I could not have spared you the life you lived without me. But I cannot say I am unhappy to find you now. Please forgive me for my absence. I am Bloodling. No daughter would be without her father if I were aware.”
“I don't need a male's protection.”
Gunnar's nostrils flare. “I offer my love, and I cannot separate that from my protection, Beth. It is what a male Bloodling is.”
They stare at each other.
“I can only be honest. I miss your mother, and I hate how her life ended. I would do anything to change it, but unlike you—Bloodlings cannot skip time—only space.”
A prickling sensation causes gooseflesh to rise on Beth's arms.
“Beth,” Jacky says, and her head whips in his direction.
Gunnar grabs her arm. “Truce, my daughter?”
Beth can't keep blaming him—or her dead mother—because they couldn't offer something to soften the harshness of her childhood. All she can do is be grateful for her father's presence now.
Gunnar lets his hand fall, and Beth intercepts it midair. His dark eyebrows rise in surprise, and she lays his huge hand against her cheek and closes her eyes for a blissful moment of warmth.
When she opens them, his tender gaze is on her.
“Beth!”
Gunnar growls low in his throat at the intrusion as they move toward where Jacky and Maddie stand at the forest's edge.
“Is this time continuum thing, like, on purpose, or can ya just—poof—go any time?”
“What do you—yes. It's deliberate.” Beth stands beside him, her father a solid presence at her back.
Beth gazes out into the mass of graves. The bleached headstones look like newly erupted teeth in a grassy mouth.
Maddie gasps, stepping more deeply into the shadows, and Beth's father automatically puts her behind him protectively. “What is it?” His fangs garble his speech.
Beth knows what's happened, but she can't speak. Somehow, she's broken the twelfth she so blithely recited as though it would be so beneath her to breach a directive.
“How come that prick's alive, huh?” Jacky asks Beth, accusation clear in his voice. “I mean, you guys came back and did him—didn't you?”
Beth nods a little frantically. “Yes. We—he was processed for elimination.”
“He looks very alive to me,” Gunnar comments with a shaking Maddie clinging to his back. “Who is that male?”
Beth gulps her shame. “Maddie's stepfather.”
Gunnar steps out into the brightest part of the shadows, and Maddie plucks at his tunic. “Don't—don't go out there.”
The Bloodling turns and cups her chin. “A male who has hurt my kindred blood shall not breathe another breath.”
“No!” Beth shouts but too late. Her hand grabs empty air as Gunnar leaps into the meadow to go after Chuck.
And his skin starts to redden before their eyes; grotesque blisters spring to life in quarter-sized boils.
Gunnar falls to his knees, and an involuntary wail escapes his lips as his skin begins to blacken and burn.
The lone figure at the top of the hill shades his eyes from the sun, looks down at the strange sight of a man on fire, and grips his trimming shears tighter.
Maddie screams as Chuck's eyes find her.
He grins, coming straight at them.
Beth lunges forward, grabbing Gunnar’s arm, and drags him backward into the safety of the shadows.
“What has happened?” he croaks, and Beth holds in a sob as half his arm sloughs away under her touch.
“Three has one sun—it's very strong,” she says, rolling him over.
“Beth, figure something out!” Jacky says.
Beth watches Chuck coming and her eyes go back to Gunnar. “I'm sorry, father.”
Beth stands as her father lies dying at her feet and Chuck approaches.
I'll kill him twice.
But when a shimmering rainbow appears midair Beth sucks in a breath.
Someone has followed her.
Hope sparks—Jeb has followed.
Chuck walks through the iridescent tailwind of her jump as though it’s not there, his eyes set on Maddie.
Then Ryan leaps from thin air to the slight incline of emerald grass, with a lightness of step that belies the difficult landing.
His eyes find Beth as though he knew right where to look.
THE END
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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