Alpha Warriors of The Cause - Tamara Rose Blodgett Page 0,3
harm you.”
She straightens, dropping her fists. “There's more to harm than using your fists, Jeb.”
He looks at a bleeding Jacky on the ground. His Adam's apple makes a painful plunge inside a throat gone dry.
“I'm sorry—he—I—” Jeb begins.
“Shut up, Jeb,” Beth says, turning her back on him. She walks to Jacky and offers a hand.
He slaps his palm inside hers, and she lifts him easily. Jacky's eyes widen as he bounces to a standing position. “Stronger than you look, Jasper.”
A vague smile is gone from her face almost as soon as it appears.
“Beth,” Jeb says, reaching for her.
“Jeb,” she shoves her matted hair behind an ear, “I can't do us right now. I have to see where Rachett is. If there's a Rachett.” Beth sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. “And you need to control your emotions.”
The warmth Jeb feels for her swells unbearably inside him at the small gesture of pain. Eyeing Jacky, Jeb ignores Beth’s dismissal.
“I apologize.”
Jacky spits blood. “Whatever, ya fuckinʼ hothead.”
Jeb's jaw clenches and he keeps walking. When he reaches Beth he pulls her into his arms. “I'm so sorry. I didn't want to lose my temper. We were wracked with thoughts of our fellow Reflectives on One—you were there with only a pack of Bloodlings as protectors, and Ryan gunning for your death. I haven't had a moment's respite from my fear over your safety.”
Beth relaxes slightly. “I think I liked it better when you didn't like me, Merrick.”
“Jeb,” he corrects, hating the sheen of tears he has put in her eyes.
Beth places her palms against his chest, allowing her forehead to rest lightly against his thudding heartbeat. “Don't touch Jacky again, or I'll have to kick your ass. He's not the enemy here. He's an orphan, for Principle's sake.”
Jeb cups the back of her skull, his regret drumming between them. “Okay,” he answers simply.
“How about a god-blessed shower in this place?” Jacky asks.
They smile, breaking away.
Jacky is always himself.
Some things remain constant, Jeb thinks.
His smile fades as he realizes how little has.
*
“Stay within sight, Beth,” Jeb instructs quietly.
“Jeb.” Beth sighs in clear frustration.
“Humor me,” he answers, swinging his gaze to hers.
After a handful of seconds, she nods.
Jeb stops short, and Jacky jerks to the tips of his toes to avoid a collision.
“What the hell?” Jacky whispers.
The beautiful sculpture of a shimmering bronze swarm of butterflies has been dismantled. Their bodies lie on the ground like wounded corpses.
Beth covers her mouth as Jeb silently takes her hand.
As they walk to the entrance, Jeb takes in the stains of blood where he beat Quaker using a dose of Reflective trickery.
TCH is effectively deserted. Jeb carefully looks for others, and does see some of the many Reflectives Beth helped jump to their world.
But the female Reflectives are nowhere to be seen.
The money taker's station is upturned; Papilio currency floats like spent garbage in a breeze that whips through, whistling its despair at the leavings of their antiquated city.
Grief strangles Jeb's chest. He hadn't allowed emotions to touch him when he, Calvin, and Kennet made their plan for the retrieval of so many, but now the stark consequence of his new reality was biting him in the ass, as Jacky would say.
Jeb turns, hunting for the young man, and finds him caressing a fractured marble pillar that had stood unmolested for one thousand years.
But it's Beth's grief that tugs at him without mercy. She shakes off his comfort and strides forward, her eyes ping-ponging across every surface as though the answer for the dissenters’ debauchery might spring forth.
“How could they—devalue The Cause?” she asks to no one.
“Beth…” Jeb walks to where she stands, her hands cupping her elbows, her face a mask of betrayal. Raw pain bleeds from her every feature.
“Let's get out of here. Go back to our domiciles and get…” Jeb offers.
“What? Supplies?” Jacky spins, torqueing his body to one side. “Yeah, I'm seeing lots of regular stuff happening. We're gonna have to go back to the ʻhunt and gatherʼ bullshit.”
Beth looks between the two of them. “He might be right. Did you?” Horror dawns over Beth's face.
“What?” Jeb asks in alarm, scanning the perimeter. He sees no threats.
“My butterflies!” Beth cries.
Then she runs.
What butterflies? “Beth!” Jeb roars, tearing after her.
He yells to Jacky, “Follow!”
“Yes, sir, your majesty!” Jacky says.
Jeb doesn't have time to bludgeon Jacky again, however tempted he is.
Beth leaps at the first mirrored streetlamp solar panel she can.
“No—Beth!” Jeb bellows.
They might not be stable. Jeb has no way of knowing. Yet that