. She had met his stare with an unwavering gaze.

“A combative role, of course,” Beth said in her childlike voice, though the meaning was very adult, because she understood and communicated like one.

“No! Beth…” her mama said.

Beth swung her legs back and forth underneath the chair. Her eyes drifted to the candy dish poised at the edge of the desk before returning to the commander's.

Beth's stare matched Rachett's.

Rachett had to know what she was: a warrior. The attribute was either present, or it wasn’t.

Her papa stood.

“We can't have her fight. She is female… and not big for her gender.” Her father's face pleaded with Rachett to see reason.

Commander Rachett wasn't known as a reasonable man.

Rachett steepled his fingers underneath his chin, looking at Beth’s adoptive parents. Good people, common folk who were loyal to The Cause, believers in the Principle.

Rachett's gaze shifted to Beth. He scrutinized her face: eyes like crushed brown velvet; hair like a raven's wing; and skin like polished marble, pale but not pasty.

She is too beautiful to fight, he must have thought with regret.

Beth saw that future remorse on his face.

Then he looked at her hands, long-fingered and limber.

His eyes shifted back to hers.

“Beth?” he asked softly.

“Yes, Commander Rachett?” Her small fingers held something.

He frowned, obviously distracted from his planned comment.

“What do you have in your hand?”

She opened her palm, revealing a large reflective marble—a shooter coated with hard-laced mercury.

Rachett sucked in his breath.

“That's a locator.”

Her parents looked at each other.

“Where did you get that, Beth?” her papa asked carefully.

Beth's eyes touched on the worry that each face held, and she felt her face scrunch.

“They hand them out at the front entrance…” Rachett said thoughtfully before Beth could answer.

Beth nodded carefully. The nice lady had given it to her to entertain herself with.

“Do you know what those are for?” Rachett asked her.

She nodded again.

Beth knew. She liked the feeling of the smooth glossy surface. Her fingers worked over the cylindrical perfection delicately, with reverence.

“It is for those Reflectives who need to find their sector,” Rachett explained neutrally.

He smiled down at her.

Beth was certain he understood she wasn't a regular five cycle.

Then his smile faded as he no doubt recalled her gender. Beth was weary of being thought of as lesser because she was a girl.

She'd heard the whispers of the bullying that was so commonplace within the ranks of the Reflectives.

Though, of course, everyone had heard the story of the swarm that had descended on her day of birth.

Papiliones did not lie.

Rachett shook his head, obviously having made his decision. It was safer—for everyone.

Beth narrowed her eyes on the vision of his soft thoughts of her future role.

Rachett stood. As did Beth and the parents who were not of her blood.

“I'm sorry. Beth will be placed in… inter-dimensional communication training. An excellent program and critical calling for the female Reflective,” Rachett stated, lacing his hands together, effectively closing the meeting.

“Thank Principle,” Beth's mother murmured. She shot Beth a look that let her know she had been naughty for sharing her crazy intentions after being instructed to remain silent.

Heat began to build in Beth's chest. She recognized it immediately: anger.

It began at the core of her body and swam out like molten lava, lashing through her circulatory system in defiance of being contained.

Beth did not want to be a weak female.

She was not.

Then Beth did what all children do—she threw a tantrum.

Beth threw the marble at Commander Rachett.

“No!” she shouted in a clear, bell-like voice that stung the ears and raised the hair on the back of his neck.

Beth's body reacted to her emotions and the spinning ball of glass coated by the forbidden mercury.

It spun, and Beth tracked it automatically, as if it were as natural as taking her next breath. It was part and parcel of being Reflective.

The heat inside her body coalesced, bursting painfully and beautifully, and she gasped as the ball moved toward her, then slammed into her in midair.

Her small body morphed into the narrow strip of shimmering ribbon that all Reflectives become when they jump.

Beth allowed all of it to happen in an instinctual slide of circumstance and raw emotion. Her new form lashed like a shining whip, absorbing into the shell of the spinning glass as it sailed in the air for its two seconds of flight.

Coolness washed away the heat, and she spun with the ball… and went somewhere else, in a falling stream of fire bathed by ice.

Rachett stilled, dazed, as the ball that Beth Jasper had used for transport shattered at his feet.

He and Beth’s parents stood stock-still, their bearings gone.

Commander Rachett picked up a shard, and one of his eyes caught in the mirror-like image. He didn't like what he saw there—fear.

His own, and that of Beth Jasper's future within The Cause.

CHAPTER ONE

Jeb Merrick
present day

Jeb strolled dead center into the group of Reflectives who’d come to attend the finals of the new class of Reflective trainees.

The entire coliseum was packed nut to butt, and the ground beside the ring was standing room only.

It was the female, Jeb determined easily—she was the draw for the day. If he were honest with himself, he would have admitted the same. After all, the last female combative had been killed in action over a decade ago. Jeb had heard of it, but it had been before his time.

This one was different.

For one, she bore the scars of their calling. Her elegant limbs were littered with pockmarking and wounds in various stages of healing. Even with the advanced recuperative powers of a Reflective, Jasper was a mess.

It was such a shame; she was a beautiful female, if not the Papilio ideal. She’d refused to become the he-she that many assumed she would and had retained her femininity, despite the brutal calling of the Reflective. He supposed her gender could be to some advantage in a mission to one of the other sectors.

Jeb found a corner and put his back to it, watching the small group of inductees warm their bodies inside the practice area before the final sparring.

Jeb liked to possess a vantage point that allowed him to see everyone coming through the portals, windows, and otherwise. His height put Jeb at further advantage. With his six-feet-four frame, he skimmed most of the heads in his line of sight.

The ones he couldn't see over were of his kind, Reflective warriors of The Cause.

His eyes instinctively scanned the vast interior of the coliseum. He took in the stands filled with the government of his world. English was not their first language, but it was used in more than three quarters of the worlds they policed. Latin was the primary and native language of Papilio.

All Reflectives were fluent in the primary languages of the thirteen sectors they held as their responsibility. Latin was spoken exclusively by Papiliones.

Jeb stood up straighter, gaining another couple inches of precious visual real estate and caught sight of his own team. At age twenty-three, they were three years past their own graduations.

His team began taking up the remaining corners of the main floor surrounding the ring, while the civilian population moved upward in soaring floor-to-ceiling tiers with marble benches.

The thousands of people who’d sat there before this crowd had worn broad divots in the soft cream-and-peach-veined marble. Centuries worth of observers had witnessed the annual ceremony.

All welcomed the newest recruits. The civilians did not want to know how they were protected. They wanted to know only that they were.

Jeb felt a smirk form.

Sometimes he wondered why he jumped.

He grew solemn as he waited, and then he saw her—Beth Jasper.

He'd seen her about in the Barringer Quadrant, shopping for sundries and such things—but he’d never been so close. A different woman seemed to have inhabited her body today.

Gone was her softness he’d seen in his earlier observances. Instead, he saw a woman with nothing but hard angles and planes. An indifferent and cool stare met those of her team and those that she would fight.

Not a one had softness for her.

Beth stood alone.

Jeb looked at the five others—all male—and a slight furrow tied his brows together.

She was sorely outmatched physically, though the recruits were all equal in years. Recruits graduated each year in small groups, all at twenty cycles of age, as was tradition.

Jeb studied Jasper, assessing her as all Reflectives could. She stood at five feet two, and curves she couldn't mask, even beneath the bland Reflective uniform, stood in stark relief. Her tight black braid stopped at her waist. An unusual length for a woman of his people, it was an unheard of length for a Reflective.

Perhaps it was a bid for femininity in a role that was exclusively male?

Jeb reluctantly moved his gaze to the other five in turn, searching for his new partner. Jeb found babysitting loathsome but necessary. Otherwise, they would have a troupe of Reflectives bouncing from one world to the next, where they shouldn't land.

Jeb felt his lips twitch. He had been the same when he was twenty cycles: an ignorant hot head. His former mentor had seen fit to beat him into understanding. The Cause did not tolerate ignorance

It was Jeb's turn to mentor a new recruit since his three-year first partnering was at an end.

The interior lights of the coliseum switched on, spreading the solar-powered illumination to every corner. It washed the faces of the Reflective inductees in an eerie mockery of false illness, casting a sickly yellow over their flesh.

Reflective Kennet stood in the far corner, exactly opposite of Jeb's position, and lifted his chin in greeting then received one in return. Kennet was wearing his dress uniform. He was on duty. That meant his ass could be snatched to one of the other twelve sectors at any time.

Yet, he was here.

Jeb allowed his eyes to run over his compatriots dress uniform, noting the deep navy, which looked black from a distance. The Reflective crest was the only striking addition.

The butterfly rode high against his left breast, standing vigil over his heart. The iridescent rendering had been executed with real gold and silver, and microscopic jewels were used in the multicolored threading. Only a small shift of movement was necessary for the crest to alert passersby that the uniformed people were Reflective.

They were the slaves of protection for Papilio.

Jeb's musing was cut short as the chime donged six times for the six candidates.

All would fight and be judged in various degrees of worthiness. The illegal betting had been deep and vicious.

Beth Jasper was the underdog.

Humanity had come to see the female fall.

There were only two rules: no blades and no death.

He studied the graceful Jasper as she warmed up. Had he been a betting man, he would have bet on her.

Jeb Merrick understood much could be accomplished without death as an end result. He was profoundly happy that he was not standing in that ring, preparing to beat a female into the mat. Jeb wasn't sure he could have done it.

He understood it for the weakness it was.

Jeb's eyes fell on the favored male in the class, Lance Ryan.

Lance could do it.

Jeb took in the young man’s predatory eyes, which were trained on Jasper, tensed without being aware. The idea had seemed fine when he'd entertained attending the ritualistic Reflective ceremony. It was a bloodthirsty hold-over from centuries past. Yet, like many traditions that were no longer necessary, it had flourished.

Jeb unconsciously leaned forward as the first recruit stepped forward and bumped fists with the well-known Ryan. Well-known for being a jack ass, Jeb thought.

No one truly liked Ryan, yet he had garnered the respect of many through brute force and jumping prowess.

Respect earned through fear instead of deeds is not truly respect.

Ryan was ferocious in sparring and the martial arts. A keen jumper, he was rumored to be able to jump through reflections as small as a fist—but not while they were in motion.

That was a rare skill.

He had heard of only one Reflective who could jump as a drop of rain fell from the sky. Jeb shook his head in disbelief. Legend… yet, he wished he could have been there to witness such a thing.

The men raised their fists from the greeting then placed them over the plain insignia of their sparring tunics.

They stepped away from one another.

A huge gong sounded, making Jeb's teeth thrum, and the two recruits burst into each other with a smack of flesh and bone.

Jeb couldn't help but be riveted.

Ryan's beauty as a fighter was an awesome thing to behold. He landed punch after punch—all organ strikes—into his opponent.

The other man—Jude Calvin was Kennet's new partner, Jeb vaguely remembered—came in close and took away Ryan's considerable strike advantage.

Calvin wrapped his substantial arms around Ryan's torso, swinging a man that weighed two hundred fifty pounds as if he weighed an ounce, and pile drove him into the mat.

Spectators felt the impact as a reverberating punch.

Ryan shot out his arm and smashed his flat palm into Calvin's nose. Ryan ignored the low boo from the crowd.

Blood burst from the offense, shooting like a bright-red geyser as Ryan leapt off the mat, smearing the mess he'd made of his equal.

Jeb's head swiveled toward a female voice rising above the crowd's noise.

“Shoot, Calvin… shoot!”

A small fist swung above her head for emphasis, and the crowd hissed their displeasure at Jasper's coaching from the sidelines.

Calvin shot, taking Ryan's long legs out from underneath him as he sprang forward, his nose bleeding like a sieve.

Commander Rachett stood in the corner of the ring in typical stoic silence, his body tense like a snake before it strikes, as Ryan’s body smacked the mat then took a hard bounce, making an echoing slap that silenced the crowd.

Jeb heard the oohs and aahs of low-grade fear all around him.

This time, Ryan rolled Calvin over and twisted his arm into an unnatural pretzel position. Shit, Jeb thought, he's got him in an arm bar. He’d picked up the classic move from a jump to Sector Three, Earth.

A place he should not have visited yet, Jeb thought with unease. The class-seven world was for partnered jumps only.

Calvin tapped out, hitting Ryan lightly on the leg behind his own.

Beth Jasper told Jeb what would happen next. Like a cat losing its balance, she moved forward as Ryan snapped the arm he had locked behind Calvin. He roared in agony, holding his injured limb as Ryan's boot came high over his head to smash his face.

Jeb stilled.

Surely Rachett will disallow this?

Beth moved behind Ryan, like a shimmer of water on a sheet of glass.. She executed a spinning kick that knocked the standing man on his ass. Beth bounced away in avoidance, her fists riding beside her jaw, fear swimming in her eyes.

Calm in its economical movements, her body belied the windows to her soul.

Rachett stepped away as medics pulled the moaning and shocked Calvin away.

He would heal.

But that’s not the fucking point, is it?

Ryan lacked integrity—a critical component of the militia that comprised the Reflective.

Ryan stood, his eyes nailing Beth. Her timely intervention had screwed the order.

They circled each other cautiously.

Jeb knew Jasper had no friends within the trainees circle. However, she'd moved almost compulsively to help Calvin.

While every other recruit had observed another being cut down unfairly, Jasper had acted.

And she would pay.

Principle, this will not end well.

Jeb’s guts churned. He wasn't easily affected by fights and blood, but as they said on Sector Three: this was wrong on a hundred different levels.

Jasper backed up, neatly outside of Ryan's long reach, which was easily twice her own. She appeared to be following her training, relying on a drumbeat that was part of every Reflective's internal clock.

It wasn't enough, though. Ryan caught Jasper before she had a chance to block his assault. He nailed her gut in a sucker punch then landed a subsequent fist into her jaw.

Beth was already moving evasively, thank Principle, or she would have been out and at his mercy.

Ryan showed no mercy.

Jasper fell in a spinning backward arc, landing with her palms splayed behind her to arrest her fall. Blood from her cut lip splattered the mat.

Ryan stalked toward her, hatred leaking from his every pore. Their final match played out in a sick parody. Unforgiving eyes watched Jasper from every corner of the mat.

Rachett's tense voice rumbled from a distance, “Get the fuck up, Jasper.”

Jeb's felt his face tighten into a scowl, though Rachett had been just as tough when Jeb was a recruit.

Jasper swung her head back and forth as though clearing it.

Blood from the blow she'd taken fell like scarlet rain.

Ryan smiled, his hands curling into abusive fists of presumed victory. He spoke quietly so only Jasper heard, though Jeb leaned forward to try to catch his words, as did everyone else.

The roar of the crowd made it impossible.

“This ends here, Jasper.”

A cruel smile overtook his face. “The Reflective doesn't have room for mongrel females.”

Jeb's eyes sharpened on her utter stillness.

Her form began to waver, shimmering on top of the bloody mat.

Jeb squinted at her, thinking maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.

The noise of the crowd was disorientating.

Ryan flicked the switchblade as smoothly as he’d been trained to do. Training blades were all ceramic.

Jasper wore the scars to attest to that, but reflective blades could still be had on the black market for the right price.

Looks like Ryan paid.

Jeb watched the shining metal, his innate ability instantly online around a reflection, and his talent hummed with want. His eyes met Kennet's, and all eyes went to Rachett, wondering what he would do to Ryan for producing an illegal weapon.

The blade’s mirrored surface shimmered in the low lights that bathed the interior of the coliseum.

Holy fuck.

Jeb began to push through the people. The situation was going to get ugly.

No, check that—gruesome.

Ryan planned to murder Beth Jasper; maybe he always had.

Jeb could let an inductee take licks, abuse, and unfairness. But one Reflective would not kill another on his watch.

Why, for the love of the Principle, has Rachett not interfered?

“Hey!” a man protested as Jeb pushed him aside.

Then he saw Jeb's uniform and silently moved, as did everyone else in his path.

The crowd parted like the Earth's fabled Red Sea parting; Reflectives had that effect.

Jeb grabbed the ropes around the perimeter, hesitating as Rachett bellowed too late, “No blades!”

His voice carried a note of high-keening fear.

Jeb swung to face his Commander.

He had never seen or heard fear from Rachett. When all inequalities of the fight had been dismissed—Ryan's size against Beth and her gender—he’d finally taken notice when an illegal weapon was produced.

It was beyond bizarre. None of it made sense.

Jeb saw the whites of Jasper's eyes. The inky tail of her braid was wet with her blood. Ryan’s blade swung so close to her face that its breeze lifted wisps of her hair. She crab walked backward in an awkward scuttle of escape.

Ryan braced himself as his commander screamed for Ryan to stop, but he ignored the directive.

Rachett stepped forward too late to stop his best inductee from gutting another recruit as a justified elimination tactic and grabbed Ryan's arm.

But the knife was gone.

It was already singing through the air in an expert trajectory aimed at Beth.

The blade spun in the combustible silence of the coliseum as the crowd held a collective breath.

Jeb strode toward Jasper, but she seemed unaware as her dark eyes tracked the knife.

Jeb’s eye's hadn't lied. One moment, she was solid. The next, she became opaque.

Then she was gone.

Jeb had seen many jumps, but never a female's—and never into something so small. The crowd watched as a glittering rope of iridescent white, like a pearl with a rainbow wash, slammed into the blade.

Jasper's body disappeared then reappeared in the thin reflective ribbon of the jump as it collided with the metal, as she’d meant to.

When the knife landed in the mat, its tip sank deep into the soft surface with a twang.

The silence was deafening.

Beth Jasper had vanished. Only her blood remained as grim testimony to her presence moments before.

Rachett fisted Ryan's tunic, jerking him close.

“You dumb fuck,” he began with the quiet menace he was known for. “All you had to accomplish was keeping weapons out of it. You could have pummeled her into the mat in a fair spar.”

His eyes pegged Ryan's in blatant disgust.

“Now”—his flat eyes locked with Ryan's—“she's jumped. She won because you couldn't contain your shit.”

Jeb's eyes connected with Kennet, who was across the ring from where he stood, and the other man was just as stunned. Jeb glanced at the blade embedded in the mat and shook his head in disbelief.

“There's no way!” one of the Reflective recruits said quietly. “That's a six-inch surface. She's a half-breed… nobody can jump that.” He scoffed.

But somebody had. Beth Jasper, female, half-breed… had just shown her hand.

It looked like aces high.

The crowd began to disperse, their eyes roving for the missing Reflective female who had just made history.

There would be no jeering in her future, only jealousy.

Rachett reiterated what they'd always known, though a few had chosen to ignore.

“The Principle chooses who it will. There is no logic. That's why when we have an opponent. We do not underestimate their skills. Let this be a lesson to all who fight,” Rachett expounded, spinning in a slow, deliberate circle, his eyes falling on the inductee recruits, the Reflectives, and the lesser audience who remained.

“Be ready,” he finished, landing a final, leaden glance on Ryan before he stalked out of the coliseum. Guards moved up beside Ryan. His infraction would land him on Sector One, for certain. No Reflective wished to jump there.

This was an epic clusterfuck if there has ever been one.

Jeb groaned.

As the recruits filtered out, Ryan's defiant gaze challenged all who dared look his way as he was cuffed with non-reflective cuffs. One of the guards jerked the blade out of the mat, giving Ryan narrow eyes.

Jeb's gaze squared off with Ryan until he dropped his gaze and the guards escorted him out.

Jeb stared after Ryan’s back. He ran a frustrated hand through his cropped hair.

He knew what this disturbing mess meant for him. Jeb would be tasked with locating Jasper. His primary task was retrieval. He was meant to be reassigned momentarily.

However, it seemed that it would take longer than a moment.

The crowd thinned, and Jeb stared at the drying blood on the mat, the comments of those around him the same.

Awe mixed with fear was a bad combination. It could be a recipe for many things. When Beth returned, what reception would she find waiting?

He knew the people would forget Ryan’s transgressions against her. All they would remember was her jump.

He would never forget it.

Jeb lifted his head at a small noise. Daphne, a beautiful Reflective, came toward him, her hips swaying so he would notice. And he did.

But even as her lush body moved toward him like water finding a crack in a stone, his mind was on another female, the newest member of The Cause: Beth Jasper, a jumper without compare—and his new partner.

CHAPTER TWO

Beth rolled out of her self-imposed tunnel of fire and ice without finesse or regard to safety.

Her reaction wasn't too different from that of brave soldiers cornered at the edge of a cliff. As the enemy closes in, do they stay and get slaughtered? Or do they jump, hoping to live and fight another day?

Beth had jumped.

She'd leapt at a spinning blade that made her nauseated to track. She’d known what the landing would be.

However, she'd been at the theoretical cliff as Ryan’s knife beared down, not a soul to stand in her defense.

Beth exited the tunnel like an infant during a birth gone wrong.

She hurtled out of the sucking chasm that quantified the pathway that only Reflectives could travel and tried to loosen her body, remembering Rachett's words:

“Behave like a drunk imbecile when you land—every piece of you loosen,” he'd said, and Beth remembered the truth in his pale eyes. “Remember, the Principle guards drunks and small children.”

There'd been good-natured laughs all around—but not at this moment.

Beth knew she would land without forethought.

I'll heal.

Her body naturally tensed for landing, and she knew to resist that instinct.

Pain lanced her as she was purged from the end of the pathway. And Beth fell. Hard.

The crushing impact stole her breath.

She lay on a pebbly surface of rough stone, watching cumulus clouds form deep ripples in the blue sky as her lungs begged for oxygen.

The temperature was sultry. Her fingertips burned against the surface of the stone.

Her chest opened to the insufferable heat and Beth took great whooping gulps of oven-like air.

“Mommy, mommy,” a youngling called out.

Oh no, Beth thought, experimentally moving her toes, witnesses.

A loud roaring filled Beth's ears, and she tried to move to find its source, but she could not force her body to cooperate.

Two forms blocked the fluffy white clouds, their shadows cooling her. The little one had long blonde hair, too much brown to be truly light. In one hand, she fisted a bear, and the thumb of her other hand was in her mouth.

“Why is the lady in the middle of the road?”

Good question. Beth tried to move and moaned through a hiss of pain. Back's broken. Her situation was almost as bad as Ryan trying to have her meet the Maker.

A woman, too young to be the child’s mother, leaned forward. “Are you okay?”

No, I've fractured some vertebrae, and I'm on the wrong damn planet, but otherwise, things are just great. Beth did a mental eye roll and began to review their diction.

All sector language had been hammered into her from the time she was five cycles.

English, twenty-first century, Sector Three—Earth.

“Yeah,” Beth croaked in English through her teeth.

The planet was a Hades of a lot different than its simulations. Beth hadn't jumped, except for brief explorations, and had never encountered other beings other than when she'd traveled when she was five.

That had not gone well.

The little girl cocked her head and gave Beth a strange look.

Better work on my accent.

The woman moved out of her line of vision and the roaring gnashing gears became unbearable.

What in the inferno is that?

Beth screamed in pain when she tried to move herself, vulnerable and laid out Principle knew where.

“Shhh.” The little girl touched her arm with sticky hands. “Mimi be right back.”

Boots crunched closer, and Beth tensed.

She could do nothing, but it was difficult to not act the warrior even as injured as she was.

A male of considerable size moved in front of her and Beth assessed him. Six feet, two hundred pounds. He moved with a languid peace, and she knew instantly that he could handle himself in a moderate engagement.

All Reflectives assessed. It was part of who they were.

Beth was pleased by the knowledge that he would not last in match with her, though he had her by nine inches and ninety pounds.

He stooped; his light brown eyes were kind.

“Well, little lady, looks like someone's dumped ya here.”

He spit a stream of brown liquid to the side.

Clever male. Beth's lips curled.

Then he touched her, and she shouted, “Do not!”

She panted, her hands gripping his shoulders. “Move me,” she finished.

He smiled.

“You're not staying in the road, girl.” His eyebrows shot up to a fine bristle of dark-blond hair circling his head like a golden down. Beth tried to shift and cried out through her clenched lips.

“No, no… girl. Hold your horses.”

Beth searched around for animals. Seeing none, she turned back to him.

“Literal little thing, ain't ya?”

Another brown stream followed the first, and Beth wrinkled her nose. Vile.

“Jeremy… we can't just leave her here.”

With her eyes, Beth followed the woman named Mimi.

Beth scanned her vitals. A light film of sweat dewed her forehead, and she wrung slick hands over and over in a nervous roll of reaction with a swamped pulse as if she had a bird trapped at the hollow of her throat.

Beth's eyes went to the small one, and she gave her a tired smile. The male—Jer-e-may…?
Jeremy—had slipped his hands underneath Beth's back.

His eyes widened.

“She's full of blood, Mimi…”

The young woman came forward, her eyes searching Beth's body carefully, and too late, Beth understood what Mimi was looking at.

Her sparring uniform was still whole, spattered with blood and bearing an emblem that was as foreign as she was in this world.

“Let's take her to the hospital,” Jeremy determined, and Beth stiffened as he lifted her.

Three's could never study her body. They would find things they shouldn't.

Beth screamed as agony tore through her.

That was when Merrick made his entrance, and all Hades broke loose.

*

Jeb

Jeb folded his arms across his chest mummy style and felt the final twist when he would be expunged. Then he flung his arms wide at the last moment, moving his legs as though he were walking in midair.

Soon enough, his feet would meet something solid.

He hit the ground, his shins singing with the impact. Jeb was grateful it wasn't a slope but a manmade material. He could have gone ass over tea kettle if he'd landed on a hill.

He had.

Jeb ran at a full-out sprint to shake off the momentum of the jump, then slowed to a jog, then a walk.

He shook out his palms, restoring the feeling in his extremities. He knew from experience it would be a full minute before he was fully rejuvenated.

He stopped, closing his eyes.

Reflectives’ hearing was the finest of any being, save vampires.

Jeb heard Jasper scream, and his head snapped in that direction.

He did not slow upon seeing the three humans that hailed from Sector Three.

He gauged the century to the decade from their clothing. Then he determined the year when the male who posed the greatest threat spoke.

“What the hell is this?” The male rose, cradling Jasper, whose face appeared more pale than usual.

Jeb let his sensors run from his body like tendrils, feeling her injuries. She was badly hurt from the fall: L-1 and 3 were fractured. Jasper's foot twitched, but her legs remained immobile.

Her dark cautious eyes found him.

“Merrick,” she rasped.

Jeb mentally revised his superficial diagnosis. Her vocals were compromised, and he determined through greater psychic exploration that C-2 was damaged, as well. He exhaled loudly.

“Jasper,” he greeted.

He executed his internal exam of the male who held his yet-to-be-assigned partner, and Merrick found him wanting.

Jeb dismissed him to assess the females. One—caucasian, early twenties, five feet six, one hundred thirty pounds—held the hands of a youngling, perhaps four years of age.

He dismissed them as well.

Threats processed and noted, Jeb crossed his arms, folding them over his awful, classic twenty-first-century garb of stiff denim that made his balls feel like prisoners in a greenhouse and thieved his mobility.

However, they were the clothes of… Jeb looked down at his locator fashioned of mercury: 2030.

He had been to Sector Three many times. He wrinkled his nose as he detected the levels of pollution exceeding those he was accustomed to.

“This is my wife. I'll take her to…” Jeb considered his vocabulary carefully. “To seek medical treatment.”

He smiled, pushing it into his eyes. Humans liked that. It settled them like colts about to run. They hadn't seen his landing, so his lies should work.

The male's brows dropped over his eyes like a brick.

“I don't know who the hell you really are, but your ass just dropped out of the sky, and whatever claim you have on this young woman is null and void, Jack.”

Jack?

“Is he an alien?” the youngling asked, with wide, distrusting eyes.

Fuck.

Beth grimaced. “Smooth, Merrick, way to blend in.”

Jeb scowled at her, stalking toward the male, who did not back down.

Does he not know that Jeb Merrick is a warrior of The Cause? Of course not. However, it was imperative only that Jeb know.

The Code ran through his mind, a blend of language from thirteen worlds, policed by only one.

The Reflectives will advance nothing, protect all, exploit the evil for what it is and defend The Cause without exception.

“Yes, I know it looks a little out of the ordinary.”

The youngling popped a thumb into her mouth.

It was not going well. He would have to extract moments from these humans’ brains. He gave a disgusted sigh; extraction was his least favorite task. It was akin to mental rape, or the thrall the vamps were known for.

Jeb calculated the distance at ten meters.

“Jasper, I need the distance.”

The male glanced down at Beth, and she extracted a small silver sphere that glinted in the late sun of the day like captured silver.

Jasper held up the marble, and Jeb narrowed his vision on the warped and glossy pewter finish.

He could do a jump with something that small from his distance.

Heat washed through his body as Jeb pushed his being toward the sphere.

He could see his pale gray eye reflected even at that distance.

The concentration to jump took seconds.

Jeb thought only of the sphere. When nothing but the shape was in his mind, he spun out toward it. His body snapped like a rubber band and flashed to Jasper in a heartbeat.

Suddenly, Jeb was nose to nose with the male.

“Give me the woman,” Jeb commanded, his mental dominance sliding into the male before him.

His arms went loose, and Beth began to slide out of his grasp.

Jeb caught Jasper easily as the male, slack jawed, awaited new orders.

Jasper bit her lip to keep from crying out, and Jeb tucked her arm under his own. He looked at the people who stared at him. His gaze shifted to the youngling; nothing could be done with her.

The younglings' resistance because of their age was renown.

He worked on the man and woman until they believed they had pulled over from fatigue and that his appearance was no more than a bad dream.

The youngling was different.

He sent the young one's protectors away and dropped to his haunches easily, though Jasper lay like a dead weight within his hold.

“Don't… hurt her,” Jasper whispered in their native tongue, gritting her teeth against her pain.

Her eyes fluttered as she fought fatigue. She was badly injured and her body was trying to heal itself through rest.

“I am not a savage.”

“I have heard stories,” she replied in Latin.

Jeb was disgusted that Jasper would think him capable of harming a youngling.

He focused on the girl, but Jasper's comment rung inside his skull unpleasantly.

“Little one,” he began, switching to English. “Who do you think we are?”

The little girl looked carefully at Jasper.

Then her eyes moved to Jeb, and she looked unafraid.

“Angels,” she replied with the logic of a four-year-old.

Jeb went through his mental inventory, looking for the meaning, and though they were not the perfect heavenly creatures the girl thought they were, it was a safe identifier.

Jeb smiled at her.

“That's right,” he lied smoothly as he cupped his large hand over the back of her head.

“Thank you for your watch care after my partner.”

She nodded, though she thought the angel spoke oddly.

The lovely people blinked away like falling stars in the middle of a little-traveled road, while her relatives sat like corpses in the cab of Uncle Jeremy’s truck.

She stared until twilight descended and her adult relatives finally awoke as though they’d just had a deep sleep.

*

“Principle, that was close,” Jasper whispered.

She flicked her eyes to Jeb's and added, “I think you hurt me worse on the return.”

“Your grateful attitude blows me away.”

“I hate Earth vernacular.”

“Tough, get used to it.”

Jeb sat beside her, his mind on that hot Reflective he'd had to leave behind instead of giving her what she clearly needed.

Basically, he hadn't gotten his rocks off because he'd had to chase Jasper down like a skipper. Jeb understood he wasn't being entirely fair. If Jasper hadn't leapt, she would’ve been killed. Still, his fun had been curtailed, and it made him exceedingly grumpy.

He plowed his fingers through his tousled hair and expelled a frustrated breath, leaning back in the chair near her bedside.

“Please, I'm hungry,” Jasper said, her upturned lips telling Jeb that she was pleased by his temporary slave status.

Jeb glared at her as he spooned another mouthful of the gelatin into her full lips, now marred only by a shallow cut and a yellowing bruise. Days of healing had taken only hours.

Her back would be fully mended by the morrow.

A glob of the green goo sat on one plump lip, and he scooped it off and stuffed it into her mouth.

Not that it would keep that sharp tongue at bay.

“What of Rachett?” Beth asked. She gnawed thoughtfully at her bottom lip in between bites, giving away her emotions.

Jeb busied himself with stirring the green translucent grub. It jiggled obscenely as he loaded another spoonful.

Jasper put her palm up to ward off another bite, and he noted how small—and strong—her hands were.

Jeb dipped his eyes to the bowl then set it down. “He attends to Ryan.”

Jasper put her face in her hands.

Go ahead, cry, weak female, Jeb thought uncharitably, his old prejudices vying for position.

But she simply swiped at her face, raw with healing wounds.

“Attends to… or disciplines?” she asked, a defiant hook to her chin.

He grinned despite himself.

Beth Jasper obviously knew the tenor of their commander. “A little of both, I imagine.”

Jasper did not smile; she appeared serious, and Jeb found his smile fading as he looked into her delicate face.

Her eyes were as hard as his own.

“Ryan will retaliate.”

Jeb nodded. “If he was smart… he would not. It was a clear victory. But he will not be pleased to have been bested by a female.”

“It is not that I am female,” Jasper commented.

Her brown eyes laid hold on his gray ones, and he cocked an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest.

“Then what is it, for I know you die on the vine to tell me.”

Jasper rolled her large eyes in her head. “It is that I am better.”

Jeb inclined his head, conceding the obvious. “As a jumper.” He stood, throwing out his hands. “I have not seen the like.”

Suddenly, Jeb whirled around. Overcome with curiosity, he gripped the ceramic bars on the hospital bed. His movement caused the thin snaking plastic tube that bit her flesh with a needle to sway like an undulating snake.

Jasper smiled. “And only Rachett truly knew what I was capable of.” Her hands toyed with the many threads of the unraveling border of the wool blanket that covered her.

“Why? It is a rare gift, to jump into something that small. Why would you not spread the proof of that talent far and wide?” Jeb asked, twirling in a neat circle in the middle of the room.

Jasper met his eyes, and Jeb saw something there that caused him to stop moving.

“Because,” Jasper whispered, “that was not small.”

Jeb felt the air still in his lungs as he moved nearer to her bed. “Look at me, Jasper.”

Her gaze rose, unwavering and dark, full of secrets.

“The six-inch blade in motion… that is not small?”

Jasper shook her head.

Jeb pulled a chair across the floor, and it shrieked in protest as it scraped the floor. He twirled it around and sat in it backward. “Tell me.”

The air left her lungs, and she whispered the truth for the first time since their Commander had discovered what she was capable of, since that day when she had leapt into the locator sphere.

“Mist,” she answered.

Jeb put a fist over his mouth to stifle a noise.

They were in such trouble. Not he… but a partner that could jump through mist particles? His eyes couldn’t even track something so small because of their sheer diminutive size. It did not bode well.

She leapt by intuition. Somehow, she knew it reflected and could jump into the body of the mist? Unheard of.

And she was female besides.

Who is Beth Jasper, and what is her purpose?

She looked at him with guarded hope, and the look he returned was everything he felt—dislike.

CHAPTER THREE

Beth

Beth's face fell. Merrick might have been her new partner, but he was definitely not friendly. He treated her like a child he’d had to rescue and feed.

If Beth could have been an independent, she would have chosen to do so straightaway. However, that wasn't the way of the Reflective. They were partnered for a reason. And though she had not officially been advanced from her inductee status to full Reflective, she suspected Commander Rachett would see it through.

He was a tough man shaped by experience, but he was fair.

That was why Beth was surprised that he hadn’t anticipated her jump when confronted by Ryan's contraband weapon. The prick.

Beth stubbornly adjusted herself in the bed. I’ll be damned if I ask Merrick. He was all but whistling from boredom.

“You can go. I'm fine,” Beth said, smoothing her palms down the itchy blanket.

Jeb let the front legs of his chair slam down, and it caused Beth to jump. “Nope… you're the new part of our little team, and I have to suck it up… kind of like a bad marriage.”

“You know, I guess you're having some residual from being at Three?”

Merrick shrugged his broad shoulders.

“It takes time to come down from the foreign high.” He winked and Beth felt a tension leave her that she didn't know she held. Merrick could be okay when he wanted to be.

“Where… have you…”

“I like Sector Thirteen best,” Merrick replied casually, his eyes flicking to hers then away.

“Not Earth?”

Merrick shook his head, leaning back in the chair again.

It tilted dangerously, his muscular weight causing it to creak as he laced his hands behind his head and regarded her thoughtfully.

“No, Earth's a pain in my ass. They have great language—colorful.” He gave a short laugh. “But they take a shit where they live. And the pollution, the crime… and I think we have a tech storm brewing that we'll have to address before too long. Actually, I know it.”

Beth held a secret desire to visit all the planets.

She looked at her clenched hands. Her greatest desire was not to police the planets they held steward over but to explore them.

She kept it to herself, along with the fact that she'd just dumped herself on Earth by random accident. That hadn't been a visit; it'd been a catastrophe.

She owed her five years of service to the Reflective, and then she was free to explore and find the one who was destined for her—a promised soul mate.

That is, if Beth survived her service.

The nature of the Reflective duties were always the issue. With a death rate of one in two, there was no guarantee that a Reflective would live long enough to claim the prize of his or her other half.

Still, the proverbial carrot dangled before them.

Beth raised her chin and leveled her stare at Merrick. He was not a chatty male. His words, like his actions, were economical.

He came from a family of pureblood Reflectives, and the old feelings of isolation kicked in. Beth did not look Reflective, she was female… and she was small even for her gender.

But Rachett had seen that essential spark within her and included her in the training.

She asked him, “Earth? We will be assigned there?”

He nodded. “Yes, it's only a matter of time. The handwriting's on the wall.”

He’d used an interesting idiom that heralded from the Earth people's Bible, a relic of prophesy. Their Bible was not unlike Papilio scrolls that spoke of the Principle. An intersecting bit of beliefs, she supposed.

“Why thirteen?” she asked, wondering why that planet held his interest most.

“I can't manipulate the Band.”

“Ah…” Beth instantly remembered her training of that world. A primitive people had been saved by a futuristic, but interfering, group from Three. Interesting domiciles on that planet, she remembered.

“So the challenge then?”

Merrick grunted in enigmatic response, taking a piece of candy out of his pocket. He threw it into his mouth, then jawed it around.

Without warning, the door burst open.

Merrick jumped from mid-lean, tossing the chair out of the way.

Lance Ryan entered, slapping the door against the wall.

*

Beth slithered out of the bed, lightly touching her toes on the cold tile of the hospital floor.

She scanned the room for anything to use as a weapon or possible escape.

Damn, her weapons were hung neatly from a new uniform at the back of a chair in the corner.

Of course they were.

Who needs weapons when there is an armed Reflective at the door? Beth narrowed her eyes. The guard had been bought and paid for by Ryan, obviously.

Beth's gaze bored into Merrick's muscular back, and her heart stuttered. Merrick would never go against Ryan.

They were most likely in cahoots. That was probably why Merrick had been so cavalier, feeding her and taking care of his injured partner as they were required to do in the event of mishap.

She was doomed.

Maybe not.

She took a deep breath, contemplating the unthinkable. Beth's eyes roamed the four corners of the room, trying to locate anything reflective.

But the hospital had been scrubbed of anything that could refract.

“Well, hi ya, Ryan,” Merrick greeted him like an old friend, still in full Earth dialect.

Ryan frowned.

“Get out of the way, Merrick.”

Beth backed up, moving toward the window, glancing outside.

She was at the metaphorical cliff again. She wasn't healed fully from the last jump. Her injuries would certainly be worse if she jumped again.

So few held Beth in any regard that it might have been her only free pass that Merrick had been sent to collect her.

No one would come a second time. Her jump would leave her trapped in a foreign sector void of her people, unable to travel decisively without locators.

Jumping was dangerous without a focus sphere.

She could end up anywhere… or any time.

Beth shuddered. But she supposed that fate was better than death.

“Nope, can't do that, you colossal fuckup.”

Beth turned around, her mouth agape.

Did I just hear Merrick right? She had, judging by the expression on Lance Ryan's smug face.

That awareness in Ryan’s expression was beginning to leak away.

And Merrick's delivery had been the most comedic of all. He’d spoken as if he were commenting on the weather and had found it fine.

“Let me pass, Merrick. No one wants her to live.”

Beth's eyes met his over Merrick's shoulder. “You'd be doing the world a favor if you took a coffee break right now. Just let it happen.”

Merrick planted his feet, his arms loose at his sides, and regarded Ryan like a bug. Beth had moved into his peripheral vision. She'd also caught sight of an outside streetlamp through the window.

Its glass solar panels shone like a black mirror.

Ryan somehow knows, knows I ready myself. My desperation is plain to whoever searches for it.

Her body bore the scars of his physical bullying. Her mind held them, as well.

Heat climbs, searing her insides, Beth's heartbeat is a whoosh of blood in her ears.

Ryan's eyes snagged on Beth, then with a roar, he surged forward.

Merrick pivoted on his right foot. Already focused on her mark, Beth saw them as only a pinpoint in her vision.

The shining ebony at the crown of the lamp beckoned.

Then she heard the crack of bone against bone, and blood arced up, hitting the ceiling with such force that it rained back down on the men.

The sound stopped everything—her focus, her jump.

Beth stood frozen as Merrick went toe-to-toe with Ryan.

*

Jeb

Honorless fuck.

Jeb was disgusted the guard at Jasper's door had let Ryan through. He was even further disgusted that she’d considered jumping without having sufficient time to heal. Being a sensitive Reflective, he could sense jumping readiness.

During the battle in the coliseum, he had sensed Beth’s jump before anyone else had. He possessed her signature now.

Ryan charged, and something in Beth's expression gave her away. It would be the first thing he would teach her as her partner: a blank face.

Beth didn't have one. A shadow of her every feeling clouded her face. She was, as the people of Sector-Three Earth were fond of saying, an open book.

Ryan was a dirty fighter—no surprise there—who thought to take hold of Jeb and unbalance him.

Ryan latched onto Jeb's wrist and attempted a foot sweep.

Jeb countered, twisting his wrist viciously in the opposite direction of the hold, breaking it instantly as he grabbed Ryan's forearm. He stepped into the fight, not away.

As he jerked Ryan into the circle of reach, he swung his fist into Ryan's jaw.

Always engage, never retreat.

The Reflective motto, he thought with sour pleasure as Ryan moved with him, an apt dance partner in their mutual violence.

Ryan head butted Jeb in a deft, hard move with perfect timing.

It rang Jeb's bell, but his skull was hard, and he spun his cocked fist, driving it a second time the short distance from his hip to Ryan's jaw.

And like perfectly cracked glass, his jaw rocketed back, spraying blood onto the ceiling as his teeth speared his own tongue.

Jeb popped his flattened palms into Ryan's chest as though he wanted to launch him into the wall or stop his heart.

Ryan slammed into the wall, his head smacking the surface

Jeb stalked toward Ryan, his fists like meaty hammers of punishment.

Barely breathing, Ryan slid down the wall, his eyes at half-mast.

“Are we done here, Ryan?” Merrick asked.

Ryan gave the smallest nod possible, his mouth a yawning horror of blood and gore.

Merrick turned to check on Jasper.

The sun's final rays backlit her, bathing her in red light like a watercolor of blood. It ran down her arms, accentuating her delicate build, and instead of looking sinister, it did the opposite.

She seemed terribly fragile.

“Merrick!” Beth screamed.

He dropped down and spun.

Ryan was above him, a small dagger in one hand, coated with blood.

His own blood.

His fingers found the wound and came away slick.

Merrick saw red.

“You fucking pussy,” he hissed.

Ryan smiled through a mouthful of his own blood and spit it to the side, where it splattered like dumped paint on the pure-white tiles.

“I'm a pussy that just fucked you.”

“Not yet,” Merrick said.

Fuck it, I’ll heal on the way. He’d kept his gift a secret, though Ryan would be enlightened forevermore.

As light as a feather, a smooth rectangle of paper-thin mercury-coated ceramic slipped out of his specially made pocket in Merrick’s pants. He tossed, and it landed on top of their mixed blood on the floor.

It provided a single destination jump.

Ryan's expression showed true fear as Merrick punched the blade from the younger man’s hand. It hit the floor with a jarring clatter of metal against ceramic.

Ryan reacted as all instinctual Reflectives would have—he ground his fist into Merrick's knife wound.

But Merrick was already on point.

His eyes held on the flat surface of the locator even as he winced in pain.

He grabbed Ryan's collar, fisting the material tightly.

They jumped—only one did so willingly.

Merrick could hear Jasper calling his name down the tunnel the Reflectives traveled.

*

Jeb had found himself a dandy of a slope, his fist still attached to Ryan, where it continued its brutal hold.

Jeb went ripping down an embankment of sharp prairie grass that sliced and poked as they mowed through it, finally landing on their backs at the bottom.

He'd thought of Thirteen—and that’s where they'd landed.

Merrick was, of course, in perfect health, having healed completely during the jump. The glory in that was Ryan was yet unaware of Jeb’s mended state of affairs.

Merrick jumped to his feet and immediately kicked Ryan in the ribs.

“I swear to Principle I will leave you in this place if you do not retire your vendetta against Beth Jasper.”

Ryan spit more blood into the pasture grass that speared his back. “What… you want the half-breed?”

Jeb said nothing. Fool.

Ryan looked up at him.

“She is assigned to me, and she is injured. I can't help who I get partnered with any better than you can. I will not stand by and let you kill another Reflective because of your jealousy.”

“I am not jealous of that mongrel,” Ryan growled, coming to his hands and knees.

“I suffered through her inclusion for the past fifteen years,” he offered as a lame excuse.

“No.” Jeb gazed at the worthless Ryan. “I'm sure the reverse of that is true.”

“Earth lover.” Ryan spat at his feet.

Jeb rolled his eyes, pegging his hands on his hips. “Yes, I do enjoy Earth. Your point?”

“My point is she could be anything… she is not fully Papilion. Does that not bother you?”

“I am not looking to breed her but to partner her.”

“That is all females are good for.”

This is useless. Ryan was a lost cause, but Jeb could teach him caution. He did not wish to look over his shoulder for the next five years while partnered with Jasper.

Ryan stood, wisely keeping a respectable distance from Merrick.

“Where the hell are we?” His eyes narrowed on Jeb. “Where did you bring me?” He whipped his head around, taking in the faraway opaque dome-shaped structures.

A great forest stood to the north of their position.

“Sector Thirteen,” Jeb replied coolly.

Ryan's face paled. Jeb imagined that took some doing.

He grinned.

“This is the most dangerous sector you dick.”

Jeb shook his head. “Not the most dangerous.” No one traveled to One by choice—that was a death wish.

Jeb noted that he was not the only Reflective who had picked up the local Earth dialect with some precision.

Ryan lowered his voice as though anyone could hear them in the middle of the wilderness of this world.

A whisper of cloth against wheat made Merrick turn.

How wrong I was.

Things instantly went from teaching a lesson to survival, as was often the way of a jump.

A group of men of various sizes, ages, and bearing circled Merrick and Ryan, just out of striking range.

“Who the hell are they?” Ryan asked, suddenly less combative toward Merrick than he'd been moments before.

“The Fragment,” Jeb answered, sliding his remaining dagger out of the weapons pocket of his trousers.

Made of ceramic, it was designed to survive a jump, as metal could not survive Reflective journeys.

The cold porcelain was smooth, with a specially arced tip. It was serrated on only one side.

One of the men in the group called out, “Join us or die.”

Ryan said, “I don't know this dialect. I have only used the high language of Thirteen.”

“Just another reason why Jasper should remain.”

“Fuck me—why?” Ryan asked, one eye on the group, which was closing in, and the other on Merrick.

“She is fluent in all sectors.”

Jeb moved forward, hoping to injure enough men so that he could escape. They did not want to find themselves buried within the knot of the Fragment.

They took no prisoners.

*

Beth

Rachett tore into the hospital room, and Beth nearly climbed out of her skin.

The air still rippled with residual disturbance from Merrick's jump.

“Where is Ryan?” Rachett barked.

Beth took a deep breath. “He jumped with Merrick.”

Rachett's jaw moved back and forth. “No… Merrick would not take a jump with Ryan.”

“I don't think it was voluntary.”

They looked at each other.

Rachett seemed to notice Beth was in a hospital gown, flashing her backside to the window behind her.

“The residual still remains,” she said quickly, throwing her palm toward the shimmering air pocket between them.

Rachett studied the area, locked onto something and drove his palm through it in a slicing gesture that ended in his cupped fingers bringing the air back to his nose.

He waved that little bit he'd collected back and forth in front of his face.

“What signature?” Beth asked, moving to stand in front of him, her eyes on his hands as he smelled the air.

His face fell into grim lines. “Sector Thirteen.”

Rachett turned to Beth. “You're so damn hot to jump, jump that.”

Beth took a step back. “But… I'm a female. I don't have clearance for that sector.”

Everyone understood how treacherous that sector was. It had a terrible shortage of females, an estimated one to every fifteen males.

She would be delivering herself into the lion's den.

“Afraid?” Rachett taunted.

Beth stared at him. “I've never been afraid a day in my life.”

Anxiety is not fear.

“That's my girl. Now”—he touched her shoulder so briefly that Beth thought she imagined it—“get Ryan back. We have somewhere he needs to go.”

Beth paused then hit the affirmative decisively. “Yes, sir.”

He laid the universal locator on the hospital bed. Its sheen reflected the spattered blood on the ceiling. Rachett’s eyes followed hers.

When they lowered to meet hers again, he made no comment.

Rachett never asked once if she was well enough to jump… or if she wanted to.

Beth was Reflective, and that was answer enough.

CHAPTER FOUR

Beth

Unaware of Merrick’s gift, Beth traveled the tailwind of his jump with ease.

Truly not jumping was harder than jumping. It was unlike any other compulsion that Beth had ever known. She forced herself not to give reflective surfaces more than a passing glance.

Reflective surfaces were banned in some places, but no one could ban the water or tell the drops of rain where to fall.

Pools of water existed as proof of moisture falling, and lakes were made to swim in and harbor the fish that her people ate.

It was how it had always been.

Of course, there were those stories of Reflectives borne outside the net of The Cause, unfortunate enough to grow up without knowing what they were.

They were doomed to jump without knowledge, by pure instinct alone… to wherever their gift led them.

Legends even told of young ones flinging themselves along the pathway of travel to Sector Thirteen—or One.

Beth shivered inside the tunnel of fire and ice, spinning so quickly that she closed her eyes against the vertigo as she free fell.

Beth was glad the jump was always brief. To think of more than a few seconds of that sensation was the only true fear she ever experienced. The thought of being stuck in the jump—always moving, never landing—was a hiccup of pure terror.

Just as the thought solidified, she was spit out of the transport pathway, and with a spinning somersault, she came to an abrupt halt, her spine a raging nightmare of pain

One knee was planted in stiff grass; the other, bent in preparation to stand. Both palms were embedded in an unyielding plant-like material with light-blond stalks. They rustled in a hot breeze that shot across a flat plane of land.

Beth raised her head and met fifteen pairs of hostile eyes.

She stood slowly, ignoring the worst of her injuries, and hoped she'd healed sufficiently to run.

She knew what people these males were: Fragment, the most dangerous contingent of Sector Thirteen. Merrick had spoken of the Band.

The Band might have been reasoned with.

The Fragment would not be.

Beth barred her teeth and charged them, pulling her two ceramic blades. Holding them expertly, she used their small weight for balance. Beth's senses traversed the uneven landscape while the men were shocked into a standstill, circling two Reflectives.

Merrick and Ryan reacted to Beth's diversion.

Merrick unleashed his blades on the four Fragment members who approached him. Kneeling as he got close to the first two, he severed their hamstrings.

He rolled between the shrieking pair as they clutched their wounded legs. He drove the daggers in an arc toward the next pair, slicing their femoral arteries near the groin.

They had seconds before their lifeblood would soak the ground beneath them.

Probably not soon enough for Merrick's taste.

Beth moved into the Fragment’s tight group, where her diminutive height was perfect for her to cut their throats. She closed her eyes against the spray, as she'd been taught to do, turning her face away to breathe.

Her head swung like a pendulum as they bore down against her and she navigated through their ranks. Through her peripheral vision, Beth glimpsed a strike and blood spatter as a blade sang past her face. She noted the smell of the Fragment's metal, which she’d been trained to detect.

Reflectives never used Fragment metal, though they had been trained to use and recognize the native weaponry of foreign sectors.

She leaned away from the air pressure of the swipe and opened her eyes. Blood soaked her lashes like macabre glue.

Ryan was her attacker.

She acted on reflex, suspending her disbelief that he would still pursue his agenda of murdering her while they were under attack.

She struck him with her four knuckles in a straight stabbing punch to the throat.

Ryan staggered backward and fell to the ground on his backside.

She exhaled raggedly as two of the Fragment leapt over Ryan’s body to get to her.

Relentless.

Ryan would get up momentarily; he was as skilled as she.

Her eyes flicked to the advancing Fragment.

Beth dropped to her haunches and crisscrossed her blades at the crotches of the men intent on hurting her.

She defended Ryan, though he deserved nothing.

He might not believe in The Cause, but Beth Jasper did.

She was born to Reflect.

Beth was not pureblood—she hailed from a combination of unknown genes—but she believed she was meant for a higher purpose. At that moment, it was killing Fragment.

They did not pose a long-term threat to The Cause. Their technology was primitive, but she needed to survive another day to save those cultures that depended on the Reflectives, though they did not know it.

Much of the Fragment was comprised of the criminal leavings of Sector Three, courtesy of two corrupt scientists and their misguided genetic manipulations. Beth had read the file. She knew what Merrick had inferred, but she’d kept it to herself.

She'd also lost sight of the battle, thinking about things left to a time when she wasn’t actively engaged.

One Fragment member reached her, taking hold of her braid. She'd been warned about her hair. It was her one concession to femininity, but this criminal had laid hold on the one weakness she’d given him due to stubbornness.

He jerked her around, and Beth used the momentum, stabbing upward underneath his jaw in quick succession. A second white mouth of flesh opened.

She turned her head before the spray, and he released her into the arms of his cohort. Beth fell backward and spoke in clear Fragment: “Fire!”

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 studied 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.

Jeb studiously ignored the audience.

“Nice local crowd here, Jasper.”

His meaty palms hitting the glossy surface of the wooden bar top, the bartender's attention shifted to Jeb,

He made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like muffled breaking glass. “Oh yeah? Ya fool… piss off.”

Beth put a hand on the bartender's forearm, her smallness easily engulfed by his size. His eyes held hers with kindness.

“He's rough around the edges, Jimmy, but not all bad.”

Beth looked at Jeb, and her expression said otherwise.

Jeb crossed his arms. “How am I rough?”

Beth cocked an inky brow, and again he was struck by how she did not look like the typical Reflective.

In fact, nothing about her was typical.

Jimmy chuckled, and Jeb’s frown deepened.

Beth patted his shoulder in condescension. “You just are.”

Adlaine was the most uncivilized, rude, dirty, and crude quadrant in a fifty-kilometer radius.

Jeb opened his mouth to say so, but Beth covered it with her hand, shaking her head.

“Jimmy, get my partner a drink,” she tossed out.

“Partner, is it?” He eyed Jeb closer. His scrutiny was heavy, like a lead weight.

Beth lowered her hand and said, her accent straining around the edges, “Yeah, he's my partner.”

They shared a look, and he spun the stool away from her mocking expression, facing the mirror that flung their images back at them.

Reflections.

Jeb swiveled back to Jasper, but she was gone.

Dammit all to Hades. He gave an angry scrub to his face and stood.

***

Beth whistled a melodious tune as she made her way past the house that had become her home when she was an infant.

She had not seen her adoptive parents in over fifteen years.

Morbid compulsion drove Beth to visit this place she could never return to, but like a small child with her nose pressed to the candy store window, Beth put her metaphorical nose to this small house with its thatched roof, convex windows, and rough-hewn door. She wished to belong there.

The centuries-old house sat anchored upon a slight knoll. Soft light glowed through the windows like eyes that saw only her.

A sigh of pure longing escaped the prison of her lungs.

Beth wanted to see it one last time before her first official jump. Even if those parents who'd loved her, albeit too briefly, never knew she stood outside their domicile in abject suffering. She could take a small measure of comfort in the memory.

She felt a little bad for ditching Merrick. But she’d needed to be alone. Nothing good came from witnessing private sorrow.

No other Reflective needed to know any of Beth's weaknesses. As far as they were concerned, the ones they could see were far too many.

She stared for another twenty minutes or so then turned on her heel to return to her own quadrant.

Barringer was the closest to Adlaine, but it was barely within required range of The Cause Headquarters. It was a good stretch of legs—a thirty-minute walk from where she stood in front of her adoptive parents’ house—but the fresh air would do her good.

Midway home, she took up whistling again, her heart somewhat lighter.

Whiskey burned pleasantly in her stomach. The fragrance of sweet autumn clematis filled the night with its weighted perfume, chasing the fresh night air.

Beth was pleased she'd been given first hold of the locator. She moved her hand over the smooth sphere and thought of how plentiful these were on Sector Three, where they had a different use.

There, people called them “marbles.” Curious moniker. Though she had never seen any with the surface necessary to jump, an unconscious smile lit Beth's face as she thought of the many intersecting things across the sectors.

Someday, she thought, I shall travel them all.

Not for torture, but for pleasure.

***

Jeb was pissed.

Every patron in the tavern stared at him as though he carried a disease from a different sector. He slapped the shot glass on the wood bar.

Then he looked Jimmy in the eye and said, “Thanks.”

Jimmy's brows dropped into a single bushy line of anger. That might've been because his thanks sounded curiously like fuck off.

And that was what he'd really meant.

Jeb slowly met every pair of eyes as he scanned the inside of the bar.

Nice first night with my partner.

He walked out the door unmolested. They would have been fools to try and overpower him. He could have escaped easily. The damn bar had an acre of mirrors—mirrors, for Principle's sake—lining an entire wall.

The fresh breeze drove pleasantly against him as he exited the dive and dusted the place off his boots, shedding the slum from his thoughts.

Jeb palmed his pulse. His was a more sophisticated version than Beth’s, but it was a necessity for a Reflective with his seniority.

He swiped his thumb over the dock and it sprang to life.

He kept his thumb depressed and thought the location of his domicile.

Jeb looked up. A panel below the streetlights opened. It was hidden invisibly within the ribbing of the cylindrical column that snaked up the housing, which in turn held the solar wiring that powered the bulbs.

A small mirror blinked back at Jeb like an unseeing eye. He turned his pulse communicator to face it.

His pulse initiated a narrow scope of light, which tracked the small reflective surface, and when Jeb could see it refract the light, he jumped.

The motion was very precise, like hopping on stepping stones.

To the casual observer, it would have appeared as though a thread of light speared the small mirror ten meters above the sidewalk before a man simply flashed toward that impossibly tiny window, only to disappear in a whip of iridescent sparks almost too rapid to track.

But track it, he did. Jeb hopped seamlessly between streetlamps—every kilometer, a lamp contained a hidden pocket mirror—until he got to the one that lit his front stoop.

He was always invigorated after jumping, and this was no exception. His weariness and frustration had left him, and his strong heart beat was even and perfect.

That flutter of purity and purpose only lasted a few moments before Jeb's gaze caught a wisp of paper thumb-tacked to his front door.

Jeb strode to it, tearing it off the highly polished surface. The rare species of wood had been forever marred by some Adlaine lowlife.

The note read very simply:

Mongrel-lover.

Or perhaps it was not from an Adlaine. The Adlaines loved Beth. One of theirs was a Reflective. It was a first in their history.

Merrick ran his finger over the pockmark on the door and his lips flattened in anger, his fist crushing the paper.

If they only fucking knew.

He didn't want to be with Beth Jasper any more than they wanted him to.

Rachett had insisted.

He'd promised to cut Jeb's term short if he partnered with the only female Reflective The Cause had seen in the last ten years.

Principle, what have I agreed to?

***

Beth absently scratched at the disc embedded underneath her ear, right at that bone that protruded. Everyone who possessed a pulse communicator had an implant, but she had never gotten used to hers. Its very foreignness made itself known day in and day out. No matter how many times her fingertips ran over nothing but smooth, perfectly healed skin, Beth knew what lay beneath.

Her uniform was neatly tucked away with the other ten, which were perfectly laundered. It was the only break she’d caught; the Reflectives were required to look shipshape, and they had people who made sure of it. So she didn't have to do her own laundry, which was excellent, because she wasn't the best housekeeper.

Beth took pride in the sheer wealth of vocabulary, idioms, and other slang she had at her disposal. Because she was a half-breed female, slight of build, she’d done everything in her power to be the best, the brightest, the most cunning, and the most merciless.

Being merciless was not her best thing.

She had told no one, but she had many small pets in her domicile who eased her in the life she was destined to live.

Beth had not confessed because others could hurt the defenseless creatures she loved. The Papiliones did not care that she stood only five feet two and had the unsightly coloring that was not the ideal.

Her butterfly menagerie greeted her in the same way whenever she returned—with reverence.

Beth was honored that creature for whom their world had been named had chosen to roost in her humble abode. Actually, she was of the opinion that she could not have begged them to leave, which pleased her to no end.

Beth ruminated in English and spoke in Latin. The practiced effort to remain fluent in both languages had never let her down.

All other sectors had reverted to English as their primary language, leaving behind the ancient Latin long ago. But the people of Papilio had never thrown it out. Papiliones were an atypical people who were steeped in traditions but embraced technology.

And she would travel to Sector Three that night. She would speak only English for as long as the reconnaissance would last.

Beth couldn't help the nervous flutter in her stomach as she lay on her bed, arms folded neatly over her mid-twenty-first-century Sector Three costume.

The butterflies felt her heartsick anxiety and floated in a cyclone of spotted, iridescent beauty.

They landed along Beth's folded arms, their wings swaying to balance themselves on her flesh.

The small hairs of her arms rose at their touch, and she settled peacefully into a fragile hiatus before the jump.

CHAPTER SIX

Jeb stood beside Jasper, whose small hands were clenched.

“Relax.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “You've jumped before.”

He didn't mention that she'd jumped to ditch him just hours before. He would not queer the jump because she'd been a bitch.

“I know.”

They were partners. In a way, it was more than a marriage. They were responsible for each other. Liking didn't enter into it. That was why he’d fed Beth in the hospital.

He agreed more with Ryan than he should have.

Jeb would have killed Ryan if he'd tried to hurt her. Hell, Jeb would have ended it when they were in the ring had he known that Rachett had caught on she'd been assigned as his partner.

Beth Jasper would do the same for him.

Jeb couldn't deny that he agreed with Ryan about Reflective females in combat. He also remembered Rachett's words when he'd balked at the pairing.

*

“The Reflective can't help being a warrior.”

His eyes nailed Merrick to where he stood. “The Principle decides, Merrick. And It has decided that Beth Jasper is a warrior. Hades…”

Rachett raked a hand through graying hair.

He was nearing a thousand years old.

“In all my years as Commander, I've never seen one jump like she can. Even for an unbeliever, it means something.”

Jeb agreed.

But a female in combat? “You remember what happened to our last female Reflective in combat.”

Rachett's chin dipped. “Yes.”

The ensuing silence possessed the horrible quality of knowledge too terrible to speak of. Yet, Merrick spoke.

“How many Reflectives died trying to save her?” It was Jeb's turn to plow fingers through his hair in frustration. He had grown it long in preparation for the jump to Sector Three.

“Too many.” Rachett exhaled in a rush.

Jeb leaned forward, capturing his Commander's steely gaze. “Exactly. We are instinctively protective of females. She was a seasoned warrior… but what they did to her… our males died because they could not stand what was happening.”

Rachett's gaze did not flinch. “I was there.”

“Then you know.”

Rachett nodded.

“Better than most.” They stared as quiet bloomed between them. “I should know—I killed her.”

Shocked, Merrick stepped back from Rachett.

“What? Why? I thought her injuries were too grievous…”

“They were.” Rachett stood straighter. “They had wrecked her in a way she could not heal from.”

“Yet you sent Ryan to Sector One.”

Rachett nodded grimly. “He'll heal.”

“He'll hate you.”

Rachett shrugged. “He should have thought about that before he tried to kill Beth Jasper.”

“Why her? Why not keep her safe, let her live out her term as… like Daphne.”

Rachett's lips quirked, and Merrick understood that he knew about their roll in the sheets.

Swell.

Merrick opened his mouth to defend it all, and Rachett raised his palm.

“Don't bother. I know males have needs. I am one, remember?”

Jeb wasn't likely to forget. Rachett was the most brutal male he'd ever known. He'd seen everything… and done everything.

“Beth Jasper is my absolution.”

Jeb's chin jerked back. He searched Rachett's face, gleaning nothing.

“The female Reflective that I killed as a mercy was Beth's mother.”

Jeb staggered back, shock running through his body like the electric current of the past.

“Does anyone else know this?”

“Just you.”

“Principle, I wish I didn't.”

Rachett shrugged.

“Jasper is important to The Cause. She could not have survived the training without the blessing of the Principle.”

True. “What of the father?”

Rachett turned away from Jeb, pacing to the window inside the office and plucking the gauzy drape aside.

“He is Sector One.”

Jeb sat down on the closest horizontal surface that presented, his breath leaving him like air escaping a deflating balloon.

It just keeps getting worse.

“Those fucking creatures…” Jeb spit into the room.

“Clearly not all.”

“She was raped,” Jeb stated, struggling to reconcile why any female would couple with a Sector One inhabitant.

Rachett shook his head as he gazed outside at the vineyards on the distant emerald hills.

He turned to Jeb.

“No. Not by her lover.”

Jeb paused.

He recovered. “Then what?”

“They were as enraged about the union as we were.”

Jeb sucked in a breath, standing.

“It was revenge?”

Rachett nodded. “Yes.”

His gaze hardened on Jeb.

“That is why we must never divulge Beth's true lineage until we are bound to do so at her twenty-first cycle.”

“I would never, Commander Rachett.”

“I know that, Jeb.” Rachett clapped him on the back.

“But the information in the wrong set of hands ...”

“Because they have jumpers.”

Rachett nodded. “They're not always as skilled as our Reflectives, they don't have the training, and are very rare.”

“That might be why Beth is ...”

“Such an anomaly. Such a wild talent.”

Jeb palmed his chin.

“Yes,” Rachett sighed.

“It has come to our attention that there are powerful jumpers in the sector. A primitive, volatile, and barbaric society that believes in survival of the fittest as its modus operandi. However…” He hesitated, plowing his fingers through his shorn hair again. “I think there's a simplicity to their Reflection. They use it sporadically, without gaining control because it's not something they rely on, but something buried within the basest fabric of their genetic composition.”

“So Beth is the product of a Reflective female and a Sector One male.”

Rachett nodded.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I met him.”

“No fucking way!”

Rachett scowled at Jeb’s use of Earth language but Jeb continued unabated.

“What happened?”

“He cradled her mother’s body like a man broken.”

“Why did he not defend her?”

“He did not come in time.”

Rachett looked away again, his mind seemingly on memories that Jeb couldn't see and didn't really want to.

“Maybe that wasn't Beth's father,” Jeb said, stumbling over the title.

“He was.”

“How can you be sure?”

Rachett tapped his fingertips on the edge of his desk.

“She's his spitting image.” He gave a short laugh, more like a bark.

Jeb didn't think anything could be funny right then.

“Then there was the matter of the rain… it fell… and the male rose from her dead body.” Rachett continued to stare at Jeb, though he appeared to look through him at another scene, at a different time.

“The water washed his black hair into his face. His skin was like marble. He was a hard male, a big one. He howled into that dark storm like he was a part of it.”

Rachett's eyes fell on Jeb's.

“Then he was.” Rachett finished quietly. “He had jumped through the storm, leaping between raindrops.”

Amazing.

Terrifying.

A Reflective buried in that uncivilized Earth, surrounded by savagery.

“He took her with him.”

It shocked Jeb out of the moment. “He—what?”

“I didn't say? He stood with her in his arms and bellowed his anguish into the sky and jumped with a dead Reflective through the water as it fell.” Rachett's voice went low, and Jeb leaned forward to catch the last word.

Moments filled with nothing but the sound of their breathing ticked by.

“Do you understand the importance of this?”

“If he knew of Beth…” Jeb said.

“He would come after her.”

“And leave a tailwind for every Sector One to follow.”

Rachett smiled, the first real one of the conversation. “Precisely.”

As they said on Three: no pressure.

“And, Jeb?”

He turned back, his hand on the old brass knob.

“She could be important.”

That bit of Sector One blood could be harnessed to allow Reflectives to jump through theoretically anything.

Jeb tried to wrap his mind around someone jumping through the rain, with no locator, while holding a dead body.

He couldn't. That kind of raw ability would be… dangerous.

Jeb thought of Beth jumping through mist. However, she'd been solo. Her father had carried another with him, who was not living. Jeb certainly had food for thought.

*

A swift jab to the ribs brought him back to himself in a hurry.

“What in the Hades, Merrick?” Beth glared at him angrily.

He shook off the memory with effort. “Sorry, got lost for a second there.”

“Way to instill the faith, Merrick.”

“Okay,” Jeb nodded at Jasper, and she withdrew the sphere, placing it on the pedestal.

They were in the jumping room. Jeb had always found the title humorous, as if the room were bouncing around rather than being the location the jumpers leapt from.

The small sphere stood dead center in a niche perfectly formed to accept the locator.

Its deep-pewter luster shone under their gazes.

The scientists of Papilio had studied the senses of the Reflectives and found them fifty times more acute than non-Reflectives’.

Their sharpened eyesight allowed the partners to narrow their vision on the sphere, tuned to Sector Three by their guidance.

There was windows of non-reflective glass that bordered every wall and the moon slanted inside, white-washing the ancient floors to a pure carpet of low sparkles like ice.

“Ladies first,” Jeb mocked, knowing it would get a rise out of Jasper.

Beth raised her middle finger, so ladylike and violent at the same time Jeb chuckled.

He had never really analyzed her jumps.

She folded her hands like a high diver on a cliff above a deep pool of water.

Jasper dove, and a riptide of energy tore at Jeb.

He had jumped many times, and each Reflective's “signature” was distinctive.

Beth’s feminine energy was a kaleidoscope of meshed color that ripped through the room, fracturing the moonlight into shards of shining rainbows.

Jeb almost missed his cue.

He went from a standstill to a sprint, the last of her departing ribbon snapping out of existence just as he leapt after it.

Then he was hurtling into the nothingness of the pathway the Reflectives traveled.

*

Principle—what the Hades is that damn word?

Ah yes! Déjà vu.

“Beth!” Jeb hollered hoarsely. He possessed just enough wherewithal not to lose his diction on Three and slip into Latin.

Jeb didn't believe that it was spoken in Sector Three, except for in some religious temples. As least they were not in Thirteen again, though Principle knew, jumping with Beth felt like a do-over. That odd sense of doubling swept through him again, then she answered him.

“I'm right here. Stop braying like a sheep.”

Relief poured through him when he heard her trademark sarcasm.

Beth studied his expression and frowned. “What is that face for?”

He needed to be more careful to school his expression around her. The information about her father was not to be shared with anyone, especially her.

It was in her nature to be curious.

Jasper would be better off being curious about things that wouldn't get her killed.

“Rough landing.” He shrugged, sliding his eyes away.

Beth looked at him a heartbeat longer. “Seemed smooth to me, but whatever.”

She was already using Three lingo. He needed to shake off his archaic speech. Jeb had adopted some Three vernacular, but it wasn't where his talents lay.

Beth slid her pulse out of her tight denims and swiped it with her thumb to initialize. Her first and last names appeared. But instead of her home world of Papilio, it read:

Quadrant: Kent, Washington—Greater Quadrant, America—Year 2030.

Jeb switched dialects, moving smoothly into English.

“How are we doing?”

Beth rolled her eyes at him. “We hit the target quadrant and year.”

He frowned. “Okay, so why are you making faces?”

“You're using British English. We're trying to blend, doofus.”

“I am?” Jeb asked.

Beth nodded. “Snap out of it. We're way west, pal. You'll stand out like a turd in a punchbowl with that Greater Quadrant upper-crust lingo you got going on.”

Jeb began to grin. “You've really studied this?”

She put on her familiar bored, I'm-superior look.

“Ah-duh. We're here to recon, and we can't do it with that stick-up-your-ass Brit accent.”

Jeb was offended. He felt—and thought he sounded—smooth.

“I mean”—Beth put her hands on her hips—“that's fine if you want to stay here and listen to yourself talk, which might please the hell out of you.”

Jeb laughed.

“But we do have an objective.” Beth raised her eyebrows.

“Principle, you're a bossy thing.”

“Stop using Principle… it's God here.”

Jeb frowned.

In the most recent past, Jeb had been partnered with an adept linguist. Allowing him to speak for the pair had been easier. Jeb had always taken over with the physical work.

Jeb threw his hands in the air. “I give up. You do the talking.”

“Yes,” she hissed, leveling a fist by her hip and popping it straight up into the air.

“What the Hades is that move?”

“Victory.”

Jeb made a non-committal noise, which sounded suspiciously like a grunt, and followed Beth.

“The targets?” she asked.

Jeb had his pulse at the ready. “Gary and Joe Zondorae.”

“The geneticists?”

“Yeah.”

Beth threw a glance over her shoulder. “Better.”

“Yup.”

She grinned.

Sector Three was easy. Reflective surfaces abounded. Jeb was unaware of any other jumpers, so the two of them bounced from one surface to the next, Jeb leading with one leap and she the next.

Finally, they came to their meeting point.

Thank Principle this world was rife with humans of paranormal ability. That made it easier for them to seemingly pop out of thin air and have the ones they would meet barely bat an eye.

The weird had become an everyday occurrence.

Beth tumbled in behind him at their destination

Across town from their permanent locator. Pioneer Reflectives of exploration had established unobtrusive markers in every sector, across many different quadrants. Those permanent place markers were a clean jumping point back and forth between worlds. Jumping across the small Kent Quadrant had been simple because of the abundance of surfaces.

Jeb smiled to himself; the place was so dreary that it was littered with mud puddles that reflected the gray clouds roiling continuously above them. He understood it was the region, not the sector and made a mental note to stay in his quadrant forever.

Jeb caught Beth's wary eyes. Plenty of puddles for jumps, large trees for cover, and markers for graves. Remote, quiet and a good point for fast escape.

Beth pulled a face.

“What's the problem?”

“Not a fan of corpse gardens.”

Jeb shrugged. It didn't matter to him, fewer people were better in his opinion. This world had overpopulated, and disease had taken them down like flies.

His empathy for Three was at an all-time low.

“They have AftDs here.”

Jeb's mind rolled through the paranormals found here, and he didn't immediately remember the acronym. Oh yes—Affinity for the Dead. Corpse animators.

“So?”

The Pyros, Telekinetics, and Manipulators were the real problem.

He told her that.

She nodded.

“True, but do you want to see their dead walk around, scratch their ass, and shake your hand?”

Jasper had a point.

“Look.” Jeb jerked his chin in the direction of a man and woman who appeared from behind the stand of trees then walked toward them.

Stealthy, Jeb thought, bracing himself.

The female spoke first. “I'm Amanda, and this is Chris.”

Jeb and Chris assessed each other as males do.

Jeb knew who would win a bare-handed fight.

Chris turned his attention to Jasper. “Who's she?”

Jasper's face tightened. Her offense at his dismissal was obvious.

“My colleague,” Jeb replied, and he heard the breath leak out of her, but not her anger.

Chris's eyes flicked to Jeb. “You talk funny.”

Damn.

Beth took over, smoothly shifting gears, but not before giving him a look.

Jeb's teeth came together with a snap.

“We have the product,” Beth said.

“I wanna see,” Chris strode forward, and Jeb folded his arms, legs planted, as the first fat drop of rain landed on his forehead. It chilled instantly against his skin.

Beth pulled the coded, self-eroding fingerprint strips out of a small slim reticule specially designed for jumps.

She began to pull it open to extract the paper-thin counterfeit pads when Chris snatched it away.

Jeb smiled.

Beth moved with the surety of practice. She slid her palm out in a slap that was aimed at his inner forearm. It was delivered with hard precision, and it did what she expected it to.

It flung Chris’s arm wide, and she made a grab for the bag.

Beth gracefully plucked it out of his hand.

She tossed it to Jeb. Males of the sector, especially the Greater Quadrant of America, were known for their aggression, and Chris charged Jasper as Amanda and Jeb watched.

It was fine entertainment.

Chris moved toward her like a bull after a red flag, all momentum and some skill. Jasper stood still, letting his own weight and speed ruin his attempt.

He reached out, and she grabbed his forearm with both hands then swung out her foot as she let his continue right by.

Chris tumbled to the ground sans bag, having lost the fight to a woman he outweighed by one hundred pounds.

He glared at Beth.

Jeb completely understood the smear of rage across his face.

Could he take her?

“I'm going to kick your ass.”

“Chris, we don't have time for this bullshit.”

His eyes flicked to Amanda then away. “Shut up.”

Chris got up, his desire to see through force, what he'd buy on the black market was gone.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, girl?”

Beth smiled, her calculating eyes running up his body like a freight train. She brought her loose fists up beside her jaw, her knees slightly bent, her weight balanced.

“I'm the girl that will make you bleed.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Beth shifted her eyes to the woman then right back on her opponent. He was only a Sector Three male, but he might get in a lucky strike. It was in Beth's nature to be wary.

Chris seemed to have thought something through and come to a decision. He straightened, and suddenly, the short fuse of the moment burnt out.

He shook his head at Amanda and snorted.

“Wouldn't want to arm wrestle her.”

If he wanted to use humor to diffuse the situation, that was fine by her. Beth backed away, hands loose by her sides.

“Done posturing?” Merrick asked, and Beth smirked.

“Thanks for the backup, stud,” Beth said, and Merrick frowned at her phrasing.

“You didn't need my assistance.”

“Where are ya from?” Amanda asked.

“That's not important,” Merrick said.

Beth replied, “Around.”

Now that was not meant literally, Beth thought.

Chris checked them out and said, “Doesn't matter. Let’s take a look-see at the pulse thumbstrips and get the fuck outta here. We have stuff to do.”

Yes, we do.

Beth gave Merrick a meaningful glance as she opened the bag, pulling out a small strip. One side had a removable barrier.

“Just pull this end away.” Beth mimed tearing one side off. “Then”—she turned and pretended to place it on her pulse dock pad then depress it with her thumb—“voilà! You have a false pulse print.”

“Seems easy,” Chris said.

Merrick shrugged. “Should be. It's got the only set of prints you require.”

Chris's eyes slid to Merrick.

“Three infiltrations’ worth, right?” Amanda asked. She was obviously the brains of the operation.

Principle, help them.

Beth nodded.

“Okay, let's roll,” Chris said, taking an envelope out of his jacket pocket.

He handed it to Merrick, and Beth's lips tilted. The big bad male was afraid of her.

“Count it,” she said, and Merrick did.

“It's all there.”

As the couple walked away, Chris stole a glance at Beth before they disappeared from view.

“You put the fear of Principle into him.”

“God, Merrick.”

He shook his head, palming his chin.

“I can't get used to another deity. It seems wrong somehow.”

It did to Beth, too. But they were in Sector Three. When in Rome… Beth smiled at the colloquialism from this sector. It fit well with their circumstance.

“When it's just us, let's talk about things that matter to us.”

If that's the way he thinks. “Let's go to the cathedral then.”

It wasn't a good sign that she was already homesick for Papilio when it was her first official jump.

Merrick's perfect golden eyebrows arched on his sculpted face and a sigh almost escaped.

It must be nice to be the poster child for the Reflective.

Merrick stood at well over six feet of well-honed muscle. Long dark-blond hair curled slightly above his ears, as was the style in this sector. His eyes were his best feature, a pale gray surrounded by soot-colored lashes.

Beth had always thought they should match his hair. Instead, they edged those unusual eyes like black lace.

He was so handsome that it hurt to look at him.

Then he spoke, and her admiration for his fine looks wafted away like the ashes of a lost memory.

“Jasper, you and your sentiment.”

“You've heard, have you?” she said in a disgusted tone. “I'll go myself then. You can find your own entertainment.”

She felt his hand on her shoulder and wanted to tear it off.

All of Merrick’s life, everything had been given to him. He'd never known a moment's strife. He'd been raised in the Barringer Quadrant, for Principle's sake.

He turned her and searched her face.

“Jasper, I don't put you down for having sentiment, only what kind it is.”

Their guarded expressions collided.

Merrick asked, “Don't you understand that sentiment is different to the individual?”

She flung his palm off and began walking.

“Have you ever heard a sermon?” she asked.

His expression told her he hadn’t.

***

Jeb watched Jasper kneel before the deity of this sector and thought the man hanging on the cross was a gruesome depiction of violence. Jasper understood their customs, and Jeb allowed the indulgence.

She was younger than he was, and she had been through a trying time, with too many close calls too near to one another. It was time that Jeb showed a little compassion.

Except for the sculpture of the tortured man of the cross, the building had an artistic beauty that reminded him of the architecture of Papilio. Great arches of white marble with subtle pink thread rose from the ground to meet at the ceiling, where an almost upside-down fleur-de-lis shape knotted the intersections. Tall stained and leaded glass windows captured jewel tones, bearing Sector Three's saints—men without sin.

Merrick struggled to stifled his disdain.

Jasper took a seat, and he measured the time by the sun filtering through the colored glass. Oh four hundred.

His stomach was empty, and that told him it was oh time to eat.

Jeb leaned against the back wall as people filed in and sat in long wooden pews. It was not unlike the temple for Principle in his world, minus the beaten figure on the cross.

His thoughts scattered when a regal man in a white robe came out and began to speak.

Jeb stood up straighter.

The man was speaking Latin.

Jeb understood every word, sinking into the music of what came out of his mouth like taking his next breath.

*

As he and Jasper walked out of the cathedral, Jeb found he was slightly melancholy.

“That was strange,” he commented.

“It is, but wonderful, too.”

Neither said what the other was thinking—that they would have to return. Each jump never lasted longer than twenty-four hours. And time did not move identically between sectors. Some planets could be as much as a season off.

During a very bad jump to Sector One, Jeb had lost an entire year.

Jeb had a case of wanderlust. It was always that way. Every Reflective had that special other half out there, waiting. He gave Jasper a speculative look.

A male half for her. It was an odd consideration.

“Ice cream,” Jeb said suddenly, and Jasper laughed.

He found he enjoyed her laughter very much. Jasper lacked levity.

“The stuff that slops around and melts?”

Merrick grinned. “Yes, that's the stuff,” he said, playing with the slang.

Her smile was radiant. “All right, yes.”

*

They sat across from each other, Jeb shifting his weight because the ball-strangling denims he was wearing never did anything but make him uncomfortable. Principle, how he loathed the clothing of this sector.

“Why are you wiggling around so much?” Jasper asked, taking a swipe of the bright-green ice cream she loved, and a big stripe landed on the tip of her nose.

“These damn denims… they're insufferable.”

“Jeans,” Jasper corrected absently.

Her pink tongue licked the frozen cream.

And licked again.

Without realizing it, he leaned forward and Jasper stilled, her hair falling forward like a black waterfall. Braids were not current in this sector so she'd been forced to relinquish her normal severity.

He dabbed the paper he'd torn from the dispenser against her nose.

“Oh,” was all she said, as high color bled across her face, staining it pink.

Jeb stood in the middle of the awkward moment, throwing the brittle yet strangely sweet edible holder in the trash.

He held the door open for Jasper and they walked out.

“We have to return.”

Her lack of enthusiasm forced a smile.

“I know you want to explore, Jasper.”

She faced him.

“And you don't?” Pure accusation creeped through her tone.

He nodded slowly as they continued toward the permanent marker. They were in the downtown part of the Kent Quadrant, walking through the region's idea of a historic district, though by Papilio standards, this region was in its infancy.

It was late nineteenth century. True antiquity was Papilio, where everything aged like a fine wine. Modern advancement had not robbed his people of their history the way it had in Sector Three.

Jasper stopped and cast her eyes to the ground, as he did. The cobblestones had been paved over with another hard substance, but chunks of missing pavement revealed bits of the original road like wounds of antiquity.

Jeb caught site of the pedestal, built like a little sanctuary in a pocket of what remained of the original structures.

Jeb took the locator out of his pocket and it hovered as soon as it was free. It floated to the marker that was an integral part of the wall, sinking into the custom niche.

“Do you know who made these markers?” Jasper asked, looking at the sphere, three meters above their heads.

Jeb shook his head. He knew only that the markers had been made many years before. Perhaps the marker they were using was a replacement. Coming after the old-growth trees in the rich valley bed they stood on had been felled.

The markers were safest where the environment was unlikely to change much.

Sounds came from down the narrow alleyway, and they tensed.

It was not the casual sounds of human traffic but those of violence. Merrick fought the urge, which he’d had before, to put Jasper behind him.

She was more than capable of fighting her own battles.

A group of young thugs chased a lone man down the alley, straight toward Jeb and Jasper.

At the same time, their eyes rose to the softly glowing sphere.

Once in the cradle of the marker, the sphere would begin to degrade. They had a window of only minutes to jump. First, it would lose its reflection, then it would disintegrate to nothing. It was a clever invention.

The Reflectives could not leave proof of their existence. This was another of the many directives that Reflectives maintained at all costs.

“What… is this?” Jasper asked.

The man running toward them was six feet tall, with hazel eyes and light-brown hair. It was highly stylized but not in a modern way. The rest of his clothing seemed out of sync with the era as well.

Jasper covered her nose just as the smell hit him.

The man smelled of rotting meat with a chaser of raw earth.

Jasper coughed.

“I do apologize,” the man said in a cultured voice, “but I'm rather pressed at present.”

Jeb's eyes narrowed on the gang as they drew closer.

Jasper backed away, slowly lowering her hand. “First third, twentieth century. Undead,” she identified quickly.

Jeb was suddenly glad he had a foreign sector historian on his hands. He turned to her.

“You mean?” he asked, indicating the polite rotting man.

She nodded. “Why do you think I hated the cemetery idea?”

The rotting man seemed insulted, even with the nefarious troupe bearing down on them.

“I don't tarry about graveyards. I am a normal citizen.”

Jeb thought that was somehow inaccurate.

“What's the deal with them?” Jasper asked, jerking her head toward the violent knot of men.

“They mean to beat me until I'm dead,” the zombie said.

“You are dead,” Jasper pointed out.

He lifted a shoulder of the wool overcoat he wore.

“A technicality.”

“Come ’ere, you fucking creeper,” the closest one said, reaching for the zombie.

“First: Right the Wrong,” Jasper whispered.

“Second: Bear no Injustice,” Jeb echoed as one of the men of Sector Three cracked the zombie in the shoulder with a solid piece of hickory.

Jeb stepped forward, capturing the next swing in the palm of his hand. One of his fingers broke on impact with the smooth hardwood, which was worn from many beatings and stained rust-red with the blood of others.

Jeb grit his teeth against the pain, though he had warred with more grievous injuries than this.

“Jasper!” Jeb yelled.

“I'm on it,” she grunted, kicking one man in the gut.

“Allow me,” the zombie said. “I cannot abide violence against women.”

He snapped his fist forward into the jaw of the one who had touched Jasper, though his other arm hung at an odd angle.

The assailant fell like a box of rocks.

“Bring it!” Beth screamed, and the pursuers stampeded.

Jasper crouched low, plowing into the three men who remained as if she were a bowling ball and they, the pins.

Jeb tossed the one who flanked their group into the wall of the building.

He cracked the skull of the other while the zombie landed on the tossed assailant.

He fell after a sound punch in the face.

“Stay as you lie, vagrant,” the zombie commanded with quiet menace.

The last one had Jasper by the throat, pressed tight against the brick wall.

Jeb kicked the male between the legs from behind in a cupped strike of toes. It was an effective hook to the crotch.

His angle had been awkward but effective.

The zombie hissed his empathy from behind as the man slid down to the ground on his side in a fetal position.

Jasper slapped her hands against the building for balance. Her eyes found Jeb's.

The Reflectives’ gazes rose to the sphere.

It had lost its luster. They momentarily ignored the undead man they'd saved.

“Can you jump?” Jeb asked as Jasper struggled to draw air through her abused throat.

Jasper came away from the wall as late-afternoon sunlight streamed between the two buildings like a spear.

She stared at the locator.

Nothing reflective remained.

She shook her head.

Jeb swore under his breath. His finger was a crooked flag on his hand. Swelling as he observed the broken digit.

He glanced at Jasper. “Can you set this? It'll heal this way.”

“I can,” the zombie said.

He extended his hand.

“I am Clyde.”

Jeb stepped over one of the beaten men and took the proffered palm. He noticed the gray tinge of the skin; some of it was sloughing off like shed snake skin.

Jeb shook it with his good one, keeping his repulsion under lock and key for the moment.

“Jeb Merrick.” He indicated Jasper with his chin. “This is my associate, Beth Jasper.”

Clyde inclined his head.

“How is it you know medicine? Are you a healer?”

“Merrick,” Jasper warned.

His eyes flicked to hers.

“A doctor?” he corrected.

Clyde's lips twitched.

The interior of his mouth was black.

“No, but I did a turn or two with boxing during Prohibition times. I might understand the mechanics of fixing a break.”

Jasper put her leather reticule between Jeb's teeth as Clyde straightened the joint.

Jeb did not scream, thought the marks of his teeth remained in the soft leather.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Just let it out, Merrick,” Beth said, disgusted by his pinched white face.

Males.

“No,” Merrick said through clenched teeth.

“Okay—whatever.”

Clyde straightened.

“There. It is not a perfect set, but it is what I could manage because of prior breaks.” Clyde lifted an eyebrow, and a little glob of skin rolled from a decomposing tear of flesh and plopped to the ground with a dull splat.

Beth could hear the dry click of her throat as she swallowed. Disgusting.

She had always prided herself on not being squeamish. Beth had never expected to have prejudices like others held against her.

However, the zombie was another thing entirely. He was absolutely awful, and he seemed to be worsening as she watched.

Beth was well versed in all the sectors the Reflectives maintained. Sector Three was known for the teen and young adults who possessed many different paranormal skills—which the Reflectives did not have. The Reflective lifespan was unprecedented in other sectors, yet they could not read minds or shift things without touch. And the dead of Papilio stayed dead.

In Sector Three, a handful of individuals could excavate the dead, like mining for rotting jewels. Papiliones referred to these Sector Three inhabitants as animators a mortuis.

Beth thought the loose translation in English would be death animators. But that was the difficulty with the new language that had been cultivated so pervasively across the other sectors—it was splintered and difficult to translate. In this case, it was close enough.

Too close for comfort.

“Thank you,” Merrick said.

“You are most welcome. However, it is I that is in your debt.”

“Clyde!”

Merrick and Beth whipped around to the sound of a commanding female voice, which sounded relieved.

Oh no… Sector Three police.

However, the zombie—Clyde, seemed to be greatly pleased to see her.

“I'm here, dear heart.”

He smiled, and Beth retreated a step.

Principle, his teeth were awful… and the smell.

Merrick and Beth instinctively moved away, but remained flanking Clyde.

They had not just assisted him, to then hand him over to a new and unknown threat.

Beth thought the female officer appeared equal in size to her.

Of course, that meant nothing. Beth knew she could go toe-to-toe with five Sector Three males and come out the victor. Perhaps this Three female was similar?

“Clyde,” the female's eyes tracked them like a hawk, and Beth gave Merrick an uneasy glance as she absently stroked the weapon at her hip.

“Roberta,” he replied.

Her eyes swept them and Clyde, “Who are these bozos?”

“Like clowns?” Merrick frowned.

“No,” Beth responded. “It's meant as a disparagement.”

Roberta stared.

“Okay, who the grand fuck are these two, Clyde?”

Clyde frowned. “You know my stance on coarse language, Roberta.”

She bobbed her head. “I gotcha, lover, but it's 2030, not 1930… you've gotta buck up, baby.”

Oh, dear Principle… they’re—together?

Merrick gave Beth the look of horror she was feeling.

Roberta took Clyde's hand.

“Can we trust these two? Because I'm getting a weird-ass vibe, especially from the tall dude there.”

“It is fine, sweetheart. They came to my aid when the ruffian bunch of scallywags tried to give me a taste of hickory.”

“I'm so sorry, baby.” Roberta’s right hand left her weapon to caress his rotting flesh.

At Roberta’s touch, Clyde’s skin knitted together like fabric, becoming fuller, tighter, and smoother.

Color bloomed on his cheeks, spreading and giving ruddy life to every piece of visible flesh.

Beth's eyes snapped to Roberta.

“What are you?”

“Okay, what is your story? You should know what I am instantly.” Her eyes narrowed on Beth then went to Merrick. “Look at how fine my man is now,” she purred.

Beth shuddered.

It didn't matter that Clyde seemed as alive as she. Beth remembered the smell, the taut gray skin that lay stretched like badly pulled canvas across the high cheekbones of his face.

In Roberta’s presence, Clyde was handsome, virile, and very much alive. He no longer smelled of the horrible rot that had hung in the air as they’d fought his attackers. His hair had filled in and was a true, light chestnut. His eyes were a perfect cross between moss green and brown.

The sockets were no longer shriveled. The whites of his eyes were flush in the pocket of healthy flesh that held them.

“What magic is this?” Merrick whispered, well and truly shaken.

Beth couldn't blame him.

“Let us not push our questions…” Clyde said.

Beth could see expression in his eyes because they were now fully formed. He knew there was something different about them.

They would have to be careful in this sector, where the random young person could know their thoughts through touch and where the dead walk.

In their presence, Beth thought then landed on the answer.

“Affinity for the Dead,” Beth blurted.

Merrick turned to her.

“Of course,” he said, nodding.

“Wow, give the girl a prize!” Roberta rolled her eyes. “Who else could make a corpse stay alive?” She gave them a critical look. “I guess you two are okay, if a little slow up top.” She tapped her head, and Merrick frowned.

Beth had forgotten how rude Sector Three people could be.

One of the men lying on the ground groaned.

Roberta strolled over to one. “Who's the one who did in your arm, Clyde?”

“Roberta, leave them. They are not worth your time.”

“Which one?”

Clyde sighed, leaving Merrick’s and Beth's side. He pointed to the one that was propped up against the wall.

He had partially regained consciousness, though Beth determined he was not a very smart adversary.

“I'd do him again, bitch,” he said.

A smile unfurled like a sail in full wind, right before Roberta landed a boot to his crotch.

Merrick and Clyde flinched.

The man groaned and rolled over onto his side.

It must've been a decent strike, because he threw up whatever trash he'd consumed for his afternoon meal.

“Was that necessary?” Clyde asked. “You know I could tear their limbs off and beat them about.”

“Yes… but that’s not nearly as satisfying.”

“Wildcat,” Clyde said, bending from his considerable height to nuzzle her neck.

“I think we're done here,” Beth said.

Merrick nodded, returning her uneasy glance.

They needed to find a large water source. Beth hoped against anything they would be able to jump to Papilio without a locator. The larger the reflective surface, the easier the jump.

She didn't possess the finesse that Merrick did.

Beth could jump through anything, but her destination was a crapshoot. She shivered at the memory of the jump she’d made that fateful day in Rachett's office. She'd been a youngling. It was a miracle that she hadn't spun off to Sector One.

She glanced at Merrick, and he gave her the barest nod.

Beth's shoulders dropped in relief.

She could turf it to him.

Roberta's face turned to study the retreating pair.

“Where are you guys going?”

Clyde's healthy eyes followed them, glittering with knowledge. “Let them go, Roberta.”

“Wait.” She moved away from Clyde, and his fingers slid down her arm reluctantly. “Why did you save Clyde?”

Beth thought about it, knowing she could never take back the pause in her answer.

Roberta's brows jerked together in a frown.

“He was in danger.”

“So let me get this straight,” she said, shooting Merrick an appraising glance. “You just decided to tag team this carload of assholes when they would put the beat on Clyde—a zombie?” She barked a disbelieving laugh.

Beth didn't reply.

Zombies were a newer development, and they were still rare enough that their history hadn’t been logged. But apparently—her eyes went to the disbanded group that decorated the alley—they were abhorred because they simply did not live.

Their existence offered tangible proof of death and a grim reminder of every person’s mortality.

The Threes and their obsession with life.

Their concern was an insult to those who wished to ignore their eventual demise, a robbery of the lies they would feed themselves.

The zombies starved them of the lies, leaving only the truth.

“What does it matter?” Merrick tried for casual.

Her eyes narrowed. “I just wanted to know. Don't get all defensive, fella.”

Merrick was treading water, and Beth jumped in. “We're just trying to do the Good Samaritan routine.”

She shrugged.

Roberta studied the two then stabbed her hand out midair. “Then—thank you.”

Beth understood the custom of shaking hands. She gripped the other woman’s hand and toned down her own strength. Beth loosened her grip more when Roberta winced.

“Bobbi Gale,” she said then grinned. “Nice handshake ya got there.”

Beth released her hand.

“Officer Gale!”

At the mouth of the alley stood another officer of the law. Beth did quick calculations of physicality.

Hispanic descent, mid-thirties, six feet, one hundred ninety pounds, left-handed.

She couldn't sense his intelligence from the distance, but as he moved toward them, she knew he could handle himself in a fight and almost run her down.

This, they did not need: complications and questions that could not be answered.

“Merrick.”

He was already ahead of her. They exchanged a look with Clyde when Bobbi Gale was distracted by the appearance of her partner.

Merrick jogged silently to the opposite side of the alley.

Beth whirled to tail him.

They ran in sync, her hair a nuisance streaming behind her.

“Good day,” Clyde said in a low voice, allowing their departure.

The Reflectives’ hearing was perfect, though they did not turn back to return the goodbye.

“Stop!” cried the unknown officer.

“Hey!” Bobbi shouted.

Merrick slapped his palm into Beth's.

They simply had no time.

“Where?” She delivered the single word like a terse slap.

Running footsteps echoed. Beth heard a weapon clear a holster.

Beth's assessment of the officer Bobbi Gale had found her to be of keen intelligence.

The Reflectives’ potential had been gleaned and found to be other. They'd missed their jump and were desperate to remove themselves from the moment.

Beth's palm began to sweat in Merrick's hand as it swallowed hers.

“Beth!” he hissed, using her given name for the first time.

She scanned the parking lot that the alley had opened into.

One transport was parked alongside the curb; a shattered side mirror poked out like an ear.

“No,” Merrick said, following her gaze.

A warning shot fired above their heads, and Beth ducked.

“I'll shoot!”

Beth unconsciously analyzed the officer’s voice patterns: Unknown male voice, English as second language, stress detected, follow through likely.

“He's going to plug us,” Beth said as the sun bled into the horizon.

A final strangled bit of sunlight cut the parking lot like a knife. The dull blade of gold shimmered, striking the spiderweb of glass in that small mirror that hung off the car like a severed body part.

The reflection called to Beth like a melodious note that sang for her and her alone.

Merrick's eyes widened as he wheezed.

He could have cut away at any time. Instead, he moved closer to Beth's body.

Trust was the last thing she saw in his eyes as Merrick's arms wrapped her small frame.

She leapt, tearing into a piece of mirror that was a fractured remnant and an impossible jump.

Bobbi Gale and the man known as Raul Garcia almost dropped their guns when a blinding flash of light burst like a falling star in front of them. Two entwined bodies, a muscular male and a small female, glittered in a fragmented rainbow, rivaling the bloody tangerine of the sunset as it broke over the curb.

They became a ribbon of swirling color, slamming into the side mirror of the car.

They they were gone.

The pieces of mirror fell like rain onto the curb, splintering into smaller fragments.

Clyde turned to Bobbi.

“What in Fuckenstein was that?” Bobbi whispered.

Clyde made a noise, and she ignored him for the moment.

Raul met her eyes, holstering his weapon without looking. “I'm not sure, but if I was a betting man—”

“You're not,” Bobbi said without rancor.

“Let the man speak,” Clyde said.

Bobbi folded her arms across her chest in a huff.

Raul narrowed his gaze on her. “I'd say they were Dimensionals.”

“Like Randi Chen?”

“Exactly like.”

The three stood together in a loose triangle of unease. In the world of paranormals, a new threat was not met with welcome.

The trouble was: the purpose of the two strangers was uncertain.

***

Jasper could jump through what was nearly untraceable with even Reflective eyesight.

However, her landings left quite a bit to be desired.

Jeb instinctively curled around his partner, again stretching out of the familiar because she didn't share his gender.

He fell hard, his ribs bruising instantly. One cracked as Jasper's weight added to the insult of the rough landing.

The air left him, and Jasper rolled away.

Jeb opened his eyes. Without air, he just lay on the ground like a fish stranded out of water.

He heard Jasper scramble up and could just make out her silhouette in the gloom.

“What are you doing? Get up, Merrick.”

Her hands flew to her hips.

He lay there, his lungs begging for oxygen, rebelling against the pain it would cause his ribs if he filled them.

Jasper toed him. “Come on. Don't be a pussy.”

Anger flared through Jeb and he struggled up. And suddenly the movement unlocked him. He took a great, swooping lungful and a harsh cough barked out of him.

The pain about did him in, his ribs like shards of glass.

Jeb lurched to his feet and Jasper stepped away, making the look on his face easily with only a dimly lit quarter moon to aid her.

“I am not. A. Pussy,” Jeb said slowly.

So much for chivalry.

Jasper glanced away, and he could almost taste her embarrassment.

“I do have one cracked rib and several others that are tender.”

“I suck at landings,” Beth admitted, keeping to the sector's verbiage.

Jeb put a hand at his side, wincing.

“You can drop the English slang.”

He peered through the gloom, seeing nothing but a thick wood and mountains beyond.

He pulled his pulse from his pocket and thanked Principle it had survived their horrible transit. He depressed his thumb.

Merrick, Jebediah—Sector Three, Quadrant Cascade Range, Greater Quadrant of America.

Jeb raked a hand through his hair, and his ribs shrieked at the sudden movement. He ignored it, thinking coordinates.

46.18N by 122.18 W

He depressed his thumb and hung his head.

Jeb was unfamiliar with the region, but they were no longer in the Kent Quadrant. Their current location was too rural to find another marker like they’d had in the previous location.

Jasper was too green to know anything about all of it. She was a superb linguist, as evidenced in their engagement. She also had sector histories down… but coordinates were his area, and even he felt out of his element.

“So?” Jasper asked, looking around. “How long?”

“You mean before I can shake off that bludgeoning I just lived through?”

He let her have a taste of his irritation. After all, his bravery was not in question, and he didn't like Jasper implying it was. If he had not broken her fall, she would have punctured a lung—or worse.

Jasper kicked a twig on the forest floor. Though it was late summer, as it was in Papilio, the coming of fall bit the air.

“What do you gauge the elevation?” he asked, letting her off the hook.

Beth took in a lungful of air and closed her eyes, tasting the subtle difference of air pressure.

“One thousand.”

The pain bore down on him as Jeb mimicked her inhalation. “Eight hundred forty-six.”

“Don't sound so smug, Merrick.”

He walked into her personal space, his body working to knit the damage, but it was too soon.

When they didn't return, more Reflectives would be sent.

Rachett would be notified.

They would look like imbeciles.

He could hear it already: “You missed a timed jump for a zombie?”

Jeb opened his mouth to tell Jasper what she'd cost them. But instinct—or self-preservation; he would never know what—kept his mouth shut.

Instead, he barked out, “Find the nearest quadrant.”

After all, she'd gotten them out of one mess and into another that was barely better.

What do the Three's call it?

Ah yes… out of the frying pan and into the fire.

CHAPTER NINE

Beth went through the motions with her thumb, pulsing to find the nearest quadrant.

She was ashamed.

She'd put Merrick through the paces of her novice landing, injured him, then basically called him a coward.

What is wrong with me? Why did she allow Merrick to get under her skin? And why, for the love of Principle, did she let him boss her around?

Well, that one was easy. He was her lead. She was the hot-shot jumper who could move through mist.

The answer floated to the surface of her pulse screen.

Quadrant—Marblemount, Washington

Merrick's face was chiseled stone in the shadows made by the canopy of woods.

“Marblemount,” Beth said.

“Fine.” Merrick scanned their surroundings. “Let's hike it.”

“What?” Beth asked, exasperated.

She was hungry, thirsty and homesick.

Merrick put his hands on his hips. “You don't see anywhere to jump out here, do you?”

She knew there wasn't.

They'd completed their mission by giving the fraudulent fingerprints to the splinter faction that would stop the Zondorae scientists from committing a purely preemptive mass infanticide.

It would not be enough—for their future intel said it was partially successful—but their action had allowed for a future that was not so bleak. Killing that many of the world's children would leave the Threes without the hope of the future The Cause had seen for them.

Merrick strode away without waiting for a response. His back was straight, not a trace of injury, though Beth knew he needed more sustenance than they had available.

Beth hoped the hike would make up for their lack of warm clothing. She'd leapt right into a deeply wooded, vaguely mountainous region that was a breath away from autumn.

Hypothermia was not out of the question. They would not die, but the compromise would leave them vulnerable to discovery.

“Direction?” Merrick asked, never breaking stride as he traversed the terrain easily. A Reflective's night vision was superior among inhabitants of all sectors, save One.

“East,” she said quietly, knowing Merrick would hear her.

He grunted in response, and Beth wondered how long she would be in the doghouse.

She trudged after him with a heavy heart.

*

Beth's legs were killing her by the time they breached the edge of civilization, where homesteads hugged the forest. As she and Merrick walked out into the open, frogs, crickets, and early birdsong met them. A thin fog had seeped in, undecided if it would be wet and become mist or just hamper their vision enough to be annoying.

“Can you jump this?”

Merrick's gaze hit her like a slap. The neutrality of the mist seemed to cause him to float, his gold hair glowing softly in a wavy cap moistened by the humidity, his stark eyes a clear dark gray. Storming.

“No,” Beth answered. “I'd just bounce back. The fog… it's like a circle of jumps.”

“Like in between?” he asked.

Beth shuddered, thinking about jumps that had landed her in a place not unlike this fog-thickened weather.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Jeb turned, surveying large yards containing mainly farm equipment and gardens thick with unharvested corn. Orange pumpkins burst here and there from the confines of vines gone blond with the change of season.

“Let's keep going.”

“I… Merrick.”

He turned, impatience on every line of his body.

Beth was so hungry she could hardly think.

Of course, he must be far worse.

Instead of telling him the obvious, she asked, “Do you have the Three currency?”

He jerked his chin back. “Of course.”

“Where?”

Merrick unbuttoned the pocket that ran the length of his shin. He worked the denim with stiff fingers gone cold without gloves.

They usually took only what was needed for their particular mission: currency from the appropriate sector and era-appropriate clothing and weapons.

Even if they carried nothing else, they brought weapons. However, their mission had not been considered dangerous enough to require stabilizers.

Beth had transported the weaponry, and Merrick had been responsible for the currency and light jackets they wore. Merrick called them “zip-ups,” but she knew they were called hoodies in this region. Hers was barely adequate, even with her body warm and loose from the trek.

Merrick's hoodie hugged his lean, muscular form as though it had been made for him. Beth's was ridiculously large.

No one had bothered to get a jacket that fit her, and she'd had to make due with a small male's.

All those little slights added up—all those jackets that didn't fit, all those things made life so much harder for her. Many would have loved to see Beth fail because the Reflectives didn't see her as a compatriot, but someone they needed to excise, like a disease.

“Hey.”

Beth started.

“It's right here.” Jeb held up the envelope Christopher had given him.

She breathed easier. They had needed to get out of there so quickly that Beth hadn't kept track of the currency.

“Satisfied?” Merrick asked, as bright as a new Sector Three penny.

In contrast, Beth felt worn out.

“Look sharp. We'll be entering another quadrant, and it might not be exactly like Kent.”

Beth said nothing as she followed Merrick. When they got to a narrow bridge that crossed a large river, her nose picked up a delicious aroma.

“The morning meal,” Merrick said appreciatively.

Beth tucked her hair behind her ears, hating the curtain it made around her. She reminded herself of the need to blend in. The females of this region did not braid their hair in the way she did. She and Merrick already stood out a little because they could never quite eradicate their differences.

Most of the Threes couldn't tell, but she had run across a few who had sighted them immediately

Those Threes were known as Sensitives. They were not abundant but were plentiful enough that blending in was a Reflective's first priority. Of course, there was nothing they could have done during their most recent debacle.

Beth thought of the zombie, Clyde, and his smart associates who policed his world. That had been unfortunate. Thank Principle Three was riddled with paranormals. Beth and Jeb’s disappearance would be noted, but not as noteworthy as it would have been on somewhere like Sector Seven, where humanoids could shift into different animal forms, vampires roamed unregulated, and a sub-species of human beings ruled through blood alone. Sector Seven was home to the Blood Singers, or Singers as the Reflectives had nicknamed them long ago.

And there was the matter of the fey, who were as ancient as the Papiliones. That issue remained unaddressed. They were a secret people, and their very nature made them less of an issue. But if the fey chose to “out” themselves, then the Reflective would need to manage their reveal.

Like many cultures that grew too powerful or advanced too quickly, no failsafe to provide a check and balance had been built into their culture structure.

The Reflective would intervene before they ran amuck.

Beth and Merrick followed their noses toward the food. Beth daydreamed of her butterflies, and Merrick kept his thoughts to himself.

Beth didn't even care what he was thinking; she was sleepwalking and starving.

Anything would do.

*

The bell tinkled as they entered, and Merrick excused himself to use the restroom. Dead on her feet from no rest and the all-night hike, Beth was desperate to splash a little water on her face. But she knew Merrick would be separating the money.

They couldn't just run into an eatery and suppose Threes wouldn't notice a bundle in excess of ten thousand in Three currency.

Beth stepped forward, and a young female smiled, giving Beth a slow perusal.

“Table for two,” Beth said in a commanding way, breaking the young woman's curiosity with a neat hammer-to-glass method.

The girl looked startled.

“Right, this way.”

She turned and led Beth to a table near the window.

“This okay?” The girl named… Bethany asked.

Suddenly sad, Beth's eyes went to the hostess. The girl knew who her real parents were and where she came from. She even had an entire name.

Beth studied her and was startled to realize they were roughly the same age, even though it was clear that their lives were not parallel.

“Hello?” she asked Beth.

She scanned the inside of the food establishment. Merrick would want something with his back to the wall, where he could keep his eyes locked on the exits.

There were three, Beth noted.

“I need something over there…” She pointed to a semi-circle booth.

The hostess rolled her eyes.

Beth noticed her blond roots and rainbow-dyed hair.

Is this beauty in Sector Three? Beth didn't know. It was ugly to her. Of course, she wasn't considered beautiful in Papilio, where pale hair and eyes were coveted. This one had covered her naturally pale hair with unnatural, multicolored hues—a confounding practice.

Beth sat in the center of a semi-circle booth.

Merrick came out of the restroom like an elegant panther from the rumored jungles of this sector's extreme southern greater quadrant.

His nostrils flared and his head turned in Beth's direction.

Beth's face flamed. He could probably smell her because she was as rank as Hades.

What I'd give for a cleansing. Ugh.

He slid smoothly beside her. “What?” he asked, not really looking at her but searching for potential danger inside the eatery.

There was only one other patron at that hour. Merrick visibly relaxed. “Good choice for position, Jasper.”

Beth felt stupid pride well inside her, and she stomped it out before it had a chance to grow.

“Thanks,” she replied with feigned indifference.

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 wonder 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 different.”

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.

His body went numb with purpose.

Jeb tasted their death on his tongue.

Jasper was beaten but not done; she clutched the lip of the cheap table that was attached to the wall and kicked her legs out as the men tried to deliver more blows.

Her feet made contact, striking one in the chest.

The man flew backward, landing against the wall about fifteen feet away, denting it with his body then sliding slowly down to the floor.

His blood and brains leaked behind him like a snail trail of red gore. The bits of what had given him life were now a wake of gruel outside his dying body.

Jeb reached the advancing man just as his hand grabbed Jasper's throat.

Jeb broke it with a striking chop at the wrist.

Jasper's face jerked forward from the blow, and she executed a slow spin, her face an alarming purple color.

Jeb caught her before she fell, his worried gaze on her face.

“Behind you, Merrick,” she whispered, despite her abused voicebox.

He swung out blindly, letting Jasper fall gently behind him. There had been ten men, and they'd incapacitated five.

The five who remained rushed Merrick while his partner lay gasping behind him.

“Stop!” he said, shoving his control into their minds.

Three stopped; two would need further convincing.

Using his hands, Jeb cracked their skulls together. He could have done more, but there were simply no humans with that level of raw strength. The law of this quadrant would come, and the force he and Jasper had used would be inexplicable.

They'd already blown their prime directives to Hades. Jeb wouldn't deliberately make it worse if he could prevent it.

They slumped, landing one on top of the other.

Satisfied by their lack of movement, Jeb whirled and crouched.

He laid his fingers against Jasper's pulse.

She was unconscious. He tucked her against his chest and rose. It was simple; she weighed nothing.

He looked with regret at the sea of money, then the two females, who were looking at him as if he were an alien. Nothing could be truer.

Jeb almost smiled in the midst of the chaos.

“It's your lucky day, ladies.” His gaze flicked to the currency strewn between the bodies, blood, and guts.

“The cops are coming,” Doreen stated then snapped the wad of green, making him wince.

“You—come,” he said to her.

Her face went blank, and she moved to him on jerky feet, not unlike the zombie they had saved, but not nearly as graceful.

She was a borderline push.

“Stuff my pockets with the currency—now.”

“Currency?” she asked with the blankness of intellect depravation.

“Money,” Jeb spat.

“Oh.”

She leaned down, grabbing the currency. Doreen hesitated before putting it inside his front pockets as though it caused her pain. Then she stuffed his pockets to the brim.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

“Stop,” he said, and Doreen came to a comical halt.

Her body was half bent in preparation to jam more money into his pockets, her wide, obedient eyes on his.

“Forget me,” Jeb said, striding to the back exit, the one he'd pegged as the best escape route.

“Okay,” Doreen answered.

His unconscious partner cradled against his chest, Jeb paused in front of the female who had a version of Jasper's name.

“I won't forget,” she said defiantly.

“Yes, you will,” Jeb said, giving an internal shove that made his mind feel as though it were coming apart. A slow mudslide of pain settled in and began to throb.

Her face went slack as if she’d had a stroke, and Jeb left the building with grim resolve.

He clung to the hope that he had not done harm to the females.

But as he looked down at Jasper, he knew that sacrifices were part of their job, and there was no comparison between the worth of a female Three and a Reflective, even though she was female.

Beth Jasper must live.

Jeb would see to it.

His partner’s safety was his job, though with each passing minute, his concern started to feel as if it were motivated by something else, which he had never believed he could give a female for any reason—loyalty.

*

Beth groaned, her body twitching, causing her teeth to clench in agony. Her chest was on fire with pain.

“Stop,” she whispered to whatever was causing the horrible jarring.

“I can't,” Merrick replied.

She opened her eyes to the dizzying blur of a green landscape rushing past.

A surge of nausea followed, and she clawed against him to escape.

She could feel his pace slow.

“Put me down!” Beth said, and he did gently.

Beth rolled over, digging her fingers into the mossy undergrowth of woods, and threw up.

She didn’t stop until every single thing she had consumed in the eatery was evacuated from her stomach.

It felt as though her bowels had emptied, as well.

Beth rolled away, clutching her sides. Cool fingers pressed against her face.

It heated with her embarrassment. She’d just thrown up like a weak female, after being carried while Merrick ran.

She couldn't stand to see his eyes filled with the condemnation she was sure he would have for her.

Beth took a shallow breath that made her bite her tongue in agony. Her ribs were broken.

She had a punctured lung.

Her assessment continued. She also had internal bleeding.

Maybe I have bigger things to worry about than Merrick’s opinion.

She opened her eyes and met Merrick's gaze. His eyes were pale gray inside the gloom of the deep forest.

“Merrick,” she croaked then gasped.

He lifted her upper back, taking her hand.

“I am here.”

She closed her eyes against his compassion. She didn't want his pity, either.

“Are you well enough to jump?” His voice pierced her consciousness, and she realized with a start that she had slid into semi-consciousness.

Beth shook her head, and her gorge rose from the movement, her head swimming.

“No,” she whispered, hating how weak she was.

“The sun is out, and there is a body of water beside us, though it rushes.”

Beth could hear the sound, a great white noise of a thousand butterfly wings.

She floated.

“No—Jasper!” Merrick said in a harsh command. “I can pulse Calvin.”

Beth's eyes flew open.

Another inductee? She couldn't bear it.

“No,” she clutched his shirt, the cloth rough under her fingers.

“I can save you if you jump in this body of water.”

Seconds ticked by while she reconciled the current disaster.

“Take me to it.”

Merrick picked Beth up, and she bit her lip. Her muffled cry of pain was not wholly contained, and Merrick flinched but kept moving.

He hiked down an embankment, never slowing.

When Beth's breaths grew closer and more shallow, he laid her on the small pebbles along the edge of the water.

The Skagit River—it came to Beth like the fuzziest memory. Her mind was swallowed by cotton.

The sun broke through the clouds and hit the river. Tiny reflections like fractured crystals sparkled across its surface.

“Take my hand,” she told Merrick.

Beth had no confidence it would work. The reflections came and went, winking in and out of her line of sight.

Reflectives, who were immortal only in their own world, could die in other sectors. Beth Jasper lay dying on a pebbled shore far from her home.

Then Merrick's large warm hand was in her own.

The last thing she saw was a bright diamond of herself, flung for her retrieval and subsequent jump.

Her hand convulsed inside Merrick's, and they were gone.

Muffled shouts in the distance quieted inside the vacuum of the pathway.

Fire and ice beat down on Beth's abused body.

Safety was all around her, for Merrick held her fast.

Beth slept as her body traveled to whatever location she had thrown them.

It was not Papilio.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Beth was better prepared as they landed, tossing herself away from Merrick and rolling in the air. She spread her arms wide for balance, her eyes wide open.

Beth was running on solid ground before she knew she'd landed. She slowed to a walk then stopped, turning to look at Merrick.

His arms came around her, and she jumped from the unexpected contact.

“You're well.”

Merrick gave her a good once over, making sure she was indeed in one piece.

She nodded. Her near-death on Three had been even more terrifying than her potential death at Ryan's hand.

They broke apart awkwardly, and Merrick turned away from her.

Neither said anything.

“Don't make it personal, Merrick,” Beth said.

It was the bravest utterance she'd ever made. She didn't want to push away the first Reflective who had ever been decent to her.

He didn't respond as she’d thought he might.

“I'm trying.”

Beth was stunned, forgetting her surroundings. They could have been in the pit of doom, and she would have disregarded it.

“What are you saying?” she asked quietly. He couldn't… could Merrick have feelings for her?

No male wanted Beth. She was a mongrel Reflective. Merrick had been in the panties of every woman who resided in Papilio.

No, something else is at play.

He turned, and his eyes were hard specks of pewter. His hands went to his hips, and Beth was struck by his sheer size.

Merrick dwarfed her, but he did not diminish her.

He rolled his shoulders into a shrug. “I care.”

Beth nodded. “Of course, we're partners… I feel the same.”

Merrick met her eyes, blowing out an exhale like a windstorm. “I… I don't think we can partner any longer, Jasper.”

It was a sucker punch.

He’d had her back, he'd saved her, and he’d healed her with the last jump. They were a good team. She was the best jumper of their kind and an expert foreign-sector linguist. Merrick was renowned for his weaponry skills.

He could regenerate in a jump and heal those who traveled with him.

Beth filled her lungs; ribs and internal organs whole and well.

“No,” she said immediately.

His eyes flicked to hers then away. “It is not that you're not a superb Reflective…”

“Then what?”

“I can't get past the gender issue.”

Beth's chin jerked back.

Merrick scanned their surroundings.

“Let's find another place to talk about this.”

She searched for something more suitable. They were in a small quadrant and had captured the attention of dozens of younglings.

They'd landed in the middle of a youngling educational center.

Marie Sortun Elementary the building read.

The younglings’ eyes were very round as they observed the conversation between Beth and Merrick like a Ping-Pong match.

“Agreed.”

Merrick walked away, maintaining a distance that hadn't seemed to matter a few moments before.

Beth frowned, pulling out her pulse and firing it up. After the slim communicator had initialized, she thought her command.

Location required.

Characters formed. She flicked her eyes ahead, keeping tabs on Merrick as she followed.

Quadrant: East Hill- Kent, Washington. Greater Quadrant- America

Back in Kent. Excellent. They could jump to… she thought a new command into her pulse communicator.

Nearest body of water greater than one-tenth kilometer.

A grid solidified with the outline of a small lake just northeast of their position.

Lake Mercian, .11 kilometers, northwest 4.6 kilometers of current position.

They came to the edge of a great overgrowth of thorny bushes, small deciduous trees and scrub brush.

They still drew the attention of the younglings’ wandering gazes, but their ears could no longer hear what Beth and Jeb said. Beth wanted to switch to Latin but knew how dangerous that would be.

As it was, they'd dropped out of the sky in front of a hundred youngling witnesses, who were impervious to Merrick’s mind manipulation.

“Jasper…”

Beth held up her pulse; she would not hear about how she was an inadequate female once more.

“We can jump at this location.”

She handed Merrick her pulse, and he studied the grid.

“All right.” He handed it back to her.

“I'll pulse Calvin, or he'll jump to this quadrant.”

That's all I need. Their mission was already compromised six ways to Sunday. A hundred witnesses had seen their jump, she’d almost died because she couldn't handle herself against five Three males, and they had Three deaths. At least their deliberate interference to save a portion of the future population had been successful; the Zondorae brothers would be eliminated.

It was deplorable.

No wonder Merrick wanted to cut her loose. She'd screwed her first mission beyond hope.

Beth clammed up. If Merrick didn't want her, then fine. There were others. She thought of Ryan, and her mind stuttered over the reality of a less-than-neutral partner. Some Reflectives would hesitate to leave her on a non-reflective sector—like One.

And then Beth would be stranded on a world so violent that the Papilio embassy there was fortified with a non-reflective metal mined only on Sector Seven. The fey of that sector—they had an intimate knowledge of natural deposits.

She was expendable. Rachett had assured her that Merrick was dependable.

To Beth’s shock, he was. He'd shown himself to be even-handed and compassionate, though not with those who would bring them harm. The Threes at the cafe had deserved his wrath.

Merrick had taken care of her twice. She would have fed him had he been wounded. Beth would have killed herself carrying him through battle. She would have jumped to heal him if she could.

None of that was inappropriate; it was true Reflective camaraderie.

Now Merrick was behaving as though something had broken along the way, and he couldn't fix it.

He was too self-contained for her to think he would be interested as a male would be. No two Reflectives were ever allowed to marry.

That was sacrilege.

The goal of meeting one’s soulmate belong to all Reflectives. It forbid anything but dalliances.

She was fine with that; anything else felt a little like cheating on her future spouse—that perfect half to make her whole. There were Reflectives who weren't worried about it. The prospect of finding their soul mate in another sector seemed too faraway to be real.

Yet it was. Beth had seen it happen. That lucky Reflective’s internal timepiece finally disintegrates after their combative service for The Cause is satisfied. They are free to jump, not for battle, policing, and protection but to find their other half.

Hard to imagine having happiness without conditions.

Most likely, Beth's other half was from the sector her mixed genetics hailed from. However, she would not be privy to that classified information.

Rachett knew. Who else?

“Jasper,” Merrick called to her.

She started.

“We can discuss this more later.”

Beth shook her head, changing her mind again. “I want to know before we jump why you won't work with me.”

She looked down at her feet, expelling a tight breath.

“Is it because I was injured too much… weak?” Beth said the last word quietly.

“No.”

Beth jerked her face up, and Merrick's was so close she could touch him.

But she didn't.

“Then what?” she asked, her voice low, her hands clasped behind her back.

“The truth?” he asked, swiping hair away from his face.

The younglings’ happy noise filled the air behind them, the humidity of the world clung to them like damp fingers, and the call of the nearby lake to jump home was almost unbearable.

Beth wanted to leave Sector Three.

She wanted to hear Merrick's thoughts more.

“Is there anything other than the truth?”

Her eyes searched his.

“Not with me, no.”

That's settled then. “Tell me.”

He hesitated. “I can't accomplish our missions with a Reflective I feel I have to protect.”

Beth retreated a step. “I escaped Ryan's assault… he would have killed me—”

“I know.”

“It can't be that. I had things under control with those Threes.”

Merrick shook his head.

“No, they caused internal damage.”

Beth turned, pacing away. Her eyes began to scan for something to jump from—anything.

She couldn’t stand the words Merrick used.

Inferior. Female. Mongrel. They’re not actually the words he used, but they’re what she heard, what she’ll always hear.

“Jasper!” he called out, his voice a strike against her, soft like velvet, low, and commanding.

“Beth.”

Stopping, she could feel Merrick approach.

His body heat moved ahead of him like a wave, blanketing the path as he drew nearer.

“What?” Her body tensed, ready for the strike.

“Face me.”

Beth turned, and he put his hands on her shoulders. “I am sorry. I'm not as good with words as you are.”

The words that fell out of her mouth were hurtful but factual. “Rachett will put me with someone like Ryan.”

Merrick squeezed her shoulders and let his hands drop.

“I won't let him.”

“That's what you don't get. It won't matter. I need to jump, and I have to jump with someone.” Her voice turned bitter.

“It'll be some other male who hates what I represent.”

Beth bit her lip then reached out, putting her hand on Merrick's arm. “I'd rather have your resentful protection than abuse through the neglect I'll receive from another Reflective.”

Merrick swallowed, glancing at her hand.

She took it off his forearm as if it burned.

“Calvin won't hurt you.”

He was an inductee, like her. I don't think so, Beth thought. “I can't jump with him. He’s who you'll want back. Your trainee.”

Merrick grunted. “You know I can't go backward. Rachett will select another trainee for me.”

“When does your timepiece run out?”

Merrick knew the minute his ran out; every Reflective did. Why he didn't give Beth an immediate date was perplexing.

“Don't be a pain in the ass. Just tell me. And for the record, I think it's pathetic that we have to worry about me being abused by our own kind.”

Lance Ryan had proved that it was her reality.

“I have one year.”

“So it's degrading now.”

Merrick nodded.

“It's part of the transition. You know the gig. After four years of faithful service—”

“Perfect merit.”

He nodded.

“We can have the opportunity to find the One.”

Beth couldn't help the roll of her eyes.

Merrick frowned at her expression of disbelief.

“Don't dispute it, Jasper. There is a male out there just as perfect for you as there is a female for me.”

Beth shook her head.

“No, it's not that.”

She considered his sincere face and decided to tread more softly than she'd intended. “You've been around.”

She made a loop with her index finger.

Merrick shrugged.

“I don't deny it.”

Beth laughed. “I'm sure ʽthe Oneʼ is going to feel like one of many with your man-whoring.”

“And you're perfect, Jasper?” Irritation had crept into his voice.

He doesn't need to know what I’ve done. It's a big fat zero.

Jebediah Merrick was on a need-to-know basis about the void of her sexual experience.

And he didn't need to know.

She shook her head, beginning to move away from him.

“No, as I've been told, time and again—I'm so far from perfect, it's a tragedy I'm part of the Reflective. But I am discerning.”

Merrick said nothing.

A Three male approached and she noticed the school grounds had fallen silent.

She'd been so embroiled in her discussion with Merrick that she hadn't noticed recess for the younglings had ended. Their close proximity to the group had no doubt risen what the Threes called a “red flag.”

Wonderful, just what we need. Or what I need.

She had a partner who wanted to dump her, a new partnering with someone completely untrustworthy, and a Three male they couldn't jump in front of.

Merrick muttered it best, swearing under his breath.

“Fourth: jump only when unobserved.”

“We blew that all to Hades.”

“You two,” the male addressed them loudly.

“Let me talk,” Beth said and Merrick gave her a look. She was angry, the lake was approximately four and a half kilometers away and this rent-an-officer would be their undoing.

Of course, they had both let the emotional upheaval of an out of control jump and mission lead them around by the nose. She was actually surprised that Merrick hadn't been more single-minded and insisted on returning immediately to Papilio. What an unmitigated disaster.

“These are closed school grounds.”

Five feet eleven, moderate mastery of indigenous handgun, right hand dominant, fatty layer interferes with optimum condition. IQ: one hundred ten.

Beth swallowed.

She hated the marginally smarter Threes. At least he wasn't a Sensitive. That would have been another disaster waiting to happen.

“Just passinʼ through,” Beth said in perfect local quadrant dialect.

“Odd place to pass through.”

Beth smiled, forcing warmth into her eyes for this stranger. She knew that Merrick would be tired from using his mental manipulation against so many, so he was essentially useless.

She hoped that being female would be enough.

She drew closer, and he never flinched. Beth was irritated that her body had never intimidated anyone. It never would. She was dangerous—deadly even. She just didn't look it.

He didn't palm his holstered weapon at her approach and was completely at ease.

“We're not sure where Lake Mercian is? Hoping you knew.”

His gaze swept their clothing, which was definitely the worse for wear.

“Yeah?” His eyes held disbelief.

“Not looking like you're taking a day at the beach on a Tuesday.”

Beth's mind scrambled for what that meant.

She began to panic.

Merrick answered. “We work the weekends.”

He’d sounded stiff but passable.

Beth's shoulders relaxed.

The guard appeared to weigh Merrick’s sheer physical potential.

“Yeah… okay.”

He dismissed Merrick, his eyes moving to Beth.

He drove them down the front of her, and heat rose to the surface of her skin.

She'd had males look at her with disregard, disparagement and indifference. But this frank appraisal was wholly different—and even more unwelcome.

She saw Merrick's hand tighten into fists and gave a little shake of her head.

The Three suddenly grinned.

“IDs.”

Beth's head swiveled to Merrick.

“I'm afraid I don't have mine,” Merrick said in carefully enunciated English.

Beth had hers.

She kept it inside her pants, in a secure and intimate location, and she would have needed to get half undressed to get it from the interior pocket of her denims.

The prospect made her blush return with a vengeance.

Judging by how the male was eying her, he would have enjoyed pleasuring himself with the view of Beth without all her clothes on.

Some of the heat in her face came from anger.

“Well?” he asked, tapping his slim pulse communicator against his opposite hand. The warning was clear: produce an ID, or he would call more Threes.

“I do have it, but… it's inside my pants.”

“No, Jasper.”

“Yes…. Jasper,” the male said, eyeing Merrick speculatively.

Merrick stepped forward.

“She will not disrobe in front of you so you can confirm our identities. We're Americans, on the way to our lake destination. Detaining us is not within your tasks.”

Damn, Merrick.

The male licked his lips, looking at Beth.

She shifted her weight. The air suddenly carried an oppressive thickness.

“I don't think so. You”—he pointed the tip of his pulse at Merrick—“speak weird as hell.”

His eyes trapped Beth again.

“And if she has to get naked as a jaybird to show me she's legit”—he swung up his palms as if to say, It’s not my problem—“she will.”

His brows dumped above sullen eyes.

“Now strip, sweetheart.”

“No.” Merrick's voice was full of the heat of anger.

Beth showed him with her face that they had talked too long, tarried in a public place longer than was safe.

They should have jumped instead of wasting all their time moving in conversational circles.

The hour had grown late. Beth wondered how much afternoon sunlight they would have before the surfaces offered no reflection.

If the perverted Three wanted to see her ID and lust after her flesh while she retrieved it, then it was a small sacrifice for the ultimate goal.

Beth took off the hoodie and let it drop to the ground. Next she tore off the long-sleeved shirt that covered her thin camisole, and it landed where the hoodie fell.

“Move backward,” he instructed.

She and Merrick locked gazes, moving into the thicket, where it was dark and quiet. There was no one to notice this Three.

“Now the pants.”

Merrick made a noise of pure disgust.

His fists clenched and unclenched. The flutter of his strong jaw conveyed his anger perfectly.

“Shut the fuck up, Romeo.” The Three smirked at Merrick.

Beth could just make out the low growl Merrick emitted. The Three had pressed so many buttons that Merrick's self-control was impressive.

She removed the denims. She unbuttoned the hidden pocket and plucked the laminated pulse ID out of the interior pocket.

“Now… let me see those sweet drawers.”

Beth could feel the roar of blood inside her ears.

“Drawers?” Beth asked, the ID inside her outstretched hand.

She leaned toward him with her upper body, as near as her hand could reach while keeping her body rooted.

The Three cleared his weapon from its holster and thumbed the activator.

It came to life, the red laser centering on Merrick's chest.

“Don't, hero. You'll be dead before I blink.”

“What? Here's my ID,” Beth said, maintaining a calm tone from sheer will alone, swinging her palm, making the holographic image of her face blink in the weak light inside the thicket.

“I don't give a shit who you are.” His eyes met Merrick's.

“I want to know you.” His other hand went to the crotch of his pants and squeezed.

Her eyes were riveted to where his hand fondled.

“Merrick,” Beth called, her voice giving her away.

She felt him tense beside her, waiting.

Just one word. Could she say it? Could she ask for it?

It was the only word that mattered. Her fear had become a living, breathing thing.

“Help,” she whispered.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jeb was infuriated.

And that would not do. This wretched botch of a Three thought to rape his partner.

Jeb should have assessed his bent toward violence more quickly, then subdued him.

He couldn’t dwell on it at present, though. The time was definitely at hand for action instead of intellect.

His eyes took in Jasper, standing there without sheltering herself, her small body vulnerable to the perusal of the honorless male.

Jeb clenched his jaw, searching the area.

His gaze landed on trash. Someone had littered, a practice which no longer happened in Papilio.

The aluminum drink receptacle shimmered in the low light.

Jasper's eyes followed his gaze, and her eyes widened.

He had never dared jump in something so non-reflective, or so small.

“I'll shoot lover boy if you don't drop what ya got.” The Three lifted the gun, and the red dot bounced on Merrick's chest.

Jeb felt the heat of his impeding jump. He would not stop. The injustice of watching this male have his way with Beth wasn't something he had signed up to abide. Yet another problem with a female partner: there were always males in sectors who would not protect women, but harm them.

He gave his full attention to the crumpled can. Its dents lent more reflection.

Suddenly Jasper's hand was in his, and the surface crystalized, fully revealing every dim reflection.

A sigh slipped out before he could stop it.

He felt as if he had been blind and could suddenly see.

“No touching!” the Three shrieked too late.

Merrick saw what he needed and felt his fingers slip from Jasper's.

He slammed into the can and came out half a heartbeat later at the feet of the male.

Merrick recovered instantly.

A second in the pathway of fire and ice was not long enough to faze him.

He sprang to his feet and punched the weapon out of the Three's hand.

Jasper ducked as the Three's thumb spasmed from the hit, and a shot rang out—deafening in the cloistered-shrub forest.

Merrick punched his dominant hand into the Three's jaw, his superior reach unnecessary when he was so close. As he struck, he envisioned holding the daggers that were popular from One and saw them go through the body.

“Merrick!” Jasper screamed.

Jeb came to himself, blood-soaked to the elbow. He stood from the straddle he had on the Three, not understanding how he'd come to be there.

Jasper watched him, small and unafraid, her denims clenched inside her hand. “Stop—you'll kill him.”

Jeb looked at the male, whose face he’d pulverized.

“He deserves to die.”

Jasper nodded.

“Yes, but the jump is more important,” she reiterated carefully.

“He's seen too much,” Jeb said. His thoughts were far from self-defense and much closer to retaliation.

Jasper threw on her pants, jerked up the zipper, and grabbed her hoodie and shirt. “Come on.”

The Three was unconscious.

“He saw me jump,” Jeb sounded argumentative, even to his own ears.

Jasper just looked at him. “You want to kill him.”

Jeb thought about lying but didn't. “I do.”

“We can't….”

“I know,” Jeb interrupted softy. “Seventh: No death is without consequence.”

Jasper nodded at his sage response. “The continuum.”

Jeb knew all about the circle of karma.

They had already killed Threes back at the eatery. Even more reason to avoid a partnering with Jasper: she seemed to incite violence in males as though she were a feminine challenge that they must accept. Maybe it was her Sector One blood, the very wildness of which sent out a low-grade subconscious summons.

Jeb strode away from her, and without turning, he said, “And this male has done this before. He was far too practiced.”

“We can't rescue every single human. We can only do for the greater good.”

“Fine,” Jeb said, decision made.

He strode back to the unconscious Three and kicked him in his small nut sack, putting his strength into it. Jeb was sure it was diminutive. No male who had something to brag about would take a woman in that way.

The male roused, his hands flailing about.

Jasper covered her mouth, eyes rounding.

“Principle,” she whispered. “Will he die?”

Jeb smirked. “Not from that. It's a love tap, considering what I wanted to do.”

“You injured him…” Jasper said.

She didn't seem too broken up about it.

Jeb threw his head back and laughed. “He won't die, but it's going to hurt like Hades when he wakes up.”

Jasper's chin dropped. When her face rose, she said, “Thank you.”

Jeb's smirk became a grin. “My pleasure.”

“I bet,” she said.

Jeb liked that her eyes had lost that haunted quality.

“How much farther?” Jeb asked, changing the awkward charge in the air.

“About four and a half kilometers.”

“Let's book.”

Her brows rose.

“Let us make haste to our destination.”

“I think I like ʽlet's bookʼ better.”

They smiled at each other and left the would-be rapist behind.

*

Jeb surveyed the crowded lake with thinly veiled anxiety. His hands were on his hips.

He raised one and shaded his eyes.

The body of water was the perfect size for a jump to their home world without a locator. The lake was perfectly reflective, though the edges were murky with lily pads and the beginnings of human contamination typical of the era.

Jeb's arm dropped.

“Threes,” he said with more than a hint of disgust.

“Yes,” Jasper agreed quietly. “There are too many.”

Jeb turned to her. “Isn't there a more remote body of water?”

She nodded. “But the reflective points are unknown, as is the time to get there. Then we would be stuck here another night.”

“Damn,” Jeb murmured, cupping his chin. “Calvin would come for sure.”

“And Rachett would be steaming pissed.”

Merrick's lips twitched at the language.

He said nothing, though. Instead, he scanned the obvious pockets of greenbelts they could use to jump from.

It would not completely hide their trail, but it would diffuse it. Greenery was a terrific absorbent for their back trail from a jump.

“You see anything?” he asked.

“No—nothing. They've built everything to the water's edge.”

The people of this sector had still not embraced minimum green quota. He sighed. They had so much to learn. Jeb knew some critical advances were a generation away for Sector Three.

“All right, we bed down.”

Jasper snorted.

“Go ahead, figure out a spot.”

Jeb frowned. There was not a suitable area at the lake's edge. They would have to spend the night in misery.

Currency. He did have enough currency to buy food, though. His stomach picked that moment to let out a growl.

“Hungry?” Jasper perked up.

“Starving.”

He turned a curious look her way.

“Aren't you?”

She nodded. “Me, too.”

They searched the area. coming up with a gruesome assortment of typical Three fare.

“Come on,” Jeb commanded, and Jasper followed, dead on her feet.

*

Jeb was on the third sandwich, which they called cheeseburgers in this sector, chewing thoughtfully while Jasper finished her first.

“Eat more,” Jeb said, tossing a second burger at her.

“I'm not that hungry.”

What now? Jeb narrowed his eyes at her. “What's the problem?”

He leaned his back against a huge conifer tree. It’s sweeping branches smelled like freshly cut wood.

Jasper fiddled with the recycled paper that wrapped the sandwich, finally setting it down.

Jeb sucked a bubbly sweet liquid confection through a straw then set the drink down and leaned forward. “Talk.”

“For Principle's sake, I'm not a dog.” She swore under her breath.

Jeb’s eyebrows popped. Jasper was not a huge user of foul language. He swore enough for them both.

“Are you still sore about the cop?”

A great splash made them tense.

Jeb turned and saw a youngling diving along with his canine. The sleek black animal charged through the water chasing a bright-white disc. His gaze hung longingly on the sparkling drops the animal shook off his fur coat.

Then he dragged his attention back to Jasper.

She wrung her hands.

“No,” she answered in a low voice.

“What is it then?”

They grew silent as some older younglings strolled by, the females chasing the males. When the Threes were distant specks of running color, Jasper answered, “I'm afraid.”

Jeb sat up straight, looking for the threat.

“No.” Jasper gave a short laugh. “Not this moment. I mean, I—this is my first mission. It's gone badly, I almost died a Three's death, without honor. I made you jump us to heal me, and only luck got us back to the right quadrant. Then that… man,” she said, keeping her eyes cast to the ground.

“He was no man. Just because he has a dick doesn't make him a man. It just means he's male.”

Jasper smiled at his words, and he leaned back against the tree trunk, crossing his legs at the ankle, hands laced behind his head, elbows out.

The bark of the tree bit softly against his flesh.

“What else troubles you?”

Jasper's gaze found him. He gave her hooded eyes back.

He knew the answer.

Jeb maintained his posture with an effort. “It's because I don't want to partner you anymore.”

She nodded. “I know I've messed up. That I am female…”

“You did well for a first mission. There were a lot of unforeseen fucking little disasters in every corner.” He shrugged. “Sometimes, that's the way of it.”

Jeb felt air pressure, and his hand tore away from the back of his head to catch something midair.

It was a ball of some sort. Pigskin bound with white laces covered it, and it felt good in his palm.

A youngling of perhaps thirteen cycles ran up. Though the youth of this sector were hard to judge, he was very tall for his age.

Five feet seven, one hundred twenty-five pounds, cardiovascular system premium, IQ: one thirty…

Sensitive.

Fuck.

Jeb saw Jasper tense in his peripheral vision. They had simultaneously assessed the youngling.

“Mister, throw me the ball, will ya?”

Jeb threw it, and the youngling male sucked it into his chest as if he’d done so a hundred times before. He turned away then slowed… and stopped.

He turned around.

Their eyes met. Jeb noticed how green the irises were. The rarest shade in this sector. His mind automatically supplied the percentage: three percent.

It made him think of Jasper, whose eyes were the rarest color on Papilio.

“What are you?” the youngling whispered.

“We mean no harm,” Jeb answered, standing up and backing away.

“You were saying?” Beth asked.

Jeb supposed she was right.

All they needed to completely screw the mission was Kennet and Calvin to show up and escort them back to Papilio like infants.

No.

“Things aren't going smoothly.”

“Uh-huh,” Jasper replied quietly.

“Yeah,” the youngling said. “I know what you are…”

Jeb stepped forward, and the youngling retreated a step.

“Let's go,” Jasper said, plucking at his sleeve.

The youngling smirked.

“You're one of those Dimensionals.”

The Reflectives stilled.

“What did you call us?” Jasper asked, and Jeb held her back from moving closer to him.

In Jeb's experience, Sensitives weren’t to be trusted. But he wondered if they were being mislabeled for a kind of paranormal present in this sector. If they had a term that seemed to apply to people who could jump through the dimensions, that could mean there were Threes who possessed the ability of a Reflective. This is bad.

Jeb understood that the Zondoraes had found an abandoned pathway, juiced it with this sector's newfound pulse technology, and used it for illicit travel. Jeb knew of no reports of natural talent in this sector.

“Yʼknow, the dudes that go poof.” With his fingers, he mimicked wings that fluttered then exploded into nothing. It was a crude but accurate explanation.

Though Jeb struggled with syntax, Jasper understood it well. That would be one thing he missed when she was no longer his partner. Language was a minefield for him, yet she never stepped on one booby trap.

He would miss other things, as well, none of which he would allow himself to inspect too closely at present.

One fucking disaster at a time.

“Why?” Jeb asked.

The youngling grinned. “I won't tell anybody about you two. Chillax.”

“Relax,” Jasper translated.

There was nothing vaguely relaxing about a youngling he couldn’t manipulate.

Jeb's hands went to his hips. “What do you propose, youngling?”

Jasper smacked her forehead.

“Merrick… really?”

The youngling smirked. “’Kay, I got you two. You're some kind of aliens that look like us, but are from somewhere else.”

He pointed at Jeb. “You talk sick, dude!”

Jeb stared at him blankly.

“Your speech is unique.”

“Thank you, Jasper,” Jeb said in a droll voice.

She winked. “Welcome.”

The boy's voice dropped. “Did you guys get separated from Command Central?”

Command Central?

“Jacky!” another youngling shouted from behind him.

Great… just great.

The youngling, Jacky, turned at the torso and threw the ball to the other young one. The throw was executed perfectly, a spinning roll of air and stealth.

The ball met its target, and the other youngling ran off to join a larger group. Jeb wondered if the day could possibly degrade further.

Jacky of the Quadrant of Kent talked to the other Threes. “It's okay!” Jacky waved at his friends. “They're not pervs!”

Jeb blanched. He'd forgotten the pervasive caution of this sector. The population seemed to suffer from an abundance of males who craved younglings’ flesh.

His anger must have seeped through because Jacky said, “Whoa, dude, ya need to relax. My friends were gonna come wipe the ground up with your ass if you were one of those losers that gets off on kids.”

Jeb surveyed the loose knot of mid-cycle younglings.

“I doubt it very much.”

“Which part?” Jasper asked, amused.

“The ʻwiping the assʼ part.”

Jacky stared at the two of them and shrugged. “Whatever. I thought you two looked different.” His eyes slid to the left, and Jeb's body tingled.

He’s lying.

Jeb didn't need to use his innate abilities to determine that. They needed to retreat from their current position to a less-populated locale or find out more from this boy.

His green eyes met Jeb's. “Can I trust you?” For the first time during the strange exchange, Jeb sensed uncertainty from the youngling.

Jeb nodded. “I am—we do not hurt…”

“Children,” Jasper finished.

Jacky's face scrunched up. “I am not a child. I'm almost thirteen. Check it.” He stood to his full height and lifted his arm, bunching the small muscle at the biceps.

Jeb smiled. Yes—he certainly acts his cycle age.

“So? Do we have a deal?”

“I wasn't aware we'd made one.”

“What do ya want?” Jasper asked.

The kid shifted his weight, flinging a mop of stringy chestnut hair out of his eyes. He seemed to be measuring something, looking thoughtful.

“I have this girlfriend.”

Beth raised an eyebrow.

“Not that kind, geez—duh.”

“A friend that's a girl,” he clarified.

Jeb and Jasper stared blankly back at him.

“You two”—he let his finger swing between them—“need to trench some humor. You're a couple of joy suckers.”

Jasper blinked.

Jeb found it interesting to note that even Jasper could be stumped. He folded his thick arms across his chest, keeping one eye on the group, which was gravitating closer.

“What do you propose?” Jeb asked, curious, despite the ruined mission, their obliterated timeline, and witnesses galore. He needed to know why a Sensitive youngling would identify them then ask for something. Of course, Jeb had never made acquaintance with a Sensitive youngling.

If they didn't jump by the next morning, Rachett would send Kennet on a retrieval mission, and Jeb would never live it down.

It would be worse for Jasper.

Jeb couldn't allow that outcome. It would lessen her chances of a partner of quality.

“I need you to help my friend escape.”

That got Jeb's full attention, and he could tell Jasper was just as entranced, her body as still as a statue.

“Who is your friend?” Jasper asked.

Jeb moved behind her because the group of boys were almost to them.

“Back off, bros… this is some private shit,” Jacky said and winked at Jeb, who hid a smile despite the circumstance.

The boy had moxie.

“We got your back, Jack,” one said while another snorted in the background.

Jacky raised a middle finger casually.

“Blow me.”

They dispersed, muttering their discontent.

“Here's the thing…” Jacky said, leaning forward.

Jeb and Jasper gave each other a look then moved into a loose huddle as Jacky began to speak. Jasper had to stop him a few times and translate some of the odd slang because that was basically all he spoke.

Jeb understood they would not be jumping the next day.

He also understood their mission of political and future manipulation had turned into something else entirely—a rescue.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“You guys, follow me.” Jacky turned and cocked his head.

“You know, conspicuous-much… don't look so pedophile-ish, ’kay?” He wandered off, tossing what he’d explained like it was a football.

Beth shook her head.

A few other children flanked him as he walked, and Merrick lengthened his stride, catching up to the teen.

“Back off. You're bouncing off my bubble, pal.”

Merrick's jaw clenched. “Listen here, I thought this was a matter of great importance.”

Jacky turned, and Beth stopped walking. “It is… but you gotta not have a rack attack, man.”

Beth couldn’t contain her laughter. The great Jeb Merrick was getting his ass absolutely handed to him by a teen. Beth was thrilled for a memory to cherish.

Merrick whirled, his light-gray eyes like a storm of darkening gray. She put up her hands defensively. “He has a point—you're so stiff.”

“Yeah, bro, what she said.”

“You said it would be you and you alone,” Merrick reiterated.

“Listen,” Jacky said, eyeing him, “you kinda stand out. And any adult with half a brain”—he leaned forward and continued quietly—“and there aren't many with that much”—Jacky straightened—“is gonna think you're a creeper. So a group of us? No problem. I walk off with you and hottie over there…”

“Hey!” Beth said, her laughter gone.

Jacky rolled his eyes. “With Miss Hotness?” He gave Beth a knowing look, and she opened her mouth then closed it.

Merrick shot her a glance that clearly said see my problem?

She was beginning to see it quite clearly.

“So that the perv alarms don't sound, my buds here will offer diffusion.”

Beth remembered her assessment of the boy, who had an IQ of one hundred thirty. Beth knew from her study of the history of this sector that the boy was in the upper two percent of the Three population intellect.

What that meant for them was they had a very bright, emotionally immature Three to deal with. Who was also a Sensitive.

His eyebrows rose as he gave them an impatient glance. “Well, come on. Put some lead in it, guys.”

They followed. There were not too many of the mixed gender Threes paying attention to a couple in a group of three. Maybe they could be older siblings.

However, as point man, Merrick had an almost military bearing. And though Merrick’s coloring was unusual, it was still within Three norms—barely.

Beth was aware Merrick stood out. His hard edge was difficult to erase, and it followed him to every sector. Beth had one, too, but no one searched for it in a female.

She was having difficulty getting used to being inconspicuous in Sector Three when she was noticed for every breath she took in Papilio.

The change was somewhat disconcerting.

She walked behind the group and kept their back secure.

*

Beth and Merrick lay on their stomachs. Merrick thumbed his pulse viewers off.

“Let me see those. They're righteous,” Jacky said.

Beth could see that Merrick would not be ready for offspring any time soon. She’d thought their drills back home were strenuous, but an hour in the company of Jacky Caldera felt like a full workout.

“These are not for…” Jeb looked at Beth. “Teens.”

“Listen, you're a bad-ass dude, but you're about as useful as balls on a priest. Just sayinʼ.”

“Am I?” Merrick asked. He grabbed Jacky by the arms and jerked him to within an inch of his face.

“I have traipsed for over an hour to a female's house whom you say is in imminent peril, yet we sit with the proverbial thumb up our collective asses while you wish for a show-and-tell.”

“Okay!” Jacky squeaked. “Gawd!”

Merrick dumped the boy, and Beth laughed.

“You haven't lost your charm, Merrick. No matter where we travel, it follows you.”

“Quiet,” Jeb said, suddenly serious.

They hunkered down, their attention directed at the domicile’s front entrance.

The door burst open, and a slip of a female ran out, a large Three male nearly on top of her.

“That's her. That's Madeline.”

“You sure she is a Dimensional?” Merrick asked, stumbling over the last word.

“Yeah, bro—she hops around and comes back telling us all this crazy shit.”

“Silence,” Merrick clipped.

Beth knew he wanted to listen to the argument in front of the house as she did. It was escalating.

Merrick stood, but didn't seem to realize he'd done so, and he appeared almost surprised to find himself on his feet.

The Three's hand wrapped the female's windshield wiper of an arm.

“Do something!” Jacky said.

Merrick didn't move.

“Jasper.”

“Got it.”

Beth walked out from behind the narrow hedge that bordered the houses, which were like rotten teeth of varying colors. The rows of depressing domiciles hadn't been touched in years. The patch of grass that the girl stood on wept with weeds that spiraled up around her thin legs.

The male shook her, and a pulse began to pound in Beth's temple. Subdue, subdue, subdue.

Seventh: no death is without consequence.

She could barely remember the directive in the face of the domestic brutality she was witnessing.

“What's going on here!” Beth yelled, startling the pair.

Madeline didn't look as relieved as she should have, only as though she’d been granted a short respite from the violence.

The man looked Beth up and down, clearly deciding he had the upper hand.

He could not have been more wrong.

“Looks like I got myself a little discipline with this bitch of a daughter, little lady.”

Beth loathed monikers that mocked size.

The beauty of the girl's voice, low and melodic, startled Beth.

“I am not your daughter,” she seethed in an even tone.

Beth liked her.

“Close enough.” He shook her. “Who pays the bills in this house?” the horrible male ground out.

More shaking, hair whipping back and forth.

Beth stepped closer, and his eyes flicked to her position.

“You want a piece of this, girlie? ’Cause none of what's going down here is your beeswax. You feel me?”

Beth did.

“I do… feel you,” she said slowly.

The brand of his fingers remained on Madeline's arm after he released her, turning his attention to Beth.

“You got something you think I need?” He grabbed his crotch.

What is the obsession males of this sector have with their penises? Whatever it was, it was unhealthy.

She decided it was unwarranted, as well.

“Find out, vile scum.”

His smile grew, filling out a face that might have been handsome at some point in the past but was tired and hard because of his life's decisions.

“Lady,” Madeline whispered, “just go.”

The man whipped around to her.

“You shut your fucking mouth, Maddie, or I'll close it for you. Me and her are gonna have a nice little chat about puttinʼ our nose where it doesn't belong.”

Beth and Madeline looked at each other.

“I can take you from this,” Beth offered as if the horrible man didn't exist.

Madeline's brows pulled together, and Beth was heartbroken to see the girl's fragile beauty spoiled by her environment. A gem sat among imposters, her subtle fire outshining those who wished to stifle it.

No wonder the spitfire Jacky had wanted to defend her. The boy had worth, even though he was so young.

“No, just go… he'll hurt you,” she warned Beth, to her own peril.

The man bore down on Madeline, backhanding the girl so quickly that she had no time to defend herself. The girl sprawled on the ground.

Beth reacted immediately. The man looked up in shock.

“You're never going to hit her again.” Beth held tightly to his wrist, which he’d pulled back in preparation to deliver another blow to Madeline.

Her words had rolled out before she could squelch them. She knew he was a hundred pounds heavier than her—and inches taller.

But he was inebriated, and his self-destructive alcohol consumption and neglect had made him slow.

“Then I'll use you as a punching bag.”

Beth grinned, and a flash of fear flared in his eyes.

He jerked his wrist, and without thinking, Beth crushed the bones together. He howled, kicking out.

She blocked his leg and swept his large body to the ground, using his wrist as leverage as he fell like a tree without roots.

She hopped on top of him.

Her fists fell like a rain of flesh hammers.

“Stop!” Madeline screamed.

Beth paused.

She asked the most logical question of the day. “Why?”

“He takes care of my mom.”

Beth met her eyes. After a few heartbeats of silent communication, Beth stood.

She threw her instep out with precision, stomping the male’s crotch.

He shrieked into the night. The sound cheered Beth.

It felt almost as good as watching Merrick do the same to the corrupt cop—almost.

*

“Maddie!” Jacky called as the girl tried to pick herself off the ground. Twice.

She was shaking so badly that Beth went and hauled her to her feet, but Madeline shrank from her.

“I won't hurt you.”

Madeline nodded a little too quickly.

“Remind me never to piss you off,” Merrick said coolly, a smile ghosting his lips.

The male rolled around the weedy lawn, grabbing his privates while moaning about retribution.

“Shut your pie hole, or I shall kick that, too.”

“Syntax, Jasper.”

Beth glowered at him.

“Piss off, Merrick.”

He barked out a laugh. “Yes!” He raised his fist.

Beth glared at him.

The teens were speaking quietly. Jacky had his hands on Madeline's shoulders, and even at his young cycles, he was taller than she was.

Beth thought Madeline’s eyes were ancient, though her assessment told her that the girl was only nearing full maturity.

“They can help ya, Maddie… give it a chance—please!”

Hearing a Three plead was something to behold.

The light grew dim.

Night had sunk its teeth into the day, shaking it like a dog with a bone. The light gave in and evening slid into the shadows and spilled toward them.

Beth walked to the teens.

Principle they are young. Still, she recognized that without her stylized training, she would not feel so much older. The girl was only a few years younger.

Madeline's lower lip trembled. “Who are you?”

Beth shook her head. “Is there somewhere we can go?”

“I know just the place,” Jacky said.

Merrick toed the writhing male on the ground. “This one will remain incapacitated for a time.”

Beth's eyes went to Merrick's.

“Where?” Jeb asked.

“An abandoned dump. There's a sort of fort there that these teenagers use—”

“Let's go,” Merrick said, cutting him off.

The girl tried to pull away, but Merrick held her fast by the shoulders.

She seemed positively frail next to Merrick, probably how Beth looked next to him. The thought made Beth frown.

“Please… don't hurt me,” Madeline begged.

“I would never hurt a female,” Merrick said with a disdainful grunt.

“What?” Beth asked, lurching forward from the grim tone of his voice alone.

Merrick closed his eyes and recited the part of the assessment, which made Beth feel ill.

“Multiple fractures in various states of healing. Deep contusions, old and new.”

Merrick bared his teeth, popping open his eyes, which appeared eerie in the low light of the fading day. “I'm not asking now.”

“Okay,” she said in a meek voice.

Jacky Caldera took her hand and led them to their next jumping point, or so Beth hoped.

*

The dump was the strangest place Beth had ever visited. The assortment of Sector Three trash was utterly fascinating.

It had been a long walk from the far eastern Quadrant of Kent to the lip of the valley below.

Beth doubted that any of the people of this quadrant knew that their valley of cement structures and highways, which would become obsolete in a hundred years, had once held a great river. The valley had held trees with trunks wider than some of the domiciles they'd just rescued Madeline DeVere from.

Beth looked at Madeline, feeling a pity that was uncomfortable to bear. The girl’s frail beauty made feelings of protection an almost automatic reaction.

“You don't have to take care of me, Jacky,” Madeline said.

“Chase would've wanted it.”

She hung her head.

Merrick raised his palm.

“I want explanations, and I want them now.”

“People in hell want ice water, I bet,” Jacky said.

“No—Jacky, don't. They helped us.”

Jacky swung his gaze from a pissed-off Merrick to Madeline.

“Ya can't go back. Ya gotta know that. He'll beat you til he kills ya.”

“No one's beating anyone,” Merrick said in a bald voice.

Beth nodded. Truth.

“You don't know Chuck, guys. He's got no built-in stopping point.”

“I know the kind of male you're referring to.”

Beth didn't expound on Merrick's comment. She knew he was thinking of Lance Ryan, languishing on Sector One because of stopping points or his lack thereof.

Merrick went to Madeline first, ducking below the strange subterranean building of crushed antique cars, squished like rotting corpses of metal above his head.

Jacky nodded. “Go ahead. They're too damn uptight to be dangerous.”

“I don't know, I saw her do pretty well earlier.” Her voice was shaky.

“We are breaking a lot of our rules by meeting with you… and the boy.”

“Teen, pal.”

“Technically, you're not a teen until you're thirteen, right?” Beth asked.

“Yeah.” Sullen green eyes, muddied from the dim surroundings, narrowed on her.

“Are you able to go places others cannot?” Merrick's attention was focused on Madeline.

She nodded, cupping her elbows.

Merrick's shoulders dropped. “Why is it you keep your ability secret?”

“Because he'll beat me when I come back.”

“Who?” Merrick's eyes cut to hers. “That unscrupulous male who struck you?”

Madeline didn't respond and stared at her hands instead.

“He will not hurt you again,” Merrick promised.

“That's what adults say, but then they make her go back.”

Her chin kicked up. “I'm almost eighteen, then I'll be free.”

Beth wouldn't have guessed the girl was nearly eighteen cycles—almost a woman.

That she had survived what Beth had witnessed was even more amazing than the rest.

“These guys are Dimensionals.”

Madeline's face jerked up. “Really?” She turned to Jacky. “What color are they?”

Jacky cleared his throat self-consciously. “That's kinda what it looks like—color, but… it's a hard thing to describe.”

“What are you saying?” Beth asked.

“He's a Sensitive,” Jeb said with certainty.

“No,” Jacky said, clearly not appreciating a term he was unfamiliar with.

“He's an Aura Reader,” Madeline offered.

Merrick looked at her.

Okay, so different names for the same thing, Beth decided.

“You see… what?” Merrick asked.

Jacky shrugged. “I see… color around people.”

“Like a halo.” Madeline laughed.

Beth liked the way her laughter chased the fear that hung on her like a bad smell.

“Do you need a reflection to jump?” Beth asked.

Madeline's brows came together. “Ah—no.”

“How do you”—Merrick spread his hands—“go to another world?”

Madeline shrugged. “I don't know exactly.”

“She goes a lot when Chuck starts in,” Jacky said.

“Is that true?” Merrick asked.

She nodded, not meeting his eyes.

“Okay,” Merrick began. “First, you're not a Dimensional or whatever this sector calls it.”

Beth opened her mouth, but Merrick drilled her with a be quiet look.

Fine.

She crossed her arms and blew hair out of her face to keep her words to herself.

“I am Jeb Merrick, and this is my partner, Beth Jasper.”

Madeline looked at them both.

“I'm Maddie DeVere and this is my friend, Jacky Caldera. He—he was the little brother of my boyfriend, Chase.”

A heartbeat of weighted silence passed.

“What happened to Chase, Maddie?” Beth asked.

“He died last year in a car accident.”

Merrick inclined his head in understanding. “Pre-hover.”

“Huge fatalities,” Beth replied.

Jacky and Maddie looked at each other.

“Definitely aliens,” Jacky said.

“Not exactly…” Beth said with a small smile.

“What are ya called then? I mean, if you're like Maddie?”

She noticed Merrick had skipped over the Eleventh Directive smoothly. They’d done a lot of that of late.

“Reflectives.”

Eleventh: do not divulge your identity.

We’ve blown that all to Hades.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jeb gazed at the younglings and immediately corrected himself.

No matter how naïve Madeline appeared, she was just over two years younger than Jasper, not technically a youngling.

It was hard to wrap his mind around. He flicked a gaze Jasper's way and back to Madeline.

“So you're saying that you guys come from places I've gone?”

Jeb shrugged. “I don't know where you've jumped. However, if I were to guess, I'd say there are some sectors you've escaped by sheer luck.”

Madeline shook her head, dark-brown hair sliding over her shoulders, her eyes a little wide.

“No,” she glanced at Jeb and Jasper. “I've been somewhere scary.”

“What's a sector?” Jacky asked.

Jeb raked a hand through his hair. He was digging their grave deeper with each word he said.

“There are thirteen sectors—worlds. Like this one.” Jeb pointed outward.

When the pair turned with his motion, they looked out over nothing but the twisted metal of the roof on top of a small shed.

“We inhabit Sector Ten—Papilio.”

The boy and young woman were silent for a moment.

Then the boy said, “So… you guys hop planets and beat people up?”

Jasper sighed.

“No, we police sectors that have used their advancements to the detriment of those who live under their rule.”

“So someone gets intelligence, like the whole inoculation, gives people a little power then uses them.”

The boy’s presumption was basically correct.

“You kicked Chuck's ass, the clown stepdad from hell.”

What Jeb heard was: the abuser's name was Chuck and he was from Hades.

Beth read his expression.

“He's not actually from Hades, Merrick. They use similar expressions.”

“Not so similar,” Jeb countered in vague disagreement.

“Do you guys speak English?” Jacky asked, giving Jeb a sharp look.

“Latin,” Jasper admitted reluctantly.

“Wait a sec,” Madeline said. “You—I knew something sounded familiar.”

“What?” Jacky asked, walking over to an old camping light and pulsing it on with his thumb. “Awesome! Still works—sweet!”

His enthusiasm was contagious. If things hadn't been so dire and their return so important, Jeb would have enjoyed conversing casually with Threes for the first time.

Normally, he and a Reflective partner were in foreign sector for only twenty-four hours before returning to Papilio for a day's respite. If the next jump’s purpose wasn't collecting intel, it was reconnaissance, or—in the case of the latest jump—completing a small but critical mission.

Bright light surged through the space, and Jeb took in upturned milk crates used as makeshift furniture, the lamp that burned brightly, and a small—what is that? Jeb broke from the group and walked to the small box.

He opened it, releasing a smell that was so awful, it made his stomach turn. Jeb coughed into his hand, slapping the door shut again.

“That's rank, man!”

“It's an old fridge,” Madeline said evenly, and Jeb could see she thought he was a dipshit.

He felt like one.

“Anyway,” Madeline began, “I'm catholic, and I’ve heard that word, Papilio. I know what it means. It took a while, but my mom's made me go to mass since forever, and there was this Sunday school teacher that had little stickies…”

Beth frowned.

“Little pieces of paper with a sticky edge to attach to stuff,” Jacky explained.

“Hmmm,” Jeb said, palming his chin, listening.

“So one of the stickies was stuck to a butterfly.”

“You're from the butterfly world?” Jacky asked. With disbelieving snort, he laughed. Then he guffawed, holding his ribs.

“That's wicked funny.”

Jeb didn't think so. “They're a sacred insect on my world.”

Jacky got quiet. “Okay, I don't wanna dis you, my man, but butterflies?”

He flapped his hands near his shoulders.

“They identify Reflectives at birth,” Jasper said.

Madeline sat up from her perch on the plastic crate. “Really?”

Jasper nodded.

“Are they pretty?” she asked.

“They are beautiful,” Jeb said without a hint of embarrassment.

“So you kick-ass military guys”—Jacky turned to Jasper—“and girl…”

Jasper smiled.

“Get picked to be Dimensional by bugs?”

“Technically, they're insects,” Madeline said.

“Yeah, whatever. It's too weird for words.”

He was giving Jeb a speculative look.

“I think it's neat,” Madeline said.

“Nobody says that anymore, Maddie.”

“My mom does.”

Jeb felt the silence.

“You're concerned about your parent.”

Madeline exhaled in a rush. “She works grave so Chuck'll sleep it off or tear the house up. He won't get her.”

This time. No one said it, but Beth was certain they had all thought it.

“Your mother works in the evening,” Jasper clarified, and Madeline nodded.

“She is safe until she returns.”

Madeline drew her pulse out of the pocket of her denims, swiped her thumb, and sat silently for a moment. “Nine hours, thirty minutes, and five seconds.”

Jeb scrubbed his face. “Does she—is she Dimensional?”

“Too old.”

The mother of a daughter as old as Madeline would not be in that segment of the population affected by the Zondoraes’ intervention. Only adolescent younglings inoculated with their chemical concoction manifested the assortment of paranormal talents these younglings possessed.

“Chuck doesn't have dick, except access to the nearest bottle.”

Jeb frowned at the crude tongue on the boy, but the information was good to know.

“I have an idea,” Jasper said slowly.

Jeb had been stewing over the inevitable: Jude Calvin's arrival because of the botched mission. He was open to reasonable suggestions.

“If Madeline doesn't need a surface, I can act as a sort of focus, and we can get home—tonight.”

Jeb shook his head. “Sounds good in theory but what if something goes wrong?”

“She's Reflective, Merrick.”

He turned on her. “No, she's not. She doesn't need a surface, Jasper—she just jumps.”

“They've done something. Messed with a process.”

“You mean, you guys didn't get a shot? No one made you this way?” Jacky asked.

Jeb shook his head again. “No. We are born Reflective.”

“I'm doing this jumping, but you need…?”

Jasper looked at Madeline. “We need a surface that reflects to jump.”

“There are varying degrees of finesse, of course.”

Jacky gave a low whistle. “So those ass cracks, the scientists—”

Madeline cocked her head to the side. “Zondorae.”

Jacky snapped his fingers.

“Yeah, those butt munches. They're the ones that gave us the special sauce then ran off with their pathetic peckers…”

“Jacky—God, quit!”

“It's true, Maddie.”

“Yeah, but you're not being a very good example of our world or whatever.”

Jeb's thoughts turned to the corrupt law officer and Chuck, the female beater.

He said in a low voice, “I don't think he's the worst of what we've seen in Sector Three.”

“That's what you call Earth?”

Jeb nodded.

“Let's go, Merrick. We can explain things to Rachett.”

“You mean I can.”

Jasper had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I don't want to get anyone in trouble,” Madeline interjected quickly.

Mind made up, Jeb decided returning with a Three who was a Reflective—or at least this world’s version—would be the order of the night.

What is the Three expression?

Better to beg for mercy.

*

Jeb had trouble navigating the narrow and shallow tunnel that led out of the partially submerged pile of old motor vehicles. Something similar had existed on Papilio, but the old machines had been reduced and reused for clean-burning fuel two hundred years before.

Jeb’s small band poured out of a diminutive opening, and Jeb straightened. He put a hand to his back as he arched into a stretch after the stooping walk through the tunnel.

“Sucks to suck,” Jacky said, surveying Jeb trying to un-cramp.

“Jacky, put a cork in it,” Madeline said.

“Nah, it's fun to stick it to the big guy.”

Jeb's eyes narrowed on the youngling. He was almost more trouble than he was worth.

The new moon cast the landscape in nearly total darkness. As Jeb's eyes adjusted to the night, he could make out just enough of their environment to avoid plowing into everything that rose up into the sky ten meters high. There was perhaps a two-meter-wide random pathway between the two mountains of collapsed metal debris.

He and Jasper made their way to the center.

“This is where we part ways, Jacky,” Jeb said.

“No way, dude! You're not my dad,” he said critically to Jeb.

He and Jasper made their way to the center.

“You're not a Reflective.”

“He's a Sensitive,” Beth acknowledged.

“So?” Jacky said.

“Your kind sees us.”

“You've been outed in the past so I get penalized because some clowns ratted on you?”

“Your kind is not well-liked. You would not be welcome in Papilio.”

“Yeah? I've got a boatload of charisma. Wait till they get a load of my charm.”

“Is he always like this?” Jasper asked.

“Only when he's awake,” Madeline quipped.

“I feel responsible for you. We're breaking every directive in The Cause just by taking the girl. You would be…”

“Bad,” Jasper said.

Jeb could only shrug.

“Yes.”

“I want Jacky to go,” Madeline said in a quiet voice.

“Know this,” Jeb warned. “Time moves differently from one sector to the next. There is no guarantee what year it will be when we return. As much as a season could have gone by here.”

“You have to decide,” Jasper said.

“My mom…” Madeline said.

Jasper shook her head.

“You can't defend yourself. What makes you think that you can protect your parent? Why is this something that you feel is your responsibility?”

The standing water in Madeline's eyes welled, and she sucked in a breath.

Female tears.

The night had just sunk to an all-time low for Jeb.

“My father…”

“Chuck?” Jeb asked.

“No way, not that dick,” Jacky interrupted, and Jeb held up his hand for silence.

“Whatever,” he muttered, kicking a small pebble with his sneaker.

“No, my dad died when I was five.”

Her voice warbled, and Jeb swallowed. He had not noticed the color of her eyes until just then; they were a midnight blue kissed by violet. The light from the streetlights slanted across her face in unnatural brilliance.

“He made me promise to take care of my mom.”

“He couldn't have meant for you to be her champion,” Jasper said quietly, placing her hand on the girl's arm.

Fat tears chased each other down her face.

“Maybe,” she whispered, “but I meant it.”

Those large eyes closed then opened, blinking away a sadness that would never leave her.

Merrick saw Jasper's face and understood that the emotions of this young female, mirrored some of her own.

*

They linked hands.

“What do I do?” Madeline asked, her lower lip rolled into her mouth, her teeth gnawing on it.

Jasper squeezed her hand.

“Close your eyes, and Merrick and I will guide the jump. We need you to—”

“Kick-start the whole tamale,” Jacky said.

“Are we really taking him?” Jeb asked.

“Yup!” Jacky said, rocking back on his heels, swinging longish sweaty hair out of his eyes.

Jeb made a noise in his throat.

He wasn't sure what would be worse: Rachett's fury at the fucked mission or the Threes he was returning with.

It was a toss-up, but Jeb was betting the extras would get them roundly punished.

They stood, hands joined.

Jeb could hear the breathing of the younglings, and Jasper's was predictably smooth and measured.

They were taking a risk by using a Reflective with no experience, no locator, and no reflection to get them back home.

Jeb heard Jacky shift his weight impatiently, and that's when Jeb felt the first stirrings of heat.

Power.

It climbed his legs and made him gasp when it exploded inside his throat, warming his body like a deep-burning fire. His eyes sprang open.

Jasper's hair lifted from her body with what appeared to be electrical charge.

Madeline's eyes blazed like captured blue stars.

She threw back her head and gasped.

Jeb clenched Jasper's hand.

“Focus,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I am,” Jasper answered, just as fiercely.

When the sliding hold on the world let go, they were plunged in the familiar pathway.

Jeb tucked Jasper against him and fought to retain his hold.

His anxiety was a knot in his stomach. If they were lucky enough to land on Papilio, he would have to face whatever discipline came his way—and do his best to shield Jasper.

*

Jeb was tossed out like a tumbleweed onto the unforgiving street of his home quadrant of Barringer.

The air in his lungs punched out of him as Jasper was flung on the softer moss that lined the sidewalks.

Jeb assessed his environment.

The air was colder, and he knew immediately that they had lost a good deal of time.

He lurched to a sitting position, his lungs filling again. He sucked in the pure air of Papilio and relished it for the two seconds before Jasper and one of the younglings joined him.

“This rocks!” Jacky said, looking around in awe-struck wonder.

Swell. Jeb was already second-guessing his decision making abilities.

Dawn broke across a thin blue sky, clouds like stretched and bleeding taffy danced across the horizon, and the mountains’ white caps were changing to red.

Madeline walked toward them. Jasper's jaw dropped, and Merrick was stunned. He had heard of such a thing but never seen it.

While Madeline wandered around, looking at everything new, she was unaware of the change that had come over her.

She swiveled her face to Jeb and Jasper. Her expression of wonder faded, turning somber.

“What is it? What's wrong?”

The waif that had been a Dimensional in Sector Three had blossomed into the full bloom of womanhood, no longer thin but robustly healthy, every curve in the right place.

Lush hair had replaced the unhealthy wisps, and her eyes were no longer blue-ish but an arresting deep purple, a navy ring bordering the iris.

“Damn—damn, damn,” Jacky said, circling her.

Madeline self-consciously smoothed her riot of hair. “Tell me this second what the problem is. Am I okay?”

Jeb thought she was more than okay.

Jasper gave him a sharp elbow to the side and he grunted.

“You're staring, asshole,” Jasper said.

His brows rose at the name.

“It's worth a stare. You can't deny it.”

Jasper just shook her head. He was right.

Madeline DeVere was incredible looking.

Jeb tensed, sensing an approach. All his abilities were heightened on his home planet. He moved in front of Madeline, and when Jacky tried to get cocky, he pulled the youngling in beside him.

Lance Ryan appeared, along with Jude Calvin and Dave Kennet.

What the fuck was Ryan doing off Sector One already?

Jeb didn't know but was forcibly reminded of his duty to The Cause when it was all he could do not to jerk Jasper behind him, as well.

He would have to let Jasper go.

Jeb couldn't Reflect properly when his mind was constantly on her protection.

“Well, hello, Beth,” Ryan said, his entire body tensed.

“Dial it down, Ryan,” Calvin said.

Jeb didn't like the look Ryan gave Calvin, but he said nothing.

He trusted Calvin with his life.

Ryan's face went from Jasper with nothing but disgust then moved to the youngling.

It settled on Madeline and remained there.

Ryan's eyes moved in slow perusal over her body, and when he finally got to Madeline eyes—hers were cast to the ground.

The heat of her embarrassment was clear to any fool with half a wit.

And Jeb knew Ryan was no fool, but a deliberate fuck.

Why Rachett hadn’t trashed him was anyone's guess. But after a thousand years, his commander was very aware of natural selection.

Jeb just didn't happen to agree.

“We felt the break in the continuum. Rachett sent us, Jeb.” Calvin didn't ask, but his eyes begged the question.

“Picked up some stray… Threes.” Ryan made an impressive stab in the dark.

“Yes.” Terse, one-word-only answers for that prick.

“Rachett's going to get a hard-on for this that'll never let go,” Ryan said.

Jeb scowled.

Madeline was looking at them all and asked, “Are we—are they going to hurt us?”

Ryan slung his stabilizer over his shoulder. A state-of-the-art mini-pulse machine gun, it had auto accuracy when the target was thought into the thumb pad.

He went straight to Madeline, and she back peddled, moving closer to Jeb.

“Don't be a shit, Ryan,” Jasper said.

“Get off my D, mongrel.” Ryan's eyes glittered down at Jasper while Madeline watched with frightened eyes.

Jeb bet Madeline wished she'd stayed in her own sector.

From where she sat, Papilio was more dangerous than the place she’d just left.

True.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Beth

“And you're going to make me?” he scoffed.

“I think we've been through this.”

Beth gave him the look the comment deserved.

His eyes narrowed on her.

“I thought—I thought you guys were all fine with each other?” Madeline asked uncertainly.

“How can you understand them?” Jacky asked.

“Understand what?” Madeline asked.

“Catch a clue. They're speaking that Latin crap.”

Jasper and Jeb looked at Madeline.

Ryan leered at Madeline.

“Don't,” Beth warned.

“I'm not going to hurt the female.”

“Right, that's why you've been cooling your heals in One.”

“I served my time, you bitch mongrel, so shut your fucking mouth.”

Merrick was on him, swinging the butt of his own stabilizer into his face, spraying blood.

Ryan staggered back, clenched his fist, and came after Merrick.

“If you were smart, you'd stand down,” Merrick said casually.

“He's not, Merrick,” Kennet said offhandedly.

Ryan hesitated, his hand covering his split lip. “You giving Jasper the beef injection?” he sneered.

“What a jerk,” Jacky muttered.

They ignored him.

“No,” Merrick paused, making sure he spoke in Latin in front of the youngling. “Who I fuck is none of your business, but it wouldn't be my partner. It goes against The Cause…”

“Yeah, yeah, Merrick… you're such a do-gooder. We all know the tenth.” He swiped blood off his mouth and spread it on his uniform.

Tenth: reconcile emotion for The Cause, not another.

Ryan looked at Madeline.

“I'll escort the female.”

Madeline shook her head, leaning against Jacky.

“He is the King of Putz. Yʼknow—I don't even have to understand Latin to know this guy's a dick.”

Ryan's eyes narrowed on Jacky. “You brought a Sensitive.”

“It's a long story, Ryan.”

“Rachett got four signatures. He knows you brought some Threes back.” He reached out, grabbing a piece of Madeline's hair, and she cringed against Jacky.

“Back off, numb nuts,” Jacky said.

Ryan dwarfed him by a foot in height and a hundred pounds of lean muscle.

“You've got brass balls, youngling,” Ryan said.

“Switch to English, ya toad.”

Ryan glared. “I understand every word you utter, cretin.”

Beth saw Merrick smile and chuckled.

It was perfect beyond measure—comeuppance by the plateful. Beth was contemplating leftovers.

“Stop touching Madeline. If you have to ʽtake her to your leader,ʼ take away, but stop being a jackass about it.”

Ryan dropped the piece of hair and gave Madeline a speculative look, which Beth didn’t like.

Ryan had tried to kill her so naturally, she didn't like him.

They moved through the upscale neighborhood of Barringer. She was not the perfect specimen in Papilio and definitely not the perfect Reflective. The elite who lived in Barringer had never welcomed her. She escaped being heckled only because she was Reflective. It was the unspoken backwardness of Papilio. They thought themselves so enlightened compared to other sectors. In reality, her world still had improvements to be made.

Ryan took Madeline's arm, and Beth knew she was terrified of him. She need not be. It was only Beth he hated.

Beth had met Ryan's parents at the Reflective ordination. They'd been aloof to the point of being indifferent toward him. His father was especially cold.

She imagined his home life had not been ideal, not that it gave him license to kill another Reflective.

“Stop pulling away—I will not hurt you,” Ryan said in Latin, and Beth remembered something from before.

“You don't require English?” Beth asked Madeline.

The group slowed for the questioning.

“I heard you as though you were speaking English. If Jacky hadn't said anything, I would've thought you guys were all just still speaking English.” Then she laughed, pointing at Merrick. “Except—he always sounds…”

“Stiff?” Beth offered, and Merrick scowled.

Madeline laughed, and Ryan watched her.

“What is she?” Ryan asked as he gently dragged her behind him.

“They call them Dimensionals on Three,” Merrick told him reluctantly.

“Well, isn't that interesting. Because somehow, you two fuckups got home without a locator, toting two Threes, one who's a Sensitive and another who's…”

“A Dimensional,” Madeline admitted quietly.

Ryan turned her to face him.

“Cut the shit, Ryan—just turn them in to Rachett. He'll square it right up,” Calvin said.

“Yeah, but we've got time,” Ryan said.

“We don't need to hash this out here,” Kennet added, scanning the perfection of the Barringer Quadrant.

“It's okay,” Madeline said, her voice breathy.

Everyone stopped in their tracks when she burst into tears.

The men stepped back and looked to Beth, who had not shed many tears in her life.

“What?” Beth asked. “You think because I'm female I have some inside track?”

“That's usually how that chick crap works,” Jacky said.

Beth rolled her eyes.

“You wanted to take her, so you take care of it, Ryan.”

Ryan stepped forward. “What… what ails you?”

Beth grinned. This is rich. The great Ryan was about to be brought down by a female's tears.

“I'm scared. I'm scared of you,” she said, glaring up at him through the hair that had fallen forward. “I'm scared of going back, only to be hurt again.”

Ryan pushed the hair back from her face, and Merrick gave Beth a hard glance. She lifted a shoulder. She didn't know where her would-be murderer had carved tenderness from.

“Who has hurt you?” Ryan asked, bending down from his considerable height to peer into her face.

“She's got a shit stepdad who beats the hell out of her when he piles on the booze.”

Ryan jerked back from her, giving Merrick a quirked brow.

Merrick spread his palms. “We came upon her abuse by a Three male… and Jasper taught him an apt lesson in manners.”

Ryan's hands clenched into fist. “What did you do?”

His voice was low. His concern for a female he didn't know was so much more than his transgression against her.

The irony didn't escape Beth.

“I subdued him.”

“Then she kicked him in his testies,” Jacky said in a pleased tone.

The males winced.

Ryan didn't.

“Good,” he said slowly and tucked Madeline up against him. No longer did his hand latch onto her arm, but went around her slender shoulders instead.

“He won't hurt you ever again.”

“What about the rest of you?” she asked, a tremulous shiver making her body tremble.

Ryan shook his head. “No—no male will hurt you here.”

“Why? What's to stop them?” she asked. Beth understood and it was a fair question from a Three.

“Because I'll kill him.”

“Oh,” Madeline said.

After a moment, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and allowed Ryan to escort her to The Cause.

*

Beth strode up the familiar steps that rose out of the pavilion and intersected The Cause headquarters.

The traditional shape of a butterfly appeared between the words The and Cause. Centered beautifully, it had been etched and re-etched several times over the last millennium.

The Threes stopped, mouths agape. Beth followed their gazes and guessed that the building was a sight to behold for the first time.

The architecture was very much like the ancient buildings of Three's Greater Quadrant of Rome. Pillars flanked its entryway, and marble columns in a burnished apricot supported a triangular pediment that heralded the entrance.

Jacky and Madeline walked forward. She ran her fingertips over the life-sized sculpture of a swarm of butterflies in flight as they just begin to unfurl their wings.

As though summoned, a shadow dropped over the group, and they came in a single drove.

Every butterfly within a ten-kilometer radius descended, which was not uncommon when many Reflectives came together.

However, they glided to Madeline, ignoring everyone else.

Her arms rose unconsciously, and Ryan stepped back, allowing the precious Papilio namesake to surround her.

Madeline didn't fight the hundreds of butterflies that landed on her arms, covering her head and face, and leaving pockets of space for her eyes.

She appeared to be a living, breathing butterfly.

Several heartbeats of beauty passed, while Beth held her breath at the spectacle.

Then they were gone, launching as slowly and beautifully as they'd landed.

Their soft wings sounded like rushing water and Beth closed her eyes, missing her zoo inside her domicile.

Madeline gazed at them until the last one was beyond sight.

“What the hell was that about?” Jacky asked, his words harsh, his eyes soft.

“That is the greeting for our return to this building. The Cause.” Merrick's eyes were still on the sky.

“What's ʽThe Causeʼ,” Jacky asked, stepping outside the covered entrance and looking at the etched words.

“It is the reason Reflectives exists.”

“Not always peaceably,” Beth said, studiously avoiding eye contact with Ryan.

“Yeah, no shit. I totally got that issue,” Jacky said, his eyes on Ryan and Beth. “But why did they all cover Maddie and that?”

“She's new. They welcome her.”

“They recognize her as a Reflective?” Ryan asked. “But she claims Dimensional as her talent.”

“Let's go,” Merrick said quickly.

“No—wait,” Ryan said and the group hesitated.

Beth wanted to get away in case Ryan went sideways and suddenly caused another problem with two civilians at its center. She and Merrick had brought the Threes. Ultimately, she and Merrick were responsible.

“Yeah. You guys have to find a mirror or something. Maddie here”—Jacky swiped a thumb in her direction—“just think it, and off she shoots.” Jacky shook his head, dumping unruly hair over his eyes.

Madeline was still watching the hole in the sky the butterflies had left.

Ryan's lips flattened. “What the Hades?”

Madeline stepped back from him. Kennet and Calvin, who had been silent, wore the same shocked expressions.

“What?” Jacky said to the shocked faces. “Did I step on somebody's puppy or something?”

Beth nodded. “No—but close.”

Ryan drew near to Madeline but didn't touch her. Calvin and Kennet sidled up and flanked her without being asked.

Beth followed them into the building she had not revisited since the finals—when Ryan had tried to murder her.

*

Beth passed through the three-meter-tall doors last, taking the rear position automatically.

Rachett stood, a furrow like a canyon centered between his eyes.

A minute of absolute silence rolled out. Even Jacky seemed to sense how much he needed to not shoot his mouth off right then.

“What in the blue fuck is happening here?”

Rachett was using English. Things were bad if he had switched to the Three's mother tongue.

Rachett's face cut in Merrick's direction.

“Report—and it better be good.”

“Sir,” Merrick took a deep breath, and Beth thought he seemed tired. They hadn't slept for going on forty-eight hours.

“Jasper and I completed the Zondorae mission successfully.”

“Well, thank fuck. At least you didn't screw that six ways to Sunday.”

Rachett's command of English was profound and made Beth feel like an infant by comparison. He was pissed and using the entire arsenal he had at his disposal.

It was impressive.

Ryan, Calvin, and Kennet stood at attention, as did Beth.

“We've had a time break, and it's been thirty-two days since your jump.”

Merrick's face mirrored Beth’s surprise.

“How?” Beth asked.

She'd never heard of such a big divergence between her native sector and Three. That was why Ryan was already back from One.

He'd simply already served his incarceration.

“We're not sure, but it's an unmitigated clusterfuck.”

“Merrick,” Rachett barked.

“We had several altercations…”

Rachett's eyes drove down his form.

“You look well.”

“Yes, sir, but Jasper…”

“What happened?”

Rachett had not yet acknowledged the Threes.

Merrick told the story in great detail. He stuck to the facts and kept it brief.

Even condensed, it sounded awful.

“This is a major problem.”

Merrick stood stoic; a rock of honed discipline.

Beth didn’t feel very disciplined. She was beaten, had suffered various injuries, and felt tired to the core.

She wanted to sink into the deep basin in her cleansing room and allow the lavender salts to soothe her nerves. The butterflies would land on the copper rim, and she could pet their iridescent wings and…

“Jasper!” Rachett yelled, and the echo of his voice pierced her ears.

She'd been sleeping where she stood.

“Yes, sir.” She snapped herself out of exhaustion with great effort.

“Do you concur with Merrick's rendition of events?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You missed your jump—for the undead.”

Oh Principle.

Beth felt her cheeks burn and fought to not look away. “Yes… sir. He seemed to be a nobleman.”

“You mean in stature or integrity?”

Beth hesitated for a handful of seconds.

“Both. I—we…” Merrick gave the barest nod. “We couldn't leave him to the devices of those criminals.”

“What did you do to the perpetrators?” Rachett asked softly.

“We subdued them, sir.”

“I bet ya did,” Jacky said from his corner of the room, and Beth stifled a groan.

Rachett's eyes narrowed on Jacky, and he grinned back at the commander.

Jacky obviously had no sense of self-preservation.

“How do you fall into the picture, young man?”

Jacky rolled his expressive green eyes and tensed.

Rachett hid a smile—poorly.

“I'm with her.” He pointed a thumb toward where a reticent Madeline stood. “She's like you guys. Once I found out your dudes were Dimensionals, I knew she'd just keep getting beat-downs now that Chance isn't here to help her anymore. They couldn't stand that retard Chuck, either. Took her right outta there, and now she's safe. With her people.”

Rachett paced out to where the group stood.

“Is that right?”

Jacky gave a look at Commander Rachett as though he were a little dumb around the edges.

He wasn't. Beth knew him to be very bright, an astute observer of people from every sector.

“Yeah, that's about all of it,” Jacky said to everyone. “And if anyone's flinging out free food, I'm totally on board for that.”

He winked.

Rachett flung his head back and laughed. He clapped then wiped tears from the corners of his eyes. Beth met Merrick's eyes and swept her gaze to the other three.

Nope. No one knew why Rachett believed something was so funny here.

Rachett clapped Jacky on the back. “You bet. We'll get you fixed up with something shortly. Just a little more patience.”

Jacky's vision narrowed on Rachett but he said okay.

“Younglings…” he mused aloud then turned to Madeline, his face falling into the neutral lines he usually wore.

She held her ground but was a nervous, quaking mess.

“Come here, female.”

Madeline shook her head and scooted backward. “No... please.”

Instead of approaching, Rachett leaned against his massive desk and stared at her, solid arms crossed across his chest.

“Why are you afraid of me?”

“It's not you, bud—it's all dudes.”

Rachett leveled his eyes at Jacky. “This Chuck—I take it his assault wasn't an isolated incident.”

Jacky sobered. “No—sir, it was pretty constant.”

“Madeline DeVere, come to me.”

“He won't hurt you, Madeline,” Beth said, and felt an abiding sadness that she had to qualify it.

Madeline moved away from the Reflective, taking one tentative step after another.

Finally she stood in front of Rachett, who towered over her.

He put both his hands out and Beth watched her breathe. One-two-and a third.

She put her hands in his and their eyes met.

Rachett began his assessment.

It took three minutes.

When he was done, he put a hand on her shoulder. His face lowered to his chest, and it hung there for a minute while Beth and the others stood silently.

Finally, he stood, wrapping his arm around Madeline's shoulders.

“She won't be returning to the debauchery of that life.”

Madeline swung to face him.

“She has always been Reflective. The poisonous concoction administered by the Zondoraes only allowed it to come to fruition. They interfered with her body's natural path.”

“Pricks,” Jacky muttered, and Rachett nodded in sage agreement.

“My mom…” Madeline swept her arm to the wide lapel of his navy-colored uniform, the tip of her finger sweeping over the iridescent butterfly.

“She's unprotected. She's naked without me.”

“We will make that right. But first, several things need addressing.”

“Merrick, Jasper, you two stay here.” Rachett's gaze locked on the other Reflectives. “Take the Three's to the chow hall.”

“Yes, sir.”

They began to walk away, and Rachett called out to Ryan, who turned.

“I trust you and Jasper got on well.”

Ryan said nothing.

“Did you learn your lesson on Sector One, Reflective Ryan?”

It was asked as a question but truly wasn't.

“Yes, sir,” Ryan said then clamped his lips into a thin line.

“Good,” Rachett replied, “because there won't be a repeat stay.”

Beth watched Ryan's hate pour from his eyes before they turned in opposite directions.

She and Merrick stood in front of the commander.

His eyes pierced them to the marrow.

“Now tell me what the fuck really happened.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rachett had the telltale flutter in his jaw of about a hundred shades of pissed off.

Jeb couldn't blame him.

They'd fucked the mission on about a million different levels.

However, the one redemption had been the plug against the scientists. Christopher and Amanda had put the placebo in place of the mass sterilizer.

Without Jeb and Jasper's interference, there would have been zero children born in Sector Three for that generation. The faction of Zero Populationists on Three had some good points—in theory. But in actuality, their world would die out if their plan succeeded. Even though he and Jasper had accomplished their task during the last jump, the next one hundred years in Sector Three would not be ideal.

Reflectives could jump time, too, though the ability was sparingly used for obvious reasons.

Twelfth: disturb not the continuum.

However, sometimes the whole Principle-damned thing needed to be fixed, like when two scientists try their hand at futuristic mass infanticide.

“You know the caliber of the mess you've made?”

Jeb could only nod his assent.

“And you're telling me this group of bikers from Three broke up Jasper so badly you had to jump to heal her?”

Jasper's eyes fell.

“I appreciate that he did.”

“Did he tell you how many kilometers he carried you?”

Jasper's nearly black eyes swept to Jeb's. “No.”

“Four,” Rachett said.

Jasper's face fell farther, if that were possible.

“Sir, I already feel like canine crap about it.”

Rachett scrubbed his head in an irritated swipe.

“Damn, damn—damn.”

“Is it the Threes?” Jeb asked.

“It's all of it.” Rachett swung his hand around, encompassing the general area. “I need a follow-up jump to make sure the scientists get eliminated. At least the one—”

“Joe Zondorae.”

Rachett nodded. “Threes will take him out of the equation.”

Jasper put a finger to her lip, debating something. “If I remember my history, Gary Zondorae becomes a zombie, and brother dear…”

“He gets eliminated by them?”

“Sounds right,” Jasper commented.

Rachett was grim. “You jump and fucking observe.”

“Do either of you know what that means?” Disbelief at their abilities filled every line of his face.

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

“No more bringing back stray Threes. No more getting your asses handed to you and almost getting a fresh trainee killed. And no more killing Threes.”

Jeb fought for composure. “They needed killing.” Jeb couldn't shake the image of their fists thundering into Jasper.

Rachett gazed at Jeb for a heartbeat longer, then turned sharp attention to Jasper.

“How did you like your first mission?”

Jeb saw the emotions like a spinning kaleidoscope cover her face: shame, anxiety, fear, and determination.

She really needed to learn how to school her emotions.

“That good, eh?” Rachett asked, but he was grinning.

“I want to go again, sir.”

“And you will.” His gaze slid to Jeb. “And you'll do better at avoiding these Principle-damned Threes.”

“Sir,” Jeb began.

Jasper turned to him, the struggle for a blank face failing her.

Jeb's request to change partners was on the tip of his tongue. Jasper even helped him, as was her way, by saying nothing—not a speck of a plea in her eyes.

Jeb decided and it was based for the wrong reasons.

Yet, they felt right.

“Thanks for the opportunity, sir.”

Jasper's face showed her surprise.

“Welcome.” He jerked his jaw toward the door they'd entered an hour ago. “Go grab some food and babysit that smart-ass Three.”

Jeb asked, “Yes, what about him? And the girl?”

Rachett was thoughtful—pensive.

“The girl remains.” His head dipped, and the stubble of hair at his temples showed silver. He cupped his chin.

“Her assessment was disturbing.”

His pale eyes never wavered.

“She has many healing injuries,” Jeb conceded, sick to his stomach at the thought of what he'd sensed.

Reflectives’ assessments were normally constrained to the superficial. But like so much, touch deepened it to a sort of tactile telepathy.

Rachett shook his head in reluctant denial. “In good conscience, I can't return her to that environment.”

“Sir.”

Rachett lifted his chin. “Reflective Jasper.”

“Is she…” Jasper was struggling to spit it out. “Is she too broken to be saved?”

They were quiet, and their silence had substance, standing between them thickly.

“I don't know,” Rachett finally said.

Jeb nodded. “Where will you—keep her?”

Rachett and Jeb looked at Jasper.

“Oh, for Principle's sake!” Jasper said, exasperated.

“Because I'm female? It sucks to be me, unless somehow that gender thing pans out?”

Rachett's brows lowered. “Reflective Jasper.”

Jasper stiffened her spine.

“Yes, sir.”

Jeb thought she still looked mighty pissed.

“You have a unique historic perspective, do you not?”

Jeb knew how much Jasper had suffered and how unfairly she had been treated. Who knew the small abuses she'd suffered over the years. Jeb had not been oblivious to the defensive wounds that had healed faster because of their jumps, though some of the marks were scars.

Jeb thought of Ryan and wanted to punch him back to Sector One.

Rachett knew Jasper’s history—he'd watch her develop since her fifth cycle. They both understood that her Sector One blood aided her survival in the hostile environment of the Reflectives.

A combative Reflective that was also female had a hard row to hoe.

Jasper pegged her hands on her hips and stood quietly.

She and Rachett seemed to exchange words without speaking.

“I guess,” she finally admitted.

“Excellent,” Rachett said. “Madeline DeVere can be your ward.”

There was a lengthy pause.

“When you execute your return jump, I would order that the Three male—Chuck?”

“Yes, sir,” Jeb said.

“He must be eliminated.”

Sixth: take life only in defense of another.

“Don't be so shocked, Merrick.” Rachett's icy gaze landed on them both. “It isn't the first time the directive has been modified.”

Modified.

He stood, indicating they should go.

“You're dismissed.”

Jeb and Jasper began to walk out.

“Reflectives,” Rachett said in a low voice.

They turned with yes sirs on their tongues.

“It shall not be the last,” he said, switching to Latin and dumping the Three slang in one fell swoop.

*

Beth transferred the pack to her left shoulder out of habit. Unlike Merrick, she was right-hand dominant, and even a rookie Reflectives knew not to encumber their fighting arms with anything other than a weapon.

“I can't tell you how much I appreciate you… putting me up,” Madeline said.

Beth gave her a sideways look, still shocked by the metamorphosis. Rachett hadn't seen how Madeline had looked before, but to Beth and Merrick, the change in her appearance had been like night and day.

It was as though her body simply knew what sector she belonged in.

“You're welcome,” Beth replied, feeling as if her space were being invaded. Of course, she had never really had a female friend before. The other Reflective females treated her like a pariah because she’d chosen to be a warrior.

They simply didn't understand that it hadn't been about choice but about calling. She could no more work in a clerical capacity than Merrick could.

She smiled, thinking about that big warrior's body being folded behind a desk.

“What's so funny?”

Beth's grin widened as she drew closer to her small domicile.

She lived in the suburbs of Barringer, which she liked better than town. She received fewer dirty looks and had less shunning to avoid. What the elite Papiliones did not see, they could not look down upon.

“Sorry, my mind is wandering.”

“Has anyone ever told you that what you're thinkinʼ is all over your face?” Madeline asked.

Yes, with their fists.

“Some,” Beth answered.

“Wow…” Madeline breathed. “This is amazing.”

Madeline spun in a slow circle, taking in the antique building with a thatched roof at a fourteen-twelve pitch. Two apartments had been carved out of the interior, and a wrought-iron stairwell guarded a medieval-period arched door. Studs of hand-forged metal held together the wood tongue- and-groove planks of the seven-foot door.

Warm windows of amber, each with four divided lights were separated like two sets of kind eyes sunk into the stone façade.

“It's gorgeous,” she said.

Beth agreed, giving critical attention to her shared domicile and nodded. It was as close to the remembered childhood home as she could come.

Madeline turned away from the house and took in the solar-powered lights flickering on with twilight's descent.

The town of Barringer lay beneath them; stone cottages and cobblestoned roads flowed in ribbons of chaos as they migrated down the hill to the center that housed the judicial, medicinal and The Cause headquarters.

Beyond that, vineyards rose like reminders of the spring that would yield plump grapes.

“The view is incredible.”

Beth was pleased that the Three was so grateful for their world. Each minute she was there, Madeline seemed to thrive a bit more. It was as though Sector Three had poisoned her. Or, at the very least, hadn’t allowed her to flourish as she was meant to.

“Come,” Beth said, putting her thumb to the pulse pad at the right of the thick entrance door. The old-fashioned surface-mount rim lock remained, but it had fallen out of use long ago. When brain impulse technology—or just “pulse” for short—had been introduced, the number of thefts had taken a big dip. It had improved the quality of Papiliones’ daily life, as most advancements should.

A thumbprint was unique to the individual, so it was completely secure. Of course, that had not been the case with the fraudulent prints they'd sold on the black market of Three.

It had been for The Cause.

The door swung wide, the bronze handle pull cool to the touch, reminding Beth that autumn was quickly approaching. Her one-month absence had unnaturally sped up her sense of reality, and she hadn't caught up yet.

The two women climbed the steps, and Beth repeated the pulse security routine for her personal dwelling.

The number at the door simply read,2.

There was only one other that entered here and Beth was relieved when her butterflies floated toward her when she swung the heavy door wide.

“Butterflies!” Madeline chimed behind Beth and the women raised their arms to receive the greeting from butterfly to Reflective.

As ancient as Papilio itself, the butterflies came and landed.

One large specimen stroked its velvet wings against Beth's cheek. “Yes, yes Sampson.”

Beth petted his wide wings.

Sampson was her favorite. He was a great beauty. His body was decorated in periwinkle, with striking electric blue spots and stripped antenna that alternated between the two colors.

“He's so pretty,” Madeline said quietly.

“Handsome,” Beth said automatically.

“How do you know he's male?”

She smiled at Madeline.

The girl cocked her head. “Besides the clue in the name?”

Beth nodded, her smile becoming a grin.

“I don't know—just do.”

She knew. The male Reflectives could never tell, but Beth could. She always attracted the papiliones wherever she went. Sometimes one or two followed the male Reflectives, but never the flock that trailed Beth as if she were the Pied Piper.

Madeline made her way deeper inside Beth's domicile.

Her eyes touched on everything, and Beth was suddenly self-conscious. She wasn't known for her housekeeping.

It was a very good thing the women who straightened residences for Reflectives while they were on jumps visited frequently.

Beth knew the women had been there because the butterflies’ small salt perch was fresh, and their sugar dropper was full. She sighed in relief. No one had anticipated the break in the continuum. However, every Reflective’s contract stated that their domicile would be maintained in their Cause-sanctioned absence—until their death or break in service.

Beth had never anticipated an absence so long when she’d blithely signed the contract.

She was glad for the contingency.

Rows of small lights hung from solid wood beams buried in the stone walls and flush against the solid four-meter-tall rock ceiling.

The butterflies lit on the wires that traveled between the bulbs.

White lights twinkled at the women like stars.

“Thank you,” Madeline said softly.

Tears like crystal rain fell from her face, dripping from her delicate jawbone to land on the wood floor.

Beth wasn't good at consoling. She had no practice.

“Why are you crying?” Again.

Madeline hiccuped back a sob. “I'm so damn grateful, I simply don't have the words.”

Beth blinked. It made her resistance to sharing her domicile less frustrating. Madeline behaved like a person who'd never received a kindness in her whole life.

That sobered Beth in many ways, some which struck very close to home.

Beth didn't know exactly what to do with the gratitude so she ignored it.

“Let me show you your room.”

A smile tilted the corners of Madeline's mouth as she followed Beth, which irked her.

She hated being so easy to read.

Beth walked down the dimly lit corridor and depressed a tarnished brass thumb latch, pushing open the wooden door.

A miniscule window peered into the ancient woods behind the domicile, now kept in the deep shadow of night's invasion. Only the tops of the trees appeared to escape, reluctantly letting go of their silhouettes to the cape of true evening.

A long, narrow bed stood underneath the small convex portal of a single pane of glass. A tiny nightstand with a pulse light was centered atop the adjacent square wooden tabletop.

A scrolling design of metal loops took up the headboard in a chipped blood red. The quilt made by one of the Crafters snugged the corners and foot. A lone stuffed bear—the only thing Beth had been allowed to keep from her childhood—lay anchored amid two thick pillows.

Madeline walked over to a small bookcase opposite the bed and ran her finger over the spines of many tales of the dark fey, Beth’s favorite.

The dwelling was too ancient for anything modern like an integral closet, but there was a wardrobe against a corner that jogged to accommodate the tiny fireplace in Beth's chamber. It mirrored the room they stood in.

Beth went to the wardrobe and opened the pine doors, placing the backpack inside the bottom, noting a dozen empty hangers, starving for clothes, hanging on the brass rod.

She softly closed it and turned.

Madeline's face clenched to restrain her emotions. After a few deep breaths, she said, “This is wonderful. But…”

Beth frowned.

Madeline laughed. “Is there a bathroom here? Everything looks so antique-y.”

Beth's lips twitched. “Yes. We call it a cleansing room in this sector.”

It was Madeline's turn to frown. “That's weird.”

Beth shrugged. It was what it was.

“I'm desperate for a shower. I feel skanky and—yuk,” Madeline said, taking a subtle whiff of herself.

“I'm sympathetic.”

“Do you want to use the shower first?” Madeline asked, tucking back inside her turtle shell.

Principle but she is reticent.

“No, you go ahead and cleanse first. I will follow.”

Madeline's brows quirked. “You talk different here.”

Beth nodded. “I am home.”

“Are you speaking Latin?”

“What do you think?” Beth asked, curious.

Madeline shrugged. “I can't tell.”

Beth looked down at her feet, overcome with all the strangeness of the current circumstances.

Her face rose. “Yes,” she answered.

“Oh,” Madeline said. “I'm gonna go then and…” She indicated the corridor.

Beth answered, “Second portal on the left.”

Madeline hesitated. “Thanks.”

After a few minutes of silence, the commode flushed, and the cleanser was turned on.

The white noise of water drowned out the silence, and Beth walked to her sofa then plopped down in exhaustion.

She unlaced her boots and dragged her feet out of the shoes she'd been wearing for three days.

Sleepily, her mind reminded her that it had really been more like a month. That made her mouth crack into a sloppy grin.

The last thing she remembered was feeling dead on her feet.

Then it occurred to her she was no longer on her feet.

Beth fell into a deep sleep.

The butterflies stood guard over their charge, only the soft beat of their wings revealing their existence.

After a time, a large periwinkle butterfly floated downward with the expertise of practice and landed on the sleeping female Reflective.

It tucked its wings tight to its body and nestled against the soft crook of her neck.

Beth slept on, oblivious to the butterfly who gave her comfort while she dreamed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Hey, man! How do I turn this dumb thing on?”

Jeb cracked an eyelid. His every muscle ached, begging for more sleep. His eyes rolled over the countertop of his kitchen, where crumbs, a dirty knife still caked with too much peanut butter, and an open sack of bread stood like a contaminated island in the middle of his kitchen.

Jeb's eyes fluttered shut.

“Jeb!” Jacky yelled, two feet from his face.

He sat up in one motion, staring at the teen like imminent death. Just call him Reaper.

He was tired and hungry. He felt sore because he was, and if he'd thought he had escaped host duty, he was sorely mistaken.

Obviously, Jacky was on another sector zone for time.

“Hey, man… you look like ass.”

Jeb growled, and Jacky stepped back. He was at a safe distance and Jeb calculated how far he would have to reach to ring Jacky’s neck.

Instead, he scrubbed his face. He ran his finger through his long corkscrew hair. He longed for a close-shorn haircut, but his return jump to Three would require him to keep the mop for a time longer.

“Well,” Jacky asked, retreating one more step.

Definitely smart.

“It's second portal to the right.”

“Thanks.” Jacky gave him a considering look.

“You're not much of a morning person.”

Jeb glared at him.

“Fine, eff me.”

Jeb heard the door slam and sprang off the couch, flinging his arms to loosen the stiffness.

He padded in his underwear to the kitchen and wiped the crumbs off the quartz slab. After capping the peanut butter, he twisted the sack with the bread inside and neatly tucked the whole business inside his cupboard.

He turned around, and the lathered peanut butter mocked his normally sterile surfaces.

Their current living arrangement was so not going to work.

The boy had atrocious manners and a tongue that never stopped with insults, both inferred and actual. On top of it all, he was not even Reflective. All of it plucked at Jeb's innate sense of dignity.

He jammed an empty coffee cup into the pulse dispenser and selected cappuccino. If he didn't have something special that morning, he would never make it through the day. He would spoil it for everyone who came into contact with him with his foul mood.

As the smell of the brew filled the kitchen, Jeb heard the soft sound of the sunflower showerhead, like rain falling, from his cleansing room.

He frowned.

Hope that brat doesn't dirty up the whole place.

Too late.

Jeb leaned against the doorjamb of one of the only modern domicile complexes in Barringer.

It was completely square and built with modern materials that mimicked the old. Papiliones were proud of their fourteen- to sixteenth-century architecture.

Jeb thought the looks were okay, and he understood the need to preserve their history, but he had refused to deal with drafts, noise, and lack of function. The first thing he'd done upon moving into his dwelling was take it down to the studs and make every wire, gadget, and inclination of the pulse variety.

He sipped his delicious morning solace and surveyed his guest’s accommodations, which looked as if a cyclone had torn through it.

The coverlet from the bed was strewn haphazardly, bunched tightly into a corner of the bed.

Socks so dirty they could walk to the clothes holder stood at disgusting attention, mid-heave in the center of his tiled floor.

Whatever drink the boy had consumed the night before had left a wet ring on the thick glass-topped integral bar that ran the length of the headboard.

When Jeb had said yes to housing the boy until their return jump, he had not considered it very carefully.

He wondered how Jasper was faring with Madeline.

“There's no towel!” Jacky wailed from the cleansing room.

It’s going to be a long visit.

*

Jeb fell into step beside Jasper.

She looked as tired as he felt.

“How'd your night go?” she asked, but something about the tilt of her mouth let Jeb know that she had an inkling of just how shitty it had been.

“I'm thinking you got the good end of the stick.”

Jasper grinned.

“Maybe,” she confirmed.

Jeb glared at her, not seeing the humor. “Oh, come on, Merrick. When's the jump?”

One long week away.

Waiting at least a week was mandatory between jumps. He almost felt as if he could have gone two weeks before going back to Three. It'd left an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth—and an unexpected houseguest.

Jasper stopped.

“Principle, you look depressed.”

He was, but Jeb would soon have the cure.

“I—Principle… that boy.”

Jasper's lips quirked. “He's a handful.”

“That's the understatement of the world.”

“Pull up your big-boy boxers, Merrick.”

He stopped, pegging his hands on his hips. “I see someone is still enjoying the Hades out of Three lingo.”

Jasper laughed. “Yeah, but you walked right into it.”

“Walked right into what? And why are you using Three language?”

Ryan looked between them both. Jeb narrowed his gaze on the flippant Reflective. Without realizing it, he’d stationed himself protectively in front of Jasper. When he noticed, he moved aside.

Ryan flicked his eyes to the movement and smirked.

“I don't answer to you, Ryan.”

“Yeah, I got that. What about her?” He moved his jaw in Jasper’s direction. “Seems she leads your around by your dick, if you ask me.”

“Yet—he didn't, Ryan,” Jasper said.

Jeb knew a preparatory stance when he saw one. Jasper was keyed to fight, and Ryan certainly seemed as if he could bring it again.

What is this extreme animosity between them?

“Settle down, Ryan.” Jeb turned to Jasper.

“Jasper.”

She glared at Ryan then turned passive features to Jeb.

“Let's not involve Rachett. Ignore his stupid ass.”

“I'm far from stupid, Captain Merrick.”

His official title sounded like slur coming from Ryan's mouth. He hated addressing him officially.

He obviously hated Merrick.

That was fine. Merrick crossed his arms, smiling wide. “Listen well, Inductee Ryan.”

They stared at each other.

“I don't know what this pissing contest is between you and fellow Inductee Jasper, but I want it to cease and desist.” His eyes went from Jasper to Ryan, who stood with an uneasy space between them.

“You spent a month of fun at Sector One.”

Ryan's face became granite at the mention of One.

“You say you're smart? Then act like the IQ you have rather than your boot size.”

Ryan's expression soured.

“You're not my lead. I don't have to show you anything but pat civility. You lead with Jasper.” Ryan took an irritated swipe against where his inhibitor timepiece disc lay beneath his skin.

Jeb stepped into his personal space. As tall and muscular as Jeb was, Ryan was his equal in size.

Ryan didn't put his finger on Jeb's chest, but it hovered there.

“Stay out of my fucking way, Captain Merrick.”

Using the heel of his palms, Jeb slapped Ryan's chest, knocking him backward. “You get off my dick, and stay away from my partner, or we're going to have words.”

Ryan leaned toward Jeb, a vein throbbing in the fair skin over his temple.

“And it won't be the talking kind.”

Ryan had all the contained violence of a Reflective on high combative alert.

Then he trained that vision on Jasper. “Stay out of my fucking way, mongrel.”

“Thanks for the love.” Jasper fluttered her fingers at him.

Ryan cursed and spun on his heel, diving off down the ancient main street. His back straight, his uniform without a wrinkle, he looked back as he got farther away.

Jasper release a breath that sounded suspiciously like relief.

“Don't incite him.”

“He brings out the best in me.”

Jeb stared at her.

“I don't think so—no.”

*

Jeb walked beside Jasper, a companionable silence stretched between them. Ryan had gone, and they made their way without hopping, just enjoying the casual exercise.

Autumn had rolled in seemingly overnight, and the deciduous trees’ leaves bragged their flaming colors of orange, scarlet, and burnt yellow along the sidewalks of the Barringer district.

“Just tell me, Jasper.”

Her silent answer was long enough that Jeb slowed, but she spoke, and he kept walking, his eyes on the old buildings. The Cause Headquarters towered in the distance.

“We were young ,and I was sparing with the other candidates.”

“How many cycles?”

“I'm a year younger than a lot of the males.”

“For Principle's sake—why? Why would Rachett put you forward early.”

“I tested in.”

Jeb did stop then. “At five cycles?”

She nodded. He whistled. “Damn—that's young.”

“Yeah,” she answered, blowing a strand of hair out of her face that had loosened from her usual braids.

“So,” she continued, looking at him sideways, and Jeb noticed her eyes were nearly black. Her irises hid her pupil like an ebony watercolor. Most people of Papilio were fair-complexioned, with light eyes. Beth’s combination of dark hair and eyes was unusual. Jeb decided that Jasper's looks had grown on him. The more he was around her, the more interesting she became.

“I was twelve cycles, and he, thirteen.”

Jasper had switched to Latin, seemingly without realizing. She liked the Three dialect so much that she often spoke it on Papilio, even when she wasn’t practicing for jumps to Sector Three.

He suspected she had digressed into Latin under stress. The memory alone had visibly shaken her.

“He took me aside—kissed me.”

Jeb felt his face tighten. Obviously, no Reflective pairing would ever be tolerated. They would have been very aware, even then.

“And?”

She slowed then stopped walking. “I reacted badly. I slapped him. He tried to convince me we could be something. Something secret.”

“Ah.” Merrick gave her a sideways glance. “He thought to have a little black-sheep booty?”

Jasper faced him. He'd just stepped in a pile of shit. His words had been ill-chosen.

But she surprised him. “Yes. As crude as your understanding is—that was exactly it. I am—”she waved her palm around—“an enigma.”

Jeb palmed his chin. “He wanted a go at the forbidden. And you told him no.”

Her dark eyes grew impossibly darker.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly.

They began to walk silently toward TCH.

Jasper said nothing for a time, then, “I had rejected him, and I'd let it pass. But he'd not forgotten.” Her eyes met his then slid away. “He was chosen to spar with me, and I didn't understand…”

She held her breath and Jeb answered for her, “His potential for cruelty.”

She exhaled in a rush.

“I was hospitalized for three days.”

Jasper turned to him and lifted the bottom of her uniform shirt. The tail of her button-down navy-blue blouse came untucked, and she rolled up the hem to reveal a vaguely heart-shaped scar.

Jeb could feel his heartbeat pulse at his forehead.

They stood like that in the middle of Main Street with her shirt raised to expose skin like alabaster, unmarred except for the puckered scar tissue, now a faint pink.

“What is that?” Jeb asked quietly.

Jeb turned away when he saw water fill her eyes but heard her answer nonetheless.

“His heel.”

Her words etched their way across his soul, never to be forgotten.

The knowledge undid him.

*

Jeb

Jacky and Madeline watched the sparring with wide eyes as Jeb dove for Jasper's legs. She flung him on his back, and the wind sailed out of his lungs as if he were a beached whale.

Damn, she’s good at defense. But her offense needed practice.

He fought without breathing, which was never an easy task, then jerked her against his body easily and rolled over on top of her.

The soft mat cushioned her against true injury.

Protect. He fought his caution so that he could spar with her like a partner ought.

She took advantage of his hesitation and nailed Jeb in the stomach with the hardest part of her body, as she'd been trained to do, driving her elbow deep into his gut.

Jeb doubled over as she stood, confident in his loss.

Despite his shortness of breath and bruised ribs, his hand snaked out, latching her ankle and jerking it from underneath her.

“Jasper!” Madeline shrieked.

“Shut up, Maddie. I wanna watch.”

“No! He'll hurt her.”

“No, he won't—don't be such a girl about it.” Jacky’s undertone of uncertainty gave Merrick pause.

