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 loss. For years, Patrick stumbled through life feeling like a part of himself was missing. From the moment of conception to the day they turned twenty-one, he’d spent his life with a living, breathing duplicate of himself. He and Shane had an innate connection, a visceral bond so strong it was as if they were two halves of the same whole.
In the Sapphire Zone, there was a growing unhappiness with a Gov that left women childless, ripped family members away from those they loved and strong-armed every one of them to conform or reap the consequences.
A growing fear of the Gov’s tightening grip on all parts of their lives was beginning to give the population in the Sapphire Zone fearful pause, and as the population’s discontentment increased, Guard patrols on the streets of Sapphire increased as well. Both subtle and not so subtle messages by the Gov were heard loud and clear. Dissention would be crushed.
When he walked through the back door to his family home, his mom was in the kitchen making breakfast like she did for him every morning. The yellow kitchen was bright with early morning sun and the windows were open allowing a slight breeze and the sound of birdsong into the room.
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled as he closed the door behind him. “Breakfast will be ready in a minute.”
He stood next to her, washing his hands at the kitchen sink when she peered over at him and cocked her head. “What is it? You’ve got an imbecile’s grin on your face.” He turned away from her omnipotent gaze, drying his hands. “And don’t you dare say ‘nothing’ to your mother now. Not when she knows it’s an outright lie.”
Patrick snorted. “No, Ma, I wouldn’t dare.”
She set a plate of eggs and toast on the table in front of him, pulled out her chair at the opposite side of the small, square dinette and sat with a steaming cup of coffee.
He kept his eyes on his food in a lame attempt to avoid her scrutiny. “I’ve got some things to talk over with you. Where’s Da?” He glanced up at her and her gaze turned serious.
“He’s getting dressed.”
“Let’s wait to talk until he comes down.”
Patrick continued to shovel food into his mouth, carefully avoiding his mother’s inspection and trying to figure the best way to tell her he was diving headfirst into deep water.
Aaron O’Connor, was a big man with dark hair and midnight blue eyes, just like his sons. When he entered the kitchen, he was surly as always. His mother rose and served up a portion of eggs to his father and popped bread into the toaster.
“Patrick’s got something to talk to us about, Aaron.” She set the plate in front of her husband and sat again, looking expectantly at Patrick.
“Jeez, Ma. Relax.”