Being Sapphire. Sylvia Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ stepped around the table, taking the floor. “I’d like to give updates on a couple of projects. Digging the tunnel to the Onyx Zone has been slow, backbreaking work and we’re looking for a few men who can help with the load.”

      A few shouts from the crowd answered his call for help, and he nodded his thanks. “Meet with me after the meeting tonight for the details.” He looked over the crowd. “I also have a firearms update from Stan’s unit. We just received another bundle of side arms and ammunition from our over the fence contacts. I want to thank all of the men and women who are consuming less so we have the commissary food to fund our acquisition of arms.”

      As the room began a round of applause, a barrage of gunfire sounded from somewhere outside the building. A scream and then the sound of multiple weapons and prolonged automatic fire had every person in the room springing to action at the same time. More muffled screams ensued as the room emptied with thorough efficiency. Jordan followed the crowd out the front doors of the Wellness Center and into Circle City.

      As Jordan ran toward the heart of the disturbance, she noted the retreat of a large group of National Guard. Most of them were already through the tall barrier that ran from building to building, enclosing Circle City.

      The world outside the doors was chaos. Masses of people spilled out of every doorway, making an accurate assessment of the situation difficult. Jordan followed the screaming and crying ahead of her. When she finally got a good view of what had happened, the shock of it stopped her cold.

      Hundreds of people had been sprawled out over the park-like, sloping green in the center of Circle City, staking their claim of real estate for the evening so they could sleep in the cool night air instead of the stifling-hot buildings. The multicolored blankets sprinkled against the dark texture of the grass looked like small, colorful squares of confetti. Dozens of people lay dead. Bullet wounds riddled the ones closest to her. The guard had shot them all. The living searched for those they knew, flowing and swerving around the dead in the same way water parted around objects in its path. Wails of grief filled the air.

      Stopped dead in her tracks, she was a lone, still person in a swarm of movement and noise. The ruthless extermination of innocent Ambers detonated a cache of rage that always lurked inside her. They’d done nothing wrong.

      But she had.

      A realization struck with brutal force. This was her fault. These people were dead because of what she’d done the night before. They’d expected swift retaliation by the Gov if the fire was suspected to be arson instead of an accident. But she’d never imagined they would murder indiscriminately. That assumption had been naive and the awkward feeling of success she’d experiences minutes before transformed into the familiar pall she was used to.

      Jordan pulled out her handheld and began recording a video of the mayhem while there was still some light from the rapidly setting sun. She focused on her screen and walked through the carnage with the weight of her responsibility for the massacre skewing her perspective.

      She found herself automatically gravitating toward the spot where she usually slept with her roommate, Dennis. Her mind ran through all the reasons he wouldn’t have been waiting for her to join him on the lawn, but that small part of her life experience had forged and shaped already knew he was dead. It was the same part of her that knew she’d been too happy these last few months. Her new friendship with Jaci and the important position she held in the resistance had given her instances of joy, of hope. The feelings were new to her. It was all too good to be true.

      Her throat closed tight for the second time that evening, making it difficult to breathe. It felt as if she was barely taking in enough air to be conscious as she walked through the gore to where she’d been sleeping with Dennis during these hot nights of late summer. Then, on the video screen of her handheld, she found him.

      His hands were cradled under his head as he looked up into the sky. For a split second, in the fading light, he looked alive. But in the melee of the moment, he was too still.

      Jordan dropped the handheld and fell to her knees beside him. “Dennis.”

      She looked him up and down and spied the bloody bullet hole a few inches below his armpit. The sounds of the frenzied throng around her faded while her own panic and grief sharpened.

      Laying her head on his chest, she listened. There was no heartbeat, no rise and fall of his breaths. He was dead.

      The world fell away and agony detonated somewhere deep inside her chest. Grief came at her from all sides. Her nose burned and her eyes watered as she denied her body’s demand to cry.

      She closed Dennis’s vacant eyes and rested her head on his chest. She wouldn’t survive this loss. This would leave utter devastation in its wake.

      Dennis had been her champion. He protected her, saved her from the mental illness that plagued the life she tried to build in Circle City. He fought side by side with her, helping her to overcome her issues and took on the fight alone when she didn’t want to fight for herself.

      Her thoughts were dismal and self-centered. She needed him for everything. There was no recovery from this.

      Sometime later, Jordan became aware of Xander standing over her. Concern was blatant on his face. She knew what she must look like with her tear-filled eyes and devastated heart. Her skinny body, pale skin and round eyes made her resemble a waif when she cried. She knew because she’d seen it in the mirror more times than she could count. It was not a side of herself she let people see.

      “Say your goodbye, Jordan, and then I’ll take you home.”

      Jordan pressed a chaste kiss to Dennis’s forehead and rose.

      “Would you rather stay with Jaci and me?” He squeezed her with a muscular arm around her shoulder while turning her in the direction of her building.

      “No,” she said numbly. “I’ve got to meet with the contact. He told me to be there tonight.”

      “It can wait a day.”

      She looked up at Xander and nodded and then squirmed out of his grip. “I’m fine. I can walk home by myself.”

      She turned and walked away from him, hoping he wasn’t following her.

      Instead of going up to her apartment when she entered building twelve, she walked straight through the lobby and out the front entrance.

      It took a tremendous amount of repression to turn her thoughts away from the scene she’d just walked away from, and she was utterly unsuccessful at it for any length of time.

      The hole Dennis’s loss would leave in her life was massive, and the ramifications were starting to circle the outskirts of her mind. Her life was a perfect example of why every female had a male roommate assigned to her. She needed the created link of family because she had no one else. Dennis had been better family to her than the people she’d been born to. He was someone safe to touch and be touched by without expectation of anything more. She could be herself when she was with him.

      He knew everything and cared for her anyway. She was bereft.

      It took a good half hour of walking before her brain started to emerge from the fog, and then during the next half hour, her grief turned into anger. She fumed as she finished her hike to the border gate station. Those miserable fuckers would pay. She would have her revenge.

      In the pitch-dark of another moonless night, Jordan’s СКАЧАТЬ