Jasper landed on her back, slapping her palms on the mat to soften the fall. She kicked him with her free leg, and Jeb captured that ankle, twisting it. She countered, rolling in the direction of the twist and sitting up and forward as she did, then punched his shoulder to dislodge him.

Pain exploded from the strike, all knuckles and speed, aimed for that vulnerable part where the shoulder dips into the arm.

He simply scooped her up and tossed her.

Jasper shrieked, landing hard on the mat, no arms fast enough to catch her fall.

Jeb strode to her, and she struggled to stand, gasping.

“Get up,” Jeb said.

She did. But she was canted oddly.

Jeb didn't hesitate, hitting her shoulder to take her down again.

She collapsed.

Even when Jasper began to crawl, Jeb dragged her back mercilessly, her sparring uniform dragging up to breast level, and he lifted his foot.

He saw the mark from Ryan and landed his boot beside it.

Jasper shrieked, her cracked ribs making a noise like twigs snapping. Blood dribbled out of her parted lips.

“No,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Jeb growled.

“You'll kill her!” Maddie wailed.

“Stop—you’re no better than that dickhead Ryan!” Jacky said.

Ryan.

Jasper lay beneath him like a beaten, broken doll. Black hair had untangled from her braids. Her dark eyes were lipid pools of obsidian fire. The blood from her injuries pooled like red gems of condemnation.

“You're just like the rest,” she accused from a full mouth lined with blood from his fists.

No I'm not.

“I'd never harm you, Beth,” Jeb promised.

He reached out to touch her face, wiping away the blood he put there and she jerked away from him.

The scene bled away to vague mist.

*

Jeb sat straight up in bed, the linen clutched to his chest. His heart still hammered like the hooves of a galloping horse. He hit the pulse clock with his thumbprint, and numerals flared on his ceiling.

3:48 a.m.

He fell back against the bed, convulsively swallowing. He wiped his sweaty palms on his coverlet. What is happening to me?

“What's going on?” Jacky asked from the open doorway.

Jeb sat up again. “Nothing.”

His voice sounded like stone, not a tremble or vibration to prove that he'd just had the worst nightmare of his life.

“’Cause you were yelling for who?” Jacky asked, though he knew. “Beth.” Jacky's eyes were like an adult's.

Must have been a trick of the light.

“You said something like you'd never hurt her or something.”

“I wouldn't,” Jeb responded.

“Then why did you dream about it?” His accusatory gaze tracked Jeb's reactions like a hawk.

Jeb didn't answer right away. He wasn't sure why he'd dream that. Was it because of her confession about the ax Ryan had to grind?

What Jeb understood was that he needed to get his ass into medical and get a full pulse diagnostic. He knew his timepiece was degrading, which was normal for Reflectives so close to the end of their term of service. But what if something more serious was going on?

Why had he let Jasper's sad story affect him? Why was he having sadistic dreams about killing her?

Pent-up sexual tension manifesting as violence.

He needed to get laid—and fast. That would distract him from the strange turn his life was taking.

“I don't know,” he answered.

“Better figure it out.”

“Why?”

“Because this middle-of-the-night scream session? It's killinʼ my beauty sleep.”

Jacky walked back to his bedroom.

Jeb fell back, lacing his fingers behind his head.

It was a long time before sleep took him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Beth walked into TCH, and all talking ceased.

Madeline started when she saw Beth, a loose knot of the gossiping tribe of female Reflectives falling away from her.

As Beth strode in, they turned their noses up in the air and walked away from Madeline.

Beth reserved a special cold stare just for panty-dropping Daphne. What an alley cat.

Maddie asked, “You and Jeb leave tomorrow?”

Jeb now, eh?

Beth chastised herself. In the week that Madeline had been her houseguest, she'd been nothing short of perfect. She gave Beth space when needed, she was sweet, and she kept things far neater than Beth would have.

In a word, she was the perfect Reflective female: docile, accommodating, a phenomenal jumper, and beautiful. Only her dark hair marred her shell of perfection. Yet, her unusual eye color and hour-glass figure eased the males’ pain.

However, an interesting phenomena had reared its ugly head. Madeline could certainly jump around Three and from Three without surface reflection. But not in Papilio.

In Papilio, Madeline was reduced to using mirrored surfaces to jump.

Beth couldn't say she was too broken up about it.

It wasn't typical for her to be such a horse's ass in her internal ramblings.

She blamed Merrick: he had set her on edge.

He'd come to sparring warm up as tense as she'd ever seen him and had refused to spar with her—his own partner.

A deliberate snub.

Then he'd made a beeline for that slut Daphne.

Beth understood the male Reflectives’ needs; they never bothered to hide it, as though it were their unspoken right. However, as Beth watched Daphne slink around in the bowels of TCH, she couldn't help but be offended for him.

Merrick could do better.

And what about that soulmate? His timepiece was disintegrating every moment, and then he would be the lucky one—wide open to find the One, not that it had stopped Merrick from sampling the local wares of the female Reflectives before.

He'd been neglectful of the boy, and he'd grown surly. Understandably bored and guarded closely, Jacky had thought it wise to stir up the hornet's nest—until Beth had asked if he had parents.

As it turned out, they had dissolved their union after his older brother's untimely death the year before.

Sector Three called it “divorce.”

After the divorce, Jacky had been shuttled between two parents, who by Jacky's account, had lost sight of the one thing remaining person who was still vitally important.

Him.

Jacky hadn't told her these things. Beth had easily read between the lines.

After losing his own family, he’d adopted his peer group as his pseudo family, and he got by on what he coined “the aura-reader juju.”

Loosely translated, when someone’s aura appeared tainted, he steered clear. It had saved him some scrapes with the criminal element.

The time had come for his return. Madeline was beginning to integrate, and Jacky could not remain. He was not Reflective, and there was nothing for him on Papilio.

“Are you going now?” Madeline asked, and Beth started.

She'd been so deep in her head that she was still trying to swim out of the well of her own thoughts.

“Yes. Merrick will meet me here, and we'll travel from the jumping room.”

Madeline's brows scrunched together across her perfect forehead. It would remain perfect for many years.

On Papilio, things like aging crawled to a standstill.

No one had explained her near-immortality to her yet. Information about her new life was best delivered in increments.

“It's… it is where we jump from, so that's what we call it.”

“That's funny. Does it have a fancy name like all the other places here?”

“Not really… well, come on. Let me show you.”

Beth was early for her rendezvous with Merrick—Jacky tagging along; she could afford to show Madeline the parts of her job that caused her soul to stir.

They came to the jumping room.

It mimicked the entrance to TCH, but had been built on a smaller scale.

Two marble columns with heavy fluting flowed up to the top and were crowned with cylindrical ends. A small pediment anchored the pair together, where two gallery doors nestled in between moldings of matching apricot-colored casement and jambs.

“It's so fancy!” Madeline said, stroking the smooth surfaces. The quartz within the bed of marble shimmered like snow blanketing Papilio hillsides on a rare cold day, when the sun caused it to glitter like a million diamonds.

Madeline was right. It was beautiful. It was also a serious place.

Above the entrance, the name of the order was etched into the marble:

Salire verum.

“Jump true,” Madeline translated, her eyes roving each scrolled letter. “Latin?”

Beth's brows lifted. “It looks like English?”

Madeline gave a bemused shake of her head. “I'm not really sure. I think I just understand it as it is, without knowing it's different.”

Just then, Jacky and Merrick walked up, and Beth stepped away from the entrance.

There were deep circles underneath Merrick's eyes. Beth would have asked the reason if they had been alone.

Madeline's anxious eyes tracked Merrick's every move, and Beth immediately understood that she had a schoolgirl crush on him.

However, for all her beauty, Merrick didn't seem to notice. His eyes were on Beth.

“What?” she asked him.

He rocked back on the heels of his All Star tennis shoes, which were still all the rage after an apparent one-hundred-year-plus popularity run on Three.

Beth had dressed herself in super-tight denims, a type of flat shoe with a small bow, and a top that had sleeves that ran too long; and elastic band held her hair. After their arrival, she would have to take it out later and roll the band onto her wrist—also some kind of fashion statement.

Beth hated conceding jumps without her typical braids, but they were odd on Three.

“Nothing,” he answered. “Just anxious to take off.” Merrick had switched to the English of Three.

“Me, too. This place!”

“Jacky, come on,” Madeline said, reprimand clear in her tone.

He ignored her. “It's B.O.R.I.N.G.”

“And him…” Jacky pointed to Jeb. “Never home.” Jacky's hair flopped around as he shook his head.

“Too busy getting his swag on.”

Merrick's neck reddened, and he gave Jacky a glare, which the boy ignored. It seemed like a pattern.

Booty calls, as Merrick was so fond of calling them. Beth was not enamored of the colloquialism.

They had never discussed how Ryan had put her in medical all those years ago. Or how likely it was to happen again.

He hadn't seemed to want to talk about it. That was fine by Beth. Telling him wouldn't change the outcome. Ryan hated her because he saw her as beneath him. The ultimate degradation would be for her to give into him in every way. Then she would stop being a threat.

Males were fairly transparent. As far as she was concerned, Ryan had Small Penis Predicament.

Beth didn't realize she was smiling when Merrick posed the sharp question of what she was thinking.

“Nothing,” she answered, shaking her head and not meeting his eyes. Suddenly, Beth remembered something.

“Did you get checked out by medical?”

She checked off the list of crap he could have—a host of untreatable STDs, for starters. Those had not been an easy thing to cure on any sector. They were stubborn and pervasive.

Merrick's chin kicked up at the expression on her face.

“What's wrong?” Madeline asked, searching the stern planes of his face.

“Don't get soft, Maddie—he's fine, or he wouldn't be able to jump, right?”

Merrick nodded, his face tightening at Jacky's rebuttal. Their postures were tense.

“My timepiece has gone sideways. It's no longer accurate.”

Beth clasped her hands behind her back.

“Slowed?”

That was the most common issue. A Reflective with a slowed timepiece would be hampered during the search for his or her soul mate because the timepiece kept ticking after the term of service.

“Sped.” His answer was clipped and final, brooking no further discussion.

Beth tread where the angels of legend did not dare, “Nightmares, decreased appetite?” Libido on fire?

He simply nodded.

Beth's eyes narrowed. “They cleared you for the jump?”

It was perilous times if medical had cleared Merrick despite a hosed timepiece.

She waited.

Merrick put his strong hands on his hips. The silence stretched.

“You understand the delicacy of this mission?”

Beth nodded, not allowing her eyes to move one iota toward Madeline.

Her stepfather would be dead in the next four hours if she and Merrick had anything to do with it.

Some might see their follow-through mission as murder.

They would deliver Jacky, who would be safe in his own sector. They would then witness the demise of Joe Zondorae, closing the original mission loop forever.

Then they would sanction Chuck, beater of females. That last part pleased Beth.

“I do.”

“Then you know why I must go.”

“Hey, guys, cut the Latin. It's rude as hell to talk in front of somebody in another language. Just sayin'.”

“It's a hush-hush mission, sass-pot,” Madeline replied, her mouth held oddly.

Beth realized that was her version of holding in laughter.

“God, Maddie! Not interested in being clueless.”

She released a smile. “You promised you'd check on my mom.” It was subtle, but Beth saw the quiver of her lip.

Madeline missed her mother.

Beth missed her own mother, though she’d never known her. Her birth parents were a dark secret to which only a very few were privy.

It pissed Beth off. What? Would she shrivel up and die if she were, say, part Section Seven? Maybe she had vamp blood, was shifter, or came from the fabled Singer ancestry? That would be interesting, though unlikely.

It didn't matter; they couldn't keep her records sealed forever. At twenty-one cycles she would know all that The Cause knew.

Beth dreamed of finding her birth parents—and of having a reunion.

“You did?” Merrick asked.

“Yes.” Beth gave him a full look, coming back to the present. “I promised to make sure she was well.”

Jacky snorted, and Merrick glared at him for silence, as if that would ever be effective. Beth's only sadness about depositing Jacky back on Three was that she wouldn't see the man he would become. Jacky would have made an excellent Reflective.

She smiled at him a little sadly then shook off her thoughts. “Let's jump.”

They pushed through the doors and entered the vestibule, a glass viewing box sandwiched between the jumping room and the entrance.

Beth turned to Madeline.

“You can watch from here.”

Madeline nodded, a small smile touching her lips. She appeared sad but determined to stay where her life was better. And she trusted that Beth would look after her mother.

“Don't open the door,” Beth cautioned.

Her face scrunched.

Beth laughed. “You'll get sucked into the vortex of the jump.”

“Oh.”

“Like a flushed toilet.” Jacky hooted.

“Great analogy,” Merrick scoffed.

“Works for me.” Jacky shrugged.

Madeline grinned. It faded when she looked at Jacky. “Come ’ere, goofball.”

His face turned red, but he did.

“Take care of yourself Jack-man.”

He allowed the awkward hug, just barely.

Jacky pulled away, swinging his hair out of his green eyes, all the more emerald for the bright-red shirt he wore.

“Chance'd be glad you were here, safe.”

Swollen silence reigned.

She nodded, swallowing. “I know.”

“See ya, Maddie.”

She put her hand in the air, and he tipped his finger at her.

The Reflectives walked into the jumping room.

Madeline didn't touch the glass when Beth put the shiny silver sphere in its nest on the marble pedestal.

Merrick took Jacky's hand, sandwiched between them.

Beth turned at the last second, making eye contact with Madeline. She knew from experience that Madeline would only see a vague iridescent outline of her body.

Ryan stood behind Madeline.

He waved at Beth.

*

Beth tumbled through the pathway, for once immune to the creeping sensation of burning ice.

Her mind was on the mental image of Ryan standing behind Madeline.

He would not hurt her, Beth knew.

She intimately understood how much it pleased Ryan to make her nervous.

He'd been successful.

Why he was sniffing around Madeline when there were a couple dozen female Reflectives more than willing to lay with him was confounding to Beth—and disturbing.

There had been nothing she could say to Rachett against his inclusion back into the ranks of Reflectives.

The memories of her conversation with Rachett flowed through her mind. She was helpless to shut them down.

*

“Reflective Jasper.”

“Yes,” she replied through gritted teeth.

“He has paid for his crime against you. Sector One is the vilest punishment we can offer.”

“What?” she asked. “He didn’t get to stick his wick in anything with a hole for a month? He didn’t get to parlay with all his wealthy Barringer buddies?”

Rachett’s face was like thunder. She’d overstepped her bounds by a kilometer.

“I cannot afford to show favoritism, Beth.”

“This?” she stabbed her own chest with her thumb. “This is favoritism? Ryan almost killed me.”

Rachett nodded. “I am aware. And no, there was no sex, no parties.”

“There was something, though.”

“What?” Her eyes searched Rachett’s face. She’d never forget the look in his eyes—as deep as the grave.

“Torture.”

Beth couldn’t contain her surprise, and he acknowledged it with a nod, pouring an amber liquid over the top of cubed ice in a crystal tumbler.

He tipped his head and threw it back.

It would have caught Beth’s throat on fire, but Rachett’s expression never changed.

“We have selected a group of Section One bloodlings….

“Bloodlings…” Beth whispered in muted horror.

The creatures of legend, half-vampire, half-One, were rumored to have the ability to walk in the day, unlike their cousins who hunted the night in Sector Seven.

“Lance Ryan healed,” Rachett commented dismissively.

“You let those… things… suck him dry?”

She felt her eyes bulge.

“I did,” he said, as serious as a priest.

Beth came to an understanding that day.

There were worse things than true death.

*

They were spit out of the pathway like newlings from a reluctant womb.

Beth landed hard.

Too much daydreaming and not enough preparation.

She did a somersault and landed on her ass with her legs out in front of her, breathing hard.

Merrick’s large hand stretched out and she took it.

He lifted her to standing.

Pitch-black night greeted them. It covered every surface, and Beth found herself momentarily disoriented.

But Jacky was not.

“Ah, hell. We have to walk it.”

“Where are we?” she asked, brushing off her clothes.

“About a mile from my house.”

Beth translated to metric.

One point six kilometers.

She barely caught her groan. It just wouldn't do. Really?

Merrick was already moving in the direction of Jacky's domicile.

Beth jogged to catch up, initializing her pulse.

A map grid lit up her screen. Jacky's house became larger until it filled the thin handheld viewer.

Got it.

She dove in alongside Jacky and Merrick, keeping pace easily, despite the filthy air, and the apparent night-vision issues seeming to plague Jacky.

“Damn!” he yelled, blowing whatever cover they'd hoped to maintain. “You guys have cat's eyes or somethinʼ?”

He klutzed along, banging into whatever was upright, all the way to his domicile. Streetlamps were not prevalent near Jacky's domicile.

They hung back on the sidewalk after arrival.

Low lights from the windows lit the front yard.

“That's weird…” Jacky said absently, studying the dwelling without approaching.

Beth frowned at his reaction.

“What?” Merrick asked, scanning the structure.

Beth didn't see anything amiss, either.

“Mom's not home.”

“Is that odd?”

Jacky's chin jerked back. “Hell, yeah, it's odd.” He snorted.

“I've been gone, she's probably had the entire universe looking for me. She'd be glued to the phone for sure…” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “Wait a sec—what day is it?”

“We try to jump on Thursdays. It's a better time. We're not sure why.”

“No, duh! The date?”

Beth looked at her pulse.

October 31.

About two weeks had passed since Jacky’s departure. Why was that day significant? Beth worked it mentally but couldn't remember.

Disgruntled, she turned to Merrick, but his attention was on a group of younglings making their way toward them.

They were dressed in a variety of costumes.

Suddenly, Beth knew.

Halloween: the creepy Three custom of begging for candy from others.

“Great,” Merrick commented.

“Hard to be inconspicuous.”

“This is the day my bro died,” Jacky said into the laughter-filled darkness.

Beth was startled.

She wasn't a fan of coincidence and was beginning to get an uneasy feeling.

From the tightness in Merrick's jaw, she saw she wasn't alone.

“Are you safe to be left here?” Merrick asked logically.

“Oh, yeah!”

But something in his expression held them back.

Trick-or-treaters weaved around them, utterly ignoring the presence of the two Reflectives in plain sight. The pulselights inside their small hands bobbed on the cement sidewalk ahead, lighting their paths.

She swung back to Jacky.

“My folks meet at his grave each year on the anniversary of Chase's death.”

“And that's where you believe them to be?”

Jacky frowned at Merrick. “Loosen up, would ya. Yeah, I think they're there.”

“We can take him to the yard of grave-stones.”

Merrick seemed to deliberate.

He nodded. “Yes, that would be fine.”

“You guys don't have to. I mean, I know you've got more important things to do.”

Merrick folded his arms as his eyebrows rose. Beth was a mirror of him.

“We do, do we?” Merrick asked.

“Yeah—like killing good old Chuck.”

That got their full attention.

“Why would you say that?” Merrick's face was carefully blank.

Beth's wasn't.

Jacky tapped his temple with two fingers. “’Cause I'm a thinker.”

He turned, walking away from his dwelling.

Jacky became very small as he left them on the sidewalk, swallowed by the dark.

Beth followed.

She heard Merrick’s soft tread behind her.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jeb and Jasper followed Jacky to a different cemetery from the one where they'd made the pulse fingerprint strip sale.

Jeb was disgusted that he had only a thousand in Three currency left because of the mess at the eatery.

But there was nothing he could do; it was, as they said on Three, spilt milk.

In this case, spilt cash.

The sign above the entrance identified the cemetery as Scenic Hill. Jeb knew without looking that they were still vaguely on the east hill of the Kent Quadrant but lower than its very highest point.

Jeb could make out the Kent Valley below, overtaken with industry. Very little of the food-producing crops of the twentieth century remained. He shook his head. All that fertile soil wasted beneath concrete and recycled quartz.

Only some were smart, but as a whole, humanity was stupid, each thinking of themselves and not the collective good.

Soon enough, intellectuals of the current generation would make innovations that would sway the sheep.

The cemetery was well lit—though the gate was secure.

“I bet they keep this locked ’cause there'd be an assload of vandalism tonight.”

Jasper frowned, no doubt at Jacky’s colorful vocabulary.

Jeb answered, “I suppose that'd be the ʽtrickʼ part of this ghoulish little fest.”

“Ya suppose right,” Jacky said noncommittally.

“Then how can your parents be in here...” Beth rattled the iron gates. They were secure.

“My dad's kinda sneaky.”

His eyes met theirs in the gloom. “It's an important reason anyways.”

He swung his face from theirs.

“Allow me,” Jeb said and lifted the flap of his denims, revealing a slim tool. It was contained on a fob, which held several slim utensils.

He touched the ends to his initialized pulse, and each one glowed.

“Estimates?” Jeb asked Jasper, knowing she had a better handle on history than he did.

Jasper stooped to examine the lock and sighed. “Mid-twentieth century?”

Jeb extracted a tool about the size of a pair of tweezers and muttered, “Pre-1960…”

He inserted the tool into the keyhole, and reluctant tumblers ground out their acceptance of his burglarized pulse-hybrid lockpicks.

Jeb smiled when the lock moved inside and popped open the gate.

“That is effing slick as hell,” Jacky said, impressed.

“It's definitely a benny of being a Reflective,” Jasper said.

Jeb's lips tilted. She really was quite good at the Three lingo.

They entered.

He turned and adjusted the lock to make sure it appeared secure upon casual observation.

Jacky was already far ahead of them, and Jeb lifted his chin at Jasper. She nodded and tucked in closer to him, though she left the minimum hand-to-hand combat distance.

Reflectives moved in loose groups. No one could engage properly if their close proximity constrained movement.

Jeb doubted seeing Jacky’s parents would warrant a defense. However, a Reflective was cautious first and presumptuous as a last resort.

They tracked Jacky as he moved between grave markers, climbing a small knoll. At the zenith stood three figures, one larger than the other two.

He frowned at what seemed a strange number but held their position.

Jasper distracted him by pointing to a sculpture just ahead of them. It towered at least four kilometers above them, a silvered glacial blue in the moonlight, which was waxing to full.

Jeb heard low voices and paused, moving to the marble angel, its trumpet between its pursed lips in mid-bellow.

“What is this?” Jasper asked.

Jeb gave a very small shake of his head.

“I don't know.”

He caught her eyes in the gloom, dark pools of onyx in her pale face. Jeb hesitated. “But I know I do not like it.”

He turned back, watching.

Jasper saw it first. “I know that male.” She straightened.

Jeb's vision narrowed, automatically going to the largest of the Threes. He held a fistful of Jacky’s shirt in his hand.

They had hung back to keep their presence concealed. They'd gone over the story Jacky would shout far and wide upon his return.

It had been quite good.

“Chuck,” Jasper identified, and he and Jasper stepped out from beneath the shadow of the statue.

The angel seemed to give her assent as they raced to the Three they had come to kill.

He had the young Three they intended to return to his parents unharmed.

What madness of coincidence was this?

Like Jasper, Jeb was not a believer in chance.

*

Jeb took the hill like everything else in his life—completely.

One moment, he was an observer of a sad family reunion. The next, he was cresting the knoll overlooking twinkling city lights like slow moving fireflies.

Jeb’s assessment was instantaneous. Chuck stood over Jacky’s parents, whose slit throats soaked blood into dirt that already held the dead.

Unfortunately, Chuck was smarter than he'd first appeared and had used his every scrap of intellectual prowess for evil.

He proved it instantly by laying a blade against Jacky's throat. His frenzied eyes landed like a painful boxing glove on Jasper's face, and Jeb felt his heart stutter between emotion, duty, and compromise.

“Let the boy go,” Jeb said as though he didn't care one way or the other, as though the boy's parents’ blood had not begun to leech into the canvas lace-up shoes he secretly loved.

Now they were just shoes seeped in the death of innocents.

“Where is my Maddie? You give me answers, and maybe this shitbag smartass lives.”

He seemed to think through the murk of his dirtied motivations. “Unlike that brother of yours. Now that—that was a work of art.”

Jacky's green eyes widened. The car accident hadn’t caused Chase’s death—Chuck’s deft manipulation had made it to look as though it was.

Jeb's fists clenched.

“Don't get squirrely on me, big guy. Stand down.” His gaze swung to Beth.

“Let the little bitch, if she feels froggy enough, jump on my lily pad.”

Jasper had been silent as a tomb. She spoke with conviction, and Jeb's heart squeezed at her words. “Let Jacky go, and I'll go with you.”

“No,” Jacky squeezed out from behind a hand buried in his throat.

Nodding, Chuck smiled. “Yeah. I think that's a good trade. I fuck up your little defiant princess here—I got the assholes that knew where Maddie's holed up, and I get to have fun.”

He pointed a large finger at Jasper. “No funny games, or the kid gets it.”

That was clear to Jeb. What wasn't clear was how he would get his partner out of this criminal's hands without her suffering.

Jeb thought about how he'd taken her as partner again. His mind touched on the abuse he'd meted out to Jasper in his nightmare.

His fists tightened.

Chuck taking Jasper out of his line of sight was not an option.

“Come ’ere, little girl.”

Jasper's expression soured.

Six feet three, two hundred forty pounds, former athlete, first third of life cycles.

Too young for the damage he's done to his body to have caught up. Size advantage, but slower than Jasper.

Chuck smelled like the pennies of Three, which still passed for currency but were no longer made.

He smelled of other people's blood.

Jeb didn't realize he'd moved until Jacky came sailing through the air, headed straight for him.

Jeb instinctively caught him.

It was well-played.

He set Jacky down quickly and spun to locate his partner.

The hill was vacant.

Jasper was gone.

*

Fifth: protect the young.

On his hands and knees, Jacky gasped for air.

Jeb eyes sought his partner in the tapestry of darkness peppered by silvery markers of the dead.

He assessed Jacky.

Bruised trachea, compromised breathing; debilitated by ten percent.

Eighth: defend those who cannot.

“Come on,” Jeb said to Jacky.

He didn't wait to see if the boy would follow, but ran headlong after where he thought Jasper would be.

How did she not subdue Chuck?

Was there something they hadn’t known? Jeb ticked off his age—Chuck was too old to have paranormal talent. He had a weapon, and though it would do the job, it should not have been sufficient to overcome Jasper. She was trained to counter all weapons from every explored sector.

He spotted tracks—two sets.

Jeb crouched, his fingers going to the depressions. Like railroad tracks from hundreds of years ago, they ran deep, side-by-side, and the heel moved the grass apart like a plow through grass waters.

Jeb closed his eyes, and his nostrils flared wide.

His eyes sprang open, and his vision speared a far corner. He stepped into one of the prints.

It wasn't a dragging heel print, but deep and long—laid by a male similar in size to Jeb.

Jeb's instep matched the pattern.

He ran, and Jacky followed, gasping.

*

A hand cracked across her face, and the stinging of flesh on flesh roused Beth like an ice-water dousing.

Beth's face swung with the momentum of the slap.

She knew how to take a hit, and fighting it meant more damage.

She was intimately aware of torture techniques, and she felt the bite of old-fashioned zip ties constricting her wrists as she was bound to a chair.

Putrid breath fell across her face, and Beth recoiled instinctively.

“Don't get shy on me now, sweetheart.”

His hands plunged into her unbraided hair.

Beth bit her lip to keep from crying out.

She opened her eyes; a sting like an insect bite was at her neck.

The bastard had juiced her with a sedative.

She shuddered to think about the sterility of the needle.

None.

Her mind churned through the possibilities.

That was how Chuck had overtaken Jacky's parents. It was fast working.

It robbed Beth's consciousness that fast.

While Jacky's parents lay on the ground they'd been sacrificial lambs to his blade.

How did Maddie survive this maniac?

She almost hadn't.

Chuck was speaking, and Beth had been slow in answering.

The second hit was harder, more accurate, and her mouth complied, spraying blood.

Some of the splatter hit Chuck in the face, and he casually swiped it away.

The impact had been close to Beth't temple, and the area would begin to swell, taking some of her vision along with it.

She spit blood.

“I said—where the fuck is Maddie?” His voice was a soft roar and Beth shook her head to clear it.

If she had not been Reflective, that last hit would have broken something. As it was—it'd hurt.

“Somewhere safe,” Beth replied.

Chuck paced, his large hands, adept at hitting, swung in agitated jerks and fits as he moved back and forth in front of her.

He turned, facing her. Beth could see that he ached to jerk her head back, using her hair as a handle. She suddenly wondered if her long hair would get her killed.

Chuck kicked the chair back, and Beth fell, her head smacking the floor, her hands crushed and immobile behind her. Her shoulders felt as if they were being torn out of their sockets.

She did cry out then.

“Good, not so tough as I thought.”

He bent down over her.

“You think I don't know what she was?” His face lowered over Beth. “That I don't know what you are?”

The wash of his rotten breath bathed Beth's face, and she leaned forward, clamping her teeth around his disgusting lower lip, and bit through.

He jerked up instinctively—the exact wrong thing to do.

Beth hung on, and his lip nearly tore off. Beth had to close her eyes against the heavy spray of blood.

His blood flooded her nostrils in a metallic slap, and she choked. Her teeth full of his flesh, her nose full of his blood, she couldn't breathe.

Still she held.

He roared and hit her in the head hard. It rang her bell, and her teeth released him as the chair she was bound in tipped to the side.

She landed hard and screamed.

Beth shook her head to free it of his vile leavings and saw his ruined mouth.

She'd always been an opportunist. And for that, she would pay.

He mewled like a wounded animal.

And anything wild retaliates when it’s injured because it feels cornered.

With a bellow, Chuck charged, and Beth waited, her heart a part of her throat.

When he'd grabbed the chair off the floor to right it, he swung her around, sending blood, spit, and hair flying with the force.

The chair legs creaked at the abuse.

Chuck jerked her close.

Beth bunched her unbound knee tight against her chest then drove it into his crotch with everything she had.

She prayed to Principle it was enough.

Chuck fell, and Beth did too. It was the first break of the night—she landed on a big parka that had been discarded on the floor.

She lay on her face, the chair riding her back like a monkey, ass in the air and her face planted in soft down.

She was suffocating in a jacket, tied to the chair while a dangerous Three lay just paces away, grabbing at his nether regions.

With every ounce of her diminishing strength, Beth turned her head. Glorious oxygen filled her burning lungs.

She coughed, and Chuck's muddy eyes trained on her face.

The planned cruelty she saw in the stare turned her veins to ice.

When Chuck recovered from her opportunist attack, it would be she who would be defenseless.

Beth closed her eyes, thinking of her life and how much of it was yet unlived.

She thought of Jeb.

The effort to keep the crystalized tears of her despair from falling was ugly.

*

Jeb's head cocked to the side when he thought he heard a vague scream.

Ten precious minutes they'd been looking for Jasper.

It was sufficient time for one human to do the unspeakable to another.

The trail had ended at a car's treads.

The spun mud had been flung along the sides of tree trunks in a villainous spray of indifference.

Chuck had left in one Hades of a hurry.

Jacky had managed to gasp out that there was a caretaker's shed not too far away and that Chuck held a part-time maintenance position there.

Sure he does.

“Can we run it?”

Jacky shook his head.

“You can,” he said, out of breath.

“Where?” Jeb asked. A muffled clap arrested his body, and his ears pricked, listening for Jasper.

Her scent was on the wind, like wild roses and woman. He caught it.

“Half mile that way,” Jacky pointed vaguely north.

Jeb ran, his heels kicking his own ass, his arms cracking against his side like spinning saws.

Breath tore at his throat as his hair swept back.

Scraping, then a clatter.

He shot to the left.

A roof—he could just make out the outline of black against a midnight sky. A crumbled, out-of-use chimney jogged out of the top like a rotting tooth hanging on by a thread.

The door was painted red like old blood.

Jeb never slowed down, swinging his leg out in a kick that took the handle, flinging it away and throwing the door open ahead of his momentum.

His mind was a camera shutter.

The scene filled his vision.

Click.

Jasper covered in blood, her face so soaked with it that only her eyes gazed unblinking back at him like stranded black gems.

Click.

A bloodied Three, his lip a torn flap of meat. A limping stagger told Jeb Jasper had worked him.

Click.

Jeb plowed into Chuck, upending him neatly.

They sailed into the back wall and through it.

Chuck swiped the knife out, and Jeb plowed the hilt with his fist.

It flew away harmlessly, and Jeb sank his fist into Chuck's throat, ending whatever words he'd thought to utter.

A gurgle leaked out as Jeb straddled him.

Jeb jerked Chuck up with one hand and joined his other around the Three's neck. He placed his thumbs underneath the meaty jaw, and his eyes met Chuck’s.

Jeb smiled as he spun that neck in the wrong direction.

Bone squealed for a moment's protest as he ended Chuck.

Jeb dropped the body and stood.

He turned around, staring through the hole in the shed and saw Jasper through it.

He'd never seen her cry—not once.

Jeb's hands shook; the rage had nowhere else to go. Killing Chuck twice wouldn't have been enough.

Tears made clean tracks through the blood on Jasper’s face.

Jeb wondered when logic had left him and emotion taken its place.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jeb had never felt empathy during a session of torture. It's not what Reflectives worried, or talked, about. They completed their mission.

Things occurred.

So why was he having so much trouble breathing as his ceramic switchblade cut through the obsolete binders that held Jasper's wrists?

Her hands fell, the brutal stripes against her flesh bleeding and raw.

He pulled her away from the chair, kicking it aside.

It rolled in a clatter, and Jeb sat on his ass, widening his legs.

He leaned forward, carefully sliding his powerful arms underneath Jasper's back.

She was so light as he pulled her onto his lap.

Her eyes were at half-mast. Consciousness was not full.

He extracted a clean towel from one of the utility pockets in his denims and wiped her face. It made a clean spot, but it wasn't sufficient. She needed a thorough cleansing.

“Hey,” he said when the velvet of her gaze swept past his own.

“Hey,” she whispered back.

Jeb meant to look away, he did. He found he could not. The dried blood, grime, and her wounded face needed attention.

He moved her head to the crook of his arm. The naked bulb swinging above them threw jagged shadows and light around the room and across her expression.

A fine bruise was beginning at the corner of Jasper's eye, and her opposite cheek was starting to swell from a hard slap to her ivory skin, marred with a hot-pink handprint.

“He's dead.”

She blinked slowly.

“Mission accomplished,” Jasper whispered as her head rolled more deeply inside his arm.

Jeb felt his heartbeat thump against her face.

The moment was a keen one—ready, alive.

Instinctual.

Beth felt it, too. She moved her face away from the hammering heartbeats against his ribs.

His eyes moved to her mouth, the only thing that was whole and perfect.

He licked his lips.

In that moment, Jeb was painfully aware of his long-term denial.

His hand moved to cradle her jaw, a thumb caressing the delicate bone. He took in the fluttering pulse at the base of her throat.

Beth swallowed, her wide eyes held on his.

Jeb's thumb touched the mouth he'd been looking at for months.

If he was honest with himself, it had been years.

Jeb brought Beth closer as he leaned down to meet her.

His lips touched hers, and his timepiece slipped away.

The speeding clock ground to a halt, and he took a breath of liberated air.

He no longer worked for The Cause but for his own happiness.

Jeb wound Beth's arm around his neck.

“No,” she whispered around his seeking lips.

But she didn't stop him when he pushed past the blood of another to the sweet center of her mouth.

Beth responded with an intensity that made him groan and convulsively tighten his hold.

“Oh, yes,” Jeb said, awoken as if from a dream.

He felt as though he had been given the perfect key to fit a lock for a room full of treasure.

And here she was. Here she had always been.

His soul mate had been under his nose for two decades, and he'd never known it. Jeb's mind and body had tried to tell him, but the timepiece ticked, keeping that realization at bay by the slimmest of margins.

Many things suddenly made greater sense.

He gently pulled Beth closer, holding her tight, his nose in her hair.

Jeb's body sheltered her from harm. He faced the door, his back to the wall.

****

Jeb noticed another presence in the building and stood with Beth in his arms.

She groaned.

His eyes went to her mouth again, and he tried to shake off the thrall.

“God… get a room,” Jacky said.

Jeb couldn't help but smile.

“I'll explain later.”

Jacky held up a hand. “Do ya think I need a play-by-play? I saw all the tongue dance.” He gave a little shake of his head.

They stood in awkward silence. Jacky's parents had been murdered, and he was obviously deflecting his emotions about the event.

“Listen,” Jeb began.

Jacky held up his palm, not looking Jeb in the eye.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Jeb saw the choked grief on the boy's face and sighed.

“Fine,” he answered.

“We need to get his body inside this shed and make our way back to your domicile. Then we can tend to Beth's wounds and figure out your situation.”

“What's to figure out? My fucking parents are dead.”

Beth opened her eyes, looking very small in his arms, shell shocked and beaten.

“Take me to the angel.”

Jeb's face must've shown his confusion.

“We've got enough moonlight.”

Realization dawned.

Jeb laid Beth on the floor, and that was when he saw the angry wound on her side.

She was bleeding quite badly.

Jeb smiled at her, and Jacky turned away from the tenderness he saw there.

“I can't keep you whole.” Sharp remorse cut the atmosphere of the room like a knife.

“You tried… Jeb,” she managed.

Their eyes met, and he walked through the hole in the wall before he picked her up again and kissed her while she bled to death.

*

Beth couldn't believe what had happened. She wasn't an idiot.

She'd witnessed the same besotted gaze from other males who'd found their soul mate.

She couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that she could be Jeb's.

Yet she couldn't deny the way he'd acted—and touched her.

Beth recognized delayed shock when she felt it. The wounds, the event… the revelation—they were all working at once.

Jeb moved Chuck's body inside the shed while Jacky stayed beside Beth. He didn't flinch when she walked her fingers over to his hand and took it.

Her unspoken condolence was enough.

Jeb scooped her off the floor effortlessly and took her to the angel who guarded the entrance of a mausoleum.

Faint stars flickered like imprisoned diamonds in the obsidian cloak of the night. Beth shivered with the cold, and Jeb covered her more securely with his body.

As he drew closer, Jeb grinned when the prize came into sight.

As though orchestrated, a single moonbeam hit the angel’s trumpet. Its solid antique brass was worn through in spots underneath the original chrome finish.

The brass was pockets of warm butter under the caress of the white-ish blue moonlight.

The chrome reflected.

Jeb saw Beth's face intensify as they drew closer. Hers were the eyes of a Reflective specially tuned to all surfaces that reflected.

“Jacky,” Jeb threw behind his shoulder, the word full of command.

A hand grabbed the back of his rough cotton shirt.

Jeb noticed Beth had on only one shoe, his eyes catching on one small swinging foot.

“Jeb,” Beth whispered. His name from her mouth was a tonic.

“Yes?” He hugged her to him.

“Hurry.”

Beth's torso was covered with blood, soaking his clothes.

It was a defensive wound.

Chuck had been aiming for something more vital, like the femoral artery.

Beth would not be in his arms if it weren't for her deflection.

Jeb could kill Chuck again. Once was simply not enough.

She was losing her battle with consciousness.

“There, look,” Jeb said, his jaw ticking in the direction of the trumpet.

It glowed, and she stared.

Jacky's hand slid down Jeb's shirt and his grip tightened on a belt loop.

Heat drove from the cold earth and overtook Jeb and Beth, licking out to encompass Jacky.

They stood in a raging inferno of heat and jumped. Beth was at the helm, Jeb guided, and Jacky held on for dear life.

Jeb kept the Jacky's domicile in the forefront of his mind.

He held Beth tightly as they traveled, his healing thrown out deep and hard like a perfectly pitched fast ball.

Jeb knew it might be everything she needed.

*

Beth awoke in stages.

She was floating—and warm. In fact, she was almost too hot.

Slowly her heavy eyelids opened, and Beth heard a heavy exhale to her left.

It sounded relieved.

Jeb stared down at her, taking her hand from the bathwater, and a blush rose to burn along her skin.

Beth gazed at her body.

A bra and panties remained. She let her head fall back against the rim of the tub—more relieved than she could stand. If she’d enough energy, she would have laughed at herself. She was more female than she knew.

She'd almost died, and she was worried about being nude in front of Merrick—Jeb.

Beth rolled her head toward him. The coolness of the porcelain cleansing rim felt divine.

Looking into his eyes, she realized that maybe her worry hadn't been for nothing. Heat and tenderness were in a gaze that had only regarded her with detached interest before.

A curtain had swung aside to reveal his true feelings.

Jeb's large hand stroked her small one, every bit of him engaged with every bit of her.

She heard the dry click of her throat.

“Where?” she croaked, and he brought a cup of water to her lips, lifting her neck so she could drink. He set it on a rim of a sink that sat atop a pedestal.

“Am I?” she finished after the drink of heavenly water. Contaminated or not, it was some of the best she'd ever had.

Jeb didn't look away. “We're at Jacky's domicile.”

“Oh,” was all that Beth could muster.

Jeb seemed to understand her extreme awkwardness and said, “You're not fully healed.”

His thumb stroked along the outside of her eye lightly. “But the worst of it is gone.”

Beth saw where Chuck had nicked her thigh, which had caused an inevitable bleed-out for sure, but only a vague reddish stripe remained. Healing from another Reflective left no scars.

This would be no exception.

Beth would not ignore the pink elephant in the room.

Half-naked, wounded, and healing in a strange domicile on Three, she would ask the tough questions that needed answers.

“What's happened?”

Jeb arched a dark-blond brow.

“Besides you almost dying a horrible death at the hands of an accomplished sadist? Well…”

“Just tell me.”

His pale eyes regarded her steadily.

“You are the One,” he said carefully.

Beth shook her head in denial.

“I can't be—I'm Reflective.”

Jeb scrubbed his head with his free hand. She took in their linked hands.

His was so big that she couldn't see her own.

“You are—you have blood from another sector, Beth. I have no explanation. It is what it is. I feel as I feel. I can't quantify it, discount and certainly can't ignore it.”

Beth blew damp hair out of her face and Jeb tucked a strand behind her ear.

This new Jeb was beyond strange.

“I'm not pretty, Jeb. You have been with every Reflective. They are all more beautiful than me.”

He moved her chin until their gazes locked.

“I never was one to follow the Papilio ideal as perfect. And I haven't been with every Reflective.”

“Most,” she accused, and he inclined his head, a faint smile etched on his perfect lips.

“You understand what this means. That I know that you are my perfect counter, but you do not. That you, as the female, will know your perfect male.”

Beth nodded. It was the paradox of truths.

“And you must duel if I find that male.”

His eyes latched onto hers and wouldn't let go. She couldn’t look away.

“To the death.”

“Jeb—don't do this. Pretend your timepiece worked perfectly, and it was just because I happened to be there when it failed. Don't deal with the ridicule and strife from being with… someone like me.”

Mongrel, ugly, small… female.

Jeb rubbed her cooling arm that rested on the rim of the tub against his cheek. “That is one of the reasons I know you are she.”

“What? Why?” Beth could feel the incredulity on her face.

His gray eyes lit on her expression.

“Because I'm too selfish to be attracted to someone like myself. A soul mate must be the complement, the other half. It's well documented.”

Beth smiled. Then she laughed.

“Not going to deny it then?” Jeb asked, his eyes smiling along with his mouth.

“No,” she managed through her laughter. Her ribs ached while Jeb's face adored her.

Maybe she could get used to this new Jeb Merrick.

But what of their return to Papilio, when every Reflective would hate them? When they would seek her out for injury, thinking it had been her bid to win him?

What of the future male who waited for her when the timepiece she held degraded?

Not much scared Beth.

That epiphany terrified her.

Beth was brave, yet she couldn't fight everything.

*

Jacky's lip trembled until he captured it in his teeth. He slid the clothing through the cracked door.

Beth was submerged to the top of her chin in the tub.

“Here's some stuff that doesn't have blood and shit all over it.”

He closed the door, and Beth stood, rivulets of water trailing down her body. She stepped out of the tub and locked the door.

It was more a mental security.

If Jeb wanted to get to her, he could instantly. However, Beth liked the illusion of modesty the locked door afforded.

She stripped the panties and bra off and tossed them in the trash.

Beth moved to the tub, where she popped the drain and jerked the faucet to the hottest setting.

She simply could not get warm. Baths were nice, but she preferred not to float in her own filth.

Beth stood under the spray, missing her cleanser from home but grateful for this one.

She washed her body twice, opening her mouth to get the horrible taste of the Three out, thinking about Jeb's kiss.

She lathered her hair then rinsed the suds slid down the drain, a vague pink stain chasing them.

She rinsed again.

Beth toweled off then dressed in the foreign clothing. The denims were almost perfect, but a tad too long. The shirt and bra were very tight across her breasts.

She swiped an arm against the fog on the mirror and braced herself for the reflection, fighting the urge to jump.

It was very powerful compulsion for every Reflective when faced with a looking glass.

She opened a new toothbrush and scrubbed her teeth until only her own scent and the feel of smooth teeth remained.

She leaned against the sink, and thick shame enveloped her.

Beth had cried like a weak female in front of Jeb.

Her gratefulness, her relief, had needed release.

He’d happened to witness it.

Where was the hardcore Reflective you used to be?

She gazed in the mirror. A soft triangular face filled the image. Large eyes so dark they were almost black stared back, looking vaguely shocked inside the sea of ivory skin. Raven hair tickled her waist, and she had a sudden longing for the normalcy of tight braids.

She saw no beauty in the reflection. Pale-green or blue eyes were not present. Beautiful gold or platinum locks were absent.

Beth was bland by Papilio standards.

But she was herself.

Sometimes, that was enough.

*

Beth peered out of the bathroom.

A ticking clock borrowed the silence of the house.

The lack of voices filled her with disquiet as she tiptoed out of the bathroom and down a corridor covered with a strange soft floor beneath her feet.

Oh yes, carpet, she remembered absently.

Beth longed for a weapon, her right hand itching for the solid weight inside her palm. But cocky Jeb had figured he would be the big man and protect her.

Deep inside, it didn't make sense. Nothing but death would keep a Reflective separated from his or her soul mate.

That knowledge tightened something in her chest.

Beth should be grateful for his protection and the close call he'd interrupted. Yet she felt resentful, and she wasn't sure why. She was vulnerable without the small arsenal she usually carried.

Reflective men were meant to shelter and protect their mates, and Beth didn't need that. Besides, she wasn't his mate.

Yet.

The inevitable was a pressure inside her skull. She waited for her head to explode.

Beth had needed assistance that night. She could feel herself frown. Low voices filled the main room, and she walked out, recognizing the timbre of Jeb's immediately, her chest loosening again with relief.

What she had not been prepared for was a stabilizer pointed at Jeb's chest.

Beth's pulse went from resting to rioting.

Lance Ryan held Jeb at gunpoint. Jacky was behind Jeb, who was shielding the boy with his body.

“Hi, Mongrel.” Those perfect pale seawater-green eyes locked onto her.

Beth's heart sank. Her eyes went to Jeb's, and he shook his head.

Ryan raked his gaze over her.

She didn't like that he lingered on the curves that were proof of her gender.

Not at all.

Anything that made Beth afraid made her angry. She latched onto that emotion. It was safer.

“What do you want?” Her voice was calm.

Ryan smiled, thrilled to deliver some kind of awful news. “I've been sent to fetch you back.”

That surprised Beth. She felt the shock to her toes.

Why would Rachett send Ryan, of all Reflectives?

“Your face!” Ryan whooped, slapping his thigh, and Jeb made a small movement.

“As you were.” The ceramic barrel of the stabilizer nodded at Jeb, and he stilled.

“Why?” Beth asked.

“It's been five years,” Ryan announced, watching her with keen interest.

Beth steadied her heart rate. “For what—five years for what?”

Ryan sighed, obviously put out by her perceived slow intellect.

“Since you jumped.”

Beth's head swam, her heartbeats going back into overdrive.

“No.”

“Oh yes!” he squealed in delight.

Beth didn't believe him. “Then why weren't you sent sooner?”

Jeb's eyes narrowed.

“Anarchy, my dear mongrel. The Cause has been overthrown and your precious Rachett has been tossed out on his ear.”

Beth felt her mouth drop open.

Many things flashed through her mind. Madeline, her dwelling, The Cause—a mainstay since before recorded history?

My butterflies!

“Oooh, this is too fun! Your face, the horror. The devastation—the loss.”

“Stop it, traitor,” Jeb said through his teeth.

Ryan laid the butt of the stabilizer in Jeb's stomach in a bursting strike.

He doubled over soundlessly.

Beth wanted to cry over her brave partner being brought down by a corrupt warrior of The Cause—if there was still a Cause.

Ryan strode to Beth, and she did an evasive maneuver that was as automatic as breathing.

She slammed her palm into his nose as she moved into his charge. Beth knew she'd struck home when there was a sharp crunch of a broken nose followed by blood.

Ryan jumped, striking her in one motion.

“Beth!” Jeb bellowed.

It was too late. Beth was falling, a new injury against the old.

She landed on the floor, hand to cheek, looking up at the newest nightmare.

Beth struggled to catch her breath, her eyes swinging to Jeb but posing the question to Ryan. “What are you doing? Why come after us?”

“I can't help you if I'm dead,” Jeb explained quietly while the stabilizer was trained on his head.

“Too true, Merrick. Smart, for once. Not that this little mongrel whore is worth saving.”

He doesn't know.

Relief swamped Beth.

If Ryan had known that Jeb had claimed her as his soul mate, she would already be dead.

Jeb's eyes begged for her silence.

Ryan stared down at her with disdain.

“Because I don't want to deal with you in Papilio. It's a new order.”

Beth didn't ask him, just held his eyes in a contemplative glare.

“No? You won't ask? Well, mine—of course.”

He smiled.

“I was always meant to be leader, and I've worked these past five years for the revenge I needed for true joy, Beth.”

The use of her name was not intimate.

It was frightening.

Ryan's eyes flicked to Jeb and Jacky. “Stand down, or I'll stabilize you into forever.”

“You,” His eyes burned holes through her. “I know where you're going.”

Beth didn't ask but gave solemn eyes to Jeb instead. His face was a mask of hate and anger—not for her, but for his inability to protect her.

She clamped down on her emotions.

“Where?” Beth ground out.

“Sector One.”

Beth burst from her position and ran in the opposite direction.

Ryan easily caught her around the waist, tearing her into the bathroom. He locked the door and forced her face to look into the reflection, his fingers biting into her chin to keep it stationary.

His image smiled at her.

Her dark looks contrasted with his light. Whoever said evil was dark had never danced with the devil.

She heard the door crack with the weight of a massive shoulder being thrown against it.

Jeb.

A wave of heat consumed them.

Then they were gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Beth was not fully healed, hurtling through the pathway with Ryan clamped onto her like a second skin.

Upon landing, the first thing Ryan would do was subdue her.

That was what Beth would have done to control another. That was what they had been trained to do.

Beth knew how to subdue others without killing them.

Her last thought before they burst out of the pathway in a free fall was the struggle she would have in getting away from Ryan.

Ryan had been in charge of the sector jump, but Beth was the strongest jumper they had, and her worry had translated into a more specific location of her choice.

She had the advantage of surprise.

The water slapped her face hard as she landed.

Beth ignored the pain and dove deeper, having sucked the air from the atmosphere as she fell.

Beth came up for air and immediately began swimming away from Ryan.

She moved true—hard, then she turned over and heaved backward.

Ryan was approaching fast behind her.

His reach was longer.

Beth didn't panic; she had never been prone to that.

Instead, her arms sliced the water as she flicked her eyes behind her, finding the shore easily.

It was a quarter kilometer away.

Doable.

Ryan trained his eyes on her while he attacked the water that lay between them.

He ate the distance as she moved backward.

Ryan began to gain, only two body lengths away from her.

She poured on the speed, her arms smooth propellers in the water, churning her backward.

Beth hadn’t been wearing shoes when Ryan had taken her, and that helped. Ryan’s combat boots were like lead weights that slowed him.

Beth felt something solid underneath her back and stabbed soft sand with arms that shook with fatigue and spent adrenaline.

She scuttled backward and turned to her hands and knees then jumped to a standing position.

Her sodden clothes added unacceptable weight.

Beth ran forward, staggering on the sand dune that led to the crest of the hill. Sweeping sea grass, a solid wave of bleached green, whispered in the slight breeze off the shore.

She heard splashing behind her and drove harder toward the top of the hill.

It wasn't a Reflective sector, most materials were banned. But she needed only the smallest thing to jump.

Anywhere but here. If she found a reflection small enough, Ryan wouldn't be able to follow her.

Beth's eyes scanned the environment: grass, sand, sky… no buildings, no glass—certainly no mirrors.

She couldn't go back to use the water—Ryan was behind her.

Beth picked up speed, moving into a sprint, arms jaggedly pumping by her side in a brutal rhythm as she made the top of the hill, only to grind to an abrupt halt against a wide muscular chest.

The air plowed out of her, and she made an oofh sound.

Beth would've bounced off had it not been for the hand that circled her forearm, gripping it to steady her.

Dark eyes, as brown as her own, regarded her with guarded amusement, and Beth balked. Reflectives knew every species and sub who resided in all the explored sectors. She found herself kissing distance from the most dangerous one.

Bloodling.

The fangs gave him away.

She could hear Ryan's breath as he barreled up behind her.

Beth remained quiet. She knew what awaited her at Ryan’s hands.

She tried to take the new threat in stride.

After all, the male bloodling had not killed her.

Yet.

“Take your hands off my prisoner, bloodling.”

Ryan's voice sounded so sure.

The bloodling studied Beth, his dark eyes roving each part of her face, moving down to her soaked clothes.

Beth realized every part of her body was on full display before him. Despite the dire circumstances, Beth found she could still be embarrassed.

His eyes snapped to hers. “Why are you uncomfortable that I look at you.”

Oh, Principle.

Before she could answer, his eyes narrowed, black brows falling over his eyes.

“Who has put these marks on your face?” His suspicious face swung to Ryan behind her.

“She doesn't appear to be a prisoner by choice, Lance Ryan of Sector Ten.”

Silence.

“She is payment to Dimitri.”

Payment?

More silence.

“What is your business here, my tiny frog?”

The bloodling's face was hard but his eyes held a tender edge as he regarded her.

Frog?

Beth looked at the silent faces of other bloodlings, one of several demographics on Sector One.

They were all terrifying. One was known for its brutality. Ryan’s need for payment could only mean one thing: he had been jumping there to entering in illicit sports, barbaric bribes… any multitude of things.

Beth shored up her confidence, but he could scent her anxiety, his nostrils flaring, his eyes fast on her face.

“I… Ryan claims that my home world is in… upheaval.” Beth simply didn't know how much of what Ryan had said was true. The odds of it being all lies wasn't looking good.

“What does Papilio have to do with your presence here?”

Tell the truth. He’ll scent a lie. All bloodlings could.

“I was on a jump, and it went badly.”

The understatement of that was profound. Saying less was definitely more.

His eyes roamed the wounds of her face, the latest of which Ryan had put there.

“I smell his abuse on your face,” the bloodling said decisively.

He leaned forward and Beth tensed.

“I will not harm you.”

His nose skimmed her face, stopping at each wound, leaving none without his attentions.

When he finished, his face was like stone as it turned to Ryan.

“Leave.”

Beth could hear the pause, feel it.

“No, she is my prisoner to do with as I want. I was hunting her down when you bloodlings got in the way. This is Sector Ten business.”

Bullshit.

“Tiny frog,” the bloodling began.

“I am Reflective Beth Jasper,” Beth replied. She didn’t like or understand the amphibian nickname, but it made her uncomfortable.

Hades, but it all does.

“Jasper, like the stone?” His eyes held warmth as they touched her face, and Beth felt well, whole.

She gazed into those dark pools and everything became calm, clearer. “Yes,” she said, her mind growing fuzzy as she gazed into his eyes.

“Jasper!” pain split into her head, and she felt herself being pulled against the bloodling male.

“He had you in thrall that fast, mongrel.”

“Who do you call ‘mongrel,’ hopper?” The bloodling's response was immediate.

Ryan was quiet.

Beth's head tipped back, and the bloodling, who was close to Jeb's size, stroked the damp hair off her forehead.

“Shhh, Beth Jasper.”

Her mind told her to struggle out of his hold, to run from them all.

Then a vague instinctive response unfurled deep within Beth in answer to his touch.

That quickly, she knew what foreign blood she held.

It was not just any species in Sector One—but bloodling.

Still, in her heart, Beth was Reflective.

She would plan her future, not be taken in the ever-changing current between two sectors—and two males.

She was capable of great calculation.

Beth tentatively touched the pale-gray skin of the bloodling's neck; it was all she could reach.

Color bled across his cheekbones. Dark-ebony hair was tied at his nape, and it fell forward as he leaned to hear what she was going to say.

Beth rose on tiptoes, her palms on his chest for balance.

“Save me from him, bloodling. Don't let him have me.”

His nostrils flared as his pupils dilated in response.

“Never, blood of my blood,” he replied.

“Jasper—no!” Ryan yelled.

Beth turned in the arms of her new captor, staring Ryan down as bloodlings strolled casually toward him.

There was no pity left in Beth, only survival.

She would do what she must.

*

Jeb was frantic as fuck.

That prick Ryan had hurt Beth and taken her to Sector One. He could taste the tailwind. As if I had any doubt.

He kicked the broken shards he'd made of the door, and they skittered across the cheap floor covering.

He'd seen Beth’s eyes as Ryan's forearm lay pressed against her throat.

Jeb was haunted by the fresh memory of her wide eyes.

He would not have to be if he could just get to Sector One. His gaze went to Jacky.

“We need to go.”

Jacky was clearly shocked. “I'm not going anywhere with you crazy-ass loons!”

Jeb marched over to Jacky, his pulse a deep abiding pain in his throat.

“Listen and listen carefully.”

His eyes bore down on the Three teen. Jeb experienced a minor flicker of guilt, knowing how he would need to emotionally hack away at the boy.

But his soul mate was in danger.

Jeb's gut clenched at the thought of her in the tender care of that psychotic, Ryan.

Jacky's mouth clamped shut.

“Your parents are dead.”

Jacky's brows rose. “Really? Ya think? ’Cause I was totally there, dude. And it sucked ass.”

Jeb's eyes closed. He counted to ten.

Opening them again, he plowed forward, “You have no other guardianship, so it falls to me. My soul mate has been taken by a man that was tortured on Sector One for his transgression against her.”

Jacky's face fell. He was beginning to understand the magnitude of the situation. “Holy crap.”

“Yes,” Jeb said in a terse clip, hoping he'd reach him with reason.

“It is the most dangerous sector of the thirteen. I can't take you there. We'll have to return to Papilio…”

“That's now fucked up?” Jacky asked, the disbelief plain on his face.

Jeb let out the pent-up frustration in an explosive breath.

“Yes.”

“Well, as I see it, if that assjack, Ryan?” Jeb nodded, and he continued, “If Ryan was telling the truth, then anything could be happening there.”

“I will find Kennet and Calvin, and they can help me retrieve Beth.”

“If ya can.”

Jeb's fists clenched.

“Listen—Merrick, you're a bad-ass Reflective and all, but Ryan handed you your ass with that gun…”

“Stabilizer.”

His eyes sailed upward in a hard roll. “Whatever. And your girlfriend isn't without skills. Just in case you hadn't noticed.”

Jeb scrubbed his face. “I don't have time to defend the indefensible. Ryan took me by surprise. I've never had a fellow Reflective turn.” Jeb scowled.

“Beth is not my girlfriend.”

“She's something.”

“She is my soul mate.”

“How does that work?” Jacky asked.

“I don't have the time…”

“I can't help unless I know the why.”

Merrick caught a disbelieving bark as it escaped him, and it sounded as if he were choking. “You're not going to help. I will sequester you from harm in Papilio, collect reinforcements, and rescue Beth.”

Jacky folded his arms. “You think you got it all figured out, but I know ya don't.”

Jeb clenched his jaw.

“Let's go.”

“No. Piss off.”

Jeb moved toward him.

“I'd rather take my chances on Earth, than deal with all your stupid shit.”

Jeb's mind worked. He was honor bound to take the boy, who had been orphaned in part because of their interference.

He felt a stab of shame.

It didn't stop him from doing what he must.

“What of Madeline?”

The Three teen, who had just seen the death of his parents and brother within a year of one another, lost the bravado that had been the glue keeping his emotions together.

“No,” Jacky said, his face crumpling.

“She might not be safe in Papilio,” Jeb pressed.

Jacky's hate-filled eyes latched onto Jeb.

“You bastard.”

Jeb couldn't deny the truth. “Yes.”

He stared at Jeb a moment more.

“Fine. Let's go.”

They walked to the bathroom, where the mirror captured their faces: Jeb's set in stone, the boy's resolved.

Jeb let the mirror, the purest conduit of transfer, guide them. A locator wasn't necessary.

They would be home to Papilio shortly.

Or whatever was left of it.

*

Jumping to Jeb's home world was usually akin to slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes.

Not this time.

He landed in the wood that bordered the vineyards and the greater quadrant of Barringer.

He and Jacky lay on the mossy floor of the wood, catching their breath. Jeb's eyes adjusted to the gloom, his heart hammering against Jacky's back.

“Let go of me.”

Jeb released him, and Jacky turned and stood.

Jeb's breath caught in his throat as he also stood and got a hard look at Jacky.

It was true then—all of it.

“What the hell is your problem?” Jacky asked.

“It has been five years.”

“Yeah? That's what numb nuts said.”

Jacky threw up his arms into the air and laughed. “Like his traitorous ass can be trusted.”

His eyes narrowed at Jeb's silence.

“Why are you lookinʼ at me like that?”

“You'll see when we get to my place.”

Jacky's eyes narrowed. “I don't like secrets, Merrick.”

Jeb turned. “Let's just see if my domicile is secure, and we can go over our… options from there.”

Jacky stewed. He seemed to come to terms with how limited his options were. He basically had none. “Eff—fine.”

They began walking toward town. Jeb stuck to the shadows, and Jacky followed him closely.

Twice, he fell down and swore. “I'm graceless! What the hell…?”

“Quiet.”

Another curse, then trampling after Jeb again.

When Jeb was finally within sight of his dwelling his stomach dropped.

Every window bore automatic bars, the main entrance had a steel-reinforced secondary door, and the roof had sprouted spikes through the thatching.

Jacky's mouth was agape. “What is this? Armageddon?”

“An apt analogy,” Jeb replied dryly.

“How do we get in? It's a damn fortress!”

Jeb lifted his thumb.

“Ah, yeah, that's right—you guys have pulse tech like us.”

Not exactly like.

Jeb was cautious, creeping along the building's shadows, not liking the absolute silence.

“This is creepy.”

Jeb agreed.

Finally, he came to the back entrance and slid his thumb into the pocket that housed the thumbprint-reader pad.

The door whispered open, and they slipped inside. When it closed behind him, Jeb skirted the elevator, taking the stairwell like a man being chased by the devil himself.

He heard Jacky follow him, not as smoothly as before, but that was to be expected.

After he’d placed his thumbprint to another pulse reader, his dwelling door opened.

Five cycles of dust greeted Jeb. The staleness of an uninhabited dwelling that was empty of life surrounded him like a decomposing cocoon as Jacky entered at his heels.

“Go to the cleansing room and look in the mirror. Not the short one above the sink, but the full-length one that hangs behind the door.”

“What? Why?” Jacky asked, slightly out of breath.

“It's easier.”

“You are so screwed up.” He stomped off.

But Jeb's mind was on Beth.

He barely heard the hoarse, surprised shout from the cleansing room.

Jacky was just suddenly there.

“Explain this,” Jacky said, running a palm over the surface of his body.

“It's been five years,” Jeb repeated, already walking to his bed to cram gear into his pack. He needed to find Calvin and Kennet—like yesterday.

“Merrick.”

Jeb turned.

“Tell me why I look like a guy now.”

Jeb's eyebrows jumped. “You need me to tell you that you're clearly male?”

Jacky sighed. “You're humor sucks donkey dick. Tell me why I was almost thirteen thirty minutes ago, and now I'm…”

“Nearly eighteen.”

Jacky threw up his hand in perceived relief that Jeb understood the crux of it. “Looks like it.”

Jacky was on the verge of manhood, over six feet, chestnut hair deepened to dark brown, his eyes the same jewel-like green they'd been since that first ill-fated jump to Three.

He'd skipped right over all his awkward adolescence and landed on the good side, gaining the muscles and height without the acne.

The arrogant edge that came with young-male territory remained firmly in place, Jeb noted.

“Time moved on here. You simply can't stay the age you were on Three when five years have passed on Papilio.”

“I'm not complaining. I look kick ass!” He flexed his muscles for emphasis.

Jeb did a slow perusal. He looked as he should.

Jacky noted, “You don't look any different.”

“I am Reflective.”

Jacky made a sound in the back of his throat. “Yeah, and that makes all the difference?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other.

“What about Maddie? I thought you said she'd be safe.”

Jeb hung his head.

The females.

When his head rose, he clashed with eyes that held an artificially gained maturity they should not have had.

“Ya don't know, do you?”

Jeb shook his head. “We will ascertain much by just finding my comrades.”

“Are these backstabbers like Ryan…?”

“No, these are real Reflectives, not”—Jeb spoke to the floor—“not the Reflective Ryan has become.”

Jeb dare not let himself speculate about the ousted Rachett.

Jeb straightened, taking a look around his dwelling. He clapped Jacky on the back. “Grab some nourishment, I don't know when our next meal will come.”

“No offense, Merrick, but after five years—you don't have anything worth foraging for.”

Jeb clenched his teeth.

Beth.

“Let's go.”

“We're finding Madeline, right?”

Eventually.

“Yes.”

“Okay, let's blow this Popsicle stand.”

Jeb stood for a moment, translating the slang.

He nodded. “Let's.”

They left the way they'd come—in stealth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Beth held the flinch inside as Ryan fought off four bloodlings before the fifth and sixth joined in, bringing the Reflective to his knees.

Blood fell in a constant stream from his mouth.

His gaze locked on Beth.

“Don't look at her, hopper,” said a young bloodling, perhaps eighteen cycles.

“You shall not look upon our females.”

Beth did tense then. They were staking species claim on her.

Ryan wasn't finished, though. He caught the arrogant bloodling’s muscular leg mid-swing. He twisted the ankle, and the bloodling screamed in agony as Ryan broke it and surged forward.

Stopping a Reflective was nearly impossible. They had brought him down but not arrested his momentum.

He would get his hands on her.

They need more males.

Beth tore away from the male who held her.

She had thought seven against one was good odds, but Ryan was a vicious fighter. He'd been the best in hand-to-hand combat in their class of twenty-odd recruits.

She bounded over the top of the sand dune, with Ryan in hot pursuit.

Beth was simply outclassed. If she were Ryan's size, she would have a chance, but pound for pound, inch for inch—it was too much disparity.

A strong hand clamped down on her shoulder and spun her around. Ryan's face was a pulverized mask of blood. Beth didn't hesitate, jabbing him in the throat with everything she had. She closed her eyes against the blood spray as he wrapped her lower body with his arms and slammed her onto the sand.

A hard surface would have broken her back. As it was, her teeth snapped together, but she found she still had breath in her lungs to scream.

She shrieked in Ryan's face, full bodied, releasing every bit of loathing, rage, and accumulated injustices in the long agonized wail.

He hesitated in surprise, and she bit the hand he’d clamped over her mouth, bringing her knee up as she did. Ryan deflected it with his own leg and spread her legs with his knees as she lay beneath him. He pinned her arms above her head with one powerful hand.

Her panic flared.

He's too big!

Beth fought in earnest.

Ryan flipped his bleeding hand off her mouth, and she bellowed into his face. He grunted as a foot landed on his rib cage like an interfering insect sting.

He wound his hands around Beth's throat, ignoring everything but ending her life.

She bucked her hips, but his knee kept her legs wide, splayed like a bug on a scientist's board, pinned and helpless.

Beth would have given anything for a reflection. Her eyes scanned the midnight blanket behind the pale moon and faded stars, her hands locked tight against his straining arms, pushing him off as he dug against her deeper.

Fight!

Beth's eyes began to get heavy on the forever twilight of the sky. Her hands fell away, plopping to the sand.

Her vision dimmed.

Through the slits of her fading eyesight, two hands clamped down on Ryan's neck.

Breathe, Beth commanded dimly.

The hands pulled Ryan off her, and eyes like the deepest part of night peered into her face, but she was too oxygen deprived to fight back.

Beth fought to hold on to her slipping consciousness, trying to swim against the tide of her abused esophagus toward healing oxygen.

She lost.

*

Beth was floating.

Again.

She didn't know where she was. Her eyes fluttered open and latched onto a wooden box of a room. It was dark, but she could make out the shape of each tongue-in-groove board of the wood. A window without glass framed a view of a dense tree canopy.

Beth sat up, and her clothes began to steam. She lifted her hands and could make out the pruning of her palms and fingertips.

She was in a huge tub of black liquid. She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

She struggle to get out of the tub, then a voice from the shadowed darkness of the room said, “Stop. I will help you.”

Beth almost fell, but she gripped the edge.

“Who—” Her voice cracked, and she tried again, “Who are you?”

Fuck this. “Where is Ryan?”

Beth hated the fear that stretched her voice into a thin breathy whisper.

“We left him for the nightlopers.”

Beth shuddered. Even a Reflective would be hard pressed to escape that species.

Barely humanoid, they had evolved specifically to hunt—to kill. Another evolved Sector Seven mess.

“They'll kill him,” Beth said in a flat voice.

The bloodling who had saved her moved into the vague moonlight, which was brighter now that true night had fallen.

A fierce shriek sounded and Beth flinched.

There they are. The mournful howls of the nightlopers filling the night.

“Where are we?”

Her eyes found his in the darkness. Like black coins in the pearl-gray flesh of his face, they were silver in the moonlight.

“We are safe from those below.”

Chatty male.

Beth swung wet hair out of her face and noticed that her throat felt better than it should. She rotated it again.

Near perfect, tender, but workable.

She peered down at the water swirling around her legs.

Not water—blood.

Beth scrambled out of the tub, and the bloodling laughed from his belly.

He reached out and clamped onto her arms, steadying her.

Attempting to escape would have been useless. They were in a fort in the trees, with nightlopers beneath them, Ryan wasn’t certainly dead, and she was in dire need of sustenance. Beth hung her head.

Despair choked her.

She longed for Jeb, for Papilio.

“I am Slade.”

Beth's head jerked up. “Who? The Slade?”

“There isn't another one.”

Bloodlings went by only one name; no two were alike. In the lore, bloodlings’ history spoke of vampire jumpers from Sector Seven who had landed on One, never to return. Those jumpers had evolved into the bloodlings.

She studied him by the light of the moon. His body was like a Reflective's; he had long, muscular legs made for jumping and wide-set eyes with unusually large irises, perfect for night and peripheral vision.

Beth remembered that she possessed the most acute night vision of any Reflective.

“Does my reputation precede me?”

His amusement at the mess she was obviously in pissed Beth off.

She folded her arms across her soaking chest. “I've never jumped to One.”

Slade released her arms, and she rubbed where his hands had been, hating the way they'd felt on her.

Right.

“Then why do you know of me?”

“Because you're in the lore.”

“Ah,” his palm held his chin. Slade's lips mocked her with a ghost of a smile. “So you are a fresh Reflective.” It wasn't a question.

Be polite. He rescued me from Ryan.

“Yes,” she all but hissed.

He smiled, no fangs present.

More howling and snarls presented beneath them and Beth moved to the window that was at her waist.

She gazed many meters below just as a nightloper caught sight of her form in the window.

Beth didn't move away. Let it see what she was and feel fear.

Reflectives were renowned for claiming victory despite being severely outnumbered.

“Step away,” Slade said.

Beth ignored him.

He jerked her back, and she wrestled in his grip. “Do you think you can get away, tiny one?”

“If I was willing to hurt you—yes.”

Slade released her immediately, and she whirled to face him, her hands in loose combative posture, her knees slightly bent—her stomach digesting her spine.

Her empty belly growled, and the noise filled the room.

It took all the threat out of the moment, and Beth gritted her teeth.

Slade chuckled then laughed—then he roared.

“Yeah, laugh it up.”

He put a fist over his mouth.

“Let us establish who's in charge here,” Slade began.

Beth put a thumb to her chest. “I'm in charge of me.”

Slade's dark eyes lit on her then he was suddenly in front of her, using a blurring tactic of speed that was a holdover of his vamp lineage.

His hand cupped the back of her neck, strong fingers tightening to her uppermost threshold of pain.

“Reflective,” he whispered, his hot breath licking along her temple, his fingers dizzyingly hard against her spine.

“I could have killed you thirty times before now. I have no desire to do so. Do not make me commit violence against a female of our species for stubborn pride.”

Beth wanted to tap out, as she'd seen the cage fighters of Three do when they could not escape a classic break of a limb, a loss of consciousness, or imminent death.

Reflectives did not tap out.

The pressure around her neck increased at the same time cool lips trailed from her temple to her cheekbone.

The sensation rocked back and forth, back and forth, from pain to pleasure.

“No,” Beth moaned in a low, pain-choked voice.

His sudden release of pressure made Beth fall forward as his mouth covered hers in an erotic surprise of heat and skin.

Slade groaned as he bent her body back, arcing her torso deeper into his.

Beth grabbed his shoulders to maintain her balance.

Warmth burst from her chest, lighting every connection in her body, her bare toes the only thing on the ground.

The weight of his mouth slowly lifted, and Beth was still bent backward, stunned and breathless, out of control.

A bloodling had saved her in Sector One from another Reflective, captured her, healed her in a bath of blood, then kissed her without permission.

Beth felt light-headed.

She could justify losing consciousness while getting strangled by Ryan. But now?

“Let me down,” Beth said, and Slade's arms fell away, dumping her.

Beth's palms slapped the ground instinctively and broke her fall. She rolled over into a sitting position and put her head between her knees.

It had woken her up: his kiss, the way he'd dropped her without warning, and her miserable hunger.

Just then, her traitor stomach gave another tortured howl.

Principle, help me.

Slade stuck out his hand. Beth glared at the proffered palm. With a grunt, she took it.

“When did you eat last, tiny frog?”

“Okay.” Beth poked his chest with her finger. “Stop calling me an amphibian.”

He caught her finger, taking it inside his hot wet mouth, and Beth was left with her next words wedged in her throat.

Slade slid it out achingly slowly.

Beth reclaimed her hand. The silence became weighted.

His eyebrow cocked.

“Do you know what we call Reflectives?”

She shook her head.

Her brain's wires were crossed. Beth felt as if she’d short-circuited.

“No,” she said and folded her arms across her stomach. It was so empty that she could feel her heartbeat thumping against her forearm.

“Hoppers. That is what you do. Using the sectors like personal lily pads. So what is wrong with you being my tiny frog?” He asked the question as though it were perfectly reasonable.

“First…” she glared at him, hands on her hips, wishing for weapons. “We don't hop—we jump.”

He waved a strong hand around. “Hop, jump, skip, vault, bounce, leap, hurdle… dive.”

“Principle—okay.”

He smirked.

“Just so we have an understanding.”

“We have an understanding.” She nodded vigorously, “I understand that you're holding me prisoner.”

“Leave,” Slade invited, swinging out his palm.

Beth moved to the door, and a pack of nightlopers stood at the bottom of the great tree the fort was embedded in.

Their eyes reflected back at her.

She expelled a tormented sigh of pure frustration. She could not jump from organics.

“Such a tease, eh?” Slade asked softly. “All those reflective orbs but none that you can use?”

Hate bit at her. “Why did you pull me away from the window?”

He said nothing for a time.

“I was hoping they would not mark you.”

“Why?”

“I do not want to fight off nightlopers that have their sights set on one of our females. Why do you think they persist at our feet.”

“Because you're an asshole?” Beth cracked.

Slade grabbed her, jerking her to him.

“I'm an asshole that broke six of that Reflective's ribs for hurting you. I should have killed him. But—a visit from whatever hierarchy Papilio still holds I do not need.”

Beth's heart thumped against her ribcage. The howling nightlopers swirled around the great trunk as Slade dangled part of her body over the wood railing of his dwelling.

“Drop me,” Beth challenged. “I will fight them.”

Bare handed. To the death.

“They do not want to fight you, tiny frog,” he whispered so softly that she strained to hear.

Her heart's rhythm picked up to a murderous drum beat.

Beth's stores of knowledge fell short on the nightlopers; foreigners to Sector One knew little of them.

She could see Slade would tell her. Beth knew she would not like it. His long bound hair swung around and tickled her as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

“They want to mate with you.”

Then he released her, and Beth was falling into the darkness filled with excited yips and snuffles.

It was a testimony to Beth's bravery that she did not cry out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jeb was stunned when he saw the first Reflective female, milling around at the top of the marble steps of TCH. It was Daphne, and she was dressed for… well—Jeb wasn't sure. There was more flesh than clothing.

Jacky was certain, though. “Wow, nice whore house, Merrick.”

Jeb turned in an instant rage on the young man.

He backed up, holding up his hands. “I'm just sayinʼ, Merrick, looks like The Cause Headquarters have become…”

Jeb's eyes moved to what used to be TCH, and he knew, no matter how shocking or how untoward, that what Jacky had said was true.

The Reflective females no longer fulfilled clerical duties—but those of the bed.

Daphne's eyes skated over Jeb with an absolute lack of interest, then her head whipped back around, recognition flooding her face.

“Jeb,” she cried, running down the wide marble steps in heels and a dress so short that Jeb could feel the heat infuse his face and neck.

He was humiliated for her.

Jacky was trying studiously to avoid looking at her but finally gave up. The Reflective female was a thing of beauty to be admired.

Now reduced to a whore.

She threw herself into his arms and he caught her easily.

Daphne smelled of other men.

He gently put her away from him. He searched her face, his nostrils filling with some insidious scent that ran underneath the obvious.

Opiates.

Who is drugging the fairer Reflectives?

The answer presented itself with a curt, “Daphne!”

She flinched, letting the strap of the barely-there dress slip. Fingerprint bruises lined her delicate collarbone and shoulder.

Jeb saw red. He had lain with Daphne several times and had been a gentle and attentive lover. He would have never brought her to harm.

He would kill any male who hurt their females.

What could he to do when the protectors had become the predators?

“This is fucking bad, Merrick,” Jacky restated the obvious, his eyes fixed on those bruises.

“Go—Jeb,” Daphne said in a low voice, slipping out of his hold and looking behind her like a canine that had been kicked too many times.

“No, I will not go.”

Her face turned to his.

“They'll kill you—and they'll hurt me.” She shivered, folding her rail thin arms over her too-skinny body. Fear was on every line of her.

Merrick pushed her into Jacky's arms, and he held her. She protested, and he shook his head.

“Let Merrick go kick some Reflective ass.”

Jeb gave a grim smile as he mounted his former TCH, disgusted beyond measure.

A non-Reflective female was taking money at the door. Jeb dismissed her, searching for the Reflective who'd called out.

“Merrick,” said Quaker, one of Lance Ryan’s lackeys.

Jeb turned, to find a stabilizer pointed at his chest.

“Here to sample the wares?” he flicked his head toward where Daphne stood against Jacky.

Jeb didn't like enlisting the boy, but desperate measures called for desperate solutions. The justification still didn't sit well with him.

“Looks like you and that Three are ready for some tag team with Daphne.”

Jeb's hands fisted. “You mean the drugged, malnourished female Reflective who is too scared to talk to me?”

Quaker's artificial smile dropped off his face as if it had never been there. The stabilizer notched up a touch.

“If you don't want to play in the sandbox with the females—fuck off.” He adjusted his balls.

“It's no problem if you're not onboard. There's plenty more that want to ride the pony.”

Jeb's anger became visceral. He spotted the scope that rode the top of the stabilizer’s barrel, and it hadn't been shut. The port's reflective edge was exposed.

Dawn broke through the pillars like a salvation Jeb hadn't prayed for.

But he thanked Principle for it regardless.

The sphere-shaped lens glinted in the early morning light, which hit it squarely.

Quaker's mouth made a comical O shape as Jeb saw his own face in the small circle of the stabilizer lens port.

Anger neatened the effort for the jump, as did the three-meter distance. Jeb flashed in a ribbon of iridescent fire.

A sucking pop followed his leap.

Quaker suddenly was nose to nose with Jeb, who grabbed the stabilizer and turned it butt-first, cracking it into Quaker's temple.

“Nobody's riding anyone,” Jeb said and slammed the instep of his boot into Quaker’s foot.

It occurred to Jeb that this group had been waiting for Ryan's eventual return with Beth.

New fire breathed into the boiling pot of his simmering anger.

He stomped Quaker's foot again, and the Reflective socked a solid blow to Jeb's stomach.

It was always a problem when two Reflectives were pitted against each other.

The stabilizer clattered to the ground. The safety was off, and the force of the strike sprayed bullets as the two Reflectives hammered each other.

Screams rose as the bullets embedded in the soft marble. Jeb ignored it, bearing down on Quaker, who was at a disadvantage.

Jeb felt his skin give from the pounding his knuckles gave Quaker.

Quaker was not fighting for honor, for the safety of a soul mate.

Jeb was fighting for the First: bear no injustice.

They would have taken Beth—his Beth—and drugged a combatant warrior of The Cause then raped her.

Unconscionable.

Jeb's hammers of retribution fell until his knees were soaked with Quaker’s blood.

The Reflective groaned, his face a ruin of blood, split lips, swelling cheeks, narrow slits for eyes.

Jeb stood on shaky feet and turned.

Four more Reflectives surrounded Jacky.

In a single instant, Jeb thought it was more of Quaker and Ryan's ilk. But Calvin and Kennet had arrived.

Thank Principle.

He raced down the stairs, and one of them raised a gun. “Hands up dick head.”

His euphoria vanished.

Not them!

Daphne's eyes went wide with an emotion that shredded Jeb's heart.

Inevitability.

***

Beth would break when she landed. Gravity doesn't care, its singular function is to bring things down.

She could try to roll when she landed. She forced her limbs loose and pried open her eyes.

Something blurred past her as the nightlopers grew bigger in her vision.

She had not known what they were exactly and was falling too quickly for fear.

Beth had to survive the landing first then worry about the next mess. She hit hard and bounced, cushioned by strong arms like flesh-covered steel.

Beth opened her eyes to Slade's amused black gaze. He had caught her neatly.

Bastard!

Then the nightlopers were on them.

Slade smoothly tossed her and Beth flung out her arms, only to be caught by another bloodling. It was the young one whom Ryan had taught a lesson.

He seemed to be walking just fine.

Slade fought the nightlopers.

She had thought the Reflective was a fighter of beauty.

They all paled compared to Slade’s fluidity as his fingertips burst with silver talons, his fangs so long he could never close his mouth had he tried.

Nightlopers where like the shifters of Seven, but so much more. They were not animals; they were upright humanoids with animal parts. Beth could make out the wolf of the group, the lion—a bear.

Nightlopers, unlike their cousins on Seven, never shifted form. They hung between humanoid and their animal, captured somewhere in between.

“Let me down,” Beth commanded.

The bloodling denied her request, shaking his head.

“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 perforated 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 moment 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.

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-colored 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.

“I will fight him.”

Ryan smiled. She could see that had been his plan all along. She had no hope of winning.

There was only honor.

Beth thought of the Ninth: forsake not honor, for it is all which remains.

“If you look to murder the female, one of your own kind, it will not happen while I draw breath.”

“That can be arranged, bloodling,” Ryan said.

Dimitri scowled. “I do not condone pitting males against females. I might slave flesh, but I am not stupid.”

Quick like a snake, Dimitri had his hand around Beth's arm and jerked her around Slade, who moved forward to protect her but stayed his charge.

The knife was suddenly at Dimitri’s throat. Beth didn't remember drawing it, but it served her hand just the same.

Dimitri chuckled.

“And what a female she is!” he cawed happily. A drop of blood oozed from the tip of her ceramic blade and she pressed a little deeper.

Beth had seen her face reflected a thousand times, in a thousand different surfaces. She knew what her ebony gaze sparkled with killing intent.

Dimitri gazed into those depthless eyes, and Beth was sure he saw the wish for his death.

He placed his finger against the blade and pushed it away, scraping a line of blood across his throat.

“Now, where was I?” he clapped his hands together as Beth lowered the blade. She could hear his blood drip from the tip.

Dimitri circled her, and she turned with him, careful not to face away from Ryan, who stood just two meters from her.

“She is what? One hundred pounds?” He was deep into the delightful drama he seemed so fond of. “Five feet three?”

“One hundred ten, five feet two,” Beth commented, already growing weary and irritated with his machinations.

Dimitri suddenly spun to Ryan, trusting her at his back.

Beth wanted to kill Dimitri so much that her hand grew moist with her sweat. She felt Slade's hand press against the small of her back, and a sigh escaped.

He pointed at Ryan. “You would come against a female you outweigh by over a hundred pounds and a foot of height…”

“I'll fight him,” Beth repeated, her eyes on Ryan.

“Oh, I know that you will, little frog,” Dimitri tossed behind him. “You have the heart of a nightloper lioness. But you shall not be killed by an honorless male.”

Slade grunted in discontent behind her.

Beth wasn't sure if that was because Dimitri had called her a little frog or because he’d compared her to the nightlopers. Either way, he wasn't happy.

“Slade has offered challenge for this Reflective. He is a good match for you, Lance Ryan.”

“Or,” Dimitri said offhandedly, “we could release the Reflectives you traded to me, back into Papilio.”

True fear marked Ryan's face, and Beth smiled.

Let him sweat.

“Fine.” His hands went to his hips. “I accept.”

He moved forward, and Beth retreated into Slade, though she meant to hold her ground, but he stood in it.

“Remember, mongrel, if the bloodling seeks death so badly, and the reaper comes to claim him, you will be my plaything. Mine to do whatever I wish with.”

Beth's heart thumped against her chest, and she opened her mouth to reply, but Slade said, “Save your empty threats to the female. You call yourself male, but you are an abuser of the defenseless.”

Ryan's eyes met Slade's, far above her head.

Then his eyes went to her, driving down her body in a repugnant sexual scan.

He was so unworthy to be called Reflective.

“My plaything in every way,” Ryan promised.

“You've had your fun. Now go,” Dimitri said.

Ryan's lips curled. She knew that he was as handsome as Jeb, but his black interior made him ugly outside.

He stalked off, and Beth couldn't help her partial slump against Slade.

“I'm not defenseless,” Beth said.

“No.”

Dimitri threw a palm at Beth, raking his fingers through his short gold hair. “Her hunger beats at me. Feed her and return at midnight.”

Every face turned to the sun, rising and strong above the mountains that stood at every corner of this quadrant.

“Fine.”

Slade began to turn away.

“Keep your word bloodling or we know where to find you... and your females.”

“I am not like that one,” Slade said.

Ryan was not around to hear his disparaging comparison.

Slade guided Beth away as they left the complex together.

She stumbled and fell.

Slade paused.

Bending down, he slid his arms under the back of her knees and her upper back.

“Let me down,” Beth said, her head lolling with fatigue.

“No,” he replied simply.

“I am not different than Dimitri in that way. He has a bit of bloodling in him. It allows him to feel a female's hunger, fatigue—need.”

“Only a little,” Beth said groggily, tucking her abused hands underneath her jaw.

Slade gave a single dip of his chin. “He feels it gnaw at him.” He narrowed his eyes at her and lowered his voice. “I feel that you have not slept in fifty hours. That your last meal was in a sector that is foreign to this one, and most of it was expelled after a male beat you badly.”

He lifted a brow, and Beth sighed, soft and long.

“You don't deny it?”

Beth didn't answer.

She'd fallen asleep in his arms.

She didn't feel his eyes on her or the trees he jumped into and swung through like a monkey to get her to safety. Nor did she feel the soft bed Slade laid her into after stripping her of her filthy clothing.

Beth slept like the dead, her body's rapid healing so needy that she had fallen into a light coma.

Slade watched her while she slept.

*

Jeb crawled on his belly with Calvin and Kennet beside and slightly behind him.

Jacky kept to the rear.

“I see the fort.” Jeb handed the pulse viewers to Calvin, who squinted through them, nodded, and passed them to Kennet.

Kennet pressed his thumb to the pad, and the lenses folded out from a hidden compartment. He pressed the forehead bridge between his eyes and took in the nearly square stone structure. Barred windows lined the top.

“Well that's grim to penetrate,” Kennet commented.

“I don't get it,” Jacky complained quietly. “Can't you just bust in there and beat the hell out of all of them?”

Calvin sighed. “This is the most violent sector. We've got a bunch of humanoids who've migrated here from Seven. They've evolved into a barbaric group of part-humanoid, part-animals.”

“Nightlopers?” Jacky guessed.

“Yes,” Jeb said. “We don't know much, except that their distant relatives on Seven can shift between human and animal forms.”

“No shit?”

Jeb nodded, holding in a smile. “Here, they remain in between the two forms.”

“That sounds sick!” Jacky said, his voice too loud.

“Quiet,” Calvin said.

“Who's sick?” Kennet asked.

“It's Three slang,” Jeb commented dryly.

Kennet's brows jumped. “Well, it doesn't make remote sense.”

Jacky shrugged.

Jeb saw something and grabbed the viewers from Kennet.

He almost broke from cover instantly.

Beth.

That pull strained taut.

Calvin and Kennet tensed. “What?”

“It's Beth… and many bloodlings… and Ryan.”

“Look at how that dickhead pops up all the time. Of course,” Jacky commented, “it might be the only time his dick does that for him.”

Kennet groaned and grabbed the viewer from Jeb. “There's the rumored Dimitri. It has to be.” He pressed the viewer harder against his face.

Kennet's chin jerked back as Jeb clenched his hands to keep from going to Beth right away.

“That's a huge bloodling,” Kennet said in a thoughtful tone.

Jeb ducked his head, hissing.

The others turned to him.

“I want to rescue her.”

“Doesn't look like you need to,” Kennet commented. “That big bloodling down there is hauling her off.”

“Not helpful, dude,” Jacky said.

Calvin grabbed Jeb as he was about to leap out of their hiding place. “No Jeb,” Calvin said next to his ear. “He doesn't harm her.”

“Of course not. Beth has One blood. Harm isn't any part of it.”

“No,” Calvin said.

Jeb sank to the ground, nodding miserably.

“That's how it's possible? She is Sector One.”

“What in the hell is going on now?” Jacky asked, looking around at the three of them.

Jacky grabbed the viewers. “Lots of shitty auras down there, guys.”

Jeb ignored him, raking a hand through his hair. “Beth is soul bound to me.”

“No—you're soul bound to her. There's a difference, Jeb,” Calvin clarified while he jerked the viewer back from Jacky with a frown then slid it in their gear pack.

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I am bound to her. She is not to me.”

Jacky frowned. “So, what happens between you two?”

“If she were without her timepiece, she would be free from her duties as a Reflective for The Cause, and could find her perfect half.”

“Oh,” Jacky said. Jeb could see he was mulling it over. “What happens if you dig her, but she digs another guy?”

“We duel,” Jeb said.

“It's a problem,” Jacky said.

“Your timepiece is gone, and hers is still tick-tocking away.”

Jeb nodded and frowned. “For now. But you forget—it will instantly disappear the moment she returns.”

Jacky stared at Jeb in question.

“Five years.”

“Oh, shit,” Jacky said.

“Oh shit indeed,” Jeb agreed.

They were all quiet for a moment.

“So to recap this mess, we need to get Beth, free the Reflectives, grab their asses back to the water we jumped to, and she needs to focus the entire troupe back to Papilio?”

“He does have a way of connecting the dots,” Calvin said with grudging admiration.

Jeb grunted.

“Then Beth returns, her timepiece explodes and she hunts around for Mr. Right?”

Jeb grimaced.

“Then what happens when she finds this guy?”

Jeb met his eyes, but it was Kennet who answered. “They duel to the death.”

“Why? All because she's part-Reflective?” Jacky asked.

“Yes,” Jeb replied.

“That blows big time.”

That about covered it.

*

Allowing the bloodling to carry Beth away was the worst thing Jeb had ever experienced.

Calvin and Kennet sat on his arms as he fought to go after her.

Jacky looked on with wide eyes.

When the sun left the land, seeping back into the crevices of the mountain's foothills, they made their way closer to Dimitri's stronghold.

They would free their kin, killing all who would stop them, and retrieve Beth.

She might not realize she was his, but Jeb did.

It was enough for both of them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Beth's nose drove her right out of healing sleep.

She was relieved to open her eyes and not find herself in a vat of blood.

She hated the word rescued. She was not some weak female, at that moment, Beth could not prove that.

Slade moved gracefully to her side, sitting in a chair that had been pulled out.

He had a plate heaped with food. Beth's mouth watered, and her stomach contracted painfully.

“Not too fast,” Slade cautioned when she tore the plate from his hand and began stuffing food in by the chunks.

“Water,” she said with her mouth full.

Slade handed her a cup, and she gulped a mouthful. A painful load slid down her throat and hit her terribly empty stomach in a horrible lump.

She plowed through half the plate, which included cheesy eggs and a half a loaf of bread. Then she licked bacon grease from her fingers.

Breathless, she gazed out the window. She could make out the vague light of stars like matches struck against a willing sky.

Beth put the plate on the bed and camouflaged a burp with her fist, her eyes flicking to his.

He smiled. “Better, tiny frog?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“I will not, for that is who you are.”

Beth ignored his comment.

“I have slept the entire day?”

He nodded.

Beth's shoulders slumped. “You fight that worthless Reflective tonight?”

Slade simply nodded.

Her eyes rose to his. Seconds filled the moment. “Thank you.”

Beth swung her legs to the edge of the bed, grateful her bloody clothes were not on her.

Essentially naked before Slade, she wore only a bra and underwear.

Slade's dark eyes held hers. “You are welcome.” He paused. “Do not be embarrassed. I have clothes for you. The others… were not fit to be worn.”

She agreed, but no male had seen her in this state of undress.

Jeb.

Beth gulped. Where is Jeb? When could she return to Papilio?

Beth tried to ignore the lack of clothing, her horrible disgusting body, and shriveled stomach, where each rib could be counted.

She had never felt so low, so meager.

So Principledammned ineffectual.

She inhaled deeply and touched Slade's thick forearm. I must do the right thing.

His breath caught, but he remained motionless.

“Please,” Beth began, employing her little-used feminine wiles. “Do not fight him. Ryan is ruthless. He will dismantle you.”

Slade grinned, pulling her off the bed and onto his lap.

“No!” Beth struggled.

“I'm not going to harm you.”

Beth turned, his arms at mid-back around her. “I am not some whore to be fought over and won like a trophy.”

He nodded, tucking her matted filthy hair behind her ear.

“I am Reflective.”

“And therein lies the prize, Beth Jasper.”

She felt her nose scrunch.

“You are a neutral female here on One. I know you understand that. And you're a hopper—”

“Reflective,” Beth grumbled.

He chuckled and inclined his head. “Yes.”

Beth put her hands on his shoulders and squeezed them. “You seem to be an honorable bloodling.”

His expression darkened, his fingertips tightening against her heated skin.

“But I can't have your death on my conscience. I can't be with Ryan,” she said in a low voice.

“He will not have you.”

“You don't know the fighter a male Reflective can be.”

Slade dipped his head, his strong brow outlined in ink. “I have seen many fights.”

Beth closed her eyes, trying not to imagine good males tasked with killing each other or facing execution.

“They are a great warrior class, and what has happened on your world is regrettable.”

Regrettable.

Beth would not cry. She inhaled sharply, settling her emotions.

He tipped her chin up. “He will not take you from me.”

Beth searched those deep eyes. Truth. “I do not want to be with you.”

Slade leaned forward, and Beth felt her lips part. She felt the tip of his tongue run a hot, wet line across the fullness of her bottom lip, and the air in her lungs quieted.

He pulled her into his body and sipped at her lip like a fine wine, brushing his own against hers softly. His smooth fangs pressed against the flesh of her mouth as he pecked and sucked.

Slade pulled back just enough to allow her to look at him.

“Tell me there is not a small part of you that wants this.”

Beth dropped her gaze.

She'd never been much of a liar and found she couldn't answer without one.

She lifted her head.

“I don't want you to die.”

Slade smiled, kissing the tip of her dirty nose and wrinkled his own. “I shall live to fight another day.”

Beth gave him solemn eyes, and he said, “Now, let's get you cleaned up.”

*

Every part of her felt better. The bloodlings had a cleanser that was similar to the archaic devices of Three, but it did the job.

Beth had cleansed twice. Grime and dried blood had turned the basin a vague shade of brown and pink.

There were female bloodlings, though not one had darkened Slade's doorstep.

Neither spoke of the gladiator-style fight that would take place in two hours.

“Are you the… leader here?” Beth asked, plucking a fruit she'd never seen for inspection. She shrugged, tossing it in her newly clean mouth.

“I'm a—prince among my people.”

Beth's brow lifted. “Truly?”

Slade shook his head, leaning forward. He planted his elbows on the table opposite her, lacing his fingers together under a square jaw. He rasped the shadow of stubble that covered his face against those knotted hands.

Beth didn't realize she'd stopped talking—and eating. She'd been staring and dropped her eyes to the full bowl of fruit.

Guilt ate at her.

What is wrong with me? Was it some strange residual gratefulness that Slade had protected her, when none had before?

Except Jeb.

She’d let a bloodling lick her lip—and kiss her.

To his credit, Slade had said nothing about her obvious mixed signals.

Beth forced more fruit into her body, avoiding his eyes.

She was wearing the clothes of another bloodling. The females must have been very tall because she’d had to roll the cuffs of the hem three times.

She busied her hands, braiding her long hair.

When she reached the tail, she took the band she'd been wearing since Three from her wrist.

She flicked off a single flake of dried blood from the suede-like material.

Her hand shook as she wound her hairband three times around the end of her braid.

When Beth looked up, Slade was standing.

“It's time.”

Beth knew it was.

He held out his hand, steady, big, and strong.

After a hesitation, Beth took it.

*

“Where's Maddie?” Jacky asked as they made stealthy progress toward what the Reflectives referred to as “the fort.”

Jeb gave him a look, but did not answer right away. Jacky was still an almost-thirteen-cycle Three in his mind. His mind had not matured along with his body.

“Madeline would not be kept in the fort. If we're fortunate, she will be at the consulate.”

Jacky gave him blank face.

“We have a prison of sorts with an…”

“Embassy,” Calvin finished, though his eyes never left the stone walls as they drew closer.

“But, that jerk Ryan reflected all your warriors to the fort, so you don't think he didn't put the kibosh on the consulate and prison he was tortured in?”

That was exactly what Jeb had thought but hadn't said.

“It's likely.”

Jacky stopped walking. “Then what the hell is happening to Maddie?”

Kennet walked to Jacky. “I do not want any Reflective female in harm's way. Take heart that she escaped the drugged flesh trade that Ryan implemented in Papilio.”

“You think your world is the only one who does that?” Jacky asked, his face disdainful. “Hell—we have that back home.”

The Reflectives were silent.

“We must free the Reflectives. With all of us together, we can right these injustices,” Calvin said, keeping watch of their front.

“Once we have them, we return to Papilio and free our females and the other insurgents.”

“But she will be here while you guys figure out all that bullshit. We can't leave her here once we nab the Reflectives.”

Jeb knew Jacky was right.

“Let's see what transpires after liberating my comrades.”

Jacky's face was miserably conflicted. “I guess that's fair.”

Jeb nodded. The whole debacle was not fair, but it was what they had to work with, and it wasn't fair.

*

Ryan stood in the far corner of the wide square mat.

Beth noticed it had once been a light gray; the edges still bore the original color. It was now stained rust with the blood of the Reflectives.

Ryan bounced on the balls of his feet, his massive arms teeming with the vitality of their species, thick veins bulging with the warmth and energy he radiated as he jabbed at the air in front of him.

In absolute opposition to Ryan's coiled agitation, Slade walked to his corner, his large hands on solid hips. His leg muscles bunched with the rolling of his hips as he walked. Streaks of blood, two stripes under each dark eye, decorated high cheekbones. Hair that reached his shoulders when loose was tightly bound at his nape.

Both males wore fitted shorts at mid-thigh length. Slade's were crimson, fitting for his species, and Ryan's were the deep-navy blue that was the uniform color for The Cause.

Ryan didn't deserve to wear the colors of the Reflectives.

The cavernous fighting house also served as the Reflectives’ prison. Beth had presumed they were mistreated, but they looked healthy—if filthy—fit, and well-fed. It told Beth that Dimitri was keeping them in top condition so they could kill one another.

Hundreds of light eyes peered through the bars of the the cage that held Reflective Ryan and Slade, Prince of the Bloodlings.

Beth stood beside Dimitri, assessing continuously for means of escape. She would not—could not—admit that she was worried for Slade.

Beth didn't care for him, but she didn't wish him ill.

He'd saved her, fed her, and allowed her to heal. Still, the bloodlings were true to their namesakes—bloodthirsty.

But Beth had seen a compassionate side in a supposed enemy—hope, came to roost in the recesses of her mind.

Hope was a useless emotion. However, sometimes, it was the only thing that remained.

Many Reflectives had caught sight of Beth, and their hard expressions told her they misinterpreted her presence. Not that she could blame them.

Beth smiled when she recognized the guard whose balls she had almost fashioned into earrings. He banged a gong, announcing that the fight had begun.

Dimitri leaned next to her ear and said in an intimate whisper, “My money's on Ryan.”

Beth turned to look at him and used the two words that never seemed to need translation: “Fuck you.”

Dimitri chortled, his masculine glee abruptly cut off as Slade and Ryan collided in the center of the ring.

Let the games begin.

*

Jeb heard the sharp strike of a deep thrumming gong. Calvin and Kennet had their backs pressed to the stone walls of the fort.

“Showtime,” Jacky said.

Jeb nodded. He hoped they could blend with the other Reflectives once they were released.

Jeb edged along the wall in the absolute dark that was a gift to their penetration of the fort.

They made slow progress to the back of the entrance. The roar of the crowd inside the fort made it impossible for Jeb to locate certain signs, sounds… and Beth.

Finally, his fingers met the stone where it curved to a large door.

He spun to meet whatever guard might be at the rear entrance, and a nightloper greeted him with gnashing teeth inches from his face.

Jeb stepped into their charge, as he'd been trained to do.

Where others fled and gave space, Reflectives were taught to move forward.

Twelfth: embrace fear not, for it leads to death.

His blade was married to his palm, and he used it, his ragged breaths regulated to minimize noise.

Still, when the nightloper’s talons pierced Jeb, he met the strike with his dagger, plunging the serrated edge into his attacker.

Jeb fought the agony of the puncture wounds, and his right hand fisted over his left as he dragged the blade upward, dividing the beast's guts into a neat pile, which fell steaming to the ground.

He kicked the nightloper with his damp boot, and the claws that were sunk deeply in Jeb's flank tore out. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from bellowing.

Jeb swung his head and saw Jacky pinned against the wall with the teeth of a nightloper that was clearly half-rat against his throat.

He leapt, arcing his left hand above his head and embedding the dagger to the hilt in the center of the rat man's head.

“Bad!” Jacky wheezed as though his aura-reading cleared that up.

The nightloper rat froze, momentarily stunned as Jacky slid out from underneath tapered ebony nails and four-inch incisors.

“Fuuuuckk me!” Jacky screeched.

“Quiet!” Calvin hissed, cleanly taking off the head of the nightloper he and Kennet had killed.

“God—what are those things?”

“Nightloper,” Jeb said, but he was already moving. If three were guarding this entrance, he felt confident there would be more elsewhere.

They moved quietly through the large arched door.

Jeb knew very little about the illegal fighting. Reflectives didn't police primitive sectors as that was not a duty of The Cause.

He did understand prisons. And what Jeb needed to free the Reflective regime while the distraction of the fight was in full swing.

What he saw made him hesitate and stand riveted, his eyes sweeping over the tops of males who roared for the victor.

A bloodling and Reflective Ryan had beaten each other into bloody bodies of blurred motion. Jeb could hardly track the fists, then the blood spray misted from a chop to Ryan's jaw with his retaliatory kick causing the crack of bloodling bone.

Jeb tore his eyes away, finding Calvin and Kennet.

They lifted their chins in acknowledgment. Jacky pointed to a narrow corridor that flanked steep stone steps.

His face was turned to the backs of the males enraptured in the fight. He glanced back at the steep dark staircase. Jeb believed the mechanicals which operated everything to do with the prison, lay just ahead.

The small group took the steps three at a time. When they reached the zenith, Jeb stalked forward on silent feet.

The controls operator never knew he'd passed from this life to the next.

Jeb stepped over the body, sat down, and gazed at the controls.

Damn, they are too primitive. All of it was pre-pulse. A flutter of panic began in his chest.

“Scoot over, big dude. I got this,” Jacky said with a confidence Jeb didn't feel.

Jeb's eyes scanned the crowd through the control window and snagged on Beth, so small and dark next to what must be the slaver.

Jeb's hands gripped each other. It was all he could do to stay rooted to the spot.

“My grandpa was great on all this mechanical shit and used to let me play with all his gadgetry! I'm a pro!” Jacky chirped.

Jeb wanted to hit him.

Equally irritated, Calvin and Kennet came to stand behind the boy. “Release the Reflectives.”

Their eyes moved to the fighters. One lay on the ground unmoving.

“Huh, that's easy!” Jacky moved a few levers and hit a button.

Nothing happened at first.

Then a great churning of gears began, and the cell doors that had imprisoned the Reflectives opened slowly.

“See?” Jacky said, leaning back in the chair and lacing his hands behind his head.

“Come at me, guys.”

*

Slade dropped to his knees. Ryan delivered a final kick that landed on his chin.

Beth rushed to the cage as Slade toppled like an old-growth tree.

“Hopper!” Dimitri screamed.

Beth hit the cage, her fingers sliding through the metal links. She gripped and tossed herself over the three-and-a-half-meter-tall cage, spinning as she did.

Beth landed on her feet in front of Ryan, who was beaten but not finished.

He attacked in the way of the Reflective: brutal, instant, and merciless.

Beth’s only chance was that Ryan was worn from the fight with Slade. When his strikes connected with Beth, they held all the strength of his body.

It was mighty.

Beth danced away from his limbs.

His fist came for her jaw, and she captured it in both her hands, twisting viciously against the forward momentum.

His wrist broke, and she stepped into his body, her knee sailing up to his groin.

He deflected and she held tight to the broken wrist, swinging Ryan over her shoulder as he moved with her, flipping with her momentum and landing on his back.

She'd attached herself to him and he used it, giving a painful roar as he used his own broken wrist and jerked her tight, punching her in the jaw as she fell into him.

It was a glancing blow because she'd been in motion and too close for him to strike properly.

It still blurred her vision.

Beth brought it all, biting his bad hand like a snake striking.

Ryan howled and tossed her away from him.

Beth lay on her back, trying for air and finding none.

Then Jeb moved into her vision.

They shared a heart beat of silent communication while tears rolled out of her eyes and wet the mat underneath her.

She had never been so grateful for anything as she was for him in that moment.

Jeb turned as Ryan came at him. He used all his momentum, delivering a skull-cracking blow that dropped Ryan where he stood.

Jeb held out his hand as the human mayhem swirled around them.

Beth took it, and he lifted her to her feet. She could hardly stand, her vision tripling.

“Let's go.”

Jeb led her away. Reflectives Calvin and Kennet flanked him with the primitive weapons of One they’d picked up along the way.

“Wait,” Beth said weakly.

She turned to look for Slade.

Only a bloodied outline of his body remained.

THE END

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The Reflective Cause, Book #2

If you enjoyed
THE REFLECTIVE, please consider posting your thoughts
HERE and help another reader discover a new series. Thank you!

Directives of The Cause:

First: Right the wrong

Second:
Bear no injustice

Third:
Change not what must be

Fourth:
Reflect only when unobserved

Fifth:
Protect the young

Sixth:
Take life only in defense of another

Seventh:
No death is without consequence

Eighth:
Defend those who cannot

Ninth:
Forsake not honor, for it is all that remains

Tenth:
Reconcile emotion for The Cause, not another

Eleventh:
Divulge not your identity

Twelfth:
Disturb not the continuum

Thirteenth:
Forsake not The Cause

Sectors:

Sector One - Nightloper

Sector Three - Earth

Sector Seven - Bloodsingers

Sector Ten - Papilio

Sector Thirteen - Spheres

Unexplored sectors:

Two

Four through Six

Eight

Nine

Eleven

Twelve

Read on for a

BONUS
NOVEL SAMPLING
....

THE TOKEN

A Token Series Novella

Volume 1

New York Times
Bestselling author

MARATA EROS

All Rights are Reserved.

Copyright © 2013 Marata Eros

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to a legitimate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Marata Eros Website

Marata Eros FB Fan Page

Editing suggestions provided by Red Adept Editing

“Love sears the heart immortal

The embers burnt down to the token which remains ....”

~ Prologue ~

“You're dying,” Dr. Matthews says.

Two words.

Final.

Complete.

Desolate.

I feel my fingers clench the armrests of the chair underneath me, but the rest of my body remains numb.

If his words aren't enough to convince me, I see my silence is a prevailing annoyance in his day.

Dr. Matthews walks stiffly, making his way to the softly glowing X-ray reader.

I flinch when he slaps the photo of the soft tissue of my brain against the magnetic tabs of the lit surface.

The light glows around the tumor, immortalizing the end of my life like an emblazoned tool of disregard.

Just the facts, ma’am.

I sway as I stand, gripping the solid oak of his desk. It's very large, an anchor in the middle of his prestigious office full of the affectations of his career.

I walk toward Matthews. His hard face is edged by what might be sympathy. After all, it's not every day he tells a twenty-two-year-old woman she's got moments to live.

Actually, I do have time—months.

It's just not enough.

I look at the mess that's my brain, at the damning half a golf ball buried in a spot that will make me a vegetable if they operate. My eyes slide to the name at the bottom. For a split second, I hope to see another name there. But my own greets me.

Mitchell, Faren.

I back up and Matthews reaches to steady me.

But it's too late.

I spin and run out of his office as his voice calls after me. The corners of my coat sail behind me as I slap the metal hospital door open and take the cement steps two at a time.

I see my car parked across the street and race to it. My escape, my despair, is a thundering initiative I can't deny.

I miss the hit as if it happens to someone else. Only the noise permeates my senses as light flashes in my peripheral vision, mirrors against sunlight. I tumble in a slow spin of limbs. My body heaves and rolls, hitting the asphalt with a breath-stealing slap.

I lie against the rough black road. My lungs beg for air, burning for oxygen, and finally I take a sucking inhale that tears through my lungs.

The wet road feels cool against my face as I watch someone come into my line of sight. My body burns and my head aches. My arm is a slim exclamation point from my body, my fingers twitching. I can't make them stop. I can't make anything stop.

Powerless.

The doctor is too late with his condemning words. I've already died. I know this because the man who approaches is an angel. A helmet comes off hair so deep auburn it's a low-burning lick of flame. He swims toward me like a mirage, walking in a surreal slow motion. I blink, and my vision blurs. I try to raise my arm to wipe my eyes and whimper when it disobeys my command.

My angel crouches down, his eyes a deep brown, belying the dark bronze of his hair. “Shhh... I got you.” His voice is a deep melody.

I sigh. Safe.

I try to focus on him but the helmet he parks next to his boots becomes three as my vision triples.

There's a scuffle and I try to move to see what all the commotion's about. The angel wraps his warm large hand around my smaller one and smiles. “It's going to be okay.”

That's when I know I'm not in heaven.

That's what people say when nothing is okay.

~ 1 ~

One month prior

I flex my hand, grab my isometric handgrip, and do my hundred reps. So fun—a little like flossing my teeth. I put on the kettle with my good hand and turn the burner on high.

Flex, squeeze, release, flex again.

I get to a hundred and switch hands. As I go through my daily ritual, I flip open my Mac and browse my emails.

Faren, can you cover my shift? Faren, can you come in a half hour early? Faren, can you bring the main dish for the office pot luck?

Delete, delete, delete.

I'll say yes because it's hard for me to say no. Tough lessons in life have taught me that.

I put my handgrip on the corner of the end table, glancing at my left pinky and frowning. It's almost straight. Almost. No one can tell unless they're looking for it. No one ever looks that hard. Humanity glosses over shit.

I leave my laptop open and walk back to the stove. Depression-era jadeite salt and pepper shakers stand dead in the middle of a 1950s pink stove. The combo reminds me of an Easter egg. The kettle insists it's ready, bleating like a sheep. I lift it carefully, deliberately, using all the muscles of my hands as I've been taught.

As I teach others to do.

I pour the hot water over the tea bag and sigh, forcing my bad hand to thread through the loop of the tea cup handle. My dexterity is returning. I've pushed myself so hard that my hand rebels, willfully abandoning its hold on the cup.

The porcelain shatters, and shards fly on the wood floor of my tiny apartment above the main street where I live in deep anonymity. The pieces splinter in all directions, and I sigh. I want to chop off my hand.

I want to cradle it against my chest because it still works. Just not perfectly.

Like my life.

*

“Another headache?” Sue asks.

I nod, my hands falling away from my temples as I reach for my patient folder. I grip it with both hands and scan who's up first.

Bryce Collins. Pain. In. My. Ass.

I grin. I love the tough nuts to crack. They make it all worth it. I stride to my torture chamber, pushing the door open with my hip and search through the sea of work out equipment and hand held physical therapy implements to meet the sullen gaze of a seventeen-year old athletic prodigy.

A prodigy with a chip on his shoulder so wide I could drive a truck through it. Well I have my own dings and dents. We can compare later.

Right now, it's all about the work.

“Hi, Bryce.”

He mumbles a reply as I hand him the first merciless task. The huge rubber band fits around the pole in the center of the room. Mirrors line the wall and toss back our struggles.

And our triumphs.

I watch as he half-heartedly goes through the motions of his straight leg kicks. When he reaches twenty I scoop my hand down and latch onto his hamstring and he groans at my touch. “Bend your knee a little,” he does while giving me a look that could kill. I stare neutrally back until his gaze drops and he finally digs in.

An hour later, shaking and sweating, Bryce's huge and muscled body lumbers outside my door. He pauses as he opens it, looking at me with pissed off brown eyes.

“I hate you, Miss Mitchell,” he says and means it.

I smile back. I totally get it. Bryce needs to hate me to get better. It beats hating himself. I nod. “I know.”

He walks out, and I run my finger down the patient appointments for the day. Kiki makes her loud entrance, and my lips twist. She balances chai tea in both hands, staggering in too-tall heels that sink into the nearly bald carpet.

“Gawd!” she huffs as she winds her way through the ellipticals, weight machines, and treadmills. She leans against the walking bars that run like railroad tracks for those with dual injuries. Like both legs not working.

I swallow and force my smile back in place.

“Take your tea, you ungrateful bitch,” she squeals, handing me my tea.

I blow on it. A touch of honey and ginger rise through the vapor, and I grin over the rim of the cup as I sip through the little slot.

“So?” I ask in a purr.

Kiki is pure drama. It's only Monday, so we have the entire week to build up to a crescendo. Mondays are usually sedate, so I brace myself. I have thirty minutes until my next client arrives to be tortured into wellness. Kiki smirks, sets down her tea, and moves to the pole. I give a furtive glance around the gym, hoping no one comes in.

“Got a…” She wraps around the pole and slides down it seductively, letting her butt cheeks split as she wiggles and bounces at the bottom. She springs up, the front of her hoohah a hairsbreadth from the cool metal. “Ginormous tip this weekend from a richie!”

She thrusts forward, wrapping one slender leg around the pole, and I groan. She does a little mock-hump against it and grins at me.

Kiki is so inappropriate I could die. But she's my drug and I'm hers. We fit together because we're so different. She's an exotic dancer who's also a senior at Northwestern State.

She makes great money, and she also does serious gym time, packing in an hour six days a week. It's important to not look too striated, Kiki claims. No “guy-look.” Just tits, ass, and curves with definition. I designed the workout for her because I’m intimately familiar with the human body. I didn't set out to be, but life had other plans.

The sins of the past become the direction of our future.

Kiki pouts, leaves the pole, and saunters toward me. “You're no fun.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay... I know I've got to ask the burning question or we'll get nowhere.”

She perks up. “You got it, sister.”

“Who was it?”

Kiki always takes stock of clients. Men think they know so much, but women could rule the world if we came together. I sigh. Kiki notices regulars, high tippers, newcomers and flags the creeps. She's scary uncanny. I came to watch a set at the prestigious strip club, Black Rose, and went away shocked.

Shocked by the clientele, shocked that Kiki could dance that well for such a short time, and shocked by the moolah.

“The owner,” Kiki whispers as if we have a secret.

I shrug. “So?”

“It's Jared-effing-McKenna, baby!” Kiki is offended by my deliberate ignorance. Her brows rise to her hairline, and her dark eyes are wide with clear disdain.

Mine are steady with indifference.

The wheels of my memory spin. Oh yes. Jared McKenna. The Jared McKenna. Greek god. Adonis incarnate. Hercules. Playboy, womanizer, money mogul.

I slowly nod. Let's add “strip club owner” to the repertoire. I remember the detail of why he has so much money and want to forget as soon as I do.

Kiki pouts and tears off the lid of her tea. “Anywho... he was with someone, and his pal tipped me big time.” She sips her cooling tea, gazing at me with “cat that ate the canary” eyes.

“Okay, the foreplay is killing me. How much?” I take a small slurp of tea, and she tells me. The tea sprays out of my mouth, and Kiki grins at my klutzy-ass move.

“Five hundred dollars!?” I choke some more, and tea dribbles down my chin.

“It's okay, baby... it is a mind-blower. I mean,” her hands go to her ample chest in patent disbelief, “my nipples got hard and he didn't even touch me,” she says sincerely and I burst out laughing. My headache is gone for the moment, my Monday morning lethargy lifting.

Five hundred bucks is an assload of cash, especially for one night of dancing half naked. It's more than I take home every week. Just one tip. My schooling is done, my career path set partly because of circumstance. Kiki is high on drama, but doesn't always say things without a purpose and I narrow my eyes at her.

“Spill it,” I demand.

Kiki's lips twitch and she chucks her empty cup in the trash. “This type of gig could be the thing to get you out of that dump in downtown.”

I scowl. I like my downtown dump.

“Faren!” she wails.

I shush her before Sue comes in thinking someone died. Of course, with all the sounds of torment she's heard since I began working here last year, nothing should faze her.

Kiki relents and switches to a softer tone. “You could own something. Something nice.”

I know this. I've been to her condo overlooking Pike Place and Puget Sound. Her view of downtown is magnificent. And expensive. It had to set her back five hundred K. I rent my death trap for nine hundred per month, and it's a studio in one of the tortuously small cobblestone-lined alleys of Seattle. At least it's on the fifth floor. The stairs are murder, but if I want two windows that actually face outside, that's what I can afford. Sometimes the freight elevator works; otherwise, it's exercise. The location allows me to walk to my upper-scale rehabilitation clinic. No need to use my beater car. That much.

“You don't have to give this up,” Kiki says quietly. She knows I won't budge on that, and she of all people knows why.

Rehab’s not a well-paying profession. But there's more than money, sometimes the soul needs edification.

I look at what Kiki has and what I don't. I shove those thoughts away. She's my best friend. She's seen me through everything. Dark shadows press in, and my headache returns with a throbbing vengeance.

Kiki frowns. “Another headache?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't want to argue, Faren. You've got to know that.” Her root beer eyes peg me to the spot. The sweep of her dark hair lays like chocolate silk past her full breasts. “But with your looks”—she throws her manicured hands in the air—“you could shake your booty a little and work a side job. Get a place in your same area... you could own something.”

It's an old argument. Her penthouse is nearly paid for while mine's a rental with a landlord that cares more about the rent than maintenance.

Her eyes swim with knowledge, and I set down my tea. It's too cold to drink anyway. Her words put the last nail in the coffin of my resistance. “Something secure,” she adds in a whisper and I let her hug me. I cling to her and try to believe my financial troubles and dark secret can be erased by taking off my clothes for strangers

Kiki loves me more than I love myself.

She loves me enough for us both.

*

Sue glances up when I click off the light off. The sky is darkening as I slide my last patient folder through the glass partition. She has that look in her eyes and pushes a business card through the slot.

It bears a doctor's name: Dr. Clive Matthews.

I give Sue a sharp look, and she shrugs, giving my hand a maternal pat. My eyes burn with tears from the spontaneous gesture.

Sue notices my emotional struggle and ignores it. “He got rid of my migraines. Miracle worker, I say.” She nods and glances at the card significantly.

I notice the appointment time and sigh.

Sue doesn’t drop her gaze. “How much longer are you going to struggle through those bone crushers?”

I don't answer, and she nods in her knowing way. “That's what I thought, Miss Mitchell. You'd have just come in suffering worse than your own patients.”

Sue’s right. She knows it, and I do too.

I take the card and stuff it in the pocket of my smock, Dr. Seuss cats cover it in a smear of red and blue.

“Thanks,” I say grudgingly while I grab my coat.

“Welcome,” she shoots back in triumph as I hear the door whisper closed behind me.

I look at the card again as the cars, people, and city noise encapsulate me in the comforting rhythm of downtown. The smell of fish, food, and sea mingle, and I begin the short trek to the dank alley with the entrance to my apartment.

I have two weeks to prepare myself to go back into a hospital. I hate hospitals. They're all about death.

The thought of returning is almost enough to get a proper panic attack going.

Almost.

~2~

I tenderly brush the hair off her forehead, though she doesn't feel it. She never knows when I'm with her. The rain coats the window, distorting the outside world and making this room a bubble of reality. The space is dim. That's a must, since too much light causes her to thrash. On some level, she rebels. It's my deepest regret that her rebellion couldn't have been sooner, when it could have saved her.

It's a good day when I don't cry when I visit.

Today my eyes are dry but the next time they might not be. I squeeze her hand, speaking softly. I lean forward to press a kiss on the tissue-thin skin of her forehead. It's translucent, the body inside, still and soft from lack of movement.

Life.

My mother lives but not as she should.

I rise like I have hundreds of times and move to the door of the clinic that takes care of catatonic, high-needs patients.

I have a new job.

I do cry then.

No one notices my tears anymore. They're used to them, and I don't bother to see their sympathy.

I have a date with Kiki.

*

Kiki swivels in front of her makeup table and smirks at me. My trench coat drips water onto the floor.

“Gawd!” Her full lips pout as she swipes another layer of sparkly crap on her lips. “You look like a drowned rat.”

Her face softens. “See your mom?”

I nod. Kiki knows it always sucker punches me to visit. It kills me not to. I face the evil I can bear.

“Well, let's get you in the slut suit, baby.” Kiki moves through the hanging costumes until she gets to my size, and she frowns slightly. “I don't know how I'm going to stuff that gazelle body in the average getup.” She taps her nail against her glossy lip and scowls when some of her handiwork comes off.

“Damn,” she swears softly, making the hangers move with an angry swish of her hand.

“No.” A blue outfit sails to the end of the size eight rack.

“No.” A glossy green spandex number with a painful looking strip of butt floss floats past.

Her eyes narrow to slits as a beige '20s flapper-style dress with cut outs at the nipples appears. “Fuck no!”

I laugh, and Kiki glares at me. “It's not funny, bunny. You need to look spanktastic this first time out of the gate.”

She's so serious I giggle again. “I'm not a damn horse!” I hold my sides as laughter peels out of me, and I feel closer to normal. I'm so grateful for the levity she brings that I don't know what to say. Even if I'm about to strip down to nothing in a roomful of strangers, Kiki makes it better.

She finally grins as her eyes light on something red.

I mouth no, and she says, “Hell yes!” She tears it off the rod.

I don't think it's a real outfit. Actually, it’s more air than cloth.

“I can't wear that!” I stutter, backing away as if it's the plague instead of a skimpy costume.

Kiki's brows come together in an adorable frown. “Ah... we had this discussion dollface. You won't be wearing this for long.” Those perfect brows rise and I blow out a frustrated huff.

Right. No clothes. Well, this is a “classy” club, so only titties. No frontal nudity down there. They can't touch, and I have to wear stockings for some reason. City ordinance. So basically my butt and boobs will be bare to the world, but somehow that's okay because a small triangle of cloth will cover my front and some super-sheer stockings will encase my legs. Yeah.

Kiki pats the stool in front of a huge mirror, lit all around its square perimeter with Hollywood bulbs. Big ones. They glare at my pinched and pale face. Her mocha arm comes around my front and she begins to scoop and fix my hair. It is neither blonde or brown, but a rich honey color. It's never been dyed or bleached. I just didn't want any more attention when I was at home.

My idea of girly-ness is wearing a pair of high heels, tight jeans, and a top with sleeve cut-outs. I watch, mesmerized, as Kiki hikes my thick hair into a loose topknot, anchoring it with about a hundred bobby pins. She pulls a few tendrils loose to cascade halfway down my back. No matter what anyone says, long hair is easier than short. However, Kiki convinced me to take off five inches before I met with the manager a few days ago.

So far, meeting Ty has been the creepiest part. I remember exactly how he'd looked at me. It was eyeball rape.

“Hi, Faren,” Ty said, shaking my hand.

His large dark hand engulfed my smaller one. I’m surprised. I have long fingers that match my height. My hand never feels swallowed by a man's.

“Hi,” I said.

His eyebrows rose, and he spread his arms as he stepped back. “Kiki told me you know what to expect.”

I did. I felt like crying, but I took off my clothes. The heat of my embarrassment crawled across my skin.

My skirt pooled at my feet. My high heels and thigh highs don’t impede its crumpled slither down my legs.

Next, I unbutton the scarlet blouse Kiki had picked out, revealing an inky bra and panty set. The bra is demi-cupped and holds my full Cs high and tight, my pink nipples hidden by a strategic strip of ebony satin.

I made the mistake of looking at Ty. He licked his lips, his hooded eyes roving my body like a starving man. My palms begin to sweat.

“Turn,” he said quietly, and I do. He'd been looking at my bare ass, only a strip of lace bisecting my butt cheeks.

I felt the heat climb higher, infusing my neck to the roots of my hair. I count inside my head, praying for it to end.

“Walk,” he said.

I do, knowing I'm naturally graceful and balanced. The deep lace of my stockings whispers as I move away from him. Grace is the one thing that has never been taken from me, and I'm grateful for it now.

“Turn,” he said. I don't miss that his voice is somewhat hoarse.

I pivoted in a smooth motion, and I can't help but notice I've affected him. Shame flares anew, riding high to mortified.

“Walk.”

I inhaled deeply and draw nearer. I stop about three feet from him, and we stare at each other. I'm so tense I could've screamed.

“You'll do,” Ty said in a sarcastic drawl.

I looked into his dark eyes and see desire there. I swallowed so hard my throat clicks. Silence fills the space uncomfortably. “So when can I start?” I hate how timid my voice sounds.

Ty smirked as though he understands how desperate I am. I know Kiki didn't tell him my reasons. He assumed a lot. It must come with the job. “Tomorrow.”

“Okay.” With shaky fingers, I'd put on my clothes, fighting tears so hard that my eyelids burned with the need to cry. My mind filled with all my defenses. I'm a respectable girl. I pay my bills. I don't party, have boyfriends, goof off... I'm a physical therapist, for God's sake! But when I get the last button done, the words die. Ty sees me as commerce, and I sighed, feeling defeated. I can't even make the proper ending salutation.

I made my silent way to the door and almost escape before he'd asked “Have you ever had sex?”

I turned slowly, my heart hammering. What kind of effed up question is that? I gathered my courage, knowing I could lose this chance to clean up my fiscal problems with the wrong words.

“That's none of your business.” I'd hated myself, but I had to ask anyway, “Why? Why does that matter?”

Ty walked around his desk and shifted papers, his interest in me clearly waning. He'd been silent so long I opened the door and began to walk through it.

His words caught me before I closed it, “Because you walk like a whore.”

I stiffened. The tears that threatened earlier? Yeah... those fall.

I had softly closed the door and moved through the crowded, dark hallways of the strip club. My coat is secured around the outfit that'd cost me almost a week's pay.

I hated what Ty said.

I hated it because it felt true.

Kiki shatters the foul memory of meeting Ty when she asks, “You ready?”

I look back at the girl in the mirror that's me. Her eyes are so pale a gray they would look almost white if it weren't for the lightning strikes of bronze that streak the irises, a warm brown ringing the outside. Right now, they're wide and ghostly in my even paler face and Kiki stares back at me in the mirror. Her darker skin and complexion contrasts with mine in the reflection. She draws me in as I lean back against her.

“You don't have to, Faren.” She gives me an out as I stare at her dark arms wound around my neck in an embrace of solace.

But we both know why I have to.

I nod. “Yeah I do.”

She kisses my coiffed hair and backs up. I slip into the ruby red heels and try not to take that final glance in the mirror.

A tall slim girl stares back at me. Her hair looks like caramel, eyes like ice. Her creamy skin looks like milk against the deep red of the outfit. A glittering mask that is part of the act. It surrounds my silver eyes in secrecy. I'm glad for the anonymity. The glittering v between my full breasts needs only an inch to reveal my nipples. The waistband is Velcro.

Meant to be torn.

Kiki does a little spin, hump-hips, and throws her head back, keeping a death grip on the doorjamb. “Every time you come down the pole, 'kay?”

I nod as the music begins for my set.

“Use your good hand, hon,” she reminds me.

There's no way I could use the bad one. It'll be the wrist for balance and faking using both.

I don't fall apart until it's over. Then I'm at the commode throwing up my meager lunch.

I don't notice anyone watch as I race out of the club.

~ 3 ~

The hundreds fan out like a deck of perfect cards, and I move as though I'm in a dream. I scoop them up from Ty’s desk, and he stays my hand by wrapping my wrist with his large hand. My eyes skitter up to his, and I blink.

“What?” I feel filthy every time I'm near him. He seems to know it by some pervert instinct and capitalizes on it by treating me like dirt whenever our paths cross.

I’d tried to tell Kiki, and she flung her hands up dismissively. “No touchie!” she said and sashayed off. It's easy for her to say because he doesn’t watch her.

But he touches me now.

It's easy for her to say because I don't see him watch her.

He tightens his hold to just shy of bruising, and I fight my natural urge to pull away.

Ty has a hold of my bad hand, and anything can happen. As it is, my heart tries to escape my chest. I can't stand for a man to touch me. Every time it has happened in the past, it ended one way.

His eyes linger on mine then scan to where my coat is cinched at my waist. “There's more where that came from.” His eyes hold some kind of question I don't understand. I don't want to.

I ignore the overt innuendo. “Let me go.” All I want to do is whimper like a scared little girl. Because I am. I’m so scared. I've been doing this job for a week. The money I hold is enough to pay for half of my mom's care for the month. The entire month. It sits in my bad hand. My pinky finger pokes straight out, unable to bend correctly, and sweat dampens the dirty money.

“No,” he says

He squeezes imperceptibly harder, and a low sound of pain escapes my throat.

He smiles, and I realize he's a predator. Like my stepfather. The saliva in my mouth disappears as my breathing picks up.

The door opens, and he drops my hand as if it burns. The money floats to the floor because my hand can't hold it.

Ty says loud enough for whoever walks in to hear, “You're such a graceful dancer, but you can't hang onto your money.” He chuckles at his joke.

I don't think it's funny. I scoop up the money with my good hand, and the bad one throbs where it's been held too hard. Too long. I know from experience it won't work well for a solid hour.

“Hey, boss.” Ty sounds nervous, and that makes my heart lighter.

“What's happening here?” a man asks, his voice a deep rumble. Melodic. It vibrates through my body though my bare knees are planted on the plush carpet. My bones thrum with it as though it’s a tune that sings without permission inside the recesses of my soul.

I don't lift my face. I don't want anyone to witness my misery as I stuff the bills in my purse. I begin to rise as a large hand cups my elbow. Warmth leeches through my thin coat and flows through my body from his touch. I gaze at the beautiful leather shoes that shine in the soft light. My eyes rise to his wrist. Vintage cuff links wink back, a sapphire the only witness to my insecurity. My desperate need for indifference.

However fleeting, however untouchable.

I turn without offering thanks or a reply. His hand releases me, and I grow cold from its absence. I nearly run from the office, but I hear Ty comment about how strange I am, how all dancers are.

The only reply I hear before that burning gaze leaves my back is, “Shut up, Ty.”

The door clicks and I leave as quickly as I came.

The heat from that stare follows me.

*

Kiki's curls dance as she moves her head to the music in her ear buds. She looks like a duck, her head jutting and retracting to some awesomeness only she can hear. Her long nail scrolls down the screen of her cell.

I plop down across from her and heave a sigh of relief. I heft my bag across my legs and against the corner of the seat of my favorite diner. I don't branch out much. So sue me, I love the view. That's a bit of the reason why I live where I do, why I shell out nine hundred bucks a month on a studio dive. Well, that and Mom's terribly expensive care center is blocks away, like my job.

Both jobs, actually.

Kiki catches my eye and smiles big, her grin infectious. I smile back. She pops an earbud out, and I hear the singer, Sully Erna. Hottie. I feel heat fill out the cool paleness of my skin.

Kiki lights up at my expression, never one to lose out on an easy excuse to tease me. “Sully Erna's coming to town. Saw him when he was touring with Godsmack. He's dee-lish, baby!”

Kiki gives a little hip gyration on the seat as the waitress comes up, pen poised. She looks at Kiki with clear amusement and gives me a knowing smile. The that girl can't be contained look passes between us before we look back at Kiki.

“What?” she asks, laughing. Her hand sails out dramatically, her tips bright red this month because Christmas is coming. God knows, she can't not celebrate something.

I look at my own bitten fingernails and put my elegant hands with their stubby tips on my lap.

Arlene takes our order and saunters away, no doubt chalking up our goofiness to our age. I'm not goofy, but it's part of her charm I siphon.

“So tell me what's going down, girl,” she says without preamble. Now that she's here I don't know if I can say it all.

My hands sweat, and I fight to keep them on my lap. Arlene comes over and slaps two waters on the table. Her eyes flick to mine briefly, see something that makes her pause, but she must think better about getting involved because she leaves us to our conversation.

Kiki knows I owe money for my mom's care. I take a deep breath then another. I meet her eyes. “It's fifty K, Kiki.”

Her eyes bug comically, and her hand flies to her chest. “Jeee-sus! Faren...” she exhales in a contrite burst.

We stare at each other while Arlene delivers our coffees. She looks from Kiki to me, probably wondering what stole my friend's good cheer. One guess.

She leaves and Kiki leans forward, her hair sweeping in a black veil that brushes dangerously close to the steaming coffee. I calmly add cream and sugar, making it something that's not coffee anymore. She searches my face for the Swiss cheese of emotions leaking out and I nod. “Yeah, it's that bad,” I say.

She gives a low moan of outrage. “That bad? So fucking bad!” Kiki hisses. “No wonder you finally caved about shaking your tail.”

My shoulders slump a little at her words. An image of Ty's hand on my wrist like a vise bubbles up. I let it pop inside my mind, hoping it'll evaporate and knowing it won't.

“How long will it take me to work off that debt?”

Kiki's face smoothed out, her thinking face set into motion and I can tell she's adding stuff up. “Well... to be honest, most good nights you can make up to five hundred...”

We're doing the math, and I'm hearing years. My soul can't take it. The pole and the men... it's already eating at me. Then there's Ty. I want months. Hell, weeks.

A moment around him is a lifetime.

Kiki reads my face and sighs. She lowers her eyes and stirs her coffee. “I wasn't going to tell you, but there’s another option. It's kinda risky. It's not like the Black Rose.”

“What could be worse than dancing at the Black Rose?”

Kiki sighs. “Listen, BR is the classiest of these types of establishments. The men have to behave themselves, not touch the girls and you don't have to show your kitty.”

I'm so grateful. I give her an exaggerated eye roll. “What about Ty? He's like some kind of pimp!”

Kiki rolls her big eyes, her false eyelashes nearly reaching her brows. “Ty is Ty. He's great at sniffing out innocent girls, and he thinks you're skittish. He wants to scare you a little. No big thing.” Her eyes meet mine. “Listen, he's all bark. Don't let him spook you.”

Right. I feel I'm a good judge of bark versus bite, but I say nothing.

The food comes, and I look at the chef's salad with fresh salmon and wonder if I can eat it. My stomach's in knots. I feel the beginning of a fresh headache come on. I rub my temple before taking a small bite.

Kiki grabs a greasy fry and swirls it in some ketchup while taking a sip of Coke. No burger. She lives on about a thousand calories per day. I don't know how she stays alive, but she explains that she's not doing drugs to stay thin like the other girls. The whole scene makes me want to cry.

Then I go visit Mom and go right back to the pole anyway.

Kiki dips another fry and meets my eyes. It hangs there like a limp noodle, dripping ketchup that reminds me of blood.

I swallow. “How long?”

She stares at me for a heartbeat then beheads the fry. She talks through the food, “What are you willing to do?”

Oh gawd... Nothing more. Instead, I say, “A lot.”

She nods, gives a sad little shake of her head, and tells me. There's a cavernous silence as the last word drops out of her mouth. I know she hates herself for telling me.

I know she loves me more.

~ 4 ~

Decision made, we move on to different topics. I feel a weightlessness. It might not be a perfect path but at least I picked one. I'm back to telling Kiki about Ty.

“You met Him?” Kiki says in awe, utterly dismissing the true problem.

“Huh?” I ask, clearly hearing the capital letter in the pronoun.

“The owner! The hunky, delicious, panty-evaporating, very, very rich owner...”

I shrug. “He walked in, helped pick me up off the floor, while I was stuffing my dirty money in my handbag...”

“Did I mention rich?” Her perfectly plucked brows rise. “Did you see him?” Kiki's eyes are wide for a different reason now.

I shake my head, trying not to let on how much he unnerved me. And I never even saw his face.

Kiki flings herself back in an indignant huff. Her angry eyes meet mine. “I've been dying to meet him! Meet him meet him, not just him seeing a set while his dude slips me a ginormous tip. I'd sample his wares any day!” She exhales and crosses her legs, looking out at the water. Steelhead Diner sits at the top of Pike Street. The wall of glass frames Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains like a surreal painting of white ice and swirling deep cerulean waters.

“Why didn't you check him out? I gotta admit, I'm fanning my vagina right now.” Kiki says it with such sincere enthusiasm that I laugh.

I look down at my hands and give the first response that springs to mind. “I don't like rich guys.”

“Oh bullshittery! Yeah, I hate rich guys too! Hate.” She’s clearly mocking me, putting her index finger to her chin as her eyes rise skyward and her foot kicks endlessly. “Let's reason this shit out, Faren.” Kiki drills me with her gaze.

I squirm, knowing her brand of wisdom is coming. I take a bite of my salad and mechanically chew.

“Nice house, nice car, nice clothes, hot cologne”—she lifts her brows—“lots o’ gym time for the guns. Hell!” She smacks the table, and a couple of other patrons gaze our way. “Hell,” she repeats more softly, “I bet that he goes to those Kama Sutra classes so he can fine-tune the Moves.”

Oh my God.

“Yeah... that's what I'm talking about, baby. Give me some of that all-day love sauce. I'll come running back to double dip.”

I can't help it; I start laughing and can't stop. Sometimes a little comic relief goes a long way.

“You gonna live?” Kiki asks, confused by my hysteria.

I nod.

“For now.” My ribs are killing me.

“Anyway, listen up.”

I do, the remnants of my laughter ghosting my lips.

“Next time he plays hero, try saying thank you.”

“I don't think he knew he was saving me, Kiki.”

“Huh,” she grunts, slurping her Coke down to melting ice and pushing it away. “All I'm saying is, can you work it for once, Faren?”

Work it. I don't know… that seems like it's all I've ever done.

Kiki slides a card my way. It reads simply: Thorn. My thumb moves over the black glossy letters embedded deeply in the cream cardstock. Small numbers float beneath the name.

I look up and she says, “Take it.”

“Do you do it?”

Kiki smiles then admits, “Not anymore.”

I know her secret, and now she knows mine. All of it in its miserable glory. “That's how you got the penthouse?”

“Yeah.” As she remembers something from a while ago, her gaze drifts far away. “The Black Rose is great money, but this money”—her eyes peg mine—“is outstanding money.” I pause when I see the shadow in her eyes.

Neither one of us say what we're thinking. If I can keep this gig for maybe a year? Maybe less time if I can stomach four days per week instead of three? I could have my debt paid off and only have the monthly to consider. It's too lofty a possibility to hang my hope on.

Yet... it shimmers there, just out of reach.

I grab for it.

*

Thorn

Thorn is Ty.

I’m so forlorn about that fact I can barely force myself into his tight office located inside a tall skyscraper blocks from the Black Rose. Kiki didn't tell me. Of course, I didn’t ask. All I heard was “a grand a night,” and I climbed on board the easy money train. I should rename it complicated with a capital C.

He behaves differently. I guess the stakes are higher. Intimidating me while I work at the BR seems to be just fine. Now?

He lays out the ground rules.

“You will get an email each Monday that outlines the new meeting place...”

“What? It's not at a club?”

“Will you let me finish?” Thorn smolders at me and not in a sexy way. I've seen that look of heat before and it parallels intimidation.

He glares at me until my eyes drop. I breathe in and out deeply. I loathe him and how he makes me feel. How he makes me feel about my decisions.

“When the email comes in, you respond if you'll be there.”

I meet his eyes again, and he smirks. Ty knows he has me. “Why are you Thorn?” I ask, taking him off-kilter with my question.

He answers with deliberate slowness, “Every rose has its thorns.”

Our eyes lock and he asks, “Ready?”

I nod.

“You get a hundred dollars a lap dance.” His eyes sweep past mine, and he recites the speech as if it’s a recipe for cookie dough. “The quicker you give the dance, the better you do it, the more money there is. The clients are not allowed to touch you, and you never have to do anything you're uncomfortable with.” He says the last part with the sincerity of a felon.

Our eyes meet again and I get the message.

Thorn's into clarity.

He lists off the things you can make extra for. “Let them grope your titties- fifty dollars. Hand jobs, one hundred.”

I swallow. I think there's a little throw up in my mouth. I don't say I've never done a hand job. Thorn already called me whore, and there's no convincing the decided. And really? It's better that Thorn thinks I'm what he presumes I am. Thorn doesn't know why I'm doing this. He doesn't know my past, my present job. He's guessing, and I'm all for keeping it that way. The less he knows is definitely more.

Those thoughts take seconds.

Thorn moves on, “There will be security. Not that it's needed.” He flicks his eyes to mine and smirks. “We have trained gorillas outside all the stations. So the girls don't have to worry.”

I squirm a little, thinking about how they'll fire me on the first night. My temples pound with the familiar start of a migraine, and my hand closes around the crumbled card of Doctor Matthews inside my purse. My appointment next week looms in front of me and I don't look at Thorn's dark face, eyes that hate me, a body that wants me. I know someone's got a tight leash on Thorn or he would have done more than proposition me and threat.

Who?

Jared McKenna? The elusive, semi-hero billionaire who happens to own the nicest strip club in Seattle?

I look at Ty, a.k.a. Thorn again, and wonder who could leash that pit bull.

“I'm not sure what to do...” If I don't say something, he'll hear about it from a pissed client. This isn't working my sore muscles against a pole in front of men from a safe distance. It's different.

Intimate.

Thorn grins, his white teeth an eery slash against his dark complexion. He strides over to where I stand, and I barely hold my ground, gritting my teeth.

He towers over me even though I'm 5'9” in my stocking feet.

I pull away and he frowns, gripping me tighter. “Chill out, it's a tutorial. I'm not going to rape you.”

Right. My body remembers and locks up, fights for air, for reason.

He looks at my face and gives a dark chuckle.

Thorn moves the swivel chair and sits down on it, slapping his lap once.

I die inside. If someone had told me I would be this close to Ty the creep manager, I would have laughed.

Not laughing now.

I gingerly lift one knee and place it on the outside of his thigh, his dark eyes watching as I do. The other knee follows, and I force myself to grip his shoulders for balance or I'll fall against him.

I shiver, and he takes it for arousal instead of loathing.

Thorn grips my hips, and I hiss and try to pull away.

“That's not going to work on the dudes we have coming to enjoy this body of yours.” He jerks my hips forward, and I feel his erection against my upper thigh.

“Move.”

I bite my lip to keep from screaming. I rub against him over and over. His hands move to cup my ass, and suddenly I'm not moving on my own. He's shifting my body against his stiff penis. My breasts are safely encased inside a nude bra that brushes his face as the friction of our clothed coupling intensifies. Thorn pants and gives a whispered shout that's somewhere between a hiss and a yell.

I feel sick as I climb off him, a wet patch at his crotch spreading to his muscular thighs.

I back away, shaking. The fine beginnings of a bruise blossom high on my thigh, and I shudder in revulsion.

I wrap my black trench coat around the underwear he insisted was all I wear underneath it.

Thorn asks softly, “Got it?”

I nod. I so have it.

And I never want it again.

I flee as though the devil's at my back.

~ 5 ~

Monday

I watch the blinking cursor as it flashes above send. My finger hovers, my will along with it. I clench my eyes and tap the mouse with a decisive click. My RSVP floats into the ether to be received by Thorn or one of his lackeys.

Tonight's my first night on the job. My new job.

One grand per night whispers through my head.

I'm exhausted. I worked a full day mending the wounds of others, forcing them toward wholeness. I paid for Mom's care for the first time in cash. I pretended not to notice as the receptionist paused when she took the rolled up money.

Her eyes met mine. “Cash?”

I still have the receipt in my purse. I think I'll frame it when this whole thing ends.

If it ever does.

I slowly walk to the “party room.” I know I've done all that I can to make myself desirable. Ty impresses on me the importance of the “mingle” period. These are men with tastes, he'd emphasized.

I walk in, my ice-blue dress barely covering my rear. Little strings that end in silver beads sway and tickle the tops of my thighs. They cup my ass as I move in four-inch stilettos. The neckline is so low the top of my belly button peeks in and out like a teasing divot.

The men turn as a new girl enters. I imagine their response is as instinctive as flowers turning their collective heads toward the sun. I know I've hit the mark when their conversation stops. Eyes greedily move over my form, missing nothing. Some eyes linger at my breasts, some my long legs, some caress the burnished gold of my hair under lights turned down so low they barely illuminate.

One man never looks at my body but my eyes. They're worth a stare, hidden by a mask of small Swarovski crystals. Only the light gray of my irises show through the slits. My dark blonde lashes are hidden under deep chocolate mascara.

“Two hundred for twenty minutes,” he says. He has deep black hair, a strong jaw, and eyes that might be a greenish-hazel if there was more light.

Voices erupt, drowning his and I fluster, backing away.

My masked eyes meet security.

Just like Thorn promised, he interrupts the bidding frenzy with quietly spoken words. “Five hundred, and she's yours for the virgin session.”

My eyes snap to his, thinking I've been discovered. But no, he simply means this is my first lap dance. Ever.

My shoulders drop, and I relax a little.

The man who said two hundred dollars nods at the security guard. Another man, complete in a tux and tails, brings a ticket on a silver tray, his eyes moving over me once.

It's enough.

I feel dirtier than when I arrived.

The man with coal black hair holds out his hand, and I slip mine inside his. It's warm and dry.

Other girls’ faces meet mine as I slide behind a door bearing the number one. I don't know who they are because they wear small masks as well.

It's okay because I don't know who I am anymore.

“I'm Jay,” he says as he loosens his tie.

I stand there stupidly.

He laughs and sits on a large chair. The plush burgundy faux suede hides a myriad of crimes.

Like the one I'll commit.

“Come here,” he commands in a low voice, his eyes burning into mine.

I walk to him. The beads that made me feel sexy a half hour ago sting like many bugs biting my flesh as I move.

I stand in front of him, and he doesn't touch me. He slowly unbuttons his shirt. Jay takes the loop of the tie over his head and tosses it aside. My eyes roam his muscular torso as he slowly unbuttons his shirt, his eyes never leaving mine. He does serious gym time.

I recognize the look of hard work instantly, my hand was not the only thing I rehabilitated.

I'm sore from my own workouts. A permabruise etched on the inside of the wrist of my bad hand testifies to my two weeks of pole dancing. But pain won't end me. After what I've been through, physical pain is just another obstacle.

It's the mental that's killing me.

“Straddle me,” he says.

I mount him like I did Thorn, my upper thighs quaking. Is it horrible that because it's not Thorn, that somehow it's better?

Music creeps into the room from strategically placed speakers. My eyes flick to the side and note scattered tissue paper, lube, condoms, and a neat pile of sex toys in an antique porcelain box.

Glass.

Rubber.

I turn my face away, tears making me hold my eyes wide so they don't fall.

Jay sets a fifty dollar bill on the end table next to the chair. A cut glass dish holds the bill perfectly. It twinkles in the low light while it holds filthy money.

I move, and he says, “I want to touch your breasts.”

My eyes shift to the money. I swallow and, after a brief hesitation, nod.

He bends forward and whispers, “Keep moving... yeah...,”

He groans as I grind against him, my face averted. I stare at the gilded wallpaper, trying for an out-of-body experience. I memorize the geometric shapes. I feel his fingers push aside the glittering v of my top. A finger brushes my nipple, and I nervously increase my pace. My nipple hardens like a traitor, and my heartbeat speeds up in unrequited fear.

I won't embrace it or I'll scream. This stranger latches onto my nipple and sucks as I increase the friction against him. I gasp a little at the contact. I guess touching my breast can mean his mouth, though I'm not expecting it.

I disassociate myself further, my eyes tracing the fleur de lis wallpaper. My grinding stresses my muscles, my fight against adrenaline exhausts me, and the need for money spurs me forward anyway.

His breathing tells me when it'll be over, and then it is. He presses my naked breasts against his face and shouts into the center of my warm flesh, releasing against a hand towel over his front.

Jay holds me against him as if I'm precious. That's worse than if he’d just let me go. I disengage, scuttling off his lap in an awkward lurch and averting my eyes from his crotch.

He stands up, limp and spent, and uses the little toiletries provided to clean up his inconvenient mess.

I'm numb as I adjust my top and scoop up the fifty, adding it to the five hundred. As I walk out of the room, his eyes commit me to memory.

I realize I never said a word. He doesn't even know my name. Jay didn't ask.

At least there's that.

In the restroom, I gaze into the wall of gilded mirrors. Toiletries, makeup, and wipes of every variety litter the vanity. I put my head in my hands and sit there for moments that become minutes. When I lift my head, I turn on the tap, wait for it to steam, and yelp as I wash my hands raw. Then I unwrap a toothbrush and wash my mouth, brushing viciously. Twice.

I thank whatever's holy that I never kissed him. I couldn't stand that. It's the final insult. No kissing.

Because this is closer to prostitution than dancing. I get that now. I take deep breaths, concentrating on inhaling, then exhaling.

I stand, straightening my beaded dress borrowed from Kiki, and head back out into the room.

They bid again, and I head back into the room of the damned. This one wants to touch my breasts.

I let him.

And leave with twelve hundred dollars.

Only forty-eight thousand and change to go.

~ 6 ~

Present day

“Sir,” someone says to my right, but my eyes are shut.

“Please step away.” The timbre of that voice is commanding, authoritative.

My eyes open slowly as I take in the tactile wave around me.

I hear a low curse, and that warm presence moves. I feel cold, bereft as a beefy man in a navy uniform crouches next to me and smiles. His clear blue eyes scan the street. I hear car doors open and close, sirens cut off. The silence is deafening, a deep well to get lost in. All around me, people's legs appear, like clothed tree trunks.

I'm in the middle of a people forest and it makes a slightly hysterical giggle erupt from my mouth.

That's when I realize I'm higher than a kite.

All the while, the man in blue has been talking to me quietly in soothing tones. My eyes sort of spin before focusing on his. I lift my hand to try and touch him, and I hiss in pain.

A moment of panic tries to rise up in my throat because it's my good hand. Please God, don't let that be wrecked too.

“Shh,” he says.

He calmly takes my struggling hand, and his finger moves to the underside of my wrist. I feel the subtle pressure of him taking my vitals. A loop of transparent tubing swings in my vision. “I've got ya,” he says and I notice his name tag: Johnny.

My body becomes weightless. I feel them place me on a stretcher. My thigh shrieks in pain, and I whimper. The paramedic's eyes move to the needle in my arm, and he adjusts something. I float deeper in the haze of the drugged.

“It's going to be okay,” he says, which fills me with instant dread.

I hear that melodic voice in the background. It grows loud in argument, and I know it's my angel trying to shelter me with his wings.

Johnny the paramedic loads me into the back of an ambulance. I try to move. I have work.

I have to die. I remembered Matthews's words perfectly. The drugs can't soften that.

“Let me through!” the angel says. His face appears above mine, seeking me through the safety of blue men, through the onlookers in the multi-colored forest of people.

They can't save me.

No one can.

But the one who held my hand when I was laid out in the middle of the street takes it again. The sedative works in collusion with the hit to my head as I begin to fade.

His deep brown eyes in a strong face are the last thing I see as the sedative takes me from consciousness like a thief.

That undeniable face is the last thing I see.

Then it hits me: I don't have to deny myself anything. When one knows the hour of their death, it all becomes clear.

It's a kind of relief.

*

Kiki's wide eyes greet mine when I wake up.

“Thank God!” she says in a loud voice, and I cringe a little. She covers her mouth. “Sorry,” she tries to whisper and misses it by a mile.

“Oh my gawd, girl, you had me peeing my pants!” Her anxious eyes scan my face then move down my body. They sweep back up to my eyes again.

I smile a little, and my mouth feels like torn sandpaper, complete with cracked lips and breath like ass. “Water,” I croak.

Kiki slaps her forehead and brings a cup to me smoothly, tipping the bendy straw down to my lips. The water tastes like cold heaven. My eyes meet hers.

“Okay, tell me what the hell happened,” Kiki says, plopping down in the hospital chair next to my bedside.

I want to know where that guy is. The one I saw in my drug-induced stupor... where did he go? But I don't ask.

“I don't really know. I was coming out of the clinic...”

“Seeing the doctor about your migraines?” she prompts.

I just nod. Talking about about my death sentence is a little too much.

Matthews's words come back to me, welling up in the center of my brain: loss of sensation and appetite, issues of vertigo—loss of balance.

I can't have that. I need to keep dancing so there will be something left for Mom when I'm no longer here.

Kiki snaps her fingers. “Y'know, they can't release you like this. You're not all here, Faren.”

Not all here. My memory blinks, and I'm on the lap of one man. Like a camera shutter, it clicks. Then I'm suffering through Thorn and his brand of control. The shutter stalls on my stepdad beating my mom nearly to death.

All because she defended me.

And I think I can go and die?

I close my eyes.

Kiki pushes my hair back. “What is it, doll? I mean, besides the obvious… You look like someone just stepped on your puppy.”

I bark out a laugh. You know the type, full of beaten and contained emotions bubbling to the surface. “I don't have a dog.” Perish the thought; I can hardly handle my own life.

Kiki lifts a shoulder, “Yeah, whatever, but if you did...” She smiles, and I smile back.

After a few moments, she says, “This is what I know. You came screaming—”

“Screaming?” My brows pop.

Kiki rolls her eyes. “Not yelling but bookin'.”

“Oh.”

“Anywho, you come screaming out of the doctor's office and run right into the street.”

I nod. That sounds right. After the wonderful bomb dropped, I just wasn't myself.

I'm not sure when I will be again.

“Then!” Kiki throws up a finger. “A super-hot guy plowed into you with his Harley! Love by bike!” she says with a squeal.

“Kiki...” No matter what I say, it won't work. I'm okay, and she's smitten with the strange circumstances.

“You're okay, Faren.” She looks at my blanket-covered body and snatches the blanket down to my thigh. “Battle scars. You can cover that with foundation.”

We look at the bruise made from the bike, and I realize I'm lucky my leg's not broken.

I watch her dark eyes move to my right thigh and land on my bump and grind bruise. She lays a finger on it.

Kiki doesn't meet my eyes when she asks, “How's the work?”

I don't look up. “It's going.”

“What do you have to do?” Kiki asks.

I give her an accusatory look.

She backs away, her hand coming off my leg. I cover my lower body with the sheet again.

“You were desperate,” she says. “You need the money, and this is the only way, short of dealing drugs, that it's going to happen for you.”

“I don't want a penthouse.”

“I know.” Kiki’s eyes bore into the top of my bent head. “Now tell me why the fuck you ran out of the doctor's office.”

I open my mouth then close it again. I don't know if I'm ready to tell her. I don't even know if I'm ready to accept what Matthews said. I'm going through the stages of grief just fine, thank you very much.

I think I'm hung up on anger.

I hear a noise, and we turn like guilty co-conspirators when the door opens. Someone passes through with a cheesy balloon with 1980s lettering that screams Get Well and a bouquet of carnations. The balloon bobs and wags, revealing a sliver of his face.

Ty, a.k.a. Thorn.

My guts seize, and Kiki gives the man who's effectively pimped me out a dazzling smile.

“Ty!” she says happily and throws herself in his arms.

His dark eyes meet mine over her shoulder, and he flashes a tight smile my way. I press my damp palms into the bed sheets.

“Thanks for covering for Faren last night, Kiki,” Thorn says in an ominous message directed straight at me.

His eyes slide over my form, safely ensconced underneath the hospital covers. “Let me talk to our girl here.”

Kiki nods and turns to me.

I ask, “You did a...” I don't even know what to call it. I settle on the most innocuous word I can muster. “Dances for me?” I squeak, hating owing anybody, even Kiki.

“She sure did,” Thorn's eyes meet mine. “What are friends for?” The question is posed innocently, but I know what he's really asking.

Kiki gives me a light kiss on the cheek and ignores my eyes begging her to stay. She buzzes out with a I'll be back soon flutter of her fingers, leaving me with Thorn.

All pretense of a smile leaves Thorn's expression as his eyes go flat black in an millisecond. “Let's talk, Faren.”

I say nothing, and he begins. When Thorn finishes, I stare at my clenched hands, wanting out so bad I can barely stand it.

Thorn wants me as a regular. He wants me to cover my fresh bruises with makeup, like Kiki suggested. He asked if I can still dance, to which I only nod.

Hell yes, I'll dance. I have a sudden desire for my mom that's so strong it's like pain that I can't fix, a part of me broken beyond repair. We'd been so close and now I had no one to take her place as confidante. There's no glue for my broken problems.

Thorn's last words flit through my mind. “There's more money if you keep giving me dances. Private ones.”

My eyes travel to his. I'm so engaged with him I don't hear the whisper of the door when it opens and my angel walks in.

Seeing my face changes his expression of contrition to one of darkness. Those large chocolate eyes move impassively to Thorn and noticeably harden.

Thorn jumps to his feet, gathers up the balloon and flowers, and turns to the man who held my hand. Thorn explains nervously, “Wrong room, pal.”

My brows come together in a puzzled frown as they stare each other down.

I swear they know each other. I'm glad that Thorn leaves. I wonder what chased him out.

Who.

He's even more beautiful than I remember him. My eyes take him in with hunger, every moment of my life is hyper-bright, acutely surreal and microscopic. His hair glints, like the deepest copper penny, from the pale light bleeding through the window. His skin is like creamy mocha, and his eyes are so dark they look black.

Except when they look at me, they're molten amber.

“Hi.” He steps forward and stretches out his hand.

I move to put my palm in his, and I notice manicured nails that don't match the callouses on his palm. A signet ring flashes a college I can only dream of attending as his large hand covers mine.

Cuff links peek from his expensive suit sleeve.

Then I see the shoes. A different leather than before but just as supple. Just as distinctive.

My eyes drive up his body and meet his gaze, and a dimple flashes into existence as a smile full of white teeth dazzle me. Those eyes capture me in an embrace of satin chocolate.

“Jared McKenna,” he says, and I know I'm in for it.

I might be dying. I might have a dirty job that pays for the sins of my past. But right then, I know heaven, if just for a little bit, right here on earth.

~ 7 ~

Pretending is the hardest.

That I don't think about what Doctor Matthews told me. That Jared McKenna, billionaire entrepreneur, didn't run me down with his Harley because I barreled into his path. That I'm one of the exotic dancers at his exclusive club, Black Rose.

Thorn left because he doesn't want to clue his boss in on the relationship to me. Why?

Our handshake breaks. His finger trails along the inside of my wrist, and as it leaves my flushed skin, my heartbeat accelerates. I watch his pupils eat his brown irises. I can't tell if the dimming of his gaze is from the gloom of the room or that I have a clue to how I affect him. Our meeting is a testimony to the power of carnal attraction. Chemistry doesn't discriminate as to timing, looks, or circumstance. It's there to be recognized and play out, regardless of environment.

What's happening is exactly what I don't need. I look terrible, I have a visit to my mom's bedside tonight, and a set tomorrow night on the lap of another stranger. I'm facing the man who is my boss, my assailant, and savior all in one chaotic package. And he's enough of a man to make a legion of panties disintegrate.

Incinerate.

Jared McKenna leans back, drawing his pant leg down as he crosses his knees at the ankle. His eyes are shadowed as he stares at me.

I break the silence. “I'm Faren Mitchell.”

I pray he has too many dancers to know who I am. I can't help my embarrassment.

His manicured nail, blunt and perfect, flicks the clipboard with my medical chart. One corner of his lush mouth picks up in a dimpled half-smile, and I blush, glancing at my hands. Of course he knows who I am. He takes my cool fingers and frowns a little at them. My eyes are hidden, staring at my lap as my heart beats a staccato rhythm.

He turns my palm over and talks to my hand. “I'm so sorry, Faren.”

He says my name like a talisman, and I look up, startled by the soft way his voice caresses the syllables. I gaze at him numbly, his fingers playing over my knuckles. It's more intimacy than I've received from a human being since Mom was taken from me four years ago. It's a terrible beauty that the genuine touch of another human being moves me.

I've lap danced with dozens of men in the last ten days, but Jared makes me feel as though I'm part of him. The light play of his fingers over my flesh creates a symphony of sensation.

I want to snatch my hand away.

I want him to move on to other body parts. I'm so out of my emotional comfort zone that I can't breathe.

I say the first thing that comes to mind. “It's not your fault. I was-I was upset.” I glance at Jared again then bite my lip, casting my eyes downward.

He squeezes my hand lightly. The callouses on his palm scrape an erotic path as they slide away from my skin.

I miss his touch and feel relief at the same time.

He rakes the hand that was just touching mine through his hair and exhales. “It's not your fault. I should have seen you before you were in the street.”

I look at him without wanting to, and his deep brown eyes pull me in. They look so sincere. He doesn’t look like a rich guy who’s had it easy. There's a hardness to him, an edge. Jared McKenna isn’t accustomed to being scrutinized, and he smoothly redirects my thoughts.

“I’ve already paid the bill for your care,” he says. A sheepish smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

Thank God! I think then on the heels of that, How dare he?

My eyes narrow and he looks surprised.

“What?” he asks as if he doesn't know.

Like he doesn't realize how manipulative the whole paying it is. I don’t want to be an ungrateful wench, but I cross my arms underneath my breasts. The unattractive baby blue hospital tent covering me from knee to neck hitches up, and I watch his eyes shift to my breasts then away.

Still a guy. An unapologetic, manipulative, gorgeous guy.

“I have health insurance.”

He nods, his strong chin holding a kiss from God in the center. My mind swirls with drug-induced thoughts of him as my angel, and a little smile touches my lips.

His stare moves to my mouth. “I understand. However, I feel responsible, so I'll take care of it.”

His words are final, said with an expression that is equal parts hard and unyielding. Jared is used to people saying yes. I wonder if anyone ever says no.

He stands to walk away as if he expects me to roll over. Even I know I'm not being reasonable. The fault lies with him. Jared McKenna has made me forget everything but his presence, and that's not fair. I have terrible debts to pay, a short life to live, and instead of focusing what needs doing, I let a man unnerve me to the point that I forgot what's important. Not to mention he's my boss... and he did hit me with his motorcycle.

His hand circles the doorknob, but as if he forgot something, he returns to my bedside, and slides an elegant business card into my handbag. “I don't think I'm finished with my penance just yet, Miss Mitchell.” Then he does it, a second intimacy I don't know what to do with, I can't know how to quantify.

He leans forward and wraps his hand around the back of my head where it's snarled with asphalt and dirt from the accident. As he breathes a kiss of fragrant heat above my forehead, he whispers, “I really am sorry.”

I gulp down the luscious scent of him: male, cinnamon, and spice. Jared McKenna pulls away, pulverizing me with a stare for my ten heartbeats to his two and walks away.

I watch his tailored navy back and deep bronze hair leave as silently as he entered.

*

I hold my mom's hand, as I have a thousand times before and I cry. I'll miss her. And so much else. Her prognosis is grim—maybe a handful of years or less. I can't let them move her.

I won't.

I swipe at the wetness on my face, listening to the clock as sunlight slants inside her room. Someone forgot to close the blinds.

I sigh, stand, and make my way to the window. My right hand grasps the twisty plastic rod, and I turn it to shut the slats. My eyes catch sight of a familiar motorcycle. As if on some bizarre cue, my thigh throbs where McKenna hit it. His body's unmistakable. He’s large and broad in the shoulders, and the unique hair color brands him.

Unobtainable.

I shut the blinds with a sharp click. He ran into me. Jared McKenna paid my bill. He needs a piece of my mind.

He held me and made me grieve for something I can't have. For that, I hate him. I stare at the louvers. I glance behind me at my mother sleeping in false peace. I turn back to the blinds and the man I know is behind them.

I lift one of the louvers and peer out at him as he sits astride his idling bike, surfing his cell with a tapered finger. I allow my eyes to take in his all-black ensemble. Gone are the tailor-made suit, Italian shoes, and subtly jeweled cuff links. In their place is the kind of leather a girl dreams about.

Dark.

Black.

Dangerous.

I let the louver slip back into place and turn back to my mom. I gnaw at my bottom lip. Decision made, I march out of Mom's room, mad at Jared for following me as if I'm some baby. His new charity. Rich guys like him have to feel good about something they do, right?

I don't need sympathy.

I take the steps like a battle sergeant and swing the wide glass doors open, nearly braining an orderly.

“Whoa! Faren, what the hell?” Barney says with a laugh as I breeze past him.

My cup of care has runneth over, and it's spilling on everyone. Later I'll apologize.

Right now, I'm on a mission.

My eyes land on Jared, and I stomp over to him. The low drone of his bike makes my next words harsher. “You don't need to follow me, Mr. McKenna.”

That small amused smile he's sported from the minute I met him widens into a grin. His teeth are so very white in his smug face.

Gawd, he's so insufferable. His eyes move to my lips, and I realize I'm still mauling them. I let my bottom lip pop out of my mouth.

“Just making sure my investment pays off,” he says smoothly. I am feeling the distraction of him as I see his large strong hands hold the throttle and subtly twist it as the motor give an deep appreciative throb.

“What?” I can't believe him. I put my hands on my hips and his gaze travels in a random three point pattern. Yeah, that one. I scowl at him, my breasts and hoo-ha tingling from where his gaze just traveled.

“Looking for bruises?”

His smile fades.

“No,” he says in curt answer. “Did you look at the card I gave you?”

I shake my head. I went straight from the hospital to my place, took a hot and painful shower, and headed directly to my mom's care facility.

“You might want to.” The kickstand taps the concrete, and then he's moving toward me in a steady stride of fluid muscle in motion.

God, he's big. My heart is in my throat as his shoulders blot out the street behind us, the sun... everything. I look up as he draws nearer. His subtle smell is a memory trigger for the asphalt at my cheek, the swirling haze in my mind, the feel of a warm hand over mine.

Safe, my memory whispers.

I blink, and he's there, tipping my chin up and searching my face. Heat blazes in his eyes though his expression is cool. His gaze moves to my mouth, and I feel my lips part in invitation. An invitation I've expressly forbidden myself. My life is in shambles, and he's a last-minute storm driven into my path.

McKenna bends his frame over mine. He cups my chin as his mouth hovers over the corner of mine. “Do what it says, Miss Mitchell.”

He drops his hand from my face and I stand there, stunned. He walks away, drops one long leather-clad leg over the seat and lifts the kickstand with a practiced swivel of his black boot. He turns to me. “Call me Mick. I think we're on a first name basis now, don't you?” he asks rhetorically.

He doesn't wait for an answer I won't give. Jared pulls away from the curb, and I walk forward like a zombie. I sway as I watch him, and something startling occurs to me.

The past day has been the first twenty-four headache-less hours I've had in months.

Maybe Jared “Mick” McKenna is my medicine?

Or my drug of choice. Either way, I'm an addict.

~ 8 ~

I walk through the narrow front door of my apartment building. My eyes travel the stairs, and I sigh with irritation. My gaze shifts to the rickety old freight elevator, a soothing form of transport—if it works.

I'll take my chances. I press the old push button that slides the elevator doors apart. I shove the metal gate away, step through, close the woven metal behind me, and latch it with my right hand. I press the lit number 5. With a lurch, the cart lumbers up, grinding and clattering the entire way. It stops just short of the fifth floor. I open the heavy metal, and it slides away with a rattle. Gripping one side, I hike myself up to floor level and grimace. My body doesn't like being tossed on a street, I guess.

I close the door and walk the short distance to my apartment. I slide the key into the bolt and turn it, opening the door with my hip, and drop my keys in the bowl on top of a small table from my mom's house.

I spread my fingers, feeling their stiffness.

I put on the kettle and watch the burner turn red as I grab the edges of the stove. I lean against it, chin brushing my chest, and cry.

I don't want to die. I want to see Jared McKenna again. I want to know the secrets of my body before I no longer exist to experience them. I lift my head and walk to the sink, turning on the tap, wallowing in the comfort of my familiar routine. The water steams as it hits the white porcelain basin and I splash hot water on my face and it feels good – normal. Breathing deeply, I try to bring myself back to whatever center I can find.

I stare off instead, thinking about nothing. The card. I remember and lurch to the couch. My normal grace is gone in my rush to retrieve the card he slid inside my purse. My body squawks, aches and pains springing up like unwanted weeds. I reach in my pink purse, the fake diamonds winking at me.

The card will say something like: I know your secret.

Though he can't know.

Or: You work for me, pay up—on my lap.

That elicits a shiver. Not one of revulsion either. I'm pretty sure Jared hasn't put it together that I was the girl picking up money at his feet.

Or my personal favorite: You're fired.

He won't give a shit that my mom is two weeks from being put into one of those places.

I shudder thinking about the care Tannin Mitchell would receive in a state facility.

I push it out of my mind as my hand closes around the heavy paper. The square fits into my palm perfectly, luxuriously. Nothing but the best for Jared.

I move my hand away from the front. In black foil lettering, it reads: Jared McKenna. Tiny upper case letters spell out a web site address.

Well, that was lame. I suppose he wants me to become a follower? My thumb glides across the deeply embossed letters, shining like ink on the deep cream card. With a sigh, I place it on the end table and turn to move back into the kitchen.

My eyes hit on the slanted script on the back. I read it twice.

Streetside; 1920 1st Ave. Seven o'clock. Black tie.

I stare at the deliberate handwriting, and a nervous laugh shoots out of my mouth. What is this?

Then it comes to me. Jared McKenna, a.k.a. Mick, feels guilty. He wants to make sure that he ties the bow just right on the package of his conscience. Once that's done, he can move on and be free of me.

I feel a smile bleed across my face, and I don't need a mirror to know it's not pleasant.

I have nothing to lose. Kiki is doing my laps tomorrow night too. I have a full twenty-four hours without worry.

You're dying, Faren, my mind reminds me in an evil whisper. I decide to seize the moment.

Nothing to lose.

Except my virginity.

*

I walk outside my apartment building, and the cool air nips at my exposed legs. The nude stockings are so sheer they let the wind have its way with me. My platform pumps match my hose, and the chill works upward underneath my silver dress. It's short and elegant, unlike the costumes I wear for the laps of strangers. The clothes hide both the bruise from Mick's Harley and the fading cylinder from riding erections. Gaining experience while losing my innocence, one lap at a time.

I force my thoughts back to the outfit I've chosen for McKenna, the salve to his guilt. The silver of my dress makes my eyes look like shiny coins. I've tacked my hair up in an elegant loose coil at my nape, abandoning informal bands, barrettes and hair jewelry in favor of honey-colored bobby pins I use to artfully arrange my hair into a knot at the base of my head.

But my mind revolves around Doctor Matthews's words and the card he gave me with my appointment about management. I find myself dismissing his cautions as a limousine pulls up at the curb. I clutch my small silver purse and bite my lip not to laugh.

This can't be happening to me. I'm a physical therapist and part time exotic lap dancer. Girls like me don't go out with billionaires. Especially terminally ill girls, even if it's only to dispel his feelings of responsibility.

Of course, nobody would know I'm living on borrowed time from looking at me. The girl in the mirror stared steadily back as I had glammed up for tonight, healthy as a horse.

But that's not what the damning photo of my brain has proven to me.

Was that just a day ago? I wonder. A day ago when I was breezing through patients, grinding through lap dances. Before my life dumps upside down forever. But I've made a promise to Mom. A promise I can't give up because my circumstances have turned dire, permanent.

I will keep it. She gave her life for mine. I’ll do anything it takes to give her dignity. Because that's all I can do.

The driver comes around to the curb and discreetly glances at my outfit. A slim smile courses across lips accustomed to just that expression. He probably smiles like that when he's sleeping.

“Ms. Mitchell?” he inquires in smooth American English. He's a stooped, older gentleman, maybe close to mid-seventies.

I think of him driving with old man reflexes in the heart of Seattle. I hesitate. Actually, the whole situation makes me hesitate, and I have a crazy urge to run off in the opposite direction.

I don't.

“Please.” He sweeps an arm forward and guides me by my elbow to the back of the limo.

I'm so glad for my ten years of ballet before height stole my dreams. I glide down off the curb into the street and fold into the limo easily.

It's empty. I turn to the limo driver. “Where is...” I don't know how to refer to him.

The little old man inserts my missing moniker smoothly, “Mr. McKenna?”

I nod.

“He awaits you at our destination,” he replies and softly shuts the door.

I survey him as he leisurely strolls around the front of the limo and opens the door to slide in.

I realize I don't know his name.

I lean forward and tap the glass partition, my rear in the air and my knee planted on the seat across from me.

The glass opens, and his watery blue eyes meet mine. “Yes, Ms. Mitchell?”

“What is your name?”

A genuine smile spreads the deep folds of his cheeks to smoothness.

“I am Henry.”

He extends a palm through the open glass, and I take it. He gives my hand a brief squeeze before he lets go to turn back to the wheel.

I settle again in my seat and smooth my dress down to mid-thigh. “Thank you, Henry.”

His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “You are most welcome.”

The glass closes with a silent hiss, and our eyes meet for a moment more. I think I see something in them that gives me pause.

A sort of wise sadness remains as his eyes shift to the road. We’re on the same page but put in the book for different reasons.

Henry pulls away from the curb. I watch him expertly navigate the busy lower streets of First Street. He avoids the storefront of Pike Place Market, still jammed with tourists. It's been dark for an hour as we close in on the restaurant. My face breaks into a grin. Thoughts of bucket lists crowd my head, and I remember I can take whatever is I wish for. My life is mine in a way I've never thought of before. There is no precedence for this night.

For what might come next.

We park at the base of the Space Needle, where Mick waits five hundred feet above the ground. Henry slips out of the limousine and walks to my door. I bend my legs in unison, tap my heels on the street, and take the hand he offers me.

Henry lifts his chin infinitesimally, and I look where he indicates. People are walking toward the doors of the Skycity Restaurant and their dress code is not formal as Mick has told me. He requested I dress black tie formal, even though it's not required, and I frown as the mystery of Mick deepens.

I move through the lobby, decked out in vintage 1960s space age décor, and look around with wide eyes. I've lived in Seattle nearly all my life, and I’ve never been here. I walk to the elevator, and a man in a suit presses a button and the elevator doors whisk open. A few people in various states of formal attire move inside and he closes the door with a press of a white-gloved hand.

I ride the glass elevator up. The view is spectacular. City lights greet me in a twinkling crescendo of chaotic pinpoints of color. Puget Sound glitters back at me, the moon riding high and bright against the small whitecaps, as the press of winter lies ready to take hold with icy fingers. I fold my light shawl around my shoulders, feeling the fringe feather and tickle my bare skin. I'm wearing another borrowed outfit from Kiki. She's told me she's too hot to wear something this cool. I smile, remembering her comment when I tried it on in front of her.

“I'm too hot for this sweet dress,” she'd said when I tried on the dress. She spun around me as she plucked and adjusted. Her eyes met mine in the full-length mirror. “But you, you're so cool in it you'll melt whoever sees you.”

She stood and clapped when I spun, relishing who I have a date with. Unbelievable as it is.

I don't know if I’m cool in this dress, but it makes me feel sexy. Free. A precious commodity at the moment.

My eyes search the restaurant, scanning the other diners, and I feel overdressed.

The maître d’ approaches. “Miss Mitchell?”

I nod. How does he know who I am?

“Please, follow me.”

We weave between tables until we reach a wood door with divided and beveled glass panes that distort all the corners as I look through. I don't have any trouble making out Jared.

Mick.

He stands when he sees me through the glass, and I have the sudden and overwhelming urge to cry. It's such an unexpected, old-fashioned gesture that I halt, momentarily stunned. He smiles, and it lights up my core like a match. I feel my insides sear with fire.

With want. It's like spontaneous combustion.

The maître d’ pushes through the door and leads me to a sequestered table. After a moment, I trail after him.

“Watch your step, Miss Mitchell,” he cautions.

I look down. The floor moves ever so slowly. The seam at the rim of where the table sits moves, but the center remains stationary. Vertigo slides over me, and I want to sit down. I think of the doctor's words—vertigo, loss of balance—and I reach out blindly. My hand is taken by McKenna, and my face swivels to his.

The maître d’ melts away, and McKenna draws me closer, his eyes running over me ravenously.

I've seen that expression in hundreds of eyes.

But never one I care about.

One who matters.

~ 9 ~

I think his eyes will go to my breasts or the unseen v between my legs, but they don't. That deep gaze travels to the edge of a bruise that my makeup can't completely hide.

He'd have to be looking for it to notice.

Mick does.

He holds my hand, his eyes pegging the proof of what happened. I try to take my hand out of his and he grips it, those dark eyes moving to mine.

“Don't, Miss Mitchell.”

“You don't have to do this, Mr. McKenna.”

A dark auburn brow rises. “Do what?” He corrects me, “Mick.”

I watch his eyes narrow with an intensity that changes how I breathe, and my palm grow warm in his. He waits for my answer while our flesh melds.

“Feel guilty,” I answer. “I mean...” I indicate our surroundings by sweeping my free hand around the view. The floor moves underneath our feet as the cityscape minutely changes while we stare at each other.

His eyes move to the chair behind me, and he releases my hand as he pulls out my chair. I'll look like an ass if I bolt. I don't think I've ever felt as contrary as I do in that moment.

Mick looks at me as if he's sure I'll sit. What makes him that sure? Is it the money? Does everyone say yes to Jared McKenna? Did he just get flung into money right out of the cradle or is he self-made.

Why does he own strip clubs? It doesn't seem to fit him somehow.

He slides the chair in as I sit as if he's done it a thousand times before. I barely keep from sulking, thinking about the hundreds of women who have stared at those eyes, dreamed about what it could be like with him. That's the difference between them and me—I don't dream. I live it. Right now. Right here.

Mick sits across from me and puts his elbows on the table. He knots his fingers and rests that full mouth against them. We say nothing as we look at each other.

He startles me with, “I don't feel guilty. Just so you know.”

My face must show my surprise because he grins. I realize I kind of want him to feel guilty.

I want someone to feel guilty.

He says, “I know you weren't paying attention before you walked into the street. I couldn't have stopped. There was nothing I could have done differently.”

I feel my brows furrow. “Then... why?” I stare at him, thinking he'll rush in with a good explanation, throw me a life raft. Instead, he lets me fumble around. “Then why take me out like this?”

“I want to,” he says simply.

Those brown eyes stare into mine, and I shift in my seat. What does he want from me? I don't reply but allow myself to stare back. I stare because I want to. My life sentence has given me a bravado that doesn't feel false. I take in everything without shame. Though we're formal, he hasn’t shaved. His hair is short on the sides and longish on the top. A natural wave sweeps it off a low forehead. The flame of his hair burns a deep bronze above eyes that are almost too large for a man's face.

No female alive would mistake Jared McKenna for anything but male. His broad shoulders anchor our table, his biceps stretching the dark navy suit. His crisp white shirt is a blazing star beneath his dusky complexion. I think of how calloused those strong hands are.

“You're blushing,” he comments softly, and I nod. Mick studies me and I don't look away. Still brave. Finally he lets his hands drop to the table draped in fine linen. “You don't seem embarrassed.”

I shake my head. I’m not blushing from shame; it's the effect he has on me. I've never felt arousal, and now it's here to stay because of Mick.

It's in the beating of my heart, the ache between my legs. My nipples are sharp pebbles beneath the lightweight material of my shimmery dress.

It's all... and nothing.

“Then what are you, Miss Mitchell?” Mick asks in soft inquiry.

“I'm not a game to be conquered,” I say. Though I’m not being honest.

Jared makes a purr of contentment deep in his throat and leans back. The waiter comes in and asks what I'd like to drink.

“Whatever he’s having,” I reply. I know that McKenna has some agenda and is accustomed to seeing his pushed through.

He orders a bottle of wine I've never heard of and smiles at me, the dimple in his chin flattening.

But he knows nothing. What Mick senses as contrary simply is what it is. I'm not playing hard to get, I'm simply calling out the shots of whatever this is. I don't have time to play metaphorical chess with him. I have patients to help and dances to grind through to get my mom in a place where I won't have to worry.

In all that, I can't lie to myself and say I don't want what he offers. McKenna doesn't have to know about me. He won't care anyway. A man like him can have anyone he wants.

The wine comes, and he swirls his sample around, stealing a breath from the top. After McKenna’s imperceptible nod, the waiter fills the glass the rest of the way and leaves to give us time to drink without ordering right away.

I look away from Jared for the first time that evening and gaze into the black velvet view. The sky is sprinkled with stars, some of their glory stolen by the lights of the city. The slowly spinning top of the Space Needle gives us bites of the beautiful city in appetizer-sized chunks.

“I'm not playing a game,” Mick says.

I turn back to him, shaking my head. “I don't think so... Mick.” I gather up my courage. “You're not guilty. You're a rich guy. Really rich.” His smile fades, and I almost feel bad about what I'm going to say. “You can have any woman, and a lot of them will say yes because of what you are rather than who.”

He nods, but his face takes on a grim edge.

“I don't care about your money.” I've never meant anything more.

He sees it and can't hide his surprise. “I believe you. I don't know why... but you're different than the others.” He takes an unhurried sip of wine, his eyes gleaming at me over the crystal rim.

“Than the others?”

He spreads his large hands away from his body. “I didn't mean there's been a bevy of women.”

My eyes lift to his.

He has the grace to look embarrassed. “There have been other women, of course.”

“Yes, I'm aware.” I mean, look at him!

“There's nothing I can do to not be what I am. I'll never meet anyone on equal footing.”

“Well tonight's your lucky night.”

His brows shoot to his hairline. When the waiter returns, Mick’s hard glance makes him meld into the background again. I don't try to hide my smile. Mick’s is sure of people's acquiescence. It's kind of disturbing. But I'm so off-kilter I can roll with whatever this strange night throws my way.

“Oh really?” he asks. His face shows he hasn’t been surprised in a long time. About anything.

“Yes.” My hands are beyond damp. I'm so sure, yet so nervous. “We can date.”

“Who says I want to date you?”

I'm not going to outline the method to the madness. Maybe it's just a fancy way of substituting dating for screwing to him because there's an historical precedent; where there is none for me.

“Please.” I lean forward, my forearms pressing against the tablecloth. “You say you're not guilty, you're so rich you probably poop one hundred dollar bills in your 24K toilet, and you’ve been with so many women they're quantified as 'others'.”

Mick cocks his chin back and laughs, full throated from his chiseled belly. “Tell me how you really feel.”

The corners of his eyes crinkle, and I smile at him.

It's so liberating to say what I think. I wish I'd tried it before.

“I want to know why you want a girl like me. When you can have anyone.”

Mick searches my face again before his eyes dip to the cleavage I offer him with my posture. I don't move; I let him take it in. His eyes rove up my arms, delicately constructed with fine muscles from ballet and athletics. Finally that gaze continues to my hair that looks like melting caramel in candlelight.

Mick's eyes lock with mine. “I don't want anyone.”

He wants me. It's in his face, the determined set of his jaw. Those eyes that never waver, soften, or fall from mine with the rawness of my words.

In fact, if I were to guess, I'd say the enigma I represent is part of it. Though he might not acknowledge it.

“I don't want a relationship.” I say it because even if the great Jared McKenna wants a relationship, he can’t have one with me. I can at least be honest with that much.

He exhales sharply, his eyes piercing me. “That's fine.”

I lean back, feeling a vague sense of disappointment. Ignoring it, I ask, “So what now?”

“We enjoy each other's company. You are agreeable to that?”

I grin. Oh... this can work. As long as he doesn't figure out that I'm dancing at his revolving lap club. Thorn didn't seem interested in revealing our arrangement for reasons unknown. If he can keep his perverted trap shut, this might work. I certainly don't think Mick will be interested if he finds out that I'm one of his dancers. My mom can be secure for the short future she has left. I can throw caution to the wind because the rules of life no longer apply to me. I have free license to experience whatever I want.

I nod. “Yes.”

A smile plays over his lips as Mick orders for me. He's good at taking care of everything.

There are some things that a person can't manipulate.

~ 10 ~

I forget I'm with a billionaire. I forget what Doctor Matthews told me.

I even forget my mom.

For one night.

Mick makes me laugh. I just hope he doesn't make me cry.

I won't fool myself though.

We move through the tables of the other diners, their eyes on Mick then me. He drapes my shawl around my shoulders as we step into the elevator, and I shiver as his rough palms slide against my skin.

I enjoy the view as the elevator eases its way to the ground. Not the view of the city but the view of Mick as he leans against those fragile looking walls that cage us with an apparent indifference for his own safety. I stand in the middle of the elevator and watch him watching me. Mick's arms are crossed, a new set of cuff links blink back at me in a glittering wink in the cool blue lighting. The elevator kisses the ground with a soft nudge, and the doors slide open into the 60s retro décor.

Mick takes my elbow and I stop walking. I look around for Henry, scanning the parking for a glimpse of an actual car, wondering where he's parked.

He turns back, his large hand cupping the boniest part of me. “Henry can take you home.”

“Oh... you're... are you coming with?”

He nods, and I notice his lips twitch as he tows me along. “He drove me here first then went back for you.”

I'm so glad I seem to amuse the hell out of him.

I frown but allow him to lead me to the limo. Henry stands sentinel beside it, resplendent in a tux. It seems too elegant a wardrobe for his position, but he seems comfortable—as if Henry just grew out of the ground beside the sleek length of the limo, two halves of a whole.

“Sir,” Henry says with a slight nod.

Mick gives him an affectionate slap on the back before he hops into the limo. The sight of it twists Henry's lips into an almost-grin. I see the affection Henry has for Mick, and it makes me wonder.

Actually, everything about Jared McKenna makes me wonder.

Mick takes my hands as I slide in opposite him; he holds my hands and lets me drop when my butt hovers an inch above the plush leather upholstery. I laugh as I sink down and catch his eyes gleaming like obsidian marbles. I can't make out what he's feeling. I want to.

Anyone who can make me forget the things Mick has is a tonic I need.

And there I am, back to the addiction that is him.

The limousine pulls away from the curb, and we cruise through the noise and lights. Walls of people line the sidewalks, crawling to the various destinations in their lives as lights blur in a rainbow of neon and diamonds.

My eyes roam his form. Mick's hands rest with languid casualness on his knees. His socks disappear into soft black leather shoes. I can't tell if they're the same ones I picked money off. I swallow hard, looking at his trim waist, the tie tack securing a red silk so deep it's sunset burnt down to smeared tangerine. It perfectly complements his understated rich copper hair. Finally, my eyes lock with his, and he laughs.

“Did I pass muster?” Mick asks lightly, and a blush flames to life on my cheeks for the second time.

The unwanted heat leaks over into places I don't realize it will. I cross my legs, suffocating my sex as if it'll tell my secrets.

His eyes dip to the movement, and his small smile widens.

I frown, and Mick laughs again.

“Yes,” I say with a perfectly sullen bite.

“What have I done that offends you, Miss Mitchell?”

Everything... nothing.

I can't believe he's still calling me that.

Mick leans forward until our knees are a breath away from touching.

I feel the limousine slowing and blurt, “You're so rich!” I must be insane to say what I'm thinking. A recent trend.

Mick cocks a brow and puts his hand on my knee, barely beneath the lightweight material of my dress. A soft gasp breaks the seal of my lips as his eyes shift to my mouth, his favorite part of my body. For now.

“You are prejudiced because of my wealth?” Mick asks, and his breath is now on my face, minty and fresh.

I'm in too deep. “Yes. No. I don't know.” I'm so confused. Why do I have to find something so intoxicating when I don't have time to partake?

He cups my chin with his free hand while the other lightly dances over my knee, causing a rush of moisture to my panties. My thighs clench tighter, but nothing numbs the subtle throb.

Mick turns his head, his stubble whispering against my jaw. “Let me kiss you, Miss—”

I interrupt, “Faren.”

His eyes press into mine, stealing my thoughts like water finding a crack in a stone. “Faren.” He says my name like a melody, the heat from his lips a fraction above mine.

I gulp my reluctance like medicine I don't want to take but must. I whisper my response against his skin. “Yes.”

I think he'll crush my mouth, ravage me like I've heard about. Worse—I think he'll be lustful.

I want whatever he'll give me. I admit it.

Mick’s lips move over mine, rolling the softness of his mouth over my lips and attaching to the arch of my cupid's bow. He moves to the corners of my mouth and pecks back and forth as I remain placid. My hands clench to keep from launching at him like a ravaging animal.

The limo parks.

Mick moves his hand farther up my dress, his fingertips grazing where my garter attaches to the stocking. He slides a finger under the circular attachment as his other hand circles the nape of my neck. He licks beneath my jaw before he dots my mouth with another bead of heat and flesh. My hands break away from my lap and slap the leather as I lean back, eyes shut as I pant. Mick's mastery turns to the deep hollow of my neck, my heart rate no longer a secret to his mouth.

His tongue.

“Touch me,” he commands.

There's no way I can say no. Any argument was lost long ago.

I move my hands to his shoulders, expecting him to move or come forward, but he doesn't. Mick doesn't pause in his rhythm, but continues as his face dips to my breasts and nuzzles them. His hand is at my upper thigh, only a wish away from where no one's been.

I bury my hand in his hair and hang on for dear life.

“That's it,” he encourages as his hand dives beneath me to cup my ass. The lace shifts when he jerks me forward.

I gasp in surprise, and the heat of his tongue takes me while I moan into his open mouth.

Mick's legs are between mine as his hand moves to my lower back. He kisses me everywhere skin is showing. My shawl slips to the floor unnoticed, and he kneads the globe of my butt.

Then we hear a sharp tap on the glass. Mick moves back, carefully disengaging himself from the tangle of our limbs.

I sway a little and feel a flush so far from my earlier embarrassment it seems like a shadow. Mick holds my hands, his perfect hair standing in haphazard spikes from my hands diving through it.

He looks so beautiful I want to cry.

Mick gives a satisfied chuckle. “God, you're good.” His eyes rove me head to toe, satisfied with my boneless dishevelment.

I don't reply for a moment, my intellect swimming somewhere far away from my body. “What?” My eyes go to the window where Henry waits. I look back at Mick, confusion and arousal making me fuzzy.

“Good?”

I’m still reeling from the most intimate make out session of my life. I don't regret using Jared McKenna. He’s both a distraction and an experience sent from heaven. Sexual amnesia—Mick makes me forget everything but him. I don't know if it's a talent, skill, or destiny, but whatever he's selling, I want it. Of course, nothing's free.

“Yes.”

“The blushing virgin act is such a turn on... But you don't have to act.” Mick chuckles. “I know you're twenty-two. We can be adults about this. You say you don't want a relationship and I'm all for it. You don't have to pretend with me.”

My stomach drops like a stone as he studies me, reading my expression.

“Faren, what is it?” His eyes grow sharp in the shadows of the limo. Mick really doesn't know what he said, the rug he tore out from underneath me.

I'm falling, and I'll never catch myself.

I think I want to puke. “I'm going to go now,” I say like a robot as Henry opens the door.

I guess my clawing for the handle gave it away.

“Faren, wait.” Mick gets out right after me.

“No,” I say, backing away.

“I thought we were being honest?” His voice has more than impatience threaded through it. There’s some other emotion I don't recognize, and I don't want to look too closely at it.

I nod a little too quickly as I catch Henry dive back into the driver's seat in clear escape. “Oh yes.” I stalk back to him and poke him in the chest. It bounces off the wall of muscles.

“Maybe you're not so smart, Jared McKenna.” Stab, poke.

His eyes narrow as I drop his nickname.

“Did you ever think you don't have it all figured out?” I ask with soft menace. I'm so angry I feel sick.

Or I just feel sick. Heartsick.

I stare at him. When his expression darkens, I walk off. I don't wait to see if he gets his elephant of a conversational faux pas. I jerk the apartment door open and shut it with a kick that echos in the hollow corridor.

The heel of my stiletto embeds in the grated iron. I jerk out my foot, leaving the shoe there like the physical manifestation of fury it is.

I feel Mick watching me, and I ignore him as I limp to the freight elevator. I move through the doors with one shoe on, ready to turn and send him off with a world-class death glare. I want Mick to disappear.

I turn, and he's gone.

So is my stiletto.

~ 11 ~

Kiki rifles through my outfits as I lay on my bed, hands crossed over my stomach as I stare at my ceiling. The old beadboard ceiling has the original creamy paint, which has alligator crazing throughout. Kinda like my heart now.

The days of what's left stretch before me like a black ribbon of road sinking into an uncaring horizon.

“Gawd, you're a wet blanket, doll. Just sayin'.” Her full lips purse, and she gives me what I like to think of as the mom look.

I don't put much stock in it. I have a mom. She's not really alive, but her presence is more powerful than it's ever been. It motivates and orders my steps each day.

She tosses a deep bronze dress on the bed, eyes it critically, and says, “Come on, get up. Get out of this depressing funk or whatever the hell you're jonesing at.” Her dark eyes search mine. “No pity parties on my watch. Let's do this.”

She's right. I can't tell Kiki everything. She knows enough already.

I roll off my jammie bottoms and cami to slide on the second skin outfit she chose, my hair still damp from my shower. I move to the full-length mirror. I admit her choice is a good one. The deep bronze material shimmers as I turn, and it accentuates the slight caramel color my hair possesses.

The color of the dress makes me think of Mick's hair.

Mick the prick. I watch a sad little smile pop on my face like a weed that needs plucking.

Kiki scrunches her nose. “Why do you look like you're gonna throw up in your fuck-me shoes?”

Good question. I jump when the buzzer sounds.

“I'll get it,” Kiki says.

I nod. My eyes move back to my reflection. I know the outfit will be a real hit for the laps that await me tonight, like I care. I've already tabulated my earnings. My mind dismisses the emotional tally that keeps building.

I don't know how much longer I can stomach the breast fondles, hand jobs, and other “extras” they want from me. Hanging onto my virginity isn't such an accomplishment when innocence is taken in increments.

Chunks of who I am are stolen right from underneath my nose. My mind focuses on two nights ago.

That night.

That kiss.

Mick.

That wasn't thievery; it was consensual. It touched something in me that had never been caressed, awoken. I could dance on a thousand laps and never experience the tender assault of every sense I had from Mick.

My head snaps to the front of my apartment, and I walk in there.

I forget I'm wearing the costume for my set.

Jared McKenna is standing in my living room.

I suspect he's tired of me ignoring his texts and calls for the past forty-eight hours. Yeah... that's probably it.

We regard each other for maybe three heartbeats while the late afternoon sun streams into the apartment, half of it cut by the tall building north of my own. It illuminates Mick, setting his hair on fire and shading his jaw, making the cleft at its center a deep pocket of shadow.

His eyes don't meet my face.

He's too busy looking at my outfit. What little there is.

A hot flush rises to the surface of my skin. Mick's gaze lingers at the knot of material at my neck then sails to the deep v of the bodice and the almost-sheer straps that hardly cover my breasts. The thinness of the fabric doesn't hide the betrayal of my nipples. They harden at the sight of Mick, the memory of what he's awoken in my body an involuntary reaction I'm helpless to stop.

His eyes take in my breasts. They move to where the skirt skims and cups my butt, the satin material clinging to my every curve.

I know it will hitch up to reveal my panties when I straddle laps tonight.

I swallow my nausea at the thought of being that close to anyone.

But him.

Then I remember what he thinks: I whore myself out. Mick presumes I act like a virgin in affectation.

He can't know that's the only real part of me. To assume it's not possible is a blow I'm not sure I can overcome.

But Mick is also right; I am some kind of whore.

If he only knew.

These thoughts race through my mind in those brief transparent moments of introspection as his gaze finally lifts to meet mine. I see many things contained in his tight expression.

I latch on to the one I want to see, dismissing all others.

Disappointment.

Kiki looks between us as if we’re a ping pong match, having not gotten a word out of me post-Mick date. “Well”—she looks at me with wide eyes that say, you're so talking about this later—“I can see the two of you have to discuss… stuff.”

I want to hurt her.

Kiki looks into my face and gives a subtle shake of her head, her eyes brimming with thoughts of matchmaking, cupid's bow strung taut.

“Stay,” I beseech. I keep the pleading out of my voice by the slimmest of margins.

“No, you're right, Miss...”

“King,” Kiki says with a purr and eyelash flutter.

Forget hurting. How about murder?

“You're an insightful friend to understand that Miss Mitchell and I need to straighten out some misconceptions.” His dark eyes tell me how he likes straightening those out.

That gaze holds a hunger only a banquet of food would satisfy.

I'm the first course.

Kiki swipes her keys out of the bowl and grabs her jacket. I follow her to the door as a swarm of butterflies inside me vies for escape. Their fragile wings glide and sing beneath my skin. My nervousness is a living thing.

She hugs me. “Whatever the hell your problem is, solve it,” she whispers. “Don't play this stupid!”

What she doesn't realize is I'm not playing. I'm slowly losing.

Everything.

Kiki releases me and tosses herself out the door. I close it behind her, touching my forehead to the solid wood. I wish that when I turn around, Mick won't be there. I can't bear any more of his assumptions.

I can't stand to be near him and not touch him.

“Are you ever going to turn around?” His voice, a gravel-threaded melody, commands that I answer, and I turn slowly. He rakes a hand through his neat hair, sending it into disarray. “Jesus, Faren, don't tell me you're going out in that?” His voice sounds as if he's in physical pain. That is so not the real issue.

“Why do you care, Jared?” I walk into the kitchen, slam the tea kettle on the burner, and light it carefully. Let him get an eyeful. I don't give two shits. My hand trembles around the kettle, and I switch to my good one. Great, my hand was good through work with six patients, and it decides to stop working in front of him.

I have lap dancing in four hours, I remind myself. I hunch in on myself.

Don't let him see how much he hurt me. How much I'm hurting myself.

Don't.

I'm so deep in my thoughts I yelp when I feel him slam into me. He triggers every bad memory of what I've gone through, and I get so scared I stop breathing. Gooseflesh springs up everywhere.

“What are you doing?” I yell.

Mick doesn't answer. He tears me away from the stove with a smooth spin and slams me against the wall. Only his palm holding my back keeps me from ricocheting off the surface like a broken doll.

I look up into rage-filled eyes, and he scares me.

My emotions betray me.

I feel him through the thin material of my dress, ready for me. For all of it.

“I'm sorry, Faren... I shouldn't have assumed,” he says, his knee pushing my legs apart, pinning me.

My wrists are buried against the wall above my head, and my bad hand starts to twitch. I can't take anymore: the sexual tension, my mom's situation, the impending job I hate.

The prognosis I can't escape.

The tears scald and burn their pathway down my cheeks and I turn my face as my hand continues its spasmodic jerk and dance inside his hold.

His eyes flick to my captive hands, and then our gazes lock. “What? Why are you crying?”

My eyes squeeze shut, but the tears don't care. They slip out, impervious to my unwillingness for them to escape. I sob and break apart as the one man who's made me feel alive holds me captive against my wall.

My emotions crumble as the tea kettle shrieks.

My eyes spring open, and Mick is a wavering image seen through desperate tears.

His face never comes into focus as he takes my mouth.

And I let him as the tea kettle sings its symphony behind us.

~ 12 ~

He punishes me tenderly. Each kiss erases the hurt of his words. A man could never speak an apology as perfect as the one he makes with his mouth.

Mick drops my hands, and they grip his tailor-made suit, crumpling the shoulders without mercy as the kettle sings. With a casual slap, Mick hits the kettle off the burner. It skitters across the surface, screaming its anger at the rough treatment, as he plunders my mouth.

His body begs to take mine, his every hard line against my soft ones. I forget again, my body melding to his as though it's always been meant to.

Then my cell alarm chimes.

Once, twice.

Three times. I lift my head. My early alert before work.

“Let it go,” he says, kissing me into oblivion. Our tongues twine in an intimate dance.

I almost do. Then I think of Mom. The sinful selling of my morals needs to continue for her to live.

She has less than a handful of years to exist, but they have to be on my terms. A state home is not part of the plan.

I gently push Mick away. His lips are slightly swollen, and I can't imagine what mine must look like. No collagen needed for these babies. My sarcasm doesn’t make a dent in my grief.

“What?” Mick asks.

“I have a second job... That's my alarm...”

Don't ask.

Mick smiles, his sexiness lighting him from the inside. “I know what you do, Faren. It's fine.” His fingers bite into my hips, a fraction away from a location too intimate for anything but consummating what we've begun.

My stomach drops. “You do?”

He nods. “I know you're a physical therapist. I know about your mom.”

The air in my lungs freezes into shards of glass that cut me from the inside. Only Kiki knows about my mom. Now Mr. Perfect Billionaire knows.

“I think you should leave.” It creeps me out that he's stalking me, checking my background. It’s a small relief he doesn't know about that job.

Guilt.

I assume he knows I was attacked by my psychotic stepfather and saved by my mom. Who was beaten into a coma by fists that know no mercy.

Double guilt.

I’m not interested in being somebody's pity case. I have enough pity.

I want to forget.

Can Mick distract me? I roll my lip into my teeth.

His eyes track the movement. He leans down and touches my mangled lip with his own. “I want you.”

“It's not enough,” I say.

Mick puts his hands on either side of my head, caging me, and cocks his head to study me with hard-edged eyes. “I thought you didn't want a relationship? Think of what I can give you. Think of what we can have.”

I think those thoughts until it repeats in an endless loop. It's all I think of lately. It's all I can. “You know more about me than anyone else, Mick. You've seen to that.” I can't keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“I don't know everything.” He's so close I taste his breath, yearn for it. “I want to know more. All.”

He moves aside the strip of dress across my breast and presses his mouth to my nipple in a possessive suckle. A thread of connection I didn't realize existed that tethers my breast to my core begins, and a slow ache steals my will. I arch into his lips and moan.

How can I stand anyone else doing this to me?

He lifts his head, wraps my full breast in his palm, and squeezes just shy of true pain. I begin to pant.

“Do you like this, Faren?”

I can only nod as I step away to deny myself. By the look on his face, I deny Mick as well.

“I can't talk you into staying?” he asks, his voice so low I strain to catch it.

“No, you won't be deflowering me tonight, Mr. McKenna.” That came out harsher than I meant it to.

Mick's expression darkens. “I apologized for my presumptions about you. That wasn't fair.”

His eyes follow me as I walk to the door, hyper-aware of his gaze on my body.

I whirl around to face him, so close to the knob I can touch it.

“I know. And I already told you I'm not into rich men.”

His lips twitch as though he's amused, and I want to impale him with my stiletto. Speaking of which… “Do you have my shoe?” I ask.

A shit-eating grin lights up his entire face. “I do indeed. Why do you think I came by?”

Another chink in my armor forms. Because you want to see me. I hoped. Of course, Mick dashes that all to hell.

He strides to the front of my apartment, and there by the door, a fancy silver high heel mocks me. I don't wait for any more indecision. I yank the door open and sweep my palm out.

“Why are you being so difficult? We both know what we want—what we need.” Mick asks against my cheek as his hands grip my shoulders.

“Why do you assume we'll end up together?” I counter.

“I assume nothing,” he says.

My brows arch as his hands heat my bare shoulders. He pulls me to him, and I'm so sure he'll kiss me that I close my eyes, holding in my sigh. But it moves out of me unbidden, like an invitation.

Mick doesn't kiss me. “I know it.”

He walks out, leaving me standing there holding the door.

My lips are swollen from his kisses. Every patch of my skin burns from the memory of his touch and my desperate want of it again.

I slam the door and stalk to my vanity table.

Time to put on my face for strangers.

*

I arrive promptly, the bronze dress a perfect complement to my coloring. I know how it looks in all lighting. Kiki encouraged me to pay attention to detail, and I stay the course.

Hardest path of my life.

I strut inside, not feeling like myself after Mick's frontal assault. I haven't felt alive in so long that I feel as if I'm dying piece by piece as I move deeper into the underbelly of the newest venue.

I walk with a false seduction toward the knot of men like I always do, but a man I've never seen intercepts me.

“Miss Faren?” He cocks a brow in question.

I nod, glancing nervously about me.

“You’re the auction tonight,” he says.

I blink stupidly, and he smiles, all teeth and condescension. A rolling hot lump moves through me.

“Here's how it works,” he begins, taking my elbow as he scans my outfit. He gives a slight nod of approval, and I adjust my mask. “You go behind those curtains there”—he indicates ceiling-to-floor velvet drapes in a deep scarlet. “and come out when the bell chimes. Walk the entire length of the floor, come to that center, spin.” He does a little pirouette, and I fight a surge of nausea through sheer grit. “Then continue back from where you entered.”

I’m a piece of flesh to be chosen by one of the men tonight. A random dancer selected like a prize, my humanity forgotten in the discarded pile of hundreds before me.

“Faren,” he gives me a significant look, “the winner might pay quite a bit to have you crawl onto his lap.”

I cast my eyes at my feet so he doesn't see the sick anger swimming in them. “How much?” I ask to the ground.

“I have seen some prices go as high as ten.”

I meet his eyes, so filled with greed I can't make out the color. He takes my silence for acceptance.

“Good.” He smiles at me, and I just stare. He moves nearer and I fight not to move away.

“Now move that hot ass to the stage.”

I feel him leer at said ass as I move away. I don't blink so the tears won't fall.

~ 13 ~

The lights are too bright for me to see the shadowed faces of the men.

I make out the white bidding paddles easily. I step onto the stage, and the curtains whisper open. The velvet makes a sinister slithering sound as it drags across the floor, widening the crack I look through.

I stroll across the mock stage, and the whispers stop.

I turn, and I feel the eye-molestation of the all-male crowd.

I walk back and try not to cave to my desire to run and never stop.

The curtains close, and the shouts and bidding begin.

The horrible auctioneer goes on and on as I wait for the winner in the cramped space between the hall and the stage.

Finally the gavel sounds, the stern echo final and unforgiving.

A security guard comes for me as if I would run off and leave the money.

I think about it.

In the end, I hear the amount the winner promised. I walk down the hall to the room I always dance in. Different building, same rooms. All with peeling, elegant wallpaper like memories of a time when there was hope. The rooms weep their sins all around me.

I move through the door and walk to the damning chair.

I don't turn when the door opens and shuts behind me. I wait until the unknown man makes the first comment. That’s what I always do.

Then his voice paralyzes me, my every nerve ending singing with adrenaline.

I can't turn. I'm rooted to the spot. My heart beats a jagged rhythm of fear.

“Well hello, Faren,” he says, and I turn.

It's better to face the nightmare than hide from the monster underneath my bed.

My hands grip the back of the chair, the only safeguard between us.

“I've been waiting for this for a long time,” my stepfather says like the predator he is.

My mother’s murderer.

“I know.”

I see the tunnel of my escape narrow to a pinpoint of light.

Then disappear.

Instead of thoughts of escape, I have only one thought. It fills my mind, pressing every empty space in my skull until I think it'll explode.

As despair chokes me, I think only of him.

Mick.

THE END

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DEATH WHISPERS

A Death Series Novel

Book 1

New York Times
Bestselling Author

TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2010 Tamara Rose Blodgett

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

www.tamararoseblodgett.com

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CHAPTER 1

Pre-Biology sucked, but the subject was mandatory in eighth grade. I walked in and slumped into my seat. We were going to be dissecting frogs, and I wasn’t excited about it.

John sat down next to me with two pencils up his nose.

“Hey, Caleb.”

“Hey. Did ya make sure the erasers were in there first?” I asked him.

“Yeah, duh.” The pencils bounced as he spoke. For a smart guy, he had some weird ideas about self-entertainment.

“You still buzzing?” he asked.

“Yeah, it's on and off.” I felt kind of defensive about that and didn't really want to talk about it.

“I've been thinking about that,” he said.

I wondered briefly how he could think with pencils up his nose. A mystery. “Yeah?”

“I think you have the undead creeper, like that Parker dude,” John said.

That would be bad. “He's the one that could corpse-raise, right?” I asked.

I had just been thinking about how much that ability sucked. However, the rareness of corpse-raising might come in handy. But that being my ability wasn’t likely. Mr. Collins went to the whiteboard and started to explain how to pin down the frogs.

“Government took him. Bye-bye... gone.” John made a fluttering motion with his hand like a bird flying away. The pencils kept bouncing in a distracting way.

I'd heard about that. Corpse manipulation was rare. Jeffrey Parker was the only recorded case.

“Are you shitting me? Why do you think? Dead people? Come on.” I got an image of zombies with M-60s. I was interested for a change. Sometimes John would lose me in a tech rant, and it was all over.

“No, think about it. They could get people raised and force them to do stuff. From a distance, they'd look like they were alive, important people.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Presidents?”

“Rulers or whoever,” John said. “He was a five-point. He could do the whole tamale. I think the government exploits whatever they can; using whoever they can.”

I laughed.

“What?” he asked.

“I can't take you seriously. You look like a dumb-ass.” The pencils dangled indignantly inside each nostril, humiliated.

John pulled them out, checking the ends for gold.

I'd been wondering why my head was buzzing. I tried to remember when the it'd started. I had no idea what triggered it. I wondered if John could be right?

“Okay, people,” Collins said. “Zip up here and pick up your trays. Your sterilized utensils should already be at your desks.”

John went for our trays, minus the attractive pencils. I stared out the window, the rain rivulets that looked like gray streamers marring the glass.

I shook my head, clearing fuzziness. I couldn't get rid of the buzzing, a dull noise that ebbed and flowed. As soon as I had entered the classroom, it had increased. It was starting to sound like people whispering.

“Here. One frog for the both of us.” John plunked down a frog that had once been green but was now a bone-gray. The pins staking it to the board gleamed under the LEDs.

Suddenly, I felt as though the earth was swiveling on its axis with me at the top. The whispering grew in volume then images of a marsh flooded my head. A frog, in the bloom of its life, shiny with amphibian iridescence, leapt to a log, hoping to fool a water moccasin.

Right behind you! I shouted.

But the frog didn’t seem to hear me.

A motor boat was closing in on the frog. A man leaned out, getting ready to take capture the frog with a loose net on the end of a long metal pole. I heard the frog's thoughts: Strange predator. Must seek cover... noise... hurts...

No! No!

More visions came. With every cut my classmates made, I saw stuff from other frogs’ lives. I realized through some dim sense that I was lying on the floor. I think I might have passed out for a few minutes.

“He bit it over a frog? Seriously?” Carson yelled.

Brett, not to be outdone, caterwauled, “He's a total girl!”

Collins was moving his hand in front of my face, holding up fingers, but I was caught in the grip of the death memories absorbing my consciousness. My vision grayed at the edges. A pin point of black expanded in the center, and I knew no more.

*

Trees surrounding the cemetery danced in the languid breeze of the mild spring night. Headstones glimmered like loose teeth, and the whispering was like a steady thrumming of white noise in my head. My hands grew clammy.

I looked behind me at my two friends who'd come to support me. They had discovered my secret: that I could hear the dead. Proving to Carson and Brett that I had Affinity for the Dead—or AFTD—wouldn't keep them off my back completely, but it'd notch down their stupid to something me and my posse could manage.

“Caleb, show them you're not a frickin' poser,” Jonesy said.

“I don't pose.”

I took a step through the Victorian-style gate, my foot touching its reluctant toe on hallowed ground.

The feeling of being forced pressed uncomfortably against my mind.

As I crossed the threshold, the whispering turning into voices. One whispered stronger than the others. As if an invisible string pulled me along, I was drawn toward one of the gravestones. The marker stood sentinel near the middle of the cemetery, glowing softly in the moonlight. I stopped in front of it.

“Clyde Thomas, born 1900, died 1929.”

“Wake me...” someone whispered.

“What?” I asked.

“Wake me...”

“Caleb, who are you talking to?” John asked.

I swung my head in slow-motion, as if moving it through quicksand. Blood rushed in my ears, and my heart beat thick and heavy in my chest. Everything became crystallized in that moment. John's frizzy hair and freckles stood out like measles. A microscopic chip lay like an imperfect shadow on the headstone, a shining stark contrast to the white marble.

Something... something... was building, rising up as if underwater and rushing to the surface. I was supposed to finalize something, but what? John's mouth was moving but no sound was coming out. He was arguing with Jonesy and flailing his arms as he spoke. The whispering of the corpse in the earth was so loud it drowned out his words.

Jonesy's hand suddenly connected with my face. My teeth slammed into my tongue, and the taste of copper pennies filled my mouth. I leaned over, and a drop of blood hung tremulously on my bottom lip, before falling to the grave like a black gem.

Everything clicked into place, vertigo spinning the graveyard on its side as if it had been waiting for that moment. The ground rushed toward my face, and I threw out my hands to brace my fall. My fingers bit into the damp earth. A hand broke through the ground like a spear through flesh and grasped my wrist. The vise-like grip and intense coldness of the grave lingering on its dead flesh made my breath catch in my throat.

The head of the corpse broke free of the ground, then the hand released me. I scooted backward and got to my feet, swaying, overcome with some unidentifiable emotion. I had done it, but I didn't know how to undo it.

The corpse moved toward me with purpose, using the undisturbed ground for leverage. When it reached my feet, another drop of my blood landed with a dull plop on the corpse's forehead. Jonesy ran out of the cemetery and stood at a “safe” range from what the ground had disgorged.

The zombie's gaze fixed on me. It put a hand on its knee and began to push itself upright. Dull, lank strands of hair hung loosely from a scalp of rotten sinew. “Why have you awoken me?” The words sounded garbled.

I stared at it. “You asked me to.”

John was standing at my right, trying to mask a fine, all-over tremble. His freckles stood out from his pale face like beacons of fright.

“What the hell is this?”

I turned and gave him a duh look.

The zombie’s eyes rolled wetly in their sockets.

“Why have you awoken me?” it repeated, shambling a little closer.

The smell... wow. It rose like a torrent of rotting garbage. John clapped his hand over his nose and backed up a bit.

The corpse took another step closer to me.

“Got any brilliant suggestions?” I asked John, keeping my eyes on the zombie.

“Sorry. I don’t have the Zombie Handbook handy,” John said.

Not helpful.

The corpse tilted its head. “You're just a boy. For what purpose have you disturbed my slumber?”

“I, um… I didn't... uh, mean to… um, wake you up.” I wasn't usually so tongue-tied, but meeting a corpse in the flesh—ha, ha—seemed to have stolen my ability to speak coherently.

“You do not know what you would have of me? You use your life-force to awaken me and without purpose? Put me back.” His clothes hung in tatters, and the smell was definitely old, dark coffin, not that I knew what that smelled like.

John's look clearly said, Do something! What I hadn't told my friends was that I had never thought that I could actually raise the dead. But there the dead guy was, standing before me in all his rotting glory.

“To whom much is given, much is expected. Put me back,” he said.

Adults were all the same, even dead ones; lecture, lecture.

“How?” I asked.

“You are the necromancer, boy, not I.”

“I’m a what?” I felt surprisingly calm. For the first time, there were no whispers. Perfect, blessed silence filled my head. Talking to the dead seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I could still taste the blood from my busted lip. Its eyeballs were inky marbles staring back with uncanny devotion.

“A necromancer. A diviner of the black arts,” he replied.

I thought about that for a minute. Things had only gotten über-weird when Jonesy had smacked me. I looked back at the corpse, no longer feeling that sense of swimming power just beneath the surface. I needed to regain that essence—fast.

“Ah... hang on a minute,” I told the corpse. I turned to John.

“John, give me your blade.”

“What the heck, Caleb? What are you planning to do with that”—John pointed at the patient corpse, “...thing?” Who was as immobile out of his grave as in.

“I figure my blood made it jump out of its grave, so now I need some to put him back. And you're going to help me.”

