Being Sapphire. Sylvia Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ salute and turned, heading back on foot toward Amber Zone Police Headquarters.

      The farther she walked away from the border guard station, the more relaxed she became. Her solitary steps echoed outward into the gathering fog of early morning, punctuating the rapid-fire thoughts shooting through her mind. They’d done it. The resistance was a reality, now. And already, there was someone from a different zone reaching out as an ally. If she could trust him.

      Jordan thought back to the night she met Patrick, waiting for Jaci to cross back into the Amber Zone after Caroline had tried to kill her. She’d spent over an hour talking and flirting with him and his sleazy partner on the night shift. She’d flirted with the men because she wanted to keep them off-kilter, not questioning why she was there or why her friend was crossing back into Amber at such a late hour. It had worked, but she’d never looked back after they made their escape from the border guard station.

      That wasn’t really the truth. She’d thought about Patrick a couple of times since then. He was attractive, and she’d picked up on his attraction to her.

      But there was something about him even more memorable. She didn’t sense any disapproval or superiority usual during contact with people of other zones. He’d been fun, cracking jokes and tossing out sexual innuendos, which of course, was taboo because of their difference in designations. A flood of confidence swelled within her. After only a couple hours of contact months ago, Patrick remembered her name, both first and last.

      She found it hard to believe, because she wasn’t a bat-her-eyelashes-and-wrap-men-around-her-little-finger type of woman. She’d never even tried that wholly female ploy before that night, and when she thought back, she was still shocked it worked. Maybe the years since she turned twenty-one and moved into Circle City allowed her to pick up some of the basics, but she was still way behind the learning curve in the feminine wiles department compared to the rest of the women in Amber.

      Her upbringing in the Amber Zone had been different from other girls. She didn’t grow up doing the things they did. She never found comfort and acceptance through the touch of someone else. Never had pretty clothes, or spent hours figuring out the best way to do her hair, and never had a friend or had sex until after she turned twenty-one and moved to Circle City.

      She was definitely different and keenly aware of her shortcomings. She wasn’t feminine. She kept her hair supershort, didn’t wear makeup and only recently put herself out there enough to make a friend, her very first girlfriend.

      Overall, she’d characterize herself as tough, and tough wasn’t generally what men looked for in a woman. But, being tough was what led her to tonight. It almost made every other miserable moment of her life worth it. She shook her head bringing herself out of the reoccurring negative train of thought. No. Not tonight. Tonight was everything good and lucky and right.

      The sun rose ahead of her, painting the smattering of clouds pink and orange. The colorful spread only spurred the ridiculous grin she couldn’t seem to erase from her face. When she turned the corner onto the final leg of her trek, she spotted Captain Rush sitting on the entry steps to Police Headquarters.

      He was waiting for her. When he caught sight of her approach, she pumped her fist in the air and flashed him her best hell-yes expression. He released a long breath and his shoulders slumped, slowly releasing the tension they held. He’d been worried about her.

      As she approached, she noticed he was definitely starting to show his age now that he’d lost most of his hair. He looked more like a bald eagle with every passing day. But he was still sharp and smart and everything to her. God she loved that old fart.

      Rush stood when she finally reached him and they wordlessly walked alongside each other into the building. In his office, he rounded his desk and Jordan closed the door behind her before sitting across from him.

      His chair squealed a complaint as he leaned back and crossed his arms. “What happened?”

      Jordan reported the entire evening from the time Xander left her, to her close call after she fled the border guard station. “I assume Xander got here okay?”

      “Yeah, but he wanted to go back and look for you instead of following the plan. I had to order him not to go.”

      “I’m sorry, Cap. I couldn’t stop myself from just…taking it all in.”

      That feeling, that irrational joy, resumed its excited flutter in her belly, tickling like brushes of butterfly wings on her interior organs. She squashed it down the best she could but still couldn’t hold back the smile curving her lips. “It won’t happen again.”

      “Go home. Get some sleep. We’ll debrief before the meeting tonight.”

      Jordan nodded and stood. “Cap?”

      His eyes softened at her soft inquiry. “Yes, Sergeant?”

      “We did it.”

      He shook his head. “No. You did it.”

       2

      Patrick’s mother would be able to tell something was up with just a glance of her always-assessing gaze. Neither her husband, nor her sons could hide anything from Kate O’Connor. The short, strong-willed redhead was the undisputed matriarch of the O’Connor household. She ran a tight ship and was always keenly aware of how her boys were doing emotionally. Patrick didn’t know whether she saw it in their eyes or if she read body language. Maybe it was just a woman’s keen intuition, but she knew.

      As he prepared himself to enter his parent’s house, he schooled the expression on his face, trying to avoid a discussion with his mother before he crashed for the day.

      Like everyone else in New Atlanta, Patrick was assigned an apartment at age twenty-one. But he’d never truly moved in there, choosing to spend most of his free time at his childhood home. He just didn’t have the heart to leave.

      His mother had been absolutely devastated when his identical twin Shane had never returned from the Designation Center that day. He’d been designated Amber and taken away.

      Because he and Shane had been born with deep blue eyes, the entire family had assumed they would be Sapphires like the rest of their clan. But Shane hadn’t been. They arrived at the center together and left separately.

      Shane’s testing determined him to be infertile. The most likely reason was the mumps and high fever he’d had as a child. Infertility resulted in an automatic Amber designation, and just like that, with no fanfare or remorse, their family had been ripped apart.

      The robust, funny mother he’d grown up with transformed into a woman he barely recognized. She deteriorated into a shadow of her former self. The brash love that flowed from her, affecting everyone in her path, was still expressed in her actions, but heartbreaking anguish shone in her eyes. She was less. Thinner in both heart and body with one of her boys gone. After that, he couldn’t bring himself to leave the family home. His apartment sat mostly empty.

      Patrick and his dad, Aaron, surrounded her, cushioned her from the pain as best they knew how. They kept her busy with never-ending requests for favorite dinners and help with one task or another. They made her feel needed. It seemed like the best way to divert her attention from the hole Shane’s designation created.

      Since then, Patrick had been consumed by the drive to act against the regime that struck such a powerful blow to his family. His mother was not the only one who suffered Shane’s СКАЧАТЬ