Being Sapphire. Sylvia Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ satisfaction of the moment. The inferno’s heat bathed her face. She didn’t think she would ever experience a prouder moment than this one.

      Her throat tightened as she mentally ran down the names of women victimized by forced sterilizations performed in that building. This was their retribution and her narrow escape. In less than twelve hours, Jordan was due to report for her next ten-year-birth-control implant. Now, there was nowhere to report.

      “Come on, Jordan.” Xander’s voice emanated from the darkness behind her.

      She turned to glance at him for just a moment before returning to the mind-blowing sight holding her captive.

      “Go on, I just want to watch for a few more seconds.”

      “Now. Let’s go!”

      It was an order from her superior officer, plain and simple, yet she couldn’t turn away.

      “I’m right behind you. Go.”

      She waved a hand at him and registered his retreating footfalls while she took in several more seconds of the conflagration.

      This was a pivotal event for the country. It was the Boston Tea Party of the twenty-first century. She wondered whether history would remember it as such. Or would their act of rebellion be a forgotten glitch in the heavy-handed reign of the current Gov? She shrugged. Only time would tell.

      Reluctantly, Jordan finally turned away and ran into the darkness. The night was like tar, black and sticky from the unseasonably hot and humid September air. They’d picked this moonless night on purpose. But now, away from the fire, it was impossibly dark, and she was forced to slow her gait until her eyes adjusted.

      The escape plan for their first act of sabotage was perfect. The Amber Zone police cruiser waited less than a mile away and instead of driving away from the scene of the crime, she and Xander would approach the disturbance together in the police cruiser, as if responding to the emergency.

      After taking the time for her eyes to adjust, she moved in the shadows toward the rendezvous point, her black police uniform giving her excellent stealth in the deserted commercial district of the Amber Zone.

      When a hand shot out of the darkness and tugged her into an alley between two massive buildings, Jordan gasped, startled by the unexpected new direction her body took. She hadn’t seen who grabbed her, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t Xander. The man’s arms encircled her, holding her tightly and pinning her arms at her sides. She attempted to twist away from the hard male figure behind her, but he didn’t give her an inch of leeway. He remained still and silent while his calm, slow breathing rustled her hair and warmed her scalp where his lips rested so very close to her ear.

      She shifted slightly and gripped the butt of the gun holstered at her hip. The shadow behind her lowered his arm, grabbed her wrist and then restrained it against her abdomen. A sexy chuckle vibrated against her back and floated over her, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

      “Shh.” The sound was the slightest whisper through lips that skimmed the shell of her ear. “They’re coming.”

      Just as the stranger finished his sentence, Jordan detected the Guardsmen up ahead, by the subtle uneven rhythm of boots stomping the pavement. She stood in the slip of real estate, uncertain of her next move.

      Her breathing heaved out of control, an unfortunate side effect of the run to escape combined with the panic of being caught. She was breathing too loudly. No matter how much she tried to regulate it she continued to bellow great, uncontrollable swells of air. One of the flock of National Guardsmen jogging by would hear her, turn his head and spot her there. The same thoughts must have run through the mind of the man at her back because the arms that caged her tightened and he held his breath, releasing it only after they’d passed.

      A moment after the stomping of their boots had completely faded in the distance, the man lowered his grasp from her wrist to her hand and tugged her out from between the buildings. He navigated away from the gathering emergency responders but away from her rendezvous location with Xander as well. They rounded a corner and the border gate to the Sapphire Zone lay straight ahead, lighting up the entire area.

      In the increasing light, she gaped at the man dragging her behind him, and dread dropped like a boulder in the pit of her stomach. He wore a green camouflage uniform and carried an automatic rifle by a strap over his shoulder. He was Guard.

      Stricken, she attempted twist away from him, pulling hard against his grip.

      He paused to look back at her. “Jordan. Stop.”

      When she got the split-second look at his face, recognition was instantaneous. Patrick O’Connor.

      The National Guardsman who currently dragged her behind him was at the border guard station that night, the night Emily was killed. The night that started everything. She had spent a couple of hours passing the time with him while she waited for Jaci to cross back over into the Amber Zone. He’d liked her. It wasn’t hard to tell. He hadn’t been able to hide it very well. Months had passed since then, and he still remembered her name. The first time she’d heard him say it with his slightly off cadence syllables and the slight roll of his R made her name sound lyrical coming from his lips. She raised her eyebrows in surprise because she remembered his name as well.

      “Come on!”

      He pulled her again. And again, she resisted.

      “There’s no place to hide out here. They’ve already established a perimeter and are flooding the area with Guard for a grid search.” He leaned in close until they were almost nose to nose. “I can hide you.”

      He smiled at her. The gleaming white of his teeth cut through the darkness and her reservations.

      In a leap of faith Jordan quit resisting his pull and nodded. She followed him willingly then, as he led her into the small, brilliantly illuminated building that held the turnstiles used as the checkpoint for people traveling between the Amber and Sapphire Zones.

      “Hands and knees,” he spat, pushing her to the floor as he positioned himself in front of her. “There’s a camera sweeping our way in a second. Shit,” he cursed under his breath.

      His tone of desperation had heightened to that of a man who was dangerously close to coming face-to-face with his own demise. Jordan looked around and saw them, too, a group of four Guardsmen getting out of their vehicle on the Sapphire side of the border. Patrick’s body blocked their view of her as he moved around the checkpoint desk and pulled out the chair. “In you go,” he mumbled.

      She scooted into the small square of leg space under the desk and Patrick sat, rolling into her and pressing her tightly between his legs and the front panel. She knelt carefully, making sure no part of her body stuck out the six-inch opening at the floor and trying to hear the men enter the building over of the thundering of her heart.

      “Stay quiet. If they catch you, we’re both dead.”

      He was scared, too. Scared of the Guard, a group he was part of. Moments later the hard raps of boots hitting the tile floor sounded inside the building and got louder until they stopped directly beside her. The men were literally less than a foot away, just on the other side of the desk.

      “We’ve been instructed to move in and help secure the area around the fire.” She heard the familiar beeping sound of the code scanner, reading the numbers tattooed on the Guardsmen. СКАЧАТЬ