John's face got even paler. “Ah, we're good friends and all, but no, not a good plan! We don't know that for sure anyway.”

John needed to ante up the blood, or it was going to be a long night. I tapped my foot on the disturbed mess of the grave. “Here's the deal. Let's do a little 'friendship blood bank' just for the sake of putting the dead guy back in his grave, eh? Just give me your arm.”

John took a deep breath. “Okay, but you're going to owe me big time.” He held out his arm.

I placed the blade on his forearm then made a thin slit in the skin. John let out a little gasp. When crimson oozed out, I repeated the process with my own arm then pressed my arm against John’s.

A vibrating tuning fork of trembling power welled up inside my body. A strange mixture of fear, dread and excitement paralyzed me. My teeth throbbed with the intensity of it. The zombie's hand snaked out and curled around my arm. Its skin felt cold against my warm flesh, like iced tentacles. I swabbed a blot of blood with the fingers of my other hand and dabbed it on the zombie’s forehead like war paint.

The dead guy rolled those empty eyes up at me, its dead bones clinging to my fingertips.

We shared a suspended moment in time, a terrible beauty of precariously balanced control.

“Go back and rest,” I said, feeling that I was choosing for both of us.

The zombie reluctantly let go of my arm, sand through a sieve, then lay down on the disturbed ground. His grave encased him in a shroud of earth.

John and I stared at each other over the grave for a swollen minute, his face showing a mixture of sympathy and dread. I was a corpse-raiser—one of only two in existence—and that was not a safe thing to be. John knew what that would mean for me in the world we lived in.

I was shaking from the intensity of the experience and thoughts of the future. This was not the same as Biology experiments and roadkill, this was real, huge. Looking outside the cemetery perimeter at two enemies and one friend, I knew it was time to swear the group to secrecy. A trickle of sweat slithered down my back and pooled at the waistband of my jeans, instantly chilling my fevered skin. I didn't want the same future as Parker. That loss of freedom was so not a part of my plan.

John and I headed out of the cemetery in a wave of uncertain promise.

CHAPTER 2

I smacked my alarm. Just five more minutes, I thought, dozing off.

“Caleb!” Mom yelled from downstairs.

I sat up. “Yeah?”

“School!”

I stumbled out of my bed and looked at the clothes on the floor. Hmm, what to wear that wasn't too wrinkled.

I picked up a pair of jeans and a shirt and took an experimental whiff. Good enough. I jerked on the jeans with a hop and a zip. I opened my sock drawer—a couple of socks, not matched but clean. Happy day.

I trudged downstairs to the kitchen. I sat at the table. “You cookin' today?” I asked, hopeful.

“No, but you're eating.”

Eating in the morning blows. I was that lazy. I'd open the fridge, nothing. Then the freezer, repeat. I usually ended up cramming a yogurt down.

She opened the fridge. “What flavor?”

“Do we have blueberry?” That was the only non-barf fruit I could think about eating that early.

She handed me the yogurt container. “Last one.”

“Where's Dad?”

“He is working on that new project.”

Great. Hopefully not anything new for kids to rant about. Mom and Dad were on the opposite end of the spectrum. She was free-spirited and thought the mystery of life and choice were taken away when the puzzle of the genome mapping was solved. Since my dad was an integral part of the team who achieved that accomplishment, we had an interesting family life.

“Does that mean he'll be home for supper tonight? I've got something to talk to him about.” I wisely didn't mention the whole corpse-raising episode. Dad was logic and fairness mixed. He'd know what to do. This... I might need some help on.

“Yes, he will, you know how important meal time is,” Mom said.

Maybe, maybe not. Science was important to Dad.

After I wolfed down the yogurt, I made a two-point shot at the trash can. Swish! No mess, but that didn't stop the frown from forming on Mom's face.

I moved quickly to grab my backpack, but she blocked my way, and I was forced to look up at her. Every girl in the world was taller than I was, even my own mother.

She brushed the hair out of my eyes, but it immediately flopped back down. “You need a haircut.”

“No, Mom.” A time sucker was all a haircut was, and I had more important things to do.

I slung my pack over my shoulder and left. I wanted to reconnoiter with the dudes, get things straight in my head from last night. Once outside, I slowed to a walk. I'd still be there early, and I was feeling lazy.

The canopy of trees allowed the morning light to filter through, speckling the ground with sunspots. My head began the familiar thrumming, a buzz seeping into the crevices of my mind as I walked toward the school.

I stopped. The buzzing became whispering. My heart rate sped up, my breath quickened, and my palms dampened.

The voices of the dead had arrived.

The whispering grew louder. The dull roar of the insidious voices was like a magnet, pulling me toward the forest. I followed it and was rewarded with even higher volume.

At the edge of the tree line, a crumpled body, lay beside a ditch. The head was canted at an awkward angle. My hands trembled as the whispering gave way to images flooding my head like a pulse-screen.

Headlights burst like twin spots before the cat’s eyes as she tried to escape them. Rushing forward, she sprinted across the street. She didn’t time the advance properly, and the twin orbs bore down on her.

Pain. Intense pain and blinding light.

The cat thought of her litter, her people... then, she was no more.

My breath returned in a paralyzing rush. I stood next to her small body. She had shared the last moments of her life with me.

I remained there, taking it in and realizing that life as I knew it was never going to be the same. I wasn't going to breeze through being a teenager.

Snapping back to reality I realized I was the Pied Piper of road kill.

Great. Definitely my life-goal.

I thought of the frogs in biology. There had been so many that I hadn't been able to camouflage what happened to me.

I wished I could develop something righteous like pyrokinesis. That would be tight. At least only Brett and Carson knew the corpse-raising part. Getting them to cooperate with silence was another deal. People were going to get suspicious.

I trudged toward school, my limbs heavy and my head swimming with the heaviness of an undead moment. I lifted my hands. The fine shaking was almost gone. I wiped the sweat off my face with the back of my hand. I needed to get a hold of myself. I was on it.

The familiar doors to my daily prison came into view. I walked the rest of the way with my head down and went inside the school. I spotted the “cemetery group” right away.

John and Jonesy stood apart from the others. Almost five-ten with a shock of frizzy, carrot-colored hair and pale blue eyes, John looked a little freakish, but he was my main dude, my go-to guy when things went sideways. In stark contrast, Jonesy had short, nappy hair and teeth that stood out like white Chiclets in his dark face. He was taller than I was, but built stocky. They'd been my friends since kindergarten.

Standing a few feet away from my friends was the rest of the group. They were a mixed bag, didn't feel solid. It would take some clever conniving to get promises of secrecy from the rest. Brett Mason and Carson Hamilton. They had identical white-blond hair and were about the same height, making them hard to tell apart. They'd been in my class since kindergarten too, but not in a good way.

Edging through the throng of kids, I made my way to John and Jonesy. Jonesy leaned against the locker, arms crossed. John seemed ready to explode, not a typical look for him.

Jonesy nodded at me. “Sorry about the bludgeoning.”

“Yeah... what the hell?” I asked.

“Your face sorta got in the way.”

“Oh... really?” Gee, hadn't noticed that.

“It was an accident, John and I were discussing—”

John broke in. “Arguing.”

Jonesy glared at him. “I changed my mind is all.”

I raised my eyebrows, Jonesy never switched gears.

“About the merit of them knowing,” John finished.

I glanced at Bret and Carson. Too late. The milk was spilled and dripping on the floor. They walked over to us.

“I wasn't pulling a hypo in Biology,” I told them, “and now Aptitude Testing is coming up.”

Brett smirked. “Yeah. You have your dad to thank for that.”

I caught sight of a grape-sized bruise the color of pale chartreuse at the base of Brett's neck. His smirk faded as he shifted his shoulder to make his shirt cover the mark.

Jonesy straightened. “Shut up. It's Caleb's ass on the line.” He jabbed his thumb at my chest. “You know what happens when you hit the radar as a corpse raiser. He'd be a government squirrel, like that Parker dude.”

“Nobody wants to have their life planned by somebody else,” John said.

“My dad didn't have anything to do with that,” I pointed out.

“But thanks to him, everyone's tested now because of the mapping. All the do-gooders want to 'realize our full potential.'” Brett made air quotes as he said the last phrase. “What an ass-load of crap that was.”

Carson nodded. “So even if we don't want to be mathematicians or scientists, we're on that freight train until it reaches the depot.”

His murky-green eyes burrowed into mine.

It was an old argument. Kinda like being the preacher's kid, I got blamed for everything my dad did… or didn't do.

“You dickface...” Jonesy pointed at Carson. “Yeah you. It isn't Caleb's fault that his dad started that ball rolling with the mapping. If it hadn't been him, it would've been someone else.”

Carson clenched his hands into fists and looked as though he might take a swing at Jonesy. He didn't like being told the obvious. Probably shouldn't have opened his mouth and crammed a foot in there until he choked. Kinda brain dead—kinda consistent.

“Listen, guys,” I said. “This isn't helping. It's the now we need to figure out. I don't want to pop a five-point AFTD on the APs. They're only a week away? My dad”—I saw Carson roll his eyes, but I ignored him—“says that puberty is when they test because scientists have proven that abilities come on then, sometimes for the first time.” Not for me, I added silently.

The first bell gave its shrill beckon. I looked at Brett and Carson. “I need you guys to cover for me. At least until after the testing.”

“You can't force us, Hart,” Brett said.

Carson nodded. “Yeah, just because Daddy's famous doesn't give you clout.”

So much for that.

“How about doing it because it's the right thing to do?” Jonesy asked.

“Because it’s the human thing to do,” John interjected.

“He's not human.” Carson said, stabbing a finger toward my chest.

“You got that right,” Brett agreed.

They turned and moved into the multicolor sea of kids.

“Did ya see that bruise necklace Brett was wearing?” I asked.

“It's the dad,” John answered.

Jonesy turned his liquid eyes to me. “Feel sorry for him, Caleb? Don't go soft on me, bro. You're always giving jackasses the benefit of the doubt.”

My conscious teetered on the balance of right and wrong. Brett had it bad, but he chose to act the way he did.

Jonesy clapped me on the back “Yeah, my cup of care is empty too.”

CHAPTER 3

The Js and I went to shop class. I was making my mom a heart-shaped box, though my heart was definitely not in it.

After talking to the ass-monkeys, I couldn't get the genome out of my head.

The mapping of 2010 happened under pressure from President O'Llama. Desperate for health care reform, the government wanted to activate “markers” for the population. Mapping the human genome was the key to identifying potential for cancer, heart disease, stroke, and even alcoholism and drug addictions. If the people wanted government health care, they would have to be mapped, and have a microchip implanted that contained their genetic codes. Refusal of the microchip meant no health care. The program had been expanded, and disease markers weren’t the only things on those chips.

The teacher, Mr. Morginstern, approached our table with a cheery “Good morning, fellas!”

It was criminal that he was so happy. Didn’t he know the Monday-is-hateful-rule?

“Hey,” I mumbled, as Jonesy and John gave Morginstern the nod.

Morginstern was excited about teaching and we were excited about... school ending for the day.

“So how was your weekend? Do anything interesting?”

Yeah.

I imagined a conversation like: Ah no problem, Mr. Morginstern, just creeping around illegally in a graveyard, raising a corpse, enemies seeing the blow-by-blow... real interesting.

Instead, I shrugged and said, “It was okay.”

Jonesy looked to be choking back a laugh. I gave him a don’t-blow-it look.

John was unflappably silent as usual, controlling a sly grin with effort, the anchor to our madness.

Morginstern seemed to accept our weird responses, and he went over the whole process of our boxes again. Adults were painfully redundant.

We got to decide what kind of box to make. Heart shaped was the hardest, but I was a masochist. I got out my sandpaper—one-twenty grit, extra fine.

A fine dust fell from the interior arc of the heart onto the work table. The sanding from the three of us served as an excellent conversation concealer.

John whispered, “So what's the plan?”

“I don't know yet,” I replied. “I gotta think about it more. I'm not ending up like Parker.”

“Ask your dad,” Jonesy said. “He's the genius.”

“Quiet, smack attack.”

Jonesy ducked his head. “I'm sorry, bro.”

I grinned. “Gotcha. Just wanted to see what you'd say.”

“Oh man! Don't do that, dude!” Jonesy threw his sandpaper at me.

I deflected it with my arm, and the paper landed on John, getting embedded in his hair.

Morginstern gave us a warning glare. “Caleb Hart! Jonesy, John, no throwing supplies.”

“Stop screwing around,” John hissed. “This is serious.”

As serious as a heart attack. I struggled not to laugh. “I'll talk with my dad tonight. He'll have ideas.”

“He's got resources, right?” Jonesy asked.

I smiled. “Using your big-boy words Jonesy?”

We all laughed and agreed to meet up at my place.

I had every class with John except PE. Jonesy was in my PE class, though. I was never without a J. Jonesy and I liked PE because we got to check out the girls. There was one in particular that I liked a lot.

When we got to the gym, Jonesy said, “I want to play dodge ball today.”

“Yeah, that'll happen. 'No head shots, no body shots above the waist, no leg shots.'” I said, imitating Miss Griswold's annoying voice.

I sighed. Dodge ball rocked, but Griswold was a joy sucker.

Then Jade LeClerc walked by. I tracked her with my eyes. Her jet-black hair gleamed like a curtain of silk waiting to be touched. She had the greatest eyes, green like a cat's. A memory shimmered just out of reach—a red shirt, concrete, and dirt.

Jonesy gave me a strategic elbow to the side, and the image slipped away like a vapor.

“Ow!” I turned to him. “What was that for?”

“Stop staring,” Jonesy said. “Why do you like her anyway? She's kinda emo.”

“No she's not, she just wants people to think she is. Keeps them away,” I said, trying to recapture that fleeting shard of the past.

“Oh, and you're such a girl expert. Right!” Jonesy laughed.

I scowled at him. “I've watched her. She doesn't make a move to be anyone's friend, but there's something cool about her.”

“She's too weird. Pick someone else. Look at them all.” He spread his arms to include the bounty of girls.

My eyes strayed back to Jade. She just looked unique. “I’m gonna talk to her.”

“You've had English and pre-Biology with her, what, almost two semesters? We're in fourth quarter, and you still haven't said anything. Besides, what's she gonna think when she finds out about what you can do? She saw you pass out, right?”

I couldn't deny his reasoning there. Who hadn't seen me bite it? Maybe once I had a plan on how to hide what I was, I could say hey.

“Maybe she doesn't need to ever know.”

Jonesy arched one eyebrow, the whites of his eyes wider in his brown face. “You can't cover forever, bro.” He shrugged.

I figured, but I liked to fantasize.

Miss Griswold blew her whistle, and we lined up for warm-ups. We were in alphabetical order, so Jonesy wasn’t close to me, and neither was Jade. But I was next to Carson Hamilton.

“Hey, Hart. Thinking about any ghosts?”

Carson-the-Clever. Yeah, right.

I ignored him and started doing jumping jacks with the others. “Switch drill!” Griswold shrieked.

We went down to our knees for push-ups.

I finally responded, “Don't be a tard, Carson. You and Brett said that I was faking shit. I wasn't. I proved I'm AFTD.” I huffed out five more.

“Switch drill!” Griswold's irritating voice rallied for the final insult.

We stood up for jumping power lunges. I hated those. I put out one foot and lunged so my knee didn't pass my toe then, up, jump, other side. Talking was almost impossible.

Carson managed. He had a lot of hot air.

“AFTD is so rare only freaks have it. That's why they took Parker away. The military wanted to quarantine his ass to protect everyone else.”

Carson dropping another pearl of wisdom. Like I care.

Hop. Switch legs.

“Stop!” Griswold yelled.

Panting, I turned to Carson. “Nobody'll believe you. You didn't believe until the cemetery.” He'd look like an idiot if he told people I was a corpse raiser (like we were running around in droves). Carson was all about image.

He looked thoughtful; Carson was a rock with lips.

“Maybe I won't tell anybody, but me and Brett might want something.”

He looked down at me and smirked.

We glared at each other until Griswold waddled over to stand in front of us. I wondered how teachers always seemed to know just when something was going down.

Griswold put her hands on her considerable hips. “Problem here, boys?”

“No problem, Miss Griswold,” Carson said.

I said the obligatory, “No, Miss Griswold.”

Just as she moved out of hearing range, Carson said, “Hag.”

Griswold turned around and yelled, “Time for dodge ball! Pick your teams.”

The guys gave a collective groan, and the girls didn't look any happier. At least I got to look at Jade, the highlight of PE.

Jonesy gave me a questioning look from across the gym, Carson and Brett were fast moving from irritating to becoming a problem—one that I planned to contain, creatively.

Jonesy would scheme, John would deliberate and I would definitely do.

CHAPTER 4

“How was school today?” Mom asked.

I looked at Dad, who set his trade publication on the table. Reluctantly, I laid down my fork, even though the hamburger helper was waiting to be engulfed. “Ah... these two guys and I talked, and it didn't go so hot.”

“Which kids, Caleb?” Dad asked in his reasonable way.

“Carson and Brett.”

“Oh, those two.” Mom waved a dismissive hand. “They're not in your league. Don't let them make you feel diminished sweet pea.”

Sweet pea!

“Alicia, let's not get elitist on him here,” Dad said.

“You might have a small point.” Mom held her index finger and thumb together in illustration of just how “small.”

His eyes narrowed. Uh-oh, here we go. Just when I thought we'd get something accomplished.

Mom held up a finger to ward off Dad's impending argument. “Kyle, those two”—she seemed to struggle for the right word—“buffoons have been a nuisance for the last three years that I know of.”

I raised my hand and fluttered my fingers.

“Five and it's always the same thing.”

Mom nodded. “Five. And they don't like Caleb because of what you do, honey. They feel threatened.”

Dad turned to me. “What was the problem?”

Dropping the Zombie Bomb didn't top my list of casual conversation but, I had to tell him.

“Remember the biology thing?”

“You passing out?” Mom asked.

Dad leaned back in his chair. “Yes, we've never gotten to the bottom of that episode.”

I flipped my fork back-and-forth. “I sorta got to the bottom of it. I have AFTD.”

They stared at me as if I'd just sprouted a giant second head.

I told them about the cemetery, the corpse, and the growing tide of problems with Carson and Brett. Those two had been itching to get something on me since grade school.

Dad cleared his throat. “Caleb, let me recap this. You have caused a dead body to rise from its grave?”

“Yes, Dad. That's what I just said.”

Mom asked, “Is this what you were doing last night, running around with the Js?”

“Well, yeah, but I didn't mean for it to go like it did.”

“How did you mean for it to go?” Dad asked.

The whole thing had started because Brett and Carson wouldn't get off my back about fainting. AFTD was the cherry on top of their cake. I'd been a moving target until the passing-out thing. John had defended me by telling them I had AFTD. I was unconscious, so he improvised. I should have just let them think whatever they wanted. Carson and Brett were morons.

I said, “I thought if I proved I was AFTD, that it was an ability, they'd lay off.”

“There were precursors to this episode?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, there was other stuff before, small stuff.”

Dad's eyebrows shot up. “What kind of trouble, son?”

Once I thought about it, I realized I'd had trouble with the “Understanding Insects” section, too. I had been getting images of speared wings. Gross!

“The kinda trouble that other kids notice and that makes them think you're sick or retarded.”

“Caleb Sebastian Hart! That is not appropriate.” Mom's hands were glued to her hips. I wasn't too concerned about being politically correct.

“Just a second, Ali.” Dad seemed okay with it. “So you didn't mention these… fugues?”

“I guess I should've told you, but everything was getting weird, and their voices were whispering all the time.”

“Whose voices?”

“The frogs.” But frogs weren't all I heard.

“Ah, what were the frogs... saying, exactly?” Dad's eyes burned twin holes through me.

“Well, they weren’t saying words really, but they feel things, miss things, they”—I swallowed hard— “they have memories of their life before they died.” It made me sad. I opened my eyes really wide. That helped.

Mom gave me her “I'm worried about you” stare. I was worried, too.

“These dead creatures are communicating with you?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, that's what AFTD is about, Dad. Before we started the dissecting, I would have a blackout, but it were short.” I thought about the insect dissections and shuddered.

“Like bursts of movies playing in your head or what?” Dad asked.

“It's like I am them.”

Mom's hand covered her mouth.

“And I can see what they did. When they were taken from the rivers and marshes, they felt”—I thought about the murky memories and their simple minds—“lost. One frog remembered being eaten by a snake.” I lowered my voice. “They screamed when we cut them, Dad. That's when things got really bad with Carson and Brett. They thought I was trying to suck up attention or something gay like that.”

“Caleb... homosexual reference.”

“Mom, come on! We don't use it that way.”

“Ali, let's stay on task here.” Dad patted her hand then asked me, “So how long have you been experiencing these... episodes?”

I thought about it. Easter was over, and I knew then. It was around Valentine's because we had that lame winter break that wasn’t long enough to do jack. “A couple of months.”

“That's a long time for symptoms you chose not to tell us about, Caleb.”

I felt a stab of guilt. I was used to being open with the Parental Unit, but the whole AFTD thing had a huge confusion factor.

Mom leaned over and gave me a hug. I let myself be comforted by the good mom smell then pulled away and gave her a weak smile.

She smiled back. “It'll be okay.”

Dad said, “This doesn't have to be a death sentence, Caleb.”

No pun intended. “You know that if they find out that I can corpse-raise I'll be rammed right into one of those spook jobs.” Goosebumps rose on my arms like boiling water. “You remember that other kid, Parker?”

Mom nodded.

“He tested as a five-point on the APs. That was big news.”

“Jeffrey Parker,” Dad said. “It wasn't just AFTD. There were other classifications that he showed an aptitude for.” Dad raked a hand through his hair, making it stand in errant spikes. His needed cutting, too.

I looked at him in surprise. I had thought AFTD was it for Parker, that he couldn't have other abilities. “And where is he now?” I asked softly.

Dad looked me in the eye. “He works for the government.”

Of course. The government was thrilled to make us all into little robots as early as possible. Instinctively, I knew I wouldn’t want any job they'd give me.

“So what does this mean for him, Kyle?” Mom asked.

Dad shrugged. “It means we keep it quiet for now. But the APs are quite soon. We only have a short amount of time to manufacture a contingency.”

Mom huffed. “I told you that playing God was going to come back and bite us. Just because the potential for paranormal ability was discovered didn't mean that it gave our government the right to experiment on our children.”

“It's water under the bridge, Ali. We signed Caleb up for kindergarten, and he was inoculated along with everyone else.”

When the government saw proof of gene markers for paranormal abilities all mixed up there with cancer markers, they went insane. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know if they had the potential to read minds or some whacked crap like that.

Memories of the microchip implantation were still felt fresh, the needle piercing flesh the same day we learned our ABCs. The needle had glinted as it swung in an arc, bound for my vulnerable neck. I shook the memory loose like the teeth I'd lost in that not too distant childhood.

I looked at Dad. “So what's the plan? Do I have to be, like, scared here?”

“I need to find out a little more about how they administer the test. I'm familiar with the science portion, as I was a part of the revision.”

“English, Dad.” I felt my frown. “So you can, what, manipulate the results?” I asked.

“No, I can't do anything as profound as that. But I can find something that may cause some dormancy,” he said rubbing his chin. “There's a drug I can acquire that will counteract the inoculation you were given ten years ago and your most recent booster. It won't last, but it may help you test weaker. However, this won't go away. It's here forever. You were born with this potential. And because of scientific advancement, it's a permanent manifestation. And to answer your question: yes, we should respond with extreme caution. The government uses certain 'loopholes' for nefarious purposes. We are American, Caleb. That means something. Our freedom is precious.” He furrowed his brow. “No one should be forced into a life-long position or job or be exploited. There is no liberty in that.”

My palms began sweating just at the thought of losing my freedom. I sure as hell wasn't going to be some government slave! I rubbed my hands on my jeans.

Mom turned to Dad. “Do you know what’s in the inoculation?”

“No, but it's a cerebral stimulant, so a mild depressant should counteract its effects.” Dad rested his chin on his fist in his I'm-formulating-a-plan posture.

“So you're gonna give me a drug, and I'm not going to be a smart scientist's kid?”

Dad grinned.

Mom didn't. “It's not funny, Caleb. We never heard what became of the Parker boy, but there have been mutterings.” She gave Dad a cautionary look.

Dad shook his head. “Again, it means that discretion is the greater part of valor here. Extreme discretion.”

I wished I could have just been one of the people that talked to the dead, or better yet, saw ghosts. The government didn't care much about those guys.

Dad wanted to see my abilities in a “controlled environment.”

Didn't want a cemetery-repeat right now, thanks. I told mom she had narrowly escaped the Js for supper.

She rolled her eyes. “Now this is why I had only one son... so I could have two more children later on.” She smiled, she'd always liked the Js.

No League of Legends tonight, there was other stuff to discuss.

The doorbell rang. Bright orange appeared like an obscure flame through the window, had to be John.

“Come in!” I yelled.

John lurched in with Jonesy blundering behind like usual.

“Hi, Ali. Hi, Kyle!” Jonesy called.

My parents smiled. John looked at the three of us, scoping reactions. I gave him the chillax expression and got up to lead the way upstairs. The stairs vibrated as if a herd of elephants jogged up them.

John plopped into my desk chair, spinning around. “So what happened with your parents?”

I shrugged. “It was cool.”

As cool as it could be when you let someone in on your reanimation-skills.

“My dad thinks that he can get some kind of cerebral downer or inhibitor for during the test, so I won't respond like a five-point.”

Jonesy asked, “What about the rest of the test? Are you going to be all high and test stupid in everything else?”

I shook my head. “Nah, my dad didn't think it would affect the other subjects.”

John whipped out a crumpled mess of papers from his backpack and tried to straighten them.

“What's that?” I wasn't excited about reading anything informative.

“It's something I found on the Internet. It might give us some clues about what you can do.”

I glanced at the first page.

Affinity for the Dead or, AFTD, is not just a genetic marker but a new reality.

Jeffrey Parker, an eighth grader, is the first to hit the radar with full-blown AFTD. In 2010, geneticist Kyle Hart and his scientific team mapped the human genome, giving us every genetic marker that we hold as humans. This invaluable information eventually led to a pharmaceutical breakthrough that has now unlocked those codes.

Flashes of psychic ability have been witnessed for centuries but now that the key to unlock this door has been discovered, teenagers have begun manifesting different abilities that awaken during puberty.

Parker is able to raise the dead from their graves. He claims that he “hears voices” that ask him for “different things.”

John said, “I read the whole thing. It talks about all the different abilities we all may have.”

“Whoa! Hold on,” Jonesy said. “I want something cool.”

I raised my eyebrows at him.

His cheeks flamed. “Caleb, dude, no offense, but I don't want what you got.”

John glared at Jonesy.

“I'm tellin' the truth!” Jonesy slapped his knee. “What happened in the cemetery made me want to piss my pants. That dead guy... damn!”

“What about after the test?” John asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “I thought I'd wait and see.”

“Not good, Caleb.” John said. “You know those butt-jabs Carson and Brett are thinking about ways to make your life miserable.”

I had already thought of that. But I wanted to get through the testing before I tackled the terrible twins.

“I heard Jade LeClerc saying something to Brett,” John said.

I whipped my head in his direction. I did not want Jade near that ass-wipe.

“Why was she talking to Brett Mason?” The girls usually walked on the far side of the hall to avoid that perv.

“She told him to go to hell.”

“What?” I yelled.

“Chill out. I overheard them before sixth hour PE.”

That would have been before PE. I’d noticed Jade didn't turn and say hi to me like usual.

I clenched my hands into fists. “Was he doing something to her?” Just the thought of that butt-munch saying one thing to her made me want to hurt him.

“Calm down,” John said. “I heard your name mentioned, then she told him where to go.”

Jonesy gave a thumbs-up, “They saw me come around the corner, and she took off. Brett asked where all my queer-bait friends were.”

He started pacing in tight circles around the room.

Jonesy was kind of a violence lover. I could relate.

“Did you let him have it?” Jonesy punched his other palm, making a satisfying thwack.

John just looked at him. “Would you stop? You understand the bully laws, right?”

Those finer details were lost on Jonesy. A huge grin overtook his face. I knew that look.

“What?” John asked.

“I'm thinkin' about a bit o' payback,” Jonesy said.

Uh-oh. I knew what that meant. Jonesy had rigged payback schemes, some not so successful, for Brett and Carson in the past.

You'd think they'd catch on.

“Jonesy—” I started.

He held up his hand.

“Just listen. Brett and Carson are dumber than rocks, right? How about I have them try a cool experiment before the APs and get 'em all distracted from their plan to sabotage your life?”

For Jonesy, that plan was bordering on brilliant. I turned my finger in a circular keep-talking motion.

“How about the tube and Aqua Net trick?” he asked.

We groaned. That had gone really bad last time.

John scowled. “No way, Jonesy. You remember what happened when we tried it.”

“Exactly! It's the perfect thing! It'll take one of them out and distract them around AP time. Then after testing, if the cerebral-whatever-it-is works, they can flap all they want.” Jonesy spread his hands wide. “If you're not popping the big AFTD guns, there's no proof.” Bow to Jonesy's invincible logic.

Sometimes his logic bit us in the ass.

I ran my hand through my hair, thinking furiously. It was only Monday, so we had almost a week to strategize. “Okay. Are you gonna steal your mom's hairspray?”

“It's Aqua Net. There is no substitute,” he said, sounding mildly insulted. “We've got spiders entombed in the corners of my parents' bathroom from my mom using it forever. Pretty damn effective.”

“Effective but disgusting,” I told him.

Jonesy puffed out his chest. “My mom swears by the stuff. She never has to redo her hair.”

His mom's hair was stiff. I could throw a pencil, and it would stick in there. Jonesy called his mom's bathroom time The Ritual. Aqua Net sure worked when we tried fun-with-fire. John's nose hairs has gotten singed.

John obviously didn't like the idea. Of the three of us, John was the most cautious. Of course, he'd gotten his eyebrows burnt off. They’d taken about three months to grow back, and his parents were super pissed.

“Come on, John,” Jonesy said, “Just restating the obvious here. Wouldn't it be cool to get those turds back and off our backs at the same time?”

“Yeah, but if they really get hurt...”

“They won't,” Jonesy said.

I turned to Jonesy. “What if they tell us to stick it?”

“I'll tell 'em the same stuff I told you. We already did it, and it's fun.”

He gave me a sly wink because it had certainly not been fun: singed eyebrows. I could almost still taste the foul perfume even after a whole year.

“Then, if they smell a trap, I'll say they're sissy-sucking-titty-babies.” Jonesy could handle it with his boatload-of-charm.

John gave a satisfied nod. “That'll work.”

The cemetery was the best place because Carson and Brett wouldn't want us to think they were scared after the raising-the-dead-guy episode. Jonesy said he'd talk to them the next day. Meanwhile, Dad would get the cerebral-blocking drug, and I'd be set.

I just needed to find out what was happening with Jade. Maybe I could start with a conversation. So original.

CHAPTER 5

John and I sat together in English. Miss Rodriguez was a first-year teacher so she wasn’t bored or raging at her students yet. Her back was to us, so I was sly-pulsing to John about Sunday. We had a satisfying view of Miss Rodriguez (pretty hot).

She suddenly turned, burning holes into me.

I jerked as if I'd been slapped. I had no idea what she'd said. I looked at John, and he was wide eyed.

“Caleb Hart,” Miss Rodriguez said. My whole name. Not good. “What tense is this?” She pointed a dry eraser pen at the board.

My cheeks grew hot, and I wanted to sink underneath my desk. I stared numbly at the sentence. My family has been making plans for a snowboarding trip.

I glanced at Jade. She'd written PROGRESSIVE in block letters on the back of her notebook. I slid my eyes back to Miss Rodriguez, who was looking less hot every second.

“Present perfect progressive, Miss Rodriguez.”

She smiled brilliantly, her gaze wandering over the thirty of us.

“It's nice someone is paying attention to the correct tense. Now remember class”—she turned back to the white board—“at this age, it is assumed that you speak correctly, now it's time to know the why. Grammar achieves this by teaching how our language supports speech.”

My heartbeat slowed to a trot. That was close.

I looked at Jade again, and she gave me a shy smile. I smiled back. She'd saved my ass. It was the first outward sign she liked me more than just a “hey” in the hall when we jostled through the crowd. Brett noticed our exchange and smirked. Jade glanced at him, and I watched her smile wash away.

English ended, and we swarmed into the hall like bees, weaving to our lockers. PE was next period, and looking at my watch—a retro thing from my dad—I realized I had maybe four minutes to talk to Jade. I surveyed the long hallway, looking for her sweep of black hair. I'd once overheard her say she was part Cherokee.

Score! I scoped the hair like a black flag in the crowd. Shiny, it spilled around her shoulders as she talked to Sophie. I waved.

Sophie saw me and leaned forward, saying something to Jade. Jade turned, and my heart paused in my chest—her effect on me was that powerful. No guy wanted a girl to know that he was that enthralled, so I blanked my expression.

She smiled wider as I sauntered over to where she stood beside her locker, my backpack a swinging weight on my shoulder.

“Hey,” I said with my best casual smile.

“Hi, Caleb,” Sophie said then looked at Jade. “Gotta go!” She winked, and a brilliant bit of color spread over Jade's cheekbones.

Once Sophie stepped away, I said, “Thanks for your help in Rodriguez's class.”

She smiled. “It looked like you could use it.”

“Hey! I knew it was present perfect. I just didn't know the other.”

“Riiigghht...” Her eyes glittered with humor.

I huffed for show. It wasn't that hard talking to her after all.

She stared up at me with her smoky eyes rimmed with soft, Kohl-colored makeup. She was hot but not in a fake way, just looking at her made my chest tight.

I glanced away for a moment to catch my breath then looked back at her. “Here's the thing. Brett and Carson have me in their cross hairs and maybe who I hang out with.”

She gave me a steady look, a puzzled expression furrowing between her brows.

“Do we hang out?”

I shrugged. “I want to.”

I'd rather die than tell her how I feel, but I needed the guts to own it.

“Me too,” she said, peering up from under the black lace of her eyelashes.

Wow! Relief flowed through me. Even with all the scary stuff I was dealing with, Jade made me feel invincible. I could do anything.

The bell shrilled. Crap! We had like thirty seconds before class.

Laughing, we sprinted down the hall, Jade's hair streaming behind her like black water.

We slid through the door just as the final bell shrilled.

Griswold raised an eyebrow. “Glad you two could join us. Suit up. You both have extra calisthenics today.”

Carson and Brett appeared very interested in Jade and me.

Jonesy was in line, giving me a look of restrained horror. He was so easy to read. I could practically hear him saying, “You decided to make a move on Jade... now?”

I gave him my so sue me expression.

***

After PE, I told Jade I'd see her the next day. On my way to my next class, I whipped out the credit-card-sized pulse cell I'd gotten for my birthday and started a message group with John and Jonesy.

The screen came alive:

Activated and I thought, Jonesy, then belatedly, John.

Jonesy: Hey, What the <profanity block> is with you and Jade being late for PE?

Caleb: Chillax. I finally told her I want to hang out.

John: What? You actually talked to Jade? This is the worst time in the world Caleb, and I hear she's a hater.

Me: She doesn't hate. She's just quiet.

John: Are you going to tell her? About...

Jonesy: No <profanity block> way, Caleb. It's bad enough that Carson and Brett know. We can't have this Jade-complication!

Caleb: I have a feeling about her. Just trust me and stop being ass-clowns about it.

Jonesy: K, but she needs to see your skills, you feel me? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I talked to the real ass-clowns. Wait. Do you have your thumb on the touch pad, Caleb? I'm getting feedback.

I jerked my thumb off the screen.

Jonesy: Okay, now I can see just myself. LMAO. They're idiots. I told them they're too chicken <profanity block> to try it. It worked. Shrugs.
They'll meet us at the cemetery, same day and time.

Caleb: You gonna get the hairspray from your mom?

Jonesy: Yeah. I scoped a can in the reprocesser. I'll snag it.

Caleb: Isn't she gonna notice? If she's like my mom, she's a total freak for the reprocessing credit on the garbage bill.

Jonesy: Nah, I'll offer to take the separator out for once, and she'll be so happy I volunteered for a chore she won't care. LOL

John: I think we're going to be sorry.

Jonesy: Cork it, pal. Don't be a fun-sucker.

John: <Sigh> We gotta get to band. Caleb, I'll bring your pick. You left it at my house.

I swept my thumb over the touch pad, setting my pulse to hibernate.

***

Band was a righteous seventh-hour class, a subject I actually liked. John's parents believed in music. They were old zealots—my grandpa's age. John could play everything, but he really rocked at the piano. He could read music and play a piece he’d listened to only a few times. I struggled with just learning the notes. But I loved it even more because I’d found out it was the only time during the school day that I could drown out the whispering.

John and I jammed together on a new piece Mr. Pierce had given us. We were working out the kinks, and the volume on the amplifier was turned to almost full volume, making my teeth rattle in my head. John flashed me a grin. He was a pretty serious dude most of the time.

I hit a flat in my chord, and John winced. My concentration was sucking big time.

We wrapped up the session then hung our guitars on the rack with about fifteen others. I made a basket with my pick in the box marked Caleb S. Hart. Swish.

I followed John out of class. Fresh, late-afternoon spring air hit my lungs, and I sucked it up. I could taste summer on my tongue, and that meant Gramp's house at Lake Tapps—no school and screw off time with the Js.

“Why start something with Jade, Caleb?” John asked.

“You don't see that she's special?” I asked with a duh in my voice.

“Well, she's good looking but complicated. And that’s something we don't need right now. And you heard about her family, right?”

I stopped walking and looked at him. “Yeah, I know her dad's a psycho. So?”

“Hey, don't get defensive on me. But you do like a project.”

I strode away with a scowl.

“Jade's not a project.”

He sighed as he caught up to me. “It's more than that. She lives with her aunt, who’s not much better than the dad.”

I stopped again on the side of the road, hands hanging loose at my sides. “So how's that her fault?” Cars drove past, breaking the sweet smell of spring with their exhaust. I felt that pressure building in my head. Getting pissed seemed to make it harder to block the voices. And the occasional road kill didn't help.

John shook his head. “I shouldn't rant on Jade. I just don't feel great about including her in this mess.”

“Like I pulsed ya, I trust how I feel about Jade. And besides, you guys are stressing about my AFTD but have you thought about what you'll test-out for?”

“I have thought about it,” John said.

“But there won't be anything for me. I'm already halfway through puberty and nothing. The tests will confirm that. Not everyone manifests.”

I looked up at John—way up. He was a pretty tall dude for fourteen. He'd be fifteen soon, in September. His dad was even taller, like NBA height. John’s hair stood about four inches away from his head as if he had stuck his finger in a pulse socket—a fro-and-go, Jonesy called it.

I put my thumb to my chest. “Hey, dude, you don't want this.”

John grinned. “No way. But I wouldn’t mind having something cool like psychokinesis.”

I rolled my eyes—whatever. “John, you know that's pretty rare.”

“Yeah, but look at you. AFTD is the rarest.” We both knew it wasn't the ability to have. All it got Jeffrey Parker was a one-way ticket as a government puppet.

“True.”

We started walking toward my house again. Suddenly, the sound of screeching tires pierced my ears. John lassoed my arm and hauled me off the shoulder and into the shallow drainage ditch. My butt landed in an inch of water that instantly seeped into my pants.

A car that had been behind us careened sideways in an attempt to avoid a black dog standing in the road.

A surreal moment ensued as the car rammed into the dog, sending the animal sailing at least ten feet away. It landed about two car lengths from where John and I sat in the ditch.

The driver, an older balding guy, got out of his car. Looking dazed, he sent a nervous glance our way.

“You kids okay?” Baldy asked. But he moved on toward the dog before we could answer.

Oh he gave a shit, right.

“Yeah,” John mumbled anyway.

I looked away, not saying anything because the dog was sending images to me. It knew it was dying and was sending out some kind of distress signal that only I heard. My body hummed in response.

I got to my feet as if under compulsion.

We walked across the pebbled pavement, oily from the previous night's rain.

As I drew closer to the dog, that unique pressure built in my head, straining for release.

He was just a mutt, and didn’t seem to be breathing.

I knelt and stretched out my hand.

Baldy said, “Don't touch it!”

Without hesitation, I gently touched its fur. I felt a small spark of life ignite. Unbidden, that part of me that heard the dead released and poured over the dog.

I grasped that spark and thought, Live! Warmth welled up beneath my hand like liquid heat, and the dog's ribs expanded with a shaky inhale. His eyes opened, and he looked up at me. In that moment, I knew he was mine.

I looked up to see John and Baldy staring down at me. He shot us a look I never wanted to see on an adult's face: revulsion mixed with fear. I realized more people in a semi-circle of wary gaping faces had gathered nearby.

John whispered, “We're screwed.”

The dog sat up, but he still looked injured. His eyes stayed pinned on me. My creepy new reality.

Wonderful.

A cop moved through the small crowd and approached us.

“You boys there, step away from the dog.” His nametag read Garcia.

I stood and backed away from the dog, with John following suit. The dog struggled to its feet and attempted to limp over to me.

With one hand outstretched, Garcia moved toward the dog. The dog growled low in the back of his throat and bared his teeth.

Keeping his eyes on the dog, Garcia brought out his pulse and used the touchpad. “I've pulsed animal control. They'll be here soon,” he announced.

My heart pounded. I didn't like the thought of the dog being taken away.

“Okay,” Garcia said, “somebody start talking.”

Baldy stepped up, wringing his plump hands. “I was driving along, doing the speed limit, when this dog just appeared out of nowhere.” He spread his arms wide. “And these two boys”—he gave us an accusing glare—“were on the other side of the road, so I had to avoid them.” He made it sound as if walking on the side of the road was a crime.

Garcia held out his hand. “Identification, please.”

Baldy handed over his driver's license. I felt the pressure building and tried to rein it in. When I was upset, it was way worse to manage.

John looked over at me. “What's the matter?”

I shook my head. “That guy's a turd. I wanna get out of here.”

“Yeah he's a dick.” John chuckled. “But we have to see this thing through and act like the dog thing wasn't talent, just coincidence. You got me?”

I nodded, I got it alright.

Garcia and Baldy had their heads together, one a cue ball, the other an eight ball.

Garcia turned to John and me. “Mr. Smith here”—he motioned with his notepad to Baldy—“said that you did something to the dog?” He raised his eyebrows.

How to answer without getting my butt in a sling?

John spoke before I had a chance, “Caleb's a major animal lover.”

I worked to keep the surprise off my face.

“That's not what Mr. Smith said. This man claims that he was sure the dog was dead. Then you”—he pointed at me—“touched it, and the dog was suddenly alive again.”

I thought fast.

“Can you explain that?” he asked.

Actually no.

“John's right. Um… I couldn't help it. That poor dog…” I looked down at my shoes, trying to think of what else to say. “Um… I don't think it was dead, though. I mean… it was just hurt.” I pointed at the dog, who was sitting a few feet away, still staring at me.

Before the dog, I hadn’t known dying things could also call to me.

Garcia stared at me for a moment then asked, “You boys live around here?”

John answered, “Yeah, Caleb lives right there.” He pointed toward the top of the rise. “And I live about half a mile from here.”

Garcia held his pen poised over the notepad. “Names?”

“Caleb Hart.”

Garcia's head jerked up. “The scientist's kid?”

“Yeah,” I answered unenthusiastically.

“Now that's a cool relative to have,” he commented with a smile.

“I guess.” Whatever, he was just my dad to me.

“John Terran,” John said, effectively getting me off the hook of dealing with the awkward your-parent-is-kinda-famous moment.

“Okay, you kids get in the police car, and I'll give you a ride home.”

The dog looked up at me and whined softly.

“What about the dog?” I asked.

As if on cue, Animal Control arrived. A ginormous gal poured into an unflattering tan uniform barreled through the crowd accompanied by a skinny partner. The dog immediately went on alert.

I reached out to pet the dog’s head. Garcia and John both tried to pull me away, while the Animal Control lady cleared an evil-looking baton from her utility belt. The dog eluded the baton, which had an attached noose, and darted behind John and me.

Garcia pointed at me. “I don't want any trouble, and I already told you boys not to touch that dog.”

“I thought I could help,” I said. “He seems to like me.”

“Let Animal Control do their job, son,” Garcia said.

Ignoring him, I put my hand on the dog. I thought, Sleep.

“That's it!” Garcia said. He strode over and took John and me by our arms and frog-marched us to his patrol car. I glanced back and saw that the dog was knocked out cold.

Garcia unceremoniously dumped us into the back seat. “Stay put.”

We watched him walk away. He talked with Baldy, who kept vigorously nodding his head and casting dirty looks at us. Animal Control got the dog in their van, a pretty easy process since he was asleep. Skinny was the “collector,” and Humongous was “supervising” this process while standing importantly with Garcia.

The inside of the cop car was pretty gross. Remnants of goop was all over the backs of the seats and door handles. Dried patches of mystery fluids were on the floor. My lunch began to rise into my throat. John hunched over, keeping his arms tucked into his sides so that less of his body touched his surroundings.

Good luck with that one.

Garcia jogged back to the patrol car, slid into the front seat, and turned around to look at us. “I am required to take your statements with a parent or guardian present.”

My parents were gonna have a turtle when a police car pulled up in front of the house!

Thoughts swirled in my head: How did I stop that dog from dying? Why didn't I need blood to do it? Was that a coincidence at the cemetery? Or because it was a person and fully dead, had I needed something extra?

As I put my head between my knees to quell the dizziness that threatened, I decided to read some more about paranormal abilities and Jeffrey Parker. It was time to get up close and personal with AFTD. I needed to rule it, not the other way around.

CHAPTER 6

Garcia pulled the patrol car into my driveway. “That's unique.”

My house was a ranch style with cream-colored arches across the facade. The outer walls were stucco, really different for rainy Washington.

Garcia got out and opened the back door of the car. As John and I climbed out, Mom came out the front door of the house.

Garcia raised his hand out in an inoffensive way like, everything’s okay.

She walked through the open courtyard that separated the driveway from the front door and came to stand in front of Garcia.

“The kids aren't in any trouble, Mrs. Hart.”

Mom told him, “Ali's fine.”

“Okay, Ali. I’m Sergeant Garcia. The boys witnessed a vehicular accident in which a dog was hit, and I need to take down their statements with an adult present.”

Mom's face looked relieved that some catastrophe (she was always ranting about my safety, which got to be annoying) had not befallen us.

With Mom leading the way, we plodded inside. The house smelled like cookies and bread. John gave the air an experimental sniff, too.

The Appetite Beast was alive and well.

Garcia sat down on our couch with a psychedelically colorful afghan spread over it.

“Would you care for anything to drink, Sergeant Garcia?” Mom asked.

Garcia seemed surprised. “Ah, sure, thanks.”

Mom went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water that she handed to Garcia. Then she perched on the armrest of the couch. Mom usually made cookies once a week. Jonesy liked to show up just as they came out of the oven.

As if I had just conjured him up, he walked through the door.

“Hey, Caleb. What's with the cop car outside?” he asked loudly so there was zero chance to deflect it. His question landed like a bomb in the middle of the room.

John cringed.

Garcia turned to Jonesy. “Caleb witnessed an accident so I’m taking his and John's statements.”

“No kidding? Well, I'm going to stay for this!” Seemingly unfazed by the cop in our living room, Jonesy asked Mom what she'd made.

“Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.”

“Yes!” Jonesy pumped his arm up and down.

Garcia smiled.

For Jonesy, Garcia just happened to be in my house where Mom made cookies and there may be a cool story as a bonus.

John glanced at me and shrugged.

Garcia took a long gulp of water, then turned to John and me.

“Okay, boys, let’s go over what happened.” He glanced down at his notepad. “You heard a screeching sound, then you saw Mr....” He tapped the notepad. “Mr. Smith's 2023 champagne-colored Ford Grun strike a dog.” He looked at me then at John.

“Is this accurate, boys?”

I was opening my mouth when Jonesy busted in with. “Did the dog die?”

I gave an inward grown. Getting Garcia away from thinking about the strangeness of the dog was epic fail with Jonesy bringing attention to it. John was trying to alert Jonesy to shut up. That never worked. Jonesy was happily stuffing cookies in his mouth and slurping milk.

“Yeah, that's accurate,” I replied.

Garcia gave me the cop stare. Adults wanted kids to fill those awkward silences. That was where I'd get tripped up. Mom looked puzzled.

“Now, it's interesting that you mention the dog,” Garcia said, “because Mr. Smith said that he was certain the dog had been killed.”

My heart rate sped up, and my palms got damp. We'd already been over this. But here he was, bringing it up again. “No... no, he was still alive, barely.”

Garcia smiled. “Okay, Caleb. There were some witnesses who said that you”—he glanced down at his notepad—man, was I beginning to hate that thing—“laid hands on the dog, and it began breathing again.” He pierced me with eyes where the irises blended with the pupils, and I was suddenly reminded of Brett.

“Maybe he was dead for a minute,” I said, choosing my words slowly, “but he must have revived or something.”

Garcia didn't even pause. “One witness said when you touched the dog, there was an ‘energy’ around you.”

My mouth fell open.

“The witness is an aura reader,” Garcia explained.

I'm screwed. Aura readers identified paranormals. I was sure I had my panic face on, and John was as pale as a ghost.

“You know, Sergeant Garcia,” Mom said in a sugar-sweet voice, “Caleb is a minor (that word came out sounding vaguely like lawsuit, I noted with grim satisfaction), and he hasn't committed any crime, so I'm not sure that this line of questioning is justified.”

I heard: Stop bugging my kid, or I'll make you sorry.

Garcia looked at Mom thoughtfully. She tilted her head to the side, and a large gold hoop swung forward, peeking out of her thick hair and twinkling in the late sunlight streaming through the window. I had a sudden stab of love for Mom.

Then, I decided to man up, I wasn't a little kid anymore. “I have Affinity for the Dead.”

It sounded like a disease, as if I’d said, I have cancer. I have two weeks to live. I wasn't going to die. I was going to start living and stop being scared. The Js looked at me as if they thought I was insane.

Garcia appeared startled.

“Caleb!” Mom said sharply, her mouth in a thin line.

“It's okay, Mom. I know he won't tell anyone.”

Garcia needed to feel the burden of my trust, roll it around and taste it like candy in his mouth. I was hoping that Garcia believed in what he was, a policeman meant to serve and protect.

“Caleb's right,” Garcia said, looking at me with kinder eyes. “I don't have to tell this part. You're right, too, Mrs. Hart. He is a minor, and he hasn't committed a crime.

I felt a but coming.

“But there were witnesses. A young woman noticed what Caleb did. She is under no such restrictions. There is no law that will keep her from sharing what she saw.”

Garcia leaned back and crossed his legs, his ankle resting on his opposite knee. His black uniform looked crisp, the sharp creases in his pant legs bisecting the center. His tie tack glinted in the sun as he shifted. He turned to me. “Why do you want to hide it, Caleb? There are other AFTDs.”

Because it threatens my freedom. I thought of Gramps, who always told me freedom was more precious than money. I was beginning to believe him.

“I don't want to end up like Jeffrey Parker,” I said.

Garcia was thoughtful, the whole room held its collective breath.

Garcia nodded. “Yes, that would be enough to give anyone pause.”

Dad walked through the door to the garage. His hair was mussed, and he carried his briefcase.

“What's going on here?” He tossed his coat on the hook by the door.

I sighed. It was gonna be a long night.

Mom and Garcia started to speak at the same time, then they both laughed nervously. Jonesy looked from my mom to my dad then back to Garcia as if watching a tennis match gone wrong. Then, he shrugged and grabbed another cookie. John folded his arms across his skinny chest.

“You go ahead,” Mom told Garcia.

Garcia gave her a brief nod. “Mr. Hart”—he stood and held out his hand—“I'm Sergeant Garcia with the King County Police.”

Dad took the offered hand and gave it a few hard pumps.

He was such a huge contrast to the Hispanic-looking Garcia. Dad loomed over the cop, standing a couple inches taller. “Kyle Hart.” Dad smiled and took a seat on the piano bench facing us..

Garcia sat back on the couch and went over the whole story. He ended with “... and now you see, Mr. Hart, we are at an impasse.”

I deliberated... a standstill! Gotcha.

Dad's face had been thoughtful, then had become somber at the end. He nodded. “We thought that we had some time to devise a plan that would garner Caleb some options so he could come to terms with his new skills. But his skill set is accelerating on course with other puberty manifestations.

He is apparently gaining abilities that I cannot predict, and they are popping up at extremely inconvenient and public locations.”

I did a mental face-palm when Jonesy stopped mid-chew. “I still wanna know what happened to the dog.”

We all frowned at him. Mom wrinkled her nose.

“What?” He slurped the last of his milk.

“I mean, this is good news because my bro here”—he brandished his empty glass in my direction—“saved a dog, but everyone is freaked over it.” For Jonesy, it was a simple affair of right and wrong. He didn't do shades of gray.

John said, “Yeah, it's cool about the dog, but not everyone is going to think it's cool, Jonesy.”

Mom said, “I was cleaning out your room, Caleb.”

I visualized all the crap strewn over the floor. Swell.

“I found some papers about the Parker boy. Once he was identified with AFTD and the government enacted an amendment against some of his rights as a person, his freedoms were stripped.”

Mom was gonna rage.

Garcia gestured with his hand, wait a sec. Mom popped her mouth shut. Huh, she hadn't even Made-Her-Point.

“Mrs. Hart, let's not panic yet. That was a decade ago. Parker was the first, extreme case that had been seen. You remember the headlines.”

As I had only been five in 2015 when that first inoculation round had been given, I didn't remember.

Dad, no intellectual slouch. “You're right. He didn’t just talk to the dead, divine ghosts, or glean how someone died. He was a Cadaver-Manipulator.”

Not even glancing my way, Garcia said, “Well, isn't it fortunate that Caleb doesn't have to worry about that? Controlling the dead is a whole other ball of wax.”

“Very fortunate,” Dad agreed, giving me his best, I-will-throw-lab-beakers-at-you-if-you-talk stare. I snapped my mouth shut.

The Js remained as silent as a tomb.

I repressed a wild urge to laugh.

Garcia braced his palms on his knees and stood, smoothing his uniform as he straightened. Dad got up, running a nervous hand through his hair and making it messier than before.

Garcia fished something out of his perfectly ironed shirt pocket.

He handed me a business card.

I told him I'd never seen that area code.

“Yeah, it was my dad's. He was a cop, too.” He rolled his shoulders in a shrug, “I got it when he retired.”

Dad harrumphed. “I haven't seen one of those in thirty years.”

Garcia smiled and told me, “You call me if you need anything. Just thumb my number in your pulse.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Anytime, for whatever.”

His gaze traveled to the parents, and I was sure he knew there was something more, but he let it go. The twilight edged around him like a halo as he slipped out the door.

Mom leaned against the closed door, locking the dead bolt.

“Wasn't that close!”

Dad nodded. “It's safe to say we're fast running out of time before there will be a contingent of people with a clearer understanding of just what Caleb is capable of.”

“I think Garcia’s a good man,” Mom said. “But he may not be ready to know that last part. Cadaver manipulator might be a bit much.”

Jonesy chanted, “Corpse raiser, corpse raiser, it rocks!” He air-pumped with his fist.

John smirked. “You didn't think it rocked when you sprinted out of the cemetery, or when Caleb and I had to do the little blood ritual.”

Mom's mouth unhinged itself from her jaw and Dad looked astounded.

“Blood ritual?” they asked in unison.

“You didn't tell us that detail,” Dad said.

“Is that how you think you did it?” Mom asked with a frown. Probably thinking about all the ways my safety could have been in jeopardy (it was), or some other thing that could have befallen me (it did).

“Well, kinda,” I said.

“Caleb, just barf it out,” Jonesy said.

I fought not to tap my fingers on a surface. “I felt like a tingling... an energy. As soon as I stepped through the gate of that cemetery, I knew there was one voice that was calling me above the others.” I sighed.

“When I got there, I felt like I was in the middle of a whirlpool, that something was just under the surface, waiting to rise. It was like all the energy in the world was waiting for me to take that next step.”

Jonesy interrupted with a loud thwack of his right fist smacking into the palm of his left hand. “And then I hit him a good one!”

Mom jumped, letting out a nervous laugh.

I glanced at Jonesy. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

He gave the what? expression.

John shook his head.

Dad asked, “Do you think after Jonesy hit you that the catalyst was the violence or the blood? Because blood is organic, but so is violence, if one thinks on that.”

That was interesting. I hadn't thought violence was any part of it. I'd assumed that the blood was somehow an integral part of why the corpse rose to begin with.

“That would explain the dog,” John said quietly. He shifted his weight, arms still locked over his chest. “I mean, the car hitting the dog was an act of violence, right? If Baldy—” John continued.

“Smith,” I corrected.

“Whatever.” He shrugged. “If Smith hit that dog, then he wasn't being careful. Cars give warnings about obstacles. It's standard.” John was kinda stiff, but he was making some good points. “Really, if you think about it, he shouldn't have hit the dog at all.”

Dad bobbed his head. “John's right, which makes me wonder why that wasn't the first thing Garcia questioned. Do you boys remember that witness, the young woman that Sergeant Garcia said was an aura reader?”

I shook my head. With all the action happening, the crowd was the last thing I would have noticed.

Jonesy brightened. “I saw that hot girl from PE in the crowd on the way here.”

Dad laughed. “That's okay. I think there's more than just professional interest. I'm thankful we didn't blindly tell him the extent of your abilities before I've had a chance to see them. And I want to finalize the use of the cerebral inhibitor.”

“Kyle, that worries me,” Mom said.

“This is the lesser of two evils, Ali. If Caleb shows his hand, they may do a Parker on him.”

“Even now?” Mom asked.

“Especially now.” Dad looked at me.

“Your mom and I have been reading up on Parker, how our government responded to him. It looks like Parker took the Aptitude Test and was the first student, nation-wide, to hit that high of a score on AFTD, five-points.” Dad said, holding up all five fingers.

The fam-pulse chimed, and Mom walked over to the wall pocket and pressed her thumb to the pad.

Dad asked, “Who is it?”

Mom held up her index finger then turned to Jonesy. “It's your mom. Apparently, you didn't tell her you'd be over today.”

Jonesy sighed and went to the Fam-pulse. After reading the screen, he turned back and said, “I gotta go. My mom's on a rage.”

Mom frowned. “Maybe knowing where you are is sort of important to her, Jonesy.” Mom's doing the, I'm-going-to-stick-up-for-the-other-parent thing.

“Yeah, Ali, I know.” He brightened. “Thanks for those cookies.”

Mom was already getting a little ecobag for the road, Jonesy grinned. Delayed gratification.

He gave me a finger salute. “See you dudes tomorrow. Let me know what's going on, Caleb.”

John lifted his chin in goodbye, then we heard Jonesy’s pounding footsteps and the front door slamming.

Dad got back on topic. “Being prepared is the most important defense.”

“True,” Mom said. “As long as we're on the same page with this cerebral depressant thing.”

“Inhibitor,” Dad corrected. He turned to me.

“Caleb, tell me what happened at the accident, especially about this mystery dog.”

I went through the whole thing. I ended with how I was sure the dog had been alive, at least a little, because I had felt that spark.

Dad nodded. “Okay, let's go over the cause and effect one more time, Caleb.”

I groaned.

“Dad—”

“No, Caleb. Let's look at this with some applied logic. The dog was hit and flew… you said ten or twelve feet in the air?”

I nodded.

“And it lay there for how long?”

John responded, “We went to the dog right away. I mean, Caleb went to it, and I followed.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. It was like he was calling me, but it was faint. I could feel its will or whatever. It wanted to be alive. He didn't want to die.”

Dad put his elbow on his knee and cupped his chin. “It hasn't been mentioned that Parker has this ability. As a point of fact, I haven't heard that this is a part of AFTD.”

Mom asked, “Would Caleb's ability to bring something back from the brink of death still be the same thing, categorized similarly?”

“Perhaps...” Dad rubbed his stubbled chin. “We'll have to put some things to the test and see exactly where his abilities reside.”

Fear shot through me. I wanted to use the AFTD. Using it made the whispering almost disappear. It felt good, right. So far, all AFTD had gotten me was two enemies at school and a dog's reclaimed life that brought notice from an observant cop.

“What are you thinking, Kyle?” Mom asked. “That we give him a pre-aptitude test?”

Dad nodded. “Exactly. If we can nail down his skill set, we’ll know how to defend him and help him decide his future.”

“Maybe Caleb doesn't want to be some government lackey,” John said.

That was exactly what I'd been thinking.

“It's a terrifying proposition, the loss of one's freedom,” Dad said.

“I think I want the dog,” I blurted.

My parents looked at me with identical expressions of shock.

“Why, Caleb?” Mom asked.

“Because I feel responsible for it now.”

“We can't just go and take in everything you… raise or save, son.”

John smirked.

I had to agree that the whole situation was kind of funny in a perverse way.

“I know, but when I think about him...”

“It's a he?” Mom asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, how do you know?” she asked.

“I just do, Mom. It's all part of it. Anyway, I can hear him if I listen, and he's lonely for me.”

John gave me a puzzled look.

I answered his unspoken question. “Yeah, and he doesn't like wherever he is.”

Dad held up his hand. “Let's just say, hypothetically, that we were to agree to letting this dog become your pet. What would that mean for you?”

More chores. Dogs had to have food and water, and he would make a mess in the yard. (Guess who'd clean that up... oh joy.)

I said, “Responsibility, I guess.”

“And?” His expression was unhelpfully neutral.

My mind went blank. I couldn't think of a thing.

“You're fourteen now, Caleb—almost fifteen. You have four years left until graduation, and then the dog would have to become our pet.”

“We're not sure we want that, Caleb,” Mom said.

“Oh.” I hadn't really considered that. “Can you think about it at least?”

“I see that you're anxious, son, but we can't make a snap decision.”

“It's important to me, Dad.”

Dad stood up and clapped me on the shoulder.

Mom came to stand behind him, her gaze steady on mine. They'd think about it.

John said he had to go and told me to read the rest of the papers.

“Yeah, okay.” I'd been planning to do that, anyway.

***

Dad sat down heavily in his usual seat for supper, steepled his hands, and looked at me. I popped a large piece of lasagna into my mouth and did the tongue dance, realizing too late that the food was hot as hell.

“I know you've been through a lot today, Caleb,” Dad said, but I’m fascinated with how this connection with the dog unfolded.”

Mom rescued me. “Why don't you let him finish eating, and we can get the gory details afterward, hmm?”

Mom knew about The Hunger. I would often say, “I Hunger,” which loosely translated meant “What is there to eat in this house in the next five seconds?” My friends also had The Hunger, and we'd fall upon the kitchen table like locusts, and The Hunger would be abated, temporarily.

“So, Caleb, what's going on beside dead stuff?” Mom turned, one hand on her hip, and carefully set a glass in front of Dad. She just missed jingling one of the tiny bells of her skirt. I was fascinated by my mom's fashion sense. I didn't truly think she had one, but she was a believer.

“Nothing much besides Carson and Brett still being jerks.”

Mom sat next to me, her skirt bells tinkling slightly as she adjusted her position.

I really had their attention because I wasn't just blurting stuff out like usual. I wasn't in Jonesy's league, but I wasn't super-quiet like John.

“I like this girl named Jade, Jade LeClerc,” I said. Just saying her name made my heart beat faster.

“LeClerc?” Dad tilted his head. Mom looked stumped, too.

“Ya know, her dad is a mechanic for the car shop in the valley.”

Dad tried to hide a scowl, but I saw it.

Mom didn't bother. “Terrible news, that.”

I tensed. I wasn't going to let Jade get lumped in with her crap family.

“Wasn't she—” Mom began.

I cut her off. “Yeah, she was, and it's not her fault.”

“Removed from a domestic situation,” Dad said then added, “Of course it wasn't.”

A contemplative silence fell over the table. Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, dust motes circling lazily in the air.

“I'm acquainted with the father, and he is not welcome in my home, but Jade is. After all, with a family like that...” He trailed off.

Mom finished for him. “She could use some positive affirmation.” She gave me a sly look.

“Is she a cute girl?”

I wasn't falling for that! “She's cute to me.”

Mom huffed and crossed her arms. “Caleb Sebastian Hart!” she said teasingly. I didn't know if talking about a girl I liked was easier.

Raising the dead, or girls... let me think.

Dad joined in. “Now we have to know what your lady-love looks like just in case we pass her on the street and rudely not give salutations.” He winked.

“Lady-love, Dad? So retarded!”

“Caleb!” Mom cried.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. But it was retarded. Who said that? They couldn't help it, being old and all. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that Mom was Gramp’s daughter.

“You have to be more sensitive with your language,” Mom said.

“But lady-love?” I raised my eyebrows.

“I guess that was a little out of date,” Dad said.

“So tell us more about Jade,” Mom said.

“Well, she’s really interesting.”

“That's not what I thought about your mother when I first saw her,” Dad said with a smile aimed at Mom.

Over share much? “I mean, she’s different than the other girls. She doesn't do that stuff girls do that's super-annoying.”

Mom crossed her arms again. Uh-oh, I'd stepped in it.

“What do girls do that's so annoying?” she asked in a fake innocent tone. (Translation: I will eviscerate you).

I looked at Dad for help but he looked back, clearly, you couldn't have just said that.

I was on my own.

“She treats me the same all the time, not just when she's in the mood. She pays attention to what I'm saying. She actually listens.”

A slow smile spread across Dad's face.

Mom sat speechless—a rare occurrence—then said, “She sounds great. I like a woman that is self-possessed.”

“And she's cute too, right?” Dad winked.

“Yeah, there is that.” I grinned.

“Oh, you two. Annoying guys.” Mom smiled.

Dad said, “Tomorrow, we flesh out your abilities. What are you doing tonight?”

Mom looked up from wiping the kitchen table.

“Ah... John brought over some papers about the Parker kid.”

“Don't you have a textbook from school that addresses these abilities?” Dad asked.

“Yes, he does,” Mom said. “First semester in eighth grade they're required to have one-quarter health and one-quarter paranormal development.” She nodded at me. “They're linked, you know.”

Yeah, they were linked all right. That health class had been the dumbest on the planet. I could never get the lame-ass music out of my head. Body changes. Everyone goes through... body changes.

No shit, Sherlock.

“Were you listening, Caleb?” Mom asked.

I stared blankly at Dad.

Dad said, “I asked if you still had the textbook here in the house from last semester.”

I shrugged.

Mom said, “Try under your bed. That would be my first guess.”

I turned back to Dad. “I don't know. I'll take a look.”

“Okay, good. Now that these events are coming to pass, a refresher would be an excellent pursuit of your time. The sooner the better.”

I hopped up the stairs taking them two at a time. Tearing open my door, I launched myself on my bed, scooping up papers as I fell.

I bent my head over them and began to read.

CHAPTER 7

Chocolate-brown eyes stared through the mist, luminous and shining. I blinked, and they were gone. My eyes flicked to my bare feet—boxers my only clothing. I took in my surroundings and realized with dawning horror that I was in the cemetery.

I glanced at where I had seen the eyes, and the dog stepped forward, an inky silhouette in the midst of an ethereal fog. The mist was wet, swirling around my face and drenching my hair.

The dog whisper-thought, Rescue me.

His eyes bored into mine with an eerie intensity, that connection I'd felt since the accident still tying us together.

Images flooded my brain, like a movie running frame by frame:

A boy, close to my age, throwing a ball. The dog's pure joy at the chase, the return, and the reward of the boy's laughing acknowledgment of him.

Then, a stranger coaxing me/us with food and a terrible trip in a thing of metal that moves. Alarming smells wafting in through a hole mostly covered with glass, too many to identify. Terrible loneliness from missing the boy.

Suddenly, an opportunity to escape the confines of the frightening and noisy box that moves. The dog leaps through the hole that is sometimes glass and runs until he finds a road where he scents two boys. He knows they are close to his boy, and he will find his boy again. He pursues them.

A metal machine hits him, and his life is ebbing away. Then one of the boys is there, calling to him. He struggles, deciding he wants to play ball again and be a dog for this boy. He lives.

I snap out of the reverie of the dog's emotions. Our eyes lock, his imploring. I know that I am somehow responsible for his life. The midnight-black tail wags like a friendly exclamation mark, moving the mist slightly.

Beep, beep, beep, beep!

I opened one blurry eye, slammed my palm down on the alarm, then flopped over on my back and lay there for a minute.

Finally, I sighed, sat up and swung my feet around to slap the floor. The warmth of my bed clung like fingers, begging me to stay.

Ignoring that, I walked over to the window and noticed the field shrouded in mist. Tall, western red cedar and Douglas fir trees were scattered like soldiers in battle, leading down to Clark Lake.

I turned back, feeling uneasy from the dream, and went for the bathroom. A shower would chase the lethargy away. Thinking of Jade, I decided I would definitely find some clean clothes.

But my thoughts strayed back to the dog. He had become a part of my life, whether I wanted him to be or not.

After showering, great smells made their way upstairs; fried egg sandwiches. Yup, that was it.

Sailing down the stairs, I plopped down in my seat.

Dad looked up from his paper. “How did that reading go last night?”

“Kinda scary.”

Dad raised an eyebrow.

“That Parker kid was a lot like me.”

Mom set a plate in front of me with a perfectly centered, two-egg, cheese-laden breakfast. Steam rose from the eggs, the cheese melting at the edges. Ah... bliss.

I waded into the food without preamble. “He also 'heard' things from animals. He was off the charts on his aptitude for the AFTD.”

Dad said, “We know that.”

He seemed annoyed. That I didn't need. I just found out I had this ability. Get the dog, get the girl; no pressure!

Mom shot Dad a look. “What Dad means, is we'd like to hear anything that you felt could help you with this.” She gave me an encouraging look.

I used my fork to shear off another corner of the egg sandwich and popped a satisfying hunk in my mouth.

“Looks like he could see ghosts, also.” Dad shrugged. That was a typical aspect of AFTD.

I looked up. “He could control them, too.”

Dad exchanged a look with Mom, one of those annoying ones that said a lot but not to others.

“That's not good,” he said.

“If he can control ghosts, then that’s another useful tool. Being a cadaver manipulator is certainly rare, but controlling hauntings?” He threw up his hands.

“I guess a little terror would go a long way,” I said.

“Let me get this straight,” Mom said. “Caleb is what? A domestic terrorist now?” She looked incredulously at Dad.

He nodded. “In a word... yes.”

I checked the clock—ten after eight. Well, nothing was going to get in the way of my appetite. I stuffed down the remains of my breakfast.

“Have you seen ghosts, Caleb?” Dad asked.

“Nope,” I said, using the last bit of bread to wipe up egg yolk.

Mom let out a sigh of relief. “I guess we don't have to worry about that.”

I hated to burst her bubble but....

“That was the last skill he gained before the government took him.”

“What year did your reading say that he was transferred to the 'government school'?” Dad made airquotes.

The FDA approved the drug that made us all able to “reach our genetic potential” in 2015. That year, all teens, nationwide, had been inoculated for a hell of a lot more than Hepatitis B. It'd all been in those papers. The more I read, the scarier the connections became. It was starting to stink like conspiracy.

I said, “I think it was 2016.”

Dad nodded. “Yes, that rings a bell.”

Mom stood and picked up my plate. “You better skedaddle there.”

“I have a plan,” Dad said. “We'll talk after school.”

I stopped with my butt halfway off the chair. “You're gonna be here, Dad?”

“Yes, I'm taking the day off. We'll experiment with your skills.” Since Dad never took a weekday off unless he had the barf-o-ma-tic, he must be really worried.

“Don't forget we need to talk about the dog,” I said.

CHAPTER 8

I made it to class just as the final bell rang. I plopped down next to John. Jonesy sat across from us with his head in his hand.

“What's your problem?” I asked Jonesy.

“Can't wait for Sunday. I'm itching for payback.”

John rolled his eyes.

“What is it today, Wednesday?” I asked.

John nodded.

“Well, get over that. Let's talk while we work on this.” I looked down at my heart-shaped box.

Mr. Morginstern sauntered over, hands thrust into his pockets.

“Good morning gentlemen,” he said in his I-love-mornings voice.

We mumbled hellos.

Morginstern studied my box and pointed out some rough spots, explaining that if those weren't perfectly smooth, they'd hang up the lid.

“You see this here.” He pointed at an almost invisible bump on the interior arc. “That is the kind of thing that can make a project frustrating.”

Geez, really? The whole project had been pretty hard. I wished now that I had chosen a square, like Jonesy, or a rectangle, like John. Mother's Day was coming up. Mom always said she didn't care about presents, but I was starting to get a handle on girls, so I knew she would feel bad if I didn't do something nice.

It was a ruthless minefield.

Morginstern studied Jonesy's box and gave him a similar lecture, but he pronounced John's as ready for a lid. Jonesy and I looked at each other in perfect understanding—John just got stuff.

Morginstern wandered off to bug the other kids, and we put our heads together football huddle style.

“I'm in deep crap,” I said. “I read the Parker kid's stuff last night. He had some stuff I haven't done yet, but if I play out like him, I’ll get them too. It's even more important that I not spike their radar on the AP tests Monday.”

“Did your dad get the cerebral inhibitor?” John asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, he's got it, and he took the day off because he wants to go over The Plan.”

Jonesy stuck out his jaw, leaning back. “What 'Plan'?”

“I don't know. The minute we talk, I’ll pulse you and let you know.”

“Kyle thought it was okay that we knew?” Jonesy stabbed a thumb at his chest.

I laughed. “Yeah, you were there. There's no hiding any of it: the blackouts, the fugues...”

“The cemetery,” John added.

That reminded me. “Have Carson and Brett said anything?”

John and I looked at Jonesy. Jonesy talked to everyone.

“Not yet,” Jonesy said, rubbing his hands together with undisguised glee.

As John leaned forward, his frizzy hair covered an eye. “Don't take this too far. We don't want to hurt them.”

“Too much,” I said, winking at Jonesy.

John smacked my shoulder. “Don't give him any ammunition, Caleb!”

Morginstern looked our way. “Get back to work boys.”

Jonesy and I picked up our eighty grit sandpaper and went to work on the bumps.

John got up with a self-satisfied smile.

“I guess I'll go over and use the jigsaw for my lid now.”

“Don't be an ass,” Jonesy said.

“Yeah, what he said,” I echoed.

John walked off, his fro of hair flopping as he moved between the tables.

CHAPTER 9

Between bells, I tried to catch a glimpse of Jade.

Crap, I didn't see her by the locker. Bending down, I tore open the zipper on my backpack without any of my usual finesse and threw my junk in my locker. I wasn't hauling all that to math.

When I straightened, she was right beside me, close enough to touch.

I gulped.

“Hi,” I croaked.

She flashed me a smile, the kind that reached the eyes.

“Do you want to hang out at lunch?” My voice was steady. Yay for me.

She turned her head to the side, and that long curtain of hair swung forward, hiding her expression. Then she looked back up at me through the veil of eyelashes that bordered eyes that shone like emeralds.

God, she was beautiful.

“I'd like that,” she said. Those gorgeous eyes studied me. She wasn't a girl to fill silences with a lot of chatter, another great thing about her. I was making a list.

The other kids would notice us being together. That's all that kids talked about, how much school sucked and who was going out with whom. Maybe I could tell her about my problem. The Js were cool, but I couldn’t show my friends my fear. Girls were better that way.

As we turned away from each other, it slid through my mind that only having her in two classes sucked.

Carson and Brett walked past, and Brett made a pistol hand, taking a shot at me. Dick. Carson threw his head back and laughed, delighted by his friends' cleverness.

Jonesy's hairspray idea was sounding sweeter by the second.

Math class dragged. John saw me study the clock and raised an eyebrow. Later, I looked back. He shrugged, his shoulder blades poking out like weapons and went back to studying, his hair a wall in front of his eyes.

Afterward, I raced to my locker to get my backpack. I slapped on my beanie and took out my pulse. Pressing my thumb on the pad, I selected Music. I chose the oldies shuffle: Seether, Hinder, and Underwhelmed.

Thinking into my touch pad: volume 15. The screen illuminated in phosphorescent green the correct volume and I thought:
accurate.

Music filled my ears, and I hummed a little as I slid through the throng, my mind already with Jade. Jonesy caught up to me, narrowly missing a posse of girls who giggled as he walked by. He took the time to wink and salute them with a fingertip, which caused another rush of laughter.

I didn't know how he did it, but girls went nuts over Jonesy. He called it his “undeniable attraction.” Whatever. He was cool, but I didn't see him as manly.

John appeared and fell into step on my left. Jonesy led the way through the crowd.

I thought:
volume five... then: accurate.

“Jade and I are hanging at lunch today, guys.”

Jonesy stopped dead in my path.

“You're kidding. I mean, are you guys are like, going out?”

“No, but I don't want the first time that we can actually talk to be around you dorks.”

“Ya know,” John said thoughtfully, “a dork is a whale's penis?”

I smirked. I know.

Jonesy rolled his eyes, throwing up his hands. “I know you're hot for her, but bros before hos man.”

He looked at John for agreement. John nodded then turned to me, still smiling.

Jonesy... so classy.

“Come on, guys! If you had a girl you liked, you'd want to be with her.” I looked from one to the other. “I’ll talk to her for awhile, then I’ll bring her over to our table.”

Jonesy sulked. Kids swirled around us in an ocean-like tide.

John said, “See where it goes today, but don't let a girl interfere with important stuff.” He looked at me in his steady way.

“Okay,” I said. “I got it.”

Jonesy glanced back. Traitor, that look said.

My pulse was on the lowest volume. Soothing, retro music wafted through the ear discs that were permanently embedded behind my ears. Technology rocked.

I stepped into the cafeteria. A small hand rose, a lone flag of welcome among the masses.

I no longer heard the music as I walked toward her. Instead, I saw the soft triangle of her face, her full pink lips, and her silver hoops catching the light as she laughed with Sophie. Huh... Sophie. I had ditched the Js only to have to share time with her. I hurried over to the food line.

When I reached the table, Sophie looked up at me, her blue-green eyes full of laughter. She turned back to Jade and said, “Catch ya later.” She jumped up and hurried to another table.

I sat down awkwardly next to Jade. Her hands were folded on the table. I mimicked her pose, and she reached out and covered one of my hands with hers. Instinctively, I closed my hand around hers, grinning like an idiot. Every struggle had been worth it to be in that moment with her.

“So,” she said, “what did you want to talk about?”

I looked down at our clasped hands, and my mouth got dry. Okay, Hart, you got this. She obviously likes you, so start with that.

“Well, I know we don't know each other very well, but do you want to go out?” I stumbled over that last part, simultaneously hoping my hand didn't get sweaty.

She smiled shyly. “I thought you'd never ask.”

No one in the history of the universe could have possibly been happier.

“Let's go somewhere and talk,” I said.

“Okay.” She stood up and stuffed her pulse in her pocket.

We made our way into the open hallway. I didn't want to let go of her hand, ever.

She leaned against the wall, and I took her other hand as I looked down at her. There were some girls who were actually shorter than I was.

“I'm so glad you finally asked me.”

It's not like she hit me over the head with clues or anything.

She grinned at my expression. “You're the guy. You have to ask.”

“That's not true. You could have given me a hint,” I said, trying to sound miffed, even though I was supremely happy.

Smiling, she raised my hand and laid it against her cheek. My heart paused mid-beat. Her skin felt like silk.

I cupped her face, noticing how small it was and leaned down to whisper, “Meet me after band today.”

“Okay.”

My stomach rumbled, and I laughed. “I guess we better eat,”

I looked at her lunch tray sitting on the table a few meters away. Girls sure ate weird.

She saw my expression. “What?”

I shrugged. “No wonder you're so small. You don't eat anything real.”

She pointed at her salad as we walked back over. “This is real.”

I grunted, and she glanced at my tray. Pizza was definitely the food of the gods as far as I was concerned.

The Js were at our regular lunch table and just finishing their pizza.

Jade grabbed her tray and followed me over. We plunked down across from my dudes.

Jonesy looked at Jade's tray. “Are you kidding with that?” He pointed his fork at her salad.

Jade gestured at his food and said, “You guys need to clean up your eating habits.”

Fourth slice in hand, John looked down at his three crusts and shrugged. He took a bite that polished off half the slice. Jonesy laughed and used his crust to wipe up the last vestiges of his ranch dressing.

Jade stared with fascination at Jonesy's ritual. His pears and green beans lay lonely and untouched in a forgotten corner of his tray. Jonesy mowed through his dessert cup of sherbet while expertly eying whatever food John had been dumb enough not to finish.

I didn't have my normal appetite. After all, it wasn't every day that I got a girlfriend.

Jonesy licked his spoon then blurted, “So you two going out now?”

John almost choked on his last hunk of pizza, some of it escaping his mouth.

Jade stopped the fork midway to her mouth, fruit balanced on the tines.

I answered, “Yeah, Jonesy, we are.” I grabbed Jade’s hand under the table. She squeezed back.

The class bell rang its five minute warning.

“Sorry about your lunch,” I mumbled, seeing only half was eaten.

“It's okay.” She curled her small hand around my forearm, where a tiny pulse beat, captured in the delicate skin of her wrist.

She fascinated me.

I recovered. The Js stood and we followed. Carson and Brett sauntered over, Brett eying Jade up.

I didn't like that at all. We moved to the side of the table.

“Hi, Jade,” Brett said, nodding to the Js and me. Carson didn't bother.

Hi,” she said.

“Hey, Hart, gonna see ya at the cemetery on Sunday?” Carson said, looking hard at Jonesy.

Jonesy stepped beside me, and Jade moved a little behind me.

Jonesy said, “We'll all be there, I told ya.”

Brett looked at Jade. “Even your little girlfriend is coming?” He reached out and touched her hair.

“Don't touch me!” she yelped, jumping back.

“Leave her alone, dickhead,” I said, my hands balled into tight fists. I was ready for a hammer session and he was the nail.

Brett moved up until our noses almost touched, our chests a millimeter from contact.

“Caleb, we have eyes,” John said in a low voice.

I didn't take mine off Brett.

Carson put a hand on Brett’s shoulder. “Leave it. He can't do anything, and the chick's not worth it.” He sneered at me.

Brett retreated a step, and the tension dissipated. Carson pulled Brett toward the door. Brett walked backward, glaring at me. A moment before he went through the double doors, his eyes shifted to the left and became thoughtful.

I followed his gaze to see what he was looking at, and Jade filled my vision. Her anxious face was pinched and nervous. Rage filled me. I put my arm around her and scooped her up against me while I stroked her hair with my other hand. She shivered under my touch.

Jonesy said, “Sunday can't come soon enough.”

CHAPTER 10

John was listening raptly to Xavier Collins, aka, Biology teacher extraordinaire. He ran around the room, boiling with energy, making his point. Unfortunately, I had worn out my welcome when we had dissected the frogs and I kept passing out and getting hauled off to the nurse's office.

Collins was jogging back and forth in front of the board, smacking his fist into his open palm, doing a rant about the bees. That again, I thought a little glumly. Between Dad, big time scientist in his pants and Mom, environmental activist. I knew what was wrong. I put my head in both my palms.

“This alarming trend of the decimation of honeybees is appalling. The origins of which precedes 2010. It was in that year that nearly one million honeybee colonies were wiped out,” Collins said.

John nodded with marked enthusiasm at what Collins was saying. Having a swarm of anything die would be a fresh hell for me.

“Caleb Hart,” Collins said, “what are your thoughts on this subject?”

Oh great. “Ah... what do you want me to say?”

“What are your thoughts on the continual decline of this critical species which impacts our habitat at every turn?”

I put my best lame foot forward. “Well, my mom had me help her plant flowers in the garden that attracts bees.”

Carson attempted to cover a laugh by coughing. I blushed. He was such a jerk. It was stupid to admit to helping my mom garden, but my choices for chores were cleaning the bathroom or gardening. Gee, let me think about it.

Collins turned sharply to Carson. “Do you have something to add, Mr. Hamilton?”

Carson squirmed.

“No.”

“Good, very good,” Collins said and turned his attention back to me. “Well, go on then, Caleb.”

I shrugged. “That's it. I mean, I hear my parents talk about the environment a lot.” My voice conveyed how obvious that would be in my household.

“What plants did she select?” Collins asked.

Wow, easy question. “We plant flowers in blue and violet, mainly. But my mom has rhododendrons in a bunch of different colors. She says it's important to plant different types and try to use native plants.”

I actually knew something about this because of my role as The Gardening Slave.

“Very good, Caleb. Caleb's family is doing exactly what we all need to be doing. This 'pocket gardening' technique emphasizes that if all of us were doing our small part to propagate the environment, that cumulative effort would have tremendous impact. These insects need all of us working together to resurrect their dying numbers.”

Suddenly, Collins spun around and pointed a finger at me. “What's your favorite plant for bee attraction, Caleb?”

“Sunflower,” I blurted.

Collins smiled and jogged back to the whiteboard. John gave me a thumbs-up, and Carson flipped me off. With a smile, I turned back to the teacher. Some days were okay. Carson's annoyance kicked ass.

Later, during English and PE, I was distracted by Jade. Jade using her pulse-pad, Jade doing jumping jacks to the tune of Ms. Griswold's sandpaper voice.

In band, John and I talked about Jade. It was easier without Jonesy around, who was sorta anti-girlfriends at the moment.

“Are you gonna tell her?” John asked.

“Don't really have a choice. Carson and Brett said something in front of her.”

“Yeah, what was with Brett doing that to Jade?” he asked.

“I don't know, but it pissed me off.”

“Maybe he likes her. You know, likes her,” John said. “He lives kinda by her, ya know.”

Brett had always been a little mean to her. A guy as dumb as Brett probably couldn’t think of a better way to act so they just fall back on what they know... lameness.

“She lives with her aunt now. Is that still close to Brett?” I asked.

“I think her aunt lives pretty close to her old house.”

“Is her aunt like her dad?”

John looked thoughtful.

“You know her dad's a big-time drunk, right?”

I nodded. Everyone knew that.

“Well, I don't hear the same stuff about her. It was some kind of protective custody thing,” he said.

I knew some of the history. Jade had been beaten by her dad. The aunt had called Child Protective Services, and they still kept tabs on Jade. Her creeper dad would be a problem.

“Yeah, she's never said anything about her dad to me,” I said.

John gave me a look. “Before today, did you talk to her much?”

He had me there. “No, I was kinda freaked.”

“She's just a girl, Caleb.” His blue eyes were serious, and the sunlight glinting through the window backlit his hair into a flaming halo.

Just a girl.

“Coming from you that means a lot, Terran! With your harem-o-chicks!” John blushed a fine, blazing red that only true redheads can. I was the first guy in the group to have a girlfriend and it was new, to all of us.

“I plan to get to know her a little better after band,” I said, waggling my eyebrows in full bravado mode.

“Huh? You're gonna take her home to meet the parents?” He smirked.

Terror sunk my stomach like a lead weight. “We're not that serious!”

“Not yet.”

The bell rang and we hung our guitars on their respective wooden pegs and headed for the door. The sun blazed through the huge windows, dust motes swirled lazily in the air, suspended in an invisible web.

We stepped outside, and my eyes locked on Jade.

She wore a tight pink cami covered by a chocolate-colored T-shirt, dark blue jeans, and little strappy sandals. I loved a girl who dressed like one. She smiled when she saw me, and it was all I could do to not pick her up and spin her around.

John cleared his throat, and I waved off. He nodded in understanding with a lopsided grin but didn’t follow me over to Jade.

I took her hand, and we talked about unimportant stuff on the way to the park at the opening of my neighborhood.

***

Dappled sunlight struggled through the canopy of trees. Little more than a drainage area when the development was first built in the 1970s, over time, the park had become a small oasis with structures on three sides. The city park bordered on the fourth, separated by an ugly cyclone fence. Huge indigenous evergreens lined the area, broken here and there by a lone Alder tree. These too, cast pools of shade in the late afternoon light.

Jade and I sat on a well-worn bench just inside the entrance to the woods. A patch of sun found her, slanting across her forehead.

Our hands were still entwined when she asked, “What's going on Sunday, Caleb?”

I evaded the question. “Maybe you should pulse your aunt and let her know when you'll be home.”

Jade pulled out her pulse, which was slathered in iridescent lavender hearts. “Good idea.” She sent the message then leaned against me.

“What did ya say?” I asked.

“I told her I was hanging out with a friend.”

It occurred to me that maybe not all kids would just blurt out their romantic details to their parents. I couldn't imagine Jonesy or John telling their parents anything. Especially John's, they had a sphincter factor that could produce diamonds.

I gave a small smile. “Did you tell her about me?” I asked.

“Well, I didn't tell her a name. I just said I liked a boy at school.”

“What's your aunt's name?”

“Oh... Andrea,” she responded absently, as if her mind was already a million miles away.

I studied her face, wondering about her thoughts. “Anyway, my mom says you're welcome to come over anytime.”

Jade looked down, her long hair falling forward like ink spilling.

She twisted in my embrace to look at me. “You told your parents about me?”

“Yeah. I mean, it's no different than you telling your aunt that you like somebody.” I shrugged. “But I gave them your name.”

Jade shifted against me.

“Do they know about... my dad and all?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I didn't tell them, but they already knew.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, not awkward but like people who fit together like puzzle pieces.

“I love my aunt,” she said suddenly.

I gave her a little squeeze. “My parents don't care, and neither do I.”

“Really?” she asked shyly, looking up at me through her eyelashes.

“Really.”

A huge grin appeared on her face, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. I grinned back. The moment held, grew, and became a perfect memory.

She shivered a little as I gave her a side hug. I was diggin' that response.

“So about Sunday,” she said.

Oh yeah, that. Mood-killer.

I cleared my throat. “Okay so, the APs are coming up on Monday. And… well, I found out that I have AFTD.”

I expected shock, surprise, something, but Jade just looked back at me calmly.

“I already knew.”

I gaped at her. “How?”

“Because I'm an Empath.”

It was like the mystery being solved. Everything instantly fell into place. I understood her behavior. She already knew about my “problem” because she had one of her own.

The knowledge made me self-conscious. She knew stuff about me that maybe I hadn't wanted her to know, like how much I dug her.

Couldn't a guy have a few secrets?

She must have sensed my tension. “This is why I haven't said anything.”

I tried to relax. Couldn't.

I took a deep breath. “You haven't told anyone but me?”

“And Sophie. I was thinking about telling Andrea, but she may tell my dad.”

I was surprised. “Why would she do that?”

“I don't know. She knows he's crappy, but she thinks he has a right to know important stuff. She'd think this was.”

“Well, she's gonna find out after Monday.”

She nodded.

“My dad's got a cerebral inhibitor that I'm gonna take so I won't hit the radar as a corpse raiser.”

“Caleb, they're gonna know you're AFTD.”

“I know, but I can be a lesser AFTD, and I won't be that important. Ya know, a two-point or something.”

“How do you know you can raise dead things?” she asked.

I told her about the cemetery then about the dog. Jade showed a lot of sympathy for the dog. Just thinking about him brought his emotions flooding into me.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“I don't know for sure, but the impressions—”

She raised one eyebrow. “Impressions?”

“Yeah, if I think about him, he's like here with me.”

“Like when I touch people...” she mused.

“I don't know if it's like what you have. All I know is that I thought he needed to live, then he did. And afterward, I could sense his emotions.”

“So, what do you know about people?” I asked.

“Ah-uh, you're not getting off that fast!” She laughed. “No off-topic. Tell me about Sunday.”

I plowed my free hand through my hair. “Well, Jonesy thought we needed to teach Carson and Brett a lesson.”

Jade's brow furrowed into two, neat lines, kind of like a number eleven in the middle of her forehead.

I rushed to explain. “He thought it may distract them enough during the aptitude tests that they wouldn't be paying attention to me or think to let a teacher in on what I can really do.”

Jade tilted her head. “Yeah, but later, they're going to retaliate.”

I shrugged. “I guess that's a chance we'll have to take.”

Jade rolled her eyes.

“Boys!”

As if that explained all reason in the world.

“Listen, they won't respect me until I dominate them. They're just that type. You see that, don't ya?”

“Yeah... I guess so.” She bit her lip, looking uncertain. “Brett lives near me. He’s always been… difficult.”

She actually sounded like she felt sorry for the guy. I looked at her, dumbfounded.

She whispered, “His dad's worse than mine.”

The silence rolled out, and I let it. I didn’t really know what to say. But I did know that girls always seem to want to fill silences with talking. Guys didn't feel that obligation.

After a few minutes, she said, “When we were little and met at the bus stop, his dad would sometimes meet him in the afternoon, and right there, in front of all the kids, he'd be shit-faced drunk. Of course, he'd wait until the driver pulled away before he started hitting Brett.” She looked down at her hands clenched in her lap. “Then, he would drag him off to the car. The next day at the bus stop, Brett would be all beat up.”

Jade looked up at me, tears shimmering in her eyes. “He had it worse than me. At least Dad didn't yell and beat me in front of people.”

I gulped. That was horrible—her story and Brett’s. My life, even with the stupid AFTD was better than a lot of people. I didn't want to feel bad for Brett. He was such a raging dickhead, but I could see why he acted the way he did. Carson was still a mystery, though. He had everything going for him. It came down to choice. Jade had a similar background to Brett, and she wasn't acting like a jerk.

Jade answered almost as if I had spoken out loud—duh... empath. “His mom never did anything to stop it. At least my mom is dead. I just had the one parent. When things got really bad”—she shuddered—“I would escape to Andrea's.”

“Okay, so you, like, feel sorry for Brett?”

“Kinda. I hate that he's mean to me. But at the bus stop, the other kids didn't know what to do to help him. His dad was über-scary, and their families were normal.” She smiled. “Well, more normal. Anyway, I knew what it felt like, how embarrassing it was to have a parent that out of control, the feeling of slippage, like you're hangin' on to the edge of the cliff and some maniac has a hold of the rope and you have to hang on and hope they don't let go. I just wanted him to know that I was hangin' on to his rope, too. That the maniac wasn't the only one that had a hold of it. So we were friends. Then, for some reason, last year when we started middle school”—she gestured back in the direction of school—“he started acting like he didn't know me.” She shrugged. “I just sorta gave up. He and Carson became friends, and that was the end of that.”

We sat for a moment, and I chewed on what she'd told me.

“I want you to come on Sunday,” I said.

“I don't know. What if Carson and Brett get really mad and something bad happens? I don't like Brett getting it. It feels wrong. If it backfires, they'll be more determined to make sure the right adults find out what you can do.”

“Speaking of that, how did you know… about me?”

She started wringing her hands a little.

“When you touched me, I just got a really strong... impression of… concern and... love.” She glanced up at me, probably to see if I was offended by the L-word.

I couldn't say I loved her yet, but I cared. Maybe there wasn't much of a difference between the two.

“Anyone can guesstimate,” she said, “but I know. People can't lie to me. I know who likes me and who doesn't. And that's not so great, believe me. But what can I do? It is what it is.”

I felt the same way.

“That still doesn't explain how you know that I'm AFTD.”

“Well, each person has a 'flavor,' like ice cream,” she perked up at the analogy, “So there are paranormal flavors, and I started to recognize the differences, sometimes before the kids even know what they're going to have. Mostly, I just try to not touch anyone. I really don't want to know.”

“Who else is AFTD?” I was stunned. I thought I was the only one for some reason. Like an island in and endless sea.

“That girl in PE—Tiffany Weller.” Jade's voice modulation rose, do you know her?

I thought about the name, and then the face came to me.

I nodded.

Jade said, “About a month ago, she was sitting outside the school, crying. I didn’t really know her, but I asked her what was wrong. She pointed at a dead bird just a few feet away.

She had snot and tears all over her face, and she said something, but I couldn’t hear because was talking so soft. So I leaned in real close, and she said, ‘It whispers.’ I asked her what whispered. 'Death,' she said, 'death whispers.''' Jade shook her head. “It was so creepy that I sorta backed away real quick, but I lost my footing, and my hand touched her back.” She hung her head.

I didn't push her for more, letting the silence imprison the moment.

The sun began to sink, a hot crimson ball on fire balanced between the sky and the horizon. Seconds ticked by.

“I felt it all then,” Jade said. “There was this echo. I could feel Tiffany's feelings of sadness and loss, but I could also feel, real faint, the bird's images, too.” She shuddered again then looked at me. “You're the same, Caleb. But more... you're so much more. With you, it's like static noise. There are so many voices.”

The orb began to drown in the horizon, painting the sky blood red. The wash of color expanded like arms of light, reaching out for an embrace. I looked down at Jade and understood that she was horrified by what she could feel was going on with me, with everyone. It was something I always had to keep the iron fist of control over. Otherwise, it was simple misery.

The dead spoke. They spoke to me all the time.

CHAPTER 11

Mom pounced on me the minute I walked through the door. I chucked my backpack on the chair and she gave me the mom-glare. I sighed, trudging back out to the foyer and hung it up on a tarnished brass hook. I followed my nose to the kitchen, my stomach giving an appreciative roar.

Mom spoke the dreaded sentence: “You have to eat supper first.”

That never failed to put me in a crappy mood. She knew that I could probably polish off the whole loaf of banana bread and still eat suck down supper.

I glanced over to the cook top where the last of the chicken was frying up. Three pieces of her chicken, plus mashed potatoes, and I'd still have room for dessert.

Mom was eying me critically.

“What?” I asked.

“Your eyeballs are taller.” Mom liked to point out that I’d grown by saying that, than whatever random day she had noticed before. Whatever, I decided to play along. After all, I was riding the happy wave of having been in the Presence of Jade.

“Definitely. Let's go measure you.”

“Mom, don't you have some potatoes to mash or something?”

She gave me another death glare, so I stalked over to the bathroom door. On the casing that surrounded the door were a lot of horizontal pencil marks cataloging my growth, what little there was of it.

I stood ramrod straight and put my heels against the molding, holding my shoulders back. Mom put a ruler on my head and made the new mark. A low whistle escaped her, and I turned around to look.

Unbelievably, there was a whole bunch more space between the new mark and the last mark made only three months ago. I hadn't noticed at all. Mom measured the distance with a tape measure.

“Two inches, Caleb. I knew it.” She pumped her fist, which seemed eerily like Jonesy.

“So how tall does that make me?”

“Five-six.”

Mom looked down at me, but not by much. We grinned at each other until our faces hurt.

Dad walked in, and Mom went back to the frying pan.

“What's going on here?” Dad asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” Mom flung over her shoulder. “But Caleb is two inches taller.”

“Really?” Dad drawled. “It's just a matter of time before you're all grown up.” He opened his pulse-top carrier and extracted a small orange bottle—the cerebral inhibitor.

Dad gave the bottle a little shake, the cargo rattling. Mom slid the glass pan of chicken into the oven. I sat down at the kitchen table, its surface tangerine from the setting sun.

Dad loosened his tie and passed the bottle to me. The label read: Take one tablet in the morning after food with one full glass of water.

I turned it around in my hand. The other side warned: May cause disorientation, slurred speech, listlessness, or dizziness.

“Dad, I won't be able to do well on the AP tests. I'm gonna be a moron.”

Mom gave me the glare, again. She hated the use of “bigotry” names. She thinks the handicapped need to not be identified in a negative way. Overweight people and anyone looked down on all fell under Mom's “treat equally” category, which meant everyone in the world.

Dad glanced at Mom then rushed on when she grunted her annoyance. “No, I can give you a half dose, Caleb.”

Dad held out his hand. I passed the bottle back.

Mom sat at the table. “Kyle, are you sure that this stuff won't permanently harm him?”

Dad rolled his eyes.

“No. Even buying us some time to figure this thing out would not be sufficient reason for taking chances with Caleb’s mind.”

Mom seemed to decide something. “Good.”

Mucho-boring. “So let's talk about the dog,” I said.

Mom smiled. “We've thought about it and decided that after this whole mess is over, we will try to transition the dog into our family.”

A large breath of air that I hadn't realized I was holding blew out of me like a deflated balloon.

Dad nodded.

“Your mom found out where the dog is being held, and she went to see him.”

Wow! There had always been a No Pets rule in our house. But they were not only going to let me have the dog, Mom had actually gone to visit him.

I grinned at her. “Mom, you didn't tell me.”

“I know, but there's been a lot going on. It just seemed you didn't need another thing to worry about. And your unusual… connection with the dog seemed a touchstone of comfort for you.”

“Where is he?”

“He's at the King County Animal Sanctuary,” she said.

I slumped in my seat. Good. They had a no-kill policy. I allowed a small amount of my control to loosen, and a wave of confused emotions washed over me.

Wow. The dog's emotions and impressions were all over the place. Above all, he knew on some level that I was in his head, and that gave him a sense of peace. He also had a memory of another boy, but the image was faded, like a shirt washed too many times. I closed the small link.

I didn't know if I was tired from the effort of not releasing all that pressing, eager energy that was always there, or if just allowing a small amount had taken more control than I had.

My parents were leaning toward me with identical expressions of concern.

I smiled at them. “I'm okay.”

Dad sat back. “What was that?

“That whole... fugue thing?”

Dad frowned. “Oh, is that what it seemed like?”

Mom nodded. “Yes, you didn't respond when I snapped my fingers right in front of your face.”

I had been aware of my parents, but I had been utterly engaged with the dog.

“I can feel the dog if I… let some of it go, just a little.”

“And, Caleb, that's it. That is exactly what I wish to explore,” Dad said.

I thought he'd say something like that.

“I know you guys want to know how I do it. But there is really no way to explain it. I mean, the first few times it was a complete accident. It just happened. Now, I'm trying to control it, at least all the whispering and junk.”

“Did the Parker kid have these same manifestations?”

“Same,” I replied.

Dad palmed his chin.

Mom said, “I want to peruse those papers that John brought over. Your father has already done some independent research, uncovering some possibilities. But people are so unpredictably unique that there are always new abilities with each individual. We're wondering what will be in store for you.”

“Well, Dad and I have discussed the possibilities,” I said.

Mom's eyebrows shot up. “So what's the consensus, fellas?”

“We think,” Dad said, “that Caleb may be able to control hauntings as his skill set becomes more advanced.”

The minutes ticked by while Dad and I discussed the potential of my undead skills. Mom beat the taters into submission until they were smooth, white mountain peaks.

The discussion finally turned to Jade and I confessed she felt uncomfortable with my parents knowing her family situation.

Mom had it down. “She is a separate person and will be treated as such. No one chooses who they are born to.”

I plowed through the Mount Rainer of mashed potatoes mom put in front of me, eating suddenly becoming more important than the awkward girlfriend discussion.

After dinner, I jogged up to what the Js referred to as the Bat Cave. My room was tucked under the eaves of the half story of the upper floor in a bowling alley of space. I lay on my bed and started reading from where I’d left off.

We were unaware of the ramifications of this particular ability. Parker's abilities were the first five-point AFTD abilities we'd seen since the inception of the inoculations in 2015. Now, we have seen many AFTD children manifest one of the five commonly known characteristics or “points” for this category.

“Dr. Daniels, please explain to this readership exactly what Affinity for the Dead means? Is there more to it than just communication?”

“Yes, Tim. The five sub-categories for AFTD are: cadaver manipulation, hauntings, medium communication, murder victim location, and death impressions. The Parker child manifested all five categories. There has not been another case that encompassed all five.”

“Besides having all five categories, is there anything else that makes Parker special?” Anderson asked.

“Yes, Parker is an extraordinarily rare case. Since his assimilation into the military, we have not been able to study his abilities further, which is a national tragedy. He works in a capacity that has not been explained and is under a top-secret umbrella that even the scientific community cannot breach.”

“Why can't we all know what Parker is up to? Don't we have a right to know?”

“I am not at liberty to answer that. However, I can say that if another were to manifest like Parker, he or she would be a very interesting commodity for certain groups.”

“Which groups?”

“Any group who thinks raising cadavers would be politically advantageous.”

I put the papers down and rubbed my eyes. Reading that stuff had given me the creeps.

I got up and walked over to my desk. Plunking down on my chair, I pressed my thumb onto the pad.

Hello, Caleb Hart... accessing...

I thought: subject; murder, AFTD-related.

The display lit up with news and one article struck as soon as I saw it; although it was older:

Twenty-year old AFTD Policewoman Bobbi Gale “Discovers” Murder Victim Leading to the Arrest of Pierce Dickson

Bobbi Gale, a 20-year-old policewoman, solved a murder by locating the victim’s body.

After testing as a two-point in the AFTD category, Ms. Gale excelled in the special school she attended and upon graduation, she was given a position in the police department of her choice.

This trend of using people in important capacities such as law-enforcement cannot be a bad one, considering that paranormal ability is not just given to people driven to do the right thing. Ms. Gale stated, “There are criminals out there with abilities, too. They are now our most powerful criminals, using all their talents for evil.”

Wow! I hadn't considered what happened if someone bad—like Carson—had paranormal skills. I shuddered, thinking about the trouble that assclown could make.

When asked how she was able to find these criminals, Ms. Gale responded, “It’s a difficult ability to quantify, but I'd have to say it's the dead... they speak to me. It seems that when someone dies violently, he or she leaves a footprint, an impression. I follow that trail, and sometimes, I get lucky and can put it all together.”

When Gale was asked if she was satisfied with her work, she responded with an emphatic yes, but added that she was “glad that she didn't have all the categories of AFTD.”

When asked why, she said that would be “more than she wanted to deal with.”

I pressed my thumb on the pad and thought, writing.

A blank page appeared on my monitor, which hung above my desk. I drummed my fingers on the desk. My least favorite homework was writing. History was second period, and I needed to do a synopsis paragraph per day. Mr. Peterson was cool, but current event stuff sucked. Who cared what was happening, seriously? I wasn't into being informed.

I sat thinking about what to write in my paragraph, struggling with the spelling, as usual. My desk had a built in thumb pad so I just laid my thumb on it and thought: this sucks ass guffaws

The phrase lit up on the screen and I howled, slapping my knee, comic relief. I finally got a grip and thought: erase phrase. I tapped my fingers again and thought:

Copy and Paste header.

The article header lit up.

I amended, And include author.

Anderson's name glowed on the screen.

This past event is about a girl cop who has the paranormal ability AFTD (Affinity for the Dead). This ability usually means that somebody can communicate with the dead. She uses her ability to find murderers.

She says that she can hear impressions from people who've died, and that if they were murdered, she can feel a trail of their emotions. Sounds like this is damn handy.

<profanity detected>

I snickered. Cool. Erase profanity.

“Damn” disappeared.

Pulse to Mr. William “Billy” Peterson, history teacher at Kent Middle School.

I pressed my thumb on the pad very lightly—Mom would kill me if I put my thumb through another pad— and thought, Sleep.

The screen went dark except for the green clock numbers glowing in the lower right corner.

My pulse was stuffed in my back pocket and digging into my ass. I whipped it out and pressed the pad. The pads for the pulse-cells were a lot tougher to wreck. I thought, John Terran.

Green letters appeared: Initializing.

John Terran: Hey, butt-wipe! Finally got around to pulsing. Busy with Jade? <Laughs>

Caleb: No, numb-nuts. If you must know, I just finished my PE.

John Terran: Past Event?
Yeah, I figured you'd finally get your butt kicked and do homework.

Caleb: Are you ever gonna edit your name to just your first like everybody else so I don't have to see your whole name every line?

John Terran: I like it this way. It irritates everyone.

Caleb: Nice.

Caleb: I was talking with Jade, and we may do better to lasso Jonesy with doing the cemetery thing with the douche duo.

John Terran: Why?

Caleb: She knows Brett, or did, and she thinks he'd never let it go, be bent on big-time payback, baby.

John Terran: How does she know Brett? Besides, ya know Jonesy. He's got this thing buzzing around in his head like a hornet with a bull's eye.

Caleb: Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that. She and Brett were actually friends a couple of years ago. I guess his dick-headed-ness is a more recent development.

John Terran: Huh... really?

Caleb: Yeah, I guess his dad makes her dad look normal.

John Terran: No, <profanity block>!

Caleb: Yeah, no <profanity block>!

Caleb: Well, I guess, we'll just have to ratchet Jonesy down as much as possible just in case he gets outta control.

John Terran: Okay. Good luck with that.

Caleb: Yeah. Hey, where is Jonesy? I haven't heard from him.

John Terran: He got his <profanity block> busted over homework and can't pulse.

Caleb: How do you know?

John Terran: Because I pulsed him and his mom answered.

Caleb: Ouch.
Well that blows goats

John Terran: <laughs>Yeah.

Caleb: Okay, see ya tomorrow.

John Terran: K, see ya.

Before I could even hibernate my pulse, Mom hollered up the stairs, “Caleb! Bed!”

“K!” I yelled back.

I tore off my clothes, making a tight ball and went for the three point shot into the hamper. I flopped on my bed and grabbed my book. I liked to read before I fell asleep—not the chump stuff the school assigned but cool authors, like Stephen King.

CHAPTER 12

I lifted my face off the pillow, which contained the Lake Erie of drool. Gross! I did an abbreviated push-up and hopped out of bed, swaying a little as the blood rushed to my head.

I glanced at the alarm and smacked it just before it blared. I couldn't believe I had gotten up before the alarm. I leaned over the laundry hamper and looked in at last night's clothes. I grunted. Jade would certainly notice if I wore the same thing two days in a row. Girl fashion radar.

Dejected, I stalked out of the room, wearing nothing but boxers. I thudded down the stairs. Mom was leaning against the counter and holding a steaming cup of java.

“Hey now, you look a little rough.” She smiled.

That was rich coming from her, Miss Queen-o'-Beauty in the mornings. I threw her a sullen look and made my unsteady way to the laundry room.

Mom followed.

“Caleb, don't go back there and start foraging for clean clothes. If you'd actually wash some, this would not be an issue.”

I ignored that and plowed forward. There, in a dim little corner, were all the mismatched clothes. I rifled through the pile and pulled out a vintage AC/DC T-shirt littered with holes along the bottom—a theme with my shirts—and yanked it over my head.

Mom put out her hand. “Maybe a shower would liven you up.”

I scowled, then a vision of Jade popped into my head. She always smelled like a vanilla bean, and I smelled like I woke up in a pool of drool. I grabbed some mismatched socks and the last pair of boxer briefs then took off for the bathroom.

I took an extra-long time in the shower and even cleaned my feet. Feeling super spiffy and primed, I stood in front of the mirror. The glass was fogged, so I swiped it with my arm. I searched carefully for signs of my impending manhood. Seeing nothing—I think I had, like, three armpit hairs—I left the sauna of a bathroom.

After getting dressed, I went down to the kitchen.

I sat down in front of a fried egg sandwich. “Huh, what gives?” I asked Mom.

“I thought you could use a little pick-me-up.”

For today she was absolved of her sins.

Dad strolled in. “Hey, pal. You showered!”

I scowled. A national event.

Parents.

Dad winked at me. “Caleb, I was thinking that we try some experimentation in a controlled atmosphere, one in which there isn't a charged, emotional dynamic. The cemetery would be good for that.”

Mom put her hands on hips, which were encased in pajamas, her favorite outfit. “I want to be included, too.”

“I read most of the papers that John gave me,” I said. “The main scientist, Daniels something...”

“Byron, Byron Daniels,” Dad interjected.

“Yeah. He said that if there were another Parker, that the kid would be limited to what certain groups wanted.”

Mom sent Dad the oh shit look, and he gave a minute shake of his head.

“You know this Dr. Daniels?” I asked Dad.

“I know of him. He works in related fields.”

I looked at the clock and stood up, Mom gave me a hug.

“I haven't died, Mom,” I said, pulling away.

“I understand,” she said, “but sometimes moms just want to squeeze their boys.”

***

The school commons was a humongous room with circular tables. Lockers flanked the entire room and bled down into the halls leading to our classes. Eighth graders had the commons lockers, but the sixth and seventh graders had to deal with lockers in the crowded hallways. We all hung out in the commons and stalked each other's activities.

I had time before Morginstern's class and could hang with the Js before and, if I got really lucky, Jade.

I spotted Jonesy right away, but I didn't see John or Jade.

I walked over to where Jonesy stood.

“I heard you got nailed for skipping homework.”

“Yeah, I had to make up, like, ten CE's.”

My mouth hung open. “My parents would've executed me for that many missing current events.”

Jonesy looked down and shuffled his feet. “Yeah, no pulse for now.”

“No pulse?”

Incredible.

“Yeah, but my mom knows I am going to hang with you all day Sunday so I either didn't do that,” NOT an option for The Instigator to be absent, “or no pulse for a week.” Spreading his hands out, sacrifices must be made for the greater good.

I clapped him on the back. “Well, thanks for that.”

“No problem.”

Carson and Brett came over to us.

Carson said, “Hey, queers, how's it hangin'?”

Brett said, “Dumb question, Carson. That's all they know, how each other is hangin'.”

They laughed manically at our expense.

But Jonesy gave me that knowing smile. I was tired of them. I hoped Jonesy got them good. Jade appeared, making a wide berth around the chumps. She put her hand in mine and turned a contemptuous expression on Carson and Brett.

I was distracted. Jade did actually smell like a vanilla bean. Then Brett interrupted my sniffing.

“Not exciting enough for ya? Gotta use Jade as a cover?”

“A cover for what?” she asked.

“Their fagness, obviously,” Carson said.

Jade rolled her eyes.

Girls were uniquely talented in the rolling-eyes department.

“I'm not a cover for anything. By the way, dumb asses, haven't you figured out that you guys aren't important enough to worry about covering for?”

Brett moved forward until he was two inches from Jade's nose. She stepped back.

“Hey!” I yelled, shoving Jade behind me.

Brett got in my face, poking his finger in my chest. “Keep your slut in line there, pal, or I will.”

We stood eye to eye, that small growth spurt putting me right where I needed to be.

I grabbed his finger and twisted it. “She isn't a slut, mouth-breather.” I gave him a hard shove.

“What's going on here?” Morginstern said from behind me.

Brett and Carson gave him sullen expressions, which didn't faze Morginstern one bit.

The teacher moved to stand between our two groups. “John told me you were having an issue out here and may be late to class. You know that I frown on the first-period slouch.”

Huh, clever John had been cookin' up a way to get us out of this little disaster. Nice.

“I wasn't trying to be late, honest. I got distracted by Carson and Brett's interesting dialogue.” I threw a glance their way, digging their identical expressions of confused dumbness.

Morginstern folded his arms across his chest and stared at us.

Pointing a finger at Jade then Carson and Brett, he ordered, “You go now to your respective classes.” He watched them walk away.

Jade looked back at me over her shoulder. I smiled at her.

Morginstern gave his attention to Jonesy and me. “I think I caught sight of a skunk, and I smelled a skunk, so there must be a skunk.”

I had heard that before from Gramps. It was time to purposely misunderstand the expression. In other words: The Dumb.

“What do you mean, Mr. Morginstern?”

Jonesy was busy giving me the wide-eyed, figure this out.

Morginstern's eyes narrowed. “I think you know exactly what I mean. I have to go teach class now, but”—he stabbed a finger in my direction—“I know there is discord between you and Carson Hamilton and Brett Mason. I know.”

The laser eye fell on Jonesy. “And you... you're always around when these situations erupt.”

Jonesy made some vague effort to look innocent, but he almost always looked guilty.

“Come to class, boys, and no more loitering. I'll be watching.” Morginstern stalked off to the classroom.

When we went through the door, the last bell already rung, and every kids' eyes were on us. John made strangling motions around his neck. I gave him the slashing index finger across the neck gesture.

Jonesy and I sat at our table and Morginstern went to the front of the room. He explained to the class that he was unexpectedly delayed due to an incident out in the commons.

All eyes swiveled to us. Love that.

Jonesy caught my grumpiness like a cold and gave it to John. All three of us grumped together in silence, sanding our boxes.

John whispered, “Listen... I know it wasn't cool for Morginstern to break that up, but would it have gone to plan if you guys had let it fall apart before the cemetery?”

No, it would have so not been cool. It would have ruined the Aqua Net Payback.

Jonesy looked abashed. “I want to do this on Sunday.”

“I knew that. That's why I made an executive decision,” John said.

“A what?” Jonesy asked.

I explained, “He means that he decided, on his own, what was best for our group.”

“You guys have to learn idioms.”

Jonesy was utterly confused. I was gonna show off.

“It's not really an idiom, ya know.”

“Yeah, it is,” John shot back.

I shook my head. “No, an idiom is an expression that is not literal to its meaning.” Mom was a word-freakazoid and had drilled that stuff into me.

John's brow crimped. “Okay... so what you're saying is that I really am the executive of the group, and my decision was allowable.”

Uh-oh. I hadn't thought about the consequences of taking on John's Undeniable Logic.

“Well, Jonesy and I have not formally appointed you the executive, but the expression ‘executive decision’ is not opposite to its real meaning.”

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms.

A slow grin spread over John's face. “Pretty damn clever, Hart.”

We bumped fists and that sealed our coolness. We resumed the Dreaded Sanding.

***

Friday droned on without further incident. Jade and I hung with the Js while eating lunch. Jonesy got Carson on board and gave him the time to meet on Sunday. We whipped out our pulses and thought our reminder chimes.

Later in the afternoon, the speakers blared a message about the upcoming tests. Mrs. Calvert added, “Be sure to get a good night's sleep and a proper breakfast.”

We rolled our eyes.

I gave Jade a hug before she left for class. I watched her walk away. The Js watched me watch her.

Jonesy shook his head. “Man, you got it bad.”

John nodded. “Yeah, he does.”

I smirked.

“Oh, and you two are going to be any different when you like somebody? Pfft.” I dismissed them with a wave of my hand and headed to class.

They were right, though. Even Miss Rodriguez's hotness didn't entice me anymore. With Jade as my girlfriend, English was just another class. In band, I made the mistake of telling John how I felt.

He looked at me in horror when I explained the new dynamics.

“Miss Rodriguez is still completely hot. You having a girlfriend so doesn’t change that, dude.”

“Well, maybe she is still pretty hot, but Jade is plenty distracting. I bet all I'll pull out of that dumb class is a B.”

“Yeah, your parents will have a shit fit if you get a C.”

John laughed, but I didn't think it was that funny. Not all of us could just have a heartbeat in class and get an A. I mentioned that most obvious fact and he shrugged. That was John. He wasn't going to admit he was smart.

Mr. Cole came over and asked John to play a measure or two on the piano. John stared at the sheet music and began tapping the keys. The adults called John a natural.

The notes floated out of his instrument. He used all the dynamics, gaining volume and softening at the correct times.

When he approached the fifth measure, Cole stopped him with a raised hand.

“Okay. Today I want you to work with Alex. He needs some fine tuning.”

John went over to where Alex was sitting. They were both awkward turtle, yet... it worked. A few minutes later, that cop from the accident walked into the room. My heart began hammering in my throat.

John looked up from helping Alex, catching sight of Garcia and about crawled up his own corn cob.

I set my guitar down and stood.

Garcia went over to Cole. “Hey, Tony, I just wanted to borrow Caleb for a sec.”

Cole winked. “Sure thing, Officer Garcia.”

Garcia crooked a finger at me. I left my stuff where it was and followed him out the door and into the parking lot.

He asked, “So how are you, Caleb?”

“Since last week? Fine.”

“You remember that I said that I'd keep an eye on you?”

I nodded.

“Well, it's come to my attention that there are a couple of young men who are becoming a problem at the school.”

“There's no problem,” I said.

Garcia raised one eyebrow. “Really? Because I've heard different reports.”

Somebody had diarrhea of the mouth. “We're not great friends or anything, that's for sure.”

Garcia looked down at his notepad. “Doesn’t Jade LeClerc live fairly close to the Mason boy?”

I was liking the conversation less and less. Garcia was doing more than keeping an eye on me.

A beat of silence. “Yeah.”

“There's a situation that has been escalating in that neighborhood you need to be aware of.”

He waited. The noise of the bees droning lazily was loud between us as the sun warmed our faces.

He sighed. “Listen, Caleb, I'm here to help, not run your life.”

I left the silence alone.

He caved first. “Okay, I have a feeling about you, and I'm going out on a limb. I know the Mason kid is under tremendous pressure at home. Miss LeClerc escaped a similar background, but not the same can be said for Mr. Mason. I was hoping, when there's a huge potential trauma for kids realizing some form of paranormal ability, if you might restrain yourself from exacerbating this situation.”

He lost me. “Huh?”

Garcia sighed again. “Listen, don't wind Brett up right now. He's like a bomb waiting for detonation.”

“Gotcha.” The bomb reference worked, I understood. I got a visual of Brett blowing up, chunks of his body raining down. Too many pulse games. Yeah.

Garcia's shoulders relaxed and a lopsided smile appeared.

“Maybe you can mention this to the Js.”

His calling John and Jonesy the “Js” struck me as odd. I didn't like it.

I clamped down on my expression, but Sergeant Garcia's smile slipped.

“Yeah, okay,” I responded.

The bell shrilled, and a moment later, John lurched out the door. He and Garcia were about eyeball to eyeball, but Garcia was all-that-is-man—broad shoulders and bulging forearms.

John looked unfinished beside him.

Garcia excused himself and walked away.

***

Jade came up as his cop car was a white dot in the distance. She put her hand above her eyes like a shield. When his car disappeared she turned to me, giving me a look I was already beginning to love. The kind where she looked thoughts at me and I knew what she was thinking. No paranormal skills necessary. Awesome.

I pressed her against my chest in a tight hug. “Yeah, it's the same cop from the accident.” I answered her unspoken question.

Jade bent her head back, a small frown puckering her brow. “Garcia?”

I nodded.

John stared at where Garcia's car had been. “What did he want?”

“He wants us to lay off Brett.”

John looked at me, then at Jade, then back to me again.

“Really,” I confirmed.

“That's is not gonna fly!”

“Yeah.”

I looked down at Jade. “He mentioned you too.”

She looked surprised. “What? Why?”

“Garcia is keeping track of us. Somebody blabbed, and now he knows we're fighting. He knows about your dad, Brett's family, that you live in the same neighborhood...”

John said, “We need to get the twins off our backs, at least distract them.”

“I sure don't like Garcia being this interested in our lives,” Jade said.

John shrugged. “I guess there isn't much more we can do. The plan's set. Jonesy will never back down, and it would make things way worse if we didn't meet Brett and Carson. They'll think we're cowards.”

“Right,” Jade said. “I hear that, but everyone knows what I think.”

I squeezed her arm. “We know, but trust us, if there was an easier way to shut those two down, we'd have done it. Some guys need a two-by-four to the head before they understand people aren't tolerating their bullshit.”

Jade was quiet for a moment, then said, “I'll be there.”

That's my girl. I almost did a fist bump with John, but played it cool.

Then I remembered my big news. “I get the dog on Tuesday.”

John said, “Wow, I didn't think that was gonna happen!”

“Me either, but the parental unit caved. They think I've been traumatized by this whole AFTD thing... so, I get him.”

“Have you been traumatized?” Jade asked with a trace of sarcasm.

“Yeah... really, really bad. And I'm gonna need a lot of sympathy and attention.” I looked down at her with a perfectly straight face.

She grinned. “Good luck with that.”

John started howling and slapping his knee. “Yeah, that was priceless. You traumatized, yeah right!”

My face got tight. “I mean, what if I had, ya know, been traumatized?”

I looked between the two of them. They weren't buying it.

That made John howl louder and traitor that she was, Jade joined in. And where-the-hell was the unspoken girlfriend-boyfriend code of honor? As if things couldn't get any funnier, Jonesy walked up.

“What's so funny?”

John and Jade were in the throes of laughter—at my expense— so I turned to Jonesy and said, “They don't think I've suffered a trauma.”

“What... you? Hell, no! You're the man.” He clapped me on the back. “You don't need sympathy for anything.” Jonesy looked around for support, but John and Jade were busy busting a gut.

“What's with them?” Jonesy asked.

“I don't know,” I huffed. They quieted themselves down to a couple of random hiccups, then looked at each other and another hysterical bubble of laughter escaped.

Jonesy looked perplexed.

“You had to be here, I guess,” I said... or not, narrowing my eyes and giving them the look they deserved.

Jade and John finally managed to quit laughing. I filled Jonesy in on the whole cop-showing-up-at-the-school thing.

Jonesy said, “That's easy for him to say. It's not his ass catching crap all the time.”

He had a point. Maybe Garcia was okay, but I wasn't trusting anyone. Enough with the gloom. It was Friday!

“You guys want to come and hang at the house?” I asked.

Jade hesitated for a second. “I guess I have to meet your parents sometime, huh?” She cast her eyes down to her feet, shifting her weight, but took out her pulse.

“They're great! Ali makes the best food,” Jonesy said, “and Kyle is pretty cool.”

The three of them whipped out their pulses and contacted respective parents and Aunt Andrea.

Everybody could. I was about to ask how Jonesy had managed to get his pulse back early when Alex walked over and extended his hand. Jonesy gave the pulse to Alex, who ran his thumb over it, blanking it.

“Couldn't live without your pulse?” I asked Jonesy.

“Dude! It's been diabolical. Pure torture!”

Jade rolled her eyes. I noticed the glint of excitement in her gaze. She was excited about coming over.

John looked over Alex’s shoulder and asked how he managed that.

“I did a delayed ID protocol,” Alex said.

“How?” John was enthralled. We'd never get away once John started talking with another tech-freak.

Alex demonstrated on his pulse. “After that, there are only three different timed settings to choose from.”

Bor-ing.

John was nodding, obviously feeling it.

“John,” I said, breaking up the tech-fest.

Gawd. “We need to go.”

He sighed, turning back to Alex. “I want to know more, but I gotta book.”

Alex gave John a mock salute and walked away. We headed to my house.

I entwined my fingers with Jade's then noticed Jonesy was being unusually quiet.

Just when I thought he had to be sick or something, he said, “Heard it's gonna rain this weekend.”

John stopped and looked at him. He gestured at the perfect sky. “From this to rain?”

“Yeah, man, it's Seattle, rain's inevitable. My mom is totally into NOAA, she keeps up on the weather. She says that a 'system' is moving in.”

John nodded. “That means the barometric pressure should be dropping soon, giving rise to storms.”

Wow, that sounded creepily adult like. I told him that and he smiled.

“It'll just make things more dumb for Sunday,”John said.

Duh, Pacific Northwest, it's an obligation to rain here.

“Oh, I don't know,” Jonesy said. “Maybe Carson's gonna have to stick his head farther in that pipe. Too bad it can't work in a toilet.” He smirked. “Doesn't matter. He’ll still get his, rain or shine.”

Nothing derailed the Jonester.

We turned off the main road, making a left into my neighborhood. My house was last in a row of eight. A false street lay on the north side, where a fence stretched behind our backyard, running the length of the neighborhood.

Jade paused as she walked through the stucco arches that led to the atrium. I looked around, taking it in from her perspective. A Japanese maple spread its delicate canopy over the pebbled cement walkway, its green leaves translucent with fiery-red veining. All around, flower beds burst with shade-loving plants.

Jade looked over at me, her face alight. The Js looked like they would sleep as they stood there, but God love 'em, they were waiting it out. Now that was true friendship.

“What is this?” she asked, gently running her hand over the delicate foamy purple frond.

“An Astilbe,” I answered.

The Js made kissy faces at me behind Jade's back. Jonesy made the vertical knife to the wrist motion—that meant morgue, he had explained at one point, whereas horizontal meant hospital. What a dumb ass. Not helpful.

Mom saved everyone from the flower-worship situation. “This must be Jade.”

“Hi, Mrs. Hart,” Jade said.

“Oh no, please don't. I look around for Kyle's mother when someone calls me that. Just Ali. Nice to meet you.”

Mom was pretty good at avoiding awkward turtle moments. “Hey, guys, I made banana bread today.”

The Js raced into the house at the mention of food, shoving each other out of the way as they went. Mom and Jade rolled their eyes, laughing.

I cut four slices for each of us. I slathered butter over Jade’s and mine. When I set the plate in front of her, Jade stared down at it with her mouth hanging open.

Mom chuckled and removed three of the slices from Jade’s plate. “Here, this may be a little more manageable.”

How do girls stay alive? A mystery for another day.

Mom said, “You guys go get your crumbs all over the place outside, eh?”

“Good idea, Mom,” I said with a tone.

“Do you have a tone, Caleb?”

How do parents always hear a tone?

I grabbed the gallon of milk from the fridge and told John to get some cups.

We sat on our deck, which was bordered by a built-in bench. Jade pulled a lilac branch close to her. Its flowers were such a deep violet they looked bruised. She took a moment to smell its powdery sweetness. The Js were inhaling their banana bread, but Jade was taking little bites of hers. Her awe at our small patch of garden told me that she didn't have anything like it.

Jonesy was licking the crumbs off his fingers when I realized what I'd missed. I told everyone to hold on a sec, running inside to get a napkin, but Mom had one in her hand. She was on it.

I winked. “No youngheimer's for you Mom.”

She frowned.

Alzheimer's was that freakish disease old farts got that caused their brains to turn to mush or was that mad cow? I don't know, I liked to use the non-politically correct terms to get Mom worked up. I could see her steaming in the kitchen, thinking about all the old people I had made fun of.

Jade smiled, taking the napkin and using it to wipe her mouth and hands. John wiped his the pant leg of his jeans which was what I normally did. Jade saved me from these dire choices by handing me the other napkin. I looked back at Mom, pretty sly.

A movie would be great. My pulse said four-forty-nine, pretty close to supper.

“Mom,” I bellowed.

Mom cracked the window open. “Caleb, I loathe yelling, as you well know, come in here or next to the window.”

I sighed, getting up and closing the distance. “Can everybody stay for supper and watch a movie on pulsevision?”

Before she could respond I asked, “Wait, what's for supper?” Not all my friends were gonna like some fish thing.

“What day is this?” Mom asked matter-of-factly.

“Ah... Friday.” Oh... duh. “Pizza,” I said, answering my own question.

Jonesy, always a good one for hearing anything food-related shouted, “Pizza!” double-fisting pumping in the air.

Mom looked over at him then back at me, that's settled. I told everyone to pulse the world and see if it was cool. Once again, everyone jerked out their pulses and after a few silent minutes of thoughts, the pulses were tucked away for the night.

***

The movie was righteous with zombies chasing everyone around (the irony was not lost on me, the Js giving me sly looks during key scenes), heroes saved the world and fell in love. Jade liked the love story and the rest of us guys were diggin' on the reams of gore. The parents allowed four Pay-for-Pulse movies per month. It wasn't too expensive. It was a little like the Netflix fad that mailed (unbelievable) people movies and video games back around the time I was born. It all seems like a lot of work to me.

Mom made two pizzas. Jade had one slice, and we guys feasted on the rest.

Dad popped his head through the doorway right in the middle of the quintessential scene where one zombie gets an arm torn off and uses it to beat the tar out of an enemy. Dad shook his head, backing out of the room.

The parents weren't big zombie fans.

When the movie ended, all of us were secretly rubbing our eyes. The Js took off together, while Jade and I stood at the door.

“Do you want me to walk you home?” I asked.

“Nah, you don't have to.”

“Well, can I anyway? Or do you really not want me to?”

“It's okay,” she said with a small grin.

Ah-huh, so she dug it. Girl-speak was sort of hard to figure out—definitely a learned skill. Like learning a foreign language.

My parents told me to take my pulse. I held it up to show them I had it with me, its metallic black exterior glinting under the porch light.

Jade's neighborhood was a fifteen-minute walk away, in the East Hill area. Most of the houses were built in the 1950s and in various states of disrepair. It was kinda depressing. On the edge of decaying lawns were crappy-looking junipers, which were outlawed unless they had been grandfathered. Huge water sucker.

Mom was a big fan of the No Lawns Act and the Indigenous Plants Proposal.

Walking deeper into the rows of houses, I felt a sense of foreboding.

“You feel that?” she asked.

“I feel something.”

I sure wasn't needing anything besides the AFTD.

“Don't worry. It's probably me spilling on you.”

“Spilling?” I asked.

“Yeah, sometimes when Sophie and me hang, I can leak some of the stuff I pick up onto her. She says it's major creepy.”

“Why do you feel...” I struggled a second, not wanting to sound dumb, but the only word I could come up with was one my parents would use. “Um… why do you feel anxious?”

“Anxious?” She giggled.

I frowned. “You've been laughing at me a lot today.” I thought of she and John having hysterics over my “trauma.” Uh-huh.

“Oh come on, Caleb. You can be really funny!”

Yeah, hilarious.

She slowed in front of an especially gross house. Paint peeled like ribbons of decay off the trim. The lawn, if one could call it that, started from some underground place near the house that teemed with a riot of overgrown bushes and became one with the sidewalk. The patch of ground was a dirty brown, somewhere between poop and mud. Strange mounds of dirt were sprinkled all over it like big pimples in an ugly face.

“This is Brett's house,” Jade said quietly.

I didn't really know what to say. I couldn't help but compare it to my house. The atrium, backyard, and the comfort smells of my home seemed like a dim light shining miles away when compared with Brett’s place.

The sound of raised voices filtered from the house.

Jade grabbed my hand. “Quick, hide!”

I whipped my head around, looking for a spot. Before I could figure out where to go, she dragged me behind an overgrown hedge.

A booming male voice was screaming words—bad ones. “You worthless turd! You wouldn't know sense if it knocked your dumb teeth out. Get the fuck outta here.”

Jade flinched each time an F-bomb flew.

I saw Brett’s silhouette through the window. I assumed it was him because the other person was much larger.

“Don't hit mom!” Brett screamed.

Even through the hedge I could see that his fists were clenched, definitely a Mason family theme.

The dad raised his fist. I knew he was going to clock Brett, and I couldn't just sit there and watch. I started to step out from behind the bush.

Jade grabbed my arm, eyes wide. “No don't.”

I shook my head. I didn't care that it was Brett. The whispering that was always in my head grew in volume, and a dull, static roar filled my mind. It felt good, throbbing with my heartbeat.

“Stay here,” I told Jade.

I cleared the hedge as the man’s fist connected square with Brett's chest. The impact made a meaty thumping sound, and Brett staggered backward. The dad came right after him with purpose. I jumped up onto the porch and threw open the front door. In the back of my mind, I was grateful it wasn’t locked.

“Hey!” I yelled.

Brett turned toward me, wheezing and arms flailing. The elder Mason wore a comical expression of surprise. Wasn't used to be interrupted in his little family beat-downs.

He recovered quickly. “Who the fuck are you?”

Ignoring his question, I said, “You're not supposed to be beating on people.”

Brett gave a spastic shake of his head, holding his chest with both hands. There was no love lost between the two of us but he thought I was insane to take on his dad.

Me too.

The dad stepped toward where I stood in the doorway. When he was younger, he may have been athletic, but the muscle was submerged in the hundred pounds he had on me. His gut hung over stained blue jeans, covered by an equally disgusting T-shirt. His fists were loosely clenched but ready for action.

I took a few steps back out into the yard. But then I stopped. I refused to run. I had no plan except that I didn't want to watch some kid my age—even a dickhead like Brett—getting the crap beat out of him by a grown man. Brett’s dad stalked toward me, all shadows and menace. Brett followed.

Without thinking, I let out the thing that was always curled tightly inside me. I didn't mean to, but like a caged animal suddenly freed, it responded to my distress signal. I was in trouble, with no plan whatsoever.

My power responded like a dinner bell.

Little dirt mounds in the lawn exploded, geysering like miniature volcanoes erupting. Clumps of crappy lawn and dirt rained down on all of us.

Brett's arms fell to his sides, and he dropped to the ground, sitting on his butt. The breath I was holding slid out of me in a long line of relief. The whispering had stopped, and the lawn had blown up, and I was feeling... fine.

I heard a noise behind me and spun around.

“Look.” Jade pointed at the yard.

All around the lawn, moles—big ones—stood at attention, their reflective eyes like small silvered coins staring at me.

“I killed all you,” Mr. Mason shrieked at the animals. “You're dead!”

Priceless, of course they were dead, you dolt. I could hear their thoughts. They were waiting for me to tell them something, to issue orders.

Mr. Mason pointed at Jade. “Aren't you that upstart LeClerc girl? The one that gave her daddy all the trouble with them cops?” He glared at her.

She shrank back from his words and moved to stand behind me.

The slug started making his way to where Jade and I were standing at the edge of the cracked sidewalk. The moles stood vigil, watching me.

“You two are in my boy's class, a couple of losers from what I’ve heard. And I know how to take care of that. Yes indeedy, I do. I'll clean that attitude right out of ya both.”

Mr. Mason moved forward as if to grab me.

I let a little juice funnel through to the moles. They swarmed across the grass as one unit. Wait a second. Those weren't moles. They were... I searched for the name—gophers.

I was jerked out of my reverie by a hand clenching the front of my hoodie, my toes clearing the sidewalk. I didn't struggle but hung like a dead weight. Jade squealed and yanked me back until I felt as if I were the rope in a game of Tug of War.

I appreciated her efforts, but Mason had the manic strength that only the truly drunk have. I was betting he would be hella sore tomorrow, but for beating up teenagers, he was about inebriated enough to make a go of it.

A gopher sailed across the remaining two feet, leaped, and landed on the back of Mason’s neck. It made a tight C shape with its body and sank its teeth into Mason’s exposed skin.

Mason dropped me like a box of rocks and attempted to jerk the gopher off his neck. I could feel the gopher thinking with solitary purpose: Protect the boy. All it knew was that I was its master, and it would be torn asunder rather than allow harm to come to me.

I turned. Like an invisible string, my power slid out, finding eager recipients. The other gophers jumped onto Mason. He did a little dance, hopping around and trying to get the gophers off. They were single-minded, biting and nipping any part of him they could reach.

I swayed, feeling as if I held a great baseball in my hand with the absolute knowledge that the perfect pitch was within reach. Jade's hand pressed against the small of my back. The gophers made satisfied mewling sounds as their teeth connected with flesh.

I was in the zone.

“Caleb, stop it!” Jade said, voice raised above the crunching and gnashing of teeth. “You'll kill him.”

Instead of being filled with the expected horror of Mason’s death at the teeth of my gophers, I felt a distinct satisfaction.

Brett appeared beside me. “Please,” he said, one hand on his chest where his dad had hit him, “he's bad, but he's still my dad.”

Brett the poet, I thought in a languid stupor.

I made the ginormous effort to rein in the power. For a moment, nothing happened. It was pulling on taffy that never came. I was suddenly scared my power was bigger than I could manage. Then something clicked into place, and I was in control again. The gophers looked at me, some of their teeth glistening wetly black with Mason’s blood.

Rest, I thought and gave a mental shove of juice that felt like turning off a big humming battery.

The gophers—my gophers—swung their heads to consider me one last time before swarming back to their mounds and melting back into the ground like water finding a cleft in a rock.

Jade, Brett, and I walked over to where Mr. Mason lay groaning in the dirt. Blood pooled around his body. I stood without sympathy, the lingering emotion of wanting to end his existence remained.

I knew that I could call them back.

“Thanks,” Brett said in a hollow voice.

“What do you think, Caleb?” Jade asked.

“He'll live,” I said.

I took Jade’s hand and led her away.

I turned around once and saw Brett standing over his dad's body, staring at me as if he'd seen a ghost.

CHAPTER 13

I woke up Saturday morning in a great mood. I loved weekends.

The events of the previous night came crashing down on me a minute later. I made a mental note to pulse the Js later and update them on the newest mess. I wondered if it would change our plans for Sunday.

I heard Mom sounds coming from downstairs. I glanced at my suspended monitor. The glowing numbers read 10:40. I hadn’t slept too late for breakfast. I stood up too fast and swayed dizzily.

Pancakes were the cure for the hole in my gut.

I stumbled over to my door, kicking the clothes out of the way, then went down to the kitchen.

Mom looked up from the griddle as I rounded the corner. “Hey, pal. So how did it go last night?”

Dad plopped down opposite me, resting his head in both hands. We looked at each other and he gave a chuckle of mute understanding. Family telepathy, I guess.

“Yes, how did things go?”

I threw out what happened. “Brett's dad was beating on him and I got in the middle by raising an Army of Gophers.”

Mom put a plate of pancakes in front of me without a word. I poured hot syrup over them.

My parents stared at me, but they didn't look shocked. Maybe they had passed on to the numb stage.

I told them everything. The obedience of the gophers intrigued Dad. Mom was a little shocked at my indifference about Brett's dad's life.

“Why should I care?” I asked her.

She sat down slowly at the kitchen table, resting her elbows on its beaten surface. “You've been raised to think of others, Caleb.”

“Mom's right,” Dad said. “We cannot condone willful sabotage of life, Caleb.”

Dad looked at Mom for a long moment.

“I understand you intervened because your friend was in trouble.”

“He isn't my friend,” I clarified.

“Yes, true, but he was in danger. I commend your... bravery in the face of that danger.”

Mom rolled her eyes at Dad's words.

“It was a good thing, what you did, but you could have killed him.”

I couldn't argue with that. I had felt what it was to control the dead. I knew what they wanted.

“Is his dad going to be okay?” Mom asked.

I shrugged. “He was the one beating on his kid and from what I heard Brett say, the mom too. If he goes to the cops, how will he explain it?”

“Yes,” Dad said. “A conundrum, to be sure.”

“Huh?” I asked.

Dad explained, “A puzzler. You could have gotten that contextually.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to know for sure. Just the words around it aren't always enough.”

“I like that you ask, son.” He paused, steepling his fingers. “So it would stand to reason that we need some target practice, the sooner the better, especially in light of recent events.”

“When? Today?” I asked.

“No better time than the present. I don't have anything on my schedule.” He gestured at his pajamas.

I nodded and took a bite of the still-steaming pancakes. I gulped a huge swallow of milk, and the whole great ball o' food slid down the pipe.

Mom got up and flipped Dad's pancakes.

I raised my eyebrows at him.

“I'm going all out,” he said.

Dad didn't usually have pancakes. He didn't want the dreaded shelf. I looked at his gut and thought it was okay, for an old guy. I told him so.

“Thanks, Caleb. You know just what to say to make me feel better.”

***

The ride to the cemetery didn't take long. I was nervous. I had never tried to make anything happen. I did remember using the gophers to hurt Brett's dad. But the first bit, making them rise—hadn't been on purpose.

Mom turned around in the front seat. “Penny for your thoughts.”

I clasped my hands together. “I don't know if I can, ya know... make anything happen.”

Dad's eyes met mine in the rear view mirror. “Don't be nervous, Caleb.” His eyes traveled back to the road as he was driving, the trees rushing past us like a green highway in the sky.

“I just don't want you guys to go to all this trouble, and I can't...” I struggled with the word.

“Perform?” Dad asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. That covers it.”

“Don't worry about us, Caleb. We just want you to gain control of this... quickly.”

Dad took a left into Scenic Hill Cemetery. The place wasn’t as eerie in the daytime. The whispering had grown louder when we were about a mile away. At the gate, the voices were a dull roar, like a washing machine I had to scream over to be heard.

I must have talked too loud because Mom asked what was happening with me.

“It's hard to describe, Mom. It's like that thing that you and Dad talk about... white noise. But you guys say that noise is like a good thing.”

Dad turned off the car. “You're saying the quality is different?”

“If you mean type, then yeah. It's way different. Like something is going to happen, or something needs to escape.”

“This seems wrong on a lot of levels, Kyle,” Mom told Dad.

Dad looked somber. “Yes, it probably is. But I can't have our son running around raising creatures for his personal killing militia. He needs to have some control. It’s better that he practices with our supervision, than for him to be truly threatened someday and not have the tools to effectively deter the problem.”

We all climbed out of the car.

“I thought we'd start with the familiar and see if you could raise someone we knew.”

Mom's hand flew to her heart. “Oh God, Kyle. Really?” Mom put her hands on her hips.

I hadn't really thought about using a relative.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “It's me having to do it, Mom, not you. Better that it's somebody we knew, right?”

She cupped the side of my face, a smile breaking through like sun sliding out from behind clouds. “You're being the brave one, and me being anxious isn't helpful.”

“But your fear is not his fear,” Dad said. “Right, Caleb?”

“No, I'm not afraid of using it. It feels good. That's the part that is scary.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.

Glancing around I saw that we were all wearing the same thing—jeans and T-shirts. Uniforms for dead people raising. A cackle of laughter escaped me, and my parents gave me odd looks.

I shook my head. “Sorry, the whole thing seems a little...”

Mom finished, “Surreal?”

I nodded. “Yeah... that.”

Dad smiled and led the way to our family plot. I had visited before when I was little, but it'd been a while.

I bent my head to look at the first granite marker.

Mom sank to her knees and ran her right hand over the engraved lettering.

Margaret “Maggie” Doyle, Beloved Wife-Mother-Grandmother, RIP; born 1935, died 2015.

Huh, she died the year I was born.

A tear rolled down Mom’s cheek. “Gran was a good woman.”

Dad said, “Yes, she was.”

The power swelled. I heard one whisper above all the rest.

“She wants to be free of the ground.” I heard my voice as though from far away. Detached.

“What?” Mom's head whipped around, hair falling in her eyes. “She's speaking to you?”

“No... yes… not exactly.” I sighed. “I guess it's more of an impression of needs or wants—feelings. I don't know.”

“Well, I guess the dead make choices too,” Dad said.

“Yeah, it's not just me. They want to be free. They want to say things or have one more chance, something. I'm somebody that can help them help themselves.”

“You're a facilitator. Fascinating,” Dad murmured, cupping his chin.

“Kyle,” Mom hissed, “this is no time to ruminate about the schematics. This is Gran we're disturbing.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Listen, buster, this is not one of your science experiments. This is Caleb and Gran.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, all intense eyes and huffiness.

Dad looked chastened. “I don't know another way to be, Alicia.”

“Well, tone it down, would you?”

He grinned. “I'll make a supreme effort.”

The whisper from Gran was a steady thing with a vibration all its own. I was starting to get a signature from different people. Everyone was different, and I could sense those differences. Gran's whisper had a familiar quality about it. I didn't know exactly what or why, but I honed in and let a tendril of my power uncoil. It felt a little like the gophers but different, more complex. Their minds had been one mind to me, simple. Hers felt like a complicated series of thoughts and distractions. A dead brain... but somehow alive.

I gave it a good shove and thought, Come here.

I felt a great weight lift from my brain. My vision doubled and became fuzzy around the edges. Don't pass out, ya fool. I didn't want to leave the parents stuck with dead granny. Then my vision cleared, and the vertigo passed.

Nothing happened.

Dad took a photo of me... unhelpful-much. I blinked at the pulse-flash and felt something cold hit the back of my head. We looked up. Clouds that had only threatened were now roiling above our heads. Great smoky-colored plumes lashed back and forth like an angry sea.

Dad looked at me.

I shrugged, disappointed after all the build-up. “I don't know what—”

A hand burst forth through the earth softened by recent rain. Some of the nails were gone, and the finger joints were visible. Oh boy, Mom was gonna see her Gran looking pretty disgusting. I gave Dad the it's too late look and watched the train wreck happen.

Inch by slow inch, the ground revealed Gran climbing up to exit her grave. Her silver hair hung in rope-like strands from a scalp with bare patches shining like eggshells in the dimming light.

She reached for me and rasped, “More.”

I mouthed, More?

Energy. Her voice was like a thread of silk worming its way through my brain.

I shuddered. Her thoughts in my mind, disgusting as hell.

I reached down inside myself, where that sleeping monster lay, scraped up what was left, and hurled it down that connection that tethered the two of us together.

Gram suddenly flew backward, her back bent awkwardly. Her claw-like hands clung to the remnants of her flowered blouse.

She straightened quickly and stood. Her face knitted together before my eyes, skin flowing over and filling holes. The joints in her hands were also covered, and a few nails solidified inside rotted nail beds.

I exhaled in relief until I looked at Mom. She was as white as a sheet, clutching Dad's shirt, and somewhere between barfing and fainting. Dad was fussing with the tri-pulse, trying to get a picture of Gran-the-corpse.

He got my attention and winked at me.

Nothing rattled him. The gesture notched me down some. I felt a little calmer, not so frantic.

Gran turned to me.

“Caleb,” she croaked.

Her voice sounded full of mush. Gravedirt.

I swallowed hard. “Hi, Gran.”

“Am I free of this?” She waved at her grave with skeletal fingers that caressed the air.

“Right now, you are.”

She frowned, then comprehension slowly dawned on her face.

“I am dead. Really and truly dead.”

I nodded a little. “Yes.”

“And you are a… necromancer?”

I had looked up that word after the first corpse called me that.

I was certainly more than that, but I decided to keep it simple. “Yes, Gran.”

“You have questions for me. I feel them.”

That was new. I guess the communication was a two-way street.

She stepped toward me and I fought the urge to step back. That was all in my head. This new thing I could do, this ability, didn't feel sickened or grossed out with Gran. Actually, I felt a sense of ownership over the dead, mine, it intoned, mine.

“I want to know what this is.”

She tilted her head to the side, like I had asked an important question that eluded her grasp.

“Why... this is you, Caleb. You have caused this.”

Her arms, with the sleeves in ribbons loosely swaying in the slight breeze, clung and whipped around her like a cape.

“I mean…” Dad was taking pictures in the background, and his movements were distracting. I gave him a look, and he stopped.

“What did you hear?” I asked her.

“Your summons, dear boy, your summons.”

Oh. “You heard me calling you?”

“Yes, your voice telling me to come to you. You did call me to you. For your bidding.”

Wow, this was definitely big-time-in-my-pants-creeper status. She stared at me raptly, waiting for some command.

No wonder Parker was in trouble. If he had anything close to my power, he would be like a king amongst robots. Not a cool thought. I was starting to understand why Dad had been so fast to get me hooked up with the hide-what-you-can-do pill.

“Ah, I just have some questions. Actually, I'm worried I can't control this, so my dad thought it would be good if we came here and practiced.”

Saying it out loud made the whole thing sound super dumb. Don't worry Gran, just a little corpse-raising and then we'll tuck ya back in your grave-bed and be on our way. Practice makes perfect. Geez.

She looked puzzled. “You're just practicing this gift? With me?”

I gulped, my throat as dry as a desert. “Yeah, that's about it.” I would have killed puppies for a glass of water about now.

She finally took the time to turn around and look at my parents. She stood there, with her hips facing me and her torso almost fully turned to them, reluctant to turn away from me and fully face them. I heard disgusting sounds when she turned and realized it was her spine, wetly cracking.

Mom's face was flaming red. But my dad just stared. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn't swayed by emotion. He knew what Gran was; Mom didn't. That was the difference. Mom still thought of Gran as Gran. But she wasn't anymore. She was Gran, but she was other, too.

“Gran,” I began, “Who are those people behind you?”

She turned back to me. “My granddaughter and her husband,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Do you want to talk to them?”

“Do you wish for me to?” Her eyeballs, which had not filled in all the way, rolled around in their sockets with a little too much room.

“No. I wish for us to discuss things.”

“I am here to serve you.”

I gave Dad a panicked look.

I needed to get a grip, figure out some stuff and put great-grandma back in the ground.

“Is there anything you need?” I asked.

“Yes, it would give me great peace if you would tell my son, if he lives, that I am sorry.”

“For what?”

“He will know. Will you?”

Mom nodded encouragement.

“Yeah, I will.”

Gran inclined her head. “Thank you.”

“What am I here to do?” I asked. “I mean, what good can I do? How can I help people?”

“Only you know those answers, Caleb. Doing that one errand of mercy for me will be something of worth, to be sure. Some of us can tell you a portent of your future.”

Mom gasped. I looked at Dad, and he just nodded again.

I was thinking fast. Portent... a forewarning.

“Do you wish to know what role you have in this life?” Gran asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yes, I do.”

Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she raised her hands, reaching for the sky. Thunder clapped, and I jumped. Fat drops of rain splattered on us, while Gran, her gray skin looking like paper stretched tight like a drum over bones, swayed in place, hearing a rhythm that only she could.

The rain started to come down in earnest. Gran's head snapped down, and she stared at me. A strange light illuminating her eyes.

She pointed a finger at me.

“You will need protection. Surround yourself with your own kind and others who have skills. Do not be deceived by people who would use you for evil. There is a young girl with a name of stone. She will be your greatest ally. You must protect her. She will be your salvation.”

Gran sank to her knees. Hollows had begun to appear in her face. I realized that being alive again took energy. I could feel that power in me, very low, like a spent tank of gas. Would I have enough to put her back? My energy was faltered like a candle flame sputtering.

She lifted her lips in an attempt to smile. There were about three teeth in a mouth that was black with decay and a bit of tongue.

I sort of grimaced back.

“You can put me away. I need to rest now.” She spared a glance for my parents, her eyes resting briefly on my mom. Then, she turned back to me. “Tell Alicia what is different. Only you matter in this time, this world.”

“I understand.” And I did. I wasn't comfortable with it, but it didn't matter. This was my new reality.

My parents came over and stood on either side of me.

I didn't look at them. “I'm really tired.”

“What can I do, Caleb?” Dad asked.

“I gotta put her back.”

Gran stared up at me, her gaze unwavering. No pressure... damn. Out of nowhere, I heard voices behind us.

Dad moved to stand directly in front of Gran. Mom flanked Dad, and I was in the middle, behind them.

I put my finger over my lips to signal Gran to be quiet.

She understood; I could hear it.

Three kids from school appeared over the rise. The middle girl was familiar somehow. My power flared, recognizing hers.

She was like me.

Swell.

Her eyes widened, and she said to her friends, “Let's get out of here.”

I came around Mom's side and said, “No!”

I tried to think of the girl’s name. We had just been talking about other kids who had AFTD. Tiffany!

“Tiffany, no... stop. Help me do this,” I said.

She stiffened, slowly turning. My first thought was, Wow, she could be pretty. She wore a purple hoodie, brown hair peeking out from the hood that half covered her face. She had dark eyes.

I knew I didn't have the energy to put Gran back. But I was pretty sure I didn't need blood or something catastrophic to make it work. I needed energy, death energy.

“What?” she asked, kinda pissed.

“I have AFTD, like you.”

“Ya think?”

Like we had a choice. Not for the first time I wondered if the adults that made the drugs, unlocking our paranormal potentials were really that smart. Right now, it didn't seem like it.

She glanced at her friends, a guy and girl. They were taking turns looking nervously between my parents and me.

The boy said, “I thought you said there wouldn't be any other people?”

She gave him one of the best eye-rolls ever. He pursed his lips and crossed his arms across a barrel chest.

She jerked her head to the left and said, “This is my brother, Bry.”

I nodded. “Listen, I kinda raised my great-grandma.”

“What the hell?” she yelled, her eyes taking in all of us.

Mom harrumphed in the background, unappreciative of the colorful wording.

Her palms went back and forth, warding us off as she retreated. “No... no, I can't help with anything that big.”

In a voice that sounded like gravel crunching under tires, Gran said, “Yes, you can, Seer.”

“What is that?” Tiffany asked.

“That's Gran,” I responded.

Mom and Dad moved away from me, revealing Gran. She looked worse for wear but not bad for a corpse who had accomplished a bit of precognitive forecasting.

“That”—she pointed without an ounce of reverence—“is not your great-grandma. That's an it.”

“Hey,” Mom said, “that's my gran you're dismissing, you brat.” Nice. Mom had regressed to name calling, a first.

“Mom, I got this.”

I told Tiffany, “Yeah, she's not really Gran anymore, but she still has to go back.”

“You're the smart one that raised her. You put her back.” Tiffany crossed her arms.

The sun broke through the clouds. A light drizzle continued to fall, making the whole scene glow with an eerie luminescence. I didn't have enough juice to force her help. In fact, I didn't think I could make her do anything, not with that humongous brother standing there.

Gran came forward in an awkward shuffle.

“You will do as this one says. He is a ruler amongst your kind.”

That partial tongue does odd crap to speech.

Tiffany stared at Gran in the strangest way.

“Make me. I'm not gonna help out. I wanna get out of here. Period. End of discussion.” She snapped a big bubble of chewing gum. It was like machine gun fire in the silence.

Gran didn't even flinch, moving closer until her rotting face was inches from mine. The smell was gag-worthy, but having been in the boys' locker room, I could take it.

“What is your will, boy?” Gran asked solemnly.

“I want you to be put back to rest,” I said.

Zombies were terribly literal.

Gran stepped toward Tiffany, all shuffling determination.

Oh crap.

Mom said, “Kyle? What's happening?”

Dad surged forward. Gran turned—very smoothly for a zombie—put her palm on his chest, and shoved. Dad flew backward.

One of his slip-on shoes came off and smacked Gran's tombstone with an audible thud. Dad landed on his butt in the grass, legs splayed in front of him.

Rushing over, Mom screamed his name then crouched beside him. While Mom was panicking, Gran wrapped her hand in Tiffany's hair then dragged her over to where I was.

Bry leaped on Gran's back. She reached behind with her free hand and plucked him off like a worrisome gnat. She tossed him in the direction she had shoved Dad. He promptly landed on his ass, jaws closing with a snap. Blood spewed from his mouth. Gran continued hauling Tiffany across the lawn.

“Let her go!” I yelled.

Gran complied, instantly dropping the girl. Tiffany landed face-down, and I heard a dull crunch. Bry struggled to his feet, blood spilling out of his mouth like a fountain.

Oh this was so bad.

He said something that sounded like, “I thont are aut oo re.”

Then, he tackled Gran. Both of them tumbled to the ground. Rolling to a stop against another grave marker, Bry put his hands around Gran's neck and began thumping her head into the ground.

Her hand shot out and grabbed him in the crotch as he straddled her. He yelped and released his grip on her neck. She used that opening to buck him off of her.

Dad came to, moaning, his head in Mom's lap. His eyes grew wide when he saw the two kids lying in separate heaps. “Caleb, what's going on?”

Looks like granny's getting her groove on. Hysteria pressed in on the edges of my consciousness.

Gran went back and hovered over Tiffany.

Tiffany sat up and flinched from Gran's outstretched hand. She held her nose and glared up at me.

“You think you can help me now?” I asked with just a tiny bit of sarcasm.

“Yes,” she hissed through clenched teeth. She glanced at her brother, who lay on the ground a few feet away. The other girl had long since run off. Probably straight to the police, I thought dismally.

Awesome—not.

Gran hauled Tiffany to her feet none too gently, using her arm that was holding the nose. Tiffany let out a yelp. I almost felt sorry for her, but that was where her lack of cooperation had brought us. I was ready for a little grave closure myself.

Dad rose shakily to his feet and cautiously made his way toward me with Mom on his heels.

Gran looked speculatively at him.

Bry got to his feet, too, holding his crotch, which was probably throbbing like hell.

Gran and Tiffany eyed each other warily.

I did what I thought would work. I released what I had left. It wasn't much, little more than a drop of water in a glass. But it found its mark and hit Tiffany.

Tiffany threw her head back, her mouth open. She looked like a little kid catching snowflakes on her tongue.

“It feels good, so good. Why didn't you tell me it would feel good?”

“Because I didn't know,” I replied softly.

Tiffany stepped away from Gran, who kept a wary eye on Bry and my parents as they walked toward me. As she got closer, I noticed Tiffany's eyes were a deep hazel, not the brilliant shade of Jade’s but pretty in a mysterious way. Dried blood edged her nostrils.

She held out her hand. I took it and felt an instant injection of juice. Also, the whispering grew in volume. The voices and their distinct signatures became clearer.

Tiffany asked, “Is it always like this? The voices?”

“For me, yeah.”

Her eyes widened. “It's so loud.”

“It's louder with us touching.”

“Oh.”

We turned as one mind, one intent.

Gran had shambled over to her grave, looking rattier by the moment. I could feel Tiffany's energy or power, complementing mine.

I looked into Gran's eyes and felt a spark of some kind, slimy and evil. Tiffany reacted as well.

She looked at me, scared.

I asked, “Ready?”

I let my power shift to Tiffany. I squeezed her hand, and it flowed between us.

I thought, Rest. A mental muscle flexed. The strength of my will chased the thread that connected me to Gran.

It was so simple it was criminal. Speaking of which, I could hear sirens in the background. There was no explaining our way out of this mess.

Gran gave one last heave of her chest, seeming to suck in real air for the last time. The breath rattled hollowly as it left her lungs, then she lay down on the grave. The dirt flowed over her, engulfing her body.

When it was done, the grave appeared undisturbed, as if nothing had happened. Tiffany and I released each other's hands, the spark between us fading.

The first police car arrived, and Garcia stepped out with a smile of satisfaction. A second officer got out and opened the back door. I figured Tiffany's snitch friend had blabbed to the police.

Perfect.

***

Garcia sauntered over, that wide smile stretched over his face.

He's loving this.

Tiffany stayed where she was, Bry walking over to stand beside her. I had to assume it had been Tiffany's snitch friend who'd blabbed to the cops. Sure enough, she exited Garcia's squad car.

With the hood covering her face I hadn't really noticed her that much, kinda busy with Gran-the-corpse and Tiffany's rather problematic older brother.

She had weird-colored hair somewhere between dishwater blond and red. Her face was all tight and pinched.

She looked warily from Tiffany to Bry then me and flushed a fine, true red.

Garcia stood facing us, legs wide, considerable arms folded across his chest.

“Well, Caleb, what do we have here?”

Just a tiny bit of corpse-raising.

Dad said, “Sergeant Garcia, good to see you again.”

“Hello, Mr. Hart. No offense, but I was talking to Caleb.” Garcia’s eyes went back to mine like a tuning fork.

“And he's a minor,” Dad added.

Garcia's head swiveled back to Dad, his eyes narrowing. “I don't have to be reminded of that Mr. Hart.”

Their gazes held.

“We were here, conducting some experiments, and these kids”—Dad gestured at Tiffany and her brother—“happened upon us.”

Mom hiccuped behind me. Oh great, she always got those when she was nervous—loud ones, too, from her gut.

I rolled my eyes. Mom let out another one. Garcia's eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing. Dad squeezed Mom's shoulder.

The other cop joined Garcia. He was all business, with a military haircut. His hair was so blond that he looked bald. He was short, barely taller than I was, with deep set eyes that never stopped moving—restless. He gave me the creeps.

Garcia introduced. “This is my partner, Officer McGraw.”

This guy was big time Aryan nation, white bread in his pants, all blond and light compared to Garcia's tall darkness.

And he was scarier.

I could feel this guy's potential and it didn't feel good. What I wouldn't have done for a dose of Jade's Empath skills about now.

“The department is pairing mundane officers with paranormal ones to better handle paranormal crime.”

He said paranormal like a curse.

That I-want-to-be-your-friend thing had been an act. I was really glad I hadn't said too much during the dog incident.

McGraw let a cruel smile flash, then it was gone. I was guessing he was about Parker's age, one of the first group of kids that got the inoculation.

They're not giving these guys good enough psych screenings.

What was he anyway? That would prove pretty useful to know in say, the next ten minutes.

I didn't have long to wait, this jerk was just dying to show off, who knew why? Because he could, like Carson.

“McGraw's an elemental,” Garcia said. “If anything gets out of hand here, I have perfect confidence that McGraw can handle it to the letter of the law.”

We were so screwed.

Elementals could manipulate the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. McGraw obviously did not have all his dogs barking, so I wasn’t interested in show and tell.

Dad frowned.

“I don't think any of us will be unreasonable. There is no need for posturing.”

Garcia flipped open his notebook (pulse it, moron) and got a pen out. Who wrote anymore?

He turned to Tiffany’s friend. “Miss Cote, why don't you repeat what you told me at the police station.”

She came forward awkwardly, eyes downcast. “It's cot-A. Ya know, a long 'A',” she corrected sullenly.

Cops growing out of the ground and she's correcting their pronunciation.

“Okay... Miss Cot-A,” Garcia said. “Please repeat what you told us at the police station for these folks.”

Cote looked at Tiffany, who shook her head.

So Tiffany wasn't feeling like being outed either.

Cote bit her lower lip. Garcia moved closer until he was towering over her.

She looked up at him, a shadow of doubt crossing her face.

“I thought I saw something over there by his parents.” She pointed in the general direction of Gran's tombstone. “But it isn't here now.”

“Now come on. You said a lot more than that,” McGraw prompted.

Tiffany said, “Mia, no.”

That was it! Mia. I hated forgetting peoples' names.

Mia said, “We were just going to come out here and hang. And then we saw these guys”—she gestured at my parents and me—“and saw something else, too. It smelled.” She crinkled her nose.

“What smelled?” McGraw asked.

“The dead woman,” she said finally.

Garcia smiled with triumph.

He and McGraw began a tight search of the area, moving in between tombstones. Garcia stepped on Gran's grave without a downward glance. Not a blade of grass was out of place. It looked perfect.

McGraw turned back to Mia. “Where did you see this dead woman?”

“Right there,” she said, pointing.

He looked at where she indicated—Gran's headstone. He brought his gaze up and studied me.

Don't ask, Garcia.

He asked, “One of your relatives, maybe? Doing a little visiting?”

“No. Actually, we were conducting experiments, as I mentioned earlier,” Dad said.

“Well, I did some looking.” Garcia tapped his pen on the side of his head. “I have the last five generations of both your families in my little notebook right here. And here you all are, right at the family plot.”

He snapped the notebook closed with a tight grinding sound and I gave a little involuntary jump. “But from what Miss Cote tells us, you were doing more than experimenting.”

Bry said, “Caleb and I got into a fight, that's all. His dad tried to break it up when it got out of control.”

McGraw looked skeptical as he took in our little group. Dad's hair was a spike fest, and his pants had grass stains on them.

Bry had blood all over his chin and the front of his shirt, and Tiffany had some dried blood under her nose. Mom shrank behind Dad. That clinched it for me. She didn't like him any better than I did.

McGraw looked back at me.

“But not a scratch on you.”

“I guess I got lucky,” I said with only a small tremor in my voice.

“But the,” he opened his notebook, scanning with his index finger until he came up with the name, then tapped it once, “Weller boy, has what looks like a piece of his tongue missing. And the sister,” he looked down again, “Tiffany, has sustained trauma to her nose.” His eyes narrowed at me, barely more than slits.

“It's not Caleb's fault,” Tiffany said. “I just got in the middle.”

McGraw scowled. They couldn't do anything. They'd have to chalk the whole thing up to a hysterical girl thinking she saw things in a graveyard that she didn't. Two boys getting in a fight was not a police matter.

Garcia turned to Mia. “Are you sure that you saw a dead woman? Or are you willing to recant your testimony?”

“Recant?” Mia asked.

“Take it back. What you said. All of it.”

“Yeah... yes... I recant. I don't know what I saw.” She looked so helpless that I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

“I guess we'll have to be satisfied with that,” Garcia said.

“But know this: I thought I smelled a skunk, so there must be one.”

Weird, just like Morginstern. A strong breeze blew, whipping my hair and lashing my face.

Garcia pointed his pen at me. “You have my full attention, Caleb, and for the record, I don't like being played. If I find out you're a cadaver manipulator, we are lawfully bound to report that to the proper authorities. Don't let me find out you've been holding out on us.”

He rested his hand on the baton strapped to his utility belt.

McGraw smiled toothily, then his face took on an odd look of concentration. Raising his hand, he said, “Be still.”

The wind that had been so annoying stopped abruptly. Yet, about fifteen feet away, the low branches on the fir trees danced. We were in the eye of some kind of storm. McGraw was showing his juice was working as an air elemental.

Terrific.

McGraw gave us a tight smile, closed his hand into a fist, and drew it toward his body. With an audible pop, the wind rushed in to lash our faces again.

CHAPTER 14

Once the cops were gone, Tiffany turned to Mia. “You're such an ass-potato!”

Mia looked around for support. Getting none, she said, “It looked bad to me. The old, dead woman and all. I didn't know what to do!”

Bry walked up to Tiffany. “Leave it, Tiff. We all did the best we could. AFTD has been hard for you, too.”

Tiffany eyed me. “I thought I was the only one.”

“No. I just found out that I had it.” If I'd known sooner, we wouldn't have needed to be alone.

“How?”

I gestured at Gran’s grave. “It was an accident the first time. I told Carson and Brett that I could hear the dead. Actually, John did.”

“Why would you guys tell them? They're dickheads.” She caught Mom's look and hastily amended, “They're jerks to everybody.”

I nodded.

“Because I found out in biology. The frogs...” I shuddered. “Anyway, I wanted to prove that I wasn't some kind of coward for passing out.”

“Who the he—” She glanced at Mom. “Um… who the heck cares what they think?”

I shrugged. “They were being jerks, and I was tired of it. Jonesy thought it would be a good idea to show them what I had, that I wasn't a poser.”

“Does that seem like a good idea now?” she asked.

“No way.” I smiled.

Dad clapped his hands. “This is all well and good, but we need to discuss what happened, the possibilities.”

Always with the science.

Dad asked Tiffany, “Can you raise cadavers?”

“Zombies? No. Sometimes I know where murdered people are. And I can sense the dead.”

“Do you mean you can hear them like I do?” I asked.

She shivered. “No, it's not like those loud voices you hear. It's like impressions of their feelings or thoughts. I don't know. It's hard to explain.”

We shared a moment of complete understanding.

“Jade told me about that bird thing outside of gym.”

Tiffany looked confused for a second then said, “Oh yeah! I almost forgot about that. LeClerc, right? Aren't you guys going out?”

“Yeah.”

Mom said, “We need to go. We have some things to discuss.”

“Okay, but I wanna add Tiffany to my contacts before I forget.” I grabbed my pulse out of my back pocket.

I thumbed my pulse and thought, Add contact.

Tiffany walked over and laid her thumb on the pad. Her contact information appeared:

555.455.9830: Tiff Weller

“Tiff?” I asked.

“Yeah, I hate 'Tiffany'.”

“Why? Tiffany is a swell name,” Dad commented.

I gave him the lame-parent stare.

Dad said, “All right, brother, chillax!”

I shook my head. “Dad, don't try okay?”

Tiffany started picking up the scraps of her hoodie. Seeing that it was beyond repair, I took off mine and handed it to her.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I'll get it back on Monday.”

“I don't know,” she said. “We may not test in the same building.”

That was true. It was alphabetical. Hart, Weller—probably not.

“Tuesday then?”

She shrugged.

“So I have a huge favor to ask....”

“What?” she asked with barely contained skepticism.

“Can you guys keep this thing a secret?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. You worried you're gonna have to go away to that special school, like Parker?”

“Yeah, like that.”

She shuddered. “I'm so glad that I don't have the effed-up corpse raising to deal with. But that was pretty cool that you raised your grandma.”

“Great-grandma.”

Tiff smirked at my correction. “Did ya know her?”

Bry rubbed his mouth. “It was pretty tight how strong she was.”

“What grade are you in?” I asked Bry.

“Sophomore.”

“What did you do on your AP Test?”

“Math science,” Bry said. “Abstractions and patterns.”

Tiff looked down at Gran’s grave.

“I've seen a raising on pulsevision, but to see it done in front of you, how we put her back and now it looks like it never happened? Weird.” She waved at Mia. “Come over here and check this out.”

“I'm not going over there.” Mia folded her arms across her chest.

Tiff sighed, “Okay, I am sorry I called you an ass-potato. You just pissed me off, bailing like that.”

She gave one of those top-shelf eye rolls. I struggled not to laugh. She was funny, tomboyish, and smart. The story Jade had told me didn't match up with the Tiff in front of me.

“What had you all emo about the bird?” I asked.

She lowered her head. “It was the first time I heard them. And the whispering… it's nothin' like what you hear, but it’s still pretty creepy.”

I nodded. I was freaked out the first time too.

The day had blown itself out and the wind was gone, leaving behind a pregnant stillness.

We said our goodbyes with assurances of secrecy then left the cemetery. Mom glanced back at Gran's grave. Her grandma was truly lost, not just to death, but with a different memory superimposed over the old.

CHAPTER 15

In the car on the way home, Dad said, “I suppose it isn't too redundant I mention the timing was less than ideal when Officers Garcia and McGraw made an appearance.”

Mom answered, “Yes, that was the worst of luck.”

“What intrigued me was they didn't ask any questions regarding what experiments I was conducting.”

“It terrifies me to think that those two are hanging around like sharks, scenting blood, waiting for any confirmation that Caleb exhibits AFTD. I mean, corpse raising.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Mom, is that the politically correct word?”

She blushed. “Cadaver manipulator.”

Dad turned to her, surprised. I wasn't, she came up with the most obscure crap on the planet.

She shrugged. “I’ve been doing some reading on the subject, what little I could find. There isn't much more written than what John gave Caleb.”

Dad pulled the car into the garage, and the door folded down behind us. He turned off the engine, and our harnesses automatically unlocked and retracted.

Dad turned in his seat. “What you have here, Caleb, is too big to go untrained. I don't know who to trust, but we need someone to help you hone your skills.”

I barked out some laughter. The Parents startled.

“No offense, Dad, but who even knows anything? I mean, who can we trust? I know they'll send me to Kent Paranormal High, but what good will that do if I’m hiding my power? You heard Garcia.” I clenched my hands. “He said that he had to turn me in, that it’s the law.”

Dad said, “I’ve read the percentage of the student population for the paranormals in the high school you'll be attending. There will be others like you, and they have a trained AFTD teacher to help you gain a measure of control. They have detailed literature—”

I broke in. “How does that help me? I mean, if I can't tell anyone what I can do?”

“Knowledge is power, Caleb. Just learning some practical application can speed the process of discipline and control.” He sighed. “The officers… is another matter entirely.”

Dad parked the car in the garage and we got out.

Walking into the house I was struck by how odd it seemed. The parents stood completely still, the fine hairs on my body rising like static electricity gone berserk.

Dad turned his face to mine, his eyes too wide in their sockets, wild, and shook his head, no noise.

I nodded my understanding.

Stepping into the living room, I noticed everything was overturned and messy. I froze, and so did Mom.

Dad grabbed the baseball bat to the left of the door and held it tightly in his left hand, his knuckles showing white in a bloodless grip, keeping it close and slightly behind his body.

He coasted along, his butt to the wall. He rounded the corner, his body blocking our line of sight, and the living room came into view.

We should have worried about intruders but the room was in such disarray we were stopped in our tracks.

My eyes roamed the mess, some things destroyed. All Mom's indoor plants drooped like sad streamers from a party, discarded.

Mom started to rush forward, but Dad blocked her with an arm.

“No Ali, it's not safe,” he said.

Mom's hands were wrapped around Dad's forearm, which was still barring her way. He looked into her eyes, big as fifty-cent pieces, and she straightened, silently letting go of his arm.

Dad's briefcase and papers were strewn about like confetti. His pulse-top was open, the blue screen of death staring blankly, a winking eye that never closed.

Dad's mouth tightened into a hard line.

“Wait here,” he said, walking off down the hallway.

Mom and I stood together while Dad cruised the house, searching for the A-holes that had violated us. What could I do to protect Mom? Five minutes later—the longest five minutes of my life—Dad came back, face grim.

“They're not here, but we're not staying here tonight.”

“We'll have to pulse the police.” Mom walked over to the Fam-pulse.

“Wait! What if Garcia comes?” I asked.

“Yes, most interesting,” Dad said, and Mom harrumphed at that. “What I mean is, we have done nothing wrong. We are the ones in danger, not the people hiding things or perpetuating crimes.”

“Smart,” Mom said.

Dad nodded at Mom, and she hit the touch pad.

I walked over and watched the screen over her shoulder.

911 Dispatch: 911, your emergency?

Alicia Hart: My house has been vandalized.

911 Dispatch: Your address is 26503 Kensington Heights. Is this accurate?

Alicia Hart: Yes.

911 Dispatch: Our sensors do not indicate bodily damage. Is there need for an ambulance at your dwelling?

Alicia Hart: No.

911 Dispatch: Police response will arrive momentarily.

Please stay on your pulse-phone in case intruders re-enter dwelling.

Mom rolled her eyes. She hated all the automation.

Alicia Hart: Connected.

That would allow her to move around.

Dad still held the bat. I mentioned that he should probably put it away. He looked down at it blankly, as if he’d forgotten about it, then nodded and put it back in the garage.

Then it struck me. My room.

Racing up my coffin step staircase I flung open the door, heaving a big sigh of relief. Everything looked exactly as it normally did.

Dad and Mom came up behind me, staring at my room.

Dad made a gasping noise, like a fish out of water. His eyes moved from one mess to the next, like a frog leaping from lily pad to lily pad, “Is this normal?”

I nodded vigorously, relieved. “Yeah, it doesn't look like they made it this far.”

Dad had a spacey, dazed expression. He looked at Mom. “He really... his room...”

Mom said, “Yes, honey. I told you he never listens about cleaning.”

“I thought you were just...”

I helpfully added, “Ranting?”

Mom squinted at me. “Watch it, pal.”

My pillowcase lay in a tightly wadded ball in the corner of the bed with the bare pillow bunched up next to it. Clothes covered the floor. My desk stood at the end of the room where the ceiling and eave junction met. A precariously balanced mess of candy wrappers, pizza boxes, and neatly crushed soda pop cans obscured the top. My dirty clothes hamper was a great holder for anything that was not actual trash or laundry.

Dad looked an unspoken question to Mom. “Yep, he's ours.”

He shook his head again, walking out of my room and downstairs without word.

“What's the matter with Dad?”

“He's had a shock, honey.”

“Yeah, the losers that wrecked our house.”

“Well, I think it's a toss-up between what happened in our house and him discovering that your room looks like it was ransacked.”

I didn't get it. “But my room wasn't messed with.”

“I think that may be the shock, that this is the normal state of your room.”

Huh. Parents.

I heard the pulse-chime. The cops had arrived.

Show time.

I went downstairs, and two new cops stood in our foyer. They had their guns out and pointed upward. That one thing made me more nervous than anything could.

When Mom and I appeared, they turned, guns at the ready.

Dad said, “Whoa, guys. It's just my family.”

The tiny woman cop looked reluctant to lower her weapon. In a husky voice that didn't match her body, she said, “Sir, we need to secure the house.”

“Of course, go ahead,” Dad replied.

She of the small build and tough attitude gave a curt nod. Her gaze lingered on me for a second, then she and her partner went down the hall, guns drawn.

We watched them as they disappeared and reappeared around corners, exploring every part of the house. A few minutes later, they returned to stand in front of us. An awkward silence ensued.

Dad nodded toward the male officer. “So Ali and Caleb, this is Officer Ward.”

“Chuck,” he corrected with a wink.

Dad gestured at the woman. “And Officer Roberta Gale.”

Officer Gale stepped toward me.

She smiled, but not like she meant it.

“What are you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Then she let me have it, but it was nothing like it had been with Tiff. With Gale, it was a soft breeze, a gentle thing, as if someone took my heart and squeezed it until it burst through her fingers. The breath left my body, and I sagged to my knees, sucker punched.

Mom screamed, “Caleb!”

She reached out to grab me.

I held out my hand, warding her off.

With Gale’s extra creepy still running through me, I reached down where that special power always lay and prayed for enough to deal with it.

The power rose to my call, a life force welling up and pouring out of my body like a vessel. I visualized a spear and aimed it at tough chick Gale. I’d never used my power like that, but she'd hurt me, and I was in defense mode.

She flew back as if shoved by an invisible hand and slammed against the wall. A high-pitched whistle escaped in a rush, leaving her mouth opening and closing seeking air that wouldn't come.

Chuck pulled his gun and aimed at me. Keeping his eyes on me, he said out of the side of his mouth, “Bobbi, what's this about? Tell me right now, so I don't have to hold my gun on a teenager. I hate this paranormal crap,” he muttered.

Officer Gale wasn't talking just then, thank you very much. But her eyes were on my face, her hands pressed to her chest, as if I had shot her. We kept serious eye contact and finally she spoke.

“He's AFTD,” she gasped out.

“Didn't I say I hate that paranormal crap?”

Dad's helped me to my feet. My parents stared at Officer Gale as if she were an alien.

“Put the gun away,” Gale told her partner. “It was a test.”

“Great,” Ward said as he holstered his weapon. “Think you could warn me next time?”

The tension eased down a notch.

“I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting this kind of reaction. It was what I was trained to do when I encounter another paranormal, an AFTD paranormal in particular.”

“What, suck the life out of me?” I asked with a touch more sarcasm than I intended.

She lowered her eyes. “I wasn't expecting it to be quite like this.”

“How’d you know about me?” I asked.

“It's hard to explain, but it's like when you know someone is American.”

I nodded, there were so many foreigners living in the U.S. that it was getting harder to identify, but I knew what she meant. There was a look, an arrangement of features. I knew it when I saw it.

“Or it's similar to a scent in the air.” She bowed her head for a second. “Or a taste. But you… I haven't encountered that before.”

Dad asked, “We heard they’re now pairing all non-paranormal officers with paranormal ones.”

“Not yet,” Ward responded. “Soon it'll be a mandate. Informally, we're already pairing.”

Ward laughed and pushed away from the wall. I didn't see what was funny.

“Let's face it. People that can set fires with their minds, manipulate the elements, and raise the dead. If those people are on the wrong side of the law, things can be problematic.”

Problematic...
ya think? It was my turn to laugh. I was sure the cops were kept busy with the paranormals that were criminals. I bet the pharmaceutical tycoons didn’t consider that before they administered drugs that gave us the cool skills.

Gale regarded me with eyes that reflected nothing. Something about her name clicked. Bobbi Gale. She was the chick who used her AFTD to find murder victims.

“Aren't you the one that did that article about AFTD?” I asked.

She cocked her head.

“Oh yeah. Well, at that time, I was the only AFTD on the force.”

“There's more?”

She nodded, giving a small shrug of dismissal. “Not many.”

“Maybe that's natural selection,” I said.

Dad looked at me in surprise.

I grinned. “Sometimes I listen to you.”

He grinned back then turned to Gale. “Okay, now that you're done with the theatrics, can we figure out what this”—he swept his hand around—“violation means?”

Gale took out her pulse-pad. All ideas and notes transferred automatically as she thought them. Those were cool. I bet most cops had them. Except for Garcia.

She took her thumb off the pad. “Can we talk after we get your statements?” she asked me.

Mom replied, “No more testing.”

Gale shook her head. “No more, I promise. I followed protocol exactly. I apologize that it backfired. It's not an exact science.”

Dad cupped his hand over his mouth, hiding a smile.

“Sure, okay.” I was acting cool about it, but I did want to talk to her, as long as she didn't pull another whammy.

The cops asked my parents a series of questions. Was the house pulse-alarm activated? Had there been suspicious activity? Were there any known enemies? Boring.

Finally, they wrapped up, saying they'd make an official report, and we’d have police surveillance at our house.

“For how long?” I asked.

Gale looked up from her pulse-pad. “It'll be random, so the perpetrators can't anticipate our moves. Typically, we give about five days.”

“This area usually doesn't have this kind of criminal activity,” Ward admitted. “Are you sure there isn't someone who has an agenda, a motive?”

I thought the break-in was way too much of a coincidence what with my voodoo death stuff coming online. If I was thinking that, I was sure my parents were. But they shook their heads and didn’t say a word, the silence swelling like a balloon. They wouldn't have shared anyway, especially after Garcia had said he was legally bound to turn in corpse raisers.

“Okay.” She powered down her pulse-pad. “That'll be all for now.” Ward gave her a strange look but she was focused on us. He obviously expected more but she had deliberately shut the meeting down.

She turned to me. “Still up for talking?”

Cautious. “Yeah.”

“You can use the kitchen,” Mom said.

I followed Gale into the kitchen. She took Mom’s chair, and I sat in my usual one. I could hear Officer Ward and my parents speaking quietly out in the foyer, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Gale stared at me. “Spill it.”

“Um… spill what?”

“I know you're more than a two- or three-point AFTD. I’ve never felt anyone as powerful as you.” She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, but the kitchen was really warm. Apparently, she was creeped out.

I was having that effect on a lot of people lately.

“I've felt plenty of AFTDs...” she waved her hand at me, “... but you're something unique.”

I wasn't ready to answer. I decided to ask her some questions.

“How do you know when someone is paranormal?”

She sighed. “It's like I told you before—it's a feeling, a difference. It feels like a low electrical vibration.”

“Is that what they taught you at the school? How to identify paranormals?”

“Yes, some of it. You'll go to the same school I did. I'm a local girl, ya know.” She grinned.

I dug local, they knew the deal, the people, all that jazz.

“What was it like, the school?”

“It's like regular high school, but you're with people who can do amazing things. AFTDs are the rarest, but fire-starters are running a close second.”

“You mean like the book?”

“The what?”

“The book by Stephen King.”

“Who's he?”

“Only the greatest writer globally!”

“Well, I'm not much of a reader, but the name rings a bell. What's his story about? Pyrokenetics?”

“Yeah, but it's more. Back then, it was just an idea, fiction. No one ever thought it'd be like this.”

I leaned forward. “What do they make you do?”

“Math and English.”

Well, that sucked.

She saw my expression and laughed. “It's not all dead stuff and fun! You still have to do core.“But you get to study animation of the dead. That's an actual class—Animation of the Dead in Theory.”

“Wait a second. Who's in that class? I thought all the corpse, I mean, cadaver manipulator's were so rare.”

She looked down at her hands. “Have you heard of Jeffrey Parker?”

I nodded.

“We were some of the first. He was ahead of me, a senior when I was a freshman.” She frowned. “He wasn't treated that well. You can understand there would be some prejudice toward him.”

I bobbed my head again.

“Well, they didn't know what to do with us, with him. He was more than they were prepared for. Before him, I don't think anyone knew cadaver renewal was possible. It was just theory. When Jeffrey Parker started to raise things accidentally—”

“What? Accidentally? Really?”

“Yeah, accidentally. In fact, one of the teachers was killed in a car accident, but he shuffled to his job the next day.”

“But how did they know it was Jeffrey? For sure, I mean. It could have been any of you guys.”

“Because the teacher… the dead teacher went straight to Jeff and said, 'I am here to serve you.’ Not exactly what he would have done in life. Jeff could control him.”

A fantasy come true. I took a second to daydream about that.

“Snap out of it. You weren't there. It's not remotely cool.” She rolled her eyes. I decided girls must take eye-rolling classes in kindergarten.

“Well, there's a short list of teachers that I want to do my bidding.” I laughed. The Js would be getting a full report.

She frowned at me.

“Anyway, the AFTD teacher knew that we had ourselves a real, live, cadaver manipulator. No one had ever manifested all five points before. They had a heck of a time figuring out how to put the teacher back.”

I bet they did, remembering the fun of getting granny back-in-box. Back-in-coffin? I did a mental shrug.

“What did they do?”

“It was a big deal. The principal came to our class with the empath professor. Of course, we had our AFTD professor as well. He was one of the first to theorize about the potential for cadaver renewal. It had never been well received. Then Jeff proved it could be done. And he hadn't even tried.”

Gale pulled a business card out of her pocket. A coffee stain obscured a good half of it.

“Ah, the heck with it. Do you have your pulse?”

I nodded and pulled it out. I put my thumb on the pad and thought, New contact.

When I lifted my thumb, Gale replaced it with hers. The green characters appeared on the screen.

Gale, Bobbi
206.631.6312.

“That’s my direct line,” she said, “not the department's general one.”

“How'd you get that area code? Is it Kent?”

She smiled. “Yeah, it was my grandmother's number. When she passed, I inherited it. Later, I transferred it to my pulse.”

Officer Ward and my parents walked in, and Gale stood. She shook my hand. When we touched, I felt a low voltage-type zing. I didn't let it show on my face, but her eyes widened. Too weird.

On the way to the foyer, Gale said she'd be available if I needed anything, day or night. They left, and Mom closed the door behind them.

“Major strange,” Mom said.

“I wasn't real pleased with the 'testing' of Caleb. It seemed odd,” Dad replied.

“I don't trust Garcia much. I liked her better,” I said. We stood in silence thinking about it all.

Then Mom got the broom and dustpan and started cleaning up the shattered pots.

“Caleb, go fetch some of the picnic glasses, and we'll get my babies in some water.”

I started to argue, but when I took in her sad face, I just turned and went into the pantry. I dug through it and found the recycled plastic goblets.

“These ones?”

“Yes, those ones.”

I walked to the kitchen sink, opened the tap, and set it to gray water. I filled each glass about three quarters, arranging them on the windowsill. Low-slanting sunlight streamed through the window, hitting the glasses and creating a kaleidoscope of colors on the floor behind me.

Shaking off the dirt in the compost can under the sink, I placed the four plants that would be saved in their respective glasses. Then, I cruised the living room, throwing afghans on the back of couches, closing drawers, and straightening pillows.

Mom came out of her bedroom. “Nothing has been stolen. Mom's necklace and my diamond bracelet are still there.”

Dad looked up, puzzled. “Nothing?”

She shook her head.

“What about your pulse-top, Kyle?”

“The mainframe shut it down the instant someone tried to hack it.”

“Did they?” Our eyes met. “Try, I mean.”

“They most certainly did. When I return to work on Monday, we'll do an analysis of what files they breached, if any. In the meantime, I won't be able to recover anything. It's locked down. It's for the best, if they return. We have to consider the possibility.”

“I thought the police were watching,” I said.

“True, but they don't have the manpower to be here twenty-four hours a day, son.”

That blows. I shook my head. “That doesn't seem safe enough. I mean, they didn't rob us, but somehow, they got in even with pulse-security. So they can get in again.”

“I'll change the pulse-code,” Dad said.

“But how did they get in to begin with? The cops said there were no signs of forced entry.”

Dad rested his chin on his hand. “That's the best I can do. Also, it provides a fail-safe.”

“A what?” I asked.

“A way to find out who or what may know sensitive information, like our pulse code,” Mom said.

“So that means if someone got in here again, it's an inside job?” I clarified.

“Exactly,” Dad agreed.

“Can't we just assume that now as a fact?” Mom asked.

“I'd like to, but the scientist in me insists it may have been a malfunction or someone using one of the many pulse tools out there to neutralize settings. We need to exclude that possibility first.”

“Thereby allowing them to assign a new pulse-code,” Mom added slowly.

Dad inclined his head.

We got after the cleaning and when it was finally done, I asked, “What's for supper, Mom?”

“How about a McDonald's run?” Dad asked.

“All right!” I yelled, doing a Jonesy-style fist pump.

Mom's shoulders slumped a little. Don't ruin it Mom, I silently begged. Dad closed the distance, taking her by the shoulders and they stared into each others eyes. About this time was my cue to take off... but I stayed. We were in this whole mess together, this was not a gross-out parents moment.

He ran his hands up and down her arms. “It's been a tough day on all of us. Let me take care of you and Caleb tonight. I know you like to make the suppers, but let's get some food in us and a good night's rest. Things will look better tomorrow.”

She smiled, a wan thing, not her usual, full-toothed grin. “Hey, that's my line, buster.” She playfully punched him.

He released her, his hands sliding down her bare arms like a caress.

Definitely a caress.

***

McDonald's was always an act of self-restraint. I had a fantasy where I walked up to the counter and said, “I'll have one of everything.”

Unfortunately, the reality was Dad finding us a place to sit and Mom selecting the food. As Dad put it, “She's the health nut of the house, son.”

That meant that I usually couldn't get a milkshake. It didn't matter if they were made with seaweed or not. I had tried that argument with Mom, and she didn't buy it.

Imagine my surprise when she came back to the table with not two but three shakes!

That meant it had been a Really Bad Day.

Mom slid into the booth and put the tray on the glaring orange Formica table top. “It's been a really bad day,” she said as she sat down next to me.

Yay for ransackers! I guess it was too much for a family to go through for milkshakes, but it was a near thing.

I tore off the lid, sighing with pleasure at the thought of that chocolaty goodness. She had strawberry, and Dad had vanilla. Neapolitan family.

Mom opened hers and stuck in a straw that stood up in the center of the cup in a satisfying way. I liked to slurp, so Mom hadn't bothered to get a straw for me. We chowed down on the burgers and fries.

“Caleb,” Mom said, “what about those papers that John gave you?”

Ah! I had forgotten all about those.

“Maybe they're in my locker at school.”

She knew organizing wasn't a strong point of mine. I smiled over the rim of my shake thinking about it.

She pushed the rest of her food in front of me. After taking a last sip of her shake, she offered that, too.

I stood by the “family cootie” mantra, which stated that we're all exposed to each other's germs anyway, so a little shared shake wasn't going to take away my fun. I slurped and gulped quietly while listening to my parents figure out our next move. After our trays were emptied in the separator, we piled back into the car, the seat harnesses locking after Dad pulsed the car ignition.

The drive uneventful, Dad parked in the garage while the car idled, “You guys stay here and let me look inside.”

Our days of just roaring in and out of the house were behind us. No longer did we feel safe.

Mom and I waited, and a few minutes later, Dad came back out and gave the thumbs-up.

I rushed up to my room, flipping my hair out of my eyes and jerking my pulse out of my pocket. I leapt into the air and back-landed on my bed. I pressed my thumb onto the pad and thought, Jade.

JLeC: Hey.

Caleb: What's up with you?

JLeC: Nothing much. Sophie's here.

Caleb: Oh. Well, our house was broken into, and the cops came.

JLeC: What?
<gasp>
Are you guys okay? Why was it broken into? Did Garcia come?

Caleb: Ya know why. No, he didn't. Some other cops came.

JLeC: You think?

Caleb: I do. I think it's all about that.

JLeC: Well, Sophie's here. I can't really talk much, so I better go. Are we still hanging at your house tomorrow?

Caleb: Yeah. Three o'clock?.

JLeC: 'kay, I'll be there.

Caleb: Can't wait to see ya.

JLeC: Caleb—be careful.

Caleb: 'kay.

Next stop, the Js. I pressed my thumb back on the pad. Disconnect.
Three-way: Jonesy and John Terran.

Jonesy: Hey dill weed.

John Terran: Hi.

Jonesy: Thinkin' about tomorrow Caleb?

Caleb: Yeah, ya know I am. But, something happened today that’s freaking me out, big time. Some losers came through the house and tore it up. They broke mom's plants and tried to hack my dad's pulse-top. It was bad. Then the cops showed.

Jonesy: Garcia?

Caleb: No.

John Terran: You think they're looking for the goods?

Caleb: Good one, John. Maybe. That's what Dad thinks.

John Terran: It's not funny, but you have the dumbest luck.

Caleb: No shit Sherlock.

Jonesy: They wouldn't find anything anyway.

Caleb: Probably not, but…

John Terran: <profanity block>The papers I gave you!

Caleb: <distress> Right.

John Terran: Are those at school... maybe?

Caleb: Maybe, but I'm not much for organizing my locker. The only thing I hope is that they looked at my room and figured it would take too much time to search.

Jonesy: <guffaws> You got that goin' on, Caleb!

John Terran: So are you guys staying at the house? I mean, is it safe?

Caleb: Yeah, the cops said they'd do random surveillance.

John Terran: Okay, we'll talk about this more tomorrow. Maybe we can figure out who did it and why? What about Jade? Can she do anything with her mojo?

Caleb: Mojo, John? <laughs> I don't know, but let me ask her, all right?

Jonesy: Get over yourself, Caleb, we won't frisk the girlfriend.

Caleb: Yeah, you chumps just follow my lead.

Jonesy: Pushy bastard!

Caleb: Just for you. <laughs> You guys come over about three o'clock.

Jonesy: Okay, what are you telling your parents?

Caleb: That we're gonna hang out.

John Terran: That's so not going to work if you have another corpse day.

Caleb: Well, actually... today, Dad thought it would be a good idea to visit the cemetery and experiment.

John Terran: Well,
<profanity block>! How'd that go?

Caleb: Not real well. But I got Granny back in the ground.

Jonesy: WTF?

John Terran: You raised your dead grandmother?

Caleb: Yeah, but she sorta got out of control, and then Tiff Weller had to help. Hang on to your shorts, guys, I will tell you the whole thing tomorrow. I don't want this on our pulses. You feel me?

CHAPTER 16

I didn't sleep well. Every noise, every scrape of a branch against the house was cause for wakefulness. I gave up and went to the window.

The street appeared still. The moon cast shadows everywhere, and under the streetlamps, the pools of light were bordered by inky blackness.

A police cruiser slowly pulled up in front of my house. Two officers got out—Garcia and McGraw. I sure didn't feel safer with those two guarding the house. Leaning forward, I pressed my nose to the glass, careful not to fog up the window with my breath.

Garcia turned abruptly as if McGraw had said something, bending to hear him. Surreptitious whispering ensued, voices I couldn't hear but wanted to. Their heads stayed pressed together for a few moments, one blond and the other so dark it blended with the night.

They looked up at my room. It took a whole lot for me not to duck, but they didn’t appear to see me.

A sigh of relief escaped me into the hushed silence of my room.

Just as they were finishing their covert conversation, another cruiser pulled up. Officers Gale and Ward got out.

Huh. Now this was interesting.

I was certain we didn't need four cops. I rested my butt cheeks against my heels, perching for the duration.

Even in the gloom it was easy to tell which cop was Gale. She was the smallest, more than a head shorter than Garcia. As obsessed with growing as I was, I noticed people's heights. Bobbi Gale was around Jade's height, but built bigger.

Gale gestured at our house and then threw her hands up in the air. Ward had his arms folded over his chest in a defensive stance. McGraw mirrored Ward, as Garcia moved to stand nose to nose with Gale. Their height difference didn't really allow for that, but she was right in his face, her's craning up to make eye contact.

Then, McGraw touched Garcia's shoulder and stepped back. His shoulders hiked up in an exaggerated shrug, and with a wave of his hand, he dismissed our house and walked over to his cruiser. Garcia followed. Even from my vantage point, I could see Gale glowering at him.

She was pissed. It was in the set of her shoulders, the way tension sang along them. I would've loved to have heard what they said.

Gale and Ward watched the other two pull away, then got in their cruiser and backed into the space that McGraw and Garcia had vacated.

That was weird as hell. I knew it wasn't a shift change thing because Gale and Ward said the checks would be random. I wondered if McGraw and Garcia had shown up when they weren’t supposed to be at my house. But I had no idea why they would have.

I stared for a couple more minutes, barely making them out in the gloom. Gale was in the driver's seat and Ward beside her, gesturing and talking, a badge twinkling in the dim light cast by the streetlight.

I flopped back against my bed. I tossed and turned and finally fell into a fitful sleep, unconsciousness pulling me under like a pebble in a river.

CHAPTER 17

I was swimming, the sun shining through the water, me at the bottom looking through layers of grayish-green. A great, pale orb shone dimly above me. It was important I reach it, though I didn’t know why.

Moving a hand in front of my face, it floated there like a disembodied appendage. I shifted my body, feeling the resistance and rose determinedly toward the surface, my hands knifing through the water. As I gained speed, I felt hotter, and the light intensified. Breaking through the surface, I opened my eyes.

I was in my room.

I became aware of things in stages, as if still dreaming and unable to wake up. I pinched my arm. That hurt. Definitely awake. A red crescent appeared on my skin.

I checked the clock. The Js and Jade would be at my house in three hours. Sitting up, I moved my stiff neck in a loose circle.

I got up on my knees and pulled the curtain aside. The cops were gone. I looked at the sky, noticing storm clouds brewing. Perfect cemetery weather. I raised the window a little. The May heat could make it eighty degrees in my room and it'd be ball sweat central. No thanks.

I got up and threw on some clothes. I kicked a pile of junk out of the way of the door and headed downstairs.

Dad was in his favorite chair, working on his pulse-top. Mom was in the kitchen, cooking pancakes. Music swam around the room on low volume while she put the fixings on the table: butter, milk, and syrup. Dad was gonna succumb. He tried to limit pancakes because he was O.L.D and didn't want to get F.A.T.

I plopped down in my seat.

Mom gave me the eye.

“Kinda late getting up this morning, pal.”

“Did you hear the cops?” I asked.

Mom rolled her eyes, and Dad closed his pulse-top.

“I thought you said that was shut down, Dad.”

“It is. I was just putting it through some security paces. Security protocol. Rudimentary procedure before I have one of our tech people go through it.”

“Oh. I thought maybe you got it fixed and were reading the boring news or something,” I said.

Dad smiled. “That 'boring news' keeps me up to date on world events, Caleb.”

Ah-huh.

“I didn't hear a thing,” Mom said.

“I was awake when they came around midnight,” Dad said.

“Oh. I didn't hear that time,” I said. “Just the four a.m. run when Garcia and McGraw came.”

“That makes me all warm and fuzzy,” Mom said.

Dad had chipmunk cheeks, but after a few chews, he said, “I flat out don't like Garcia and McGraw showing up.”

I nodded.

“They looked like they were arguing out there.”

“Who?” Dad asked.

“Ward and Gale were there too.”

“What? That's bizarre. They don't need that much show of force to deter a criminal revisit.”

“I guess it's too much to ask what they were arguing over,” Mom said.

“Yeah, but the girl...”

“Officer Gale?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, she looked pretty mad. She was using a lot of hand gestures, right up in Garcia's face.”

“So what do you suppose they were discussing?” Dad asked.

Judging on how different Garcia had been at the cemetery, I had a feeling that I had his full attention—and not the good kind. Gale knew I was AFTD. She suspected I was something unique but wasn't ready to out me to anyone. I got a sense of protectiveness from her. I told the parents that and—she'd seemed angry about the other two showing up.

Dad said, “I think that Garcia has been assigned to our house, you... all of us,” he gestured with his finger, encompassing us, “flagged in some way. If anything happens here of any importance, he's alerted.”

“I don't like it,” Mom said.

Dad shrugged. “I am concerned about Garcia's watchfulness. It's not a matter of if, but when he finds out Caleb is a C-M.”

I wolfed down my pancakes. Talk of my discovery as a corpse-raiser did not interfere with The Appetite.

“What can we do legally, Kyle, to stop this interference? He's just a kid, a minor for goodness sake.” As she lowered her chin, her hair fell forward.

Dad tucked a strand behind her ear, where it curled around the lobe. “I've been looking into that. We'll go to the press if it comes to that. If he gets noticed, and they try to pull a Parker, we'll see how uncomfortable we can make them. They managed to stifle a lot of the press about the Parker boy, but there is heightened awareness now of paranormals and AFTDs.”

I didn't like the sound of that. I'd be famous, like Dad, but not because I was a brainiac—because I was a freak, infamous. Nobody wanted to be famous for weirdness.

“Why does everyone think AFTDs are weirdos?”

“You're not a weirdo Caleb,” Mom said.

“I know you're not keen on more people knowing about your unique ability, but the alternative is not acceptable,” Dad said. “Do you think anyone thought this would be the outcome? That mapping the genome and its subsequent use to unveil these abilities in the human race was going to be without uncertainty, challenges—danger?”

He was right. The other scientists, the ones who took up where Dad and his team left off, hadn’t considered the consequence of their actions. Now we had people my age through mid-twenties who could do some pretty tight shit. And there wasn't always a counter to that, except for psychic nulls, and those weren't common. Some paranormals were committing crimes, and our police were chasing their asses trying to keep up with that.

He shrugged. “The police force pairing mundanes and paranormals is a good thing. They need it.”

“Why do some paranormals break the law?” I asked.

Mom muttered, “Because they can.”

Dad nodded. “There will always be people making the wrong choices. It's human nature.”

“The world spins,” Mom said.

I admired her sense of justice but I just couldn't, as she would say, embrace it.

My eyes flicked to my watch. “The Js are coming over with Jade in two hours.”

“You know, Jade is a J too,” Mom said.

“Yeah, I guess, but she's not. Ya know, she's her own thing.”

“Autonomous,” Dad said. “Independent from the Js.”

“Oh! Well that's true.” My face got hot, Jade was so not like the Js.

They pretended not to notice how awkward the whole Jade conversation was.

My parents were mainly cool.

CHAPTER 18

Everyone showed up on time. For Jonesy, that was nothing short of a miracle. Time management was not a priority with him. Scheming was—we all had our talents.

Jade walked on my left. She was absolutely mouth-watering in a pink hoodie, faded jeans with strategic holes, and pink high top All Star basketball shoes. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, the end making a black sweep in the valley of her shoulders.

I casually held her hand. I loved feeling its smallness. One of the many things I liked about Jade—other than her utter coolness—was how physically small she was. It didn't diminish her. She didn't have some complex about it. She knew who she was, and that was tight.

Jonesy had been talking the whole time since we left, and I started tuning in, even with the distraction of Jade.

The bag full of gear rattled as he walked animatedly beside John, who was between us.

“Anyway, like I was saying, I snagged the can of Aqua Net a couple of weeks ago out of my mom's separator.”

“How'd you manage the lighter?” John asked.

“My dad registered it for barbecuing.”

Lighters were like guns. Because of the fire starters, any accelerant—lighters, matches, fuel—had to be registered like guns. Pyrokenetics could use anything like that as a deadly weapon. Some really talented ones didn't need anything. They were the weapons.

“Being able to start fires would be the coolest!” I said wistfully.

“No way,” John said. “Think about the control and all the adults up your ass all the time. Ah... no, that would suck, dude. Big time.”

Jonesy fist-pumped. “I like it. I could think of about a million things to torch. Starting with the school!” He grinned then asked,“You're not gonna, like, make something pop out of the ground, are you, Caleb?”

I got a mental image of a Jack-in-the-Box—or a Jack-in-the-Coffin— and grinned. “Nah, that's totally not the plan.”

Jade squeezed my hand and I squeezed back.

John said, “But you just had that episode with your grandma at the cemetery.”

“You didn't need blood to, like, put her back?” Jonesy asked.

“No. I've been thinking about that. Maybe it was coincidence the blood happened to be part of it last time. Gran rose without any of that.”

But a knot of unease began to build in my chest. I wondered if there was something special I needed to do to get a corpse back to rest. Tiff had been there to help, so I had no idea how or if I could have accomplished it without her.

“Okay, so we don't have to worry about an accident?” John asked, placing stress on that last word.

Like potty-training, nice.

Jonesy hooted. “Accidental corpse raising!”

I shook my head. “No, I don't having any corpse-raising plans today.”

Jade asked, “Why are we meeting them at the cemetery then?”

“That's our turf,” Jonesy said. “Caleb pulled the creep-out card there, and they'll feel all off base. Plus, the master”—he tapped his temple— “needs a proper environment.”

John's eyebrows shot up. Usually, John was the brains of the operation. Jonesy was in his element, scheming.

Jonesy said, “Hey, I know that I'm not brilliant, but I've got rockin' good ideas, and I'm rollin' with that program.”

We laughed. There was no denying he had a program.

We crested the hill, and the gates of the cemetery loomed ahead. I gave a little shudder, the sensory memory playing through my body like a discordant instrument. Jade looked a question at me, and I shook my head. Hard thing to explain. Had to be there or in her case, not.

The weather hadn't improved. In fact, it looked like it was working up a head of steam, a late spring storm. The clouds rolled like giant pewter boulders.

John saw where I was looking and said, “Might rain.”

Jonesy shrugged. “We'll get Carson and Brett all lit up before the sky opens.”

I checked my watch.

“What time is it?” John asked.

“Time for the ass-clowns to show,” Jonesy muttered.

Jade covered her mouth, hiding a smile.

Carson and Brett rounded the hill behind us as if conjured. Their blond heads glowed in the dim light of the overcast sky. They climbed the hill with determination, wearing dual expressions of purpose.

***

When they stopped just in front of us, Brett made a point of staring down Jade. I wondered if he had told Carson about his dad's meltdown and the gopher attack. Probably not.

The great trees inside the cemetery stood sentinel, their sweeping branches moved by invisible strings.

Jonesy shook his bag of goodies and they rattled alarmingly.

“I've got this experiment all fleshed out.” He waggled his brows. “Me and my boys tried it last year, and it turned out cool.”

Carson looked interested. The only reason he'd be motivated to try something connected with the three of us, was to prove how much of a mondo-stud he was.

Typical.

Carson leaned forward, trying to scope what was in the bag. Jonesy pulled it back.

“Come on, Carson,” Brett said. “This is just some kinda game. Let's get outta here.”

I was feeling unsure about making Brett pay, but Carson... that was okay. The Js and I had decided if Carson was taught a lesson, Brett would lay off, too, following his lead. I liked it better because Carson just acted like an anus cause he had one. He didn't have worries, the dick nozzle.

Carson shook his head. “Nah, I want to see what Jonesy's got that's so special.”

“Well, c’mon,” Jonesy said.

We followed Jonesy and his bag of mayhem into the cemetery. As soon as I crossed the threshold, the buzzing of voices rose to a fever-pitch, like the droning of bees. I tried to tune it out, but there was something about actually being in the cemetery that seemed to make it resonate deeper.

I stalled a little and Jade slowed beside me, her eyes widening. I knew she was getting a little feedback.

She whispered, “Are those the voices?”

I nodded.

“Is it like this all the time?”

“Not always, but this close to a big nest o' corpses, oh yeah.”

Everyone turned to look at us, so we began to walk again. I let go of her hand. She didn't need the overlap, and I was straining for control. So many dead were just impossible for me to ignore. But without Jade touching me, it was a little better. She was like a radio antenna amplifying their signal, almost like Tiff.

Jonesy took out each item out for the cluster fun. It looked like a weird hodgepodge to me. If I was guessing right, he had improved on his original idea.

He was completely serious, the first clue that the whole thing was absolute bullshit. He said to Carson, “You take this tube-thingey”—he pulled out a corrugated tube that looked like something Dad had put by the foundation of our house—“and Brett holds the other end.” He held up the hairspray. “Spray this crap inside the tube.”

“Why is it duct taped on this side?” Carson asked.

Jonesy did a long, slow blink.

Carson had the IQ of a shovel.

“It's to keep the Aqua Net inside the tube, Carson,” he explained slowly.

Carson tried to save face. “Yeah, I knew that.”

John turned away and laughed into his hand while pretending to cough.

Brett glared at him. “What's the lighter for? How'd you get it?”

Jonesy smiled. “Swiped it from my dad.”

I was drowning in the voices but making a colossal effort to quiet them.

Carson asked John and me, “You guys did this, right?”

We nodded. I gritted my teeth. Get on with it.

Then, just to sweeten the deal, I asked, “Scared?”

Carson lowered his chin like a bull before a red flag and replied through gritted teeth, “We can do anything you pussies can do.”

Resolute, his chin rose and he crossed his arms across his chest.

Going according to plan.

Jonesy handed Brett the duct-taped end of the tube. Carson grabbed the can of hairspray out of Jonesy's hand. The top spun off and became a bright pink exclamation point on top of a grave marker.

Jade watched with fascinated horror.

I knew it wouldn't end well, but it was like a piece of chocolate with mystery stuff inside. I suspected it would taste bad, but there might be something about it I liked.

Jonesy held out the lighter. A ghost of a smile formed on Carson's lips, as he leaned forward and delicately plucked the lighter out of Jonesy's fingers.

Jonesy backed away, looking a little uncertain. “So Brett holds the duct tape end and you spray a bunch of Aqua Net in there. Then, you light the lighter just as you stop the stream.”

Brett wore an expression that might have indicated some sort of thought process. Carson even looked a little hesitant.

John shrugged casually.“Look, you guys, if you're chickenshit or something, you don't have to do it. We won't hold it against you.”

We all nodded as we agreed that we would definitely not be inclined to spread crap about them in school. Riiiggghhhttt. I could see how John's cleverness was going to work this kink right out.

Carson looked at each one of us, lingering on Jade longest. “No, we'll do it. I can't see any of you guys not saying anything.” He pointed at me. “You just remember, we have the goods on you, Hart. We know what you are, what you can do. We know who to call.”

“Ghostbusters?” Jonesy asked.

We laughed. They glared.

Game on.

Brett held up the tube with the duct-taped end facing him, his hands circling it as if holding a steering wheel. The black exterior looked like an accordion, Carson raised the can and sprayed into the tube.

Even from a few feet away, I could see the mist and smell the awful acrid odor. How did women wear that? It meant something that you could set it on fire... ah, hello?

A few seconds later, Carson brought up the lighter and pressed the ignite button just inside the tube. At first, there was nothing but a sucking noise.

Then, flames burst out of the open end in an orange tangle, licking along the sides and traveling toward Brett's hands. Just before Brett dropped the tube, Carson leaned into the flames.

The fire hovered all around Carson's face but left him untouched.

John and I had about exactly three seconds to exchange a look, what the hell?

Jonesy, never one for internal dialogue asked in a panic, “What the hell is this?”

Brett backed away from Carson, who turned to us with an evil grin. Fire was still moving around his face in a wave. He held out his hand, and a small blue-centered flame swept down his arm and hovered just above his palm.

“So you were saying, Hart? You want to go chew some glass? Sounds like a good plan to me.”

Beautiful, Carson the Comedian.

We stood speechless.

Carson was a fire starter, and Jonesy, the plan man, hadn't counted on that.

Zero contingency plan. Nada, zilch, zip.

John said, “Listen, it was just a joke. You've been up Caleb's ass since forever, and it was just a little payback. You don't need to torch us.”

Carson put on an innocent face.

Bad.

“I'm not gonna torch you guys.” He switched to an evil expression and nodded at me. “Just him.”

And with that delightful objective, he pulled his hand back, readying to throw the ball o' flame.

Jade gasped, and I gave her a hard shove to get her out of the literal line of fire.

Jonesy shrieked, “Hey!”

But John shocked me. He stepped right into Carson. The two of them collided, the fire halting mid-throw. A crazy flame floated between Carson and me, sputtering and flickering.

With a roar, Carson leaped forward, trying to recapture the flame, but John tackled him. They both went down, and the flame died.

“Get off me, Terran!” Carson roared. He grabbed John by his frizzy mass of hair and pulled.

“Hey! Let go!” John gave Carson an elbow to the nose.

Blood sprayed. Carson howled and grabbed his nose. At the same time, he kicked John right in the knee. John went down, holding his knee.

Well... damn.

I ran over to break up the fight before the whole world figured out that something was going on besides a practical joke. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted someone at the entrance to the cemetery.

I turned to get a better look and realized it was Jade’s dad. His fists were clenched, the wind lifting his sweating hair off his forehead. Fists clenched as his chest rose and fell in great, swooping lungfuls. I was struck by how much he looked like Brett's dad but in a lot better shape.

His timing blew.

I swung my head in Jade's direction. She was still sitting on the ground where I’d shoved her. I felt bad because I hadn’t meant to push her that hard. She gave me the I'm caught stare.

This just kept getting better and better.

Her dad hollered, “Jade! What in the blue hell are you doin' hanging out with this pack of boys?” His face had flushed an alarming purple color.

Jade scrambled to her feet and ran. Mr. Scary was stalking over the graves, his fists like great meaty hammers, coming to nail us.

Remembering Jade and I worked like complements, I grabbed her hand as she passed by me and flung out every bit of my power.

Like a great flowing river, the power left my body.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, the graves in front of Jade’s dad burst open, sod and dirt exploding in every direction. Hands followed as the dead began to rise.

My dead.

Starting from my toes, the full flesh crawl climbed my body.

Jade chanted softly, “No, no, no.”

“I think I can take it from here,” I said, stepping away from her.

Like a freight train, Jade's dad hesitated at the junction, not sure what track to choose. Those pesky zombies will give a person pause.

He flung his arms wide, indicating the corpses. “What is this?”

Violence wasn't the only thing that Brett and Jade's fathers had in common. The smell of alcohol preceded him by a mile.

A collection of corpses stood amongst the graves, eyes vacant, waiting for direction. I stepped forward, and they all swung their heads to face me.

I pointed a finger at Jade's dad. “Protect us from him.”

He frowned.

“Come here, Jade. You don't need to be hanging out with them losers.”

“No, Daddy. I won't ever come back,” Jade said, but taking a step toward him.

She turned to me and shook her head.

I didn’t let go. “No fucking way, Jade.”

The corpses started to get agitated. One shambled forward, keeping his eyes on Jade's dad, who had begun to inch closer.

The corpses closed in on him, a tidal wave of death to shore.

Oh geez. It was the first one I had raised, the accident, Clyde. Fluke of flukes. In the whole graveyard, I couldn't raise a new corpse? I guessed that raising a zombie more than once wasn't a good thing.

“I have risen again,” Clyde said in his gravelly voice. “For what purpose, necromancer? For what purpose?”

The other zombies, all in various stages of rot, stared at me.

“I'm sorry.” I pointed at Jade’s dad. “This guy is going to put a serious pounding on us, and I need help.”

Her dad said, “A bunch of dead people ain't gonna matter to me, boy! I'm gettin' my girl back, and there ain't shit from shinola you can do about it!”

He lunged forward.

I felt intent form in my mind. I didn't have to say anything. The corpses knew.

We were of one mind, the zombies and I.

Clyde swung his arm in the path of Jade's dad, clotheslining him. LeClerc's progress effectively halted, he turned and waded into the batch of corpses. He threw a punch at Clyde, but all he got for his trouble was some black ooze on his hand.

Clyde slapped his hands on either side of LeClerc's head, boxing the drunk’s ears. Jade’s dad howled and kneed Clyde in the gut. Clyde fell and rolled down the small knoll, just out of sight.

Holy shit.

Jade's dad hissed a sound of fierce triumph and turned to grab his prize, Jade leaning backward in avoidance. The other four corpses took their cue, moving forward as a single unit, laying their collective hands on him.

An awkward dance began. Jade's dad swung at corpses, knocking them down. They would immediately get up again and go for him. Meanwhile, Clyde shambled up the hill, steady and slow, making his way back to the fray.

John asked, “Shouldn't we, like, get outta here? And while we're at it, can you get them, you know, back?”

“Are they going to hurt him?” Jade asked.

I shook my head. “Nah, not unless I tell them to.”

“Hey, dude,” Jonesy said, tilting his head in the direction of the ruckus, “you sure on that? ’Cause they seem kinda enthusiastic.”

One zombie was banging the drunk’s head on the grass.

I called out, “Hey! Quit that! No head-banging.”

The zombie stopped with a dissatisfied grunt.

“Okay, you two,” I said, pointing at John and Jonesy, “get Jade home… fast.”

“What about...?” John gestured at Carson and Brett, who wore identical expressions of fascinated surprise.

I walked over to Carson with the zombie noise part of the background melee.

“Keep an eye on my zombies,” I threw over my shoulder at the Jonester.

Jonesy's eyes became like saucers. “Who me? Have John do it. He's good at that sorta thing.”

John glared at him. “So I've done so much zombie-sitting, right?”

Kinda busy here. “Both of you then, just 'til I'm done talking to these guys.”

Taking Jade’s hand, I walked over to Carson.

I felt better with her next to me.

Carson gave me a smug smile. “Having some trouble with the girlfriend's family?”

Idiot. “No, just handling things Carson. We're even now,” I said.

“How do ya figure?”

“As I see it, people knowing you're a pyro will get you big-time attention you don’t want.”

“That's bullshit, Hart. You're a damn corpse raiser.” He gestured behind at the zombies.

Some unpleasant noises of squishing and muffled howls reached us. Right.

I shook my head, ignoring it. “We all know what you are now. Playing with fire is a pretty important skill, pal, and you're doing a fine job of managing it.”

Brett tugged on Carson’s shirt.

“Let's get outta here. Let him figure his own crap out.”

Carson shrugged. “Yeah, I was done here anyway. Have fun with that,” he said, motioning at the zombie brawl.

“See ya, Hart. Jade.” He blew her a kiss.

“Go guzzle bleach, ya squirrel,” Jade replied.

I laughed.

Carson waved her off and started walking away. After a last glance at the one-sided battle, Brett followed him.

Jade's dad continued to attempt to pry himself out of the mountain of zombies. They would tumble away like bowling pins, then Clyde would straddle him, and it would start all over again.

“Stop,” I said.

The zombies froze. One fell over mid-struggle. Über cool.

Jade's dad lurched unsteadily to his feet, his considerable size a factor on smoothness, along with the booze.

“You,” I said, and the zombies all looked at me. “Not you guys.”

They continued to stare at me with steady devotion. Creepy.

I turned back to Jade's dad. “You better just give up.”

“I ain't givin' up, but I can see when things get challengin',” he slurred.

This guy.

“You have one last chance, girlie. Come with your daddy.” He held his hand out to Jade.

“No,” she said quietly.

“I see how you're gonna be. I'll fight that bitch sister of mine and get my kid back where she belongs—under my roof!” He smacked a meaty fist into a meatier palm. His nose was slightly bulbous, a fine webbing of broken capillaries adorning the end.

“And you!” He jabbed a thick finger right in my chest.

My zombies tensed.

“I won't forget what ya did to me today. You're not normal. This”—he jerked his thumb in the direction of the zombies—“ain't normal. Sometime when you're not lookin', I'll be there... waitin'. And there won't be no help from any of them,” he said, pointing a finger at Team-Rot.

He didn't intimidate me. It wasn't having the zombies around or false bravado. He was a grown man—Dad's age, for God's sake—who had probably been a bully in school, and as an adult, he was a child-beating drunk. I didn't have a drop of respect for him.

“Don't you come near Jade. You don't know what I can do. You're not gonna hurt her... ever.” I gave him a little shove, just hard enough to make him step back.

He gave a furtive look at the group of patient zombies. He wasn't going to take them on again.

His eyes narrowed. “You haven't seen the last of me.” He stared at Jade. “You especially, little lady.” He stumbled off, weaving in a more or less straight line.

Playing with zombies would sober a guy up.

***

That went well.

The only relief was Carson's ability was almost as troubling as mine. He would be looked at as a teach-and-contain for sure.

I turned to Jade. “I gotta get these guys back in the ground.”

She looked up at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

The Js looked horrified. Girl crying! Girl crying!

“What's wrong?” I asked.

A fat tear rode a slow path down her face, and she did one of those hitching breaths that people do when crying might make way to sobbing. “I'm so embarrassed!”

Genuinely confused, I asked, “Why?”

“Because he's my dad, and he's drunk and so stupid.”

Absolutely.

Jade hands covered her face.

I shrugged, gently prying them off. I looked into eyes that swam with fresh tears. “Don't worry about him. He isn't going to do the right thing ever. You worrying about it won't change the way he acts.”

“Can't pick your family,” Jonesy chimed in unhelpfully.

Jade swiped at her face, nodding quickly. “You're right.”

“See? That's what I'm talkin' about.” Jonesy did a dance step to emphasize his point.

Jade's eyes narrowed. “Don't push it.”

John smiled, I laughed and the moment passed.

“Let's get your zombies back in the dirt,” Jade said.

I held out my hand, and she took it in a tight grip. Two things happened at once, the zombies moved to their respective graves, and I felt a low thrum—not voices, but similar to an electrical current.

I gave a mental “flex” and the energy moved through me, swirling. Then it found the thread that couldn't be seen, but was linked to each corpse.

With explosive sighs, the breath slid out of the zombies’ bodies. Clyde lingered longest, wearing an expression that went beyond devotion. Bright intelligence burn in his eyes. I shoved the last of that lingering otherness down to them and thought, Die.

The corpses collapsed on top of their graves as if unconsciousness hit them on the head like a hammer. The earth rolled over them in a blanket of water poured backwards, and they were hidden once again.

Jade released my hand. “That is such a weird sensation. It makes my teeth ache.” She rubbed her hand on her jeans.

The whispering was back but manageable. Feeding the power made it quiet to a dull roar, even in the middle of a cemetery. I realized I'd taken the edge off.

I walked over to Clyde's grave. Something nagged at me, but I didn’t know why. I was having a brain fart. The parents called it teen fog.

“Let's get outta here,” Jonesy said.

Nobody had to ask me twice.

I'd missed supper, a big, bad one in my house. I pulsed my parents on the way back to deflect the wrath of Mom. The three of us got our stories straight before going our separate ways.

I walked Jade to her house then jogged home. Once inside, I went straight to the kitchen and sat at the table, ready to eat. Dad was sitting at the table, and Mom started heating up my supper. I told them we had just been blowing off some steam because of the AP Test coming up and we’d lost track of time. I'd headed off disaster, so I wasn't ready to tell them about all the other stuff.

Dad started explaining again about how I had to have the inhibitor with food.

“Dad, are you worried I’m gonna OD or something?”

Mom set a bowl of chili in front of me. It had the yummy Mexican cheese on top and a huge hunk of cornbread on the side.

“Dad just forgets sometimes that you're such an accomplished pill popper.”

My eyes rolled up to meet hers with the spoon halfway to my open mouth. “How'd that go over with all the other adults? Pill popper? Nice.”

“I guess I'll be serious about it when I have to be. Right now humor is the lesser of two evils.”

“What's the other one?” I asked.

“Anxiety.”

Oh. I hadn't given a lot of thought to my parents being worried. “The cops still cruising by?”

Dad nodded. “Yes. Officers Gale and Ward were just here, as a matter of fact.”

“You know, Caleb,” Mom said, “you would probably do better to refer them as officers rather than cops.”

Total word-Nazi.

I took a big swig of milk and asked Mom for the jalapeños and some honey. She passed the honey, and I turned the bottle upside down. They watched as my cornbread was obscured by a molten mass of goodness.

I put my nose above the bread and took a whiff. Bliss.

Dad asked, “You having some cornbread with that honey, pal?”

I grinned and nodded as I blew on everything pre-shovel.

“Okay, so I want you to get up early for a good breakfast, take the pill, then you can scoot to school. I think I’ll halve the pill, though.”

“Not gonna make me high, Dad?”

“Yes, that's the total idea.” He smiled.

“It's nicely ironic that Caleb doesn't appear to be blessed with a scientific aptitude, but he’s talented nonetheless,” Mom said, A Point Coming.

Dad frowned. “I know how you feel about all this, Ali, that we are all meant to be completely unique so the balance works for the cohesive whole. But human nature is very predictable.”

I swallowed a bite of cornbread. “So you could predict I'd be a zombie raiser?”

Mom corrected, “Cadaver manipulator.”

I rolled my eyes. Whatever.

Dad’s face flushed. “No.” He made a steeple with his fingers. “I certainly didn't anticipate this.”

That made me stop eating.

“What did you think I'd be?”

“Your mother and I had a lot of theories. In the last few years, every parent has waited for the Aptitude Tests or the manifestation of a talent to rear its head. In your case, we didn't need the test.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Mom said. “What if it had been flushed out in the AP Test, then he'd have been whisked away or worse.”

“'Or worse'?”

I resisted the urge to lick my fingers, picked up my napkin instead, and started working over my hands.

“Just look at the Parker boy,” Mom said.

“What about him?” I asked. “I've never heard anything about him.”

“Exactly,” Dad stated.

CHAPTER 19

My parents weren’t thrilled when I unceremoniously stuffed the pill in my front pocket. I told them if anyone got the lame idea of checking our backpacks, they wouldn't find the pill. It made sense.

Mom huffed, and Dad mumbled something about my constitutional rights.

I was on my sixth pancake, having already plowed through half a pound of bacon.

Mom grimaced.

“Caleb, stop shoveling your food.”

“Mom! Come have a pancake and stop panicking about etiquette.” I took a swig of milk and the whole load slid down the pipe.

She rolled her eyes. It might have been impressive, but I'd seen Tiff Weller do it. No one could compete.

I shoveled in my last bite. “Thanks for the breakfast, Mom.”

My hair fell into my eyes, so I whipped my head back.

Mom looked at me and my hair then back to my plate. She gave a big sigh and turned around to put the next batch of pancakes on a plate.

“Ah... hon?” Dad called.

“I think I want something lighter.” He patted his belly which was barely over the belt.

I said, “I'll suck those up, Mom.”

“Are you sure? You've had six already.”

“Yeah, Mom, still hungry.” I stood and jerked up my shirt, displaying my flat stomach and ribs.

Dad laughed. “Wow! Doing some dieting?”

“No, doing some growing, I think,” Mom said, looking at me critically.

After I ate the next batch of pancakes, I put my dishes in the sink. Mom came over and gave me a hug, which I ducked out of as soon as I could without hurting her feelings. Mom was cool but no touchy.

Dad gave me a hard clap on the shoulder. “Do you remember the protocol for the pill taking?”

“Yes,” I told him. “I figured forty times is enough reminders for the next hundred years.”

“I didn't remind you that many times, Caleb.”

Mom and I guffawed.

Dad threw up his hands. “Okay, okay, I surrender. I guess I mentioned it a few times.” When we laughed again, he added, “Ah... more than a few times.”

I walked to the door, throwing on my backpack and headed outside. A drizzle settled over me, and I was instantly wet, freaky weather. I drug myself to school.

My thoughts crowded inside my head like cobwebs. The Js and Jade were gonna meet at my locker, and then we had alphabetical buildings for the testing.

I ripped open the door and entered the foyer. I used my foot to prop the door open so a girl could slide through. Her hoodie obscured her face . She let it slam behind her with a satisfying clatter.

She flipped her hood back. “Hey, Hart,” Tiff said. “Done any playing in the graveyard sandbox lately?”

I grinned. A light bruise lay beneath one eye. I wondered how she'd explained that to her parents.

She read my face and said, “They don't know.”

“Who?”

“My parents, bright one.”

I looked around while kids surged back and forth, the constant noise of their talking in the background.

I leaned closer to her. “Are you nervous?”

“Hell, yeah. I don't want any attention for this. Maybe I'll just hit a couple of points. I'll get noticed but not noticed, if ya know what I mean.”

I did.

“I was thinking about what happened. It’s damn good that we're not testing in the same building. Since we're like... ” She frowned.

“An old radio?” I supplied.

“Somethin' like that. Whatever it is, I don't want to pop some false-positive crap. Ya know, hit as an all-five just because you're in the room.” Her eyes narrowed. “Ya know, Hart, you're okay... for a boy.”

I frowned at her backwards compliment. “Thanks... I guess.”

She looked around furtively then whispered, “But just because we're both AFTD doesn't mean we have to be in the same frying pan.”

She straightened and started to turn away.

“Wait. Can I count on you?”

“Well, yeah. I just meant that I don't want to be corralled in some creepy place because of getting sucked into your undead drama.”

Tell me how you really feel.

Aloud I said, “Gotcha.”

“See ya later and good luck.” She flipped her hood back, skulking into the crowd.

I'd been so into my conversation I'd missed everyone standing by my locker. Three faces peered at me through the mess of kids. John had his usual expression of silent mode, and weather had stirred his shock of orange hair into a tornado. Jonesy was smiling.

Jade made my breath catch in my throat like an errant bubble. She wore coal-black jeans and All Stars with laces as black as the jeans. A brilliant green camisole stole all attention inside the V-neck of a tight black T-shirt that ended at the swell of her hips. She gave a subtle flick of her head, and her hair swept away over one shoulder.

I realized I had stopped moving forward. With a low chuckle, I resumed my progress across the commons. Jade's smile seemed just for me.

We shuffled around nervously. The test meant a lot to all of us. So far, I was the only one who had the big guns. Well, Carson could burn the place down, but he didn't have any cool drugs that would buy him time. He was going away to the same school as all paranormals.

An evil idea began to take shape in my mind.

Jonesy picked up on it immediately. “You've thought of something cool.” Leave it to him to scope the potential for trouble.

“Yeah. Here we were hoping to distract the dorks from making trouble for me, but Carson has his own.”

John stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Let's play it cool today,” he said, looking at Jonesy.

Jonesy glared at him.

“Let's try not to make a ruckus,” John clarified.

“A fracas,” Jade added.

Jonesy appeared deeply confused.

“What they mean is, don't blurt out anything in the middle of testing to get us in trouble,” I said.

“Well, hell no.” Jonesy put a hand to his chest, offended. “I wouldn't do that.” His eyebrows dumped above his eyes. “Thanks for the faith, ya wankers.”

We all did eye-rolls. Yeah, that was so going to happen; Jonesy not talking out of turn. Jonesy following along and playing well with others.

Jonesy having a filter.

Jade said, “You're a great guy, Jones, but I have noticed that you aren't always self-aware.”

After a short staring contest, Jonesy slumped. “Okay, I guess I'll try to concentrate on the test.”

“Well that's the concept,” John said.

The principal walked out into the commons, manually ringing the class bell. Suddenly, my awesome bacon and pancake breakfast sat like a cold lump in my belly, waiting for expulsion.

Jade held out her, hand and I took it. The Js glanced over at me nervously.

Principal Avers began in his monotonous voice saying, “People, listen closely to your building assignments. All pulse accessories are not allowed in the testing facilities. There will be mandatory breaks every fifty minutes.”

He droned on about some other unimportant stuff. I tuned him out as I played on my pulse. Then, I started listening when he got to building assignments.

“Last names beginning in A through H will test in Building Alpha. Last names beginning in I through P will test in Building Bravo. Names beginning in Q through Z will test in Building Charlie.”

I did some mental sorting: Jade, Sophie, and Jonesy in Bravo, along with Brett. I would be with Carson in Alpha, while John and Tiff were in Charlie.

My eyes met John's over Jade's head. He was thinking the same thing I was; Carson with me and Brett with the girls. Sucky.

Principal Avers added, “Disperse to your respective buildings. You have five minutes. Line up outside the doors to be scanned.”

Pretending to cough into my hand, I jammed the pill in my mouth and dry swallowed it.

I turned to Jonesy. “Can you sit next to the girls?”

He nodded, serious for once. “Yeah, I know Brett's in there.”

“I think it'll be okay, but he's riding on the edge. I don't know what'll set him off.”

He nodded and walked toward Bravo.

Jade pressed her lips to my cheek. The sensation was like butterfly wings on my skin. The school had a rule against PDA, but she had chanced it anyway. I smiled down at her, squeezing her hand as her fingers slid slowly out of mine. I watched her walk away, Sophie flanking her out of nowhere.

John came up beside me. “She'll be okay.”

That was one of those lies I let John tell. An untruth of comfort. Nothing was going to be okay.

“Good luck.”

“You too,” I replied and walked over to the scanning line.

***

The slim paddle hovered behind my ear for about two seconds, then the school nurse said, “Hart, cleared.”

I was definitely feeling high or something. I'd never been high, but I would have bet the feeling was similar to what I was experiencing. I could wait until I turned twenty-one and jump into any of the drug bars and have at it. But, having a scientist for a father was an advantage. Dad had outlined drug use and consequence. It hadn't sounded that hot.

I had a fuzzy warm feeling as if covered by a blanket of tranquility. The whispers from the dead were even down to a manageable roar. The near-silence of the dead meant I was floating on the cerebral pond.

I slumped into my assigned seat.

My floating cloud of warmth was momentarily interrupted when the AP Test supervisor and two assistants began handing out pulse-pads. They had the same thickness as my pulse-phones, but the dimensions were more like Mom's old-fashioned paperback books.

I stared at mine—just a blank screen with a thumb pad. My head was filled with cotton.

The testing supervisor instructed, “Please press your thumb on the pad and think your identity and pertinent information. You have eight seconds. Begin.”

I did as instructed.

Caleb Hart, Age 14, Kent Middle School, King County, Washington.

Confirmed.

When I looked up, I spotted Carson. He was already staring at me. After making sure none of the adults were watching, he gave me the middle finger salute. Consistent as usual.

He was such a moron. But a powerful one. He'd spend the next four years in a fire-proofed classroom. I smiled at the thought.

The instructor spoke again. “You'll be asked a series of questions. All answers will be confirmed as valid. There is obviously no way to cheat.”

I was overwhelmed with an insane urge to laugh. I bit my cheek to hold it in. I had a small problem with laughing at inappropriate times.

Like now.

“All areas of aptitude will be identified. Make your best effort to give concise answers. Keep your thought processes clear of extraneous thinking.”

Translation: don't think about anything fun or what you'd rather be doing.

“One more thing, there will be control questions inserted that must be answered even if they seem to be unrelated to the main body of testing. You may begin.”

I dug into the test questions, thinking my responses. I felt decidedly dull, but I was able to answer okay. The upside of the pill was a no-show of nervousness. I let the calm wash over me.

Math and science completed, I began the verbal section. A few question in, I came to an odd one.

How do you feel about things that have died?

That was a control for sure.

I had an instant stab of dread, but I had to answer. I thought, Good.

The moment I answered, the buzzing voices in my head became louder, even breaking through my drug-induced haze.

The instructor came to my desk.

Great.

“We need you to change buildings.”

I replied carefully, drug befuddled, “But this is the building for my name.”

A condescending smile appeared on her face. “We're aware, but some of your responses have alerted us.” She paused, seeming to contemplate something. “The remainder of your testing will be administered at an alternate location.”

Carson and about ten other kids were herded by assistants who must have leaked out of walls, because the original two were on the other side of the room. The other kids were staring at them and at me.

Oh joy.

The instructor raised her voice to address the class. “Please continue with your test. This interruption will be as brief as possible. Your first break will be in,” she glanced at the pulse clock, which counted backwards, “five minutes.”

I stood unsteadily, feeling woozy, and she gave me a penetrating look. I tried to appear more alert as I headed for the group on their way out the door.

We were ushered back into the commons, pulse-pads in hand. There was another head honcho guy out there, and through my semi-drug fog, I spotted two other instructors—one from Bravo and one from Charlie—along with a bunch of assistants.

The head honcho guy waved at my group. “This group will be escorted to Delta.”

Delta? That hadn't been part of Avers' instructions.

We followed one of the instructors, the assistants flanking us. Scanning the area, I saw Tiff and John. I assumed that I had pinged paranormal and that was why I was getting moved to another room, but that didn’t explain what John was doing there. He looked over at me and shrugged.

I searched for Jade. When I spotted her, she smiled at me, and a tight spot in my chest loosened. I also saw Sophie, but Brett and Jonesy weren't there. I didn't really know Sophie, but figured she was okay because Jade dug her.

We walked through Delta's doors and settled into our new seats.

We were arranged alphabetically. Only one kid separated Carson and me—Alex of the bad piano playing. We gave each other the guy-nod.

Head Honcho went to the front of the room. “I am the instructor for this building. You have all been moved here because your responses indicate paranormal aptitude. We will resume your testing in”—he looked at the pulse clock—“approximately three minutes.”

Another inappropriate urge to laugh came over me, and I bit the inside of my cheek until the copper taste of blood squelched it. I ducked my head, my hair sliding into my eyes. My cheek hurt like hell.

A skeletal guy was leaning against a kid-sized desk angled into the corner, drumming his long, tapered fingers against its edge. His face was all dark planes with a complexion to match. His fingers were stained nicotine yellow. He had to be rich since he was obviously a smoker.

Head Honcho went over to Smoker and had a whispered conversation, his fingers nervously running the length of his tie. At one point, they both looked out at the classroom and seemed to stare straight at me. Their focus could have been on Carson or Alex, but somehow, I knew it was me. AFTD was so rare that I'd be the star of this little show.

A chime sounded. Gaunt-man lounged in his corner and Head Honcho worked over his tie one more time before moving back to the front.

“You've answered a satisfactory amount of academic questions, and we have a strong idea of where each of you fall in these categories. This building is being utilized to further gauge your individual potential.

“You will have a series of control questions interspersed with academic questions. These questions are tailored to your individual gifts. Every year, we have been surprised by a new ability, sub-ability, or one not easily quantified.”

“You may begin.”

I pressed my thumb to my pulse pad.

Useless question after question appeared. Most seemed standard but a few were funny, like:

<How do you feel about your parents/guardians?>

I answered, <They’re all right.>

How dumb was that. What were you supposed to say?

They need the tomahawk?

This was a control question. I bet they had people in windowless rooms without food thinking this crap up.

Another laughable one was:

<What are your thoughts about persons of authority?>

Real answer: they suck, of course.

Even in my semi-stupor, I realized that I had to play along but not be too obvious about it. Until recently, I could have answered pretty honestly. But lately, I didn't feel all adults could be trusted.

Finally, I answered, Some are trustworthy.

The pulse chimed for lunch. I pressed my thumb to the screen, and my answer floated away to be cataloged, for better or worse.

***

I was wrong, lunch wasn't served in the testing rooms, it was in the cafeteria, like usual. At every door stood what I thought of as Formula People. They all wore the same ties and suits or skirts and sensible shoes.

My friends and I, plus Sophie, snagged one of the coveted round tables along the wall. The seats were the best because I could see everyone when we talked and keep things private. The noisier the better.

I spotted Carson sitting with Brett and some other standard loser plug-ins a couple of tables away.

Jonesy unraveled his gigantic lunch. His lunchbox was kind of like Dad's: a huge rectangular tin thing with a flat bottom. It had been red once but had faded to a dull rust color.

First, the thermos came out with what I was sure was a quart of milk, then two sandwiches bursting with lunch meat appeared. He had a bag of Funyuns, which made breath reek like ass but tasted strangely good. Dessert was a fat brownie full of disgusting walnuts.

The girls watched this process with various degrees of disgust. They had about the same lunch stuff as each other. Jade pulled out a small recyclable container that had some disgusting salad thing with tiny chunks of chicken. I grabbed her spork and did a full search for anything substantial. Nothing. Sophie had a noodle-salad casserole that smelled like rotting mayonnaise.

John said, “Jonesy, look at what the girls eat. Maybe you could get a clue.” I knew he was yanking Jonesy's chain.

Jonesy huffed, unimpressed. “I wouldn't eat that stuff if someone put a gun to my head.”

Jade sniffed. “Well, you go ahead and eat three meals in one. Sophie and I will eat healthy.”

John looked down at his lunch, which mimicked Jonesy's but with an awesome chocolate chip cookie instead of the disgusting nut-brownie—and shrugged.

I laughed, and we all started eating.

Between bites I asked John, “So what gives? You hit the radar as something ’cause you're in our building.”

We looked expectantly at John.

A slow flush crept up his face, he wasn't used to the attention, but he rallied. “I don't know. I thought there was a bunch of control questions, but there wasn't anything I thought was paranormal.”

Our heads swiveled to Sophie, who had just shoveled a bite into her mouth, a small lump protruding from her cheek. We waited until she swallowed.

“What?” she asked.

“Well, what about you?” I inquired.

She shrugged. “I guess I have some astral projection.”

“Some?” Jade said.

Sophie glanced down, her tight curls cascading forward, almost brushing the nasty casserole.

“Maybe a little more than some,” she mumbled.

Leaning forward, Jade cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered something to Sophie.

Sophie looked around nervously then settled her gaze on Jonesy.

“You can't tell anyone,” she directed, looking pointedly at Jonesy.

“I'm not going to say anything!” he nearly shrieked.

We all gave a big sigh.

Jonesy leaned forward. “So barf it out. If it's not so juicy you think I'll blab.” He grinned, popped another Funyun in his mouth, and crossed his arms across his chest.

Sophie gave him a sharp look. “So it's like this. About a month ago, I started dreaming I was traveling to all these places, far away places, like Europe. Remember in history class, when a bunch of us came in with the CE about the assassination?”

John nodded. “I did my current event on that president.”

“The French one?” Jade asked.

“The prime minister,” Sophie corrected, sounding exasperated.

“Right, prime minister. My bad,” John said, looking embarrassed. He of the perfect GPA had made a mistake. Unheard of.

I put my hand over my mouth to hide my grin.

Sophie looked smug.

John's pale complexion flamed to life again. Being a known brain-iac only to be shown up by Sophie, a girl no less!

“Anyway,” Sophie waved the awkward moment away with a hand, “I was there,” she said in a low voice.

Jonesy leaned forward. “You mean... there, there? Like, as in, astral projection there?”

Sophie nodded.

“Well... damn, girl, no wonder you aced that CE! Cheater!” Jonesy said.

John said slowly, “But they don't know who did it.”

Jonesy yelled, “Do you?”

“Sh, Jonesy... God!” Jade said.

“Chillax, nobody heard.” Jonesy leaned back in his seat. The bigness of situations didn't impact the Jonester.

“We need to be circumspect,” Sophie said.

At our confused looks, she added,

“Thoughtful and deliberate,” Sophie expounded.

“More big-boy words for you, Jonesy,” I said.

“Can it, Hart,” Jonesy growled. “You didn't know what it meant either.”

He had me there.

“Off topic, guys,” John said. “So... you know who did it, Sophie?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “But that's not important. It's what happened after.”

John palmed his chin, then finally shook his head. “I remember that the guy signed some important document.” .

Sophie nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, you're getting warmer. You remember all the adults were raging about how that document would 'change the face of France'?”

I remembered my parents talking about it. I wasn't listening though. It fell under Not being Informed. “Yeah, so?”

“He didn't actually sign it. Well, he did, and he didn't.”

“Oh, Sophie!” Jade said. “Just tell them, or I will.”

Sophie glared at Jade. “He was dead when he signed it. Dead.” She leaned back in her chair triumphantly and stabbed a helpless curlicue noodle with her fork. She popped it into her mouth and chewed slowly while we all sat, mouths agape, digesting this latest disaster.

“Parker,” I said.

Swallowing, she pointed her fork at me. “Bingo.”

John said, “So if I’m following this, after the assassination, the prime minister was raised by Parker, who directed him to sign the document.”

“What? Did the dude die twice?” Jonesy asked.

Jade sighed. “No. Listen, there was an assassination. But the bad guys made it look like he lived. The prime minister signed the thing as a zombie, then they made it look like he didn't make it after all.”

Jonesy nodded. “Oh. Well, I did my CE on some Greenpeace thing.”

No wonder he didn't have a clue.

“Gah!” Sophie said, disgusted with the general ignorance that was Jonesy.

“Everybody knows I don't dig that civic crap.”

“What-ev-er! It was kinda important,” Jade said.

Jonesy shrugged, completely unconcerned.

“The bottom line: Parker changed history,” I said.

We were all quiet at that revelation.

“You're in deep shit,” Jonesy told me.

“Ya think?” I replied.

Jonesy bobbed his head. “I do.”

Sophie said, “Listen, I'm a witness to the whole thing. What do you think about that? Imagine the trouble I'd be in if they knew that I knew.”

“We need some kind of plan, an objective,” John said.

“A what?” Jonesy asked.

John just looked at him; we did a lot of that.

“Listen, have any of you freaks o’ nature considered that the Jones man here doesn't have any cool powers?”

He was a mundane in a pond of paranormals.

John ducked his head. “You're right. I'll try to be more patient. After all, you get stuff done.”

“Yeah! Damn straight! I'm accomplished. I'm legitimate. I'm—”

“Okay, Jonesy, we know your importance,” Sophie said.

“Listen,” I said. “Let's not get distracted. We've got”—I glanced at the pulse clock—“less than three minutes to formulate a plan. And let me just restate the obvious: we still don't know what the blue hell John is.”

“That's true, Caleb,” John said. “But we have bigger problems, like Carson and Brett, and getting through this test.”

“Well, I want to meet somewhere and figure it out,” Sophie said.

“Where?” Jade asked, glancing at the clock again.

Jonesy let a slow grin spread over his face.

I started to shake my head. “No-oh, don't you even think it.”

Jade added, “No way, Jonesy.”

“Yes way, sista!”

“Oh crap,” John moaned, doing a face-palm.

“What?” Sophie asked, confused. She hadn't been fully looped yet.

“The Cemetery!” Jonesy clapped his hands together gleefully, barely containing his joy.

A glimmer of hope sparkled in my mind's eye, wrapping a fist around it. I held it tight like the world depended on it.

Maybe it did.

CHAPTER 20

The testing wrapped at the end of school. That was a good thing because after lunch, I could feel my brain sharpening. I could only hope that the drug's effect had lasted long enough.

As we filed out of Delta, we were scanned again for dismissal. Our pulse pads were scanned as well. The committee of “they” would know what our collective aptitudes were, paranormal or otherwise and there'd be no mystery about each other's powers. The results would set what school we'd be at for the next four years.

No pressure.

I grabbed my backpack out of my locker, noticing that it was not in the place that I'd left it. I looked around but didn’t see anyone suspicious, like the Formula-people.

They were top on my list of suspects. Lurking around doorways and such, not doing much of anything. Didn't like it.

Jade strolled up, looking dark and mysterious.

Hotness.

“Hi.”

I smiled, smitten as usual. Then I had a thought.

“Before we go, would you.. um… do a feelie on my locker?”

“A what?”

“Ya know, touch my locker and see who's been in it.”

Jade put her hands on her hips and got that look.

I pointed at the double hook on the left side. “I always hang my backpack here, and I hang my cap on the right.”

“Which you never wear,” she noted.

“True, but my mom makes me take it to school in case I get cold.”

“You never get cold.”

“Right, but my mom feels better about it. And when she asks, I can say it's in my locker just in case.”

“Okay?”

“Anyways, when I came back from the AP testing, the backpack was on the right and the cap on the left.”

That cute little frown between her eyes made an appearance. She was thinking it through, no cluttering up the moment with chatter. I loved that. She reached out and touched the hook, wrapping her delicately built fingers around the cool metal.

I had a moment when I didn't think anything would happen, then her body stiffened, and her eyes glazed over . Her eyelids fluttered, and she started to sway. I caught her before she fell.

“I think I'm gonna be sick,” she said.

Like... right here?

The Js charged up out of nowhere.

“What's wrong with Jade?” John asked.

I shook my head. “I don't know. Jonesy, get my water out of my backpack.”

John grabbed a chair from one of the commons tables and put it next to Jade. I carefully lowered her down on the seat.

“Jade, can you hear me?” John asked.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Put your head between your knees.”

Jade did it. Jonesy hopped from one foot to the other, holding the water bottle.

John put his hand on Jade's back.

“What's going on, Caleb?”

“I don't know. I had her do the whammy on my locker because someone's been messin' around in there, and she had like, I don't know, a moment or something and got all dizzy.”

“The whammy?” Jonesy asked.

John answered, “She used her empath powers to find out who infiltrated Caleb's locker.”

Jonesy asked, “Someone rippin' off your crap?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing's missing, but someone was in here.”

“But... it's a pulse lock.”

Jade began to raise her head. Jonesy gave her the water. She took it and raised the bottle to her lips.

“Just sip that, Jade,” John said. He turned to me.

“That means a manual bypass.”

Jonesy smiled. “Bringin' up that civic crap again. That bores me 'til I weep, dude.”

“How do you figure?” I asked.

Jonesy shrugged. “Because who’s gonna be able to bypass a pulse lock unless they're government?”

“Not bad, Jonesy, not bad at all,” John said.

Jade looked scared.

“He's right. They're total posers.”

“Who are posers, Jade?” John asked.

“The Formula People,” she replied.

I sucked in a big breath. That was the name I had given those people in my head.

Jade looked at me. “I know what you thought, Caleb. You touched the hook, too.”

“How can you tell it's me and not them thinking?”

Jade did a huge eye roll. She was definitely feeling better.

She lowered her voice and asked, “How do you know one zombie from another?”

Well, that was easy. They just felt different. It was like hearing a voice; no two were alike.

Some of what I thought must have shown on my face because she said, “See? It's like that.”

“So it's like a signature?” John asked.

She shrugged. “I guess. It's hard to explain this stuff to someone that doesn't do it.”

I noticed the death volume wasn't loud and mentioned that. The drug was definitely flushed out of my system.

“It's kinda random now anyway, right?” Jonesy asked.

I thought about it. Sometimes the voices were loud, other times hardly there. I couldn't figure out why they came and went.

“Who was it, Jade?” I asked.

“I don't know who they are, but I know what they are. They're government all right, just not the government that we know about. They're like a subdivision of a subdivision.”

That sounded bad. I thought of my ransacked house, where nothing had been stolen but everything had been touched or moved.

“Let's split. I don't want to talk about this here,” John said, looking around.

Good idea. We gathered our crap up and started to walk away.

“Wait,” Jade said.

I turned toward her. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Getting there. Let me go find Sophie first.”

Jonesy made a face. Uh-oh. Jade put her hands back on her hips and marched over to Jonesy.

“You got a problem with Sophie?” she demanded, her expression fierce.

“No, no problem,” Jonesy sputtered, caving.

“You looked like you had one.”

“It's just… we used to be an all-guy thing, and now... well, we may be getting too many hens in the chicken coop.”

“Oh, please! You bunch of roosters need all the help you can get. Be grateful!”

She pivoted on her heel and went off in search of Sophie.

“We’ll meet you outside,” I called after her.

We watched her stalk off.

“You handled that well, Jonester,” John said.

“Yeah,” he said glumly.

“Maybe next time just let the girls come,” I said.

Jonesy scowled.

“This mundane thing blows goats. And the girls are taking over the world.”

“Not yet,” I said, winking.

We walked out to the school parking lot, where cars swarmed everywhere. We hiked over to a small grassy knoll. I threw my backpack behind my head and laid down. Jonesy and John flanked me.

John said, “We have to find out what these...”

“Formula People,” I supplied.

“Yeah, them. What they really want from you,” John said.

“They're just rooting around, hoping to come up with something,” I said.

“Good thing you didn't put that pill bottle in your backpack,” Jonesy said.

Two shadows fell over us. I shielded my eyes with my palm and sat up on my elbows.

“Let's go,” Sophie said.

“I’m not going to the cemetery,” I said.

“Oh, come on, Hart! You can clean house if anyone shows up!” Jonesy sat up and pantomimed punching.

“I don't want to. Every time I go to the cemetery, a bunch of crap rains down on our heads. No!”

“What could happen?” Sophie asked.

We stared at her. She laughed. “It's that bad?”

“Yeah,” we said in unison.

“But it is the safest place, the most private,” Jade reasoned.

I thought about it, wavering. There really wasn't a very good alternative. “Okay, everybody pulse the parental authority, get the go ahead, and let's book to the graveyard.”

“Wait,” John said. “Let's have a look-out. We don't want to be followed.”

“Brilliant. I'll do it,” Sophie said.

I nodded and we dug out our pulses, getting the parents handled.

I put my hand on Jade's shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Aunt Andrea says I need to go home and check in.”

John said, “I don't like it.”

That made two of us.

“Not normal, Jade.”

“I know, right?”

“You don't think it's your crazy-ass dad, do ya?” Jonesy asked delicately.

I glared at him.

Jade saw and said, “It's okay. My dad is crazier than a shit-house rat.”

Sophie barked a very un-girl-like laugh.

“Where did you get that one?”

“Andrea.”

“I guess she's good for something.”

“Sophie, she really tries. They were raised in the same family, ya know.”

“I know.” Sophie put her hand on Jade’s other shoulder.

So we both had our hands on our girl. Sophie's eyes met mine. Jade was fragile, and we loved her. A fierce grip of possession blossomed in me, and I felt a new focus for my life.

Jade gave us that radiant smile reserved for me and her best friend. I'd take that.

CHAPTER 21

As I got closer to the graveyard, the voices grew louder. Jade and I led the way with Sophie slightly behind us and the Js pulling up the rear.

Holding hands, Jade and I swept under the arch of scrolling metal. With her touching me, I was tuned to the frequency of the dead.

John trotted up to us, and the whispering dimmed. “So where do you want to go?”

I tilted my head to the right. “Let's head over to Clyde's grave.”

“Clyde?” Jade asked.

“Yeah, he's by far my favorite corpse.”

Jade laughed. “Ah... okay, whatever you say.”

“I've never seen the fun, so I'll assume being in the cemetery is kinda risky,” Sophie said.

Jonesy caught up with us. “Hell yeah! That's the full throttle of hanging out with us! It's the way we roll,” Jonesy said, folding his arms across a muscular chest.

Sophie looked at him.“Well, good for you,” she snarked, turning to Jade, eyebrows shooting up. Gee, how did we ever live without them?

I figured Sophie had about five and a half minutes before she succumbed to Jonesy's charms.

The Js did a high five to cement the moment and I grinned. The friends were it, they just flat were. Sophie gave them a look, knowing her presence was not going to change our supreme maleness.

We made our way to ol' twice-raised Clyde’s grave.

We plopped down in a semi-circle around it. The thrumming of the dead sounded very low in the background. I couldn't make sense of that. They should have been shrieking with me being in the cemetery. Jade was on my left, John on my right. Jonesy and Sophie had an unspoken truce, and sat together. Jonesy had his legs splayed out in front of him with his elbows locked behind him and Sophie sat legs crossed, elbows on knees and palms holding her chin.

“Okay, we're here. Now what?” Sophie asked.

“I want to talk more about the testing,” I said.

Jonesy frowned. “What's to talk about? I mean, I'm a mundane, you guys have the juice, end of discussion.”

I wondered if he was jealous. That he wasn’t paranormal didn't matter to me. Jonesy was always gonna be Jonesy. It just was.

John looked at him. “Remember, you get things done.”

“Yeah, I'm feeling that,” Jonesy said.

I chuckled. “I don't wanna take you guys away from your love fest or anything, but I want Jade to let us in on this spy crap.”

Jade laughed. “It's more like a government within our government.”

I nodded. “Okay, we've got that. What's their objective?”

Silence.

“You know, what's their goal?” John clarified.

John is gonna be my dad when he grew up.

“What I felt was they're trying to identify kids who have rare paranormal abilities and are also powerful.”

“Why were they looking in my locker?” I asked.

She looked down at her hands. “They suspect you.”

“Why?”

“The dog. Garcia saw what you did with the dog.”

I pointed at Sophie. “You're sworn to secrecy.”

She shrugged. “Ah... okay.”

“But I didn't raise the dog,” I said. “The dog wasn't dead yet.”

“Come on, Caleb,” John said. “That's what my parents call splitting hairs. That's like a girl saying she’s almost pregnant.”

Sophie and Jade laughed.

I conceded that point.

“Okay, so I did some AFTD crap, and he saw it.”

Jade added, “I felt that they have fingers of their group within the police department.”

“Haven't we figured out that Garcia is dirty?” Jonesy asked.

I wasn't absolutely sure, but the idea was circling the drain of possibility.

“Who was that cop that showed up when you raised Granny?” John asked.

“His name was McGraw.”

“Yeah, him. You said he pulled some scary shit.”

I nodded. “He gave us a little elemental show.”

“Didn't he cause, what, a mini-tornado?” Jonesy asked.

“Not really. It was more like we were all in the eye of a storm. It was an intimidation thing. And he's Garcia's partner. Two plus two equals four, I guess, pal.”

Sophie shook her head, ringlets bouncing. “Whatever. We have bad cops and adults lurking around and looking for ways to force us to do their dirty work. All good news! What's the plan?”

“One thing is obvious,” John said. “They all know what we are. In Caleb's case, they don't know how much he is, but that's a matter of time. Too many people know that he can corpse raise. Even Jade's dad knows!

“He won't say anything,” I said with conviction. First, he'd look bad, and second, he would have to explain why he was there and what happened.”

Jade nodded. “Caleb's right. My dad doesn't like to look bad. He wants to be right all the time.”

I hugged her, stuffing her face in my neck and thanking God I'd worn cologne. “It's okay. He's not gonna hurt you, ever.”

She pulled away, tears shimmering like diamonds on her lower lashes.

The Js turned their heads, obviously uncomfortable.

Sophie sighed then said, “We still haven't figured out a plan.”

“I've been thinking,” Jonesy said.

We all groaned. A typical Jonesy plan included us all getting our asses in a sling.

He held up a hand. “Hear me out. I think we need a hideout.”

Cool! That's just what we needed.

“A safe house,” John said.

Jonesy looked at John. “That's what I said.”

Sophie added, “I think we need a labor force.”

“What do you mean?” Jade asked.

“Caleb, you can raise the dead, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Slaves,” John breathed.

Sophie grinned. “Yep.”

“Isn't this one of those moral things adults are always blabbing about?” Jade asked.

I stared at Sophie.

“You want me to raise zombies to… what? Work on a hideout?”

“Safe house,” John corrected.

“Whatever!” I yelled.

The whole idea was wrong on about a hundred different levels. Yet, it did have a practical feel to it.

Sophie asked, “Do you not see the logic, Caleb?”

I did.

“But I haven't really tried to raise anyone. This would be really, really...” She didn’t need to know about Gran.

“Premeditated,” John said.

“CSI,” John expounded.

“The crime show, what, in their twentieth season?”

“Yeah, they use walkers now!” Jade said.

“Okay,” Sophie made the cut-the-neck gesture with her finger, “focus, guys.”

They looked at her, shrugging.

She directed her attention back to me. “I'm just saying, if you could, like, raise two or three zombies. Then make them construct a…”

“A secret place,” Jonesy said. “Maybe underground?”

That actually sounded pretty cool, in theory anyway.

“I don't know,” Jade said. “Is it wrong to make them work for us, like slaves?”

Those words hung in the air, sitting there.

John said, “I don't think so. I mean, we need a place to go. We don't know if Caleb is going to have to go into hiding.” He looked at me. “You never know, Caleb. Also, there are the dumb-asses at school, this government agency, and the random parent who shows up and freaks. No offense, Jade.”

Her shoulders lifted. “It's okay.”

“John and Sophie are right, Caleb,” Jonesy said. “We need a place they'd never think to look.”

Jade said, “Hey, what about the city dump? That’s where I went when my dad got... bad.”

I held her a little tighter. I was starting to hate her dad.

“I like it,” Jonesy said.

“How far is it from here?” Sophie asked.

I remembered that Sophie didn't know Kent very well. She hadn't always lived here like the rest of us. We knew the town like the backs of our hands.

“It's walkable,” John said.

Jonesy hopped up, brushing the grass off his butt. “Let's do this!”

The rest of us stood. I noticed again the voices were hardly more than a murmur. Weird. I told the others.

“Shouldn't they be almost screaming?” Jonesy asked, twirling around. “Right in the damn middle of corpseville?”

“Yes, they definitely should be.” John stared at me; I stared back.

The girls said, “What?” at the same time.

Everything suddenly fell into place. I knew what John was.

Psychic null.

All abilities were negated when he was around. That was why I couldn't hear the voices!

John grinned so hugely I thought he'd push the freckles right off his face.

“What gives?” Jonesy asked.

“I cancel everyone's powers,” John said, pride creeping into his voice.

“You're a null?” Sophie asked.

“What?” Jonesy shrieked. “How does that help us?”

“In a word... Carson,” Jade replied.

“And everyone else,” I added.

Jonesy's face took on a life of its own. “Fantastic! That blows their juice all to hell!” He clapped his hands.

“Try to raise a corpse, Caleb!”

“Right now? That wasn't really the plan.”

“We've gotta see!” Jonesy shouted.

“Sh!” Sophie said.

“Right, sorry,” he said, chastised for three seconds.

Jonesy said in a normal voice (translation: still loud), “Try it.”

John said, “I don't know. Whenever you say, ‘I wanna see,’ or ‘I wanna do it,’ something bad happens.”

John was right, but I wanted answers. “Knowledge is power,” Gramps always said.

“Jonesy is a little enthusiastic with experimentation. But it would be good to know for sure.”

“Remember the last time he wanted to see something?” John asked.

Yeah, that hadn't worked out so great. The whole Carson-pulling-a-can-of-fire-whoop-ass thing had backfired on all of us.

“Caleb’s right, though,” Jade said. “We need to know for sure. Let's try it.”

How could I say no when my girlfriend was willing to be brave.

Ah, hell. Okay. “Alright,” I said out loud.

John came over and stood beside me. “Okay. I'm ready.”

“How does this work?” I asked. “I mean, do you know?”

John shook his head. “Not really. We just put it together that I may be a null. We still don't know for sure. But it would explain some stuff.”

Once I thought about it, all the times the voices had been bearable were during the five classes we had together.

John shook his head. “I don't think I've had it long.”

Would've been sweet to miss the whole frog dissection catastrophe.

“Okay,” Sophie said, pointing, “you two just stand where you are. Caleb, you let your stuff go, and we'll see if something happens. And if it doesn't, we'll know.”

“Wait a sec,” Jade said. “Shouldn't we see how far away John has to be before Caleb can use his powers again?” Good point.

I faced Clyde's grave. John stood beside me, and his nervousness floated around me, settling uncomfortably on my shoulders. I sighed, breathing out deeply, trying to relax.

The fist that was my power loosened inside my body. The fingers lengthened until they became tendrils, a ghostly octopus reaching out to the ground, stroking the grave.

Then, without warning, they choked up like vomit up a throat. It was as if a steel wall, high and impenetrable was erected. The fingers swirled, looking for a small hole, any opening, a way to invade. There was nothing.

I looked up at my best friend, who was grinning as if he’d won the lottery.

Putz.

Jonesy rubbed his hands together. “Now that's what we're talkin' about!”

“Move a couple of feet away,” Sophie told John.

He did as she asked. I took a step away from him and realized I was standing on top of Clyde's grave.

“That's not right,” Jade said, looking ill.

“Quiet,” Jonesy said. “Please,” he added at my glare.

When John and I were ten feet from each other, I tried again. Nothing. John looked at me and grinned. It was kind of frustrating but, I had to admit, useful.

John said, “Okay, we've got that I can cancel out Caleb.” He turned to Jade. “What about you?”

Jade scowled. She wasn't really into her power. That was the main reason people had the wrong impression of her. She stayed away because she didn't want contact.

“Everybody knows that a Null negates all paranormal talents,” Sophie said.

“That's what they say, but I want to know for fact,” John said.

“Yeah, what he said,” Jonesy supplied.

“Come on, Jade,” I said. “Use me. Touch me, and then we'll get John into play.”

“Okay.” Jade gripped my forearm, and gooseflesh ran up from the point of contact.

John moved toward us in slow motion. His arms swung like windshield wipers, frizzy hair bouncing, the late-afternoon sun lighting his head on fire.

The moment became surreal, climbing power crawling over my skin like fire ants biting, sizzling electricity building. John touched my other arm. An electric spark flew between us. We jumped then... nothing.

Jade made a perfect O with her mouth, looking at John in wonderment. “That was great. Finally... silence.”

John nodded. “That's just how cool I am.” He took a small bow.

I punched him on the arm. “Chill the self-love, Terran.”

John pulled a face. “Hey! You're stealing my moment.”

“Let's congratulate ourselves later.” Jonesy grinned. He was definitely digging the new turn of events.

CHAPTER 22

“How did it go today?” Dad asked.

My mouth was full of Mom's baked salmon. I swallowed and swigged a gulp of milk. “It was okay.”

“Did I gauge the dose okay?”

I smiled. “Dad, I was still kinda high.”

Dad looked puzzled.

“I based it on your weight. One forty-five, just like you said.”

“Dad, I said one thirty-five. Nice—you overdosed me!”

“Kyle, aren't you the scientist?” Mom asked teasingly.

He ducked his head then regained the Dad composure. “I am not a pharmaceutical representative, that's for sure.”

“Well, let's not make this a trend.” I had tagged him on that one, and I was taking full advantage.“Humph!” he grunted. “I'll make a supreme effort.” He stabbed a chunk of fish with his fork.

Mom chuckled. She had an evil streak.

“We received your results in pulse-mail,” she said.

I put down my fork.

“Two points,” Dad said.

“Really? Hot damn!” I jumped up and aimed my hand towards Dad's. A resounding high five sounded.

Miraculously, Mom didn't nail me for language.

“The drug worked.”

“It did. But”—Dad waggled a finger at me—“we're not out of the woods yet.”

Mom nodded.

“The threat is still there, but at least it’s not immediate.”

I told them about the testing. I explained how we'd all gotten separated from the other kids: paranormals in Delta Building and mundanes in the other buildings.

“Sounds standard, Caleb,” Dad said.

“Yeah, I guess. But there were these creepers that I nicknamed Formula People.”

“Creepers?” Dad inquired.

“People that lurk about and generally give a sinister vibe,” Mom explained.

“Ah-huh, okay. Go on.”

“They all wore the same clothes and stood guard at the doors.”

“Like uniforms?” Mom asked.

“Not exactly, more like the same but different. And they wore sunglasses inside. How weird is that?”

Dad dropped his fork on his plate with a clatter.

“That's not standard.”

“What are your thoughts, Kyle?” Mom asked.

“That this thing is its own machine. That there are forces working that we don't know or understand.”

“Like I've been saying,” I said.

“What do you mean, Caleb?” Dad asked.

“Dad, come on. Remember McGraw and Garcia at the cemetery when I raised Gran?

And then there's Parker. All the signs are pointing to something bigger.”

I recounted what Jade had felt from the people who had dug through my locker. I also told them that Carson was a pyrokenetic and John was a null. “Jonesy doesn’t have anything.”

Mom looked shocked. “I guess there are some blessings.”

Dad pretended to wipe sweat off his brow. “Jonesy doesn’t have a power.”

I laughed. “There is that.”

Dad chuckled. “Yes, Jonesy with an ability would be...”

“Explosive...” I supplied.

“I don't know if that covers it, Caleb,” Dad said, getting a visual of the Potential that was Jonesy.

We all loved Jonesy, but he was an immovable object. Regardless of what was going on, he was him, sometimes that worked, other times, not. Usually not.

“The officers came by today to let us know they're discontinuing surveillance,” Mom said.

Good. I liked Gale and Ward, but Gale had gotten too close for comfort. And I sure didn't want McGraw and Garcia sniffing around, either.

“When?” I asked.

“While you were running around with your friends,” Mom said.

“Huh. They still don't have a clue, right?”

“No,” Dad said. “So far, they haven't been able to ascertain a motive for the break-in. Of course, there's the matter of my pulse-top compromise. However, we did a full diagnostic at the lab, and everything is in order.”

“I think it was the Formula People,” I said flatly.

“So suspicious,” Mom clucked.

“Somebody's got to be,” I replied.

The parents frowned.

“It's pretty obvious someone knows more about me than we want them to. Why all the interest? As you'd say, Dad: things aren't adding up.”

“You have a point, but that doesn't mean we live in fear.”

“You're concerned, Dad, or you wouldn't have dosed me.”

“Caleb, would you stop saying that, please?” Mom asked.

“Dose, dose, dose, double-dose—”

“Caleb...” Dad warned.

“Oh, okay. Geez, you guys. So stiff!”

Dad cleared his throat. “Anyway, Gale is suspicious. She had your results as a two-pointer. She could have sworn you were much more. She told us that the last time she got a reaction like the one you gave her, it was from Parker.”

We sat quietly for a second.

Then I asked, “What about the dog?”

Mom smiled. “You and I will pick him up after school tomorrow.”

“What about a name?” I asked.

“I've been thinking about that,” Mom said. “He’s black, so how about Onyx?”

I grinned. “Cool!”

CHAPTER 23

The school was abuzz over the paranormals who were outed by the AP Testing. I got a lot of “corpse-lover” and, my personal favorite, “Doin' any corpses lately?” All of them, so clever. Dunces.

John didn’t tell anyone he was a null, but he was having a great time running around and getting close to some of the paranormals. They'd try to put their groove on and... nothing.

Evil for John. I liked it.

Classes dragged on as usual. I was itching to get home and get Onyx. Jade was planning to come with us to pick him up.

Finally, the pulse clock chimed, and sixth period ended. I raced to Building D, feeling a fleeting sense of déjà vu. When I got to the band room, Mr. Cole was perched on the windowsill like a cat in the sun. I mentally crossed my fingers and took a deep breath.

“Hey, Mr. Cole,” I rushed on, throwing out all my words at once so my chances would be better.

“My mom and I are going to get a new dog today, and I was hoping I could make up band this Friday.”

Cole took off his glasses, rubbing them on the T-shirt he wore underneath his button-up shirt. I think that was required for adults. I figured Dad had about three hundred.

Then he held them up in the sunlight, checking for dirt. His glasses didn't look dirty to me.

He smiled. “I guess that would be okay. But you'll have to make it up Friday for sure, Caleb.” He gave me a mock stern look.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Cool! Thanks, Mr. C!” I took off for the door.

John opened it just as I got there. “Whoa! Where ya going?”

“I get the dog today, Onyx, remember?”

In a low voice, John said, “Cole let ya go?”

“Yeah, but I gotta make it up Friday.”

John threw his hands around his throat, choking himself. “Oh, the torture! Extra band practice.”

I punched him in the arm. “Shut up, Terran. You're gonna stay, too.”

John rubbed his arm. “I don't know. Friday? I might have plans.”

“Stuff it, ya putz. You know you've got plans, with Jonesy and me. That's your plans.”

John grinned. “Yeah, now that I'm cool like you.”

“You think you're cool like me. Listen, I gotta split and get the pooch.”

I gave John a salute and ran for home.

At the house, I threw open the front door and instantly smelled Mom's banana bread. But Jade was coming.

Decisions, decisions... shower or food?

Sighing, I slogged off to the bathroom. “Mom, be out in a sec. Jade's coming over to pick up the dog with us!”

I ran the shower super hot. Afterward, I got out, toweled off, and resigned myself to having to floss. The hygiene thing was a pain in my ass, but I smelled better. Jade was a great motivator.

When I went back downstairs, Jade was there.

“You ready?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, just had to de-scuzz.”

“De-scuzz?” Jade asked.

“Yeah, gotta smell fresh.” I flipped my still-damp bangs out of my face.

Jade laughed, and we walked to the garage, our shoulders touching. Mom got behind the wheel, and I tugged Jade into the backseat. I figured Mom would be too distracted with driving to notice us holding hands.

Jade laid her head on my shoulder. Her hair smelled like a big piece of fruit. Nice. I wanted to touch it, but that'd be pushing my luck.

We pulled up front and I listened with that part of me that hears the dead. In the case of Onyx, we had already done that psychic dance, he recognized me. I felt him in my head. We walked through the big glass doors, Jade and Mom in front, me bringing up the rear.

***

When the Boy entered the place-where-he-lived, the Dog knew and howled joyously. He sniffed at the metal tubes that made seeing more difficult. He held the liquid that smelled interesting inside his body because the People who fed him took him to a good smelling place to let the liquid out. The Dog held it but not without effort.

The Dog heard the voices of the People coming with the Boy, who was special because he called the Dog in a special way. The Dog liked the Boy. The Boy would throw the soft round thing. The Boy was... was... using those people sounds in his head.

“I'm here, Onyx. You'll come home with me.”

The people sounds were very exciting, and the Dog could feel a little liquid come out.

Bad Dog, Bad Dog. He must hold the liquid.

The Dog saw the Boy and his People come to the bars and look down at him. He was a Bad Dog because of the liquid accident, but the Boy did not notice. The Dog was relieved and moved his tail, hoping the Boy would be pleased.

The Dog wagged his tail harder, the end hitting the metal tubes.

He pressed his nose to the metal tubes. They were cold, but he needed to smell the Boy and his People. The small female smelled like not-right garbage and was excited to see him, so he wagged his tail harder. The older female smelled like the Boy. They were pack. Would it be a pack like his other Boy’s? The Dog felt a sharp pang of sadness when he remembered his other Boy, but he shoved it away because the new Boy was making the sounds from his mouth, and he must listen.

“That's a good dog, Onyx,” the Boy said.

The Dog jumped up on the metal tubes, and the Boy stuck his hand through them. The Dog gave it one lick. The Dog understood some people did not like a lot of the wet thing in his mouth that was so good for all kinds of things.

One of the people-who-fed-him approached. He was a Good Dog and sat down. He continued wagging his tail when the small female put her hand on top of his head and moved it in a most pleasant way.

The alpha female of the Boy's pack made new sounds out of her mouth.

“Arlene, is there any more paperwork to fill out before we take Onyx home?”

“No, Mrs. Hart, just sign this form.” She showed Mom where and Mom bent over the 'X', marking out a quick signature.

“Thank you. By the way, we're sure glad that he's going to a good family.”

The Dog saw the person-who-fed-him make dominant eye contact and he shifted his eyes away politely then looked back.

“We'll miss him around here.” she smiled.

The Dog heard the sounds, good dog, which was his signal to begin to wag his tail again. Which he did; thunk, thunk, thunk. He also heard that strange sound, Onyx and realized it meant something important. He would try to remember it for the Boy.

“Okay, Onyx, let's go!”

The strange word again. The dog wagged his tail. Thunk, thunk, thunk.

“Caleb, he probably needs to go out to the potty area and do his business,” Arlene said.

“Oh, right. Jade, let's go,” I said.

The Dog heard “potty,” and the liquid wanted to rush out, but he held it in. The Dog bounded around, hoping the Boy and his people would notice that he was a Good Dog and needed to let the liquid go.

The Boy and the small female went toward the doors that led to the place-that-smells-very-interesting. The Dog burst through when the hole appeared and lifted his nose in utter bliss. So many different liquid smells here! Where to start?

He wanted to impress the Boy with how quickly he could let the liquid go.

He trotted over to an especially good smelling corner and let the liquid rush out and was very happy when it covered the other dogs’ liquid smell.

When the Boy called the word Onyx, the Dog ran back. They put the leash to his collar and took him out another door.

The pack made noises with the person-who-fed him then opened a metal box with holes on top and with foul smelling round shapes on the bottom.

The Boy gestured to the Dog to get in, but the Dog didn’t like the box. He remembered that it was a Bad Thing. The two females got into the big metal box.

The Boy scooped up the Dog. The Dog gave him an appreciative lick. The Boy tasted like a Good Boy. He liked his new pack and wagged his tail.

***

Onyx explored every, tiny corner of our house, spending an especially long time in my room, stumbling over all the crap on the floor then rolling around on top of it.

Jade had gone home already. I was feeling righteous. The testing was over, the government hadn't come to kidnap me—yet—Jade and I were together, and Onyx was finally mine.

Mom had done some crock pot thing... chili, so we could just scoop and pork. I liked that.

When Dad came home, he looked a little frazzled. Onyx let out a low growl.

I thought, It's okay, Onyx. It's just Dad.

Onyx cautiously approached Dad.

Dad hunkered down on his haunches and put out his hand. Onyx sniffed the proffered hand, doing an exaggerated lean with his neck, slowly wagging his tail.

The male was Alpha. He smelled very much like the Boy but not at all like the Alpha female. The Boy smelled like both of them. The Dog made his tail move. Thunk, thunk, thunk.

The Dog likes the Alpha male. The Dog shows respect by lying down.

I watched Onyx show his belly. Dad petted him, and Onyx wagged his tail harder.

Suddenly, Onyx flipped over and stood. He trotted back over and sat down next to my chair.

Dad stood, arching his back and standing on his tiptoes.

“You stiff?” Mom asked.

“Some. Been in a chair all day.”

Dad turned to me. “Feel like some one-on-one after supper?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it's been forever since we played.”

“How do you like your new dog?” Dad asked.

“Onyx is awesome!”

Mom looked critically at Onyx, who stared back at her expectantly. “He sure is black, like an ink spot that barks.”

We sat down to eat, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, we just talked about normal stuff—no government threats, break-ins, bullies at school, or raising dead people.

Time for more chaos.

After supper, Dad and I cranked it up on our cement basketball court. I was guarding him like a cheap suit, and he was huffing and puffing around me. I jumped up just as he was shooting and slapped the basketball right out of his hands.

The Js came walking up. They took off their hoodies and piled them at the edge of the court.

“Hey, Kyle!” Jonesy yelled.

Jonesy ran over, and we ganged up on Dad.

We tore around the court. Dad drove the ball toward the basket, while Jonesy and I tried to steal. John pretty much got in the way of all of us. It was the absolute best.

We horsed around until the light faded so much we couldn't see the basket. When we went in the house, Mom was already in her pajamas, but she had made two pitchers of iced tea. Jonesy grabbed the biggest cup he could find out of the cupboard, filled it to the brim, and chugged down the tea. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Hey, Mrs. H., what do ya say about some banana bread?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Mom laughed. “You bet. It's right over there.”

Onyx sat patiently in the corner, eying my friends with curiosity.

Mom said, “Looks like someone wants to meet your friends.”

“Hey boy!” John said.

“That's right! You got him today,” Jonesy said. “So this is the famous dog?”

“That's him,” I said proudly.

We all looked at him and his tail started to wag.

“Mom, is it okay if he sleeps in my room?”

“It's okay, but I think that he may want his own space,” Dad said.

I felt a lecture coming on.

John laughed. “Kyle means that you have to move all your junk on the floor to some other spot so Onyx will have a place to lie down.”

I frowned. “Maybe he would like the smell of my stuff around him.”

Mom shook her head. “No, Caleb, he can't just lie on your clothes.”

Uh-huh.

I surveyed the Js. John's hair was standing straight up because he was always pushing it out of his eyes and a combination of boy-grime and sweat had acted as... I don't know, some kind of gel, I guess. Jonesy's hair was cut close to his scalp and seemed to dry instantly when he was sweating. We all thought that was really cool. Mine hung in strings. We all needed showers but I wanted to get my room in shape for Onyx.

“Hey, guys, let's go clear a space for Onyx.”

Jonesy said, “Sounds like a plan.”

We climbed the stairs, opened my door, and surveyed The Cave.

“Crap, Caleb,” Jonesy said. “It's a mess in here.”

John cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I don't know. It looks a lot like your room, Jonesy.”

Jonesy gave John a dirty look. “Mine’s not this bad.”

“Whatever,” I said. “This isn't getting a spot for Onyx figured out.”

“Caleb's right,” John said. “Let's get to work.”.

We started picking up all the clothes off the floor and throwing them into a pile on top of my bed that soon became a mountain.

“Where do the clothes go?” John asked. “This clothes hamper here?” He pointed at the pile on the bed. “Are those dirty or clean?”

I shrugged. “If they smell bad, I don't wear them.”

John folded his arms across his chest. “This is your closet?”

“No. This is my closet.” I opened the bi-fold doors and a bunch of crap rolled out at our feet.

Jonesy started sifting through my stuff. “Hey, here's my history book from last year! I had to pay a fine for that.” He glared at me.

John threw up his hands. “Okay, let’s just dump the junk in the dirty clothes hamper, then put the dirty clothes in on top. We’ll put the clean clothes in the closet, and I guess stack all that crap in the bottom.” He shook his head.

“I hate to say it, Caleb, but I think you're gonna have to go downstairs and get a trash sack, one of those big ones like for leaves and stuff.”

I shook my head. “Can't, dude. We compost.”

John face-palmed. “I forgot your mom doesn't believe in trash.”

“My Dad does.”

“Really?” Jonesy asked.

“Yeah, but don't tell my mom. She thinks trash is very uncool.”

“Jonesy, minion, go fetch trash receptacle,” John said.

Jonesy gave a sharp salute and beat it downstairs.

Onyx stood patiently waiting for us people to figure it out.

He ran downstairs and returned with some garbage sacks. We crammed the trash pile into one then started into the closet.

“Do we give the school the history book back?” John asked.

Jonesy and I looked at it and, at the same time, said, “Nah.”

“Jinx!” Jonesy said, and we grinned at each other.

An hour later, the bags were full. There was a lot of floor space to choose a spot for Onyx.

After a long discussion, we decided that Onyx needed to be at the foot of my bed, near the computer desk.

I went over to my closet and pulled out Gran's afghan. I never used it because it was itchy. Mom said it was made of wool. She didn't like synthetic fibers since they were made with petroleum products. I folded it in half then half again, laying it in the new spot.

I thought, Here's your new bed.

Onyx walked over, sniffed the afghan, and lay down on it.

“Good dog.”

He wagged his tail.

“He sure seems like a good dog,” Jonesy said. Hearing that, Onyx wagged his tail harder.

John poked a stack of books with the toe of his shoe. “Why don't you use a reader?”

“It's like the watch, isn't it?” Jonesy said.

“Caleb is a little outdated,” John remarked.

“No. I just think that it's important to use some stuff that isn't modern. I mean, think about our dependence on Brain Impulse Technology? If everything went stupid, and suddenly that junk didn't work, just think about the chaos, even if it was only for an hour. People would have melt downs.”

John looked thoughtful. “You have a point.”

Jonesy pointed at my watch. “It's not even LED.”

I looked down at the funky thing. It had been Dad's first watch, and I liked it.

John grunted. “It's a manual.”

“A what?” Jonesy asked.

“You have to wind it every day to keep time.”

Jonesy looked baffled.

John shrugged. “I gotta split. Let's get this stuff back in the closet.”

While we finished up, Onyx sat on the blanket, watching us.

Jonesy whispered, “He's kinda creepy, Caleb, the way he just stares at us.”

The Boy could make people noises in the Dog's head. But the noises weren't as clear as the flavor. The Dog thought about how the Boy put a smell inside his head, all different types of smells, and they made a message. The Boy was very easy to understand. He was different from the others. The Dog dropped his nose to sniff the soft thing that smelled like old pack female. He closed his eyes, feeling something familiar... a sense of home. The Dog was happy.

His memories of the other Boy were dimming.

CHAPTER 24

The rest of the week dragged. I went to school, daydreamed about it ending, rushed home to see Onyx, ate some food, hung with the posse and Jade then did it all over again. All of us were getting so tired of school. The end of the year loomed large.

I hadn't seen much of Carson and Brett, but we’d be in the same high school next year—Kent Paranormal High, where all paranormals went. The regular high schools were split in accordance with different academic aptitudes. Jonesy had shown math and science aptitudes, so he was headed to Kent Lake High.

I was gonna really miss the Jonester, kinda tanked my mood.

Friday finally rolled around, and Jonesy said he thought the last day of school would be a blast.

“Ya see... it's a special day.” We were all at the lunch table festering about the possibilities of government plots, hiding what we were and such; ya know, normal conversation.

We waited expectantly for him to continue. Jonesy always had cool and bizarre ideas. Sometimes, like the disastrous cemetery plot with Carson, they didn't work out but it was interesting to see.

“Friday the thirteenth is coming up,” he said.

Sophie rolled her eyes. “So?”

Jonesy grinned. “It's an unlucky day. Stuff that's bad, that's gonna happen, happens then.”

Tiff strolled over, hands jammed into the pocket of her hoodie. The hood was pulled up, so only a sliver of her face showed. “Whatcha doin'?”

“Hey, Tiff,” I said.

“What's he sayin'?” Tiff asked, pointing at Jonesy.

Sophie said, “Jonesy thinks the last day of school is going to be riddled with bad luck because it's Friday the thirteenth.”

Tiff said without preamble, “That's a load of horseshit.”

I shrugged. “Ya never know, it could go okay. It's just supposed to be a warning, right?” I looked at John, who nodded.

“I know some bad stuff that's happened on that day,” Jonesy said in a creepy voice.

“Yeah, what?” Tiff asked, plunking down between Sophie and Jade, who gave her a miffed look. Tiff didn't have girl radar, or she'd have seen the problem with that move.

Tiff put her head in the cradle of both her hands, clearly bored and waving the red flag before the proverbial bull.

Jonesy answered, “There's this haunted house, ya know, the one where that old cemetery is. It's just a shack. I heard there was a kid that went in there and never came out.”

“Who told you that lame-ass story?” Tiff asked.

“One of the teachers,” Jonesy said triumphantly.

Jade took a bite of her apple. John put a Cheeto in each nostril and wiggled his nose. Sophie was unimpressed.

“You're gonna eat those now, aren't ya?” Tiff said, smacking her gum.

Terran's face flamed.

Jade sighed. “Boys.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed.

“Not you.” She fluttered her eyelashes at me and I was instantly smitten again.

“Listen up, chumps!” Jonesy said. “This is the plan.”

“Jonesy—” John started.

Jonesy held up one hand. “Hear me out. We're gonna go to this shack—”

“The one that's by a cemetery... smart,” Tiff said.

“Yeah, and I have the ghost-buster team here with me to take care of everything,” Jonesy said.

Tiff and I sighed.

“So we're gonna go there and see.”

“See what, Jonesy?” Jade asked.

“I don't know. Somethin', whatever.”

“Well, that clears things up a lot,” Sophie said.

Jonesy was immune to sarcasm. Everyone's.

“Jonesy's consistent,” John said neutrally.

I was figuring Jonesy for a full dark, check-out-the-haunted-house kinda guy. “It's a half-day, but I'm thinking we have to wait until dark.”

Jonesy slapped the table. “Hell, yeah! This is the best part. It won't be dark until late, like ten, so we have plenty of time to rabble-rouse before.”

A sneaking seed of suspicion started to take hold.

“You're not thinking of some cemetery shit again, are you?” I asked.

Jonesy put on an innocent face. “Who, me?”

Tiff's eyes narrowed into slits. “We don't need the spotlight, Jones. We need to stay underground.”

“That wasn't the plan, but if something cool were to happen...” He spread his arms.

John said, “Let's stick to checking out the old place and seeing what's in it. No cemeteries.”

Jonesy looked embarrassed.

“Spill it,” Tiff said, snapping a bubble like a firecracker and Sophie jumped.

“Well, there's something I forgot to mention,” he said, putting his thumb and index fingers a paper's width from touching.

John spun his hand like a wheel, go on, and Jonesy finished with, “You gotta walk through the cemetery to get to the house.”

“I knew it!” Sophie said.

“I guess it's okay. Carson and Brett don't know we're going,” I said slowly.

I looked at Jonesy who would tell The World if he felt it would help The Cause, he shook his head; he hadn't said anything... yet.

Tiff interjected, “And it's a bonus your Gran isn't buried there. Wait. Do you have any other relatives buried there?”

I shook my head. “No, they're all at Scenic.”

“Well, thank God,” Sophie mumbled.

“Okay, I'm in,” Tiff said, leaning back and crossing her legs at the ankles. “Can Bry come?”

“Um… he's not gonna kick my ass, is he?” I didn't want to set myself up for the fall and with my girlfriend as the audience.

“Nah... he's over it.”

“Is he the cute one?” Sophie asked.

Jonesy glared at her. Interesting.

“How should I know?” Tiff asked. “He's my brother. Gross.”

The pulse clock chimed, and we stood, separating our trash. The Js trailed behind as Jade and I walked to our next class.

“What do you think you'll get out of biology?” Jade asked. “It was kind of a cluster with the frog thing.”

“Maybe I softened him up, knowing stuff about flowers.”

Jade's eyebrows shot up.

I nodded. “Yeah, my mom makes me do gardening chores.”

“That's why you knew about the plant names when I came over.” She smiled up at me.

Huh, bonus point.

“It beats cleaning toilets,” I said.

“Yeah, that's a gross job. I'd rather learn about plants.”

She had the chores I hated, and I had made a big deal out of it. Geez, Hart, good going.

“This summer, you can come over and we'll do gardening together. I bet my mom would love the help!”

“All right, cool!”

We stopped beside my classroom door.

“Have fuuuunnn!” she teased.

“Oh, yeah. And monkeys will fly outta my butt!” I said.

She giggled, and I laid a kiss on her mouth. Her lips felt like crushed velvet. Sensory overload!

Last week of school, a plan for creepy Friday the Thirteenth, a new dog and a hot girlfriend; life was rocking about now.

CHAPTER 25

I was splitting my time between the Js and Jade and it was a job. The guys told me they wanted to hang at Jonesy's. I called Jade, and she okayed a change for me to see her Saturday night instead. Mom asked what Jonesy's mom was making for supper. I didn't know. I told her we'd probably forage in the pantry and come up with something good. Mom decided to make a pizza and send it with me.

I jetted over to Jonesy's on Dad's old one-speed Schwinn. I was sure I'd hear about that from Jonesy, but I didn't care. I loved the old stuff.

The pizza dangled from the handle bars in a most undignified way. The bag swung and whacked the bike as I rode to Meridian Villa. My dad grew up there. The houses were just the next step older than my neighborhood. Jonesy's parents had actually bought the house that Jonesy's dad had lived in as a kid.

I parked my bike in the circular driveway. Jonesy's house was cooler than mine. He even had a walk-out basement. Dad called those man-caves. The house was really flat looking and hugged the knoll it lounged on. Small windows that looked like eyes lined the point where the basement met the flower beds. The lawn was small and barely within legal limits. Seemed like some dudes just had to have a lawn. Mom would have never allowed it at our house, not Eco-enough. Mom thought lawns were for outdoor sports fields, period. I loved a lawn. It was a slash of emerald green that anchored the flower beds. Jonesy's mom wasn't a garden zealot like my mom, but she made it look nice.

I climbed the three, broad, concrete steps, ringing the bell.

Jonesy’s mom, Helen, answered the door with a grin. “Hey Caleb! Long time no see!” Her impenetrable hair stood at stiff attention (and looked like a rat lived on top).

Aqua Net queen.

I smiled. “Hi, Mrs. Jones.”

She frowned, and I corrected with “I mean... Helen.”

“That's better,” Helen said, ruffling my hair.

I ducked my head. “My mom made some pizza.”

“Good deal, we'll add it to mine.”

Great, more pizza. Happy Friday! I walked down the long hallway painted McDonald's yellow. With such a neutral exterior, the yellow was a shocker. But Helen said that with our gloomy Pacific Northwest days, she needed the sun inside her house.

I could hear the guys before I got to Jonesy's room.

When I went in, Jonesy and John were sitting on the floor, eyes glued to their readers. I walked over and knelt beside them. They were reading comics.

“Look at this dude. Hell, I’d love to be him.” Jonesy said, pointing to a picture of guy lifting a car off someone.

“You got that. I'm just a Null,” John said.

“At least you're something, you ingrate,” Jonesy replied.

“Hey, look at this.” I pointed to a small boy in the background. He was watching the rescue with big eyes, but he had one finger on the bumper.

“Is that kid doing it or the guy in the cape?”

“Hold on!” John leapt up and ran out of the room.

“What's he doing?” I asked Jonesy.

“I don't know.”

John returned with a large magnifying glass.

“This will do the trick!”

We all bent forward again. Jonesy held the magnifying glass over the reader. The kid did seem to be holding up part of the car.

“You remember Alex?” John said.

“The bad piano player?”

“Yeah. He told me that there were hidden messages in the comics.”

“Wow! All right, so what does it mean?” I asked.

“Well, that's what we've been trying to decipher with these comics.”

“What does Alex say it means?”

“He thinks there are allies of the paranormals that have been shut down by the government, and there are subtle messages in the comics that talk about what is going on, what they're doing. Maybe even where they might be located.”

“And Alex got this all from what? Did he just pull it out of his ass?” Jonesy asked.

I had a visual of Alex, who was such a nerd it hurt to look at him, but he was truly smart. Maybe there was something to this.

Jonesy turned off his DR. “That's for when we have more time. I have a plan.”

Oh joy.

John asked, “What now? I thought we were going to talk about the comic messages.”

“Later. Besides, you've already agreed to this,” Jonesy said.

“What?” I asked.

“Let's figure out the hideaway while there's no chicks around to ruin it,” Jonesy answered.

“Jade wouldn't ruin it,” I said.

“She wouldn't mean to, but she still distracts you. She's like the shiny thing. She moves, and you follow. Squirrel.” Jonesy threw out his hands.

John shook his head. “He's right, Caleb. You're kinda gone on her.”

“I'm here tonight, aren't I?” I asked defensively.

“Yeah,” John said, “but we're not getting together as much as we were. It's okay. I'm just sayin'.”

“Okay,” I said, changing the subject back. “I want to find a place to have a safe zone. Somewhere we can go if the government gets wind of me.”

“That's what I'm talkin' about, Caleb,” Jonesy said.

I still felt uncomfortable doing the zombie slave labor.

“Come on Caleb, we need them,” Jonesy said, seeing my face.

“I’ve been thinking of a way for us to use the zombies and get them back without being noticed,” John said.

I held up my hand. “Let's just wait and see if we even need to use them. Maybe we'll find a really cool place in the old dump, and it will be perfect.”

“Let's go tonight, right now,” Jonesy said.

“I gotta have some food first,” John said.

Right on cue, my stomach did a huge rumble.

“That's a sign,” Jonesy said.

We walked out to the kitchen and plopped down on stools at the breakfast bar. Jonesy's mom poured three Big Red. Helen believed sugar was a food group. That made me happy on a deep level.

She put a plate with four slices of pizza in front of each of us. My mom's pizza was demolished during round one. Jonesy and I were okay after that, but John had to have two more. Helen said she still had a whole pizza left.

“I don't wanna walk, Caleb,” Jonesy said through a mound of food crammed into one side of his mouth.

“Listen, mister, don't talk with your mouth full,” Helen said.

“Sorry, Mom.” Jonesy smiled, the pizza guts showing through his teeth.

“Why don’t you wanna walk?” I asked.

“Because I think it will be fun to watch you ride on that old bike of yours. I need a laugh.”

Helen said, “Jonesy, that is a perfectly adequate bike.”

“Mom, have you seen it? It's pathetic. It's a one-speed.”

“Those are classic instruments for the development of large motor skills,” she said.

“Huh?” Jonesy asked.

“She’s is talking about your butt,” John said.

“There are no gears, right? So it forces you to use the booty gear.”

“Precisely, John, and I thank you for clarifying,” Helen replied.

“You're just not gonna admit that it's not as cool as my Raleigh Scout, Mom,” Jonesy said.

“Not on your life, big-for-your-britches.”

John and I barked out appreciative laughs. The DNA train wasn't far from the track with his smart-ass behavior.

Jonesy glowered at his mom but she didn't even flinch; tough-as-nails, dug it.

We went outside and got on our bikes. The old dump was really close to Scenic Hill Cemetery, so we parked our bikes there and walked over. It wouldn't be good for some observant adult to see a bunch of kids' bikes in front of a dump.

The sign on the gate read: “Kent Refuse, Authorized Personnel Only, Trespassing Prohibited, Hours of Operation: Mon-Fri: 10:00-4:00.” On top of that was some haphazard lettering: Closed. The top of the chain link fence had spiraled barbed wire.

I turned to John. “What do ya think?”

He pulled out two pairs of gloves. John was always prepared.

Jonesy's eyebrows shot up. “Great! Good thinking, Terran!”

“You first,” I told Jonesy.

Jonesy grunted, threw on the gloves and climbed. Fine muscles bunched and moved in his forearms as he finessed his way up the links, John and I kept an eye on the road while Jonesy climbed.

“Hurry,” John said.

“I am. Can it!”

When he got to the top, he pushed down the barbed wire with one hand and straddled it in preparation for swinging his leg over to the other side.

“Hey!” I yelled.

He stilled, his junk hanging over the razor wire. “What? Kinda busy, doofus.”

“Why don't you stay awhile?”

“Shut up Caleb. It's your turn next,” Jonesy said, giving a nervous look at his balls, which hovered millimeters above the barbs.

Jonesy carefully swept his left leg over and secured a foothold on the opposite side. He removed the gloves and tossed them over the top of the fence.

I caught them and put them on while John pulled on the second pair. Jonesy climbed down the other side. I got them on and stood facing Jonesy. Jonesy smiled and did an elaborate middle finger.

John laughed.

“Have fun with that, Hart.”

A knot of anxiety was like a ball in my stomach. I was gonna do this.

I was definitely not scared of heights.

I took a deep breath and started to climb. It was pretty easy going at first, but near the top, my arms started to shake. Jonesy hadn't mentioned that part. Maybe it hadn't made him tired. He was shorter, but muscular.

I used the same technique for getting over as Jonesy did. I hovered precariously over the barbs in complete terror my arms would give way. But the threat of a testicle-free life kept me stable. Swinging my other leg over the top, I hung there a moment, catching my breath.

“Somebody needs to do some push-ups!” Jonesy sang.

Jerk.

I climbed down and stood beside Jonesy.

“I do pushups.”

Jonesy grunted. “Maybe you should do some more.”

John was studying the gate.

“It's locked John, you're gonna have to climb,” Jonesy called out smugly.

It was a huge chain link affair with a padlock the size of my fist.

“It's got a numbered entry,” John said.

Jonesy shrugged. “So?”

“It's pre-pulse,” I explained.

“Whatever. John, just climb. You're wasting time.”

John started to spin the numbers on the lock, occasionally jerking it experimentally. A minute later, the lock gave way in his hand.

John looked over at us and grinned. “I guess I'll just open the gate and walk in.”

Jonesy put his hands on his hips as John stepped through to our side of the fence. “What the hell, Terran? Why didn't you try that from the start?”

“I didn't think about it until it was my turn to climb.” John tapped his head, “Work smarter, not harder.”

“Okay, smart-ass, go close the gate so adults don't check it out.”

John sauntered over to the gate, carefully arranging the lock so it would appear locked.

He came back over and we started to search for the perfect spot.

I was thinking the place might stink, but the trash stench was long gone. The dump had been closed since I was little, back when recycling became mandatory and trash penalties had been imposed.

There was a butt-load of tires, old cars and appliances, it was insane!

Jonesy was thrilled, touching and inspecting everything.

John and I stayed on a semi-clear path that meandered and wound through huge hills of old junk. John stopped and looked inside a huge commercial freezer. “Hold on a sec... I've got an idea.”

“What?” I asked.

He pointed at the hill of cars behind the row of appliances. “I think that if those cars over there weren't compressed all the way, we may be able to make a doorway using one of these old fridges. We can kick the back out and find some space behind it that we can use.”

I thought about it for a second.

“Yeah, let's get the Jonester over here and lay it on him.” I looked in the direction where I’d last seen Jonesy. He wasn’t there.

“Jonesy!”

“What?!” came the muffled reply. A head popped out of an old car.

“Come on,” I called. “Stop dickin' around and get over here.”

Jonesy shot his leg out and booted the car door open, its protesting creak piercing the quiet with a squealing groan.

John cringed at Jonesy's subtlety.

Jonesy trotted over and rubbed a hand over his face, covering it with grime. I looked closer. It was like grease, great.

“You've got grease on your face now,” John said.

“I do? Oh well, whatever. I've got soap at home.”

I told Jonesy the plan.

He gave a fist-pump. “Hot damn! What are we waiting for? Let's tear these babies open!”

We separated, searching each one. I found an ugly pink fridge with a oblong handle in the shape of a dart. It looked to have a car emblem embedded in it. Weird.

John studied it, circling around the thirty percent that showed.

“Good size.” He stroked the top that he could barely reach.

The freezer was a behemoth, bigger than some of the fancy fridges in restaurants. John whistled at Jonesy to join us. He walked over from inspecting an avocado-colored beauty.

John opened the fridge. The interior was deep, probably two feet plus. Rust edged the inside, spreading out from the corners like a burnt-orange spider web. Jonesy pulled out the two shelves and sailed them like Frisbees over John's head.

“Hey! Watch it,” John said, ducking.

Jonesy laughed. “Hold your shorts, Terran. You'll live.”

“Kick out the back, Jonesy,” I said.

Jonesy did a super graceful dance move where he sorta hopped, then jumped, bending his knee and swinging it out at the same time. A ripple appeared where his foot had struck, the back buckling.

Jonesy struck again, and the buckle widened from top to bottom

“Come on Jonesy, I thought you were all-that-is-boy,” John antagonized.

“I,” kick, thunk, whack, “am!” The whole back gave, splitting open to reveal the darkness on the other side.

John whipped out his LED light and turned it on. A dim glow wove a murky path through the gloom.

“Come on, let's go.”

And in we went.

There was only enough room to crawl. The dust turned all of us into sneezing, wheezing messes.

After about eight feet, I said, “This isn't going to work.”

John lit a match. “If there isn't enough oxygen, this match won't stay lit.”

We all stared at the wavering flame. It continued to burn brightly, like a beacon.

“Okay so what now?” Jonesy asked.

John shook out the match. “There's enough oxygen this far back that I think this tunnel here might open up into a bigger space. Keep moving.”

We crawled for about three more minutes, then the way narrowed. I twisted through the last bit and came out into a space large enough for me to stand. John emerged seconds later.

John said, “Wow.”

Everywhere around us were stacks of compacted cars. Several were precariously perched above our heads, acting like a ceiling. I wasn't worried. I figured they'd been there for a decade, and they probably weren't ever going to come down.

“Come on, morons. Stop gawking and haul me out of here!”

John and I turned to see Jonesy wedged in the part of the tunnel. John barked out a laugh that made Jonesy give him a death glare.

“I like it,” John said.

“We can't get out if he's in the way, smart one,” I said.

John sighed. “You're right, but it was fun while it lasted.”

We went over and each took an arm. I counted to three, and we jerked him out like an eel out of an oil can.

Jonesy grabbed his knees and stood up, brushing the dirt off his jeans.

“Thanks for the help, tards,” Jonesy delivered sarcastically.

I smirked, looking around and whistled. “This is just the guy-cave we had in mind.”

John took out another LED light and turned it on.

“Where are you getting all the lights?” Jonesy asked. “And how did you know the combo for the lock?”

John shrugged.

“I read some documentary about pre-pulse security. They said sometimes commercial sites used the address numbers for security codes, or even the last four digits of the phone number, things that they could all remember.”

“You mean, ding-a-ling?”

“Yeah, Jonesy, actual non-pulse phones,” John said.

“Why is this here?” I asked, indicating the big bubble room of forgotten cars.

“It's like I was hoping,” John said. “It’s a pocket of space that was trapped, something they missed.”

“The workers missed?” Jonesy asked.

“Yeah. Just think of that job—all day long, smashing cars, trying to remember where you did it last. It'd be a bitch to keep track of.”

“How would you know?” Jonesy asked.

“I didn't. I guessed. When Caleb wanted to do the hideout here, I thought it might be a possibility.”

“How do the girls get back here?” I asked.

“Girls!”

“Come off it, Jones. Jade, Sophie, and Tiff are included.”

“There's Bry and maybe Alex, too.”

“We can do it,” John said.

“Does your mom still have that camping gear?” John asked Jonesy.

“Yeah, we haven't camped much. Why?”

“Light?” I guessed.

“Yeah. I don't think we need heat, but if we can get a lantern, a bottle of propane, and some blankets, we could have a halfway decent place.”

John looked at me.

“What now?” I asked.

Jonesy grinned. “I bet John is thinking we need some zombie action.”

“What do we have to do?”

Jonesy pointed at the tunnel. “We need to widen this some. No big deal.”

Jonesy's ideas were always a big deal.

“I agree with Jonesy, we just widen this tight spot,” John pointed to the squeeze that had plugged Jonesy like a cork in a bottle, “and we put them back.”

I put them back.

He turned to Jonesy. “What do you think? A one or two zombie job?”

“Hey! Don't ask him. They're my zombies,” I said.

John told us we'd also need some milk crates.

“Where are we gonna get those?” Jonesy asked.

I didn't have a clear picture of what a milk crate was.

“Here,” John said. “It's a dump, after all.”

“What are those gonna be for?” Jonesy asked.

“Tables, chairs, storage, whatever,” John said.

“Okay, let's get out of here before it gets too late,” I said.

We crawled out of the tight tunnel the way we came in: slowly.

Jonesy had the most trouble.

He finally climbed out, arching his back.

“We gotta remember, these old freezers are not safe. They self-lock.”

“What do ya mean?” Jonesy asked.

“We close the door from the inside, and we're screwed. Back in the day, kids would hide inside, accidentally close the door, and... well, ya know.”

“I never heard of that,” I said.

“Yeah, you wouldn't. We don't have bogus stuff like that now. Hell, they make up committees of people just to think up safety features,” John said. “Anyway, we gotta put a door stop in there so we don't lock ourselves in and get busy dying.”

“Okay,” Jonesy said, “but we need to keep it open in a way people don't notice.”

“We can just jam a piece of cardboard in there,” I said. “No problem. But we need to go. I gotta get home and take care of Onyx.”

“Yeah, let's not get the parents all interested in what we're doing,” Jonesy said.

“My parents don't give a crap as long as that four-point-oh GPA is still there,” John said.

We walked out of the dump and through the gate.

Jonesy stopped and told John, “You're kinda a putz not to let us know about the lock thing.”

John grinned. “Yeah, but I wanted to see if you'd climb it. Even Caleb did.”

Jonesy shook his head, smiling. “Anyway, remember that we have girls to protect now.”

“Protect from what?” I asked.

“I don't know... whatever.”

“You get kinda squirrely when we get in tight spots,” I said.

“Right, but I'll protect the chicks. You... you're on your own.”

“Gee... thanks,” John said.

***

Onyx met me at the door.

His tail wagged like an ink spot in the middle of the doorway. I rubbed the bridge of his nose.

The Boy has returned and is pleased because he is a Good Dog. I will lick the Boy's hand.

Onyx licked my hand, leaving a wet and slimy streak. He looked so happy that I didn't have the heart to wipe off the goo in front of him.

The Dog pressed his nose to the Boy's body and caught some interesting smells—real trash (tantalizing) and metal boxes and earth. Such good smells. He also smelled the other Boys. What had the Boy done?

“Good dog. Gooooood dog,” I said, scratching the sweet spot behind his ear.

Wag, thunk, wag.

Mom had her nose buried in her dedicated reader, and Dad was taking notes—with a pen!—while looking at his pulse-top. Onyx trotted past them and went to his food bowl.

Where is the person-who-feeds him? The food is here all the time now. The Dog paused. He surveyed the pack. They did not seem to be interested in the food. This new thing was confusing. He would wait and see what the pack did.

Ignoring the food in his bowl, Onyx walked over and lay down on one of Gran's blankets. Mom had an endless supply of those.

“What were you up to all this time, pal?” Dad asked.

Going to the dump, exploring it illegally, finding a dangerous boy-cave so we could hide from the authorities.

I shrugged. “Just screwing around, exploring.”

“Sounds like the heat may be abating for the interim, Caleb.”

“Huh?”

Mom translated, “I think what Dad's saying is that the government may no longer be interested in you.”

Doubt it. “That's not what interim means,” I said. “That was a vocab word last year. It means temporary.”

Dad nodded. “You're right, Caleb. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know that they'll always not be interested. For now, we have a reprieve. But if they find out you're not a two-point, we're back to square one. A stay of execution.”

Mom put her hand on his. “We agreed to take it one day at a time, Kyle.”

“I agree, honey, but let's be prepared for the inevitable.”

“They'll eventually find out,” I said.

Mom nodded, and Dad said, “Yes.”

Oh, well. “What's for dessert?”

They laughed and Mom said, “Nothing stops the appetite.”

Right.

Mom told me there was chocolate pudding in the fridge. I went to the kitchen and dished out a bowl of the chocolaty goodness. I took my dessert into the living room.

“So what's your plan for the weekend?” Mom asked.

I swallowed a huge mouthful of pudding. “I'm going to hang with Jade tomorrow night. I guess not much Sunday. Oh! The Js and I are gonna explore—”

“Going to,” Mom corrected.

“Going to check out this cool, haunted house.”

Mom did the fish thing, her mouth opening and closing. I had that effect on my parents sometimes.

Dad stared at me for a second. “This is not keeping a low profile, Caleb.”

“It was Jonesy's idea. And we’re not going to a cemetery.”

Not really.

“Well, that may be, but you're aware you can control ghosts. Haunting is another issue to contend with.”

“Jonesy has some... interesting ideas,” Mom said, “but he doesn't seem to think things through.”

Totally doesn't.

“Just be careful, Caleb,” Dad said. “We trust you. Keep in mind how wrong things went at Scenic with Gran.”

I wouldn't forget that. Licking the spoon clean, I walked over to the sink. I filled my bowl with gray water to let it soak until Mom did dishes.

Onyx followed me up to my bedroom. I flopped on my bed and grabbed one of Mom's old books.

I cracked open the book, feeling its hefty weight in my hands like a promise spoken, kept, and realized.

CHAPTER 26

I woke up with something pressing into my rib cage. I pushed it onto the floor where it landed with a clunking sound. I looked down, blurry-eyed, and saw that it was the book.

I lay back, groaning, and flung my arm over my eyes. Onyx came over and pressed his wet nose to my face. He gave my cheek a single lick.

Gross.

The Boy seemed sad about something. The Dog restrained himself and gave the Boy a single lick after inhaling the fragrant Boy smell. He would wag his tail and the Boy would notice and tell him the Good Word.

I didn't want to hurt Onyx's feelings so I patted his head and said, “That's a good dog, Onyx.”

That got his tail wagging, beating loudly on the wood floor.

I laughed. “Okay, boy, okay.” I thought,
You're a good dog.

The Boy had put the word-smells in his head, and it sounded like the Good Word. The Dog wagged his tail.

If Onyx wagged any harder it would take his butt off.

I swung my legs around and put my feet on the cold floor. Geez, maybe I needed a rug. Onyx stood, still wagging his tail. I searched the floor for something to wear. Looking around, I realized that being organized meant I couldn't find anything. Finally, I found one pair of clean socks in a drawer. I sighed, looking at the dirty clothes in the hamper. I sorted through the thing, silently thanking Mom for not getting me anything white anymore. Sorting colors was for chumps.

I scooped a huge pile of dirty clothes into my arms. Onyx rushing ahead as I stumbled down the stairs, looking around the laundry to see where I was going.

“What are you doing?” Mom asked. “Oh! Laundry? Miracles never cease. Don't forget to take Onyx out.”

I glanced at Onyx patiently waiting by the back door. As if he’d let me forget….

I went to the laundry room, stuffed the whole bundle into the machine and added some soap.

Mom rounded the corner. “Did you remember how much soap to put in?”

Busted.

“Ah... I put in this much.” I held up my hand with my index finger and thumb about two inches apart.

“No! You're going to wash the world, honey. Scoop some out.”

I scooped until she was happy, then turned on the machine

After that, I opened the back door for Onyx.

I watched him run around the “potty area.” It was the lamest name in the world, but the lady from the animal shelter had said using the same words they used at the shelter would keep things consistent for Onyx. I think he would have taken a growler just about anywhere, being as it was his absolute favorite thing to do. As I thought this, he did the old hunch-back, laying a steamer on the gravel—a prize to be scooped up later, by me, of course.

We went inside and I smelled pancakes. Dad was on his pulse-top, reading boring news or looking at stocks. I plopped down in my seat, whipping out my pulse to talk to Jade.

Caleb: Hey, hotness.

JLeC :Hi! Whatcha doin'?

Caleb: Just sittin' here waiting for the deelish pancakes!

JLeC: Jealous! Are they fruit pancakes?

Caleb: <Profanity-block!> no! They're regular.

JLeC: What do you have against fruit? It's good for you!

Caleb: That.

JLeC: What? That it's good for you?

Caleb: That.

JLeC: Okay. <Sigh> What's the plan?

Caleb: I want to show you the new place.

JLeC: Are we being careful here?

Caleb: Always.

JLeC: Okay... what time?

Caleb: Three o'clock. I'll pick you up.

JLeC: Idk, do ya think it's good for you to come to the neighborhood?

Caleb: Yeah. Are there more problems with your dad?

JLeC: Not atm but he goes off in random rages. He's definitely not predictable.

Caleb: Doesn't matter. I won't hide.

JLeC: I know. That's why you're so special.

Caleb: You're special too, ya know.

JLeC: Thank you ☺ See ya later.

Caleb: See ya.

“Who's that?” Mom asked, putting a stack of pancakes down in front of me.

“Jade.”

“No more pulsing at the table,” Dad said. “What are you guys doing later this evening?”

Third degree. “Ah...we're just going to walk around and stuff.”

They looked at each other, parental radar detection system on line.

Mom said, “You two are welcome to be here at the house.”

“I know. We just want to walk around. It's warm now,” I said.

Dad nodded. “The summer stretches before one, shimmering in its ethereal beauty.”

Mom and I stared at him.

Dad shrugged. “Just waxing poetic.”

“Well... don't, Dad.”

Mom burst out laughing, batting her eyelashes.

Dad smiled at her.

Geez.

I slipped Onyx a wad of pancake.

The Boy handed the Dog some wonderful food stuff, full of life and not the dead food that he was accustomed to eating from the building-full-of-dogs. It was because he was a Good Dog. The Boy's word-smells filled his head, and the Dog was happy and wagged his tail.

Onyx did a subtle wolf-down of the pancake. He was a great dog. Dad caught the whole food thing and gave me the look that said Mom should not find out. I nodded.

After breakfast, I headed for the bathroom to complete the shower hassle. I had gotten used to being clean and didn't like the grimy feeling anymore. Not that I would admit that to the Js or anything. Dudes on hygiene... no.

I stepped out of the shower, swished the towel over the mirror, and examined my face. Jade would be up close and personal. No zits—check. No unsightly man-hair on the face—check. But I did need a haircut.

I got dressed then went downstairs and told Mom about the hair situation.

“I'll give you a buzz, son,” Dad said.

“Okay. Can you not make me look like a retarded nerd?”

“Caleb—” Mom started.

“That's an oxymoron, it's not technically a put-down,” I said cleverly, using yet another vocab word.

Dad tried not to grin and failed.

Mom frowned. “I loathe the whole retard talk. I thought we had moved past that.”

“Apparently not!” Dad badly his grin.

“Okay, not funny! You goons do the male bonding thing.” Mom huffed out of the room.

“Nice, Dad.”

“Once in a while, I have a moment of clarity. I'll have to sweet talk her later.”

The haircut took forever. Dad said he needed to taper it for styling. I just itched, and my feet got hot.

Mom came back and surveyed the pile of hair growing on the floor. “What about the little hairs getting all over and inside your clothes?”

I shrugged. I'd get through it somehow. I sure didn't want to repeat the whole shower routine.

“Done!” Dad said.

I got up, brushing off my shirt. Onyx went over to the pile of hair and gave it a sniff. He backed away, emitting a low growl.

The Dog smelled the Boy, who was standing while a part of him was on the floor. It was confusing for the Dog. Was the Boy hurt? The Dog looked up at the Boy, the rest of the pack seemed untroubled by the pile of Boy-smelling stuff on the floor. The Dog backed away.

“It's okay, Onyx,” I said, toeing the pile.

Mom headed for the kitchen. “Let me get a broom before that gets all over the house.”

Dad said, “Go check it out in the mirror.”

I stepped into the foyer and looked in the mirror. I hoped Jade liked short hair. The cut made me look older and taller. That couldn't be all bad. The top of my head felt like a million soft needles poking my palm.

When I went back, Mom was cleaning up the mess. Onyx looked as if he thought part of me was getting taken away and buried.

I thought, It's okay. Good dog.

He looked at me and began to wag his tail. The connection thing was pretty awesome.

Dad looked at me expectantly.

“Oh, um… thanks Dad.”

“You like?”

“Yeah, it's all right.”

“What do you think, hon?” he asked Mom.

She looked critically at my nearly bald head. “It's... short.”

“Come on, Mom. You're always bugging me about my hair,” I said, defending Dad's skills.

She nodded. “That's true. You won't need one again anytime soon.”

I took off to my room, Onyx on my heels. I jumped on my bed, bouncing and Onyx settled at the end of it. I pulsed the Js.

Jonesy: We need the zombie work force, Caleb.

John Terran: I don't normally agree with all of Jonesy's ideas, but he's right. A zombie in there could take care of the tunnel issue right away.

Caleb: We can't talk about all this stuff on pulse.

John Terran: You're right. Let's meet later.

Caleb: No. You guys, I need to be with Jade tonight.

Jonesy: We have nights now? Nights? It's like joint custody or something!

Caleb: Okay guys, okay. You jerks don't have gfs, so you don't get it.

Jonesy: Tomorrow then, Romeo?

Caleb: <grunts> Yeah.

John Terran: Deal.

***

Pedaling hard, I rounded the corner and entered Valley Keys, Jade’s neighborhood.

I pulled into her driveway and hopped off my bike, swinging my leg over and doing a little skip and jog to slow down. Engaging the kickstand, I set it up close to the fence, smacking the latch on the gate and walking up to the front door. Jade's Aunt's house was all white. White body, white trim and white door. Kinda creepy.

Jade stepped out the front door looking fan-tas-tic. She wore her dark jeans, and her hair was swept back in neon-green elastic hair thing. A cami that matched the hair thing peeked out from beneath her hot pink top.

She walked over, zipping up a hoodie that was as midnight blue as the jeans.

“Hey.”

My mouth was a little dry. Whoever said beautiful girls were mouthwatering must not have actually talked to one.

I smiled, swallowing to conjure up some saliva.

“Hey back,” I finally croaked out. Jade's smile turned into a grin. Great, so she knew I was reacting to her so much it made me ache.

Her aunt appeared in the doorway.

I cleared my throat.

“Where are you two going?”

I sure wasn't going to tell her the actual place, she'd tell Psycho-Daddy for sure.

“We're going to check out the ice cream shop.”

Jade gave me a look. I looked back like, don't blow it.

“The one where the old Baskin-Robbins used to be?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I was little when they got rid of it.”

“What's the name now?” she asked. Man, she was goin' for the details.

Jade answered, “Terhune's Ice Cream.”

“When do you need to be home?” Andrea asked Jade.

“Ten.”

Jade swung her leg up over her bike, standing with her sandal clad feet on either side of the bar between the seat and the handlebars. On girls' bikes you could do that. Boys' bikes had the ball-buster feature.

Jade balanced on her seat, one foot hitting one side, then the other taking over. I swung up on my seat as I started to pedal with my left foot first, putting on that burst of speed just to get going. I looked around to see if Jade was close. She was but I slowed down, she was shorter and I didn't think she had that maneuver down that the Js and I did. But, I was wrong, she was right on my flank, no trouble at all.

We rode down Kent-Kangley, a dangerous stretch if you didn't pay close attention. My parents always said, “Caleb, pay close attention.” I'd respond, “I won't get creamed today, guys.”

Confidence inspiring.

We took the back route to Scenic Hill. We passed the cemetery on our left after cresting a long hill that at the bottom you think, no problem. But at the top you're like, thank God that's over.

It wasn't long until we were at the dump.

Jade looked at me, balanced precariously on her seat. “Okay...so this is the hideaway?”

I realized that I didn't know the combo for the lock.

“Hold on a sec.” I pulsed John.

John Terran: Hey, what's up?

Caleb: I'm here with Jade and I forgot to get the combo from you.

John Terran: Smooth, Hart, in front of the gf and the whole jazz.

Caleb: I know, dill-weed. Just give it to me.

John Terran: Look up there at the sign and just reverse the last four of the phone number.

Caleb: Which part?

John Terran: Didn't I just say?

Caleb: There’s a bunch of numbers.

John Terran: It's the one that begins with the area code in parentheses.

Caleb: Okay. Thanks.

I put my pulse back in my pocket.

“Sorry. John had to give me the combo for this.” I jerked a thumb toward the massive lock.

I explained about John figuring out the combination and how we had found a tunnel underneath a mound of cars.

Jade's face scrunched up in a cute way. “I don't want to sound like a lame adult here, but is it safe?”

“Of course! The Js and I went in there for a couple of hours.”

She didn't look entirely convinced.

“What I mean is… do you think the pile will collapse?”

“No. But, I guess we'll see what's what when the zombies take care of some space issues. There's a tight spot in there just before it opens up into the main room.”

Jade's black eyebrows rose, arching prettily on that smooth forehead of hers.

Flicking her hair over her shoulder, she said, “So let me get this straight. The zombies are going to go in there, and if they get stuck, they're already dead, so zero loss?”

It sounded bad put like that.

“Ah, I haven't really thought about it that much. Me and the Js,” Jade threw up her hands.

“What?”

“Tell me. Was it Jonesy?”

“Well, yeah.”

“His ideas always get everyone in trouble.”

“Sometimes,” I replied loyally.

“Usually,” she replied with accuracy.

“Alright, I guess we'll just have to be careful with the zombies.”

“Let's get a girl with some brains in on this too.”

“John and I have brains.”

“But somehow Jonesy comes up with all these schemes, and you and John bail everyone out with a shovel.”

I shrugged.

“Okay, who's the smart girl?”

“Well, we're all smart.”

“Ah-huh.”

“I was thinking Tiffany Weller,” Jade said.

“Tiff? I don't know. Sometimes things go weird.”

“What if she can help? What if adults show up?”

I guess, besides her dad, we hadn't had a lot of that. I didn't say it though.

“Okay, you pulse Tiff and see if she wants to involve herself. She's already said yes to the haunted house thing.”

“Another Jonesy idea,” Jade said.

“Yeah.”

“It does sound pretty cool,” she admitted.

“Yeah.”

Jade walked toward the gate with me following. I spun the numbers, and it clicked open smoothly, first time. We walked in and I adjusted it in the fake lock position.

“We can't stop living just because the government might be up-our-ass.”

“Up your ass.” She grinned.

“Right.”

We walked together hand in hand until we came to the pink fridge. Jade walked around the part of it that she was able to, but the very back was more or less surrounded by pieces of cars, with a whole car on its nose (scrunched down) all along the left side. It was still bright daylight out but I knew it would be gloomy-as-hell inside. That wouldn't work and I bent down, grabbing a metal tool, about sixteen inches long, with two curved sides opposite each other. I think Dad called it a crow... something. I used it to prop the door open and explained the coffin theory. The look on her face! Geez! I gave her a fierce hug, putting my hand on the back of her neck, leaning her into me.

I'll never let anything happen to her.

She scared easy but she'd been brave with her dad. Scared of being trapped?

“What is it?” I asked, brushing a wisp of hair behind her ear.

“I hate being in tight spaces,” she mumbled.

“We won't be. The crow-thing will hold the door.”

I led the way down the tunnel. It didn't seem to take nearly as long as it had the first time. I went through the tight squeeze first and turned to help Jade, but she just popped right out.

I clicked on the LED light and shone it around the area.

“Wow,” she said. “You're right. This is perfect. It's got a creep factor, but it will be invisible to most adults.” She pulled out her pulse.

“Can you pulse?”

I got mine out and thumbed the pad: Pulse-signal impairment.

“No, I can't get squat.”

“Me either,” she said.

We sighed in unison and I gave her a kiss on the cheek, but she turned just enough and our mouths collided softly. I hadn't actually had a chance to kiss Jade but had given it a lot of thought. I used one hand to palm my pulse inside my jeans pocket and folded Jade into my body as if she was always meant to fit perfectly. I worked my mouth over the top of her lips, barely lifting off its silky surface for even an instant. She tasted wonderful. She stood on tiptoe to reach me, winding her slender arms around my neck, pressing her hand into the base of my skull as I clenched her body in against mine.

I broke away and looked down at her, our bodies just skimming each other. I watched her pulse thudding in the hollow of her throat, mine a mirror.

All I could think was she was so close to me, and she smelled great. A feeling of need pressed down on my chest, but I backed up a little, giving her some space.

“That was nice,” she said.

“Yeah, it was.”

“Our first real kiss.” She ducked her head, black hair falling forward.

I was dazed but definitely up for a repeat performance. Yeah, I was into the whole practice-makes-perfect philosophy. But I didn’t want to push it.

“We better get going, or your aunt will freak out.”

“Yeah, I guess. I could stay here with you all night.”

“Not scared anymore?” I teased.

“Not so much, no.” She smiled.

I turned off the LED, expecting the light from the tunnel to be enough to guide me to the opening. Instead, we were plunged into complete darkness.

“Caleb?” Jade cried.

“It's okay.” I flipped the LED back on.

No... no it's not. “I think someone closed the door.”

“What? Who?”

“Those jerks.

Carson and Brett.

“Brett’s been in here. He touched this spot over here.”

Well—hell. No pulse, no way out. In the dark with my girlfriend.

Hey... in the dark with my girlfriend. Now that had possibilities.

“Caleb!” She sounded a little hysterical.

“I'll think of something. Just stay calm. ”

My mind turned to the graveyard not two blocks away. I guess the zombie crew were going to have to start early.

We needed zombies, (and the Js suddenly appearing wouldn't be too bad either). Were Carson and Brett still out there? I was gonna have to deal with them. Doesn't look like Brett had softened toward me when I lent him a hand with his crazy-ass dad. Huh.

Jade was mashed up next to me, which was great, but she was my responsibility.

I had an idea.

“Are they still out there?” I asked Jade.

“I think so.”

I let that thread of power slide out of me. I visualized one grave in particular.

I called Clyde to me. Come. Then I threw a visual net, using it in my head like a lasso, tossing it around that one grave like a circle. I clenched it tightly, pulling it toward me.

“What are you doing?” Jade said, sensing something big.

Her voice sounded as if it came from far away. I felt the zombies coming, heading toward the dump. Belatedly, it occurred to me that he may draw attention.

I thought, Stay hidden. The response—yeeeesss—was a razor-like hiss in my mind. I shivered. The communion with the zombie felt like breathing—natural and right, but took some getting used to.

I answered, “Getting help.”

“I think they're here,” she said.

Outside of the door, there was a scuffle, then Brett screeched, “I told you he'd get those fuckin' dead creepers out of the ground. They're going right for the door.”

“Don't worry. I have this under control,” Carson said.

I yelled, “Clyde, rip the door off!”

A great bubble of power left me. Vertigo struck, and my skin felt as if it would slide off my body. Then the world righted, and sunlight streamed in. A rotting head poked through the door hanging crookedly off its hinges.

That solved the locking-us-in-the-hideaway problem.

Jade yelped when Clyde poked his head in. Clyde wasn't a chatty guy, he just stared and I said (very literally; zombies were a task-oriented group). “Grab the kid named Carson, but don't hurt him.”

Carson saw Clyde coming and created a fire ball in the palm of each hand. One of my other zombies was frantically beating at the flames on his feet or what was left of his feet.

Carson was going to need work on his aim.

But Clyde was fast. Whoever said zombies only shambled hadn't met my zombies. They could have serious speed.

I exited the broken freezer door, pulling Jade out as I went. I kept her behind me until I figured out this new mess. I saw something blurring toward me in the periphery.

Jade screamed, “Caleb, watch out!” and then Brett was on me, both of us rolling away from Jade, our hands swept apart.

I turned desperately, trying to keep sight of Jade, and Brett belted me a good one in my jaw. I aimed a knee at his crotch, but he moved, and it landed in his stomach. We grappled for a few seconds. I managed to get on top, and I punched him in the face.

I looked up and Jade stood with four zombies around her, tiny looking, them a rotting back drop, Carson preparing to torch her.

I didn't hesitate, “Move in front of her.”

The zombies twitched as one, blocking Jade with their bodies. The one with the burning feet crawled to be in front of her. Cripes! I'd think about that later, right now Jade needed saving.

“Clyde, his hands!” I screamed.

Clyde’s eyeballs rolled in my direction, and a dark understanding lit them. He folded one arm across both of Carson's, tightening it like a vise. The remains of one cuff of his sleeves waving small fingers of material in the light breeze, a cuff-link tenaciously hanging on, twinkling in the hazy sunlight, then grabbed Carson's right hand.

“He's breaking my hand,” Carson screamed at me with true alarm.

“Oh well!” Jade screamed back.

Huh.

Clyde was busying himself with bending Carson's hand back toward his wrist. I said, “Now, Clyde, don't break it off. Yet.”

“Yeah, Clyde,” Jonesy said from behind me. “If you break his hand, how's he gonna scratch his ass?”

I turned in time to see Jonesy taking a swing at Brett, who had been creeping up behind me.

“It's about damn time!” I said, ducking out of the fray. “I thought I was gonna have to do all the work.”

John followed Jonesy, who was in a full-on struggle with Brett. I turned my attention back to Carson. “Say 'uncle' you troublesome prick.”

“Screw you, Hart.”

I just looked at Clyde, who got it, exerting more pressure on old fire lover.

Carson squealed like a pig. “Ooowww! Tell him to stop.”

“Clyde stop,” I said like I didn't mean it.

Jonesy and Brett were still dueling it out behind me; distinctive meaty thumping sounds of fists swinging.

Interestingly enough, Clyde didn't stop.

“Stop him!”

“Okay. Clyde, stop breaking Carson's hand. For now.”

Clyde took off the pressure, but he let his skeletal hand linger over Carson's.

John came up behind me. “Not that this isn't terrific entertainment, but I want to mention we're not exactly being subtle.”

Uh-huh.

I walked over to Jade. The others zombies stared at me as if I were the single most important thing in the world.

She fell into my arms. “I thought he was going to burn me, Caleb!”

I looked over at Brett and saw that Jonesy had him in an elbow lock. Nice. I guess we couldn't deliver them back all broken; the adults would ask about that.

“Jonesy, get off Brett.”

“Ahhhh!”

“Just do it!”

Jonesy backed off Brett carefully, giving him full eye contact. That was really necessary with Brett, a proven weasel.

Brett stared at me sullenly.

I glanced at one of the zombies over the top of Jade's head, it was a girl zombie.

But I was a believer after Gran and said, “Go watch him,” I pointed to the pile of sullenness that was Brett. The zombie shuffled over there, oops, that was the one with the feet issue.

Brett stood up, fists clenched (I knew that look), and said, “Get your creepers away from me Hart.”

“No, dick-hole. You locked me and Jade in there then tried to beat on me.”

“No, I beat on him,” Jonesy interrupted.

I laughed. “Your butt can just stand there while we deal with Carson.”

The other three zombies stood there, staring blankly at me, waiting for the next directive. Their rotten smell clung to all of us like loose clothing.

I turned to Carson. “Listen, I haven't done anything to you, but you insist on trying to drive me crazy, endangering my girlfriend, and hassling us all. Stop it, or I'm gonna sick my zombies on you.”

The zombies took a step toward Carson, Clyde giving an enthusiastic squeeze. “Not now guys, and girl,” I hurriedly corrected, her eyes almost gone but somehow alive.

The zombie brigade, energetic bunch.

“Not so easy, Hart. You need us.”

Was he high?

“How do you figure, Mason?” Jonesy asked.

“’Cause you've got this hideaway for a reason. I'm thinkin' you're all tryin' to hide from something... or someone. Looks like you're limited on how many of your creepers can help you, right?”

Damn. If he were really dumb, this would be easier.

John said, “Here's the thing. This is like a stalemate, like in chess.” He nodded at Brett. “Why don’t you guys just go away.”

Jade added, “Just go now and leave us alone.” She looked directly at Brett. “You should know better. Caleb helped you.”

“You think he helped me?” Brett barked out a laugh. “What do you think happened after you left?”

We were all quiet.

“He used me like a punching bag. You made it worse not better, Hart. You think you're so damn good. Well, you're not. You need to be put in your place, just like all the other jerks that think their shit don't stink.”

I felt sick. His dad had beat him anyway.

“So your dad's a royal dickhead. You wanna be like him, he's so cool?” Jonesy asked.

“No!” Brett yelled.

“Then stop it Brett. Stop it now,” Jade said quietly.

“Oh, you're all nice now that you're with him.” Brett jerked his chin at me. “But you have bad taste in dudes, Jade.”

“Ah... how is this relevant?” John asked.

Exactly.

Carson squeezed out, “Make this,” he rolled his eyes up to rotting-Clyde, “dead thing let me go and we'll leave you alone, for now.”

“Not good enough. Leave us alone, forever,” I said.

“Fine. Just so you know we're not gonna be friends, ever,” Carson said.

“Yeah, I think we got the enemies thing down.” I looked at Clyde. “Let him go.”

Clyde released Carson.

Carson stumbled and glared at Clyde, who stared unflinchingly back.

“They're not too smart, your zombies,” Carson said.

“Smart enough,”

“Nah, they're dumb,” Brett said, motioning toward Clyde. “But that one is something different.” He moved to stand near Carson.

“Let's split. We'll leave the zombie-lover and his freak friends here. They can get it on in the cave back there in the dark.”

The zombies watched the two with dark intent. I was really betting my residual feelings were leaking some on my zombie horde.

We followed the pair part of the way, then watched them walk the rest. At the gate, Carson turned and flipped us off.

“He's so consistent it's scary,” John said.

“He's always a dick, if that's what ya mean,” Jonesy said.

“Yes, that's what I meant.”

“Are we done yet?” Jade asked.

I looked down at her.

“I think we should fix some stuff before we go.”

“Okay,” John said. “But now that they know where the hideaway is, it's not a secret.”

I shrugged. “Secret enough. Carson's a coward and won't want to get mixed up in a thing where adults might show up.”

“True,” John said.

I check my watch. “We gotta hurry because Jade needs to get back soon.”

“Okay.” Jonesy clapped his hands, and the zombie posse turned to look at him. “Whoa! Hey, Caleb, call the dogs off.”

I laughed. “I don't think they're gonna get ya.”

“Maybe. But I don't want any special attention either.”

In a raspy voice, Clyde asked, “You have need for us this day, master?”

Master?

“Ah... yes, Clyde. Maybe you and,” I gestured vaguely at the others, “can help with our hideaway.” I explained what needed doing.

“This is what you would have of us?” Clyde asked.

“Yeah.”

“This is a small thing, this that you require.”

“Yeah.”

“This magic you have, necromancer, is not a small power. You must think on this thing that you wield.”

He gave me that level stare, his dead eyes holding the weight of his words.

I squirmed under his gaze, feeling uncomfortable.

“I think you need to give old Clyde here the sales pitch,” Jonesy said.

“The what?”

“Tell him why,” Jonesy said.

I turned to Clyde. I couldn't believe I was discussing things with a zombie, but I pressed on. “There are these government dudes who want to take me—”

“The young men we dispatched?” Clyde asked. I became fixated on how when he frowned, the rot froze between his brows.

The zombies were reacting to Clyde too, splitting their attention between us.

I swallowed. “Ah, no. Actually, those guys just want to beat me up and make us all generally miserable.”

A look of confusion came over Clyde's face, at least as far as I was able to tell, since his mouth only had about three teeth and a partial lip.

“They mean you harm without infraction on your part?”

“Kinda… I don't know. Listen, they're jerks, and they don't like me and just enjoy causing trouble. Here's the thing: I need this place to hide, in case these government squirrels are looking for me and I need to escape. Can you and them”—I gestured at the other zombies—“make the tunnel bigger?”

“What, pray tell, do the government rodents wish from you?”

John responded, “I think they want to use Caleb to do bad things for them, like spy-type stuff.”

“Nefarious things?” Clyde asked, a rotten lip plucking in undead amusement.

John nodded. “Yes, exactly those things.”

“What?” Jonesy asked.

“Later,” I hissed.

Jonesy looked offended, he'd get over it.

“Very well,” Clyde said, straightening the lapels of his coat. One came off and fluttered to the ground. He gave a sniff and stepped over the top of it.

He looked over at the zombie group, eying them for almost a full minute. I was just about ready to ask what he was doing when they all shambled over to the freezer. The zombies did the GI Crawl back through the tunnel. Sounds of metal screeching and clanking began.

Jonesy bobbed his head forward and back. “Now this is what I was talking about.”

“Are they lifting those cars?” Jade asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“They're strong.” She said it like it was a bad thing.

“Yeah, they are.”

“I told you guys to piss off? How come you showed?”

John grinned.

“What?” I asked.

“You weren't answering your pulse, I knew something was wrong.”

“We can't get pulse-signal in there,” I said.

John raised his eyebrows. “For an hour?”

“Yeah, I guess we were in there a while.” I noticed that a fine blush had worked its way up Jade's face, coloring her cheeks pink.

Jonesy said, “You guys getting all cozy in there?”

Jade wanted to die. I wanted to die. Jonesy... what an ass. But, he had saved the day. Choices, choices.

“Anyway,” John said, “let's go by the ice cream shop so we can make a pretense of having done what you said you were going to.”

The zombies plodded back out a few minutes later. We checked, and the tunnel was definitely wider. Even stocky Jonesy could get through easily.

When we came back out, Clyde turned his rotting eyes to me. “Master, put us to rest now that we have completed this task.”

Clyde was a good shot taller than I. I realized the rotting-flesh stench wasn't affecting me much anymore, but my friends stood at a respectful distance. Jade had her hand over her nose, and breathing out of her mouth.

I told Clyde, “I may need you again, because things come up.”

“What things are you referencing?” Clyde asked.

“Things like bad people showing up.”

“Nefarious people?”

“Yeah... them.”

“Indeed,” Clyde said, straightening.

We all left the dump and walked to the cemetery.

Me, the pied piper, trooping ahead and the zombies following; skirting behind the tree line so the observant adult wouldn't get in an accident.

We entered Scenic Cemetery and went to Clyde's grave.

Clyde landed on his grave in a graceful, acrobatic move. The others lay down on theirs. I released the thread that held them to me, reaching out for Jade's hand as I did. I thought, Rest.

And they did.

They appeared luminescent for just a moment, sunlight swirling around them, shimmering. Then, they leaked back into their graves as if they had never been.

Jonesy sighed as if he'd been holding his breath and clapped me on the back. “I'm so glad that you're my friend, dude.”

“I hear that,” John said.

“Me three,” Jade said.

“Hey. How come you didn't whammy me?” I asked John.

“I read up on being a Null. I guess you can shield your abilities.

I’ve been practicing, and this was my big trial run. Of course, it helped that they were all raised before I came. And I was standing away from you when you put them away.”

We all looked at the undisturbed graves. Cool.

“How do you do it? The blocking?” Jade asked.

“Shielding,” John clarified.

“I think about something completely different.”

“Visualizing?” Jonesy asked.

John gave him a surprised look. “Yeah, that's it.”

Jonesy broke out into a huge grin.

“Whatcha thinkin' about, John?”

“Ah-nothing, just something different.”

“Riiiiggghhht. I am sure it's really different.”

A bright blush rushed up John's face. Jade stared. I stared. We waited.

“It's nothing,” he mumbled, glaring at Jonesy.

“It's not nothing. It's a someone,” Jonesy said.

“Come on, let's go get ice cream,” John said, shooting Jonesy the evil eye.

Jonesy winked at Jade and me. I was sure wondering what John was using to shut down the Null in him. It'd be interesting to find out.

We jumped on our bikes and rode to the ice cream shop, the only tame thing we'd done that night.

CHAPTER 27

We perched on stools around a tall, round table. Jade ordered licorice ice cream, which I thought of as “black-tongue” ice cream and possibly the grossest flavor on the planet (and it reminded me of my zombies mouths). Another weird girl thing: Jade got her ice cream in a cup. That was like against a religion somewhere. I didn't know whose, but somebody’s. I had the best flavor, bubblegum, and so did the Js. Well, Jonesy insisted on half ruining his with an additional scoop of of upside-down pineapple (disgusting), but insisted it was the tightest flavor.

How could fruit elevate ice cream in any way?

Jade pulled out her pulse. “I'm going to pulse Andrea and let her know we ran into you guys and we're still at the ice cream shop.”

“She gonna buy that?” Jonesy asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, she figures I'll sit here, staring at Caleb, then with you two showing up, we'd stay longer. And the bonus is I don't have to lie. We did have ice cream, and we did see you guys here.”

“Stare at me?” I asked.

“Yeah, it's like a joke. She thinks that I stare at you when you're around.”

I felt a goofy grin on my face. Jade staring at me… I could get used to that.

We finished up, separated the trash, and slipped out the door.

“Wow, it's hot,” Jonesy said.

“No, it's just that they had the air conditioning in there set on frigid,” Jade said.

The Js and I looked at each other.

“It was perfect in there,” John said.

I nodded.

“Well, I get cold easy and they had the air on and I was eating ice cream,” Jade said giving us a face, see my logic?

We didn't.

It felt like a raging inferno out here and decent in the ice cream shop.

We shrugged, girls.

The Js took off toward their houses, and I got Jade back to hers. On her porch, I leaned in for a quick kiss. Actually, I let my mouth linger on hers just a little bit, then I took off for my place.

Riding up to the front door, I saw Onyx with his nose pressed to the narrow window, tail wagging.

The Boy has returned and made the good word smells in my head. The Dog wagged his tail harder.

I tore open the door and closed it quietly behind me. I gave Onyx's head a good rub. Then, I headed to the kitchen, Onyx on my heels. Mom and Dad were sitting at the table

Thunk, wag-wag.

“Whatcha doing, Parental Units?” I snagged a peanut-butter-chocolate-chip cookie.

“Hey,” Mom said, “those haven't cooled for the jar.”

I paused, cookie halfway to my mouth. “Okay and that makes what sense? Does it matter if I take it from the plate before it goes into the jar or after it's cooled and in it?”

“I like the cookies to cool first,” she said. “Then, I've got more cookies to put in the jar. There are less cookies when you vacuum them off the plate before I can put them in their proper place.”

Weird Mom-logic.

I sat there with the cookie in my hand.

“Ugh! Just eat it, but no more.”

Dad grabbed one off the plate. Mom glared at him, but he was spared the cookie-jar speech. She opened the fat blue chef cookie jar and carefully placed the remaining cookies inside. She sprinkled bread crumbs from the ass end of a bread loaf too. Freshness.

I snickered.

Dad raised his brows, his lips twitching. “So what did you and the LeClerc girl do tonight?”

I swallowed my bite of cookie.

“We went to the ice cream shop.”

“On East Hill? Terhune's?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“I liked it when it was Baskin-Robbins,” Mom said.

“Remember Shakey's Pizza?” Dad asked with a wistful not in his voice.

Mom nodded. “Those were the days—all you can eat and we'd just walk over there from KM.”

“Mom, that's a school for derelicts now.”

“Caleb. You understand 'diversified' is more appropriate.”

“Yeah. But derelict sounds cooler.”

“It depends on who's listening, I suppose. I'll admit it's a great adjective,” Mom said.

Was Mom conceding my victory on a non-politically correct word? Or a misappropriated word?

“KM is vo-tech. now, right?” Dad asked Mom.

“Yes.”

“Well, pal, I guess you won't have to worry about the 'derelicts' as you'll be attending KPH.”

Mom frowned. I thought Dad secretly liked my use of spontaneous language.

After supper, I ran upstairs to my clean room. I had saved a cheeseburger chunk in my pocket. It was squished, and the ketchup and mayo were oozing out.

It looked bad.

Onyx wagged his tail.

The Dog smelled something delicious from the Boy.

I shrugged. I was betting the looks wouldn't matter. I was right. He inhaled it.

I laughed. “Was that good, boy? Did you even taste it?”

I fell asleep with a book on my chest and Onyx on the foot of my bed. He'd ignored the spot I had made for him. That was the way I liked it.

CHAPTER 28

On Monday, all the kids milled around in the commons, waiting to hear their high school assignments. Brett was the big topic of conversation as he was a mundane like Jonesy but wasn't going to Kent Lake High. If we were really lucky he'd go to KM—derelict central. He'd fit right in. Of course, there were the inevitable transfers. Some kids’ powers were latent, and they had to be reassigned.

Tiff strolled over. She wore a flaming-red hoodie pulled halfway down her face and skin-tight black jeans with black tennis shoes. “It's a good thing you figured out a hidey-hole for our coolness. Otherwise, we'd be exposed to... the man.”

“What?” Jonesy asked, baffled.

Tiff did a hard eye-roll. “Sort of a doofus, arentcha?”

“Hey!” John huffed. He and I could call Jonesy any number of names, but no one else could.

“Whatever.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Are we still on for the haunted thing?”

Jonesy shrugged. “Well, that depends on your behavior. If you treat me good, then you can come.”

John and I nodded. We couldn't accept any dissing from the females.

“I think Tiff is just tired of explaining all her comments,” Sophie said in a sage drawl.

“Be clearer,” I said. “ 'The man'? Who the hell is that?”

“The man is our government,” Tiff said.

Jonesy blinked. “If you say so. Anyway, we've got a place now—”

“That Brett and Carson know about,” Jade added.

“Yeah,” John said dejectedly.

“And the man isn't going to find it,” I said.

“What if Brett and Carson lead them to our new spot?” Sophie asked.

“It's okay. Between my skills and Team Dead, we'll be okay,” Jonesy said.

“Your skills? What skills?” Tiff asked. She murdered the silence with a popping bubble and the group flinched.

“Hey, I'm the one who comes up with the ideas, plans, and other cool stuff to entertain everyone,” Jonesy said.

“Mostly, you just get us into trouble,” Jade said.

Jonesy spread his palms out, eyes buggy. “But it's a helluva lot of fun!”

The secretary's voice came over the pulse speaker. “Eighth grade students, get in line according to your last name.”

We walked to our respective lines. Carson came out of nowhere and joined my line.

“Hey, Carson,” I said, feeling the waters.

“Don't talk to me, Hart, ya freak.”

“You too,” I said with a grin.

Carson glared at me. I turned away from him, I could blow him off.

Jade and Sophie were in line B, and John and Tiff were in line C. I caught sight of Brett a few people behind Jade. My heart raced. He saw me notice him and reached to touch Jade's hair. Sophie was talking to Jade, and her eyes widened. Jade saw her reaction and turned, so his hand brushed her face instead of her hair. Jade cringed, stepping back.

I left my line and strode over to Brett.

“Don't touch her.”

Brett smirked. “Gets you all fired up, Hart?”

“Need another zombie lesson, Brett?” I asked in a fierce whisper.

His eyes narrowed. “Ya know, someday, you're not gonna have Jonesy or one of your freak zombies around to save your ass, then what? Huh? She lives by me, and you're not always around.”

He looked at Jade. “Yeah, you're a freak like your boyfriend here. It's okay if you know what I think, though. More than okay.”

He smiled at her.

Jade shuddered, and I put my arm around her.

Ms. Griswold strode up, arms pumping stoutly by her sides. “Hart, Mason...problem here?” she asked, her nasal voice shredding my eardrums.

“No problem,” Brett responded.

Right.

“Mr. Hart, aren't you in the wrong line?”

“Ah…” I looked around, playing dumb. “I don't know.”

“I think you do. Get going.” She swung her clipboard to indicate my line. “Over there.”

She waited while I gave Jade a squeeze, crossing her arms over her ample chest and tapping her foot. I reentered my line where I had been.

It went on for kilometers, but I finally received my ticket.

Kent Paranormal High. Appear for registration on September 2, 2025, between 7- 8 a.m. for class roster.

Jonesy got Kent Lake High, but there was an addendum attached.

Secondary Aptitude Testing for Paranormal abilities will be administered within the first two weeks of instruction.

John said, “There must be kids slipping notice.” At our questioning looks, he continued, “There are kids who don't follow a puberty timeline. We're not all following the same schedule, y'know.”

“I thought the AP Tests picked up on that,” I said.

“They do, but it's not an exact science.”

Jonesy jumped around as if his feet were on fire. “Ya think I may ping later? Hot damn!”

John sighed. “I didn't say you. I've heard there have been a few kids who manifest later than the AP Testing.”

“Weren't the drug companies promising—” Sophie started.

Jade interrupted. “Yeah. That everyone would manifest an ability by a certain time.”

We'd all heard the same spiel. It was straight out of their pulsemercials.

“That's what they thought, but we're human beings,” John said. “Individuals.”

“What John's saying is we're all alike, but not exactly alike. The drug companies put us in the same box, and some don't fit,” I said.

“Generalizing the population,” John restated.

“So I may ping the test?” Jonesy asked again.

John threw up his hands. “I don't know! They'll see if you join us freaks at KPH.”

“Nice. I knew I'd have extra skills.”

“I thought you already had skills,” Tiff said, one eyebrow cocked.

“Yeah, I do, I said extra.”

“Whatever,” Tiff said, exasperated.

Sophie's cheeks had a faint blush as she and Jade walked off to their class. Maybe she was diggin' on the Jonester.

“Hey!” I called.

Jade turned. I jogged over and pulled her in for a hug. I slyly looked for adult radar then gave her a nice one right on that luscious mouth of hers.

“Miss ya,” I whispered, looking into the green pools of her eyes.

“Me too.”

“Give me a break!” Jonesy said. “You guys will live until the end of the day.”

I glared at him. “The question that you should ask yourself is whether you'll live.”

Jonesy ran down the hall. Breaking away from Jade, I raced after him. John trailed behind, laughing.

CHAPTER 29

Finally, Friday arrived. It was an easy day, just field games and a picnic. The last one out of the room, I was gathering my stuff from my final class, when the Js came over to my desk.

I raised my desktop to get a pencil that had rolled to the back. John leaned over to look, and the frizz of his hair speared my nose.

“Ah… choo!” I blasted the inside of my desk.

“Hey!” John yelped, jerking his head up and hitting the table top on his way.

“Ouch! That hurt like a bitch,” John muttered, rubbing his head.

“Nice, Terran,” Jonesy said, his eyes rolling to indicate adult radar had noticed his colorful wording.

Just short of wiping my nose on my sleeve, I spied the tissue box on Ms. Rodriguez's desk. I went over and grabbed a couple of tissues, then blew my nose. As I turned around, I noticed Ms. Rodriguez standing inside the doorway. She was dressed very summery with stiletto heels, a tight white skirt and a pale yellow blouse. A lacy cami in aqua flashed (a cleavage-hider, that). Her dark hair flowed around a face that was... angry.

“You know very well the rules of decorum in this classroom, Mr. Terran.”

John jumped and spun around to face her. “Y-y-yes, Ms. Rodriguez.”

“No vulgar language, understood?” She arched a perfect raven’s wing eyebrow.

John nodded.

This was priceless, Terran was the least likely of the three of us to curse. Loving it.

Ms. Rodriguez turned her attention to us and I dry swallowed.

Jonesy looked ready to crawl up his own ass.

Rodriguez narrowed her eyes at me. “Mr. Hart, would you”—she pointed a white, french-tipped nail at my desk—“gather your garbage, please?” She indicated the trash separator beside her desk.

Sighing, I lumbered back over to my desk. Jonesy looked as though he had been struck between the eyes with a hammer.

John slid one lanky arm into my desk and pulled out a colorful ball.

“A Hacky Sack!” Jonesy chortled.

“A what?” John asked.

“See? You're not so smart.”

“Give it,” I said. “It's my dad's.”

“I want a demo, Hart,” Jonesy said.

“Boys!” Ms Rodriguez called.

I whispered, “Later.”

“Okay.” Jonesy tossed the Hacky Sack to me.

I stuffed the bag in my jeans pocket, where it made a disturbing bulge.

“Hey, Caleb,” Jonesy said, “You may want to put that in your back pocket.”

“Right,” John agreed.

I stuffed it in the back, remedying the three testicle look.

“Better,” John said.

We went back to work, John using two pencils to excavate an unknown something.

It was slimy and gray... no, black. Sick. And not in a good way.

“Caleb, that is truly disgusting,” Jonesy said, awed.

“What is it?” John said eyeballing it.

“I don't know.”

“I want to see,” Jonesy said, leaning forward, giving it an experimental whiff; then he made a barfing noise, running over to the bin labeled Compost and heaved his breakfast into it.

Ms. Rodriguez left the room, squealing in disgust.

“That solves it, definitely a food item,” John deduced.

From the well of the compost bin Jonesy echoed, “Banana!”

“Thanks for clearin' that up!”

John walked it over to the compost bin, giving it a proper burial.

“I'm going to the bathroom and rinse my mouth out,” Jonesy said.

“Please,” John said.

“Thanks for figuring that out. I'll sleep better tonight, now that the mystery is solved.”

Jonesy waggled his brows. “Look at how I got rid of Rodriguez, huh?”

That was true.

Jonesy walked out, John and I scooping out the remaining stuff.

John said, “How can anyone get three English texts in here? You should be using your pulse-text.”

“I just like holding the real book.”

“Three of them?”

John stacked them in his arms, placing them on the bookshelf. We hardly used textbooks, everything was pulse this and pulse that. On top were the dedicated pulse readers, all English.

Jonesy returned from the bathroom as we were leaving. “They're already playing baseball out in the field,”

“What are we waiting for?” I asked.

All of us tore out of there like our asses were on fire.

***

My belly was full of hot dogs, chips, and chocolate milk. During the baseball game, Jonesy had got a homerun, but John had only made it to first base once, tripping on the way there. I had been busy staring at Jade and gotten nailed on the shin by a bad pitch. My leg was throbbing in a distracting way.

“Look what I got,” Jonesy said, holding up a loose fan of Blow Pops.

He looked like one of those magicians who pulled coins from behind people’s ears. I grabbed a grape-flavored one. Mom would have a turtle if she caught me with sugar. Sugar was evil.

I thought it tasted pretty good.

Jade grabbed sour apple. Disgusting, but that wasn’t a surprise since she did like licorice ice cream.

I glanced at Jade just as the sun slid behind a cloud, reducing the luster of her hair to shimmering black oil. She caught me looking at her and smiled.

Jonesy snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Snap out of it, Hart!”

I swatted his hand away. “What's the haunted plan tonight?

Jonesy smirked, “I think you can just show up and scare all the ghosts with that haircut your dad gave you.”

Jade gave me a sympathetic look.

I scrubbed a hand over the bristle and sighed. I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know my dad gave me a haircut?” I asked.

Jonesy laughed. “Are you really asking that question? Your dad always gives you the haircut.”

“Is it that obvious?”

Everyone nodded.

I folded my arms across my chest, talking around the sucker. “I doubt my hair is going to be enough to scare anyone or anything.”

“Caleb's right, what's the plan? I noticed it's Friday the thirteenth and nothing's happened,” John said.

“The day's young,” Jonesy said, brandishing his half-eaten lollipop. “There's plenty of crap that can still happen.” He eyed us. “So I'm thinkin' we should meet around eight at the cemetery then weasel over to the shack about ten.”

John nodded. “Maybe bringing my LEDs would be good.”

Jonesy huffed. “No. How is it gonna be creepy if you're wrecking it with LEDs? Think, my man!”

“He's got a point,” I said.

“It seems safer, though,” Jade hesitantly added.

“What could go wrong?” Jonesy asked.

Jade gave him an astonished look. “Ah... everything.” She bit into her sucker to reach the gum.

John stopped chewing long enough to say, “The gum loses flavor fast.”

“Yeah,” Jade and Jonesy said at the same time.

Jonesy grinned. The gum fell out of his mouth and plopped on the ground. “Ah, damn.”

After they walked off, I asked Jade, “Why don't you pulse Andrea and see if you can come to my house for dinner?”

“Okay.” She pulled out her pulse and was done in seconds. “It's okay. But did ya ask your parents?”

“Nah, my mom won't care. She'll think it's a vacation from the Js.”

We walked to my house, our fingers entwined. I was really getting used to having her next to me. When we got to my place, we went straight to the kitchen. I did it out of habit, and Jade just followed.

Mom looked up from the stove. “Hi, Caleb. Oh... hi, Jade.”

“Hey, Alicia,” Jade said.

“Are you staying for supper?”

We both nodded, and I asked, “It's okay, right?”

“You bet. It'll be ready in,” she turned to the pulse-clock, synchronized to Greenwich Mean Time, “five-ish, okay?”

“Great, Mom. we're gonna go up to my room.”

“Door open, Caleb.”

Jade blushed, and I said, “Yeah, Mom.”

Holy crow.

“Oh!” Mom said. “How was your last day of school?”

“It was good. Jonesy got a home run.”

“Not surprising. He's pretty athletic, our Jonesy. Your dad will be home shortly.”

“Really?” That was different, Dad didn't usually get home until supper time.

“He knew it was your last day of school and thought it would be fun to play some ball or whatever.”

Jade said, “Ah, I've got some stuff to do, and then I can come back for dinner.”

“I didn't mean to chase you off, Jade,” Mom said.

She laughed. “I'm sure my aunt has something for me to do since I'm going out with friends tonight.”

“Oh?” Mom arched an eyebrow.

I jumped in. “Yeah, a group of us kids are going to explore and walk around.”

“Who?” Mom asked, hands on hips, eyes intense.

I shrugged, trying to be casual. “The Js and Tiff.”

“That tough girl from Scenic Cemetery?”

“Yeah, she's good to have around, Mom.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because she is AFTD too. It just makes things better if some weird stuff comes up.”

“Is there a plan for weird stuff?”

Uh-oh, this was getting close to lying. “No. But we didn't think anything bad was gonna happen at Scenic, and you know how that turned out.”

Mom looked thoughtful.

“Okay, who else?

“Sophie and Bry Weller,” Jade supplied.

“Who's he?” Mom asked.

“He's the older boy that was there,” I said.

Mom grimaced. “Oh. That was an unfortunate incident for him.” She shook her head.

Unfortunate incident didn't cover it.

“Is there some issue with everyone in that Weller family shortening their names?” Mom asked in her random way.

Jade said, “Tiff thinks her name sounds,” she paused, “too girlie.”

“What about the boy?”

“I don't know about him,” Jade admitted.

“Look at Jonesy. Why doesn't anyone call him Mark?”

We thought on that.

Finally, Mom said, “he doesn't seem like a Mark.”

Yeah, Mark was so wrong for him.

“Yet, he is clearly Mark,” I said.

“Okay, be back by around five, Jade. We're having pizza and salad.”

Salad? Disgusting. I'd drown it in ranch dressing.

Jade smiled. “I love salad.”

Jade and I hugged by the front door, and she sauntered off. I looked after her, torn between walking her home but not wanting to be freaky overprotective.

Mom came up behind me. “You can't protect her all the time.”

I smiled. Mom has telepathy, but she's not a paranormal.

“I hate where she lives.”

“No, you hate who she lives near.”

That was mainly accurate. “That, too.”

I went to the bathroom to take a shower and wash off the layer of baseball grime with a chaser of sucker.

CHAPTER 30

Jade and I arrived at the cemetery a late. We were holding hands, with an occasional whack from Onyx's tail.

The whole group was there. Bikes were piled up beside the gate. It wasn't dark yet, but the sky had deepened to a polished azure—that color only summer could claim.

Tiff and Bry had on hoodies—the Weller uniform. My stomach clenched when I caught sight of him. Our last encounter had ended badly. He was John's height, but he had fifty pounds on my friend—definitely a jock. I swallowed nervously.

Onyx lowered his head, and I thought, It's okay, Onyx.

The Boy has put the good sounds in the Dog's head, but there was a nervousness that is not typical of the Boy. The Dog became watchful of the new people, a foreign pack.

The Dog approached the big male and sniffed his hand. Then, he moved his nose to the female. They were pack, but the others... not. He backed away cautiously, knowing he must maintain his rude eye contact when his Boy was nervous with the pack of two. The Dog understood when the big male looked away that the Dog was dominant.

That was good. The Dog wagged his tail.

“Doesn't seem like your dog likes me much, Hart,” Bry said.

“Nah. He’s just sizin’ ya up.”

Tiff gave me a little salute with her fingers. “Hey, Caleb.”

I nodded back at her. “Hey.”

Bry came over, and I tensed. Onyx omitted a soft growl.

“We're cool,” Bry said, giving me the guy clap on the back.

Everyone seemed to relax, including Onyx. Cool. I instinctively liked Bry for putting stuff to bed.

***

We hiked up a steep knoll, Jonesy in the lead and John, with his LED strapped to his side, following closely.

I caught Sophie glancing at Jonesy, but he didn’t seem to notice. She was taller than Jonesy—what a weird pair they'd make.

“Ya know, you didn't need to bring a murse with all your safe crap,” Jonesy announced, eying up John's satchel-thing.

“What's a murse?” Bry asked.

I chuckled. “A purse for dudes.”

“It doesn't look like a purse,” Bry said, staring at John’s bag.

Jonesy turned. “Listen, if it has a strap and hangs off your body, it's a purse.”

Bry laughed. “Jockstraps hang off your body.”

Everybody let loose on that one for a minute.

“Anyway,” Jonesy said, “John has the contingency crap in case something happens.”

“What's gonna happen?” Bry asked. “We're here to see some ghosts, right?”

“Well, ya see, it's Friday the thirteenth, and—” Jonesy began.

I waved him quiet. “You remember Scenic, right, Bry?”

“Unforgettable, my brother,” he said.

“Right, stuff like that.”

Sophie said, “It's okay. There aren't any of Caleb’s relatives here.”

“Like that's going to matter?” John smirked.

We all looked up at the cemetery. I put out my undead feelers. There were some old dead there. They called to me like a satellite come to orbit. My teeth hummed in response.

John had continued about twenty more feet. “Hey, Caleb,” he called, “how's your signal?”

“Fine, why?” The buzzing of the dead was a dull roar in my skull.

Suddenly, a wall rose in my brain, instantly silencing the dead. I looked up sharply at John. “You doin' the whammy on me?”

“I am,” John said, rocking back on his heels with a grin splitting his face.

I smiled, turning to Tiff. “Do ya feel that?”

“Not anymore,” she said.

I looked at Jade. “And you?”

“Wonderful silence. Nothing.”

“Let go of my hand and touch Tiff,” I told her.

Jade moved away and put her hand on Tiff’s. She shook her head.

Bry had gone around the base of the knoll, about twenty-five feet away.

“Hey Bry!” I shouted.

John scowled. “Sh! Don't be an idiot. Remember, radar.”

Bry said, “Yeah?”

“Jade's gonna come over there and see if she can get a read on you. We need to know how far John's whammy extends.”

“Ah... okay.”

I turned back to John, who was leaning against a crooked tombstone that glowed like a soft beacon in the dusk. “You still narrowed in on me?”

“Yeah.”

Jade walked over to Bry while I crushed a spark of jealousy.

She put a hand on his forearm. “I get something but...” She looked at John. “It's an echo of normal.”

Okay, so we were working with maybe fifty feet.

“Are you fully juicing us, John?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, almost though.”

“Give us all ya got,” I commanded.

John made a strained face. I could see him struggling, even in the low light. He settled on a point between where Jade and Bry stood, about halfway around the base of the knoll, a loose arc.

Jade touched Bry again. “Nothing this time.”

“Kill it John.”

“Yeah, don't keep all amped up, or we won't have any cool shit happen,” Jonesy said.

John visibly relaxed, and the white noise of the dead rushed back in like waves to the shore.

“I hear them a lot,” Tiff said.

“Yeah, kinda hard to miss that whole group at the top of the hill,” I said.

Tiff rolled her eyes. Jade joined us with Bry.

“Let's do it,” I said.

I half pulled Jade up behind me as we laughed and talked about the baseball game.

“Jonesy got that last home run, right?” Sophie remarked.

I nodded. “Yeah, he did.”

“Brett got one, too,” Jade said.

“He'd be a really good athlete if he wasn't such an ass,” John said.

“Yeah, that’s too bad,” Jade said.

“Come on,” I said. “Don't feel sorry for him. Look at what just happened at the hideout. I'll tell ya something. If either one of those jerks comes near you, they'll get a reckoning.” I wasn't doing forty pushes before bed for nothing.

Jonesy said, “Yeah, I'm itching to get old pyro and Brett. That would be great!”

We took a rest at the top. Cars whizzed by on Highway 167, creating constant noise. At least there wasn't that horrible auto smell anymore that my parents had described from when they were young. We were surrounded by a bunch of buildings with just a small oasis of trees adjacent to the graveyard, which looked untended.

Bry said, “My grandparents used to come here to make out.”

Sophie gasped. “Are you kidding? They told you that?”

“Yeah, they've been married forever and thought they could just, ya know, talk about everything.”

“Wow, awkwardness,” Jade said.

“Not a lot of privacy,” I remarked, looking around.

“It was different back then. There was just the highway down there”—Bry jerked his head in the direction of the cars moving on the ribbon of concrete—“And nothing was here but those houses up by Panther Lake. Small neighborhoods, nothing more, from the 1960s and a few farmhouses.”

I tried to envision the Kent of sixty or seventy years ago. It didn't seem real. We moved into the center of the cemetery. I looked at the tombstones, seeing that many of the etchings had worn away with only a few letters left.

Jade bent over to study one. Her hair swept forward, leaving her pert nose the only thing visible from the side. “Why is this one speckled?” she asked, running her hand over the polished surface. She pressed a finger into a corner divot, worn smooth from many seasons of weather.

Some of the speckles seemed to sparkle in the pale light. Nearby were similar tombstones with that speckled look. Small flecks caught the light, seeming to wink back at us.

Night had descended, a velvet glove encasing our group while the moonlight speared through the trees, caressing a stone marker here and there and illuminating the areas between.

“I think it's granite,” I said.

“No. I’m pretty sure those are marble,” John said.

I shook my head. “No, the all-white ones are marble. My dad told me these were granite.”

“He gives you the graveyard know-how?” Jonesy asked.

I laughed. “No, he knows some stuff about geology.”

“I didn't think your dad did rocks and stuff,” John said. “I thought your dad was bio-chemistry.”

“He is. But he had to study all kinds of sciences. I remember he told me once that they don't use granite like this as much anymore. They're using that recycled glass stuff now, ya know, the stuff that looks like quartz.”

“It's pretty,” Jade said.

I thought so too, but I wouldn’t say out loud.

“Moving on. Let's blow this Popsicle stand.” Jonesy walked toward the shack.

We made our way carefully through the long, hay-like grass where the markers appeared to be stranded, drowning. Onyx's black tail appeared like a shark's fin in the ocean of yellow.

“Good thing it's a full moon, not a lot of need for the LED's,” John said, slapping the one bouncing at his hip.

Jonesy, quite a ways ahead, said, “It adds to the vibe-of-creep I've been trying to establish, boys and girls!”

Tiff gave Jonesy a good natured middle-finger salute.

Without even breaking stride, he said, “I saw that!”

Sophie giggled. Bry rammed his knee right into the corner of a tombstone and swore.

“Pull up your boxer briefs, bro,” Tiff said.

“Put a cork in it,” Bry replied, limping away.

A broken fence marked one side of the cemetery, the slats crooked and standing up like swords. My sense of foreboding increased.

Jade whispered, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Great.

“We picked the place for the scare factor.” I looked around; I wasn't getting caught with my shorts down.

Jade didn't say anything, but she clung a little tighter to my hand. I squeezed. She was fragile, such an interesting mix of girlness and toughness. I vowed to be hyper-aware. She was the one who needed protecting.

“There it is!” Jonesy whispered fiercely.

The shack was utterly different from what I'd expected. It was actually a small house. A wide front porch ran the length of the façade. The posts were square and stout, and a bevel ran up all four sides, softening the stern lines. One corner of the roof was drooping with an interesting window located dead center in the gable peak, that looked like a dark unblinking eye. Not a happy architectural feature, that. The door posed as a gaping mouth, teeth unseen.

John, Jonesy, Tiff, and Bry went forward. Jade and I lagged behind, and Sophie nervously brought up the rear. Her curly hair was shoved behind her ears, the rest a cloud behind her.

“Hey, shouldn't we like, bring out the LED now?” Sophie asked, a bare tremor of fear coloring her voice.

“Not yet,” Jonesy said, hesitating on her face for an extra second.

Interesting. Jonesy put his foot on the top step and it shrieked in protest. We all jumped like rockets.

Jonesy stumbled back. “Holy hell!”

Bry laughed. “It's a creaky step, brave one.”

“Okay, smart ass, you tromp up there.”

Bry rolled his shoulders and loosened his neck. “Okay,” Bry replied, all man of the hour.

“Wait,” Tiff said. “Why don't you let us AFTDs check it out, hot shit.”

Bry crossed his arms, exhaling in a rush. “Fine.”

I moved away from Jade then changed my mind. I didn't like her standing out there, exposed. I was still remembering the hideout and how Carson and Brett had popped up like a couple of pieces of toast. As Dad said, valor was sometimes masked as caution. She grasped the back of my jacket and walked up the steps behind me.

On the porch, Tiff asked, “Can you sense anything?”

“Nada.”

We both looked at John.

He gave us a sheepish look. “Oh! Yeah...”

Suddenly, our senses came back online like a river covering stones. Tiff turned to me and nodded. Jade and I stepped forward, that feeling of naturalness with the dead a constant.

A thought occurred to me. “Don't touch my skin, Jade. Just in case.”

“Do you know what's gonna happen?” Tiff asked.

“Just what I read in the papers John brought over,” I replied.

“What did they say?”

“That not all AFTDs could do ghosts.”

“I can. I hit for that,” Tiff said. “They call me a two-point with a potential three. Remember when Jade found me with the bird outside school? Well, I kinda freaked out. I sensed what the bird, the dead bird, had been feeling, knew where it was. So the guy—”

“Who?”

“Later. Anyway, he told me that I had a wrapped ability. That means the abilities overlap or some crap.”

“What does that mean right now?”

“It means that I'm not a full two-point or three point... that I have...”

“Elements of both,” John said.

“Okay while all of this is just fas-cin-a-ting,” Jonesy said, “can we see what the frick is in the shack?”

Ignoring Jonesy, Tiff said, “Anyway, as the five-point we all know you are, well... there's a lot of possibilities.”

Bry started to ask a question, and Jonesy made an exasperated sound, “I know Jones-my-man, hold on to your jockstrap,” he looked at me. “I never got the full scoop out of my sis, but what are all your points? It's not like I memorized it. I'm going to Kent Lake.”

John said, “I'll fill you in.”

Jonesy slapped his thighs. “Well, hell,” he muttered, walking back inside the fence and plunking his butt onto one of the tombstones. He put his elbow on his knee and cupped a hand on his chin.

“Did you read all those papers?” I asked John.

“Well, yeah.”

“Huh, that's a lot of reading,” I said, impressed.

“Yeah. What did you read?” John asked.

“Just the AFTD parts.”

John grunted.

“Anyway, there are five points possible for each, documented ability. Or, for a few... levels.”

Jonesy interrupted, “Okay already, just throw out the AFTD stuff so we can get to the spooks.”

We ignored him.

John ticked them off on his fingers. “Cadaver manipulation, spirit control, communion with the dead, victim location, and zombie control. Zombie control and cadaver manipulation are two points that sorta overlap,” he added. “Then there’s life spark.”

“Life spark?” Jonesy asked.

I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen Onyx in a few minutes. A burst of panic started crawling up my throat. Highway 167 was way too close.

The Dog felt the Boy's fear. There had been very interesting smells surrounding this old structure. Bad smells too. Fear smells.

Onyx bounded out from behind the shack. A wave of relief flooded me. Maybe Onyx should stay home next time.

“Good boy, stay here.” I petted his head.

“Life spark?” Jonesy asked.

“Yes, it's that thing that happened with Onyx. It's where an AFTD can...” his hand clasped his chin for a second, “call,” he snapped his fingers, “that life spark back when death is close.”

“So some people can find bodies?” Tiff asked.

“Yeah, there are some AFTDs on the police force, and they find murder victims or traumatic death vics.” John understood, turning to me. “It's a given, Caleb, that if you're raising zombies, you can do the other stuff.”

“They don't really know, though,” Jonesy began. “I mean, we've only been having the shots, what, ten years now? Uh-huh, there's gotta be more abilities, things they haven't thought about. What about mutations?”

Jonesy could sometimes astound.

“Jonesy's right,” Sophie said. “They can't know everything. I'm A-P and they don't have all the levels figured out.”

“True,” John said. “Astral projection is about distance.”

“I think they're figuring it out as they go and acting like they have a handle on it,” Bry said.

Jade nodded. “What if there's someone who has a completely new ability or is a higher level or a six point? Jonesy's right. They don't have it figured out. It's up to us now. Most adults don't have abilities. The few who do are the first group from 2015, the one Parker's in.”

Jonesy stood. “Okay, what I get from this is dead stuff can't get us with the freak duo here.” Jonesy nodded at Tiff and me. “And possibly, my man Caleb can find some violent corpses.” He grinned.

John sighed. “That's not exactly accurate. Caleb is… some kind of anomaly.”

“A what?” Jonesy asked.

“Something that doesn't meet normal patterns,” Sophie said.

Jonesy sighed.

“Perfect.”

Tiff ended the conversation, wrapping her hand around the oval doorknob hanging askew from its cradle. It glowed like a dirty golden egg in the failed light.

“Ya scared?” she asked.

I nodded.

Her shoulders fell a little. “Me too,” she whispered. “That's why we gotta do it.”

She turned the knob. The door swung open silently as if inviting our motley crew inside. Onyx shot past us to do some dog reconnaissance. Jonesy, John, Bry, and Sophie followed us into the house.

Bry said, “It's a caretaker's cottage.”

John asked, “What's that?”

“Back in the day, you know, a hundred years ago, they used to have these little houses for the dudes that would take care of these cemeteries.”

“They lived here? Right here, next to all the dead bodies?” Sophie asked with an involuntary shiver.

“It is a cemetery. That's where dead bodies go,” John stated.

“Quiet neighbors,” Jonesy said.

“Okay. Yuck! Go on,” Tiff said.

“Anyway,” Bry said, “They would water the flowers people left at the graves, mow the lawn, paint the fence, you know, maintenance stuff.”

“Right,” Sophie said slowly.

“Watch out,” I said, looking around. “This place is a dump. There could be holes in the floor.”

“Let’s stay in pairs or groups,” Bry said.

I held out my hand to John. “Dude, I just can't see that great. Give me the LED.”

John slapped the light into my palm. I turned it on, and a brilliant swath of light slashed a path through the room, illuminating the base of a staircase. The steps were narrow and tall, like a ladder.

I swung the light away from them. “Stairs last. Let's check out the main floor.”

We could've heard a pin drop it was so quiet.

“Ah hell, nothing's going to happen here,” Jonesy said, sounding dejected. He grabbed the LED out of my hands. He planted it under his face and started making the idiot grins people do above LEDs. We all laughed.

Then, a green luminescent shape rose from behind Jonesy and hovered above his head. Swooping down, it speared him through the chest.

Jonesy shrieked like he was being stabbed. “It's cold! It's a ghostsicle! Get it out of me!”

Tiff closed her fist around the ghost, and I balled my left hand around hers. We pulled, not with our hands but with our combined power.

The ghost—a man, from what I could tell—hovered above Tiffany and me. We let go of the tail-like portion, and it snapped back into the ghost's form, making a sucking noise like water down a drain.

Onyx had been barking the whole time. “Quiet boy.”

The Dog did not like this cold, dead-smelling thing. The Dog knew the Boy was dominant and he did not have to Protect, but the Dog did not like it.

Bry came up behind Tiff. “What is it?”

Tiff's hands dove onto her hips. “A ghost, dumb ass.”

Tiff, so delicate with her wording. Bry gave her a glare, sibling love.

Onyx growled.

The ghost glided toward me. I raised my hand and waved it through the ghost’s body. It felt like bathwater, semi-solid and warm, right and good.

Tiff mirrored my action. “So warm, like fur.”

“Like bath water,” I said.

John's mouth was slightly agape. “It's the same, but different,” he said. “You're AFTD but different people—your perceptions are different.”

“That damn thing is not warm! It's cold as hell!”

“That's an oxymoron,” Sophie said smugly.

Jonesy huffed, “I know what I felt!”

“Everyone knows hell is hot, dope,” Bry said.

“Whatever! That thing is cold as hell!”

The ghost swung its head toward Jonesy. I felt its agitation.

“I don't think it likes you,” I told Jonesy.

Jonesy backed up. Jade leaned forward, reaching for the ghost.

I caught her hand. “Maybe not.”

“I can't hide behind you all the time, Caleb.”

Before I could stop her, she whipped out her other hand and grabbed the ghost. It let out a shriek that reverberated through the house then zipped upward through the ceiling. Jade cradling her hand against her chest.

“Not smart Jade!” Tiff yelled.

I took her by the shoulders. “God, you could have been hurt! We don't know what we're dealing with here!”

“I was.”

“You were what?” I asked.

Slowly taking her hand away from her chest, she showed us what looked like a burn, just shy of the blistering kind. It was the worst in the webbing that connected her thumb and index finger.

“Was it hot?” Jonesy asked.

Jade shook her head. “Colder than anything I've ever touched.”

“Kinda like that time Carson put his wet tongue to that frozen utility pole.” Jonesy smiled.

“And you pelted him with snowballs while he was trapped,” John said.

“Yep, that was the time,” Jonesy said in a dreamy tone.

“Okay, so we know that they're dangerous,” Bry said.

“Not to them,” John said, pointing at Tiff and me.

Tiff said, “That's good, right? I mean, that's the whole reason Jonesy thought we should come. We're the... um…”

“Contingency plan,” I finished.

“Yeah, that,” Tiff said.

I bent down and kissed Jade's hand. “All better,” I said.

Sophie studied it.“Pretty angry looking.”

“Yeah, it's a war wound,” Jonesy said, cutting his eyes to the staircase.

“Ah… no. Haven't we had enough excitement for tonight?” John asked.

“Never!” Jonesy enthused, running over to the base of the staircase with Onyx at his heels.

“Wait a sec,” Tiff said. “Where did that ghost go?”

I pointed above my head, and we all looked up at the ceiling.

Jade said, “I'm game but no touching.”

I hugged her. “It doesn't seem like the ghost meant to hurt you.”

“No,” Jonesy said. “It definitely didn't want to freeze my nuts off!”

Bry and John laughed.

I said, “What I meant was, I think Jade took him by surprise. He gave her the ice blast because she startled him.”

“It's a guy ghost?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah,” Tiff said.

“Wow. Hate to see what he'd do to really freeze us,” Jonesy said.

“He was warm to me and Caleb,” Tiff said.

John said, “It's the AFTD thing. You guys are like the same element or something.”

“It was scared when I touched it,” Jade said.

“Evil?” John asked.

“Not really but, it could be. He could be.”

“I bet they got personalities!” Jonesy chortled.

“They do,” Jade said.

He stopped laughing. John’s and Bry's smiles slipped from their faces.

Tiff stepped forward. “They do?”

“He did,” Jade said.

Whoa. “What did he think or whatever?” I asked.

“He didn't exactly think. I just got feelings about him being disturbed, and then there were some random images of his life here.”

“Wait a sec, Jade,” Tiff said. “You're not AFTD?”

Jade shook her head. “No, empath.”

Tiff look confused. “So how does she know anything about what it—sorry, he—thought?”

“I was holding her when she swiped the ghost,” I said. “We've noticed in the past that I can put the zombies back into the ground better if I am touching Jade.”

“Back-in-box, back-in-box,” Jonesy sang.

“Jonesy, come on,” Bry said. He turned to Jade. “What did you mean by ‘his life here’?”

“Oh, he was the caretaker guy,” Jade said.

“Okay,” I said. “Let's cruise the upstairs really fast, then maybe we can rip by the hideaway after.”

“I don't know,” John said. “That's way across town.”

“Who doesn't have a bike?” I asked.

Jonesy raised his hand.

“Be a peg-rider, dude,” Bry said.

“For five miles?” Jonesy asked.

“Who's driving?” John asked.

We all stared at Bry.

Bry raised his hand. “Oh come on! He can't last five miles on my pegs.”

“Can you?” his sister asked.

Bry's eyes narrowed to slits. “Yeah, I can do it.”

John clapped his hands. “Settled then!”

Jonesy air-pumped. “Let's investigate!”

“Wait!” I tossed the LED to Jonesy.

He caught it then took the steep steps two at a time. Onyx, Bry, and John ran up after him.

Halfway up, John slipped. “Ouch! Damn!” He gripped his knee for a minute then went the rest of the way with an ungainly frog hop.

Jade, Tiff, Sophie and I climbed slower. At the top of the staircase stood the gang, we all stopped and stared, mouths hanging open.

Wisps of luminescent figures twirled and sailed about, lighting the area with a phosphorescent glow. As they frantically glided back and forth, they seemed irritated. There were eye-windows touching the floorboards on either end of the eaves, but the ceiling was really high down the central section of the roof.

Jonesy started inching back to the staircase. Our male ghost hovered in the middle, looking intimidating. He hadn’t been hostile to Tiff and me, but he'd hurt Jade and almost frozen Jonesy, so caution was a good idea.

Tiff pointed at the frenetic ghosts. “They're kids.”

They were swirling so furiously that it was hard to tell, but I thought she might be right.

I didn't want to leave Jade alone. I looked at Bry, and he nodded. Guy-speak, a wonderful thing. He moved closer to Jade.

I squeezed her arm and said, “Be right back.”

John said, “I’m shielding.”

Tiff followed me to where the large male ghost was hovering. As I got closer, my hair started to rise, floating with static electricity. The small ghosts flew around us, but they slowed their frantic spinning. The big ghost held out its arms, and Tiff and I each took an opaque hand.

Images flowed into my mind, and I assumed Tiff was experiencing the same thing. I saw his death in broken images, like a kaleidoscope rapidly spinning backwards—colors and shapes, profound loneliness and caretaking, feelings of accomplishment, then... a lonely death in that house with no one to take care of him.

“So sad,” Tiff said through clenched teeth.

I nodded. “Yes.”

But the images weren't done. We saw the ghost's pain as children were killed and he could do nothing. He took care of their spirits, that much he could do. He was still the caretaker for the dead.

He dropped our hands and floated back.

His message was clear. We needed to speak for the dead children.

“Wow,” Tiff said.

“Yeah.”

We moved back, and the ghosts returned to swirling again. The evilness of his message began to sink in. Children had been murdered there. Kids. Like us. Tiff and I looked at each other.

Jonesy asked, “What's the deal?”

I turned to face my friends. “The deal is that he’s the caretaker of a bunch of dead kids.”

“Told you!” Jonesy said.

“What?” Bry asked.

“I told everyone that some boy had died here.”

“Jonesy's right. He did say that a boy died here,” John said.

Jonesy scowled at John. “And there's a helluva lot more than just one.” He indicated the ghosts floating and diving in the background, holographic in the moonlight.

Sophie asked, “Why are we seeing them?”

Tiff answered, “I read AFTDs give off an aura so others can see stuff like ghosts.”

“So if Caleb and you take off, then they disappear?” Sophie asked.

“It sounds that way,” John said.

“That's sick as shit,” Jonesy said, sounding impressed.

“We'll have to do something about this,” Tiff said.

“I know.” I grabbed Jade's hand, comforted by the solidness of it after the creepy hand of the ghost.

“I wanna see if they'll disappear,” Jonesy said.

“Jonesy, give it a rest,” I said.

Bry glanced at the ghosts. “Yeah, let's book. I want to check out this hideout you guys have.”

We headed down the stairs. When we left the house, I shut the door softly behind us, the sadness and horror clinging to my mind like smoke to our bodies.

CHAPTER 31

Coming out into the moonlight, I sucked great gulps of fresh air, trying to expunge the cloying feeling of claustrophobia I took from the house.

“Okay, so let's shake that off,” Jonesy said.

Sophie shivered. “Maybe you can but not me, not for a while.”

I agreed. It would be a while before I would get over that. I bet Tiff felt the same way.

Jade said, “Let's pulse the adults.”

Bry nodded. “Great idea. Mom's going to have a kitten if we don't check in.”

We all took a moment to check in with the parental units. Then we tucked our pulses away.

Jonesy got a strange light in his eyes. “What do ya think—”

“No.” John said.

“Right. What he said,” Jade added.

Bry asked, “What, Jonesy?”

Tiff waggled a finger. “You don't know Jonesy that well, Bry. He gets these ideas that usually get us all in trouble.”

Bry grinned. “Oh, I don't know about that. So far, the night's been pretty exciting.”

Jonesy did a fist-bump with Bry. “See? Here's a dude who knows how to keep the adventure rolling!” His thumb dove in the direction of the old graveyard at our backs. “Looks like we got the green light to do more screwin' around. Let's see who we can jerk outta the pasture here.”

I shook my head. “Nah, I don't want to. I've had enough for tonight. And with ghosts so close, I don't know. Things could go bad. Besides, it seems wrong to do it for sport or something.”

Bry blanched. “Would it be like Scenic?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That may have been because Gran was a relative.”

“Well that one zombie, Clyde, seemed… I don’t know… more aware,” Jade said.

“Caleb's raised that particular zombie… what, three times?” John looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. “So each time he comes back, he seems to be smarter or something.”

“Last time, he seemed to communicate with the other zombies like a captain or something,” Jade said.

“Captain of the Zombie Guard!” Jonesy laughed.

“I don't want a repeat of the gran incident,” Bry said.

“Yeah, that went pretty sideways,” Tiff agreed, sucking in a huge gum bubble.

“And then Garcia and his creepy partner showed up.” Bry shook his head.

“So Garcia's corrupt?” John asked.

“It's lookin' that way,” I said. “I don't know for sure. But they're pairing mundanes with paranormals now, and McGraw was quick to show us he was an elemental, sorta like a threat.”

“I hadn't heard they had decided to do that pairing thing,” John said.

I shrugged. “They haven't, but Ward and Gale said that it was going to be a permanent rule or whatever soon.”

“That makes sense,” Jade said. “Think about what would happen if a someone like Carson decided to do crime professionally and two regular cop...”

“Cop-kabobs!” Jonesy interrupted in a donkey bray. “Whoosh!”

Jade gave an uneasy laugh, but nodded. “My point exactly. There's got to be a counter for that level of power, like a John.”

“I bet there's a ton of Nulls on the force,” Bry said.

Sophie nodded. “Jade's right. Nulls would mean the negation of all those freak-a-zoids.”

“Negation! Are you one of those smart girls?” Jonesy asked, eying Sophie.

“Sometimes.” She smiled and winked at him.

“Okay I give, what does that mean?” Jonesy asked.

John answered, “I can neutralize other paranormals' abilities.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. You do the whammy, and they can't zap us.” Jonesy shook a finger at John.

“That was alarmingly close to girl-speak, my friend,” Bry said.

“That's okay. I'm diversified and consider girl-speak to be my second language.”

Sophie folded her arms. “Nice.”

“That will count for college.” John laughed.

Onyx emitted a soft growl of alarm at the same moment that Jade asked, “What's that noise?”

I looked around but didn't see anything. Then I heard it—a soft thump-thump-thump like a giant's heartbeat thumping through a pillowcase loaded with feathers. We all spun around but didn't see anything. Onyx gave a single sharp bark, staring up at the sky. The trees above us parted like a dark invitation, exposing a helicopter over our heads, over the graveyard, over our lives.

***

Jonesy stepped forward, legs planted wide apart, stabilizing his balance. The helicopter swept the trees in a silent hurricane, their tops bending back to accommodate the force of the wind. It descended like a black spider. The sky was its web, a fat body with chopper blades like legs ready to spring down.

Onyx outright growled and barked, underscoring the oncoming threat.

Some spark of understanding swam to the surface and it was in that moment of self-realization that I felt responsible for more than just me and Jade.

I turned and yelled over the wind-tunnel noise, “Get to the graveyard now!” I pointed at Bry. “Protect the girls. Get them out of here!” I looked around for Tiff.

“Tiff, I need you!” She ran to me, her hoodie falling away from her face, leaving it exposed and vulnerable. I had a stab of guilt as she raced at me, but we needed to survive the now.

John and Jonesy didn’t move. They just stared up at the helicopter.

I gave them both a little push. “Go with Bry!”

They finally snapped out of it and followed Bry and the girls into the graveyard. Ropes dropped like snakes out of the belly of the helicopter. I counted: one, two, three. Resolve solidified into a tight knot of dread.

Tiff stood beside me, legs planted wide and hands balled into fists. I was counting on her being a guy right now, even though she looked so girl. If things hadn't been so dire, I would've smiled.

The shadow of the chopper blades made her face a jagged dance of light. “We're in deep shit,” she said.

“Yeah, it'll be okay.”

“Take care of my sister, Caleb,” Bry shouted.

Onyx lowered his head and growled louder as the three men climbed down the ropes.

The Bad Males had arrived, and a grinding fear was covering the Boy. Its smell permeated the Dog’s nose like a coating of oil, slimy and alive.

He would protect the Boy.

Onyx crouched, preparing to lunge. “No!” I yelled, leaping at him, doing the superman, arms out in front.

Onyx and I rolled together. When we stopped, he sprang to his feet. I got up on my knees and was greeted by the muzzle of a gun in my face.

My heartbeats ground to a halt.

I was stoked the parents had been thorough in their potty training because I definitely felt my bowels loosen a little.

“Easy there, young fella,” Gun-Holder said.

It was an M-16, its black tip a solid circle in front of me. My eyes ran the length of the barrel, the spiral shape distorted, to lock gazes with Gun-Holder. His were dead, killer's eyes.

A second guy strolled casually over and, using one finger, pushed the end of the gun barrel up in the air.

“What the hell, Parker?” Gun-Holder said.

“We're not here to kill but to acquire. Best you remember that.” The guy removed his knitted black ski-mask.

I'd seen so many pictures that I would have known him anywhere. Jeffrey Parker. He wasn’t wearing glasses, and his body was hard and lean with a face to match. That unfinished quality he'd had in the last pic I'd seen was gone forever.

“Stand up, Caleb,” Parker spoke in a clear, ringing voice.

I did, but I was going to be in charge. This was not how I had thought I'd meet Parker, it was going to be on my terms. I glanced at the gun. But they weren't there to kill me. They wanted to “acquire” me. That was almost worse, but it was my only leverage.

I got to my feet. Tiff was standing with Man-Three, a short guy as wide as I was tall. He had a gun trained on her.

I faced Parker. “What do you want?” I yelled.

Man-Three said something into a radio on his shoulder. The noise of the helicopter toned way down, like air leaving a balloon.

“There, much better,” Parker said. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, that saves time. We're here because we know what your potential is, Caleb.”

“You're wasting your time, Parker. I tested out as a two-point.”

He laughed. The sound was just short of a hoarse cough—creepy and false. “Yes, we're aware of that. Our operatives were watching things very closely. We have high hopes for you, Caleb, and you won't disappoint.”

I just stared at him. I wasn’t going anywhere with that guy. He made all the hair on my body stand on end.

Like recognized like.

Parker took a step closer.“Who do you think broke into your house? We heard every conversation you’ve had in there since then. We are very aware of what you and your clever father have been trying to do to keep your gift a secret.”

“Here's the thing,” I said. “I'm not going to be the government's bitch.” I spread my hands out away from my body. “Just sayin'.”

Parker smiled. “You'll be what we want you to be... to become.”

He signaled to Gun-Holder. “Get the girl. We can use her to persuade Mr. Hart to join our cause.”

I turned to look at Tiff but Gun-Holder was jogging toward Jade.

Oh no.

Everything seemed to begin moving in slow motion. I calculated how far away Tiff was. She seemed to read my mind as she nodded at me. A gun was inches from her head. I had to gamble with her life, but all our lives were at stake. I knew they wouldn’t just let my friends go. They wouldn’t leave witnesses.

I took two huge steps then leapt for Tiff. She extended her arm as Man-Three whipped his gun around, using the stock as a weapon. The butt whistled through the air and grazed her forehead, opening a gash. I grabbed her hand. She clasped my other one, and we pulled toward each other in a mid-air waltz. We landed just to the side of the cemetery. Our power shimmered between us like a thing alive.

“No!” Parker shouted.

He obviously hadn’t known just what Tiff was.

Their intelligence needs work.

I craned my neck to look at our group and saw Gun-Holder lurching toward them. Once Gun-Holder was in reach, Bry grabbed the man’s hand and yanked, using the guy's own momentum to pull him off balance. But Gun-Holder was larger, and he took Bry with him for the ride.

“Move!” I screamed at Jade.

Jade turned and ran through the tombstones. Gun-Holder began pounding on Bry. The Js went to Bry’s aid, while Sophie raced after Jade.

The operative was landing a solid beating on Bry (he never caught a break), as Jade ran through the tombstones like gray flags in the failing light.

“Shit! Get that girl,” Parker yelled at Man-Three.

Man-Three raced off after Jade, who had stopped right in the middle of the graveyard.Sophie creeped after Jade while Man-Three paced her, mirroring her progress.

“Jade, run to me!” I screamed.

Man-Three roared like a lion, rushing forward those fifteen feet to grab Jade. She saw him coming and leapt to the side.

I let my power loose—a precise laser sent straight in front of Jade. A zombie exploded out of the grave next to her. He was a macabre thing of beauty, his arms fully extended, knees bent up in the air, classic karate stance.

He appeared before her as a warrior and I screamed inside its head the command: protect.

The zombie moved to stand between Man-Three and Jade. Man-Three unceremoniously pressed his gun barrel to the zombie's chest and fired point blank.

“No!” I shouted, my zombie blown to smithereens before my eyes.

But Jade kept coming, my zombie's sacrifice there in her eyes and body as she moved to me. Man-Three continued to fire. The zombie danced as the rounds penetrated its body. Bits of flesh flew, splattering tombstones. Even as he was blasted to smithereens, the zombie kept going, trying to get at Man-Three’s throat.

Man-Three must have had twenty-round clips. The gun finally clicked empty, my zombie's chest a hole the starlight penetrated, its face a dark prison of blood and gore.

Protect, I commanded. Protect.

Though slower because of the damage, the zombie surged forward and tore the gun from Man-Three's hands, tossing it like so much unnecessary candy into one of the tombstones and cracking the corner off like a chipped tooth.

“God dammit! Take its head, fool!” Parker yelled.

I heard a scream from Sophie and turned to see what was going on over there.

A knife glinted in the dark and sailed out toward my zombie, embedding itself thickly in his neck, but not severing, black blood flying outward and hitting everything in its path.

Bry was lying motionless on the ground. Gun-Holder had his arm around Jonesy’s neck, and he was making steady progress toward Jade and me. Jonesy flailed and kicked, but he was no match for the bigger man.

Don't give up.

My zombie was slowing down, each wound more grievous than the last.

I need more zombies.

As if on deadly cue, Tiff and I got busy with a few more as Parker grabbed Tiff by her hood and zombies poured from the ground.

Gun-Holder stopped in his tracks, Jonesy giving him hell.

“Hold still or I'll choke you into unconsciousness, shithead.”

Jonesy did.

But he wouldn't do what he was told for long, he wasn't big on obedience.

There were several zombies and now Parker held onto Tiff like a deathline. He sucked off our power, adding his to ours, it was numbing me.

The zombies looked at me, then turned to Parker.

Parker straightened and announced, “I am master here.”

The zombies moved toward Parker.

I jerked Tiff just about off her feet and slung her to my left and away from Parker.

“Stop!” I flung out to them.

They turned to me and Tiff, some without eyes, staring darkly at the two of us.

Parker looked at me. “This won’t work. I’m more powerful than you, more experienced. You cannot prevail.”

Never give up.

I turned with Tiff, launching ourselves at Jade, running to the zombie with the knife in its neck. The first to answer our call. We made it to her, and I clutched her hand tightly. The three of us weaved our way through the zombies.

“Stop them!” Parker yelled, running after us.

I reached my zombie just as Man-Three was raising a knife to plunge the blade into my zombie’s head. I let go of the girl’s hands and grabbed Man-Three’s wrist, stopping the knife from lowering.

His eyes widened. I wasn't as strong as he was, but I'd startled him, the element of surprise was enough.

My zombie snaked out a hand and grasped my free hand. Only the three of us were connected: the gun man, the zombie, and me.

I thought, Die.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, Man-Three started shrieking, great gulping screams, one after another, as my power took from him.... and gave to the zombie.

The scene was a movie in reverse. The gaping hole in the zombie’s chest began filling in, the skin knitting together right before my eyes. His cheeks puffed out a little, no longer sunken. His gaze steadied on me.

I looked at Man-Three. His expression was a rictus of horror. The light in his eyes was fading.

“Caleb, what are you doing?” Parker asked in a near whisper.

“Killing him,” I replied in a fugue.

It felt good. My zombie was mending itself, and the bad guy, the very bad guy, would... be gone.

“Caleb!” Tiff shrieked.

“Huh?” I turned my head toward her, feeling as if I were moving underwater.

“Stop! You're killing him!”

I looked back at Man-Three. She was right. I released the two, reluctantly. I tried to feel bad about almost killing the guy who had put a gun barrel to Tiff's head, but I just couldn't work up to it..

Jade ran over to me and pressed her face against my chest. Over her head, I glared at Gun-Holder, who still had the choke hold on Jonesy. I could feel the presence of my healed zombie behind me, ready to obey my command.

“Let him go,” I told Gun-Holder.

Ten zombies looked in my direction. If he didn’t let Jonesy go, I could make him.

Parker took a step forward. “Don't. It'll be a stalemate.” His voice held a slight tremor.

Something had taken that arrogance down a notch. The life-suck thing. I was sure that was not covered under the five-point standard. I held Jade tighter.

Parker cleared his throat. “We raised this group together. We both control them.”

I nodded at Jonesy. “Let him go or we'll see who owns who,” I told Parker.

Parker twitched a finger. Gun-Holder gave a disgusted grunt then released Jonesy, shoving him to the side.

“Douche,” Jonesy muttered. He walked over to Sophie and gave her a hug. Their two-inch height difference allowed her curly hair to swarm around his like an embracing halo.

Gun-Holder spoke into his mike, and the chopper noise became louder. They had something up their sleeves. Parker stepped forward.

I instinctively moved back, taking Jade with me. “Don't get any closer, Parker.”

Gun-Holder reached out as if to grab Jonesy again. Jonesy tried to dodge, but the man got his hands on Sophie instead and ripped her out of Jonesy’s arms.

“No!” Jonesy roared.

Gun-holder tucked her under his arm and ran for the ropes hanging from the chopper. Jonesy followed.

“Jonesy, no!” I yelled.

Of course, Jonesy didn't listen.

Sophie was too stunned at first to believe that she was being carried like a sack of potatoes toward a government helicopter.

She began to fight in earnest, bucking and thumping her fists on Gun-Holder's back.

Jonesy was fast, overtaking Gun-Holder, who was weighed down with a body to carry. Both of them reached the ropes at the same time. Gun-Holder grabbed a rope with his free hand. Jonesy leaped forward and managed to get hold of Sophie's wrists.

Power surged in a blooming arc all around us. A brilliant light strobed, then the big spider in the sky began to fall, dropping toward us in a black rush of crashing branches and trees.

The blades of the chopper cut great swaths in the sky, slowing down but coming closer. I ran with Jade and Tiff back to where Bry and John were. When we got there, I turned in time to see Jonesy drag Sophie to safety just as a chopper blade embedded itself into the ground inches from where they had been. It was a guillotine meant for harm, two feet behind Jonesy, spearing a tombstone, which disintegrated on contact, shards of marble flying through the night like tiny missiles of destruction, the ground shaking with the force of impact.

Parker and the other two men had scattered. I took stock of the group: Bry and John on the ground, Jade and Tiff with me, a grubby and tired Jonesy with Sophie. My human-looking zombie stood nearby with his gaze on me, seeming completely unconcerned with the mayhem going on around us.

Parker called out, “We're not done here, Caleb Hart.”

“Yeah, we are!” I shouted back. I turned to Tiff.

“Let's put him back before Parker gets his crap together.”

She took my hand. We all looked at my zombie, who stood unblinking, staring at me.

Unnerving.

“Rest,” I said, unfurling that power again, just a stab of it directed at the zombie.

He lingered, staring, and for one awful moment, I thought maybe I'd used up all my juice for the day. But then he turned and ran gracefully on his fully formed legs. His grave opened like a crater to receive him. It swallowed him whole, and the ground closed over him like a giant mouth.

I paused for a surreal second. “Let's go,” I said quietly.

Parker watched us. The zombies around him stood like a small forest of corpse-trees, unmoving. He could lay them to rest. Besides, he said we were part owner.

Let him figure it out.

The government men seemed stunned as they searched the ground near the downed chopper. I realized they were probably looking for their weapons. Time to get going.

Bry struggled to sit up. “Tell me to stay behind next time.”

Tiff said, “Let's go, right now!”

We hightailed it out of there, the graveyard and its inhabitants at our backs.

CHAPTER 32

Our bikes stood at attention, hidden in the bushes at the beginning of a little used dirt road, which fed to the paved road. Instead of a clean escape a cop car stood parked, lights out, idling softly.

Jonesy swore with real feeling.

A dome light appeared inside as the driver's side door opened. A cop climbed out and shut the door. Garcia.

“Great, we're screwed,” Bry said thickly. “He's in it with them.”

Jade swayed a little, and I held her closer.

John said, “I don't want to be his bitch, either.”

It was bad when John was swearing. “We're not going to be any kind of slaves for anybody,” I said, stepping forward.

Garcia surprised us all by running forward and asking, “You guys hurt?”

We said nothing.

He sighed. “Listen, I don't have a lot of time here. They're calling in reinforcements as we speak. I have to get you kids out of here and somewhere safe.”

“Wait a sec,” Jonesy said. “We thought you were with them.” He jerked his head in the direction of the graveyard we'd just escaped.

“The Graysheets? Hell, no. I'm deep undercover, but I won't be if we don't get your butts out of here.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling as though I didn’t have much choice.

“What about our bikes?” John asked.

“Leave them,” Garcia said. “We'll get them later, or somebody will.”

We piled into the cop car, all the girls stacked on top of us. Onyx, who had been oddly silent, jumped in last and crouched on the console between the front seats.

Garcia got in, and put the squad car in drive. He looked at Onyx, who wagged his tail. Garcia just shook his head at the dog and got rolling, the gravel crunching under the wheels of his cruiser.

We left the graveyard, surrendering our anonymity forever.

***

“So what's going on?” I asked

Garcia stared ahead at the road for a minute. “Where to begin?” he said almost to himself. He shook his head.

Our group, with the Weller kids bashed up again, sat waiting to hear why he had the good fortune to be cop-on-the-spot. Even Onyx was looking at Garcia.

“Let's get where we're going, then we can talk.”

“No, I don't want to go to someplace you want. I have a place that we know is safe.”

“Not the hideaway, Caleb. Maybe he can't be trusted,” John said.

“Yeah, the hideaway, John. You think we can't take care of things if something happens?” I asked him. I turned back to Garcia, who did a quick check of my expression. “We have a place you can take us where we feel safe.”

“I'll have to pulse Bobbi,” he said.

“Gale?” My face was one Fat Dirty Look.

“Yes, Officer Gale,” he said, noting my expression. “I guess I deserve that.”

“No offense, but adults aren't really on our trust list right now,” John said.

“Fair enough,” Garcia responded.

I gave him directions, and he used his car-pulse to let Gale know where we'd be. We all pulsed our parents to check in, but we didn’t tell them much.

Gale met us there in her civilian car, looking very weird in her regular clothes. I thought it was a little like meeting your teacher in the grocery store.

We piled out of the car, stiff from being crammed together. I did a secret scan of Jade, making sure she was okay. The cemetery had been a true threat—a threat to our freedom and in the end, our lives.

Garcia and Gale seemed amused by our breaking and entering of the old dump station. I thought for sure they'd be mad, but Garcia said it was a clever contingency plan.

“You kids were thinking ahead after all,” he said, looking around our hideaway.

“This is totally not safe,” Bobbi Gale said, gesturing at the uneven metal ceiling above our heads.

John replied, “It's been this way for ten years.”

The place was cramped with so many people, but we pulled up the milk crates and other things we collected for chairs, and managed to get a little comfortable. John lit the propane lamp. A total throw-back but it worked.

“My mom's old camping gear,” Jonesy said.

“Better not use it for long in this enclosed space,” Gale said. “It can get pretty toxic.”

“We know,” John said. “We'll replace it with LEDs when we get the big bucks.”

“Now,” Garcia said, “why don’t you boys tell us what happened?”

I related all the events of the evening from the beginning, with the others filling in some details. When I finished, the cops were thoughtful, their silence filling the space.

“That seems off to me,” Gale said. “The Graysheets take all that time to acquire Caleb and blow it with a state-of-the-art helicopter dying?” He turned to Jonesy.

“Tell us again exactly what you did, Jonesy.”

Jonesy animatedly told the story of how he’d rescued Sophie from Gun-Holder. “And then the helicopter just stopped working and crashed. Soph and I almost got chopped!” Jonesy did a judo-chop to his hand, the smacking sound echoing.

“My car died about the time I heard the crash,” Garcia said.

“It was idling when we saw you,” Sophie said.

Garcia nodded. “Yeah, just at that moment, I finally got it started. I was getting worried about how we'd get out of there.”

Something occurred to me. “John, you must have been holding back huge.”

John nodded. “It was all I could do when Parker started his bullshit,” John said.

“Yeah, Parker is a disappointment,” Garcia said.

“Ya think?” Jonesy asked. “He turned out to be a monkey's ass.”

Gale laughed. “You guys sure have a way with colorful wording.” She gestured at Tiff and Bry.

“Yeah, Parker is a disappointment,” Garcia agreed.

“I brought a first-aid kit to take care of you two.” She held up a small box with a red and white cross emblazoned on the front.

“I'll live,” Bry said, his face telling a different tale.

“Come on Bry,” Tiff said. “The parents aren't gonna buy us continuing to get beat up.”

Sighing, Bry went over to Gale and plopped down on the crate beside her. “I got in a couple of good ones, ya know.”

“He was an adult, a bad one,” Garcia said. “You're lucky he didn't clean your clock.”

All of us looked at him. “Sorry: a thorough job of beating the snot out of someone,” he clarified.

“Eloquent, Raul,” Gale laughed.

“So now what?” I asked. “It's obvious they want me. They put spy crap in my house, so now they know I can raise zombies and I'm a full-on five-point.”

“I think what really needs to be addressed, Caleb, is what you did out there to the government guy,” Gale said, dabbing antiseptic at the corner of Bry's eye. “That's not part of any five-point I've heard of. The scientists have theorized about that possibility, but they've never had any proof.”

“You mean Caleb suckin' the life out of a bad-ass then juicing up his zombie?” Jonesy asked.

Garcia chuckled. “Yes, I think that's what Officer Gale was getting at.”

Her eyes swept to me. “That will make you even more of a threat.”

“Does that mean you're a six-point?” Jade asked, through the veil of her hair.

She was cuddled up next to me, more on my crate than hers. I leaned over and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I doubt it,” I said. “I can't be a first anything.”

“I'm AFTD, Caleb, and I know there is not one documented case of life transference,” Gale said. “Not one.”

Garcia sighed. “I guess your best protection is your father, Caleb. He’s famous, so his son disappearing would be a big deal.”

“Those guys didn't seem to care,” John said.

“Our source tells us they want to do some experiments, that they're not ready to take you forever,” Garcia said.

“Gee, that’s comforting,” Jade said.

“Those dicks don't get to have Caleb,” Jonesy said.

“Yeah, what he said,” Bry agreed.

Of course I agreed.

“How did Parker go from being like Caleb to working with them?” Sophie asked.

Garcia shrugged. “We don't know what's happened these last ten years, what kind of things he has been through. It's anyone's guess.”

“What was his family life like?” I asked

“It was bad,” Gale said. “Sort of the opposite of yours. There was no one to advocate for Jeffrey Parker.”

“So he's a tragic figure now?” Sophie said, arms crossed over her chest. “I don't know if I buy that. He’s an adult. Doesn't he have a responsibility to choose the right thing now?”

“Who knows? Maybe they brainwashed him,” Jonesy said.

“It doesn't matter,” Bry said. “Caleb's AFTD, and so is Tiff. Parker was going to hurt his own kind. He's shit. I don't care what way you color it. He's made his choice.”

Garcia said, “We need to get these guys at their own game.”

“You called them 'Graysheets.' What does that mean?” I asked.

“That’s just a nickname Officer Gale and I gave them,” Garcia said.

“What does it mean, though?”

“It means that they don't understand black and white, right and wrong.”

“Well, okay, that’s the gray,” John said. “What about the sheet part?

“I got it!” Jonesy said. “They cover things up!” He air-pumped his fist with enthusiasm.

I shook my head, and checked my watch. A small web of cracks marred the face.

Jonesy leaned over to look. “Ah-man, that sucks donkey dicks,” Jonesy said.

John said. “Maybe a jeweler could fix it.”

I shook my head. “Right, like anyone even has these anymore.”

Garcia said, “My dad had one of those! Is it a winder?”

“It was,” I said.

Garcia picked up my wrist, moving it beside his ear. “It's still ticking, buddy.”

Gale said, “I think I've patched up these guys as good as they're going to get.”

“You look like a pack of gnomes jumped you,” Jonesy said.

“On your face,” John added.

Tiff gave a small shiver. “Gnomes are creepers.”

I looked at her in surprise. The unflappable Tiff—scared of gnomes?

“Let's get you guys home,” Garcia said.

“What's the plan?” I asked.

“You're going to speak with your dad.”

“He's going to be righteously pissed,” Jonesy said.

“Yeah. He'll be mad because I was screwing around in cemeteries,” I said, dreading the whole thing.

“You're AFTD,” Gale said. “That's like telling a fish not to swim.”

“You're not the kid of a 'famous scientist',” I said with airquotes.

“Are you complaining? Seriously, I thought your dad is cool?” Sophie asked.

“He is,” I sighed. “I just haven't been what my parents expected, I think.”

“But you're hell on zombies!” Jonesy said.

Gale added, “A talent of your magnitude could help many people, Caleb. We recruit people who test as sensitive to traumatic death.”

“I read in some AFTD blog that you can be a one-point and sense traumatic-death,” Tiff said.

“Can you?” I asked her.

“I can sense the dead.”

“All AFTDs can sense the dead. The difference is some are sensitive to the cause of death,” Gale said getting up to leave.

We moved through the tunnel and exited through the freezer. I breathed in the cool night air. The sky was filled with stars tossed like diamonds on black velvet.

Jade admired the view alongside me. “I'm glad to be alive.”

I looked down at her. “I wouldn't let anything happen to you.”

She smiled. “I know. It was scary, but we survived it.”

“Damn straight.” I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

As we walked to the cars, Gale said, “I'll take the girls home.”

A sense of dread spread through my gut. I didn't want Jade out of my sight. I wanted to see her safely inside her house with my own eyes.

I tried for casual. “I told her aunt I'd walk her home.... how ’bout you take Tiff and Bry home. John and Jonesy live next to each other, so they can ride with you, too.”

“Okay,” Gale said. “Weller kids, Jonesy, John, follow me,”

Jonesy turned around and waved at Sophie. “See ya, Soph!”

She waved back, looking pleased. Jonesy obviously had the hots for Sophie, and the feeling was mutual. Onyx ran over to the cruiser and hopped in the front seat. Jade and I got in the backseat, while Sophie slid in beside Onyx.

I leaned forward and asked, “What about McGraw?”

Garcia was silent for a heartbeat then said, “He's on the take. He's the eyes and ears for the Graysheets, Caleb.”

“What about the other officer? Wade, I think,” Jade asked.

Garcia nodded. “Chuck's a good man.”

That was a relief. There were three good cops at least.

The night slid past, Sophie and Onyx's profiles in the front seat, Garcia's cruiser moving through Jade's neighborhood like a silent trespasser. As Brett's house came into view, the yard still littered with the gopher mounds, a look passed between Jade and I, remembering.

Garcia said, “If I work with McGraw, I have a chance to eventually expose those hypocrites.”

“What are they?” Jade asked.

“People bent on exploitation for warfare, controlling crime for gain. Instead of using these paranormals' gifts for the betterment of humankind, they're scheming for ways to control. It's always about control, about power.”

Garcia pulled up in front of Jade's place. He turned to wink at me. “I'll stay here with the dog.”

Not bad for an adult. Jade and I got out of the car.

The tall fence blocked our view of the house, except for a portion of the porch and roof. I opened the gate and left it ajar. We walked to the front porch, where the outside light cast a soft pool of pale color on the steps.

I grasped Jade's other hand and turned her to me pulling her close until she touched my body in a tight embrace, our bodies married together. Pressing my mouth on her lips, softly at first, my hands slid out of hers, moving to the small of her back. She wrapped hers around me. My free hand working up into the nape of her neck, the silky hair winding around my fingers as my mouth moved on hers.

The door wrenched open and Aunt Andrea stood there, anger making the planes of her face a brutal thing. As Jade and I jumped apart, her face flushed with high color, rosy under the glow of the light.

“Where the hell have you been?” Andrea asked, anger twisting her words into a snarl.

Jade jumped back, looking shocked and confused. “Ah... I pulsed you—”

“I wasn't going to get into it on pulse, but this boy”—she jabbed a finger in my direction—“is bringing you home too late. It's one twenty in the morning, and you're fourteen years old!”

I stepped back to stand next to Jade. A bulky figure appeared behind Andrea. Jade's dad.

Shit.

A look of terror came over Andrea's face. That was it, the drunk dad had made an appearance, and she was covering.

Jade's dad said, “Get your ass in this house right now. You and me, we got some talkin' to do.” If he'd been shouting, it would have been less threatening. But that soft voice promised bad stuff was going to happen.

“Is there a problem here?” Garcia asked, strolling up the steps behind us.

Sophie peeked around him, eyes like saucers in a pale face. I was betting she was familiar with old Daddy Dearest.

Garcia's hand hovered above the baton he wore on his utility belt, a whisper away from use. Jade's dad shoved Andrea aside, slamming her into the doorjamb.

“Jade!”she shouted in warning, clinging to the wood.

I heard the baton escape its sheath with a high whistle, at the same time that I threw myself backward, with Jade attached to my front. My arm was hooked around her waist, her dad's dinner plate sized hand, brushing the zipper of her hoodie as we flew, my body slamming into the grass behind us.

Every bit of air left my lungs in a single crush.

Slippery ass-monkey.

Garcia jumped off the steps and planted a knee in LeClerc's spine. He pressed the baton into the base of the guy’s skull.

Leaning down, Garcia said with soft menace, “We're taking a little ride, LeClerc. We're going to come to an understanding.”

“No we're not, pig!” LeClerc’s words were muffled by the grass he was being forced to eat. “She's my girl! She's gonna stop being with that boy! He's evil! A dead-lover! Satan worshiper!”

Right, that's me, a star in the basement.

“He's AFTD, in case you're too slow to understand,” Garcia said, losing patience. He got out his cuffs and slapped one on a thick wrist. He was reaching for LeClerc’s other arm when Jade's dad bucked hard, throwing off Garcia.

Moonlight slid off the loose cuff as it dangled from his wrist swinging it down toward Jade. As I rolled her away from that descending hand with my body, his fist connected with her side and she screamed. I let her go. She lay flat on the grass, putting her hands above her face in a defensive position that broke something inside me to witness.

Garcia's not gonna get to us in time.

I rose up on all fours between him and Jade, and he brought up both fists, obviously ready to pound me to get to her. I scooted back to get some distance so I could stand. Then, I leaned back on one foot and brought my other leg around in a roundhouse kick learned in my second year of judo. My heel connected, and his nose exploded with a satisfying crunch.

He staggered back, holding his face with both hands. “My nose! You broke my fuckin' nose!” Blood sprayed between his fingers.

Garcia jumped up, jerked LeClerc’s hands behind his back, and locked the remaining cuff. LeClerc’s frantic breathing caused a big bubble of snot and blood to grow from his nose, pulsing with each breath.

Jade moaned, her hair fanning out behind her, grass stains on her pink hoodie. My eyes burned with the need to cry. But I was the guy here and my Jade was hurt.

“Where does it hurt?” I asked, gently exploring her side.

She hissed when I touched her lower ribs on the right side. I pulled up her lightweight shirt and saw a terrible welt, bright red, in the shape of the cuff, with a grape-colored bruise, blooming at the edges of the mark like an obscene flower.

I looked up at her dad. “You touch her again and I'll kill you.”

He smirked, snot edging toward his mouth as his face was mashed against the ground. “You'll try.”

LeClerc smiled that nasty grin of his, the blood slowing to a trickle, his swollen nose like a clown's.

It wasn't enough damage to satisfy me.

“Caleb,” Garcia started, “... what did you say?”

Andrea and Sophie had their arms twined around each other as my eyes met Garcia's.

“He said he'd kill me, you dumb-ass! He's the one you should be arresting, the zombie-lover!” LeClerc shouted.

“I didn't hear that,” Garcia said, trying for neutral and missing by a kilometer.

Garcia smiled and started hauling Jade's dad away, who shouted over his shoulder at Jade, “Keep your head down, girlie, get away from that loser.”

“Look who's talking,” Garcia said.

“Can I help you get up?” I asked Jade.

She nodded, and I gently helped her to her feet.

Brett jogged over from the direction of his house. “What happened to Jade?”

I couldn't believe the night I was having. There must have been a trouble-find-me beacon flashing above my head.

Sophie answered before I could tell him off. “It's her dad, Brett.”

Brett nodded. “Yeah, I saw him in the cop car,” a range of emotion swam across Brett's features. “What did he do to her?”

I didn't think he deserved an answer, but I remembered that his father was just as bad, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “He was pissed because she was with me.”

“Yeah, he wants her with someone normal.”

“Like you?” I scoffed.

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“Stop, both of you,” Jade said, her face pinched.

Brett and I stared at each other. I could taste the trouble we were gonna have trouble in the future; like smelling rain right before it pours.

I made myself turn away from him, gently towing Jade inside the house. As we stepped onto the porch, I heard Sophie whispering with Brett.

Andrea led us into the family room, and Jade walked stiffly to the couch. Pivoting, we lowered her together as Andrea propped pillows behind her. I looked around and saw a smiling Jade in every corner, photos framing her childhood.

“Don't look at those,” Jade said. “They're dumb.”

“Nah... you look cute,” I said.

She gave me a dopey smile.

Garcia poked his head through the door. “I hate to do this to you...”

“It's okay,” I interrupted. “I can walk home.”

“I just can't have you in the car, as it is, he's fighting it.”

I could hear Jade's dad, hammering his feet against the inside of the car door.

A prince of a guy.

I bent over Jade and gave her a kiss on her forehead. She grabbed a fistful of my shirt, jerking my mouth down on hers, kissing it softly.

“There,” she said. “Now you can go.” She smiled through a wash of tears.

I followed Garcia out of the house and down the path that led to the front gate.

He paused just inside the gate. “Did you mean what you said earlier?”

I could have pretended I didn't understand what he meant, a purposeful misunderstanding, but I didn't. “Yeah,” I said finally. I glanced at the car. Jade's dad was slamming his feet against the back glass. “That gonna hold?” I asked.

“Yes,” Garcia looked at me, taking my measure.

He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “You're a good kid, Caleb. Don't worry so much about what you'll be. Just keep doing the right thing, and you'll get where you're meant to go.”

He went to his cruiser and opened the front passenger-side door. Onyx flew out, giving a single bark at the cruiser and a parting growl then bounded over to me.

Stroking his head, I couldn't say I blamed him.

CHAPTER 33

Onyx peed on everything vertical the entire way home. Mom must have been watching through the window because she opened the door before I even got on the porch. She gave me a bone-crushing hug. I glanced over her shoulder at Dad.

“Garcia phoned,” he said. People didn't phone anymore, but my parents still used the expression. “And I think it's time you came clean with us, son. He let us in on a plethora of disturbing occurrences.”

I nodded, disentangled myself from Mom, and followed them inside. I walked over to the couch, and Onyx jumped up ahead of me.

“No. Down, Onyx,” Mom said.

Onyx obeyed immediately, hopping down to lie on the floor, giving mom the big-eye.

I sat down. My eyes burned with that grainy and itchy feeling. My parents looked tired, too.

Dad studied me for a moment. “I think it goes without saying that you won't be having quite as much leash in the future. We know there were extenuating circumstances. Garcia said something about Graysheets?” Mom asked.

I went through the whole story. I was so exhausted afterward that my bones ached. I'd never wanted to sleep so badly in my life.

Mom rubbed her eyes. “Well, we can't solve all of this in the middle of the night.”

Dad had his eyes closed, chin resting in the fist of his hand which was balanced on a knee. “Dad?”

He opened his eyes, bloodshot lightning running through them. “Mom's right, but one thing that keeps nagging at me is this EMP phenomena.”

Mom and I both rolled our eyes. Unbelievable! I had nearly been kidnapped, and Dad was dwelling on the electrical snafu.

Mom sighed. “Okay, enlighten us, quickly. What is an EMP?”

“Electromagnetic pulse,” Dad said.

“Like pulse, pulse?” I asked.

“No. Not like our pulse technology, but related. Think on this: what caused everything to stall? The helicopter, everyone's pulses, Garcia's police car?” Turning to Mom, he asked, “How long has it been since our house was compromised?”

Mom thought about it. “A month.”

“That's what we need to address. It's the one puzzle piece that doesn't fit.”

Mom frowned. “Are we safe?”

“For now. I think they'd be fools to attempt to reacquire him anytime soon. Anyway, we can talk about this tomorrow.” He slapped his knees, standing. “Let’s all get some sleep.”

I suffered through a last hug from Mom and Dad.

Onyx and I climbed the steps to my room. As I opened the door, Onyx nudged it aside and jumped up on my bed. He circled to find the perfect dog spot then settled at the foot.

I kicked off my shoes, got undressed, and climbed under the covers.

I was so tired that I was wide awake. It made no sense but that's the way it was; I'd tried to stay awake so long I had gone over the line.

I hung over my bed, digging in my jeans pocket and slid out my pulse. I flopped back on my bead and sent a message to Jade.

Caleb: Just so you know, I love you.

I knew that she was probably asleep, but she'd wake up to my words glowing on her pulse.

It'd be the first thing she saw.

I started to drift off just as Mom came into my room pulling up the covers until they were just under my chin. She hadn't tucked me in for years. I was in the twilight of sleep, just as you're sinking under into unconsciousness but awake enough to be aware.

Her breath was warm on my face as she kissed my forehead, my thoughts ending as sleep pulled me under into dreamless oblivion.

CHAPTER 34

I woke up, feeling as if I'd been in our washing machine on spin cycle for a couple of hours. I squinted at the glowing numbers on my computer monitor. One o'clock!

Onyx crawled up and gave my face a lick. I absently petted his head. I heard Mom downstairs in the kitchen. Surprisingly, I wasn't that hungry. I powered up my pulse and messages came in:.

Jonesy: Pulse-me, zombie-master.

John Terran: We need a plan... like yesterday.

Jade: I love you too.

I tackled the easy messages first.

Caleb: Jonesy, you moron, stop talking about stuff on the pulse!

Jonesy: Okay, don't get your boxers in a twist!

John joined the chat, and we all agreed to meet at the hideaway at three o’clock.

I pulsed Jade next.

Caleb: How's your side?

Jade: It's okay, sore.

My hate for Jade's dad bloomed anew.

Caleb: Is your aunt pissed at me, or can we get together today with the Js?

Jade: No, it was an act. My dumb dad showed up and started hassling her about where I was. I overheard my aunt talking to Garcia on the phone today, Dad’s in jail. He’s in extra trouble for resisting arrest.

We talked a little while longer then pulsed off.

I was still trying to play it a little cool with Jade, but it was getting harder by the day. More and more she was the center of my world, I orbited her.

***

I dismounted as my bike was slowing coming to a jog beside it, the Js already in view by the dump's gate.

“You guys got your bikes too?” I asked.

“Yeah, they were at our houses this morning when we got up,” John said.

“Mine, too. Maybe Wade brought ’em,” I said.

“The other cop?” Jonesy asked.

“Yeah, Gale's partner,” John said.

“He watched our house last night,” I said.

Jonesy whistled. “You must rank pretty high.”

I shook my head. “Nah, you heard Garcia. He wants to bust the Graysheets bad. I think he's just being careful because they've targeted me. But we've got even more problems than government psychos.” I told them what had happened with Jade's dad.

John shook his head. “What a turd.”

“He should be flogged,” Jonesy said.

Jade rode up a few minutes later. After we had the whole got-our-bikes-back conversation again, we hid the bikes and went into the hideout.

“I can't believe your parents let you come,” Jade said. “Aren't they worried?”

“My dad has a plan to relieve some of the pressure and expose them. I shrugged. “Also, I gave up the hideaway.”

Jonesy face-palmed.

John glared at me.

“Look,” I said, “I kinda had to. If it makes ya feel any better, I just said it was somewhere in the dump.”

“It's kinda bad that the cops know about it, too,” John said.

“And Brett and Carson,” Jade added.

“Yeah, what the hell is with Brett?” Jonesy asked. “He got a death-wish?”

Jade lowered her head.

I put a hand under her chin. “This isn't your fault, you know.”

She nodded, a lone tear sliding down her face. “It would be easier on you guys if I wasn't a part of this.”

John said, “Ah, Brett has nothing to do with you.”

“Yeah!” Jonesy said. “He's a wet asshole without help from anyone.”

Jade laughed and the sadness passed.

“Knock-knock!”

We jumped.

“What the hell?” Jonesy said.

Jade said, “It's Tiff and Sophie. I pulsed them to meet us here.”

Jonesy smiled. “Oh, Soph! Great!” He ducked his head. “I mean... I'm glad they're okay.”

Riiiiggghhht.

Tiff and Sophie came first, with Bry bringing up the rear. His face looked really bad.

Jonesy said, “Wow, those gnomes really tore you up!”

Tiff's eyes narrowed on Jonesy.

John gave Jonesy a sour look. “What did your parents say?”

Tiff rolled her eyes with a smirk. “They think he needs anger management help.”

Jonesy barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding?”

“No. Remember, it's Bry's job to get the shit kicked out of him every time we go to a cemetery,” I said.

“Everyone has to do their part,” John said.

Bry laughed. “You guys are okay.”

I filled Bry, Tiff, and Sophie in on the fun at Jade's house last night.

“Sounds like that guy needs to be flogged,” Bry said.

Jonesy threw out his hands. “Great minds think alike.”

They high-fived their mutual awesomeness.

We finished talking then trooped down the tunnel. I stepped out of the freezer last and closed the door.

When I turned around, Brett and Carson were there.

Bry looked around at our expressions. “What? Did someone die?”

“Nah, but we have history with these two,” Jonesy said.

“Okay, I'm feeling ya.” Bry gave the two a hard look.

Brett asked, “Who's he?”

“My brother,” Tiff said.

Carson and Brett gave Bry a good look, taking in his height and bulk.

“John?” I asked.

“I know,” John responded.

“He your pet Null now, Hart ya homo?” Carson laughed.

“We could exchange insults, Carson,” John said, “but we're kinda busy, so why don't you piss off instead?”

“That works,” Bry said.

Brett peered at Bry. “What happened to your face?”

“Who cares?” Carson said. He turned to me. “I've decided to call a truce.”

I couldn't have been more shocked if he’d pulled a pink elephant out of his butt. The girls burst out laughing. It sounded that ridiculous. Carson glared at us and clenched his fists.

Bry stepped forward.

Carson looked at him and licked his lips nervously.

Coward.

“Don't even think about it.” His battered face somehow made him look more menacing.

Carson stuck out his chin in a show of bravado. I thought like it looked like the sweet spot for a punch. “I was just sayin' that most of us will be at KPH next year, and I thought we could just… avoid each other.”

I thought it over for a moment. I didn’t trust him, but I supposed it was worth a shot. “Okay, I can do that.”

Totally want to anyway.

Everybody else nodded their agreement, but I read doubt in every face.

Brett looked relieved, Carson satisfied.

“See ya,” Carson said, walking off.

Brett cast a glance back at Jade then followed Carson. I didn't like him looking at Jade that way, but it wasn’t the time to make a scene.

Once the pair was out of earshot, Jonesy said, “We need to close that gate from now on. I don't like them skulking around.”

Tiff said, “I trust him about as far as I can throw him.”

“Me too,” Bry said, eyes narrowing on their disappearing figures.

“You don't even know them,” Jade pointed out.

“No, but I know guys like them.”

“Carson's a pyro.” Sophie said.

“Oh... great,” Bry said. “Wait, why didn't he light somebody up? Pyros always have to show off.”

“I was tuned up,” John said.

Bry looked a question at John. “You're the Null? That's right!” he smacked his forehead, then winced. “Last night, you guys were testing that out... good thing John’s on our side.”

John chuckled, then his expression became serious. “We're all just pawns on his chessboard. He's made a move, trying to take us off-guard. Next, he'll strike when we're not expecting it.”

“We'll have to be expecting it then,” I said. I put my arm around Jade.

“Ouch!”

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just kinda sore.”

“We want to look,” Jonesy said. Wounds fascinated him.

Jade blushed but lifted up her shirt a little. The injury looked markedly worse. The beginning of the bruise extended even further, a rainbow of various shades.

“Definite flogging,” Jonesy said, his fingertips skating over the wound.

Jade lowered her shirt. “He's in jail still. He can't make bail, and Andrea won't pay, either.”

I thought it was great his butt was in a holding cell.

I told the ones who arrived late that my dad had a plan to take the heat off of me.

Bry nodded. “That's good.”

“He's right, Caleb,” Jade said.

“It's not just me,” I said. “It's any of us, all of us...”

“If Kyle can help with an idea, we can maybe have normal lives,” John said.

Bry said, “Be sure and pulse me and Tiff. I want to know what's happening. And for the record, I don't trust that ferret Carson.”

My lips pulled in a grim line. Me neither. “Yeah, I'll let ya know.”

“Hey, Jade,” Sophie said. “Maybe you should go to the doctor.”

Jade shook her head. “Can't. No health insurance.”

I stared at her. “You don't have the chip?”

“No. Those were being done on a day I missed school, around the time when my mom died,” she said softly.

Jonesy said, “It's all right. If it's a busted rib, they can't do jack anyway.”

“Let's get out of here,” I said. “I need to regroup with my parents.”

We all got on our bikes. I stayed in place while I waited for Jade to get on hers. She was moving pretty slowly.

John pulled up beside me.

“Faster,” she said, breathing through the pain. I balanced my right foot in the dirt, the bike seat riding right under my butt and put a hand on the back of Jade's head, showing her with my eyes I was sorry she was hurting.

“I'm sorry I couldn't stop him.”

“It could have been worse, you deflected it.”

“I guess,” I said. She was trying to make me feel better about it.

Not working.

“Caleb?” John asked.

Balancing on my toes I turned to him. “Yeah.” My hand slid away from Jade.

“If Parker said your house was bugged and you guys talked about Garcia, don't the Graysheets know all of that now, too?” he asked.

I had a moment of panic so big I couldn't breathe.

Jade reached out and put her hand on my arm. “It's okay. Wouldn't something bad have happened by now if they knew?”

My heart felt loaded up in my throat, stalled. I couldn’t even speak.

Jonesy said, “Let's just ride to your house and ask your dad. He'll know what to do.”

“You okay now?” John asked.

Jonesy gave me a hard guy-clap on my back. “Caleb's okay, aren't ya?”

I looked at our group, the Js and Jade.

Whatever happened after I got home, I had them.

CHAPTER 35

I dumped my bike on the front lawn and ran for the porch. I rushed through the front door, not bothering to close it.

“What's the problem, Caleb?” Dad asked, rising off the couch. He leaned to the side to look behind me.

Jade and the Js came in. Mom gave me a puzzled look, with more than a dash of anxiety.

I put my index finger to my lips then pointed toward the back deck. My parents nodded.

All of us moved out there.

“What's going on?” Dad asked.

“Remember I told you the Graysheets bugged our house?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we talked about everything last night—Garcia, them, all our ideas. Then this morning, I told you where the hideout was.”

Dad looked relieved. “It's okay, Caleb. When I spoke with Garcia last night, he gave me directions on how to neutralize the bugs, and I answered yes or no. There's no way the Graysheets could have heard. Unless they're telepathic and could understand more than a yes or a no. He made sure I didn’t let on about it in the house. It’s all fixed.”

I let the breath I'd been holding out in a rush.

“How'd you deactivate the bugs?” John asked.

“Garcia figured it would be a pulse-based system interface.”

“Doesn't that flat-line everything in your house? Pulse, lights, everything?” Jade asked.

“Yes, our system has an automatic reset. If all pulse is deactivated, it automatically resets all known devices.”

I got it. “Their stuff wasn't included in the start-up because it didn't register.”

Dad nodded.

“Nice,” Jonesy said.

“They'll know when they can't hear us anymore,” I said.

“It's temporary, putting the kibosh on their surveillance, which brings me to a new point,” Dad said.

Here we go.

“I think we should go to that journalist who worked on those articles about Parker—Tim Anderson.”

“Why? What can he do for us?” I asked.

“He can make them hesitate,” Mom said.

“You mean from taking me again?”

“Taking anyone, Caleb. It's bigger than just you. Everyone who is a five-point should not have to live under the threat of loss of liberty. Your safety is paramount. If we visit Anderson, he exposes them, keeping the Graysheets planning their next strategy rather than executing.”

“Let's lift their skirt and make them worry about their panties,” Jonesy said.

Mom and Jade looked at him.

“What? That's like a perfect… um…”

“Analogy,” John said.

“Humph!” Mom commented.

Dad was making the I'm-not-going-to-smile face that gave his mouth a strange, crooked look. “I've already contacted him, and he’s meeting us at six.”

I was starving. Even with Jade as a constant distraction, I needed to fill the hole. I looked at Mom.

“Those pancakes all gone?” she guessed.

“Mine are!” Jonesy said, sensing food was close.

“You didn't have pancakes,” I said, suspicious.

Jonesy discounted my comment with a wave of his hand. “Doesn't matter, I haven't eaten in hours.” He moaned dramatically, clutching his stomach.

Mom grinned. “We have some leftover pizza.”

John asked, “Is there enough?”

“Always.”

As we devoured the pizza, we talked about Anderson. We decided that all of us going would give more credit to the story.

“The point is,” Dad said between bites, “the kids' presence may lend a degree of validity that would otherwise not be there. We'd go there and look like hysterical parents bent on some anti-government zealotry.”

“But you're not hysterical,” I said mid-bite.

“Yeah, Caleb,” Jonesy said. “There's a ton of nut jobs out there, waiting to crack.”

“You're on it today, Jonesy,” John said.

“Every day, pal.” Jonesy winked.

Jade rolled her eyes, and we all laughed.

***

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer office was at Kent Station in the valley. Dad easily found a parking spot, completely unheard of in our city of two hundred thousand. We all got out of the car. The Js started to sprint ahead to the door.

“Hang on, kids,” Dad said, without looking up from his pulse.

Mom was still fumbling with her stuff. She tucked her dedicated pulse-reader into her purse.

“Mom, seriously? The DR?”

I guess she'd die without a book to read.

We walked toward the building, which was all height and glass. It looked like a giant sea-green jewel spearing the sky. The huge sign on top read, “Seattle Post-Intelligencer” in electric-blue letters.

Inside, we got in line for the pulse body scan. Terrorist threats were such a damn drag. All points of entry: police, fire, media were all protected by Pulse-scan.

A rotund gal with a perma-bored expression stood at the ready with the Pulse-wand, primed to do the next wand pass. “Come forward please. Arms up, turn around. Next.”

I knew Jonesy was going to have trouble with the urge-to-laugh-at-inappropriate-times when he started to cover his mouth. This problem of his was terribly contagious. Thankfully, Jade and I were already through the line.

But John wasn't.

Out of the three of us, John being the most serious personality, had the worst trouble calming down once Jonesy began laughing.

John tried, he really did, but Jonesy burst out laughing the instant the dour TSA worker said,“Next.”

John doubled over, laughing. His face turned tomato-red.

The TSA gal made it worse by spluttering, “Young man, stand up!”

Jonesy yelled, “Anal probe! Right here!” and pointed over the top of John's back. Which caused John to roar with laughter, falling down hard on his bony ass.

The TSA agent flattened her lips in a thin line.

Dad stepped in and said, “I'm quite sorry about their behavior. It's been a trying day. They're a bit... giddy.”

The TSA woman looked down at John, who had tears streaming out of his eyes. “Straighten up right now, young man!”

John whooped, trying to make a mad dash that looked like a drunken stagger.

Mom and Jade had mouths hanging agape, even my laid-back parents were somewhat embarrassed.

John's mouth started to twitch, but he managed to contain it. He was still making the funny mouth, trying not to burst out again, Mom was talking sternly to Jonesy, his back to us.

“I'm really sorry about that. I don't know what my problem was.”

“Arms up,” humorless said. “Turn-around. Next!”

John, suitably chagrined, walked over to Jade and me.

Dad, last through security, motioned for us all to huddle up. “Come close, fellas.” When we all leaned in, Dad looked straight at Jonesy. “I better not have any more of this behavior. Jonesy: control your bullshit.”

Jonesy blanched. I had ever heard Dad swear. A silence fell over our loose circle.

Dad straightened. “Follow me.”

He strode off. Jonesy and John trailed behind with their tails between their legs. I took Jade’s hand, and we walked beside Mom.

***

Tim Anderson just flat-out didn't believe us.

Dad tried to reason with him, but Anderson interrupted my dad with, “Dazzle me, guys.” He looked at me. “Can something die and you raise it?”

I gaped at him. “What? You mean like right here?”

Anderson shook his head and turned back to my dad. “Listen, Dr. Hart, I know you're the principal scientist with regard to the genome map. Terrific. But do you really expect me to put my—excuse me, ladies—nut-sack on the line for some wild stories about a five-point AFTD running amok with his friends and some shadowy government co-op dispatched to acquire him?”

He's starting to piss me off.

Dad began drumming his fingers on Anderson's desk. He looked as angry as I felt.

Mom huffed. “What would we have to possibly gain from making up a story about our own son?”

Anderson shrugged. “Who knows? I get whack-jobs all the time coming in here and spraying their lies all over. I'm not inclined to believe things on hearsay. I'm a journalist, guys.”

Dad slapped his hand on the desk, rattling the glass pen holder. “We are not crazy or making things up.” He waved at Jade.

Anderson leaned back in his chair, unfazed by Dad's outburst.

“Jade, show Mr. Anderson what's going on.”

Jade stood and walked over to Anderson. A predatory smile I’d never seen before played on her face.

“What are you doing, girlie?” Anderson asked her.

Jade just smiled wider then touched his shoulder. He jumped.

“Seeing,” she answered.

Emotions flew across her face as she read Anderson.

Anderson pushed her hand away. “That's enough of that.”

He looked pretty shaken.

Jade turned to Dad. “He wants an exclusive if he can have proof. Otherwise, it's just a wild goose chase.”

“Are you quoting him?” Mom asked.

“Yes... no. I mean, people think in images, and I saw geese in his head and him chasing them.”

“It's an old expression,” Anderson said quietly.

“He wants to go to the ghost cemetery,” Jade said.

He glared at her.

“Well, you didn't believe us,” I said.

Dad stood. “Let's do it. You see some of the evidence, and then you write something. Seems clear cut.”

“He will,” Jade said.

“Must be a nice skill, girlie,” Anderson said.

I grimaced.

“It's Jade, not 'girlie.’”

CHAPTER 36

The cemetery was exactly as I remembered it, except instead of being silvered by moonlight it had a hazy white quality. The evening sun hung low in the sky, slanting through the trees.

Tim Anderson strode forward, moving between the tombstones and heading toward the caretaker's cottage. He arrived at the front steps and turned around to face us. “Where, oh where, is the crashed stealth chopper? The gun casings? The knives? The remnants of battle?”

We all started scouring the graveyard. Apart from a few tromped-down places of flat grass between the graves, there wasn't a mark anywhere. I couldn’t believe it. There was no way they could have cleaned this place up overnight.

Jonesy opened his mouth, and Dad held up a finger in warning. I guess Dad was up to here with Jonesy.

Jonesy nodded then calmly asked, “What about the tombstone that got whacked by the chopper blade? And what about the blade that got stuck in the ground?”

We sprinted to the spot where we thought the chopper had landed. The marker was gone, completely gone. Only the hole where it had been was left.

“They took the whole damn thing!” Jonesy yelled.

Anderson bent down and trailed his fingers over the displaced dirt that hadn't been exposed in over a century. “You might have something here.”

John yelled from a few feet away, “Look at this!”

We ran over there. Well, we kids ran. The adults sort of walked fast. John pointed at a place where a huge gouge had been dug in the dirt. On either side was a crescent-moon shaped swath, like a smile, with the center being a deep well.

“Just a minute.” I ran over and grabbed a long stick from the nearby patch of trees. I returned and stuck it into the hole until I felt it touch bottom. I put my fingers on the stick at the lip of the hole, then pulled it out and held it against me.

Dad said, “That’s about four feet.”

“Looks like you guys might have been telling the truth,” Anderson said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking up at the sky, then back at the wound in the earth. “Let’s go back to my office.”

*

Back at Anderson's office, where we passed through security unscathed by hysterics, we sat for a solid hour, telling our story. His pulse recorder loaded everything directly to his pulse-top.

A couple of times, Anderson remarked or asked a question to clarify something. But mostly, he just listened. Finally, we were finished.

“Well, that's one helluva story there. A real humdinger. I can understand you coming to me, or someone like me. I will do my best, tonight,” Anderson said.

“Tonight?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, my boss is going to be thrilled. But better than that, it offers a little protection for your kid there.” Anderson pointed at me. “I'm not a real introspective guy, but I'd say you've been given something special. It's how you use it that'll make a difference.”

Standing up, he offered his hand to Dad. “Sorry I was so tough on you in the beginning. It's been a pleasure. You've got a good kid here, Dr. Hart.”

“You can call me Kyle,” Dad said.

He smiled at me. “I know we do.”

“Those other two though...” Anderson waggled his finger at the Js. “They may be trouble.”

Then he laughed, taking the sting out of it.

CHAPTER 37

The article came out and sensationalized the paranormal community. People believed what they wanted to believe. Some thought it was a greatly exaggerated story about a bunch of teenagers who got together to be wild in cemeteries. Others thought the government was putting its nose where it didn't belong, endangering the new generation of kids.

Still others thought the drug cocktail gave humanity a key to power that came with a huge price tag.

Having survived the last few months, I had to agree.

Summer rolled out like a great sea of time before us. I had an awesome girlfriend, a terrific dog, and my best friends, the Js.

Life is good.

But in the quiet dark of my room, questions pressed at me before sleep took hold. Where was Parker? What had they been planning for me? What had caused the electrical problem that ultimately saved us? Were we finished? That little voice in my head didn't think so.

A few days later, Jonesy asked if we could go raise some zombies. I told him no. I was zombied out.

But someday, that would change... sooner rather than later.

THE END

Read Book #2, DEATH SPEAKS

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THE PEARL SAVAGE

A Savage Series Novel

Book 1

New York Times
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TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2010-11 Tamara Rose Blodgett

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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Prologue

1890

Samuel lay on his back, gasping for air like a fish out of the sea. They had done all they could. Now the burden rested with their descendants. His gaze lingered on the house he loved, covered in ash, the sun no longer a bright orb in the sky, but shrouded in gray. A hush fell over the pewter wasteland. Cold seeped into his marrow inch by insidious inch. Many would enter the spheres constructed by the Guardians. Their saviors spoke of selective population, which rang false to Samuel, or true, as the case might be. His grandchildren were safe and beyond the pale of this time, this world he was leaving.

He let his head roll limply on its side, where his gaze captured Mae, also prone with a strange contraption with hand-hammered copper and a complex, inky black netting covering the greater part of her nose and mouth. Leather straps braided and wrapped her skull, pushing strands of hair around like lost silver. She made odd, whistling noises as she breathed.

“Samuel, wear it.” Mae’s voice was distorted as she lifted the matching mask the Guardians had fashioned in the preceding months.

“No, Mae. I wish to enjoy this fore-night without the chains of their advances.”

Samuel knew his stubbornness would cost him his life. The Guardians, who were equal part savior and bearer of terrible news, had made concessions for the elders. But those who survived would be the strongest, most virile, agile, and smartest among them. Samuel and Mae both understood at their advanced age of sixty and one years that they would be excluded from the mercies of the sphere.

With blurred vision, Samuel saw a familiar figure approach.

“Father! Why do you not take rest in your own bed?” Stella’s comely face was a salve in his approaching death. Her wool skirts swirled as she knelt and set an illuminated candle, hissing steam from its seams, beside him.

Raising his hand, he cupped the loveliness of her face, knowing the time had come for her to enter the sphere the Guardians had constructed for the select. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Papa, the Guardians have told you that you might survive... All is not lost.”

Samuel put a finger to her lips. “Silence now, child. This is your place now. Do not forget the things you have been taught. Take this, Dear Heart. Hold it safe to your breast. Guard it. It is our history.” Samuel handed her a slim leather book bound with a black silk tie.

Stella pressed it to her chest, tears overflowing down unprotected cheeks. Mae's eyes met hers. “Go now, Stella-girl. Take the opportunity you have been given.”

Her knuckles whitened as Stella clutched the book. Misery etched its path on her countenance. “It will never be the same without you both.”

A clear bell-tone pealed, reminding Stella of duty, her duty to leave her parents behind. The knowledge of her future, the safe environment of the sphere, was a burden on her heart.

Stella turned to look at the sphere shimmering in a watery iridescence like a giant cloche. But people were not plants. Their future safekeeping was a promise of a life with a family fractured by separation.

Stella bent to kiss Samuel and Mae goodbye. Gently unwinding the facemask the Guardians had constructed, she placed a kiss, soft as butterfly wings on the woman who had nurtured her. The skin gave way like tissue-thin silk under the pressure of her lips. Turning to her father, she saw his pale blue eyes watering. She cradled his head while she pressed a kiss to his forehead. She lowered his head and took a last lingering look, knowing this was the final time she would view her parents in this realm.

Lifting her skirts, she pivoted away, dropping them as she walked—no, as she ran—brushing tears from her cheeks, the book clutched tightly in her other hand, the candle hanging from its copper loop in her squeezed finger. Approaching the doorway to the sphere, she was the last select to be ushered inside. Casting one final glance, she saw her parents’ supine forms, their clasped hands held tightly, her mother's mask forgotten beside her.

Stella whirled toward the entrance, losing hold of the book, dropping it on the ash-laden earth. She picked it up, her last gift from Father. Seeing the title, she peered closer: Asteroid: A History of When the Rocks Fell.

Stella moved forward as the hole closed behind her. A fierce idea bloomed in her consciousness to remember who they had been. An indeterminate future stretched before her.

CHAPTER 1

One Hundred Forty Years Later

Clara beheld the shrouded exterior as she did each morning, her hands pressed against the pliable interior of the sphere. Her fingers sank into its surface, stopped before breaching the Outside. The yearning was the same. She wished to experience the Outside.

Sighing, Clara turned from the misty view outside the molded window. Her petticoats swept together, wrapping her bare legs, as she found the stockings laid out for her on the bed.

Olive knocked on the door. “Mistress, may I enter your chamber?”

“Yes.”

She entered with scads of rich turquoise steam-pressed clothing draped over her arm. Clara hated it, hated it all.

“Princess.” Olive inclined her head.

Clara recognized she was penalizing Olive unfairly. Who truly wished to celebrate her Day of Birth? Utter nonsense.

Olive peered at her Princess from under her lashes. She was a formidable young lady with aquamarine eyes that flashed with energetic temper, deep mahogany hair cascading to her waist—very handsome but uncooperative when it came to dressing.

“Please, Princess, they await your appearance.”

“Does my mother?”

Olive knew that the Queen was deep in her cup, and it was not yet midday. “Our Queen has begun her own celebration.”

No surprise.

Clara’s people wished to see her adorned in her finery (a loathsome pursuit) to be reminded that she was their Princess, the one who saw to their happiness, unlike her mother, the Queen, who failed them at every turn.

Olive interrupted her musings. “My lady, please employ the bedpost.”

Grabbing the stays that bound the corset, Olive took up the slack. Reaching the end, she pulled with all her might. Clara gasped. “Must it be so tight? I cannot breathe properly.”

“It must be hand-span.”

Finally, Olive bent to use the shoe hook on Clara's high heels, each button a luminescent mother-of-pearl.

“Do you not think you are agreeable, mistress?”

Clara gazed at her image. Creamy expanses of pale skin met the weak light from the sphere window climbing up to a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and strange-colored blue eyes, a dark fall of hair that was fiery red in a certain light, brushed her hips where they swelled. Her mother would be pleased, she supposed. But Clara wanted to change into the waistcoat and linen skirt she wore when she visited the oyster fields.

She turned to Olive. “I look comely enough to satisfy the Queen.”

“And Prince Frederick.”

Yes, she must not forget her upcoming nuptials to the Prince. The thought brought a searing tide of resentment, coiling painfully under her breastbone.

Clara sat at the vanity while Olive wove pearls into her hair. A rainbow of shimmering colors winked in the plaiting. “Do you wish to wear it all up, your highness?” She indicated the back of Clara's head.

She wished to not attend her Day of Birth celebration.

“No, Olive, just the forward section... leave the remainder down.”

Olive swept the forward part of Clara's hair off her face in an elaborate coil, twining at the top, back of her head and weaving around it like a crown. Then arranged and rearranged Clara's hair until she was satisfied.

“There. That will do,” she said with satisfaction.

Clara stared at her reflection. He eyes gazed back, huge in her small face. Pearls shimmered in the low light.

She stood, giving Olive a gracious nod. “You are most clever with your ministrations.”

Olive gave Clara a deep curtsey, which she bore as she did her other royal obligations.

Clara wandered over to her window again, pressing her face almost to the sphere barrier, its soft but impenetrable surface her prison.

“Princess?”

“Yes, Olive,” Clara said without turning.

“I implore you. Do not stand so close to the window. You have heard the reports of savages, have you not?”

Yes, she had. Again Clara thought of how she longed to explore, to see for herself what lay beyond her world, the Kingdom of Ohio.

“Yes, I have heard and it aggrieves me mightily. If some have survived the bounds of this place,” Clara stretched out her hand to encompass the sphere, “who are we to feel disinclination? Should we not welcome others?”

“It is not safe, my Princess.”

“And who has such musings?”

“The Record Keeper, my lady.”

Clara's full lips thinned into a line of distaste. She detested the idea that one individual held the history and direction of so many.

“Please... make my excuses for another half hour hence.”

Olive hesitated, thinking of the Queen's displeasure. “Yes, Princess.”

“You are not to be blamed. Tell the Queen that I was obstinate, as is typical.” Clara's mouth curved into a smile. It pleased her that Queen Ada would suffer irritation and keep the dreadful Prince Frederick waiting. A bigger pompous ass the spheres had never seen.

Clara turned to face Outside again. Olive slipped out the door and closed it quietly behind her. Tension slipped out of Clara's shoulders. She felt relieved to own another moment of time before the abhorrent celebration began.

She stood watching the wind (as she had been told that was what it was), caressing the Forest of Trees. As she turned away, she saw movement. She pressed her face to the sphere's interior, her nose pushing in the softness. Outside her window, a great male stood, partially obscured by trees. On his face lay a fierceness. Arrows were slung over a shoulder corded with muscle. He had a bow in one hand and strange clothing covering only part of his body. A shocking expanse of skin showed.

He was fascinating and most assuredly a savage.

Without warning, he flew the stand of trees that Clara had been admiring since her childhood, rushing straight for the window she leaned against. Clara clenched her teeth, holding her position, knowing that the sphere was impenetrable, but stale fear flooded her mouth as she watched the huge male advance at an incredible speed. Clara's heart thumped painfully in her chest. When a hair's breadth remained between the sphere and Clara, he stopped.

*

Bracus looked at the female behind the sphere that the Evil Ones had constructed in his grandfather's grandfather's time. He had watched the female for months and had seen her supervising workers in the fields of sea creatures that yielded shimmering jewels.

He also knew she was beautiful. He wanted her.

She was unlike any of the females he had seen. In his clan, females were rare, highly prized, and safeguarded. His eyes caressed her face, the skin like cream from the cow, her eyes like the sea near his cousin's clan, hair the color of fire burnt down to embers. Bracus looked around warily, knowing he must leave. He was too exposed without the trees at his back. He gave a last look at the female. Her expression seemed indecipherable. He felt vulnerable that he had revealed himself after his careful months of hiding. Turning, he climbed up the hill toward the stand of trees, his long and powerful strides eating up the ground. Reaching the forest, he looked back at the window where the female watched him. He turned back toward the clan.

*

Clara released the breath she’d been holding, letting it out in a rush. Light-headed, she sat on the fainting couch and put her head between her knees. Between the strange episode with the savage and the absurd corset, she could not regain her breath. This is how Olive came upon her when she returned to escort her to the celebration.

Olive rushed to her. “Princess, what ails you?”

Although not her favorite transgression, it was effective, and she lied smoothly to Olive. “I think my stays may need loosening.”

“Oh! For the love of the Guardian! Please... forgive me.” Olive rushed around to loosen the corset, but Clara knew that would just lengthen the horror of the event and incur additional wrath from the Queen.

“Never mind. It matters not, Olive... hand-span it shall be.”

“As you wish, Princess.”

As she walked to the doorway, she turned, giving one look back to the window, where the savage had looked at her so intimately. He had been so alive, so vital. She knew one thing she had seen would distract her during the entire celebration.

The savage had gills.

Clara made her way to the door, swinging it open to the hallway which led to the Gathering Room, a place of joy. But not for her... not today.

CHAPTER 2

Clara entered with Olive, her lady-in-waiting, who she also called friend, at her heels. Royalty was a lonely role and every friendship sacred. Clara searched the crowd for Charles. Surely he was somewhere around the room. Nowhere... drat.

Her eyes scanned the Gathering Room, taking in the rich tapestries lining the walls. “Walls” was a misnomer. There was no puncturing the interior of the sphere. The tapestries had been hung from scaffolding with copper fasteners. The huge Gathering clock donged, chiming three hours past noon. Clara loved the enormous timepiece. Ten feet in diameter, it had a symmetry that gave one pause, its beauty striking as sure as the chime she felt reverberating in her chest. The steam-powered gears moved and clanked, clearly seen through a layer of crystal. Hot vapors rose to the highest apex of the sphere, flowing through unseen air portals, which fed to a central ventilator.

Relief swept through Clara as she saw Charles moving toward her. He had finished his studies one year ago and begun to work in the fields. He would stay by her, understanding that she would have to spend a good portion of her time in the presence of her betrothed.

She noticed that he wore his clothes with grace and charm. He looked dashing, his hat a shining wonder topping soft black hair, his time piece tucked safely in the front pocket of a smartly striped brocade vest. His soft velvet pants were charcoal, tucked into tall boots that rose to the knee. His deep black coat lined in scarlet swirled mid-thigh.

Charles bowed. “Princess Clara.” His eyes twinkled. The sod knew very well how she hated the title.

Clara automatically returned a perfunctory curtsy. “I see you are in good spirits.”

“Ah yes, a Day of Birth celebration for my dearest friend, what must I feel badly about?” Charles raised a brow, tapping a finger on his head as if confused.

Olive giggled behind them. She found Charles amusing. Clara did as well, but not so much this day.

Charles examined her expression. “Clara.” He lowered his voice. “There is no alternative. You must persevere.”

His sadness cloaked her. Charles would rather slay himself with his own sword than have her married to Frederick.

Clara felt shame redden her cheeks. He was her dear friend and as constrained by rules as she. Taking his hand, she squeezed it, and he leaned down, whispering in her ear, “That is the Clara I know, brave heart. Take my arm, Princess.”

Clara slipped her arm through Charles's, noticing how tall he had become. The top of her head brushed his chin. His dark eyes regarded her solemnly. It was time to greet Queen Ada, her mother.

They approached the throne upon its circular dais. The steps leading to her throne shone in the warm light of the steam-chandeliers, their crystal orbs casting a golden glow directly over the dais, spreading like molten water over the floor.

The Queen regarded them with thinly veiled disdain, her tapered finger eternally running up and down the crystal stem of her shimmering emerald wine goblet.

“Daughter of mine,” Queen Ada said with silken menace encasing every syllable, “what reason have you for being late to your own Day of Birth celebration? Leaving”—she gave a slight incline of her head— “Prince Frederick in a most unescorted plight.” Her gaze bored through Clara.

She allowed herself to look at Prince Frederick, whose thunderous expression told her that her mother was not the only one from whom she would have to assuage temper.

“Do not look at Prince Frederick,” Queen Ada roared, causing the crowd to gasp. “Address your Queen!”

Charles moved behind Clara, putting his hand at the small of her back.

Queen Ada's razor stare turned to Charles. “She is not to be coddled.”

Charles hand fell away from Clara's back, and she stood, vulnerable and seemingly alone, before Ada.

Clara took a stoic breath, bracing herself, knowing the shock wave she would send through the crowd. “I have a tale of great magnitude.” Every eye was upon Clara. A feeling of great excitement stole around her heart, squeezing it. “I have seen a savage.”

The gasps were as one, loud in their combined softness.

Queen Ada stood, her goblet temporarily forgotten. Elvira, her lady-in-waiting, swooped forward to steady it. Clara watched Ada regain her balance, swaying only a little.

“You lie.” She stood in her swirling gown of deep purple, her favorite color, with a long, sensuous rope of black pearls looped and knotted, reaching her knees. Samuel's pearls, only the rarest for Ada. Clara never thought of her mother as such. It was always Ada, or the Queen.

“I do not. I was taking my leave before this celebration.” Clara turned to the many faces, some of which she was close enough to reach out and touch, and spoke to them, giving her back to Ada, a brave thing. “I saw him at the border of the Forest, which lays Outside.”

More gasping. The sightings of the savages had increased in number, along with the sentries at the critical sphere passages between kingdoms.

Charles grasped her elbows, turning her to face him. “You say you saw one? How close, Cla... Princess.”

“I ask the questions here, not you.” The Queen turned her fearsome expression to Clara. “Perchance, you use this ridiculous story as a ruse to win you my mercy for the disrespect you show us by your lateness.” She looked at Clara, for all her drink, brightly and with a keenness that Clara knew very well.

Clara ignored the question, hoping to distract with her tale.

“He ran with great speed to my window.” Many voices began at once, and Clara was forced to stop.

“Silence!” Queen Ada bellowed, and the crowd’s voices faded.

Ada swung her attention to Frederick. “What say you? Does my daughter bear tales?”

As if he would have a fig's reckoning about her state of mind.

Frederick glared down at Clara. She a terrible but necessary inconvenience, one he would obtain to further his wealth. She was but a pawn on his kingdom's chessboard.

Frederick sat slightly lower and to the left of Ada, the King of Kentucky to Ada's right. It was he, not Frederick, who answered. “If I may, I feel disinclined that Princess Clara would falsify such a tale at a time when these savages are unveiling their presence.”

Clara gulped back her anxiety, eternally thankful for King Otto, who inadvertently paved the way for her next comment. “I may know why they survive Outside.” The silence was that of a tomb, but Clara continued. “The male had...” Clara gestured to the slender column of her neck, and the many faces of the crowd followed her motion. “...gills. They appear to aid in his breathing.”

Excited conversations exploded all around Clara, and she hazarded a look at Queen Ada, who looked as if her breath had been stolen, sitting down in a very un-royal heap upon her throne.

Charles studied Clara, his hand still encircling an elbow when Prince Frederick was suddenly there. “Unhand my betrothed, Mr. Pierce.”

Charles stared at the Prince with an unwavering gaze, his brown eyes steady, his fingers loosening then falling away. Clara looked at Charles, her eyes warning him. She saw in his eyes a wish to maim, which would not do. It would not do at all. Her gaze traveled, finding the Prince's guards.

“Come, Clara.” He said her name with an intimacy he would never earn. “Sit beside your future king.”

Clara would rather drown in the oyster fields than be near him. She turned to look at Charles, and he mouthed, I will be here.

Clara lifted her skirts to assure her footing as she climbed the dais and sat in the small, gilded throne at Ada’s left, sandwiched between the loathsome Prince and her drunken mother, the one who would prostitute her for free grapes, giving up their precious legacy of pearls for her love of the cup.

CHAPTER 3

Clara's gaze fell upon the crowd, so deeply engaged in the titillating news of a close sighting of a savage. Not a glimpse, no, but an entirely intimate appraisal. She felt the uncomfortable presence of Prince Frederick at her back. He had made it clear that she was not suitable for him. With her very unfeminine desire to work the oyster fields, he had been quite vocal in his dislike of her duties.

His irritation pleased her.

It was well known, at least in her sphere, that the Kingdom of Kentucky was ill managed. Prince Frederick acted not in the least concerned for his people’s prosperity. There had been rumors of poverty, which included starvation, unheard of in most spheres.

A hand gripped her collarbone painfully, and Clara checked her expression so the pain would not show. “Smile, my dear, let them all know how happy you are that I have deigned to show my affection for you,” the Prince whispered, his breath so like rotten fruit that Clara stifled a gag. She plastered a false smile on her face, which immediately alarmed Charles. Clara gave a minute shake of her head, stay there, the look said. She was stuck as a butterfly with a pin through its wing. The Prince abused her in a multitude of subtleties. She could guess what a marriage with him would entail. He released her, and the numbness where his hand had been faded, replaced with throbbing that kept pace with her heart.

Ada leaned forward. “You will explain this later, my daughter. In detail.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

Ada placed her hand at the back of Clara's neck and squeezed hard, her favorite tender spot to abuse. At every vantage point, she was higher than Clara, as tall as most men, and always higher on the dais, always. Clara struggled not to whimper at the double abuse from the Prince and the Queen. It was a near thing and difficult to hide from her people.

Ada and King Otto had their heads pressed together in royal commune, which suited Clara very well. It meant that the Queen's attention lay elsewhere. Finally, amongst the noise of the people’s conversation, King Otto clapped his hands three times, causing Clara to flinch, which amused Frederick. The crowd quieted.

“Hail the People of the Kingdom of Ohio. On this day, it is not just a Day of Birth Celebration, but also a day of exciting news.” A somber expression rode his face. “Your Princess claims to have seen one of these savages near at hand and will now explain them to us.”

Once more, all eyes were on Clara. As unprepared as she felt, she knew the violence that would meet non-compliance, so she began. “He seemed of rugged countenance but not a danger.”

A person from the crowd shouted, “How can that be? We know they are to be feared.”

Clara's eyes narrowed, taking in the speaker’s stance.

“That is what we have been told by the Record Keeper.” A disquieted silence fell. “And this may be, but this savage offered no violence. It is my belief that he was... curious about us.”

“About you, Princess.” This came from one of the men who captained the pungy boat in the oyster fields.

“Mayhap of me, or it could be happenstance that I stood by the window at just the right moment.”

Olive spoke next. “Tell us, your highness, what did it look like?”

The group leaned forward to catch her words. “He was of huge body and limb, with long hair to here,” Clara indicated her shoulders, “and of fierce expression.” Clara did not indicate clothing, as it would be an embarrassment in front of the People, his nakedness scandalous.

The great timepiece chimed four times, its deep timber reverberating inside the Gathering Room like a quaking of the earth. Steam rose to the sphere's apex, the hissing vapors seemingly disappearing.

The Queen broke through the questions with a final, “Enough of the supposed savage. Let us celebrate my daughter's Day of Birth.”

Clara knew Queen Ada wished to know everything in private, an interrogation she would not escape.

Servants came forward with laden plates of grapes, cheese, and all matter of meats and pastries for the last course. A great cake was piled four tiers high. It was an absurd extravagance, more appropriate for a Wedded Joining than a birthday. They laid the feast at the foot of the royal dais on tables that had been arranged for the buffet. Another table was piled high with lavishly packaged gifts from her people.

Clara stood on feet shaky from stress. “Thank you all most kindly for your presence at my Day of Birth Celebration. I am most grateful for your allegiance and loyalty.”

Ada waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, yes Princess Clara, they understand that.” Her eyes narrowed.

Clara thought that might be the case but felt the words were most important to say. The Queen cared not, but Clara knew loyalty was an uncertain thing, cultivated through decent treatment, not fear. A lesson her mother did not ascribe to. A lesson taught by her father, King Raymond, long-since passed.

Someone she would never forgot.

CHAPTER 4

Clara leaned back in her gilded chair. Ada discounted her words of thanks to the People, as was usual. Ever since Clara's father had passed, Ada had taken to the cup. Clara suspected it had been thus even before his passing, but he had shielded Clara from the Queen’s weakness. Clara felt that great yawning sadness blossom within her spirit whenever she thought of her dear father. His stewardship over her was a memory that pressed uncomfortably against her mind. It was he who had encouraged her to come to know the fields that supported their sphere, showing her each tool, cultivation technique, and trade practice that kept the sphere solvent. Not like her sister sphere, the Kingdom of Kentucky.

The sphere of inequity, rather.

Clara glanced at Frederick, and he smirked back. Loathsome man, if he could be called such.

Queen Ada stood. “Announce my daughter, so the celebration may begin.”

The announcer of the week came forward. Guardian knew, a new one was appointed at every turn because of the foulness of her mother's emotional river, a current which ran swift, changing its path without warning.

He bumbled forward, almost tripping on the deep crimson carpet that had been laid at the foot of the dais for this occasion. Ada scowled deeply.

He cast a nervous glance in her direction then seemed to regain his composure. “On this Day of Birth Celebration, Princess Clara Williamson, daughter of Queen Ada, celebrates ten and seven years on this sixth day of June, in the year of the Guardian, two thousand and thirty.”

With a Day of Birth Celebration, there was also one of death, which made Clara think of the day her father passed.

*

Clara sat beside her father, his deep golden hair, once lush, now dying wheat against the pillow, his skin similarly pale.

“Oh Father.” Clara pressed her father's cool hand to her cheek. “I cannot bear the thought of you leaving.”

King Raymond gazed at his daughter, his only child, seeing the woman she would become peeking out at the edges like lace under a skirt, delicate but strong. The challenges she faced would be much, and he hoped that his imparted knowledge would be sufficient. His heart was heavy with the burden of the kingdom that would soon be hers. Not in name, but by necessity.

“Dear Clara, it grieves me to leave you, but the Healer cannot fix that which ails me.” Clara held his too-cool, unhealthy gray hand. Her father's breathing was labored.

They looked at each other, an understanding forming. “Your mother is not well,” he said suddenly, and Clara's ears sharpened at this. She and the Queen had never been close, but the possibility of another parent's demise was untenable.

Kind Raymond saw her expression. “No, my child, fear not. She will not...die, as I am destined to this day. However,” his gaze held Clara's, “I leave you with her unfortunate proclivity. You must try to appease her. And marry well, Clara-girl.”

Clara felt sick. She did not desire marriage. Seeing her look, her father laughed, which turned into a terrible gasping, coughing fit, making Clara's heart ache. When he could finally speak, he said, “Do not fret Clara. This is years hence. You are but ten and two years, and the idea of matrimony is a distant thing. But heed what I say now: you must marry a man of character.”

“What of love?”

Her father's gaze grew thoughtful. “That is not always the way of it,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes.

It was in that moment that Clara knew that King Raymond might have not wished to marry Queen Ada, her mother.

*

Clara was jolted back from her reverie by the procession of people wishing to embrace the Princess on her birthday. She noticed that Prince Frederick had come to stand next to her. She was angry at his presence. To usurp her as he did. With them not even husband and wife! He galled her. Charles being the first in the receiving line made it bearable. But his eyes were all for Frederick, his expression clear: do not lay hands on her again. Frederic's lascivious grin reappeared. He knew that Charles did not have authority over him, and in this way, he was very much like Ada.

Charles's gaze slid away from Frederic to lock eyes with Clara. His brown eyes met her turquoise ones, and he pressed her hands to his. He leaned toward her, giving the most intimate hug acceptable within societal protocol.

Frederic's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Not too close, Mr. Pierce. She is, after all... spoken for.”

Charles pulled back, looking at him, face inscrutable. “Princess Clara is not yet wedded to you, and I do not need the reminder, Prince Frederic.”

Clara's heart surged with triumph. Charles's logic was irrefutable but not so impolite that Frederic could take offense. Unfortunately, he would always have his eye on Charles, their friendship, everything. She clamped down on her expression so Frederic would not see her mirth. Charles did see it and allowed a small smile to appear.

“Happy birthday, dear Clara,” Charles said.

“Princess Clara,” Prince Frederic corrected.

“Indeed.” Charles inclined his head.

“I thank you, Charles, for your kindness.”

He understood what baiting Frederic meant to her.

Charles wandered off to stand beside the banquet table. The large, multi-tiered cake stood in the center, flora and pearls scattered at every level, shimmering and dancing.

Clara greeted the obligatory percentage of the People with a smile that reached her eyes, saying the correct words. But all the while, her mind stayed consumed with the savage with his intense eyes that seemed a window to his soul. What did he want approaching the sphere? He had not seemed afraid, but from the time of her youth, she had been taught that the savages Outside were a danger. She had not seen evidence of such in this man. He seemed curious, not dangerous. However, without the safety of the sphere between them, would she have felt so bold in her opinion? She could not help smiling. The truth of it was she was brave because of the barrier.

Finally, with the procession finished, Clara walked to the banquet table. Prince Frederic easily kept pace. The lavish feast was spread before her. Pressed glassware in a rainbow of colors displayed the mainstay of her people: oysters of every variety, with the complements of red potatoes, fruit salads, and every manner of drink. Clara found her appetite lacking as Queen Ada stepped up beside her. As Queen, she was always first, Clara's celebration or no.

Clara was not prone to violence, but her mother coaxed it out of her with regularity. Ada swayed, putting a hand on Clara to remain steady, her full glass of wine gripped in her other hand.

Her drunken gaze found Clara, and she hissed, “Do your duty, brat-of-my-loins.”

Clara stared at her with thinly veiled disgust. Ada embarrassed her terribly, but it would make things worse if she reacted. Experience whispered in the crevices of her mind. Charles had been close enough to hear the interchange and glared at Queen Ada, who calmly stared back.

Clara turned and elaborately gestured toward the drunken Queen. “Please, see that you take first plate at my Day of Birth Celebration, my Queen.” Clara curtsied, the corset not allowing full movement, but she was an expert at fooling the eye.

“You may rise, Princess Clara.” Ada stared at Clara as if she were a bug.

As always, Elvira hovered near the Queen's elbow and piled her plate with every variety of oyster, lathering the whole thing with white sauce, specially prepared for her. Clara knew the wine was the only thing that held interest. The food would be wasted, but the Queen was entirely about the show. Did she even eat food? Clara doubted it, Ada was little more than a skeleton with skin.

The Queen’s hawk-like features framed eyes that were a deep brown, almost black. Her hair was her best feature, Clara admitted reluctantly. A true black, it shone in the low light of the steam-chandeliers, a burnished inky thing that moved like black smoke while she struggled to control her staggering. Elvira gripped the plate she would not eat from. Ada towered over Clara, often telling Clara she was a runt and unattractive. Clara had never been one to admire her form in the looking glass like so many of the giggling girls her age. She did not take the time. The fields needed her attention, and Ada was enough of a mirror-lover for them both.

Olive stood at the ready as it was unseemly for royalty to serve themselves, but Clara would dish her own food on her Day of Birth. She chose the almost foot-long oyster. These were her favorite, mild in flavor, with a pink undertone. The look of it on the plate filled her with pride. They were most difficult to cultivate, and their girth covered the pressed glass plate in a satisfying way. Clara dipped a small amount of red sauce and covered the meat with a fine dribble. Olive gathered a small salad plate and filled it with greens, adding a dressing that smelled like cheese, imported from the Kingdom of Indiana.

Clara sat at the Royal table on a small dais. King Otto, Prince Frederic, and Queen Ada were seated at a large, rectangular table with the Queen at the head. All other tables in the Gathering Room were round, but not the Queen's. She demanded the head.

A carafe of wine sat at her elbow. King Otto simpered beside her, laughing at her foolish comments. Clara knew that he should have a care, as Ada was alarmingly lucid, especially when she was deep in her cup. This should not have been, but it was so. Clara had seen other royals misunderstand and underestimate Ava at their peril. Their sphere, traded heavily in pearls. For all Queen Ada's drunkenness, there was motivation to stay within her good graces.

Clara played with the succulent oyster meat, finally cutting her first bite, placing it in her mouth, savoring the flavor while she held it on her tongue. Prince Frederic stared at her, his own oysters gone. Oysters were expensive, and he had not taken the time to do them justice, a vision of gluttony, scooping and slurping them down in haste.

“Why do you eat them slowly?” Frederic asked.

“They are meant to be savored.” Clara shrugged a bare shoulder.

His eyes traveled from her face to her bosom, which made a delicate flush rise. Like all true redheads, Clara’s blush was not an easy thing to mask. She hated how he looked at her. Somehow, this made her think of the savage, although she knew not why. His gaze had been penetrating but not intrusive.

When Prince Frederic looked at her she felt violated.

She glanced to the round table a few feet behind her, saw Charles watching Frederic, and knew that he had seen the look. His expression was dark. She dreaded he might compromise himself to save her honor. She had Charles to thank for assuaging her royal loneliness. He was the son of King Raymond's dear friend, and they had been friends since toddlerhood. She cherished his wisdom and friendship.

Prince Frederic laughed. “So easily flustered, Princess. You will be very... entertaining when we are joined.”

Clara looked down to hide her expression. She would have rather vomited on his shoes and feared her face would show it. He was considered handsome with his height and good looks. Broad through the shoulder and trim at the waist, he was the epitome of what the Queen would name good breeding. But handsome is as handsome does, and his heart was stained, stained with blackness. She lifted her chin and met Charles's stare.

Frederic gave them a considering look, putting each finger in his mouth to suck the oyster juices.

CHAPTER 5

Bracus jogged through the familiar path, vines twisting up tall trees, the canopy offering filtered shade. Lazy light speckled the bare flesh of Bracus's legs as they flowed, smooth and steady over gnarled tree roots.

He navigated the path without looking.

Lungs burning, Bracus felt his throat slits open fully to bring rich oxygen to his lungs. He climbed higher, heading for the caves where he would report to their president, Arthur Bowen. As Bracus neared the cave's entrance, he whistled, high and piercing. To the uninitiated, it would sound like a bird's distress call. It would alert Bracus’s comrades it was he and not an enemy.

They moved as one in front of the cave's entrance, bows strung tight, arrows poised. The whistle had not softened their response. Bracus was pleased.

Their arrows stayed trained on Bracus until he revealed himself with his salute.

“Sir, what did you see?” Kingsley lowered his bow.

The other sentry was Matthew Charier. He would not relax his stance, his arrow pointed above and behind Bracus's shoulder from his higher vantage point. He literally had Bracus's back. He was a good man, too serious by far, but a warrior unlike any Bracus had ever seen. Not a tremor, Charier's shaft as steady as the trees which towered above them.

“Much. I saw much.”

Charier's eyes flicked to Bracus then back to their former position. He spoke tersely, but with feeling, “Did you reconnoiter our position from yesterday?”

“Let me debrief with President Bowen. Then when you set your bow upon the earth, we will meet at the fire and discuss the future here... our mutual future.”

Stephen Kingsley made a disgusted sound and stomped back over to position.

“No effort at stealth, Kingsley?” Charier did not turn.

“You know that I tire of the endless reconnaissance. I wish to develop a way for our people.” Kingsley kicked a small rock down into the woods.

Charier lowered his bow. “Do not let your temper overwhelm your intellect. Stay vigilant.”

While his two finest guards argued amongst themselves, leaving the cave's most vulnerable point unattended, Bracus turned to stare behind him. Bracus knew why he was in command. He was not easily distracted.

Or he had not been before the female.

Her face filled his vision, the soft creamy skin, the eyes that glowed like the shimmering marbles he played with as a boy. They took up her face, a window to her soul. He wished to know that soul, to linger in it like a scented bath.

Bracus shook himself, his ironclad control reasserting itself.

“Quiet,” he hissed at the two warriors.

They looked at their leader, shame riding their faces.

“Charier, get that bow where it belongs.”

Charier lifted his bow and nocked the arrow.

“That's better.” Bracus clapped him on the shoulder. He turned to Kingsley. “You are not one ruled by your temper. What say you?”

Charier gave a rare smile. “I too, tire of the incessant scouting ventures. We need to move now, before it is too late to save ourselves. You know our females are fragile and too few.”

Yes, Bracus knew. He never forgot it.

“Carry on men. We will discuss this more upon my return.” Both men saluted him, and he inclined his head in a half bow, his body already turning to enter the cave so he could debrief the president.

Bracus stepped forward, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the cave. This small crevice in the woods had been a clandestine meeting area for every president with the Band since the time of the Evil Ones and the days when the earth breathed ash.

“Bracus,” President Bowen said, his face in shadows.

“It is I... with news.” Bracus came forward, dwarfing the president with his height. All Band members were huge men. It was a key part of the defense. With their superior strength, physical acuity, and throat slits, they were perfect protectors. But without more people, there would be nothing to protect.

President Bowen, a man of few words arched heavy brows above deep eyes, waiting for his report.

“I have located the lead female. The one you say is a Princess.”

The sphere-dwellers had a strange hierarchy of leadership. Instead of presidents and advisers, they had kings, queens, princes and princesses.

“You have been scouting this location for months. We must take her soon. Contact is critical.”

“She does not frighten easily.” Bracus thought of her standing her ground as he rushed the sphere.

“Good, this is exactly what we need: a high-ranking female, one who can be reasoned with. She must hear what we say, deliver this message to her people, then there may be negotiation. Surely they wish to meld our two cultures, to experience the Outside once more.”

Bracus felt existing in a place that was nothing more than a gilded cage would drive him mad. But the female had always been there.

“I do not know that it is so. I have watched these past four months. They labor in those fields for the shellfish.”

“Oysters?”

“Yes. These... oysters. They harvest them for food and the small gems found inside.” Bracus thought of how different the female looked while surrounded entirely by men, her dress and composure utterly different. Bracus had watched her tending these strange watery fields from a pink and green boat, its weather-beaten surface pushed forward by two men with long poles. Interesting work. The female was always intense, inspecting the strange shell creatures, returning some, collecting many. She always wore her hair up off her neck, a slim stem of white with the deepest burnished copper on top of her head like a dying flame, a lone flower.

She held his thoughts prisoner.

“Bracus?”

“Yes, President Bowen?”

“I asked you a question.”

Prisoner, a deaf one. “I apologize. I was lost in my own thoughts.”

“I see that.” Bowen started round the table, a circular one which had stood in that spot for one hundred years with papers sealed under glass in the center under a sphere of their own.

His fingers trailed the edge of the table as he walked uncomfortably close to Bracus.

Bracus stood still.

“Do you know why you were chosen for this assignment, Bracus?”

Not at all. “No.”

“Objectivity.”

Oh. Bracus was sure that he was not as objective as he had been upon the inception of this assignment.

“You are not...developing feelings for the subject?”

“Of course not. This is about establishing a rapport between our peoples. I have not lost sight of our objective,” Bracus lied smoothly. There was nothing that would stop him from initiating this. The thought of another male with the same objective, carrying it out instead of him…

It would be himself or no one.

“Excellent, I wish to make sure that we remain of one mind. The propagation of the species is what matters.”

Bracus backed away, circling the table in the opposite direction, grabbing some paper from under the glass weight.

“Let me sketch the primary area of acquisition.” Bracus briefly laid the groundwork for the sphere, showing with fair accuracy its placement in front of the Great Forest that sheltered his people. To the east lay their sphere's traveling pathway, a small sphere, which served as a tunnel of sorts. This sphere tunnel, as Bracus thought of it, seemed to be a vital method of trading with the other spheres. There were also several intersecting tunnels which traversed over the great lake ending in much smaller spheres, a place with many workers who tended the oyster fields, all under the great umbrella of the main sphere. Those workers would be picked up in the strange pink and green boats that filled the fields, searching and gathering the shell creatures, with the female their unlikely leader. If she were so vital in their leadership, why was she not under guard? Why were their females not better secured? So many questions to which Bracus wished for answers.

Bowen leaned over the paper, indicating the point where the main body of the sphere bisected the tunnel. “This is the point of acquisition we discussed. It is the most vulnerable area.”

“Yes. Kingsley and I feel that their unusual ventilation system must release at this area. Also, and this is most interesting, the outside air is drawn in.”

“Fascinating. We surmise it is some kind of elaborate cycle of air cleansing. We do not know how this is achieved.”

“Steam.” Bracus remembered the heat escaping the pin-sized holes in the seam that connected the sphere with the tunnel.

“Indeed. The Evil Ones were quite advanced.” The president pressed his fingers to the throat slits on both sides of Bracus's neck, closed at present. He let the uncomfortable intimacy pass without rebuff, but not without effort. It was part of their history. As yet, no one knew why some had the slits and others did not. Females, for the most part, did not have them. Slit breathing was a sign that a man would become part of the Band. If you were born with the slits, you would be a part of the protection of his people. Slit-breathers were instinctively protective. It was part of the fiber of their being.

“We will plan for three weeks hence. There will be a new moon that night. With little light, it should be ideal to retrieve the female.”

Today's mission had been the last before acquisition. All the practice and planning were finally behind him. Bracus prepared to leave, the interior guards silently coming forward from walls illuminated by candles, preparing to escort the president to the first rendezvous point.

“Wait.”

Bracus turned.

“What do they look like? Up close.”

Bracus stood, thinking.

“They dress strangely.”

“We know it was the Princessʼ birthday. Perhaps that is traditional attire.”

Bracus shrugged. He was not sure if this was so. However, it made some sense as she normally wore plain garments, which covered her whole body. But not this day. Today, she had worn ribbons of winking gems in her hair.

“She is a tiny female, fragile, but fierce in expression. The males seem of adequate constitution.”

“Similar to our males?”

“Yes, but none that compare with the Band.”

“It is possible there is no environmental need for a Band inside the cocoon of their sphere.”

Bracus shrugged.

President Bowen pressed his fist to his heart. “Godspeed to a Goodman.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Until then.”

“Yes.”

Bracus strode out. Leaving the president in the care of the central Band, he swept by Matthew and Stephen, the two other parts to their trio. His balance.

They jogged off into the night, melting into the border of the forest. Moonlight shone on their backs as the quivers beat lightly with their pace.

Bracus's mind was heavy with his duties. A terrible portent rode his consciousness. With the date in the palm of his hand, he should have felt reassured, but did not. He felt the promise of this meeting with the female lay under some vague threat he could not name. A shadow of disquiet laced it. He would come back to this spot, when it was not required to do so, and watch her. Somehow, he felt she was in danger, and he could not make the feeling leave.

The three of them accelerated, throat slits fully open, catching the oxygen as they ran through the woods, swiftly moving toward home, toward their clan.

CHAPTER 6

Clara put her hands across her face, prepared to take a blow even knowing that Ada never beat her where it showed. The Queen prowled closer. In her left hand swung an emerald green decanter, which glistened wetly, bumping her hip.

Clara thought it made a fine weapon for bludgeoning.

When she neared Clara, Ava shoved her right hand upon Clara's stomach, pushing with drunken might. Clara fell on the wood floor. She looked up at Olive, who winced as she landed, trembling and angry in equal parts. But Olive knew her role, had always known her role.

“Insolent girl,” Queen Ada roared. “How like your father you've become. You must work the oyster fields. You must show your gratitude for the masses.” She swaggered away, steadying herself as she walked by Clara's bedpost, the same one she used to brace against the lacing of stays.

Clara stood, gingerly and covertly feeling her ribs, which she had landed on, feeling grateful she had not been abused further. She and Olive exchanged a look. Better that Ada not set her attention on Clara again.

No such luck. Ada turned, her purple skirts swirling about her legs. “You will do what I ask. You will not embarrass me in front of our subjects.”

Clara knew it was useless to defend herself but tried nonetheless, “My Queen…” Clara took a breath to continue. A rib squawked. “I like showing gratitude to our subjects, as I think they remain loyal and joyous when they are treated well.”

“Yes, you would,” Ada said with derision, her chest rising and falling, the liquor a wave of rotten fruit smell filling the room.

Ada came toward her with purpose now, swinging the decanter in such a way that Clara's eyes became mesmerized by it.

“Dear Guardian,” Olive whispered.

Claraʼs thoughts echoed Olive’s words.

Ada came closer, her hips swaying in time with the decanter, her dark eyes glittering with resolve. This might be something that Clara would not recover from. She was resigned to the Queen's drunken rages, kept them secret.

But Ada had not wielded an object before.

The chamber door burst open, causing all to jump, except Ada, who was as calm as the dead when deep in drink.

“Who enters?” Her tone said, who dares to enter?

“It is we, Queen Ada: King Otto and Prince Frederic.”

Clara looked away from the Queen to see the two monarchs and should not have. She felt the Queen's hand sink into her hair and was wrenched backward, the strand of pearls in her hair tearing. They broke free like birds scattered in the fields. A hundred shimmering gems bounced and rolled across the glossy floor, pooling around everyone's feet.

Clara's neck was bent at a tortuous angle as the Queen held her lips above Clara's ear. “Do not forget who is sovereign here, my daughter. Now get ye gone from my sight.”

With a mighty push, the Queen released Clara. She stumbled over the pearls, which ran like an iridescent stream on the burnished wood and tumbled into Olive's arms.

The king rushed over to dispatch assistance. “Do not touch her, King Otto. She needs help from no one. Do you, Princess?”

Leaning into Olive she whispered, “No.”

Ada's gaze narrowed. “Olive, sweet Olive, how you hate me. I see my abuse upon your face.” Olive lowered her eyes, never able to hide her expression from the Queen. “Best you not show your feelings, servant. Take her away.”

King Otto said, “Is this not her chamber?”

Prince Frederic stood beside his father, looking at Clara with a contemplative expression.

“It is.” She said it to the king but gave the full weight of her stare to Frederic. “Your son understands discipline, do you not?”

Frederic suffered another look at Clara, dismissing her. “Yes, I think Clara and I have an understanding of how things will be once we are joined.”

Clara fantasized a way for harm to befall him from that moment onward. A seed took root, germinating inside the dark recesses of her heart.

She could not be under this man's authority.

Her mother's drunken ire was something she bore because there was no choice. But his? She needed to formulate a plan and did not yet know what. She would confer with Charles.

The King gave her a look that may have been sympathy. However, he was weak. Her mother's pearls meant more than Clara's harm at the hands of the Queen and later, his own son.

“Let us take our leave of her chamber, Queen Ada. There is much for us to discuss. I have brought some of my most prized grapes that I wish for you to sample.”

Clara watched Ada's expression take on the familiar greed as she looked down at her decanter, its weight less now that she had stripped it of its contents. “Yes, I need not be here.” She swayed, and King Otto steadied her by grasping her elbow.

Clara backed away with Olive's arm around her waist. Olive was her touchstone. King Otto led Ada away, steadying her several times. With each step she took, Clara's breathing quieted.

Prince Frederic stalked to where she and Olive stood, and she felt Olive stiffen behind her. “Your hair, it is everywhere. You had better clean it up.” He reached out to stroke a piece that had been released when the Queen tore it free of its pearl bindings. Clara jerked away from his touch.

Frederic's hand fell away, his gaze darkening, and then his hands were suddenly around her ribcage, jerking her forward. He wrenched her out of Olive's embrace, against his body, and a small pained sound escaped her mouth. He smiled. His hands moved down lower, encircling her waist. “You will like my touch... very much.” He bent down to force his hated mouth against hers.

“Release her, Prince Frederic.” Charles's expression as he stood in the doorway was like contained thunder. He and Olive looked at each other, and she gave him helpless eyes.

Frederic shoved her away from him, and she shuddered. Charles would pay for that comment. Charles did not care as of yet. He suspected Frederic's character, but Clara had more than suspicion.

She had foreknowledge.

He turned to Charles. “Have a care, Mr. Pierce. Our interaction is none of your concern.” He spoke with quiet menace. He was showing restraint. Clara did not believe it. It was so unlike him.

Charles's hands were fisted. “If you were not Prince, I would beat you senseless.”

“Ah... but I am, am I not?” Prince Frederic said, a cruel smile sliding into place.

Charles's frustration was evident, his impotence clear. “Have you no honor? She is a woman, for Guardian's sake.”

“Yes, I am very aware, and she is soon to be mine.”

“She is not a possession... a thing to own!” Charles threw his hands up in the air.

Silence fell upon them. The only sound was of the steam sconces, their flickering flames along the chamber walls hissing their presence, and the timepiece on the wall, clicking the seconds as they passed into before.

Prince Frederic suddenly laughed, “I will let this interchange disappear. I can afford to be gracious with those beneath me. After all,” his gaze slid possessively over Clara, “soon, I will see to it that her eyes never behold you again.”

Stinging heat bit into Clara's eyes, and she knew they were tears burning for release.

“You cannot take away her companions.”

“You will not go away. You will simply be unwelcome in our kingdom.” Prince Frederic spread his palms away from his body.

Clara gasped. “We have not yet chosen where we may settle.” She felt her eyes brim and held them wide so those tears would not fall. Olive moved up beside her, clasping her hand.

Charles gave her an anguished look. He alone could intuit what near servitude it would be in this loveless match, the abuse she would suffer with Frederic. Something unimagined but balancing on the chasm of her consciousness. Far worse than the Queen's drunken efforts.

Frederic gave a brilliant smile, tipping his hat at Clara and Olive, who stood stunned at his bizarre behavior then he gave a small bow to Charles.

Charles and Frederic stared at each other, one pale and one dark, evil encased in light.

Frederic walked out without a word, leaving the massive door ajar.

Clara glided over to her fainting couch and slowly lowered her body onto it. Silent tears glided down her face, partially covered by a curtain of hair. She watched dully as Olive, broom and receptacle in hand, gathered the fallen pearls that littered the floor like glittering tears.

A satin waistcoat appeared in her watery field of vision as Charles sat beside her. “Dearest Clara.” He placed a light hand at the base of her neck, wrapping it with long fingers that circled almost to the front of her throat. Such strength in that large hand, but what tenderness as he held her neck in his palm.

He pushed her head under his chin, and the sobs came, great, silent, hiccupping wails held quiet by habit. She could not get Frederic's wretched face out of her mind's eye. His smug patience, knowing it was a matter of time... a matter of when, not if.

She would not be powerless. Her father's teachings had not fallen on deaf ears. She had not built his empire to let it fall under by a Prince Frederic. Charles whispered sweet endearments into ears, stung by the night, a night that had been less celebration than survival.

“I cannot protect you... but somehow I must. He is dangerous. I fear he will hurt you.” Charles ran his thumb up and down her throat.

“Charles is correct. He is not a real Prince of his people, my lady. He wishes to marry for power, for the pearls. He wishes to be drunk like the Queen.” Olive lowered her voice to a whisper, tucking her voluminous skirts under her knees as she knelt before Clara. “Not by wine... by greed.”

She was so right. Dear Olive was absolutely right. They knew what was happening, but what to do with that knowledge?

“Refuse the crown,” Charles said suddenly.

Clara wiped her eyes and sat up straighter. “Whatever do you mean?”

Charles had a stroke of insight and waved her lack of understanding away. “Queen Ada commanded you would not be Queen if you refused this arranged marriage, yes?”

Clara nodded, that had been so.

“Then refuse the crown. You do not care for all this.” He gestured around the room with its extravagant appointments, every surface velvet, satin or silk. Precious metals gleamed in a room holding every manner of comfort.

That was true. Her richest treasures were with her now, breathing the same air she did. She looked at Olive and Charles, knowing what she would say next would upset them. “I do have that choice.” Clara swallowed. This was most difficult, “I am royal. It is more than a hollow allowance. I am the caretaker of my people, my subjects. If I am not Princess Clara for them, they will be left to the devices of the Queen. That, I cannot abide.”

“Clara,” Charles moaned in defeat, “think on it. Do not martyr yourself for us. What good can you do as Princess to his Prince if he means your death?”

Olive sucked in her breath. Charles had spoken their mutual fear out loud. It would be easy for something to befall Clara with Prince Frederic the ruler of both spheres, the failing Kingdom of Kentucky and her own. Her head ached.

Her gaze suddenly wandered to the sphere wall and she thought of the savage she had seen Outside. How she longed for a new way, a way to save her people from the hardship of this forced union.

Charles stood. Olive rested her head upon Clara's shoulder, “Let me think on it. There must be another way.”

Charles leaned forward, releasing her hands and putting one on each side of Clara's face, palming the entirety of it. He placed a gentle kiss upon her forehead.

“Are you hurt?”

“Nothing I cannot bear and bring to wellness in a fore-night or two.”

“The Queen,” he hissed.

She nodded. He closed his eyes and finally... Charles pulled away, his forehead breaking contact with Clara's.

He began to walk to the door then stopped. He pulled something out of his pocket: a small, velvet bag in deepest blue, cinched with an icy blue ribbon. He walked back over and placed it inside Clara's palm, “This is what I meant to do when I came upon... when I came upon... the circumstance.”

Clara nodded.

She slipped the ribbon open, its gauzy weight as light as a feather, and scooped out a chain of precious silver. At its end hung a large, single pearl, held in a spider web. Complicated filigree surrounded it like an embrace.

Clara's head jerked up, and she looked into Charles dark eyes. “A Samuel Pearl.” She breathed out in reverence. The rarity was beyond compare. In her water sphere fields, there was a tiny field for raising the rare Samuel's Pearls. They were named for her grandfather's grand-sire, a man who had never set foot in the sphere, but had perished in the Outside in the time when the earth was covered in ash.

Charles's beautiful smile broke across his face like the Outside sun breaking free of clouds, “I knew you would love it.”

“I love it because of who gave it.” She returned his smile with one of her own.

Charles ducked his head, pleased. “Let me place it about your neck.” She turned, and he set her heavy hair aside, securing the clasp behind her neck, rearranging the tousled hair over it.

“Oh, Princess, it is so beautiful against the creaminess of your skin, you must address the looking glass.”

None of them said anything about the bruises left by the Queen's abuse.

Clara gazed into the looking glass, staring at the large pearl, the size of her pinky nail. The deep ebony sea gem glowed softly at the hollow of her throat. Olive and Charles stood behind her. Clara noticed her disheveled hair, tendrils of deepest bronze escaping and suddenly felt older than her ten and seven years.

Clara watched Charles stroke a thumb over the grape-sized bruise at the side of her throat, his expression sad. How much longer could she bear the mistreatment... could he?

Charles gave her a gentle squeeze on her shoulders, his big, warm hands a momentary comfort, then he released her.

“I must go.” He glanced at the hanging timepiece: one half hour until midnight struck.

Charles leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Happy Day of Birth, dearest Clara.”

He straightened, a strange expression coming over his face, then he seemed to shake cobwebs away and saying a final good night, he left her chamber.

Olive followed him and shut the massive door, engaging the huge brass bolt. She turned around, leaning against the door, her relief a palpable thing.

Clara watched Olive walk toward her.

“He loves you, Princess.”

Clara loved him too. But she was not in love with him. He was her dear friend. Clara sighed. “I do not know for a certainty that he loves me any differently than I do him. We have been friends since grammar school.” She shrugged the idea away.

“No, it is different. He watches you as the sun orbits the earth. His love is total.”

Olive's words were disturbing. Clara did not wish to mean that much to anyone.

“You have not encouraged his affections, but they exist, my lady.”

Clara said nothing. Instead, moving toward the bedpost she twined nimble fingers around the narrowest part. Her eyes followed Olive as she moved to close the heavy drapes against the blackness of the Outside. They lay slightly damp against the veil of the sphere wall, the steam from the day clinging tenaciously to the fabric, adding weight. Olive used both hands to pull the two sides of the curtain together, the wooden rings sliding over the rod seamlessly but slowly. Finally, they were closed, and Olive moved up behind Clara. Olive began loosening Clara’s corset. Clara gave a grateful exhale as the stays loosened, and her ribs and breasts escaped the prison.

Olive breathed a sigh of relief, a discerning eye roving Clara’s torso. “The usual damage has been avoided, Princess.”

“Oh?”

“Yes... it was the corset, my lady. The corset bore some of it.”

Of course! The dreadful encumbrance was worth something after all. The irony was not lost on Clara.

The rest of the garment slid off easily without the resistance of the corset. Olive folded it over the back of Clara's vanity chair, the dress obscuring the ornate bones of the polished wood.

She returned with Clara's dressing gown, which Clara put on herself. How she detested being dressed. This singular step, she could do. She bestowed a grateful smile on Olive, who had been steadfast and loyal throughout, in the terrible years after her father's passing.

Clara walked to the vanity chair, sitting sideways while Olive gave her hair the habitual hundred strokes.

Olive sighed. “I am sorry, Princess, I will have to remove these ruined bindings.”

Olive carefully unwound the mess of hair and bindings. A few pearls still clung to their ruined housings. Clara's hair shone in the faded golden light of the chandelier. Its cut glass globes cast jeweled rainbows on the interior walls.

Clara, not one to talk idly, sat trancelike, as Olive brushed her hair in a ritual Olive's mother had established before Olive became her lady-in-waiting. It had never failed to calm Clara, especially after a horrible night at Ada’s hands. But this night, the normalcy of the routine seemed stolen from her.

Olive paused in her brush strokes, “What disturbs you, my lady?”

What did not disturb Clara? Her Day of Birth celebration beginning with a face-to-face engagement with a savage, the spectacle of her mother's drunken behavior, the menace in Clara's chamber with the finish of Prince Frederic and Charles almost coming to blows? Oh... nothing of consequence! She must give just due to Olive, for this was all that she knew: the Queen drank, she beat Clara, and Clara resolved to say nothing. Clara wished upon every star that lay Outside in its captured velvet... that she could do something to protect herself and her kingdom against Queen Ada. But the threats lay dormant, ready to be activated if Clara chose not to cooperate. Cooperate or the people of her Sphere would be ruled by tyranny, not mutual respect and collaboration. She would not allow the ways of her father to be forgotten because she was incapable of preserving them. That streak of resolve that always held her in its fist grew dark in Clara's soul.

Clara thought of her father, even though it made her sad. Her memories of her girlhood in the oyster fields alongside her father were dear to her. She ruminated upon them more frequently than she cared to admit, even to herself.

*

Clara looked at the oyster King Raymond held in the palm of his hand, its wavy and hammered surface concealing the succulent sea meat inside and the pretty gem nestled in its dove gray folds. How the oysters fascinated young Clara! Each one a surprise. The pearls were their reward for diligently and studiously caring for them until their maturation reached an end.

“Clara-girl,” King Raymond pried open a too small shell, one even she knew was not yet ready for harvest, “this young is not yet ready for yield.”

“No father! Do not, I wish no harm to befall the oyster.”

Her father gave her a look of soft compassion. “You must learn the correct moment in an oyster's life for harvest. One day, I will not be here, and who will make certain that our way of life continues?”

“You will always be here, Father!” Clara cried, smoothing her yellow skirt over her knees anxiously, the hem grazing the floorboards of the pungy.

The king gazed across the water, looking at the small spheres scattered about the Great Lake, as it had been called in his father's father's time. “One day, I will be no more. It will be your job to watch over these creatures.”

He pried the shell apart—not a smooth practice. Inside, the creature was undersized, and the gem was but a sparkling speck, the color not yet true.

“Pay attention Clara.”

She leaned forward. Her father poked the creature’s flesh with his prying tool so she could see the interior. After they had examined it together, he placed the oyster in a wooden bucket with rope handle.

He gathered another oyster, this one of proper girth and length, stretching past his palm, almost to the tips of his fingers. “This is ready.”

As he pried, it sprung open, splashing muck about the pungy. Splatters fell on Clara, and she had the disquieting thought that mother would be cross. Ada was often cross with Clara, especially when she rode the pungy with father.

The creature was full to bursting its house—as Clara thought of the shell—a glimmering gem cloistered inside the folds, its luster in stark relief against the dull-colored creature within. It was beautiful. The pearl was beautiful.

Father plucked out the pearl with the juices of the creature still covering it and gave it to Clara. She immediately dunked it in the fresh water bucket, getting some of the grime off. It seemed to wink and shimmer at her from her palm... her first pearl.

She looked up at her father, delight on her face, and he smiled back. “I loved the fields and what they held when I was a lad.”

*

“Princess?” Olive held the brush in her hand, staring at Clara in the looking glassʼ reflection. Clara had been ten spheres away, in the depths of her memory.

“Yes, Olive?”

“I asked what disturbs you?”

So much to speak of, but she did not wish to go through it all again. Once in her mind was enough for tonight. “My thoughts lay heavy on me. Tomorrow, I will escape some of the Prince's attention by checking the fields.”

“Queen Ada will not be pleased.”

“I know.” Her mother wished to have others fulfill the oyster supervision duties, but Clara felt compelled to oversee what had been cultivated for over one hundred years by her family. After all, Ada was not originally from this Sphere, but the Kingdom of West Virginia, where there were no fields. What did she really care what happened to any of it with her precious grapes in sight? Clara was merely her vehicle for their continuation.

“I would sleep now.”

Olive put the hairbrush down without a word and folded the bedding back. Clara slid underneath her coverlet, her eyes like great weights dragging her under. Olive dimmed the sconces and the chandelier from a central switch located just inside the chamber door. With one last look at Clara, she retreated to a smaller door that led to her much smaller chamber.

The last thing Clara heard was the lock clicking into place as she fell into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 7

Charles lay in bed within his small chamber thinking of Clara again. She was usually where his thoughts lay. Aside from her being the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld, she was a most excellent friend. He rolled over on his stomach, his chin resting on his fist instead of a pillow. A heavy sigh escaped him. What to do? That spintry of a man lay in wait for Clara, whoring himself for the wine-pearl treaty while Clara was held like a fragile tether between the two factions. If only King Raymond were still alive, he thought for the thousandth time. Good Guardian, life was a wreck at present.

Sleep evaded Charles entirely. He ripped the bedding away from himself and sat up, his naked form pale against the darkness of the bed linen. He padded over to the wall of the sphere, its clarity allowing the blackness of the Outside to permeate his chamber. His eyes roamed the Outside. The Great Forest was an outline of staggered black against a deep sky filled with stars and the moon on the wane.

Clara had seen one of them today: a savage.

A new thing to worry over.

Curiously, Clara had said she sensed no menace in the brief snippet of time they’d had to regard each other.

History warned clearly that they needed to be ever vigilant with the savages. The Time Keeper had made it known that they were a people apart, possibly not even the same species. Charles doubted that. Early sketches showed them looking very human but larger, fiercer. As a boy, Charles had looked at many hand-written accounts and sketches of the savages. They were large men—a female had never been witnessed—with unkempt hair and clothing and from what Clara had conveyed, a shocking lack thereof. Weaponry had been noted as well: spears, knives and most prominently, bows and arrows. Charles thought of his own sword practice. It was not something that was required in his occupation, but it was of keen interest to him. There was also the matter of the airways on the throat Clara claimed to have seen: gills like a sea creature possessed. Charles could only surmise that this was in some way an environmental response to the air quality of the Outside. He longed to explore Outside, but it also filled him with a nervous dread. Would he survive? Charles understood Clara had been safe behind the security of the sphere, but he had a disquieting portent of the proximity of the savage. What could have been the reason for his close approach? Were they being watched?

He did not like it.

And what if they possessed salt? What if they knew the weakness of the sphere's defenses? He paced the room.

Charles went over the night’s events. The abhorrent Queen wielded her tyranny over Clara with a singular focus that drove him mad. Where was her compassion for her own offspring? Charles dreamed of dispatching her... permanently. The idea swelled in his head, especially acute after witnessing Clara's stiff posture. Seeing Olive's expression, Charles knew what had occurred. Clara dismissed his concern, accepting the rages as part of her duties. However, what if, deep in her cup, Queen Ada lost control? Clara was a small female. Her mother was not. Charles shuddered.

Clara said that it was better that Charles had some contact with he, rather than none. “Do nothing,” she had said, “so that we may have a friendship. Do not defend me, or she will never let us consort.” That was all well and good in theory, but Charles brooded, remembering the bruise blossoming on the whiteness of her throat. His fists flexed. He had never wished to harm a female, but the Queen made him rethink himself.

And Prince Frederic was a male with the same disposition as the Queen, a terrible future reality for Clara.

Putting a forearm against the sphere wall, Charles leaned his head on it, gaze fixed on the Outside, his flesh sinking into its permeability. He wondered what it would be like to breathe fresh air of the Outside, to have answers to the questions ricocheting around his skull, to not be surrounded by heat and steam. He and Clara often spoke in hushed tones of escape and exploration. She as interested as he. With a curse, Charles swung around, heading back toward bed. He needed rest. Tomorrow was a full day in the fields with Trading Day one day hence. And a plan must be devised to save Clara, his Clara—before he could stop the interior sentiment from forming.

He sat back on the bed, rubbing his eyes, grainy from the lateness of the hour, his eyes locked onto the small photograph of Clara on his night table. A stiff pose could not counteract the vulnerable eyes that filled her face, the black and white colors emphasizing their lightness, showing them as the palest gray. Her personality could not be denied in that face.

He loved her.

Charles flopped back against his pillow, hoping sleep would come. He thought of the long days in the field, wishing a portion might be spent with Clara. Afterward, a small joy would take place as he sparred with Clarence, his steadfast opponent in sword fighting. He dreamed of being a guard at the sphere intersects.

As sleep claimed Charles, his mind filled with the dangers of saltwater, and what it would mean to the sphere, to all of them, if that safety was breached.

CHAPTER 8

Clara's eyes opened, and she stared at the apex of the sphere, there to greet her as it had each day she could remember. She listened for Olive stirring in the adjacent chamber of their Royal Manse. Modeled after row houses similar to the ones she had heard tales of from Before, every house was connected to conserve space, theirs the most grand and centrally located. The sphere absorbed sound, and noises from other dwellings were not easily heard.

She shifted to her side, automatically looking at the drapes, which Olive had closed last night. Her side ached dully. The corset had not buffered all of the damage. As if off their own volition, her feet swung free of the bed linen, and she hopped off the bed, blood rushing to her extremities. She used a hand on the bedpost to steady herself then slowly walked toward the drapes. Interesting... now that the savage had been spotted, the drapes were closed. After all, who concerned themselves over privacy when no soul left the sphere? However, with a savage coming inches away from the sphere's barrier, there was new concern over... whatever it was the savages sought.

Aside from the beating and rough handling of the prior evening, Clara felt robust. The new day held the promise of the fields and work ahead of her.

Working the fields made Clara feel accomplished and centered, clear headed. Most importantly, she felt closer to her father.

Clara stretched her arms above her, inhaling deeply, the rich humidity of her environment a salve on her throat. Smiling, she thought how convenient it would be that the Queen would feel ill until mid-day as a consequence of her over-consumption. That suited Clara perfectly. She would be dressed, and in the pungy before the Queen rose from her bed. Prince Frederic would also be indisposed, the sloth. He thought nothing of getting up at the noon hour. Also perfect.

First order of the day would be to open the accursed drapes. She detested having the light from the Outside dimmed even further with the heavy coverings.

Clara turned her body, using the strength of her legs for momentum, and with both hands, swept the heavy, damp drapes behind the large, brass, semicircular holder. She surveyed the Great Forest Outside.

A face loomed, and her breath caught in her throat. A small sound escaped her. Clara realized she was half-naked before a man she did not know, and he was gazing at her with curious abandon. Her arms, ankles and half her back were showing. Clara was frightened. This was clearly a different savage from the first. There had been a deep intensity with the former, but this one looked angry.

So this was the female that Bracus would take. The guard looked down at her obvious surprise and took pleasure in it. Bracus was weak, wanting this one. No female should have a hold over a male. No matter how much their captain thought he kept his feelings to himself, it was obvious to this guard what he felt. The guard looked at the fragile-looking female before him, trying to fathom what she could possibly offer the Band. She was interesting with her strange eyes and deep red hair and the pale skin like the full moon. Women were not easy to claim in his clan or anywhere. Fights would break out. The women had great power of choice over whom they would mate with. According to the captain’s reports, this strange sphere held many females. Reporting was all well and good, but he wished to see up close. He watched as she backed away, wrapping the strange garment around herself tightly in an effort to hide her body. Why did she do that? He thought that strange. She seemed frightened of him, and he touched the wall separating them.

He touched the sphere's wall from Outside, and Clara leaped back, yelping. She hated the sound but couldn't help herself. He had startled her. She could not hear him, but he felt different than the other savage. This one... she felt menace from him.

She jumped again as Olive came up behind her, “Is that he? Is that the savage?”

“No. It is another.”

“Look at how he stares.” Olive had never, in all her years, seen a male with so great expanse of skin showing. There was no kindness in his face, no softness. He was all hard angles and planes, all male. Then she saw the gills. “Your majesty...”

“Yes, he has them too. I see them.” The gills opened only slightly with his breath.

Both women were well away from the window when Olive asked, “Does he threaten you, my lady?”

“I do not know. Yet I dare say, he feels different.”

The savage stared at the two women, one a Princess. He scoffed at such leadership. She was taller and wider of hip. A good breeder, he thought absently, his gaze roving back over the small form in front of him. Her eyes blazed with heat. Yes, he would have her. He dismissed the other female, she of the dull brown hair and matching eyes.. He would have the red-haired one, the Princess. He noticed that she had marks on her throat. Someone had handled her roughly. A female abused... who could have done it? Mayhap females were not prized inside this odd structure? Possibly, she liked this interaction. He was puzzled anew.

He would take his leave, and when the time was right, he would capture her for himself. No one would be the wiser. He looked at her a final time. Yes, he supposed he could see what Captain Bracus liked. Bracus would never have her, and it pleased the guard. It would be his secret.

Clara watched him look at her again, a considering look that made her heart speed, and then he ran off. No, that was not entirely accurate. He sprinted to the Great Forest's edge. He turned to look again, as the savage from the prior day had, then melted into the woods as if he had never been.

“I do not think it wise to close the drapes from this point forward, Princess,” Olive said as they stared after the savage.

“Yes, I think the whole group of savages could make an appearance. I, for one, would like to see them advance. This one gave me quite a start. I opened the drapes, and there he stood.” Clara was disconcerted.

Olive turned to her. “Did you take in his size? The breadth of chest, the height? He is a huge male!” Olive said in a tone of reverence.

“And what of it, Olive? Let us put it in the proper context. Would you be this enthralled had there been no barrier?”

Olive quickly shook her head.

“Princess, I do apologize, but for the love of the Guardian, he does impress one!”

Clara understood that he was different enough from the men inside the sphere to be a novelty, but she could not slip the feeling of foreboding.

“I say that we exercise caution, Olive, and tell no one as yet.”

“But my lady, the Queen should be told. Or what of Charles?”

Clara deliberated, rolling her bottom lip under her teeth, biting down, nibbling to ease her tension.

“I know not, but I do not wish to have more of the Queen's speculations. With another savage seen at my bedside window, she could imprison me further. Speaking of which, I dare say it is time I dress and get to the fields.”

Olive sighed. Her lady was stubborn beyond measure. Dare she go behind her back and, at the very least, alert Charles?

The Princess's finger was suddenly under Olive's nose. “Do not think of it. Tell no one. Your face shows your feelings, Olive. You must learn to school them, especially around the Queen.”

Olive curtsied.

“I wish to see Sarah before the fields.”

“My lady?” That was an unusual turn. The princess did not typically linger in the morning, preferring to escape the Queen's notice as early as possible.

“Yes, I wish a brief audience with her.”

“Does she not have schooling, my lady?”

“Yes.”

Olive thought this odd. However, she hoped it might ease her mistress. She went to the huge wardrobe, which held the Princessʼ articles and clothing. She chose with care. The Princess was not one to enjoy the finer clothing that the Queen did. As summer was upon them now, she felt the linen best suited to the climate with the cotton blouse. She chose low-slung heels in leather, a scarce thing nowadays. She rifled around, slinging silk stockings over her shoulder, gathering the shoes, skirt, and blouse, walking the whole of it to the bed. Her thoughts engrossed in the encounter with the savage. He was everything that the princess had said they were. He was the largest man she had ever laid eyes on. Even with as tall as Charles and the horrible Prince Frederic were, these savages were half a head taller. And the nakedness... it made Olive lust for them and the Outside. She giggled.

“What say you, Olive?” Clara smiled at Olive.

“Oh, it is nothing, my lady. I was lost in my thoughts.” She blushed.

“It is the male, yes?”

Olive nodded shyly.

Clara was not sure about all the giggling and silliness. She could not figure it. However, there were so few men that she could have considered as a royal, and now that choice had been stolen from her. What was there to suppose or, for that matter, to dream about? Better to keep her mind about her tasks and her people.

Clara sighed. “Yes, he was... definitely male enough.” Clara remembered the height, the menace, and the impressive musculature.

“Oh yes mistress, frighteningly male!” Olive laughed.

Clara turned and threw a pillow at Olive, which whacked her alongside her head, and she laughed harder, unable to stand upright. Finally, she clutched the pillow and flung it back at Clara, who caught it deftly, hugging it to her chest, she laughed with Olive, just two young women, one a Princess and one her friend, forging an alliance in an uncertain time.

Clara dressed quickly, making sure that her skirt covered the ivory flesh of her ankles. It would not do to show those about. She proceeded to the kitchen to eat a small bowl of oatmeal and honey. She set her sights on a quick chat with Sarah, her only female friend aside from Olive, a school teacher, wise and true. She would have wisdom to bestow.

CHAPTER 9

The Queen was not present, so Clara took her meal perched on one of the servant's stools, her favorite place.

The cook, William, whom she called Billy, as her father had before her, appraised her with knowing eyes. “Princess Clara, are you about the fields today?”

Clara nodded. “It is best I make myself scarce.”

“How is that different than your normal duties?”

“The Queen was in ill temper last evening, and it would be well-advised that I take my leave early.” Clara dug into the oatmeal with relish. She would be hungry soon even with this porridge. Billy's eyes roamed her neckline, which, though high, showed a sliver of a bruise which marked the skin about the lace. She shifted, hoping that little bit of cotton cloth may slide into position.

“She been after you again?” His kind eyes held a long-standing compassion.

She sighed. “Yes. She was unhappy with my behavior at my Day of Birth Celebration.” Clara looked down at her oatmeal, appetite gone.

Billy put his face on his knotted hands, elbows pegged against the butcher block. “She is a disastrous monarch, Princess. Do not fret. Soon, you will be on the throne, and she will not dare injure you then.”

“This is true. As long as the wine flows.” Clara's eyebrow arched.

He looked at the bruise buried on her throat, anger darkening his expression. “If the King were here, this abuse would not happen.” He held his wooden spatula like a weapon, his knuckles whitening.

“Speak not of that, Billy. We cannot change circumstance.”

“And Prince Frederic,” he sputtered.

But before he could go on, she held up a hand. “Enough, my friend. I am honor-bound to attend my subjects. You know this.”

His sad face regarded her. “I do not have to like it, Princess.”

“Nor I.”

Clara pushed the half-eaten bowl of oatmeal away, standing and brushing off her skirts. Looking up, she saw Billy staring at her.

“I have prepared a pail for your lunch, my lady.”

“Thank you so much.”

“You are most welcome. Tell my boys hello for me.”

Clara smiled, thinking of the brothers who were the captains of her small pungy, aptly named Clara's Folly. It had been Father's. He’d named it for his small girl who loved the fields.

She scooped up the pail with her lunch laid in ice. Maybe the oysters would be fresh when she needed to eat them. She peeked inside and saw that Billy had packed her favorite, tangerines. She adored tangerines, bought at high price from the Kingdom of Michigan, which had acres of hothouses in which to grow fruit that filled one's palm. Her mouth watered thinking of it like the sweetest of candy.

Clara said her goodbye to Billy, making her way down the long hall through the middle of the Gathering Room. She glanced at the great clock, which was a whisper away from chiming eight o'clock. She was later than she had meant to be. She needed to make haste, speak with dear Sarah, then very nearly run to the fields to be at the pier in a half hour.

Clara picked up her skirts, hustling along the corridor until she came to the front door, where the butler waited at the ready.

“Princess Clara,” Peter greeted her.

“Hello, Peter. How do you do?”

“Very well, Princess. Off to the fields?”

Queen Ada never spoke to the servants. She commanded them. Clara loved her people. They gave her purpose within the madness.

“Yes, but not straightaway. First, I must chat with Sarah.”

“Yes, mum. Perfect, then the fields.”

He knew her too well. “Yes, then the fields.”

She smiled. Peter, like Billy, had been here in the royal family home before she was born. They treated her well. Peter's eyes flicked to the mar on her skin, but he said nothing. His eyes spoke for him, glinting with hard anger. Ada was not popular, and the few who were wise to Clara's abuse hated her all the more.

She gave Peter a frightened look.

“Do not worry, mum. No word will be uttered.”

She let her relief show on her face. “Thank you.”

He nodded and held the door open.

Clara stepped outside. The concrete stairs, six in all, deep and wide, stretched before her, curving around both sides of the staircase. Walking to the end of the cobblestone path and opening the iron gate, she turned, latching it behind her. She glanced up at the Royal Manse, loving the look of it, as ostentatious as it was. The stained glass artisans had outdone themselves with scrolling flowers and animals gracing all the tops of the windows, offering jeweled light inside every nook. As a child, Clara had enjoyed playing on the stairwell. The stained glass panel at the turn still enraptured Clara. The scene was one of a fantastical mermaid, a woman captured in a net with the riotous sea all about her. She had asked her father about it.

*

“There is a sea Clara, far beyond here.”

“Outside, Father?”

“Yes, far beyond the spheres, as seawater can damage the spheres.”

“What must it be like, Father?”

“You remember the field of Samuel's Pearls?”

“Yes, the field under guard?”

Her father nodded. It was the singular saltwater field, where special protections were in place because of the dangers of saltwater. The rare Samuel's Pearls were cultivated there in a engineered saltwater pond, kept separate from the others.

“That was named for my father's father, Samuel.” He saw her expression and laughed. “Yes, there was an actual Samuel. He had a daughter, Stella. When she was a girl, they would visit in a place named Cape Cod. This place stood on a great sea, called the Atlantic Ocean. In this place were cold waters, which tasted of salt. There is a ground there of small, crushed shells. The water moves back and forth ceaselessly. Samuel said that his daughter made castles of sand at the edge of this sea.”

Clara stood silently, thinking of a girl her age, at the edge of a great water where the real sun shone, and the wind moved the waters. She sighed with pleasure. “Are there mermaids?”

Father laughed from his belly, “No, those are myth. But I will tell you that your eyes remind me of the sea. Those waters look like your eyes, Clara. A part of the sea remains with you. You have only to peer into the looking glass to know those waters.”

Clara stared at the mermaid suspended in raging waters with pearls glistening in hair the color of butter, her eyes a pale lavender. The weak light from the sphere pierced the glass, and she seemed to float on a mist of emerald waters washed by brilliant blue.

She turned to her father. “Tell me more of the sea, Father.”

*

Clara turned away from the Royal Manse, and with it, the happy memory. She walked down the sidewalk, avoiding the unevenness of the wider street, leaving that for horses and carts, although there were not many. She rounded the corner, leaving that for the occasional horses and carts. She rounded the corner, leaving the park to the east of her home and saw the sign hanging off a scrolling iron bracket. School for Children: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

She glanced at the sphere wall, distracting herself by looking at the Great Forest. Perhaps she was hoping to catch sight of the savages again. Stumbling, she righted herself. She needed to watch her footing. In the transition between the sidewalk and boardwalk to the wider street with uneven cobblestone, it was easy to lose one’s footing. She hopped up the steps, her light beige linen skirt weighing her legs down as she moved. At least it was not the season for wool. That weighed a hideous amount.

She peered in the window anchored at eye level in a massive oak door and used the bell. It chimed shrilly, and she saw a smart-looking girl, two years her senior stroll to the door. Faces appeared behind her, curious to see who was visiting. When they saw that it was the Princess, hands were raised.

Sarah's face appeared in the glass, slightly distorted by the waviness of the pane. Her pale blonde hair was plaited in a severe braid at the back of her head. Sarah believed in each hair in its place, but she could not contain her impish manner. She was lively with a friendly countenance, a perfect disposition for a teacher.

“Come in, Clara.” She spoke Clara's name low, for it would be unseemly for anyone to address Clara thus, and as Clara stepped inside the foyer, Sarah asked, “What brings you?”

“I wish to visit but must attend the fields. Mayhap later this evening, you can call?”

“Does this have anything to do with your pronouncement last eve?”

Clara smiled. Sarah was anything but stupid. “Yes, and there are other... more sensitive matters I wish to discuss.”

Sarah laughed, clapping her hands together. “Brilliant! Just name your time, Princess.”

Clara grinned. Sarah was just the balm Clara needed. She quickly calculated the safest time. “What of half past seven o'clock?”

“That is perfect. I will see you then.”

Clara gave a quick look down the corridor and saw a paper glider fly through the air, meeting its mark in the pigtail of a stout girl with deep chestnut hair who squawked, “Thomas Harding, I am telling Miss Sarah.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “I must go.”

Clara nodded, holding back laughter, and Sarah leaned in, giving her cheek a kiss. The door closed, and Clara watched Sarah regain control of a classroom run amuck.

Clara whirled, galloping down the stairs in a near trot—very unladylike, and certainly un-royal—for the pier. As she neared it, she could see the poles marking the fields, the water lapping the shore. The sand here was not that of the great sea that Father spoke of, but it was a respite from her life, one she would gladly take.

She could just make out the dark forms of Russel and Sydney. Their poles were buried in the soft muck. She slowed her pace, seeing their laughing faces. They thought that she was most un-royal in her bearing. Clara agreed. Billy's sons waited for her as she approached the pungy. She used Russel's arm for balance to enter the boat, hopping down with expert grace, having done it a thousand times before.

“High color for your Highness.” Russel laughed at her rosy cheeks.

“You were running again? A Princess running!” Sydney teased.

“There will be hell to pay if the Queen sees you, Princess,” Russel stated.

Sydney flicked the collar of Clara’s blouse, noting the bruise. “Looks like there already was.”

The laughter faded as the men regarded her. She looked down, embarrassed. She should have insisted on a different garment, one that could hide Ada's fingerprints.

Russel used a finger to tilt her chin up so their eyes could meet. “No, Princess, do not be ashamed. It is not you who should feel guilty. It is she.”

Sydney nodded agreement. “She needs some of her own handiwork laid upon her. She would understand better then, methinks.”

“Shh, do not say such.” Clara put a finger to his lips, and Sydney grasped it, kissing it then letting it fall.

Clara's blush deepened. Sydney had made it clear if she were not Princess, he would have courted her. It made things vaguely uncomfortable between them, but Clara maintained more friends were better. She needed all the allies she could manage.

Russel cleared his throat. “Let us cast off.”

Sydney looked at his brother sharply then nodded. “Yes, alright.”

They untethered the lines, and Clara took stock of the wooden pails. She counted only one.

“Where is the fresh water bucket?” She set her lunch pail in the box built for such things.

Instead Russel was all for asking after her lunch, “What have you in your pail today, Princess?” Russel asked in that sly tone she knew well.

Clara laughed. He was after her tangerines to be sure.

Sydney wound the rope on the brass cleats, watching the interchange closely. “Do not take what little food our Princess eats, brother,” he sounded with disapproval. His eyes roved over Clara's slender form.

Undaunted, Russel pushed the boat toward the fields with his well-worn pole. “Ah, the Princess has packed extra of the sweet gems of orange, yes?”

Clara smiled. “Yes, I may have enough to spare... if you behave yourself.”

Russel grinned back at her, ever the jokester. His and Sydney's muscled forearms strained for just the right momentum as to not over shoot the first of the fields. The familiar woven fences came into view, and the men stabbed their poles opposite each other to stabilize the pungy alongside the fence containing the oysters. Clara looked at their ghostly white forms under the shallow waters of the Great Lake. She held fast as the brothers used the stern to leap into the shallow water up to their calves. Clara readied herself to grade the first of their efforts.

The men searched the baskets for the largest and oldest oysters in the cultch. There were few to be had. The basket held with less than a dozen. Clara sighed. She would need to use divers at the center of the Great Lake fed by the Ohio River. It was there that she would possibly meet the quota the Queen had set forth. Ada wished to have the rare, round pearls instead of the baroque pearls that were the natural shape. The round were lovely, but at what cost?

Clara hated the need for divers. Sometimes these men held their breath to a depth of over forty feet. For what? A pearl to satisfy the Queen's need for yet another strand about her neck? Foolhardy was a word she assigned to the Queen more often than not.

Clara gazed toward the middle of the lake. Small sphere-dwellings surrounded the deepest trenches of the lake. By week's end, she would take the pungy to meet with the pearl divers to inform them their services would be needed again. That would also mean a meeting with Ada. Clara supposed she could not avoid the Queen all the time.

Russel leaped back into the pungy, making it rock chaotically to and fro. Clara's footing remained true. He reached for the basket and dragged it inside, placing it on the floorboards. Clara looked at the biggest of the oysters. She grabbed her glove, and using her left hand, held the oyster tightly. Grasping her oyster knife, she worked the tip in at the most open part by the hinge, moving back and forth until she finally flipped the knife vertically, breaking the stubborn shell open. She let the muck drain while pressing the knife against the creature. Russel handed Clara the oyster fork so that she might search for the pearl.

There! It was in the interior fold closest to the back of the shell hinge. She moved it forward with her fork. The creature seemed to be trying to suck it back into its crevice.

Clara plucked it out and gazed at it, holding the fat, pea-sized gem above her face. Both men eyed it critically. She studied it. The size was perfect with the classic baroque “pinch” just off center. This field was cultivated for a perfect cream color and size, but as with any organic thing, this oyster was not cooperating by yielding that butter color with a hint of pink. Clara brought the pearl down beside her and raised her eyebrows at the brothers.

“Pink,” Sydney said.

“Aye, it be pink, Princess,” Russel agreed.

She nodded. The Queen would wish the crop to yield that which was commanded, but Clara knew that these results could be tipped. Perhaps it was the item placed in the oyster that had caused it. She asked the brothers.

“Glass, Princess. We use it always. It is what the Guardians instructed for uniformity,” Sydney said.

It was confounding. Clara couldn't explain the color.

“It is not overly pink,” Sydney said.

“Just a sheen, is all,” Russel said.

“She will not like it.” Clara’s stomach became tight as she thought about the Queen's displeasure.

No one asked who She was.

The remainder of the day was spent thus. Each field was checked, and all but the pink were in order. Each field represented different colors at different levels of maturation, but only the first field had a mysterious color result.

Drat.

After lunch, which was quite late, Clara used the fresh water bucket that she found in a dim corner of the pungy to rinse her hands of the sticky juice of the tangerine. Russel was not bothered a bit and indelicately sucked it right off his fingers.

Clara laughed. “You enjoy the tangerines more than I!”

“Aye, ʼtis true, Princess.” Sydney chuckled at the two of them with their tangerines. He was not a bit fond of them.

Clara saw through the thick air of the sphere how the sun had descended from its highest point. “It is time to get back.”

Clara looked at her timepiece... half past four o'clock. Ada would most definitely demand an audience with her, wishing to know how the fields faired, or rather, what they yielded.

Sydney, who read her well said, “Let us return to the pier.”

Clara nodded, wishing very much that she’d had the forethought to fetch a flat stool upon which to sit. Her legs were tired from standing the entire day. Tomorrow, she would not be in the fields. Instead, she would attend Trading Day and see what wares the Royal Manse might need. That brought her round to thinking of Charles. Where must he be? She wondered if he was busy in the other fields. Just as she thought it, there he was, skippering his own pungy.

“Hail Princess!” Charles called with a shout and a wave. His breeches were tucked into supple leather boots of the deepest chocolate, tied in the front with laces wound like Xs up the front. His shirt billowed behind him, and his forearms bulged as he manned the pole. His younger brother, Alex, worked the stern as he worked the bow, only ten and two years and already a deck hand.

She raised a hand in greeting. “Greetings, Charles and Alex!”

Charles’s good will for her was plain on every angle of his face with Alex a smiling mirror behind him. They pulled beside the starboard side of her pungy, the brothers fixing large hands against the boats to keep them from hammering the sides together. Alex steadied the stern to anchor it.

“Are you heading back to pier?”

She nodded. “I am.”

“Excellent, I will accompany you.”

Sydney gave a glower, failing to hide his displeasure at Charles's interruption.

Clara sighed and thought that her life was unduly complicated.

They moved alongside one another with Charles at their stern with Alex still aft. “What say you, Princess? What of your yield this day?”

Alex was a dear. “Yield is as expected, however...”

Charles glanced her way then back ahead of him, keeping the boats separated as the pier came into view. “What is it?”

“A cream field that has a pink wash.”

Charles made a disgusted noise. “That will not be good.”

“Yes, I know.”

The brothers kept their own council, not willing to add to her anxiety. Charles didn't bother. He knew the Queen would discuss the color. She would have to place blame somewhere convenient.

Clara stood straighter, squaring her shoulders. “In all truth, I cannot control the oysters. It is inexplicable why there be a color wash.” She shrugged. There was no more she could do.

They pulled up on opposite sides of the pier where the Pier Keepers took their lines, tethering them to the brass cleats on the deck worn smooth from a million tethers.

Otis, a lean specimen of a man who was lead Pier Keeper, helped Clara out of the pungy, and she turned, waiting for a brother to hand off her lunch pail. Russel did so with a wink and a grin. “I do adore tangerines, Princess.”

Clara smiled, turning back to Charles, who was already on deck. “Let us walk together.”

She gave a small wave to Sydney, who looked forlorn.

Charles turned to Alex and dug around in his breeches pocket, finding his time piece on its copper chain. “You have the pungy and one hour until supper. Do not be late, or Mother will have your hide!”

Alex ducked his head, and Clara realized that the admonition must be warranted.

Charles whispered, “He does tend to dawdle.”

She understood completely as she could be a champion dawdler when so disposed.

He, of course, knew that about her and his look caused a bubble of laughter to escape from Alex.

Charles frowned. “Dear Clara, do not encourage him.”

“Yes, I mustn’t encourage his dawdling.”

Alex giggled behind them as Charles swept her down the pier and away from the bad example she was apparently setting. The evening was shaping up nicely. Sarah would come calling at seven or so this evening, and she had managed to poke at Charles. Marvelous.

They walked quietly together for a time, looking at the houses, some with candles glowing as the supper hour drew closer.

“She will be angry, our Queen,” Charles said.

“I know. I cannot help that, as well you know.”

“Let me accompany you as you explain the yield, the pink pearls.”

Clara thought about this. She mustn’t give him opportunity to avenge her in a fit of emotion. No, she would hope something else would assist her this evening.

“I think she may be deep in her cup. This will be the case each day that King Otto and Prince Frederic dawdle here.”

A huge grin broke free across Charles's face. “Yes, they may dawdle about, but I do not care for their dawdling half so much as yours and that of my dear brother.”

Clara had made a joke at the neighboring monarchsʼ expense, and it felt like a small blight was erased from her mind. She had only her mother's love of wine to possibly give her grace. With Frederic here, she was not sure how things would come to pass.

They had passed Sarah's school, and this was the fork where Charles needed to split from her to continue to his own dwelling. “I do not require safeguarding this night, Charles.”

They stood underneath the street lamp, which came on as dusk approached with a soft hissing.

Charles reached out a hand and pressed his palm to her face. She loved the warm, dry hand that had helped shape games when they were young, guidance as they grew older, and tenderness when there was no one else. “You seek to protect me from myself, Your Highness.”

Clara lowered her eyes. Was she as transparent as all that? Could she not better contain her expression?

“Do not self-recriminate, Clara. It is who you are to think of others first. But think on this: what friend would I be to you if I allowed you to go to the Royal Manse unescorted, to face certain persecution for things that are not of your making?”

Clara did not have a fair rebuttal. She knew if their positions were reversed, she would not leave his side.

“Alright, you may come with me. But I implore you, say nothing. Do nothing. Promise me.” Her aqua eyes focused on his dark ones, hooded by the approaching twilight. He nodded once.

He had meant it when he agreed. Some promises a person could not keep, even if his life depended on it.

CHAPTER 10

Bracus, Matthew, and Stephen slowed as they broke into the clearing. The clan fire burned brightly, a beacon of welcome after their long journey.

Members of the clan were gathered at the fire, but it was members of the Band whose eyes Bracus sought. There they were, their height and throat slits obvious markers of their status within the clan, noticeable even in the dim light. Bracus thought of how much the clan would benefit from additional Band members. But a strange twist of genetics made the choice for them. With only eight members, they protected the clan. Other, neighboring clans had near the same number, which led Bracus to think that it was not sheer coincidence. His thoughts traveled to the Evil Ones. They were somehow mixed in these processes. There was no record of this manifestation of physical differences before the Days of Ash.

Philip was even taller than Bracus and had a way of standing that made him unique amongst them. Philip turned and saluted. Bracus nodded in return, then realized he might not be seen in the dim light and gave a short wave. Philip strode to Bracus, clapping him on the shoulders. “How goes your scouting?”

“Very well,” Bracus said, grinning. This was his childhood playmate, the one Bracus spent much time beating on and winning and losing battles with—practice for real war. Philip's hands fell away. The callouses of his dominant hand scraped slightly against the bare skin of Bracus's shoulder. Years of archery had beaten their hands into submission.

Matthew and Stephen walked toward the fire, shifting their weapons in preparation for disarming for the day.

Philip's broad shoulders blocked the light of the fire as he walked in front of Bracus, barring his words and expression from onlookers. “What of the female?”

“Can you not wait, brother?”

Philip grinned. “I cannot. I must know... what does she look like? Different from our females?” he asked, his head tilting to include the few that drew warmth from the fire.

“Much.”

Both men turned to look at the lone pair of females near the huge community fire, its crackling presence flickering on the faces of all who were close. Bracus appraised them. Jack Blythe’s mate leaned in against Jack, the newest member of the Band. His forearm wrapped protectively around her collarbone, and he stood behind her with his chin touching the top of her head. His eyes met Bracus’s, and he nodded, watching Philip and Bracus closely. The Band was protective of their mates. But only one of them was mated at present. Lillian stood in Jack's embrace, relaxed in the knowledge that her mate was a superior fighter. She had a skilled protector, a good thing for a woman of the clans.

The other female, Anna, stood apart from all. She had escaped a clan she would not name where a male had tried to force her affection—an abomination. Anna glanced warily at the two Band members, acting as if she might flee if they moved in the wrong direction.

Months she had lived here with his clan, and still she did not trust.

Philip sighed, sensing his brother's thoughts. “She wants no one. But there are ones who would want her if she was so inclined.”

“She is not yet ready.”

“Agreed.”

“Her fear is a terrible thing to see.”

Philip looked at him. “Yes, it is. But there are some males...” He let his voice trail off. Bracus was well aware that some clans were not run as uniformly as theirs. President Bowen wished to gather the clans together and institute a Police of sorts, unifying the Bands of all the clans as a universal protector.

Much to consider. It was a matter of priorities, the current one being the clan's sustainability, It was threatened by the dwindling numbers of females.

Philip and Bracus walked side by side to the fire. Bracus felt reluctant to disarm. He wished to take a bath in his dwelling. He would lay his weapons down at home. Matthew and Stephen's quiver and bow lay at their feet as they sat on a log.

Matthew watched their approach, his backside tight against the ground and his feet crossed at the ankle, arms resting on the log. “Tell us. Our weapons finished... our day done.”

Stephen gave a sour look, obviously tired of being left out of the immediacy of the president's inner circle.

Anna watched the group of huge men come together near the fire. The Band. She scooted back a few steps, giving up the warmth of the fire for the feeling of security the distance gave her. The captain, Bracus Goodman, was the only one she might trust—might —and one other, her mind whispered. Bracus was their leader and had earned respect through his treatment of others. He even took time with the children, a true and decent thing. Memories of her clan hovered near her, threatening to suffocate her with sheer terror. She had prevailed, narrowly escaping. Anna forcibly relaxed her shoulders. Near a half year she had been here. She would not be able to keep her clan of origin secret forever. Possibly, the one who had abused her would find her and kill her.

He had told her so. She shivered, remembering.

*

Anna felt his body pressing into hers, filthy hands groping at her clothing while one hand covered her mouth to quiet her. She remembered the trees that night as she lay upon her back, their swaying a black outline against the moonlight, the forest her witness. She kicked with all her might, bucking and fighting. His hand left her mouth and backhanded her across her face. Anna saw stars. Stunned, she lay still, and he continued his onslaught. He was a member of her clan's Band, one sworn to protect the clan, protect the females... yet he did not.

She felt her mind leave her body. This could not be happening to her. Just as he would have his way with her, a figure loomed above them, an older female, small boulder raised above her head. Anna's eyes bulged. The male saw her reaction a moment too late. The rock fell on his head, and he slumped over, off Anna's body. She sat up with a hiccupping sob. Relief washed over her in a sickening adrenaline surge, overwhelming her limbs, numbing them. She opened her mouth to say something. Della put a finger to her lips to silence her.

The two women turned to look at Anna's attacker. “Go now, far away. Before he awakens.”

“But what of you? He will hurt you,” Anna said, her body quaking.

Della smiled grimly. “No, he will be occupied with explaining himself. However, this one is of a mind to not be remorseful. He will try again. You must go.” Della's stout body and dour face were set in purposeful lines. She held out a pack with odd straps that wound around one’s arms.

“This has what you need for a journey of this length.”

Anna peered inside: jerky, dried fruit, and nuts. More food than she would need. She gave Della a confused look.

“You need what is here and more than I can give you. Follow the cobbled road until it ends. Head west.” Della rifled through the folds of her skirt, producing a rough map. “There are rumors that the mid-western clans are governed more fairly.” Della gave Anna a significant look. She meant that the males were true, without criminal transgressions.

That was how the Clan of Ohio had found Anna: dirty, delirious, and half-starved. Her fear was not as awesome as her desperation.

*

Anna started when a male spoke to her. “Anna?”

She instinctively backed away, then stopped, steeling herself. She must be brave. Not all males were as the one she had escaped from. Joseph looked at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for a response. She usually just nodded in return. But this night, still in the grip of her memories and out of the warm shelter of the fire, she wished to have some human contact, even if male... especially male. She purposely stepped closer, regaining the steps she had given up. She needed to start to believe.

To trust.

Joseph regarded Anna in surprise. She did not run off as she usually did. He watched as resolve formed in her eyes, and he fought not to show his shock. He had been greeting her from the very first when she’d come to them a starved, filthy thing, delirious from dehydration, asking over and over, Is this the midwestern clan?

He had watched these months and seen her shyness was for males, but females, she trusted. That had given the Band pause. They considered her to have been a victim of some kind. But when questioned she just shook her head. Even Bracus, who had found her and established some trust, could not extract the reason for her state upon arriving. What clan did she hail from?

A mystery.

One Joseph wished to solve.

“Yes, Joseph,” she croaked, her voice unaccustomed to being used.

The remaining Band around the fire looked up sharply at the rare sound.

She immediately noticed their attention and faltered, but Joseph said, “Please, tell me what you think upon.”

Anna stood stupidly before him, all thoughts gone save one. “I am cold.” However insignificant the statement, it was what she could say.

Joseph smiled, that he could fix. He extended his hand, sweeping it toward the fire. “Join me by the heat then, Anna.”

She gave the barest of smiles, and Joseph's heart soared to see this quaking female regain a semblance of who she was and giving him the slimmest regard.

They walked toward the fire together, a man of the Band and a female hanging fiercely on to a grain of hope.

CHAPTER 11

Charles and Clara climbed the steps to the Royal Manse, Clara with trepidation, Charles sure-footed as ever. He looked at her rumpled work skirt and blouse, tired from the day in the fields. Her rosy cheeks gave testimony to the outdoor work. The sphere felt cloying with moisture.

“The cleansing is near,” Charles remarked, wiping his brow with his once-white handkerchief. When that time was near, the moisture level became unbearable.

“Yes.” Clara smiled. She was nearly immune to the humidity.

Charles gave her a glower. She looked much fresher than he. His breeches stuck to his body like a second skin.

Clara laughed, her smile fading as Peter swung open the double door, ushering them into the wide foyer. Fading sunlight streamed through the many stained glass windows like fractured rainbows slicing the interior.

“Princess, Olive has your change of attire waiting in your chamber.”

“Thank you, Peter.”

Clara turned to Charles, looking over his sticky breeches and slightly rumpled blouse. He shook his head. “You Princess. She will require formality in her audience, and I am as a bug.”

Clara laughed, and he winked. “You will await here then while I change?”

“Yes.” Charles and Peter watched her climb the great staircase to her chamber.

Peter sighed. “She leads a hard life, our highness.”

“Yes, she does.”

Peter and Charles stood in mutual silence. They were bound by the same laws that governed everyone in the Kingdom of Ohio, pretending their monarch was not ruled by her own selfishness and the ebb and flow of wine.

Peter and Charles continued in amiable quiet. For years, since Charles was a youth, Peter had been at this door. He had seen many things.

An intuitive man, he remarked on Charles's bearing. “What has happened this day?”

Charles hesitated. “Clara's cream field yields a pink wash.”

Peter's face fell. “The Queen will not like this. She will blame the daughter, whether it be her fault or no.”

“Yes.”

“This is why you accompany her?”

“Yes. And with Prince Frederic still about...”

“Yes, a troublesome man, most troublesome.” The older man looked at the younger. A gaze of perfect understanding passed between them.

“It will be good when he takes his leave.”

“Yes, does he not have a kingdom to rule?”

Peter's lips curved into a wry smile. “Yes, that is the way of it. However,” he arched a brow in apparent amused disdain, “I believe whatever ʻrulingʼ there is may be done by King Otto.”

“He is too weak, by far, to rule that sphere.”

Peter only nodded in agreement.

They looked up. Clara descended, resplendent, the day's glow still upon the creaminess of her cheekbones, a dress of the palest pink falling to brush the tops of white shoes. The bruise was the only reminder that hers was not a life of softness, but of survival.

She nodded at Peter. “Where is the Queen?”

“She takes rest in her chamber.” Peter paused. “Princess…” Clara turned, having already begun to make her way to the corridor. “The King and Prince await you as well.”

Clara felt this was worse news. Ada seemed to gather more strength and anger when she had an important audience. At least she had Charles. “Thank you, Peter.”

“You are most welcome, Princess.” Clara knew that it was Peter's way of subtly warning her to be prepared for more than just the Queen's ire. She and Charles walked down the long corridor to Ada's chamber. It felt like the old stories of pirates. When the end had come, one walked the plank. Clara knew how those lost souls must have felt with their lives balanced on the narrow wood.

CHAPTER 12

Bracus looked up, startled. Anna had responded to Joseph with actual words. It was a rare thing when she spoke. As a point of fact, it was Bracus to whom she most often spoke. She was reticent with males.

He observed the two of them say a few things to each other as they walked over to the fire together. Amazing and wonderful. It would be a great thing for that female to find solace and finally reach out to a male. A member of the Band would be especially good. He swung his head back around. Both Matthew and Stephen wore matching expressions of surprise. Even unflappable Philip, usually the one who chose his emotions most carefully, had paused at the scene. He turned and looked at Bracus, his gladness a cloak about his face, shadowed in the twilight that was giving way to night.

“Joseph has cracked her, I see,” Stephen said derisively.

Bracus frowned at him. “It is a good thing that she responds to anyone. You should be glad of it. She is not an egg, dolt.”

Matthew smiled, calm as always. “You just wanted her for yourself.” He clapped Stephen on the back. Stephen slapped his hand away.

“I care not. There will be females aplenty when the sphere is penetrated,” Stephen said.

“I caution you. President Bowen has only authorized a negotiation with this Princess. It is no guarantee that they will wish to help us in our plight. After all, it is obviously not theirs,” Bracus said.

Stephen grimaced. “That may be. But as I see it, if the negotiations fail,” he paused for effect, “I, for one, will be inclined to sway them to see reason.”

Bracus saw a vision of the Princess, being coerced into cooperating by force. He did not like it. He was managing his emotions again. Something as foreign to him as imagining life as a sphere-dweller. When he clamped down enough to not let his emotions show, he responded, “That would not aid us. If we are to convince the sphere-dwellers to come to our aid, coercion and violence will not be the way of it.”

Matthew looked between the two of them. He was the least volatile of the three. “Perhaps you are both in the right.”

The two Band members looked at him in surprise. He was as steeped in logic as twenty bags of tea.

“Do you now?” Bracus quizzed.

“Do listen. If the Princess is disinclined to assist us, we may be able to persuade the other sphere-dwellers with logic.”

“She as hostage?” Stephen intuited, and Matthew nodded.

“It is the same,” Bracus argued.

“Do you not see? She will either say yea or nay. If she does not, we go to her sphere and tell them any matter of thing that we wish. And they may be so inclined to acquiesce, knowing that we have her. As you are well aware, they presume us primitive.”

Stephen said, “Only you. I, on the other hand, am naturally sophisticated.”

Bracus gave Stephen a sound punch in the arm. “Say Captain! Why do you strike me?”

“Your voluptuous laziness in the field today. Nary an ounce of sophistication was in evidence then.”

“He speaks true,” Matthew said.

They laughed together for the moment. Soon enough, Bracus imagined tensions would run high. The time drew near to acquire the Princess.

The guard watched the shy female with Joseph. He kept his smirking to himself. His time would come. A female would not be his weakness. He would bend her to his will. This slobbering obsession with protecting the females and groveling before the sphere-dwellers in the hopes of acquiring their females made his blood boil. His patience was a manufactured thing. It was his greatest weapon. No one was as sly as he. He would use their emotions and weakness towards females against them. No female would ever be important to him again.

Bracus took stock of the Band, all in attendance by the great fire. He had not spoken with three of his team: Joseph, Jacob and James. He would wait for tomorrow. He did not wish to disturb Anna and Joseph with their fragile bond forming before his eyes, sitting at the huge log worn smooth from a hundred years of fire watching. Joseph dwarfed her form. She was less than half his size. Joseph was a good hunter, fighter and protector.

The clans were not always on good terms with one another. Bracus's face darkened. He wished that all the Bands could see the strength of uniting. President Bowen did.

*

“Before the Earth Breathed Ash, Bracus, there was a force such as the one I am proposing, named the Police. Their sole job was to serve and protect,” President Bowen stated.

“We are a different people.”

“Not so different, warrior.”

“I have read the accounts. They were civilized. They gave people trials. There was much time spent on proving innocence when guilt was guaranteed.”

“It was flawed, however. We are as well. I accept that. But our strength lies in that which the Evil Ones gave us. This physical manipulation was initialized for a reason. You were bred to protect. It is physical. It is instinctual. We must come together and embrace that purpose.”

“We do have a cooperative with some clans,” Bracus said.

“Not all. That is the goal. I endeavor to acquire the Princess. The negotiation being successful may create a positive ripple, one that instills a sense of hope in all the clans. Once they see there is a possibility of a future for our peoples, they may be more willing to listen.”

Bracus nodded. Much of what Arthur said made sense. But Bracus understood human nature, and where there was not reason, fear would do as a handy substitute. He had seen the evidence.

*

He snapped out of his reverie as Jacob and James approached. They were cousins. Many of the Band were related, some distantly. They looked as different as two men could be. One was fair haired and skinned with blue ice chips for eyes, cheeks a ruddy mask. The other had ink black eyes, dusky skin, and hair that blended in with the surrounding night.

When James spoke, his teeth flashed in his mouth. “We see that Joseph has managed to get Anna to speak.”

The three men and Philip, who had added himself to the group, smiled and nodded. Stephen was the only one with a stony expression. They hung back at the edge of the forest clearing, enjoying the fire at a distance.

Jacob said, “A good thing, that.”

The Band nodded. With the ratio of males to females a dismal fifteen to one, any match was celebrated. Births were greeted with a feast.

“I would give much to know of this clan she comes from. That they would give up a female...” Jacob began.

“She was not given up, cousin. She escaped,” James said.

Bracus pressed hands to his hips, legs planted far apart. “What say you? She has not mentioned any detail, nary a one.”

He leaned forward, and all heads neared his until there was a circle of six huddled together. “Lillian has managed to get some story from her.”

The Band stood silently. James loved drama but would eventually get to the end of it. James was a great storyteller.

“She did not say all. Only that a male had attacked her.”

“I knew it!” Stephen intoned.

Bracus looked at him sharply. Too loud, his look said. This would explain her shyness of the males, where none had transgressed against her.

He had suspected as much.

Matthew and Philip stood quietly, thinking it through, as was typical of them.

“Is there anything more?” Jacob asked.

“Yes. Lillian thinks he was part of that clan's Band.”

There was a pregnant silence as the members deliberated on a female being in the hands of a Band member that meant her harm.

They would come to harm, of that there was no doubt.

“How could she escape him?” Matthew asked. Excellent question, if oddly phrased.

Philip looked at Matthew in question.

“Come now? You are all thinking it. How would that female,” he gestured to Anna, still sitting beside Joseph and looking tiny, “defend herself against any of us?”

It was disturbing. Who would know how they would feel if the situation were not so desperate? But they seemed uniformly protective toward females in a way that was beyond that of other males of the clan. The few clans that were allied with them shared a similar urgency and protectiveness. To hear that there might be a faction desiring to abuse was against all that they stood for. It was expected from the fragment, but not of the clan.

Philip asked the most pressing question of the night. “Did he beat her? Or...”

“It was the other,” James said significantly.

“A terrible abuse!” Stephen whispered fiercely, looking covertly at Anna.

“He should be flogged,” Philip said.

“Yes, he should,” Bracus said.

“Or possibly something more creative,” Jacob finished.

The men straightened up. Philip inclined his head toward the fire, leaving the subject for the moment. “Let us move to discussions of the sphere. I wish to be informed.”

Matthew and Stephen nodded.

The Band walked as one to the communal fire, commanding and deadly, an ancient force of reckoning, prepared to make a historic move and change their lives forever. As the heat of the fire washed over Bracus's body, a feeling of foreboding stole over him. His senses, ever acute, were on full alert as if there was something right under his nose he was missing. If he just sniffed a little harder, he would discover it.

He shook his misgivings away, heading toward Joseph and Anna. His spirits lifted at the sight of them together.

CHAPTER 13

Charles stiffened as soon as he entered the Queen's chamber. Chamber did not accurately describe her quarters. The bed was in an entirely different area with a door between where he now stood and the place where she slept. This was a parlor of sorts, resplendent in every covering, dimension, and scale. But for the blight upon the room, it would have been a reflection of beauty. Queen Ada made the room dim in Charles's estimation. She stood in the middle with her back to Clara and Charles. The deep purple folds of her dress were a rich warm velvet, the wrong material for the season, but she ran cold, he had heard. Her scrawny form was encased in the richest fabrics, regardless of the season.

He knew just how cold she really was.

Charles was acutely aware of the stickiness of his clothes as Prince Frederic's gaze lingered over him. The Prince was supremely fresh in his linen trousers, silk blouse of the finest weave, and an overcoat of a rich, deep blue. King Otto sat beside him looking decidedly uncomfortable. Charles wondered what had they walked in on. What conversation had been aborted?

Ada turned suddenly, her back now to the Outside and her dark eyes boring into Clara's. Clara’s subdued figure stood steady under the onslaught of the Queen's stare.

“Tell me, daughter.”

Clara sucked in a breath, girding her loins, no doubt. “The yield is as expected...”

“But?” Ada asked the question as a statement.

“The cream has taken on a pink wash.” Clara kept her shoulders back and straight. If she was uncomfortable, it did not show to Charles. Of course, Clara was well schooled in keeping her emotions to herself.

The Queen's hands clenched and unclenched. She looked from Clara to King Otto.

“May I address this, Queen Ada?” King Otto requested.

She nodded stiffly, and Charles heard a vague, grunting sound.

“I will trade the pink pearls for the rare grapes. That is not important.”

Clara looked confused for the briefest of moments. “Did you not wish to trade for the cream, King Otto?” Was it possible she would not be whipped for the wrong color?

The King looked profoundly uncomfortable, and Charles's stomach clenched.

King Otto articulated Charles’s worst fear. “For the pleasure of a hastened Wedded Joining, I will forgive the color and sweeten the exchange with the coveted grapes.” His gaze slid to Queen Ada then back to Clara. “I’ll forgive even red pearls for the opportunity to meld our respective kingdoms.”

Charles was flabbergasted. Clara freshly ten and seven years! She was too young by far to be joined with Prince Frederic.

Before he could comment, Clara interjected. “We agreed that we would wait one year. Upon my Day of Birth celebration, marking my womanhood, ten and eight years, we shall wed.” Clara's face had a pinched quality and had paled, but there she stood, resolute in her bearing.

Charles thought again how beauty had a faceted quality, and hers was many.

Prince Frederic spoke. “I have decided I cannot wait, my Princess.” His smarmy tone indicated his meaning.

Charles felt he would be sick. Anger infused his body, vibrating to his extremities. “She cannot wed legally. She must be ten and eight years, the age of legal consent. Even you must understand that, Prince Frederic, you being twenty and one years yourself?”

Prince Frederic sharpened his gaze on Charles, opening his mouth to say something scathing.

Queen Ada interrupted. “He matters not. What he speaks matters not. He is here by my sufferance alone.”

She looked at Charles. “Yes?”

“Yes, my Queen.” Charles said with the greatest reluctance. He could not bear this man touching Clara. That she did not love him, want him... nay, that she did not even like him, was a misery he could not tolerate for one more moment.

Charles said, “Mayhap she does not wish to rule, my Queen.”

The Queen's eyes narrowed as she stared at Charles. “She has told you this?”

“Not in so many words.”

Clara turned to him, gripping his shoulders. “Do not try to help me, dear friend. You know that I must rule one day. Queen Ada will step down so that I may once Prince Frederic and I are joined to rule this sphere.”

Charles's fists clenched into balls of anger. “You cannot mean that you wish this joining now.”

Clara's face looked pained while she searched for a diplomatic way where there was none. “I wish for a proper betrothal, the length as originally negotiated upon. Not a rushed affair.” Clara stared at King Otto, who looked away from the naked accusation he saw there.

“You get what you wish, daughter, to rule the people who are so precious to you, and I get my grapes.” Ada threw up her hands triumphantly.

Clara knew very well how much of a weakness—or Charles thought, a strength—her love of the People was. She wished for their happiness and the greater happiness of the sphere above all else.

They looked deeply into each other's eyes until Charles became aware of Prince Frederic in his peripheral vision. He turned to face him.

Instead of breaking their interchange, Frederic came from behind Clara wrapping possessive arms about her waist and hauling her up against him. Her fingers fell away from Charles's shoulders.

Clara's breath caught at the unexpectedness of the gesture, and she automatically struggled against the prison of his arms. Frederic laughed. “Have we not got over this futile resistance, my Princess? So soon you forget how much you will want—no—you will beg for my embrace.” He ran his free hand down her neck, dangerously near impropriety as he approached the bare upper skin of her bosom.

“Frederic!” King Otto reprimanded. Finally, Clara thought, a voice of reason. The Queen laughed at her discomfiture. Clara began to struggle in earnest. She knew what she must do, but he would not embarrass her further, the loathsome man!

Something deep and abiding in Charles broke. His hand, already balled into a hard fist, swung backward of its own accord, and he felt himself gain momentum as he swung it directly into the Prince’s smug face. Instantly, Frederic loosened his grasp on Clara, who ducked and, like the smart young woman she was, got out of the way.

Charles surged forward like a bull before a crimson flag, launching himself at the Prince. The screaming voice of his subconscious tried without success to halt him. But he would not stop. The Prince attempted to shield himself from the pummeling he was receiving, but Charles's fists had come alive. They rained down upon Frederic, unabated.

“Charles! Stop this!” Clara screamed, afraid for him.

Vaguely, Charles heard the Queen yell for the guards, and Charles felt himself unceremoniously lifted off the prince. Royal blood decorated the floor, giving Charles momentary satisfaction before he was strung up like a turkey by ropes at his hands and ankles.

The Prince stood on unsteady feet. He strode directly to Clara and backhanded her in the face, a move so completely unexpected that she fell against the wall.

The Queen's guards moved forward, leaving Charles in stupid surprise, completely unable to defend her.

As the guards approached Prince Frederic, Ada said with quiet menace, “As you were.” She pointed back at Charles, and the guards hesitated. When she repeated what she had said, the guards came back to Charles with uneasy expressions.

Ada turned to Clara. “Remember, dear Clara, the other night when I mentioned that Prince Frederic understood discipline?”

Clara, whose mouth was open and bleeding, could only nod. She slid her hand along the wall to steady herself.

“This altercation has the surest signs of a lack of understanding, does it not?”

Clara was not sure of what was coming but nodded in agreement. The Queen did not really wish an answer. She wished an audience for her wisdom. Her supposed wisdom.

“Do you love Charles?”

Clara nodded. Of course she did.

“Does he love you? Think on this, my daughter.”

Clara felt like a fox in a snare. She knew either answer would cause her trouble, but she settled for what she thought was the truth, but not before looking at Charles. He looked profoundly sorry. She didn’t know why. She had hated the Prince's horrible caresses far more than the back of his hand.

Everyone waited for her response. “I believe he does... love me.”

Charles stared daggers at the Prince and Queen in equal turns while King Otto looked like he might be sick at any time. He did nothing, Clara noted. The guards struggled with their duty to obey the Queen and their desire to protect Clara.

The Prince circled Clara, and she kept her back to the wall, the small movement the only protection she had. Her eyes searched those of the guards and found indecision. Here was their future monarch, unprotected against another, her betrothed no less, while the Queen gave orders which left her own daughter vulnerable to violence.

The guards were confused and uneasy. They had heard rumors that the princess was abused at the Queen's hand but had not anticipated this level of debasement. They looked at each other, unsure what to do.

Quick as a snake, the Prince slapped the other side of Clara's face, and she sank down to her knees, unable to stand. His blows hurt so much more than the Queen's.

“No! Do not touch her again,” Charles bellowed. The guards held him fast.

Finally, King Otto said quietly, “Stop this. Do not strike her again.”

Clara could not believe a more unlikely savior than he, but she was grateful there might be a respite.

Charles vomited on the floor, distracting them all.

The Queen looked on in distaste. “Elvira, come see to this mess.” She looked at Clara, on her knees on the floor. “You see now how absurd your answer was, Clara?”

Clara could not see anything. Her ears rang from the second blow, and her head buzzed with the beginnings of a punishing headache. She did not care one fig about what her answer had been.

“He does love you, Clara. Nay, not simple love, but real love. He is in love with you. Your abuse was for him.” She and Prince Frederic looked at each other and then at Charles.

Kneeling down to face Charles, Frederic said, “It is so much more effective to seek my revenge upon you by using her.” He inclined his head at Clara. “Certainly, it would be satisfying to see you flogged, but to see you put away so miserably in your ineffectiveness to do nothing to aid her? Well that, I must say, is profoundly satisfying.”

Smirking, the Prince stood, gently dabbing at the corner of his mouth where it bled. “Profoundly,” he repeated.

King Otto stood. “It is settled then. Three months hence, they will be joined in the Kingdom of Kentucky.”

From the floor, Clara looked up at the King, utter disgust covering her bleeding face. His gaze took in her swollen lip and cheek. Then he looked from his son to his soon-to-be-relative, and his shoulders slumped. Clara realized he would be no help to her. Her eyes sought Charles's and saw sadness and regret there. She gave a subtle shake of her head. It meant so much that he had tried to help her

The Prince approached Clara, and she flinched. He laughed. She expected another blow, and the guards looked ready to assist, perhaps having lost all sense before a woman beaten. Instead, he reached out and tenderly ran his finger over the most sensitive part of her lip. She stifled a whimper.

“We will see if you are a woman who learns quickly. Mayhap you are. If not, I shall enjoy the lessons. Oh yes, I shall.”

Clara could not help it. She moved away from his touch as if scalded. She could not marry this fiend. He would kill her. But first, he would make her suffer. Then he would take her kingdom and rule it with a scepter of tyranny.

Prince Frederick, King Otto, and Queen Ada left her bleeding on the floor. The guards hauled Charles away to a special cell. Elvira waited until they were all gone before rushing to Clara and using a fresh washcloth, ministered to Clara's wounds. Clara thought not of the tears she wished to shed, but of the plans to be made. Sarah, who would be calling momentarily at the Royal Manse, would know what to do. Together they could formulate a solution. Quickly.

***

Sarah was ushered in by Peter, who looked at Clara resting on her bed and quickly away. “No, come, Peter. Do not fret.”

Peter, the faithful butler, looked about the hall and rushed to her bedside. She looked a mess, she knew. Her hair in disarray, framing a face swollen and red from blows and tears. Peter's face reddened in a most alarming way.

“Princess, oh my Princess.” Peter kissed the hand that had beckoned him.

Sarah looked down at her solemnly, her natural humor dead on her face. Clara had not gazed in a looking glass but felt that her people's faces told her what the mirror could not.

“You cannot wed him, Clara. He means your death,” Sarah said indelicately. True to form, Sarah was bold with her words. Peter put her hand back upon the blanket and nodded in agreement.

“What of Charles?” Clara asked.

Sarah smiled. “And he asked only of you.” That caused Clara to smile, then she winced at the pain in her mouth.

“Ouch!” She instinctively placed a finger on the sorest part of her mouth. All of it hurt fiercely, throbbing, but one corner was very tender.

Olive slid through the chamber door, closing it softly behind her. “I have some ice, mistress.”

Clara eyed the bundle, swaddled in a thin, cotton cloth used for drying dishes. Billy must know, she thought absently. She gave a sigh of relief when the crushed ice made soft contact with her mouth.

She closed her eyes briefly. The throbbing heat became more bearable.

Sarah looked at Peter, and he stood to go. “I must not be absent overlong, Princess.”

Clara's eyes opened, and she nodded. He wished to escape the Queen's notice. They all did.

Peter, Olive and Sarah looked at one another, then Sarah nodded, and Peter inclined his head to the two women, taking his leave.

“He is a good man,” Sarah remarked, and Olive nodded.

“Yes,” Clara whispered through her swollen mouth.

“This must stop. The abuse you endure from her Majesty, our Queen,” Sarah said with obvious disdain, “is something I know you feel you do for our kingdom.” She waggled her finger. “But that creature who pretends to be a man—for Guardian's sake, what right does he have to lay hands upon you? None! I say none.” Sarah's face was bright red. She had spun, pacing about the room and returned to Clara's side.

“Is this why you stopped by the schoolhouse? So that we may confer together? I must say, it is a long time coming if that be the case. You cannot wed him.”

“I will not,” Clara whispered.

“What?”

“I said, I shall not wed him.”

Olive gasped, then clasped her hands together in delight.

“There will be a hell's ransom to pay, you know,” Sarah said.

Clara nodded. She knew.

“I will assist you. You must escape.”

Clara's eyes widened.

“Shh, do not speak. Listen to what I say.” When Clara lay silent, Sarah continued. “Trading day is one day hence, correct?”

Olive and Clara both stared at her.

“It is a perfect time for you to move through the tunnels. I have friends in the other kingdoms. You could make your way there, possibly hide for a time until things quiet down.”

Clara smiled. Sarah was so naïve. Brilliant, but not versed in the intricacies of royal life. As if Clara's absence would pass without notice.

Clara held both hands out to Sarah who took them. “Dear Sarah, a most excellent plan, but it is time that is my enemy, not placement.”

“Yes, my lady. It has been announced that Clara is to wed Prince Frederic three months hence, not twelve,” Olive clarified.

Sarah's eyes widened. “What say you?”

“Three months hence.”

“Is that true, Clara?”

“It is.”

“Speak,” Sarah asked.

Clara did.

She told her friend the entirety of the interchange, leaving out nothing. Sarah stopped her, asking questions.

Clara asked after Charles.

“He is fine. Eager to see you.”

“When will he be released?”

“A fore-night, no more,” Sarah said.

Clara nodded. She tried to not rely on Charles overly much, but she could admit, if only to herself, that the Prince terrified her. She cast a glance at the door then looked to Olive, who nodded.

Olive walked quickly to the door, stepping into the doorway. Looking each way, she closed it softly, throwing the lock simultaneously with its closure. Clara felt the breath slide out of her body in bold relief. She could possibly sleep.

Sarah smiled. “Let me lie on your couch. I will stay here this night, standing watch over you.”

Clara wanted to tell her no, but Sarah was terribly stubborn, not unlike Clara herself. She smiled at Sarah, and Olive fetched a bundle of bed linen for the fainting couch.

Clara needed to relieve herself and brush her hair. She swept the covers aside, and Olive was suddenly there. Clara quietly told the girl her needs, and they walked over to the necessary together. Afterward, Clara sat down in front of the vanity, and Olive stood behind her brushing her hair. Sarah flanked her. Slowly, Clara lifted her eyes up from her lap and met the ones in her reflection, if one could call the image that greeted her a recognizable likeness.

Clara stared at the swollen cheek, a lump of reddened flesh the size of one of her beloved tangerines, buried beneath an angry welt. Her lips were twice their normal size with a sore, open and bleeding on one side. A bruise formed, seemingly out of nowhere, underneath her left eye, a shadow mark, making her turquoise eyes appear to float.

She looked at herself, and every abuse the Queen had ever made swam to the surface of her consciousness, and her soul could bear no more. A strangled cry rose from deep in her throat, and hot tears slid down her face, scalding her wounds. Her crying, for once, was not silent. Her two friends attended her as she cried tears of loss and grief.

Some for her people and many for herself.

CHAPTER 14

If Charles had anything left in his stomach it would be dispatched immediately. If the situation with Clara had not been so grievous, he would have taken a certain grim satisfaction in begriming the Queen’s room so thoroughly. As it was, he could not.

Being helpless to protect Clara as the Prince savaged her had been the very worst experience of Charles's life. It left nary a doubt as to Prince Frederic's intentions toward her. He meant to deal with her as a possession he had a right to abuse, neglect, then throw away when the time came for such things.

It was enough to make one take one's chances Outside.

The idea rippled in Charles’s head like a stone cast into the Great Lake: he and Clara could make a fresh start Outside. Sarah had touched on the idea when she’d visited him in his cell. He warmed to it moment by moment.

The guards had provided his supper—fit for a king. He knew it was Billy's doing. One of the guards had whispered in Charles's ear that it was a very good thing to have beaten the Prince.

Charles agreed.

Not that he wished to be in the cell. It was all for appearances. Ada was deep in her cup, and the Prince and King would attend her this last night before their departure one day hence for the Kingdom of Kentucky. Charles was very likely to get into deeper problems than his current situation. His sincerest wish was not for Prince Frederic's abuse but for his demise.

Sarah's idea mimicked his, but it set Clara's escape squarely in another sphere. But no one would ever follow her Outside. They must set their eyes upon the Outside. Another sphere was too close for the long reach of the Queen's arms. Charles brooded.

Finally, he lay down on his back with his arms crossed beneath his head, thinking of Clara. It was very good that Prince Frederic would be journeying to the Kingdom of Kentucky after Charles was released. He knew that once he saw Clara's face, no force of nature would be enough to stop him killing the Prince.

Finally, Charles felt himself fall into sleep, plotting escape and protection. Remorse for his actions stole into his dreams like a thief.

****

Bracus watched the glowing pile of embers at his feet as they burnt down to ash. His eyes burned with the need to sleep, but his mind wandered over and over his thoughts of the Princess. He could not shake the feeling something was terribly wrong. He needed to satisfy his disquiet. He would return to the spot in the forest where he could view her and make sure that all was well. Bracus had not been captain of his clan's Band for so long for nothing. He had learned through hard experience to recognize and act upon his intuition. Three weeks seemed an interminable time to wait. He must be patient. Anything else would give away his feelings. Bracus was not one to show his emotions. Philip was the only one he told about what weighed upon him.

He looked over at his brother, lying prone. Deep snores resonated from his chest, pushing his throat slits wide. Bracus smiled.

Standing, he swung his foot out, making hard contact with the sole of Philip's foot. Philip sucked in a huge gasp of air and kicked out with the same foot, slamming it into Bracus's shin. Bracus stumbled backward from the impact, pinwheeling his arms for balance, regaining it, and finding a blade at his throat. “What say you, brother?”

Bracus smiled. Philip, asleep but aware, a marvelous thing. “Testing you, my brother. I wished to see if you were still warrior enough to notice me.”

“Aye, I am.” Philip pressed the point of the blade deeper into Bracus's neck until a drop of blood showed.

Suddenly, Philip looked down to see Bracus's blade pressed against his vulnerable side.

They grinned at each other. Stalemate...again. They lowered their blades and sheathed them. The other Band members were now fully awake after a night of heated discussion of sphere-dwellers that had lasted into exhaustion.

The guard looked at the brothers warily. His captain and his brother, Philip, who was even larger than Bracus. They would bear watching. He ruminated about the acquisition of the female, the Princess. They did not know his plan differed from theirs so hugely. They would soon enough. The sphere—all the spheres—needed to be broken open, their peoples mingling. He sat thinking. The clans would be the obvious rulers of the people, clan and sphere-dweller alike. It was most logical, considering the sphere-dwellers' inferior physical status and obvious lack of prowess, and abundance of females. Things would go as planned.

As he planned.

Bracus looked around him in amusement. The entire Band had dozed by the fire. Only Jack was absent. They all looked at him and Philip, eyes glittering in the firelight. Bracus looked at the sky. It was a few hours before dawn. He would stand first watch and Stephen second. Bracus announced the watch status, having allowed some laziness beside the fire. However, important developments straight from the president's lips needed to be conveyed and deliberated upon. Of that, Bracus felt sure.

Stephen rose, placing the flat of his palm upon the small of his back, arching and stretching like a cat.

Matthew gave his taunt stomach a glancing blow, and Stephen crouched, at the ready. “See how you tarry?”

Stephen jabbed him back in the vulnerable solar plexus.

“Guards!” Bracus hissed. They looked at him. “Now is not the time to seek romance with each other.” They glowered at him. No matter. There would be time enough for sparring when the female was within the safety of the clan. Until such time, he wished for the Band to be vigilant.

Stephen gave up and trudged to his post away from the fire. There was a fence made from the towering trees that ran the length of the clan's primary compound, and it was not easily breached. Bracus, for one, enjoyed running the perimeter. He told himself he liked the exercise to remain in top shape for warring with other clans and the dreaded fragment. The truth was that he wished to secure the clan's perimeter each day. He never ran at the same time, wishing no one to observe his routines.

Bracus had changed his mind, choosing to take second shift. This would allow him time to be at the sphere when dawn saw the new day. He would then creep toward the sphere and look once more at the female. He needed to calm his skin, which itched with the wrongness of something he could not name.

He approached Stephen. “I will run then return one hour past dawn.” They looked at the sky, judging the time. Stephen nodded. That struck Bracus as odd. Stephen was always one to be vocal. But he had been unusually subdued this night. Bracus prided himself on being acutely aware of his Band's mental state. It was critical. Their lives had depended on it, would always depend on it. He realized he might be letting his disquiet permeate his thought process too deeply. He shook it away, moving toward the perimeter, his throat slits relaxing in preparation for exertion.

CHAPTER 15

Clara slowly opened her eyes—or eye. As it was, the bruising underneath her eyeball, exacerbated by her tears, had swollen up, distorting her vision. Clara swung her legs around until they hovered over the floor. Immediately, she steadied herself as her vision swam, streamers of color running out in different directions. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Finally, when she was steadier, she shuffled over to her looking glass and gasped at what she saw. Although the primary damage had settled down a bit, the swelling below the eye and her lip made it apparent that she had been struck.

There would be no attending the fields this day. She could not suffer the questions and sympathetic glances, and cool the tempers of those who wished to avenge her.

Dawn cast its champagne light through the sphere, the slightly obscure nature of it burnishing the room softly so it glowed. Clara turned away from her pathetic reflection and wandered to the window that was actually the sphere wall and pressed her body against it. She could just make out the stand of trees and had a sudden wish that she could see the savage. Not the one who looked like he wished her harm but the other.

Sighing, she looked at the Forest, and he appeared. Her heart sped, the pulse fairly leaping the prison of her throat. But she was unafraid. He gazed at her from the stand of trees, then looking around him, he carefully set aside his bow, arrow, and quiver. He was disarming.

Bracus lay his weapons aside so as to not intimidate the Princess. If he were attacked in the open, at dawn, his daggers would do very well.

His throat slits opened wide, taking in the extra oxygen he needed as he sprinted the short distance toward the sphere. He arrived and stopped before the Princess. He could see her face as if through dark water, shimmering and slightly obscure, the material of the dome a milky cloak.

Clara stood stock still. Her pulse hammered, and her hands grew damp, a fine tremor taking up residence as she watched that muscular form and long legs eat up the distance between them. He was a thing of beauty in motion.

As before, he stopped, and she saw his face change in expression from fierceness to rage. She stepped away from the window, her hand to her throat. What had angered him so mightily? She had done nothing.

What Bracus saw caused his heart to stutter in his chest. She had been beaten. A black rage, the likes of which he had never known, washed over him, making the blood rush through his body and roar in his ears, he tipped his head back and shouted to the heavens, his concern over circumspection forgotten in the face of her injuries. Who could have dared touch her in this way?

He would kill them, he vowed.

Clara jumped when the savage shouted.

He approached again, his face edged with hard anger. He beckoned for her to come closer. She shook her head.

Bracus could taste her fear, It wafted out to him on the wind. He looked more closely at the one eye he could see. The other was almost completely shut from the blow she had suffered. Her beautiful lips, full and ripe when he'd last laid eyes on her, now were distended and bloodied. He felt his hands curl into fists. But he restrained his expression. He knew that this trauma would make her uneasy with his show of emotion. Instead, he indicated he had no weapons then pointed to the injured area of her face, throwing his hands wide he gave the universal gesture for “who?” Then he leaned forward, his face almost pressed to the sphere and mouthed, “Who did this to you?”

Clara would have been a fool to not understand that he wished to know what had happened. Her fear began to slide away. He was not the enemy. For all his fierceness and huge stature, he was not intrinsically evil. Clara opened her mouth to speak, and Charles walked in the room.

Bracus's head snapped to attention as a young male entered the Princess's room, and he growled low in his throat. Was this the male who had hurt her?

Charles came into Clara's chamber and immediately spied the savage outside her window. What in the bloody hell? He ran to her.

Clara felt herself being lifted from behind and shrieked, the memories of the night before fresh. She bucked and fought, fighting for all she was worth, the savage's roar of rage ringing in her ears. She could feel herself hyperventilating. Please, dear Guardian, I do not wish to be beaten.

“It is Charles. Be still. It is I!” Charles shouted.

But it was no use.

She had fainted.

Bracus looked at the scene before him. The male held the Princess with tenderness, belying how she had fought him. The male looked up at Bracus, and he looked back with dark intent. He would kill the one who had done this.

Bracus had seen how the poor female tried to fight him off. And now she lay still and vulnerable in his arms. Every protective instinct he harbored screamed for release. His hands were evil hammers of abuse at his side. Another day, he would exact his revenge. Three weeks hence was too long to wait for acquisition. The need to rescue her was now.

Where were her protectors? He looked at the male. He would pay dearly. With a final look at the Princess, he raced up the incline, bound for the stand of trees, his throat slits pouring oxygen into his circulatory system. Bracus needed it. He would run the entire way back to his clan, where he would alert the Band to this change.

Charles saw the savage look at him with murderous intent and realized that he thought that Charles was responsible for the abuse he saw on Clara's face. Not that it mattered what a savage thought, but it bothered Charles that another would think he could harm Clara. The savage was a huge male, inches taller than Charles, with the strange gills Clara spoke of, opening and closing with his breathing. But it was his eyes that transfixed Charles. The man looked one last time at Clara then turned, flying up the incline to the Forest of Trees Outside, his form slipping into the wood, disappearing from sight.

Charles stared for a moment after the savage, glad that the sphere protected him, as he had seen his beating upon the savage's face. His fixation on Clara made Charles uneasy. The savagesʼ existence was a problem. Surely Clara could see that? And what of his plan to escape with her? He needed to get her away from this abuse and safely Outside, but the savages were there.

Clara stirred in his arms, and he lifted her up easily. She weighed nothing. He lay her down gently, a fragile burden, her face swollen and marked. His chest grew tight again, thinking of Prince Frederick and what he had been unable to stop him from doing.

Clara opened her eyes and saw Charles. She quickly looked at the window for the savage.

“He is gone.”

Clara sank back in her pillow, and Charles reached out to her face, gently running a finger over her lip, picturing the Prince. “I could kill him, you know.”

Clara captured his finger. “Do not.” She placed his hand against her uninjured cheek.

“I do have a plan, dear Clara.”

“Is it the same one that Sarah has?”

“It is. We will reconvene later, when you feel better and establish a time line.”

Charles looked at her face. “I am so sorry. He beat you because of me and I could do nothing.”

“He needed no excuse. It would have happened eventually.”

“Why do you say this?”

“He is of the Queen's ilk. He enjoys punishing for its own sake.”

They were silent for a moment.

Charles looked off at the window, his face darkening. “Why does the savage return to you?”

“I do not know.” Clara gave a small shrug. “He does not mean me harm.”

“He looked like he meant me harm!”

Clara had a horrible thought. “I fought you...”

“Yes, I am sorry I took you by surprise. I thought that... I do not know what I thought. I saw him looming over you and lost myself. After last night, I feel just a tad bit more protective than before. It makes no sense, as he cannot breach the sphere...”

“He thinks that you harmed me.”

Charles nodded, remembering the savage's eyes.

“It cannot be good. I feel there is a purpose for his visits. I do not know for what reason, but rest assured, there is one.” Clara sat up in bed with a clear sense of disquiet wrapping itself around her, leeching into her bones. She grew cold. Charles folded her into his arms, and she allowed herself to be held. His strong arms tightened about her, and Clara could feel his heartbeat, strong and steady. The smell of his maleness and the warmth of him was a comfort she was used to.

****

Clara righted her appearance as much as she was able, but she still looked battered. Taking back streets the streetlights did not illuminate, she made haste to Sarah's domicile.

Clara crossed the unlocked foyer. The interior door barred intruders. Guardian knew, there were always people who busied themselves with theft. She pressed a bell fashioned of a hammered brass scroll, slightly warm from the steam which lit it softly. Clara could see Sarah's form through the warped glass. It was over one hundred years old and distorted her image.

Sarah opened the door and gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “Good Guardian, it looks worse than one day past.”

Clara nodded. She knew from experience her face would heal for at least another week hence.

“It is bad, but there has been worse.” But she had never suffered a beating to her face.

Sarah stared hard at Clara, then, saying nothing, she stepped aside. “Please, come in. Do not linger. Charles will arrive momentarily.”

Clara passed into the beautifully appointed interior, gazing upon all the things she had seen during a friendship that spanned their lifetime.

The foyer was lit by a single steam-chandelier. Its soft, apricot glow reflected off the mercury glass balls that Sarah collected, stacked haphazardly in a large bowl inside the vestibule. Clara stood a little uncertainly, feeling the weight of an unknown decision pressing down upon her. She felt miserable at the thought of deserting her People for an indefinite period.

Sarah stared critically at Clara. “Do not fret. You cannot help us if you are dead.” She made direct eye contact. “And well you know that will be the terminus with that depraved man.”

Charles entered. “I wouldn't call that cad anything close to ʻman.ʼ Abomination is more like it.”

He leaned down to Clara, giving her a feather-light kiss on her forehead, the only unmarred skin on her face.

Clara leaned gratefully into his affection, and Charles fought not to wrap her up into something more intimate. Sarah watched them with narrowed eyes. Charles’s eyes met hers over Clara's head.

Clara thought she was protecting her People, but friends were her protectors.

“Follow me.” Sarah moved ahead of him. The bustle of her skirt made a soft rustling sound as she entered the parlor, seating herself on a beautifully made rosewood loveseat. Charles and Clara settled themselves in the matching chairs.

Charles began. “We will get Clara out of this sphere. However, it may be best that she disappear into the Outside.”

“Are you mad?” Sarah asked.

Charlesʼ eyebrows drew up into an offended scowl.

But it was Clara that answered. “We do not know enough about Outside to know the outcome of such an escape.”

Charles waved the comment away. “They live Outside. And might I add, seem to be robust!”

Sarah scowled. “You must know that they have physical attributes which make the Outside tolerable,” she said with thinly veiled scorn. “Another sphere is the practical choice.” She leaned back.

Charlesʼ eyes narrowed. “Outside is where they will not look.”

Clara could see where this was headed. The two of them fought like feral cats. “Stop this.” They looked at her, mouths open in preparation for rebutting each other. “I have decided what must be done.”

The silence stretched out. Clara could hear the steam rising from the small clock on the wall, the ticking swallowing the silence.

“I will do as Charles suggests.”

Sarah opened her mouth in protest, but Clara held a hand up to quiet her. “Look upon my face.”

They looked.

“He will not let me live. Prince Frederic will chase me wheresoever I go and will not think that I would breach the sphere.”

Sarah made a last attempt to stymie what she thought was a dangerous plan. “You will compromise the sphere.” The comment fell as a stone in a shallow pond.

Charles glared at Sarah, who knew very well how closely Clara guarded her People. Sarah glared right back. She cared not. She wished for Clara's safety above her own.

Clara rolled her lower lip between her teeth, forgetting her injuries and wincing at the contact.

Charles laid his hand on top of Clara's, his finger absently stroking circles.

“Dear Guardian, do you think I would endanger her?”

“Not intentionally.”

“I would not endanger her accidentally either.”

“It is unknown and there are the savages to consider.”

“They mean no harm. I do not care what the Record Keeper reports,” Clara said.

“Some obviously mean harm.” Sarah gave Clara the full measure of her stare.

“What say you, Sarah?” Charles looked from one to the other of them, knowing they had a shred of secrecy tethered between them.

Clara looked down at her tightly clasped hands.

“Clara?” he asked softly, prompting her.

Clara sighed heavily. “A savage appeared at the window...”

“I am aware...”

“No, not the one that you saw today... another,” Clara said quietly.

“You did not speak of this. Why?”

“I know that you worry.” She twisted her hands mercilessly. “And it means nothing as they cannot breach the sphere.”

“But they can.” Sarah looked at them significantly.

Charles looked back at her. “They must not know the peril of salt.”

“Why does everyone believe that they are not intelligent beings? Mayhap they understand us as well as we understand them. Possibly more,” Clara said.

She thought of the savage’s reaction and how it quickened her blood that he responded to her battery so passionately. She was resolute. She would not be reacquired in a neighboring kingdom. Charles was right. She needed to get away somewhere she could not be easily found. Escaping her mistreatment loomed large for Clara. She felt a coward to think of herself foremost. But her face hurt, and her spirit wilted at the prospect of more savagery at the hands of Prince Frederic, who did not even have wine as an excuse.

****

It was decided after much discussion as their eyes grew grainy from tiredness, that after the monarchsʼ departure one day hence at midday, Clara and Charles would go on a trade to the Kingdom of West Virginia, the Queen's home sphere. There, Clara would breach the sphere tunnel walls and slip through. The details were mired down with the inclusion of the guard. Clara paced as she and Charles thought of what they could do so the guard would not prevent her escape and not be blamed for allowing it. “We must use the sleeping potion that the Doctor uses for the twilight sleep,” Clara said.

“That is measured. What if we murder them by accident?” Charles asked in a flat voice.

“You are still contrary because of their indecision?”

“I am afraid it will remain thus, as it was they who saw fit to not aid you while they had me bound.”

Sarah broke in. “Charles, would you be at the mercy of the Queen if you could prevent it?”

Charles's scowled. “I would not choose it, but I would have suffered much to help Clara.”

They were silent for a few moments. Then Sarah said, “How will you manage to accompany her then? I do not envision the Queen will allow you that reward.”

Sarah had hit at the bottom of it. Charles was not Ada's favorite because he was Clara's.

“Clarence is the guard at the start of the trade tunnel. He will let us through?” Clara asked.

“The one you spar with, Charles?” Sarah clarified.

“Yes, it is he,” Charles replied.

“Will he suffer at the Queen's hand?” Clara asked.

“I think not. He can blame the twilight sleep, and she will have to be content with that,” he said.

Sarah repeated what she had said before. “He will kill you.”

Charles nodded.

“I know,” Clara whispered.

Clara walked out into a night lit by lamps that illuminated cobblestones. Their hissing played a symphony to accompany her home.

CHAPTER 16

Bracus's lungs were on fire. His throats slits felt like hot slashes at his neck, overworked and begging for rest. He ignored his body's demands to stop, as he saw the clan's pointed fence come into view. He slowed to a jog and made the birdlike sound that alerted the guard that a warrior of the Band approached.

Two guards were needed to open the gate. It was laborious, and Bracus waited, taking great inhalations of sweet air, his hands planted on his hips. He hopped from one foot to the other, not wanting to be stiff. He needed to ready his small team for the journey back to the sphere.

The Princess was in imminent danger.

Finally, the gate was set wide enough for him to slide through. The two guards bowed as he did. Bracus went straight to the great cistern of water the community drank from. A young girl waited at hand. She worked in an adjacent tub with lye, a wretched but effective product. She wore duck skin gloves so it would not burn her skin.

Bracus ruffled her hair, and she smiled. She was a wee thing, only ten and two years. Bracus liked her. She was spirited but without friends. There were many males her age but only one other female to share her time with. That set Bracus's teeth on edge. They needed the females of the sphere. The sphere-dwellers must agree.

They must.

He drank deep and then still more, his thirst a beast of its own. Finally, he handed the cup back to Evelyn, who smiled at him.

Immediately Bracus looked around him, taking in the state of the clan. Everything was as it should be. He saw light trading of wares and most of the children—boys, he corrected himself—learning to figure and read. Not that there was great need for that. So few books remained from the time the Earth was Covered in Ash. No matter. Reading was good for the mind.

He needed to fill his belly then find his Bandmates and speak with President Bowen. The President would need convincing, to be sure.

****

Bracus was tired to his core and more so now that he had eaten an entire chicken. He stepped out of the community dining center, but instead of seeking much-needed rest, he sought the Band.

They were easy to spot, and he was surprised that none had seen him first. Philip stood slightly taller than the rest, maybe close to six foot and eight inches, an absolute slab of a man. His shoulder muscles looked like they had been attached separately to his body, growing into his neck. He caught sight of Bracus and raised a hand, half in greeting and half in question. Where have you been?

He strode to Bracus and embraced him in his mighty arms. “How fare you, brother?”

Bracus began with an utter lack of finesse. “The Princess has been beaten.” Shock poured over Philip's face. “And we will need to acquire her much sooner than we had first thought. Three weeks is too long, and judging by the fist that fell on her face, if we wait, she will not be alive to acquire.”

“Who?” Philip asked simply.

“A young male entered her chamber, and she fought him.” Bracus clenched his teeth.

Philip's expression darkened. “And he saw you there... outside the sphere.”

Bracus nodded. It did not make perfect sense to him either.

Philip palmed his chin. “What happened when she fought him?”

“She fainted...”

“Good Lord.”

“And then he held her.”

“Against her will?”

“No, she was unconscious. He held her most tenderly.”

“None of this makes sense. If he were in league as a protector of this Princess, then why was he not in attendance? Where is her guard? If she is truly a Princess...” Philip looked at Bracus for confirmation, and he nodded. “She ought to have a guard. That she does not, speaks of some internal problem.”

Bracus nodded solemnly. He had pondered the same.

Joseph appeared along with the other Band members, but Jack was absent.

“Where is Jack?” Bracus asked.

There was shuffling of feet and downward looks.

Bracus growled. “Where-is-Jack?”

It was Stephen who spoke. “He is with Lillian. She ails.”

Philips eyebrows drew together, and Bracus scowled. They did not need a sick female.

“It is not mortal. She is with child,” Matthew said.

Wonderful news. Why the anxiety?

“We lose a Band member, while he lounges and moons over his woman.” James crossed his arms stiffly over his chest.

Jacob broke out in a grin, clapping James on the back. “You are not mated, or you would not speak such.”

“I cannot speak for the rest of you, but if my female was with child, I would not be out fighting, leaving her here, defenseless,” Stephen said. Several of the other Band members nodded. It was well known mated Band members were fierce about their women when they could be mated. Further complicating things, it was postulated that the Evil Ones made some sort of genetic predisposition that certain females were more “appealing” than others. The rumored select. They would someday get that opportunity to see who would be their mate. Lord help them if there was a female who had that enigmatic gene of the select that appealed to more than one male in the Band.

“When is the celebration?” Philip asked.

“I do not know, but Jack seemed to think that after she stopped heaving up the contents of her stomach, she would be well enough for the Celebration of Conception,” Joseph relayed dryly.

There was a good-natured chuckle all around. Many females were terribly sick in the beginning.

Bracus nodded. This was good news and now he would have to deliver the bad.

After he finished with his report to the Band, they were all serious and quiet, deep in their own ruminations.

The guard contained his expression with an effort. He would see this female returned to her sphere. They did not need the sphere-dwellers. Her abuse made his stomach turn, too close to memories that haunted him.

Bracus announced that a clandestine meeting would be needed with the president. Horses would be used. He needed to be fresh for tomorrow's journey.

“Matthew, you accompany me,” Bracus said.

“Of course,” he said in his steady way.

Bracus turned away.

“My brother?”

“Yes?”

“Let me join you in this journey,” Philip said.

Bracus shook his head. “You know that I will need you.”

“We will use horseback again?” Philip asked.

“We must. I wish not to be attacked with a female. Think of another clan getting hold of the Princess, or the fragment.”

The Band thought of this with a soft horror. The fragment used females as breeders. Their women were beaten and mistreated. Many tried to escape. The fragment would do anything to propagate. Of course, they had no Band. They were fractured clan, refugees from clans who banded together, kidnapping females wherever they could. That was why the females had males accompany them when they ventured outside the walls. Food needed to be gathered, so the females went, but not alone.

Bracus turned to fetch the messenger and Jacob put a hand on his forearm. “He has been summoned and dispatched. He hails the president now.”

“Very good.” Bracus looked at Matthew, who nodded back. Bracus and Matthew gathered their weapons, saddling the horses. Bracus raced to his dwelling to change from his sweaty clothes.

He changed into a fresh set of tight-fitting breeches suitable for riding. His rough cotton tunic, snug against his lower chest, tied loosely across his upper chest and opened at the neck. His arms remained bare to the wind, perfect for movement in fighting, riding and of course, running.

CHAPTER 17

Clara found not one moment's rest, and shadows lay as dark smudges beneath her eyes. She felt in her bones that they would be discovered. The Queen could not let more than one day pass without inflicting some kind of absurd discipline on Clara.

Under the pretense of trading with the neighboring kingdom, Clara could take a small knapsack, and the appearance of normalcy would stay intact. Olive entered her chamber at dawn. Clara must keep this secret from Olive too. The Queen was not above torture, and if Olive knew nothing, she could say nothing.

“Princess... what are you packing?” Olive's brows rose.

“Trading day,” Clara responded neutrally.

Olive gave a puzzled look at the knapsack. “Do you wish for me to ask Billy for tangerines?”

That would be a blessed distraction for Olive, who gazed on Clara with thinly veiled suspicion.

“Yes, that would be most helpful.”

Olive nodded and turned to go, but remembered something at the last moment. “May I mention that if you travel for trading, the Queen will expect a certain wardrobe... and your crown?”

Drat. Clara was hoping to avoid that. However, it might play to her advantage if she cooperated by looking like a Princess. The Queen would be more lenient.

“I agree,” Clara said, which caused Olive to stare. Clara sighed. It was not typical for her to agree to anything that had to do with pleasing Ada.

Olive considered for a moment more. Then she slipped out the door.

Clara had just closed the knapsack with its supple leather ties when there was a rap on the door.

Excellent! She rushed to the door, throwing it open with a ready smile on her face. But Prince Frederick filled the doorway.

Clara blanched and stepped back as he entered her room. He lifted a hand to his face to push his hair back, and Clara flinched.

He laughed. “I will not beat you at every turn. But I must say, you do bruise quite nicely.” He reached out to touch the bruise over the swelling on her cheekbone.

“Do not touch me,” Clara said in a low voice.

“I will touch you when and how I like.”

“You have not the right!” Clara shouted into his face.

Prince Frederic leaned forward from his considerable height. “I will have all kinds of rights soon enough.”

“But not this day,” Clara said.

Frederic straightened with a sly smile, moving away from her and pacing about the room, touching her things. Clara marked his progress with anxiety. She cared not what he touched. Her hope was to not look upon the trappings of her royal life for some time.

He paused, whirling around and firing a question at her. “I hear that you go to trade this day.”

Clara's heartbeat accelerated. “ ʼTis true, but in the late afternoon.”

He nodded, almost to himself. “Then I will take my leave now, as I will not return until our Wedded Joining.”

He approached her, taking her hands in his, his sudden tenderness more disturbing than his beating. “I will not always be unkind to you. If you would but do as I say, then this would be easier upon you.”

Clara snatched her hands away. “I cannot.”

He stared at her for a full minute, his eyes narrowing. “You will.”

There was a noise at the door, and they turned to see Charles framed by the doorway.

He looked intently at Clara. Then his gaze moved to Frederic, and his fists clenched and opened, clenched and opened. “Clara, are you well?”

Clara nodded.

“She is very well. You do not need to fret over her. Soon, she will not need anyone fretting over her at all.” He smirked. “I am not overly jealous, as my time of solidarity with Clara is soon.” He looked at both of them with a knowing smile and walked out.

Charles's shoulders visibly relaxed after the Prince was gone. Clara rushed forward, putting herself in the circle of his arms. He stroked her hair.

“I thought he was here to hurt you again.”

“No, just to threaten.”

“It matters not. We leave today, and he will not lay his hands upon you again.”

Clara was still grappling with the feelings of her desertion. Her face was long and her spirit much subdued.

Charles noticed her disquiet. “Do not, Clara. We have moved so far beyond what we thought you would have to endure. Now, because of his beastly manner, we know that it is better you escape. You cannot, as Sarah said, rule anything if you are dead.”

Clara nodded, biting her lip so she would not cry.

If she began, she would never stop.

****

Charles left again after the two of them went over the next four hours to the minutest of details.

Clara carefully dressed, taking care to put on royal attire, Princess attire. Because of the lateness of the season, she would have to wear something as lightweight as possible. Olive had come and gone several times, fetching Clara's favorite food items for the journey. Clara decided on a teal dress, which barely grazed her heels. It had an organdy overlay in a light sherbet orange, which caused the material to shimmer like the ocean with the blush of sunset upon it.

Once the corset was secure and the dress on, Olive came to Clara with the small, pearl-crusted tiara with diminutive Alexandrite gems encircling the pearls, winking with different colors as Clara moved.

Clara came to stand in front of her looking glass, mesmerized by her small crown, which she had only worn a handful of times. It sat awkwardly on her head. Turning away from her bruised reflection, she picked up her knapsack, preparing to visit Ada before her departure. Always an ordeal, the extra burden of the upcoming escape swirled in her mind like mud in a river.

****

King Otto and Prince Frederic had left and were well on their way to the Kingdom of Kentucky. Clara had not realized how encumbered she was with Frederic’s presence until she knew that he was gone. It lifted a weight from her shoulders and dusted the cobwebs from inside her head for her conversation with the Queen.

She entered Ada's chamber and was struck by the mess. Even with Elvira's constant cleaning, Ada was a continual job.

Clara faced the Queen's back. Ada stiffened.

Turning, she looked at Clara critically, then finally nodded. “You look as you should for once.”

Clara nodded. “I came to say goodbye for one day and night of trading.”

Ada threw her palm up, silencing Clara. “I have been made aware. And that is acceptable, especially as you have taken pains to appear royal and not embarrass me with your typical, foolish dress.”

Clara said nothing.

“Elvira,” Ada barked.

“Yes, my Queen,” she said in her cowed way.

“Do you have the list of parcels for the Princess?”

Elvira nodded. Her hair bounced about her shoulders, having come undone from its confines.

“Fetch it then, servant.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

Clara loathed her mother.

Elvira brought the list to Clara.

“What is this, spirits?” Clara looked up sharply at her mother’s glass, her suspicions confirmed.

“It was Frederic's suggestion...” Ada remarked casually.

Clara knew he wished to have her drunk with something stronger than grapes.

“Are the grapes not enough?” Clara asked with transparent disdain.

“Watch your tone, Princess.”

Clara waited.

“I tire of wine. Methinks spirits are a refreshing distraction.”

Liar, Clara thought.

Olive entered the Queen's chamber. After a low curtsey, she turned to Clara. “Princess, Sarah has requested your presence.”

“Really?” Ada's eyes narrowed, and Clara rushed to explain.

“I was compelled to cut our visit short one night past.”

“That is not what I heard. I was told that you arrived back at the Royal Manse, half past one this morn.”

Clara was speechless for a heartbeat. “We had much to discuss.”

The Queen approached Clara, all subdued violence-in-motion, her hand moving restlessly over the strand of pearls she always wore about her neck.

“Do not let your discussions stray to royal tales, Clara.”

“I will not.”

“Will not, what?”

“I will not, my Queen.”

Ada smiled cruelly and turned on her heel, giving Clara a dismissive wave.

Clara was almost to the door when Ada spoke again. “What will you tell others when they see your face?”

“That I fell, Queen Ada.”

“Very well.”

And Clara walked out, eternally grateful to leave the space the Queen occupied.

CHAPTER 18

President Bowen was as distressed as Bracus over the Princessʼ state, but he was equally interested as to why Bracus would have been in close enough proximity to know that the Princess had been abused.

“I do not have a plausible explanation, but I had a feeling of foreboding...”

“One day past?” President Bowen asked.

Bracus nodded.

Bowen palmed his chin thoughtfully, bringing it over the front of his face and rubbing back and forth in irritation while Bracus waited.

“I cannot dismiss the relevance of that. I remember very well your intuition saving us during the fragment conflict.”

The silence drew out.

Finally, Bowen said, “Take half the Band, and extract her.”

Bracus swung around to leave. “Goodman,” Bowen called after him.

Bracus turned, his body illuminated by the early morning light filtering in through the cave's entrance.

“Keep the casualties at zero if you can.”

“Yes, President Bowen.” His chin nearly brushed his sternum in a deep formal nod.

Bracus jogged outside the cave where Matthew waited upon his saddled mount, his eyebrows raised in question.

“He agrees.”

Matthew's shoulders settled into a relieved posture.

“We must gather four members and acquire the Princess.”

“Including us?”

Bracus nodded. “Yes, we must keep a contingent here in our absence. There have been sightings of the fragment.”

Bracus knew that the fragment lurked around the perimeters of the clans, searching for lone females. It would not happen, had not happened during Bracus’s time. He was ever vigilant in securing his clan's safety.

Matthew brought him back from his thoughts. “Let us take our leave and alert the others.”

Bracus mounted his horse, stroking the animal's side. Briar Rose was a fast ride. He felt as if they were of one body.

****

Bracus made careful selections. Philip would accompany him, of course, and Jack would stay with Lillian as he would be too much in his head to fight.

He looked at each of the faces and called out, “Philip, Stephen, Matthew, and Joseph.”

Matthew gave Bracus a hard look. “Captain Goodman, do you think only five is wise? Did the President not say—”

“He did. But,” and Bracus held up a finger, “I am not comfortable leaving the clan with only two of the Band.”

Philip looked sharply at him, his hand shielding the sunlight from his eyes. “Do you have... a...”

“Yes. I am disquieted on both fronts. We need to rescue the Princess and defend the clan while the majority of the Band is not here.” Bracus looked at each upturned face.

“We mustn’t return to a compromised security. This is the only way I can leave and have my heart stay within my breastbone.”

The Band laid their fists over their own hearts, and Bracus was moved by their loyalty.

He dismounted, and a lad of about ten and three years took Briar Rose. Bracus spoke to the boy. “Please give her the oats and only one cube of sugar else you will rot her teeth out of her head!” He smiled to soften the admonition. That boy took very good care of his mount, who looked upon him quietly as if she understood she would receive a treat.

He slapped her on her hindquarters, making it a long caress at its end. Briar Rose neighed softly at him as she was led away to the stable.

There was much to do. Bracus gathered up his weapons and a fresh change of tunic for the journey, storing a soft, cotton blanket with a tight weave. What else? Ah! He grabbed his flask, filling it with salt. It would not have done to forget that. That reminded him to go to Evelyn and see how she fared with the hot water.

Bracus approached the cistern. Evelyn gave him her charming smile, her hair tied with a single, blue satin ribbon.

“Captain.” She curtsied.

“Evelyn, how fare you?”

“Very well this day.” She smiled through platinum hair which escaped its binding.

He smiled and held up his flask, which she frowned at. Bracus raised his eyebrows.

“Is it the flask lined with duck?”

He nodded, and she sighed with relief. “Good. This will need to be very hot to dissolve the salt and needs to be shaken about like this,” she mimed twirling the whole lot of it, “to keep the salt from settling at the bottom and hardening like the clay beneath our feet.”

Bracus looked down at the dirt floor of his clan and agreed. It was heavily trod upon and acted almost like the cobblestone paths and roads he had seen.

He grabbed the flask away from her, and she held on, not letting go until he gave her a good tickle. Finally, she surrendered, clutching her ribs and giggling as he captured his prize. It held the key to the penetration of the sphere.

The sphere that held the special female, his female his mind whispered. His heart sped in anticipation of rescuing her. For that was what it now was. It was no simple acquisition mission. Not that it ever had been simple. He now had her safety to secure as well. Who preyed upon her? And where were her protectors?

Bracus said goodbye to Evelyn and strode to Briar Rose. The lad, Jonathan, gently held the bridle, mindful of her mouth. Bracus grabbed the reigns, tossing them over her neck. He stuffed one foot in the stirrup and heaved his body on the saddle, settling in comfortably.

The Band looked at Bracus, and he looked at those he left behind. They would be the protectors in their comradesʼ absence. It should be sufficient, he told himself. But his gut churned, and his intuition flared to life, whispering to him it was not a perfect solution.

They nudged their horsesʼ sides, and the great beasts sprang to life, taking the path they had trod so often before. It led outside the clan gates and into the forest.

CHAPTER 19

Clara clutched Sarah in her arms. Neither woman wanted to say goodbye. Finally, Sarah pulled away and looked into Clara's face. “You are doing what is right, Princess.”

“Do not call me thus. I do not deserve the title.”

“Clara, our People do not wish for your death. And that is what this would be if you stayed.” Sarah’s finger traced first Clara's fat lip then the swollen lump that made her eye a fraction of its normal size.

Clara sighed. “I am glad that you think so highly of me. It will take some doing for me to share your esteem.”

“It may not be as long as you think, once things settle here...”

“Or if they do not?” Clara said, anger slipping into her tone.

“We will not revisit this conversation. It is circular, as well you know.”

Clara did.

Charles said, “We must go.”

The women looked at him, sighing. Clara nodded.

Sarah and Charles embraced each other and she said, “Take care of her, Charles.”

He looked insulted. “You know that I will.”

“I must say the words.”

Charles laid his hand on her shoulder, looking down into her earnest face. “I know. We are all on edge. We will see you again sometime.”

“Yes, sometime,” Sarah said sadly.

Clara ran to her again, skirt pouring behind her, all but flinging herself in Sarah's arms. “Do not weep for me. There will not be one day that I do not think of you and all that you have been to me.”

“And I, you,” Sarah said with a voice choked by emotion.

Charles separated them and pulled her out of Sarah's vestibule.

****

Clarence saw Charles's tall form and that of the Princess in her royal attire and fought his emotions. He was the main guard at the intersection of the trade tunnel and their sphere, and he felt derelict in his duties. Yet, after Charles had explained the Princessʼ plight, he felt honor-bound to assist them.

And as she drew near, the evidence of the violence done to her stood out in stark relief. Her glorious eyes, usually filled with fire and good humor, were now tight with anxiety, and one of them almost swollen shut. Prince Frederic should be put out of everyone’s misery, Clarence thought, not for the first time.

“Greetings, Princess.” Clarence bowed low.

“Please Clarence, Clara is fine. The Queen is not here to notice.”

Clarence contained his expression of shock as the light grew brighter at this junction of the sphere.

However, Clara noticed some of the dismay he could not contain and self-consciously covered her face in shame with a small hand.

Charles took her hand away. “It is I who should be ashamed that I could not aid you. Not you. Never you.”

“Princess, Frederic is less than a man for having hurt you,” Clarence added.

“I could do nothing, and that is what shames me, not the beating.”

They heard the hissing at the same moment and looked as the tunnel seams released steam to the Outside. That happened at the top of each hour. And sure enough, the time piece that hung, suspended from its copper housing, clanged two chimes, the gears moving almost soundlessly below the crystal.

“The hour draws near for my replacement to relieve me.”

Charles was already searching through his knapsack and finally came out with a small crystal vial with cork for a cap.

The liquid gleamed. Charles also extracted a decanter.

Clarence raised his brows.

“Wine. We shared a glass before you saw us through the first milepost.”

“Clever.”

“I thought so.”

“Oh! You two, you make me nervous. Get on with it.”

They looked at Clara. Her hands were white with tension, their self-congratulation lost in the gravity of the circumstance.

Humor disappearing, Charles solemnly poured a small amount from the wine decanter into a flask and handed it to Clarence, who took it and brought it to his lips, downing all of it.

Giving it back to Charles, he asked, “How long?”

“I do not know, but soon.”

Clarence nodded and sat upon the chair beside the small table. Upon it was the ledger of the comings and goings of all who passed to and from the Kingdom of Ohio.

Clara and Charles stared at Clarence. His eyelids looked heavy. Finally, they drooped closed, and Charles approached him, catching him as he slipped from the chair. “Clarence, Clarence, wake up!”

The twilight drug had worked. Now Clarence was safe from prosecution, the blame placed squarely on their shoulders.

There was no return from their actions.

****

They moved quickly through the tunnel. There would be a rest station only a mile ahead, but Charles wished for distance. They needed to arrive at the least-heavily traveled part of the tunnel, then use the salt mixture to penetrate the sphere wall.

Clara gasped for breath, the clothes she wore a hindrance, the corset constricting her breathing. The crown gleamed like a living thing atop her head.

Charles had stopped to allow a brief rest with water. They guzzled the lot of it like a found mirage in the desert.

“I am so tired,” Clara said, dangerously close to complaining.

“It is not much further, Clara,” Charles replied in a voice calmer than he felt.

He drew her body into the circle of his arms, and she gradually stilled, wrapping her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest. “Thank you for coming with me. I feel safer with you. And thank you for not hating me.”

Charles pulled back, looking down into her injured face. “I could never hate you. Do not say such. You cannot help who you were born to. We are righting an injustice.”

Charles was not entirely convinced that she believed him.

They replaced the glass bottles of water in the knapsacks. Charles checked his timepiece, thinking that Clarence's replacement would arrive at three o'clock, and they needed to breach the sphere at the same time.

Ten minutes hence.

He grabbed Clara's hand, and they hurried on.

****

Bracus rode hard. The Band flanked him, and Briar Rose was a sleek machine beneath him, her breath labored but steady. As the trees thinned on either side and the path narrowed, Bracus slowed, pressing his thighs gently into her sides. Briar Rose slowed to a trot, then a walk, stopping as the crest of the hill came into view.

The Band dismounted, leading the horses to a small stream flowing along the forest’s border. They drank greedy gulps, their sides heaving from the fifteen-mile ride.

Philip came to stand beside Bracus, putting one hand up to shield his eyes as he looked at the sun, ascertaining its position in the sky. “Mayhap two hours past noon.”

“No, I say near three.” Philip leveled a look at Bracus.

Stephen sighed. “We do not have time for sibling rivalry about the time, Captain.”

Bracus did not need to be reminded of his duties and turned his penetrating stare to Stephen, who threw up his hands and stalked away.

Tempers were short.

Bracus knew much depended on the success of this mission. He sighed, turning to Philip. “We let the horses have their fill and tether them here.” Bracus indicated the pole they had fashioned outside the forest perimeter.

Philip grinned, giving Bracus's shoulder a hard clap.

Matthew approached the pair, his solemn expression unchanged as always. “What is next?”

Bracus outlined the strategy to Joseph, Philip, Matthew, and Stephen. Matthew asked thoughtful questions, but it was Joseph who asked the most intelligent one. “What if she is guarded?”

“We assumed until most recently that she would be under heavy guard because of her stature within the hierarchy of the kingdom. Now, we are not sure what is happening.” Bracus shrugged.

Philip said, “It is best for preparedness. Let us assume that she will be under heavy guard.”

“Our females would be!” Stephen scoffed.

“That is our way, our necessity, but sphere-dwellers...” Joseph trailed off with disdain.

“We will have answers soon enough. Let us keep our speculations and curiosities in the back of our minds. We need to be cognizant of the dangers,” Bracus said.

They leaned over the dirt map of approach Bracus had outlined, and then stood, straightening their posture. Philip rotated his massive neck, the muscles bunching and releasing with the movement. Joseph placed one of his hands on the opposite elbow, stretching the arm behind his head, then doing the same for the opposing side.

The Band was restless.

They were ready.

CHAPTER 20

Clara could see the rest stop just ahead, nothing more than a distended crescent along the sphere wall. It afforded a bench, a towel, and a spigot fed by the underwater copper piping that had been laid by the Guardians over a hundred years past.

As she and Charles approached, Clara was grateful for the sight of the slender, copper pipe, its goose neck posture a welcome view.

“It will be divine to have another spot of water,” Clara said gratefully. Her sides burned, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Charles nodded, gaining his bearings as he looked Outside. Everything looked as it always did. The Great Forest was familiar. Turning, he dug for the water bottles again, and filling them, he saw that the cleanse had been recent. The water from the spigot was still chilled.

Clara accepted her water with a smile and careful not to gulp, consumed about half. The glorious water slid down her throat like a salve.

Vaguely, Clara became aware of approaching footsteps, but was unconcerned since they came from the neighboring kingdom. It would be at least another hour before additional guards were sent to see why Clarence was in a sleep from which he could not wake. And what of it? She and Charles would be well and away Outside.

Clara felt the first stirring of excitement swell inside her. Even as the circumstances were dire, it would still fulfill her fondest wish: to see the Outside.

Charles set his water down, concern riding his face. “I do not like this.”

“It is fine, just people traveling on trade day.”

“But we must concoct a deception and dispatch them immediately. We cannot afford to appear...”

“We will not. Do not worry.”

Charles looked down at her face, and she squeezed his arm, the brushed cotton of his shirt a familiar texture beneath her palm.

The group rounded the corner, and Clara's heart fell to her feet. It was Prince Frederic and his royal guard.

****

Bracus and the others lined up at the swell of the hill where the forest met the open valley, quivers filled and riding high on their muscular backs, the bows strung at their sides.

It was some distance, but he thought he could make out the tunnel leading from the main sphere, the place that the sphere-dwellers used to trade goods with one another and to travel.

Philip turned to him. “Why do we go here? Should we not acquire her at her chamber? That is where you have seen her before.” His face was set in puzzled, hard angles.

Bracus shook his head. “No, we enter at the place that has the least of them.” He pointed to a point one-third from where the main body of the sphere met the travel tunnel. Steam escaped in lazy spirals. “We will infiltrate here.” He unsheathed an arrow, pointing to a place that bowed out slightly from the tunnel.

Matthew summarized the plan. “We will enter there, retrace our steps, overtake their lone guard, and enter the main body.”

Bracus nodded.

Stephen said, “We may meet resistance.”

“Yes,” Joseph said. “But Bracus has said we will escape from her chamber, and that they would be reluctant to follow, being too busy with filling the hole we will create.” He held up his flask with the salt mixture. Each member had one. Things might occur out of the scope of their expectations. Better to be prepared.

Joseph was of sound mind. They all were.

Bracus nodded. Time to be about it. The Band carefully looked about them, and Bracus gave the special call. The war call.

The shrill, ringing tone carried on the light breeze like music on the wind.

CHAPTER 21

“Well, well... my little Princess and her friend are here. How convenient for me,” Prince Frederic said, a knowing smile overtaking his face.

Charles pulled Clara behind him with a firm hand on her wrist.

Clara told herself that they were doing nothing wrong, that the Prince knew what they were about. She had told him they traveled this day for trading with the Kingdom of West Virginia. But his face... his face told a different tale.

“Did you think me so stupid that I would not check on your plans? Your travel plans with this fool,” he said in a voice that shook with rage.

Charles stiffened.

Clara tried to step around Charles to address the prince, but Charles said, “Do not.”

“Prince Frederic, you knew of the Princess's plans to trade this day. What has provoked your ire?”

Clara bunched her hand in the fabric of Charlesʼ shirt, the heat of his body seeping into hands that had grown cold.

“We left a sentry behind,” Prince Frederic said as explanation.

Clara's thoughts turned to Clarence. One of the Prince's guard must have come upon Clarence.

Clara, once so adept at containing her expression, had allowed some of what she was feeling to show on her face.

The Prince smiled. “I see by your expression you understand what I mean. Search them.” He waved a dismissive hand in their direction.

The salt.

Charles's thoughts raced. How could he extradite them from this situation? Obviously, the sentry had come upon Clarence and communicated this to the Prince. And although he may not exactly know their plan, he must assume it did not include him or the kingdom that Frederic coveted.

Prince Frederic had four guards with him.

Charles knew he must protect Clara at all costs. He gave over the knapsack to the guard. The hilt of a hidden dirk lay at the small of his back. The element of surprise might be enough. He had been in training these many years to eventually be in the royal guard. He would need every ounce of that training now.

****

Prince Frederic approached Clara slowly, a shark testing the waters. She stayed behind Charles. The guards ransacked their things.

One of the guards lifted the flask. Opening it, he gave it a sniff, moving his palm back and forth over the top.

He lifted his head. “Salt, Your Highness.”

Prince Frederic came very near Charles and Clara. Charles’s eyes followed each step. “Now what, pray tell, might you want with salt? Diluted salt at that?” His eyes narrowed.

“To breach the sphere is to be executed, as you are aware, Princess.”

He looked her over very carefully, taking in her royal attire and her crown.

“Very wise to wear your proper royal garb. But it will not save you, for I know what you are about. Your costume did not fool me.”

And with that, he reached his hand out, wrapping it around Clara's wrist, moving the bones together within the steel band of his grip.

Charles shouted, “No!” He released her other wrist. Charles smashed the flat of his palm in the Prince's face, and blood sprayed in a graceless arc.

He did not hesitate, grabbing the dirk from the small of his back, slashing in a tight, backhanded arc toward the neck of the closest guard as the other guard grabbed his free arm. The first guard lay upon the ground, his mortal wound spilling his lifeblood upon the dirt floor of the tunnel. Charles grappled with the guard who has hold of his weaponless arm and buried the dirk in his upper chest. Staggering back, hand on the hilt, the guard gave a surprised, wide-eyed glance at Charles, who dismissed him. His full attention shifted to the remaining two guards. He was now without the dirk.

“I think we shall have some sport. Guards, detain this man and make him watch while I teach my betrothed the lessons herein.”

Clara struggled in earnest, knowing the beating she had suffered would pale in comparison to what she was afraid he meant.

Frederic shoved Clara down to the dirt floor, where she landed on her back, the wind whooshing from her lungs. She struggled to get up. Her corset stays were like unyielding bones that stymied her progress.

He slapped her so hard across the face that her vision dimmed and an impenetrable fog clouded her head. She was vaguely aware of Charles struggling with the other guards. She heard the meaty sounds of his fist connecting with their flesh. But the prince was a distraction as he lay atop her, lifting the hem of her dress to her knees, trying to work it higher.

He meant to rape her with Charles as witness.

Clara bucked and fought.

He struck her again, pinning her wrists above her head with one of his hands, unlacing his breeches with the other. Clara lost all semblance of sanity, screaming wildly for Charles, blood trickling from her nose.

****

“Did you hear that?” Matthew asked the others.

Bracus nodded, changing his speed from jogging to sprinting. They moved toward the sphere tunnel in a lethal wall of menace, throat slits fully open in deep red slashes of flesh against their throats. Arriving outside the slightly bulbous outcropping of the sphere tunnel, they were not able to believe the sight that greeted them.

Bracus's breath caught in his lungs. A man lay atop the Princess, undoing his breeches with one hand while she screamed for someone and struggled to free herself. But even Bracus could see she was no match for the one who rode her.

Philip growled low in his throat. “Gather the flasks!”

Bracus nodded, shouting, “All of them! Throw everything on my command.”

“Now!” Bracus's shout penetrated the interior of the sphere.

****

Charles was prone on all fours surviving a well-placed kick to the ribs, crawling to help Clara when she screamed for him, the plea a stab to his heart. The abhorrent prince was trying to have his way with her. He must reach her. A powerful yell sounded from Outside.

Prince Frederic froze on top of Clara, his undergarment a thin barrier between himself and the Princess he wished to defile. Looking over the top of her head, he saw men, huge men, like the rumored Vikings of his ancestry. The gills in their necks looked like slashes from a knife, opening and closing with their breathing.

Charles and the guards were transfixed when water hit the sphere. A moment passed with the liquid cascading down the outside, hissing and smoking. A tear formed, and the fresh air of the Outside reached their lungs for the first time.

Clara was in a dim fog, her dress about her hips, the Prince poised above her when she saw a foot connected with his jaw. He flew several feet away from her. She lay stunned, a dull ache rooting her shoulders in the awkward position above her head as she watched the scene unfold.

Huge men flooded into the confines of the tunnel, working without mercy on the remaining guards, slitting their throats and dumping their bodies to the ground like garbage. The one who lay on his back with a hilt sticking out of his chest like an exclamation point breathed shallowly while one guard came upon him, twisting the hilt while he screamed in agony. Finally, the man removed it and slit that guard's throat, turning his head to look at Clara while simultaneously wiping the bloodied blade on the guard's clothing. It was him, Clara thought with a shudder, the savage who frightened her.

He gave her a grim smile and walked toward where she lay. Her breath came in large gasps. She was frozen to the ground, unable to move. She would die here, surrounded by savages on the dirt floor of the tunnel.

She craned her neck. Her vision swam, and she saw Charles being approached by two savages, their thick thigh muscles bunching as they squatted in front of him.

She screamed, not caring for her own safety but thinking only of him, “Spare him! He is my friend. Please, spare him...” she cried in a pathetic whisper through a wash of tears.

A fierce face loomed in front of her vision. It was the savage she had seen through the sphere wall, the one who looked upon her with tenderness, as he did now.

“Fear not, Princess. No harm will come to you.” Bracus helped her arms down to her sides and lowered her dress. His expression was one of contained rage as his gaze wandered to Frederic, who lay unconscious beside her.

Her head swiveled back to Charles. Two savages knelt beside him, awaiting their leader’s command. Her eyes met Charles's, and he hung his head, realizing that their fate was in the hands of the savages.

Bracus looked down at the Princess, and the black spot in his heart spread like spilled ink as he looked upon her injuries, which led his gaze to the large male who lay breathing a few feet away. He knew in his guts that this was the male who had committed the first abuse. The other, who lay on the ground near Stephen and Joseph, looked as though he had defended her.

“Bracus.” Philip stared down at him, but his eyes strayed to the Princess.

“We must go. Let us dispatch these two and take our leave quickly, before more arrive.”

Clara lifted a trembling arm, shaking from lack of circulation and laid it on Bracus's forearm, her touch light as a feather.

He looked down at the small hand, fascinated by its size, but his expression remained stoic. This female was killing him.

The Princess said, “Please, I beg you. Do not harm him. He is my dearest friend. Take me, and leave him, please.”

“Clara no! You know not what their intent is!” Charles shouted, trying to get to his feet, but the guards held him in position.

“Do not harm her! She has done nothing,” Charles said to the group at large.

Matthew replied with a smirk, “That is not our intent, sphere-dweller.”

Charles and Clara both heard the note of disdain in his voice. He looked at them as if insulted that they would think he would harm the Princess who lay vulnerable and injured at their feet.

Stephen looked down at Charles. “It was our plan to take her, not you. It was happenstance that you were here... and the others.” He shrugged as though their deaths had been collateral damage, and not of great importance.

Bracus knew that time was short. He stood. Bending over, he hauled the Princess to her feet.

Clara was suddenly on her feet, free from her horrible position on the ground. But the movement had been too fast, and she swayed. As she felt her vision narrowing, her body filled up with heat. It began at her feet and rushed to her head. She knew she would faint.

“No you don't, Princess,” the savage said, swooping her right off the ground. Clara wasn't sure this was an improvement as her face lolled against his huge chest and his arms folded her into his body as if she were the size of a child. To him, she probably was.

“Do not take her!” Charles yelled, struggling against the guards.

Bracus gave Stephen a terse nod, and he slammed his fist into Charles’s temple. His body slumped to the floor in a heap.

“No!” Clara screamed, struggling in the grip of the savage, but to no avail. He had terrible strength and stood immune to her movements.

Suddenly, the savage did not trust what was in her face. “Be still. You needed rescuing.”

Clara cringed back from him in fear, and Bracus's eyes narrowed. Her response did not make sense. Why was she so afraid?

“Cease this. We mean you no harm,” Bracus told her.

She stopped and looked up into Bracus's face. His intense hazel eyes were warm with sincerity, and it was all too much.

Clara slumped into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 22

Bracus looked down at the Princess’s still form and couldn't believe she was finally in his arms. He checked his expression to escape notice. She lay so light in his embrace. He hugged her tighter to him, and her head rolled against his chest.

He looked over at the large male with yellow hair who still lived. Rage shimmering within Bracus. Killing the man now would be best.

He looked at Philip, who nodded and prepared to land the killing blow, but Stephen interrupted, “Do not.” Philip's hand hesitated. “He looks to be someone of importance.”

They took in his regal attire, heavy gold rings, and thin band atop his head.

Bracus made a noise in the back of his throat. What a loathsome man. “He does not deserve to live.”

“I agree. But, if we wish for our negotiations to move forward, killing a person of importance may not assist our cause,” Stephen said.

He was right, but there was something primitive in Bracus that wished to end the life of he who had used violence against the Princess.

He wavered.

Finally, he walked over to the man and ground his heel into his groin with crushing force. A low moan escaped Prince Frederic.

Bracus smiled. That had felt good.

The Band laughed. It would be some time before he tried to take a female by force again.

The Band silently made their way out of the tear in the sphere wall.

Joseph turned around once they were out. “Look upon it.” He pointed to the slit.

They watched it begin to repair itself. The Evil Ones had thought of a contingency for a sphere breach. They wished for no intermingling of the two Peoples. Well, Bracus thought, they would have a surprise.

The Band closed in around him and kept their senses alert

*

They reached the forest border, and relief washed over Bracus.

They mounted their horses, and with the evening meal almost upon them, they found a mossy area by the stream and lay the Princess down upon it. She barely stirred. Bracus did not like the deep shadows beneath her eyes and the pallor of her wounded face. He brought out his knapsack and rifled through it until he came upon a blanket, the one he had chosen especially for its tightly woven properties. He spread it over her. As it was made for him, he was able to take the excessive length and use part of it to bundle up as a makeshift pillow.

The Band drew together and looked down at her.

Stephen spoke first. “She looks weak.”

“She is, dolt.” Philip frowned, massive hands pegged on his hips.

“It would be interesting to find out what her intentions were this day. Where were they going? Were they traveling with that guard?” Joseph reasoned out loud.

Bracus shook his head. “I do not think so. Did you notice the one who was committing violence against her? His clothing was different. They are not from her home sphere.”

Bracus watched the slight rise and fall of her chest, having never laid eyes on a woman this small. She was very close in stature to young Evelyn who tended the well. But how brave she had been! With huge, strange males all around, she had pleaded for the life of her friend. He looked more closely at her. She wore the strange clothes again, and a bejeweled crown sat upon her head. He shook his head.

“So frail.” Matthew bent down close to her still form. He picked up her hand, the full size of it taking up only his palm.

“Don't touch her.” Bracus spoke to Matthew in a low, clear voice.

Matthew looked at him, carefully putting Clara's hand down where it had been, his eyebrows rising as he straightened to his full height.

“Why, Captain?”

Bracus realized his mistake too late. He did not want any male touching her. “I do not wish her to awaken and find your ugly mug above her.”

The Band laughed at the joke, and the tension drained like water through a sieve.

Philip clapped Matthew on the back. “Come, let us find food. It has been a long day, and I, for one, wish to end it with a full belly and the stars above me.”

Bracus chose Joseph to watch over Clara, instructing him to give the alert if she awoke. He nodded solemnly. Joesph understood better than the others because he wished for Anna to love him. He would be more careful with this new female.

Bracus walked away. But the need to stay by the Princess's side was an unbearable pull that no amount of shaking would loosen.

CHAPTER 23

Clara opened her eyes slowly. She was cold. She did not know at first where she lay. A damp, lightweight blanket covered her from foot to chin, and she discovered one lay under her head as well. She cautiously turned her head to the left. The huge savage lay beside her. At her right was the other savage, the one who made her heart race with trepidation.

Her mind flooded with memories of the last moments before she fainted: Charles struck down, the guards killed, Prince Frederic on the floor, unconscious. That they had not killed her was a mystery. They probably wanted details about her kingdom. They would not get them.

It was the least she could do.

Clara removed her crown, laying it behind her head, symbolic of her dislike of being a Princess. It could stay where it lay. She sat up quietly and looked at the sky. The stars glittered above her like diamonds in black velvet. Taking a deep breath, she was assaulted by the dryness of the air, cool on her lungs. She stifled an urge to cough. The air was so strange Outside. The Record Keeper had been mistaken.

She breathed, and she lived.

Her people did not need to be confined to the sphere.

Clara looked at the savage who lay beside her, his chest rising and falling with each breath. Her eyes traveled to his gills, and they fascinated her. They flowed apart and together with synchronicity.

She shook her misgivings away. She need not dally. Now was the time for escape. She spied her knapsack at the base of her bed and quietly crawled to the end of the bedding, careful not to rustle or make noise. She looped the knapsack over one shoulder as she stood, then round the other. She backed away.

As she was turning, she noted that there were five males, all the biggest she had ever seen in her life. She knew that they were humanoid, but not entirely. With the gills and the hugely muscled physique, she was not absolutely certain what they were.

She moved away slowly, gaining distance, placing her feet in areas where the brush was least and she could traverse it more silently. She looked above her, noting the full moon, so bright outside the sphere it hurt her eyes. The air a bitter testimony to her freedom.

Clara traveled, wishing all the while that she could stop and appreciate finally having escaped to the Outside. As she walked, she made her way to the forest border. She saw the sphere beneath her and thought of Charles. What would be his fate? It was more her fault than she liked to admit.

Tears burned unshed while her face throbbed. Could she do nothing for anyone? She was by herself, having escaped Prince Frederic and the Queen's abuse. But what of food, shelter, and clothing? She sighed, moving forward.

Feeling thirsty, she disentangled her knapsack. Lowering it, she squatted and searched for the water bottle she remembered Charles had filled before the guards and Frederic had come upon them. She shuddered, remembering. He would have raped her had it not been for the savages' timely interruption. A momentary pang of guilt seized her, but she would not let it overwhelm her. She needed to escape them too. Charles's sacrifice would not be for nothing.

She gulped the cool water down, relishing its sweetness, placing her palm on the rough bark of the tree, feeling its texture for the first time. So many new tactile experiences.

Clara became aware of a noise behind her and immediately thought of an animal or some such. The Record Keeper told tales of large animals in the wilderness of the Outside.

Clara whirled around, her skirt swirling around her legs. Before her stood the savage. Clara's heart stopped in her throat. A look of rage stood on his face. Clara did not hesitate. She turned and ran.

She heard his pursuit and realized fleeing might be futile, but she would not just stand there like prey to be taken.

Branches grabbed and tore at her clothing as she ran. Her shoes were a hindrance. The corset bound her lungs.

Crashing behind her, the savage came.

When she felt she could run no more and the breath burned in her throat, his strong arms clasped her from behind, and he lifted her off her feet. She kicked and flailed, trying futilely for release, but his arms were bands of brass, unyielding and hard.

“Be still! I mean you no harm!” He spoke urgently by her ear.

Clara stilled. It was no use. She could not escape the Prince and his guard. She could not escape the savages. Her fate was sealed. She was not her own mistress but the mistress of others.

****

Bracus looked down at the Princess as she struggled. Good Lord, was she a fighter! For such a small female, how she thrashed about. Bracus worked to subdue her without hurting her. It was harder than it seemed. Finally, he wrapped his arms over the top of hers from behind and folded her against his chest. She slowed her struggles when he told her to, but he did not trust that she would cooperate. He cautiously released her, and she turned on him, furious. Those beautiful eyes flashed, one still bruised and swollen, a new mark layered on the old.

Clara turned on the savage, angry with him for capturing her, angry at the circumstance, angry about everything.

“Let me go,” she hissed, her bravado slipping.

“I cannot,” he answered, spreading his arms wide.

Somehow, this was not how Bracus had envisioned their first meeting.

“I have escaped the sphere and wish to be free. I do not want to be forced anymore.” She looked around her and became aware that the remaining savages had subtly appeared in the holes between the trees. Her anxiety grew. She felt claustrophobic, their presence a reminder that a new prison might await her.

“We mean you no harm. We wish to establish a peace between our peoples.”

“So you kidnap me.” Clara raised a eyebrow, looking at each savage. Their eyes glittered in the shattered moonlight. “You rip a hole in the sphere...”

“How else were we to establish communication?” Bracus asked logically.

Clara crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes, feigning bravery she did not feel. “Peaceably?”

Bracus was silent. This was not going as expected. “I am Bracus.”

“I am Clara.” She looked at each savage in turn. If they meant to kill her, they would have done so already. Her eyes rested on the savage who had been outside her sphere. She was not sure what role he played, but she felt least confident about him.

“We need you to accompany us. Our President has a proposal...”

“Your president?”

“Our leader.” Philip stepped forward, and Clara automatically stepped back, which made Bracus itch to touch her. He clenched his hands by his sides to halt the action.

They had no King? Clara wondered.

Bracus saw her expression and, interpreting it correctly, answered. “We have a different hierarchy, Princess.”

“You don't seem like savages...” Except for the clothes, or lack thereof, she thought. But she, wisely, kept that to herself.

Bracus was offended. “We are not savages. We are the Clan of Ohio. And these men and myself... we are the Band, the protectors of our clan.”

Clara covered her mouth. The what? She looked up at him, willing herself not to laugh, but they all wore serious expressions.

The savage who frightened her came forward, and she cringed back.

Bracus, seeing her expression, looked that way and saw nothing but the Band. What frightened her so?

He opened his mouth to inquire when she spoke. “What do you mean to do with me?”

“Just a meeting with our President for a possible negotiation. Then you may return.”

She never wanted to return, not as long as the Queen ruled or Frederic held her captive under the sham of a marriage for alliance.

“But first, I must ask: who has laid hands upon you?”

She had no idea what he was talking about.

He touched his own face, indicating her injuries, and she was reminded of the beating.

Automatically, she replied, “I fell, in the Royal Manse, two days past.”

He stepped closer, and she fought not to move away.

“I know the abuse of a hand and the difference between that and clumsiness. You did not fall,” he stated with surety.

Clara said nothing. By sheer habit and force of will, she held her tongue. She was ashamed by her face, by not being able to defend herself. At least she would not admit it all to this stranger. Bracus, her mind supplied.

Bracus wished to run his hand over her injured face. Why would she not admit the truth? There was much here he needed to understand. There would be time. Somehow, in some way he could not explain, she reminded him of Anna, but not near so timid. The Princess had a fire inside her that burned bright. He smiled at her upturned face.

She smiled tentatively back, her anger beginning to leak away. She did not feel harm from him. Clara felt she was near expert in determining if someone meant to hurt her.

He turned, making his way ahead of her, and she followed. Her future lay uncertain before her, and she must follow it where it led, even if the outcome was a mystery. He held his hand out, and she placed hers within it. He made her feel safe, she was not sure why. She turned to look behind her. The savage she did not trust was at her heel, dark intent shadowing his face. She shuddered, walking on.

The guard bided his time. The Princess—Clara, he corrected—held the hand of his Captain. She was so close he could have reached out and moved his palm through her hair, which had come undone during all the transit. But he knew that time was his friend. And soon enough, he would have his chance to have her all to himself, protecting his clan from the dangerous females of the sphere.

****

They traveled back the way they had come. The horses came into view. Briar Rose appeared silver in the moonlight with a spattering of a darker color appearing along her back and sides. She shone like a faded star, and Clara was drawn to her as a moth to flame.

Bracus released her hand reluctantly as she approached the horse, and he warned her, “Not from behind, Princess. A horse likes to see a person's approach.”

“Clara,” she corrected absently.

She put her hand right up underneath the animal's nose and turned to Bracus. “May I pet it?”

“Her,” he corrected. “Briar Rose.”

“From the fairy tale?”

He looked surprised. “I have heard such.”

“Mayhap we have some of the same literature.”

“Much of what we had was lost.” Bracus shrugged.

Philip added, “In the Time when Ash Covered the Earth, we lost many things of importance.”

Stephen interrupted harshly. “It is not important. Survival is important. That is all that matters now.”

Matthew lifted his shoulders in clear dismissal, and Joseph said, “It is a hard thing, survival. But if happiness and purpose could be obtained as well, I would be keen for them.”

The group of men nodded, and Clara felt that their two peoples were not as divergent as she had presumed.

Reaching out, she touched the great horse's nose. It felt like crushed velvet beneath her hand.

She drew her hand away and looked at Bracus. “She is so soft.”

As if on cue, Briar Rose neighed quietly, shaking her mane and bumping Clara's hand, an invitation for more petting that made Clara laugh.

Bracus could not get enough of looking at her. Here she was, kidnapped from the only home she had known, with five strange men and a new animal she'd never laid eyes on, beaten, and yet she could enjoy a stolen moment with the horse.

Matthew broke the silent rapport. “Let us be about breaking down camp. We have much to accomplish, and the clan does not need our lengthy absence.”

Matthew was practical, and in this area especially, he was vigilant. They did not need the fragment to come lurking about while they were gone. Normally, five males would be too many to take, but Bracus had felt confident it was required. Now that the acquisition of the Princess was accomplished, he knew he had made the right choice.

CHAPTER 24

Charles groaned and looked about him, his eyes gradually adjusting. He became aware of pandemonium all around him. Guards and civilians alike milled about. Charles sat up, trying to get his bearings.

Clara, Charles thought wildly. Finally, his gaze rested on the tear in the sphere, now but a hazy scar of its former breadth.

She was gone, taken by the savages.

A great pain began in Charles's breastbone and spread like an icy fissure, cracking and infinite. He felt the breath stop in his body.

He had not protected her after all.

She was most assuredly Outside, as was their plan. Not with him, but with savages of unknown intent.

He did not care if he lived. The thought of Clara being in the hands of those creatures... He shook his head to clear it.

Wallowing about in grief at her disappearance would not get her back. He stood on shaky legs. His head felt like a vise held it. He looked down the tunnel, through the throng of people and caught sight of Sarah and Clarence. His heart lightened. Among the three of them, perhaps her rescue would be a possibility.

Sarah and Clarence quickened their strides, coming before him, their sides heaving.

“I ran almost the entire length of the tunnel,” Sarah yelled to be heard over the din.

“I have not much time.” Clarence looked decidedly ill. “The twilight drug that you administered has made me vomit up my internal organs.”

Charles smiled. “You will live another day, my friend.”

Clarence glowered and held his stomach gingerly.

“Where is she? And why, for the love of the Guardian, are you not Outside with her?”

Charles looked about him surreptitiously and noticed the Prince’s guards hovering like flies over a fresh carcass.

Charles pulled his two friends away to the only available space and explained everything: the Prince's forced sexual advance against Clara, the savages breaking in and taking her... everything.

“He tried to rape the Princess?” Clarence’s face wore a look of horror.

Charles nodded.

Sarah looked less surprised. “And the savages? They struck you but took her? Did they mean her harm?”

Charles hung his head. He intended to find out.

“I do not know.”

They looked at the healing tear in the tunnel wall.

“It appears scarred, Charles,” Clarence said. There was no going near it. The Queen's guards crawled all around like ants scurrying on their hill.

“So the rumors are true? It is the salt that tears the fabric of the sphere?”

Charles nodded. “Yes, and the savages were aware of that fact. Nothing permanent, as it was a diluted mixture.”

Sarah's hand trembled as she pushed her hair behind her ear. “What is there to do now?”

“I must escape of my own accord and quickly. They cannot have too great a lead.” But Charles had misgivings. He had seen how they moved and acted, spoke. They were clearly competent travelers and fighters.

“But what of Prince Frederic?” Clarence asked. He spared a glance at the Prince, who was batting away his guard's offers of help, clutching his nether regions as if they would come off without his hold.

“Why does he hold himself thus?” Sarah inquired.

“I am not sure, but it would seem that he may have suffered injury.”

“The savages?” Clarence asked.

“Mayhap. He was not able to finish what he started with Clara and did not harm her in my presence.”

“Yet, you were not conscious for her departure.” Sarah emphasized the last word.

Charles shook his head.

The Prince noticed the three standing apart. Wincing as he walked, he gave up and limped toward them. Charles mastered his expression to not alert the Prince just how much it pleased him he was injured.

“Mr. Pierce!” Prince Frederic shouted, his voice easily swallowed in the tight space of the tunnel with so many people packed together.

“I must speak with you.”

Sarah instinctively stepped behind Clarence. She wished for none of Frederic’s notice.

Charles entertained an elaborate fantasy where the Prince fell clumsily on one of his guardsʼ swords.

Damn, here he was, right before him. Charles's head ached, and his hand was itching to draw the dirk buried in a dead guard's neck.

The image of Clara struggling beneath Frederic was etched forever in his brain.

The Prince leaned forward until their noses almost touched. “You have killed one of my guards,” he began in a furious tone.

Charles smiled, holding up two fingers. “You have more.”

The Prince's rage overtook his face, painting it a red so deep it was nigh unto purple. “You will suffer for that insolence. Queen Ada will allow me whatever I wish.”

“Oh,” Sarah said sweetly, sidling up beside Charles and losing her hard won reticence. Prince Frederic's eyes slid to her, over her body, encased as it was in sky blue velvet.

“I think not, as the rape of the Princess would not be well-received.” She drew her finger upon the flesh of her bosom. His eyes followed. “And you have not the leverage, as the savages have taken Clara, and she is not here for you to wed.” Sarah spoke smugly, her smile alight with the knowledge of his impotence.

Quicker than lightning, he grabbed her wrist, jerking her body against his. “It does not have to be the Princess that I bed. It could be anyone. I was ensuring she understood the life she would lead in my tender care.”

“Release me.” Sarah’s chin jutted out stubbornly.

Clarence intervened. “Prince Frederic, is this the attention you desire?” He looked about him significantly. The people around them paused their hurried conversations. Frederic’s behavior was judged unacceptable in spite of his station.

Prince Frederic exhaled in disgust, pushing Sarah into Clarence, who held her loosely by the shoulders, and turned his attention once more to Charles.

“You and she planned an escape. The guards searched your knapsack and discovered the salt mixture.” He straightened and looked every bit the satiated animal except for the wince when he stood. Charles noted the last with a small stab of joy.

Charles searched the tunnel for any sign of his knapsack. Seeing none, his eyes returned to Prince Frederic. “I do not see my knapsack about.”

The Prince yelled for a guard, and the one at his side jumped. “You there, find the knapsack which belongs to him.” Frederic pointed a finger at Charles. If the guard thought the request was as absurd as Charles did, he did not show it.

Very wise, Charles thought. He must understand the Prince.

Frederic’s attention returned to Charles. “We are at an impasse for now. But know this: I intend to retrieve the Princess, and you will not be part of that plan. Is that understood?”

Sarah spoke again. “What we understand is you do not have leverage of any sort with our Queen. She cares only for the grapes. If you do not recover Clara, there will be no combined kingdom.”

They stared at each other, and Sarah did not back down. Clarence and Charles waited for the Prince to show his violent predisposition, but he clenched and unclenched his fists, glaring at her.

Her words were true. There was no satisfactory rebuttal.

The guard approached, shaking his head.

Charles smiled at the prince, and Frederic shook his head in disgust.

“It does not end it. I will find her, and we will wed.”

“I think you underestimate the savages.”

“No, they underestimate me. Whatever I desire becomes mine.”

“That is yet to be seen, Prince Frederic,” Charles said.

They watched the Prince walk off, the slight limp in his stride noticeable to all.

CHAPTER 25

Clara gazed about her, everything Outside was new, yet old. She had seen much from inside the sphere, but it was surreal to view it in the flesh. She felt the huge beast move beneath her body, a warm and stout presence. Clara kept her hands clenched tightly to the saddle.

Bracus said, “Princess, put your arms about my waist. The horse could throw you.”

Clara was sure that it was not proper for her to touch a man she did not know, but a stumble from Briar Rose made her mind up for her. She latched onto Bracus, and rested her head against his broad back.

Bracus tried not to physically show the Princess how much he enjoyed the contact. But he couldn't help shifting on the horse to put him infinitesimally closer to her embrace.

Clara sighed. She knew she should not feel remotely safe, yet he had not harmed her. She was Outside, and there was nothing she could do for Charles. She frowned slightly. She wished with all her heart she knew what was happening to him right now. However, she needed to persevere. Soon, she may have a life Outside. Perhaps a plan to regain her father's kingdom could be fashioned in a way that he would be proud of.

Clara yawned against Bracus's back just as the sun made its way over the top of the southern mountains. The tangerine glow painted the path with golden light. The rhythm of the horse beneath lulled her, and she felt sleep pulling her under.

Bracus felt Clara's breathing change and knew that she had fallen asleep. He slowed Briar Rose to a halt and her body began to slide away from his. He gently repositioned her in front of him where she fit in the cradle of his arm perfectly. As his right arm held her, he grasped the reins in his left, gently kicking Briar Rose's side and she continued to walk.

Joseph came abreast of him on his steed, a great chocolate beast. “She sleeps. That is good.” He gazed down at her, curled against Bracus's chest.

Bracus looked down upon her, knowing she probably would not have wanted to be held so intimately. But in sleep he could hold her as he wished.

After another hour of riding, Clara’s weight began to numb his arm. At last, the Band reached the clan's gate.

Bracus came alert immediately. People ran around in a panic. He tightened his grip on Clara.

Something was wrong.

He felt the weapons against his horse's flank and was comforted by their presence. His throat slits opened wide to gather oxygen in preparation for the unknown.

Philip galloped up to Bracus's side from his position as rear guard. “What is the trouble here?”

“I do not know, but we had best find out.”

Philip nodded, twirling his finger in a circle above his head. Stephen and Matthew began on opposite ends of the clan's large barrier fence to begin a perimeter reconnaissance. If something were amiss, they would find it. Their horses’ thundering departure was not heard above the noise of the people's panic.

****

The lead guard at the gate, Oliver, ran to Bracus. “Captain Goodman…” he said, not even bothering with a nod. “The girl from the well...”

“Evelyn?” Bracus nearly yelled, and Clara stirred. He kept his hold firm. He would not have her away from him and out of his sight. But he needed to have both hands at the ready.

“Yes, sir.” He wrung his hands. “It appears that she has been taken by the fragment.”

Oh dear Lord, she is but a child, Bracus thought. Dread pooled like rotten meat in his entrails.

Oliver looked at Clara with open curiosity.

“How?” Bracus barked.

Clara opened her eyes and saw that she was in the circle of Bracus's arms. She sat up, feeling ridiculous and groggy. She saw people running. She rubbed her eyes and pushed her hair away from her face. The tie that bound it was long gone.

Bracus kept his arm around Clara, pulling her against his chest as he felt her stiffen. “There is a problem, and I need my hands free, but I need you protected.” He spoke quietly against her ear. “If I let you down, would you stay by my side?”

Clara nodded. She was not interested in another problem, and she felt ill prepared. Her mind was fuzzy. She was tired and hungry and wished to get out of her royal garb, an absurd thing to wear while riding a horse.

Bracus held her arms as she slid down the horse's side. She looked up at him. The bruising of her face was better today, but it made his guts clench to see it. He would never become accustomed to the sight.

Oliver came around the side of the horse to approach Clara, but Bracus said, “No, attend the gate. I will assign someone from the Band to the Princess.”

“Captain... I need...” Joseph began.

Anna, good Lord, the females. If the young girl was taken, who else?

“Yes, go to her now.”

Joseph galloped headlong to the gate. People scurried out of his way.

Philip was the only one left. “Stay with Clara,” Bracus ordered tersely. He must see what had happened to Evelyn... how it happened.

He and Philip looked at each other for a swollen moment then Philip nodded. They needed each other now more than ever.

Bracus kicked Briar Rose's sides, and she galloped to the gate.

To the answers.

****

Bracus all but threw his reins at Jonathan, who caught them deftly, his face grave.

“Captain.”

He was the first person on the inside, he had seen and should know more than Oliver, who had been in no position to leave the gate.

“What has happened to Evelyn? What of the other females?” Bracus barked.

“All are here, sir. It is only Evelyn.” Jonathan shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“How could this happen?” Bracus said, somewhat more gently.

“She went to pick the berries.”

“By herself?”

He shook his head. “Nay, her father accompanied her.”

Bracus closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them, he grasped Jonathan's shoulder, giving it a small shake. “Speak.” He dropped his hand.

Jonathan looked down, a tremor in his voice. “I told her not to go this day. I told her it was safer to pick a day the Band was all here.” Bracus nodded encouragement, and he continued. “But she insisted. You know how she is, stubborn.”

He knew.

“She argued that her father would be with her.” Jonathan’s eyes betrayed his frustration. “And I told her it was not enough. That the fragment was about, that they could be overwhelmed. She would not listen. She never listens. I could have protected her!” he shouted, his fists clenched, the knuckles bleeding to white.

Bracus shook his head. “Did her father protect her?”

“He tried.”

“What of him?”

“Massacred.”

Bracus groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. A male dead, and a precious female gone. Were the fragment so desperate that they would take a female who was not yet ready? He shuddered. They must reclaim her.

He looked down at the angry boy. “You could have done nothing. Do not assume the guilt for this. Her own father died at the hands of the fragment. We will retrieve her.”

He nodded. “When?”

Bracus's thoughts shifted... Clara.

“Today, as soon as we can restore our energy and pack our supplies.”

Clara and Philip approached, he a head and a half taller than she, his huge hands holding his mount's reins, the beast's sides glistening from the travel.

Philip cocked an eyebrow.

“The girl who works the well, Evelyn, has been taken,” Bracus said.

“The wee one?” Phillip asked, using his palm to indicate a height very close to Clara's.

Bracus nodded.

Philip growled out his displeasure, and Clara backed away from him. He sobered, turning to her. “She is but a child...only ten and two years.”

It sounded horrible. She looked at them in confusion. Taken by whom?

Bracus read her unspoken question in her expression. “It is the fragment. They take unprotected females.”

“Who are the fragment, and why do they take your women?” Clara asked.

Philip and Bracus looked at each other.

“What?” Clara put her hands on her hips. She did not wish to be ignorant of danger. Her days of being unprepared were over.

“They belong to no one. They are separate,” Bracus began.

“From whom?”

“The clans,” Philip responded. “All the clans.”

Those answers raise more questions than they answer, Clara thought.

Bracus sighed, He did not have sufficient time to answer. And he did not know if enlightening Clara about the shortage of females at this juncture would help him with her. In fact, seeing the burning intelligence in her eyes... he thought not.

“We must retrieve the girl immediately.” Phillip looked at Bracus. “I will assign Joseph, Stephen, and Matthew here. The others will accompany us.”

Bracus nodded. “Good choice.”

“Joseph will not be worth anything if his mind is upon Anna's welfare.”

“That was my opinion,” Bracus agreed.

Bracus was most comfortable with Matthew and Stephen, his first and second in command. They would guard Clara and be sufficient protection for the clan while the girl was rescued. No one took their people and lived. His gaze wandered to Clara’s battered face, and his heart pounded painfully. Duty tore at him. His feelings for her beat upon him like the wings of a great bird, soft yet insistent.

He looked at her a moment more. “Philip, stay with her. I need to discuss matters with Matthew and Stephen.” He stalked off.

Clara looked at Philip. “What have I done?” She knew that her escape attempt had made him dislike her, but he had still tended to her closely. She determined he was a man of duty and did not subscribe to feelings of mercy.

“It is not you, Princess. It is the circumstance. He must protect the females. He is the Captain of this clan.”

“It is his duty then? He must face this fragment? She was loathe to utter it but plunged forward. “What if he is unable to overcome them?”

Philip looked down at her disdainfully, and she struggled not to move away. These men were so physically intimidating. She stood her ground with an effort. “He will not fail. We are the Band. We do not fail. We succeed.”

Indeed. A small smile formed on her mouth, and Philip looked down at her, first at her lips then at her expression. She was beautiful, he decided. Even underneath the healing injuries, her unkempt hair and strange clothing, he saw a female worth having. But something told him in his gut, that his brother wanted her, and that he would not stand in the way.

“Come.” He took her by the elbow. “Let me introduce you to Lillian and Anna.”

As they walked away together, Clara's thoughts were on Bracus and his intent to leave her with the clan, a group of strangers who lived Outside. But, she did not really know him either. But he had stopped Frederic’s assault upon her. It was he she owed a debt of gratitude to. She was ashamed by her attempt at escape. Clara’s her heart and mind were conflicted. This was not what she and Charles had conspired together, the fruition of which was not entirely of their making.

They approached a small building among several similar ones made of stone with thatched roofs and thick wood doors that had circular windows at face level in odd, convex configurations. Clara immediately loved it. The irregular stones they trod on led to one of the unusual doors flanked by wild roses, their buds dripping of delicious fragrance and shell pink blooms.

A woman lives here.

Clara was reminded of the great hothouses inside the sphere. They contained a vast amount of roses. But without the constant presence of the steam to nurture them, they would be unable to survive.

Clara paused, caressing a delicate bloom, and a thorn pricked her finger. She gasped, putting her finger to her mouth.

Philip frowned. “Let me see, Princess.” He held out his hand.

“It is nothing, really.” She moved away. He caught her hand, turning it over in his huge one.

Philip felt a strange tingling when he touched the Princess's hand. It rushed up his arm in a hot surge, and he let go as if burned.

“What was that?” she whispered.

“I do not know.” He rubbed his hand as if something remained there he wished to remove.

The door opened, and Lillian looked out.

“You should not open your door first, without looking,” Philip said disapprovingly.

Lillian nodded. “Calm yourself, warrior. I know that the Band has returned, and Jack is within.” She gestured behind her as Jack appeared.

Clara looked warily at another member of the Band and noticed how they all looked so much alike, all huge males with the strange gills. The other males looked like the men of her sphere. The woman looked ordinary compared to him. Deep brown hair grazed the swell of her collarbone. She had sapphire eyes and honey-colored skin. It was her ready smile that caused a great, aching sadness in Clara. Lillian reminded her of Sarah. She controlled her expression. Her sadness was not something she wished to reveal to anyone.

She looked back at Philip. The odd expression still rode his face. She remembered the tingling when he’d touched her and wondered at its significance. She put her hand to her chest and looked at Lillian and Jack.

Lillian contained her shock at seeing the Princess’ condition. Who had done this to her face? She knew exactly what Jack must be thinking behind her. The poor waif. She took in the disheveled hair, the ruined dress, her delicate face in various stages of healing. To Lillian, it was obvious that she had suffered more than one beating. She would ask Bracus later. He would know more. For now, she was too polite to inquire.

Her eyes met Philip’s, and he shook his head, rubbing his arm in an odd fashion. Lillian made a decision. She would take care of the Princess while the Band reconvened. She knew they would go after Evelyn. She closed her eyes briefly. She loathed the fragment. They were the only thing that kept the clan from true contentment.

She looked at Clara. “Please, let me help you get settled. You need new clothing, rest and perhaps a hot bath at the springs?”

Jack looked at the sun's position. “One hour more...”

He looked at Philip, who nodded in agreement.

Lillian sighed. “Be off then.” She smiled to soften her remark, and the men laughed. Jack swooped down to land a soft kiss upon her lips, and Lillian pressed her body against his, mingling perfectly for the stolen moment.

Clara looked away, embarrassed. Relationships were very different Outside. She thought she might like it. They had an openness of expression that was sorely lacking in her sphere.

Jack left Lillian, looking back one last time. Philip watched Clara. She looked nervously away, not knowing what to think of it all.

“Come, Princess,” Lillian said.

Clara found her voice. “Please, call me Clara. That is what my friends call me.” When the Queen is not in attendance, she added silently.

“Alright, Clara.” Lillian walked away with the expectation that Clara would follow.

They wound their way through the small cottage. At its back was a small kitchen overlooking a ravine. Clara listened and thought she heard running water.

“What is that sound?”

Lilian raised her eyebrows and stood still listening. She smiled. “It is a wee creek.” She turned and stood before an odd-looking sink with a spigot. Clara looked on in fascination. All the plumbing of the sphere clanked and hissed with the steam-driven machinery, but Lilian turned a strange handle shaped like a T and out flowed a rush of water, frosting the spigot.

“How curious.” Clara reached out to touch the stream of water. Thirst immediately boiled to the surface. Her throat felt parched.

Lillian smiled, fetching a glass off a low hung shelf made of roughened wood, the glass's misshapen thickness sparkling from the dim light that permeated the windowpane.

Clara gulped the water greedily and looked about her, taking in the small house. She spied a looking glass and slowly approached.

Clara immediately regretted it. She looked atrocious. Her dress, once a beautiful turquoise, was a sodden, dirty green, and her hair lay unbound and filthy. She looked away, a high flush coloring her cheeks. She noticed with some relief that her face did not look as terrible as it had. That was something at least.

Lillian saw Clara's discomfort and put on a kettle to heat some water. When it became hot enough, she would stop up the sink and use soap to get the worst of the travel grime cleaned off. Tonight, they would travel to the hot springs, and Clara could soak for an hour and finally tell Lillian all she knew. Although, Lillian had the feeling that Clara was not a woman to divulge things readily.

“How many years are you?” Lillian asked.

“I just celebrated my Day of Birth. Ten and seven years.”

Seventeen years! Good Lord, she was young. Lillian wondered why her eyes held such age.

She set the kettle upon the stovetop. Heating water might take some time, and the President would arrive shortly. It would have to be a tepid cleaning.

Lillian turned. “Let us go to my chamber, and I will fetch you something else to wear.”

Clara nodded, weariness sucking at her. She was so tired her eyes burned, but she must stay awake long enough to clean herself.

She followed Lillian into her bedchamber and thought it lovely. Low ceilings hugged the room: muted cream-colored plaster with heavy, deep mahogany timbers bisecting it. A lone window stood at its center. Dim light softly illuminated a four-poster bed shrouded in a canopy of gauzy ivory material.

Lillian brought out several long skirts and blouses in soft colors.

“You are a tiny thing.” She studiously held up several different garments. “This should fit you. It fit me when I was ten and three years!” She laughed.

Clara asked tentatively, thinking of Olive. “Would you assist me in the removal of my...” She pointed to her back.

“Certainly,” Lillian said.

She unhooked twenty hooks and asked, “What is this strange garment you wear under your dress?”

Clara saw Lillian out of the corner of her eye. “My undergarment... with the stays?”

Lillian nodded in wonderment at the uncomfortable-looking contraption, grateful she had never had to wear such a thing.

“It is my corset.” Clara lifted one shoulder. “All women wear them.”

Lillian did not comment further but helped Clara slip out of the offending thing.

Clara covered her breasts, feeling exposed even in front of a woman.

“You cannot put the horrible thing back on,” Lillian insisted, eying Clara critically. “Here,” she rummaged in a simple dresser. The handles shone softly in the glow from the window, the brass like butter. “Use this.” She held up a bodice with built-in bosom cups. It seemed to Clara very much like the corset but without the stays. Lillian laced it up, and Clara's breasts spilled out the top in a most revealing way.

“Nothing we can do about your figure. You are built like a wasp.”

“The creatures that sting?”

Lillian took her two index fingers and drew an imaginary hourglass in the air. Clara nodded.

“You did not need this contraption.” Lillian picked it up as she puckered her lips in apparent distaste, barely touching it. “We will burn it later.”

“Burn it?” Clara surprised herself by laughing.

Lillian grinned back. “Yes, I think that would be a good end for it, do you not?”

Clara did and nodded. It felt wonderfully free to be without it. The new garment still bound her but not uncomfortably so.

Clara put on a brown skirt made of silk and cotton in a soft but crude weave. The waist was too large. Lillian found an interior tie and cinched it. Better.

She stood back. Sorting through the clothing, she handed a pale, teal-colored blouse to Clara. It fit perfectly.

“Evelyn's,” she answered Clara's unspoken question.

Lillian's eyes lowered then met Clara's in a steady way. Clara liked this new acquaintance very much.

“She came by our home one day past to help me with something, and she spilled some juice on it. I had to clean it right away.” Lillian's lip trembled, and Clara saw her use her teeth to steady it. “I washed the stain out and....”

Lillian turned her back to Clara.

Clara's heart went out to Lillian. She approached her from behind. “They seem very capable... your Band. I am confident they will return with Evelyn.” Clara placed her hand on the other woman's shoulder.

“It is true. They are. But it is you, Clara, who is the important one. You are our hope... our only hope.”

The kettle shrilled its whistle, and with a last lingering look, Lillian walked away from Clara.

Clara said nothing but wished desperately to know why she had been taken. Why was she so important? Other questions pressed as well. Why were there so few females? What was the fragment that would take a young girl? She would find out.

Lillian poured the warm water into a large pottery bowl and began to wipe the grime off Clara's face, carefully avoiding the worst of her injuries. Her hair, which had been carefully bound up had not suffered as much, but a few small twigs were removed, and a thorough brushing helped immeasurably. Clara felt almost human when they were finished. A soft rap at the door led them both to answer it.

An older gentlemen who had more clothes on than the Band, Clara noticed with some relief, stood flanked by two of the Band: Bracus and the guard who made her uncomfortable. She kept her focus on the man she was sure was their President.

The guard remained outside. Bracus and the President entered as Lillian busied herself in the kitchen.

Bracus looked down at Clara and noticed she wore different clothing. She looked like she had rested. His heart sped. Her face was beginning to heal. Her eye was almost completely open.

“Greetings, Princess.” President Bowen inclined his head.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Clara responded automatically.

The President turned to Bracus. “You did not overstate her condition.”

Clara felt uncomfortable heat rise to the surface of her skin.

President Bowen noticed her discomfiture. “We made a decision to acquire you sooner, Princess, as Bracus determined your life might be in imminent danger if you remained in the sphere.”

She looked at Bracus, and he looked back for a moment then away. Curious. He must have been on some scouting mission, seen her after what the Prince had done and hastened this kidnapping.

She put her attention back on the president. “My foremost question is this: why have I been taken?”

She held up her hand before he could answer. “I must state my thanks as it appears I was rescued from a fate far worse than this one.”

She waited for the president to continue, but instead he turned to Bracus who expounded. “We came upon the sphere, and the Princess, Clara,” he corrected at her slight frown, “was being attacked. Her companion could not aid her as he was restrained.” He looked at her for confirmation, and she nodded. It was an accurate retelling.

Bracus turned suddenly. “Is he the one?” He gestured to her face.

Her flush returned. Her face felt on fire. “He is.”

She watched the strange reaction take over Bracus. His fists clenched and opened. A vein stood out on his forehead. “We should have ended him back in the sphere for what he did to you.” He swallowed, and Clara heard the dry click. “And for what he was attempting to do.”

The president turned his penetrating gaze on Bracus, and a look she could not decipher passed between them.

“Let us sit.” Bowen indicated the adjoining parlor with its few simple pieces of furniture. Clara sat in the smallest settee and Bracus in the largest, his huge frame engulfing it, long legs flung out before him.

“Princess,” President Bowen began.

“Clara,” she corrected quietly.

“You must call me Arthur then.”

She nodded.

“Forgive my bluntness, but in light of the circumstances of Evelyn's kidnapping and the death of her father, I feel frankness is the best course.”

Clara waited.

The President shifted in his chair. “We are losing people Clara, females in particular.”

Clara's mind turned quickly. The crowd as they had come upon it had seemed odd to Clara but with all the chaos of the last day she had not struck upon what was odd. Now she realized.

The lack of women.

President Bowen saw the look of comprehension come over her face and continued his unflinching commentary.

What could they want with her? Then she thought of it. She stood so suddenly she tipped the chair she had been sitting upon, racing to the door that led to the hall. Bracus caught her easily.

“Clara! We mean you no harm. Please, let the president finish!”

Clara's heart beat like butterfly wings trapped in her throat. What was she to them? A woman to steal? To impregnate? She shuddered, thinking about the last day in an entirely new fashion. They were going to use her as some kind of elaborate breeder. Clara felt doomed. She had escaped the sphere only to have this as the alternative?

She would formulate a plan, but she must, at least on the surface, pretend to give them her ear. Then Clara would escape this place and reunite with Charles. Despair welled inside her, filling her with stagnation.

What if there was no more Charles?

She shoved that thought out of her mind and concentrated on the present.

Forcing herself to still in the strong arms of Bracus, who had held her gently while they rode upon his horse, and now imprisoned her with his embrace, she said, “I will listen.”

Bracus set her down, warily watching for another escape.

Clara thought that, with the guard lay in wait outside, she would not test any boundary with him. She needed to tell Bracus and Bowen that he had visited the sphere before. She felt strongly that they were unaware of his dalliance. She had sensed much from him, all of it unknown.

She righted the chair as she sat, folding her arms beneath her breasts.

Bracus noticed her posture and was not fooled. Her eyes flashed fire, and she stared at them like enemies.

She would try to escape again.

Unfortunately, she was not understanding their true intent. If only she would listen. Bracus began to see that beneath all the fragility, lay a woman of fortitude.

President Bowen began again. “It is not as it seems. For many decades, our clan,” he stretched his hand to include the immediate area, “and many of our sister clans did not have enough females to grow in number. For every fifteen males born, only one female comes,” he said in a helpless voice.

“We think that the Evil Ones may have made our ancestral pool too limited. And now, as our grandfather's grandfathers lay in this earth, we are desperate to mingle with different peoples.”

Clara thought on it. She was not sure they were even the same species. When she looked at the Band, she felt they were clearly other.

She mentioned that. And what of the Evil Ones? Who were they to these people?

Bracus answered. “The Evil Ones created us, the Band.” He gestured to his throat slits and his extreme size.

“You are genetically engineered?” Clara guessed.

The president raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Clara nodded. “We have a Healer in the sphere who knows a great deal of Science, and she has developed many speculations...”

“It is our supposition that the Evil Ones postulated about our life and what the challenges would be and gave us a select few,” he gestured to Bracus, “for each clan that could be protectors. But as you can see, with the female population dwindling, there may be, in less than a generation, little to protect.”

“That is what happens when you play God.”

Clara blinked at the expression, looking at Bracus. “I will ask again. Who are the Evil Ones?”

Bracus's eyes widened in surprise. “They are responsible for everything here.” He gestured vaguely around himself. “Even before the days when the Earth was Covered by Ash.”

Clara's breath stopped in her throat. “Do you mean, the Guardians?”

They stared blankly at her, and she continued in their silence. “They are who saved us. They and only they are solely responsible for our spheres.”

She looked from one to the other. The uncomprehending expressions on their faces told all.

They did not know the history.

She thought suddenly of the book, carefully maintained for over a hundred years, that told of the inception of the spheres and, more importantly, why they had been built.

“My grandfather's grand-sire devised a book, a history if you will, that tells of what our people were before. There was a time when we all were one people across this great land in huge cities.” She paused for a moment. “Then the rocks fell from the sky and damaged our planet. But the Guardians were able to save us in nineteen different spheres. And there we have lived since that time, one hundred and forty years.” She folded her hands in her lap.

President Bowen's shock was evident. “They are your saviors,” he said slowly, “but they are our nemeses.” He stroked the stubble at the bottom of his chin.

“I have questions of a technological nature as well.”

Clara nodded for him to continue. Let them ask. “We think that somehow you use steam in the sphere to manufacture and live day by day?”

“Everything is powered by steam. Our lights, timepieces, cooking apparatus, everything.”

“What of the climate?” Bracus thought of a home without the sun on one's back and no rain for the streams.

Clara shook her head. “I am not privy to all details, but when it rains on the Outside, our sphere allows a fine mist to permeate its surface and plants and other organic matter is fed such. Also, the sun’s rays do gather and permeate, but not powerfully enough to darken the skin.”

She held out her slender arm, the color of polished ivory. Bracus's heavy gaze lingered upon it as she let it drop back on her lap.

“What of insurgence and weapons?” Bracus asked, and President Bowen nodded.

“We have had battles amongst the spheres. Guards train with sword and dagger for protection.” Clara hesitated. Did she say too much? Was she giving away information that would showcase the sphere's vulnerabilities?

“Who is that man who attacked you?” Bracus demanded, and his tone gave Clara pause.

The president gave Bracus a look of inquiry.

“He is Prince Frederic.” She looked down at her hands, tightly clasped in her lap. “We are to be wed.”

The long silence had a pregnant feel to it.

Finally, Bracus spoke. “You cannot mean to be mated with the man who attacked you?” He stood, towering over her, so she stood as well.

There was a physical potential to him that frightened Clara, but not in the same way as the Prince. Rather, she felt it directed at others. “I have no choice. I am royal. My mother, the Queen, has betrothed me to him to align our kingdoms as one and to facilitate trade.”

Bracus glared down at Clara, aching to touch her. He was not like this around the few women of his clan. He thought back to the genetic predisposition of certain females held for members of the Band and thought she was such a female. Clara made him feel fiercely protective, and he longed to be near her. It made him edgy and angry. He realized he was not angry at her. He was her prisoner to a degree he was uncomfortable with.

Bracus allowed his gaze to soften. “He has hurt you.” Bracus reached out, putting the lightest of touches against her cheekbone. It was no longer a horrible grape color, but fading to yellow.

Those hands that had maimed and killed so many of the fragment pressed tenderly against her face.

The President cleared his throat, and Bracus took his hand away. “Princess—Clara—we have acquired you but briefly. It was my utmost desire that we may begin negotiations for an acquaintance between our peoples. After the Band surveyed the sphere for some time, you were chosen as the most likely person to assist in this...” He trailed off in a hopeful way.

Clara realized she had misunderstood their intent. They hoped that they could intermingle with eventual cohabitation as their goal. But they did not understand the Queen. She would never allow it.

“I am not supreme ruler of our sphere. It is Queen Ada who would have the final say.” She paused, trying to formulate words that would make sense, give nothing away, and dissuade them from approaching the sphere. “The people of my sphere think that you are a... primitive people and decidedly violent.”

She looked from one to the other, seeing mild offense in both faces. She rushed to assuage their tempers. “Not all, but most. As humans, we are most afraid of that which we do not know.” She looked at Bracus. “And your rescue of me will be looked at as confirmation of these speculations.”

“What of your companion?” Bracus asked.

“Charles?”

He shrugged. “The one who dispatched two guards before we came upon you.”

Tears stung Clara's eyes and she thought of her childhood friend, confidant, protector.

Bracus saw her struggle with her emotions and wished to know what place this Charles held in her life.

“He is my very best friend and has helped me with...” the beatings the Queen has rendered, “difficult situations.”

Bracus's eyes narrowed. He knew there was much she was not saying, and he was determined to find out what it was but not now with the President's hawk-like eyes as audience.

Jack came in. “Where is Lillian?” he asked, a trifle anxious, which put Clara on guard. Was something afoot?

Bracus saw the tightening of her eyes and posture. “Lillian is with child and sometimes does not feel well.” That was an understatement, Bracus thought.

Clara relaxed. She knew that was typical for women during the first part of their time with child. Earlier, Lillian had seemed so energetic.

Jack said, “It comes on quickly. She may be lying down now. I will check on her.” He nodded to Bracus then Bowen. “President.”

Bracus saw Clara's exhaustion and composure fraying around the edges and said quietly to the President, “Clara may need some time to acclimate to her new circumstances.”

The President nodded. It would be a tremendous change, coupled with the attacks she had suffered. His gaze fell upon Clara, and he looked at her, really looked at her. She appeared as though she was sleeping while standing, her small figure held together by force of will alone.

“Yes, I will be here one fore-night more and then take my leave to the central clan.” He looked at Bracus. “We will speak more on this one day hence.”

Turning his attention to Clara, he said, “I felt it imperative that we discuss our intentions so you would not feel unsafe here or misconstrue our intent.”

The guard floated up in her mind. Him, she did not feel safe around. She opened her mouth to say something, but he entered the cottage. “Captain, they are ready to depart.”

Bracus nodded. “Very well.” He looked at Clara. “We will be gone a fore-night, no more.” As he gazed at her, he hoped she might be able to discern how little he wished to leave her, even in the competent care of his Band mates. “We have three of the Band here, and you will not want for protection.”

Clara nodded. She would say nothing with the guard standing there looking upon her with those steady eyes, intense eyes.

The guard thought the Princess might understand more than he liked and did not desire to give her unnecessary time alone with Bracus and President Bowen. He would take her tonight. It was the perfect opportunity. He was assigned duty to she and Lillian at the bathing springs. He would take her, and she would be his to return to the sphere. He smiled as he thought on his plan.

Clara saw the smile slowly reveal itself upon the guard’s face and thought that it would behoove her to never be alone with him. She maintained an uneasy silence.

Bracus sensed her disquiet and could not ascertain its origin. He looked at his Band members and saw nothing amiss, but her eyes remained troubled. He did not wish to leave her. Yet he must get to Evelyn.

He turned away, giving Clara a curt nod. With the President ahead of them, he walked outside and spoke quietly with Matthew, Stephen, and Jack. “She may try to escape. But President Bowen has told her enough that she feels confident that our intentions are for the good of both our peoples.” Bracus rolled his shoulders in a shrug.

Jack said, “Joseph will remain behind and either Stephen or Matthew will accompany the women to the bathing springs.”

Matthew looked at Jack.

“If Lillian is well enough to go,” Jack clarified.

“It matters not. Women like to primp and preen,” Stephen said.

“Watch your tongue before I cut it out. Lillian does none of that. I think it is but an excuse to wheedle information out of the Princess.” Jack glowered at Stephen.

“There is much to be learned of the sphere-dwellers. That is true,” Bracus said.

“Another female may coax information,” Matthew agreed.

President Bowen reminded them all, “She is to be kept under close supervision. I wish to make haste with a treaty of sorts, and that cannot be done if harm befalls her or she escapes and is picked up by the fragment.”

Bracus would never let that happen.

Out loud he said, “Let us make haste to rescue Evelyn.”

“See that you do.” And with that, Bowen walked off with a member from the central clan's Band.

Bracus turned around and looked at the cottage, his gaze lingering. He desperately wished to see Clara one more time before his departure. No matter. There would be plenty of time upon his return to sort out his feelings and deepen their acquaintance. He knew he did not wish for Clara to return to the sphere.

Ever.

And as he stood there, she appeared in the window, her form warped from the glass's imperfections. She gave a small wave, and Bracus's heart became lighter. After all that she had been through, she bid him farewell.

The guard watched Bracus stare at Jack and Lillian's dwelling, his thought process clear to all who bothered looking for it. Oh how surprised he would be when his return marked the precious Princess as absent.

Perfect.

CHAPTER 26

Charles, Clarence, and Sarah spoke quietly in her foyer, yet again. The Queen had been caught unawares by their story. She had known that something was not quite right, but when they’d placed the blame on the savagesʼ kidnapping of Clara, they were also able to assign blame for the drugging of Clarence. What they could not do was properly explain the Prince’s proximity or physical injuries. However, the Prince was in no great hurry to bring his assault on Clara to light. Beating her had been one thing, but rape? Even the Queen might take pause over that.

Charles was arguing with Sarah, who thought it too risky to leave the sphere immediately after their first escape attempt. But Charles felt there was no choice, and besides, his mind was quite made up.

“She is with them, the savages. Each moment that I do not go after her—Guardian knows what could be happening to her as we speak, Sarah! Surely you must know that?” Charles's hands were on his hips and his legs planted wide. He glowered down at Sarah.

Clarence said, “Charles, your voice.”

Charles glared at him then began to pace the small room, frustrated beyond measure. He must find her. Already, he was a day behind.

He and Clarence looked at each other.

Sarah asked, “What are your thoughts?” Her eyes searched his face. “You know that if you go now, you may never return while Queen Ada reigns.”

He knew and cared not. Clara was most assuredly in grave danger.

“I will go with you,” Clarence said decisively.

Charles turned. “You know what this means. Mayhap you would be trapped Outside forever with no clear future.”

Clarence lowered his voice. “I do not care for our monarch. Without Clara, what does it matter?”

“She will wish to return if she can. She cares nothing for her own safety. Clara cares only for her kingdom, her father's kingdom.”

“King Raymond.” Clarence laid a fist over his heart as Charles did the same. The three silently remembered a kingdom governed by a fair and true monarch.

“Aye, she will, but a dead ruler cannot rule,” Clarence said.

“My sentiments exactly,” Charles said.

“She will want to come back...” Sarah said.

They were all quiet for a moment. Then Clarence voiced what they had all been thinking. “If she can. Perhaps she is...”

“Do not speak such,” Sarah said.

Charles looked at Clarence. “I am sorry, but the odds are not in her favor, Charles...” He looked at Sarah. “Sarah.”

“I take comfort that they appeared to be expecting the situation. They were prepared. The manner in which they dispatched the Prince's guards speaks of planning. If that be the case, they may be holding her for unknown reasons. We may be able to reason with them,” Charles explained.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “They are savages, Charles. They are a primitive people.

Charles shook his head. “I do not think so. They seemed sophisticated in their manner. Supreme fighters. They employed a degree of stealth that we could never have managed even with the finest of our guards.” He looked at each of them in turn. “I will take my chances.”

“And I will take them with you,” Clarence said.

Sarah huffed and turned her back on them. Insufferable men!

Charles swung her around to face him, and she gave him a hard stare. “You were not there. You did not see them. I have seen nothing like it. They are exactly what the Record Keeper said they would be.”

“Tales, she bears tales,” Sarah responded, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Not in this. They are as she said: fierce, large, great warriors, and tenacious. They will not easily be dissuaded from their goal. And I think their goal may have been to capture Clara.”

Sarah leaned back, extracting herself away from Charles's angry grip. “To what end?”

Charles shook his head. “I will find out. It cannot be good.”

“The Record Keeper told stories that made people of the spheres fear the Outside. Look now.” Sarah swung her arm around her. “Clearly, we need not have worried. The sphere wall repaired itself, and no one who was exposed to the Outside air died a miserable death.”

Clarence spoke. “It may have been very true at one time years ago. If the sphere had been breached, the toxicity of the Outside would have sickened and killed many. It is possible there has been enough years since the Days of Ash that we may be able to exist Outside.”

Sarah shrugged. “I trust none of them: the Healer, the Record Keeper, and most especially the Queen. To say nothing of that miserable excuse of a Prince.”

“Let us make haste and go this night,” Charles said.

Clarence nodded at his comment.

Sarah rolled her eyes. There was no stopping them. She might as well offer help.

“Wait,” she said. They turned. “Let me collect a few items for Clara.”

Charles sighed, exasperated. “We have no time for this.”

“Take the time,” she said, her eyes steady on his face.

He stared back, realizing that she loved Clara too—not the way that he did, but no matter. He and Clarence would go in her stead, and this was her only way to communicate with Clara.

He waited while she put some items in a small sack.

“Where is your knapsack?” she asked.

Charles shrugged. “It has not been recovered by the Queen's guard.”

Clarence gave him a sharp look. “The savages.”

Charles nodded.

Sarah studied them. Finally she succumbed, giving them fierce hugs. Her last tie to Clara was leaving her, and she wished with all her heart it could have been she who was going to her friend. One day, she would see her again. Sarah held back tears as Charles and Clarence left her standing alone.

Alone.

CHAPTER 27

Queen Ada tapped her foot, waiting for that dim-witted woman, Elvira, to finally get her wardrobe assembled for the day—or what was left of it.

She gazed about her room and wondered when she could sample the wonderful new wine that Otto had brought with him.

Not soon enough—as certain things claimed her attention: primarily where that foolish girl had run off to. Charles, that inept friend of hers, claimed that the savages absconded with her to the Outside.

Ada was not convinced.

Just because a few savages had been seen did not mean they had the intellectual fortitude necessary to breach the spheresʼ defenses. However, there was no other plausible explanation, and her own guards assured her that indeed, there was a scar, a tear in the tunnel wall.

That would mean the unthinkable—that the savages had planned Clara’s capture. This secretly pleased Ada. She could be done with the wretched girl, gain sympathy, and force King Otto's hand since it was certainly not her fault that Clara had been taken. She would still have her wine and no more Clara. She would task the running of the kingdom to... she deliberated… whoever.

Ada would need to talk to that fool Charles and the incompetent guard who allowed himself to be drugged with the twilight sleep. How had that happened, for Guardian's sake?

Imbeciles.

Something was not agreeing here and she planned to get to the core of it.

Elvira came into the room with a gown of deep lavender. The Queen smiled. Perfect.

Everyone knew that royalty wore only purple.

*

Charles took the time to tell his younger brother what he was about, but only enough to satisfy him. He knew that if Queen Ada felt justified, she could bring misery down upon his family. There lay guilt, Charles realized. He remembered his father's words of encouragement. “Bring her back, son. There is no kingdom without her.” Charles couldn't have agreed more. But shirking his duties in the fields felt like an unfair burden to place on his father and brother.

He and Clarence made their way through the tunnel. Clarence was familiar with every part, having been the day guard there for a year. “I know when David takes his break, and he always uses the necessary. We have but a small time when he will not be in attendance, and we can run for the alcove in the tunnel.”

Charles looked at Clarence. He wore rough leather boots, buckskins, a rough cotton blouse, and a knapsack slung over both shoulders. His wavy hair moved about his face from the wind forced by steam cleansers running the length of the tunnel. The seams allowed the escape of humanity's pollution. Charles was dressed much the same, having borrowed his father's knapsack because the savages had taken his.

They reached the first sentry point and hesitated, pressing their forms into the permeable surface, sinking against its softness.

Clarence whispered, “One minute more...”

Charles looked at him thinking he had never felt the burden of time more acutely than now.

“Go!” Clarence urged and they sprinted from that spot. Their feet tapped their backsides as they put on a final burst of speed at the end, rounding the corner to the rest spot with the tear.

Charles untangled his limbs from the knapsack, all but flinging it off in his haste to get the salt-mixture. It would be best used in the weakest part of the sphere.

Clarence glanced about him anxiously. “Hurry, it is because we try so soon after the Princess's capture that we have this chance.”

“I have found it.” Charles hauled out the flask with the salt mixture. It had been very difficult to get the raw salt needed for their escape, as none could be purchased at Trading Days. A certain royal cook had worked it so he had enough salt to break through two sphere walls if he chose.

Charles gave the briefest of glances at the wall. The area where it had been breached seemed translucent, dimmed. He stood upright, flask in hand. Opening it, he spun the top away, hurling the contents at the scar, reopening it like a raw wound.

The salt-mixture dissolved the wall almost instantly, and the Outside air rushed in, mingling with the steamy environment of the tunnel. The cooler air was painful on Charles's lungs. He'd never felt anything like it before.

Clarence gasped at the new air. “It feels thin.” He exhaled and coughed. “Cold.”

Charles nodded, saving his speech for when he needed it. Regardless, it mattered not. They had done the deed and needed to press forward.

They slipped through the hole they had made into a night filled with real stars. Wind and air felt fresh and fragrant, and their starved lungs took in all they could. The men raced to the Great Forest, lungs burning, guided by a moon that rode high and bright, lighting their path into the woods Outside.

CHAPTER 28

Clara walked back to Lillian's chamber, passing through the kitchen. The glasses lining the wood shelf looked like drops of rain caught in the sunlight. A sharp stab of homesickness for the sphere pierced her heart. That she would feel thus filled Clara with confusion. What was wrong with her that she would miss it? It might be as simple as it being the only home she had ever known. It had been a wonderful home before Father had died. She thought on that as she opened the chamber door to attend to Lillian, her eyes grainy with tiredness. She must rest soon, or she would drop where she stood.

Lillian lay upon the beautiful bed. The gauzy covering made her face appear luminescent, obscure.

“Ah, I see Jack has told the entirety of the clan that I ail,” she said with mirth.

“Not all.” Clara smiled back, matching Lillian’s humor. Lillian did look a tad green. Clara could not imagine tending to a babe at this juncture in her life. She sighed sadly, holding a fierce hope that someday she would have a family.

Lillian turned on her side, eyeing at Clara critically. “You look tired, Princess.”

“Clara,” she reminded absently.

Lillian nodded. Rising, she steadied herself on the bedpost, walked past Clara, and opened the door. “Follow me. We have a small room where you may rest. After supper, we will go and bathe at the hot springs.” Lillian looked away dreamily for a moment. “It is a sublime place.”

Clara was indeed looking forward to being clean. She followed Lillian into a tiny chamber with an open casement window, the hinges held by brass that had been nailed into the wood and gleamed with a red hue in the filtered light from the forest.

Clara spied a narrow bed directly under the open window. She walked slowly over to where it lay, resplendent with ivory bed linen and a light comforter.

She turned to Lillian. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome. You will see, Clara, that we are not savages here. We are human beings, just as the sphere-dwellers are.”

Clara nodded and smiled, which turned into a gigantic yawn. Her face felt much better. She ran her fingers gently over the worst of the swelling and thought it subdued. Her eye was almost completely open now.

Lillian smiled back. “I will go lie back down.” She closed the door and Clara stripped off the skirt and blouse she had worn but an hour, laying them carefully over the wooden chair in the corner of the room. Her hair hung loose, and she wished fiercely for her knapsack which held her grooming tools and realized one of the Band must have hers and Charles's.

She lay down under the comforter and allowed her tense body to loosen in stages. Clara's tiredness consumed her, but she lay awake for a time.

She listened to the sound of water. It was strange and delightful at the same time. And the air! She did not know if she would ever become accustomed to the fragrance of the woods that clung to each breath she took.

Clara gazed out the window, taking in the great branches of the trees. Their deep green shone like... like the decanter that the Queen drank her beloved wine from. Gooseflesh rose upon her arms, and sleep prevailed.

The disturbing echo of her memories followed the spiral of her sleep.

****

Bracus looked down on Clara’s sleeping form. Not a muscle moved. Her breath caused only the barest rise and fall of her chest. He gazed at her for such a long time that Lillian touched his shoulder, and he sighed quietly so as to not awaken her and closed the door behind him.

“She needs the rest. Do not fret over her. You have done as the President asked. She is here, safe.” Lillian looked at him curiously. The captain of the Band was an enigma—not unkind... but not a member of the Band she would chat with casually. Jack spoke of him in the highest of terms. However, there was much below the surface of this warrior.

Bracus swung his face toward Lillian and met her gaze. “I do not like to leave the clan unguarded, the Band split by the fragment.”

“We have Stephen, Matthew, and Joseph. All will be well. They did not penetrate the gate, the perimeter, nothing.”

Mayhap it was not penetration they sought? Could it be that their desire was to split the Band so that when the clan lay more vulnerable to attack, they could move against it? That is exactly what Bracus would do had he designs on striking another faction.

Lillian watched the emotions play over his face, not sure what they meant, but she understood this: there was more to his interest in the Princess than mere protection. Clara meant something entirely different to him. And what of it? Lillian knew that he would need to return her to the sphere, and then what? Would the sphere-dwellers be agreeable? There was no way to know. Clara might not be a woman he could have.

Bracus would have felt better to see Clara awake and tell her goodbye. No matter. He would be gone but a fore-night.

He nodded a goodbye at Lillian, having turned down her offer of a drink. He did not wish to spend one more second inside the gates. He wanted to retrieve Evelyn and return to Clara. His duty then his wish. In that order. He was nothing if not disciplined.

Lillian watched him leave with James and Jacob. She kissed Jack, and he and Philip mounted their horses, Jack's face revealed how much he would worry over her in his absence. She didn’t know why he worried. The finest guards were watching over her and the clan.

What could go wrong?

****

Anna watched Joseph approach. His grim expression told her he knew of Evelyn's kidnapping, but when his eyes caught hers, his face lightened. She could not help returning his smile. He might be a male who would treat her well. She had been here a half year and had yet to be threatened. She felt like a coward, leaving her clan, leaving the other females in peril. There were more females in her sea clan, and not all of their Band was bad, but there was a great deal of fighting over the females.

She’d had a hard life in her clan. The endless chores and violence had been constant. She was finally becoming accustomed to the easy cadence of this clan where everyone worked together as a unit, gathering, cooking, and maintaining the dwellings. Anna feel a part of something larger, and it lifted her heart.

As Joseph approached, Anna felt that stirring and tried to squelch it. His hold on her deepening like fingers in flesh. He moved her soul and she tried with everything she was to resist that pull. Her disappointment in other males kept her from allowing too much hope for this one.

Joseph was very glad to see Anna. Her tentative smile acted as a salve to his weariness and stress over Evelyn’s plight. The child had surely seen the murder of her father then been torn from the woods by the fragment.

He longed to sweep Anna up into his arms but knew that would scatter their tentative bond like dandelion seed on the wind.

Instead, he looked down into her face, still closed to him, and squeezed her shoulder. “I am glad to see you well.”

“And I you.” Anna stepped closer, her heart beating like a trapped thing.

Joseph held his ground. It was almost too much to hope for. After his months of working his way closer to her, yearning at every turn for her acceptance, she had made a move toward him.

He held himself still. She must wish it. He would force nothing.

Anna placed first one hand on his waist and then the other, feeling the supple skin over hardened muscle. She stepped closer, her head a breath away from touching his chest. Fear and bravery combined in a heady rush.

Joseph could stand it no more. She was touching him, and he had to touch her back. His hands found purchase on the small of her back. He pulled her to his body, molding it to his, and she gave a soft moan of pleasure, surprising them both. As she began to pull away, he held her tighter and she stiffened.

Anna was immediately frightened. She had initiated the contact, but she did not know what to do about it. His arms tightened about her like steel bands, his heart beating strong and fast in her ear.

“Do not... do not go. Let me hold you but a moment longer.”

Anna clenched her teeth, willing her body to relax. This was Joseph. He had treated her with kindness and been tender with her each day she had been here. She had to learn to trust him. She was so utterly lonely that she tasted it like bitter fruit.

She would force herself to trust.

Joseph felt her relax in his arms, and it was the single best feeling he had ever had the pleasure of knowing. This is what life was about. There must be something beyond mere existing, and he meant to grab it. He kissed the top of her head, which smelled of soap, of everything that was clean and pure.

Joseph held Anna tighter.

CHAPTER 29

Charles and Clarence were tired. They’d not had time to appreciate their escape into the Outside. Twigs, grass, large branches hindered, tore, and slowed their progress. Charles had only books on tracking techniques with which to guide them, and this was the savages' world. Charles felt that weakness like a paralysis.

They pressed on.

Presently, they passed an odd looking pole, worn smooth, as long as the banquet table in the Gathering Room, with two shorter poles anchoring it. He noted manure scattered about the area.

Clarence squatted down, looking closer at its construction. A drop of sweat ran down his face from temple to chin, falling to the ground on top of droppings where lazy flies hovered. That was another thing that Charles could not get accustomed to: the sheer volume of insects and other small creatures roaming freely, untroubled by their presence.

“It is a pole to tether a horse,” Clarence stated.

“How do you know?”

“There is one for Trading Day that visiting spheres use to tether their horses.”

Charles looked at it. The mystery of the savages continued to deepen.

He and Clarence scouted the area taking deep pulls of water from their flasks. Soon, it would not be enough. They would have to find a water source.

Then they heard it: water. Charles could not believe their luck.

Ten minutes later, they found the source of the water. A small creek flowed through the deepest part of the forest, but what gave them pause were the depressions beside the creek. People had rested there.

Clara had been here.

Charles knew this because her crown lay sparkling in the dim light.

He picked it up, searching the filigree gallery. Where was she? he thought, clenching the crown, its delicate metal biting the tender flesh of his palm.

He and Clarence looked at each other.

“Perhaps she left it as a sign she had come this way?” Clarence speculated.

Charles nodded. “Possibly. But I think it more likely that it escaped her notice. After all, it is not every day that one is kidnapped by a merciless group of primitives.” Obviously, however, they were not as primitive as the People of the Sphere had presumed.

They forged onward, following the hoof prints, praying to the Guardians that rain would not come and wipe away all traces of the proof of their passage.

Clarence and Charles counted five horses. When they stopped to look closely at the prints, there was one set that left a deeper impression. Charles said, “This must be the horse that carried two riders.”

Clarence looked up at him, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. The open meadow allowed the heat and brightness of the sun to permeate his every pore. And they had thought that the heat of the sphere unbearable! This was altogether a different type of heat.

Clara was alive. These prints were fresh. Hope swelled inside Charles.

Clarence grinned. They would be able to retrieve the Princess after all.

They bedded down for the night at the meadow's edge. The stars began to appear in the twilight, winking at them from a dressing of inky velvet.

It was a view Charles had never seen, one he wished he could share with Clara.

****

Clara awoke, completely disoriented, and slowly her memories assaulted her: the aborted escape, the attempted rape, her “rescue” by the Band, her new place here amongst the clan-dwellers. She opened her eyes, unsure of what time it was. The light filtering into the room spoke of twilight. Mayhap she had slept four or five hours. Her stomach told her with a low rumble that she had missed lunch .

Suddenly, Clara thought of the oysters. She would never eat oysters again. Another wave of homesickness washed over Clara, and her eyes stung with tears. She reminded herself that living was better than the alternative that awaited her in the sphere.

It was a mantra that she tired of.

She swung her feet to the floor. The bed was not as high as the one inside the sphere. Clara gulped back her weak feelings of isolation. Spying a washbasin with a pitcher, she walked over to it, used the water on her hands, and splashed some on her face.

She dressed quickly, wishing she could have her grooming implements. She knew she looked a fright. With that lovely assessment, she quietly stole out of the room and came upon the remainder of the Band sitting around the eating table, their long legs splayed out before them. Neither Lillian nor or Bracus was present.

She schooled her expression. Unknown males did not instill confidence and trust., She had seen them kill the Prince’s guards.

The guard looked at the Princess and thought how interesting it was that she was a master of her expressions. One so young should show everything on her face. Yet she was self-contained in a way that was fascinating to him. No matter. He was sure that, as their acquaintance progressed, he would elicit emotions. Oh yes, he was positive of that.

The Band rose as she came into the room, and she fought not to react to their sheer size. They were so huge, filling the room. Instead, she bit the inside of her lip, and the pain filled her with the wakefulness necessary to be sharp-witted. She repeated to herself that if they had meant to harm her, they’d had ample opportunity, and she could have done naught to defend herself.

She took a deep breath. “Good evening.”

“Princess.” The guard smiled in a way that would have made a lesser woman squirm.

Lillian came in, and relief took residence in Clara’s breast like a welcome friend.

“Oh! Clara, you are awake.”

“Yes, I feel much more myself.” She smiled gratefully.

Lillian said, “Please, join us in the community dining area, and we will have some food. I am sure you are starving.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Joseph smiled at her, and another woman came in. Her simple clothing was like that for all the females of the clan. But her demeanor was unique. She moved with a caution that was completely absent in Lillian, and her features looked a bit different from the others.

The other two guards, Matthew and Stephen followed her out. Clara felt eyes boring into her back and wished that Bracus was here so she could mention her feeling about the guard. Her shoulders slumped a little as she thought of her unknown future.

When they had all exited the cottage, Joseph turned and introduced Anna to Clara.

She looked at Clara with ancient eyes in a young face, a mirror of her own.

“Anna is from a sea clan, far east of here,” Joseph said.

Clara looked at her with interest, and large brown eyes regarded Clara with equal parts caution and curiosity.

“It is very good to make your acquaintance,” Clara said.

“And I, yours.” Anna gave a small curtsey.

Clara knew not how long she would remain here, but it would be very good to have a bit of female companionship without the entrapments of being royal.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a fragrant smell.

“What is that?”

“What?” Lillian responded over her shoulder.

Clara opened her mouth to elaborate when the guard stepped up beside her. “Meat.”

She was so engrossed by his nearness that she did not watch where she walked and stumbled. She would have fallen if it had not been for him grabbing her elbow. A charge of intense heat climbed up her arm at the point of contact, surging into her head and making the small hairs on her nape stand on end. She saw his eyes widen in shock, and he snatched his hand away, rubbing it where it had touched her. But she knew, although he acted as if shocked by lightning, it had felt good.

They faced each other, and the group stopped, staring at the two of them.

“What has happened?” Lillian asked.

Clara shook her head. She did not know. However, this reaction seemed to be something between her and the Band. But not all, she noticed. Why did it not occur with all of them?

Joseph walked over, looking down at her.

“I stumbled, and he caught my elbow to arrest my fall.” She pointed to the guard. “And I felt a heat...”

“Akin to a burn?” Joseph asked.

Clara nodded. “Not precisely. There was no pain... but a...”

Stephen said, “We do not need to discuss the possibilities of all this right now.” His face and stance were gruff. His arms crossed over his chest.

Joseph's cheeks colored, and he turned to the first and second in command. “I will address this potential with Clara later this evening.”

Matthew said, “Let us do it before much longer as she and Lillian wish to bathe at the springs.”

“Yes, a critical plan, that.” Joseph walked toward the building where they would dine on meat for the first time in Clara's life. She should have been sickened by the prospect of something that had been butchered and cooked for her. But hunger was a strange thing, a needy thing without a conscience. And if she could have the oysters of the sphere, she should partake in what the clan cultivated locally.

Her thoughts turned to the interaction with the guard obviously meant something that she was not aware of. She had certainly never felt that with the males of the sphere. This was something entirely new. Clara walked toward the dining hall, holding her elbow as if it were on fire.

****

Bracus slowed Briar Rose about one half mile away from the area where Evelyn's father had met his end, signaling the Band with his high-pitched call.

They dismounted, and Bracus led his steed to the creek and let her drink her fill, using an additional tether so she could reach the water while he was gone and tied to one of the stout trees.

Jack approached down the steep ravine to find Bracus tying secure knots.

Bracus looked at the big man with his massive arms stretched out, for balance.

“Captain.”

Bracus raised his brows. There, a perfect knot. She would not escape it. “Yes?”

“I cannot shake a feeling of unease about leaving the clan.”

Bracus frowned. It was usually not Jack Blythe who had intuitive leaps. It was Bracus. However, Jack’s mate was with child. It was surely that which caused a greater need to be back at her side.

He told him so.

Jack shook his head stubbornly. “It is more than that. And I must say that I feel I have erred greatly in not telling you. I felt I could not share things I had been told in confidence.”

Bracus studied Jack. This was not helping his focus. It was bad enough that thoughts of Clara crowded his mind. He hoped there was not some other calamity to wrest attention away from rescuing Evelyn from the fragment.

Bracus turned slowly to Jack, his face full of puzzlement. “And you tell me this now?

Jack sighed as Jacob and James joined them. “What say you, Jack?”

Jack looked back at the tall warriors. Their expressions were serious. For once, James was not making a joke at someone's expense. “It is Matthew. I fear that he is not of sound mind.”

Bracus's disquiet increased, his puzzlement deepening. When had Matthew ever given him pause?

“You remember when Matthew came to us?”

Bracus nodded. He would never forget. Matthew had been rescued: starved and mistreated far from their clan by the fragment. It was only the clan's hunting such a distance away that allowed them to stumble upon him.

James steadied himself on the rough evergreen trunk. “What of it? He was ten and two years. It has been a decade since.” He shrugged it off.

“He is Band. That was clear when he was found.” Jacob indicated his throat slits with a casual wave of his hand, his bicep bunching with the movement.

“Out with it.” Bracus silenced the others with a look.

Bracus was acutely aware of the rushing stream at his right. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of the trees. The breeze rustled the branches with the quiet melody of the wind.

He waited in the near-silence of the forest.

“He does not like females,” Jack admitted quietly.

“What did you say?” Bracus stepped forward into Jack's space, and Jack held his ground.

“We were reconnoitering for the acquisition of the Princess. Do you remember?”

Bracus nodded.

“And he fell away from me, going closer to the sphere... to get a look at her.”

Bracus spoke low and with feeling. “And you did not tell me this?”

“I thought nothing of it. I stayed behind. He said he was curious about the importance of the female.”

“That is ridiculous! We don't have enough females! That’s the importance.” James stomped off a few paces.

Bracus looked after him for a moment then swung his gaze back to Jack.

“He went to the sphere and showed himself to Clara, saying nothing to the rest of us.”

Bracus looked at James and Jacob, who shook their heads. They had known nothing. “He returns to your mutual post and he says...” Bracus held out his arms away from his body. What?

“That you did not deserve to have her. That all females needed to be brought to heel.”

“And we have left him at the clan with your mate and Clara?”

Jack shook his head. “I make too much of this. He meant it as a joke, I am certain. But his background, his mistreatment by the fragment...”

“He has never spoken of his time with the fragment,” Bracus said.

James, Jacob, and Jack shook their heads.

“How do you know of his time there? He has not divulged it to us.”

“You but need to watch how he behaves around females,” Jack said.

A thousand pieces came together. For all Matthew's skill in battle, he had shown nary an ounce of interest in the clan’s few females.

Far more disturbing were the incidences of Clara looking frightened of the Band. But it had not been all of them. Only Matthew.

He must return to her. If Matthew had ill intent, she was but a lamb being led to slaughter.

His guts churned. He had left her with no protection.

“Why does he think I am deserving or not?”

“We all know that you have feelings for the Princess, Captain. Whether or not it will come to pass... we do not know, but they are there.”

Philip exited the shadows, badly startling Bracus. That he would be so unaware of his surroundings spoke of how badly he had been shaken. “Yes, my brother, we all knew. But, we have bigger problems than his possible treason.”

“What could possibly be worse?” Bracus’s mind turned over the facts and different reactions to a thousand days spent in the company of Matthew and found disturbing images starting to connect.

“I think that she is a select.”

The other Band member's faces fell, and Bracus's throat slits opened fully as he gulped in a lungful of air. “No!” His bellow caused the birds to evacuate the trees in a noisy rush.

He wanted to collapse on his knees, but that would not get him to her sooner.

“How are you certain?” Bracus asked, his voice fierce, his mind in turmoil.

“She pricked her finger on the rose that grows outside Jack's dwelling. I went to assist her... I touched her hand...” He looked down, almost ashamed.

“Did you feel it?” Bracus asked.

He looked up suddenly, his eyes a glittering intensity in the darkness. “I did.”

A select. They were only rumors. But they needed the hope that a Band member would have a chance with a select. They had given up hope. There had been females who possessed the trait that appealed so much to the Band and was the promised solution to the dwindling population. But if that were the case, Clara was much more than just a female. She was The Female.

“Why did you not tell me?” Bracus asked incredulously.

“I thought there time enough after we found Evelyn to explore this.” Philip walked toward Bracus and put his hand on his shoulder. “It does no good to talk of it. It is but a feeling on Jack's part. That Matthew would harm a female... is unthinkable. We have known our brother how long? Ten years?”

“Besides, you know what the history of the Evil Ones say. If a Band member chooses from the select, it is a biological imperative. There is no choice. The male would not harm her. He would be unable to.” Jacob lifted his hands up in placation.

But nothing could make Bracus feel safe except having her near him. Maybe it was nothing. But Jack had felt it odd enough to mention, and Matthew had revealed himself to her. And now she was a select.

It was a horrible set of circumstances. Bracus was honor-bound to rescue Evelyn. Of course he wished to, but a rare female of the select was in possible danger, and he could do nothing. His teeth clenched in frustration.

Jacob said, “Joseph and Stephen are there as well. They will not let harm befall the Princess.”

“I should have said nothing. My mate is there, and with child. If I had felt there was a present danger, I would have not come on this errand,” Jack said.

Bracus cursed. “I wish you had said something earlier. We will rescue Evelyn, then make haste to the clan. And Clara had better be in pristine condition.” He stared Jack in the eye.

****

Clara pushed the heavy crockery plate away. She was so full she could not take another bite. In her bones, she knew that after a bath in the hot springs and another night's sleep, she would feel human once again.

She chanced a look at the guard but his eyes eluded hers. He had been strained since the incident, and the whole group was treating her differently. She was not sure that she liked the new treatment. It felt a little like when everyone in the sphere acted keenly aware that she was royal. She had enjoyed being just Clara to these people. Now, because of the odd reaction, they were all looking at her and at each other in the strangest way. Later, when she and Lillian had privacy, she would ask her what it all meant.

They stood in an awkward pool of silence, and finally Clara broke it. “I do not know what is wrong presently, but tomorrow, when I am better rested, I do wish to be advised of this strange occurrence.”

She felt guard’s eyes on her, and the strange heat she had felt earlier flared up. Her eyes met his. He stared at her, and she could think of nothing else but him. That she had been nervous or scared of him earlier now struck her as odd. What was happening? What was the Band to her?

Matthew looked at her and was angry. She had done something to him, and he knew not what. It did not alter his plans in the slightest. It did not matter that she was a select, as all the others must be thinking now. It was a myth he did not ascribe to. No female had power over men. It was ridiculous, an excuse for weakness. He thought on his earliest memories with the fragment.

*

He groveled at her feet, touching her skirt, his belly burning with acute hunger. If she would give him some of the delicious food that she prepared, even a small amount, he would be so grateful.

Instead, with a leather-clad foot, she kicked at him, and he moved swiftly before her foot found purchase. He knew he was different from these people: faster, stronger. He had strange airways that caused a constant onslaught of teasing. But he persevered. He would escape this terrible place with these people who hated him. The males around him beat the females. All the females hated all the males, save one. There was one small female who showed him mercy, sneaking food to him when no one saw. Margaret alone kept him alive. He had been too young to save her when she was savaged by one of the males, but they had forced him to watch. Yes, indeed they had. He could never erase it from his mind.

Her screams pierced his ears as they beat her, did things to her. His twelve-year-old mind tried to shut out her pleading, but he could still hear her wretched wailing.

“Matthew, save me!”

One of the males holding him said, “This is what happens to females who lie with monsters like you.”

“She did not lay with me! We are but children. She fed me when I hungered!”

“Shut up abomination.”

Matthew's head rocked back as a blow split his lip like a ripe fruit. Blood flowed out of it. His tears of anguish added salt to the pain of his injuries.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he could hear her no more. The males who assaulted her took her limp body and threw it at his feet, laughing derisively. “A lot of fight in that one!”

Matthew told himself he would not look at her, but then he did. Her frail form lay broken and bleeding, her long, dark hair strewn about like black water mingling with the pool of her blood.

Matthew looked up at the fragment males responsible for her death, memorizing each face and vowed he would kill them all one day.

“Look at his face, he is so strong...” They mocked him. One kicked him in the ribs almost playfully, but they did not break. Matthew had a very strong constitution, but as the night wore on, it was proven that even he could not take all the beating they had for him. Eventually, he passed out from the pain.

When Matthew could move again and he was certain he could escape, he vowed to never love another female. The pain was too great a price.

People were not to be trusted.

His vow intact, he fled, leaving the fragment and a piece of his heart behind forever.

Clara saw Matthew's fists clench and unclench while he looked at her. Surely he was not cross with her? But his rage burned twin holes into her body, and she stepped back, confused.

He gave a disgusted exhale and strode off, narrowly missing a young man who was walking by.

Joseph and Stephen looked at each other and followed him.

Lillian took Clara's hand. “Do not mind him. He is not at all sociable. Mayhap the interaction surprised him.”

Clara felt she was more in tune with shock, having left surprise behind some time ago.

She allowed herself to be led away and fervently wished for the streetlamps that would have been burning inside the sphere to light their way back to the cottage.

Even with Lillian by her side, she had never felt so alone.

CHAPTER 30

Queen Ada stood before the guards, giving them the full measure of her gaze. “My daughter is gone, and her friend, Charles, is also gone. One of our own sentry guards has disappeared as well.”

She swayed over to the nearest guard, her hand lashing out to grasp his chin. His eyes went wide. No one wished to have the Queen's full attention. Her fingers bit into the tender flesh of his jaw. “Who is responsible for allowing those two traitors free access to the Outside, damaging the sphere-wall once more?” She threw his face away, and he stumbled a little. The crescents left by her nails filled with blood.

“It disgusts me that you would allow more damage. The sphere is the thickness of mere parchment now!” She stormed about the Gathering Room in a fit of temper and threw up her hands in a jerky, chaotic dance. Bright, irregular spots of color appeared on her cheekbones.

She whirled. The royal guard stilled as one.

“You will find her and those two traitors, and bring her back to this sphere! It is apparent to all that we might now survive Outside. No matter.” She waved away the uneasy shifting and murmurings from the guard, none of whom wished to risk the Outside.

“Your Majesty.”

Her eyes narrowed on the guard brazen enough to address her directly.

“Perhaps you should accompany us so that you might address her captors directly. Obviously, they should be punished for daring to take our Princess.”

The Queen stopped her frenetic pacing, stroking the wine goblet.

What of her wine?

It was King Otto who answered. “Given the circumstance, Queen Ada, Prince Frederic and I would be happy to assist by maintaining things here during your short journey.” He mustered up false sincerity like a sudden storm. “And we would very much like to supply whatever you may need.”

The wine, she interpreted with tremendous relief.

Yes, she would like to go on this journey. That wretched girl had done it this time. She’d probably begged to go with the horrible savages— anything to not fulfill her betrothal obligation. She had never been grateful for Ada's sacrifices for her, like that stupid man she had married... Raymond. What a waste, a martyr like Clara. It was no longer important. At least she was Queen. She smiled grimly. She had that and her wine.

“Very well.” Ada caught sight of Elvira. “You, servant.”

Elvira rushed over, her body and face bowed.

“Get my reticule and everything that one needs for...”

She looked sharply at the guard with the big mouth.

“One week your majesty. Methinks we need that much time.”

Queen Ada made an exasperated sound low in her throat.

Dolts.

Could no one get anything done with haste?

She looked back at Elvira. “Are you daft? You heard him: one week.” She enunciated slowly as if the girl could not hear.

Elvira scurried off, knowing the Queen would squish her like a noxious bug if she were to be underfoot a moment longer.

Ada whirled around again, slightly unsteady, already loathing that she had sent that stupid girl away.

Her goblet was quite empty.

Prince Frederic looked at the guards, and they regarded him with uneasy eyes. “Why don't I take that from you, Queen Ada. Would you like to enjoy a brief respite with father, while I secure refreshments?” He never took his eyes off Ada's.

He captured the goblet, plucking it from her limp fingers as she cast a benevolent smile. He thought about how close he had come to having her daughter in his grasp.

And he would again.

He would take his own guard, trailing behind hers in secret. And there would be an unfortunate ambush, one she would not recover from.

Who would the pearl kingdom have then?

It would have me, the Prince thought. He strolled away with the Queen's goblet in his fist, the brilliant blue crystal throwing off shards of color.

It speared the carpet like a path of blue blood.

****

Clara and Lillian made their careful way to the hot springs, its ancient path etched between great swaths of densely blanketed evergreen trees. Clara breathed deeply of the fragrant air, never able to get enough of its heady taste upon her tongue. There was nothing to match it in her memory.

Lillian watched Clara and thought how strange it was that she smelled everything. Of course, she had never been outside before. For Clara, every sight, smell, and taste was a first. She had been almost reverent of their crude food tonight, asking about every little detail. Lillian decided that she was quite good company, not at all what she had expected a Princess should be.

They had an old book of fairy tales that talked about royalty like remote creatures above everyone. Although Clara had a strikingly delicate beauty, as told in the tales, she was comfortable to be around and not haughty in any way.

Lillian liked her.

Yet, she was nervous of Matthew following a scarce twenty feet behind them. He had not seemed himself lately. Always quiet and brooding, since the acquisition plans for the Princess, his mood had changed to remote and edgy. Joseph and Stephen were off sweeping the perimeter. She watched Anna walking ahead of them. Lillian had invited her, but she was so shy she removed herself from the conversation. Lillian sighed, would Anna ever relax? Of course, the presence of a male was enough to make her skittish as a colt.

Lillian glanced behind her and did not see Matthew. Thank goodness. Let him scout and be out of her sight. Soon enough, she would have to address Clara's status as select. She did not look forward to that conversation.

Anna stopped at the cave entrance to the springs. Her dark eyes probed the twilight. “Where is Matthew?”

Lillian shrugged. “Scouting, I presume.”

Clara looked where Anna did. Seeing nothing, she moved forward, and Lillian caught her wrist. “Have a care.”

Clara looked down and saw that the ground had grown soft. A pebbled path veered off to the right, leading down into the murky darkness.

Anna pulled a candle from her small reticule, and Lillian poured the smallest amount of foul smelling fluid over it. Lillian lit the candle. Clara thought, they have no steam to power their lights. The candle illuminated the path in front of them, little more than enough to keep them from stumbling.

Finally, after another five minutes of walking, they arrived at a small dark pool. Lazy spirals of steam made a rich vapor in the air, clinging to the surface like departed spirits. A pocket of sky rode the open area with no tree cover. The moon, almost full, lit the water, and Clara realized she'd been wrong. She could see quite well.

Lillian plugged the lit candle into the soft earth where it met the lapping water. The two women undressed quickly and got in. Lillian gave a satisfied groan of pleasure. “It has been two days since my last bath, and I, for one, was in need of it.” She flipped onto her back and floated. The moonlight caressed her form. Her belly, which held the babe, was the barest swelling.

“Do get in, Clara,” Lillian said.

Clara looked about her nervously. “What of Matthew?”

She did not want to be naked and vulnerable with any male around. Prince Frederic’s assault was still a fresh wound that festered in her psyche.

Anna smiled, and it took Clara's breath away. She was lovely. But had been so solemn since their first introduction that Clara had not known what to think of her. The look of happiness suited Anna.

Looking about her once more, Clara was satisfied. Removing her clothes, she stood naked, the slight breeze refreshingly cool and unique upon her bare skin. This is what the wind felt like. It could not be seen, only felt.

Matthew saw the Princess look right at him through the trees and held very still. The other women had already gone into the spring, but it was she who made his heart speed. He had not bothered to even glance at the others. She turned her face away, and his eyes stole from the top of her head to her feet. She made him ache. He did not know why.

How he hated her perfection: the perfectly formed body with a waist so small his hands could span it, and her eyes! The heat that had infused his body when he had brushed her skin rose up to the surface again.

So this is what a select could do. He would not have it, and neither would the Band. He would get rid of her, take her back to the sphere or somewhere else. But as he looked upon her form silhouetted in the moonlight, the ache grew in intensity, and it made him more angry, not less. He would wait until they finished then take her with him.

Clara immersed herself in water that was almost too hot for her flesh, much of which was tender from riding a horse and sleeping on the ground. She was still sore from the beatings.

Yet that was fading, and she felt a glimmer of hope. It shimmered just below the surface of her soul, waiting to solidify.

Memories of Charles stole over her slowly, and her mood turned melancholy.

“Clara...” Lillian spoke her name softly.

“Yes?”

“Because of the way you interacted with Matthew, we know what you are to us.”

Clara stilled in the water, the fragrant soap Lillian had given her a foamy pile atop her head.

“The Evil Ones...” —The Guardians, Clara corrected mentally— “have a prophesy of sorts that speaks of this problem of our people dwindling and then the mingling of a new people. Females who will be our salvation. They will unlock the genetic code for us to begin to live again, have children again.” She touched her belly with reverence.

“You are one of the select, Clara.”

Oh my Guardian, Clara thought. Those words were right out of the book that Stella, Clara's great-great grandmother, had kept safe for the royal family. It was no coincidence that the Guardians had called the people they chose for the spheres the select. But how could these savages know?

“And what does this mean for me? For the Band?”

“Are there others like yourself inside the sphere?” Anna finally entered the conversation.

“There are many females and males as well,” Clara said, confused.

Lillian shook her head. “No, a relation or someone special?”

Clara had many relations, many of them very distant. She told that to Lillian who shrugged. “You may make it known during your negotiation on behalf of our president that this is a wonderful possibility.”

Clara did not think the females of the sphere would be receptive to the savages needing special mates. But she did not say it, not wishing to alienate these females who were working toward a fragile friendship.

Clara relaxed again, using the pause in conversation to rinse off her hair, her breasts tipped to the sky. Wringing the remainder of the water from her hair, she sank down into the warm depths, grateful for the heat that stole the chill she had felt from the air.

Matthew's eyes followed her motions with an abiding hunger.

“Tell us of the sphere.” Anna’s timid voice mingled with the sounds of the forest. They were small but so many it was a background symphony, ebbing and flowing with its own rhythm.

Clara closed her eyes and spoke into the dark. “It is like anyone's life. I work in the fields by day, and by night I think on royal things. My duties.”

Matthew drew closer, trying to catch her words. He wanted to know more as well. He crouched down, listening.

“The fields?” Anna asked.

“The oyster fields. They yield succulent meats and gems that we use for trade with other spheres.”

“How many spheres are there?” Lillian asked.

“Just nineteen,” Clara replied, thinking again how she would like to visit the sea. Suddenly she remembered Anna was from a sea clan.

“What of you, Anna? I hear that you hail from near the sea.”

Clara waited in the darkness for so long she was planning to repeat her question when Anna finally answered. “Yes, I am from a sea clan. But I do not speak of it.”

Clara thought before she spoke, intuiting much of what might trouble Anna. “I too, have bad things which await me in the sphere. That is why I was where I was when the Band came upon me with Charles and Prince Frederic.”

Yes, Matthew wondered. Who were Charles and Prince Frederic?

“Who are they?” Lillian asked, and a fine tremble broke over Clara, sweat beading on her upper lip. Thinking about the attack made her breath quicken and become shallow.

“What is it? Clara, what is wrong?” Anna asked.

Matthew stood. What was going on? He scanned the environment, his night vision that of an owl. Seeing no threat, he crouched again.

Clara reminded herself that the attack was not happening now, but she was quaking like a schoolgirl. Prince Frederic was obviously not here.

She clearly saw Anna and Lillian staring anxiously at her and felt some explanation was in order. “I was to marry Prince Frederic of the Kingdom of Kentucky. The Queen...”

“Your mother,” Lillian clarified.

Clara nodded. “She wished to ally the kingdoms so that they may mutually benefit each other.”

“What do they have that you need?” Anna asked.

Nothing, Clara thought.

“Grapes,” she answered instead. “And we have pearls and oyster meat aplenty. Many of the spheres would do much for our alliance but Queen Ada chose this kingdom.”

Lillian's eyes narrowed. There was something here that did not quite make sense. “If that were so, then why do you escape?”

Clara said nothing.

“If this alliance is so critical, why do you leave?”

Anna interrupted. “Grapes for eating?”

“Yes, and for wine.”

“Spirits?” Lillian asked.

“Not exactly, but of a sort,” Clara responded carefully. “He was beating me.” She hung her head.

Anna floated over to where Clara was and put an arm around her. “He is not here now to hurt you.”

That Prince who attacked her was to marry her? Matthew could not understand a marriage between the two of them. Could he, in good conscience, return her to the sphere knowing what fate she might find there? He was troubled by what he heard.

Something tight and horrible loosened in Clara's chest. She almost felt safe.

“And the Band, they came upon me in the tunnel. Prince Frederic had somehow known I was attempting to break free and intercepted our escape. He tried... to rape me,” Clara whispered.

Dear Lord, Lillian thought,. We have a monster living in the sphere. One that preys on females. That would not be tolerated in the clans. Well that was untrue. Judging by Anna's expression, she understood exactly what Clara had been through.

Anna looked at Clara with sympathy. “I made a narrow escape from a similar event, one that led me here as well. Take heart, not all males are as that one.”

Clara knew that. After all, she had known Charles her whole life, and he had been nothing but tender and loving. Their friendship was unsullied by violence or rancor.

Matthew was shocked. He had thought her a spoiled female of high rank who possibly enjoyed violent trysts. But it did not explain the way her face had looked before. Was there other violence against her? It made no sense. Why would their Queen allow the abuse of her own kin?

Clara suddenly felt flushed and wished to be out of the spring.

The mood was solemn as they exited the pool. Clara took her time to dry off, the fragrance of the soap heady in her nostrils. Though she was somber, she found these females brought her happiness. It had been some time since her spirit felt so weightless.

She dressed quickly and, gathering up their towels, and implements, she followed her new friends up the steep path.

Having lived a life where she was constantly aware of her surroundings, she almost avoided being taken by Matthew. But in the end, she was no match for his stealth.

He claimed her from behind with ease, clamping on to her waist and covering her mouth. She could hear the murmured conversation of Lillian and Anna ahead of her but was powerless to alert them as she was taken from the area with swift and deadly precision.

The guard—Matthew, she thought, for she knew who it was as the fire, that liquid warmth climbed to the surface of her body like banked embers. He had captured her easily and ran with her body slung over his shoulder.

Clara fought, and he held her tighter against his shoulder, his slow trot never wavering.

By the Guardians, he was strong. He made the Prince seem weak. She grew dizzy as the time wore on. His breathing became labored as he tore through bushes, seamlessly navigating a path that she could not see. Her head bobbed against his flank.

Finally, he slowed then stopped. Roughly grasping her legs, he swung her upright and set her down on her feet with an alarming thud. Lightheaded after being upside down for thirty minutes or more, Clara swayed and fell to her knees.

Then she retched the supper she had so enjoyed onto the ground before her.

Matthew tried to not feel anything for the female, remembering that she was to be returned. But he had a physical reaction to her weak retching and dizziness, his gut churning and releasing. It was possible he had treated her too roughly with the constant jarring and subsequent dismount to the ground. He did not know. He had no experience with females except for Margaret.

That strengthened his resolve. He would not weaken before her.

Clara looked up at Matthew, who gazed down at her coldly, and wished she were dead. He had captured her and was taking her, Guardian knew where. All her earlier peace had gone on the wind. She wiped a shaky hand against her mouth, throwing spittle away in the ferns at her side. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and started to crawl away. She would not go willingly if it killed her.

He could not believe this female! After all that she had been through, she still tried to free herself.

Grimly, Matthew went after her and flipped her over on her back, and she cried out. “Please!” She shielded her face. “Do not... do not hurt me.”

Ignoring the instinctive twist of his gut as her words speared his consciousness, Matthew grabbed her by her wrists and jerked her roughly to her feet. Taking her slender throat in one hand he slammed her against the tree. “We do not need females from the sphere.”

Fragrant evergreen needles fell on Clara like rain when her back hit the tree. Her head swam in a nauseous fog. She saw his face. His intense blue eyes bored into hers, and she said the first thing that came to mind. “Kill me.” She squeezed the words out of her raw throat. Her vision dimmed to a small point, and the edges faded to gray.

Matthew became aware of heat in his hand and saw her eyes start to flutter closed. A feeling of fierce, instinctive protectiveness swelled up inside him for her, for this female. As much as his intellect battled to assert his will, he could not physically harm her. He gathered her limp body with his free arm. and took his hand gently from her neck. Her head fell forward on his chest. He scooped her into a cradle hold, as confused as he had ever been in his life.

An inner turmoil raged as he made his way to the fence that surrounded his clan, her still body pressed against his chest.

****

Lillian gave a low chuckle at Anna's comment, thrilled that she was so engaged in conversation and turned to look for Clara. Shouldn't she be coming along? What had her lagging behind so?

She paused, and Anna turned. Her raised eyebrow was clearly illuminated by the glow of the candle.

“Clara?” Lillian called. “Do not tarry. We have much yet to discuss.”

Anna's face changed to worry. “Was she not right behind us?”

Yes, she had been.

The women hurriedly retraced their steps and came upon Clara's reticule and towel, sprawled on the path in a wet heap.

“Clara!” Lillian screamed.

“She has been taken!”

By whom? Lillian thought. Her mind immediately went to Matthew.

Where was he?

Anna whipped her head around to look at Lillian. “Where is Matthew?”

Where indeed?

The women wasted no time, rushing the entire way back to the clan. They stumbled into the dwelling area and found Stephen and Joseph, who stood upon seeing their expressions.

“What is it?” Joseph eyed Anna carefully and found no damage. She shook off his concern immediately, worried for Clara.

Both women spoke frantically at the same time, and Stephen put a hand to silence them.

Joseph was shocked. He had never heard Anna speak so much.

Anna looked at Lillian.

Lillian nodded and told the tale. She mentioned that she suspected Matthew, and Stephen's eyes became hooded with anger.

“It cannot be him. He is Band. He would never harm a female, let alone take one.”

Joseph shifted uncomfortably. Stephen turned on him, grabbing his large bicep. “What say you?” he asked in a low, urgent voice, his eyes searching his bandmate's.

“Matthew is friends with no one.”

Stephen nodded, releasing him.

“Even you, who runs with him, fights with him. You but know him a small amount.”

Joseph put his index and thumb together, leaving the barest of spaces between them.

“And you do? Know him?” Stephen spat, angry at the situation, frustrated at their position. The Princess was gone, maybe taken by a member of the Band. Or worse, in the hands of the fragment.

“He spoke of his past only one time.” They all waited for him to continue. “And there was a girl...”

“How old was he when he came to us?” Lillian asked, knowing that Anna knew even less than she.

“Ten and two years,” Stephen said.

“He was with the fragment. He was mistreated by all, save one girl, Margaret. She saw that he had food enough to exist, but could do no more. Later, when some males discovered what she meant to him, they assaulted her in front of him unto her death. He vowed that he would never care about a female again.”

“This would have been good information to share,” Stephen said with real reproach.

Joseph sighed. “He swore me to secrecy. He promised it would not affect his duty to the Band.”

“Is not protection a biological directive if you be Band?” Lillian asked.

“It is,” Stephen said slowly. “But it is entirely possible he has some internal wires crossed. His directive might have become mixed with the environment in which he was raised.”

“When he was forming, a young man subjected to that much abuse...” Anna trailed off.

“Yes, it would be a devastating start for one of the Band. We are aggressive by nature, and that kind of treatment would not be ideal,” Joseph said.

“Ideal?” Stephen questioned sarcastically. “If he has indeed taken Clara, then we are honor-bound to find him before something irrevocable happens to her or to him.”

“Agreed,” Joseph said. “But how? We cannot leave the women here and the clan unguarded.”

Stephen had an idea. “Is President Bowen still here?”

Joseph nodded.

A look of relief washed over Stephen's face. “He can remain with his Band and depart after our return.”

“What do we say about Matthew?”

“For now, we treat this as a disappearance. What if Matthew is not responsible? Then we cast doubt upon him with an unproven accusation. No. We see the President now.” He looked at the women. “Go now to your dwellings. Say nothing. We will return and tell you what happened.”

Lillian did not like that Matthew was being afforded this benefit. But she realized it was justice of a sort. After all, he was twenty and two years, and there had never been anything she had heard that was contrary to his loyal protection of the clan. Still, Clara was gone.

A frown furrowed the area between her eyes. How much more could the Princess withstand?

****

Charles and Clarence came into view of a huge timber fence with single logs too big for a man to embrace, the tops of which had been sharpened to points. He was sure that he could see the flash of a fire which burned in the heart of it.

“It looks like this is the end of the trail. The savages must abide here.”

Charles nodded. They were achingly tired, having traveled two days to this spot. But he must try to penetrate the fence and find Clara. At the very least, he needed to know she still lived.

A large gate swung open, and two huge men exited. One spoke heatedly with the smaller guard who operated the gate. Another man, noticeably older with an air of authority like the Queen, gestured to the north.

They crouched down. “Savages,” Clarence breathed.

Charles nodded, taking in the huge malesʼ height and something he was unsure how to name. There was a lethal grace in the way they moved. He had trepidation about fighting against them, yet Clara had been taken. He swallowed back his anxiety. Some things needed to be done, regardless of how one felt about it.

Bravery was a matter of containing fear while throwing away caution.

They watched as the savages threw strange-looking knapsacks on their backs. A small stable boy approached with giant horses, horses that bore no resemblance to those in the sphere. Where was Clara?

Suddenly, a woman ran to one of the savages, throwing her arms around him. He hugged her hesitantly at first then the hug turned fierce as he wrapped his arms around her until she was engulfed in his embrace.

They waited.

****

Anna and Lillian watched President Bowen argue with Stephen and knew that if Bracus were there, things would not be at the fever pitch that they’d reached.

“Bracus is rescuing Evelyn now, and you are reclaiming the Princess?” President Bowen said derisively. “Why was there only one guard on her?”

Stephen held his temper, but it was a near thing, swimmingly close to the surface. “It is as I said before. The women,” he gestured to Lillian and Anna, “planned to bathe at the springs, and we felt that inside the border, they would be safe enough with one member of the Band.”

President Bowen's gaze fell like a weight on Stephen. He held his breath, hoping beyond anything that Bowen would not intuit the circumstances of her disappearance. What if Matthew had claimed her in some odd way? What if she were a select? After all, had she not responded strangely to first Philip and then Matthew? None if it made any sense. It was Matthew’s natural instinct to protect, which would be even more amplified with a female. However, with the knowledge of his abuse at the hands of the fragment, his motives were now in question.

The President ran a hand through what little hair he had atop his head and sighed. “We will stay for two days with my Band.” He frowned. “But know this, I want that Princess back here, standing in front of me, unharmed. Do you understand?”

He did.

“I will, Mr. President.” Stephen cast a glance at Joseph, who looked nervous. But the Band members were predators, burying emotion or perceived weakness under the veil of blankness. They all did that very well. It was automatic, akin to breathing.

Bowen narrowed his eyes at Stephen and pointed his finger at his chest. “Do not engage the fragment. They are too many without your Band mates. Even for her.”

He nodded but knew if she came to harm, he and Joseph would die to save her.

A sound made him turn, Anna ran toward them.

Now what?

Joseph looked at her with contained care. The desire riding in his eyes bypassed his instinct for indifference. She leaped into his arms, making him stagger back from the impact. Then hesitatingly, he wrapped her in his fierce embrace.

She pulled away from him just a little, and they stared into each other’s eyes. Hers brimmed with unshed tears. On his face rode a stunned expression of surprise that he made no attempt to hide.

Stephen looked on with interest. He could not believe this was Anna.

Apparently, neither could Joseph.

“Why now?” he whispered, bending down, his lips moving close to her ear.

“I do not want to lose you. I know that now.” The first fat tear made a wet trail down her cheek. It trembled at her jaw, and Joseph used a finger to catch it.

“I will return for you,” Joseph said simply, his fingertips climbing their way up her arms until they grasped her shoulders. He drew her closer, and she looked up at him, putting a hand on his chest.

“It will not be simple between us.”

Joseph shrugged. “Nothing valuable is gained through ease.”

She smiled, and it was like sun breaking through the clouds. He could not help but grin back. It was a contagious thing, breaking the tension of the preceding moments like rain in a desert. It was a fine thing to see a member of the Band commit to a female and she to him.

The President said, “I do not wish to separate two so newly linked...”.

Anna looked at him with gravity. “I understand duty.”

He nodded. “I am glad that you do, but I will not lie. I am unsure as to how and where the Princess and Matthew may be—what danger awaits them.” He looked at Joseph and Stephen. “I cannot make promises.”

Anna nodded, drying the tears marking her face. But it was a face that shone with hope, an expression she had not owned in some time.

Joseph felt for the first time in his life there might be something besides purpose and duty. And he now had an inkling about what made Jack who he was. He had Lillian, the other half who made him whole.

Anna felt the feather light kiss that Joseph brushed against her forehead and steeled herself not to hurl her body on his to stop him from leaving her. Now that she had decided to trust him, the grief she felt at his departure crushed her. She prayed that he felt as she did.

Anna watched his broad back disappear on his horse. Stephen rode beside him.

Trepidation and fear swirled around her heart like clinging fingers of mist, a shroud she hoped not to wear forever.

CHAPTER 31

Queen Ada's gaze narrowed on the scarred mess of the sphere tunnel's wall. She was unconcerned about the ramifications of her actions. All that mattered was that she retrieve her imbecilic daughter and keep the Wedded Day firmly within sight.

She looked about her impatiently. Where was that ridiculous man? Ah! Coming toward her in a halting bumble was the Record Keeper's associate, Ernest. He was a fool, but Ada needed him. He held precious maps from the time Before Ash Covered the Earth.

He twisted and wrung his hands as he neared her. A fine sweat beaded his upper lip, his waistcoat soaked with nervous sweat. “My Queen.” He dipped his head and bowed twice.

Insufferable fool.

She placed her hands on her hips. Guards swarmed around her like pesky, but necessary, bees.

“I have the records you need, the maps.” He held up long scrolls of paper bound together with different colored ribbons, each color signifying a different geographical area.

“Fine,” she said the word curtly and saw him cringe. Ada looked around for a moment then snapped her fingers, her string of pearls hitting her hip as she whirled around to face the nearest guard, Henry.

“My Queen.” Henry dropped to his knee before her.

She rolled her eyes. “Stand.”

He stood, his eyes assessing her mood and finding it foul, as usual.

“You will be in charge of these documents.” She flung her hand in Ernest's direction.

“Yes, my Queen,” he said soberly. What he really knew, looking at Ernest, who nodded with a bob of his head, was he would pay with his life if they left his sight or he guided them wrong. Or if the Princess was not recovered.

He had a dim hope that something good would come of this. But like the other guards, he knew that without the Princess's involvement in the kingdom, they were utterly lost. The Queen wished to drink, and the Prince of Kentucky was a tyrant bent on reigning through fear, threats, and abuse. How he longed for the days under Kind Raymond. Henry hoped that they could recover the Princess and put her where she belonged. Selfishly, he knew that the Prince was the very worst match for her. From what he had heard from the guards who were on shift the prior eve, the prince was a danger to the Princess as well.

There was no easy solution.

The Queen observed Henry’s machinations, so clear over his countenance. She did not care for a guard who thought overly much. She preferred her guards simpler. Ada had been fortunate not to have Henry or other guards like him the night Clara had needed discipline.

“Leave us,” the Queen said, dismissing Ernest by turning away from him.

Ernest glanced nervously at her back then at Henry. Finally, he shuffled to Henry, giving the Queen a wide berth and handing the maps off to him. Henry nodded to Ernest as his departure kicked up dust from the floor of the tunnel.

Henry called over the guard with the salt solution then turned to the Queen. “The sphere's wall is but a vapor now, my Queen. May I restate my earlier opinion that a...”

She cut him off with an impatient wave of her hand. “Your opinions have been duly noted, and I care not. Obviously, our need for protection from the Outside air has been greatly exaggerated. Mayhap the Guardians were not so benign after all.”

Henry sucked in his breath. She had overstepped. Such blasphemy was inexcusable.

She smiled slyly at him. “Fear not. The Guardians have not been a presence these one hundred forty years past. I do not quibble with things that are no longer real.”

Henry felt they were very real, considering the advancements that kept their sphere and the other nineteen running seamlessly. The spheres themselves were also a marvel. Could she not see the importance of it all? He loathed her for her purposeful ignorance.

“We will traverse this wall. We will follow the trail of my disobedient daughter and her cohort. Do you wish to contradict me in this, guard?” She stepped into his personal space, so close that their chests were almost touching.

He stood his ground, keeping his gaze respectful with an effort. She took the challenge of civility seriously.

“I thought not,” she said triumphantly.

He wished to strike her.

She smiled at him, and he knew some of what he felt must have leaked out of his pores. He could not contain it all. His allegiance to the kingdom lay firmly with the dead monarch, not the living one. And in the future, it would most certainly be with Princess Clara. That was his fervent wish.

The guard Henry had called stood before him, and he nodded. The Queen watched from his side as a large glass canister was emptied of its contents in one smooth movement and flick of the wrist.

It splattered across the surface of the tunnel wall, now thrice compromised, a thing of terrible beauty damaged forever. It no longer hissed but began to evaporate at a maddening pace. The once solid iridescence dissolved. The wind and smell of a million different things in a nature Henry had never experienced assaulted his senses.

It was overwhelming.

He looked over at the Queen and saw that she was similarly stunned. The other guards shifted nervously. Finally, after a few long minutes, the Queen's royal guard led their stout horses through the portal. Sunlight streamed down upon them.

The heat from the orb lit upon their skin with a vibrant warmth that instantly cheered Henry. His very soul awoken as though from slumber. He thought, regardless of circumstance, that he would like the experience. Very much. The smells of the Outside were like tasting food with his nose. Impossibly rich.

Henry surveyed his surroundings, looking for signs of other humans and found many. His frown deepened. The meadow grass had many imprints of varying size, depth, and type.

He knew the footprints of the savages by sheer size. The leathers they wore were distinctive as well. An odd configuration possibly meant for traction graced the soil in the soft earth. Henry was internally relieved that no rain had fallen since Clara was taken. That would have ruined the trail. He placed his shoe next to indentations of the savagesʼ prints and saw theirs were at least thirty percent longer and half that more wide.

He looked up at Queen Ada from his crouch and saw that she understood his advice for the entire guard had not been unfounded.

They looked at each other for a swollen moment. Henry stood, glancing at the guards on their mounts. He gave the signal with his finger that they needed to spread out, twirling it once, twice. One guard stayed behind. The Queen rode behind his horse in an odd contraption. But it saved her sensibilities, and her wine was within reach.

She spoke, lifting her flask to gesture at him. “What say you? How much longer?”

Henry held a neutral expression as she took a very un-royal like pull from the flask. “I do not know. However, they would have had to seek shelter somewhere nearby. They sought a place with cover, water... seclusion.” He shrugged. “Perhaps, it will take hours to reach such a place.”

Henry unrolled one of the maps, studying at it intently. One such water source could be clearly seen. Perhaps it was the source of the Great Lake where the pearls were harvested. He shoved that thought away for future reflection.

Ada narrowed her eyes at him, glaring. He understood that she wished to find Clara, but he could not instantly transport them to the proper location. He was as new to this terrain as she.

“Let us make haste,” she insisted.

Henry nodded. Finally, she would be silent and let them begin the journey.

He walked over to his guards, and they all discussed the different routes. They decided to camp adjacent to the water source, which looked to be some kind of stream or small river, possibly feeding into the Ohio.

He jogged back to the Queen and conveyed the plan.

“Fine,” she said tersely, taking another pull from her wine flask. “Fill this, Henry. I become thirsty.”

He turned, sighing quietly to himself. Ghastly royal.

Henry poured the wine from the larger flask into the smaller then added some spirits. He would get the Queen drunk enough so that she passed out. That would be merciful to the guard, he thought, adding a bit more.

He handed over the flask, and she tore it out of his grip without acknowledgment.

She reclined in her odd contraption, equal parts leather and wood. The cage-like creation of hammered copper with brass fittings held her in a half egg metal cocoon piled with cushions in the interior. Steam hissed to provide light when it was needed, hanging off a brass hook which shimmered like gold in the sunlight.

The steam canister would not last for more than a fore-night but Henry was grateful for the light it would provide for their first night Outside.

The horses began to climb the hill toward the Great Forest, and the Queen's lantern caught the light and refracted it in a million diamonds as they moved deeper into the unknown.

****

Prince Frederic and his guard looked through convex lenses attached to a heavy contraption that fit snug on the head. A sight magnifier that swiveled between an upright position above the forehead and that covered the eyes. In the locked position, it allowed distance viewing. In the upright position, their vision was their own.

The Prince had a perfect view of the Queen and her guard entering the woods.

Exactly what he planned.

He flipped up the lenses, pleased to see the momentary reflection of himself. He was quite handsome.

He turned to Jabez, the First Royal Guard. “We advance one hour hence. I wish to ambush them after they have bedded down here.” He pointed to his own map, and his lenses flipped down as his head bent forward. He slapped them impatiently back in place until he heard them click into the fixed position.

Jabez looked at where the Prince was pointing and noted it was adjacent to a creek or stream. He straightened, nodding. This whole quest made him uneasy. He was certain that King Otto was also nervous. If the Queen survived, the royal spheres would be at war, and the Kingdom of Kentucky did not desire that. Better to place blame on the savages and then capture both kingdoms. He was not certain that this was the best way.

Jabez glanced around him. He did not like the Outside with its strange smells and noises, and it was disturbingly open. He also did not like the obsessive behavior his prince displayed toward Princess Clara. It was not the first time he had thought the prince mad and no small amount either. His sphere did not see a great deal of royal out breeding and most likely the prince had suffered genetically because of it. Yes, there was more to the alliance of Princess Clara and Prince Frederic, more than Queen Ada and Princess Clara ever realized.

Like not having insane royals.

He rolled up the map and retied it with its braided leather ribbon, watching his Prince as he strode about self-importantly barking orders. The guards’ horses shifted their hooves nervously in the soft dirt. They had never been outside the sphere either, and their senses were overwhelmed.

Jabez had counted the Queen's guard at ten. Why their monarch insisted upon going, he did not know. A Queen needed to stay in the sphere. With her daughter likely captured by the savages, she could not have been thinking clearly. Or her advisers were daft. Perhaps she hadn’t listened to her advisers. She struck Jabez as stubborn and cruel.

Jabez and the guard were mounted and ready. They kept a discreet distance behind the Queen's guard.

They were confident in their plan of attack and eventual acquisition of Princess Clara.

CHAPTER 32

Clara woke gradually to rhythmic movement—a swaying sensation. She opened her eyes and saw the underside of a very masculine jaw.

Reality and memories rushed upon her in a confusing slush. Matthew had taken her from the clan, from her new women friends. She was a ship without oars being steered by a male without regard for her welfare.

Her future prospects were bleak.

Matthew became aware of the female's change in breathing and knew when she woke. He slowed his pace to something less jarring.

He stopped underneath a deep canopy of trees, moss springy underneath his leathers. He looked around and noticed a dry area where the moss seemed less green and took Clara there, gently lying her down.

Clara looked at him and moved backward on her hands and legs until she felt her back meet the bark of the nearest tree. She eyed him warily. She had never given him great regard. With the chaos of the past days, just getting proper food and rest had been foremost on her mind. Now she belatedly realized he should have had her full attention. She looked him over closely. He was as tall as Bracus but fiercer of expression. What she had thought of as anger when he had gazed at her while she was safely encapsulated in the sphere, she now understood to be some kind of intense indifference.

As if he willed himself not to care.

He spoke. “Do not try to run.”

She shrugged. “And where, dear sir, would I go? Where would I go and you not catch me and assault me further?”

He took a step nearer to her, and she instantly regretted her flippant comment. He was huge in the way of the other savages and could easily harm her —slowly, if he so chose.

He saw her eyes widen in fear and hesitated. Matthew was still unsure what to do with her. His plan had been so full, so sure. And now? All he could see were those swimming aquamarine eyes. He felt her heat when she touched his bare skin. He hated her power over him. Mayhap it was not a conscious thing on her part. After all, if she were select, it would not be something she could help.

She saw him hesitate and arched her brow.

“I do not wish to harm you.”

Clara crossed her arms underneath her breasts and let her face fill with disbelief. Oh yes, he did not wish to harm her after the whole slam-into-the-tree episode and her fainting, yet again. And the vomiting everywhere. Yes, that was it. Her welfare was clearly important to him.

She felt battered, body and soul.

Matthew raked a hand through his hair, ripped a hairband from his knapsack, and tied it back.

She would be difficult, he thought. Soon, he would have the entire Band hunting them, and he would have to think of an explanation as to why he had taken her.

More and more, he could not think of one.

Clara stood, stretching the tightness of her body. Small popping sounds emitted from her back as the tension was released. She moved her neck in a small circle, the kinks slowly easing. She would kill for something to wash her mouth out with. Tentatively, she reached for the flask in the knapsack at her feet. Sniffing it and smelling nothing, she took a pull of water, discreetly spitting it out behind her. Then she drank her fill, all the while feeling his eyes on her. She looked back at him as neutrally as possible. She wanted no more shows of force. Possibly, if she were cooperative, he would not be rough with her again.

Matthew saw her moving to relieve the pressure of travel, and he wished to rub her neck and back. He wished to touch a female, this female. He clenched his fists. He would not touch her. It was too much of a betrayal of Margaret. No other female could be as pure and vital as she had been. Yet his eyes strayed back to Clara's form again and again, watching her drink, watching her move.

Clara watched him watching her, his expressions ranging from indifferent to pensive to resolved. She wished very much to find out about this strange man. Why was he not following Bracus's commands? Was he not second-in-command?

“Why do you kidnap me? When your captain returns, he will be unhappy.” She stumbled over that word, thinking that it may be quite a bit more than that. “Surely there will be conflict. It has been explained to me what my potential role is for our peoples. You put that at risk. Your actions put that at risk.”

She gazed directly at him, and that heat licked at him. She was beginning to undo him. He walked to her, and her eyes widened but she did not back away.

Clara was accustomed to intimidation. Queen Ada had been an adept teacher.

When he was but a foot away from her, he asked, “Who did this to your face?” He could not stop himself as he put a finger along the chartreuse bruise, which bloomed like an ugly flower, beginning at her cheekbone and fanning out toward her temple.

She felt the tender touch of his finger as it glided against her cheekbone in sharp contrast to his rough treatment of her earlier. Clara wondered if had he been afraid of her before. Scared not of her but of what she represented? What was he afraid of? The melding of their peoples, as preposterous as it sounded with the Queen's involvement, would be a positive thing. She was puzzled and felt her brows knit together.

What was he doing? He saw her frown at his caress and took his hand away, a dull warmth throbbing where he had laid that small touch upon her face.

Her face smoothed.

As his hand fell away she felt like she had lost a source of comfort. It was almost, with this stranger, as it had been with Charles. But how could that be? She and Charles had spent seasons together. Many events had bred their easy familiarity. She’d had nothing with this guard, except his disregard of the rules, his rough treatment of her, and his simmering anger. She felt it boil and ripple like a fish seen through dark water.

“I wish to know: why did you take me? Why not let our peoples mingle? You have a need for propagation, and we need to be free of a life confined to the sphere.” Clara thought briefly of the ocean her father had told her about and had a sharp ache of longing for that unknown sea.

“I believe that the Captain cannot be objective where you are concerned.” He rubbed his hands together. “He has shown a degree of... subjectivity. He has lost his focus, our purpose.”

“Does he... is he?

Matthew nodded. “He wishes to have you. If your people were resistant to the idea...” He shrugged.

“They will come for me, you know.”

Matthew's eyebrows came together. “It does not matter. The Band is not afraid.”

“What of the fragment?”

“What of them?” Matthew snarled.

Ah... Clara thought, watching his fists clench. She had touched on something tender which bled. Of course the girl, Evelyn, had been taken.

“Is it Evelyn? The young girl that Bracus seeks?”

He shook his head. His expression momentarily softened then hardened again. “It is not the girl.”

Clara cocked an eyebrow.

He sighed. “Not entirely the girl. I...” He shifted. “The Band will retrieve her. But it is a personal matter between the fragment and me.”

Clara waited.

He looked at her and realized that, somehow, he had been cornered into saying more than he had intended. He did not wish to speak of his time with the fragment, of Margaret.

They looked at each other, a tiny young woman with fierce eyes and a bruised face and the warrior with a troubled heart and an abusive past.

Could he trust her? Would it matter? Why was it important that he tell her anything?

Clara saw the conflict rage within him without knowing the cause. Instinctively, against every internal warning, she said, “Please, tell me that which causes you this suffering.”

He watched her silently, searching her face for any deceit.

“The Prince. He and my mother, the Queen.”

“What?” Matthew asked, confused.

“Your question,” Clara answered. “That is who put this abuse upon my face.”

Matthew stood stunned. He had known that the Prince was a viper, as the Band had come upon him in the act of assaulting the Princess. But her mother the Queen? It made no sense.

Seeing his expression, Clara gave a harsh cough of a laugh that ended in a sob. She put her hands over her face so that she could not see him. Her shame shone as bright as the Outside sun.

Matthew’s soul churned. This tiny female had suffered abuse but not by strangers as he had within the fragment but by her own flesh and blood. He could not reason it out. But his heart, which ached for no one, ached for her. He thought that he might comfort her but did not know how. So he stood awkwardly watching her misery, powerless to help her, hating his incompetence.

Finally, Clara removed her hands. She swiped at her useless tears, embarrassed beyond words by her stupid weakness as this huge male stood staring at her, expressionless, probably bored by her tirade. She straightened.

Matthew watched her gather herself together, and felt grudging admiration. Beaten, almost raped, and kidnapped twice. And yet she regained her composure. His hands ached to hold her, but he remained where he was. There was one gift he could offer her: his trust. So he gave it.

It was a larger thing than his comfort.

“I was twelve when the Band found me starving and delirious from thirst, hunger, and neglect.” His mind wandered a million miles away.

*

Matthew lay down in the meadow, his head swimming with dizziness, flies buzzing above him, impatient for his death. He looked down at his body, the planes of it like weaponry: sharp hipbones, ribs like poles bound together with skin. His eyes rolled, dry and swollen, within their cavities. He heard a noise. He raised a hand, knowing the sound was not the fragment, hoping, as only a young boy could, that someone would help him, that he could either end forever or begin with new hope.

A shadow fell over his body and he didn’t have the strength to shield his eyes from the sun. The shadowy form seemed to realize this. A great warrior stood over him, weaponry hanging off his body like the leaves of a mighty tree. Matthew was too weak to feel fear, but his heart stuttered.

The great male crouched down in front of him, grabbing him gingerly by the wrist, firm but gentle.

He paused for a moment, head cocked. Then he spoke to someone just behind him. “He is Band.”

Matthew saw a bow shift with the man’s body and took in his weapons. Daggers at the small of his back in a complicated contraption of leather, a bow rested upon the back of his right flank, and a quiver rode near his spine. A small dagger was sheathed at his right hip and another at his ankle.

His eyes flitted to the great male above him and he smiled down at Matthew. “Where do ye hail from, lad?”

Matthew opened his mouth to answer but was too parched to form words. The male saw his problem., “Bracus, fetch me the flask. His heart beat is steady, but not for long. If we had not arrived...”

“Yes, father,” a young voice came from behind him.

Suddenly, a second shadow crossed the first, and Matthew was looking into the face of a male he instinctively knew was the same as him.

Finally, Matthew belonged.

Beleaguered, starving, thirsty, and near death, he had come home. These were his people. He gave a weak smile, drank the water from the large male's cupped hand, and then passed out.

*

Clara listened to Matthew quietly tell of his recovery by the Band. Why, she asked, had he been with the fragment? Why had they beaten him, starved him, treated him so terribly?

“Why does your mother beat you?”

“I do not know.” Clara’s eyes filled with unshed tears. She realized, perhaps for the first time, that she wished her mother loved her.

Matthew saw the loneliness and fear rise in her eyes like a poisonous tide and could have struck himself for being so insensitive.

He tried to salvage things. “I think it may be because I was different, and they knew that. I was threatening to them, their way.” He thought carefully about his next statement. “You may also be a threat to your mother.”

“The Queen,” Clara corrected automatically.

Matthew inclined his head in acknowledgment, watching her distance herself from the familial tie.

“I do not threaten her. She is in ultimate control.” Clara swept her hand around the forest, visualizing it as her kingdom.

Matthew saw the marks on her throat from his fingers. They were reddening, just shy of bruising, and he was ashamed.

Clara saw him flick his eyes at her throat and back to her face, his uncomfortable expression. She narrowed her eyes. What was he thinking?

She asked the next question instead, the most obvious one. “What is this fragment?”

His eyes became hooded and dark. “They are a people bent on taking. They take whatever they can, from whomever they can, use it until it is no longer worthwhile, then discard it. Like locusts.”

Clara stared at him, watching his fists clench. The cords on his neck stood out, and his huge hands bunched into fists the size of her old reticule.

“Bracus said that they kidnap women for forced breeding.”

Matthew nodded once.

So it was true. Suddenly, Clara became acutely aware that it was just she and Matthew. Here in the forest, they were quite vulnerable.

Matthew saw the emotions pass over her face and knew what she was thinking.

“Fear not. They would not dare try to take you.”

Clara watched his posture change, becoming more. He would be something for them to fight against.

“They have no Band?”

Matthew shook his head. “No. My existence with them...” He shrugged. “We do not know why I was with them. Bracus has speculated...” He turned away from her.

He felt her approach, her warmth a solid thing, worming its way underneath his skin.

“What?” she asked softly.

“That they may have come upon my mother...” He breathed out in a rush, his face hotter than he could stand. “And they kept me for a slave of sorts.”

Oh, how horrible. They might have taken him while he and his mother were outside the protection of their clan.

And he had been raised a slave.

Clara was a hair's breadth from his back. She reached out to the broadness of it, the fine fibers of the tunic having small bumps where the linen and cotton mixed.

He had suffered as she had. They actually knew each other well, she realized, at least in the ways that mattered.

She pressed her palm on his back. His spine formed a shallow canal between muscles that bunched and intersected, running from huge shoulders to a tapering waist where diminutive swords lay crisscrossed. But Clara was unafraid. His treatment of her was that of someone who did not know, could not know, kindness, concern... care. How could one show compassion when one had never known it? The Band would include him but would not be nurturers.

She laid her head in the middle of his back, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing. Silently, she lent her compassion to him, wanting him to know that she forgave him his treatment, to understand he had a friend.

He felt her heat seep into his body. It slid to his extremities. With a low groan, he turned in one smooth motion and grabbed her upper arms, his hands completely encircling them and drew her to him until their chests were crushed together.

Clara felt him pull her against him in a spine-tingling rush of desire that swept over her in a heated wash. She was powerless to remind herself that this must not happen, that he was not of the sphere. The fragment raged about them, waiting to take the unprotected. His own Band sought them even now. Instead, she fell into his embrace like a woman lost, a bottle in the ocean swept to sea.

Matthew put a hand underneath her chin, cupping it loosely, his fingertips moving up the length of it, gliding until they swept beyond her temple, carving pathways through her hair. He grasped it tightly, and she gasped. He held her there and gazed into her eyes. He did not want to force her, but he could not seem to help his actions, resisting as long as he could. He felt that his whole life had been preparation for this moment with this woman.

Matthew let the question fill his eyes. She saw it and gave a very slight nod. He bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.

Clara was shocked by the softness of his kiss. For all his size and mannerisms, she thought his kiss would be an onslaught. But it was not. It was soft, a velvet feather. With pressure and movement, his lips lifted, sought, connected, and explored. When he took her lower lip in his teeth, capturing it there, he nibbled on it then sucked it into his mouth softly. His tongue explored the inside of her mouth delicately then with increasing passion, and Clara was lost, her body afire. Clinging to his shoulders like a lifeline, she pressed her body harder into his, her hands sliding up around his neck.

Matthew was desperate for more of her touch, and when her hands dug into his shoulders as encircled his neck, he lifted her right off the ground. She held onto him. His kisses rained down like rose petals on her throat, her face. Everywhere skin was, he worshiped it with his mouth.

She felt him move her until her back was against the same tree she had cowered against earlier. The rough bark bit slightly as his body covered hers completely. Those large hands pressed her body against his, one hand exploring her ribcage and waist and the other holding her against the trunk.

Matthew became aware of far-off noises, and broke off his attentions. His breath came in quick gasps. Senses sharpening, he looked down on her. Clara's eyes were pools of turquoise in a face flushed a deep pink. The marks of abuse faded, and in their place, he saw lips that were swollen from kisses instead of fists.

Damn.

He wanted her. Need sang in his body like a finely tuned instrument. But his senses had roared to life, and that meant threats were near. Ignoring his Band's directives could not negate the deeply honed instincts he had been born with.

“What?” Clara asked, languid and drowsy in his embrace.

“Someone draws near.” Matthew gently lowered her down, pulling her tight against his chest, his hand stroking her hair, his eyes scanning the distance.

He heard horses but not Band. Fragment? He pushed Clara behind him. “Stay behind me, no matter what occurs. Do not leave my side.”

Clara felt sick. It was too many things, one on top of the other. She put her hand on the tree but met his gaze, nodding.

Satisfied, Matthew turned away from her. Releasing his daggers from the small of his back, his hands swung around to the front of his body, his stance widening as the thundering of the horses hooves neared. Matthew lowered into a crouch.

Clara watched Matthew move in front of her and take the small swords from their sheaths. Their singing metal sound made her ears ring. She finally heard the approaching horses and knew that her life would be changing yet again. She badly wished to move up behind Matthew, out of sight and hidden behind him.

But if there were to be a fight, she would be in the way, so she stood where she was. Vulnerability was her burden to carry.

****

Charles and Clarence waited until the two savages were gone and the others back inside the gate.

“She is not here. You heard those savages. She has escaped...”

“Or been taken,” Clarence said.

Charles nodded.

“We follow them. Where they lead, we shall follow, and the Princess will be there.”

Charles palmed his jaw thoughtfully. “They went to the trouble to acquire her, and then she slips between their fingers?” His fingers clenched then splayed. He shook his head. Something was amiss. The savages seemed far too astute and instinctual to allow such a thing.

“Agreed, but our path is laid before us, Charles. Whatever may have happened, it matters not. She is still in danger, true?”

“Yes.”

They followed. For Clara.

****

Queen Ada sent Henry ahead to the huge complex surrounded by an intimidating natural fence made of the huge timbers that were so prevalent in this strange place.

It had not been without argument.

“Queen Ada, I implore you. We must behave in a friendly and peaceful way, not lurk about as if we mean harm.”

“We do mean harm, Henry. I do not wish to make peace with the savages. I wish to take what is mine, return to the sphere, and have the betrothal go forward so that we may ally the kingdoms.”

He sighed. She was stupidly stubborn. “My Queen, I will spy for you but I do not feel it is to our benefit.”

“Duly noted. Now go.” She smiled at him without warmth, uncapping her wine flask.

Henry eyed the flask and tried again. “Queen Ada, what of food? When was the last time you took a meal? Some cheese perhaps?”

She glowered at him, and he unflinchingly held her gaze.

“Fine.” She made a disgusted noise in her throat. “You, guard.”

“Yes, my Queen?”

She spoke to him but looked directly at Henry, “Ready some cheese with grapes.” She spat the last word sarcastically. Henry was sure it was for his benefit. “So this worrisome nagging will discontinue.”

“Post haste, my Queen.”

Henry heard him rustling for the food.

“Satisfied?” she said, her question both a challenge and a statement.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, my Queen,” Henry said with resignation.

She smiled at his discomfiture. Whatever made others uncomfortable seemed to please her.

She was a hateful example of humanity.

He turned away and left her and the other guards in the deepest part of the woods, making his way toward a fence constructed of huge logs that had their tops sharpened to dangerous points.

As he approached, he became aware of raised voices. He crouched down behind wild ferns with serrated fronds. The low branches of the evergreen trees almost caressed their tops. He could not be seen. Yet one of the huge savages turned in his direction, his nostrils flaring, his hand hovering over the hilt of a dirk that hung at his hip.

But a short older man with a barrel chest and a bald head gained his attention, and he was distracted. However, it was what they said that made the breath still in Henry's body.

“But know this. I want that Princess back here, standing in front of me, unharmed. Do you understand?”

More words were exchanged. Henry heard only snippets. Somehow, they had kidnapped the Princess then lost her? To whom? Henry was more mystified than ever. This was no longer a simple acquisition mission. They had grossly underestimated the sophistication of the savages, wrongly assumed a state of primitiveness. He closed his eyes for a moment, despairing. Gaining Clara for the sphere was now no longer a mere directive from the Queen.

Clara was their last hope, their greatest chance for a future without tyranny.

****

Jabez watched the Queen's First Guard make his stealthy departure from the foliage to explain what he had also heard: the Princess had fallen out of the savages’ grasp, and she was being reacquired somewhere in this vast wilderness.

Jabez moved quietly away toward their camp. He had seen the savages constantly scanning the area, as if they knew they were observed, which was impossible. He thought upon their strange size, the gills, that only fish should have. Their way of movement was lithe and graceful but deadly. They would be fierce fighters.

Jabez’s heart raced at the thought of coming against them. The Prince's guard would prevail. They were simply too many for the savages to gain advantage.

They would surrender or die.

He hurried back to tell the Prince all he knew.

****

Matthew's body trembled, adrenaline coursing through him. A new, almost painful purpose drilled through his body. It was more than pure desire. He wished to share something with Clara, something intrinsically powerful.

Life.

Now that epiphany was threatened.

Horses slowed and came into view. It was the fragment, and they were many. Matthew's heart sped. He could feel Clara's fear behind him. The need to cover her with his protection choked him, singing through him, unlike anything he had ever experienced.

His eyes traveled the group of twelve men and one female. Evelyn. Her eyes pleaded with him, her hair a matted mess, one eye swollen shut.

Rage surged through Matthew. They would die. Or he would die making them sorry.

His eyes landed on one male, then another, whom he recognized. The past decade had not dimmed his memory.

Margaret’s attackers.

A large male dismounted, keeping his gaze locked on Matthew. “Well, what do we have here?” His eyes flicked from Matthew to Clara.

Clara looked at the obviously abused girl and knew instantly that it was Evelyn. She looked upon each cruel face and saw no mercy, only evil intent. She knew that look. She knew it very well. The fragment looked upon them as the Queen looked upon her. As Prince Frederic did. Good Guardian, this was a horror.

“Ralph, does this breeder look familiar to you?”

“Aye, he does, healthier though...” Claude chuckled.

Matthew eyed them both, calculating his dagger thrusts as they bantered back and forth. His mind was already gutting them like the swine they were.

Suddenly, from the other direction, horses approached. Matthew knew the gait, the cadence of those horses.

The Band... his brothers.

Matthew straightened as Bracus, Jack, Jacob, James, and Philip came into sight. Their steedsʼ sides heaved, glistening sweat wrapping the horsesʼ bodies.

Clara could not believe her eyes. The Band. She dared to hope.

Bracus laid his eyes on Matthew, then Clara behind him. What was happening here? He saw the fragment with Evelyn and realized the Band's surprise entrance into the heart of the fragment foothold had been for naught. They had not been there. Having taken Evelyn, they had led a hunting party. She had yet to be taken to their stronghold. His eyes touched on Clara again.

What was Clara doing out of the clan?

Bracus's heart hammered so hard in his chest he thought it might escape. He drank in the sight of her. She was beginning to heal but looked as if she had traveled hard, her hair falling about her in a riot of burnished copper. Her eyes widened at the sight of them, scared and trembling, on the verge of shock.

Bracus shook off his questions about why Matthew and Clara were here instead of inside the safety of the clan. One disaster at a time. And right now, his priority was Evelyn. He glanced at Matthew. Their eyes met, and an uncanny understanding flowed between them. Matthew nodded his acknowledgment of Bracus's unspoken directive.

Matthew would protect Clara. The Band would concentrate on the fragment.

The Band stood behind Bracus, fluidly dismounting as a single unit. They had no time to tie the horses down. But then neither did the fragment, who had also dismounted.

Ralph tied the girl to the reins of the horse. Let the hellion try to escape. She had needed quite a spot of discipline for them to come to an understanding. She'd be a fine breeder when she came of age, he thought, licking his lips. He looked into her upturned face and should have known what was coming next as she reared her head back and spat directly in his face.

Rage surged through him, and he backhanded her hard enough that it threw her small body against his horse, which staggered a step backward, neighing nervously.

Evelyn slid down the horse's flank, landing with an indelicate plop beside one of the horse's hooves. Her ears rang and bile rose in her stomach.

Bracus roared. The Band surged forward, Bracus in the lead, Philip on the far corner. They would tame the fragment's flank.

Clara watched the Band advance, their muscles flexing as they moved against the fragment in an elaborate, violent dance. Even with their superior size, they were outnumbered. How would they prevail?

Ralph met the large one with his dagger extended, swiping forward, slashing a great swath. Bracus stepped into the swinging metal, meeting it with his dagger. The sound of clanging weapons was a painful thrum in Clara's chest.

Two of the fragment circled around Philip. Half a head taller than both, he brought his weapons away from his body, one dagger clockwise, the other counter. They swung in a semi-circle as one of the fragment came forward. Claude, Clara thought, wondering if he had been the one to lay hands on the small girl who lay in a crumpled heap at the feet of a horse.

Everywhere Clara looked, there were males entangled with one another. The noise of fists striking flesh, the meaty sounds of impact underscored by striking metal churned the silence into a clashing frenzy.

Claude distracted his opponent, eyes trained on the strange gills. The were fully open with a bright pink interior. Claude feigned a lunge and another fragment grabbed the breeder from behind, leaping on his back and looping a forearm around his neck.

This only seemed to enrage him. With a roar, Philip used the male's momentum, grabbing the forearm about his neck. He swung him over the top of his shoulder and launched him as far as he could. At the same time, he felt a deep burning in his side. He looked down and saw the hilt of a dagger buried within him.

Claude felt an evil smile fill his face. He had him now.

Philip ignored the dagger, leaving it in place, knowing there would be more blood loss at its removal. With a war cry, he launched himself at Claude, his dagger arcing above him, the shine off the blade momentarily blinding Claude who sidestepped.

Philip instinctively curved his body toward his opponent, slashing downward at his neck. Then, with a vicious twist, he buried and turned the blade in one movement. The dagger pierced his side deeper as he landed. The pain turned into a roaring inferno. He lay on his back, slowly turning his head to look at his opponent, who lay cooperatively bleeding out.

Clara watched the horror unfold before her as two of the fragment approached Matthew. Not wishing to distract him, she shrank against the trunk of the tree, making herself as small a target as possible. With blades clenched in his hands, he prowled toward them.

Matthew was keenly aware of Clara behind him. The first male of the fragment lunged at him, and he swung his head to the side as the male's blade pushed air against his face. The second male advanced. He did not turn. Hearing the movement of the second male's arm, he reflexively lashed out behind him, punching with his left dagger and, at the same time, thrusting his right dagger in his right hand up and into the underside of a jaw in the forward position.

Clara watched blood pour out of one of the males of the fragment on Matthew's right side. The male who had been circling to attack from behind was nursing a slashing wound that had opened an eight-inch gash from collarbone to shoulder, narrowly missing the tender flesh of the neck.

Matthew’s eyes caught Clara's at the same time that two more of the fragment advanced on him. The male with the wounded shoulder seemed to shake off the pain. Blood ran freely from the sucking hole. He came at Clara, who looked around frantically for the closest Band. She saw Philip was down. Bracus was actively working his way to Evelyn. Two fragment were on the ground. The other Band were sorely outnumbered.

No one noticed that Clara was in desperate trouble.

She whipped her head around for a weapon. The male smiled with grim joy and came nearer.

Clara lost her nerve and fled.

She heard the male crashing after her but felt confident that she would be able to escape. His wound should slow him down.

It did not.

She felt strong arms wrap around her waist, and her feet popped off the ground. She fought for her life, swinging and flailing, trying to gain time. Time for the Band to find her.

Finally, she kicked behind, and her foot found his shin. With a grunt, her captor loosened his hold, and she was free. She started to run and was shoved from behind. Only her arms slowed her fall. Clara started to scramble away and was kicked in her side. Air left her body, her lungs began to burn, and her eyes watered.

She could see him above her, blood soaking his tunic, no longer pale, but a bright tomato red. He wasted no time. Grabbing the top of her bodice, he tore it open. The seams gave way with a powerful rip. Clara's breath came back in a rush. Finding her voice she screamed, “Matthew!”

The male jerked her upright by her hair, and she yelped. He dragged her close to him. His sour breath poured over her face. “Shut up, or I'll beat you senseless.” His strange accent drug like grated glass across her eardrums.

It felt like he was tearing her hair out of her scalp, but she stayed still as he let her head fall back and started to undo his breeches.

Clara could only think of Prince Frederic.

She was tired to the bone from the beatings and the attempted rapes. She would die before allowing herself to be abused ever again.

She scrambled quickly to her feet with the male's blood covering her. The top of her blouse was hanging open where he had torn it. It flapped loosely with her movement. She saw a bleeding and battered Matthew appear with Bracus behind her attacker, who had not heard their approach.

The male of the fragment would have this female while the others battled, none the wiser. There were not enough females, and he liked his females with a bit of fire. This one had spirit, he thought as he took out his dirk, hidden in a small sheath inside the waistband of his breeches. Maybe she needs a little encouragement. Yes, that was the answer. What female could say no to the blade?

Clara was relieved for exactly one moment before catching sight of a small sword-like dagger that the male removed with a practiced hand from the waist of his breeches. She flicked her eyes to first Matthew's then Bracus's in warning as the male lunged for her. She threw herself just out of reach, stumbling then falling backward down a small slope. As she tumbled, Clara kept herself as loose as she could, hoping to avoid injury.

Finally, she came to a stop and lay there on her back, staring at the dappled light spearing through the forest. She cautiously wiggled her toes and fingers, taking stock of her limbs. It felt like everything was still working. She sat up and saw Bracus and Matthew navigating the small slope to get to her. Matthew heaved the broken body of the fragment down the ravine like so much garbage.

Bracus looked grim and Matthew relieved.

Matthew reached her first, and a moment later, two different hands were extended to help her up. Bracus and Matthew glared at each other, but Clara took both hands that were offered. Bracus's cool and dry. Matthew's was a thing of liquid heat, making her gasp slightly. She knew that he felt it too.

Bracus's eyes narrowed on them.

“Let us get back to the others,” Bracus said.

“Yes, Captain.” Matthew stared intently at Clara as he added, “Why did you leave my side? I said, no matter what occurs, to remain.”

They walked up the hill together. When it became apparent that Clara was weaker than she wanted to admit, Matthew scooped her up and carried her the rest of the distance, walking as if she were weightless. Bracus glared at Matthew the entire time.

Cresting the hill, they headed quickly through the small patch of woods she had fled through, stepping out of the forest into what was now a small battlefield. Clara stared at the Band. Jack stood straight and unharmed. Clara thought briefly of Lillian, and relief flowed over her. Jacob and James both had minor wounds, and Philip was sitting up with a dagger sticking out of his side like an obscene flag. His skin had a grayish pallor, and his breathing was shallow.

Bracus rushed over to his side. “My brother, let me take the blade.”

Philip nodded, and Bracus turned to James. “Fetch the healing sack.”

James was already rummaging through the odd knapsack when he pulled out some gauzy material made of fine-colored beige linen and a small apothecary bottle which held amber-colored liquid. A large needle and thread were gathered and brought to Bracus.

Jacob stepped forward. “I will do it. I have the steadiest hand, Captain.”

Bracus nodded, taking up position behind Philip's head, cradling it while Jacob raised a leather belt to his mouth. “Open up brother. This will give you something to bite down on.”

Phillip did.

Matthew put his arm around Clara's shoulders, and she leaned into his body. Bracus's eyes took them in, a cold shadow residing where none had been before. Clara shivered, and Matthew drew her in tighter.

In one smooth movement, Jacob pulled out the knife. With a shrieking shout, muffled by the belt, Philip began to sweat in earnest. Rivulets ran down his face. Jack and James were on either side of him, their hands gripping his that were white-knuckled. Clara saw with real alarm that it was four-inch blade. The gaping hole looked like an open mouth. As they stood staring, the whiteness of the hole filled with bright blood, and Jacob poured some of the liquid from the vial into the gash, the needle and thread moving in and out of the deepest part of the wound. He dabbed at the slash, pouring the fluid inside, stitching, then repeating the process. All the while, precious blood poured out.

It was a miracle that Philip remained awake.

Jacob worked feverishly, his mouth set in a grim line.

Clara looked around her.

Evelyn looked pale and ill. Her small body lay wrapped in a blanket not five feet from where they repaired Philip. Clara nudged Matthew, and he looked down at her, his expression a mixture of stress, relief, and something she could not name. “May I check on Evelyn?”

Matthew nodded, reluctantly releasing her. His hand lingered on her waist as she slipped out of his grasp. She had felt so right against his side. He watched her as she made her way through the bodies of the fragment, their limbs entangled, throats slit, some with cuts under their knees to slow their escape. Matthew thought of all this dispassionately. He was only sorry that he could not kill Ralph and Claude himself. For Margaret.

But there were others.

Eventually, they would all die under his blade for what they had done.

Bracus watched Clara and Matthew from his vantage point on the ground, becoming more disturbed as time passed. How was a man like Matthew, quiet to the point of being taciturn, suddenly so intimate with Clara? She had treated even, Bracus, her rescuer, with extreme caution. It galled him, and he intended to find out. He looked down at Jacob, who would heal this wound. It took much to kill one of the Band. As Bracus watched, the wound stopped bleeding. Some color returned to Philip's cheekbones, the sickened color leeching away.

Jacob finished his ministrations and nodded, mostly to himself. “That will do. I think his major organs were missed.”

“Fool, it does not feel as though anything was missed. Feels like the sod got a bit of everything,” Philip said sourly.

The tension broke as the Band laughed.

Philip would live to fight another day.

James fetched an additional blanket and rolled up another for under his head. Jack got the water flask for Bracus to give Philip a pull of water.

The Band looked at Matthew, and he fought not to reveal his discomfort. Then they looked at where Clara was, talking softly to Evelyn.

“What say you?” Bracus asked fiercely, as a flush of red colored Matthew's cheeks.

Matthew could not stop his body's betrayal. He was awkward with these new emotions coursing through him. He understood what he had done was wrong. It was only a matter of time before Stephen and Joseph would find them and speak of his betrayal.

But they were not here now. He would stall, gain some time to organize his thoughts, which at present, were a riot inside his head.

Matthew opened his mouth to formulate a semblance of an explanation.

Two men appeared out of the woods.

Matthew recognized one immediately.

Sphere-dweller.

Instantly, the Band stood and faced the two men as Clara slowly rose from her crouched position next to Evelyn.

When Charles and Clarence appeared out of the forest Clara felt as a woman that sees a mirage in a desert and with it, a relief so profound she sunk back to the ground covering her face as she wept in blatant relief; Charles was here.

That is not how the Band responded to Charles and Clarence's appearance. Daggers unsheathed, they surrounded the pair.

Charles spotted Clara right away, on the ground, crying like her heart was broken. Taking a step toward her he felt a strong hand encircle his forearm.

He looked at Clarence. “Let me go. I must go to her.”

“Caution, my friend, look yonder,” Clarence said quietly, inclining his head in the direction of the Band.

Charles saw what he meant. The Band surrounded them. Every one of them had a similar stance. Charles's eyes flicked to a huge male laying on the ground, apparently injured with another savage beside him, weapon naked in his hand.

They were ready to kill him. Charles looked at Clara, who had stopped sobbing and was moving toward him, picking up her skirts, she ran.

Clara had finally gotten a hold of her emotions. It would not do to have the Band kill Charles and Clarence for mistaking them for the fragment or some such. She hiked up her skirt and ran faster.

As she neared them, she sailed past Bracus, who grabbed her and pulled her against his body. With a gasp, she was held in a grip that was almost painful. She was so close to Charles, only two horse lengths, yet she was held by the Band. Did they not remember him as her companion? He meant her no harm!

Matthew turned to Bracus and growled, lowering his stance as if to attack, and Bracus looked back at Matthew flabbergasted. What was this? And then Clara's bare flesh touched his wrist, and he felt it. The heat climbed his body, and he knew.

A select.

“Unhand her!” Charles roared, taking a menacing step toward the savage holding Clara against her will. A movement to his right caused him to duck just as a fist grazed his head. The glancing blow made his ears ring.

“No!” Clara screamed, tearing herself out of the dazed grasp of Bracus, who stumbled back as if tapped between the eyes with a hammer.

She stepped into the middle of the fray. Matthew was grabbing Charles by the shirt and hauling him off the ground by its neck. Matthew was at least six inches taller, and Charles was no small man. Dismissing the danger, she threw herself between them, pushing a hand against the middle of Matthew's chest.

The heat of Clara’s palm warmed Matthew, leeching the aggression out of him. He had the male within his grasp, his face a foot from his own. But as he looked down, it was Clara's face that filled his vision, captured his mind, made him realize he was going to kill this male simply because he was near her.

Matthew lowered the sphere-dweller to the pasture grass, his face beet red and gasping for breath.

Charles put a hand to his throat as he backed away, Clarence behind him. He looked at the other savages, who watched him warily but not aggressively. After all, apparently one of them was all that would have been needed to dispatch the both of them. Good Guardian, they were strong.

Clara looked up into Matthew's fierce eyes, and she kept staring, seeing a softening around the edges. Finally, his shoulders relaxed, he lowered the dagger to his side, and she let her fingers trail down his chest then away.

“He is my dearest friend... I must... I wish to go to him.”

Matthew's heart raced, and he clenched the dagger until the hilt creaked in his hand.

Clara saw the wildness start to creep back into his gaze and quickly said, “Just for a time.”

Matthew looked at Charles and nodded reluctantly, his eyes never leaving hers.

Clara began walking backward, keeping her eyes locked on Matthew and all the Band. Bracus was looking at her most strangely. It was up to her to defuse things. She had ample practice.

Turning, she threw her arms around Charles. Her relief and love for him was a cloak of intense comfort that she shrugged on, wrapping herself in its embrace.

Charles had never felt a moment of more intense joy than when he held Clara in his arms once more. Unshed tears of relief burned his eyes, and he held them in check by the barest thread. He breathed deeply, smelling the strange freshness that was Outside: sweat, fresh earth, and beneath it all, his Clara. He stroked her hair and murmured those things you say when you wish someone you hold dear to feel safe.

Fat tears chased each other down Clara’s face. She cried and laughed, hugging him with such abandon and delight that the Band sheathed their swords. Bracus and Matthew both stared at them with a mixture of irritation and unhappiness.

He cupped her face. “You look well, my Clara.” His gaze roved over the healing marks upon her face.

She nodded. “Aye, as well as I can be,” she said through laughter and tears.

Charles saw that her lovely eyes were healed, the swelling completely gone. Only the horrible bruise in a kaleidoscope of faded green and yellow remained. He could not help his frown, laying a tender finger, the touch of which reminded Clara of when Matthew touched her the same way. But it had been different, very different indeed.

She backed away, suddenly uncomfortable... aware.

“It heals,” Clara said dismissively.

Charles nodded, not wanting her out of his embrace but allowing her distance.

Clara noticed Clarence for the first time and felt acutely embarrassed. She nodded to him. “Clarence, it is good of you to accompany Charles.”

He shrugged glancing at the savages, eyes guarded. “Greetings, Princess.” He bowed.

She curtseyed in her ruined clothing, feeling ridiculous but absolutely compelled to reciprocate.

Matthew watched in fascination as Clara seemed to become another person. She seemed confident, regal. Perhaps, when she was not being kidnapped and assaulted, she was able to just be who she was.

Clara became aware of an awkwardness. Everyone in the meadow was battle-weary and beleaguered. She must introduce them. She was the only one who knew both peoples. She must form an alliance in this unlikely place. Their president had said she would serve as a liaison of sorts. Clara frowned, thinking of what awaited her in the sphere. She was not sure that she was the best representative. She shoved those thoughts aside. She looked from Charles and Clarence to the Band. Then her eyes took on the battlefield with bodies of the fragment lying about, lethargic flies buzzing above them for an easy meal.

Charles followed her gaze and saw the corpses. Violence clung to the meadow, and the metallic smell of blood was everywhere he breathed.

“What happened here?” Charles asked, and Clarence grunted behind him.

Charles turned to Clarence, who spread his hands wide. “It is not obvious?” Charles rolled his eyes. Clarence was always rash with his words.

“Yes, I see the dead. I wish to know why, dolt.”

Clara covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. It was too somber by far to engage in a giggling fit when they were knee deep in the presence of the dead.

She looked at the Band, and Bracus nodded once, as if giving permission.

She began recounting the whole of it, leaving out why she had come to be in this place.

“So, let me rephrase this Princess.” Clarence paused, pacing a short distance back and forth, tramping down the longish grass in the field. “You found yourself here with these savages, then this fragment appeared and they sought to kill you. Why?”

Clara corrected Clarence quickly, “They call themselves clan.”

“Yes, we are not savages, but we can be savage.” A look of vague humor slid into place on Bracus’s face.

Charles looked around. “We see the evidence.”

Bracus narrowed his eyes tensely, humor gone.

“They are a faction of people....” Clara stumbled to explain. She still felt that she knew so little. The clan, fragment, it was all so new.

Matthew began where she faltered, stepping forward. “They take our women, our meat... anything that we do not guard, they scavenge.”

James nodded, adding, “They speak not as we do and war with one another, gaining nothing. They are fools and cowards.”

“They are more than that.” Jacob inclined his head in Clara's direction, bringing her torn clothes to light once again.

Charles’s face darkened, becoming grim. “Why were you outside the clan then, unprotected? Why was this young girl here abused?”

Charles tore through his knapsack, finally finding what he was looking for and wrapping it in his large hand. Raising it above his head, he said loudly, “You have taken something most precious to the people of our sphere, kept her from us, then allowed her in harm's way with a people less sophisticated than even you. How dare you!” His breathing sounded harsh while he leaned forward. The veins of his temples pulsated with his anger.

All eyes swiveled to the crown that glittered in his hand, pearls and Alexandrites winking in the brilliant, late afternoon light. He slowly lowered it, looking in each face. “This is not a game to us. We endeavor to escape something that is beyond our control and the Princess has gone from one untenable and dangerous circumstance into one which appears worse.” He threw a hand disdainfully toward Clara's blouse.

Clara closed the loose cloth with one hand and turned to Charles. In a low, ringing voice she said, “That is enough Charles. They do not mean harm. They have done their best, hacking out an existence in the belly of their enemies. I was simply caught in the center of it.”

She searched his face, and he looked back at her. “We must go, Clara. Somewhere safe for all, away from this.” Charles opened his arms wide.

“I do not think that is wise,” Clarence said, looking at the Band. Clarence sensed that any movement in the wrong direction would disrupt the harmony he sensed hanging from the thinnest of threads.

Evelyn walked slowly to Clara, slipping a hand in hers. Clara smiled at the young girl. She squeezed her hand with encouragement, thinking that there were some things that were precious and that the sphere was only one thing of many, that there were things bigger than she at work here and her sphere.

She looked back at the Band who were glaring at Charles and said, “Their President... their leader, President Bowen...”

“They have no King?” Clarence asked.

“Quiet, run-the-mouth, let her finish!” Charles said, making Clarence huff and resume pacing.

Clara smiled. “My taking was a planned event.”

The men looked at her, mouths agape. “They were not simply passerby, taking an opportunity that presented itself?” Charles asked, looking at the Band from a different perspective, yet again.

Clara shook her head.

Bracus said, “The Princess was a choice. We wished—we hoped—she would be a liaison of sorts between our peoples. We needed to make peaceable contact and begin a negotiation. She seemed a good choice.” He rolled his massive shoulders into a shrug.

Clarence said, “Peaceable, really? Is this peaceable.”

James laughed. “Perchance he makes sense, Captain.”

Matthew grunted. “The best laid plans...”

“Run amuck...” Jacob finished.

Philip bellowed from his perch on the ground, “Be a good nursemaid, and fetch me another pull of water!”

Jacob raised his eyebrows. “Duty beckons.” He maneuvered around the corpses and went to Philip. Words such as “nag,” and “simpleton” could be heard. Clara was sure, had Philip been well and standing, there would have been a great deal more interchange of the physical variety.

“Let us take care of the dead,” Bracus said. “Afterward, we will make a camp and speak more on this.

Charles's temper seemed to have cooled sufficiently enough to lend a hand. Clara and Evelyn walked to the edge of the forest. She found a mossy area where they could sit. It was most obvious that Evelyn was desperate for some feminine contact, and certainly Clara was. They sat down and began to talk in earnest.

Clarence and Charles helped haul each member of the fragment away from the border of the forest.

That got him thinking. “Where are the two Band that I saw leave the clan?” Clarence deposited one body on top of another. It had deep, slashing gouges, which allowed intestines to protrude like glistening worms laying open and shining in the glaring light of the day.

He used the back of his forearm to wipe sweat off his brow, mindful not to touch himself with hands that handled death.

James looked across the body at the pair. “Who?”

“Two males, like you.” Charles pointed at the gills on James’s throat.

A puzzled expression came over his face. “Captain!” he called, never looking away from Charles.

Bracus strode over. “What say you?”

“He said...” His eyebrows raised.

“Charles,” Clarence said.

“Charles said...” he nodded, continuing, “that two of the Band left our stronghold some hours past.”

Bracus's eyebrows met as one. That meant there was trouble and the clan was unprotected. He said as much and the other man, Clarence, spoke, intuiting his expression.

“They were speaking with a short, stout man, who said there was other Band?”

“It did not sound as if they were alarmed.”

“Stephen and Joseph?” James asked.

Bracus nodded. Why would they feel compelled to leave the clan in the first place? They disobeyed a direct order of protection? It did not make sense. Again Bracus wondered why Matthew and Clara had come to be here. He would get to the bottom of this puzzle just as soon as they were done with the grisly clean up. The wildlife would smell the perfume of death and come this night, scavenging all. He wished to be far from this place before that occurred.

Bracus glanced to where Evelyn and Clara huddled together and thought of his body’s response to her. He knew that somehow, rare as it was, she was a select. That greatly complicated things. His eyes sought and found Matthew, throwing another body on a second pile of fragment. Mayhap he had been overcome in some way.

“Captain?” Jacob broke into his thoughts. Then he heard it, horses.

What now? Deep in thought, Bracus had all but missed the upcoming threat.

He whipped his head around and saw with satisfaction that Matthew was sprinting toward the females.

Charles wondered what all the fuss was about, alarmed when he saw the huge male race toward Clara and the girl with golden hair. Charles squinted, and there it was, movement through the forest.

He heard Clarence exclaim, “Dammit all to Hades.”

Yes, that was about perfect.

As the deep purple of the royal flag of the Kingdom of Ohio came into view, Charles’s heart sunk in his chest. The Queen was here. She had followed them Outside.

Bracus stayed where he was, scanning his men, eyes sharp and ready. They looked at him for direction, and he made an elaborate circle with his finger. Philip rose unsteadily to his feet. Hand at his side, he covered his dressings as he walked slowly to where Bracus stood.

“Brother, who comes?”

Bracus shook his head, but Clarence responded, “Our Queen.”

Philip and Bracus looked curiously at him for his tone was not one of reverence, but one of weary resignation.

Charles said, “She will wish Clara's return.”

“Of course. And she shall have it, but not without a space of time to negotiate. This is fortuitous that your Queen is here. We can begin peaceable negotiations now, and Clara can assist in this,” Bracus said.

Clarence barked out a laugh, and Bracus frowned.

“Why do you laugh? What is funny here, sphere-dweller?” Philip said with gravel in his voice, thinking Clarence made a joke at their expense.

“He does not think there will be negotiations with Queen Ada,” Charles said.

“Why?” Bracus asked.

“Queen Ada negotiates with no one,” Clarence said.

Bracus looked at the entourage breaking into the meadow. An elegantly made copper staff with a deep violet flag flew stoutly and was held by a guard. The outline of the sphere was etched into the rich material of the flag. His excellent vision could just make out the symbol of one of their strange sea creatures in the center. His frown deepened.

“Is she contrary in nature? Is that what you imply? Speak quickly, as I must know how to proceed,” Bracus commanded.

“She is our monarch. That is all the explanation that we may give you,” Charles responded.

“Worry not. You will know much inside the first five minutes spent in her company.” Clarence spat out the last word like spoiled food.

Bracus became uneasy. He did not sense the easy loyalty that the Band shared with President Bowen in the sphere-dwellers’ attitude toward their Queen. It was confounding. He had found Clara to be pleasant and of amicable disposition after she became aware of their purpose.

The Band spread out in the meadow, and Matthew returned to the group with Clara and Evelyn, while the Queen and her guard stood on the forest's edge.

They formed a loose circle and watched as the Queen moved toward them. The Band unsheathed their daggers as one, the smooth sound of metal sang in the silent meadow.

*

Henry saw the group of five fierce warriors, standing about Princess Clara. Two of the sphere's subjects he had known their entire lives. The troublemaker, now one of his guard, although only a tunnel sentry, Clarence and Charles, companion to the Princess. This was going bad quickly, he thought for the hundredth time. His eyes sharpened as he noticed the daggers in the hands of the savages. The way they held them spoke of easy grace and much use. Henry swallowed a nervous lump in his throat and forged ahead.

The Queen spied Clara standing like the coward she was in the midst of the strange savages. Ada took them in. Now these were men, real men. Her mouth watered slightly. Ada narrowed her eyes on Clara, taking in the disheveled hair. Her gaze fixed on the torn bodice and blood that covered her upper body. What had happened here? What had the stupid girl gotten herself wrapped up in? No matter, the Queen thought, she would return with the wretched girl, and after she’d been cleaned and scoured, they would determine if she had been defiled. Hmm, the Queen pondered, she had better be pure. She wanted nothing to impact the treaty.

All of this went through the Queen's drunken fog in seconds as they neared the group, and the horse stopped. She rose unsteadily from her cocoon as if she was in her royal throne room. Purposeful, determined, vital. She would have everything she wished, savages or no.

She was Queen Ada, reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Ohio. She straightened to her full height.

Henry hurried over to assist their Queen, but she shot him such a withering that he halted in his tracks.

Bracus looked at the strange contraption. A half-egg assembly filled with voluminous pillows and a lantern of some kind which hissed with steam, the soft light catching the colors of the cushions within, metallic copper thread a light of its own.

Ada's First Guard hovered around her elbow, a hammered body armor of some lightweight metal was strung together with leather that ran the length of his torso, armpit to waist. Bracus immediately searched for entry spots in the guard’s armor. He had never fought in a war in which his enemy wore armor. It was disquieting. He could sense the Band searching as he was.

Clara looked to her side. She was not quite alone. Evelyn squeezed her hand. Clara refocused on the Queen. Rising from her moving throne she stood facing the group as Henry, First Royal Guard, stood loyally at her side. Clara felt sick, she wished to never see Ada again as the Queen gazed upon her with such lack of compassion and concern. Clara admitted, if only to herself, it was crushing to her spirit.

“Clara,” Queen Ada began, ignoring the Band as if they weren't there.

Clara curtsied. “Yes, my Queen.”

“You look terrible. Are you without pride?” Her stare pierced marrow and bone.

Clara swallowed her despair. No question as to the blood and marks of battle.

“I... I was a part of a....”

Matthew was suddenly behind her, and Clara struggled not to show open relief. Only years of training enabled Clara to obscure her emotions.

Ada flicked her eyes to the huge male who came to stand behind Clara. Most curious, the Queen thought. He lingered about the girl. His whole being seemed poised to take on whoever dared go near her. Ada paused. She did not like this male. He was entirely too concerned over Clara. That would not do. Then her eyes took in Charles, to the left of Clara. She scowled. That dreadful young man was like a weed that came up over and over in the same spot in the hot house. He would need to be dealt with as well. And Clarence. Her scowl deepened. He had obviously been behind the escape from the beginning. Traitor. So be it. Queen Ada liked to solve problems. Why King Raymond never saw the logic of her precepts was beyond her. He was soft. She had always known that of him.

“Who are you?” Matthew asked, looking at the flag which bore the symbol of the sphere framing the Queen perfectly.

Queen Ada let her eyes begin at his leather-clad feet in shoes that laced up calves that swelled deliciously to powerfully constructed knees and joined thighs like timber. She was not accustomed to exposed flesh on a male. Shocking indeed, but she found she liked it. She liked it very much. She took in his trim waist, which broadened across a chest in a leather tunic that hung shoulder to mid-thigh. His hair swung free in loose waves that moved in the wind. But it was his eyes that captured hers. Utterly wild, he was an untamed thing. And as she stared, he placed a palm on Clara's neck, meant to steady, the hand encircling the girl's throat easily. And a look of relaxation slid into Clara’s eyes, as if she felt protected by the brute. This was not good, not good at all.

She liked Clara in a state of unbalance. Teetering.

“My Queen?” Henry asked.

Ada was snapped out of her reverie.

Matthew stared at her.

“I am Queen Ada, sovereign ruler of the Kingdom of Ohio,” she responded in her imperious manner.

Then she told Henry, without looking at him, “Bring my traveling goblet, guard.”

“Yes, my Queen.” Henry walked to the travel bag, which hung in a jeweled brass case welded onto the side of her traveling cocoon. He brought out the cup, fashioned by a blacksmith from her home sphere from the finest metal, titanium-lightweight and travel ready.

Matthew looked at the female and could not see a mustard seed of kinship between the two women. Clara had said they were mother and daughter, but he could not see it. This woman was as tall as some men. She had raven colored hair and a ferret's face, feral, sharp and too thin by far. Did they not have adequate food in their kingdom? He felt Clara tremble slightly. He knew that the Queen meant Clara physical harm. The other Band did not. That friend of hers, Charles, would know of her mistreatment. He must. Matthew wished opportunity to confer with them as this detail mattered.

The Queen swaggered forward, coming to stand before Clara. Looking down on her, she took in the disarray of her wardrobe, eyes lingering on Clara's healing face.

The length and weight of the stare grew uncomfortable, but Clara had learned to never take her eyes off of Ada. So she waited.

Finally, Queen Ada said, “We have come to bring you back to the sphere. There is much planning ahead for your Wedded Day.”

Clara knew what would happen but she spoke the words out loud. “I will not go back. I do not wish to be wife to Prince Frederick.”

The slap rang out across the meadow. Clara's head rocked back and hit Matthew's chest. The Queen raised her hand again, and Matthew captured her scrawny wrist easily, jerking her close to his face, while putting Clara behind him. “You will never lift a hand against her again,” he growled and released her so hard she stumbled backward.

Henry caught her mid-stagger, his eyes meeting those of the savage.

Yes, Henry thought wildly, this goes most badly. He held the Queen. Her state of drunkenness notwithstanding, she could be quite lucid when deep in the cup.

“I am not wont to strike females, madam,” he said the word like rodent, “but for you, I would make an exception.” His eyes glittered.

Ada turned her attention to Clara, seeing her handprint upon the girl's face and realized that mayhap, if she had handled thing differently, the girl would have gone with her. Now she saw all the eyes of the savages gaze at her with disdain. How dare they? Her eyes narrowed to slits. She was Queen here. They were nothing. She slapped at Henry's hands when he would keep her from saying more.

Charles and Matthew blocked Clara from her sight, but she would not be deterred.

Clara parted the men and came forward. “Beating me will not make me accompany you. Nothing will.” That was not entirely true, but Clara suspected what awaited her return. “I have left our home sphere for my own safety.” The Queen rolled her eyes at Clara, looking as though she would weep with boredom. Clara forged ahead. “I will not return for more abuse such as I received from the Prince.” Clara left off the words and you.

“A little discipline is good for all of us, Clara. Look at you. You heal already. No permanent damage was wrought.”

Matthew frowned at Queen Ada. Was the wretched creature deranged? Could she not see that Clara was still healing? Did she not just strike her own daughter?

Clarence said out loud what they had all been thinking. “Are you quite mad? Do you not see the abuse that still heals upon her face? Did you not just add to it by striking her?” He paced.

“You overstep yourself, guard.” Ada’s glance told him that she would never forget the comment. He cared not. He was not in the kingdom, so she was not Queen here this day, in this time.

“The Prince attacked me before I could escape the sphere. He meant to...” Clara paused, momentarily embarrassed, but pressed on, “have his way with me,” she ended flatly.

“Now that is a tale I would be careful in telling, Clara. Very careful indeed.” Her guard's horses shuffled nervously, their hooves making the grass rustle.

“It is not a tale,” Bracus said. “We were there. We saw what it was. This one,” he pointed to Charles, who had come to stand at Clara's side once more, “was overpowered and could not defend her against the Prince.” Clear distaste dripped from his voice.

The Queen stared at him. This one seemed to clearly be in charge. She would reason with him. Surely he understood hierarchy? Even as a mongrel, he seemed to have a sense of protocol.

She looked around her. The biggest of the savages appeared to have a deep wound in his side. A great many bodies were piled four deep a small distance away where vultures made lazy circles above the hill of death.

Queen Ada switched tactics. “What has happened here? Was my daughter involved in battle without protection?” She crossed her arms over her bony chest. Let her plant the seed of doubt that they were inadequate to protect a Princess.

Which of course they were!

“We do not use females in battle,” James scoffed. How ridiculous was that idea? They had too few females even if they wished to use them in that way, which they did not. He thought this horrible woman crazy. She spoke with foolishness and circular arguments.

Queen Ada smiled. She liked that they became defensive. She could feel herself gaining verbal control and relished the power.

Clara knew what the Queen was capable of and saw her games even if the Band did not. She would put a stop to it. She opened her mouth for rebuttal just as horses came galloping out of the woods. It was Stephen and Joseph of the Band.

What was this?

They pulled up short of the group. Their steed's hooves dug into the soft earth, and they slid to a stop. Dismounting in a rush with weapons drawn, Stephen glanced but for a moment at the Queen and her royal guard, his eyes touching on Clara and Matthew, then finally, Bracus.

“Captain.” He put his fist to his heart, and Bracus returned the gesture. “A large contingent approaches. It is the man from the sphere tunnel.”

The Prince, Clara thought with an anguish like heat washing up from her feet to head. She sat down with an unladylike plop and put her head between her knees. It was that or she would spray vomit where she stood. She shook uncontrollably. The mere thought of being in his presence after the recent assault was too alarming for words.

Charles knelt by her side. “He will not have you or harm you. We will die before we allow it.”

Matthew drew her up against his body. Bracus and Charles both looked at him with identical expressions of irritation. They wished to be the men to comfort her. Matthew tightened his grip.

Clara felt the heat of him, the wonderful masculine smell as that special warmth burnt between them. She allowed herself to be comforted for a moment, listening his heart beating beneath her ear. Then she pulled away. She had to look... to watch. She turned in the circle of his arms and what she saw stole her breath.

There were so many.

The Prince had the entire guard with him.

They had only seven of the Band—one injured—Clarence, and Charles. There were thirty of the guard. Thirty.

She felt Matthew tense around her and understood what he thought of the odds.

The Prince saw the group of savages standing some distance from a pile of corpses and blood which littered the field before them. Good. They were tired from their battle with other savages or whoever they were. It mattered not. He looked upon the Queen’s typical drunken indignation and thought it excellent that soon she would never be indignant again. Finally, his gaze slid to Clara. She was within his grasp! He felt his heart speed with excitement. She would be underneath him again. He knew that as sure as he sat on his mount, smelling the remnants of battle. His gaze darkened as he saw the huge male who held her close, and his vision instantly went red. How dare another man touch her? What had she done with him? Had she become a whore so quickly? He approached the group.

Queen Ada stalked toward him, her rare pearls swinging, and an image came to him of strangling her with those pearls. It made a smile come into place where none had been before. His anger at Clara clawed like a caged animal wishing to be free.

Bracus looked upon the Prince, taking his measure. Frederic was without a moral compass, Bracus knew, to harm a female as he had Clara. Bracus was unsure of the communion between this Prince and the Queen. He would watch and signal the Band to be ready.

The Queen saw the smile on Frederic's face, and her step faltered. An internal alarm went off, which she promptly ignored. Instead, she thought, more wine will make all this dreadfulness go away. Clara would return to the sphere with the Prince, marry him, and she would have grapes aplenty. Immensely satisfied with her internal musings, Ada rushed forward.

As the Queen neared Frederic’s horse, Clara had a sudden, internal portent and shouted, “Mother, no!”

Fierce hate and love intermingled in a confusing tide of emotion.

Ada turned her head to gaze at Clara just as the Prince hooked his fist in the pearls around Ada's neck, jerking her close to his horse. In his opposite hand, a small dagger arced, piercing her chest as he dumped her body away from him, her side hitting the horse on the descent then landing on her back. The pearls fell on the grass like black beetles let loose from a jar.

There was utter silence for a moment when nothing stirred, not a savage, guard, bird, animal. Even the flies ceased droning. Then the world slid into an abyss of clashing metal and diving swords. The men launched themselves at each other, and Clara hit the ground. Evelyn crawled after her.

Clara reached Ada and lifted her head, cradling it as blood welled brightly. A shiny flood of rubies cascaded down her pale flesh, soaking the deep purple velvet and turning it to black. Ada’s eyes were becoming glassy, and Clara knew she would not last in this plane of existence much longer. After so long living in fear, Clara found an abiding sadness taking residence in her heart. All the lost time with the Queen, her mother, now gone.

With the sounds of battle all around her, she held her mother's head and saw that she was trying to say something.

“Yes... my Queen. Mother.”

The name felt foreign on her tongue.

“...not... not... your...” Queen Ada gasped, her dark eyes bulging in their sockets.

“What are you not?” Clara asked. Evelyn crouched beside her.

“...your mother,” Ada whispered, her breath coming in shallow gasps.

Clara felt her mouth open.

They were not mother and daughter.

Queen Ada raised a claw-like hand and beckoned for her to move closer.

Clara did.

Queen Ada grasped her ruined blouse and jerked Clara against her with the last of her strength. Their chests touched. New blood mingled with the old.

With her last ounce of breath Ada said, “The mermaid...” and died.

Her hand loosened from the tangle of clothing Clara wore, falling limply beside the stillness of her body.

Those eyes that had looked into Clara's a thousand times with loathing, disappointment, anger and disdain... saw her no more.

CHAPTER 33

Clara let her mother's head slide out of her grasp and fall to the grass. She reached for Evelyn, who grabbed her hand like a lifeline. Looking about, Clara could not make out one from another. The Queen's guard blended with the Prince's. Only the savages stood out in stark relief, their movements like a beautiful, macabre dance of violence in motion. She and Evelyn huddled together. The horses scattered about as far away from the battle as they could be.

She saw Henry lying on the ground with his throat open and blood spraying through his fingers while his mouth opened and closed. She turned to Evelyn, burying the girl's head in her bosom, marking her pale hair with Ada's slick blood. She watched one of the Prince's guards remove Henry’s head with a saber of some length then turn his attention to Clara. He sheathed his sword, making his way toward her. Blood splatters from ruined throats decorated his uniform in a ghastly crimson pattern of death. Clara did not pause, jerking the girl to her feet and running to where the Band's horses stood. She could feel her pursuer gaining and fought not to turn. Evelyn ran as fast as she.

They were almost upon the horses when Evelyn was ripped from her grasp. She turned without hesitation, launching herself at the Prince's guard, understanding the futility even as she moved against him.

She knew what it was to be unprotected.

The guard held Evelyn tightly, and Clara came at him like a wild animal, latching onto his forearm with her teeth. He howled and released Evelyn. He lunged at Clara, but she managed to avoid his fist.

Matthew's saw Clara leap upon the guard. He let the dead guard slide down his body, then heaved him to the ground.

He ran to Clara.

Clara was playing a deadly dodging game with the guard. He would rush forward, and she would back behind a horse. He would slap its hindquarters, and it would trot off, revealing her.

Clara stood before the guard. Evelyn had the sense to make her way into the midst of the horses, camouflaging her position. The guard's focus was all for Clara, which was what she had wanted all along.

To protect Evelyn.

“You are coming with me, Princess. That is Prince Frederic's order. Do not attempt to bite me again.” He warily approached her, and she stifled a wild bubble of laughter. That a big brute such as he would be wary of her. Her eyes dipped to the wound that her mouth had caused, and it was a disaster upon his arm.

Suddenly, she was wrapped in his embrace, and an evil look overcame him as he searched for some place to take her. Then his eyes bulged, and his body stiffened, a surprised cry escaping him as his arms loosened about her. He slid to the left, falling in a crumpled heap to the ground. A dagger stuck out of his back, a thick agate embedded in its hilt. Clara looked up. It was Matthew who calmly crouched above the guard, taking the dagger out and wiping it casually on the guard's uniform before sheathing it.

“Clara.” He moved toward her.

Her lip trembled, and she told herself that she would not cry. Her relief was as profound as any she had ever known as she burst into tears. He drew her into his body, shielding her from the war that raged about them, the sounds of swords finally diminishing until the clatter ceased.

An unnatural silence took hold of the meadow. The sun slanted along the ruined and bloodied grass, the whole of it looking like it was on fire.

****

As soon as Clara could gain a measure of control, she backed away from Matthew, shaky and spent. Looking about her, she saw the dead Queen as pale in the repose of death as she had when she lived. Clara shuddered, feeling numb.

Charles approached her at a jog. Following her gaze, his eyes landed on Queen Ada. He ran to Clara, wrapping his arms around her. But she could not cry any longer, her emotions depleted.

He pulled away and looked down on her. “I am so sorry, Clara. I know she showed you every unkindness, but she was still your mother.”

No, she was not, Clara thought, but she said nothing. She would reflect on that disturbing revelation at another time. At present, she needed to take stock of what had happened.

Quite a lot, apparently. Her eyes took in the battlefield where no less than thirty new corpses lay. As she looked, she grew more frantic. The Prince did not appear to be among them.

He lived.

Her eyes flew from one Band member to the next, all alive. Gore and blood covered some from head to toe. Bile rose in an indelicate lump, surging upward. Clara clamped her hand over her mouth and raced to the border of the field where she spent some time purging the contents of her stomach, which were small. Nevertheless, her body heaved.

A small hand landed on her shoulder, and she turned, seeing Evelyn holding a flask in one hand and a cotton cloth in the other. Clara took them gratefully from the girl, noticing that she looked a little better. Having all the enemies gone and still living herself may have something to do with that.

Finally Clara stood, feeling much fresher, and the first thing she noticed was the Queen's body covered in a loose shroud a mound of white in the sea of blood and grass. The other bodies made a third pile. Clara swallowed, pushing herself to walk past the hills of the dead. She found the Band, who had marked her progress back into the meadow's center.

She saw them all. They had fought over thirty of the Prince and Queen's respective guards yet all stood before her in various states of injury.

Clarence and Philip lay on the ground beside the band. Jacob attended them both. He must be a healer she thought absently as she came to Clarence's side, bending down beside him as she tucked her long skirt under her knees.

“My Queen,” he said in a clear voice.

Clara just stared.

She whipped her head around and looked at Charles, who formally bowed. “My Queen.”

She was Queen now.

Clara curtsied to her subjects, her friends, as if she were on the royal dais instead of in this bloodied field of death. Their acknowledgment of her new royal status was the most surreal of her young life.

The Band watched this knowing that now the former monarch was dead, there would be no need for negotiation with anyone but Clara.

All eyes turned to her.

She looked at each one. Surprising them all, she asked, “What has become of the Prince?”

Bracus stepped forward. “He slipped out of our grasp, he and his weasel of a guard.”

Jabez, Clara supplied internally.

“They will need to be found,” she said with halting authority. She knew no one ordered the Band., “As he will try to...” She found she could not finish without emotion overtaking her.

Charles nodded, approaching her side. “We will find him, Clara.”

She looked at him. “What of our guard?”

He shook his head. “All dead, Queen Clara.”

“Just Clara, please. She is no longer here to force formalities.”

No one asked who She was.

Clara looked at Matthew and Bracus. Their intense eyes followed her with an uneasy intensity. Of course, her eyes followed Matthew as if magnetized. She sighed. Things were a mess. That was certain.

They began the ugly task of rifling through the belongings of the dead, taking all that they found useful. Food and drink were of critical importance. They gathered what they could and departed the meadow, leaving the gore for the creatures of the Outside.

Ada's body was dragged on a contraption of wood poles strung together with a leather bottom. Clara could make out her profile through the roughly woven shroud and it tightened her heart.

She looked away.

After eating in the woods, they drank their fill and traveled back to the clan. A long line of horses with the ransacked gear made a train-of-sorts, the Band, its caboose.

CHAPTER 34

The Sphere

Clara dipped the ink quill into the glass jar of ink, while six anxious faces watched her pen strokes as if enthralled.

The truth of it was this:

They were now at peace with the Clan of Ohio, their sworn allies, this fourteenth day of July, in the year of the Guardian, twenty and thirty.

Clara looked up at the sea of faces in the Gathering Room who witnessed the event with a mixture of excitement and curiosity. Here were the reported savages, present in the sphere, their President and their people aligning.

It was an historic occasion.

Clara stood, the hot wax dripping from the Marker's personal seal. Stepping forward before it could cool, she pressed the royal crest from the ring that she wore into the soft wax, waited, then released it with a light pull. The mark of the sphere with the oyster and pearl at its center stood out in stark relief, and the treaty was complete.

The announcer—the same bumbling fellow who’d announced at her Day of Birth Celebration but miraculously more graceful—declared to the kingdom,

“Let it be known that Queen Clara Williamson, high monarch of the Kingdom of Ohio, has signed a Treaty of Peace and Alliance with the Clan of Ohio from this day onward.”

He stepped back and Clara gave him a small nod of acknowledgment and he smiled back. His voice had rung true and proud and she was pleased.

Charles came up beside her and gave her a gaze so full that she had to look away as tears threatened. She ruthlessly collected herself so she could address her People. Her emotions were shimmering things that undulated underneath her tightly held composure.

“Thank you all for being so gracious during this enormous transition.” There was a smattering of applause, and Clara held up her hand to quiet it. “I would like to thank my adviser, Sir Charles Pierce, for his diligent service to the crown and my loyal guard, who defended the injury to our sphere until we could manage a portal that would safeguard us properly once more.”

She looked out over her people with shining eyes, and continued. “And for all of you who have shown and told me how much you enjoy this change of leadership and swore your undying loyalty, I thank you as well.”

Clara stepped back, taking a deep cleansing breath of the steamy sphere air, relishing its familiarity.

“Let us begin our celebration.”

The people broke apart, mingling and taking food from the large banquet tables, loud and raucous. Clara smiled. They were relaxed and happy, their new ruler someone they followed out of respect, not fear.

Charles was animatedly speaking with Sarah, and everyone seemed to be deep in cup, food, or conversation. Clara found her eyes seeking the man she could not stop thinking about.

There he was, his gaze already locked upon her.

Matthew saw Clara's eyes find his, and his body moved of its own volition. His need to be near her burned from the inside out. It had been three long weeks of explaining and regaining trust, and he had been kept from her. Now, finally, they could see each other.

Clara met him halfway, the throne a backdrop behind them. Her gaze went to the gills on his neck, and she belatedly realized that when he was excited, they would fully open, as they did now. The stripes of pink flesh decorated a neck the size of one of the small timbers Outside.

Her legs weakened as he got closer. He was suddenly there, right in front of her. When he took her elbow, she could feel his fingers like brands of fire, running from the point of contact and radiating throughout her body as warm heat spread.

His nostrils flared as he looked at her mouth, and she knew, knew, that he wished to put his lips upon hers. But propriety swirled around them, and as they looked at each other, President Bowen appeared.

He cleared his throat, and Clara felt Matthew's fingers slide down her forearm, then fall away. It felt like a loss.

They turned and faced him.

He looked at them both and indicated they talk in a far corner of the Gathering Room. Clara saw Charles watch her, his face darkening.

He was all for the treaty, but did not like her role amongst the savages—Clan, she corrected herself.

She knew, as Sarah and Olive had both said, that Charles's feelings went beyond friendship. It had caused a strain this past month, a strain upon a friendship that had once been easy.

Bowen turned, taking her arm, and Matthew tensed. She sensed he did not like anyone touching her.

She came back to what Bowen had been saying reluctantly, distracted this near Matthew.

She interrupted him. “I apologize, President Bowen, I missed that first part...”

“Arthur, please, Clara.”

She nodded.

“As I was saying, now that the signing of the treaty is behind us, how do you propose to introduce the delicacies of...” He raised his eyebrow.

She was unsure how to broach the subject. Possibly, she could let it run its natural course. She said as much. Matthew's pulsating heat spilled into her.

He shook his head. “That may take time. Perhaps there are women who would wish to live Outside, to become part of the community. Then they may find themselves amongst the men of the clan. Visitation would not facilitate unions with the same expediency as a change of residency.”

He was right, but how to say such without the whole of the kingdom becoming squeamish about the basest fact that the Clan was dying out because there were not enough females? There was not an easy solution within the societal constraints under which they lived.

“Unless....” Bowen trailed off.

Clara looked at him sharply, her mind racing furiously to intuit his implication.

“What say you, President?”

“Unless their Queen was to mate with a clan-dweller. In that way, she would lead by example,” he said, his eyes hooded, his expression cloaked in the shadows of the corner.

Matthew's eyebrows lowered and his hands became tight. “She cannot mate with just anyone, sir!” he said fiercely, his face a mass of tight angles. Clara reached out and he relaxed under her touch, his eyes softening.

“I did not say she was without choice. Obviously, it is entirely up to the Queen, whom she would choose. She is a select, after all. That very fact predicates the choosing.”

They fell silent, her strange select status a detail which needed much discussion.

“She needs to come to the clan, stand before the Band, and be tested. This is the only way,” Matthew said.

President Bowen bowed his head, not meeting Clara's eyes.

“Sir... Arthur, what is this he says?” She gave them troubled eyes.

“We have not encountered a select in many years, since before my time.” He paused, spreading his palms away from his body. “It used to be these special females were meant only for the Band and that whoever they responded to most would then be their chosen mate. It was not a matter of intellect, but rather, biology.”

“I am understanding that you wish for me to come to the Band, be ʻtestedʼ for my reaction to certain males more than others? And if so, I should choose which to mate with?”

They stood there silently, and Clara felt their discomfort.

“What?” she asked impatiently.

“If there is more than one male of the Band that you respond to equally, they may decide to....”

“To fight for you,” Matthew finished flatly.

Clara stood there, struggling with her emotions. Was what she felt for Matthew some kind of odd chemistry? It was not real? She could possibly go to the Band and feel this with one of the others? It was a terrible potential.

Matthew's anguished eyes told her she was right in her supposition.

But she had her duty, always her duty. It was not just to the people of her sphere. She had given her word that she would do all she could for the people of the clan as well.

Clara straightened. “When?”

President Bowen exhaled in a great rush. “One day hence.”

Clara nodded, looking at Matthew. What would this mean for them?

“Clara,” Bowen said her name.

She looked at him. “You understand that Matthew's standing amongst the Band has been compromised by your taking...”

She looked at him. “Meaning?”

“That he will not be included in the test.”

Her eyes met Matthew's tortured gaze and she could only stare.

“That is not acceptable,” she all but yelled. “Did he not tell you of his...” she looked at Matthew, not wanting to betray what she knew of him, “past circumstances? Surely that gives him some allowance?” She placed her hands on her hips, her eyes on fire, the hair that Matthew so admired flying about her hips. He looked at her with a longing that shook her to her core. She would not desert him or wrest away his chance with her because the Band and their leader were trifling about what had happened. She was fine. She was well. All was as it should be.

Free from abuse at last.

“If I do this, at least allow his inclusion.” She gazed steadily at the President. Their eyes met for a pregnant pause.

“Very well, but on this condition,” he said, looking at them both. “He shall be last.” His words sat there in the moist air, both men blotting their faces with linen cloths, neither acclimated to the humidity of the sphere.

Clara deliberated. It was the best she could do and satisfy everyone. The larger question remained. What would happen if another of the Band made her feel the way she had with Matthew? What then? She raised her eyes and saw that Charles's full attention was on her small group of three. His eyes narrowed. She knew he would never condone this. But for his own reasons.

It was an excellent political decision for the sphere. Her marriage to their allies would solidify and progress the alliance. However, their friendship would suffer, and that she valued. She valued it very much.

As he approached, a thousand memories encroached, and her spirit felt torn. He was her closest friend. Yet his love for her crippled his objectivity. She had not seen it before.

She did now.

“What is this, Clara?” Charles asked, looking at the two men, his eyes settling on her.

“We were discussing my designation as a select.”

Charles's gaze darkened. “What of it?”

Clara drew a deep breath. “They have a tradition amongst the clan-dwellers in which, if there is a select, she is tested with the males of the Band for the most beneficial mating.”

A silence cloaked the moment so thoroughly it felt as though the noise all around them was heard through glass and rain, deafening and at the same time, silent.

He kept staring, and she stared back. It was when his face started to gain high color that Clara became alarmed, but it was not she that he directed his anger at. It was Matthew. He was more than ready to respond, his emotions boiling beneath the surface.

“You cannot leave her alone, can you? What exactly did you do to her Outside when no one was around to defend her against you?” Charles said in a low and furious voice that traveled better than she would have liked.

Matthew closed the distance between them in two long strides. “I have not forced my hand or body against her, sphere-dweller.” Grabbing Charles by the lapel, he dragged them almost nose-to-nose, which instantly gained the attention of all the Band members and a few of Clara's subjects as well.

She came between them, struggling to assert her body, dividing their anger.

“Stop this, both of you,” Clara said in a low furious voice. Turning in the tangle of their arms and facing Charles with her back pressed against Matthew's chest, she stared at Charles. “Please, do not do this, not now. Let us discuss this later in private.”

Her eyes dug into his, imploring him. Charles grappled. He was most assuredly done with hiding his feelings. He no longer wished to squelch what he felt for Clara, yet he did not wish to hurt her. He was starting to calm down when the savage leaned down and took a deep breath of the crown of her head, smelling her fragrant hair, which undid him utterly. Every intellectual command he had just given himself was gone in a red haze of rage and jealously.

He launched himself around Clara, landing a grazing punch on the jaw of the savage, who used one arm to twist Clara behind him, protecting her from him.

Clara couldn't believe this was the Charles she had grown up with, this raging animal who came at Matthew, death riding his eyes.

“Guards!” Clara screamed and they came to their Queen's command, grabbing Matthew.

“No!” she shrieked as Charles landed another blow on Matthew, and he retaliated, snapping his arm forward as quick as a snake, impacting Charles's jaw as she watched his head snap. But like an enraged bull, he came at Matthew again, his bell rung but not stopped. Head down, he charged, and Clara did the most stupidest thing she had ever done in her life. She ran in front of Matthew, as if her fragility was a shield that he needed.

“Clara, no!” Matthew roared, and Charles's momentum carried him into them both, knocking the wind out of Clara. She fell against Matthew, who pin wheeled backward and grabbed onto her as she was falling, cushioning her fall. She bounced on top of him, her head cracked back into his forehead, and she was saw stars.

Bright spots of color danced before her eyes like fireflies, narrowing to a single pinpoint beam of light. The last face she saw was Bracus’s, his mouth moving but no sound coming out, then she knew no more.

CHAPTER 35

Clara came awake in stages with Charles at her bedside. She did not snatch her hand away, but she said the one thing that came to her mind, “Matthew.”

She saw Charles's eyes flinch, and she had a stab of guilt, then recalled his behavior and was battling her remorse less keenly.

It was not Matthew but Bracus who appeared at her bedside. Clara gazed about her room and saw that there were four guards, two inside her doorway and two outside. Breathing easier, she sat up, releasing Charles's hand and arranging the pillows behind her.

She noticed that she was still in her royal wardrobe but missing the crown. Olive had put it away, she was sure. Clara had not yet donned the Queen's crown, preferring her own to the ostentatious ornament that had been Ada's.

Clara's head throbbed where it had landed on Matthew's forehead, and she laboriously gathered her wits about her. “Bracus,” she began, and he stepped forward under the glare of Charles's scrutiny.

“Where is Matthew?”

“He is in the guest chambers,” Bracus answered.

She nodded. That was good. “Is he —did I hurt him?”

Bracus grinned so wide she heard his face smile. “Nay, Queen Clara, a wee thing such as you bouncing off his thick skull would do nothing.” His smile faded, and he looked at Charles briefly then back at her. “It is you who had us worried.” His gaze traveled her face as if he knew every curve and plane. Clara could feel a reciprocal heat warm her face, and she knew that her response showed. Charles's eyes narrowed as he watched. What had happened to him? His anger seemed always near now.

Clara did not wish to incite Charles further, and a pool of resentment bubbled up. She was tired of tiptoeing about, walking amongst peoplesʼ feelings as if eggs were scattered at her feet.

She sighed. “Bracus?”

He inclined his head, taking in her loveliness, that special fragrance that was Clara but also more, other. That “adviser” of hers was going to be trouble. Even before today Bracus had known it. His feelings for Clara clear to all but her.

“Let me have a word with Charles, and later today we will convene with your president and choose a time that works for all.”

“Yes, Queen Clara.”

“Please, we have been through entirely too much to stand on ceremony. It is my wish to be called Clara by you.”

Bracus smiled. She made a fine ruler for one so young. He did not mourn the other Queen's passing, especially in light of what Matthew had told the Band. He paused, remembering.

*

“She has known little of compassion since the death of her father, the king.”

“Why did the Queen beat her?” James had asked Matthew.

He had shrugged. “She drinks wine incessantly. She only breaks from it while asleep. Clara kept the secret of her abuse for years.”

“Aye, it is very good that she is dead. It is that wolverine of a Prince who gives me worry. He and that guard evaded our blades. I, for one, will not rest until his neck is beneath it again.”

The Band put their fist to their hearts. A promise was forged. For the protection of the new Queen, for the strengthening of the alliance between their peoples, the Prince must be found and executed.

*

“Bracus?” Clara laughed.

“I apologize, Clara. I was deep in my memories.”

“Of what, pray tell?” Charles asked, and Clara gave him a look of warning but he ignored her.

“I was thinking of the discussion I have had most recently with the Band about the Prince and the serpent's whereabouts,” Bracus said with gravity.

Charles nodded. “We have scouts on the patrol for him but with the rain of the Outside...”

Bracus nodded. The weather had made tracking virtually impossible.

“He will not try to enter the sphere again. Let him take his chances amongst the fragment and clans which are not as friendly as yours,” Clara said dismissively, the Prince utterly gone from her mind.

And that was where she wished for him to remain.

“I am afraid the fragment may welcome someone such as he,” Bracus said. “However, we can do no more, and he has no force now that the king of that sphere has cast him out. He is but a refugee.” He rolled his tremendous shoulders into a shrug.

Clara nodded, and Bracus began to walk to the doorway where a guard opened the massive oak door. Turning, Bracus looked to her directly. “I will speak with you later.”

Matthew.

Just thinking of him had brought a trembling energy to her body, and she struggled to suppress it. Charles watched her facial expressions like a hawk.

Clara got right to it. “Charles,” she began, taking his hand, “we are the greatest of friends, and although you have made your intentions toward me known, my feelings do not extend beyond friendship.”

“Can you not see what we could be together?”

She could see. That was the misery of it. Clara loved him with all her heart. But there was no fire, no passion. Perhaps in time, it could grow. She did not know. Then there was the complication of being a select. Whatever that meant. She did not fully understand its significance yet. She knew that there was a certain biological compulsion working within her that colored her thoughts and emotional processes, mayhap robbing her of what she may have thought and chosen in their absence. The facts were that it was her reality now. Clara was keenly aware that she was royal. Her father never let her forget her sense of duty. If she were to marry, or mate, as the clan referred to it, she could not exclude the Band, as they were seen as the royalty of their culture. It was all very convoluted, and she wished not to dwell upon it, but dwell she must.

Clara needed to walk. Holding on to Charles's hand she swung her feet out from the covers and stood. Charles rose with her.

“You answered not my question.”

“I will. Let us walk. I need to ease the throbbing in my head, and I believe my blood moving will aid in that.”

Charles could not suppress his guilty expression. Clara had suffered because of his jealously. He held out his arm, and she took it. The guard smoothly opened the door. He could no longer think and act rationally where Clara was concerned, and it troubled him.

Clara felt a trifle lightheaded as they made their way to the top of the huge staircase and began their descent, Charles's right hand gliding atop the polished wood bannister.

“I do see what we could be, Charles. But there is more to my decisions than potential. I have many things to consider.”

Charles stopped on the stairwell. The magnificent stained glass mermaid observed them. Charles put his back to the glass. The colors of the sea washed him in a halo of aquamarine. Clara looked into his face, and then the sun slanted into her eyes through the sphere wall, bleeding through the glass. Lifting her hand to shield her eyes, she saw the face of the mermaid was in shadowed relief. Only the eyes glowed softly down at them.

Clara's memory poured over her, and she heard her father's words.

*

“Those waters look like your eyes, Clara. A part of the sea remains with you. You have only to gaze into the looking glass to know those waters.”

Clara's mind hovered on the edge of a revelation. She stood in Charles's grip, looking up at the mermaid as if she were an angel come from heaven, remembering the touch of sadness in her father's voice as he recounted the sea.

Suddenly, it slammed into her with the force of the ages, “The mermaid...” Queen Ada had said. She had said she was not her mother. Then Clara flashed her eyes to the window above her. The one that had looked over her countless times, walking, playing on the step, admiring it. And all the time it had been...

“Clara, what is it?” Charles shook her slightly.

“Charles, when was this stained glass window commissioned?” she asked with a thread of hope running through her. The beat of her heart was a wild thing, like a moth in a jar straining toward the light.

Charles leaned his head back, a puzzled look coming over him. “After your birth.”

Clara's heart leaped with joy. Could it be?

“It was not old, as the others?”

Charles shook his head. “No, it was replaced after your birth.”

“Do you know for what reason?”

Charles stood quietly for a moment, considering what she had said, the oddness of the question. Finally, when Clara felt she was near bursting he said, “I believe it was celebratory. I remember my father speaking of it. Why is this important?” he asked, a hint of impatience leaking into his voice.

She is my mother.

It was the only way that my father could have her with him. That was why Queen Ada had mentioned it at the last. It was the one kindness she had ever bestowed on Clara. The Queen's actions made so much more sense now! She had never loved Clara because Clara was not hers, only King Raymond's and this mystery woman’s. Clara's eyes went to the glass. How she had never seen her own face staring down at her she did not know. But there it was, Clara's face with hair of spun gold and eyes of the palest violet. She must find her... her mother.

She looked at Charles with barely contained joy that was so contagious that he smiled down at her in response.

She told him the lot of it and he turned to look at the stained glass apparition behind him, his face at once becoming an aqua wash, gazing at it for a full minute. He looked at Clara, then back at the glass.

“It is you, but not. Do you really believe...?”

“I do.”

“You do not think that she misspoke, so near death?” He let his question trail off.

“I do not.”

He nodded. If anyone could be lucid, it was Queen Ada.

On impulse, Clara reached up and hugged Charles fiercely. Surprised at first, he stood still, then his arms came around her, her joy encompassing them both.

Finally, she went to let go, and he cupped her chin in his large hand, palming her entire jaw, and in his eyes was a question she had seen once before. Weakened by his nearness and their friendship, she allowed him to kiss her.

Charles didn't ask twice. He pressed her body against his, hip to chest and she could feel all of him. His heart beat fast and hard against her chest, and one arm held her against him while the other moved to the nape of her neck and climbed into her hair, tilting her head up to meet his kiss. When his lips touched hers, they molded to her mouth as if they had a thousand times before, and she felt such surprise at it her mouth opened, and his tongue found entrance, caressing hers as he pressed and moved his lips over hers. Then he broke the kiss, moving her closer until she was crushed against him. He worked his kisses from her jaw to the tender places of her throat, and an involuntary moan escaped her. She was not herself. The moment captured her entirely. She responded against everything she knew was proper. Her hands traveled and reaching his hair. She grasped it, winding slender fingers through the silky blackness, and when his kissing went lower she came to herself. The velvet brushes of his lips on the tops of the exposed flesh of her breasts brought her back to her senses. “Charles... no... we mustn’t,” she said in the softest voice.

“Your body says, yes but your words say no.” Charles raised his head. Any closer and their faces would touch. His eyes were black pools of longing. That cooled the heat between them. Clara’s intellect slowly returned. But it was a sound at the bottom of the staircase that made them part.

Clarence looked up at the two, having come upon them while Charles was crawling down their Queen's throat, bending her small body backward even as he drew her closer.

Charles looked guiltily away.

Clara met Clarence’s eyes. Her swollen lips, flushed cheeks, hair formed a halo about her, and Clarence was struck by her beauty. With the light from the window behind her, she looked like a goddess.

He shook his head. “What are you doing with our Queen, my friend?”

Charles looked down at him in anger. “Kissing her, dolt.”

Clarence strode up the steps, taking them two at a time. “You forget your duty to her, to our kingdom, when you press your advantage.” Clarence's chest heaved, not with breath, but with righteous indignation.

“I want her to understand that the savages are not the only one she can feel passion with!” Charles said, disgusted.

“Your prejudice against them cannot affect her decisions as Queen. You know this!” They stood chest-to-chest, ready to come to blows.

Males.

“Stop this. I go to their clan. I will be tested. If there is one amongst them that is a contender,” Clara stumbled over the word, “I will consider a courtship. That is the end of it.”

“What of us?” Charles asked.

Clara looked at him.

He stepped forward, and it would have been more comfortable had they been touching, but he kept himself uncomfortably close, without contact. “You do not know.”

She nodded. She did not. But she must be fair. Charles was her friend, but he had proven something this day, that they could be more. But the heart felt as it would, without sense or direction. And the Band were not males who intellectualized. They were instinctual.

She looked back at the window, as did Clarence and Charles. Their tempers cooled, following her gaze.

Looking at the face that stared down at her, a mirror of her own, Clara knew that she had much to seek, many questions that needed answers. But not this day.

This day was filled with conversation with the Band and their president. In the morrow, she traveled.

CHAPTER 36

Clara stood with half her royal guard before the new portal that had been fashioned over the gaping wound of the sphere tunnel.

Curiously, the ragged edges of the sphere had begun to grow around the brass perimeter framework. She looked upon it and gauged it to be eight feet high by twelve feet in length. The doors were made of solid brass and fitted with pearls in the emblem of the sphere.

They were so heavy that they slid upon runners of brass. When closed, there were great, built-in locks in the bottom corners to secure them.

Clara did not know if the fragment was aware of the spheres’ saltwater weakness as the clan had been. Their scouts thought not. But one could not be too careful.

“My Queen,” Clarence asked as both statement and question.

Clara nodded. She was ready. The portal doors took three guards to slide open. As the Outside was revealed, Clara took a deep breath and left the safety inside the womb of the sphere.

****

Clara stood nervously before the entire clan, a contingent of her royal guard at her back, the circumstances entirely different than when she had but dallied here briefly with Anna and Lillian. She searched the faces of the crowd until she found Jack and Lillian, who smiled at her, and she returned it. Then her eyes came upon Joseph and Anna and there seemed to be a tension there. Before she could think on it, President Bowen came out and introduced Clara. Would she ever get used to the title of Queen? She thought not.

The Band stood to the right of Bowen, their backs ramrod straight, their expressions neutral, a backdrop of contained menace.

Bowen spoke. “As you are all aware, the Evil Ones left a portentous book of sorts that cataloged some of the events of this time, and we have, by necessity, had to act upon some of the suppositions therein.”

Clara could see that they were aggrieved to do so.

Bowen outlined the rules of the testing. This so incensed Clarence that he had wrapped his hand around her upper arm and furiously whispered in her ear. She shook her head. She would allow it. They were a different culture. There were some concessions to be made.

Clarence went against her wishes, speaking directly to Bowen. “She cannot be expected to kiss each one? She is a Queen, not a common trollop!” Clarence sputtered, throwing up his hands and huffing.

“Clarence,” Clara said with ringing authority, hating what she was about to do but realizing that she must, “you must stand down.”

He stared at her.

“That is a royal directive,” she finished quietly.

He came to stand before her and she met his eyes. Clara knew that she must set a precedence here, now, so that her authority would be respected. She was uncomfortable to do so, but she had her duty.

Clarence relented, adding a muttered, “I will remain here.”

That was as good as she would get from him, she thought.

The Band came forward: Bracus, Matthew, Jacob, James, Stephen, Philip—looking quite well healed she noticed—and Joseph. Clara swallowed the lump in her throat and sought out Anna, who looked back at her calmly. Clara was suddenly much more awkward than before. Only Jack remained, already mated to Lillian, whom he held against him.

She felt no accusation from Anna. But in her heart, she felt sadness.

Clara stepped forward and stood in the place that they had indicated. A groundwork of curiously beautiful stones were made in a pattern inside a circle, which looked vaguely star-like in its design. She turned briefly and looked at Bowen with a silent question.

“It has been assembled as written.”

Ah, Clara thought, the book from the Guardians. She stepped inside the circle, and it seemed to hum with independent energy, a symbol whose weight she felt in her limbs, running through her in a low thrumming buzz. She should have felt fear, but instead that curious energy stilled her.

James swaggered into the six foot diameter circle, his feet passing its perimeter and he almost stumbled, as surprised as she had been by the effect.

He quickly regained his composure and approached her.

They stared at each another. He tried to remain polite, but already she could see desire pooling in his eyes, and Clara knew before he moved that he would touch her. She felt the wind from his body, every small hair standing on end, as he wrapped her close to him, smelling of pine and earth and male. His arms were bands of steel as he pressed her against him, and when his lips touched hers there was a jolt, shot through with the kind of spark one feels right after the sphere's cleansing, and it is dry and you touch a knob of brass. It almost hurt, and she gasped. They pulled away, only a brushing of lips, no true passion.

The disappointment on James's face was obvious. He looked at Bowen and shook his head. Looking at Clara, he inclined his head in the barest of bows and retraced his steps out of the circle.

Clara rubbed her hands up and down her arms. That had been disquieting.

There was more to the testing than she’s
realized.

****

Clara was tired. Her lips were numb from being kissed, quite thoroughly, by both Jacob and Stephen with similar, jolting, and somewhat painful results. And it helped not that the one male she might enjoy kissing was last and waiting on the barest edge of the stone perimeter with anger riding his body.

He did not like other men handling her.

Joseph was next, coming to her as though he would rather be anywhere but here in this ring, and she had great sympathy for him and Anna.

They came together awkwardly. He reached for her, and keeping his body away from hers, he leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss on her lips. The barest pressure, and a spark ignited that licked like a flame and spread.

Joseph's eyes widened in surprise, and almost as if he could not help himself, he pulled her against him and with a low groan he began to feed on her mouth all the while fighting it. Clara responded, her hands finding their way around his neck, But because of his size, she simply could not meet them. He pressed her lips once more and forcibly pushed her away. She almost stumbled but caught herself. He looked at her with a mixture of disquiet and soft horror.

He was Band. He was not commanded by causal lust. This Queen had stirred something deep within him that he wished not to recognize. Joseph backed away, while his body fought him to get back to her. He all but ran out of the circle and away from Clara.

That left Philip, his brother Bracus, and Matthew. She looked behind her at Clarence, who scowled back.

Marvelous.

Bracus clapped Philip on the back, and he approached her. “Queen Clara.” He inclined his head.

“Philip,” she said, noticing his side was without scar. “You are healed.”

He nodded. “It is always such with the Band.”

Then he pulled her to him and the moment their lips touched the heat came upon them and his eyes snapped open. He pulled her closer. As the largest of the Band, he had to awkwardly maneuver her around until his hand found her hair, and then he wrapped his fist in it, with his arm he lifted her off the ground.

“Philip!” President Bowen interceded.

He pulled his head away, his breathing harsh and stared down at Clara, eyes gone wide with shock and surprise.

Two of Clara's guard entered the circle and he turned in a crouch, jerking her against himself and growled at the guards.

Growled.

“Get back,” Clara said with a tremor in her voice. It was one thing to see the Band fight from a distance and quite another to be intimately pressed against one of them.

Bracus did not cross the border of stone but said in a low, clear voice, “Let her down, brother.” He put a palm out in supplication.

They stared at each other for a long moment, his forearm jammed underneath Clara's ribs, her body against him, heat coming off his body in waves.

Gradually, he lowered her to the ground and said, “I will not look upon you now, Clara. I fear it may be my undoing.”

He backed away from her and made his way outside the stone perimeter. It was only when he exited that he looked at her, a sheen of sweat coating his face and arms.

Clara stood alone in the circle, wondering when it would be over. Matthew and Bracus paced outside the border, never taking their eyes off each other.

When Bracus crossed the border of stone, her body reacted with a dizzying rush of power, rising up out of the ground and flowing up her as if she were plunged in water. And he had not yet touched her.

Everyone close to the border gasped at the reaction, and Bracus's face changed. He did not approach tentatively, but like a man drowning. He came for her almost at a dead run, and she fought to remain where she was, telling herself that he had never offered her harm.

She had not considered what it looked like to her guards, who swarmed the circle when their Queen was threatened.

However, they came too late. Bracus was upon her and snatched her up, taking her by the thighs and lifting her right to his mouth. She wrapped her arms around his neck. His mouth was all over hers with bruising force. She opened it for him, and still he pressed his lips down harder, making her gasp. He took that as encouragement, and with one hand under her legs, he forced her head to meet his. She leaned into it so her neck was not broken.

With him kissing her that way, Clara could not think. She could hear the guards trying to pull him off her. It was about then that Clara realized she could no longer breathe and began to feel dizzy with her mouth pressed to Bracus's straining to reach him at the same time her breath was not coming.

Strong arms grasped Clara, and she saw Bracus's eyes open. Lifting his head, he roared in a primal bellow, throwing three of the guard off his back and dropping Clara. But Clara did not fall. Instead, she was turned in one fluid motion.

It was Matthew.

He kissed her, and the whole world melted away. It was only Matthew in a searing fire, washing away every other sound, noise and tactile sensation except his lips and hands roaming her body. Matthew was raggedly panting, his hands moving everywhere they could, her shoulders, her waist, skimming the sides of her breasts, moving to each side of her jaw, his hands overlapping into the hair by her temples, his lips eating at her like a man starved.

She was torn away from him, and she only needed to see Matthew's expression to know who held her.

The two men roared at each other and Bracus shoved Clara behind his back and charged Matthew, who used his momentum against Bracus. Taking the sprint full tilt, grabbing Bracus's forearm and swinging him in the direction he was running, stepping out a laced boot and throwing him as he tripped, Bracus flew several feet into a landing roll.

He popped up off the ground and swung around to charge when President Bowen yelled, “Clara! Leave the circle.”

Clara needed no urging. She lifted her skirts, and skimming the ground she ran the five feet to the edge with both men chasing her down. She did not turn but kept running.

They were upon her in no time, one grabbing each arm. And she looked at them both, fear choking her.

Suddenly, Philip was there and spoke directly to Bracus. “My brother, have a care. Would you tear her asunder?”

They all stood there quietly, Matthew's chest heaving, his grip on Clara almost bruising in its intensity.

Clara watched sanity gradually begin to seep into eyes that but a moment ago had been wild.

Bracus loosened his hold and his hand dropped from her arm. Matthew loosened his crushing grip but did not drop his hand.

President Bowen strode over and bowed. “I cannot apologize enough for this, Queen Clara. We have not had a rite in many years.”

Bowen was visibly tense, but it was Clara who spoke with the royal guard at her elbow surrounding Philip, Bracus, and Matthew, “I gave my word that I would cooperate in this, and I did. I have not suffered injury.”

However, it was the oddest thing she had ever participated in.

She could feel Matthew's warm presence at her back, and Bracus's eyes never left her. She would have quite a row to hoe with these men.

Bowen said, “We have seen what has happened here.” The people murmured amongst themselves, but he continued and the conversations died away. He held up his hand. “There will be two who will court Queen Clara. We will put this to a vote. As we are all aware, a secure union between our peoples is very important. A select guarantees offspring and other benefits.”

What were those? Clara wondered. She felt a trifle insulted, as if she were a special oyster in the field that they would cross breed for a rare color. “President Bowen, there were four of the Band who had an unusual reaction to my person. In that group, two were most profound. A vote is acceptable, but it does not determine who I shall choose.”

There was a great silent heartbeat of total silence, and then Bowen, with grudging admiration said, “As the Queen says, so shall it be.”

The tension in the gathering area was suddenly much less, and Matthew released her.

The crowd was loud, many voices discussing all of it. Finally, Bowen called for silence, and a show of hands was required.

The names were read:

Joseph: there was a smattering of hands but nothing significant.

Philip: twice the hands of Joseph.

Bracus: half the hands were raised.

Matthew: the remainder lifted their hands until every hand was in the air like tree limbs of flesh.

Bracus and Matthew would travel back with her and the guard, and a courtship would begin. Clara had a brutal choice ahead of her: two of the Band and her childhood friend. Her heart and her duty were on opposing sides.

****

Clara was at the portal to receive her guests, thrilled to see Anna and Lillian, as she was sure that Matthew and Bracus were more than ready to see their kinsman, Jack.

The guards slid the heavy door aside, and the group entered. Lillian came to Clara and folded her in a fierce hug. It had been a month since the rite, and Lillian was showing, her precious bundle but a small bump beneath her skirt. Jack hovered about her, fussing over how tired she must be. It was interesting to see the fierce warrior so soft with his mate.

It was good.

Anna and—there he was! —Joseph had come as well. Clara looked at Anna. She smiled, and Clara knew that all would be well.

They made their way back to the Royal Manse, the long walk made pleasurable by the company. Lillian said, “Clara, I must say you do not look like a Queen!”

Clara laughed. “I do not dress as such except for ceremonial events. It is not who I am.”

Clarence walked beside her. “Some do not need royal garb to be royal, my Queen.”

She smiled at him for he was always formal. “Thank you, Clarence.”

“I agree. It is bearing, not wardrobe, that make one seem royal.”

Lillian looked at her mate amused. “And how many royals do you know?”

Jack blushed and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. “Wench, you will learn your manners!” he said playfully, and all laughed at his teasing.

Peter closed the doors of the Royal Manse, sliding the bolt in place.

“Masters Charles, Bracus, and Matthew will be here to receive momentarily, my Queen.”

Clara inclined her head toward Peter. “Thank you.”

The group milled about in the huge foyer, looking at all the strange objects. Clara was sure it looked as unique to them as their dwellings had to her.

It was Anna though who startled Clara with a gasp, her hand going to her mouth. Turning, Clara saw that she was staring at the stained glass rendering of the mermaid, Clara's birth mother.

“Who is this?” Anna asked through her fingers.

Clara was not yet ready to admit her discovery, so she responded rather vaguely “It is a rendering after an actual person. I do not know who.”

Anna stared at it. “I have seen this woman. I know of her people.”

Clara stopped breathing. Anna had just recognized her mother. She may know her whereabouts.

Clara forced herself to remain falsely calm, and Jack and Joseph looked at her strangely. They were sensing something. She tried harder to calm herself. “Where does she hail from?”

“Her people are of the sea.”

“Do you say they live by the sea?”

She shook her head, looking at Clara. “Do you not see the throat slits?” she asked pointing at what looked like seaweed.

They approached the window, Joseph and Jack beside her, as curious as she. Clara could not see it.

“There!” Jack said. “Do you not see how the seaweed curls at the neck, changing color into gold striations?”

Joseph nodded his head. “This would explain much.”

Clara was lost. Charles, Bracus, and Matthew appeared.

Jack explained everything to them.

Charles broke in. “This means, that this woman…” He looked directly at Clara, who felt a wave of fear strike her. Dear Guardian, say nothing, she thought.

“Exists in the ocean?” he finished.

Thank Guardian.

Anna shook her head. “No, that is not what I meant. They do not have a tail and fins, as fish. They can breath on land and in the sea. That is what we know.” She looked at the males of the Band. “They look as you do but can breathe in the waters.”

They were silent, digesting this. But Clara was ahead of them, summarizing what it meant to her. If her father had loved such a creature— her mother, Clara self-corrected—it might explain why she was a select. Born without gills, but an affinity for the water, attractive to males of the Band, as she was attracted to them. She had some biological lock that they had the key for. And at the center of it were the Guardians. Somehow, they had known about the inevitability of it all.

Charles and she looked at each other.

She was of both worlds, one of which they had never known about. They looked up at the window, clearly seeing how the artist had used seaweed to twine gills delicately like silver and gold lace against a lovely, pale throat. It was cleverly done, but if one knew what they were looking for, it was quite obvious.

Bracus and Matthew approached her, and Charles stood his ground. It had been a trying month with the three men determined to be her future king. She admired them all and was glad that she had the excuse of royal duties and oyster fields to tend, so things progressed slowly. But the males of the Band were impatient for her to choose, and she realized that it might be some time before she did. She needed to discover who she was, where she came from. She would find her birth people, these strange creatures of sea and earth.

****

She sat at the round table, the rectangular table long put away, as Clara did not liken to having anyone at the head of a table. With Bracus at her right and Matthew at her left, she was left facing Charles. Their eyes met. Clara knew that travel was in her future, as did he. Bracus’s hazel eyes softened as he looked upon her. She met Matthew's intense blue stare. She knew that these men would be a part of it.

Gazing around her, she recognized she was the happiest she had ever been. The drunken Queen, was no more. Her kingdom was ruled with fairness and democracy as her father would have wanted, and an important alliance had been formed. The Prince had not been seen these past months, and it was safe to assume that he had succumbed to the wilderness. With a suitor on each side, what worry could she have?

Yet Clara felt there was more, had to be more. She would journey to this sea, and there she would uncover the remainder of her destiny, with whoever shared it with her.

THE END

Read Book #2,
THE SAVAGE BLOOD

OR

THE SAVAGE SERIES, Books 1-3

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The vampires are a dying race, their females sterile. When it's discovered that human females of Druid ancestry can be viable breeders... the harvest begins.

Rachel Collins is a young woman living in the frozen north of Alaska in a dead-end job with a circular life. She yearns for something more.

When murders begin taking place in the city where she lives, she and her girlfriend try to be more cautious, only to be caught in the middle of a dangerous situation in which an unlikely savior emerges.

Can Rachel escape her destiny while two different factions hunt her?

***Note***

Adult Reading Material:

Content within intended for readers 18 years and older. Brutal, violent and disturbing themes throughout; might contain triggers.

REAPERS

A Druid Series Novella

Volume 1

New York Times
Bestselling Author

MARATA EROS

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2011 Marata Eros

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Marata Eros Website

Marata Eros FB Fan Page

Font art by Bookish Brunette Designs

Editing suggestions provided by Hazel Novak

CHAPTER 1

I looked at the clock, yet again... and knew that if my boss caught me I'd be toast. Safe in my cubicle, I swung my gaze away from the the dreaded time and looked for Michelle. She'd be hanging by the cooler, which she was.

Michelle caught me looking and lifted her chin up in greeting and grinned. She knew what I was about. It was all about getting out of here and doing something for ourselves. It had been a Long-Damn-Week and I was going to let my hair down and have some fun.

Michelle wrapped up her conversation with one of the petty chicks that lounged all day while we picked up the slack.

As Michelle walked toward me, I thought that maybe we wouldn't have to change: pencil skirts, thigh high stockings, stacked heels and blouses that yoked just where they should be to look sexy, nothing too much.

Michelle stood in front of me, tapping a foot. “Watching the time won't help it go faster.”

“Yes, I know, but I feel like the day should have ended already.”

“I've got an idea, let's go to Spinners tonight,” she nearly squealed in delight. I wasn't feelin' the love on that place. It was always packed with a rough crowd and you had to beat the guys off with a bat.

Michelle saw my expression and started to wheedle immediately, “Listen, give it a half hour and if it's super-lame, we'll just bail and go somewhere else. Like that brewery place... what's it's name?”

“Talbot's,” I replied absently.

She snapped her fingers. “That's it!”

“Listen,” she leaned forward and our hair mingled together, “that new gal... with the red hair...”

“Molly?” I said, automatically looking around for her.

“Yeah,” she waved her hand, dismissing the name. “She was talking about that piece of creepy news that's been circulating today.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Oh for shit's sake, Rachel! Don't you pay attention to anything?”

“Not really,” I said noncommittally. My life was beyond boring right now. I worked here, hung out with Michelle, worked out, read, fed my cat. I was dying for some Excitement. Dying. But the news wasn't going to deliver. Excitement... no way.

“You're hopeless! Anyway,” she sounded the syllables out slowly, “there's been another killing. Another bleed-out.”

That got my attention.

It had been almost a month since the first murder and they still hadn't found the killer.

Then there were the rapes.

Somehow, it was all connected. Men were killed and drained dry of their blood and if there were women with them, they were raped.

But none of the women could remember the attack or their attacker.

Our gazes locked. “So... they found another body. Two, actually.” Michelle said ominously, waggling two fingers.

Great. Just when I thought we could flounce around for the weekend. Talk about a wet blanket.

“Maybe... we shouldn't go to Spinners then. I mean, if it's not safe.”

“Eff-that, you're going! I just wanted to spread the gory gossip.”

“That's kinda sick, you know.”

Michelle nodded vigorously, she knew.

I sighed. There was no getting out of it once Michelle had her mind set. And, in my soul... if I didn't get a break from this job and do something out-of-body, I'd scream.

“I gotcha talked right into it, don't I?” Her eyes sparkled.

“I guess but, we need to be careful, especially now,” I said in a conspirator’s whisper.

“Hell, I'm more worried about the regular guys.”

“Were the women... you know, was there blood... there?” I asked.

She spun back around, her skirt twirling a little with the motion. “That's the major weird thing, they had all been bitten, but still had their blood. Only a pint gone.”

Well, wasn't that just comforting.

Michelle winked as she sauntered off, hips swaying. “Pick ya up at seven sharp.”

She didn't wait for me to respond. Michelle knew she had me, hook, line and sinker.

I gathered up all my stuff, slipped my heels back on my feet and headed for the door.

Unfortunately, my dragon lady of a boss was blocking my way.

“Miss Collins, I see you're ready to leave.” She looked at her behemoth of a wristwatch. “Two minutes after five.” She raised a humongous unibrow at me and I stifled a giggle. It was hard to be pissed at her when she looked so ridiculous.

Almost.

“Yes. That's traditionally when the work day ends for us here, Ms. Hogan,” I replied, thinking with mild irritation that Hogan had me by the short hairs. She knew I needed the job, she couldn't lambast me for leaving when the work day was through, technically. But... she liked to make me feel diminished for leaving so close to the chiming of the clock.

Hogan looked me over from head to toe, taking in my long black hair, so deep a black it had blue highlights in the right light. My eyes were a pale blue, I was shapely but not skinny, and on the tall side. I didn't consider myself a hot number but I held my own. Hogan, on the other hand looked like she was always trolling for a new bridge.

I had discreetly pressed my elbow into the elevator button and it dinged just as she opened her mouth to mention something else equally unimportant, her jowls swinging as she popped her mouth open then closed it again.

I felt my escape portal open at my back and walked backwards into its gaping mouth, never more glad to be out of mortar range of the enraged cow, aka my boss.

She glowered at me, starting to waddle forward and I blurted out, “Have a great weekend!” The door swept closed in front of me.

I did a mental forehead-wipe. Thank God I was out of there.

As the elevator descended I prepared myself for the onslaught of cold weather, my car would need at least five minutes to heat up. The days were long here in the north and heating my car in the underground parking garage was just part of what we did in Alaska.

The elevator doors hissed apart and the cold air swept into the tight space, momentarily stealing my breath. I huddled my full length coat around myself, silently wishing the car was already warm. I rushed out of the elevator's cocoon of heat, my heels making clicking sounds on the concrete as I made my way to my car. If you could call it that.

As I approached I knew my car stood out, it was a Smart Car and Michelle liked to tease and say it was a toaster that I drove, not a real car. I smiled, she had me there.

I fumbled with my keys, finally yanking my glove off with my teeth, groaning as the cold air assaulted my fingertips, making them instantly numb.

“Hey, Rachel,”

I dropped my keys on the ground, spinning, my hand to my heart.

It was Erik, a guy from work. My shoulders slumped in relief. He scared the shit out of me.

“Scare you?” he smiled.

I smiled back tentatively. He had really been pursuing me and I wasn't that interested. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly but there was just something off about him.

Erik approached me and I stiffened a little, but he bent over, jerking the keys off the ground and put a finger through the loop of my key fob and hung them off his finger in front of my nose.

I tried to snatch them and he yanked them just out of reach.

“Meet me for dinner,” he stated, his eyes steady on my face, disconcerting.

“Ah... Michelle and I are going out tonight,” I said, trying to distract him.

“Rain check?” he pressed, never stopping his eye contact. I was starting to get nervous.

Damn.

I resisted the supreme urge to look around, seeing if there was anyone else. But there wasn't. I could feel the absence of others. I sure wasn't short on woman’s intuition. Just another creepy service we offer, I thought, getting the heebie-jeebies.

I closed my coat tighter around me and his eyes tracked the movement, a smile spreading on his face. “I'll let you go, I know you have plans.” But his face told another tale. I didn't think he'd forget my rebuff anytime soon.

I held my hands out and I was happy to notice that they weren't shaking. He'd really put me in a creeped out mood and I wasn't happy about it.

He dropped the keys into my cupped hands and smiled again, tipping an imaginary hat.

I turned after his back was to me and stabbed the key into the lock, opening the door in one movement I slid behind the wheel, slapping the flat of my palm on the lock after it closed. I heard the simultaneous click in the silence of the car and let the breath out I didn't realize I'd been holding.

Holy-hell.

I turned on the car and stewed for the five minutes, all the while wishing I could have driven off.

That encounter with Erik had put a bad taste in my mouth. Like diet pop, but somehow worse.

I pulled out of the bowels of the building, the night as black as when the day started. I entered traffic and began the drive to my condo, almost in the heart of downtown.

I couldn't wait to be home.

I threw my lights on, and glancing right then left I was so startled that I almost let my foot off the brake into opposing traffic.

Erik sat behind the wheel of his car. He'd been sitting there the entire time... waiting for me.

I gunned it at the first hole in traffic that appeared. What a whacko!

I'd have to tell Michelle he was a nut-job. She'd have him cracked in no time.

****

I had my head thrown back and my lips parted, the last swipe of mascara almost perfect... there! I stood back and looked at my reflection: definitely not work attire. I was so glad I made the decision to not perk up the whole mess with just a new top. Michelle probably would have flogged me if I had anyway. She'd be dressed-to-kill (as usual). I needed to make an effort. Sometimes, I wondered why I bothered. Michelle would go, shine, get picked-up, bang some anonymous stud in the bathroom or wherever, and I would sip my drink wishing I could go home and curl up with a book. I sighed. That's okay. She was... my vicarious slutty friend. And I loved her.

I grabbed my vanilla body spray and squirted a last dab. If I ended up dancing a lot, I'd be glad I wore it. It was frigid outside but once we were inside Spinners, with all the bodies packed in there, it'd be a different story.

I heard the doorknob jiggle and caught sight of Michelle coming through the doorway looking delectable in her slut suit. She twirled for me so I could get the full effect.

“That should be illegal!” I nearly screamed. She had a micro-mini on that was two part: it cupped her ass and was barely legal (skimming the indecent exposure laws by a millimeter). It was hot pink, setting off her platinum hair to perfection. She “helped” the color of said hair, but not by a lot. Michelle was a rare thing up here in the frozen north and I was betting that it was her coloring that got her so much attention, and the boobs... and the outfits. And, and....

I smiled as she circled me like a shark, gauging my potential for Attracting the Opposite Sex.

“I don't know... is this the shortest skirt you have?” Her brows closed the distance between her eyes.

I self-consciously ran my hand over my short black skirt, it barely covered the lace of my thigh-highs... a gorgeous pair that I had splurged on from Italy.

“Yeah, I can't go much shorter without the lace tops showing.”

Michelle gave me a blank look. “Seriously, that's part of the allure.”

“Ah... no. I say let them guess. It is underwear after all.”

“I say show it!” Michelle said.

“Mystery,” I replied.

She threw her hand up. “Whatever, I give up. At least you did right by the top.”

I had almost not worn it, it was a scorching crimson and showed off my raven hair, my eyes stranded like startled jewels in my pale face. It left my arms bare and was tucked inside the skirt.

Michelle allowed her glance to linger a moment longer on my outfit, then shook her head as we walked out. I gave a quick pet to Caesar the cat and waltzed out.

CHAPTER 2

Spinners was packed as usual and we jockeyed for position, awkwardly elbowing everyone without trying to maim people. It was always this way.

I couldn't believe our luck! I spied a couple of bar stools and we raced over there to stake our claim before they were snatched up. We perched our butts on the stools, aimlessly looking around at the bodies packed together, dancing the night away. I noticed they had already opened all the windows, allowing the sub-twenty degree air in. It didn't matter, it felt like a balmy eighty where we sat.

The bartender got our drinks. I sipped on a Blue Hawaiian and Michelle had Sex on the Beach (of course). She swung her leg back and forth and I was getting a spot-on flash of bright red panties... and so were a bunch of guys, judging from the expression of the gaggle of hunks sitting across from us.

“So what happened with Erik?”

“Yeah!” I yelled to be heard over the din. “He did this weird thing with my keys...” and I told her the whole thing. Michelle leaned forward to catch everything because the noise was swallowing my words.

She leaned back against the bar, her elbows flung back and her wrists dangling off the edge, looking thoughtful. For Michelle that meant she was quiet for more than one minute.

Finally she said, “Yeah, you want to stay away from him. I hear he went out with some girl and date-raped her.”

Perfect, I thought. That'd kinda been the vibe I was getting off him. Wasn't sure that confirmation was the greatest thing in this case, after all, I worked with the weirdo.

Wonderful.

I was momentarily distracted when two of the cute guys across the way sidled over to us. The one on the right was almost as blonde as Michelle but that's where the similarity ended. He was a head taller than her with brown eyes and a face that had seen acne in its youth. I guess he was ruggedly handsome. He spent time in the gym; it was in the set of his shoulders, the way he moved... like he had purpose.

Tonight his purpose was Michelle.

His eyes never left the foot that swung, traveling up to the apex of what the skirt almost showed. He looked like a dog ready to mount a bitch. It did something for her because her foot stopped swinging and she gave him the come hither look.

The night was Going According to Plan.

“Want to dance, cutie-pie?” she asked, batting her eyelashes. He all but panted while I rolled my eyes in my head. I just couldn't do it. It's not that I'd never had sex. Casual just wasn't a main entree. I dreamed that there was someone for me in my future. Someone that I could share something with. I felt almost like... almost like I was waiting.

Michelle argued there was plenty to be shared. She was into sharing.

Generous Michelle.

I watched her on the dance floor, plastered to Rugged, grinding for all she was worth, he was all over her and she was loving it.

I took my eyes off them and looked at the guy in front of me. He was way cuter than Rugged. He had the enigmatic something that made a girl want to get a little closer.

So I did.

“Do you want to dance?” he asked.

I nodded. He held out his hand, which was big I noticed. I tried not to think about how it would feel to have those hands roaming over my body but couldn't quite do it. He took me up against him and I molded against his torso. As those hands came to rest on the small of my back, the heat from them warmed me. He looked into my eyes and they held a promise of a fun night... if that's what I wanted. I didn't grind against him but I could feel that he was happy to be there. He smiled at me, knowing I was aware of his arousal.

He clutched me tighter and lowered his face next to mine and whispered, “Your friend's gone.” Now he was kissing my neck.

Unease crept its way along my body. Usually Michelle gave me some kind of signal or something. I looked around for her trying not to feel frantic.

“Where did they go?” I semi-shouted at him.

“Outside!” He inclined his head in the direction of the door.

“You want to go find them?” he asked, his fingers already twining in mine.

I looked down at our clasped hands and that feeling of unease bloomed in me again. I couldn't shake it. I understood on some level that I was just getting residual anxiety from the strange encounter with Erik and letting that cloud my thinking. I wasn't going to take it out on this guy.

“Yeah, let's find them,” I said decisively.

I should have listened to that voice inside my head.

CHAPTER 3

The wind was up and tore at the light outfit I had chosen for dancing inside. It simply wasn't enough. But the guy, (Matt, he'd told me as we hurried out) had said he thought they'd be in the car.

“How much further?” I asked as I shivered in the light coat I'd slung on without a care before we left.

I cared now, I was freezing my half-naked ass off.

“Not much,” he wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we walked and that helped.

Sure enough, another block of parked cars revealed a car that was running.

I could see a flash of pink in the car, but barely.

What was happening? It was Michelle but there were... others.

Other men.

My foreboding slammed back over me, washing away all tact. I went to wrench the car door open and Matt stopped me.

“They're busy.”

“Ah duh, Einstein, I can see that. But I don't know if she was planning on being this busy,” I said, seeing that there were at least two guys in there.

Matt put his hands up, as if to say, hey, no problem, just sayin'.

Irritating jerk.

Sighing, I tore open the door and was entirely unprepared for what I saw before me:

Michelle had Rugged behind her shoving his cock right up to her groin, the whole length of him digging in, sparing her nothing, his balls slapping her ass. The other guy, who I vaguely remembered sitting across the way from us, had his hand fisted in all that blonde hair and was pressing her face up and down on the shaft of his dick.

When the door opened, Rugged's eyes flew open and his gaze met mine. His body was pumping and working behind Michelle his hand reached over and slapped her ass and she moaned, her head working up and down the shaft of the prick she had in her mouth.

I didn't think she had planned on this and I yelled, “Michelle!”

She tried to take her head off the cock she was on but he shoved her back down and she gagged. “I'm gonna spray my cum you dumb bitch, keep sucking.”

She squirmed to try and get away and Rugged held her hips, pounding into her harder. I backed away with my hand covering my mouth.

Michelle wasn't fooling around... she was getting raped.

I swung around to get help and Matt wrapped his arms around me. One of his big hands that I'd admired so much earlier covered my mouth so I couldn't scream.

Adrenaline slammed into me like a sheet of cold water.

Dragging me into the front seat of the car he threw me across and I bounced once, almost landing against the opposite door. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew what was going to happen as Rugged said hoarsely, “God... I'm gonna cum in her snatch right now, oh God!”

The whole car rocked as he plunged his length into Michelle and the other guy torqued her head down on him and said, “Swallow it... that's it, swallow it. Ahhh... that's right,” he groaned, throwing his head back, his lips slightly parted.

I started to fully panic then, scrambling across the seat, my skirt hiking around my hips as I struggled to reach the door.

Matt landed on top of me and all the air in my lungs went out in a rush. I couldn't breathe and was in a state of sheer panic, Matt was not the guy I had taken him for.

Neither were his friends.

I could hear Michelle sobbing softly and the rustle of her clothes as she tried to adjust everything.

Two heads and upper chests appeared over the top of the back seat as Matt's engorged arousal pressed along my inner thigh, trying to gain entrance, his pants long gone.

“You gotta a live one there,” Guy X said.

“Not as 'live' as the bitch we just did,” Rugged replied, laughing.

The sweet air of the car's interior entered in a rush, filling my lungs to capacity and I screamed for all I was worth, tearing something loose in the process. Matt's hand clamped over my mouth and I bit him, trying to meet my teeth together. He snatched his hand away and bellowed. I knew what was coming as I was pinned under him, his other hand came down with depressing speed and accuracy, slamming into my cheekbone, my head rocketing back against the door.

My head swam and his fingers dug at my panties while the other men watched....

Just when I thought there wasn't a hope in the world, the driver's side door was torn open, the hinges shrieking, then releasing in the process. The door was flung behind the figure that filled the opening.

I was seeing him upside down but the guys in the back seat summed it up, “What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?”

He was my savior... whoever he was.

Matt was backing off me in a hurry, leaving me to the stranger's mercy. With my head spinning all I saw was a strong jaw, black jeans, boots and a bad-ass leather zip-up. As he leaned down, the whiteness of his teeth gleamed in the interior dome light of the car, his nearly bald head had an inky wash of short black hair covering it, the shirt breaking open at the neck to reveal a tattoo that crawled up his neck.

He wasn't big on conversation, his hand snaking out in a lethal punch that terminated on Matt's nose. There was a sickening crunch and he backed up, howling. His bleeding hand with my teethmarks held what I was sure was a broken nose as he fell right outside the car on his ass.

The stranger looked down at me then and his eyes were a startling blue, not icy pale like mine. They were nearly white in a face that was pale, his lush mouth a deep scarlet slash. He looked me over carefully, but only a second or two as he was going to have to deal with Rugged and Guy X. Those two had gotten out of the car and I was too weak to even turn over and see things right side up. If he'd meant me harm, it would have happened.

At least that's what I told myself.

Rugged and Guy X faced him. “You could have had a piece of this action, if you'd asked nice.”

The stranger looked briefly at Michelle who was trying to stop crying, the sobs turning to hitching hiccups. Then he spared a glance in my direction, taking in my clothes in disarray, my face starting to swell from the blow I'd received.

“They do not look as though it was the attention they wished for,” the stranger responded.

I noticed that he was enormously big compared to the two men who had abused Michelle. And that was saying something because Matt had me by inches and I was five-eight.

Rugged said, “You talk funny.”

“As do you,” Stranger said.

Guy X circled around him, taking his measure as a male. “I think you need an ass-kicking. You've beat the shit out of our car in the middle of fuckin' winter in this cold-ass place, ruined another piece of easy tail for me and my buds here. You gotta get what's comin' to ya.”

Stranger looked at them as they rushed him at the same time. From my angle I saw everything upside down and in slow motion. Rugged came at him like a charging bear and Stranger swung his arm forward in a stiffened knife jab move and with the flat of the palm he landed it square in Rugged's nose. He stared blankly for a moment then fell like a box of rocks, his nose shattered. Guy X was a slow learner and grabbed him from behind and latched onto his wind pipe. Stranger grabbed the forearm which held him, crushing it before my eyes just using the one hand, while the other spun Guy X around to stare at him. He was howling, taking great lungfuls of air to bellow louder.

“Stop that noise,” Stranger said.

And he did.

The stranger stared into the eyes of Guy X. “Tilt your head.”

Guy X looked like he was in a fog, as if he was not in command of his mind. He cocked his head to the extreme left. The long, clean line of his neck was exposed under the street lamp, the artificial light casting a ghostly yellow on the flesh of his throat.

The stranger reared back like a snake and hissing, struck Guy X's neck. His teeth as he arced above Guy X's neck was something I would never forget:

They were fangs.

I was riveted. My presumed savior was not a man... he was something else. I had to get out of here. I tried to sit up and my head swam. I was woozy from the blow. The stranger had gathered Guy X in his arms and was taking great gulps from him but his eyes were pinned on me.

Time. To. Go.

I looked over the back seat and met Michelle's horrified eyes. Her mascara had made its way all over her face and I said, “Let's get out of here. Right now.”

I slid out of the car, one of my high heels falling off and was met by another stranger. This one had blonde hair and the same icy-blue eyes as the other.

They were busy tonight.

This one was all over Matt. He sucked at his neck while Matt made disconcerting mewling sounds underneath him. He lifted his mouth off Matt long enough to hiss at Michelle, which got us moving.

We backed away, both my shoes left on the sidewalk. They watched us but did not follow, taking the last of the men's blood. Their lives ebbed as we watched.

“What are they?” Michelle whispered.

“Ah... I think we've just been saved by those blood-killers.”

“They... they raped the women...”

We looked at each other, dawning comprehension mirrored in our expressions.

We ran.

We ran until my lungs burned, the images of them sucking those guys lives away etched permanently in my brain. We were within sight of my car when we saw them leaning against it, one dark, the other light.

“Holy shit,” Michelle stammered.

Yeah, that.

They came off the car at the same moment like perfectly choreographed twins. But it was the dark one that made my heart speed in my chest.

They came to stand before us. “We need to scrub them both. They have seen entirely too much,” the blonde one said, his stare going from Michelle to me.

The dark one laid his icy gaze on me and I shivered. From what I didn't know but his gaze penetrated my bone and marrow.

“Holy shit,” Michelle said again.

I seconded that.

Still I said nothing while they looked at us for a long moment. “No. The blonde one forgets. This one, no.”

“Why, Cole?” the blonde stranger asked. “She is fair of face and figure, but there are many...”

“You cannot smell her?” Cole asked.

The blonde's head whipped around and his penetrating gaze was suddenly all for me; I backed away.

Finally, he shook his head. “All I smell is their fear. They smell like prey.”

“Underneath that, Nathan.”

One moment he was ten feet away and the next he had his arms around me and I screamed. Michelle started to run but faster than my eyes could track, the one named Cole had her in his arms, his hand covering her mouth and the fingers of those long hands feathered her temple. And I'd thought Matt's hand had been big... my God, his were palming her entire face.

Voices drifted down, the blonde's face was buried in my neck and I began to hyperventilate. Images flooded my mind of my would-be rapists not finishing what they started, distracted with death-by-blood loss.

“Be still,” he said, his fangs bursting out of his mouth.

I thrashed around and he turned to Cole. “She will not follow my command.”

“Will it so,” Cole said.

He buried his nose in my neck, breathing my scent in, his fangs grazing the skin of my neck. Lifting his head he said, “Breeder.”

“Yes.”

“We must take her. There are so few left. This one is... she is rare.”

A drunken group stepped out into our little mess and Michelle began hollering, “Help, help!”

A couple of the guys broke away from the pack and made their way over to us, Cole stood away from Michelle and the blonde released me slowly, like he didn't want to stop touching me.

As they approached the males, they looked into their eyes and each stranger said, “Leave this place.” One of the men grabbed his temples with his hands, shaking his head like he couldn't release the clutches of something.

“That one has a strong mind,” Nathan said.

“Some of the cattle do,” Cole said.

Cattle.

I started to back away, subtly getting Michelle's attention. We were almost to the car when Cole's head whipped around. “You... will not leave.”

Michelle began hollering again but the men walked away. The one who shook his head cast a final glance behind him. As we watched he massaged his temple, continuing to walk away.

They retraced their steps toward us and my heart sank. We could not outrun something we couldn't see move, something that crushed a man's face with one swipe, disintegrated an arm with a grip strong enough to pulverize bone. As they drew nearer, their fangs stood out of their mouths, barbed points ready to pierce our flesh.

Michelle latched on to my hand and I prepared myself for the worst.

“You cannot thirst.”

“No, but the blonde one's fear is an aphrodisiac,” Nathan said.

“Yes, but think on this Nathan: has she not already been degraded enough by the human scum we dispatched?” Cole said.

“Yes,” Nathan ground out. “You speak true.”

“Then scrub her and we take the female breeder.”

Nathan approached Michelle and she started to wail, her screams broken only by her next breath.

The blonde was suddenly in front of her. Squeezing her throat lightly, he cut off her screaming and the sudden silence filled the parking area. The snow was falling softly around us, some of the flakes catching in my eyelashes. Nathan stared deeply into Michelle's eyes. Finally he moved away and she stood there, blank faced, in a zombie-like stupor.

“What did you do to her?” I whispered.

“Something we cannot do for you,” Cole remarked.

I backed away and they tracked me. “I am not going with you,” I said, proud that my voice only shook a little.

“We understand your fear, but you will come with us. How do you humans put it? It is non-negotiable.”

“You don't understand anything! You two... whatever-you-are, sucked our attacker's blood. They died and now you're calling me some kind of 'breeder'. No offense, but it's not looking too good on my end.”

My eyes bounced from one to the other of them. I couldn't follow their movements, just when I thought I had one in my sights they moved so fast they were both suddenly one foot away from me, each holding an arm. I opened my mouth to scream and Cole put his mouth on mine, stifling it. His kiss blossomed and spread to the center of me, making my panties instantly moisten. I'd never had a reaction like this in my life.

Of course, I'd always made out with human men.

My fear was in my throat but my biology was never touched by it. I couldn't move my arms but as my mouth moved against his, he released my arm and I wound it around his neck, pressing his lips harder against mine and he groaned and pulled me against him. My mind played tug-of-war, my intellect was screaming that he was some creature of the night. He'd killed two men before my eyes but my center bloomed for him; heat stretching and spreading from between my legs. My nipples hardened and he reached behind me, placing his hands under my thighs. Never breaking from the kiss, he lifted me up and I wound my legs around his waist.

“She is so eager,” Nathan said, releasing my other arm. He circled us, grabbing a piece of my hair and flicking it behind my shoulder.

That broke through the heat of the moment and my intellect slammed back into place. I broke away and shoved at his chest with my hands. He let me slide down his body and when my feet hit the pavement, the cold moved up my legs, freezing that searing heat before it progressed.

I gave Nathan a dirty look, noticing Michelle still stood there in the same position, gooseflesh covering her arms, her teeth chattering.

“I don't know what you are, or why this is happening but I just want you to go... now. I will get my friend and I home without any help from you.” I folded my arms across my chest.

“Your body speaks for what you want. It speaks for what you are.”

“Oh?” I arched my eyebrow. “What is it that I am?”

“It is what is in your blood, you are of Druid blood. They are the only humans that may breed with us.”

Druid? What the hell was that?

Okay, next question:

“What are you?”

They looked at each other. “We are Vampire, witch,” Cole said as if that should have been obvious.

Witch? Had the conversation devolved to name-calling at two a.m.?

“Do you know of your people?”

I couldn't believe I was standing out here in twenty degree weather talking to a couple of guys claiming to be vampires. I felt incredibly stupid to have kissed the one... Cole.

“Ah, no. I'm adopted. Okay, while all this is interesting, it's time to go.”

I turned to Michelle, who had a spot of drool coming out of her mouth. God, what did they do to her? I walked over to her, grabbing a limp arm and started dragging her to my car.

Suddenly, they stood in front of me.

“Would you stop doing that!” I said, fear choking me.

A smile spread over Cole's face. “Doing what?” His fangs were smaller now that he wasn't trying to French me.

Sirens began in the distance and we all looked in their direction.

“The human police,” Nathan said.

“Yes.”

“Another time, breeder,” Cole said. He licked his finger and touched it on my forehead. “I mark you for another time, very soon.”

They disappeared into thin air and I was left with Michelle, the approaching cops, and a pulsing core that wept for the vampire that was now gone.

CHAPTER 4

My eyes felt like they had crushed glass in them but I wasn't going to bed any time soon. These assholes had made me repeat the same answers to the same shit about two hundred times. I was getting pissed. Poor Michelle was curled up, sleeping on the couch, a rape kit finished and being processed.

“Okay, Miss Collins, I want to ask you one more time,” the detective ran slim hands through his hair, making it whack out in all different directions. Its honey-colored goodness would have been fun to look at had I not been at the Anchorage Police Station at going on four-oh-hell in the morning.

“You claim your friend,” and he threw a look at Michelle, who was a small mound under the gunmetal gray blanket they'd thrown over her on the lumpy precinct couch, “was attacked.” He looked down at his notepad, scrolling down with his finger until he found the detail he was looking for, “...by two men, claiming to be vampires. That, inadvertently,” he made airquotes here, “saved you from the attackers.”

I wanted to punch him in the snout, he was just that condescending.

I was so done here. “Listen... Detective...”

“Jewel, Christopher Jewel.”

Fine. “Anyway, my friend just got a fun rape kit done, and you have three bodies without any blood... right?”

He tapped his pen on his notepad. “Actually, we have evidence that suggests there was an incident at that location, but there has not been any bodies recovered.”

Wow... the vampires had done away with the evidence. My heart sped thinking about how fast they'd had to been to go back to the scene and get rid of three men before the police got there.

“And the vampire story...” he looked at me like, you really expect me to believe this?

“That's what they told me,” I replied.

“That is a myth, there are no such thing as vampires. However, I know from the minute that you came in here I have not been able to get touching you out of my mind.” His eyes stared into mine and I got up so quickly from the chair it fell over with an echoing clatter of metal against tiled linoleum.

He walked over to me as if he was in a fugue. “You smell,” and he leaned in as I leaned away, “very good.”

Okay, now things were getting weird. Mr. Professional Cop was coming on to me in the middle of the police station when he should be getting my statement.

“It says here that, 'he was kissing me, then heard the police sirens and he and the other vampire left',” he resumed his questioning.

I nodded. Maybe he'd get off all the personal weirdness then. I covertly looked around in the hopes of spotting another cop. There was only Michelle on the couch and a lone secretary waaayyyy down the hall.

Shit.

As if on cue, he walked over to Michelle. “She smells fuckable too,” he said and with that, he whipped off the cover and spread her legs.

She stirred in her sleep when I yelled, “Hey!” This couldn't be happening. Where was everyone? What-the-hell?

What the blue fuck was wrong with him?

But he'd already put a finger inside her, and started pumping it back and forth. “Yeah, she's still really lubed up from all that cum that got dumped in there.”

I ran over there and shoved him and he turned, my friend's crotch spread to the world. He backhanded me and I spilled on the floor as he all but ran over to the door, closing it and locking it in place. My face stung unmercifully having just been hit in the same spot a couple of hours before.

It felt like days.

Where the hell were all the other cops?

I tried to scramble to my feet but he tackled me, tearing at my skirt and ripping down my panties. I responded with a knee to the crotch, my jaw on fire.

As if from a distance, I heard a crash and glass shattered behind me, falling like crystal rain all around us, my arms shielding my face.

I didn't open my eyes as Detective Jewel was torn off me. I became aware of the fact that there wasn't any more noise and cold air was rushing in and... I had no clothes on.

I closed my legs all the way and threw my hands down to cover the apex of my thighs.

I opened my eyes and there were Nathan and Cole, the vampires were back.

“Has she been... violated?” Nathan asked.

Cole bent down, putting his nose right above my crotch and I flinched, he laughed. He shook his head. “No, there is no human taint upon her.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the secretary and said, “Take care of the human female and all that you encounter in the interim.”

Nathan nodded and sped down the hall, a blur of gray, the black softened by the motion of his body.

Cole swung his gaze back to me. “Are you alright?”

I nodded stiffly, his voice was like velvet gravel and I became aroused again. I was instantly furious with myself. I had just about been raped by a police officer for shit's sake and here I was: ready-to-hump a stranger that wasn't even human. I started shaking from shock and cold.

Perfect.

“I'm fine,” I said, getting up unsteadily and searching for my skirt without a shred of dignity. Difficult to have any when you were wearing a top, thigh-highs and nothing else.

Cole-the-vampire held out my skirt, which dangled from a finger but the panties were beyond repair. I grabbed it and threw it on, hopping twice to get it zipped up. As I'd been getting the skirt on Cole stared at my body, his eyes missing nothing. I was still flushed by the scrutiny and feeling vulnerable. There was no place that was safe. The police station was not safe, obviously, and the dangerous vampires were back. Their motivations were suspect.

Nathan burst back into the grim interrogation room and nodded at Cole. “It is done.”

Cole looked at me. “Time to go.”

“No,” I said, backing away.

“It is not safe for you here. The human males smell us on you... on her.” He gave a dismissive glance at Michelle. “They will try to take you by force.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Nathan shrugged. “They are little more than the basest animals. They smell vampire pheromone and it causes a territorial urge that they can't intellectualize away.”

“They wish to mate with any female that comes into close contact with one of our kind. It is primal. They think if they can impregnate you, then we obviously... cannot.”

Made a warped kind of sense. I had a sudden thought. “But Michelle isn't a 'breeder'.”

Cole smiled, turning to Nathan. “I told you the Druids were superior. It is more than just bloodline. It is many things.”

Nathan grunted. He didn't sound convinced.

They looked at me and I stared back. Finally, I shook my head. “I'm sorry, I don't know you and you're obviously dangerous... I have a life here,” I said by way of explanation.

“We know of your life, Witch,” Cole said.

“It's Rachel.”

“Rachel,” his voice caressed each syllable and I was so into that sound, like spoken velvet caressing things down low in my body. I had to shake my head to get rid of the urge to undress right there.

Nathan laughed. “She is ready for you, Cole.”

“Yes.”

That was so unflattering. What? Could they smell my arousal?

Nathan nodded, interpreting my expression. “We know when you are ripe, female. We must. How many breeders are in existence for us?”

“Too few,” Cole responded.

Jewel was coming to his senses. He swung his head from side to side, trying to clear it. He got up from all fours and started to come for me and Cole turned to him. “Not her,” baring his fangs with a hiss.

Jewel looked bewildered but only for a moment, then his gaze fixed on Michelle and he walked toward her.

“No!” I yelled. “He can't rape her!”

But Cole and Nathan shook their heads, holding me back from saving my friend.

“We need him to be distracted from taking you. He will not remember. He will fuck the human female and they will be caught up in dealing with him and... her.”

I watched in muted horror as Jewell dropped his pants, inserted a finger inside her and with a satisfied nod, he pushed his shaft in deeply, working it in and out, never even glancing our way. Michelle's eyes flew open and she started to holler and Nathan stalked over to her, looking deeply in her eyes he said, “You're coming.”

Michelle began to scream in a whole different way, her core grabbing onto Jewel's cock as he ground it into her. He sped his pace as we all watched, tears silently streaming down my face. My friend used a pawn on the chessboard of everyone else. As Jewell finished up, his balls slapping her ass, he groaned, “Ah, yeah...” and with several quick thrusts, he collapsed on top of her.

“I can't do this,” I said, backing away from everyone. I couldn't help Michelle as Jewel flipped her over on her stomach.

“What's he doing?” I nearly yelled.

“Her ass, I think,” Nathan said casually.

I ran then.

I ran down the hall, past people that stood in a stupor and didn't see me. I rushed outside in a ripped skirt, heels and a torn blouse moving swiftly to my right, heading straight for the first building I could see.

I could get help, I thought.

Suddenly, a large hand clamped on my shoulder and whirled me around.

It was Cole. “You will come with us.”

He put a bag over my head and Nathan tied my wrists together. A feeling of weightlessness overcame me, causing me to feel at once heavy and light. My vision receded to a small point of light. Then... even that went black and I knew no more.

CHAPTER 5

I cracked my eyelids open and looked around at where I was, disoriented and flushed, my first vision was of a stone ceiling.

Where was I?

Shit! Remembering the last twenty-four hours made my head ache. The memories came crashing down on me like rain on a tin roof.

I sat up slowly. My wrists were now unbound and the bag that had covered my head lay on top of a thick and solid wood bureau that sat underneath a leaded window, diamonds fracturing the light as it came through the glass.

I stood up on feet without heels, my skirt a tangled mess and walked over to the window. I looked through the molded panes. The warped glass offered a view of extensive grounds that rolled off into the distance, covered by a glittering white carpet of snow. Spruce trees danced in the wind at the perimeter of the compound.

Because that was what this was, I was sure, seeing the outline of a great stone wall that followed the forest border. I turned, taking in the surroundings of my room. Aside from the solitary window, there was a bed, the dresser and a large mirror. It was so large it took up a third of the wall. That was strange, I thought, approaching it.

I stood in front of the mirror, gazing at my reflection and noticed the crimson blouse was worse-for-wear, the black skirt ruined, the thigh-highs from Italy, torn. But it was my face that looked different; absolutely pale like alabaster. Purple smudges underneath my blue eyes like bruises, my lips a deep pink in a sea of pale flesh. I shuddered, looking down at where my watch usually was... it had vanished. My disquiet deepened, I didn't know what day it was, what time it was and my stomach ached from the need to eat.

I walked back over to the bed and sat down, dejected.

I guess I had more to worry about than losing my crummy cubicle job. Like, where the blue hell was I? Was I going to live? Was this the rest of my life... a life where I was a “breeder?” I didn't even know if I wanted children. I'd never dated anyone I could imagine that life with.

It sure wasn't a vampire. That whole concept didn't compute. And what about all that talk of being of Druid blood? Being a witch. I wasn't anything... really. My adopted family had been atheists and I'd just swung along in their non-religious ocean. I sighed.

Answers, I needed answers.

Just then, the thick wood door surged open and I leaped up, instantly finding the wall with the back of my hand.

It was Nathan, the vampire that had let Detective Jewel abuse Michelle. He looked different in this context: the context of me being alone in a bedroom with him.

I assessed him as a male, so different than Cole but eerily the same. His icy-blue eyes, exactly the same color of Cole's, gleamed underneath a strong brow with golden blond hair that was so pale it was almost white. His shoulders were broad and tapered to a trim waist. He was an enormous man, at least six foot four. Even so, Cole was even taller.

My eyes narrowed; I was pissed at him. He'd left my friend with the creeper-cop and now I was here against my will. They'd have a fight on their hands. I wasn't just going to roll over and let them scratch my belly.

He moved forward and I shrunk against the wall. “Stay over there, freak,” I said.

He smiled, never pausing his strides, coming to stand an uncomfortable foot or so away from me. It would have been easier to touch me but he hovered, not committing to tactile just yet.

“We are at the top of the food chain, Witch. Humans live by our sufferance alone.”

I nodded, right. He was obviously insane.

“Doesn't look like you're keeping things under wraps too well. Judging by the psychos that are running around raping and bleeding out everyone of late.” I folded my arms across my chest, going for nonchalant know-it-all.

His eyes bored into mine. “Those are rogue Vampire. We were trailing them when we came upon you and the human female.”

“Excuse me! I am a human female!”

“Not exactly,” Nathan said, leaning in to smell me. His hands were on either side of my head, his nose hovering above my neck. I ducked, moving under his arms and he was right in front of me again, moving so fast I hadn't see him and I yelped. He hissed in response, his fangs punching out of his mouth, the tips glistening in the low light of the room.

My heart sped, I tried to make myself smaller against the wall but I was effectively trapped and at his mercy. That just pissed me off more, my anger eclipsing my fear.

“Nathan!” a voice said from the door.

He leaned back from me slowly and I moved into the corner and looked at who had spoken.

It was Cole, looking like he had the prior night, all-black and menace.

He looked especially menacing right now, hadn't even bothered to look in my direction, his eyes were all for Nathan. And those eyes were boiling with rage.

“You are cognizant of the rules, stay away from her.”

“You just want to be first with her.”

They stared at each other for a swollen moment. My heart was in my throat. Here were a couple of vampires, casually discussing who would have sex with me first. Like I was a commodity.

Swell.

“Hey boys,” I waved my hand so they'd notice me in the corner.

“Maybe I don't want either one of you, hmm?” I smiled.

Cole moved so fast it was that blur of gray again and I steeled myself. I kept chanting in my mind that there'd been ample opportunity to kill me if that had been their intent. But having six-foot five of fast and pissed male vampire pressed up against my body was a whole different thing.

My pulse raced in fear as my body responded in anger.

He dragged a finger down the side of my neck, leaving a burning trail of heat and stopped at the thrumming and jumping pulse in the hollow of it. “I think you speak prematurely, Witch.”

“It's Rachel, freak.”

He snatched his hand away. “We are not freaks. We are superior to humans in every way.”

I shoved him with both hands but he was like an immoveable wall. “Good, then you should have no trouble letting me go since I am an inferior human.”

I was all fake bravado but maybe that'd work.

It didn't. He pulled me into his arms and I struggled to get away as he crushed his mouth to mine. Those fangs of his pierced the tender inside of my mouth and a few drops of blood filled my mouth from the force of his kiss.

The scent of my blood bloomed in the room and suddenly Nathan was there, ripping Cole off me. They turned on each other hissing as Cole shoved me behind him.

Unbelievable, I thought, licking my lip and tasting copper.

Nathan watched my tongue flick over the small wound Cole had made like a starving man.

Starving vampire.

Cole forgotten, Nathan lunged for me and Cole barreled into him, both of them crashing into the stone wall.

More vampires filled the room, their eyes taking in the scene before them, their stares falling on me. I went back into the corner and their eyes tracked me like prey.

Holy-hell. This was looking bad. No, check that... it was bad.

“Who has bled her?” the leader asked, a huge signet type ring glinting on his middle finger; a swollen ruby that reflected their precious blood.

His hand covered his nose and he breathed out of his mouth, as did the others.

Wasn't this special?

His gaze watched me with a hunger that was alive. He actually took a step backward. “Cole, Nathan!” he barked.

They broke apart, both faces swollen from abusing each other. Their chests heaved from exertion.

The Leader said, “You understand better now, no?”

Cole looked at him and nodded. “It was not I that transgressed, it was Nathan, Alexander.”

Alexander looked at Nathan. “You came here to see her... alone.”

“Yes,” he spit a wad of blood onto the floor. They bled red, just like humans, I noticed a trifle smug.

Alexander's eyes narrowed on Nathan. “You bled her as well.”

Nathan looked at Cole. “The witch enticed him.”

I huffed and they looked at me. “Ah, excuse me, Superior Vampires, but I am not wanting your twisted attention, thanks. Just so we're clear.”

Alexander's dead glacier eyes looked into mine. “You will.”

I shrugged, let him think what he wanted. I was desperate to give him the middle finger salute but held back. I think I may have caused enough trouble as it was.

For now.

One of the other vampires said to him, his stare never leaving me, “She is bold with her words, this one. How much Druid blood does she have?”

Cole looked shamed but answered, “Much.”

Alexander swung his head to Cole. “A pureblood?”

Cole shrugged. “I would not know for certain, but I have not tasted purer than hers.”

Wonderful. As fun as all this was, “Here's the thing,” they all looked at me again. Six identical crystalline blue eyes, their weighty stares were disconcerting as hell. “I have a life. That I want to go back to. I am not a witch... I don't know about this 'blood thing'. You're holding me against my will. I promise... I won't tell the, ah... humans about you. Just let me go.” As I said that my eyes swung instinctively to Cole who shook his head slightly.

No dice.

“We cannot release you. Even if you had just an distant Druid relative, you would still be a viable breeder. Now,” he swung his palms out away from his sides, “a pureblood would mean much more.”

Alexander moved slowly to me. I think he was trying to keep me calm, but his slow approach was almost worse.

My palms grew damp and I wiped them on the wrinkled skirt.

“Let me taste you, Witch.”

I shook my head, his face inches from mine.

His eyes stared deeply into mine and I felt him pushing at me but it sloughed off like water off a duck's back. The mental ability that they used on others was not having the slightest effect.

“I don't have to ask you. Cole?” he directed at Cole without turning from me.

“Yes?”

“She does not respond to compulsion,” he stated.

“No.”

“Definitely a pure parent at least.” He leaned closer, sniffing me.

His fangs elongated slowly.

I shrank away, none of the desire I'd had for Cole with this one. He only filled me with fear as he prepared to strike the vulnerable flesh of my neck.

I threw my hand into his face and it slowed him for a moment and I yelped, retreating. He lunged for me, spittle hanging out of his mouth, a ravenous expression covering his face. When Cole appeared out of nowhere he hissed at Alexander his body crouched in front of me. I stifled a whimper but he heard it, his body stiffening.

“Are you bonding with this breeder, Cole?”

“No, but you scare her to taste her. We are trained to not harm the breeders. Think, Alexander, if she had been stumbled upon by the rogue. We are not savages, we are Vampire.”

Alexander straightened.

He glared at Cole, his eyes flicking to me then back to him. “You are right, I have lost myself. It has been some time since I have been exposed to... a pure breeder.” His gaze bored into mine.

“She goes nowhere. Two of you visit her together, no exceptions. There is time yet to ascertain the purity of her blood. But mark my words, it will be soon.”

He looked at me one last time then left, taking his two “guards” with him.

Cole and Nathan looked at me.

Finally Cole said, “We will send a female to help you clean up and get some clothing for you. Tomorrow there will be a ceremony and your life here amongst us will begin.”

With that, he gave me a final stare and they left.

Great.

I was locked in a house with a bunch of gang-rapists whose primary goal was to get me pregnant.

Every girl's dream.

CHAPTER 6

I waited in my austere room for this elusive “female” that would give me clothes.

I didn't sit on my ass, I paced.

I spent an inordinate amount of time beside my window gazing out at the crystallized brightness, the white glancing of the sun casting diamonds on the ground.

A soft knock sounded and a woman entered, her belly swollen. I took in her simple attire of flowing tunic and linen pants, simple flats completed the look. Something about her made my soul clench, like a bell had been rung that only I could hear.

She smiled at me, she felt it too.

“You are Druid,” she said as statement. Her hair was as black as my own, flowing about her waist like silken water.

“I... I don't know,” I stammered, feeling very unbalanced, surreal.

“I am Eve.” She came forward with her hand out and I shook it, rapidly stepping back.

Eve put some things down on the end of the bed and brought a key out of her pocket. It gleamed like melted butter in the low light of the room.

“I was told that you needed to clean up...”

“I don't want to be here,” I said, frustrated. She was human, surely she could understand it.

“They will not let you go. You must understand how rare you are. How rare we all are.” She held out her hands in supplication.

“Do you know your kin?” Eve asked.

I shook my head. “I was adopted... I didn't know that I was anything but single white female, age twenty-eight.” I shrugged.

Eve smiled and it broke the ice. “Let's get you in a bath and some fresh things. You will feel much better after you are clean. And,” her hazel eyes met mine, “they sent me for a reason. They wish for you to feel more at ease.”

Eve spoke very strangely, I could feel my face scrunch up and I asked, “Are you... how old are you?” I looked at her swollen stomach and felt a heat rise on my cheeks.

“Come,” she held out her hand and I took it as we walked into the bathroom together where she closed the door softly behind us.

*

Like the rest of the structure, the bathroom was all clean, old-fashioned lines with a huge claw-foot tub that stood in the center atop a marble platform.

Eve cranked open the taps and feeling the water temperature she nodded to herself, laying the towels beside the tub on a small wooden stool of sorts and turned to me. The pipes moaning in the bathroom were the only sound.

“You have met Cole, Alexander and...?” She hesitated.

“Nathan,” I filled in reluctantly.

“You understand they do not think as human males do?”

I nodded, I was fully getting that.

I stripped in front of Eve, any self-consciousness gone before my desire to get the soiled and ruined clothing off me. She watched me silently, her eyes roving my body and she nodded. “You are not modest?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “Not in front of other women. In front of them, I wouldn't feel real comfortable taking my clothes off.”

She laughed as I put a toe in the water. Inch-by-inch I sunk down into the scented and steaming bath water, the stress and fright of the last twenty-four hours melting away and I sighed in contentment. Human again, if only for the moment.

Then Eve spoke and it slid back into me again.

“Two of the vampire claim me as mate,” she said in that matter-of-fact way of hers, her hand automatically going to her belly.

My shoulders were just covered with water as she handed me the soap and the shampoo and I suddenly thought of Michelle and my face beat with shame, hot and flushed and Eve noticed.

“What troubles you?”

Geez, was she really asking that? Let me see, my best friend was being raped and I left her for there. My cat doesn't have anyone there to take care of him.

My job.

My job! I think it was safe to say that would be gone as well and I sighed.

I turned the tables on her. “Please answer some questions I have for you. If you really want me to feel better.”

Eve waited, all calm and unflappable.

“How old are you?”

“I am one hundred five,” she answered with a straight face.

“Are you shitting me?” I asked without grace.

Eve's face took on a puzzled frown.

She didn't understand me.

I rephrased, “Are you joking? I mean, that's not possible.” I held out my hand indicating her obvious youth and pregnancy.

She smiled. “I am Druid and I have been with the vampires since the 1930s. We do not age when we are in their care.”

Do not age. I wasn't sure that was such a hot benefit. Who said living forever was so great?

She reached out and tenderly put a strand of my hair behind my ear, the wetness of it clinging to the back of my neck.

“How much,” I stumbled over the next word, “Druid blood do you have?”

She shook her head. “Enough to breed,” she lifted a shoulder in a partial shrug, “maybe one-eighth or thereabouts.”

“How can they know what you are, how much? And do you just become, what? A baby-maker?”

Eve blushed and I immediately regretted all my rude questions. But, I was the kidnapped party here and even though it was not her fault directly, I had no one else to pose these questions to. I was deeply unhinged that I was so attracted to the one vampire, Cole.

I shouldn't have been.

“We may only have one baby per decade and if we are quite fortunate, it will be a Druid female. Female vampires are usually sterile,” she held up a finger, “but not always, and of course, male vampires are born to us.”

God, the breast-feeding must be hell, I shuddered. Yuk.

She saw my face and asked, “What?”

“I was thinking about feeding the baby...?” I let that loaded question hover like a pink elephant in the room and Eve laughed.

“The vampire infants have retractable fangs, my dear.”

Wonderful.

“Would you help me escape this place?” I asked. I was not interested in being sequestered in this weird-ass castle or whatever it was.

She shook her head. “You don't understand. They will never let you go with their suspicions of your pureblood. Why, you could be mated to a vampire, fought over, have twins; pure Druid children. Male Druid children can impregnate the female vampires. You are a precious jewel to them, Rachel.”

I was getting out of here. Even my boring cubicle job was sounding better. I'd play along and find my cell, call Michelle and figure out my future.

I smiled, feeling it like plastic on my face and Eve's brows came together in a pretty frown.

“I guess I'll make the best of it,” I said with false cheer and finished my grooming, shaving, scrubbing, and washing my long hair three times. I felt like I'd never get clean after what I'd been through.

Thoughts of my friend and my life were a dismal pulse beating in my brain.

CHAPTER 7

I slid into the clothes that had been provided and they were nothing like what Eve had been wearing. For one thing, there were no tags. I slid on a thinly made, silk skirt with a hidden zipper in the back and low-heeled sandals, it was winter but the place was kept quite warm so my legs were left bare. Finally, a deep royal blue sleeveless shirt finished the ensemble. Eve had given me lingerie that seemed contrary to the plain yet elegant clothing I'd been given; crimson lace boy panties and bra set. The bra hugged my breasts like lace skin, molding and pushing them up to what felt like my neck level. Once the blouse was on, my breasts floated at the top of the blue like creamy flesh balloons.

I'd keep the bra when I got out of here I thought with a smirk.

I found my cell after Eve left with a suspicious glance over her shoulder and I heard the bolt slide into place from the outside. I would have to leave this room first, then scope out possible portals of escape.

The hopelessness of my situation did not escape me. I was with a bunch of predators, bent on having me and keeping me... virtually forever. But I wasn't one to give up.

I snapped up my cell and the bar for service was at one.

And so was my charge.

Quickly I speed-texted Michelle, thinking... respond, respond, respond.

The envelope lit up on my cell and I punched the screen and Michelle's text appeared.

Where the hell are you? You dumbass, the cops have been crawling all over your apartment looking for you! And! They found the bodies of the guys that attacked me...

I sent back this message:

I've been taken by the freak-vampires and am trying to figure out an escape plan.

I glanced around. Went to the window, looked outside. I had no idea where I was. Wherever it was, the woods didn't narrow things down.

Somewhere rural I thought, despairing.

Well... I am doing cat-sitting right now. Do you know where you're at? Are you okay?

Yeah, I'm okay. Are you... alright? Has the cop been arrested? I texted.

Why? What cop? Michelle texted back.

She didn't know? I thought.

The one that was busy raping you in the interrogation room...

I think you're confused, Rach. I mean, the two jerks at Spinners were the ones that raped me. The cop is the one that ordered the rape kit and drove me home.

Scrubbed.

The vampires had erased her memory. As far as Michelle knew, the rapists were dead and in the ground now. Never to do a repeat performance.

The bolt slid back and Nathan and Cole strode in the room, Cole's eyes honed in on the cell open and lit in my hand.

He was upon me in an instant, the cell swept against the wall and shattered before I knew my hand was empty.

Nathan held both my wrists together in a grip that was achingly tight, just shy of crushing and I moaned against my will, it hurt that much.

Cole turned and said, “Release her fool, she is fragile.”

Nathan did, smiling and Cole frowned at him.

I fought the urge to rub my wrists as Nathan's eyes roved over my body. “Mouthwatering,” he said. “Her scent permeates the air.”

Cole nodded. “It does,” he said, his breath quickening.

They approached me slowly and I backed up into the corner of the room, thinking that was becoming a familiar theme for me.

My body responded to their closeness and my knees grew weak as Cole leaned into my neck, his fangs punching out with a snapping, meaty sound and I shuddered, my desire and fear mingling in exquisite torture.

Nathan moved in on the other side, wrapping his muscular arm around my waist and holding me against him. Cole began to kiss my neck and simultaneously graze those fangs along my jawline. Nathan wrapped a hand in my hair and exposed my neck in a long, clean line and my breath came in ragged gulps, my core getting wet for invasion, thoughts of my escape dimming as my desire for the vampires overcame my sense.

“I will taste you now, Witch. And you will let me,” Cole said, his hot breath warming my slender throat, the pulse beating wildly beneath his mouth.

Something fundamental inside me screamed no even as my arms drew him into my body and he struck, his fangs sinking into my throat, latching on.

It was the worst pain of my life. I began to struggle and Nathan held me still, my body bucking as Cole drank my blood, his arousal against my belly while his fangs pierced my flesh.

As my head became light, Cole pulled back, licking the wounds at my throat and I slid down the front of Nathan's body, dizzy.

Cole caught me easily, carrying me to the bed where they lay me on it.

“She is pure. Both parents, Druid,” Cole said as I stared up at him dreamily.

“She will not fight us now,” Nathan said, his eyes on my legs, breasts, all of me.

“Alexander will punish us for having her before the ceremony.”

Cole looked at Nathan. “He need not know.”

A silent glance passed between the two vampires and I felt the weight of their stare like licking heat on my body.

The blood loss had made me feel drunk, but the feeding at my throat had awakened something primal in me. I felt desire for Cole spread like a flower opening deep inside my body.

He must have sensed something because he looked down at me.

“I cannot, it is akin to rape. She is in blood-languor. She would have sex with any one of us. And,” Cole said, stroking the flat of his palm over one of my nipples until it hardened, “Alexander would find what vampire would be the most fertile with her.”

Nathan said, “Fine, but we must see if we can give her something for the gift of her blood.”

A slow smile spread over Cole's face and I lay there as they discussed having sex with me and found I couldn't work up to a point of indignation. What was wrong with me? My throat throbbed and my core moistened in anticipation for their attention.

Slowly, Cole put his large hands at the hem of the skirt and raised it inch by slow inch until it was exposing the beautiful crimson panties. His blunt fingertip slowly teased the inside of the lace edge against my vulnerable opening, not reaching inside, just stroking the side of the panty. I moaned and my legs began to part of their own volition. I was deeply embarrassed, but too aroused to care.

Cole gave a masculine chuckle and inserted the one finger that had ridden the edge of the lace into me and was greeted by my slickness and he groaned. “She is so ready,” he murmured.

His hand began to work a rhythm and my hips squirmed to meet it. Nathan had unbuttoned my blouse and was rolling my nipples in between his fingers as Cole moved a finger in and out of me in a slow and delicious pull.

I looked up at his glacial eyes, watching him down the long line of my body as my skirt sat bunched around my waist and his hand was busy inside me.

I was building toward a shattering orgasm when he surprised me out of my languid stupor by pressing his mouth against my clit, flicking it once, twice, three times. But it was the cool press of the fangs against my opening that jerked my hips up into his seeking mouth, my orgasm ripping from my mouth in a scream that Nathan caught in a kiss.

Cole gently pressed his forearm against my lower stomach and shot his tongue into my core, spearing it as he lightly bit along my labia... and another orgasm shattered me as he speared his tongue in and out of me over and over, finishing me by lapping at my entrance, slick with my orgasms and his attentions.

Nathan released my mouth reluctantly and Cole sat up and away from me. I lay there with my legs spread before a stranger, a vampire. Who had just given me the best sex of my life without using his cock. He bent over me once more and kissed my most private part and I shivered, my hips moving of their own accord. He worked his way up my body, my hand rising to press against his head and his hips lay cradled between my open legs and I could feel his arousal between them.

“Why didn't you take me?” I asked. Mad, frightened and sexually frustrated all in one confused mess.

“You are not yourself right now. I would not have our first time like this, when blood-languor is upon you. It will be your choice who you mate with, and Alexander's.” A cloud of some dark emotion crossed his face at the mention of the leader's name.

With a tender finger along my jaw he said, “You taste perfect, you are perfect.” He kissed me. I could taste myself on his mouth and it made me moan underneath him and he shuddered.

“You undo me. I must go.” Nathan was above me and looked longingly at what Cole had just done.

Cole straightened my panties and skirt. “You must be hungry.”

Not anymore, I thought dreamily. My core throbbed for something other than food.

Nathan shook his head. “Let us take her to the Gathering Room.”

I was very woozy after the blood loss and the sex. Each man helped me to my feet, one on either side. My eyes found the shattered cell phone and I pulled out of Cole's grip, my senses beginning to right themselves.

“I texted my friend.” I snatched my hand out of his, backing away from both of them, the aftereffects of the bloodletting slipping away in a rush. “You know... the one you let the cop rape.”

Cole's expression darkened and my gaze went to his mouth, thinking about where it had been but minutes before. A flush rose to my face. I was trapped with these two men. I had allowed one of them to do things to me and I was instantly angry. How could I have let him? Them?

I stomped to the door, catching myself from falling against the jamb. Cole was instantly there, supporting my elbow. “You are not at your full strength. You need to eat. We could do nothing for your friend.”

“Yeah, I know... cattle,” I said, tearing my arm away from him and glaring at Nathan. They stared back at me, Nathan reaching forward and opening the door.

I walked in the hallway and immediately felt unsure of myself but my residual anger from being bled, manipulated and essentially used sexually while I was physically vulnerable fueled me onward. I swung around, still dizzy and leaned against the wall, my vision dimming, my anger and frustration at my circumstance burning hot tears in my eyes that refused to fall.

Cole got real close to me and whispered in my ear, “You are not well, let me carry you.”

I shook my head and my vision swam in streamers of color. He was definitely not going to touch me again. I ground my teeth together as I began to slide down the wall, my palm dragging against the cold stone.

“Just pick her up!” Nathan said.

Cole did, easily scooping me up in his arms and I hit him in his chest with weak fists. “Put me down...” my head lolled against him and the first, hot tears stained his black shirt and I fainted where I lay, safely pressed against him.

CHAPTER 8

I stirred, waking in another room with Eve peering anxiously over me.

“They should have never bled you before you had taken food,” she said, patting my forehead with a damp cloth.

Hunger slammed into me when I smelled a bowl of something that made my taste buds come alive in a roaring inferno.

I sat up too quickly and dizziness assaulted me. Nausea kicked in and I said, “I think I'm going to be sick.” I slammed my feet down on the cold floor and ran to the bathroom, but my weakness caused me to stumble and I put my hands out to brace my fall and I was in his arm's again.

Cole's.

I was too weak to struggle and lay there, my stomach heaving from blood loss and lack of food.

“You fool! She can hardly walk... she is sick to her stomach! Could you have not waited?” Eve yelled at him and I lay still, listening for a heartbeat that wasn't there.

I watched Cole's eyes close, the iciness gone for a moment then he looked down at me. “Forgive me, I would not harm you purposely.”

I was too tired to be angry. I said nothing and he sighed but the urge to throw up had passed.

“Give me the soup. I will feed her.”

Eve pursed her lips and gave him the bowl. Cole carried me to where I had lain, using only one arm, the soup in the other hand.

He sat down and tenderly brought me to a sitting position and my stomach lurched. Instinctively I put a hand over my mouth.

He scooped up some of the fragrant broth and lifted it to my mouth and I parted my lips for him and a fine sweat appeared above his lip. It was then that I knew that he wanted me for himself. It didn't matter what their leader (Alexander) thought, this vampire would be as territorial as he needed to be.

I would use that as leverage and escape this place. It didn't matter that the sex was great. The fringe benefits weren't sounding too hot at the moment. I ate half a bowl and allowed my head to fall back against his chest again, playing the weak female card for all it was worth.

It wasn't that hard.

He clenched me tighter and stroked my hair.

Eve said, “Don't get attached to her. You know better. Alexander will make a match that is best for a breeding pair...”

“I know that better than most!” he spoke to her harshly and she cringed away from him.

“Have you stopped to think that the Druids should not be matched for biology solely, but for love?”

Eve shook her head. “You know that is not the way of it, Cole. Think with your head,” I watched her press a fingertip to her temple, “not your emotions. You have always been thus.”

“I am not ashamed that I wished to be mated to a Druid and not share her with others.”

“That will never happen,” Eve said. “At the very least, she will have two mates. It cannot be avoided, there are too few.”

Cole let out a frustrated breath and it moved my hair, his arms crushed me to him and I smiled.

Gotcha.

*

I had regained some strength and Eve managed to convince them all that I was ready to partake in the ceremony. Albeit after there was something solid in my stomach.

I approached the cavernous room, noise echoing and bouncing off the walls. There were many women (and some men) lined up at a huge banquet table piling food on plates.

Many of the women were pregnant.

Many looked alike.

Druids, I thought. It was the first time I had ever felt a sense of belonging. Momentarily, I felt a comfort but the life I'd had came crashing down on me. This was some kidnap worship crap and I needed to stick to the plan. I needed to pretend, and get out of here. My eyes flitted around from one person to the next, finally landing on the huge vampire leader, Alexander.

He wasted no time, moving toward me in a rush, his actions a blur. I had a sense of vertigo as he approached and steadied myself against the wall I had stuck close to.

Another vampire, who looked vaguely familiar held a plate of food. Vegetables, roasted chicken and a small amount of fruit sat atop it and he handed it to me without a word, his eyes watching the pulse which beat in my throat as if mesmerized.

“Cole has told me what has happened.”

I blushed a fine, true red. Completely embarrassed about him knowing the intimate details of the sexual encounter that transpired between Cole and I and to a lesser degree, Nathan.

I put my chin down and refused to meet his eyes, he lifted it with a finger. “Let me introduce you, Pureblood.”

He didn't know, I thought. I looked around for Cole and there he was in the shadows of the room, watching me covertly. His gaze was a weight on my body. I shivered at the look he sent me and tried to calm myself.

My body remembered how it felt to have that sultry attention, betraying me even as I angered. I looked away hurriedly, following Alexander out into the center of the room, my hand gripped in his.

“This is Rachel Collins. She is the first pureblood Druid to enter our kiss in one hundred years.” There were murmurings all around. Apparently, it was big news. I stood there waiting.

Finally, Alexander gestured for me to sit and I did gratefully, taking small bites of my meal and realizing I was starving. I ate as quickly as I could.

The food stuck in my throat as five vampires came to stand before Alexander.

“Two of these vampires will be your mates. Maybe... more.”

I shook my head, my stomach lurching in a sickening way. “I didn't say I wanted them.”

Alexander frowned, I guess he wasn't used to a “no.” But I had to play along so I rushed on, explaining, “I want to have a choice.” I looked and saw Cole glower. He thought I'd be choosing someone else.

I was choosing to escape but that was for later, for now I would play along.

“Let us see who amongst these are a good breeding selection for you.”

I stood and walked to the vampires, my heart racing. They were all huge males, vampires. The eyes were the same, they watched me with anticipation and I approached them warily. What would this mean?

Nathan was among them and suddenly I felt cold. I repressed an almost insane urge to look for Cole. Why was he not amongst them?

They circled me. One came from behind and another came forward pinning my arms to my side and crushing his lips to mine. “Submit, Druid,” he said, his hand going right for my crotch. I squirmed against steel bands and struggled, hardly able to breathe. They weren't doing anything, they were no better than the men that Cole had saved me from.

“She has such spirit, look at how she tries to fight.” He tore at my panties and began to dig his way inside me and I threw my head forward into his and he stumbled back, his hand retreating while I was bodily picked up by the vampire behind me, swung around and pressed to the floor. My head was ringing and the vampire I'd hit was coming toward me again to join in some kind of gang-rape.

I screamed and Cole was there, his fangs bared and his arm shooting out. His hand wrapped the throat of the vampire that rode me, his knees spreading my legs.

Cole lifted him by his throat, heaving him into the stone wall and I scrambled backward on all fours until I was pressed against Cole's shins.

“Alexander, how can you allow this?” Cole yelled as Nathan held back the other three that would have rushed Cole.

“Calm down, Reaper. You know she must be used by all so that she may become pregnant right away. Can you not smell her, she is fertile.”

Cole said nothing and Alexander's eyes narrowed. “You do know. Have you been with her?”

Cole shook his head. I whimpered and pressed my face harder against him and he moved his legs apart so I fit more securely against them.

“Let them have her, Cole. She may choose a mate. Afterward.”

The one that Cole had thrown watched me at Cole's feet like a feral animal.

“Please, don't let them have me,” I pleaded up at him, and his eyes held mine and I had a stab of guilt, knowing my intent was to leave this place and use whatever emotional attachment he had for me against him.

“I will check her fertility,” Alexander said and Cole growled, his fangs tearing out of their encasement of flesh.

“You will step away from the Druid, Reaper.”

Cole relented with a grunt of disgust and I was left alone on the middle of the floor as Alexander approached me.

He wasted no time getting down on the floor, between my legs as a hundred people looked on he lifted my skirt and plunged a finger inside me, moving it back and forth. I tried to close my legs but he easily pressed them apart. His breathing came faster as he positioned himself between my legs using his other hand to pull down his pants.

Cole, from so much closer than I thought, said quietly, “You are not to have her either, Alexander.”

Alexander slid his hand out of the slickness of me and I swept my legs closed, knowing every vampire in the room had seen what Alexander had. The vampires had their eyes latched to me, pupils dilated.

Alexander stood, fastening his pants with shaking hands. “I forgot myself.”

All eyes turned to me and I kept my legs together and tried to look as appealing and vulnerable as I could, it was all the leverage that I had. Nathan was especially enthralled, licking his lips and waiting for his chance.

The other Druids looked on with horror as Cole came and lifted me to a standing position on shaky feet. I couldn't stop the naked accusation that filled my eyes. We had managed to stave off the inevitable only because Alexander himself lost control. As the leader, he was looking pretty bad right about now.

I could still feel his probing fingers inside me and couldn't contain an involuntary shudder.

All that talk about what a precious commodity Druid Breeders were was lost before his lust. The female vampires looked at me like something to squash underneath their heel.

Wonderful position I was in. Leaving sooner rather than later would be better.

“She has three days of fertility. You know the rites, Cole. She will have to submit to five Reapers. It is the way. After, she can be mated with two,” Alexander shrugged, his momentary faux pas, like a pink elephant in the room, forgotten.

Cole wasn't going to forget. I could sense it, tasting his reluctance to comply like a fine wine on my tongue.

CHAPTER 9

The community supper had been awkward as hell and I had suffered through it while taking furtive glances at the five that were going to gang rape me in front of everyone.

I wanted them in my sights.

I ground through my meal, knowing I must eat in anticipation of fleeing this place. I wasn't going to stay any longer than I must. When I was eating I sat between Cole and Eve, who kept a diligent eye on what I consumed. I covertly scanned the room and picked up on the other Druids. They seemed easy and sure, their vampire males doting on them. Some women seemed to have two or three partners. I couldn't believe they could accept this life. A life where a different specifies held them captive and bred them like prized mules.

It wasn't for me.

Eve and Cole walked me back to my room and I could feel the other vampires' eyes on my back the entire length of the hall.

I turned when we reached the door. “Why in front of everyone?”

Cole understood exactly what I was asking.

“We have had some issues in the past. It is best that a coupling happen in full view initially so there cannot be question as to whom has had a rightful turn,” he shrugged with clear distaste cloaking his face.

I had to ask and I could see in Eve's eyes her burning desire for me not to.

“Why were you not amongst them? Why didn't you warn me?” I thought of Alexander's unwanted fingers inside me and my face leaked my thoughts all over the place.

He looked pained (if a vampire can look that way). “I asked him to hold off. I explained about some of our... activities and the taking of the blood. Alexander indicated he would wait.”

“But he didn't tell you outright.”

He shook his head. “He thinks I've become too attached to you. He thinks I am too 'alpha' to be in a breeding pair.”

“Alpha?” I asked, my eyebrow cocked and I heard Eve sigh.

“Some of the vampires don't have the disposition to share their mates,” she expounded.

Cole glowered.

Eve looked up at him. “You brought it on yourself, Reaper. She is ready, fertile. You stumbled upon her in a dangerous situation from which you extracted her. Don't forget your duty to your race. Do not be as the rogue.”

Cole glared at her but she continued, turning to me, “Alpha is the way they all are, it is a natural disposition for vampires. But some are born with an extra portion.” She was talking to me but looking at him.

“Fine.” He looked at the two of us. “I could not stand by and watch her being mauled. She needs more time. That is one thing that the rogue believe: that she should have a choice.”

“You saw Alexander, he will not give her too much more. She has what? Two days? Leave Cole. Do a mission, find another of Druid blood. Ease the sting from our leaders' decisions by bringing more to this place. Be gone for the rite.”

“Wait... you are what... getting women all the time?” I asked. Wondering about this faction of vampires that did not live with them. That were outcast, that disobeyed rules.

He nodded. “It is what Nathan and I do. We scout.”

“Reapers...” I whispered, my comprehension complete.

He saw my expression and nodded acquiescence. “We harvest.”

And with that, he walked away, his leathers marking his progress in the hollow emptiness of the hall.

CHAPTER 10

I lay awake in my small bed while the moonlight illuminated the bones of the furniture that stood at stark attention in the shadowed corners. Eve had elaborated about the rogue. They did not believe that Druids should be shared, they wished to not follow the “old ways.” But, Eve warned, they also took Druids, and mated with them... and forced them to stay with them. They killed whatever vampires that stood in their way. Vampire scouts like Cole and Nathan would be killed on sight and a small battle would ensue to ascertain their success. The scouts were at their most vulnerable after they'd acquired a Druid. The chance of a rogue on their tail was high.

I deliberated. That was why I had hardly been at the police station for any length of time. If they'd scented me out, the rogue would not have been far behind. Effectively shadowing the trail left by the Reapers.

A soft knock sounded at my door and a female vamp walked in. Taller than I at almost six foot she approached the bed and I warily scooted back against the wall, the pillow between cushioning me from the coldness of the stone.

She held up a palm in placation. “Fear not, Druid. I wish to help you and thereby help myself.” She attempted a smile but when her fangs were revealed I cringed at the sight and the smile faded.

Her lips were terribly red and my eyes latched onto them as my heart beat harder.

She exhaled a shaky breath and I realized that she was fighting her thirst.

She began without preamble, “I desire to be with Cole. I have mixed ancestry and may be able to breed.” She seemed to need an answer so I nodded slowly. The crazy bitch. Who was I to argue?

She took my silence as acceptance and went on, “I have brought some things for you to wear to help you escape this place. You will be unable to return to your rightful home. They will try to reacquire you there...”

She trailed off and looked at me.

Hope glowed in my eyes that was impossible to dim. I so wanted out of here and here she was handing it to me on a silver platter.

An image of Cole entered my mind and I shoved it aside. Stick to the plan,
Rachel, I chanted to myself.

She leaned forward and from behind her back she slowly pushed clothing and a small pack onto my lap. I was so thrilled with the prospect I missed her hand as it snaked out, coiling around my throat. My neck felt like a flower stem that had been caught in the mouth of a lion. I didn't move as her mouth lingered over mine and issued the warning, “Do not return, Druid.”

I moved my chin up and down and she released me. Her long fingers trailed softly along my collarbone as she moved away.

It stole my breath.

She backed away from me with her hand planted over her nose. When she reached the doorway she paused with her other hand on the frame.

“Change and go to the furthest door at the end of the hall. It will be unlocked. After you pass through, follow the wall at your left and there will be a gate at its end.” She looked into my eyes and I could feel her pressing her will on me.

It was ineffective because I was a pureblood. I did a mental eye-roll.

She huffed her frustration. “It will be unlatched as well.”

“Wait,” I called after her bravely.

She turned and her pale eyes glittered against the moonlight reflectively and I flinched, thinking again of a lion. “Why do you want him?”

She smiled and it was menacing, not happy. “He is a fine warrior and will breed true, every female wishes to mate with him. He is not like the others.” Her expression changed. She was reconsidering my rescue and maybe substituting it with my death. I saw her mind mulling it over.

I interrupted her thought process, “I'll go.”

“Self-preservation. Very good.” She turned on her heel and silently left the room.

****

I slunk down the dark hall dimly lit with sconces that flickered with candlelight. I knew that every vampire in the compound must be awake but not one was anywhere to be seen.

I let out a shaky breath and continued, the moonlight streaming through the windows lighting the path before me. My hand glided down the wall and the rough texture of the stone tore softly at the flesh of my palm as I neared the door.

Once there I could not see a handle or latch and felt around until I found a cup-like indentation carved along the side where it met the frame. Scooping my finger inside it I pulled.

It didn't move.

I pushed and it slid open soundlessly. The night air rushed in and robbed me of breath. It was so cold that I stood stock still. Huddling inside the parka that the female vampire had given me, I made my way along the outside wall, using my left hand to space myself and the moonlight to secure my steps.

As I came to the end of the wall I saw the gate, slightly ajar and standing in a sea of stone that was a wall ten feet high.

I moved to the door and gave it brief examination as I slid through. It would not have been something I could have moved. It reminded me of stories I had heard about castles with moats and such, it was formidable, tall, rough-hewn and too heavy to swing.

She had left it open, my mind supplied unhelpfully. Better not to dwell on the strength disparity between me and her.

In fact, maybe I should hustle my ass along before she changed her mind.

I did, making my way into a wooded glade with only the moonlight to guide me.

CHAPTER 11

I felt like I'd been walking for miles (I probably had). My feet screamed and I decided that I'd made enough distance that I could safely rest and inspect my pack.

There wasn't a lot I noticed, rummaging around. I had a bottle of water and a sandwich. I was sure it was whatever had been left over from the elaborate banquet. A feeling of unease stole over me as I thought about the female more. She had packed hardly anything. Yet, she hadn't killed me. It was puzzling and my mind felt as if it was circling the answer but hadn't reached the center of the maze yet.

I ate half the sandwich and was recapping the water when I stood and stretched, throwing the pack on my back and readying myself to locate a road. Distantly, I could hear traffic. I'd walked for, I looked at my watch and figured two hours; maybe five miles or so?

A small noise startled me and my heart sank when I saw five vampires exit the woods in a loose circle around me.

None of them looked familiar. But I knew they were Vampire, my body tingled in recognition. Their clothes, bearing, everything was different from the compound I'd just been in.

Their eyes shone like onyx in the moonlight.

That's when it hit me, their irises were not silvered like the others, but shone like blood does in the dark.

Black.

The rogue.

I ran.

The backpack bounced on my back as I fled, the branches crashing and whipping at my body as I pushed through the dense tree cover, the cold biting my hands, nipping them painfully.

I was roughly pulled from behind by my hair and I yelped before a hand covered my mouth.

Pulling me in against his body a vampire said, “Quiet, breeder. We have lost your trail only to be reunited.”

“Zach, can you believe our luck?” another one said off to my right.

“Actually, I cannot,” he said, running his fangs up and down my neck as he kept it taut and long, using my hair to turn me as he wished.

I realized the female vampire hadn't been so crazy after all. She sent me out here as bait. She knew the rogue would be after me like sharks in the water, scenting blood. She could wash her hands of my death, feign innocence when asked and know I'd been dispatched. I was out of her hair and she could have Cole.

I despaired.

*

The one they called Zach released me abruptly and I stumbled, pinwheeling my arms as I almost fell. I rubbed my head where it was sore from his treatment and tried to keep the remaining four in sight.

For all the goddamn good it would do. They were fast and unbelievably strong. If they wanted to play cat and mouse, I was sorta out of options.

“We almost had you...” Zach said, coming toward me slowly, his saunter showing me he was in charge and there was no escape.

No options. I squelched my feelings of hopelessness. I had never given up on anything in my life. I wasn't going to give in without a fight.

Where was the sun when I needed it? That'd fry their asses. I looked at the moon, riding full and high above me and scowled as I massaged my scalp.

He laughed and the other vamps did with him, the eeriness of it echoing in the openness of the meadow that was surrounded by trees. “It will not be daylight for how long...” he tapped his finger on his head with the beat of my heart.

He whirled on me and my heart skipped a beat while he laughed again. “I do hear it, Breeder.”

My heartbeat. He was listening to it.

I backed up until I could feel the tree biting against my back, the sharp bark a comfort against me.

“Two hours more until dawn. We will squire you away safely by then,” another said.

Zach's face grew serious as he said, “Have they had you yet, Breeder?”

I could feel the blush rise to my cheeks, the heat of it a burning torture. Was there nothing I could have that was private? I thought of Cole, he would have been a safer bet than this group.

I sighed. “No.”

One of them cackled in delight and another male said, “Alexander must have had to put it in a knothole to keep it out of this one!”

Charming. The whole group. “You jerks must be the rogue,” I said with a bravado I didn't feel. The one that had just made the crack narrowed his black eyes to slits and in a rush was up against my body, his hand latched to my breast. I cried out, I couldn't help it.

“Not so brave now, Breeder, with my hand feeding on your tit,” and for emphasis he squeezed it just on the good side of pain and I whimpered. He smiled as his other hand went for my crotch.

“Leave her,” Zach said dismissively. “There is plenty of time to partake of the breeder upon our return. Besides, where she is, they will follow.”

Reluctantly he took his hands off my body and placed them above my head on the tree bark. He went in to sniff my neck and I leaned away from him.

“This one smells of something different,” he said. Serious now, where before he'd been playing games with my raw nerves.

Zach was near me in record time, his dark colored clothes a gray blur as he moved. I closed my eyes and moved my head to the side, both vamps at either side of my neck, skimming the flesh with their faces.

Finally Zach raised his head and the other vampire said, “What is it?”

Zach shook his head. “It cannot be. But it is,” he leaned forward and ran the length of his fangs along my neck, piercing it with the barest of strokes.

A single drop of blood flowed down my neck and his tongue flicked out and captured it as my tears fell down my face. They trembled at my jaw and fell on his cheek as he came away with his blood prize.

*

Zach's eyes flicked to my face as I stood staring up at him. He straightened, a small fleck of ruby on his lip, looking like a black dot in the night.

“Pureblood,” he said.

The others crowded around me but he held up a hand. “We need to exit this place immediately.” He looked around at each face gravely. “They will never stop hunting for this one.” He grasped my chin in his hand and moved my face from side to side. “Matthew,” he called softly, never looking away.

“Yes?”

“Let her ride on your back, we will run.”

I broke free again, taking them by surprise but they were on me in a flash and I struggled underneath the one that had pawed my body.

Finally I screamed, “Get off me!” in his face and he backhanded me playfully. It made my ears ring and I saw stars.

And it had been a light touch.

“You heard her, viper, get off.”

Cole.

I hiccuped back a sob of gratitude so loud that it echoed in the meadow, the silence swallowing it whole.

They backed away from me, all except the one that had been on me. He fisted his hand in my hair and dragged me after him. I screamed. It felt like pinpoints of fire bursting all over my scalp.

I was vaguely aware of something flying over my head, coming over my body in a wash of muted color and then my hair was released, leaving my scalp to throb to the beat of my heart.

I heard a protracted gurgling behind me and cautiously opened my eyes and saw Cole, his thumbs buried to the connective tissue through my attacker's throat. The remaining group surrounded him.

“Cole...” I rasped, “look out!”

He stood, all lean and heavily muscled grace as Zach, Matthew and the two which remained closed in around him. I scuttled back against a tree to watch.

Zach came at Cole and the two collided, each grappling for the other. Matthew put a choke hold on Cole and the two others began sharp jabs at his torso.

Cole head butted Matthew from behind and he stumbled away, blood spraying from his nose. Cole punched Zach in the jaw with his free arm and he staggered while Cole tore the arm off the one holding his arm with a wet pop. An arterial spray of blood shot up in the night sky like black oil. I began to feel shocky as I watched it all unfold. Like I was having an out-of-body experience. I could hear this strange wheezing sound and I belatedly realized it was me.

Zach began to savagely jab Cole in the side while the other vampire came for me. Waking out of my stupor I leaped up and flung myself behind the tree but he was faster. He lashed around with his wrist and grabbed my arm, pulling me with such force I gasped at the pain, so much more than anything I'd ever experienced and he jerked me to him. I came easily into his embrace, all loose limbs and in a haze of pain that stole my strength to scream.

Cole heard me. He laced his hands together and drove them into Zach's face and he slumped forward. Cole caught him, pushing him away from his body like so much trash.

Those silvered eyes fell on the vampire that held me. They flashed with fire and rage and I felt his arms stiffen about me as he debated on the merits of my life versus his.

His won.

He let me slide down his body and with a moan I lay at his feet, my shoulder a throbbing nightmare. At this point I didn't care if they killed me. I hurt so bad and my arm was numb from wrist to shoulder.

I watched Cole come for him. He tried to fight him off but Cole was the superior fighter and finally the ratio was fair. Cole dispatched him by slamming his head on the tree so hard his skull split and his brains splattered on the trunk where my body had been.

As if in a dream, his face appeared above me. His buzzed head and curled tattoos winding alongside his neck looked like black claws. His eyes held mine as he tenderly ran a finger down my jaw.

“Why did you run, Rachel?” his voice asked, sounding like grinding rocks.

I shook my head. It didn't seem like he'd kill me but... “A female...” I sucked in a breath and continued, “she told me to leave, she wanted you. And I wanted to get out of there. I don't want...”

“Shh...” he said and looked at my shoulder, frowning.

“He has torn some ligaments and muscle,” he observed as he probed my shoulder and I shrieked in agony.

“I am sorry.” He looked behind him at where Zachary lay then turned to me. “He is not dead and we must go. It will feel terrible to move you but we need to make haste before sunrise.”

I nodded. Anything to make the pain end, I thought in a daze.

He gently pushed his arms underneath my body and lifted me like I weighed nothing. Of course, the vampires could bench press small cars, my weight probably didn't register.

Nathan came into the clearing and they regarded one another.

“How does she fare?”

“She is damaged, they have hurt her shoulder...”

“Did they...?” Nathan cocked an eyebrow.

“No. Insufficient time. They will not again.” Cole shook his head. He had made sure.

“You can't come back, you know,” Nathan said.

Cole nodded. “I know. But they will not have her. I cannot abide...” he sighed in frustration.

Nathan held up a hand. “I understand, my brother. Fear not, I will say only what I see here.” He looked at him steadily. “I will miss you.”

“And I, you.”

They looked at each other, then at the sky, which was a soft black. It heralded the day to come.

“Where will you go?”

Cole shrugged. “Somewhere unknown.”

“He may hunt you. And then, there is the rogue...”

“Let me concern myself with Alexander and his. The rogue is another matter entirely.”

“You know how to meet me should you wish contact,” Nathan said.

“I do. Thank you, Nathan.”

“You are most welcome.” Nathan walked over to me and I stared at him with wide, pain-filled eyes. “She is a gem,” his eyes flicked to Cole's. “Take care of her. She may be our future.”

Cole replied, “She is. My future.”

I listened to them through my pain and knew that my life was forever changing. I thought of Michelle, my job, my life as I'd known it-- gone. I was captured by this man, this vampire. Born of blood and thirst and myself with an uncertain genetic code that mastered my destiny into what it had become.

Nathan looked at me one last time and then turning, he melted into the dark forest.

CHAPTER 12

Cole ran with me in his arms. It was graceful considering the awkwardness of the hold and him taking every back trail in existence. Finally we were skirting around the city and he set me on my feet where the woods ended and suburbia merged with the perimeter.

I swayed where I stood, my shoulder a throbbing wasteland of pain. I bit my lip to keep from crying but useless tears fell as I stood there.

Cole brought me into his body. “We need to make haste to your dwelling and assemble your belongings to take with us.” He looked at the neat lawn of a human's backyard and returned his gaze to mine. “I think there may be something I can do to ease your suffering, heal what was done to you. I am sorry I could not stop it.”

I shook my head, negating his guilt. “You killed them so they couldn't take me.” I swiped a tear away using my good arm. “If it hadn't been for you, I'd be with them even now. I'd be going from the frying pan to the fire.”

I twisted in his arms to look into his face and he cocked an eyebrow.

I smiled. “I'd go from one bad situation to another.”

“Ah.” He nodded in understanding.

He gathered me to him again like a precious commodity.

*

We made our way to my apartment, which was located on the top floor. When we arrived at the door I saw the bright yellow crime scene tape barring it like a sad ribbon.

I frowned, remembering my text with Michelle. So, the cops had crawled all over my apartment. I let out a breath and looked at Cole.

But he only had eyes for our surroundings. He was scanning every dark corner of the hall. Expecting the devil to spring out like a jack-in-the-box.

He tried the knob and it was locked. He gave a vicious twist and it snapped apart and the door swung soundlessly inward.

Moonlight filled the inside of the apartment and I swung my good arm to hit the light switch but Cole grabbed my wrist softly. “Do not.”

Right, don't alert the troops I'm back. Duh. I let my arm drop to my side and went straight to my medicine cabinet. I caught my reflection in the mirror. Startled pale blue eyes floated above what looked like bruises from the combination of lack of sleep and pain. I opened the cabinet quickly and grabbed the Ibuprofen. Grabbing three, I slugged them back with some water, gulping greedily. My nose felt cold and my hands shook with the effort to not go into shock, get warm, stay sane.

I shut the cabinet and Cole was in the reflection behind me. I yelped and dropped the bottle.

“I did not mean to startle you,” Cole said, putting a hand on my shoulder and I winced.

His eyes met mine in the mirror and he moved his hand up my neck while bending down until his lips met where his hand had been. I sighed, loving the feel of his palm on my flesh.

I turned into him and he kissed the fragile length of me, his lips moving to my jaw and working their way until they were pressed against my mouth. He worked over the top of them, lifting and feeding off them until they felt almost swollen.

He pulled me into his arms and lifted me. He took me to my bed and laid me down. His large hands brushed the few hairs that impeded his kisses away.

But he did not kiss me, instead he said, “I will heal you now.”

He removed my parka, which was a terrible struggle made even more so with the slowness necessary to keep the arm immobile. I bit my lip and whimpered. I hated my weakness but couldn't help it. He lowered his head to kiss me, raining soft pressure on my face, cheekbones, everywhere his mouth touched he worshiped me with it.

Finally, when Cole thought that he'd given me enough of a reprieve, he removed the most difficult part and I screamed my pain and he captured it with his mouth, gently pushing me back onto the bed.

His warm mouth left mine and he got a pair of scissors and cut off the shirt so my bare skin was revealed. As was the delicate lace of my crimson bra. His eyes held mine then traveled across my breasts and finally to the wounded shoulder.

He placed his palm on my shoulder and I gasped. His flesh felt feverishly hot. I started to pull away and he looked at me. “Keep still, Rachel.”

I stayed where I was by sheer willpower. The heat radiated from the point of contact and spread throughout my entire body. At once the shoulder ceased its endless throbbing, which was replaced with heat. The warmth radiated and as the pressure increased from his hands there was an interior explosion of pain and my body bucked, fighting the sensation.

I looked up at him with frightened eyes. He reassured me, “Your body is mending the wound.”

“Why does it hurt?” I asked in a small voice.

Cole shrugged and the leather he wore rubbed against itself, making a pleasant crackling sound I'd always associate with him.

It went on forever but when I glanced at the clock it had only taken twenty minutes. It was nearly five in the morning.

Daylight was coming.

Cole saw me look at the clock. “Almost... there,” he said, his hands easing on my shoulder. They began to make lazy, light circles in the injured area and I clenched my fingers as he lifted his hands from me.

I sat up and rotated my shoulder, lifting it to my ear in an exaggerated shrug then letting it fall.

A stupid grin filled my face.

I watched Cole grin at me for the first time, his fangs glowing softly in the faded moonlight that speared my room.

A feeling of happiness burst within me for this man.

The vampire.

Some of the worst of my tiredness began to fall away as the pain left. I got to my knees and hugged him around his neck. His arms wrapped around me instantly and I breathed into his ear, “I want to be with you.”

He pulled away and it was the only time I'd seen his face soft. “And I you. Had you stayed, I could have helped you. Do not run again.”

I laughed. “I don't think you have to worry about that.”

We gazed into each other's eyes, making an unspoken commitment.

My breath caught in my throat as Cole stiffened in my arms, his eyes widening.

I looked over my shoulder and there stood Erik with a gun.

The creeper from my work.

Cole pushed me violently away from him and turned to Erik and that's when I saw it. A dart stuck out of his back like an evil exclamation point.

Zach filled my doorway and saw me lying on the bed.

Cole staggered into Erik, trying to get the gun and Erik shot him again.

I jumped off the bed and Zach calmly walked around the bed and pointed a gun to my chest.

I threw my hands up and screamed, “No!”

Too late, Cole, drugged and slowed, threw his fist into Zach's temple. But the force was too little. Zach turned and used both hands to shove Cole halfway across the room. He landed against the wall, dazed. A huge dent caved in where he'd hit.

Erik said, “I want to fuck her bad.” His eyes swung to the bed as I rushed to where Cole lay. His head lolled to the side and his eyes were glazing over.

Zach gave Erik a look and he cringed away from him. He stalked over to us and crouched down to face Cole, their faces inches away from each other. He grabbed a fistful of Cole's black shirt and jerked his face even closer. “You should have killed me when you had the chance, Reaper. Know this... she will be mine within the week.”

Cole struggled weakly and tried to grab me to him but Zach chuckled, wresting me away from his weak grasp.

“I gave him enough tranquilizer to put two elephants to sleep. He'll be out when the sun rises; a crispy critter in three hours,” Erik said with smug satisfaction.

I was wrapped in Zach's arms and didn't struggle, my heart felt like a dead lump in my chest.

The first, hot tear made its way down my face. It trembled on my jaw then fell onto the hands that held me captive. My eyes never left Cole's. He shook his head like a dazed bull, trying to rid himself of the fog that he found himself in.

Struggling to stand, Erik came to Cole and slammed the butt of the tranquilizer gun into his temple.

I screamed as Cole staggered back against the wall.

“Enough,” Zach said. “You have your uses, Intimate. Don't make me rethink them.”

Erik was breathing heavily, I could see he wanted to lay into Cole but Zach was his master here.

Erik looked at me. “You're so stupid. The rogue used me for months to spy on you. They were just waiting for the perfect opportunity to take you from underneath their noses,” he said, gesturing with the gun at Cole.

“You talk too much. Your singular job is to watch the Reaper. If he moves, shoot him.”

“He ain't gonna move. He has two darts stuck in him!”

Zach's hand lashed out so fast I couldn't track it but Erik's head rocked back and he stumbled. A spot of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“Do not underestimate the Reapers. They are the elite of the Vampire. He will try to reacquire this one. It appears that he has bonded with her. Fool... do you not understand what that means?”

Clearly, Erik did not but continued to give Zach his sullen regard.

“As long as he lives, he will seek her.”

“Then let me do him right now!” Erik said in frustration.

Zach shook his head. “It is best to leave him. Let him live or not. Let the others deal with him. He is as sought as us now. He cannot return after he has bonded with this female. He is obliged to share in his kiss. Correct?” Zach swung his gaze to Cole.

Cole just stared back at him.

Zach dragged me backwards and Erik trained the gun on Cole. Cole's dull eyes were full of rage and grief as they flicked from the human that held the gun on him to mine, anguished.

Zach laughed at Cole's look and he surged forward.

To rescue me.

I watched in slow motion as Erik depressed the trigger, the meaty sound of the impact striking through the inky cloth of Cole's shirt.

The light died in his eyes, as he slid down the wall.

Erik looked at me with triumph and turned to Zach.

I struggled to get away, to go to Cole, to be away from Erik and the rogue.

It was futile. I was tossed over his shoulder as they moved down the stairs. As we exited the stairwell I saw the long black SUV waiting at the curb.

Smoke from its exhaust curled lazily in the chilled night air. Erik opened the door and from my view it looked like a huge mouth waiting to swallow me whole.

I beat at Zach with my fists and he held me to him so tightly I couldn't breathe. Finally when he tired of my struggling he looked at Erik. “Give it to me.”

An evil smile overcame his face from the front seat and he handed back a cloth soaked with something foul. Zach covered my face with it and my last thought was of Cole. I was in the hands of the enemy.

The rogue.

I saw, as if through dark water, a huge figure stagger down the staircase, a blurred silhouette in black.

Zach saw him too and a smile curled his mouth. With two fingers he pointed them ahead of the car and said to the driver, “Go... now.”

Cole rushed the car as it sped away and the last words I heard before consciousness left me was, “You did not use near enough tranquilizer.”

Cole's howls followed me down into the endless spiral of unconsciousness and I knew no more.

THE END

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BLOOD SINGERS

A Blood Series Novel

Book 1

New York Times
Bestselling Author

TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2007-12 Tamara Rose Blodgett

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

www.tamararoseblodgett.com

TRB Facebook Fan Page

Edited suggestions provided by Red Adept Editing.

Cover Design:
Claudia McKinney

Photographs:
DepositPhotos

Photography: Oleg Gekman

Once they had eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth.

~Sherlock Holmes

Prologue

Julia pressed her nose to the glass, the trees a sea of green as they rushed outside her window, her momma and daddy's voices a low and pleasant drone from the front seat.

She hated the belt. It pressed across her neck in an uncomfortable place, itchy and suffocating.

“Momma,” Julia whined.

Her mother's chocolate eyes appeared over the front seat, such a contrast to the auburn hair held in her customary ponytail.

“What is it?”

Julia worked her small finger under the belt. “I hate, hate this stupid strap! I want to take it off!” She crossed her arms, huffing.

Momma sighed, unlatching her belt, and turned in the front seat to adjust the neck-restraint portion of Julia's seatbelt. At once, Momma's scent assaulted her where it intimately combined with the perfume she always wore.

Daddy said from the front, “Amber, sit back down. The belt's latched. She's just going to have to deal with it for another ten minutes.”

Julia's eyes narrowed to slits. Daddy was so stubborn. His belt didn't bite into his neck because he was a Big Man! Ugh. Julia fumed.

Momma smiled and began to turn, and Julia saw Daddy's face in profile, watching to make sure she sat down safely.

He only took his eyes off the road for a moment.

It was long enough.

Twin beads of light bore down on their car as an impossibly large grill came to eat them, the chrome winking in the late-afternoon light.

Daddy made a correction to the right, but that threw Momma on top of him, imprisoning their bodies in a macabre dance, the steering wheel sandwiching them together.

As if in slow motion, Momma looked at Julia's father.

The knowledge of their impending death appeared on their faces like an unspoken promise.

Julia screamed as the truck slammed into the car, and the belt that she hated so much whipped against her neck and slammed her against the back seat with such force that the breath left her small body.

She watched as her parents were crushed together in a final embrace.

The metal colliding was an earthquake in her ears, and something wet and warm hit her face. She opened her eyes and her parents were… everywhere, their blood like a blanket that coated her skin and hair.

Her brain howled, refusing to accept what was happening. Her vision clouded. Her neck and head throbbed, and her lungs were a burning inferno with a need to scream.

The last thing she remembered was her mother's hair entwined in the steering wheel like so much spun copper.

#

CHAPTER ONE

Ten Years Later

Julia stuffed her wool cap down more firmly on her head and waded through the icy puddles on the way to her 1977 Chevy Blazer. Fall had edged into early winter, and the dampness of the rain had solidified into a dangerous sheet of ice.

Julia had been prepared, and instead of wearing the latest Ugg fashion boots, she'd pulled on her XtraTufs. They had an unparalleled ugliness but did the job. She might keep her ass in the air instead of pegged to an ice puddle by wearing her trusty boots. She threw her backpack over one shoulder and balanced a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. When Aunt Lily had asked about the contents of the mug, Julia had lied through her teeth. Her aunt seemed to think caffeine was the devil's drink. Julia smiled at that. She was done growing, and besides, coffee was a mainstay of Alaskan existence. She shuffled to the driver's side and gripped the handle. Then her feet lost some of their purchase, and she slid to the right, her coffee sloshing out of the slit in the travel mug's lid.

“Shit!” Julia said as a couple of hot drops landed on her wrist, scalding her.

After grappling with the handle, she jerked the door open and slammed the palm of her free hand against the driver's seat, steadying herself until she could heave her backpack inside.

But her breath stilled in her lungs when she saw what waited for her: a single rose, its delicate form in a beautiful, ethereal tangerine color, lay inches from where her reddened and chapped hand had slapped down.

She'd almost destroyed it while saving her sliding butt from falling.

A smile stole over her face, and she carefully put her travel mug in the cup holder between the seats and picked up the flower. There was no note, but she knew who had laid it there: her fiancé, Jason. Their relationship was a secret. Aunt Lily would have ten different kinds of cows if she knew how serious she and Jason really were.

She looked around, her breath coming in white puffs in the crisp air. The snow having not committed itself to falling yet, the promise still hung in the air. It would be like him, Julia thought, to pop up just as she discovered his present and grab her from behind, twirling her around.

But he wasn't there.

Huh. She turned the keys and jacked up the heat all the way. In five minutes, she'd hit the road, head to Homer High. She was spoiled. Usually Jason picked her up, but today she had to head over to the DMV and get a stupid emissions test. It was amazing they even allowed her to drive her gas-guzzling truck. She sighed. Soon, she'd be with Jason.

*

School

Julia tore off her multi-colored, itchy hat as she waltzed into the school. The familiar smell of kids, books, and lunch wafted across the air, the chill of late fall left outside the doors.

She fluffed her champagne-colored hair, hoping to eradicate the hat head she'd tagged herself with on the way over.

“Hey, bestie!” Cynthia cried.

Julia laughed. Hadn't she just spent all day and a night last weekend with Cyn? She acted as though they'd been separated for months.

“Hey Cyn,” Julia said, slowing down to let her catch up.

As usual, Cyn was dressed to the nines: high heels, ridiculously tight-ass pants, and the latest off-the-shoulder top with a crazy zebra pattern. It made Julia dizzy looking at it.

“What?” Cynthia looked at Julia's face.

“Your top. It's like some kind of optical illusion or something.”

“I know, right? It's hot, hot, hot.” She snapped her fingers after each word for emphasis. Julia rolled her eyes. There was no cure for Cynthia's Fashion Awareness.

Julia considered herself fashion challenged. Yessiree. Irrefutably. Getting everything to match and be comfortable was of utmost importance.

Of course, once Julia mentioned the zebra shirt, Cyn was honor-bound to give her the once-over, scanning from the top of Julia's head and working her way down. Julia had almost escaped the wrath when Cynthia's gaze landed like a lead weight on her boots.

“Argh!” she shrieked in horror. “You wore your Tufs to school again! And don't give me any of that horseshit about how we're seniors and absolved of everything.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Fashion is the exception. And those”—she waggled her fingers at Julia's offending footwear—“are for… for…”

“Gardening,” Jason interjected smoothly, his arm sliding around Julia's waist. He'd heard the XtraTufs speech before.

“Don't you defend her, either!” Cynthia said.

Jason, all mock innocence said, “Who me?” his hand to his chest.

Cynthia's eyes narrowed to slits. “You're no help, Jason Caldwell. She could wear a shapeless sack over her whole body, and you'd still think she was gorgeous.”

“Guilty.” He pecked Julia's head, which was still fuzzy from the hat.

Julia leaned back against his chest, her head tucking comfortably underneath his chin, and sighed. This is where she'd wanted to be from the moment she opened her eyes—against him, soaking up his warmth, letting it seep into her bones and chase the coldness of the morning away.

Cyn snapped her fingers in front of Julia's face. “Snap out of it, Jules!”

Jason laughed. Julia was known to mentally wander. It had become an annoying theme lately.

“Cranky witch!” Julia teased, taking a swipe at Cyn with her woolen hat.

She ducked smoothly, accustomed to Julia's abuse. “Okay… so, did you finish that English paper we started on Friday?”

Julia dug around in her backpack until she found a crumpled piece of paper at the bottom. She turned and slapped it against her locker, smoothing it with her other hand. Jason's big hand was a warm presence on her shoulder, kneading it softly.

“Are you kidding? Terrell will never accept that mess,” Cynthia said, throwing out one hip and putting a hand on it.

Julia shrugged a shoulder. “It's a rough draft. Besides, keeping the standard low like I do ensures that I get gravy when I turn something in.”

Julia smiled at her own awesome logic. School just didn't appeal. It was something she would survive until she could graduate. Jason was the one who would go to University of Alaska Anchorage. He was set with a full ride.

Mr. Basketball. Julia turned to look at him and wondered for the millionth time why he'd want her. He was so gorgeous and she was so… her. It didn't matter that Cyn thought she was pretty. Cyn was her BFF, and that was what best friends did: cheerlead for each other.

Julia still didn't have a plan. She knew she couldn't wait to get out of Aunt Lily's place and begin a life with Jason.

Cynthia gave an elaborate roll of her eyes and caved in to Julia's reasoning. “You can try all your down-home, weasel-like charm on Terrell while Jason and I turn in real papers. Unwrinkled papers.” She cocked her brows up to her hairline.

Looping her arm through Julia's, Cyn dragged her to her first class, the dreaded Language Arts. Everyone knew there was nothing artful about it. Jason laughed as the three of them trudged to class, arms linked.

CHAPTER TWO

After Jason

Julia's chin touched her chest, lank strands of hair swirling around her face, her arms chained above her head. Her hands had lost feeling hours ago. A cloak of numbness stole over her, and her mind screamed. Her body aching for food.

But she'd be damned if she'd take it from her captors.

The Murderers.

The creature came to her, his teeth gleaming in the low light.

She looked at him, her eyelids at half-mast. Its piercing silvery irises bored into her. Julia felt the weight of their desire fill her mind, pressing without mercy against the fragility that was there.

Forcing his will.

“You must eat, Julia. You will eat,” he said in a fierce whisper.

“Why don't you… go… to… hell!” she rasped as loudly as she could. Weakened by lack of food, her voice held all the emotion that she couldn't release in a scream. The air had grown pregnant with contained frustration and violence—against her.

“Let me convince her,” the one named Pierce said, his stare covering her body like decaying liquid.

The leader, William, turned and stood in one fluid movement. “I have seen your methods with other Blood Singers. We will not use that here with this one.”

Pierce smirked. “You grow attached. She is a vehicle for our needs—nothing more. She is human.”

William took Pierce by his collar and pulled him until their faces nearly met. “She is much more than that. What if she is the one? Look at the sign upon her head.” He shook Pierce in disgust and pushed him away. Pierce reared back and opened his mouth, and something burst from the flesh as he hissed his displeasure.

Fangs.

Julia swallowed. She felt as though she were in a nightmare she couldn't escape from. She protected herself by dwelling in her memory bank. It was full. In that space, Julia felt rich. The new reality couldn't intrude on her memories.

William and Pierce looked at her quickly. “She pulls away inside herself again! Fool! I almost had her!”

It was as if Julia could see through a glass, though darkly. Black water covered her vision, and the horrible creatures that had torn her away from a future of love and contentment, and toward one of terror and uncertainty, rushed at her. She let the water cover her consciousness.

The creatures were dim orbs of pale flesh as they sprinted to her side. She fell back into the well of her mind, the liquid forming a barrier between them and her memories.

For now, the memories won.

****

Senior Year, Springtime

Cyn bent her head over the textbook and then, looking up, scowled at Julia. “This is simple. You're overthinking the stuff.”

Julia was beyond frustrated. She'd flunked lame-ass Algebra II when she was a junior and, on the eve of graduation, was still struggling with the concepts. Cyn, at her elbow, ramming it down her throat, wasn't helping.

Julia glowered. “I don't get it! They put the alphabet in math, and now it's a big jumble of nothing!””

“How in the righteous world did you pass Algebra I?”

Julia gave her a sheepish look.

“You cribbed off of Jason? You're kidding me, right?”

“When am I gonna use this worthless crap?” Julia said, throwing her pencil down.

“You're not! That's not the point, Jules. The point is getting the grade. We're American. We're not supposed to be the intellectual global force. We just get the degree then go on to college and get that degree.” She shrugged.

Julia crossed her arms underneath her breasts. “You don't see what's wrong with that picture?”

“Doesn't matter what I think. I just work the system.”

“So, we're nothing but a bunch of sheep, manipulating a broken system.”

“Speaking of manipulating,” Cyn said, a contemplative expression crowding her features.

“Ah—no. I am not going to dress up.”

“Listen, we're almost done with this math cram…”

“It's a cram all right,” Julia said.

“Anyway,” Cyn said, drawing the word out dramatically, “this is your last final before graduation. Prom is coming. Let's get you hot and sexy for your man-toy.”

Maybe Julia shouldn't have told Cyn about the secret engagement. But as she'd said to Jason, if she didn't tell someone, she'd burst. And now she had an endless barrage of teasing from Cyn.

“Jason's not a ʻtoy,ʼ Cyn.”

She scrunched her face. “Ooh, touchy. Okay, calm yourself.”

Julia blew a stray hair away from her forehead. She had to give in to Cyn, or she'd be after her until she chose a dress.

“Okay!” Julia threw up her hands. “I'll go.”

“That's not good enough. Tell me what I need to hear. Otherwise, you might go and watch me pick out a dress and worm out of everything.” She gave Julia steady green eyes.

Damn. She had her there.

“Okay, I'll try something on and choose a dress for prom. Happy?”

“Repeat after me: It will not be a sack,” she said in her droll way.

Julia fumed. Did she really think she'd pick out some shapeless sheath?

“I do,” she said.

“Hey! I didn't say—”

Cyn made a circling motion with her index finger alongside her head. “Saw your wheels turning.”

Julia repeated the sack thing, and Cynthia smiled.

Onward and upward.

*

Jason

Jason poked the stick into the fire, mercilessly stabbing the coals, trying to decide if he should add another piece of driftwood on or not. He looked at Jules, who was talking animatedly with Cyn and Kev away from the fire. Jason smiled. The hell with it—he'd put on another chunk. She'd wander over to him eventually and would be colder than a block of ice.

He couldn't have his girl getting cold. That was against guy code. Keep your chick warm, fed, and most of all, protected. He let his gaze linger on her. He couldn't believe she'd be his soon. They'd graduate and then get married. His parents would be steaming pissed, but they'd get over it. So far, he had always done what they wanted. He'd been the good boy. He'd played basketball until his body still felt as though it was on the court when he lay down on his bed each night. He'd sucked up the grades, played his ass off, and helped his girl limp through Math and Science. He smiled, thinking of how much Jules hated the Math-Science grind. He took in her profile: blonde hair that wanted to be red, that damn wool cap covering some of it, her legs encased in jeans that dragged along the sand, and her bright-red puffy coat. Above the collar of her jacket was her face, which Jason's eyes stroked with love.

Her face. He knew Julia was the one the moment she moved to Homer, when she was almost nine. Sullen and alone, living with her aunt, she'd been new to the area and had no friends. He'd been a gangly and awkward nine. He'd started as her champion then and never looked back.

Now and forever.

As if sensing his thoughts, Julia turned to look straight at him, and a smile broke, her amber eyes like glittering jewels in a face caressed by firelight. She looked at him with a questioning expression, and he gave a slight shake of his head to convey that it was nothing. She turned away, the ghost of a smile still playing on her lips. Then she burst into laughter at some dumb thing Kevin said.

He looked away from her and added two more chunks to the fire. It burned brightly and became hot.

*

Cyn

Cynthia watched the two of them jammed together like sardines and smiled. She was happy for Julia and Jason. They'd been two peas in a pod since fourth grade, and Jules had had it tough. She deserved happiness. They made a cool couple. Jason was six foot two and towered over Jules. She was only five-four, but she had never seemed short. Cynthia had never met anyone more alive, more independent. Her Aunt Lily had taken her in after Jules's parents passed. Cynthia had to admit that Lily rankled her ass sometimes too. She was so strict on Jules, as if she'd ever do anything. Hell, Jules was a secret prude. She hadn't even done the deed with Jason. They'd been dating three years, and nada.

There's willpower for you!

Cynthia looked up through her mascaraed eyelashes at Kevin, her steady and at-hand prom date, and sighed. He was absolutely hot. She wasn't letting him get away. Cynthia had all the titillating details to share with Jules later. She'd act bored and then listen raptly while Jules talked about her love life.

She frowned as a thought occurred to her: she'd have to ride Jules's ass about going to Soldotna and picking out a prom dress. Jules was insisting on Vegas for the wedding and was sure to get out of getting a dress for that. Cynthia did a mental eye roll. But Jules wasn't getting out of going to the prom.

Cynthia had tried to talk Jules out of marriage for shit's sake. I mean, she's been eighteen for, what, six months? What's the rush? Cynthia thought it had something to do with both her parents being killed when she was young. That event had really scarred her friend. Jules wanted something to hang on to, something tangible and real.

Cynthia wasn't sure getting married at eighteen was the answer. But even she had to admit Julia couldn't do wrong with Jason. He worshiped her. Cynthia looked at the two of them together as she snuggled in next to Kevin. Jason touched Jules, cupping her face like a fragile egg as they began to kiss.

“Looks like they've got the right idea, Cyn,” Kevin said, waggling his eyebrows.

Cynthia gave him a mock punch. “You just want to get lucky!”

“There is that,” Kevin replied, only half joking.

“Uh huh. That's what I was talking about.”

He dipped his head and gave her a peck on the lips, and she turned on the rough driftwood log where they were perched, the warmth of the fire beating against her back, and drew him against her. His mouth found hers, and they twined themselves around each other. The sky lingered above them, black velvet with stars sprinkled about it.

*

Dress-Up

Julia thought she'd slit her wrists if she had to try on one more dress. She paced the room. She should have never said yes. Cyn had dress-napped her the instant they came into the boutique. Of course, everything looked good on fashion-aware Cyn. With her tall, lanky frame, she could get away with anything. She'd chosen a shell-pink, full-length, gauzy dress that made her look like a princess.

Or, a queen, judging by the way she was beating the hell out of Julia with her scepter.

“Come on, Jules. One more?”

“NO! I promised I'd try on dresses—for you—and I have! What is this, number fifteen?”

Cyn had the grace to look ashamed and flashed both hands twice.

“Twenty!” Julia all but shrieked.

“Right. Well… you're totally hard to find something for! I mean, who has your coloring anyway?”

Julia huffed, her eyes taking in the piles of gowns growing in the corners like obscene shrouds. “Okay—one more. Then we pick whatever from the pile!” Her palm struck out at the material as though it were alive.

“Okay. But if you're only trying on one more dress, it's going to be green.”

Julia groaned. She hated green.

Cyn brought out her hands in supplication. “I know you hate green, but just trust me, okay?

*

Cyn

Cynthia insisted on she and Jules going together to prom so they could make their grand entrance and blow the dudes away. She'd also taken the initiative and ragged Julia's ass until she caved and let Cynthia do the make-up and hair for both of them. She wasn't letting her bestie into prom with anything resembling hippie chic. Julia was going to look put together and polished if it was the last thing Cynthia did.

Cynthia dug around in her huge purse until she found her makeup bag and dragged it out, throwing it on Julia's vanity with a resounding smack.

Julia eyed it warily. Pointing to it she asked, “what's all that crap in there?”

“Make-you-beautiful-stuff.”

The corners of Julia's mouth turned up. “That's a technical term, right?”

“Hell yeah!” Cynthia winked.

Julia sighed. She knew she'd look like a French whore by the time Cyn was done with her, but she'd released the reins and left Cyn firmly in charge of prom fashion. Julia wondered what Jason was up to. Definitely not this.

“Woman up, Jules! I'm not taking a skin graft or something. Seriously, you act like you've never worn makeup before.”

There was a significant silence.

“Okay, that was sorta lame. You, the makeup queen.”

Julia slouched and Cyn poked her in the back. “Posture, princess.”

Then she set to work. Foundation, powder, eyeliner... false eyelashes.

False eyelashes!

“No way! I am not putting that crap on my real eyelashes.” Julia stared at Cynthia in horror.

“How about just a few on the outer edge? It'll make your eyes look bigger.”

“They're big enough.” Julia thought that if they were any bigger, she'd be a toad.

“They're ginger colored! You can hardly see them,” Cyn wheedled.

Julia shook her head. “No. Just put the brown mascara on, and be done with it.”

Cynthia sighed, defeated. She still made it a point to spend a ton of time on each eye, finally swiveling Julia around in her chair to look at her reflection.

Julia stared.

And stared some more.

A slow smile spread on Cynthia's face. “See, Jules? You're a goddess. Who knew?”

Julia couldn't believe the transformation. The mossy green of the dress set off her hair, making the red in it look like molten champagne. Her eyes sparkled like gold topaz gems in a pale face with shimmering lips that were a pouty apricot. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“You can tell me now,” Cyn said, smug.

Julia turned from her reflection and scowled at Cyn.

Cynthia waited.

Well, hell. “You're the greatest.”

Cynthia grinned. “I know, doll face.”

Julia rolled her eyes. What was Jason going to think of her in this getup? With the makeup and everything? Julia rolled her glossed lip into her teeth and nibbled anxiously.

*

Jason waited impatiently for Julia to arrive. He knew he should have nixed the lame plan of the girls—the four of them going together. He'd let Kevin convince him it was easier not to fight Cynthia.

“Listen man, just let them. I don't want to deal with Cyn when she gets a head of steam about girl shit, you feel me?” Kevin had said.

“What's so flaming-ass important that I can't pick Jules up?”

“I told you—they're putting the masks and garb on.”

“What?” Jason asked, confused. He was already feeling gay in a tux, and the bow around his neck was a slowly tightening noose. He tugged at it again.

“Hey! Don't dick with that, it screws up the gig.”

“What's a gig?” Jason asked, messing around with the stupid noose.

“It's—damn, man! Leave it alone!” Kevin slapped his hand away. He took either side of the corners of the bow tie and aligned them with Jason's Adam's apple.

There, Kevin thought. He wondered if his ass-hat friend could leave it alone for the next two hours.

Probably not.

“It's a military term... it means to keep all your accessories in line with the middle of your body,” Kevin said in a matter-of-fact way.

“That's great, Kev. I'll sleep better knowing your ramrod dad gave you a few pointers.”

“Hey jag-up, Dad served our country and has a few pearls of wisdom once in awhile.”

“Along with some colorful vocabulary.”

“No shit, right?” Kevin said, totally missing the irony.

Jason smiled and shook his head as they hopped into Kev's car.

They made their way to the last dance they'd ever attend.

*

Jason

Kevin elbowed Jason, and they looked at the girls as they entered the gymnasium, where fake acrylic stars danced above their heads like wayward diamonds.

Jason couldn't take his eyes off of her. The breath left his body in one, exhaustive rush.

Jules was drop-dead gorgeous. He knew that people said that all the time about chicks and sometimes even about dudes. But Julia floated inside the auditorium on a cloud of emerald vapor, her dress the color of green kissed by autumn…... and stunned him into silence.

Her hair looked almost red, its normal gold color boosted by the pine of the dress, her eyes a sparkling gold. They took up half her face.

He still couldn't look away.

She walked toward him slowly, and Jason noticed the dress showcased how curvy she was. She wasn't a twig, and she wasn't heavy. Jason took in a shaky breath, his eyes on her hourglass figure.

Then he noticed all the other guys were staring at her too, and frowned.

Julia reached him just as he put his hands out for her, and he relaxed.

He pulled her closer and leaned down until his jaw brushed her temple. “You're beautiful,” he whispered against her fragrant skin.

He could tell by Julia's expression that she knew she looked beautiful even without him saying it.

They moved out to the dance floor, their hands knotted together, their gazes locked. Jason wanted her so damn bad. It wasn't just sex—he could have tapped any mindless alley cat in the school for that. She was his, and he was hers. Jason knew Jules was the one he wanted from the moment he saw her.

*

Julia waited in her bed with bated breath. Jason had dropped her off from prom and promised to sneak in her bedroom window later.

Much later—Aunt Lily had the irritating habit of checking in on her before she went to sleep.

Julia clutched her cell in one hand so she could text Jason the instant she was done checking.

She lay on her side for what felt like ten hours in her pajama bottoms and a camisole. Her hair was still loose and curled from prom, the makeup still on. Finally, Lily opened the door a crack and, seeing that Julia appeared asleep, closed it softly behind her.

Julia let a long breath out while texting Jason.

He was waiting outside her house like a good stalker-boyfriend, and she helped him stumble through the window.

“Damn! I won't miss that anymore. No more nut-cruncher windowsill for me!”

Julia cocked and eyebrow. “We wouldn't want your, ah, nuts crunched. No, that wouldn't do,” Julia said in a low, teasing voice.

“Come here and kiss me,” Jason said, "You're killing me. And aren't you supposed to take all that crap off your face when you go to bed?”

She scrunched her nose in that way he loved and said, “Nah, pillowcase will get rid of it.”

“Really?” Jason asked, grinning. He walked over to her, his eyes registering her post-prom glory with an expression of approval.

“The dance turned out okay, Jules.” He bent to kiss the hollow between those sexy bones that intersected her neck.

She nodded, a little breathless, as his breath moved over her pulse. She wound her arms around his neck, and his lips traveled up to her jaw then made its way to her forehead. He began peppering her face with butterfly kisses, his lashes brushing her skin. Her breathing became shallower, and Jason picked her up and carried her to the bed.

They lay together, head to hip, the heat of their bodies one hot line. He moved against her, his hands on her ribs, kneading her flesh as she wound a leg around his hip, their mouths moving against each other.

His hands traveled, and Julia pulled away.

“Jason,” she whispered.

“What?” he said, never breaking from his sensual assault.

She could hardly breathe. She just wanted… she wanted to finish what they'd started. But she wanted forever more.

She thought of her parents, long gone, their loss a thread that tied the fabric of her being together.

He paused and pulled back to look at her, a sliver of moonlight a pale slash across his eyes. Then he pressed his forehead against hers.

“I know,” he moaned.

“I'm sorry,” Julia whispered. “It's not that I don't trust you.”

“I know,” he repeated against the skin of her forehead.

A lone tear escaped her eye, and Jason caught it, staring with eyes that had looked into hers for a decade.

“I want to be married. It's what my parents would have wanted,” she said and Jason felt her tremble against him. He silently promised to make her first time extra special. It'd be perfect if it killed him.

“You still miss them.” he said, tightening his hold on her.

“Every day,” she replied through a sheen of tears.

He leaned down and kissed her on her forehead, where her scar was—a crescent-shaped scar.

Jason could wait forever if it meant being with her.

They lay together in each other's arms until dawn shattered the darkness into a million pieces of golden orange, rose, and scarlet, flinging the colors about the room like so much broken glass.

CHAPTER THREE

Present Day

Liquid lapped Julia, and the water parted, ice replacing the subtle undulation of comfort she'd been under.

She came to the surface of her consciousness in a nauseating wave. She became aware that she was drowning.

She was drowning in hunger and weakness. She didn't have the strength to move. Loud voices assailed her. They floated around her, stabbing at her consciousness until she finally understood where she was.

If she'd had the strength, she would have wept.

The creatures that had stolen her life away were arguing about her again.

“I am phoning him. Gabriel must be made aware of what is happening here!”

Julia cracked open her eyes, wide and grainy. Her mouth felt like the Sahara Desert. She was so thirsty her bones ached. How long had she been out?

“She is killing herself,” the one named William said. His fists were clenched, and anxiety tightened his already stark features.

“Call him. Ask him what we must do. If she is as important as you hypothesize, it is necessary, no?” Pierce asked.

Julia lay perfectly still, but they heard a change in her breathing and turned their silvered eyes to her.

She had just enough energy to lift her forearm and cover her eyes. She would not look at them.

“Just kill me,” she said listlessly. Without Jason, why go on? She couldn't bear to think of all of it right now. The shards of that nightmare would not be a memory she would look at any time soon, if ever.

She didn't hear them approach, but an icy hand clamped around her forearm gently and moved it off of her eyes, which ran with tears. Her mind was so beleaguered with grief she could hardly breathe. Why didn't they just kill her?

After all, that's what they were good at: killing.

*

William tapped his cell to hibernate and pocketed it inside his jacket. He breathed an elaborate exhalation. They took a chance implementing this protocol. If they did not follow it to the letter, they would lose her.

This girl. The Blood Singer from the Book of Blood.

The Rare One.

He gave Pierce a full look as they walked together toward the girl.

*

Julia watched them come, one dark and one light. Angels. They looked like angels.

Angels of death.

Her arms had long ago been released, but she lay there, unable to move a muscle. Only her eyes rolled in their sockets, tracking the approach of the creatures.

*

William crouched down, touching the hollow on the underside of her wrist where a thready pulse beat. “She is close, it is a near thing.”

Pierce nodded. “It must be you. You are the one with Singer heritage coursing through your veins. Maybe you can bring her back.”

William had hoped that she would come around these past months. But they could tarry here no longer. The Were drew near, circling like sharks in bloody water. This coven grew restless with her presence. Blood Singers were a stick to stir the cauldron of trouble. He had already waited too long. She was weak, compromised.

Julia looked up at him with eyes of liquid gold, and he breathed through his mouth, hoping the scent of her would not impede what he must do.

It was a risk he must accept.

*

Julia saw William look at her intently and kept her eyes open with effort. Something was building. It thrummed deep in her bones like a call. Julia whimpered. She hated to be weak but knew what they were capable of. She watched as his eyes drank in the sight of her. Then his fangs elongated, escaping his mouth. She opened her own to scream and nothing came out.

His eyes tightened at her expression, and he tore into the flesh of his own wrist. Black blood began oozing out of his damaged forearm and flowed down, dripping onto her neck. The droplets splattered like hot candle wax on her skin.

“Drink,” William said, lowering his wrist down to her mouth.

She shook her head, and with her ebbing strength, she clamped her lips together.

William's eyes flicked behind her, and he grunted, frustrated.

“Hold her.” His voice was filled with regret.

Large hands clamped onto either side of her head, and she was helpless to move in their hold.

Julia seethed with frustration.

The poison of his body poured into her mouth in a steady stream and she fought, trying to move her head, but steel bands of flesh held her in position.

He pressed his forearm onto her mouth, and with his other hand, he pinched her nostrils together. She sucked the blood down into her throat as she began to clamp her teeth around his arm.

He didn't react they way she thought he would. He dragged her against himself. Pierce released her in surprise. Her mouth on William's arm, Julia bit down with everything she had.

His eyes dilated, the silver disappearing to be replaced by deep crimson. He pressed her against him, his fangs completely extended.

“William! Control yourself!” Pierce yelled.

Julia hung on for dear life as she watched those black eyes look at her with such longing and loneliness. As he reared to strike a fist crashed into the side of his temple.

Her mouth was torn off his forearm, her body sliding off his lap onto the floor.

Julia lay in a small heap on her side as a fire burned inside her. It became a delicious roar. She was being consumed by heat. It burned and itched. She melted into the intense warmth, her consciousness narrowing.

As her mind dimmed, she saw Pierce check on William, whose black eyes were shut.

Pierce looked in her direction.

Julia knew what else he was: a vampire.

She fell into a deep abyss of grayness, her mind shielding her from what she couldn't handle.

She floated swiftly down her memory pipeline, grateful for the escape it gave her.

*

Last Day

Jason had his fingers entwined in Julia's. Their last day of school was finally here, and they had plane tickets for Vegas. They were going to do it. She looked up at him and smiled. He looked into the light-gold depths of her gaze and almost stumbled. She always had that affect on him. He'd been drawn to her from the beginning. A small furrow lay between her brows. Julia's hand lifted to her temple and rubbed.

Jason pulled her over to the side of the hall, the sea of bodies and backpacks jostling past, an excited buzz thrumming around them. He slid his palm underneath her honey-colored hair and wrapped the back of it on her neck, gently kneading the soft skin.

“Is it the headaches again?”

Jules had been having these bone-crusher headaches. Jason thought it was the stress at home. Trying to plan a secret elopement could take its toll on a girl. He smirked.

“Huh, you really care!” she said, giving him a mock-scowl and putting her hands on her hips.

Her luscious hips.

“No! Uh… I was just thinking all the super-secret spy moves you're pulling around Lily are getting kinda old.” He cocked an eyebrow.

She nodded. “Actually…” Julia looked down at her hands, which had found their way to Jason's hips, and she couldn't look away. A blush came over her face.

Jason put a gentle finger under her chin and raised it until their eyes met. “What is it?”

She shoved her erotic impulses away and concentrated on his question instead, the blush still staining her cheeks.

The high color marking her cheekbones a delicate pink made Jason wonder what she'd been thinking about. He opened his mouth to repeat the question, and she interrupted, “It's the dreams. I'm having them again.”

“Oh,” Jason said, pulling her in against his body. He hadn't liked the dreams. He wasn't going to tell her, but he'd begun having some of his own, and they were goddamn doozies.

“Get a room!” Kevin yelled, walking by, arm slung around Cynthia. Jason gave Kevin the finger, and Julia grabbed it in the air.

“Don't,” she hissed, giving him a scowl.

Jason threw up the other hand and flipped him another bird.

“You're impossible!” Julia said sternly. Then she smiled.

She began laughing, and convulsed into a stream of irrepressible giggles.

“That's so helpful, Jules. You're so on it,” Kevin said.

Jason was standing there, in full view of the world, giving Kevin the double-finger send off.

Oh my God. Julia clutched her sides, howling.

She was bent over until she noticed a pair of hot-pink boots come into her line of sight.

She grabbed Cyn's sweater and hauled herself up.

“Hey asswipe—you're not sensing any adults around?” Kevin asked.

Jason dropped his hands as one of their teachers made his way toward them in a huff of righteous adult indignation.

Terrell.

Great. Instead of calming them down, Terrell's approach had the opposite effect, and Julia continued laughing, tears streaming down her face.

*

Terrell lurched up to the group. He dismissed the Wade girl, who was doubled over in fits of hysterical giggling. It was the basketball boys who caught his attention. He didn't care if the Caldwell boy had got an A in his class—there was something fishy about them.

He got right up in Caldwell's face, momentarily nonplussed that the kid had him by four inches. “Listen here, Caldwell. I don't give a lick about how great you think you are, or that it's your last day here. This isn't the court. You don't own the school, the halls, anything. Act like an adult, and maybe, just maybe, you'll become one someday.”

*

Terrell had sobered Julia up, and she didn't like how he was talking to Jason. Big surprise: she didn't like Terrell that much. She and Cyn had their arms crossed, and Kevin loomed over Terrell.

He didn't seem intimidated, and Julia suddenly remembered a term that Lily had used: little man's syndrome. Maybe he has a dose of that.

“We clear?” Terrell wasn't really asking. He was commanding. He wanted a certain kind of response.

Please don't get nailed on the last day, Julia thought, seeing Jason's fists clench and loosen. She watched him notch down his anger at Terrell, and her shoulders relaxed. It looked like things were going to settle down.

Then Terrell looked at her. Really looked at her, starting at her head and ending at her feet, sweeping over her private parts with a lingering look.

Gross!

“Hey perv!” Cyn squeaked. “Why don't you go die somewhere?”

But it was Jason who knotted his teacher's collar in his fist and dragged him close. “Don't you look at her,” he said in a low voice, violence swirling beneath the surface.

Kevin was prying his fingers off of Terrell. “Don't. He deserves it, but don't. He's pushinʼ ya.”

Their eyes met, and Jason released Terrell, pulling Julia behind him protectively.

Terrell looked smug. “I knew you'd mess up. This is all I needed to get you where I want you.”

*

Jason was confused. He'd seen the perv look at Julia and some of the other girls, but what did it have to do with today? Why had he been so overt with Julia? His eyes narrowed on the teacher.

Jason planted his legs apart, hands on his hips, looking around once to make sure Julia was behind him and safe. This guy had lost it.

Kevin hit him in the arm, and Jason's face whipped back toward Terrell as Cyn gasped. Jason focused on the gun that was naked in Terrell’s hand.

What the hell is this? Jason retreated, Julia a warm presence at his back.

She wasn't laughing anymore. Kids around them, who had just been gloating how much trouble Jason was going to be in, scattered like beetles out of a jar, screaming as they ran down the hall.

*

Julia's headache slammed into her uncontrollably, spearing into her temple at a fever pitch. But it was the frenzied gaze of the teacher that she couldn’t look away from. His beady hazel eyes shifted between the three kids, seeking.

Finally, he looked at Julia behind Jason and said, “It's you. If you were not here, then I could… stop having this pain. The pain would stop.” He brandished his gun. Kids slammed themselves onto the hallway floor.

Julia felt something integral fall into place as the pain slipped away and became a burning mass.

“Hey, whack job!” Kevin said, going for the gun at the same time that Jason did. It wasn't choreographed, and as their bodies moved, a gap opened, and Terrell pointed the barrel—at Julia.

An intense focus and a warm liquid pain that she'd buried came to her in a sliding push. With nothing but raw emotion, she looked at the black hole of the gun and mentally shoved as the hammer pulled back.

It clicked.

Time slowed down, Jason batting the gun away even as the bullet rushed toward Julia, Cyn screaming in the background and Kevin landing on Terrell, their bodies crashing to the floor.

Julia moved as the bullet entered the curtain of her hair instead of the fragile bones of her face, its course veering at the last moment and she fell sideways away from the trajectory. Hitting Cyn, they both stumbled into the lockers.

“Julia!” Jason hollered, sprinting to her side, kicking the gun away as he came. His eyes frantically took in her body, checking for damage. He looked relieved.

She was unscathed—miraculously.

As sirens wailed in the background, Jason turned around, leaving Julia in Cyn's arms, and grabbed a fistful of Terrell's hair. Using the teacher's head like the dull side of a hammer, he picked it up and slammed it into the floor again and again.

Cops came and pulled him off, but the damage was done. Terrell lay in a pool of his own blood, which spread into the soles of all who had gathered.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Julia,” a voice whispered to her as if through a tunnel. She came awake in stages, still feeling as if she were in the school hallway, watching Jason beat Terrell's head into the floor until it split open like an egg.

She opened an eye and looked into silvered, reflective ones.

Julia flinched to see her captors.

The vampires.

Once she'd thought the existence of such creatures was a myth, but now, through hard evidence and even harder experience, she believed in them.

Even as his eyes clenched at her reaction of revulsion, the vampire's expression showed cautious relief, and he stroked a wisp of hair away from her temple.

Julia found her voice. “Don't touch me.”

His hand paused, then finished the movement. He stood and Julia looked around, taking in the room for the first time. She'd never allowed herself to care about her surroundings. The one named Pierce loomed into view and she shrank back.

“We will not harm you—”

“Right, you guys are so harmless,” Julia said in a voice husky with disuse.

William and Pierce looked at each other. Finally, William said, “We did—I did what I had to in order to pull you out of your dreamscapes. If I had not done that”—he shrugged impossibly broad shoulders—“you would have buried your psyche there forever, until there was no feeding you or hydrating you…”

“Until you ceased to exist,” Pierce finished for him.

Julia tried to sit up and succeeded, barely. She felt better, actually. Who were they to play God anyway? Maybe she didn't want to exist. Had they thought about that?

They watched her warily. She swung her legs off the bed she'd been lying on. She tentatively put her feet on the rough wooden surface and stood. The blood rushed to her head, and her vision swam in streamers of dull colors before her eyes.

She commanded her legs to hold her even as they folded.

A cloud of gray reached her, and she was swooped up in the arms of the hateful vampire, William.

“You're too weak to walk,” he said in a voice that reverberated through her breastbone, melodic and low. It affected her. She didn't know why, but his nearness frightened her, and she saw the reflection of that fear etched on his face. He looked pained.

“Let me down,” she whispered.

“Pierce, get Susan again.”

In her peripheral vision, she saw a blur of color and heard a far-off door open then shut.

Julia stared at the vampire.

“Why am I here?” she asked, resisting the deep pull that emanated from her body to his. She didn't know what it was, but it was organic.

Needy.

Liquid fingers sank into her, through her skin, deep in her marrow, clinging to her consciousness like cobwebs.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When she opened them, William gave her his steady regard. “You are safe within this coven.”

“I am not safe with you. I will never be safe again.”

*

William flinched, knowing that she could not separate their acquisition of her with the violence that had surrounded it. She was lumping the groups together, the Were and Vampire. Now was not the time to correct her misapprehension—not when the Were's rancid breath was upon their doorstep and when the whole coven was in a chasm of blood lust from her months with them. The fragrance of her rarity permeated every nook and cranny that the haven provided. Even the most immune amongst them, of Blood Singer descent themselves, were itching with need. The time was ripe for William to make haste to his home kiss—the coven where he had always been.

Just thinking of the city and what lay underneath it made his sluggish heart beat faster, primal adrenaline surging through his limbs.

Julia responded to his physicality, taking a sharp inhalation, her body tingling in reaction to his thoughts.

“It's the blood share. It will pass,” he said.

“Put me down.”

William gently put her on her feet, his hand gripping her bony elbow, which had become like a twig since they had taken her.

*

Julia longed to tear it away from him but knew that she could hardly stand. She fumed, trying not to think about the blood she'd drunk from her husband's murderers.

The memory encroached on her mind ruthlessly, and she shut it down like all the others she didn't want to see, biting the inside of her cheek. Blood welled inside her mouth like sour copper, and she made a slight noise. William looked at her sharply, sucking in his breath, and began to breathe through his mouth.

Julia smiled genuinely for the first time since her ordeal had begun. A terrible idea took shape in her mind.

She knew how to escape.

Just when she thought she'd press her advantage, a large woman burst through the door, and Julia's heart skipped a beat, racing inside her rib cage. She swayed, and William pulled her gently against him.

She didn't resist. There was no use. But she would soon permanently resist.

Oh, so permanently.

*

Caregiver

Susan looked at the Blood Singer that the runners had acquired some months past. It was the first time that the girl hadn't been half-unconscious throughout the countless bowls of soup, water poured down her throat, sponge baths, and dressings she'd shared with the girl.

But the Blood Singer looked at Susan as a stranger—for she was. The trauma surrounding the acquisition had been so overwhelming the girl had yet to recover. When she was finally dying, William had been beside himself with worry, and been given the green light to save her.

Blood share.

He had done it. Even with the potential for scrambling the wires of his quarry, he had done it.

Now she stood—now she looked as if she might survive.

Even Susan could see beneath the dishevelment and scrawny physique to the healthy girl she had been. She would be well again, Susan vowed.

She had to be well again.

Julia was the Rare One. Susan's eyes flicked to the pale, moon-shaped scar on the girl's head.

She approached Julia and took her gently from William's arms, his hands trailing reluctantly from her body. Susan glanced at William and could sense the feral vestiges about him still.

“You'd do well to leave us for a time,” she said, and William nodded. Heaven knew he had to push his limits with her fresh blood a darkly blooming fragrance in the room, suffocating his reasoning, his directives.

William walked away, the pull of his blood in Julia's body beating in time with his heart. It felt like warm taffy swimming upstream. He moved to the door, and his hand landed on the doorknob.

*

Julia watched the vampire turn the knob, stiffen and quickly slip through.

The large woman breathed a sigh of relief when the vampire had left. Julia tried to pull away, but the woman gripped her upper arm, her fingers encircling the whole of it.

Julia glared at her. “Take your hands off me.”

The woman smiled. “Listen to me,” she began, her eyes boring into Julia's. “I am not like them. But you know that, don't you?”

Julia didn't answer. She was not going to cooperate with any of this.

“I am human,” the woman said.

“Yeah, whatever. You work for them. That's all the info I need.”

“Who do you think got soup down your throat? Bathed you? Put clothes on you?”

Julia looked at her in dawning horror. The woman had touched her when she was unconscious. Julia studied her closely. There was something almost familiar about her.

Memories assaulted her in a torrent. Being in a tub and floating. This woman washing her… ugh. Julia thought of the intimacy that entailed and wanted to throw up. She remembered the food that she'd been spoon-fed. She'd wanted to die.

She still did.

The woman looked at her and nodded. “You remember.”

“Yes,” Julia replied through clenched teeth.

“Not a very grateful sort, are you?”

Julia tore her thin arm free, her legs trembling. “I didn't ask for anyone to care for me,” she said in a fierce voice, the first, hot tears falling. “You should have let me die. That's all I want. I want to die.”

*

Susan was moved with compassion. This waif with such bottled-up emotion and aggression had lost too much. They would have to start from nothing with her.

Ground zero.

The older woman crossed her arms and stared at Julia, who glared back, raising a hand to move her tangled hair behind her ear.

“Well, my dear, you're not going to die—on the contrary. My job is to get you living and healthy for transport.”

Despite her commitment to be contrary, Julia heard herself ask, “Transport where?” Her lip quivered, on the brink of crying harder.

“Seattle. You were acquired by that coven.”

The girl's eyes lost their focus, and she began to fall. Susan screamed, “William!”

*

Suddenly, Julia was held in arms of warm steel. Her heart slowed, and her body calmed, its chemistry lulled by his closeness. Just before she crossed the threshold into unconsciousness, her mind told her what she feared most.

Blood share. Her body was a traitor to her mind.

Somehow, she was connected to her captor, whether she wanted to be or not.

Julia faded, the tailspin of knowledge following her down into the spiral of her dreams of earlier times.

CHAPTER FIVE

Consequence

Truman looked from one to the other of them and sighed. “Listen, kids.” He ripped a hand through his already disheveled hair. “I believe you tried to do the right thing, but Caldwell…” He spread his palms away from his body.

Jason dropped his eyes, his hands gripping Julia's. He hadn't meant to kill Terrell, but when he saw him shoot at Julia, something profound and primitive had kicked in. All he could think of was eliminating the threat.

Eliminating Terrell.

So he did. Terrell was going to kill her. A red veil had descended, clouding his vision, clouding his mind. It hadn't lifted until the cops had pulled him off Terrell.

Four cops.

At least they'd let him wash off—wash Terrell off him. He'd had blood splatter and gore wrist deep. His stomach churned a little with the memory.

Now he and Julia were in the police station, making noise about self-defense. The cop might look like a rumpled dishrag, but his eyes were sharp, like those of the majestic bald eagles that flew outside the windows. They tracked him, equal parts wise and aware, missing nothing.

“You're of age, son. It doesn't matter that you were still technically a student. We know you're over eighteen. Hell, you're almost nineteen, aren't you?” When Jason nodded, he continued. “So, is your girl here.” His gaze went to Julia, and Jason tensed.

*

The cop took in the kid's reaction—if he could be called a kid—wondering about his extreme protectiveness for his girlfriend. It struck him as noteworthy. Jason looked like a man, all height and muscle mass. A jock.

The girl was the opposite. She had a sullen and fiery cast to her, but she was a tiny thing, different coloring, all champagne and… those eyes. He repressed a shudder. They were spun gold, like a cat's eyes. They followed him with an intensity that was unsettling.

He cleared his throat. “As you know, the teacher was the one who brandished and fired a weapon. You may be able to get off with counseling. But your reaction wasn't typical, and there will be some accountability for that.”

Jason nodded, and Julia stifled a sigh.

Detective Truman asked, “Is there some reason Terrell would commit violence against you, Julia?”

Her face shows her confusion. She clearly didn't know why the teacher had targeted her. Truman would do some digging and see what was what, try to make sense of the senseless.

His eyes flicked to Jason. “Your parents have made your bail. And”— he waggled a finger—“I wouldn't skip town, pal.”

*

Jason almost laughed to think anyone would imagine he would skip town. Like I'd leave Julia.

Ever.

He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. He stood to leave, pulling her with him.

His last thought as he left the building was that their elopement plans were screwed. With a grim face, he pulled Julia behind him, his parentsʼ car parked in front of the broad concrete steps of the precinct.

The storm on his dad's face told him what the next few days would be like. The barometric pressure was dropping.

It was a tense drive on the way to Julia's house. His parents were glancing back at them in the rear view mirror surreptitiously. Rather than worry about a lecture from his parents, he wanted to comfort Julia and forget that he'd almost been killed himself. He'd protected Julia… and maybe other kids. But it was all about image, and he had tarnished his and Julia's. He was so mad he could spit. It'd be so great once he and Julia were safely in Anchorage, married and beginning their life together. His parents could piss up a rope. He'd accomplished everything they wanted, and they needed to give him credit for that.

Julia interrupted his thoughts with a small noise, and he looked down at her, a small bundle in the cradle of his arms. He was instantly alarmed and felt a delayed shock from the events of the last few hours.

Great timing. They were just pulling up to her front door, her Aunt Lily waiting on the top step, wrapping a thin cardigan around herself, her hands fisting the material in a death-clench. She skipped down the stairs, making a war path for their car.

Before Jason could properly shield Julia, Lily had torn open the door, putting her hands on Julia.

“Don't, Lily,” Jason said, meeting her tense and angry eyes.

“You don't tell me what to do. I almost lost my niece today. The one that you were taking care of.” She said that last like an accusation, and it made Jason's heart clench. He had taken care of her the best he could. He didn't need this right now.

Julia didn't need it.

He looked down at Julia. Her skin was clammy and pale, her breathing rapid.

“What's wrong with her?” Lily asked in a panic.

“She's in shock,” Harold Caldwell said.

Jason sighed. “Please move. I'll carry her into the house and get her in a lying-down position.”

Fortunately, she backed away, and Jason unfolded his body outside the car, swiveling Julia as he went, swinging her up into his arms.

“Jason,” she said, her eyes fluttering open and widening. “They're coming… the wolves and… the blood… blood…”

“What is she saying?” Shelia Caldwell asked.

Jason shook his head, puzzled. “I don't think it's anything. She's in shock. Getting her lying down is key here, Mom.” Jason's eyes left the loose group of adults, and he strode to the house, toeing open the unlatched front door. He picked the first sofa he saw and brought a still and pale Julia to it, laying her down gently. He swiped a hair from her forehead and kissed it. She felt cool. He wasn't leaving until she was okay. She is far from okay.

“Stay away from here, Jason,” Lily yelled, huffing into the room.

“I don't think this is helping things,” his mom said, her hands fluttering helplessly in front of her.

Lily gave her a withering look of such contempt that his mom took a step back. “Don't tell me what is helpful or what is not. What would you even know about suffering, challenges, anything?”

Shelia had a helpless expression on her face.

Lily nodded. “That's what I thought. Go home to your fancy house and your comforts, and leave me and my niece alone.”

*

Harold Caldwell looked down his nose at Lily Wade. She was beneath him. He had suffered the relationship between Julia and Jason, knowing it was a high school sweetheart thing. Jason would see that Julia was all wrong for him and dump her when he was attending college. But this incident with the teacher might prove to be the perfect break for the relationship.

It put Harold in good spirits. Magnanimous spirits.

“We understand, Lily. Of course we'll leave you in peace to comfort Julia.” He smiled the first genuine smile of the day since hearing the wretched and humiliating news of his son's involvement in the shooting. He began to back out of the house when he caught sight of Jason moving back toward the couch. He pursed his lips into a thin line.

“Jason,” he commanded in a low tone.

Jason didn't even turn. “What?” His eyes were fixed on Julia's pale face. Julia's lips were tinged blue.

“Let's go.”

“No,” Jason said, looking up at his father.

*

Lily's head snapped up. "Your family has some nerve. How dare you try to bulldoze your way into my home?" She picked up the nearest phone, her finger hovering above the number nine. “Don't make me call the police,” she threatened Jason in a low voice.

Jason couldn't believe what was happening. The hell with this! He walked right back over to the couch and scooped Julia up in his arms, her soft moaning twisting something inside his chest.

“Put her down, Jason!” his dad yelled. Their eyes met again.

“No. I don't give two shits and an eff what you guys do. I'm an adult and everyone needs to back right the hell off.”

He'd never talked to his dad that way. It was long-past due.

Lily stabbed the numbers in the phone and Shelia tore it out of her hand and jammed it into the receiver. “Please,” her voice trembled, “let's discuss this.”

Lily looked at them as if they'd gone insane.

Harold planted his hands on his hips and stared at Jason. “Listen here, Jason. I posted your bail. I am responsible for you until that hearing. You'll be found innocent, but until then, don't jeopardize this with your he-man stunts. Leave that girl where she belongs. Now.”

A loud ticking from the clock on the wall reverberated around the room, the moment swelling unbearably around them, the tension a living breathing thing.

Jason wanted to scream so badly his eyes burned with unshed tears. He turned away from them, blinking fiercely, feeling as if he were betraying her.

Betraying Julia.

He laid her back down on the couch. Her eyelashes were like soot against chalky cheeks. He wrapped her up against him one more time and then, saying nothing, he stalked out of the house, shouldering past his dad and almost knocking him over.

Jason looked up as the cold air struck his bare arms. The clouds were roiling above him, the look of their charcoal anger exactly matching his.

CHAPTER SIX

Existing

If Julia was honest with herself, she had to admit that Susan was a saint. But she was not there to make friends. Every day she thought of how she could get away. Each day she wanted away from William and, to a lesser degree, Pierce.

At least she finally had answers. William was deliriously complacent with her presence here. He thought he had it under control. Well, he had another thing coming. Julia was waiting for the best opportunity she could find to leave permanently.

William had expounded on her importance, making her desire to leave even more acute. He said that Blood Singers were rare. They were critically needed in the human population. The vampires looked at the humans like cattle. Blood Singers were just a fraction of the human population—one-tenth of one percent, to be exact.

Julia had listened to his speech silently. William and Pierce were “runners.” Their express purpose was the acquisition of Blood Singers. The Blood Singers balanced the vampiresʼ “food load.” The quality of their blood made the vampire population able to sustain its existence on the ordinary human population's blood

Whatever, Julia thought, remembering his words.

*

“So, you see how essential you are?” William had tried to appeal to her sense of importance when he'd first spoken to her about Blood Singers. He spread his palms out on either side of his body, his coal-black hair shimmering with blue in the subdued glow of the dining hall. His silver eyes bored into hers. A sudden memory of those eyes shifting to a red so deep it was nearly black, as he'd almost struck her flesh, caused her heart to speed up. She rode it out. He could probably hear her blood course through her veins. That was the last thing she needed. Julia would never be able to help herself if he was anticipating all her moves, especially as weakened as she'd become.

“Why take me? It sounds like you need us out in the populace,” she restated, genuinely puzzled.

“We're reconnaissance. We seek the Rare Ones.”

“Okay.” Julia threw up her hands, her soup forgotten. William frowned when she pushed the bowl away. “I give up. Who are the Rare Ones?”

William stared at her, and she held his gaze. “You are a Rare One, Julia.”

She shrugged. So? She wasn't sure how that differed from what he had already told her. As far as she could tell, the Blood Singers of the human race were the purebred cattle of homo sapiens.

Wonderful.

He took in her expression. “Maybe you have not asked the right question. It is quite simple, actually.”

Julia thought about it. It slowly came to her. “Why do you have that name for us—Blood Singers?”

He smiled at her as if she were a prized pupil, and he looked achingly human for that one moment. Then his face fell into the handsome but otherworldly lines she was becoming accustomed to. “Do you not feel it?” He placed his fist to his chest, where his heart would beat.

Or would it?

They stared at each other, and Julia felt a pull to him. She fought the pull. It was like ignoring one voice amongst many. She tried to think in those terms, tuning out that one strand so that it seemed like a distant bell. She silenced it with an effort.

His hand slowly fell from his breastbone. “That is the call of the blood. I have shared mine with you. It now calls to yours.”

“Why?” Julia asked, deeply creeped out.

“Because I have shared blood with you.”

“No, you forced your blood inside of me!” She raised her voice at him, crossing her arms as heat seeped across her cheekbones.

William's eyes narrowed. “True. So that you might live, I gave you my blood. I have Blood Singer ancestry.” Julia cocked an eyebrow. The conversation was becoming more confusing by the moment. What he said next made her forget her curiosity suddenly, as if she'd fallen off a precipice. “How do you think we found you? Found… Jason?”

His name fell like a stone in the room, the horrible memory threatening the edges of her consciousness. She shut her eyes tight against the images assaulting her.

William continued as if the oxygen had not been forcibly torn from the room. Julia felt as though an elephant had sat on her lungs. “Your blood calls to us. It sings to us. We follow it like a melody on the wind. All roads lead to the Blood Singer.”

Julia opened her eyes. A startling revelation was blossoming in her mind. “Jason was… he was a Blood Singer?” she asked in a breathless whisper.

William nodded.

Julia jumped off the bench and flung herself at William, beating against him with her fists. Her hair flailed wildly about her. It felt like beating a brick wall—stony and cold. “You killed him! You had no right!” she wailed. “You killed him.” She sobbed as he grabbed her wrists. “Why didn't you kill me instead?” Julia asked in a sorrowful moan as she sagged against him, fainting from exhaustion.

*

William had carried Julia up in his arms, the burden of her weight no more than a feather. His pain at watching hers was unmatched by anything he had ever known.

He carried Julia back to her room, his soul as heavy as a ton of lead.

*

Julia

William had been fairly quiet since the scene in the dining hall the week before, and Julia was glad. She thought the ache for him would never end. But fortunately, day by day, it lessened. She didn't want to be tied to the blood drinker. That was what he was—all he was.

He and Pierce lingered in the hall, speaking in covert whispers as she dabbed at the corners of her mouth, bread half-eaten in front of her.

The dreams had started again and, with them, her long-lost friend, headache. She sighed, rubbing her temples.

William and Pierce were suddenly beside her. “Are you ill, Julia?”

She glared up at the pair. A prudent girl with half a brain would have been scared of the vampires—they were deadly and menacing. But she didn't care about her welfare anymore, or her future. She wasn't interested in being taken anywhere with vampires.

“No, I'm fine.” She looked at them impassively.

Pierce stared a moment more then turned to William. “Perhaps her awakening has begun.”

Julia had thought she was about done with the revelations.

“Possibly,” William said thoughtfully.

“What?” Julia asked, standing, hugging herself to stay warm. She looked up at the pair, such a contrast to each other. They were huge men—vampires, Julia self-corrected. She gulped back a sudden stab of fear.

“Rare Ones go through a…” William struggled for just the right word.

“Transition?” Pierce supplied.

Julia's brows jacked down over her eyes and she said, “Haven't you two kidnapped Blood Singers before?”

William's expression darkened at her terminology. But Julia remained steadfast. It was what it was.

“We have acquired some of Rare One lineage but never a pureblood. Never once,” Pierce said.

“Adolescence!” William said triumphantly, remembering the word.

William's expression darkened at her terminology. But Julia remained steadfast. It was kidnapping, no matter what they called it.

What the hell? “Look guys,” she said, and they turned their simultaneous attention unnervingly on her.

Julia stepped back, but realizing it made her look weak, she moved back toward them again. “I am clearly a woman. Fully grown, guys.” She ran a hand down the front of her body, and the vampires tracked it. She was immediately embarrassed but bottled it up before they noticed. She rushed on before they could comment. “What I'm saying is I went through adolescence years ago. I am done with all that,” Julia said waving away their weird ideas with a hand.

Pierce shook his head, and William said, “No. The Rare One comes of age much later than one that is just a Blood Singer. The purer you are, the greater the manifestation of your latent talents.”

Julia's eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them. “What talents?” she asked slowly.

William paused then dropped the bomb. “Paranormal talents.”

Julia's hand whipped out and gripped the table that stood behind her. The hell with not appearing weak. She backed up until her thighs pressed against the bench.

Insane vampires. It wasn't enough that there were such things as vampires. These ones were crazy-ass-loon vampires.

It just kept getting better and better.

Julia despaired.

“Are you having headaches?” Pierce pressed.

“Precognitive dreams?” William asked silkily.

Julia's head snapped up and she locked into William's silver gaze. She shook her head. She would not be their stupid Blood Singer messiah or whatever the hell they were looking for. She redoubled her determination to escape.

Soon.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Graduation

It was cool, the air holding none of the heat that would be found in other parts of America. Here at latitude fifty-nine, late May meant maybe sixty degrees. Maybe.

Today the temperature was a cool fifty-eight. Intermittent clouds floated overhead, and the breeze from the Homer Spit had made its way to the high school, slowed but not beaten.

Julia looked away from the valedictorian, who was expounding on the benefits of altruistic endeavors.

It was all bullshit, spoken through the bullhorn of what she could gain by making a good impression on whoever was listening. Julia swung her leg restlessly until Jason stilled her with a hand on her knee. He looked at her. “It'll be okay. Just today, and then we're free.”

The girl droned on. The guys got a fine sheen of sweat over their brows—all that satiny polyester was causing a greenhouse effect.

Finally, the staff herded them through the line, and they shook hands, stood for pictures, and ate the celebratory cake. It was anticlimactic.

It only served to underscore that uneasy feeling Julia had—as if she were waiting. She'd had this feeling ever since the Terrell incident.

Death, she corrected herself.

She had felt a portent, a feeling of impending doom. It felt like a ticking time bomb. Her sleep was leaving her these days and nightmares were taking up residence in its absence.

She was exhausted. Jason said he was worried about her.

If that weren't enough, there was the impending trial. If a jury of Jason's peers found him not guilty in the death of Terrell, then he was free. Unfortunately, because of the nature of how he had… killed Terrell, he had a mandatory six weeks of anger-management classes. And of course, he was angry about the classes.

Total irony.

The Caldwells had not really forgiven Jason for making them look “bad” by killing Terrell. Even Detective Truman had defended Jason, saying he'd saved lives. Of course, what the Caldwells weren't telling Truman was that Julia's life was not that important to them. It hurt, but Julia had to stay focused on her future with Jason.

When the lame reception was over, they drove to Julia's house so she could change. Soon, they'd head to the beach with Kevin and Cyn.

Julia opened the door, Jason behind her. He'd been so quiet in the car. She knew something was on his mind.

Seeing that Lily wasn't home from work yet she walked to her room. She tore open her closet door and chucked out her beach jeans, T-shirt, and the faded, battered Salty Dawg Saloon hoodie. It was her most beat-up one, but she loved it. She'd bribed a tourist one summer to go in there and get one for her. It was a Homer landmark, a cabin from 1897 that had grown into a rough and tumble tavern.

She pressed the hoodie against her face, inhaling the fragrant laundry soap Lily used, and a pang of homesickness struck her. I'm really going, she thought, a little forlorn. Just six short weeks until Vegas.

Jason came up behind Julia and wrapped his arms around her, the graduation gowns wrapping and mingling together around their legs. “It's not like she's gonna die. You can come back and visit her, Jules.”

Julia nodded silently. She understood that. She did.

But there would be no one, no family to see her get married, no one to appreciate her husband. Just Lily. And Lily was bitter—Julia knew that. Lily had gotten saddled with her brother's kid, and that had been a stain on her heart, spreading and filling her with resentment.

Jason kissed Julia's temple, his lips hovering above her skin like butterfly wings, fragile but present. She leaned back against him. He turned her and slowly lifted the gown, the rasping of the satin catching on the fine strands of hair that had escaped the clasp she'd secured it in. He tossed it aside and tore his gown off, letting it fall to the floor at his feet.

He gathered Julia in his arms and kissed her, pressing his lips to hers with heat. His lips moved over hers with pressure and longing, combining in a succulent pull. Julia's mouth opened, and her arms slid around his broad shoulders, the muscles bunching as he pressed her closer. She gave a little moan, and he moved them backward, where they fell softly on her bed. He broke the kiss when they landed, his elbows braced on either side of her body.

“I can't wait to make you mine, Julia,” he said, dipping to kiss her temple again. His lips slid from that point, making a blazing trail down her jaw, then a sideways path to her mouth.

He lingered there, scooping her long hair from where it was pinned underneath her, fanning it out behind her. Jason slid her farther on the bed, falling to the side of her. He cupped her face and pecked her lips again. Searching her face, he saw the lingering anxiety there. “Lily'll come around. You'll see.”

“She may not. But even though she took me in and saved me from the system, it wasn't her choice.”

Speak of the devil.

Julia heard Lily buzz into the house and start clanking around in the kitchen—supper preparation. Julia wasn't that interested. Eating hadn't been a big priority since Terrell. She'd never been an emotional eater. When stuff got intense, food lost its appeal.

“Come on.” Jason kissed her again then kissed her once more on that tender spot between her earlobe and her collarbone. She smiled, a little breathless. She knew some guys would have been trying to attack the obvious, but not Jason. He really loved her. He wanted her, but he wanted her for the right reasons.

Jason was the man for her.

*

Later

Right away, Julia knew she should have worn a puffy over the top of her hoodie. She sighed, stepping out of Jason's big truck, the lift kit making the whole thing a hike to get in and out of.

She gave a scoot and a hop and got out before Jason could meet her on the other side.

He came around and closed the door for her. “You should have waited for me. I'd have gotten you down.” His lips turned up.

“I bet you would, pervert!” Julia teased as Cyn and Kevin walked up.

Kevin smirked, “I hear ʻpervert.ʼ Must be Caldwell here.”

“Thanks for the support, Kev,” Jason said.

He grinned, shrugging. “Welcome.”

Cyn smiled at Julia, taking in the XtraTufs and hoodie uniform. Cynthia was wearing her Ugg boots. Stylish to most, ugly to Julia.

“Well, I see you are consistent,” Cyn said in her droll way.

“Don't start. I didn't want to suffer through any more unwanted clothing.”

Cyn rolled her eyes. “I did see you barely making it through the ceremony. Couldn't you have faked it?”

“Hell no! I didn't like any of the teachers, and after the Terrell thing…” She immediately felt terrible. Her friends had been there, too, and here she was bringing it up.

“Sorry guys,” Julia mumbled, bowing her head a little and letting her long hair form a curtain to hide her expression.

That had been beyond stupid. She could have kicked her own ass. Miss Sensitive.

Jason put a finger underneath her chin, tilting it so their eyes met. “Don't be sorry, Jules. All of us were there. It was me that killed him,” he said in a low voice. “Ask me if I feel bad?”

She swallowed, her mouth dry. “Do you feel bad?”

He shook his head, solemn. “No.”

“Hell, Jules. You were in that psycho's crosshairs. Caldwell had to do it.” Kevin spread his arms away from his body. He wore a T-shirt that read, Zombie Bait.

Cynthia looked at Julia with sympathy. They'd been friends for years. Cyn understood that Julia didn't want to feel responsible for any accidents, especially after her parents.

Especially that.

Cyn reached out and put a chunk of hair behind Jules's ear. “Don't sweat that creeper, Jules. It wasn't your fault that he died. Just because someone dies when you're around, doesn't mean you have to take the death on as your fault. That's crap and you know it.” Cyn dipped down a little until she was eye level with Julia. “Are you hearing me?”

“Yeah,” Julia whispered. She was so lucky to have these guys. Unshed tears burned the back of her eyelids. Tears were for sissies. She sucked it up, hugging Cyn with one arm and flinging the other around Jason, her hand finding the middle of his back. It was where she could reach him. He cuddled her as they did an awkward shamble to the bonfire that Kevin had built. The heat washed over her like a wave of comfort and serenity that was too brief.

Her peace was too brief.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Seattle

Pierce and William had deemed her ready. Ready for travel, ready for the final leg of their journey.

They were headed to William's home coven in Seattle.

Julia was ready too. She only had the smallest amount of guilt. After all, if Julia were to face her memories, she'd have to wallow in them, explore them, and reconcile herself to the fact that it was not William and Pierce who'd killed Jason. Those two had been too late to stop it from happening.

She would not let sentiment cloud her plan. But the memory began to play out like the nightmare it was. Julia felt the heat begin at her toes and roar up her body as if she were a lone tree in a forest on fire. Her heart was beating rapidly, her palms sweating, and her breath coming in great whoops. She had to calm down before she had a full-blown panic attack. That always got the complete attention of the vampires.

She didn't want their attention ever again.

Julia slowed her breathing, shoving the horrible memory down in the well of her subconscious. It would come again—it always did, in the silent and unguarded moments of her wakefulness. It would surge forward like the tide to shore. She waited until her hands had only a fine tremble then picked up her bag.

Turning, she looked one more time at her temporary home. She sighed, closing the door behind her. Julia suddenly realized what day it was.

Over a year had passed since her precious Jason had been ripped from her life—torn from her soul, leaving it shredded within her body.

She moved down the hall, seeing the two runners who waited so still against the exit.

Waiting for her—their prize.

But not for long, Julia thought, working hard to suppress a smile.

She moved forward and they fell into step beside her, leaving the house behind them forever.

*

Imagine the logistics of traveling with vampires. If it hadn't been her reality, Julia would have thought it was funny as hell.

But it wasn't funny.

They had driven up the highway to the Anchorage Airport, gotten on the plane—"red-eye flight" taking on new meaning—and flown the lonely journey to Seattle.

Once in Seattle, she had a small window of time in which to escape the runners. They were already in the city where the coven was located, but she didn't know how she would shake them before they arrived. Especially when William's blood was still in her body—diluted but there, like a pulse. It would be a navigation tool.

Julia caressed her bag. The hair dye and change of clothes were hidden inside. She smiled. It might work, but only if Pierce was the one nearby. If William was there, all hope was lost. She had another lapse of guilt, thinking back to her conversation with William.

*

On the plane, William had looked at her, and Julia had become interested in her hands.

“You seem tense,” he'd said. Pierce looked up at them sharply and then glanced away.

At least the two of them hadn't insisted on sandwiching her in between them. That would have been awful. Julia deliberately loosened her hands and laid them flat on her thighs. The last thing she needed was for William to detect something.

She met his eyes, which were the palest gray—striking against all that black hair. He gave a little smile, and she realized she'd been staring. Her palms dampened, and she resisted the urge to rub them on her pants. “I am tense,” she answered honestly, knowing it would ring of the truth. “I mean, I've been with you for a year, and now I have to be with a bunch—” She looked around the tight confines of the airplane. “Of you,” she finished in a whisper.

William's eyes narrowed, and Julia didn't squirm. She wasn't one to just keel over because someone had an emotional reaction to something she'd said. She could hack it. “We have gone over this many times, Julia. They will welcome you. You shall be safe, protected. No more running, no more mystery.”

Julia understood what he'd said. She even felt that he believed it. But she'd been there that day on the beach, and she'd seen how they were with each other and with her.

The Were.

She shuddered, thinking of something else.

Anything else.

He reached out and placed his hand over hers, and Julia let him. She'd learned early on that her resistance brought a barrage of questions and concern. It was better to pretend.

It'd make escape easier.

Turning her hand over, he rubbed a thumb over the pulse in her wrist, which beat frantically like a trapped bird. His pupils dilated, and he licked his bottom lip as her breath came shorter, his eyes darkening, the gray beginning to disappear like imagined smoke.

“William,” Pierce said in a low voice. William looked across the aisle at him, his brow furrowed. Pierce looked pointedly at the contact between them, and William removed his hand from hers, the lack of his touch leaving her disturbingly empty. What was wrong with her? It must have been because of her nervousness about the execution of the plan. She felt a stabbing pain for Jason in that moment. He'd have known what to do. But not anymore—now it was up to her.

Julia had to be her own savior.

William waited until he seemed to get control of himself then said, “You will see. My home coven will be a place of respite.”

Fat chance, Julia had thought.

Before, she'd been too weak to think of escaping. But as they made their way to Seattle, her bereavement over the loss of Jason and the others had been at the forefront of her mind, pressing her forward into the unknown.

She was in charge of her own destiny. Not the vampires. Not the werewolves—only she, Julia.

*

Escape

They exited before the other passengers. Only first class for vamps, she thought sourly. Julia had never flown first class. Actually, she'd only been on a plane for a single trip—to fly to Alaska from her home state, where her parents had been executed on the highway. She gulped at the memory. She gave herself a mental push forward as the chaos of the airport swirled around them. The vampires tracked the people around them.

The cattle.

She turned to William, willing her pulse to slow. “I need to change and use the restroom,” she lied smoothly, her pulse sluggish. Why it was cooperating now, when in the plane it had been fluttering uncontrollably while he'd been touching her? Julia didn't know, and didn't care. She was that close to freedom. She wasn't blowing it for anything.

Pierce waited, and William ran his hand through his inky hair, making it spike. Turning that smoldering intensity to Julia, he said, “All right, but Pierce will need to stand guard outside of the bathroom until I can get our comrades here to escort you to the car.”

Comrades. Translation: vampires.

Julia lifted an eyebrow. Smart of him. He was going to leave her with good old Pierce while he got a few more of the vampire crew up here so the precious Blood Singer couldn't get away.

Real circumspect, guys. They thought they were so smart. Well, the element of surprise was the only thing she had, and she was using it.

“Where am I gonna go?” Julia pointed out.

William's eyes narrowed on her, and Julia held her breath. He seemed to really deliberate until Pierce broke the swollen moment. “Just go. I will stand guard, and you will return with the additional runners.” He rolled his broad shoulders in a dismissive shrug.

William palmed his chin. “Fine.” He turned to Pierce. “Be sharp, be vigilant. Even now, they may be about.”

Julia looked around, expecting gnomes, trolls or both to pop up around her.

“The werewolves,” Pierce clarified in a low voice.

True—there was that to consider.

Pierce took her elbow and she walked to the restroom with him. When she glanced over her shoulder, William's form was a speck down the choked corridor.

*

Julia threw the bag on the bathroom-floor stall, kicked off her flip-flops, and dragged out the skirt, boots, and shirt she'd cropped the night before. It would bare some skin, but she'd brought a jacket for coverage. She grabbed the box of black hair dye she'd nabbed from underneath the vampiresʼ bathroom sink. She rushed to the sink and began to chop her long, ginger-colored hair to shoulder length.

Another girl beside her leaned back and said, “Uh, what are you doing?” She snapped gum, watching as the hair piled at Julia's feet in a heap of spun honey.

Julia met her eyes in the reflection of the mirror. “What does it look like?”

The girl's eyes narrowed. “Butchering your hair like a dumbass.”

Julia smiled—she couldn't help it. Yeah she was. But it was necessary.

The girl took a hard look at Julia. Then, shaking her head, she walked away, giving Julia a last look that said, Crazy bitch.

Yeah, that was her all right. The plastic scissors didn't help with that. She couldn't bring the real ones on the plane. She stopped up the sink and mixed the black dye. Lathering it in, she watched as her hair—almost blond with a hint of red—became a mass of black. It utterly changed how she looked.

The boots made her five-seven instead of five-four. She was taller, wearing different clothes, and had black hair that was eighteen inches shorter than when she'd entered the bathroom.

She had the money she'd had on her the day that she was taken. Julia opened her palm and looked at the lonely thirty dollars, five dimes, and one penny.

She made a fist with her hand and stuffed the change back in the pocket of her skirt. She grabbed her toiletry bag as if it were a purse, and made her departure when there was a pair of women exiting the bathroom.

Julia dipped her head and walked out, the hair still wet underneath and clinging to the nape of her neck like cold fingers.

*

Julia kept her head down and her legs moving, her heart racing far beyond the effort she was expending. She clutched her toiletry bag under her arm and kept walking.

She was exiting security just as William and the runners were passing through. Julia could hear his voice, and she didn't turn. But she swore she felt a hesitation in his speech and a scorching gaze that she did not see but felt pass over her.

And then she was outside in the drizzle, the clouds making shapes across a full moon, twenty cabs in sight.

Julia hailed the first one. Closing the door behind her she said, “Get me to the closest bus depot.”

The cabby turned around to look at her. “To where?” he asked, his voice accented, a turban on his head. Julia tried not to stare.

“Away.”

“Humph!” He slammed the flag that started the meter at two bucks.

They pulled away from the curb, and Julia hazarded a look behind her.

Her mind recoiled in terror as she saw William and Pierce and, beside them, two runners.

Vampires.

Their noses were in the air, scenting it.

Searching for her.

CHAPTER NINE

Vegas

Julia and Jason were kind of arguing. He thought Elvis was classic, and she thought he was… well, creepy.

“Listen Jules. Everyone who comes to Vegas has to get married in front of Elvis. I'm just saying.” He spread his hands as if to say you see my logic.

Actually, she didn't. She looked up at the rendering of the oversized, pudgy singer. Elvis, with his clown-red mouth and tassels and studs on a grotesquely distended belly was not the image she wanted at her wedding—even if they were in cheesy Vegas. Even if they had stolen away to get married.

Jason planted his hands on his hips. “Okay. I can see you don't see that Elvis is the symbol of vegas.” His eyebrows rose, and Cyn giggled.

“I think he looks pretty gay, Jason,” Kevin said, smoothly siding with Julia.

“Thanks for the love, you ass,” Jason said.

Kev barked out a laugh. “Anytime, pal.”

Beaten, Jason looked over the small pamphlet of chapels, finding a few more on the list. His eyes—hazel with flecks of green in the brown—shifted to Julia. “The only thing you don't want is him?” He jerked his thumb toward icky Elvis.

Cynthia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Jason. No chunky monkey in white polyester. It's a no-go.”

He glared at her, and Julia said, “Yeah, that.”

Jason sighed. He and Kevin put their heads together as Cyn gave Julia, a look from head to toe. “Glad I could get you out of those fugly boots, Jules.”

Julia smiled, Cyn had outdone herself. Julia didn't look great in white, but Cyn had explained, “You've earned white, virgin princess, but let's work with the weirdness that is your complexion.” Julia had rolled her eyes, letting Cyn transform her.

Julia caught sight of herself in what could only be described as a fun-house mirror. Her long dress grazed the floor, spiky ivory heels peeking out from underneath the hem, a platform gracing the bottom. Cyn had pinned her hair in an elegant updo, leaving a few wisps hanging down.

A row of creamy pearls with a champagne-colored wash encircled the base of her throat. They'd been her mother's.

A lump gathered in her throat, and she looked away from the reflection of her sweetheart neckline, satin and lace colliding in a fine webbing that cradled her breasts.

The absence of her parents on this important occasion was best left to future reflection.

Like, never.

Jason had dressed in a deep-navy suit, his tie a subtle crimson, a slash of color against his shirt.

Julia thought it looked a little like blood against the backdrop of white, and she shivered as a subtle feeling of foreboding stole over her. It was shattered when Jason flashed his smile, stabbing the pamphlet with his finger. “Found it, babe!”

Julia leaned forward, and he drew her in next to his body. She looked at the page he was pointing to.

“Gnome Chapel.”

She cocked her brows. “Really, Jason?” He smiled, nodding.

“That's just switching out one creepy audience member for another,” Cynthia said with revulsion.

“Nah, baby,” Kevin said, pulling her tight against him and pressing a kiss to her temple, almost crushing the bouquet of lavender flowers she held.

“Hey! Watch the flowers, graceless.” Cyn giggled.

Kevin grabbed the bouquet, jerking it up over his head and slamming his lips against hers, his free arm coming around her back and pressing her harder against him.

Julia had agreed that gnomes were creepy, too. She'd looked up at the bigger-than-life-sized Elvis statue and sighed.

Choices, choices. But anything is better than Elvis.

****

Now

Julia leaned her head back against the scummy seat of the cab, fingering the fine chain at her neck, the sterling sliding with her restless stroking. The chain held a ring.

Tears threatened to fall as Julia thought of the symbol of eternal love. Jason had insisted on buying the rings. He had purchased bands of indestructible tungsten—a metal made of carbide, gunmetal gray and polished to a mirrorlike shine. He had said it couldn't be scratched, dented or bent.

Like their love.

"Perfect," he'd said, squeezing her as he had slipped it onto her finger. Their clergy in the Chapel of the Gnomes had been smiling at them, his mouth full of missing teeth.

Vegas, a class act.

She didn't want a big diamond. She just wanted him. He'd said that later, after they got settled, he'd get her something to go with the plainness of the band.

He would never have the opportunity to make good on that promise.

The cabbie stopped a scant five minutes after they'd left the terminal.

“I let you off here. Eight dollars,” he said without verbs.

Julia frowned. Don't speak English, fine by me. But be civil. She handed him a twenty, and he gave her the change.

She slid out of the taxi and found herself on a cement sidewalk surrounded by a wall of people. She didn't make eye contact with anyone but went to the first bus she saw and showed the driver her five bucks, six dimes and one penny.

“How far?” she asked.

He searched her face. “How far do ya need to go?” he asked, kindness in his eyes.

Julia paused, aware of a line forming behind her. “As far as this will get me,” she said, leaving it in his hands.

He nodded. “Let's play it by ear, okay miss?”

She nodded, so grateful for the unexpected kindness that she felt her eyes glisten again. She had turned into an absolute crybaby. All it took was him saying that one phrase Aunt Lily had used, and Julia's home, which was so far away, came to the forefront of her consciousness. She swiped at the wetness on her cheeks and gave him a watery smile as she moved to the back of the bus.

She sank down in the seat, putting her knees up on the seat in front of her, and looked out the window. As she gazed through the filthy glass, the bus pulled away in a plume of noxious exhaust, leaving the depot for parts unknown.

Julia shut her eyes, remembering.

*

Jason had kicked open the door of their hotel room, and it had slammed against the wall. Julia had shrieked laughter as he crossed the threshold, her dress swirling around their bodies. He slapped the door closed behind them and dumped her on the bed.

She almost bit her tongue—she was laughing so hard—but managed not to by a slim margin.

They'd used fake IDs and had had quite a bit to drink, and Jason was stubbornly hanging on to the notion that they could wait one more night until they were in their new apartment in Anchorage.

“I don't want our first time to be in a seedy motel in Vegas, Jules,” he said, dragging his lips down her neck in a path to her collarbone then pressing them against her mouth again. The pearls getting in the way of his mouth, he moved them aside with a finger and lavished her with his attention.

Julia didn't care that it was seedy. She pulled him down into the cradle of her body.

Her husband.

The word had a surreal quality. She tried to grab onto the newness of it, but it slid through her mind like smoke.

He smiled down at her, his tie askew, his muscular arms pressing her to him.

He nuzzled her neck, “No,” he whispered. “We wait until we are in our home.” Jason wanted everything to be perfect for her and said she was worth it. At home, there would be no booze to muddle their thoughts, and they'd be in their own digs.

Julia sighed with frustration. “I had awesome lingerie!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Cyn?”

Julia caved. “Yeah, it was her idea.” She smiled sheepishly.

“But you still bought it?”

She nodded, blushing. Just thinking about the skank ensemble Cyn had approved made her flush with embarrassment.

“Wow, it must be hot, judging by that look.” He searched her face, running a tender finger over her cheekbone.

“We have the rest of our lives. Let me hold you next to me all night. That'll be a first, along with a ton of other stuff.”

They grinned at each other.

Julia had thought she could live with that plan. Patience, she thought.

But they hadn't had the rest of their lives. It was her biggest regret: she'd never been with Jason even once.

*

Julia woke with a start, darkness all around her. She was completely disoriented and swallowed the scream that rose in her throat as someone leaned over her, gently shaking her shoulder.

It was just the bus driver. Her memories came flooding back.

Escape.

No money.

Going nowhere.

“We're here,” he said softly.

Julia rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?” she croaked, her voice rusty after sleeping so hard.

He looked at the humungous watch on his wrist. “Straight up five o'clock.” He looked at her, straightening. “My shift's done, and we've traveled my whole route. Twice. This is the end of the road.”

Julia looked up at the sign that read, “Valley Bus Transport. Welcome to Kent.”

“Where is this?”

He looked around. “It's Kent,” he pointed to the sign. “Outside Seattle.”

Julia had familiarized herself with the Seattle region and understood immediately the driver had just kept her safe and warm in the bus while she slept part of the night away, driving in a big circle.

She stood, looking at him. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “You got a place to go?”

She shook her head.

“I can give you a ride to a women's shelter.”

Women's shelter?
Is that what he thinks I need?

He watched as emotions ran through her, and he slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think you're running. I think you're running from a man.”

No, not a man. But it was close enough.

He didn't want to know what she was really running from.

“It's a deal,” she said, deciding to take her chances with the human.

It was better than the alternative.

She walked out of the bus with him.

CHAPTER TEN

William

William took in the filth of the air, his acute senses filtering the smells that did not concern him.

There were many, but amongst those, there was a faint taste on the air.

Julia's.

He swiveled his head in Pierce's direction, his nostrils flaring as they transitioned from scenting to anger. Pierce had been a dolt, letting her slip by. His anger rode him hard, making his body tenser—even more than was typical for him.

Every moment she was alone left her vulnerable to attack. By the pungency of her aroma—and the scent of his blood, still in her to the slightest degree—he judged she was within a fifty-mile radius and east of their current position.

He opened the door to the SUV, leaving the bus depot behind them without a backward glance.

“East,” William commanded to the runner who had met them. His eyes met Pierce's in the rear view mirror.

They sped off, the blackness of the SUV melting into the night.

*

Julia

Julia wasn't the hugging kind of girl, but she gave a big one to the man who had let her sleep for hours on his bus—Alfred.

He gave her an awkward pat on her head and told her to take care of herself.

She turned as she heard the engine roar in his pickup truck and then soften as he pulled away. Julia looked around. The moon was full, its brightness and the yellowish glow of the streetlight making Julia feel strangely vulnerable, on display. She clutched her toiletry bag tighter and moved toward the building.

Julia walked through the door, passing under a sign at the threshold of the that read, "Freedom Affirmed." Once inside, she found a receptionist on duty. Her hair was in a severe bun, glasses perched on the end of her nose. It was her eyes, full of knowledge gained from hard experience, that finally relaxed Julia.

Eyes that were seasoned tended to ease her.

“Hello dear,” the receptionist said in a pleasant voice, her birdlike eyes taking in Julia's appearance. Julia was aware of all her odd look—her dyed hair, the crazy getup, the lack of luggage. She guessed she was pretty much fitting whatever stereotype there was.

“Hi.”

The woman raised an eyebrow as she came around the desk to greet Julia. “I'm Shirley.” She stuck her bony hand out and Julia took it, giving it a gentle shake. Shirley's eyes searched hers and finally she said, “I guess you need a place to stay for the night?”

Julia nodded. Only one night?
Crap. She'd have to figure it out day by day.

Shirley must have seen how dejected she felt. “We offer transitional services. We will help you find a job, another residence.”

Julia sighed. She was terrified of William and Pierce finding her. It wasn't rational. After all, once she got on the bus, her trail disappeared.

Or that was what she told herself.

But Julia had been with the vampires for almost a year, and their five senses were beyond normal human capacity. Julia remembered how easy everything was for them. William was a runner, chosen specifically for tracking.

He was engineered to find her.

Julia shuddered, and Shirley gave her a look of sympathy, misinterpreting it completely. She took Julia's arm, and they walked together to her room.

*

Shelter

Julia was as settled in as she was going to be. She looked around the room. Actually, it was a shared room, hardly more than a closet. The bathroom served two rooms with two women in each. The girl she shared with was at her new job and poised to leave the facility the next morning. Julia looked longingly at the bathroom. She was dying for a shower.

She went through the clothes that Shirley had provided. There were enough for a week. A plain, black duffel had been provided, courtesy of a sponsor of the shelter.

The clothes were simple but comfortable and fit well—a miracle. Julia was heavier than she'd been when the vampires had thought they'd lose her from malnourishment. But as Julia caught sight of herself in the harsh reflection of the florescent lighting that rode the top of the vanity mirror, she blanched. Even to herself, she looked hideous. Large bruise-type circles held court underneath her large, golden eyes. Her hair was a startling black, the ends hacked unevenly about her shoulders. It was her ribs—each one countable and her collarbone standing at attention—that let her know how desperate she still looked.

How had she looked before? Julia didn't want to know. She turned away and cranked on the hot water for the shower, the needles slamming into her hands, which were still cold from the outside. The tingling of the warmth woke her skin up as she pulled the stopper, and the spray rained down, beating the porcelain tub below. Julia stepped in, parting her lips, letting the water fill her mouth and run down her chin. The warmth and privacy made her want to cry with relief.

She hadn't realized how intrusive her lack of privacy had been when Susan had been her caretaker or how oppressive William and Pierce's presence was. She was so grateful she could hardly stand herself.

Julia almost shrieked when she glanced down while rinsing the shampoo out of her hair and saw the tub filled with black.

What the hell?

She quickly toweled off and ran to the mirror. She swiped her forearm across the middle, and there she stood, her wet hair like dark gold, a black wash hanging on but mostly gone.

Shit. There went her great disguise. Julia sighed. It figured that she would have grabbed the wash-out-gradually dye. She turned away in disgust. Jerking on the nightclothes, which consisted of panties and an oversized shirt, she slammed her body into the bed. She was certain she would fall right to sleep.

But she didn't. Instead, thoughts of Jason filled her head the way they always did before sleep took her.

*

Then: Fire and Ice

They'd flown down on the small plane from the Anchorage Airport. Julia was stoked, knowing they would touch down in Homer soon. The only small glitch was that Jason wanted to meet up with Kevin and Cyn one more time at their spot on the beach. Kevin was likely burning the hell out of the driftwood as they flew.

Julia wanted Jason all to herself.

He laughed as she cuddled closer, his finger alternately tracing and swirling her wedding band. “It's a sendoff, Jules. Don't get your hot panties in a twist.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “They are super-cute panties, buster. Not that you'd know!” She gave him a playful elbow. He retaliated, tickling her without mercy. She shrieked in the confines of the plane, and some of the other passengers gave the pair stern looks.

They offloaded and ran to the parking lot, the mountains a backdrop behind Jason's car, the stubborn snow clinging to some of the nooks and crannies at the top.

Julia sucked in a lungful of the freshest air in the world, happier than she'd ever been. Vegas had been an assault on all her senses—filthy, noisy, dirty, and everything that wasn't home.

Jason opened the door for her, she climbed in, and they roared off to the spit. Cyn and Kevin were waiting, and she could see the fire from the beginning of the spit, the flames rushing up to kiss the darkening sky.

It had been an omen.

Julia's mind protected her from touching the memory that lay next—the one she couldn't bear to think of, the one that was stealing her breath, robbing her of life, and making her heart pause in her throat.

Julia finally fell into a fitful sleep as the vampires closed in around her.

*

Vampire

The four of them surrounded the human cattle, eyes glittering darkly at their prey. They could not afford to be circumspect. All four would need to be well fed when they finally came upon Julia. William signaled to Pierce, and they flanked the victim.

A pleasure to dispatch, William thought, remembering how they'd come upon him abusing the woman who Robert now eased into thrall as they moved toward the human scum. William licked the tips of his fangs as they tore through the tender flesh of his mouth.

The smell of blood wafted to their nostrils.

“Listen scary dudes,” the man said, defensively, “that bitch wanted it. I was only givinʼ her what she was begginʼ for… you get my meaning.” He grabbed his crotch in an obscene gesture.

“Yes,” Pierce mused, “the abuse of her face tells us of her joy.”

William hissed, moving toward the man with sure footing. Stalking closer, he jerked the foul human next to him until his rancid breath filled the intimate space. “The innocent do not defend their actions. ”

“Thou dost protest too much,” Pierce added, the ghost of a smile riding his lips as he moved toward their prey.

The other runner, Andrew, allowed his talons to tear through the tips of his fingers and used them like the small daggers they were, piercing the tender flesh of the man's back.

The human's gurgled response matched the widening of his eyes. “What are you?” he whispered, his eyes bulging and distended as Andrew kept him skewered like a shish kabob.

“Death,” William answered, his fangs lengthening. He reared and then struck true, as did Pierce, and Andrew's talons accentuated the holes caused by them.

Robert left the female in thrall, dazed and uncomprehending. In a blur of speed, he was at the male's side, and he dropped to his knees beside him. Working to the inside of his thigh, he tapped the vein with a vicious push of his fangs, piercing even the thick denim the human wore. He rolled his eyes up and met those of his comrade, Andrew, who shared the foul meal. The blood was delicious, its host lowly.

The vampires fed, and two miles away, Julia lay sleeping—but not peacefully, never that.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Julia never actively thought about the day Jason died. She did everything within her power not to.

That was probably why her subconscious took over and made her dream about him, attempting to excise the memory like a wound that would never heal.

She was too exhausted to fight it anymore. Julia was not in the vampiresʼ clutches, and she'd had a shower and even a little food. It made sense to sleep.

She needed to sleep.

Julia felt her body slide off into that strange midway point between true wakefulness and that of deep slumber. Her mind floated, circling the last things she had thought about. As she slipped into REM sleep, her body jerked as if it were falling, landing about where she'd left off in wakefulness.

Julia knew where she was going and began to struggle toward consciousness again, as if she were at the bottom of a lake, swimming to the surface.

But sleep was victorious, sucking her back underneath the waters of her dreams.

*

Then

She and Jason had been almost to the spit when he'd gotten the text from Kevin.

Jason turned to Julia. “That's not their fire, babe.”

She arched her brow, looking at the blaze far down on the terminus of the spit, a glowing beacon. “Who else would start that monster?”

He laughed. “They want to go to that spot by the woods. More private.” Jason waggled his brows.

Right. Translation: let's make out. But now that they were married, she was going to do more than that—and without an audience, thank you very much.

She sighed. Some wedding night. She folded her arms across her chest, brooding.

“Listen, hun. It'll be fun. It won't get light until—when? One a.m.?”

The land of the midnight sun, Julia thought. He wrapped his hand around her neck, massaging away the stiffness of the travel, catching little glances when he could, driving with one hand.

Julia guessed she'd forgive them. He was giving up his apartment, after all. Tonight was their last night before heading up to Anchorage. Just thinking about facing Aunt Lily the next day filled her with dread. Even knowing Lily would be relieved to see her go didn't make it better.

Jason looked at her with concern then swung his attention to the road ahead of them. He took the turn for the small stretch of beach where they liked to hang out. Only the four of them knew about how to find it.

He squeezed the back of her neck, and she felt the strength of his hands, which had always been gentle with her. Julia thought of Terrell. These were the same hands he had used to murder their teacher—and to defend her.

“Jules, stop thinking about what Lily's gonna do. It'll be fine—you'll see.” He looked at her quickly then parked the car above the slope that led to the beach.

The beach lay below a steep ravine lined with spruce trees that camouflaged the fire. They didn't need anything special to get down there, but it would be a bad fall if they didn't watch it.

Jason had taken her carefully by the elbow and they'd used the rigid and deeply grooved soles of their boots to assure their footing as they descended to the rocky beach.

*

Vampire

Andrew and Robert paired as did William and Pierce—silently. They'd worked together as a quad before. They scented Julia easily. William never went anywhere without his quarry’s scent. In this case, he possessed a scrap of an original piece of clothing, never laundered. He allowed his runners a deep whiff before they picked up the faintest scent coming from their current position.

“I say one-point-two-four kilometers,” William said, lowering his face.

Pierce laughed. “So literal, William.”

William gave him a look, and Pierce's amusement faded.

They studied him, and he looked at each of their faces in turn. “Follow me.”

They ran, staying to the border of the buildingsʼ flanks. The shadows embraced them soundlessly, the peppering of blood on their garments invisible in the dark.

*

Before

The dusk lingered in Alaska for what felt like forever. Summer nights were one long siege of twilight. Julia hadn't minded. The veil of false darkness provided the perfect backdrop for a sky the color of bruised violet with a sprinkling of the brightest stars flung about. Venus hung like a shimmering anchor at the horizon.

She had planted her bony butt on a huge piece of driftwood Kev and Jason had hauled to a safe proximity to the blazing inferno.

Cyn had been naughty and brought champagne. Julia would have loved to protest but couldn't.

After all, they were celebrating her nuptials.

Hard as they tried, it was inevitable that Lily would come up into the conversation.

“I'm just saying you're not obligated to give a big defense, Jules,” Cyn said, her legs crossed at the ankles, resting her back against Kevin. The wash of the firelight warred with the sun burning low in the horizon, making a fiery halo around them.

Julia shrugged. Cyn wouldn't understand. She felt that she owed Lily. Taking in her eight-year-old niece had never been Lily's goal. Actually, Julia wasn't sure what had been her goal. She'd made it abundantly clear it wasn't raising her brother's daughter or having a surprise family.

Jason kissed the top of her head, and she buried her toes—already encased in woolly socks—into the sand, which had been warmed by the fire. Her XtraTufs were thrown to the side.

“She's got a point, Jules,” Jason breathed against her temple.

“I know she does. But Lily did take me in when my grandma couldn't. She was the only one that could. Other than a foster family.”

Cyn shuddered. “That's like goddamn Russian Roulette.”

Kev nodded. Everyone knew that foster care could land a person with some shit family. “Yeah, Jules. I heard about some girl who was like Cinderella in her family. They made her label every scrap of food like she was gonna steal it or something. Big-time lame. They just wanted the government money every month.”

“See?” Julia said, looking at Cynthia. “It could've been worse.”

Cyn shook her head, her huge hoops catching the light that swirled around them, a mix of burnt orange from the sky and fire mingling together in an eerie wash. “If you say so. I still think she was a big-time troll with you!”

She kinda was. But Julia still wanted to remember Lily in the best light she could. “She's got all my stuff, too.”

Cyn's face broke into a grin. “Now, that's worth some suck-up, Jules.”

They laughed and then Cyn said, “I'm sorry your grandma isn't here anymore.”

Julia was sorry, too. Summers at her grandma's place had been the only break from the grind of living with Lily. Grandma had taught her things she'd never forget.

“Didn't she have your name?” Kev asked.

Julia smiled. “Actually, I had her name.”

Kev shrugged. “That's what I said.” The little details of things like that sailed right over his head.

They smiled and made plans for the next day. Julia and Jason would go by her house and see if they could charm their way in after their hasty elopement and zero communication. That is so not going to happen.

Cyn broke a mood that had slid far away from celebratory by jerking the champagne glasses out of her backpack. Kevin got the champagne out of his beat-up cooler, the ice rattling and clinking.

Cyn put a cube in each plastic cylinder. The glasses had been made to look like cut glass and winked as though they were on fire from the light of the blaze. Julia smiled. Cyn had thought everything through to the last detail.

“Nice glasses,” Julia said.

Cyn smirked. “I know, right? I couldn't let us be déclassé even at the beach!” Kevin filled Cyn's to the brim, and she plopped a full strawberry on the top, where it floated like a jewel inside the glass. The bubbles in the golden liquid mesmerized Julia.

Everyone's glasses fizzing with champagne, they lifted them, and the four flutes met in a clink of celebration. They took sips, eyeing each other above the rims.

Cyn did an obscene job of tonguing her strawberry in full view of Kevin, moving it back and forth in her mouth while twirling the stem like a provocative handle in her capable fingers.

“Come here,” Kev said in a growl, grabbing Cyn around her slender waist and pressing her against him. He put his lips to the half of the berry that lay between her teeth then jerked the stem with his teeth and spit it onto the pebbled beach. He met her lips with his, eating the berry as he sucked the kiss right out of her.

Cyn groaned and flung her arms around Kev's neck, and the two of them staggered over to their log of driftwood, oblivious to Jason and Julia. Kevin threw his arm behind him so they wouldn't topple, but as they sat down in a heap, he fell backward on the sand anyway. Jason and Julia laughed at their friendsʼ lust-ridden dance.

It would have been better if Kevin had not been on his back with his girlfriend when the werewolf had appeared.

*

Vampire

Stealth was the order of the night. He eyed the building carefully, taking in the name: Freedom Affirmed.

William's lips curled. They wouldn't understand real freedom if it introduced itself with a handshake.

He spoke in a voice that could not be heard by humanity. The decibel level was too high for humans.

In the distance, a stray dog lifted its ears and whined softly then took off in the opposite direction of the disturbing tones of the unnatural. Canines had instinctual reactions. This one recognized the threat for what it was and ran in the direction of safety.

The other runners whipped their heads in the dog's direction, responding in kind. They made their way to the structure, converging at roughly all four corners. Their progress was deliberate and insidious. They would not make a spectacle of their presence.

William had the barest sense of unease. He hoped that Julia's abilities continued to lie dormant. If they awoke during her acquisition, that would change things dramatically.

Such a change would be very bad for all. Blood Singers were unpredictable at best. At worst, they were dangerous.

He hoped that Pierce and the others would heed his warning:

“Be vigilant. Be aware. They may have scented her hours ago. They may already be in the area. Werewolves.”

*

Julia's eyes rolled wildly beneath lids that were clenched in horror.

She was watching what had happened that fated evening as a movie before her.

Her subconscious replay unrolled, unbidden and uninvited, and she watched.

*

The werewolf had moved into full view of the teenagers, not in a crouch but as a half-man, half-wolf creature, only partially changed. His advantage as a soldier of the Were was his form.

He and the other soldiers of his race were aptly suited for the acquisition of Rare Ones. For that task, he would need to subdue the others. His keen sight, albeit only in shades of gray and black, assisted him in his forward motion.

Immediately, he allowed his senses to take in the threats. His night vision allowed him to acclimate automatically, dismissing the glow of the fire. His nostrils flared, bringing the myriad of scents necessary for successful acquisition.

If he had been in human form, he would have laughed. One of the males might have posed a problem if he had been coupled with his comrade, who stood beside the target. But he lay prone beneath a human female. A female clearly in heat, the werewolf scented.

He would dispatch him first then move on to the primary target—the mate of the Rare One.

This assessment took mere seconds.

From Julia's perspective, the werewolf's attack had taken hours.

As if in slow motion, the creature had leaped forward in one long stride. The muscles underneath the dove-gray fur were a ripple of sinew and tendon, perfectly synchronized—and uniquely suited for harm and brutality.

Cynthia screamed when she looked up at the muzzle of the strange beast. Yellow eyes blazed out of its face as it flew through the air, body seemingly suspended. She tried to scramble off of Kevin, but he was already reacting, pushing her away.

And then Kevin was buried underneath a monster—a thing of legend come to life, the heat of the fire at his back. He tried to roll the creature off of him, using the thing's momentum against it, but it was steel and fur with Kevin pinned underneath it.

Kevin looked desperately at Cyn, and he yelled at her to run. And then his head was severed from the column of his neck, blood spouting out in a spray that splattered Cynthia, who lay on the sand behind him. She closed her eyes as the droplets of copper splashed her face. Then she opened them and looked at Julia, stunned, vomit dribbling from her mouth. Julia screamed for her friend.

Then Jason was there. He rammed the twisted metal rod they used for marshmallow roasting into the creature's side, and it reared back from Kevin's body with a howl, backhanding Jason as if he were as insubstantial as a feather.

Jason grunted as he landed on the sand six feet or so behind the creature. Then the werewolf was on him, and he shouted, “Julia, run!” before the beast sank its talons his neck with its talons, squeezing.

Julia felt her bladder spasm even as she ran to Jason's side, ignoring his directive. He was her husband.

The thing with fur, standing over seven feet tall on its hind legs, had a hand that was half paw and all talons, encircling the delicate flesh of Jason's neck. His other hand rose in a high arc, readying to deliver the killing blow, claws like spears poised.

“No!” Julia screamed.

Its eyes shifted to hers as she ran to Jason. It seemed to pause.

Then the hand swept down, the nails like knives glinting in the dying light of the fire.

In a blur of light gray, something barreled into the werewolf.

But not before a second mouth of gore opened in Jason's throat, blood welling and falling as his neck was opened in a deep slash of crimson.

Julia ran to her husband, sliding in the sand on her knees as she crumpled beside him. Tearing off her jacket, she ignored the rawness and finality the wound represented, crushing the soft material against it in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

She could hear the creature fighting. She didn't know who or what it was fighting against, but she dared not look behind her. The sound of meaty flesh being battered was all around her. The lapping of the waves did nothing to silence the music of their violence.

Her eyes met Jason's. She saw his death in them.

“Run,” he said out of his ruined esophagus.

Tears ran down her face in a stream, never stopping. “Shh… don't… talk, Jason.” Her voice trembled so badly she could hardly speak.

His eyes urged her to escape even as she stayed. Cyn wailed something in the background, but Julia couldn't make out the words. She realized belatedly that shock was settling in like an old friend, and she recognized it. Oh yes, she did.

It was hauntingly familiar.

She thought of the crash that had stolen her family.

Julia heard a sound and looked up.

A man met her gaze, his hands buried wrist deep in the bowels of the creature that had attacked Jason. The gore splatter reached his shoulders, and his hands were entwined in the thing's entrails, which were like bloody worms that pulsated and glowed pearlescent in the firelight. Julia swallowed, his deep-cranberry gaze the last thing she saw as she turned her face away, heaving the contents of the airplane food as far away as she could from Jason's body. Her quaking hands pressed the cloth against his wounded throat.

Julia felt heat coalesce, rising from her feet and eclipsing at the roots of her hair, and she collapsed in a dead faint next to her fallen husband.

*

The Rare One's hands fell away from the wound, and the blood came alive again, soaking the cloth of her hoodie, turning it from gray to black.

The full moon rode the sky over them, a cruel governess.

The vampire runners closed in and scooped up the limp body of the Rare One.

The acquisition had been a success.

They left in stealth, as they had arrived.

*

Julia's eyes snapped open, her mouth clamped to stifle the scream that had almost erupted. Tears that had dried in sticky lines on her cheeks were the evidence of a dream she had hoped to never face.

A nightmare.

She was so tired she ached. Looking at the glowing red numbers of the clock, she saw that she'd only been asleep for a few hours. It read 2:16 a.m.

She held her body still and listened. The sense of unease she had felt earlier deepened. Julia knew that something was wrong when she heard the barest noise in the hall. But it was the primal alert sounding off inside her breastbone that told her what had found her.

Vampires.

They had come. She had to get out of the building.

She rose, shoving her feet into her shoes. She didn't even put on pants. She ran to the window and lifted it silently, the breeze ruffling the hem of her nightshirt, raising goose flesh on her skin in a rush. She looked down. The lawn was at least fifteen feet below her. She didn't think it was jumpable.

But as her skin began to itch in warning, she knew that it was a matter of time before they had her. She surveyed her room quickly. If she survived tonight, she could return in the daylight, when the vamps would have to rest, and retrieve her things.

She fingered the ring on her neck like a talisman.

Julia looked down again and, closing her eyes, crouching on the windowsill, she shoved off. She sailed through the air, preparing herself for the landing, her hair unraveling behind her.

As the ground rushed toward her, Julia tried to brace her fall but landed hard, rolling on her ankle as she fell. She screamed deep in her throat as ribs were bruised and her ankle sprained. Her head had landed on the soft ground with an impact that would have crushed it had it been a hard surface.

Driven by fear, Julia leaped to her feet, swaying while her vision remained in triplicate. Her ankle shrieked in protest as she began a hobbling run. Her goal: the woods that bordered the back of the property. She made the tree line, her lack of adequate clothing making her shiver just shy of having her teeth chatter. She didn't want that.

They would hear.

Julia entered the forest, dragging her leg behind her, clutching her ribcage as she jogged in an ungainly lurch.

*

William palmed the lock on the door, thankful that it was of vintage origin. Those almost always yielded to his influence. The tumblers shifted against one another smoothly and unlocked at his behest. He opened the door and was greeted by the sight of gauzy curtains, like taunting fingers, waving their mocking salute to him and the other runners.

“She is gone,” Pierce said.

“She could not have gone far,” Andrew said for only the vampires to hear.

Robert shrugged. “We track her. It is not difficult—she is but a girl.”

William turned glittering eyes to Robert, a newer runner. “I am sure that is what the Were are considering, even as we speak it.” He made his way to the window that Julia had escaped from. As he gazed down, he estimated the distance as perhaps five meters—too great a fall for one of her stature and disposition.

Blood Singer or no, she was but an evolved human swathed in fragility.

He turned in profile, the moonlight chiseling his features like marble. “She will be injured. Slow. Let us make haste. Moonlight is wasting.”

The runners converged at the window. William leaped from inside the small room, exiting the portal with lithe grace, crouched in midair. He landed with the barest hop, his nose skyward.

His head snapped down, and his face turned to look behind and away from the building.

The woods stood in unrelieved black, jagged points meeting the sky scape. William felt the vampires land at his back, fully fed, energized to pursue. He thought of Julia, precious and vulnerable. Alone.

He hovered over the possibility of the Werewolvesʼ presence. Without turning, William took the lead, running headlong, following the Rare One's scent like a moth to a flame, her fragrance a bell ringing like a clear chime for him to hear.

Only him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Were

Joseph used his eyesight in the gloom as the tool it was, piercing the darkness like a laser. He searched for their salvation. Lost over a year ago to a number of blunders, she would not be unrecovered again. With five Were, they had the upper hand since the vamps generally traveled by quad.

And they were closing in fast.

The girl was crashing through the brush. They waited for her to stumble into the meadow where they stood.

She would fall into their arms like a ripe plum. Joseph restrained a howl, turning his luminescent gaze to his first, Anthony, who nodded back, his muzzle lifting slightly, revealing teeth honed for tearing, biting, and killing.

The other three Were flanked them, partially obscured by trees. They blended so well that it would take one of the supernaturals to see them without night-vision goggles or some such.

Joseph growled softly. “The blood drinkers draw close, as well.”

Tony snorted. “Let them come.” His paws tightened into cruel fists, his talons still short but battle lust imminent.

Joseph's primary enforcer was fearless and not nearly as controlled as himself. He'd need to dig deep within himself for control once he was faced with a Rare One. Such beings brought out the very basest primal urges with the Were. Tony had scoffed when they'd told him that. But he had never been on the acquisition of a Rare One—only Blood Singers. It was not the same. The comparison could be made that it was like an appetizer of crackers as opposed to caviar.

They waited.

As the breath stilled in their bodies, Julia burst out of the haven of the woods, the fingers of the branches reluctantly releasing her from their care.

Her injuries assaulted the acute olfactory senses of the Were, alerting and arousing them simultaneously. They advanced toward her position.

*

Julia

Julia rushed forward, her foot tangling on a root as she ran and she fell, her palms biting into the dirt. The needles and branches scraped her palms without mercy. She threw herself into running again, the fir boughs whipping her as she tore through, the smell of cedar filling her nose.

Her lungs burning, Julia could see through the gaps in the trees. An open meadow was just ahead. She ran toward the clearing. If she could just get out of these woods, she'd be free.

She threw herself past the tree line, her breathing ragged, her ankle a throbbing stump she dragged along. Julia was met by five werewolves. This time, she knew exactly what they were.

Their eyes bored into hers, and she felt something integral shift inside her and the open, a flicker of emotions assailing her.

It took Julia but one confused moment before she understood that she was tuning into one of the Were soldiers within the tight group, whose emotions were leaking on her like a wayward radio signal.

She felt lust, power, and greed—not in that order. She turned to run back into the safety of the woods and was met by William and his team.

Trapped.

They walked out of the forest's border at a smooth and unhurried gait.

Julia felt her bowels hiccup. Her palms instantly glazed with sweat, her throat threatening to close. She felt a fear so profound she couldn't breathe.

The runners didn't look at her. Rather, they looked beyond her to the Were.

Julia began to shake. She had nowhere to go and could feel anger from the vamps and a primal surge of adrenaline from the Were. The emotions collided, with her in the middle of them.

She was their emotional sandwich.

Overwhelmed, she collapsed to her knees, a pain in her chest. She met William’s eyes. They flicked to hers then locked back onto the Were. She began to crawl away, tears dropping to the grass that was already drenched with dew. The wetness soaked her knees and the hem of her nightshirt. Julia was suddenly struck with the fact that she was out in the middle of nowhere in a strange place with nine creatures of legend, and she was half-naked.

She flipped over and, in one motion, pulled the shirt over her knees to the tops of her feet. Her teeth did chatter then. Her ankle throbbed with the beat of her heart.

Julia watched one of Were step forward. She knew instinctively that he was their leader. William circled him. Their talons, almost identical, slid out from the tips of their fingers. In the moonlight the vampire's looked black and the werewolf's a light sable.

“Save yourself, Blood Drinker. No one need know that you released the Rare One this night,” the Were ground out, the timbre of his voice sounding full of gravel.

William smiled. “We would never let this one go. We lost sight of her for one moment.” He spread his hands, feigning reason, and continued. “She is our salvation.”

“Ours as well. We can breed her. What do you offer?” The Were asked this as a statement, his teeth revealed in a snout that was almost human except for the teeth like ivory razors—ready to close at the least provocation.

“It is an impasse, then?” William asked, already crouching.

The Were backed away, swishing his tail as a command.

With a gnashing of teeth, the Were sprung on the vampire, and a war of fang and claw began.

Julia watched in horror as the vampires began to fight for their lives, outnumbered five to four.

She was the prize they fought over, an injured and sodden mess, huddled in a ball with fear riding her like a shroud of mist as an uncertain dawn approached.

*

William

William sprang, fangs unsheathed, launching himself at the leader of the Were. Wrapping himself around the torso of the beast like a steel vise, he sank his fangs deep, the foul taste of its flesh like acid in his mouth. He hung on tenaciously.

Even as Joseph sank all ten talons along his vulnerable flank, William worried the Were's shoulder, grinding his teeth closer to the vulnerable bone that lay beneath.

Joseph stifled a howl of rage. He launched his claws into the vampire's side, digging deep. He lifted William into the air, as if he were lifting a flagon by its handle, and flung him away, releasing and retracting his claws as he did. The vampire landed with a practiced roll and sprang upright, blood trails leaking everywhere.

Like ten minigeysers, they flowed, the blood resembling black oil in the moonlight.

*

Joseph howled in triumph—the drinker was wounded quite badly. But the Were was distracted as one of his soldier's head's flew by in his peripheral vision like an errant bowling ball. His nostrils flared, and he was stung by the awful smell of another drinker quite close. Joseph gave an instinctual evasive lean as claws missed his exposed throat by millimeters. He reacted even as he leaned, swiping his right paw in an upward arc, releasing the full length of his claws as he did. The talons sprang from the stubs of his fingers and gutted the vamp as he leaped to finish the swipe that had not been true.

The second vampire's face had a surprised look as Joseph held him suspended, midleap. Joseph retracted his claws, and the vamp fell at his feet on the long grass of the meadow. With his left hand, he made the final cut to sever the head.

That bastard drinker could have healed a disembowelment. He can heal nothing without a head, Joseph thought with brief satisfaction.

The head rolled to join the fallen Were, and Joseph turned in the melee, blood spray and gore littering the pathway as he began to move toward the girl. Belatedly, he realized that Tony had already made his way to her against express orders.

Joseph was the only Were allowed to touch the girl.

Already, Joseph could smell Anthony's unshakable lust, riding an unstoppable urge. He would crush the girl if he reached her first.

The sharp claws of Joseph's feet sprung from the pads, spearing the soft earth beneath him. He spun, using his finely honed balance. On the balls of his feet, he surged forward, each paw landing, gripping, and shoveling a spray of dirt behind him.

Even with his incredible speed, he could see he wouldn't reach the girl in time. For the first time as a soldier of the Were, he experienced an emotion he had only heard about: fear.

And underneath that, panic.

*

Julia

Julia thought she'd known terror. She thought she'd tasted it.

She had not.

Sheer horror took hold of her now. Something even scarier than William approached, though not at a dead run. The creature advanced with purpose, a light in eyes that glowed in the pale moonlight like a cat's.

They were fixed on her with a look she couldn't recognize. Finally, as he was almost upon her, she could read his face and knew what his expression meant.

He looked as if he wanted to consume her.

Julia gave in to her intense fear, screaming so loudly her voice left her, and then hoarse shouts were all she could give out.

She scooted backward on her haunches with an energy she didn't realize she possessed. Her modesty forgotten, she scuttled back like a spider, using just her hands and feet.

Still, he came.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

William

William’s sides burned as if on fire. The wounds inflicted by the Were were deep, the poison released from Were talons flowing through his system, weakening him.

He needed blood.

And his group was outnumbered. Andrew was gone.

He heard a hoarse voice, hysteria riding it like fine wine. Normally, a scream like that one would have incited a tornado of blood lust but not tonight.

The girl at the source of the screaming was his to protect with his life—by any means necessary.

William shifted into the form that would allow him to travel faster. That ability was his only gift, the single thing that separated him and identified him as having the blood of a Singer running through his veins.

His injured body fought the change. William forced it upon himself, his body losing shape and molding into that of a raven. It was twice the size of the majestic bald eagle.

His eyes remained deep cranberry, a color not found in nature. His ebony wings unfolded to a span of nearly ten feet. He rose, partially healing as he lifted from the ground, his clothes in a shredded pile at his feet. Lack of blood, coupled with injury, made William sway in the air. His focus sharpened when he was greeted with the image of Julia struggling in the brutal embrace of the Were.

The creature was clearly in the grip of breeding lust.

William pointed his sharp beak at the pair. Folding his huge wings against his body, he sailed down like an onyx torpedo.

*

Julia

Julia sprung to her feet just as Tony grabbed at her. She did a move that surprised both of them: using her elbow—the hardest part of her body—as a weapon, she jerked it up into the half-human face that was so close to her. Tony unknowingly helped by leaning into her just as she jabbed it forward.

Her elbow connected with his jaw, and it stunned him for a moment.

Julia spun and began to run. Her ankle screamed, and she ignored it. Something grabbed her hair from behind and lifted her off the ground, making her scalp shriek and burn. Torquing her neck, the Were wrapped hands around the strands and drew her against his body, almost tenderly. She could feel the strength in those hands, and she knew they could crush her windpipe.

The Were's other hand tore her nightshirt collar to hem, using only the tip of one claw.

It fell at their feet in a pile, and he moved his hold from her neck to wrap her upper arms.

“I will breed you, Blood Singer,” it growled out between impossibly long teeth.

Julia was fully panicked now. Looking down, she saw the part that made him male in full view. She used her hand like a weapon, clawing at his face and kicking out. He shook her so hard her teeth rattled, and she saw stars, her head lolling about on the stem of her neck like a fragile flower.

Out of her trembling side vision, Julia felt air rush past her, and another of his kind bore down on the first, making him release his hold. The claws slid away without purchase. Julia fell to the grass, her knees bending under her like a folding chair.

As she gazed up at the night sky, the sounds of tearing flesh, along with growling and yipping, reverberated in her ears, and a great black shape appeared above her.

Julia lay there, the wetness of the grass soaking through her panties and camisole.

She saw that the shape was a great bird, whose eyes watched her as it hovered overhead in ebony glory, revealed in outline by the full moon.

She didn't even scream when its talons pierced her shoulders, lifting her into the air. The pain was a numbing horror as unconsciousness washed over her body.

The last thing Julia remembered was an unearthly howl of anguish.

Then there was only blackness, the pain in her shoulders a trail tht beat after her.

*

Joseph

Joseph closed his muzzle with a snap, the howl echoing in the openness of the clearing. The small body of the Rare One was clutched to the drinker like a dark token in the sky.

One Were and one vampire lay in bloody heaps, his first on the ground, heaving from exertion and in the throes of shaking off the breeding lust—with difficulty.

The fool.

The remaining vampires bled back into the forest seamlessly, their bodies melding so closely with the shadows that their forms were indecipherable.

Another failed mission.

He looked at Tony with unveiled disgust. Maybe it would have gone similarly without this transgression. He did not know. What he did know was the drinker had shifted. Joseph's intel had not discovered that skill amongst the runners. He must have Singer blood running in his veins.

The rat bastard.

They needed that Singer badly—before a fully blooded vampire could breed her, a practice the Were had heard about as rumored legend only.

Joseph was beginning to wonder if there was some truth to it.

He jerked his head at the three remaining Were, indicating their dead comrade.

They hefted the body. The vampire's remains lifted in the light breeze like a pile of ash at the mercy of the wind.

Joseph and the others turned to go, Tony bringing up the rear, his hand buried in the hair of the fallen Were, carrying the head like a macabre purse. He felt Tony's unfriendly stare on his back, malice taking shape behind him like slow-moving poison, insidious and progressive.

*

The Kiss of Seattle

Burning.

On fire.

Julia was on fire.

Her eyes popped open and she wanted to scream. Instead, out of a mouth so parched her lips were cracked, she moaned. Her shoulders were one burning mass of flesh.

She cracked open an eyelid and saw fuzzy shapes moving silently around the room in filtered ambient light.

A presence came close to her, and she flinched. “Shh, you're safe,” a female voice said.

Right, Julia thought in exhaustion. She hadn't felt safe since the day Jason died.

Another blurry person— a male who made Julia feel a sense of comfort— came to stand next to the female.

“We will have to put that shoulder back.”

Julia watched as they looked at one another, her vision doubling.

She felt a gentle hand at her wrist and a bulging piece of cloth placed in her armpit. A fist was wedged up underneath it, and as Julia's arm was pulled, the fist punched upward. She shrieked. The pain was at once piercing and awful.

Julia sank back into unconsciousness with a hitching sob.

*

William looked down at her, his hand sliding from its placement underneath her shoulder. The joint was back in its rightful place, and the pinched look she had worn since her arrival was gone.

He breathed out.

“She is so frail,” Claire said.

William took in Julia's bizarre hair color, the paleness of her skin, the touch of blue in her nostrils and lips.

“You will need to give her more blood.” Claire's eyes searched his, troubled.

“Every drop I give her binds us tighter.”

“Perhaps, but if you don't, she will heal humanly slow. In agony.” Her eyes moved over the telltale mark on the girl's forehead.

William scowled. Claire seemed to know things that she should not. She knew what his life's goal had been.

What it had always been. His hope was written in the Book of Blood—the vampire equivalent of the Bible. A Rare One would save the race from the brink of extinction. A union between a vampire of Singer descent and a Rare One would bring the tenuous hope of offspring.

William wanted that quite badly—children who were as strong as vampires, possessing all the abilities but without the need to drink blood, living feral in the cover of darkness. Yes—who would not wish for that and long for it?

Julia bore the mark. A half-moon-shaped scar like a small kiss of flesh hovered at her temple. It was the symbol of the Rare One. It looked very much like the moon—pure white.

William’s hands balled into fists, guilt sweeping over him as he took in the gauze dressings, already discolored by Julia's blood.

He had almost torn her shoulders off in flight. When she'd fainted, well… it had been a near disaster. Her dead weight had hung like meat off a hook. He held his eyes closed, willing the image of her broken body to disappear. He had brought her into the bowels of the underground—the forgotten city that lay beneath Seattle.

The lair of his kiss.

He looked above him, watching the feet of the passing pedestrians as they walked over glass that was a foot thick. Scuffed and cloudy, it had a vague purple hue, garnered by a century of sunlight he would never behold.

He sighed and looked at Claire, who had stubbornly folded her arms across her chest. The granddaughter of a Rare One, she should have been renamed Stubborn One.

William came by his own tenacious streak honestly: Claire was his cousin.

His fangs elongated, and he placed the twin points against his wrist. Sweeping sideways, he made a clean cut like two, razor-thin lines, and blood welled, almost black.

Squeezing his wrist to prompt the flow, he used his other hand to massage Julia's throat. As the drops fell, her full lips parted, and the first trembling drop held itself suspended for a moment like a glittering gem then fell.

As the blood found its way inside her mouth, she stirred, her throat convulsing and swallowing. Without waking, her hands moved to the offered forearm, small and like carved ivory against even his pale flesh. her grip was weak as a kitten's.

William leaned closer, the pull of her mouth against his flesh an erotic tether that bound him to her.

She drank, and William resisted his impulses.

They were many.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Julia awoke naturally, her body aching. As she became aware incrementally, her internal system didn't hum with fear but with a subtle calmness.

She never felt calm.

Her eyes snapped open and were met by a stare that matched her own. She had never known anyone to have eyes the same shade as hers and was momentarily speechless.

Julia tried to sit up, and the room spun. The arm of the woman who that stare belonged to rose and pressed her back against the pillows that were stacked behind her.

She opened her mouth to speak, and the woman stood, leaning forward. She pressed a cup with a straw against Julia's chapped lips. “Drink. You're dehydrated.”

Julia drank. It was the best water she'd ever had. It was refreshingly chilled, and it coated her parched throat like the first spring rains in the desert.

She tried to gulp, but the woman took the cup away when Julia would have had more.

“Small sips. We don't want that stomach of yours giving up the blood inside you.”

Julia's expression changed, and the woman saw it. “Don't even start, Julia.”

Julia narrowed her eyes, and the woman said, “The only reason you're not on that bed writhing around in pain is because of the blood William gave you.” She cocked an eyebrow.

“I'll bet,” Julia croaked out, her voice raw from screaming.

“He didn't want to.” The woman stood. “I forced him. It's bad enough for you to transition into our coven. We don't need an injury slowing that assimilation. ”

She looked at Julia. “I'm Claire.”

Julia nodded in greeting. Claire obviously knew who she was.

Julia felt a comfort in her presence, true. But she had reason to distrust her. She could sense what was around her: vampires.

And not a few. They were legion.

*

Joseph

Maggie fussed over Tony. Joseph would have left his small injuries alone. Let him deal with them. He continued to seethe as she ministered to the long gashes that crisscrossed Tony's torso. She was disinfecting the open wounds.

Vampire venom was poisonous. Joseph smiled, thinking of the one he'd speared with his claws. The vampire would be feeling some serious pain. Delirium would be his friend as he flew with the Rare One. A troubling thought occurred to him: what if that vampire had injured the Singer in his pain-induced stupor?

Maggie stood back, critically looking at the dressed wounds. “I think you may live another day.” She clucked like a mother hen.

Joseph looked at her, his anger softening. It was not her fault that he was pissed at Tony. She was doing her job—attending to the Were soldiers. There was one less tonight. His headless body cooled in a shed on the Were compound. Lawrence would want a full report, and then a ceremony for the fallen comrade would be arranged.

It fell to Joseph to explain to Colton's widow the news that her mate was gone. Joseph hung his head.

After a long moment of reflection, he planted massive hands on his jean-clad thighs. Standing, he stared at Tony, waiting until Maggie bustled out of the room. He watched her walk away and turned to Tony, stabbing a finger in his direction. “I have duties to attend to, but you will answer to Lawrence. Our Packmaster will be made aware of what you elected to do—allowed yourself to do. It is you who jeopardized this mission.”

“You can't blame me for everything,” Tony said with derision, his upper lip curling back slightly.

Joseph came forward, and Tony sprang to his feet. They crashed into each other, knocking a lamp off an end table. As it slammed to the floor, shards flying everywhere, Joseph took the six-foot-three Tony down in an armlock that drove his elbow into the other man's sternum, the windpipe compromised. Joseph felt the change hovering in a dim corner of his brain, and his vision changed, his facial bones rearranging in a disconcerting claylike movement that had the room filling with the sounds of their shifting and tendons popping into their new arrangement.

But it was just his face and hands that changed. The rest of Joseph remained as it was. He slowly removed his arm from the throat of the soldier who had acted on impulse. Joseph replaced it with his transformed hand—a claw nearly a foot long in variegated and mottled browns, creams, and tans.

“I can, and I will blame you,” Joseph said on a growl, his throat partially changed, his teeth gleaming with killing intent in a mouth that now had a muzzle covered in gray fur.

His gold eyes, round and large in his wolf form, peered at Tony. “You were without control so near the Singer. You begged me for this assignment but refused to be desensitized.”

“I would not harm her!” Tony growled back, mindful of his own change, which bore down on him enough to make sweat bead on his upper lip. The restraint he employed made him ugly.

“Rape is harm!” Joseph barked at Tony.

“We are meant to breed her!” Tony said, exasperated.

“Not without the ceremony. Not without the proper testing. She cannot be with any wolf. She must be properly matched, properly mated. Do you not see?”

Tony did not. He narrowed his eyes on his Alpha. He would give anything to be the Alpha. He could not think for the scent of the Singer. How had Joseph stood it?

One day the position would be his—by whatever means necessary.

There was a noise by the door, and Adriana rushed in, landing a solid kick to Joseph's side with her full werewolf strength. His rib bruised instantly, robbing him of some of his breath.

“Goddammit! Adriana! It's not what it looks like!” Joseph said, removing the threatening claw from Tony's throat and leaping to his feet, one hand on his rib.

“Oh! You aren't over-disciplining one of our wolves?” His sister yelled at him from a foot shorter. Her eyes flashed, and her small hands were planted on her hips. “Get rid of that ridiculous half-wolf face you're sporting, and get your ass to Lawrence's chamber this instant!”

Tony smirked, and Joseph whipped his head in Tony's direction and gave a low growl. Tony's smile faded.

“Ugh. You dummy! Why don't you just pee on him and get it over with? That's not how you do it. Watch me—you know, your smarter sibling.”

Adriana turned to Tony, who she was not nuts over, but fair was fair. “Tony, would you please go to Lawrence within the next half hour and give him a full report of what happened on the mission?”

Tony struggled to his feet, giving as neutral a look to his Alpha as he could manage. “Happy to.” His stare spoke volumes.

Joseph sighed, his ribs squawking with the movement. “Adriana, you weren't there. You didn't participate in the mission…”

Her ponytail bobbed as she nodded her head. “Right, because I am a lowly female!” Her face reddened.

There was no way that Joseph wished to engage in this tired argument again. If she had been male, she would have been Packmaster. As it was, she practically ran the den.

Their father had made him promise to watch over her. It was essentially a full-time job. And she was vaguely nose-blind. His nose was the keener of the two, and he wished that she'd trust him. She let her emotions run her actions sometimes—such as now.

“Adi—” he began.

“No.” She stomped her foot. “Tony is injured.” She swung her palm toward Tony, who was all but healed. After she turned back to Joseph, Tony grinned.

Sometimes wolves needed to sort things out physically. Too bad the females were not seeing that necessity. Joseph was the Alpha, so he saw it.

He regretted what he had to do. He opened his jaws wide and latched them onto her vulnerable neck, growling low in his throat.

“Argh,” Adriana yelped. Joseph was careful not to break the skin. As she thrashed around, he subtly followed her movements so her skin would not tear. She grew still.

He unclamped his muzzle, regarding her with eyes like spun gold, his gaze gentle but stern. “Let me be Alpha, sister.”

She rubbed her throat, where many small red indentations marred the creaminess of it.

Tony was silent, letting the two siblings hash it out.

“This is how an Alpha operates,” Joseph said. “You are Alpha as well—it should not come as a surprise.”

“Ugh! You're so unreasonable! Such a he-man! Hate it!” She flung her arms up in the air and stomped off.

That went so well.

Joseph sighed, making his ribs twinge.

“Move, soldier.” He pointed ahead of him, and Tony walked that way.

Joseph followed the blazoned path his sister had scorched on her way out, moving to the Packmaster's chamber for debriefing.

What a joyous occasion would be had by all, he thought, as his face and hands melded back into their human mask.

*

Homer, Alaska

Detective Truman was crouched down on his haunches, letting pewter sand run through his fingers. It was a year later, and he still couldn't get the scene out of his mind. The blood, the body… the aftermath.

They were still no closer to solving the crime than when they first began. Truman stood, looking out over the vast ocean, the snow-capped mountains of the Kenai Fjords in ominous grace, a backdrop to a tousled sea that had whitecaps everywhere he looked. He sighed, standing and kicked a large pebble. It bounced off a large piece of driftwood. The stains of blood that covered the wood had come to look like so much spilled coffee with the passage of time.

He'd go by the girl's apartment. He liked to visit Cynthia Adams.

She never got angry at his questions—unlike the Caldwell family. He couldn't force their cooperation, but he would have thought they'd want to find out who took their daughter-in-law. But they didn't want to know. They no longer had a son, they'd said. And they'd certainly never considered Julia Wade part of their family.

Technically she was his wife. The marriage license had been validated and duly noted.

She was Julia Caldwell now, wherever she was.

If she was even alive.

Detective Karl Truman hiked up the small ravine, swiping branches aside. Some of the larger ones were broken off at the trunk, sap covering their amputated stumps. He didn't pause in his climb to wonder what might have snapped a branch the size of a man's wrist off at the base.

The police looked for rational explanations to murder and disappearance.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Julia was working into a routine of sorts, steering clear of the vampire that had “saved” her. Her arms were functioning again, and she had full rotation. The scars from the talons were almost gone.

She looked in the mirror, running a finger over the shiny pink wounds. They faded each day. Julia would brush her teeth, and her eyes would move back to the reflection of them in the glass like a magnet to steel.

She knew more than she had before, and she wished she didn't.

There was no escaping this place. She felt the inevitability of her circumstances closing in around her, and it gave her an almost suffocating feeling of claustrophobia.

Julia tapped the toothbrush on the edge of an old-fashioned pedestal sink, shedding the remaining water from the bristles. She turned the spigot sharply to the left, and the water dried up, a shaky drop falling and hitting the basin with a dull plop. She skewered one of the four holes in the toothbrush holder— attached to the wall—with the base of the brush, and without looking at her reflection again, she walked away.

Julia knew the routine. Claire would knock as she entered the room. They'd have breakfast together. Julia would fight panic attacks, and Claire would lend some of that calm she had in abundance, and Julia would live another day.

But she was just existing. She was good at inhaling and exhaling. She'd become an expert at that since Jason had died.

The vampires were biding their time. Julia knew they were grooming her, and she knew what she was now—she was some prophesied genetic key that would unlock the prison of their existence. She was the answer to them not being vampires anymore. Julia didn't really think it was that damn simple, but they fed her what they wanted her to know, their version of what was happening.

To listen to Claire explain it, it was some kind of honor. But she'd heard one of the vampire guards discussing humans.

Humans were cattle to them.

Food load. Without humans, the vampires would starve to death.

The Blood Singers were an essential element to the genetic diversity of the humansʼ blood. Without this superior faction, intermixed with the regular population, the blood quantum, the quality of the blood quantum would be compromised.

In essence, Blood Singers brought the quality of the blood to a level that made all human blood palatable to the vampires.

While vampires were ruled by blood and darkness, the Were were ruled by the moon. She was a jealous mistress, governing their changes at her whim. And that whim was when she was full. No more, no less.

Julia's lessons had begun. Through Claire, Julia began to understand her role and why she never would have been allowed to live with Jason as a spouse.

Blood Singers did not intermarry. The purity of their blood was needed to balance the precious blood quantum. Mating with each other would upset that balance.

Singers were so rare that it was typically not a problem. Claire had mentioned a figure: one one-hundredth of a percent of the global population. That meant Blood Singers numbered around nearly seven hundred thousand souls. That seemed like a lot to Julia, but spread over the seven continents, it was barely sustaining the vampires. They existed in greater numbers.

That was why the two factions had converged on their group at the beach. They would never have allowed the union. She and Jason had married in secret. But the vampires had been watching, and they accelerated their plan because of Jason and Julia's elopement.

Julia guessed the plan hadn't included Jason's death.

Claire had explained Julia's parents—in detail. Both Blood Singers, they had been taken before they could have more children.

It hadn't been an accident, but providential.

As it happened, the one child they did produce was a daughter.

The manifestation of their combined recessive genes was Julia.

She was the Rare One, the unique female, promised to change the face of the races, able to produce Lightwalkers. If bred to the Were, their offspring would be moonless changers. The moon's control would be gone after several generations, the compulsion to be her slave no longer there—bred out.

Julia felt like the prized mule.

Then there were the supposed abilities. Supernatural abilities. She thought about the conversation she'd had with Claire the previous day.

*

“How can you stand it? Living here… with them?” Julia had asked, her arms folded across her chest, rubbing her skin as if she were cold. She wasn't cold, just freaked out and unhinged. Everything Claire had told her reverberated around in her skull like a pin ball.

Rare One? Blood Singers? One of hundreds of thousands of people?

“I have little choice. This is the place that I have come to belong. I've been here many years.”

“What about my parents? Were they expendable? And Jason?” Julia spoke in a low voice, her arms by her sides, trembling slightly in her anger.

Claire lifted a shoulder. “It is not typical. One in ten thousand is a Singer. That your parents found one another… that you found and married a Singer…” She looked at Julia. “It's unprecedented.”

Wonderful. Julia's parents were dead. Jason was dead. And all because vampires wanted their food all pretty and tasty.

Fancy cattle. That was all the Singers were to all of them, vampires and Were alike. Julia told Claire that.

She shook her head. “We are more. The quality of our blood and the fabric of our genetics are not the only things we have to offer, Julia.” Her eyes searched Julia meaningfully. “Have you ever had flashes of intuition? Feelings of a precognitive nature?”

Julia sucked in her breath. She'd always known who was phoning as soon as her hand touched the receiver. What the next song would be on the radio. When there'd be a pop quiz in school. Now that everyone sent texts, she'd get a vibration before it rang—not from the cell but from within her body. She'd always just chalked it up to one of those things.

It sure as hell was one of those things. It just wasn't the thing she'd been thinking.

*

Can you hear me? Claire asked. Her lips weren't moving. Icy fingers brushed inside her head and Julia shivered. The feeling of an itch not quite being scratched hovered in her brain.

“What did you say?” Julia asked out loud, sure that she was imagining things. People didn't have telepathy.

Can you do this? Claire asked, her voice breathing through Julia's mind.

I don't know, Julia replied, aiming her thoughts at Claire like a well trained archer.

She must have hit the bull's-eye because Claire smiled. I thought it might be possible. It is spoken that the Rare One will come to possess all the talents for our people.

Julia backed away, stunned. It was too much to take in. A wave of calmness stole over her, making her feel slightly numb, drugged.

“Stop doing that!” Julia yelled.

“I only wish to help. I'm part of you. We all are,” Claire said, her rich chestnut hair falling around her shoulders as she came at Julia.

Julia stumbled, falling backward. She felt something well inside of her, rushing to the surface like a bubble of oxygen sliding to the surface of a pool of water. She allowed it to leave her, bursting on Claire.

Julia hadn't meant to hurt her.

Claire looked as if an invisible ripple had plowed into her, and she slammed into the wall just inches from the hearth that boasted an old fireplace. It was full of jagged rock.

Claire slid down the wall, stunned. Julia got up off the floor, rubbing her arms again, her body flushed, her head light. She began to move toward Claire when the door slammed open, and William was there, glancing at his relative leaning against the wall where she'd been thrown. Julia hopped over the back of the couch where she'd been sitting, and he was flying over it and underneath her before she could jump to the ground.

She screamed, and he crushed her to him.

Her chest tightened painfully. The proximity to him unbearable.

She could feel it like silken tentacles pulling taut: the call of her blood to his.

The consumption of his blood was a pulsating thread that bound them—like a song, a blood song.

While the guard at the door watched, the vampire Julia hated held her against himself as if she were the most precious treasure in the world. And she knew that to him, she was.

*

Julia

Julia was goddamn done with the coven. She was considered a flight risk.

Gee, ya think?

So, they had her guarded all the time, day in and day out. There were humans, called “intimates,” who were the day slaves of the vampire underworld. They guarded her when the vampires slept. While awake, the vampires guarded her.

Julia was frustrated. She wanted to leave her room. It didn't matter that it was beautiful and all her needs were met. So what? She was little more than a bird in a gilded cage.

She and Claire had come to an uneasy truce. She would teach Julia to harness her abilities, and Julia would not use them against her. It should have been simple, but it wasn't. Julia was already planning on honing said skills and getting the hell out of the coven. She wasn't stupid, though. Julia knew that learning what those abilities were and practicing them with someone that also had them… well, it made sense. She decided to bide her time. Not that there is a plethora of options, she thought dejectedly.

Claire came to her one day with the news that she had been there a month, and it was time to meet the leader of the Seattle Coven, Gabriel.

He was Claire's brother, a Rare One.

If Julia had thought the odds of running into one of her kind slim, meeting another Rare One was even slimmer. Claire had explained that out of the almost seven hundred thousand people who were potential Singers, only one percent of those were the coveted Rare Ones.

Wonderful. Julia didn't think that her blood status had helped her in the slightest. It had just gotten the people she cared about dead. A tightening of her chest came on the heels of that marvelous revelation.

The vampires were old-school. Claire told her there would be a ball, of sorts, like an old-fashioned “coming out.” Julia would be the guest of honor—their stolen prize, the blue-ribbon winner, the prize Heifer.

They didn't need to milk her, just breed her. But to whom?

She'd never let one of the bloodsuckers touch her. It was only afterward that Claire told her William had “blood shared,” saving her indescribable agony from the wounds he'd inflicted and allowing her to heal quickly.

Not my problem. If they hadn't chased her, he wouldn't have had to use everything he had to get her here. Julia thought of the feeling of the talons piercing her flesh, her bone the next layer beneath the biting claws, and shuddered at the memory.

It was William's fault she was here.

*

Debutant

William studied his reflection, securing the matching cufflinks on his custom-made button-down. It was burgundy silk, woven against the grain to produce a slight sheen with movement. Claire said it brought out his eyes. The eyes that met his reflection were the deepest shade of red, just shy of black, his pupils inky dots in their center. But they were not always so. Depending on the circumstance, they could appear reflective and silver. He lowered his sleeves after adjusting the links just right. Sterling squares with a beveled and scalloped edge were pierced with a starburst that held a brilliant blue sapphire chip in its core—an heirloom from his father.

He sighed. Sometimes the pomp and circumstance of these ceremonies weighed heavily on him.

William thought of what Claire had told him. Julia was resistant, distrustful. In her youthful naivety, she thought that she could fool Claire into thinking she was compliant.

William had warned her this was not so. Julia had a steely resolve, never forgetting a wrong enacted upon her.

That was why those whiskey-colored eyes followed him with indifference.

Julia was not immune to the fire that burned in their veins from the blood share. Her blood called to him. She had tasted of his, so now she had a fraction of the feeling of the song that he held within himself for her.

She listened to his blood as a melody.

Her blood to him was a symphony.

There really was no comparison.

William turned from his reflection, forbidding his despair to take over. This was the Greeting Ceremony. Aside from Gabriel, there had not been one in his kiss for three centuries. That was rare indeed.

He slipped quietly out of his chamber, hesitating outside her door, apprehension at her proximity making his step falter. He drew himself together. He could not abide a slip of a girl commanding a warrior of the vampire.

William strode off, never glancing back, his desire behind him, his plan ahead.

*

Julia

Julia turned her head in midstroke of the hairbrush when she felt the familiar tightening inside her breastbone.

“What is it?” Claire asked, locking her gaze with Julia's in the mirror's reflection.

Julia unconsciously rubbed her chest as she stared at the door, her breath held in her throat. “I don't know,” she whispered.

But she did know. William stood outside the door. She was deathly afraid he'd come in.

She was even more afraid because she wanted him to.

Her body crawled with the need to be near him, the chemical aspects of the blood in her body more than they had been. Twice now, he'd given her his blood. Each time, it had been life saving. It was the quantity that mattered. When the amount of his blood in her system reached critical mass, she would be left with no choice.

Claire had explained it was part of the mating process. The fact that he had given her blood twice drove them closer to being mated, whether he was right for her or not—and whether she wanted it or not.

“After the greeting ceremony is over, then there will be a courtship within the circle of eligible vampires.”

Julia couldn't believe how ridiculous it all sounded. A little more than a year ago, she'd been a high school senior, secretly engaged and then married. It had been pretty unforgettable.

She'd been on a path of life so different from this one she could never reconcile the two, however much she thought about it.

Now, she would be handed over to the best mate in the vampire contingent—the one with whom she could produce the most desirable offspring.

“The sooner you accept your placement here, the better off you'll be,” Claire said, admiring Julia's gown.

Though trying to hide her scowl at Claire's words, even Julia had to admit it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever worn.

It was the palest champagne, almost a soft tangerine. Her ginger-colored hair shone above it. Claire had seen to it that her hair had been expertly cut around her shoulders, where it curled softly.

“We keep your hair down for the greeting. No need to be provocative this first time. It will be hard enough for them as it is.”

Right, Julia thought. The blood lust.

*

Murmured voices reached Julia's ears as she swept in with Claire, the vampire guard and Clarence, trailing behind them soundlessly.

The voices stopped instantaneously, an ominous silence filling the cavernous space. Julia looked up, not being able to help noticing a central strip of ambient light that was perfectly spaced. Large grid-like skylights lined the ceiling of where she stood. Rectangular in size, they housed many thick glass circles. Dark spots would appear above them with regularity. It was mesmerizing.

The vampires stared at her as she brought her gaze down from the ceiling peppered with glass.

A man came forward, and instantly Julia felt her body respond. It was not sexual. It was synchronicity. This man was kindred to her. She felt more related to him than she'd ever felt to her flesh-and-blood aunt.

He smiled, and it was sun breaking through clouds. For the first time since her arrival, she felt something slide into place—something that felt like home.

He was tall, and she had plenty of time to assess him as he came toward her, his copper hair slicked back and tied in a navy silk band at the nape of his neck. He had a slight accent when he said, “You are Julia.” He formed it as a statement although it was truly a question.

She nodded, the hair sliding around her bare shoulders. Her nervousness felt like a caged animal yearning for release.

“Welcome!” he said in a booming voice that echoed against the stone walls. Julia fought not to jump as she looked around and faced the crowd of vampires.

There were so many they lined the walls, some lingering in the tall, bricked archways, two feet thick, at the threshold. Julia's eyes searched the crowd. Many faces were expressionless, and a few held contempt. Julia swallowed.

The neutral faces lost that expression as they tracked the small movement of her throat like vultures circling a dying meal.

Gabriel continued, “Here is the one our warriors have brought to us—the first Rare One in three centuries, here now for the prophesied continuation of our race. It will be she who allows daywalking. And so much more.”

He turned those golden eyes—so much like Claire's, so much like Julia's—to hers.

“Please welcome Julia Wade into our kiss.” He stepped back with a flourish, and Julia sat there pegged, feeling like a butterfly pinned to a board. Examined. Scrutinized. It was beyond awkward.

She wasn't anyone's savior. Julia was herself. That was all she was.

She stepped forward. Brave beyond measure, or foolish—she didn't know which—Julia said, “It's Caldwell. Julia Caldwell.”

At that moment, she met William’s eyes, and there was anger in them. Julia was sure that he wanted her to move on with her life. The husband she loved had been dead for over a year, the relationship never consummated. Well, there's more to love than having sex. Otherwise,, there'd be a ton of people married to more than one person.

She was still married to Jason in her heart. Dead or alive, he still held it in his hands.

Warm and beating.

Her guts clenched thinking about being here. She swung her head to the leader, Gabriel.

He seemed to read her emotional barometer at that moment. “Caldwell, then. Please”—he looked over the crowd, who had begun to whisper to each other at her correction—“make Julia feel welcome amongst us.”

She sighed, giving one more glance to William, and moved to Gabriel's side, resigned but not beaten.

Never beaten.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Everywhere Julia looked, she saw blood.

It filled the elaborately cut crystal punchbowl in the center of a table, which was easily twenty feet long. Stemmed glasses of every configuration stood around it like sentinels. The color wash cleverly hid what the glasses would contain once they had been filled: blood—human blood.

The goblets looked as if they were on fire, backlit from the sconces, which lined the stone walls at a man's height—or in this case, a male vampire's.

There were not just male vampires at the event but female, as well. Not many, but they were there.

She could feel their discontent like a weight on the nape of her neck, her skin crawling with it. They were not happy with Julia's presence.

Well, neither was she. They could rein in their attitude because she didn't want to be there any more than they wanted her to be.

William came to Julia, taking her elbow, and it felt as if a match had been touched to flame, the heat of his contact with her bare arm igniting it neatly. It drove up her arm in a fine line of warmth, reaching the middle of her chest where it burst like a bubble. She gasped, catching her breath, and watched William’s jaw flutter as he clamped down on his reaction.

“Let go of me,” Julia hissed quietly.

William turned to her, hissing back, “I will not coddle you.” Her eyes narrowed on him, and he continued. “I did what I had to in order to protect you. I am so sorry you do not see what is beneath your nose.” His crimson eyes searched hers with neatly contained rage.

“I want you to at least accept that I was doing my duty. Your acquisition was something I was tasked to accomplish. It was not personal. I did not kill your husband. That was the Were's interference and was typical of their kind—no planning, just reactive brutality in the heat of passion. They could not do a job done with finesse if a gun barrel were pressed to their collective heads.”

Julia ripped her elbow out of his grasp. It made her madder when she realized he could have kept her wherever he wanted. She thought of what had happened with Claire. She immediately wanted to do the same with William. To him. But through the stone wall.

She smiled at her thoughts.

William looked at her and smiled back grimly. He could almost feel her intent, the blood union singing between them. Her thoughts were not known to him, but her emotional signature was loud and clear.

William removed his hand as if scorched. “Fine.” He leaned into her face from inches away. “Know this, Blood Singer. Everything I do, I do for you. If it were for me, it would be so different.” He ran a finger down her jawline, and Julia shivered involuntarily.

William turned on his heel and stalked off. He left Julia just inside the threshold of one of the archways with vampires everywhere. She did not know any of them, and she suddenly felt that she'd been a little too dismissive of him. She glanced around uneasily, noticing Clarence of the guard was within ten feet.

He was ghosting her movements. He'd follow her into the bathroom if she let him.

Julia wanted to tear her hair out. There was no privacy—nothing but living in a fishbowl.

Gabriel approached. He gazed at her intently for a moment, looking almost dashing in his navy suit. A crisp shirt in warm white was accented with a soft tangerine tie. Julia recognized the color immediately. It was the same as her dress. They matched.

Great.

Gabriel watched her with such tenderness that Julia dropped her eyes. She was determined to not make friends. She wanted to belong to herself.

Julia felt his finger before it touched the underside of her chin and lifted it to his gaze. “I know how you feel. I understand.”

She moved her face away as his hand fell to his side and whispered, “You don't know how I feel. Claire told me that my parents and Jason were taken because Blood Singers can't intermarry. It was only a matter of time before they would've broken Jason and me up!” Julia tried to be quiet, but many of the vampires turned their faces to her and Gabriel, the conversation ringing in their ears.

“I do not wish for this to be the place for this conversation,” he said, deftly swinging the conversation away from the heat of her anger.

Fine. So convenient for him.

Gabriel took Julia out of the archway of the pass-through. She looked behind her at a long corridor filled with many wooden doors like the one that that kept her prisoner in her chamber—thick and impenetrable.

I'll leave this place. She straightened her spine and walked away with Gabriel. He took that as acquiescence and looped her arm through his.

Julia schemed as they approached a circular group of vampires.

She plastered a phony smile on her face, hoping William would not be among the crowd. Hopefully, he was off sulking somewhere, licking the wounds she'd inflicted on him.

Julia's smile turned genuine.

*

Were

Lawrence was beyond displeased. They'd had two failed missions. The reacquisition of the Rare One would need to be executed with the utmost stealth. And the vampires would be extra vigilant after the first two attempts.

“It matters not that Tony behaved rashly. Ultimately, it was your responsibility as acting Alpha, Joseph.”

“I know that,” Joseph said.

“I don't want to see Tony receive discipline, Packmaster.”

Lawrence's nostrils flared, and his eyes changed from their standard brown to a liquid gold—the eyes they all had when the heart of the wolf beat inside their bodies.

“You speak true,” the Packmaster intoned, his eyes becoming the flat, human brown they usually were. “But he must be desensitized before the next mission.” He looked at Joseph and Tony. “Which will be soon.”

Lawrence stood straight, aware of his lean body, tall and graceful. He ran a hand through his unruly hair, and he made it worse by combing it with his fingers. He pulled a map of sorts from his desk drawer and used his tapered fingers to smooth it out.

“Come,” he told them.

They did, bending over to see what lay before them.

Joseph's face whipped up in shock. “This is where the coven is located? In the middle of downtown?”

Lawrence slowly nodded, tapping his nose. “As it has been since the great fire of 1898.”

He sighed. “My grandsire trained me when I was but a wee wolf.” Lawrence indicated a height of a human toddler. “He told me, ʻLawrence, you must know where your enemies hide.ʼ” He looked as serious as Joseph had ever seen him.

“But we don't fight them, Packmaster,” Joseph said impatiently, stating the obvious. "What is our actual plan of action?”

Tony laughed at Joseph's statement.

Joseph growled softly in his throat, heat infusing his esophagus. The change hovered, as it always did at the moon's zenith.

“We do not challenge, Alpha,” Lawrence corrected, giving Tony a growl that echoed Joseph's. Tony's eyes slid away from the both of them in a submissive response.

With a satisfied expression on his face, Joseph turned his attention back to Lawrence.

“There is a difference. You ken to what it is, eh?” Lawrence said.

Joseph nodded. “I do, but I think we'll have to beat them at their own game.” He looked at his Packmaster's face for a lingering moment then continued, “I have wolves that can gather intel and return to us with a method of acquisition for Julia Caldwell before they know what hit them.” Joseph punched a balled fist into his open palm, the sound of it filling the small space.

“Excellent. But first, you may be cognizant of the numbers.”

“We need at least fifteen strong. We outnumbered them by one and still they escaped,” Tony elaborated, speaking out of turn.

But he's right, Joseph thought. “Our numbers matter not. The one vampire had Singer blood. He shifted as an evasive tactic!”

Lawrence's brows shot to his hairline. “You would have captured her without this unexpected… event?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Tony said, and Joseph frowned.

Lawrence chuckled, looking Tony square in the eyes. “We cannot afford to lose even one soldier.” He turned his attention to his Alpha. “You are in charge of desensitizing your wolves. Do it, and do it quickly. We need to be ready for the soonest opportunity. Reconnaissance at the lair of the blood drinkers is essential. Establish time lines for their habits. Follow their intimates.”

“Yes, Packmaster,” Joseph said, but he continued to eye Tony suspiciously.

The two werewolves strode out side by side. The Packmaster watched the pair, sensing the rancor between them. He knew he had struck a match to their tempers.

That was the way of it. Tony was volatile, but if he felt he was wolf enough to take Joseph in a fair challenge, let it happen. Lawrence would not cripple his unit of soldiers because the Alpha used caution as a shield. He would force their innate aggressiveness to the forefront.

Besides, Tony was obviously wanting a higher position in the pack.

Lawrence could smell it. And his nose never lied.

*

Vampire

Julia allowed herself to be led by Gabriel's arm to the small group of vampires, their dark eyes tracking her like falcons. She could feel the material of her long gown swirl around her legs as she moved toward them, light and shadows giving their expressions a similarity to one another.

“These are your potential suitors, Julia,” Gabriel said, not even bothering to offer the introduction in a softer light.

He may as well have said, Take your pick of breeding stock.

Julia crossed her arms underneath her breasts. She was vaguely aware that the posture moved her hair away from her bosom, offering the expansive creaminess of her skin as a delicacy before the vampires who were already looking at her as though she was their favorite meal. One gasped in response to her subtle movement.

Gabriel chuckled, waggling his finger at the group. “I have said that when a female came amongst you, you would have to sit on your fangs.” He chuckled at his own joke.

Julia scowled at his words.

Not funny.

“Now, now, Julia. Don't look like that—I was simply lightening the mood.”

Julia's attention returned to the loose circle. There were five of them, all dressed similarly. One of them stood in the shadows, but then he came forward, and the ambient light from the strange glass windows of the ceiling cast light like the moon on his face, and she took a step backward. It was William.

William saw her sharp inhalation and how she retreated a step. Was he so abhorrent? Wasn't their blood share supposed to feel good to a Singer? He fought not to tighten his fists and tried to appear relaxed—even as his warrior brethren sniffed at her like the dogs of the Were. He swallowed the anger that threatened to engulf him.

Julia turned to Gabriel. “I will never consent to anyone here.” She whipped her hand around at the vampires. “I don't want to be bred. I don't care if you boys never walk in the light. Maybe there's a good reason you don't.” She looked at each face, with perfectly chiseled features made out of the same mold. Only William looked different—more human. She shoved that thought aside.

Gabriel's patience was thinning. “These are the vampires who possess the blood of a Singer in their lineage—although, you may breed with any vampire, or be mated with any. A Rare One may beget a child with any vampire. But it is the blood of a Singer that will allow the recessive genes to intermingle and produce the life blood of our coven.”

“What?” Julia nearly yelled.

“Light Bringers,” Gabriel said.

Tears threatening, Julia said, “You can't force me to do this! Why would you want to? You're a Rare One too!”

“I am not female,” he said with a logic that made her want to slap his face.

She looked around for a face that understood, finally landing on William's. His held compassion, but she didn't want that. Not from him.

She whirled away from the group, hiking the skirt up, the material a silken bunch in her fist, and ran for the archway. She slapped the first door she saw and entered a bathroom, small and private, with a love seat just inside the door. She sank down on it. She cried into her hands and abandoned all hope.

Julia didn't know what to do or how she'd escape.

She made her sobs quiet. She wouldn't give the vampires in the hall the satisfaction of hearing her sadness.

They were the cause of it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Julia dried her cheeks with a vicious swipe. Disgusted with herself and her feelings of hopelessness, she stood and walked over to the mirror. Julia looked at her red and swollen eyes, the tracks from her tears making streaks where makeup had been. Claire had insisted on that makeup.

Her hands gripped the rolled porcelain edge of the sink basin, the coolness a contrast to her body's heat.

Her head hung almost to her breastbone. How many times had Jason held her up when she felt as though she couldn't live another moment with Aunt Lily. When her constant nagging and distrust were more than Julia could bear?

Resolve took hold within Julia. She needed to get through each day here and formulate a plan. One day at a time. If she could gain their trust, even by some small measure, maybe she could find a way to escape—especially as her powers grew. Without actually causing her harm, how would they stop the advancement of her abilities?

Claire was the one who had told her she was entering her adolescence as a Blood Singer. Almost twenty seemed too old for that, but Singers lived longer.

They were immortal in some cases. Julia had not asked the burning question—the one that had trembled on her lips: Was she immortal?

Would she live forever?

It still seemed surreal. She kept going back in a mental circle to her last point of reference of a year ago, when the biggest plan was getting married to her high school sweetheart. And now she was faced with paranormal powers, vampires… werewolves. The enormity of it all was overwhelming. If the reality weren’t staring her in the face, she'd believe she was crazy.

Her skin began to crawl, prickling.

Julia jerked her head up and met the stare of a female vampire in the reflection a heartbeat before she struck, her fangs sinking into Julia's shoulder, the tips meeting her collarbone. Julia cried out, the pain greater than even the effect of William's claws had been.

“Hold her, Edna,” a male voice said casually.

The pain burned like liquid fire. Acid in her flesh.

Julia was trying to scream around the fangs as, with bulging eyes, she saw the male walk toward her. The scream died in a mouth that had become dry with fear.

He had been one of the males in the group of “choices,” she realized wildly, on the verge of hysteria.

“The female doesn't want you, fragile human. She hates you,” he said, his eyes liquid pools of silver, reflecting like dull nickels. Those eyes tried to suck her under, but Julia felt the pull slide off harmlessly.

“Thrall will not work, dolt,” another male said, meeting her eyes in the mirror. Julia saw that the bloodied wound was leaking into the bodice of her tangerine dress, turning it red. An evil sunset bloomed on the gauzy fabric.

The other male's eyes widened, and he bent over her shoulder, lapping at the blood like a cat with cream. “Ahh,” he crooned. Lap, suck, gulp. Julia watched as the male's throat convulsed. He licked at her skin while the other one watched. “Her blood is exquisite. I have never tasted the likes of it.” His eyes rolled to meet hers in the reflection, in a shade of silver so light they looked glacial.

They were going to take Julia's blood where she stood, Edna the vampire anchoring her throbbing shoulder to force her placement.

They would feed.

The other male moved in, eyeing her throat as if mesmerized, his body one tight line of tension.

Julia became desperate. She had next to no training, having about bashed Claire's brains in the other day in a reaction so pure, so unexpected the vampires had been pacing themselves since. Panicked, Julia tried to remember what it felt like to engage that telekinetic ability. It was so new to her she didn't even know where to begin—especially with her heart in her throat from sheer terror. Julia felt disjointed and lacking the cognitive reasoning for an adroit attack.

When the vampire who'd licked at her met her eyes, Julia let out all her bottled-up rage and emotions, focusing them like a spear. The hell with finesse.

Choke, she thought with a mental shove.

She launched a counter strike at vamp number one. When he staggered back, blood spewing out of his mouth, she turned her attention to number two.

Feeling an elemental push that echoed the first strike, Julia used that seething momentum and blasted the neck biter just when he would have sunk fangs into her erratically beating pulse. His head had reared back, twin spiked fangs shining like creamy pearls, prepared for the strike.

She saved herself by seconds.

The female latched onto her shoulder harder. Julia's arm went numb to the wrist and she couldn't suppress a whimper as the female gave Julia a smile around the fangs that were buried in the flesh of her shoulder.

There was a commotion outside and the door slammed open.

William’s frantic eyes met hers and in a moment of profound weakness, blood covering her upper body, the loss of it more than she could adequately fight, Julia whispered, “Help me.”

*

William

William looked around for Julia. Ah—there she went, stalking off to mope in the restroom. He sighed. He told himself for the hundredth time that she was but an infant. Still, her behavior took some getting used to. She did not see William as the protector he was. If she would but allow it, he thought, clenching his jaw.

He looked a moment longer to make sure that Clarence was a discreet distance from the restroom and went back to his conversation with Gabriel.

“Give her time, William,” the coven leader said.

“I have watched her this past year. I fear she cares not for her own life. She still mourns the husband who is no longer.” Just saying those words made William angry. He was determined to speak his mind to Gabriel. “I think she uses his death as a crutch. He has been gone for one year past. She has been told the facts of his death. The Were delivered the death blow—not vampire. She would not have been allowed the union in any event. Two Blood Singers together!”

Ridiculous.

Gabriel nodded in agreement, his expression mirroring William's own. There could not be inbreeding amongst Singers because of the negative impact on the blood quantum. And more importantly, to waste a Rare One in that way, to squander it? Not during his reign.

He clapped William on the back. “She will understand more as time goes on. Julia will come to understand that she is too rare a jewel to wander about, taking her chances in the outside world. It is here that is her destiny. Here is her safety. Also”—he looked into William's eyes—“now that her adolescence is upon her, every Were and vampire from here to the ends of the earth would smell it on her. Her childhood afforded her some protection. No longer.” Gabriel made a severe cutting gesture with his hand at the exact moment that William felt pain pierce the highest area of his shoulder.

He stood so quickly the chair that he had sat upon turned over and fell, the wood hitting the cobblestone floor with a resounding crack, echoing in the space.

William met the eyes of his fellow vampire, their faces without expression. He whipped his head in the direction of the restroom.

A lone foot could be seen sticking out of the dark corridor.

Clarence’s.

Julia was no longer under guard.

William sprinted in a burst of speed that made its own breeze, lifting the tablecloth that held the crystal and blood.

He burst through the door, the wooden frame bending under the force of the swing.

He was greeted by Julia's whiskey-colored eyes, strained and wide in her paling face. William was struck by the tears that streamed down her cheeks and the terror on her face.

William's eyes fell first on Edna, a viperous female then found the two that would have vied for the position of mate to Julia.

Two fewer contenders. He picked out the head off the interloper whose fangs were bared before Julia’s exposed throat, venom for the strike dripping off them as he prepared to strike.

The moment seemed to pause. Julia looked into his eyes with what he had longed for, had been beyond hoping for: fear filled their depths… as well as longing. She wanted him. In that moment, she gave in to the blood bond between them, and her terror made her raw to it.

He answered with a look that took mere seconds to convey.

It was her voice, though, that struck his soul like a bell that chimed.

“Help me,” she gasped out, her eyes deep pools of drowning amber.

He did not hesitate.

William punched his right hand into the back of Edna, talons extended. In gasping from the entry wounds, she inadvertently released her fangs from Julia's shoulder. Julia slid to the floor, using the pathway of the female vampire like a helpmate, her hands grasping the female's gown.

Julia rolled over onto her back, the blood from the wound running backward, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone, and dripping to the floor where her burnished red hair lay like a fan atop the stone.

William hesitated, hating to kill a female of the vampire, but she had proven to be without scruples. He tore his talons from her back, and she fell to his feet, gasping, all five nails having punctured her lungs in a most grievous manner.

William let Edna lie on the stone floor like a gasping fish. He turned his attention to the vampire whose hands were around his throat in the universal choking gesture.

What was this?

The male was choking on the blood he had consumed.

William swung his gaze to Julia, the fragrant smell of her blood filling the space, making him almost light headed with bloodlust, his throat tightening painfully.

And he was a quarter Singer.

The others would never be able to abstain from her as she lay vulnerable and bleeding.

There would be a blood riot.

The evidence of such was at his feet. The vampire he had beheaded, lying as a pile of ash and blood, was the eighth slayed.

Never having been exposed to a Rare One, they were virtually helpless before the song for her blood.

Hearing noise at the door, William turned, simultaneously moving toward Julia.

The vampires moved as a unit, talons extended, fangs sprung free of their houses of flesh.

They came to where the delectable smell of fresh blood was released—a quality without compare. It was as if a thousand-year-old bottle of wine lay breathing—on a cold stone floor mere paces away from consumption.

*

Julia

Julia looked up and saw a monster with fangs the size of her pinky fingers dripping a clear fluid tinged with red. Talons as long as her forearms stood at deadly attention.

And then, like small swords, they began to slice whoever drew near.

Their motion in a blur of darkness was too fast for her to follow. Julia became aware of moisture falling on her bare skin like rain.

She opened her eyes and a head fell beside her shoulder with a meaty thump. The dead eyes, once gray, turned into a collapsing wall of flesh and bone. As she looked on in horror, it began to disintegrate into a mass of ash.

It was the eyes she'd never forget.

Or the creature William had become, fighting the vampires that would have killed her.

They came, one after another, as blood drenched her gown and she lay helplessly at his feet.

William slashed and stabbed as injuries were rained down on him, and then five overcame him. Julia whimpered, having never envisioned herself dying that way.

At that moment, Julia realized she wanted to live—had always wanted to live.

Her eyes met William's, pleading.

She knew she didn't deserve his help.

But she was sorry. She didn't want this life, this existence.

Nevertheless, he was dying to defend her.

*

William was overcome. He had dispatched fifteen, losing all hope of the guards helping him through the crowd of rabid vampires overrun with blood lust.

The higher functioning of their cerebral cortex was gone.

When the five overcame him, he saw Julia torn from beneath his feet by two fanged brethren. One held her as the other prepared to strike, losing his grip twice as her body was slick with the blood of the massacred.

She was weak as a kitten—any fool could see—her wound not closing up. The blood-clotting properties of the vampire saliva were not working.

Of course, Edna would have not used hers willingly.

Julia was bleeding out.

William was struggling against the vampires, beyond reason and rationale when he heard her soft whimper like a plea—bereft, hopeless.

Her eyes met his again, the blood bond reverberating in his body, pressing him to take action beyond his capabilities.

William did, smashing two of the vampiresʼ heads together hard enough for their brains to splatter against the inside of their skulls and leak out their ears. He threw himself on his feet and launched to Julia's side in a fluid, gymnastic movement, his fist punching out as he did.

The vampire who had fangs a millimeter away from her throat lost them from the impact of William’s fist even as William's talons swung to take the head of the one who restrained her.

*

Julia

Julia saw William come. A shaky exhalation escaped her as she lay in the arms of one vampire while the other prepared to chew her throat out.

The one who held her dumped her head on the floor so hard she saw lights twinkle above her.

And then William was there.

Their heads fell on either side of her body, and heat suffused her. Julia knew she would pass out and had but moments to express herself.

William crouched above her protectively, and she raised her arm weakly. She clutched his clothing.

He glanced at her then looked away, tensing his body for the next onslaught.

She tugged again.

“Julia, lie still. You have lost much blood.”

“Thank you,” she whispered on her final breath. Her vision dimmed to a pinpoint.

The last coherent image was William—whose face she didn't hate anymore.

His mouth moved, but she couldn't hear him. An enveloping softness encased her as she floated away like a dandelion seed on the wind.

Julia slept in a pool of her own blood and that of others—many others.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Den of the Were

One Month Later

“Do you see her?” Joseph asked impatiently.

“Yes,” Tony responded, dropping the night-vision binoculars.

“It is easy to make her out, Joseph. She is so much smaller than the blood drinkers.”

Right. Joseph knew that. But his anxiety was full tilt. It had been a month since their orders from Lawrence to execute reconnaissance on the vampire kiss. They had done that.

It had been troubling to smell injuries on the Rare One.

When they had first begun their covert stakeout, they could smell fresh wounds. They were concentrated on the female, but also one other, the vampire that who could turn into a raven. He had been injured, as well.

It was only speculation, but Joseph felt something terrible had happened within the coven—something that allowed a freedom that was almost brazen in its disregard to her safety.

Although, they did flank her five deep on either side.

Joseph was still sticking with the number fifteen.

Fifteen of his entire soldier contingent should be enough to bring her home.

The Rare One would assimilate into his den. She would not automatically be his. But he would butcher any Alpha who took challenge.

Joseph would be victor.

He must.

The whelp of the Were had to evolve, or the race would be lost.

He squeezed his hands into fists, mourning the moon's shape.

It was waxing—two weeks yet until they could bring the change.

Joseph and Tony watched the small female figure bounce as she ran, with the huge blood drinkers looking to the four corners of the earth.

Joseph growled low in his throat. The vampires were unaware of the sound, but Tony heard and answered.

It would have been a howl had the moon been full.

*

Julia

Julia's lungs burned—but in a good way. What had started out as nightly walks when the city slept had turned into jogging.

Now she ran. Her vitality returned incrementally, night by night.

She shuddered, thinking about how her life had almost ended that fateful night on a floor of ancient cobblestone built for humans and infiltrated by vampires.

Claire had had to provide blood to save her life. William could not give it.

The third blood share would have mated her to William—whether she wanted it or not.

Forever is a long time to hold a grudge. But she was immortal only if she had blood quantum. Too much blood loss, and her life would be gone.

Julia wasn't sure she believed them. There was no such thing as immortality, right?

Then her mind burdened her with the discoveries of the past year, such as the existence of werewolves and vampires. As if that isn't crazy as hell.

Julia wiped sweat from her brow and glanced at William, who didn't sweat, of course. He never broke stride.

Neither did the other nine who ran with her—or rather, jogged. They could run, but she could only do what she was doing now. It was hopelessly slow. She was a foot shorter than them, and not vampire.

“Are you well?” William asked.

She smiled shyly. He was beyond solicitous. Julia had allowed herself the barest crack in her plan. As she had begun to figure it, with all that time recuperating to help with her decisions, she had two evils: the one she knew and the one she did not. The vampires had come clean—or as clean as they ever would—by explaining to her what her options were. Her alternative of escape seemed so remote—and so potentially unsuccessful. Julia couldn't help but feel defeated, beaten down. Her chances of survival if she were to get away would be slim.

For starters, there was no camouflaging the scent of what she was. That was by far the largest obstacle standing in the way of her freedom—or, at least, her true freedom.

Secondly—and this was a terrifying prospect—the Were searched for her just as hard as the vampires would. If she did escape, the likelihood of her being reacquired by another coven or den of the Were was high. She literally could not find sanctuary.

Her heart grieved for Jason. Her pragmatic nature instructed her thought processes, and she moved toward survival. And it seemed she had many years to survive.

She'd been off a million miles away and finally answered William. “Yes, I'm fine.”

He looked at the others and gave them a command outside the decibel range of human hearing. Then he took her by the elbow, and they slowed.

She still felt slightly weak but nothing like the way she'd felt when they had taken the first shuffling steps into the outside air. The smell of it had been cloying, foul—and rich and wonderful.

Freedom had a smell, and Julia had breathed deeply of it.

So long, she'd been underground, held captive in the original thirty-one blocks of Seattle's great city. While the cattle walked overhead, their predators living underneath their feet.

Julia thought about what Claire had told her over a month ago.

*

Julia had awoken and met Claire's stare.

She'd never felt so weak, not even when she had refused to eat for months and when she had to be bathed like a baby by Susan.

She felt cold to her marrow.

“You've lost a tremendous amount of blood from the attack,” Claire had said in her calm way.

Julia looked at her, willing her lips to move, but they didn't cooperate.

Claire smiled and stood. She brought a cup with a bendy straw in it.

As Julia sucked on the plastic tube, cool, clean water saturated her mouth and tongue, which was swollen from lack of use and circulation anomalies.

Finally, when she'd had her fill she asked Claire, “What happened?”

Claire looked away for a moment, a blush of pink lighting on her cheekbones. Her skin was as fair as Julia's. Julia realized she was embarrassed.

“Things got out of hand. A few of the contenders… could not control their bloodlust.” She looked at Julia, who returned the stare without expression, willing her silently to go on. After a pause, she did. “We did not foresee it. But they were quite premeditated. Gabriel and I—”

Julia huffed at the leader's name, immediately begrudging his authority. As Julia saw it, he had no authority over her. After all, he was nothing more than a glorified kidnapper, using the weapons at his disposal to manipulate the vampire outcome—for their benefit, she thought sourly, not hers. His weapons of choice were… the vampires, of course.

Claire continued through Julia's insolence as if it didn't exist. “We thought there'd be sufficient protection because of their Singer lineage, but it wasn't enough.” Claire looked at the hands that were wringing themselves in her lap. When she raised her eyes, Julia she saw they were glistening, the tears unshed. “There are so few vampires that are capable of breeding with a Rare One.” She gulped and struggled forward. “Now, there are fewer.”

So what? Julia thought. It wasn't as if those were such great guys who had assaulted her. Whatever. She said as much to Claire, and she nodded reluctantly.

“We know this now. It had been centuries since a female Rare One had entered the coven for this purpose. We didn't anticipate the pull.”

Julia crossed her arms again as she looked up at the shadows that passed across the glass skylight of her room. Why was sunlight allowed to penetrate their lair if it were such a problem?

Claire followed her gaze, smiling. “We have our technologies.”

Julia's eyebrow cocked in question.

Claire gave a little shrug. “They cannot live outside the confines of this space during the day. But we have one that formulated a chemical wash for the glass.” She threw a palm in the direction of the only window in the room.

“So…” Julia's sudden realization of what the shadows were struck her almost dumb.

“Those are people? They are walking over our heads?” she asked incredulously.

Claire nodded. “They do not know of our existence. It is like being hidden in plain sight. You understand this concept, no?”

Julia did. She'd had a babysitter, before her parents were killed, who would hide everyday objects in plain sight. Julia remembered at one point how the babysitter had hidden a sewing thimble on the top of an old TV antenna, and it had been an hour before she'd spied it—metal on metal, almost invisible.

She couldn't suppress a small smile at the memory, nodding at Claire.

Claire returned the smile, although she couldn't have known its origin.

“It affords the kiss the greatest protection.”

Julia looked at the shadowed feet, crossing the glass with a foot's separation between their life and death. They never knew.

Julia shivered.

“The solution blocks the UV rays.”

“Couldn't that clever guy make a sunblock or something?” Julia asked, a little bit of snark creeping into her tone.

Claire's smile faded. “That was unsuccessful.”

Julia didn't press, but judging by the expression on Claire's face, there'd been a few vampire torches.

Julia withheld her smile. An image of William on fire came to her mind. Just a few days ago, that visual might have given her a lot of satisfaction. Now… her heart had shifted. And while she did not hate him anymore, she wasn't sure what she felt. She thought of flying over the meadow, leaving the Were that had attacked her behind, the claws bound to her shoulders like excruciating hooks. She thought of his fierce expression as he fought the vampires who would have bled her dry.

Julia was ashamed. He was what he was—a freak of biology. As she was. Jason was gone, forever.

It was in that moment that Julia decided for neutrality with William. He had not shown her harm. On the contrary, he had shown much more.

His yet unknown role made her uncomfortable, but that couldn't be held against him.

In the end, William had been right. Jason had been killed by the Were, not vampires.

Julia had sighed, looking once more above her head.

The cattle had moved across their concrete pasture, unaware of the vampires below.

*

The Present

William smiled down at Julia. Cautious hope took hold of his soul—if a vampire had such.

She looked infinitely better than after the attack. He was right as rain in less than a fortnight. But Julia's tenuous situation was held in the fragile balance of the twilight of death. It took much to kill a Rare One. But the two who had been in the race for betrothal might have ruined it by hurting her.

Forget that notion, William thought. They'd almost killed her. He could hardly bear to think upon it. He had already claimed Julia in his heart. He had not the right. But love chose its own pathway, mindless of the change.

Love hath no master.

He took in her lush mouth, the pulse that beat at the hollow of her throat more attractive than any show of flesh could ever have been. He swallowed, reining in his emotions. William had had two centuries to perfect his lack of expression.

He'd found that a year and some days with Julia had undone it all. The careful procedure of schooling one's expression in the way of the vampire was lost. He thought it might never be regained.

His heart seized with panic as a scent wafted through the night air.

In an instant, he pulled Julia against him, scenting their surroundings, her water bottle hitting the ground with a thud, the water leaking out over the black pavement like a crystal well.

Broken.

*

Julia

Julia's heart slammed into her ribcage. William’s hands wrapped around her arms like steel bands, cool against her fevered skin, which was still warm from the run.

“What is it?” Julia asked.

Pierce lifted his nose to the air. “Wolves, William?”

“I do not know. But”—he looked at the nine that were gathered together, his eyes glittering in the weakness of the lights that illuminated the street where they stood—“it is the only moment of my existence wherein I wish for their sense of smell.”

There was uneasy laughter even as the vampires looked around them for the perceived danger. A few tense moments passed, and William's shoulders finally dropped into a more relaxed posture.

“Well?” another vampire asked—Robert, Julia remembered.

William shrugged, his eyes tight. “I do not know what it was, but I very much wish to head back.”

They agreed, but Julia protested. “They would never think to find me here.”

William looked down at her, his face cut marble in the whitish-blue light of the streetlamp. “It is that mentality that will hasten your taking from our kiss. We do not underestimate the dogs. Their passion makes them dangerous.” He looked into her eyes then elaborated. “Sometimes I will have a moment of…” William deliberated on his wording. He finally settled on, “intuition.”

Julia looked at him. “Is that because of the Singer blood?”

He nodded. “The shifting to raven is the single most powerful element I gained from my genetics. Sometimes, although it is not always trustworthy, the moments of intuition have made me a better fighter.”

“How?” Julia asked, allowing herself to be tugged along as they made their way back to the underground city.

“Instinctive.”

“You fight with… training or…?”

He glanced her way then looked around again, still slightly tense. “I use what has been given to me. I know because of my Singer heritage that I can shift to raven form, and sometimes I anticipate.”

Julia had to ask. With nine other sets of vampire ears to the ground, honing in on her words, she forged ahead. “Anticipate what?”

He stopped, looking down at her for a moment. His gaze uncomfortably intense, he answered, “Danger.”

Oh. She looked around, sensing nothing.

“Let us be gone from this place.”

*

The Were's sense of smell allowed a great distance to be maintained while still triangulating the vampire position.

The Were came upon the plastic bottle that had been dumped.

It was too perfect to believe. The vampires had been sloppy by allowing anything she touched to be discarded by any means other than fire.

Of course, vampires did not like fire. A grim smile overcame Joseph's face.

He reached to pick up the discarded bottle, scenting it for the Rare One.

Julia Caldwell's scent floated around the mouth of the bottle like the most exquisite fragrance imaginable. He held the bottle triumphantly while motioning with his hand for the four other Were to gather round him.

They did, each scenting the bottle, familiarizing themselves with her smell.

The scent of the Rare One, the Mistress over even the moon.

As her unique signature filled their flared nostrils, five pairs of eyes spun to gold in faces that were no longer quite human.

Joseph lifted his face to gaze at the moon, whose mocking form was halfway to full.

As small yips of excitement broke out in the circle of men, the tone changed to a quality that made the pigeons flee their roosts.

The noise caused the fear-and-flight reaction as surely as a primal alarm going off.

The Were returned to their den, an empty bottle as so much trash, carried in the fist of the Alpha.

Joseph clutched it tighter as he ran.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Two Weeks Later

Julia stretched until every vertebra cooperated by popping. Ah, so much better. She wasn't happy yet. But for the first time since Jason's death, she felt a form of contentment. She was sure it had a lot to do with the daily runs. Her body was knitting itself stronger each day, and she was thankful.

William had not pressed his advantage when it would have been easy to, and Julia had noticed.

William and she had lunch together each day now. Actually, she ate lunch, and he drank blood. It was an uneasy alliance, but he had to receive nourishment too. And she couldn't negate what he had done for her.

With his blood.

It was yesterday's lunch that rolled around in her mind. She couldn't believe what he'd told her—the revelation that Claire was his cousin. William was one-quarter Blood Singer. His ancestry lent him the paranormal stripe that allowed him to shape-shift, to have those little moments of awareness that were other.

Julia had been curious, picking at the meal before her—salad and salmon. The coven provided only the finest meal for their trophy. Julia squelched the thought even as it formed. She needed to think of the coven as her benefactors, or she'd never achieve any happiness.

She sighed, and William's eyebrows rose in question.

“It's about Claire.” She looked at him—stared, actually, trying not to notice how handsome he was, how well built, how… everything. Heat rose to her face, and she knew without a mirror that she was blushing.

“Well, she is my cousin.” He dropped the bomb as though it was of the least consequence.

“Are you kidding?” Julia nearly shouted.

He shook his head, the corners of his mouth already turning up.

“You are!” she huffed, folding her arms across her body.

“I promise, I'm not having you on. It is true.”

Julia searched his eyes for the joke, and finding none, went on. “How is that? She looks like she's ten years older than me?”

William paused then said, “Once a Singer mates a vampire, if there is enough blood quantum, she takes on some of the properties of her mate. In this case”—his eyes met hers—“immortality.”

Julia thought about it, almost stunned into speechlessness. “So, Claire's like… hundreds of years old?”

“Technically, that is accurate.”

“Just tell me, William.”

“She is three hundred and six.”

Julia gasped. That makes William…

“I am only two hundred and twenty.”

So young, Julia rolled her eyes, stifling a giggle.

William laughed from his gut. Though he was usually serious, Julia found that she was able to lighten him.

“Yes, Claire is quite wise.”

Julia turned her fork over and under, over and under until William put his finger on the tines. He met her gaze. “What are you thinking?”

“I wonder why we look a little alike, Claire and I?”

William leaned back in his chair, drumming his tapered fingers on the bare wood of the table, thinking. He seemed unaware that he smoldered at her, in her. The blood share's tenacious grasp still clung like reluctant glue.

“Gabriel has said there is a common region that the Singers hail from in antiquity.”

Julia waited.

William shrugged. “It is just a hypothesis. But it may explain the similarities in their looks.” He looked at her briefly. Then, glancing at her half-eaten plate, he finished his thought. “Blood Singers are generally fair complexioned with some degree of red hair. But not all of them. Some can be quite dark.”

“How do you know this?” Julia was thinking that Jason hadn't had that coloring.

“It was a cross-checking method we employed as runners. If the scent did not convince us, the coloring, as it were… well, it was almost fool proof.”

Julia was fascinated, remembering her mother's hair ablaze with copper fire. She recalled it perfectly. Memories of the accident crowded the inside of her skull in a dull press, but she shoved them away forcefully.

“Gabriel is originally from Scotland.”

Ah. Julia had wondered about that brogue he spoke with.

“Have you heard of Stonehenge? Located in England?”

She nodded. It was pretty famous. In high school, they'd studied it briefly in World History.

“That is where the biggest concentration of Singers reside. They fan out in many directions, but it is there that they proliferate.”

Julia smiled, not withholding her sarcasm. “Then why don't you guys do a road trip and net them all?”

William's smile faded, and he shook his head. “In concentrations as big as the one at Stonehenge, they become powerful.” His eyes were serious again.

“So, they can bring a can of whoop-ass?”

William smiled at her vernacular. “Yes, they can bring whatever they please. That is why we concentrate on mostly immigrants, diluted by centuries of outbreeding. Sometimes, as in your case, we strike a pureblood. Any Singer over half-pure is worth acquisition.”

Julia thought about all that he'd said. “So, why am I not… psychic or some other cool thing like that?”

William chuckled, crossing his legs at the ankle. “You will be many things.” He shrugged. “It is different with each Singer. A Rare One is an anomaly—hard to find, and more difficult to speculate about.”

“What can Gabriel do? He's the coven leader. He's a Rare One,” Julia said, thinking he may have mojo. A buttload of it.

Julia watched William think about his words and was struck anew by how very deliberate he was with his thoughts. He never just blurted stuff out. The way she did.

She smiled unconsciously, and he returned her grin, his fangs hidden.

“He is male.” William looked down to his long-stemmed glass, the bagged blood distributed inside the glass as an affectation. Like a beer out of a frosted mug as opposed to straight out of the bottle.

She waited, and he continued. “He has some paranormal talents… but it is the females who possess all of what a Rare One could offer. Eventually, you will be many things. Manifest many things.”

Julia looked at him. “Besides being able to make vampires choke on my blood and heave helpful people against walls, what else is there?”

She was only half joking. Julia wanted to know what to expect.

William shrugged a muscular shoulder, the button-down shirt hiding nothing. She'd give vampires this: they were all pretty spiffy to eyeball.

“It has been some time since a Rare One has been in residence. It will be all conjecture at this point. But… there have been things in legend. Those are telekinetic ability, telepathy, super-human strength.” He finished, ticking off each ability on his fingers then resting his hands on his thighs.

Julia liked the last one and smiled.

He chuckled, guessing her transparent thought process. “That's usually reserved for males.”

Oh.

“Limited healing. And of course, there are the genetic properties of the Rare Ones. They will allow the supernaturals to become more, better.” William leaned forward, all intensity. “Just think of the ramifications of being vampire but not ruled by bloodlust, by the night.” He swung his palm to encompass their immediate area.

Julia watched an internal fire ignite in his eyes and realized the vampires felt trapped by their existence. That what made them other also stifled them in isolation.

It made Julia profoundly uncomfortable to realize two factions thought of her as a savior. But she hadn't asked to be a Rare One. Instead, she had just wanted a normal life.

She looked in William’s earnest eyes and sighed. At least she hadn't been taken by the Were. From what William told her, they cared very little for the Rare One's comfort. He had told her about this on one of their many runs before she'd been able to do much but shuffle along.

*

William

On one of those early runs, William had looked down with tenderness at the top of Julia's head. He'd allowed himself that luxury when she was not aware of his regard. She'd looked up, and he'd instantly schooled his expression into one of neutrality and adopted a teaching tone.

“You ask of the Were. They also find the Blood Singers critical. Even a Singer who has as little as one-quarter blood quantum can give them additional days to make the change. They cannot aspire to be moonless changers. But they can have more days to use her call.” He kicked a random pebble, and Julia stopped, turning to look at him.

The streetlamp reflected off the damp patches of asphalt, the city still humming all around them. The deadest hour of the night had the least people but cars were still rushing past, dim noise and the smells of a city that never quite rested a backdrop to their hushed conversation.

She crossed her arms and huffed out a breath while the other vampires formed a loose circle around them, maintaining an ever-vigilant protective perimeter. “So, what you're saying is that vampire and Were compete? They run around, gathering up the purest of the Singers—to what? Make sure they have more power?”

William thought it sounded dire when she put it like that. “It is for the betterment of both. We think their methods are heathen. But the consequence is identical. What they gain, what we gain…” He let his sentence trail off.

“What do we gain, William?” Julia asked, her eyes searching his, her palm on the center of her chest.

He held her gaze but with effort. There was little that the Singer gained except that her mate would be devoted. There was additional protection. He sighed, raking a distracted hand through his hair, frustrated.

“You have the security and protection of the coven,” he finally answered.

Julia snorted. “Oh, yeah! That's worked so well. I could tell how secure I was when those fangs sank into my collarbone—on top of my scars from your raven claws. I feel so protected.”

William gripped her shoulders, cupping them firmly in hands that wrapped them front to back. “There will always be rogue vampires. There will always be vampires among our kind who take, who do not follow rules or hierarchy. You do understand that? Is it not the same in the human population?”

“It's true,” Julia responded, squirming a little in his grasp. “But if I'm so special, why did they try to hurt me? Believe me, it hurt.”

William knew. He had been barred from giving blood a third time. As her kind said, the third time would have been the charm. It would bind her to him without choice, without consent. A union filled with resentful compliance was not acceptable.

Not to him.

In the end, she had been given a transfusion. She smelled off for two weeks afterward. He had told her that she smelled like someone else until her body's natural cycles and rhythms had righted themselves.

“I'm so sorry that I didn’t smell tasty for a week or two,” she'd said, rolling her beautiful eyes at him. William had smiled.

“It is better for me. Not your pain and suffering at their transgression,” he added quickly to avoid confusion as her brows came together in a frown. “But because their attack on you proved my mettle. You know the man I am.”

Julia shook her head in correction. “You are not a man. You're something else.”

William said sadly, “I am more man than you could ever know.”

Julia had looked into his face, and William had not been able to mask the sincerity of his feelings—or his desire.

She'd shifted her gaze from his as they walked away together, the vampire guard swarming around them.

*

Taking

Joseph gave Tony a subtle flick of his tail, but it was scent, not motion, that let Tony know to flank the group of vampires. One among the Were remained unchanged.

A new threat faced them. They had smelled what threatened during their last reconnaissance.

The Rare One was entering her awakening. She would be dangerous. One of his wolves would nail her with the gun—a gun that had a dart filled with a sedative. It could stop an ox. In this case, it would stop the Singer from using what made her unique against them. That she stayed willingly with the kiss of drinkers was worrisome. Very worrisome.

She was unmated. Joseph knew that. Her smell told him.

They moved toward the group stealthily. They were sure and confident—ready for combat.

*

Julia

Julia was nervous. She was usually anxious now. Gone was the easygoing nonchalance of her former life. Knowing what she was had stripped her of that. Not knowing what her future held, or knowing the expectation others had for her future had cloaked her as surely as the warm puffy coats of her Alaskan existence before.

William watched her pace, her unease a contagious thing. Finally, he could bear it no more. “What is it? What is troubling you?” His arms were crossed, his face in shadows as he leaned against the wall in her chamber. She took in his form—his athletic build accentuated by the casual attire and his tight black T-shirt stretched across a broadly muscled chest. Black sweatpants hugged hips and legs that were finely honed by exercise and the perfection of what he was.

Julia stopped. She felt the pull there between them like a rope of warm taffy, always taut, never breaking. She felt dumb explaining it. “I know that the exercise is good.” His expression encouraged her, and she realized she was starting to care a little for William. She didn't know how she felt about it, but after almost eighteen months, he and Claire were really all the contact she had.

She went on, stumbling over the next part. “Before the thing… happened.” Julia flicked her eyes to his. He would know what she meant. He waited in pregnant silence.

She swallowed. “I felt a sense of…”

He arched his eyebrows. “Foreboding?”

She nodded, relieved he understood. “Yes.”

He straightened. “You sense that now?”

She nodded again. The foreboding was a vibration in her body, humming in an ominous way she hated. And the headaches were back.

Turning, she walked closer to him voluntarily for the first time.

*

William

William watched her move, a graceful, slow-burning flame with eyes and hair a liquid gold that ignited a torch within his soul. He stuffed his emotions deep inside, giving her his pleasantly neutral face. It was something that was now a daily challenge. Before, it had been made easier by her indifference. He did not feel that from her right now, in this moment.

Julia came very close to him. Reaching out, she placed a small hand on his arm, and he stifled the gasp that tore from inside him as their flesh connected. Her eyes moved to his. “I'm not afraid of you anymore. I don't know how I feel, but I know you'd protect me.”

It took every ounce of willpower not to touch her back—caress the face he had caressed mentally a thousand times before. How badly he wished to do it with his hands. Instead, he forced them against his side, remaining unmoved.

“Today, I'm afraid. Even this near, this protected. I don't want to be with the Were.” Julia knew however bad this new life was, that the alternative with them would be worse.

William stiffened. “We would never allow that. They have tried for you twice, and failed. They would never succeed.”

She shook her head, the ginger of her hair sliding over shoulders encased in the smooth nylon material of her exercise gear. He watched the silken strands and wanted to run his fingers through them. The low light of the skylight made it glow a soft red. William suddenly wished he could see it in the sun. He imagined it would be quite red.

“They may succeed,” she said.

He looked down at her as she looked up at him. “No,” he said fiercely, his emotion overwhelming his sense. He wrapped both his hands around her forearms. “It cannot be precognitive. If that were so, they would have tried for you months ago, when you were more vulnerable.”

William felt her watching him, and it took every bit of willpower to hold himself back. His nerve endings were on fire.

*

Julia stared at him. He didn’t believe her. She'd be given her nightly exercise, regardless of her misgivings. Maybe she had a case of nerves.

Maybe her unbearable loneliness was in the way. She felt the heat from her body emanating toward his. Still, that small space separated them. She noticed his hands encasing her arms, and suddenly her eyes were on his lips.

Julia's mind trembled at the possibility. Her emotions and intellect warred in a heated battle.

Julia felt him holding back, waiting for her to act. She would have to decide if she wanted him. William would not make that decision for her.

Julia felt her emotions—her guilt over Jason, his death, their unconsummated marriage—unraveling. Missing him felt like misery in the pit of her stomach. She knew that what she was beginning to feel for William was wrong. But she could only go on so long with the constant loneliness. William was right: he had proven himself. She was the one who needed to move on.

Her decision made, Julia stood on tiptoe. Using lips that hadn't kissed in almost two years, she brushed a featherweight's press over the softness of his mouth.

Julia's eyes were closed, one hand on his chest for balance. She didn't feel his response, and her skin flushed with embarrassment. She began to draw away.

Then she felt his hands move off her arms and snap around her body, jerking her against him. His mouth moved over hers with a barely contained hunger, eating at it until she opened it for him.

He lifted his mouth just long enough to say, “I will always protect you, Julia.”

“I know—” she began, but his mouth came down on hers again, and she twined her arms around his neck. The heat that moved between their embrace felt overwhelmingly natural.

Too natural.

Julia pulled away just as there was a knock on the door, and William's arms released her reluctantly. She watched William’s face. He followed the progress of her hand as it touched her mouth, swollen from his kiss—bruised from his affection.

Guilt assailed her. “Come in,” she said, relieved for the interruption.

Pierce entered the room. “It's time.” He looked from William to Julia. The broken tension lay dangerously all around them like shards of glass.

*

William

William was angry at the knocking. The sweet scent of Julia filled his nose and his senses wailed to take her, to make her his. Their first contact was more overwhelming than even he could have imagined. That she initiated it, that their blood share was all but washed away, made it all the sweeter.

He looked upon her as she pulled away, guilt and desire mixed up in her features. He had a pang of regret then shoved it away. He had not taken what she'd loved away from her. It was the Were that had stolen her husband's life. In their haste to acquire her, they'd killed a Singer unnecessarily. It had been a long time, almost two years of patience and frustration. If he could finally be joined with her, if she would possibly be open to a courtship, he would not dissuade her. And his competitors were fewer.

Actually, the horrible attack of Julia had tightened things up considerably in the coven.

He glanced at Pierce, coming to his senses as if emerging from a fog. He shook off the lethargy of his desire with difficulty. Gabriel wished for Julia to exercise, to be away from the coven. Even William had to admit that she was progressing better with the exercise.

But her words of disquiet were troubling. William did not make assumptions. He wished to be as confident as possible, but to discount a Rare One was not prudent.

William considered himself pragmatic—and ruthless.

Always ruthless.

He turned to Pierce. “Let us take an additional five runners.”

Pierce's brows came together.

William answered his unspoken question. “Their presence will ease Julia.”

He turned and smiled at her. She gave him one of her rare genuine smiles. He loved seeing it on her face and smiled back.

*

Julia looked at William and was instantly relieved. He had not discounted her warning. He was more than a protector now. She wasn't sure what he was becoming, but in that moment, a small space in her heart softened and a fissure formed, allowing William in.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Run

Julia wiped sweat off her brow, running with a thousand vampires at her side—or at least, that was what it felt like.

She'd told William that the Were were sniffing around, and so far, they had seen nothing.

Julia was feeling foolish. She decided to tell him so.

She knew that they didn't need fifteen anymore. Five was probably enough. He smiled and kissed her forehead casually, calling off the vampires for the following evening's run. Her sense of impending doom lessened.

It had been a full week since she'd mentioned her uneasy feelings to William. It was so similar to what she'd felt before Terrell went madder than a March hare—as Aunt Lily would have said—that she'd felt compelled to speak. Now, she just felt like a dumbass, getting the vampires wound up because she had an emotional hiccup. Julia needed to be stronger.

She smiled at William. Julia thought there would be a ton of awkwardness between them, but he'd been solicitous, touching her subtly day by day. A slow bridge of small intimacies—one on top of the other— was building.

She came to find herself looking forward to the subtle touches and glances, anticipating them. If anyone had told her that she was going to be crushing on a vampire two years ago, she would have written the letter to have that person committed.

Yet there she was. She hadn't forgotten Jason, but the pain was less acute.

Julia was also not certain of her path. She knew in her mind that Jason was gone, and that this weird new life, however much she hadn't wanted it, was what she had now. Julia realized she needed to move on. A vision of Jason's face, once so clear, had turned fuzzy at the edges. She felt herself all at once profoundly sad again. It was not just losing him in reality but also the memory of him slipping away day by day that tore at her heart.

*

William stood, watching the myriad of emotions play over her face. Having made a study of humanity in the past two hundred years, he knew some of what the issues she was reconciling herself to.

Damn the Were, William thought for the hundredth time. She would have been separated from her husband regardless. However, his death had marked her. Even now, she struggled.

“Julia.” William looked at her, the sadness clinging to her like greedy fingers and thought that she looked so fragile and small standing there. The hopes of his race depended on a young woman barely more than a girl.

Julia swung her face to Pierce and the other three and nodded. She was ready. She focused her considerable will on the moment, not on the past.

*

They were deep into the run, her body singing in muscular tension and heat. The vamps were barely on a jog. Julia felt as though she was practically sprinting. They climbed the steep hills of the city as if they were the Swiss Alps. An occasional car sputtered by, the gears grinding together in the ascent. When they reached the area of the famous Nordstrom's, they stopped, the loneliest part of the night embracing them as they stood in a loose group.

William grabbed the water bottle from a small backpack that hung between his shoulder blades. He handed it to Julia, and she gulped a few swigs, admiring the building. Cyn would have died ten deaths to go shopping there. Julia's melancholy stole its way inside her again. Her face tilted to take in the vertical sign. It was completely black except for the letters in ivory. She noticed it was lit from the sides, the characters softly illuminated.

Julia grappled for a life that was no more until Williams interrupted her thoughts. “Let us go back.”

She nodded and was struck dumb with a pain so acute, so widespread that she gasped and fell to her knees.

The five vampires took their eyes from their posts to assist her.

As Julia lay sideways on the concrete sidewalk, the sign poised above her head like a guillotine, she saw the Were slide out from the dark corners the city provided.

There were many.

Julia whispered through her pain, which she now recognized as an alarm come too late, “Werewolves…”

*

Joseph and Tony watched, alongside the remaining nine Were, as the small group of vampires allowed Julia Caldwell to rest.

Six long days they had waited for the vampiresʼ complacency to reestablish itself—for their perfect moment of opportunity.

Finally, it had come.

Joseph took in the sight of her. Her golden hair was swept back in a ponytail, and the navy athletic gear looked black to his wolf vision but was so soft a color in the darkness he knew it was blue. Watching her drink water, he felt her awareness of him before she did.

“She will know we are here soon. Be ready.” He gave Tony a significant glance, and Tony raised the dart gun in acknowledgment.

“I'm not gonna fuck this up. I told you,” he said in a growl.

Joseph turned his snout to Tony, and their golden eyes locked on each other. “See that you don't. We won't get another opportunity like this one.” Their eyes held for two heartbeats more until Tony broke the stare, his status in the group firmly set. Not Alpha.

Joseph swept his eyes among the other Were soldiers, and they gave him the subtle eye contact he required. The affirmation that let him know they were ready to battle the vampires.

On his scent command, they released their bodies from the shadows and stepped out into the open.

*

William knelt beside Julia, stifling his rising panic. The first thing that flooded his mind was her warning, nary a week old, in which she had told him of her unease. He had listened, acted. But now he saw the alarm on her face and realized that the Were had chosen their time, and it was now.

William tenderly brushed the hair that had come undone away from Julia's temple.

He stood and readied himself for what the Were would bring.

The four who were with him spread and flanked his position. With a last glance at Julia, he stepped in front of her. The look blazing in her eyes scorched a path in his mental imagery and made his insides clench.

Trust.

Julia trusted him.

As he gazed out and counted eleven of the enemy, he hoped that the sentiment was not misplaced.

*

Julia reclaimed tenuous control of her body and stood on shaky legs. She was fatigued by the run and numb with fear. She backed away from the vampires who were in front of her, and her eyes met the Were that stood beyond them.

One in particular captured her attention: the rapist.

Julia backed away until her butt collided with the travertine façade of the building.

The night was as dark as they came, the streetlights illuminating the Were in patches then disappearing as the dark embraced them again.

Julia didn't take her eyes off the one. He was the biggest, the most intense. She immediately understood that he wasn't the leader. Then she saw it. In his hand he held something—a gun.

What? They were here to kill her? Julia was utterly confused. The two groups were not, however. As she held herself up against the wall they wordlessly charged each other, the Were making excited yips as their supple muscles flexed and bunched, readying to spring against the vampires.

Julia thought she'd just slip away while they fought. She couldn't be taken by the Were—her mind shuddered at the possibility. She began to feel her way along the building's smooth contours, until her hand curved around the corner. She turned her face into an alley so dark she couldn't see where it ended or how high the sides were.

She stepped into the darkness, the war behind her raging in a clash of supernatural strength and will.

*

William advanced on the leader, swiping with talons that sprung from his fingertips in a blur of motion faster than anything he had mastered before, the pulse of his feelings for Julia a thing that beat in his brain independently of his heart. The need to protect her was instinctive.

He saw one of the runners fall in his peripheral vision, a gaping wound in his body. Still, he would heal, William thought as he leaned away from a strike and simultaneously punched a hole of his own in the chest of the nearest Were.

Fear gripped him. Julia was no longer a warm presence at his back. At the same time, he saw one of the largest of the dogs break from the group and lope off to the side, a spider gait with fur, pursuing something—or someone.

William turned in the direction of the lone Were just as Joseph used his half-wolf paws in a swinging arc, bringing them down across William's back, knocking him forward into a rough patch of cobblestone, revealed by damaged asphalt. William’s hands bit into the unforgiving street as two more of the Were assailed him. They pummeled him into submission.

Before he lost consciousness, he tore the head from the neck of one, and warm blood sprayed his face. He gulped without thinking, the grievous wounds inflicted by the Were repairing as he drank the arterial spray of the enemy. His death repairing the worst of William’s injuries, a cycle of rejuvenation that was as old as time.

*

Joseph saw the vampire leader take the head off his third and howled. Before Joseph could kill the vampire covered in blood at his feet, his second growled, “Tony.”

It was enough. Joseph shot away from the vampire, his soldiers tearing the other vampire limb from limb, and humanity slumbered.

While humans slept peacefully, the battle ran in the city street, painting it with inky blood.

*

Julia ran alongside the wall, more tired than when she'd been running for exercise. The terror at the possibility of being taken poured an adrenaline nightmare into her body, making her extremities numb with it.

She clipped her ankle on a pallet that was standing upright before she could see it and yelped softly.

She heard a noise behind her, the softest scrape, and put on a burst of speed, her hand leaving the wall.

Julia sprinted, the heat and lack of air in her lungs whistling a tune as she tore forward. Up ahead, she could see a tall fence. Without a backward glance or thought, she grabbed onto the smooth, circular metal fencing and jumped the first row, digging her shoe into the hole and climbing.

Julia didn't hesitate when the first piercing sting of something in her shoulder twanged and bounced.

When the second bit her in her upper thigh as she climbed, tears began to run down her face, the fence design in sharp contrast to the streetlamps beyond. The holes from the fence made shapes on her face, circles of light spearing her as she climbed.

She realized with soft horror that she had begun to climb more slowly.

Julia told her hands to grip the cold metal. Her foot missed the next hole and slipped.

The tears came harder, dripping off her jaw and falling to the ground before her.

She stopped seven feet above the ground with three more yet to finish. The razor wire at the top formed a spiral of hopelessness she couldn't overcome.

Julia's vision began to dim, the grayness of the night encroaching on her. She clung to the fence, her body no longer climbing. Pressing herself against it, she hung on for all she was worth.

As her legs folded beneath her, and her fingertips slipped away, she fell in a graceful arc to the concrete below—to her death, she knew.

Julia didn't react when she heard the excited yelps and yips of the Were beneath her.

Jason was dead.

William was gone.

She was in the same position she had been when she'd started: sole protector of herself.

Julia didn't land on the unforgiving concrete below but in a steel cocoon lined with fur and muscle. She looked up into eyes that shone like liquid gold. Her vision dimmed as she threw up her arm to defend herself in the last way she could before she faded into drug-induced oblivion.

*

Joseph had stared at Julia during the moment of wakefulness she'd had before she sank into the sleep of the drugged. His stony heart had squeezed in response to her weak attempt to defend herself against him. Did she not know that she could not and that there was no need? Joseph gave the signal to move out of the area even as he tightened his hold on the Rare One. They needed to exit. The blood drinkers would come en masse when the others didn't return with the Singer. Their margin for error this night was slim to none.

He ran, the burden of the girl negligible.

Tony ran beside him, managing to carry out the task without a hitch—perhaps a first.

As they passed where they'd warred, Joseph saw the ash and blood lifting in the wind as a light rain began to fall, cleansing the proof of their battle. One troubling thing remained: a single vampire lay undisturbed, covered in his werebrother's blood.

Joseph faltered, debating on whether or not to return and finish him. His experience whispered at the possibility that this one would be a problem in the future. Then he looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms. He clutched her tighter. Better to fight the devil that you know rather than the one you do not.

He renewed his fast gait, smoothly leaving the city behind for the mountains beyond. They would address that worry if and when it came.

For now, the Rare One would become part of the pack.

The den would be balanced once again.

Joseph would have smiled as a human.

As a Were in his half-wolf form, he lifted his partial snout to the sky and howled a baleful note.

It resonated in the city as they left the buildings of concrete behind, the other Were a symphony in chorus with him.

They ran to the den—to freedom from their warden, the moon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Underground Seattle

William’s abused body struggled to heal even as he debriefed Gabriel and Claire. Their eyes and bodies were dread-filled.

But not as much as he was.

William was so full of self-recrimination he could hardly breathe. A thousand what-ifs swirled in his mind—not the least of which was the elaborate plan the Were had executed. The instant he had stood down and allowed fewer runners for the daily exercise, the Were had pounced.

As it was, when the runners had been sent to find the ones who hadn't returned, only William had been left. Four runners were dead. Only two of the Were had been killed.

They had woefully underestimated the cunning of the Were. They thought them without the intelligence for strategy.

They had been quite wrong. And now, because of assumptions, the Were had Julia.

William had needed the blood of three humans to help him recuperate. Even with that much, a gorge-worthy amount, William was still not at his peak.

Gabriel paced in front of him, wearing a frenetic path in the floor of William's chamber. “It does no good at this point to place blame. It is I who wished for Julia's exercise, for some semblance of normalcy.”

Claire placed a hand on his shoulder, and he stopped. “None of us could have known this would occur,” she said. She pleaded with him to see reason, to not blame himself.

Easier said than done.

“Julia knew,” William said quietly. “She knew what was about. But she was so young in her ability, so new to trust…” He let that last trail off.

It was her newfound trust that cut deepest for William. They'd had a mere week of moving toward the end that he had envisioned all along. And now she faced a situation that was not ordered, but rather, unprotected and unfit. The Rare One would be treated without regard, her abilities and genetic makeup used as a tool to further the dogs.

Of course, she had originally seen the vampires in a similar light. Not that William blamed her—yet. He had never been forthright enough about his feelings for her. He had thought it too soon to regale her with his regard. He'd only hinted at it. Now he wished he had been more bold. He startled Gabriel and Claire as he punched one fist into his open palm in anger, sitting up from his hunched position in the seat of his room.

Nausea and dizziness swirled around him, but he hung on. He would not succumb. He would keep his focus on the rescue of the Singer.

Julia.

His future bride.

*

Julia

Julia woke up slowly, feeling as though she'd been run in the washing machine on the spin cycle.

Like, a hundred times.

She sat up, and her head spun and throbbing pain latched into her temples immediately.

Julia felt like hell, her mouth a sandpaper legacy with a chaser of dragon breath. God, yuk. She slowly opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She was so disoriented she forgot where she was for those few seconds, the pain of her head and acute thirst the distractions that called her attention.

That didn't last long.

The thing that greeted her as the memories of yesterday crashed into her consciousness like a train without a brake was a large pane of glass. A forest beyond stretched without end. Huge Western Red Cedars stretched as far as the eye could see, filling her vision, the sweep of their emerald-green branches caressing the ground with an unseen wind that lifted and moved them in a soundless dance.

Julia looked down at her body. The tracksuit was gone. Instead, she wore a camisole and pajama bottoms. In one of the most surreal moments of her life, she noticed that there were sparkly unicorns covering the material in the palest blue and silver.

Huh. She was being held by werewolves who had dressed her in unicorn pajamas.

A single tear escaped her eye and made a pathway down her face. The weirdness of her life was making her so claustrophobic she wanted to go back to sleep and never wake up.

A knock came at the door, and Julia ripped the sheet from the bed up to her chin, turning to face the door at the same time.

A girl came through the entrance, maybe about her age but oh, so different.

She wasn't human.

How did Julia know? It had to be those spinning golden eyes, their slow rotations screaming other—or otherworldly.

Julia just stared. It was rude, but at this point it didn't matter. She was tired. She ached so badly that she felt as if she'd been beaten. She waited quietly.

“Hey,” the girl said.

Julia sat there, saying nothing.

The girl fumed and finally sighed. “Listen, I know my brother put the he-man moves on you. I tried to tell them it was the wrong way to do it.” She flung up her hands and started pacing the room. “He's such a pain in the ass! Alpha this, Alpha that. Well, eff that.” She spun on her heel and faced Julia.

Julia leaned away.

She waved her hand in front of Julia. “You don't need to worry about me.” She plunged her hand against her chest earnestly.

Right, Julia thought, doing an internal eye roll. That's what all the supernaturals said. Not worrying had worked out so well in the past.

The girl shoved her hand out for Julia to shake. “My name's Adriana. I already know who you are, of course,” she said rolling her eyes. Julia put a tentative hand out to shake, and Adriana pumped it vigorously.

“This is awesome. Finally, they will quit talking about battles, acquisitions, and all that happy horseshit. I'm so completely sick of all their chest-beating bullshit I could puke.”

Julia did a slow blink, gradually taking back her hand.

She thought Cyn might have been reincarnated in Adriana. Or they were secret cousins or something.

She didn't think Adriana had a filter. No, Adriana didn't have any internal alarm that pinged when she'd said to much or was about to. And… Julia was certain that Cyn hadn't been a werewolf.

Julia ignored all the really important questions, and gulping, she asked, “Are these”—she lifted some of the loose pajama material in her hand and met Adriana's eyes, which were brown for the moment—“yours?”

Adriana nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. You were in some hot-ass jogging getup, so I thought you should be in something more comfortable after being nailed with the juice.”

“The juice?”

“Yeah, that crap they stuck you with that makes you conk out.” She looked at Julia, waiting for comprehension to dawn. Then she frowned and went on.

“Here's the deal. They pegged you with the mega-tranquilizers to get you away from the vamps, right?”

Julia nodded, slightly dazed at the force that was Adriana.

“So, now you've got a colossal headache, and you're so thirsty you could die, right?”

“Yes,” Julia nodded, her thirst roaring back to life at the mention of it.

“You can borrow those as long as you want, and I've got water.” From behind her back, she brought a water bottle. She gave it to Julia, who uncapped it and started to chug it down.

“Whoa, pony. No gulping. My brother'll have my ass if you start doing the psychedelic yawn all over the place.”

Julia gave her wide eyes.

Adriana chuckled and began mimicking what must have been her brother. “I need you to be as disarming as possible, Adriana. Do not do your normal”—she mimed choking herself and went on in his presumed voice—“energetic behavior. The Rare One needs time to transition.”

She whipped her palm around dismissively. “Blah, effing blah. You'll be fine, right?”

Was there another option?

Adriana stared at Julia, taking in her attire, the wild hair, God knew what else.

“Huh. Well, let's get you cleaned up. You look like ass.”

But tell me how you really feel.

Julia followed Adriana as she pushed open the adjacent bathroom door. Definitely like Cyn.

*

Were

Lawrence, Tony, and Joseph were in a heated debate. As usual, Tony was the one questioning each decision.

“I took the Rare One down. She was escaping!” Tony said, his teeth bared in his human form, the wolf peeking out around the edges.

Well, goddamn—bring it, Joseph thought as the muscles of his neck and shoulders corded and bunched in response to the subtle posturing.

“Enough!” Lawrence roared. The Packmaster's face was etched with grim lines of fury

He glared at the Alpha and his first as minutes passed. The moment swelled awkwardly, a palpable pressure building until it was on the verge of bursting. The Packmaster broke it. “Save it for the ritual. That is the time to fight for the Rare One. Right now”—he swung his direct look to Joseph, tense with the fighting instinct—“your sister is with Julia Caldwell?”

Joseph gave a terse nod, thinking of all that could mean. His sister was… willful.

Tony grunted.

They looked at him, and he threw his muscular arms up in the air. “She is not the best at being welcoming. She is the most Alpha of all the females.” He had a look on his face as though to say, Clearly, she is the least mild choice.

“But she is female. That is what the Singer needs—reassurances. Another female will bring her a measure of comfort,” Lawrence said.

Joseph winced. He wasn't sure if Maggie wouldn't have been a better choice. Too late now. Adriana had roared in there like a flaming inferno, singeing everything in her path. He shook his head.

Lawrence shrugged, looking at the two men. “She will not intimidate. That is what the goal is here.”

“She will still hold us responsible because of the dead Singer,” Tony clarified.

Lawrence palmed his chin, thinking. “She may hold us to blame, even if our soldier had not attacked her mate. But much time has passed. Perhaps her love for him fades.” He shrugged. “It does not matter. She is here now, she has not been claimed by the vampire.”

Tony and Joseph exhaled sighs of relief. That would have been an unbreakable bond, her relationship with a vampire negating her abilities to assist them. It had been a near thing. The entire pack knew it.

Lawrence looked from one to the other of them. “She has one month. Even now I smell her readiness—her becoming.”

They nodded. Her presence was at once exciting and unbearable. Lawrence didn't know what it had been like for the blood drinkers, but she was a heady thing amongst the pack.

“Yes, Packmaster,” Joseph said, and Tony chorused the goodbye simultaneously.

They walked away together, their shoulders touching. Soon, it would be fists in the ring, a fight between them and others bringing the den closer to the reality of a moonless tide.

A lone howl broke the stillness of the woods where the den thrived. Joseph and Tony gave a wary look in the direction of the call. Then they turned away, neither commenting on the sound or its origin. It was the call of the feral.

*

William

A handful of days had gone by, and William felt himself again, sparring with some of the other runners. The ones lost in the battle with the Were created a void in the ranks that would not be easily filled. Especially Pierce. He had been a true warrior, responsible for the deaths of two during the siege that ripped Julia from their hands.

William lunged forward, his hands meeting in a destructive vee aimed at the vampire runner who grappled with him. He was met with impervious resistance as their arms collided like flesh-encased steel, the smack of the hit resounding in the acoustics of the underground space. The brick and mortar of the cavernous accommodations echoed hollowly.

Vampires normally took one breath to a human's four, but that was not the case when fighting. Both runnersʼ actions and speed created a blur of muted color as they swung at each other underneath the ambient glow of the skylights that acted as a fractured ceiling of light. The humans that walked the surface lived unaware of the predators that fought below.

“Again!” William shouted as the runner tried to beg off another round. William lost his temper, grabbing his comrade around the throat and jerking him against him, his fists like clamps of unbreakable titanium, buried in the folds of the shirt he wore, tearing it as he pulled.

Suddenly, Gabriel was there, and William straightened. He turned to the runner. “Go.”

The runner left.

Gabriel looked at William, whose chest was heaving, his fists clenched like battle-ready hammers. “Enough. Beating your fellow runners into the ground will not return her to you.” He began pacing, the shadowed feet of the humans above them throwing speckles of darkness over his face as he moved.

*

Gabriel stared at William, half in shadow. He glanced upward at the skylight where the humans walked all day, and sighed. He knew what the loss of Julia meant to the kiss. He could not imagine what the loss meant when love was twisted inside it.

“I understand the loss of Julia may be more—”

“You do not,” William said in a hiss, his hand planted on his hips, his breathing finally settling into the normal rhythms of his kind. “You cannot. I waited for her. I was patient,” he seethed. “And now this!” William threw up his hand. “She is with the dogs now. Being subjected to…” William’s expression was thunder contained.

Gabriel strode to William until their chests almost touched. “We will reclaim her.”

“When?” William asked, his brows falling heavily over his eyes.

“Before the moon comes full again.”

They both understood the significance of the moon's cycle.

The dogs would try for her, the ritual coming full circle. There would be no choice for Julia in their world. The Alpha—whichever wolf killed the other—would be her mate. It was their way.

Uncivilized mongrels.

*

The Feral

The meat appeared again like clockwork, his tortured mind dismissing its grief for the greater need of sustenance. He leaped forward just as the arm retracted through the hole—the only source of light and air in the place where they kept him.

He growled low in his throat. Talons leapt free of his fingertips, and he plunged them into the prey that squirmed on the end of the knife-like tips, which were as sharp as finely honed razors. He cut its throat with his dominant left hand and caught the lifeblood as it sprayed from the death slice. When the creature's life hung from a string, he sliced the body open, neck to crotch. The steaming entrails became his next feast.

He fed.

Satisfied, he flung the corpse in the pile in the corner of the metal room.

The food settled and began to work its magic on his body, his senses springing to life, his sense of smell the most keen of all.

A dim memory was upon him, and he felt compelled to move. He did, as dropping to the ground, he reversed his wolf into his human form again. His hands bit the ground, and he allowed his body to assume a plank-like position. He raised and lowered himself until he lost count, and the rivulets of sweat ran off his face and pooled beneath him.

*

When the female returned to collect his dead meals, their eyes met, and she looked away. He was above her. Even he understood that. She was behind a partition that was made of a clear substance.

His mind knew from somewhere before that it was called acrylic. It was two feet thick. Even he couldn't overcome its strength.

He was very strong now. He smelled the fear on the female through the holes that were drilled like Swiss cheese in the clear wall.

When he lifted his nose to scent her, he caught another scent, very faint.

It caused the wolf that rippled underneath his human flesh to roar to the surface in a grinding purge that blew his body apart, skin and tendons tearing in a sickeningly painful mesh of wolf and human flesh.

His half form emerged, seven feet tall and covered with a deep wine-colored coat of fur. In the light of day, it would have looked like the sun had set on his back.

He howled. The scent of the female was one he knew.

He despaired.

He rushed the partition, his talons scraping the acrylic where deep grooves appeared like quartz scars on its surface.

The female backed away. Soon, she would run outside the door and close the bolt that barred entry—and escape.

The werewolf howled and bayed until his voice box no longer cooperated.

The female covered her ears and ran away, hot tears beating a burning trail down a face that held but one expression: shame.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Julia undressed and stepped into the shower, the hot spray hitting her body, the aches lessened but the headache remaining.

There was absolutely no peace as Adriana kept talking while she bathed. Thank God for opaque glass.

“You're probably wondering why I can't be somewhere else while you're de-scuzzing.”

Actually, Julia totally was wondering that.

“Gotta keep an eye on you. The boys are all frothing at the mouth about you escaping. Like that's even remotely possible. Duh.” Julia could feel Adriana rolling her eyes.

Julia rinsed her hair and body, eyeing the razor. She'd have loved to do a full groom. Now wasn't the time, though. How could she even give a crap about shaving when a pack of werewolves were sniffing around? Julia guessed that she was getting used to her strange life.

It made her want to cry again.

Just as she thought she might lose it, a skinny arm stuck a towel through the shower curtain.

“For your hair,” Adriana said.

Hmmm. Julia wrapped her head in the towel and stepped out, naked.

Adriana tossed a second towel into her hand, walked to the vanity, and busied herself with getting the necessities out: toothbrush, paste, floss, comb.

Julia patted dry and wrapped herself in a towel that had been washed with the same detergent Aunt Lily used. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying again, the taste of copper filling her mouth.

She widened her eyes to keep the tears from falling.

Adriana turned with a grin. It dropped like a sack of stones when she saw Julia's expression. “You're not gonna start bawling or something? Like, right now? Because I'm not equipped for female sniveling.”

That stopped Julia's tears and made her grin despite herself.

“Good. You had me worried.”

Julia said, “You don't seem very…”

“Werewolfy?” Adriana asked with a sarcastic lilt to her voice.

Julia nodded. “Yeah, that.”

“Well, what did you expect anyway? All shaggy mutts howling at the moon or some shit like that?” Her hand held her hip and eyebrows rose to her hairline. She was ready to fight.

She is hell on wheels. “I didn't know. I just woke up.” She shrugged. It was impossible to explain.

Adriana smiled. “It's okay. You'll get used to me. It's the boys you'll have to keep an eye on. You're like their bitch in heat.”

So subtle, too. Hell.

Adriana saw her expression. “Nah, it's not that bad. Can't you feel her?”

“Feel who?”

“The moon, silly. She's not full. You're safe till then.” Her eyes became warm, the brown fading to a molten chocolate, and Julia saw the wolf underneath her human flesh.

It was disconcerting as hell.

Julia knew she shouldn't ask. She did anyway. “Ah, what happens then?”

“Nothing special. My brother and a bunch of other wolves will fight to the death to mate with you.”

Julia's hand flung out and grabbed the vanity to steady her sudden vertigo. The other hand clamped onto the knotted towel at her breast.

“Are you okay?”

No. I am definitely not okay. She started a slow stagger that led to falling.

The wisp of a werewolf caught her and looked down on her with a flicker of compassion. Just as Julia was sucked into unconsciousness, she heard Adriana say, “We're gonna have to toughen you up.”

Julia's eyes fluttered closed, and she slept dreamlessly and deep.

*

Were

They looked down at Julia as she slept. New jammie bottoms had replaced the others, which were dirty.

“How'd she do?” Joseph asked his sister, resisting the urge to tuck her dark-blonde hair behind her ear the way he'd done when she was a whelpling.

She wouldn't appreciate it. He smiled at his reflection.

Adriana looked up at him and scowled. “Obviously, great! She fainted when I glossed over the mating ritual.”

“Glossed over?” Tony asked.

She waved her hand around. “I just mentioned, yʼknow, you guys were gonna fight to the death over her and she'd be with one of ya. No. Big. Deal.” Adriana put her hands on her hips, daring them to contradict her logic.

Tony's mouth opened and closed and Joseph put his a palm on his forehead and scrubbed his face.

“What?” she all but shrieked.

Julia turned, moaning in her sleep.

“See! She's gonna be fine. Better to have radical honesty, guys. You should try it sometime. Works like a charm with the chicks.”

“Yeah, I see that!” Tony said, clearly pissed.

Joseph knew it had been a mistake to have his sister be the first one who greeted the Rare One.

*

Julia opened her eyes and saw two men standing over her bed. She scuttled into the corner where the wall met one side of the headboard. She clutched the sheet and hoped for some handy telekinesis. And why the hell hadn't that come when she needed it last night as the tranquilizer darts flew? She winced where she'd bitten the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.

No worry over tears right anymore. She was pissed instead.

“Who are you?” Julia ground out, her voice hoarse, her body tensed.

Adriana grinned. “See? She's just fine. You jackasses got off on the wrong footing, and now you're gonna have to romance her,” Adriana finished, supremely satisfied with herself.

Julia and the two werewolves glared at Adriana from separate corners.

“Fine!” she fumed. “You guys can figure it out on your own. Good luck with that!” Adriana took a look at Julia, shook her head, and marched out the door, slamming it off its hinges on the way out.

The one who seemed to be in charge, who looked a little like Adriana, cringed when the wood slapped together with a resounding thwack.

“That, ah…” he began.

“Nice family,” Julia said.

The larger werewolf laughed. Julia looked at him, and his smile faded.

She was acutely aware of being in a bedroom, wearing nothing but a cami and jammie bottoms, with two men she knew to be werewolves. She pulled the sheet up higher, clutching it underneath her chin.

The first man—probably Adriana's brother—watched when she moved into the corner defensively. He seemed distressed about it.

“Julia,” he started and then abruptly stopped. “Let's get some food.”

“Yeah, okay. Just as soon as you gents get out of this room and let me get dressed.” Her eyes searched theirs, the one that hadn't said much giving her pause. He was a big guy even without being a werewolf. Julia was guessing he had a foot and over a hundred pounds on her. There was something in his eyes—the predator never really left them, she decided. She was going to keep him—all of them—in her sights, for sure.

They left the room, and Julia ran over to the door and slid the bolt to lock it. Like that's going to be any help. She took her hand away. It had a slight tremor.

Julia spied some clothes on a lone chair in the corner and pulled the drape as she passed in front of the window, shutting the forest from sight.

Her head snapped up a few seconds later when a plaintive howl sounded.

It pierced her gut. There was something so sad about it. Tears actually flooded her eyes at the mournful call.

What was wrong with her? She shook it off with difficulty.

Julia dressed. She moved toward the door and put the flat of her palm against the wood, calming her wildly beating heart. She pressed her forehead to the wood for a moment, closing her eyes tight, her mind touching on William and just as quickly shoving the thought away.

He couldn't help her now.

She slid the bolt back, opened the door, and walked out of the sanctuary into the unknown.

*

He knew the routine and would bide his time. They assumed that he was crazy. They were right. But he was also determined. He had something worth escaping for. He now knew so much more than he had, the memories of others a part of the fabric of who he was now, centuries of genetic thought processes and experiences crowding his skull.

They kept him in this holding cell to study him. They fed him, allowed him to kill, and forced him to exercise and maintain a standard of hygiene.

Not that he cared.

He had died that night.

Now he waited to be reborn.

The feral watched the lock turn, and three of his kind came inside. They came in greater numbers than before, since he had taken the head of one of them.

“Time for your bath, feral,” the larger of the three said without compassion.

That would be the first of them he would kill, he thought with satisfaction. His patience had become its own force to be reckoned with. Soon, they would taste it. He repressed a low growl, some of it escaping like a breeze in the quiet room.

*

Joseph looked at the feral warily, his eyes flicking to Tony's. “It's not helpful to call him ʻferal,ʼ and you know it. He can't help what he is any more than you can. Now, let's herd him in there and get it over with. And be careful.” Joseph eyed the wolf in front of them. While big in human form, he was huge as a wolf and was one of the rare reds. It was a shame that he couldn't be part of the pack. But he'd been turned, not born. That branded him other in the pack's eyes. He had all the benefits of the Were but without the protection of the den at his back. He was an anomaly—and feral. His mind was nearly gone.

Who could blame him?

Tony snorted a laugh. “He is not Alpha to me!” He rolled his big shoulders in a muscular shrug of irritation that would have been impressive, but next to the huge red wolf, it just wasn't.

“Are you sure?”

Tony looked at the rare red Were that stood in front of him, spinning emerald eyes laying an unspoken challenge at his feet. He thought he was Alpha enough, those eyes said. Tony flicked a glance at his Alpha. He wasn't sure, but he sure wanted to test the theory—sooner rather than later.

Instead, Tony threw a palm out at the large walk-in shower meant to accommodate all things not human.

The feral allowed his shape to melt into human form again with so seamless a transition that Joseph sighed.

He and Tony looked at the feral with envy.

The moon did not rule his Change—only theirs.

*

Julia

Julia let her legs swing back and forth as she pushed scrambled eggs around on a plate with big blue flowers on it. The cook, or mom-of-everyone, started to chatter again but Julia was only half-listening.

“Eat up now, hun. Keep your strength up!” She busied herself, wiping her practical hands—toughened by a thousand meals cooked and ten thousand dishes cleaned—off on her apron. She plopped her elbows on the breakfast bar opposite Julia. “Dontcha like what I made you?”

Julia did like the food, but her appetite wasn't top-notch—not by a long shot. Let's recap, Julia thought. Husband killed almost two years ago. Best friend gone. Taken by crazy vampires because I'm some kind of genetic prodigy. Check. Then kidnapped by crazier werewolves.

Please eat and exchange pleasantries.

Riggghhht.

She was so into that.

Not.

But she made small talk anyway. “I do… like it. I'm just a little tired after the whole getting kidnapped thing. That'll make hunger…” She trailed off, and Maggie picked up the thread of her thoughts easily. “Unimportant?”

Julia quirked her eyebrows.

Maggie smiled.

“Oh, right. Yeah, I guess.” Julia forced another bite in her mouth, everything tasting the same.

Adriana stalked in and grabbed a couple of grapes from a fruit bowl, popping them inside her mouth. Chewing vigorously, she said, “Hey Maggie, what's for breakfast?”

Maggie slapped her hand as she went for more fruit. “Good for you, but you need some protein in your craw. You know the routine.”

Adriana glared at Maggie and she glared right back.

Interesting dynamics with the werewolves, Julia thought, remembering how civilized everything was with the vampires. With the Were, everyone was passionate, yelling, and boisterous, hitting each other… different.

Julia thought about it more. She had almost forgotten the bloodletting episode with the vampires.

That hadn't been civilized. She repressed a shudder. Julia watched the girl and the older woman circle each other warily, and she resisted the urge to push away from the bar and get out of the way.

“Sit your rear end down and stuff some breakfast down your pipe before the men come. They'll clean everything out, you know.”

Adriana parked her butt next to Julia's, sullen. “Okay.”

“Humph!” Maggie said, ladling a plate with twice as much as she'd given Julia and sliding it across to Adriana.

She dug in with gusto. When half the plate of food was put away, Adriana caught Julia staring.

“What?” she asked, shoveling in more food.

“It's just… so much food…” Julia began, looking at her own barely eaten breakfast.

She shrugged a slender shoulder. “Gotta fuel up. Eat more as the moon waxes.”

Julia cocked a brow.

“You know—” slurp, gulp, “—getting bigger?” She looked at Julia as if she were mildly retarded.

“I understand what a waxing moon means,” Julia said, insulted despite herself.

“Well, thank God. I was starting to really worry about you!” she said, giving Maggie a significant look. Maggie nodded back.

What? She wondered if they thought she was dumb or something. Julia frowned as the two werewolves from before came into the kitchen.

Julia did get up then. She backed up against the wall closest to the door she had used to enter the kitchen.

Their eyes flicked to hers, and she did not miss the subtle flare of their nostrils.

That was a creepiness factor of about one thousand.

They were scenting her.

Her eyes met Adriana's, and she smirked then added, as if Julia needed clarity, “Bitch in heat, baby, bitch in heat.”

Nice. Julia flattened herself even harder against the wall.

Adriana's brother glared, and Adriana blithely ignored him, gulping some more orange juice and stabbing a sausage that was impaled on the tines of her fork.

While the one werewolf smoldered at Adriana, the other stared at Julia, his eyes boring into hers.

She shifted uncomfortably underneath that gaze.

His eyes weren't right.

*

Tony watched the Rare One with barely contained ownership. She'd have to bow to him. He would be Alpha to her. He didn't care what Lawrence said. Maybe he was Alpha enough to take him, but the Packmaster didn't get to play in the sandbox. Tony's lips curled in a predatory smile. The bitch Rare One would free him of his status in the pack. He would be able to change at will, the moon nothing to him. No pull, no more domination. He could taste the freedom that she'd provide. And all that bullshit about honoring Singers? That was for the old ways.

It was going to be his way.

Tony looked at her again and saw that she interpreted some of what he was thinking from the expression in his eyes. He hooded his gaze and looked away. Better not to let her in on my plan. As it was, Joseph was Alpha enough to understand what he wanted.

Tony hated looking away from her first. He didn't want to give her the impression that her gaze was dominant to his.

After all, she was a weak female. She was of rare blood, but female nonetheless.

*

Julia backed farther against the wall. The look the big Were gave her scared her. She saw Adriana catch the glance between the two and shoot her arm out in a sucker punch that landed expertly in Tony's solar plexus.

He issued a satisfying grunt that caused his gaze to swing away in anger toward Adriana.

*

Tony felt the swing a moment too late, his gut unprepared. That bitch Adriana swung at him and landed a nice one in his breadbasket, stealing most of his breath.

Embarrassment washed over him instantly, and before he knew what he was doing, he was after her—with his Alpha, who was also her brother, in the room.

Tony saw red. A lesser wolf and a female had humiliated him in front of a potential mate of the most important order.

Tony would crush her.

*

Julia responded without thinking, watching the wolf's huge hand ball into a fist as it rose above the mouthy Adriana.

The power that was not harnessed correctly—without finesse, without will—came to the surface in a surge of brilliance, bursting inside her in a flash of interior light. Without thinking, Julia directed it at the large wolf. He spun where he stood, as though an invisible wood plank had been leveled at his raised fist, and swung hard, making brutal contact.

He staggered against the breakfast bar and away from Adriana, his back slamming into the fridge, a storm of magnets clattering to the floor like hail.

His eyes snapped up and met Julia's. She knew the remnants of what she'd done stood in the room between them. Hell, even she could feel an almost static energy zooming and ricocheting around them, pinging off the walls.

“Holy shit! That rocked! You clocked Tony's ass!” Adriana said, jumping up and raising her fist into the air triumphantly.

Adriana's brother was on Julia before she could move, sweeping her behind him as Tony fell in the spot where she'd been standing.

Julia screamed, held against one Were while the other's jaws snapped around him to get at her.

She saw Tony's face between the sliver of the other one's arm and the wall that he stood against.

Tony had changed, the eyes luminescent and golden in a face that had elongated into a snout with silver fur and many teeth.

He was like a crocodile—one that didn't crawl on the ground and was nearly seven feet tall.

“She's shown defiance!” Tony roared, drool and spittle flying out of a mouth filled with teeth the size of her pinky finger.

Adriana yipped behind him, and he whirled on her. She was pathetically small compared to Tony, all white with silver-tipped fur, her eyes an unnerving glacial color, gold blazing through them like lightning.

“Adriana, no!” The other wolf went for his sister in protection even as he left Julia there in the doorway threshold—vulnerable and unprotected with a half Were's anger directed at her.

*

Tony turned and saw his opportunity to subdue this female—now, before she embraced ideas of superiority. Her fragility was attractive. He would not crush her, but she would feel the sting of his superiority.

Oh, yes.

He sprung from clawed feet that missed purchase on the tile floor of the kitchen, and as he slipped, he regained his balance at the last moment and leaped for her.

*

Julia saw that muzzle coming for her and couldn't get whatever telekinetic power she possessed to work. It was as though she was out of gas. She turned and ran.

The wolf's hot breath on her neck, her fear tightened her bladder and made the food she'd just eaten rise in a tide of gorge.

*

He paced the cage they kept him in, and when his acute hearing detected raised shouts, he allowed his nose and facial alignments to shift to wolf. Only those. That was all he needed to gain an answer for what was happening outside the confines of this place.

His nose became a snout, and many layers of scent came to him instantly. He pressed his new wolf snout against one of the many holes in the wall, and fear touched him.

Female fear.

He knew the flavor of it.

He knew who was frightened.

The wolf burst out of his human form, the force of his change spraying what he had been moments before around the room in a splattering gunk of flesh and bone. The blood mixed with the liquid that had facilitated the change landed against the clear wall and slipped down to pool at the ground.

He howled a warning of such rage and power that the birds roosted in the trees in midday, avoiding whatever had made that sound by seeking refuge at the highest point of the forest.

*

Julia heard a howl of rage that made her steps falter just as clawed hands that were now half paws as big as her head wrapped her upper arms and jerked her back against a body that emanated an impossible heat. It blazed against her back as she struggled to get away.

Then the other Were stood in front of her.

Joseph, the brother of Adriana, she thought with random wildness.

“Let her go!” Joseph growled out.

*

The need to mark the Rare One pounded a steady beat in Tony's head. He could hear nothing else. He knew the Alpha had spoken, but the fragrance of the Singer had sunk its talons into his soul, and the call of the wolf was on him. He couldn't shake it and began to tremble with his needs.

They were many.

He opened his jaws wide to take her throat into his mouth. She must submit.

The pain was immediate. He felt something strike him in the back of his head, and his hands loosened on the Singer. Tony tried to take her to the ground with him, but as he fell sideways in slow motion, the Alpha grabbed her and pressed her against himself.

*

Adriana held the cast iron skillet in delicate hands that were half-wolf. With grace, Adriana had skipped up behind the werewolf twice her size, swung the pan above him as she jumped vertically, and landed the skillet soundly on the crown of his head.

Tony began to slip, his hold coming away from the Rare One's arms, and Joseph grabbed her when she would have fallen with Tony to the floor.

He pressed Julia to his chest and murmured the things people said to soothe when there wasn't a hope of it.

*

Julia met Adriana's wide eyes and thought maybe she'd bitten off more than she could chew.

Hardy-har-har. She pressed her eyes shut, smelling the male aroma of the wolf:; pine, earth, and the faint smell of cinnamon.

But it was the haunting shout of another wolf that echoed in her mind, the sound of it still following her thoughts. Somehow, he had interfered with Tony hurting her.

It had sounded so sure—like a warning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Adriana pointed to a semi-conscious Tony. “Bull's-eye!”

Julia looked at her, amazed, and Adriana laughed. “He gets kinda enthusiastic and needs a slow down.”

Yeah, a cast iron skillet would do it.

Joseph slowly released Julia and turned her to face him. She was immediately struck by his eyes, which were an impossible hazel, at once gold, green, and a rich root-beer brown. Rainbow eyes.

She realized she'd been staring and cast her eyes down. Joseph chuckled. “You're not afraid of me?”

Julia shook her head. Oh yeah, she was afraid. But given that he'd just rescued her from enthusiastic Tony, she guessed he was okay.

He looked at his sister, his hands leaving Julia's arms with a caress, and she shivered, as though a goose just walked over her grave. It was a creepy sensation but also like an itch on her back that had just been scratched. Totally weird.

“That'll be a hell of a thing to smooth over, Adi,” he said, exasperated. Tony was writhing around on the floor. Joseph watched him and scrubbed his face again.

Julia had an idea he did a lot of that when it came to his sister.

Adriana smiled at him. “He was outta control, and your ass was too slow so… Adriana to the rescue!” she shouted to the rooftops.

Julia stood awkwardly between them in the kitchen, a werewolf at her feet, one beside her, and a possible female ally.

Funny how life works.

*

One Week Later

Moonlight streamed through the skylights, shattered pieces like broken glass on the cobblestone floor of the underground of the Seattle kiss. William looked at the pass-through, which led into one of the long halls, the bricked archway perfectly framing Gabriel.

He had an abiding scowl planted on his face—for good reason. William was busy packing and readying himself to reacquire Julia. It was but one week from the full moon. They were not yet ready for acquisition, but each moment they drew closer to the moon's fullness, their enemy grew stronger—and on their territory, no less.

No, the time was now. He and Gabriel had argued. But as the leading runner, William had pull, and his thoughts held weight.

And as Julia's potential mate, he had even more pull. Claire had sided with him as well.

Gabriel pushed away from the brick and walked over to where William stood, shouldering a small backpack. “You do this at your own peril. You realize how closely guarded she will be?”

William nodded. “I do. Even now, kept by the mongrels, day by day they grow closer to their heathen ceremony. No”—he shook his head at the multiple visions that greeted him—“she will not have that end. Not Julia.”

Not his Julia.

*

Julia

Julia was in her room again at the Were compound. That was how she saw it. Her routine was the same every day, and it reminded her eerily of the vampire. Except for William. She found she missed him. At first, he'd been nothing but a captor. But he became someone she had grown to care about and to have an easy friendship with. She was acutely aware that she'd grown to depend on his protection. She had not felt that sense of security since Jason.

Her chest got tight, and Julia took deep breaths. Her capture and his death were combined in a memory of unbearable agony.

One bright spot was Adriana. Julia liked Adi, so she called her by her nickname. She remembered the conversation exactly.

*

“You can call me Adi too, yʼknow,” she'd said, putting some clothes away in the drawer, her eyes doing a peripheral check of Julia's reaction.

“Okay, thanks.”

“Do you… do you always go by Julia?” Adi had asked.

Julia looked down, feeling sad. Finally, she shook her head. “No. I had a friend…”

Julia covered her mouth with her cupped hand for a moment, and Adi broke the sadness with, “No waterworks, just tell me your nickname.”

Her whiskey-colored eyes met Adi's brown ones. “Jules. That's what my friends called me.”

“Tell me about them.”

It was the first time someone had actually given a crap about Jason, Cyn and Kev.

She told Adi all of it. How cool they'd been, how much she missed them, how she and Jason had gotten married in the Gnome Chapel. That brought an instant smile.

“Really? That's a no-shitter.” Adi had thought for a moment, her chin planted in her palm. Then she brightened. “At least it wasn't in that creepy Elvis Chapel.” She grimaced and Julia laughed until her sides hurt and tears were streaming down her face.

Adi looked at her with curiosity, her palms spread at her sides. “What the hell, Jules? Doesn't everyone think there's something alarming about a dude in white polyester and tassels? And the man tits? Ugh!” She hissed in emphasis.

That made Julia laugh harder. When she had some semblance of restraint, she held up a finger and replied, “That was my only requirement.” She wiped the tears.

“What?” Adi asked, confused.

“I didn't want to get married at that damn chapel with The King in attendance.”

“King my ass,” Adi muttered.

“Cyn didn't like him either.”

“Was she pretty cool?”

Julia nodded, their gazes locking. “She was the best,” she replied wistfully.

*

Homer

Truman slapped the file against his thigh as an officer approached him. “Detective Truman!”

He shifted his weight in the large chair that swiveled behind his desk.

“Yeah?” Karl Truman asked, looking at the disheveled beat cop. The name on his tag read, Daugherty.

Truman had sent him on a last-ditch wild goose chase. The seasons were changing, and after almost two years, the weather was finally cooperating for his purposes. Truman had thought of something that had been missed when the Caldwell scene was canvassed two years ago. Well, almost two years.

Those trees.

The trees stood on either side of the rugged path that led down to the beach. He'd seen them a thousand times, but the dream he'd received last night had been a revelation, the break he hadn't been able to get from returning to the scene of the Caldwell murder a hundred times.

Daugherty jerked up the evidence bag like a prize won at the carnival. It was clear, inside it were three or four long hairs.

Truman didn't know it then but they weren't left by a bear.

They weren't human.

That dandy little footnote would be inscribed later.

The first real smile of the day broke over Truman’s weathered face and the beat cop smiled in return, relieved beyond words that his boss wasn't gonna chew his ass.

Today.

They beamed at each other, and Karl reached for the bag, its precious cargo so light but oh, so heavy.

*

Three Months Prior

The talons stroked Cynthia's throat, and she shuddered. She'd been asleep in her bed on the day that the cop—Turner, Tucker, whatever his name was—had come by to visit her and ask questions again about Jason's murder. And Jules's disappearance.

Her answers were always the same. The visits from the creatures were always the same.

The day after Jules had been taken, they'd come inside her bedroom window and silenced her immediately.

They said things—terrible things. But she believed them when they told her if she said anything about what really happened, she would get the same fate as her boyfriend.

Now this one came again.

Cynthia didn't care what it said. She thought it liked causing her pain and fear.

Her only consolation was that if they had Julia—really had her—they wouldn't be so worried about discovery.

Cynthia wasn't the same girl she'd been before. She didn't care about fashion or fun. She wanted to escape from Homer and move somewhere new.

Somewhere they couldn't find her.

As she lay pinned on her bed by the creature that ground out its demands, its filthy half paw wrapped around her throat, its fetid breath encasing her in rot, it instructed her on what to say.

“Keep to the story. Repeat what it is,” it growled at her. At least it was only the one this time.

“I… it was a bear attack.” Her eyes flicked to the beast, whose eyes were golden and spinning in an immense head with fur the color of the sea on a stormy day. “That's why there was so m-much… bl-blood,” Cynthia said, her voice trembling from the memory of the blood, the carnage, and her boyfriend's decapitated body, paces from where she lay.

He squeezed her throat and the breath wheezed out of it. “And…?” the werewolf that held her on the bed asked, giving her a teeth-rattling shake.

He released the pressure so she could utter the final lie. “I passed out from the shock. I never saw what happened,” Cynthia recited mechanically.

It smiled a grin filled with teeth meant to maim, tear, and kill. It suddenly released his grip, and her hand went to her throat automatically. The tears fell in rivulets, dampening her pillow.

Cynthia had seen everything that happened—all of it.

She didn't like slasher flicks anymore.

She knew horror was real.

Cynthia watched the Were leave through the window as it had before.

She made a promise to herself in that moment. She'd move to where they couldn't find her, somewhere different, anonymous, big.

Like Seattle.

Perfect.

She'd forget what had happened in a fresh environment, Cynthia told herself.

She studied her meager belongings in her studio apartment. She rose from her bed and began to pack at three o'clock in the morning, long past the witching hour.

*

Julia

Adi and Julia ran.

They had no privacy of course, but they ran anyway. It felt so like the exercise Julia had taken with William and the other runners. But the Were could keep up in their human form.

Julia hated having Tony at her back because she knew, deep down, that he really didn't have her back. William had been open about his intentions, about the history, and the Book of Blood.

The Were had been covert, not that it helped—Adi told Julia everything she wanted to know and things she didn't. She was a treasure. If Julia had met her in other circumstances, they could have been friends.

But even now, Julia planned her escape.

She ran on a dirt path, made wide by use, the dappled shade from the trees making the ground look like a puzzle of light. Julia felt the heat of the sun even through the trees and thought about how different it was from Alaska. There was a distance in that part of the world as if the sun held its rays back, stingy with its warmth. Here in Washington, the kiss of its heat was all around them, and she reveled in it.

She'd miss it.

Julia didn't care if she was important. She wanted freedom. She'd stayed awake these past few nights thinking about that one one-hundredth of a percent of Rare Ones who breathed the air on this earth. Why couldn't she belong to them?

Why couldn't she belong to herself—free to choose her own path, her own destiny? There was no one to give her any council. They all wanted a piece of her blood—a song that rivaled all others, a genetic match of perfection to balance their needs.

They had no regard for her needs.

They drove up the last hill, their legs pumping furiously, Adi barely breathing as she whispered to Julia, “You know that swine Tony?”

Julia huffed, her legs grinding up the incline. “Yeah?”

“He put me in the dog house and now I'm off babysitting your precious ass,” she said, sprinting ahead.

Oh shit.

Julia poured on the speed and caught up, running alongside her. “What do you mean? He scares me,” she said quietly, mindful of the ears pricked behind them.

“He's made me give a squirt of pee on occasion,” Adi said dryly. “But not without payback, if you feel me.” She gave a smug smile, and Julia nodded. She felt her. She'd only been a couple of weeks in the den, but already, she wondered why Adi wasn't in charge. She sure thought she was, but Adi hadn't gotten the memo.

But in reality, Julia had grudging respect for Joseph. He was stern and gentle and supervised the pack with great fairness. The Packmaster… he was a different story. Julia hadn't liked him much better than Tony. Julia remembered their brief meeting.

*

Lawrence had circled the Rare One and was surprised at her. Hardly more than a girl, she had looked no different than any other female.

But for her smell, she could have been any college-aged student, roaming around.

But her smell was like the most rare perfume, small in quantity and potently lethal.

Agitating. Julia Caldwell drove under his skin and stayed there. The moon as his witness, he would be most glad when the Ritual of Luna and the mating were finished. He would lose one of his wolves and gain a legend. Freedom was within their grasp. Having a Rare One would solidify their leadership in the Pacific Northwest region forever.

A self-satisfied smile had curled his lips as he met Julia.

He saw that she regarded him with distrust. No matter—hers had been an easy life.

*

Julia had watched him assume everything about her in a glance and knew that he might be Packmaster, but to her, he was presumptuous, as well as just plain wrong. She had a trick or two up her sleeve. They thought her awakening powers were not fully formed. They assumed that when she'd heaved Tony against the fridge, she had been too much of a novice to do anything further to defend herself.

They were wrong. Julia was executing the equivalent of push-ups when she was alone in her room, levitating herself and all that was in her space.

She'd become quite good at it and had developed finesse, pushing herself for control in the short time she'd been there.

Claire would have been proud. Julia gulped against the lump that formed in her throat.

She glanced at Adi, who nodded back. Time to turn around. They turned where a great log had fallen, its form caved in with a secondary seedling growing out of the decomposition. Julia looked beyond it, into the deeper woods.

It was there that her escape lay.

As Julia and Adi ran, the werewolves fell in beside them, and Julia could feel the emotions around her. There was no way to block it out. She could not gain one ability without others showing up.

She had never wished for anything more in her whole life: another one like her.

A Blood Singer.

*

Four Days

He heard them as they came back from exercise and pressed his snout against the acrylic partition, which was made of a vile material that smelled like rotting plastic to his most sensitive organ. He smelled the female of his kind that fed him and the other.

He would know her fragrance anywhere. But it had changed. Something about that familiar scent was altered.

It didn't matter. Soon enough, when the moon was ripe and full, he would escape this place. He mourned what would be done to see it through.

But in the end, it would be worth it.

*

One Day

Adriana slipped into the kennel where the feral was kept and instantly felt the guilt grip her.

She hated seeing him.

He was the most beautiful of the Were she'd ever seen, with a coat so deep a red it was like wine, eyes so green they shimmered like emeralds. In fact, Adi didn't think there were jewels that looked as good as his eyes. But she'd been there the day he'd knocked off the head of her whelpmate.

He was dangerous—and crazier than a June bug, as her grandpa would say.

She had extra feral duty because she'd walloped that shitwad Tony in the head with the pan. No thanks that I saved the precious Rare One from a mauling. Oh, no.
It's, “Adriana, Tony is superior. You need to show deference…” Blah, effing blah. Deference, my ass. Tony was a pain in all their butts. She figured she'd done everyone a favor. He had a very small brain, and after she'd thwacked his head, she hoped that maybe the swelling would enlarge it enough so he'd think.

Nah. Fat damn chance of that. He was back to asshat status as soon as he woke up.

The dick. Why he was even in line for the Ritual was beyond her. None of the men could see his cruelty. He wasn't good with the whelplings. He had to remind them constantly that he was dominant. Yeah? So what? They knew that. They didn't need their asses handed to them day in and day out.

Adi fumed inside the kennel, which was really a huge outbuilding. Her eyes went at once to the feral. He was in human form and she thought that unusual. He could partially change at will and didn't need the moon. However, he was invincible when it was full. Nobody entered then, unless there were three or more of them.

They'd learned that the hard way.

Adi felt guilty that he didn't get food or water one day a month. Actually, she didn't agree with keeping him like a zoo animal. Just because he was turned didn't mean that he was inferior to them.

*

He watched her approach him warily, very small for a female of his kind but wily, yes… very clever.

*

In his human form he stood six foot two with athletic build and sandy-blond hair. But the eyes were not green. She didn't know why they were not gold during the Change like everyone else's.

The Packmaster didn't know why he was a red. There were so few.

Adi had a speculation about it. The Alphas weren't keen on listening. Her brother would though. She would tell him tonight.

Adi looked behind her for a moment, thinking of Julia. What if…? No, it was too weird for words. It was impossible.

Sacrilegious.

She went forward with the food. It squirmed and whimpered in her clasp, its fate etched in its eyes.

*

He began to salivate before she pushed it through the slot with her wrist and part of her forearm vulnerable to injury.

The man sprung forward, scooping the prey out of her grasp, and lightly scratched her with his talon as she withdrew.

Their eyes met for a moment as she snatched her arm back through the narrow distribution slot. She cradled the arm against her chest, the blood from the scratch soaking her T-shirt beneath.

*

Adi had never been gladder for the two-foot-thick partition. She knew who would be the victor between the two of them if he escaped.

He was more Alpha than any she'd ever known. For the first time in her life, Adriana was scared of another wolf.

And she didn't scare easily.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

William did not have the kiss at his back. Gabriel wanted Julia back but not at any cost. It was a conditional desire.

William's was not. She would be his. Not the dogsʼ, not some other hapless runner with Singer ancestry. His.

He waited in the woods, the night but a promise, his brazenness in the darkest part of the forest a testament to his desire to retrieve her from the clutches of the mongrels, for tonight was their ritual. When the moon wept her fullness on the Were, they would change. They planned to feed and to consummate their hold on the Rare One. But for as long as William took breath, they would not succeed.

*

Blood Singers

Brendan

The Singer looked in both directions and turned to his sister. “I smell a vamp in these here parts!”

Jen rolled her eyes. Not everything was a joke! “Shut up, they'll hear you.” She folded her arms across her chest and gave him a look as if to say, Are you kidding me?

Brendan chuckled, grabbing Jen in a bear hug that left her without enough oxygen. “Knock it off!” she hissed. “This is serious!”

Brendan nodded soberly then went off in a fit of hysterical laughing.

Jen stalked off.

Brothers. She had three of them, all Singers, all with plenty of air between their ears. She was the only sane one in the family.

Brendan followed behind her. “Don't be mad. It's just—” He shrugged. “The intel says we've got a ʻbig dealʼ Singer wrapped up with the Were, but they've been wrong before.” Brendan made a bunch of noise kicking a stone that sat in a nest of leaves.

*

William turned his head, hearing a small sound not of nature half a mile east from his position. He stood, trapped in the shadows, the sun a dangerous heat, high and bright above the safety of the forest's canopy.

Had it been night, he would have discovered who made the racket. But because it was daytime, he had to remain where he was, steeped in frustration and anxious for the next step. His nemesis, the sun, rode above him.

All thoughts lead to one: Julia.

*

“Would you stop being so loud? If you know there's a vamp around, why would you provoke him?”

Brendan grinned, even though she took all the fun out of his antagonizing. “He'll fry like a tiki torch, sis. I want a front seat for that performance.” He smiled wistfully, and Jen rolled her eyes again. Her brothers had a death wish!

He saw Jen's face and laughed. “Nah. He'll have to park his ass in the woods or some skulk position like that until twilight comes. There's no moving until then. I'm just yanking his undead chain.” Brendan stretched his long body, and tight muscles corded and flexed with the movement.

Jen wanted to punch him. She had a two-part reason for this. One, he was just that sure of himself. Two, he could eat enough food for five people and still look like a GQ model. She scowled at him, and he grinned wider, his teeth flashing white in the semi-gloom of where they stood in the woods.

“You remember I've never been wrong before, right, smart-ass?”

“Ooh, language!” Brendan warned, the smile still plastered on his arrogant mug.

Jen contained herself with effort. “Listen here, buster. I'm part of that ʻintelʼ you blithely discounted. I'm precog—”

Brendan muttered under his breath, “A hell of a lot more than that.”

“Huh?” Jen said, narrowing her eyes on his.

Brendan threw his hand against his chest, fingers splayed. “What? I didn't say anything.”

Right, Jen thought.

There was a noise down low from their position, and Jen caught the flare of Brendan's nostrils just as he swung his head toward where the Were poured through a wide pathway, opposite their position, with two females.

The siblings crouched down simultaneously, peering through the thick foliage hugging the base of fir and cedar trees that grew like mighty companions. The fragrance was thicker than the air around them. Their eyes stayed trained on the enemy.

“What are they?” Jen asked in the softest voice, barely above a whisper.

“Were. And…” Brendan extended his neck, lifting his chin, nose in the air. “All Were but one of the females. She's Singer.”

Jen smirked in triumph. No kidding? Singer, huh?
Like I said.

Brendan caught her self-satisfied look but ignored it. “There's something more.”

But when they looked again, the group had disappeared inside the compound.

“Damn!” Brendan said, pounding a fist on his jean-clad thigh. “Almost had it.”

“Had what?”

“What flavor she was,” he said, grinning again.

“Girls aren't ice cream!” Jen protested.

Brendan's smile widened. “News to me.”

Jen punched him a good one in the arm.

She used her knuckles the way he'd taught her. He leaped back as she swung. It was a glancing blow, but she'd made him flinch.

That felt good. She felt like a tiger on the prowl.

Brendan looked at her, rubbing the red spot she'd made, and smiled.

****

The Ritual of Luna

Adriana looked at Julia and thought she cleaned up pretty well. She eyed her critically, taking in the all-white ensemble. She couldn't help but connect the dots of symbolism. Virginal lamb led to slaughter. Actually, she didn't really know about Jules's background except she was still sort of hung up on her husband. The guy had been dead how long? For freakin' ever. Like, get over it yesterday. But Julia had hardly been able to get through talking about him to tell Adriana her story. Even she had to admit Julia hadn't had the greatest life. Parents dead at eight. Sent to live with crappy and resentful relative. Soulmate husband bled out by rogue Were.

That was troubling to Adriana. Why had the Were taken out the Singer? It was an amateur's move. She couldn't understand why he'd been a target at all. Any idiot whelpling knew that a werewolf could subdue a human without killing him. Hell!
One of the Were could subdue four humans. It puzzled her. Something smelled funky, and she'd have loved to find out the cause of it. Of course, Adriana knew from experience that when she started sniffing around, her nose got slapped.

That pissed her right the hell off.

“Adi?” Julia asked.

Huh?” Adriana jerked her head up. She'd really been a million miles away.

“What were you thinking about?”

Lots of secret speculation. “Just distracting crap.” Partial truth.

*

Julia had the distinct impression that Adi had been thinking about something interesting. She turned and looked at her reflection in the mirror and couldn't help but think of Cyn. She'd have died to see Julia wearing white. It just wasn't her color.

She'd been told it was symbolic.

The dress had been made for her. Actually, it had been a standard size and altered to fit her. The bodice was simple and crossed underneath her breasts, leaving the tops exposed, and narrowed to her waist where the full skirt flared at the hip and fell to what Aunt Lily had called “ballerina length.” Thanks to Cyn, she knew that meant just above the ankle. The material was some kind of chiffon, filmy and light, opaque and lovely.

Julia wasn't nervous about their ritual. Her plan had been the same all along. She had her telekinetic skills down. When the werewolves were distracted by their fighting, she'd split. The chiffon getup was as retarded as they came for a badly hatched escape plan, but she'd spied keys, and she would use them. Could she hop in a car and drive away in princess white?

Yeah, she could.

She'd miss Adi. It figured that she'd bonded with a female werewolf in the den of iniquity. Geez.

She turned away from her reflection but couldn't help asking Adi, “You promise your brother will… beat Tony?”

Adi nodded her head enthusiastically. “He'll kick his ass.”

Julia gulped. “What if he kills him?”

Adi shrugged. “No loss for me. Besides, if he thinks he's Alpha enough to fight the big dogs, he can get all froggy and jump on the lily pad.”

Julia smiled. Adi was so like Cyn it made her heart ache. She turned away before Adi could see her expression.

*

But Adriana did see Julia's expression.

She frowned as she followed Julia outside toward the pavilion. Unease was forming in her mind.

Something was wrong.

Adriana would be watchful. But first, she had one final chore to screw with after she settled Julia in her position within the ring of the pavilion.

*

William

William stayed upwind of the mongrels and prayed for the breeze to stay as it was. He watched the sun sink low in the sky, washing the branches a sunset color.

The trees looked as if they were weeping, crying tears of blood. The visual analogy made William's smile.

Time grew short.

He was ready.

*

Julia stood by herself as people began to fill a great open gazebo. It was actually ancient in its composition. Great pillars held the roof above it, a hammered copper so green that not an ounce of its original bronze color showed through. The pillars had been made of marble, and the materials used were the most incongruous she'd ever seen. Here, in the middle of an old forest full of trees more than one hundred years old, stood a structure that would have been more at home in Rome.

She looked at the scarred marble tiles at her feet, streaked with veins of gray and speckles of gold. The grout must have been some shade of white at one time, but now had a dove-gray hue from age.

All eyes were upon her when Lawrence approached. Julia took a step backward. His physical presence was so overbearing, his personality the same. Mega creeper, Julia thought, and not for the first time. Goose flesh broke out on the skin of her arms, which were bare to the weather. It was warm enough for what she wore, but in the presence of the Packmaster, she felt cold.

The chill of death sank its bite into her bones.

He ignored her unease and turned Julia in the direction of the crowd like a prize breeding mule. How flattering.

Julia had an excellent view of the seating built in a circle all around her. It rose out of the ground as an integral part of the pavilion, each seat a curved unit higher than the last. None of the faces were friendly. All were somber.

Julia guessed that some were not happy with the fighting and death.

Or with her.

She'd never been popular.

*

Tony and Joseph watched the fragile beauty of the Rare One, who was showcased in her rightful position in the pavilion, the Ritual of Luna nearly begun.

Their faces turned to the sun sinking behind the mountains—night and day balanced on the finest scale.

Finally, it tipped to night, and the moon winked its pale face into existence.

The glory of her fullness exerted an irresistible pull, and the men changed into their otherness in unfurling brutality. Flesh and bone burst, shifted, and sloughed onto the ground at their feet.

Their snouts came together, five in all, the challenge in their eyes unmet for a few moments more.

They trod out to the pavilion, to their destiny.

*

Julia watched them come, and her arms gripped the side rails of the great chair the Packmaster had forced her into as though she were royalty or something.

She guessed she was to them.

Soon, she thought.

Soon.

*

The feral heard the fight begin just as the female entered his prison. He swung his head in her direction as she looked around in confusion, obviously distracted.

*

Normally, full moon duty on the feral would have gone to someone else—or several someones because of the danger—but Adriana had gotten nailed with it because of her stunt. It'd been worth it. Adi entered through the heavy door, her eyes sweeping the cage.

She panicked. Where had the feral gone? Oh no! He escaped? Without thinking about anything—her safety, protocol, anything—Adi slapped the slot open and felt around for the alarm, and a steel band of screaming pain latched on to her wrist.

Her arm was pulled through the slot with such viciousness that it dislocated her shoulder. Adi howled in warning and pain, her voice reverberating in the cloistered space.

No one came.

The wolves were fighting in the ritual. No werewolf was within range to assist her.

Adriana opened her eyes as tears ran down her face for the first time in her life.

She grimaced and stared into the green eyes of the red wolf.

“Sorry,” he ground out, snagging the code card off her neck with a jerk. It snapped the tether, and he stood, pressing the slick thinness of it into the locking mechanism.

The door slid away with a whisper, and he stepped through.

*

The feral glanced down at the female Were and hesitated. He hated that he'd hurt a female. It had been frighteningly easy—and very wrong.

But another female he knew lay beyond that point.

He turned and followed the scent of fighting, the moon—all of it—lending her energy to him.

It thrummed through his body and made his muscles align for finer dexterity in motion, preparing him for fighting.

His form became all wolf seamlessly, a rare transition of speed and smoothness.

He growled low in his throat.

He was ready.

William stepped out of the tree line at the same time that a great red werewolf, one he had never seen in battle or otherwise, appeared.

They stood opposite each other, and their gazes locked for a swollen moment of consideration.

William sprinted to the pavilion just as the feral rushed toward the exact point.

Neither noticed the pair of Singers who calmly walked toward the stage—where blood ran like a river, dripping down steps that had been white marble but moments before and veins that had run gray now ran crimson.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Two of the werewolves lay dead in a pile of their own gore with wounds so deep their bodies had been eviscerated, while three others circled each other, swiping and surging forward in a dangerous game of avoidance that no one could win.

It isn't a game, Julia wailed inside her head, feeling shock eat away at the edges of her mind.

Joseph was wounded and Tony more so. The third Were had rolled into a submissive posture when Tony went toward his throat, merciless and opportunistic. He stilled as if halted by an invisible hand and turned as Joseph did. Their noses alerted them to the new danger at hand.

Julia was turning to look at what could distract them from the important task of killing each other when the scariest creature entered the stage. He was bigger than Tony.

Bigger than life.

Julia gasped and got up from the chair, unsteady from the trauma of the fight. Watching it play out in front of her like a surreal movie had been almost more than Julia could stand.

But she had stood it.

Joseph yelped a plaintive command. “Adi!” Even in his half-wolf form, the worry for her was apparent.

Tony spared him a glance, and knowledge filled eyes that were only half-wolf. Both Were stood nearly seven feet tall on their hind legs. In pose, they mirrored the giant red Were who faced them.

Julia skittered behind the tall chair, her hands gripping the back until they turned white and grew numb.

The huge wolf looked at her, and Julia felt something stir deep within her and the fear melting away as they continued to gaze at each other. She was on the edge of an epiphany when the Packmaster yelled, “The feral! I call total rights!”

What? Julia thought, her hands having fallen away from the chair.

She'd actually taken a step toward the great creature, the emerald eyes sucking her in, when she heard a voice she knew so well.

“Julia!”

William. Relief poured through her, suffusing her body with renewed energy.

She snapped her head in the direction of that voice, finding his eyes of reflective silver staring her down.

At that moment, pandemonium erupted all around her, the melee closing in with the sureness of the cycle of the moon.

*

Singers

Brendan saw the wolves tearing into each other and thought that for all their fierce strength, they weren't the brightest bulbs in the shop. He and Jen had waltzed into the pavilion hardly noticed, thanks to the rabid Were and the loner vamp.

Interesting combo, those two.

Brendan was scenting the area, counting what the odds were, when he hit on a scent he could not identify. Puzzle pieces of scent recognition sifted through his massive storage banks of finer scents.

Then he knew.

His gaze fell on Julia. Brendan felt as if he'd been hit between the eyes with a two-by-four, sucker-punched. All thoughts ground to a screeching halt.

His head swiveled to look at Jen. She didn't know.

Brendan said, “She's the one.” His hands trembled with the knowledge.

“What?” Jen shrieked over the noise. "We don't have time for his melodramatic crap. We need to get the Singer and get out!"

Jen looked into his eyes and grabbed his forearm. A pathway of emotion flowed between them, and her eyes widened, her head snapping in the direction of the girl in white.

“No way,” she breathed.

Brendan nodded. “Way.”

“Shit, we needed more back up.”

“Yeah,” Brendan agreed. He didn't correct her on her language.

They moved toward Julia, the rarest of them all—the one who'd been prophesied to lead their people to autonomy and freedom.

The visual of the small girl in white didn't match the version of fairy tales they'd been raised with.

A powerful Singer will be revealed. A woman. Our queen.

Brendan gulped, thinking about how many of the enemy were around them. He would have to bring out the big guns.

*

Julia took everything in, and then her chest tightened, and she searched the faces even as wolves circled the great red Were she had been mesmerized by. William came for her as wolves attempted to restrain him. It was impossible, with the distraction of the feral wolf, the vamp… and then Julia saw the pair. A girl with strawberry-blond hair and freckles and a man with bronze hair, deep-brown eyes, and dusky skin that was striking against the deep red of his hair. But it wasn't those things that caused her breath to hitch. She knew what they were instinctively.

They were Singers.

Like her.

Julia moved toward them. It felt as if she were coming home.

*

William had a moment's regret that he would need to dispatch the pair of Singers, obvious relatives of each other. He stabbed a Were in the middle of its Change, and the blood of the fallen made the marble slick at his feet.

He went for the Singers, who had almost reached Julia. She moved to meet them.

That would be very unfortunate if they were to touch one another.

*

Julia's eyes widened as she saw William sprint for the backs of the Singers who advanced in her direction, just seconds from reaching her. She called out a warning, loyalties torn. She cared for William, but these were her people, and she couldn't let William hurt them.

*

Brendan scented the vamp and turning casually, almost too late. He flung his hand out at the soles of the vampire's feet as he sprinted for them.

His intent was clear: he aimed to kill.

Fire leaped and drove its heat up the legs of the vamp. That'd get his full attention. Brendan turned dismissively, his eyes already searching for the Singer.

Blood Singer royalty.

That was when the feral Were barreled into him, knocking him off his feet and crashing into one of the marble columns. There was no give to stone, Brendan realized, his bell soundly rung.

Using the last of his consciousness, he lit this dude up too.

Nothing happened. He saw the Were flung away but not before he'd scented him.

The recognition of what he was caused Brendan to halt in surprise, everything else falling away.

It can't be.

But it is.

Jen hollered, “Come on! That's the best I can do. I can't hold that sucker!” She had a hand wrapped around the Singer's wrist. Huge amber-colored eyes in a small, oval-shaped face stared up at him.

Holy hell, Brendan thought. Maybe it's love.

He was drowning in a sea of gold.

“Snap out of it!” Jen shrieked.

Right.

The vamp was on fire, and the red Were was struggling against ten of his own.

The two wolves who worked hardest to restrain the feral were tracking Brendan with their eyes.

Time to shake and bake.

*

Joseph broke away from the feral and bounded after Julia and the two others of her kind. But he was in full wolf form, and his paws slipped on the gore of the marbled surface of the pavilion. He fell twice then finally gained purchase. He was almost upon them when the other Singer flicked her palm at him, and he was thrown backward against one of the pillars of the pavilion. A fissure formed, running from the impact spot of Joseph's body up to the roof.

*

Julia ran, the manacle of the girl's hand hurting her wrist. What hurt more was the lone howl from the pavilion.

It made Julia's heart ache. She closed her eyes tight and felt strong arms come around her, picking her up even as they jogged. The girl's hand released her.

Julia didn't look back. Visions of William on fire and the red Were struggling to get to her kept swirling in her head. She didn't know why it mattered, but it did.

She gazed up into the face of the person who held her, seeing only a strong jaw and eyes trained straight ahead. She felt the heat rise from her toes and let it overwhelm her, consciousness slipping away like a leaf on the wind.

*

Brendan felt the Singer's weight change as it went from live to dead weight, and he grunted with the stress as he jogged. He was profoundly strong, as all post-puberty Singers were. But an almost full run with dead weight? That was challenging.

“Don't fuss, brother,” Jen said, sprinting with him to keep up, a smile locked into place. “We've got company.”

Jen said it as if there were some flies that needed swatting instead of fifteen Were chasing after them.

And gaining.

Brendan redoubled his efforts, sprinting. His lungs were a burning inferno, begging him to stop. But this was where it counted. This was what he'd trained for, and he wasn't going to give back this precious cargo. She was the final hope for his people.

The brush crashed behind them as they reached their transport. The night's coolness had moved in, and he could scent the exhaust that plumed into the air like a spiral of smoke before he saw it. Brendan instantly identified it as their transport.

The door was already flung open. Michael screamed, “They're up your ass!”

Thanks for the clue, braniac! Brendan reached the open door, slid open to accommodate the Singer, shoved her into waiting arms, and turned, a downward arc of talons making a breeze next to his face.

Hell! That was close. There would be no fighting at close range unless Brendan had the element of surprise.

He didn't. That was long gone. A big monster was coming for him now, a half-wolf form with all the dexterity of a full human shape but the strength and speed of pure wolf.

He was up shit creek. But then Jen was there. Her face covered in sweat and her palm straight out in front of her body, her arm plank stiff.

She held back the first siege of the Were by her will alone. Her body trembled with the effort, sweat gliding down her neck and soaking her shirt.

“How long?” Brendan shouted beside her, trying to light as many on fire as he could. They all got nailed at the feet. It was a temporary measure at best. He was a Tracker, not a Pyro. The secondary ability was awesome sometimes for deflection.

Like now, when we need a mondo distraction.

“Get in!” she hissed.

"Okay." Hell… so touchy.

He saw around ten more burst out of the woods. As he got into the vehicle, he grabbed Jen around the waist and hauled her against him then slammed the door closed. He banged on the roof with his fist. “Go!”

Rafael floored it even as the van rocked with the first Were hitting the side with enough force to partially lift the wheels off the trail.

Shit! Brendan looked down at Jen, who was swiping hair away from her temple. She was totally spent.

“Can she?” Michael asked, an unconscious Singer in his lap.

“Nah!” Brendan shouted over the gnashing of teeth and talons on the exterior of the van. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard of metal. “She's totally gassed!”

“Dammit!” Michael laid the Singer on the blanket at his feet and got busy. He threw himself into the front seat, his face mired in concentration… and ten vamps appeared in front of the van.

Rafael had laid on the gas, but the wheels were spinning without purchase. The Were crawled over the vehicle like ants on an anthill. He hissed in a breath, “What the hell?”

“It's okay. It's me,” Michael said. “Just drive!”

Rafael did, as the Were slid off the van to deal with the perceived threat of their primary enemy.

The Were attacked the vamps, which the van slid through as if they were ghosts. Because that was what they were. Michael had executed his tactical advantage to perfection.

He was one of their best Illusionists.

The van screamed out of the Were stronghold, spinning up dirt as it roared off with the four Singers and their treasure, who was barely hanging onto tenuous liberty.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Singers

Julia felt as though she'd been run over by a truck—a couple of times. She cracked open one eyelid, feeling the heat of the sunlight before it fell on where she lay. She looked around at yet another bedroom, her surroundings different than those of the vampire or the Were.

She was in a funky-shaped space. The bed stood in a portion of room that jutted out, where three windows faced the outside, her headboard against the central one. She rolled over, gazing at the window. She moved a gauzy white curtain aside, and sunlight struck her like a weapon. Julia squinted.

Rolling hills and green-carpeted valleys that kissed a faraway forest greeted her stare. It was beautiful. A pond shimmered in the distance, swans floating on the surface like feathered jewels.

Julia sat back on her haunches, her heels digging into her butt. She looked down at what she was wearing and was beyond thrilled to see that she was still wearing the white gown. So… they'd dumped her in a bed with the dress on and the whole deal.

Perfect.

She swung her feet over the bed and stood on a wood floor that had planks five inches wide and very red in color. Her gaze swept the room, and she noticed two doors. Julia guessed one led to a bathroom. As she approached them, she chose door number one and turned a crystal knob, faceted like a large diamond. Slightly loose in its brass housing, it turned smoothly and swung open.

A tall narrow window with jewel-toned stained glass let in sunlight broken by colored patterns. The light cast on the floor looked like a shattered rainbow. Julia spied the commode, a pedestal sink, and a sinfully large claw-foot tub.

Awesome.

She used the facilities and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and grimaced. That was when she noticed an army of trolls had marched through her mouth and longed for a toothbrush. More than that, though, she wanted to know where she was. For the first time, she was happy to be somewhere new.

These were her people.

Julia had finally come home.

Jen folded her arms across her chest. “You're not going up there.”

They could hear the girl walking around, using the bathroom, exploring. Brendan shrugged. “Why not? Don't want me to hog your find?”

They'd been arguing all morning, which wasn't too atypical because she was so goddamn stubborn. Brendan was busy seething when Michael breezed in.

“Is hotness awake yet?” he asked, rooting around in the ancient fridge for something to snag. "I'm so hungry that I'm pretty sure I'm digesting my own spine.” Michael's whole head was in the fridge when Jen replied, “None of you doofuses need to go hassle her. She's new. We—heck, we kidnapped her! Maybe she needs time to… acclimate or something.”

Michael jerked his head out of the fridge, banging it hard on the top. He grimaced, looking at the dent from the one hundred and twelve times he'd hit his head in the same spot.

“Listen.” He held up a finger. “We saved her precious ass so she better be grateful. I say socialization is in order. And who'd want to do the Were-bride routine?” Michael rolled his eyes and gulped juice out of the carton.

Brendan narrowed his eyes on his brother. “Listen, I got dibs. I did all the hard work. You just poofed some vamps to distract the Were. I ran with her!”

Brendan's keen sense of smell alerted him too late.

The girl had appeared in the doorway, the most forlorn and sad expression he had ever seen covering her face.

Shit.

They all started to talk at once, but she stopped all conversation with, “I'm sorry. You rescued me. I thought that you… that I was wanted…” She burst into tears.

Jen glowered at her brothers.

God! They were so inept! And Brendan was the big-deal Tracker. He couldn't scent her fast enough to curb his words?

Idiots. Jen popped off the kitchen stool, punching Michael as she walked past.

“Hey!” he mock-yelled at her.

The girl looked up, tears shimmering in those eyes. They were like gold topaz, Brendan noted a little dreamily.

Jen grabbed the hands that the girl was trying to use to cover her face. It had to be embarrassing to be where that she wasn't wanted in the ridiculous white dress, her hair six ways to Sunday.

“No, no,” Jen crooned, throwing a dirty glance at the two guys, who stood behind her looking contrite. “Don't listen to my stupid brothers.” She looked up at the girl earnestly. “They always sound dumb.”

“Yeah, that's us. Dumb,” Brendan said dryly.

“Yeah, that,” Michael agreed, swinging his longish dirty blond hair out of his eyes.

The girl gave a small smile. “So, you guys… do you want me to leave?” Her lip trembled again. “Because I can't go back there,” she said in a low voice.

Brendan, looking alarmed, approached her too quickly. She backed up, and he stopped. “No. You don't—we don't want you to go back to the Were… or the vampires. We're all about sucking you into our world. It's where you belong.”

Michael nodded. “Why would you think that we wouldn't want you?”

The girl shrugged. “You sounded like you were kinda mad.”

Jen shook her head. “Nah! That's the way they always sound.”

“Like smart-ass meets anger management?” The girl was definitely okay now, a smile breaking through her tears as though they'd never been.

Jen smiled in return. “I'm Jen,” she said, sticking her hand out, and the girl shook it.

Brendan and Michael came forward. “And these are the dummy duo, who you've had the misfortune of meeting already,” Jen said, but the humor in her voice took away the sting.

“We're not always dumb,” Michael said, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze then dropping it.

“I wouldn't know how to be dumb.” Brendan winked, but he didn't shake her hand. Instead, he drew her into a hug that pressed her against his body, melding her form to his. He said against her hair, “We've been looking for you for a long time.” He drew away, the happiness radiating from every pore so hot that even Jen could feel it.

“Me?” the girl asked, putting her hand to her chest.

They nodded.

“Why? I mean, I don't know you guys.” She looked at them expectantly.

“It's not who you are—it's what you are,” Michael said.

The girl folded her arms. “Okay, I give up. What am I?”

They looked at each other uneasily, and the girl asked again, “Come on, spill the secret! I know I'm a Singer…” She threw out her hands. “I know I'm theʻRare One.ʼ I've known that for a while.” Her hands dropped against the fabric of the dress after the air quotes.

“Rare One?” Michael shook his head. “I don't know what that is, but you're not that to us.”

Jen said, “You're more than that.”

The girl looked at them. She opened her mouth to speak, but Brendan cut in. “You are Queen.”

The girl staggered back a step. “What?” she asked dully. “Queen of whom?”

“The Singers. You are Queen of the Blood Singers.”

Her eyes rolled and her knees started to buckle, but Brendan caught her easily.

He looked down at the girl who had fainted into his arms and felt his heart clench. He hated feeling weak.

She already had a piece of his heart. It beat slower for the loss of that chunk.

Brendan didn't even know her name—not that it mattered. Love was an errant master, choosing its object without reason or rationale.

****

Pack

Adriana screamed at her brother—for him and at him.

“Hold still, Adi!” He jammed his leg into her armpit and wrenched the arm back in before she could stiffen up more than she already had.

Tears of pain rolled down her face, and Joseph swiped them away with the pad of his thumb. “Shhh. It's okay,” He gathered her against his chest.

“It's not okay, Joseph, and you fucking know it!” Tony paced, and Joseph's face shifted. That was automatic when an Alpha felt challenged. The Change asserted itself subtly beneath his skin.

Adi saw her brother's face shift.

“It is at your feet where the fault lies. You insisted that Lawrence give her the worst punishment!” he responded, his anger roiling underneath his skin with weight, with purpose.

Tony turned to face him, his posture wary and tight.

Joseph carefully untangled himself from Adriana, shifting her weight against the acrylic wall that had held the feral.

He faced Tony, walking toward him on a slow prowl.

Adi watched as her brother's body shifted to bursting, the moon's power waning but not nearly enough.

“Me? She is the one who pushed the boundaries! It's always her. And she is always coddled. Now, the Rare One has escaped with the Singers, the feral has escaped, and that vamp runner killed five of us! Five!”

Tony's scathing stare burned a pathway across Adriana, and she growled low in her throat. She didn't care that he outmatched her by a hundred pounds and a foot of height. She hated Tony.

He smelled bad.

She smacked her uninjured palm against the clear wall and boosted herself to standing. “I will take responsibility for the feral. I panicked. I thought he'd already escaped. But”—her stare gave dominant weight to her words, and she watched Tony visibly bristle at its significance—“I will not accept the strange shit that went down while I was injured—substituting for you, so you could fight my brother and also stick me with that chore on the full moon!” Her eyes shifted from one to the other. “I am not a ʻfavorite,ʼ” Adi said, using air quotes. “I was pressed to do the worst chore at the worst time because I let my alligator mouth overload my canary ass.”

Joseph barked out a laugh. “She's right.”

The tension in the empty holding cell slipped down a notch.

“Like any one of us could have known a vamp was skulking around, all Lone Ranger and then the coincidence of the feral escaping. Oh!” she yelled into the strange acoustics of the room, “let's not forget the darling Singers who waltzed in during the bloodiest and most distracting ritual ever conceived and snatched Jules right from underneath our very noses.” She seethed, the fingers of her index and thumb a hair's breadth apart.

They'd been that close to holding on to Julia.

“And—” she continued to rant.

Tony crossed his muscular arms, rolling his eyes. “Shut up and listen!” Tony growled. “This female never knows when to shut up. Someone should teach her a lesson.”

Adi's lips pulled away from her teeth, another growl reverberating between them.

“Enough!” Joseph roared, startling them both. His eyes landed on his sister. “Finish now, then we go to Lawrence. This whole incompetent mess will need to be explained.”

“I was just going to say that fifteen of our wolves trailed the Singers, and still… we didn't get her back,” Adi said.

“So?” Tony said with derision.

“So, I think they're more powerful than we've been trying to convince ourselves.”

“Ha! Bullshit. They're human, and they can do some parlor tricks. It's not real strength. Who do they call leader?” Tony's words echoed into the silence.

Adi rolled her eyes. He was such a goddamn know-it-all.

“What of the Book of Luna?” Joseph asked.

Tony didn't bother with reading that old crap. It was the new order. The only thing he'd wanted was to become a moonless changer. That he'd believed in plenty. And now the little Singer had slipped between his claws like water through a sieve. But she would be within his grasp again.

Adi nodded. “They are a force of their own. You know that! Look what happened a few hours ago? They fooled you, Tony!”

Tony glowered at her. He'd almost had that male Singer, but it was as if the Singer had eyes in the back of his head. Tony shook his head, thinking about it.

“Yeah,” he ground out. “Don't know how. I almost had him.” He smacked his fist into his opposite palm, his dark eyes flashing.

“Scent Tracker,” Joseph said in a flat voice.

Tony whipped his head in Joseph's direction, his eyebrows hiking.

Adriana nodded. She and Joseph had both been trained in the precepts held within the Book.

Tony threw his hands up. “I give up. Drop this secretive shit. Just. Tell. Me.” He pegged his hands on his powerful hips, frowning at them.

“A sense of smell a thousand times more powerful than ours,” Joseph said.

“Impossible,” Tony breathed out, thinking of his multilayered scent awareness. It was so overwhelming he had trained himself to tune out most scents. It was too much. But one thousand times more sensitive? He couldn't wrap his mind around it. He scoffed at the possibility.

“I know, right? It's—” Adi began.

“Unbelievable!” Joseph agreed, nodding.

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever. But what about the ten vampires that just flashed into existence and were ghosts when we attacked?” Explain that, Tony thought.

Adriana laughed, and the men turned to her. When she finally stopped, she said, “Vampire mirage.”

Joseph sighed. “Not helpful.”

“What exactly was it?” Adi asked.

Joseph shook his head. "I'm not sure. But it had been a superb deflection on their part. Too good."

“Well, it was pretty fucking effective!” Tony said. “I could smell the vamps. Smell them,” he said through clenched teeth.

Joseph gave a sound low in his throat. “No, that was the Tracker, assisting… the other one.”

“They can work in tandem?” Adi asked, a look of amazement on her face.

Joseph nodded. “Looks like.” Then he paused. “But a more likely reason for the two is family.”

“What?” Tony narrowed his eyes.

“I speculate for that pair to work as seamlessly together as they did, they'd have to be family.”

“What about the bitch with them?” Tony asked. He conjured up an image of her in his mind: small, pixie-like features, hair blondish—though it had been hard to know for sure in the moonlight. It silvered everything.

Except the red Feral.

His fur had shone like blood spilled.

“Her too,” Joseph said.

Tony's nose was unaffected by his sight. He'd know the Singer female the next time he smelled her. Hell, he'd know them all. Tony's fists curled. “I'd love to have another chance at those three.”

“Soon,” Joseph promised.

“What about the female?” Adi asked suspiciously.

“Especially her,” he said with barely contained desire.

Joseph scowled at him just as another Were entered the holding pen.

“Lawrence is waiting,” he said, shyly glancing at Adriana.

Adi rolled her eyes and flounced out, pushing by the Were. He watched her as she disappeared.

Joseph followed, and Tony came last.

As he passed the other Were, slightly younger than himself, he whispered, “You don't want her.”

The Were leaned back with a puzzled expression. There were few Were females, and she was a good-looking one, too. “Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

“Untrainable,” Tony said, stalking off behind the siblings.

****

The Feral

The feral lifted his head from the fragrant entrails of the deer, the meat a fresh and tasty smell that permeated his olfactory senses, stirring a deep and profound hunger.

He howled and then fed.

The moon, on the wane, hung above him in a blanket of velvet, the stars like diamonds. They glittered as the moon supervised her charge.

When at last he finished, his body demanded rest. He dug out a place of safety in the deepest part of the forest. The feral burrowed underneath his self-made nest. He needed to ready himself for the next leg of his journey. Finally satisfied with his sleeping place, he lay down. Sleep came for him, and just as he slid into the embrace of unconsciousness, he thought of her.

The female.

He had to have her and she, him.

He was certain when they had connected under the roof of the great structure that she'd felt it, too—the pull of one to the other.

They were meant to be together.

Forever.

He slept, the moon keeping her own counsel.

*

The Pavilion

William screamed inside his head as the Were held him, their talons biting into his dead flesh. He saw the Singers tear Julia out of his grasp and that of the Were.

Hope slid away like rain on a tin roof.

William Changed were he stood, his raven form protecting him, assuring his survival.

The Were let go in surprise, not ready for the smallness of his form. They rushed to grab him at the same time he rose with a sharp caw, circling above their position. His eyes, many times sharper than in his vampire form, tracked the Singers. And he watched the pursuit of them by the Were.

He followed, his blackness the perfect camouflage against the night sky. He saw all: when Julia fainted in the arms of the Singer as he ran.

When the fetid breath of the Were caressed the back of the one who held her.

When ten of William's kind suddenly appeared then vanished as if they had never been.

Defeated, William flew to a safe distance then Changed back into the form that would return him to the kiss with the least effort.

Even as he ran, his mind turned over his next move.

If he had been one to play chess, his sight would be set on one piece and one alone: The queen.

*

Julia

Julia opened her eyes and was instantly met with melted chocolate.

His eyes. Her thoughts were still muddled and fuzzy.

Oh, wow. I fainted a second time. This is becoming a trend. She wanted to find a rock and crawl underneath it.

“Hey you,” Brendan said, pushing a stray hair away from her temple.

“I feel beyond stupid.”

“Well, we're even then,” he said, his lips curling up at the corners.

She smiled at him, and he grinned back.

Suddenly, Jen's face showed beside his. “You're okay. Big shock is all.”

Yeah, that. Biiiigggg shock. Two hunky dudes, also Singers, had kidnapped her and taken her away to… where the hell was she anyway?

Michael said from the foot of her bed, “You're somewhere in the Olympic Peninsula.”

Julia frowned. “Kinda cagey.”

“Kinda cautious,” Michael quipped.

Brendan patted her head as if she were a small dog, and stood. “Gotta keep things secure. Nobody knows anything. That's how we like it.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, we like it, uh-huh, uh-huh,” Michael said, swiveling his hips in a distracting way.

“God… ewww. I hope that's not actual singing you're attempting?” Jen asked, looking mortified.

“Oh yeah, I can do Karaoke with the best of them,” he said with a hip thrust and hop. Julia giggled.

Brendan frowned. “Are you okay, asshat? ʼCause…”

He looked expectantly at Julia.

“Julia,” she said, and he smiled and gave her a wink.

“Julia is not impressed by your” —he swung his palm around—“gyrations and attempts at singing.”

“I don't know…” Julia began in a drawl.

All eyes went to her.

“For pure entertainment value, it's about a seven.”

“Out of what?” Michael asked hopefully.

“Fifty, retard!” Jen yelled, punching him in the arm again.

“Ow!” Michael raged then turned to Julia. “Did you see that abuse?”

Julia nodded cooperatively and grinned.

Jen grabbed the boys and dragged them out of the room. “Get ye out!” she yelled, shoving them outside and turning the lock.

“Sheesh!” Jen fumed. “They're so… so…”

“Funny?” Julia asked.

Jen sighed then gave her a sidelong glance. “Maybe. But if you tell them I said so, I'll poke your eyes out. Their heads are already so fat they wouldn't get through doorways if you stroked their egos even the tiniest bit.”

Julia smiled. “I promise—no fathead air pumps allowed.”

“Right!” Jen said, stabbing the air with a finger.

“Now”—she looked at Julia critically—“can we deposit the dress in file thirteen?”

“Huh?” Julia asked, bewildered.

Jen laughed. “Sorry. I have some strange expressions.”

She sure did.

“Trash. Let's throw it away.” She looked at Julia. “Unless you want to keep it for some reason?”

Julia looked down at the soft folds of pure white. “No.” But as she said it, she was reminded of Adi and felt a stab of guilt and sadness. She sure would have liked to have said goodbye to her.

She was relieved not to have to be in some whacked-out forced union with the Were, but… she missed having Cyn around. She missed Adi.

Shit. I just put out an engraved invitation for a pity party and RSVP'd myself.

Dammit.

Jen seemed to pick up on her mood. “Hey!”

Julia turned to look at her, the melancholy riding her like an unwanted friend. “Get out of the getup and get a shower. We'll suck up some grub and walk around the complex some. I bet you've got a ton of questions.” Jen looked at her expectantly.

That sounded good. “Sure.” Julia walked to the bathroom, and Jen handed her some clothes.

“You'll have to wear my stuff until we figure some clothes out for you.” She looked up at Julia. “I guess my pants will be capris on you,” she said, winking.

Then she was gone.

Julia stood under the spray, taking the longest shower of her life, the windowpanes casting puzzle pieces of color across her body as she washed.

Julia cried, the rain from the showerhead washing away her tears. She cried for everyone.

William.

Cyn.

Adi.

But the heaviest tears were for Jason—always him.

*

“Did you get a good cry?” Jen asked Julia.

She thought about lying. For about three seconds. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Jen said, clapping her on the back. “Let's have a look-see, okay?”

After a breakfast of fruit and scrambled eggs, they walked outside. There were so many places to look Julia didn't even know where to begin. Julia turned around and immediately located where her bedroom was.

The house was breathtaking.

It looked like a house of gingerbread but on a big scale. It was Victorian, maybe turn of the last century. Julia knew because she'd lived in an old house—before, when her parents were alive. She waited a moment to let the grief dissipate then returned to studying the structure.

It rose like a brightly colored wooden jewel, the forest an emerald backdrop behind it. On the extreme left was a turret that rose from ground to roof. Three windows formed a bay of sorts. Each one was eight feet tall. The glass, wavy from age, looked as if water coated its surface. At the turret's peak spun a weather vane, the arrow pointing in whatever direction the breeze blew.

“Wow,” Julia breathed reverently.

“Ah! That old thing,” Jen said, unimpressed.

Julia swung her head in Jen's direction. “What? That's like the most gorgeous house ever! And I have the best room in the house,” Julia noted. She couldn't believe she was actually there when just yesterday she'd been with the Were. Julia shook her head, freeing the remaining cobwebs of her memories, her life.

“Maybe that's true. But the house? Ugh! Nothing works—it moans, it moves, it creaks!” She threw up her hands. “I think it needs to be razed, and we need to get something in here so when my brother flushes a commode my shower doesn't scorch my butt off!”

“Noooo! I love it!” Julia said as she felt Jen pull her arm, leading her away from the stately home. “Forget it. Look on your own time at the rust bucket. For now, let's go to the paranormal school.”

Julia stopped, tugging her arm back. “What?”

Jen looked at her. “You know. It's where us Singers train, learn, etcetera.” She put her hands on her hips, staring at Julia, waiting for the light bulb to go on.

Wait a second, Julia thought. “Train, for what?”

“To nail the vamps and shifters. They can't tame our rears. We're independent.”

Julia was getting that part.

“To ʻnail the vamps and the shifters?ʼ”

Jen nodded impatiently.

“And beyond that?” Julia asked, feeling a point of clarity may have slid by her unnoticed.

“To rule the world, of course,” Jen said, winking.

Of course. Julia followed Jen to a large building that had once been a barn. She didn't think she wanted to be queen of that—or queen of anything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Cynthia

Cyn stepped off the plane into the well of people flowing from one destination to another and felt instantly lost like a bottle in the ocean. The current traveled in whatever direction it pleased, and she was its captive.

Get a grip, Cynthia. Her breathing was finally getting under control. She looked around, and someone jostled by her. Cynthia's backpack swung, and she moved alongside one of the great, cylindrical concrete columns, pressing her pack and herself against it.

There, she was out of everyone's way—for the moment.

She'd left everything behind. The backpack weighed about a thousand pounds with the things she couldn't part with—such as the wedding photo. Cynthia gulped back the lump in her throat. Tears ran down her face. She was vaguely aware of people staring at her, but she didn't care.

She missed Jules so much it hurt to breathe. She couldn't even think about Kev and Jason. With them gone, she felt as though a limb had been amputated

Cyn swiped her face, surprised at the wetness she found there. She tore off in the direction the sign pointed to, toward the bus depot.

She arrived at the fork in the great corridor, people flowing past her on either side, and chose the town that sounded the simplest.

Actually, she remembered vaguely that it was a city.

Kent.

*

Truman

Karl Truman went through the studio apartment in the seediest part of Homer, kicking the thrown drawers and papers as he went through. The whole fucking place had been tossed by someone. Or many someones. He turned to the beat cop. “Daugherty!”

The cop jumped as though he'd been goosed. “Yeah, Detective!” His eyes were bulging fish bowls in his face.

Truman frowned. Good kid, but not too bright. “Is our team here yet?”

He scratched his head. “Yeah. I called it in.”

Truman was getting a head of steam and had just opened his mouth to let Daugherty have it when the forensic team came through. The first specialist lifted the yellow tape and scooted under it. His name badge, crooked, read Alexander. Turning, he lifted it for the others to pass underneath.

“Whatcha got, chief?”

Hell. Truman hated being called chief. He wasn't a damn Indian, for cripe's sake! He neutralized his expression with an effort.

He beckoned the Alexander over, and the specialist joined him, squatting down at the windowsill height. His eyes flowed over the deep gouges that ran the length of the sill. “Holy shit,” he breathed.

“Yeah.” Truman leaned into him expectantly.

“I don't know what did this!” Alexander said.

“Bear, right?”

Alexander snapped his plastic gloves on, the powder coating wafting up to Truman's nostrils, the familiar smell resonating from a thousand crime scenes, the memory trigger the same: it was time to work.

Alexander put a fingertip across the groove. His eyes met Truman's, and he shook his head no. “No way. This is something…” His eyes went to the groove again and then lit with excitement. “Wait!" He rummaged in his toolbox and took out a tool that looked like an instrument for cleaning teeth but wasn't.

He began carefully scooping the groove. Finally, Truman thought, watching the process as if it was an archeological dig. Alexander brought out the smallest sliver of something.

“What is it?” Truman asked as the two other members of the forensic team huddled around them as if they were getting ready for a football play.

“Claw,” Alexander said, his eyes meeting his team.

“From what?” Truman asked, eying the shard, which was twice the size of a pinhead.

“Don't know. But I've never seen anything like it.” He met Truman's eyes. “Not a problem! We'll type this puppy and get the results back to you.” Alexander smiled.

One of the other forensics specialists said, “Nah, let's not type it. There's no blood or other fun here.” He looked around at the trashed apartment. There was not a shred of evidence to support violence of the human variety. “Besides, what can it be anyway? Bigfoot?”

They all laughed at that.

Yeah, fucking hilarious, Truman thought then said out loud, “That's horseshit. Any idiot knows there's no such thing as Sasquatch and that other happy crap!”

The specialist laughed again, carefully collecting samples to type for DNA.

Truman sighed. He figured it was a long shot. There'd probably been some spoiling meat in here somewhere, and it was as simple as a pack of wolves trying to get an easy meal. He gazed outside through glass so filthy it was gray. The forest mocked him, stretching into eternity. Hell, it could have been anything.

Truman knew animals tried to get into the apartment. But who had gone through every nook and cranny of this dump? What had they been searching for?

And more importantly, where the hell had Cynthia Adams fled to?

Because she had fled. He was sure of it. Like she was escaping something.
Running. There was too much stuff just left behind, abandoned.

But why?

Truman stared out the window, gnawing on the tip of his ballpoint pen.

Answers—he needed answers.

Like, yesterday.

****

William

Claire repeated herself. “Hold your temper! I didn't say that I could locate her, only that it was possible.”

William paced. He had returned empty-handed, and Gabriel had not been surprised. Because Claire was a Precognitive, she had simply known that his quest was impossible. At the time, William had thought it was strange that Gabriel was not pressing other runners into service to assist him.

Gabriel laughed from his gut. “It is not as if you were prone to listening. I told you not to go. We knew the location of the dogsʼ stronghold. Yet still, you would not listen. Your own cousin, a known Precog—”

William strode to Gabriel, who straightened, knowing the tenor of the vampire he faced: volatile, fresh, angry. “No. She could give nothing of substance. It was all vague.” He threw his arm out. “I would never be content with that as Julia's end. Ambiguity? No!”

“But William, I knew she would be safe,” Claire said.

William nodded. “Oh yes! She is quite safe… with the other Singers. How long do you think it will be before one of them recognizes Julia for who she is and what she is to them?”

There was no response from them. William faced Claire. “We have no evidence of where the Singers may be? It has always been our policy to not interfere in the balance. But now, that scale has been tipped. And not in our favor, I may add.”

He lifted his brows in question, and Gabriel sighed. “All right”—he lifted his palm up—“you've made your point. We will call in a Locator.”

William was surprised. He did not think there was a Locator in their kiss.

“We will have to.” He looked at Claire. “I have not been amongst their kind… my kind. What is the contemporary vernacular for asking to borrow?”

Claire nodded her understanding. “Call in a favor.”

He nodded. “Yes!” He snapped his fingers. “That's it. We will call in a favor to our sister kiss and borrow one of their Singers who locates. That will help us find the Rare One.”

“And what will they ask in return?” William asked.

Gabriel sharpened his gaze on William. “I do not know. But rest assured it will be something.”

William nodded, knowing that vampires did not solicit favors. They took what they wanted, needing no one—an autonomous group unlike any other.

Except the Were.

There was always the Were.

“Yes. It will be that,” William agreed.

Claire nodded. “There is always recompense.”

The question was what and how much they would expect in payment.

Not a pound of flesh—no, not that.

But payment by blood would suffice very well.

*

Julia

Julia had spent a lot of time that morning with her mouth hanging open while the boys—as she thought of the brothers—Brendan and Michael—and their spunky sister, Jen, gave her a tour of her newest home.

The barn looked like a red stop sign in a field of green. Fresh and iconic, it stood like a stoic anchor about ninety yards from the Victorian house. It seemed innocuous from the outside, but when they went through the small doorway, she entered another world. It was as if they remained hidden in plain sight. The floor was white, as well as the walls, the desks… it was weird.

Then Jen spoke. “Weird huh?”

Julia nodded without speaking. Then she couldn't help herself and asked, “What's with the monochromatic thing?”

“Helps us batten down the mental hatches, girlie!”

Girlie? Julia laughed despite herself. “Really?”

Brendan joined in. “Yeah. Keep everything one color, no distractions. Helps with training.” Michael nodded in agreement.

There were partitions that separated the “rooms.” One of the rooms wasn't quiet, and its mats weren't white. They were blue and red. Blue in color… and red with blood.

Julia stopped. There were three guys fighting, and they were really going at it. One man had an open cut above his eyebrow like a second mouth, and it was splattering blood everywhere. “Wait a sec—” Julia began.

“Training,” Brendan interrupted.

Julia's face turned sharply to his. “Is this what you do? I mean—” Julia hesitated, “—to each other?” Just as she asked the question, the instructor, whose back had been facing her, turned. Julia was instantly sure he was one of the brothers—the missing one because Jen had said she had three. He looked a little like Brendan, but the hair wasn't red at all. It was black, and he was clearly the eldest. He was tall, broad, and built like an ox. He'd have fit right in with the wolves.

Julia assimilated these details in seconds. And in the next second, those thoughts were driven from her mind when he grinned at her and charged.

Fear surged through Julia's body, beginning at her gut and throwing a tingling shot of what felt like electricity into her extremities. Her fingers and toes prickled uncomfortably when her telekinetic power flowed out of the hole that the fear had made, hitting the man as he advanced toward her at a dead run.

Julia felt the wall of her power slam into him while he walked through it as if it had been mist. Next thing she knew, Brendan had barreled into her, smoothly rolling her out of the way of his locomotive relative.

“Knock it off, Scott!” Brendan yelled even as he came for them again. Julia didn't even think. She jerked fifteen feet into the air, taking Brendan with her. She wasn't sure which part was better, Brendan's face or his brother's.

“Well, I'll be damned!” Scott said with a laugh. “Maybe she's not a useless figurehead after all!”

“Hey! Mannerless! Way to go on the introductions!” Jen said, smacking his beefy arm.

“What? It's my job to assess new talent,” he said innocently.

“She's our queen, asshat,” Michael said in a droll way.

Scott paused. Julia and Brendan were still suspended in the air, and it was taking its toll. Julia was shaking in Brendan's arms.

In Brendan's arms!

Julia was suddenly acutely aware of being held by a guy she'd just met who was überattractive. Julia lost the tenuous grip on her ability, and her focus shattered. They fell, and she yelped, bracing for impact.

Before they hit the hard concrete floor, which was painted an obscenely bright white, their progress was halted in a sickeningly explosive lurch. Julia looked around as she was gently lowered the remaining half foot to the ground.

Jen's arms were out, power emanating from them.

But she was looking only at Scott. “You stupe! Really? Look what almost happened? How would I have explained to Marcus that our queen's guts were strewn around the ground because you were ʻassessing?ʼ” She hit him again and folded her arms across her chest, stewing.

Jen huffed then noticed that Julia watching her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I mean, about the guts and brains part.”

“It's okay,” Julia said, scooting away from Brendan and standing. She gave a wary look at Scott, and he looked back with steady eyes, so brown they looked black.

“You know,” Julia said, “if there's any truth to this royalty thing, I'm demoting your ass first.”

Scott threw back his head and howled laughter. Finally, when he could speak, he said, “I think I like her.”

“Not that it matters!” Jen said, still pissed.

Brendan and Michael looked at their brother. Michael asked, “Don't you have someone's ass to kick or something? Stop stomping all over Julia, and get over there and train!”

Scott walked over to Michael until their faces were inches apart. “Whatcha gonna do about it if I don't?”

Suddenly, there was a ten-foot stack of cow shit, and Scott was in the middle of it with only his head peeking out of the top. “Michael!” he roared.

Brendan, Jen, and Michael started to walk away, but Julia couldn't get past Scott howling and buried in a pile of manure that smelled so bad that Julia had to breathe through her mouth, her hand covering her nose. “Hey!” Julia called after them, and all three turned. “Aren't you going to… you're going to leave him like that?” She didn't know whether to laugh or help him out of his predicament.

They nodded, grinning. “Yeah, he'll be free in about twenty seconds.” Michael said.

“Too bad it couldn't last longer,” Jen muttered to herself just loud enough for Julia to hear.

“Let him sing in his own shit for a minute,” Brendan said.

Julia followed as Scott bellowed, “Payback's a bitch!”

When they had walked to the end of the building, Julia turned. And there Scott stood, the manure gone. Not a speck of it remained. But the eyes that had bored into her back had not been friendly, and they weren't friendly now.

Julia suppressed a shiver.

Turning her back to Scott, she followed the friendlier part of the family, leaving the discomfort of the encounter behind her—for the time being

*

Introspection

Julia watched the swan paddle on a small lake then shifted her eyes to the Olympic Mountains. They reminded her of home, a little. There were a few rocks that acted like small boulders that rimmed the shore. It was heavily pebbled with smaller rocks, not sand, but wonderful all the same. What was especially delicious was the time alone. It had been overwhelming to see and learn all the new information about herself, but she needed a breather. Julia got the distinct impression they had kept the walking tour short for her benefit.

There were so many classifications of abilities she had stopped trying to memorize them after the first ten. There were main abilities and all their subabilities. It was too much. Her head had buzzed with the sheer wealth of knowledge. One thing she did understand was that Scott, the brother who didn't like her, was a Deflector and a highly skilled martial artist, as well. He could cancel out another Singer's ability. As with his brother Michael, it was powerfully effective but only for a half-minute or so. Then there was Jen. She was telekinetic but in a different way than Julia—or maybe not different, just much better. Then there was the post-puberty strength that came into play.

That ability was only for the males. But God was just, and the female Singersʼ abilities were usually stronger or, at the very least, longer lasting. So, the males and females were pretty evenly matched.

Julia skipped one of the flat stones, and the swan startled, flying a few feet and craning its elegant neck to give her a disdainful look. Could swans be angry? She sighed and sat down on the boulder again then picked up a stick and twirled the water, her chin in her palm.

Then there was Michael. She felt her whole face break into a grin. That scene with the shit had been priceless. Beyond funny… even if Scott hadn't been laughing.

Payback's a bitch.

Julia threw the stick in the water and stood. She began to pace the shore, thinking about Brendan. He'd been the one to carry her from the Were. How had he found her? He said simply that he was a “Tracker.” It didn't fully explain things. He also said he had a crossover ability. Pyrokinetic. Julia was reminded of that Stephen King novel, Firestarter. She'd mentioned it to Brendan who'd laughed and said, “Nah, that's some trashy fiction story.”

Right.

The novel's plot hadn't seemed so implausible when the feet of ten werewolves were on fire. That had seemed pretty legit to her.

Her mind landed on William. He'd been trying to free her, too. But the more Julia thought about it, the less “free” it felt. She cared for him… but the reality was she'd be the bird in the gilded cage again. She almost was a bird in a cage of the Were, as well. It wouldn't have been gilded though. Julia thought of Tony and shuddered to think there was even a slim chance that she'd have been forced into a union with Tony. She understood instinctively that he'd been bad, evil maybe. And it hadn't just been Adriana's misgivings. Julia had had plenty of her own. She sighed. She felt as though she was shuffling a deck of cards, afraid to cut the deck.

Julia heard a noise and turned, her hand at her heart, startled. She smiled when she saw who it was.

Brendan.

He walked toward her, his bronze hair a low-burning flame with the sun lighting it from behind, his eyes like onyx with the sun at his back. The mountains framed his silhouette as he approached, and Julia felt heat rise to her face, seeing the evidence of his combative training on every square inch of his body.

He waved at her as he drew closer, and she lifted her hand in return.

Julia already felt more at home with him than she had a right to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The feral saw the two beside the lake and could hardly contain his territorial urges over the female.

She was his, and another was beside her, putting his hands on her.

That male would die.

The feral would enjoy tearing at the soft flesh of his neck, the hot spray from the blood coating his muzzle in a satisfying spray of fragrance.

With an effort that was almost painful, he retreated into the depths of the forest, his snout scenting their whereabouts. He would be cautious. The male who was with her had an advantage that the feral recognized and wished to cripple if he could.

The male was something other than human. The feral did not know how he knew this, but when he had been near the male and the small female, their kinship had been apparent, easy to scent. But the feral's chest had tightened uncomfortably with a sensation he could not identify.

When he had the male in his grip, he would ascertain what that enigmatic detail was.

*

Brendan

Brendan watched Julia from a safe distance. She wore her discontent readily, he thought. Brendan sighed. He couldn't contain the fam, and knew not to even try. It was obvious Julia felt off-kilter, unsettled. Who wouldn't? First the vamps took her then the Were. He didn't know much about her past. They'd find out more later. After all, she was their queen. Marcus had raised them on the legend, as his father had before him. He'd demand to know more.

She didn't look very queenly. She was slim and of average height for a female. Her coloring was different. Brendan slowed his pace, studying her. Julia had a unique, soft golden-red hair color. But it was her eyes that took his breath away. They matched her hair, depending on the light. They were amber in indirect light, but in the sun, they rivaled the orb's brightness.

He walked toward her, and she jumped as if he'd startled her. He gave a short flick of his fingers, sort of an unconscious waving of the white flag. She waved back, and he smiled, walking the rest of the way toward her. He was puzzled by the expression on her face.

For a moment there, she looked as if she was assessing him. Taking his measure as a man.

Brendan's smile widened into a grin. Now, that he kind of liked.

When he reached her, and she didn't seem resistant, he took Julia into his arms, giving her a brief hug then releasing her. She smelled like a ripe piece of fruit, and he instantly wondered if it was the shampoo or her. Brendan stepped back, reluctantly letting her go, his fingers trailing lightly down her arms, causing goose flesh to rise where their contact had been.

Then it hit him: a smell so strange he couldn't name it. But it was familiar. Brendan swung his head in the direction of the woods that bordered the opposite side of the lake.

*

Julia leaned into the hug that Brendan gave her and sighed. She allowed herself that moment's peace then stepped away. Her chest tightened horribly. Her loneliness constricted her heart. She was desperately alone. At least, it felt that way.

As a matter of fact, in only a few more days, it would be two years since Jason died. Tears threatened at the thought of that anniversary, but they were chased away by the sudden expression of wariness that washed over Brendan's features.

Julia looked around, frightened. They'd said she was safe! She whirled on Brendan just as he grabbed her.

“Let's get outta here!” he said, dragging her after him.

“What is it?” she asked, half jogging. But he didn't answer until they had traveled the short distance to the house. When they bounded up the wide, wooden steps and were nearly at the front door, he turned and took her shoulders. “There's something in the woods!” His eyes searched hers, the grip cupping her shoulders almost painful.

“What?” she cried. Was it vampire? Were? What the hell… trolls? Could there be more mythological creatures springing to life to kidnap her away from the one group that she actually belonged to?

Jen stepped out the front door, letting the screen crack back against the wood frame. The noise of it reverberated everywhere. She took in Brendan's expression. Her eyebrows came together. “What's wrong?” Jen looked from Julia to Brendan.

Julia said, “How did you know there was something wrong?”

Jen flicked her eyes at Julia. “It's a sib thing.”

Julia waited. Finally Brendan said, “It's that Were from the compound.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Thanks for clearing that up, bro! What, there's like, a hundred or something?”

They looked at each other, and Julia watched their expressions. Jen spoke first. “You mean that giant red one?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that's him.”

Julia remembered almost going to him—the connection had been so strong. What could it mean?

Jen looked at her. “This is some of the awful crap that can happen.” She sighed and looked at Brendan again. His eyes turned away from hers. They were trained on the woods beyond the lake.

At that moment, Scott and Michael came walking from the big barn that acted as Training Facility for Singers. There wasn't a laugh or smile on their faces. Not that she'd expected one from Scott, but Michael had been downright jovial in the two days since she'd been with them.

Julia looked at all of them. “Okay, I give up. What's lurking around in the woods that has everyone's collective underwear in a wad? You guys are scaring me!”

Brendan said, “We think—” Jen glared at him, and he shook his head, resigned. “I think that we have a Singer who's been turned.”

Julia stepped forward. “I don't get it. Turned how?”

Michael shook his head. “Not how—what.”

Julia sat there and let the idea take shape, blooming in her head like an ugly flower. Her eyes snapped to Brendan's. “Wait a second. You're telling me that we've got someone out there that was one of us, and now some Were or vamp has… changed them?”

Scott nodded. “Yeah, that's about it.” He folded his muscular arms across a barrel chest.

Jen turned to Brendan. “You're sure, Bren?”

“Werewolf,” he said tersely, and Jen's shoulders drooped. “They're the worst.”

“What's with all this? It can't be saved?” Julia asked.

Brendan shook his head. “It's a he.”

It was a man. A Singer like herself, turned. Her gaze swung back to Brendan's. “Did he want to be a werewolf?”

Scott answered, “Doubtful. The attacking Were would've known he was a Singer. Don't know why they'd do a Singer. After all, they need Singers to produce”—he lifted his fingers in sarcastic air quotes—“a Rare One.” His eyes met hers. They were filled with loathing and derision. Somebody wasn't happy with her status. Like I can goddamn help it!

What the hell had she done to piss in his Wheaties? The putz. Julia felt her eyes narrow as angry heat suffused her face. He glared right back at her.

“What's your problem?” Julia asked.

Scott met the challenge in her words and stalked toward her as Brendan put her behind his back. “What are you doing, Scott?” Brendan ground out.

“It's her fault! He's after her!” His eyes found all of theirs and then went back to Julia. Well, she wasn't going to hide behind Brendan. She came from behind him, and Brendan said in a low voice full of threat, “Don't you hurt her.”

“Our queen?” he asked mockingly, putting his hand to his chest and looking at Julia as if she were a piece of garbage on the bottom of his shoe. “Never! She is safe as a sleeping babe in the cradle of her mother's bosom!” he snarled, barely contained rage making his face more handsome, not less.

“Stop it, Scott!” Jen hissed.

“No!” he yelled back, and Jen flinched.

Julia got right up in his personal space, defying common sense as he was at least six foot three and built like a brick shit house, all brawn and anger. “I can't be that safe because I don't have a mother.” She poked his solidly muscled chest with her finger for emphasis, and he didn't move a centimeter. “I don't know what I did to get on the top of your shit list, but I assure you it wasn't on purpose!” Julia was shaking with rage but continued. “I watched my husband die.” Their eyes widened while Scott's narrowed. “My best friend is gone forever, my parents dead. I was with the vampires, then the Were, and now I'm with you. I have to be queen? Of the Blood Singers? Maybe I don't want the job!” And with that last comment, she pushed him in the chest, but it came out more like a slap, harder than she meant it to be, like hitting a tree. Her anger overrode even the pretense of self-restraint.

He wrapped his huge hands around her small wrists and jerked her into his body. The siblings were too late to help or to stop it.

The moment Scott touched her, the branding fire of his flesh on hers was complete. Neither expected it.

Neither welcomed it.

Julia's soul bound to Scott's in one earth-shattering moment of clarity, as natural as the breath she took. She felt their beings knitting together, and she gasped. It was almost painful.

He breathed out, “No.” Even as he staggered back, his hands went for her again, but Brendan was there. “What's wrong with you, Scott? What are you doing?”

Jen and Michael looked at each other then at Julia. She was breathing shallowly, her body a throbbing mass of unquenched desire, longing, and absolution.

Her eyes never left his.

Julia didn't even like Scott.

Then Marcus, their leader, was there. He looked from one to the other of them, instant understanding riding his face, their unity a thing that sizzled in the air all around them.

“Soul mates!” he proclaimed.

Julia looked from the leader and obvious father of the family as she leaned weakly against Brendan's chest, her back pressed against his warmth and comfort, her eyes fixed on Scott's.

His were filled with anger and hate directed at her.

They couldn't be soul anything. It was obvious Julia wasn't someone he wanted, respected, or liked.

She tore herself out of Brendan's arms and ran inside the house. Taking the steps two at a time, she rushed into the bedroom they'd given her and slammed the door, using the old-fashioned skeleton key to lock it. She backed away until her thighs pressed against the bed. Julia sank down into the mattress, the firmness of it a temporary cradle to her sadness.

Could things get any more screwed up if she'd wished for it? She put her face in her hands and cried, while off in the distance, she heard a howl.

*

Singers

“Tell me,” Marcus said, his eyes like slits on his grown children. “And it better be good.”

Everyone began talking at once. Finally Michael took the conversational reins. “Brendan came back with news of a Singer turned Were.”

“What?” Marcus roared, his eyes casting a wide net at the surrounding area.

Brendan shook his head. “It's in the woods for now. But it will find its way here. Soon.”

“Male?” Marcus queried.

They nodded. Marcus looked at Scott. “I understand your sentiments about the Queen—that you've never adjusted to the idea of it.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Adjusted, Dad? Try anarchy! That'd be more like it.” She looked at her oldest brother. He was so sure of himself. Nothing ever bothered him. He fought with a skill unmatched by any other Singer in their quadrant. He was the number one Deflector of their band of Singers and then one female Singer—the Queen—came to them, and he lost his status of independence. That was what a soul-meld would do. The irony wasn't lost on Jen. She felt a little sorry for Scott. It would suck hating his soul mate but being bonded to her anyway. And Julia impressed Jen as independent. She felt a smile curl her lips.

“And now I'm bound to her!” Scott roared, his lip curling with distaste.

*

Above them, Julia listened from the window that was ajar. It was fine that Scott didn't want her. He was stubborn and mean and—ugh! Julia didn't even like him! She'd do better on her own. She felt confident enough with her telekinetic ability to get by.

Julia didn't want to be queen. And she didn't care if there was some “soul-meld” or whatever. She couldn't get out of being a Blood Singer or a Rare One. But she didn't have to be in this place with someone who hated her.

She looked around her room. A profound melancholy slipped through her, her being still tingling from the encounter with Scott. Julia shoved away how painfully right it had felt to be in his arms for that one moment.

He hated her anyway, so it didn't matter.

Julia grabbed the only coat in the room and slipped out quietly, heading down the staircase that exited the back of the house. It had once been a little-used servant's staircase. She used it now with circumspection.

Julia slipped away without listening to the rest of the conversation.

*

Marcus looked at his eldest son and sighed. Scott had excelled at everything, his training, his ability, his… conquests. But stubbornness was his biggest flaw. Scott had fought long and hard to let the legend of the Queen of the Blood Singers die a natural death. She did not exist, he'd argued—it was only legend. But Marcus remembered the reverent way that his father had discussed her Coming. He knew that Julia was the Queen.

If her scent was not sufficient confirmation, she had the mark of the moon branded on her forehead, as foretold. The pearly crescent shone at her temple, a testament to her position among them.

Scott could deny it until he was blue in the face. But Brendan was one of their finest Trackers.

His nose never lied.

Then there was the soul-meld. His eye's met his son's. Only Singers of royal blood could soul-meld. It was a double confirmation.

“Hate her if you will, but remember this”—Marcus spoke to all of them but directed his words at Scott—“she has been through many traumas. We don't know what or how many. What did she tell you?”

Jen told him what Julia had said to Scott.

Marcus threw up his hands. “So what we have here is a Singer who lost a husband.”

“Infant bride,” Michael muttered, and Marcus's brow cocked.

“Nothing,” Michael said but couldn't hide a smile.

“And she was held by both factions, Were and vampire?” When Marcus looked for confirmation, Brendan nodded.

“Then”— he began to pace the wooden planks of the covered deck, and some squeaked with age as he passed—“she is kidnapped by her own people, told she is queen, and treated abominably by my eldest son.”

“Twice,” Marcus said, looking at Scott, who glowered back, the barest hint of shame creeping into his expression.

*

Scott folded his muscular arms across a chest that proved his time on the mat. “Okay, I guess I could have handled it better,” he said, still trying to stop his guts from churning. His entire body yearned to get back to her. He hated the loss of his independence.

“Uh… duh!” Jen said. He glanced at her, and she continued. “Unless anyone objects, I suggest you get your dumbass up there and apologize!”

Marcus scowled at Jen but let it go. “From all accounts, Scott behaved badly. And to a female Singer—the Queen, no less! It could hardly have been worse.”

Scott said, “I hate feeling trapped. She made me feel…”

“Complete?” Brendan asked with just a hint of envy.

Scott thought about it. Yeah, he guessed she had, but she'd blindsided him. He'd been totally—no, completely—unprepared for a soul-meld. But dammit, he had reveled in his independence, refused to go on the wild goose chase of an acquisition for another Singer. Let his hotdog brothers and sister do it.

And look what the cat had dragged home.

He looked up at the window of her bedroom, feeling miserable. How could he fix it? Did he want to? He realized belatedly he may have misjudged her. Badly. Scott remembered those huge amber eyes looking up at him in anger, wounded by his careless words. He'd fallen right into them—as soon as she was inside the circle of his arms, he couldn't think of anything but her—and the protection of her. He sighed and began to walk toward the front door.

“Wait,” Marcus said, and Scott turned, a question on his face.

“She needs extra protection from this Were.”

Scott's siblings turned to look at their father. When he had their full attention, he resumed. “You understand how dangerous a turned Singer is. The Queen will be like a homing beacon.”

Brendan nodded, understanding. “He'll be a problem, all right.”

Scott's heart began to speed, his intuition kicking in. Already, his thoughts were on Julia. Where was she at this very moment? He was instantly pissed that he gave a rat's ass. He felt as if his mind were tearing in two. His intellect rebelled against what his soul was compelled to execute… and feel.

Julia, it screamed. Where is Julia? Scott shook his head to clear it from the fuzziness of the duality of his nature.

“Why?” Scott heard himself asking despite himself.

Michael hadn't paid attention to this part of his training and shrugged, but Jen had been an apt pupil like Brendan, and she said, “It breaks the mind of a Singer turned. His mind is gone. He'd want to belong with us but wouldn't know how.”

“He'd hurt Julia if he got his hands on her,” Brendan said. “Those Singers that have been turned are crazy as hell.”

Marcus nodded. “As descriptions go, that's a good one.”

Scott's hand clenched the solid brass knob of the screen door, and it creaked in protest under his abusive grip. “So, let me get this straight. This… feral werewolf was once a Singer, got nailed by a Were attack, and is now scenting after Julia.”

“Yeah,” Brendan said.

Scott scoffed. “Let it try. I'll rip its paws off and scratch his own ass with them!”

Michael laughed.

“What's so damn funny?” Scott asked, his eyes narrowing.

“A couple of things, I'm guessing,” Brendan said.

“Enlighten us, please,” Marcus said in his droll way.

“First”—Brendan held up a finger—“Scott didn't give two shits and an eff about Julia—hated her, as a matter of fact.” Brendan waited for a dissenting comment or grunt. When none came, he continued. “Second, the visual of you tearing off the paw of the Were that we saw at the compound and scratching its…” Brendan shook his head. “No, pal. Sorry. He's big-time feral in his pants.”

“And just big-time!” Jen agreed. “He's the biggest Were we've ever seen. Red, different.”

Scott frowned. So?

“In other words, it may take more than your pissed-off attitude to subdue this fella!” Michael said.

“Ah—” Marcus began, and they all looked at him. “That's where you're wrong.” he said slowly. “When a soul mate's partner is threatened, there may be more in the arsenal than what the Singer was bestowed with at birth.”

Scott's hand dropped from the knob. “What do you mean, Dad?”

“I mean that it is your singular purpose to protect and nurture her.” Marcus's eyes speared Scott's. “She is in the gravest danger right now, at her most vulnerable. Until this feral is caught and disposed of, he will not stop until he has her.”

“Will he kill her?” Jen asked.

“I do not know," Marcus said. “But ask yourself this.” They leaned forward to hear his last words. “Does anyone want to find out?”

Hell no! A primal yell sounded from deep within Scott, and against every intellectual imperative, his feet strode through the doorway and flung him up the stairs toward her room—toward Julia.

*

Julia threw branches away as they scraped past her. She crashed through the brush that threatened to stab her viciously. She was furious. The more she walked, the angrier she became.

It was useless, though. Being angry didn't matter. Letting go of the Singers and what she was did matter. Every step she took was a greater distance between she and Scott, and in her mind, she was happy.

But her heart grieved. She felt a little the way she had after Jason had died. But how could that be? She didn't even know Scott! In fact, he'd made a point of being an ass!

Julia rounded a stand of trees, and she stopped in her tracks. A massive Were stood in front of her, his green eyes pegging her intensely. She hauled in a lungful of air to scream, and he was on her, his hand that had talons twice the length of her fingers wrapping her mouth and tickling her ears.

Julia's vision grew dim, her fear making her bladder burn for release. As her world faded to gray, the last thing she saw were those emerald eyes staring at her.

*

The female lost consciousness, and the feral pressed her light body to his. He turned and ran, covering more ground than she could have on her own, his half-wolf form perfectly suited to the dense conditions of the forest. The burden of the female was an abiding comfort. It was the only time he had felt a sense of peace since he'd become… whatever he was now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Scott put his hand on the multi-faceted knob, the crystal a solid weight under his palm, and turned it. The five-panel door swung inward on its own momentum. His eyes swept the sunlit room, missing nothing.

Julia was gone.

His heart thudded to a stop, the words he'd spoken crashing back into his mind with the weight of the ages. He found the flaw in the room: the window was open a crack, maybe two inches. The white curtains, like billowing fingers of smoke, fluttered with the breeze.

He walked to the window, his siblings entering Julia's room behind him. He stood at the window, the low sill pressing against his upper shins. Scott could clearly hear the voices of various people from a distance, the strange acoustics of the oddly formed bay accentuating the noises and amplifying them.

Julia would have heard everything he had to say about her down below—including his tone of hate and disrespect.

Scott hung his head, curling his hands into tight fists. He understood that she must have left before he had wrestled his emotions into some kind of basic order and prepared to right his wrong and give her some neutral deference.

Now she was gone and possibly in danger.

Grave danger.

Scott turned his back to the window. He spied something of hers and picked it up. It was a hoodie. He crushed it to his nose, inhaling the scent of Julia, his chest tightening with soul recognition.

His deep brown eyes flashed to those of his siblings and father.

“She's gone.” Guilt rode him mercilessly.

“Great,” Jen said.

“You pushed her away,” Brendan accused.

“You think?” Scott's eyes were twin holes of burning fury—at himself. “I screwed up. I got that. But now's not the time for talk.” He speared his brother with a look. “Can you find her?”

“Absolutely,” Brendan said then paused for a heartbeat. “The better question is: has he found her?”

They were all quiet for a moment with silent agreement. Then they turned and rushed out the door. Julia's hoodie was gripped in Scott's fist like a lifeline. He had never been so focused in his life. He needed to find her. All the bullshit legends of his childhood that he'd discounted—Singer royalty, soul-melding, all of it—was no longer legend.

It was his new reality.

They ran down the back stairs, the very ones Julia had used a mere hour before. Bursting out of the back door, Brendan tracked Julia to the forest's edge. His grave stare focused on Scott.

“What?” Scott asked. For the first time, terror sank its teeth into his psyche. Scott had never had need of fear. It was an alien emotion for him.

Until now.

“The feral's in these woods,” Brendan said, using the very words that Scott had not wanted to hear.

“Does he… has he…?” Scott's grip on Julia's sweatshirt made his knuckles turn white.

Brendan gave a single nod.

Scott yelled.

The feral's sensitive ears picked up a rage-filled bellow. He swiftly widened the breach between the Singers and himself. He picked up his pace, the girl in his arms unaware of who carried her.

Or who followed.

****

Were

Adriana felt as though her ass had been handed to her—as usual. She always felt that way when she was done “visiting” with Lawrence. She kicked a rock on the way out of his chamber. The word “chamber” wasn't really accurate. His quarters, as she preferred to think of them, were huge. She'd never been in his actual bedroom. They always met in his cavernous library, his great desk was like a mighty wooden ship in the center of a sea of books. She always felt like her own ship was sinking.

This time, he'd reamed her up one side and down the other. Tony had come up smelling like a rose—as always. It really rubbed Adi the wrong way that she was every bit the fighter he was, but when it came down to talon-to-talon, he'd best her. Her fists tightened. She had twice the heart that he had. But he was just that much bigger than she. If skill and training were equal, someone with all those pounds and muscle would be victor. It was the opposite of fair.

Sometimes she hated being female. Adi liked the one thing she had over him, though.

Ironically, it was her gender.

Tony was destined to mate with a female Were. He was second to her brother, Joseph, the most powerful Alpha in their region. Because of his station within the werewolf hierarchy, she should have looked at Tony as top on the list of potentials. That was how he'd looked at her until she made it clear she thought he was a Loser with a capital L. Now, his mate options were limited to females other than her. But Tony didn't really want a mate. He wanted a female Were trophy to parade under the snouts of all the other male Were that couldn't be mated to a female Were. There were too few. She smiled.

Adi enjoyed bristling Tony's fur every chance she got. He was so full of himself. Like today. He'd painted his role in the escape of the feral in such a way it made it sound as if she'd been irresponsible. That was not the truth. The truth was that he'd passed off a difficult chore to a female at the worst point of the month. And the feral had shown her a kind of mercy, tearing her shoulder out of its socket yet not killing her. Not so crazy after all.

Then there was the other question about the feral: who was he really?

Why the interest in the Rare One? Because no one could convince Adi differently: if he'd wished for escape earlier, he could have had it. No. He'd wanted Jules. Adi would have staked her life on it.

Tony followed her out with a smirk, whistling.

The asshole.

Then Joseph came, casting a look her way. She waited, and he walked over to her.

“You know, if you'd be a little”—he rolled his eyes skyward, searching for the perfect word—“softer with Tony, he'd cut you some slack.” He shrugged.

“No,” she responded shortly. “He can kiss my ass!” Adriana folded her arms across her chest. “I'll never suck up to him. Besides”—she looked at her brother again—“did you see how he made me look in front of Lawrence? He never does or says the right thing. Every verbal angle he plays is uttered for his benefit, never anyone else's.” Couldn't her brother see that?

Joseph said, “Tony is self-centered. But he's my second and an excellent fighter. It doesn't matter that you can't get along with him. You two will just have to reach some kind of mutual understanding to coexist.”

“Whatever!” Adi responded in a loud voice. “I'll just avoid his obnoxious carcass and try for civility.” She rolled her eyes then nailed Joseph with a solid stare. He raised his brows in question, and she plowed forward, changing tactics. “Who is the feral?”

Joseph sucked in his breath. “I can't say, Adi. I've been sworn to secrecy. You know that. We've been over it and over it—”

“It's for the safety of the pack,” she interrupted. “Blah, blah. Yeah, whatever. I gotcha. But I want to know why we would even keep a feral.” Her eyes shifted to his, searching, and a wild idea began to form. It couldn't be… “Does he have something to do with Jules?”

It was the barest flicker, but Adi caught it and snapped her fingers. “Tell me!”

Joseph sighed, holding up a palm. “We thought that if the Rare One needed… encouragement, we could use the feral.”

Adi scrunched her brows together. That didn't make sense. They stared at each other for several moments. She knew that Joseph could see her confusion.

“How? How could he coerce…?”

Joseph told her. It took almost a half hour, and when he'd finished, only the birds in the trees could be heard in the deafening silence that his revelation had left behind.

Her slap against his skin rang out, startling the birds, which perched on high branches to exchange the safety of the trees for that of the sky.

“How could you?” Her voice shook with contained rage.

Joseph let her slap him, hanging his shoulders in helpless guilt. “I should have fought harder against it.”

Adi's eyes narrowed on him. “Whose idea was this?”

Joseph didn't answer. His eyes were answer enough.

Of fucking course.

Adrianna stalked off in search of Tony. Joseph tried to grab her arm to stop her, and she tore it away from him, turning on him like the wolf she was. “Don't touch me! It was unforgivable.” Her eyes locked on to him. “You know what? It's good that the Singers took Julia. Maybe somebody can treat her like a human being instead of something to be manipulated. We don't deserve her.”

She strode off in search of Tony.

Joseph watched her go, his self-loathing a solid weight in his body.

In his soul.

****

William

William was hopeful. He clapped the Locator on his back as he left the kiss with a thank-you and the blessing of their lightwalker, Gabriel. A huge favor in the future was his collateral. It would hang over the coven's head. But if he could regain Julia, it would not matter. Their kiss's prosperity and importance would be solidified forever.

The Locator turned, giving William his steady regard. “You have the map?”

William nodded, and the vampire gave the barest smile of acknowledgment. “I wish you the best fortune in locating your Singer.”

They both knew that Julia wasn't just any Singer. But neither said it openly. They had put their competition aside for the moment, but a sister kiss trying for the Rare One was not beyond the scope of possibility. William was keen on not forgetting that basic fact.

He closed the door behind him and strode to where Claire and Gabriel waited. Gabriel looked up as William drew closer. His finger stabbed the map. “The Singers have powerful blocking in place from our location. But”—his eyes met William's—“the Locator was quite sure that this is the general region.” They all studied the area.

It was mountainous and densely wooded.

Perfect cover for retrieval by vampires.

William assembled runners. They packed their gear and went out on their last mission. If they could not retrieve Julia this time, he knew that his window of opportunity would have closed to nothing.

Once she was in the womb of the Singers, it would be an impossibility to get to her.

They afforded formidable protection that even his will and determination could not combat.

He imagined she would be important to them, as well, though perhaps not labeled “Rare One” as she was with the vampires and werewolves. Maybe for them she was something else entirely.

Julia would be royal among their kind, William decided. She would be like a queen.

*

The Feral

The feral swept the hair that had fallen across the face of the female away from her eyes and studied her. It made a sweet longing like the finest blood rise unbidden within his wolf form. It was almost enough to make him slide back into his human shape. But not yet. His strange, half-human form was the one he instinctively realized was best for the distance he needed. Even now, he could feel his kind chasing after them. They wanted the female.

He clutched her tighter to his body. Soon, he would need to feed and would have to leave her unconscious and unprotected for a time. He scowled.

He moved smoothly with the tiny female in his arms, a sense of rightness and purpose propelling him naturally. He searched until he was satisfied, finding the perfect den in which to hide her. Then he tucked her inside the small rock crevice. He backed away, his hunger a gnawing monster in his belly. Before he could compromise his strength further by lingering over her, he fled in search of prey. That would keep him busy for longer than he liked.

*

Julia woke up with darkness all around her and was chilled to the bone. She had a coat, but the damp coolness of her environment had sunk into her bones and weighed her down. She put her hands out in an exploratory movement and hit something solid. All around her, Julia could feel solid weight. She smelled the earth surrounding her.

The space felt like a tomb. Julia panicked, scraping the confines of the dark cave, whimpering in fear. But before she lost it totally, her memory slid into place, and she realized what had happened.

She remembered the great red werewolf. Actually, his fur was like wine. Not that it mattered. She closed her eyes tightly. What was she doing here? Where was he? What had he put her in?

Calm thyself, Julia!

Her lips set in a determined line, Julia lifted her head as high as she could without hitting the ceiling. Ambient light reached her eyes, and she could just make out her toes like twin hills in the distance. Julia thought that she might have been stuffed in some kind of hole.

For safekeeping.

She gulped, trying not to think of what that meant. Maybe a tasty meal for later? Julia shuddered at the thought. She needed to get the hell out of there! She experimented, wiggling around, and discovered that the only place of escape was where her feet were. Well… she couldn't move at all. She had maybe six inches on all sides.

It didn't matter. She'd never been more scared since that night—since Jason—but she wasn't going to give up yet.

She began to wiggle her butt like an inchworm, bunching her muscles then scooting forward, inch by inch. Julia knew when she made headway because she could see better. Finally, her legs were free of the hold, and she was able to bend her knees and drag her body farther, stabbing her heels into the dirt at her feet and pulling herself out incrementally. In less than five minutes, she was free. Even the dappled sunlight through the canopy of trees was bright and full of glare after the utter darkness of the hole she'd been in. Julia turned, squinting, and looked at where she'd been. It was a narrow slot at the base of a natural rock formation, barely more that a crevice.

No one would have ever seen her unless they knew she was there.

Julia stood, and the pins and needles of returning blood flow almost brought her to her knees. But she persevered, breathing slowly in and out. She was tired of fainting, being kidnapped, and being told who she was and what she was going to be and do.

She was Julia, and she was going to be okay.

Julia turned and walked away, casting a glance behind her as she went. She didn't have the vaguest clue where she was, but she was going somewhere. She headed west, where the sun rode above the mountains. At least she had a direction.

Julia hoped it was not the same one the Were had used.

****

Homer

The phone buzzed shrilly beside his ear, and he snatched it up, his irritation rising like the tide beyond the window of the police station. “Truman,” Karl answered in his gruff voice.

“It's Alexander,” the chief forensic specialist said.

“Hello! Sing me the tune I like to hear.”

“Okay. Well, I don't know if it's what you want to hear, but it's what I have.”

Confusing, but okay, Karl thought. “All right. Lay it on me.”

“I've got the sample DNA typed, but it's broad because I can't get a specific on it.”

“Cut the cryptic shit, and just give it to me straight.”

“Canine genome.”

All right—just as he'd figured. No big surprise there. “Okay, wolves then.”

Silence. Karl could almost hear the static on the normally clear lines.

Alexander cleared his throat.

“Listen, this is going to sound completely insane.”

Karl waited.

“But the classification is not entirely accurate.”

“What are you saying, Alexander?”

“I'm saying you've got yourself a new class of canine here.”

“What, Bigfoot?” Karl gave a short bark of a laugh.

Alexander didn't laugh. “No. Not Bigfoot.”

“Then what?” This is crazy!

“Something else. Something so different we don't know where to put it.”

Karl leaned forward, his chair creaking under his weight. “Okay, give me what you know.”

“Okay, more insanity. Ready?”

“Hell yeah.” Karl tapped his ballpoint on the desk, listening. When Alexander was finished, he whistled low in the back of his throat, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his face. Finally, he said, “A guy could lose his reputation over what you're postulating.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“So, what's the plan?” Karl asked.

“Well, first off, I think the larger question is what are these things? Listen Truman, meet me back at the scene. With some additional measurements, I may have more answers. Who knows?”

“Like, what kind of measurements?”

“Size, for starters,” Alexander said.

“And?”

“Intelligence.”

They were quiet for a full minute, the line buzzing between them.

“You're not suggesting these things are the same ones that tossed that dump, are you?”

“I am,” Alexander said.

“Holy shit,” Truman breathed out.

“Yeah.”

*

Cyn

The driver looked as the forlorn girl entered his bus. When she told him where she wanted to go, he was somehow reminded of that waif of a girl a few months back—the one with the whiskey eyes and phony black hair dye. He wondered how she was doing.

The girl said, “Kent.”

He nodded. “I know just where to take you.”

“Good.” She turned away and headed to the back of his bus. His eyes followed her in the rear-view mirror. She wore some funky boots. They looked like hard-core fisherman boots, reaching to her calves. Ugly suckers, shit-brown in color. Huh. They didn't really seem to go with the rest of her.

He shifted his eyes back to the road, putting the great bus into gear. It ground out of park and into first gear, a plume of exhaust hailing its departure.

*

Cynthia leaned back, pushing her knees against the seat in front of her. She let her legs dangle, and right before she closed her eyes, she caught sight of Jules's boots on her feet. She smiled through her tears.

I'll never forget you, Julia.

After a few moments, Cynthia fell asleep, exhaustion taking the reins for her, the tears drying on her cheeks as she slept.

*

The bus driver drove his route twice, the same way he had with that other waif, giving the girl time to rest. When he was a couple blocks away from the women's shelter, he stopped.

This is as good a place as any. He jerked the lever, and the bifold door opened with a burst of compressed air.

Cynthia's eyes snapped open, and she noted that she was the sole person on the bus. Her eyes met those of the bus driver. She stood, her eyes flicking to the name embroidered on his uniform: Alfred.

When she came to the front, she lowered her head and peeked out the bus door at a building a couple of blocks away. She could just make out the sign: “Freedom Affirmed.”

She looked back at Alfred. “Where am I?”

His kind eyes remained steady on hers. “Kent.”

She nodded. “Right, okay.” Cynthia began to descend the short bus steps as she heard the driver's voice behind her. “That place up there will give you a couple daysʼ peace.”

There is no peace for me, Cynthia thought. But she turned anyway and looked into his kind eyes. “Thanks. I'll check it out.”

Alfred smiled and nodded, pushing the lever, the bus door closing with a snap and an air-driven hiss. Cynthia watched the bus glide away. The only proof it had ever existed was the exhaust cloud in its wake.

Turning, she headed for the building.

It's as good a place as any.

Cynthia quickened her pace toward the building and a new life.

*

Julia

Julia walked quickly and made progress. However, she grew thirsty, her tongue swelling like a tumor in her mouth. She became so parched it was all she could think of. Shading her eyes, she looked up at the sun. Julia guessed it was well past noontime.

As she hiked, the sun would move behind clouds, casting deep shadows in the forest. Julia's mind played tricks on her, and she felt alone and scared… and foolish.

Mostly just scared, she decided. Finally, Julia thought she heard the tinkling sounds of moving water, and when the forest floor grew greener and the topography of the ground at her feet began to slope away and downward, Julia figured she'd hit the jackpot. She grabbed branches to steady herself as she finessed her way down a short but steep ravine toward the sounds of a small stream. It was probably a river in Washington, but by Alaska standards, it was a creek. She knelt by the crystal-clear water and made a cup with both hands, letting the slow-moving water run over the top then capturing the refreshing goodness in her already cold flesh. Ignoring her intellect, she gulped greedy sips.

After she'd drunk her fill, Julia stood, wiping her hands off on her jeans. She turned and carefully made her way up the small ravine, refreshed and rejuvenated.

She abandoned the tree cover and entered an open meadow, stopping for a moment as the sun came from behind the clouds, beating its warmth into her as she stood in the open. Julia closed her eyes, lifting her face to the sun, and reveled in the stolen moment of warmth. When the first pain began to pierce her guts, she gasped, folding her arms across her belly protectively.

What is this? She groaned out loud, holding herself.

Julia felt the water she had drunk not thirty minutes before churn in her stomach like curdled milk. A chill rolled over her skin, and she began to shiver. Goose flesh rose, and she trembled again. Julia looked around, feeling ill. Maybe she drank too much at one time?

This was the worse possible time to get the flu or some other crap. No worries—just the big bad wolf after me.

She didn't think being Little Red Riding Hood was very funny.

Zero amusement.

Julia pressed forward, clutching her stomach as she walked. Her eyes searched the dim forest. She might have to find someplace to hide until her insides felt better.

She moved into the soothing coolness of the forest as the first cramp tore into her, and pain rode her like a wave coming to shore.

*

William

William and his five runners made haste. As soon as twilight had dropped its veil of protection over the city, they had left the shelter of the kiss.

The cattle parted like the Red Sea. Even in their ignorant stupor, there was some biological imperative that kicked in, a primal alert of sorts. When the vampires evacuated their lair, the steps leading to the street a yawning concrete hole of uncertainty and darkness, the humans moved aside unconsciously, giving the vampires a wide berth.

William moved quickly, Gabriel's words ringing in his head. Do not engage a large group of Singers.

He had asked, "What is too many?"

There had been a pregnant pause, and then Gabriel had responded with a question. "How many is too many at the Were stronghold?"

William had understood. Had it not been for the feral Were, he might have stood a chance, even with the pair of Singers. He was not certain. He shrugged the thought away. Julia and he were connected, and William had Singer ancestry. He had alliance and blood-share in his favor. However small a portion his Singer ancestry was, it would cast weight to the positive for him.

He swiped Gabriel's words away with a dismissive mental shrug. Gabriel did not fully understand battle reasoning. The Were, for all their flaws, did. In the heat of battle, decisions were made, some lacking in any rational foundation. Nevertheless, they were deemed critical then, in that moment. There might be a moment that arose in just that way in the next few hours, and William would be reactive. It was the only thing he had not allowed himself in prior instances.

He had thought it a luxury. Now he recognized it for what it was: necessary. If he wanted Julia, he would have to use his emotions as his barometer, not his rational mind. This was not the time for mental negotiations.

It was the time for action.

Their noses were on keen alert as they made their way toward a remote spot on the Olympic Peninsula. William had chosen the runners for ancestry instead of warrior prowess with the ability to shift.

They all shift now.

To the casual observer, they would look like black wings and bodies, flying against the backdrop of the night sky.

Only the eyes would give an observer pause. They were crimson, like blood.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Catalyst

Julia rolled over onto her side, her body shuddering in response to the movement.

She realized she'd made the gravest, most novice mistake in the world. She had drunk water from a creek untreated. Did her Alaskan upbringing teach her nothing?

Dumb!

She had beaver fever. Julia had consumed a ton of creek water, and now it felt as though someone was taking her insides out with a spoon. Worse, she wasn't throwing up or… the other. But a fine fever was there, securing a good foothold. And climbing higher.

Julia remembered that when she was young, her mother had said she was a “burner,” one of those kids who got rid of being sick by jerking her core temperature up to an insanely dangerous level.

Julia shivered, crawling back into the crevice of an old log. The wooden embrace was full of sodden leaves and God knew what else. She flung her arm out, bending it at the elbow to fit inside the tight space. She shuddered, as she put the bare skin of her forehead against the cold wetness of her jacket, dampened by her environment.

Julia fell into a fitful doze, her body intermittently shaking from exhaustion and sickness. She was completely vulnerable and alone.

The cougar had scented its prey in the meadow. It followed the female back to where she lay inside a downed log in the forest. The cougar slunk closer, knowing that the prey was weakened—and safely inside the cougar's territory.

The animal prowled toward the log.

It scented danger too late.

*

The werewolves moved in with typical stealth, tearing the cat's large head off its shoulders even as it turned to swipe. They executed the maneuver with precision and accuracy. Wasting nothing, they feasted on the most delicate part of their kill, leaving the remainder for possible consumption later. They were wary. Many scents were all around them—that of the enemy… and others.

What lay within the folds of the log was too precious to be dispatched by the dumb creature of the forest, a lowly cat.

They moved to the log and peered inside.

*

Vampire

The ravens lit upon the branches of the trees. They had not discovered the scent of the Singer but that of the dogs. Circling the position, spying the group of four Were with the sharpness of their raven eyesight, they settled on the highest branches. William sent out an alert to the others, a single cawing tone of specific meaning. They fell to the ground as a well-oiled machine, from thirty of forty feet of height, their wings melting into deadened flesh and bone as they dropped. It was a beautiful symphony of purposeful landing that began with feathers and ended with feet, which touched the earth with a silent hop.

*

But the ravens were not silent enough.

The Alpha amongst the Were snapped his head up, his senses on full alert. His snout swung toward the three he'd brought with him, and he turned to his first, giving a snort. The other Were scooped the girl out of the log. The Alpha scented her sickness and paused. She was very ill. He breathed deeper. Maybe not permanent? It didn't matter. The time to move was now.

He went in the opposite direction of the scent that had accompanied the soft noise.

Vampires.

They would not recapture his precious cargo.

The Were began to move away in battle formation, the Alpha at their back, his half-formed hands at the ready, the Rare One in the arms of his second.

*

The Feral

The feral moved from his discovery with precision and energy, the meal he'd consumed affording him the speed and agility that would be necessary to find the female.

He knew he should never have left her. She had escaped him. Judging by the tracks in the rock cave, she had wiggled out. Her small frame had allowed maneuverability.

The feral ran hard, smoothly evading every obstacle, his form perfectly suited for the environment in which he traveled.

He hit upon her scent and stopped short. It had changed.

She was sickened by something. He scented deeper. She had drunk water and had the sickness that humans were susceptible to. It was not possible for him to be affected. He moved forward, scenting the many nuanced odors ahead of him.

He welcomed the challenge of their presence. There would need to be many to keep him from the female.

Mine, his mind said.

Mine.

****

Scott

Scott stopped suddenly. His hands went to the hard planes of his stomach. “What is it?” Jen asked, her breathing labored. They'd been nearly running since they'd discovered Julia's disappearance.

Scott felt a dull pain in his guts and bowels and a burning in the back of his neck. He described it to Marcus.

“She's sick, and that's what you'd feel.” His father's tone was ominous, knowing.

Scott wanted to get moving, but Marcus explained briefly, “A soul-meld is more than a pairing of Singers. It's an awareness of each other.” He made his hands collide, the fingers lacing together. “She has encountered”—he waffled his hand back and forth—“something, and she is ill.”

Scott's teeth clenched together. This was just getting better and effing better.

“Well,” Brendan began. “She's sick, all right, and the Were have her again.”

Scott's eyes locked with Brendan's, sweat running down between his shoulder blades, chilling as his skin dampened in the cool night air. Then Brendan said the thing that made Scott's blood run cold. “The feral is out there”—he lifted his nose to the air, pushing a good amount of an invisible fragrance right underneath his nose with his palm—“vampires and werewolves.”

“Wait! Flag on the play!” Jen yelled, throwing a flag on an imaginary football field.

They all turned to her. Jen planted her hands on her hips. “What, more werewolves? The feral?”

Brendan nodded. “Yeah, I'd recognize wet dog anywhere. And the red feral—he's his own tomato. The vampires—well, we know what they smell like.”

“Shit,” Scott responded definitively and began jogging in the direction they'd been heading, impatient to get to her.

“Scott!” Marcus yelled after his son.

Scott whirled around. “No! I'm not waiting another second. It's already been too many seconds.”

The siblings all looked uneasily at each other but followed him.

He couldn't think until he had Julia safe. His change of heart was breathtaking in its completeness.

*

Julia

Julia moaned, the constant rocking motion waking her. She wished she hadn't awoken. She looked up into a pair of eyes she hoped to never see again.

Tony. It didn't matter what form he was in, she'd recognize his stench anywhere.

She swore he grinned when he saw recognition dawn on her face.

Julia tried to struggle in his grasp but was too weak by far to do anything.

“Stay still,” he said in a low growl. “You're sick.”

Julia felt hot tears she couldn't afford to lose run down her face.

Helpless again. Grief crashed into her like an earthquake. It shook the very foundation of her soul, and nothing but despondency remained.

*

Tony looked down at the flushed face of the Rare One. He could scent her displeasure at being held by him coming out of every pore of her body. Even if she'd been well, she couldn't have fought him. Except for her gifts, she was helpless. She was helplessly female and ill in an intoxicating mix that made his perverted heart speed. He could feel the presence of the Alpha at his back and didn't care.

Tony had never been one to follow rules.

He'd have her, squirming and fighting. It'd be amazing. He crushed her against himself, and she made a pained sound and beat at his chest weakly.

*

Scott felt a great hopelessness well up inside him that was so foreign to his nature he interpreted it for what it was: Julia.

And on the top of it all, he felt fear, discomfort, and pain.

Someone was hurting her as she succumbed to illness. Scott's hands tightened into fists of rage. His fists knew how to deliver punishment, and they would do it soon.

Scott increased his pace to a sprint. His Singer strength, endurance, and speed were on a par with the Were as well as the vampires. His siblings and parent followed in a rainbow blur of colors, their hues mixing inexplicably as they drew closer to Julia. Their familial footprint as they advanced into battle was formidable.

Dangerous.

*

William and the others chased the trail left by the Were as they ran, Julia's scent mingled with the wolvesʼ. Her scent was off. Now that he had shifted back from raven form, William's senses seemed almost dulled, even though he knew they were a hundred times more sensitive than those of humans.

He sped with every thought, every fiber of his being trained to overtake them and rescue Julia.

*

The feral watched those of his kind take the female. She was sickened and unable to defend herself from the one Were he hated most, the one who had taunted him. That Were had given him hose showers that had bruised his skin with the force of the spray and had given him prey that was spoiled or infirm.

Yes, the feral would know his foul odor anywhere.

A tingling rush of fighting adrenaline surged through him.

The feral charged from the left, crashing out of the brush, as a thought came to him.

They are nearly nose-blind to have not scented me this close.

His step faltered for one half a second when he recognized the female Were he'd harmed in his pen. She traveled with them. A moment's peace touched him as he realized she was whole and well again.

That peace fled as he barreled into the Were who led. The feral's talons sliced the neck as he launched a counterstrike, one against four.

Joseph spun too late as the assault came at his third from the front. He couldn't believe he hadn't scented another Were this close. It was completely unexpected. He growled at his sister, “Run!”

She would be crushed by the red. Every protective instinct Joseph possessed punched to life, his reaction automatic.

*

Adi ignored her brother and ran toward where Tony held Julia, the feral having ripped three holes in the leading Were's vulnerable neck. As he dropped from the killing blow, his blood blanketing the forest with crimson, Adriana leapt. Her arms were outstretched. Tony casually tossed Julia toward the ground.

She landed in Adi's embrace, and they fell together on the soft forest debris.

The feral met her eyes for one moment, and she cringed backward, scooping Julia closer in her arms.

Her brother and Tony circled the red. His coat shone like fire burned down to embers, and she knew they would kill him.

It made her chest tight to think it. Adi shook it off. What was wrong with her? He was feral.

He had hurt her.

But deep within, something stirred and responded to him against every precept and instinct.

Adriana did not wish for his death.

She turned her attention to Jules. She was burning up, moaning and thrashing. Adriana forced her human form to return. As difficult as it was to change to half wolf, it hurt more to go back to human so quickly, a brutal energy siphon. But she didn't want Jules to see her and be afraid.

Adi held Jules in her arms, and the feral and werewolves circled each other just as the vampires entered the glade, and a troop of Singers broke out of the forest opposite them.

Oh shit! Adi thought. We'll never make it out of here alive.

Julia opened her eyes just then, and her fevered stare latched onto Adriana. “Adi,” she said weakly.

“I'm here, Jules,” she said, wiping sweaty strands of hair out of her face.

“Don't let them… hurt me.”

Never, Adi thought, rolling the small bundle that was Julia into a hug and standing without effort.

After all, she was a werewolf.

She faced off with the vampires and Singers, her grin making her look like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Reckoning

Scott stared at the female werewolf who held Julia.

Their queen.

His. He growled. He didn't know where that primitive utterance had come from, but he rolled with it instinctively. He saw the vamps at the same time the werewolves went after the big red guy.

Lots to do here. Scott was always game, his body practiced and ready for violence.

It moved forward of its own volition.

William saw the group of Singers and paused. His nostrils flared, and he recognized something about the one that led—his scent was slightly different. William was a runner. He was bred to recognize the Rare Blood in Singers. Julia was pure. But this one had enough quantum for William to respond. Every tracking instinct tingled inside him even as Julia was in his sights.

Who was this Singer?

The one William stared at launched himself with the speed of a Singer who was trained, seasoned, and in the prime of his life. He hurtled toward Julia.

*

Julia rose to consciousness as if swimming from the bottom of a pool but without the benefit of alertness. She was in a fog, the fever stealing her cognitive reasoning, making her slow and thick feeling.

She watched the scene unfold from the cradle of Adi's arms.

*

Scott came toward Julia in a flash of brilliance, The tailwind of colors behind him she intuited as being the rest of his family. From Julia's left, William and the vampire tore toward her, the feral howling in misery. The tone of it told her all she needed to know.

He drove to get to her, kept at bay by Tony and Joseph.

But maybe not for long.

*

Julia made the most difficult decision of her life, but she knew it would solve the current problem instantly. Her mind sought what it needed, and when she found it… the metal flashed in the gloom of the forest, making its way to her as if by invisible strings.

She grabbed the hilt of the stolen weapon, her telekinetic ability bringing it to her in a rush of surprise to all. The supernaturals in the forest stilled their movements.

The desired effect was instantaneous.

Marcus watched his utility knife, which he routinely wore at his hip, come unlatched and spin away from his body, lurching toward Julia hilt first.

Julia caught it in her hand, flicked it open, held it to her own throat, and screamed hoarsely, “Stop!”

Adi looked down at Julia. “No!”

“Let me down, Adi.” Her voice was steady.

Adriana did as she was asked, and Julia slid down the front of her body and swayed on her feet, her head swimming with pain and vertigo.

Julia looked at William, who stood as still as a statue. “Do not,” he whispered. “None of us wish for this end, Julia. This is not the answer.”

*

Scott stopped breathing when he saw the metal gleaming against the pale throat of the Queen of the Blood Singers. The fibers of his being pulled taut to the breaking point while his soul shrieked inside him. He made a move to step forward, and Julia's gaze shifted to his. “Don't even try it. I know you hate me,” she hissed, her strength ebbing, her hand shaking from the strain of keeping it steady.

The fibers of his being cinched tighter in discomfort. Her safety was in jeopardy by her own hand. Scott stood poised to launch himself at her the moment her attention wavered, the pain of not touching her unbearable. It was unlike anything he'd ever known. Every bruise, every battle wound—nothing compared.

Julia backed away from all of them, her back touching the trunk of a tree. They stood, all eyes tracking her progress, knowing that a false move could end her life. Then what would they have? What would she be?

Dead.

As the tears began to flow, Julia realized that nothing good had happened to her since Jason's death. Her lower lip trembled, and her hand shook as she determined that this was the best answer for her after all. She was tired.

So tired.

Joseph and Tony saw her expression first as they were the closest. But it was the feral who acted, his half-wolf form slipping off him like water sheeting off glass.

He sprang forward, human again for that moment.

The moment of truth.

Julia saw him, and her heart stalled in her chest.

She dropped the knife, all thought of death forgotten. The knife speared the earth at her feet, and she staggered forward without thinking.

****

Kent

Cynthia thanked the nice lady with the sad eyes for the room, nodding in all the right places when she said it was but a transitional respite. Blah, blah, blah. Cynthia got it. A place to lay her head on a pillow, none of the creatures in sight. They couldn't have followed her all the way to the outskirts of Seattle. She breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in what felt like forever.

She opened the door to the dark room and saw a bunch of plaster repair and the evidence of damage all over the place. The lady turned to her, the chain that hung off her glasses catching the light. “Don't mind the mess. We're doing a touch of remodeling.”

Cynthia looked around her. Looks like more than a touch. The window looked the worst. She walked over to it, seeing the remnants of hand-blown glass, wavy and warped, encased in a solid wood frame. Hairline fissures scattered about the center were taped so they couldn't splinter further. She turned her head and saw the old lady's face in profile. “What happened?”

The woman shrugged her shoulders, hauling the shawl she wore more firmly around her hunched shoulders. “We're not sure. But there was a young woman who stayed here a few months past.” She looked down at her sensible shoes and the pantyhose, which were an unnatural tan color. She suddenly looked up with guilt and muted horror. “She, uh… we think she was taken.”

Not much of a shelter! Cynthia thought, looking at the damage of the room more closely. She asked, “By whom?”

The woman shrugged, backing carefully out of the room, giving her a nod as she left, and closing the door softly behind her. Conversation closed.

Cynthia looked at the windowsill more closely.

Her chest tightened in a clutch of pain, her breath leaving her body.

She traced the marring left in the wood of the sill with a hand that shook so badly she grabbed it with its mate to steady it. She gave a shaky exhalation.

It wasn't who took the girl but what.

Cynthia snatched her hand back. She looked outside, beyond the glass and the unkempt yard below to the forest. It was dark and quiet.

A perfect hiding place—for them.

Cyn backed up until her legs hit the mattress and sat down. She stared at the window. It looked as though she might have escaped one horror for another.

Breaking her stupor, she rummaged in her backpack until she found what she was looking for. She lay down on her back, her finger running over her one photo, a habit of comfort these almost two years past. She never missed a night without looking at them.

It was Vegas. Just the four of them: she and Kev, Jason and Jules.

Before.

Jules was dressed up for once, Jason's arm slung comfortably around her shoulders as if it belonged there. Cynthia's eyes stung with unshed tears, hot and unwelcome, as she looked at Kevin. When they ran down her face, she didn't wipe them away but pressed the photo against her chest.

Her heart.

She missed them so much she felt as though her heart would never stop breaking. That was why her chest hurt so damn much all the time.

Her heart was broken in shards inside her.

Cynthia covered the photo with both hands and put her head to the side of the pillow, stifling her sobbing from the other inhabitants of the women's shelter.

*

Truman

Truman looked at Alexander, their eyes meeting a final time. “I can't believe this. I know you're telling me all this but I can't…” Karl tapped his head.

“Wrap your head around it? Yeah, tell me about it!” Alexander responded, nodding.

Karl Truman fought the urge to take his small note pad out of its home in the upper pocket of his button-down and clasped his hands together instead. “So they're…”

George Alexander nodded. “They're big suckers, standing on hind legs.” He made his palm flat and put it a foot above his head. “That makes these guys about seven feet tall.”

Truman whistled. “So, they're dexterous?”

“Very. They had no difficulty pawing through this apartment, turning knobs, unlatching windows. No…” He paused, not a hint of humor in his voice, giving Truman the full weight of his eyes. “They used the doors and windows. They have higher reasoning, no doubt.” George tapped his temple.

Truman thought about his words instead of blurting just anything out. “How high?”

Alexander paused for a beat. “Maybe like us… maybe.” He scratched his head and turned his back on Truman, pacing off to the window, gazing at the forest that stretched interminably beyond their position. “They are something else.”

“What are you saying, George?” Truman walked up to him, getting right in his face. He was going to make Alexander spill this info if it killed him. The specialist's green eyes met Truman's.

“I'm saying we have real-life werewolves.”

Truman staggered back a step. “No,” he said, getting a physical reaction of heat climbing his body uncomfortably. His mind had spun around the possibility of it but had eventually dismissed it as too unreal.

Alexander paced toward him, ticking off the facts on his hand. “Canine genome, DNA match, size, aggression, higher reasoning…” Then after a pause, he let the final bomb drop. “The saliva tells us the final piece.”

Real enough.

Truman leaned forward despite not wanting to, his heart in his throat, the evidence warring with his disbelief over anything that was not concrete, normal, sane.

“Human genome,” George Alexander said quietly.

Truman stared at Alexander, and he returned it. The moment swelled with portentous knowledge, belief solidifying.

Half human, half wolf.

Werewolf.

Alexander was reminded of one of the first precepts he had learned in med school: “When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra.”

In this case, that was all he heard—zebras.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Jason.

Maybe her eyes deceived her, but Julia's heart knew.

She had watched as the feral melted away and a nearly naked Jason ran to her, fending off her killing blow.

She crashed into him, her arms snapping around him. His body felt at once shocking familiar and foreign in her embrace.

In a moment, she knew something was wrong as pandemonium broke loose all around her. The different factions came together at once in a collision of claws, talons, and speed.

Julia was prone before she could move or breathe. Jason's now-human hands encircled her throat, her feverish skin burning against his cooler flesh. She frantically searched eyes that didn't know her. They were crazed and full of heat and hate.

Who is he now? Julia shrieked inside her mind.

Her head swam, and she began to grow dizzy, her stomach cramping as Jason—her husband from another life, another time—began to choke her to death.

*

Scott saw the feral return to his human state and launch himself at Julia. Scott bounded toward the feral werewolf just as he began to strangle Julia. The feral's mind was obviously broken.

*

William understood who it was the instant the red Were changed into human form. He had seen photos of Julia's former husband. But this was no longer the husband she knew. His mind was gone, the wolf in control even while he was human. Few Singers could overcome the transition to Were or vampire. It was never attempted. The results at this moment a confirmation of the dangerous consequence, the theory borne to fruition.

William charged Jason Caldwell at the precise moment as Joseph and Tony.

*

The vampires and Were collided, and the forest grew still except for the sounds of flesh tearing and the battering of one against the other. Scott landed on the back of the Singer, aiming a blow to stun him. The vamps and Were fought behind him while his siblings formed a protective wall around him.

*

Jason felt the blow on the base of his neck, numbing in its accuracy and force. He began to slide away from the woman whom he'd been strangling.

He recognized her too late.

Jason fell beside her, meeting her eyes.

Puzzle pieces of memories came from a blizzard that twirled without pattern to a solid stream of consciousness.

This was not any female.

This was his wife.

Julia.

What had he done? He moved to get up, and one of his kind leaped on his chest, knocking the wind out of him—but not before her eyes had met his, and Jason saw the one who had hit him pick Julia up as the Were and vampire beat each other into the forest floor, blood covering everything under five feet high in a spinning tornado of gore.

Black and red ran together like a poisonous lake. He watched the blood of his kind and that of his enemy run together, his consciousness slipping away, the blow successful in its intent.

Jason's last memory was Julia being taken from him by the arms of a large man while others like him surrounded them in a cocoon of protection, the vampires and Were dying all around him.

He turned his head and looked at the female Were above him as his eyes closed, exhaustion from the Change and the revelation of what he'd done and who he was dropping him like a stone into a tumultuous sea of nothingness.

*

Jason fell away from her, and Julia sucked in a lungful of precious air, a hitching sob the next sound that escaped her, her abused throat on fire.

Jason had tried to kill her! It was worse than his death. He'd lived, but it wasn't him.

Two palms cradled her face and forced her to focus on the one who had saved her from certain death, first by her own hand, then by the hands of one who had once loved her.

The electric shock of Scott's hands against Julia's skin instantly cooled the fever and stopped the internal turmoil of her stomach. She felt him lift her from the ground, strong arms wrapping her against his body, and he turned. A silent command rose from him like a sigh, and the others gathered around him like soldiers.

Julia's head burrowed against his chest, her eyes just clearing his strong arm where they met the stare of Tony, dead vampires at his feet. William was nowhere to be seen.

Joseph was dead, and Tony was the new Alpha.

Fear rose in her instantly. Scott ran in the opposite direction, and the group they left behind became smaller in her vision. Jason and Adi were on the forest floor together, Jason unconscious and unaware, his head held by Adi.

Adriana's eyes were all for Tony, the victor over the vampires, whose sights were solely set on Julia.

Tony threw his head back and howled into the still air of the forest, his rage filling Julia's ears, reverberating inside her soul like a discordant note of music.

*

Scott's arms pulsed around Julia, tightening with protection.

He picked up his pace. The mongrel would never touch her again.

He'd stake his life on it.

THE END

Read what happens next:
Blood Song, Book #2

Acknowledgments:

I published
The Druid Series in 2011 with the encouragement of my husband, and continued because of you, my Reader. Your faithfulness through comments, suggestions, spreading the word and ultimately purchasing my work with your hard-earned money gave me the incentive, means and inspiration to continue.

There are no words that are sufficiently adequate to express my thankfulness for your support. But know this: TDS novellas continued past HARVEST only because of you.

I truly feel connected to my readers. It is obvious to me, but I'll say the words anyway for clarity: a written work is just words on pages if they are not read by my readers. As I write this I get a lump in my throat; your enjoyment of my work affects me that deeply.

You guys are the greatest, each and every one of ya~

Marata (Tamara)
xo

Special Thanks:

You, my reader.

Hubs, who is my biggest fan.

Cameren, without whom, there would be no books.

About the Author

Marata Eros (the pen name for
Tamara Rose Blodgett) is the author of over seventy titles, including her
New York Times bestselling novel,
A Terrible Love, and the #1 international bestselling erotic Interracial, and African-American TOKEN serial. Marata writes a variety of dark fiction in the genres of erotica, fantasy, horror, romance, sci-fi and suspense. She lives in South Dakota with her family, and enjoys interacting with her readers.

Connect with Marata:

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Table of Contents

THE REFLECTIVE A Reflection Series Novel Book 1

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DEATH WHISPERS A Death Series Novel Book 1

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

THE PEARL SAVAGE A Savage Series Novel Book 1

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

REAPERS A Druid Series Novella Volume 1

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12