Читать книгу Being Sapphire - Sylvia Ryan - Страница 8

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.” He was stalling, and his mother knew it.

“Well, come on. Out with it.” She sat with her blue-eyed gaze fixed on him.

When he’d eaten the last bite of food on his plate and glanced up at her, the worry in her eyes gave him pause. He felt as if he was going to tear her heart out with what he was about to say, but he forged ahead and proceeded to tell them about Jordan and the events of his overnight shift. When he’d finished, his mother sat tight-lipped and pale.

“What’s your plan, boy?” his father asked.

Patrick shook his head. “I don’t know, I–” He stopped short. “I guess that’s why we’re all sitting here,” he said quietly, looking at his mother. “Ma, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living two miles away from my brother and not being able to see him. It’s time to act. I wouldn’t be the man I want to be if I turned away from what’s right because of fear. It’s time for me to choose a path I can be proud of.”

He paused and gentled his tone “And…well, Ma, I really like this girl. I know I don’t know her very well, but…I don’t know. There’s something between us, some kind of chemistry. I need to see her again.”

Kate O’Connor sucked in a breath and a tide of alarm rolled over her face, turning it ashen. “Patrick, no! You’re going to be caught if you try to spend time with this woman. I forbid it. It’s too dangerous.”

“Ma–”

“Patrick, I said no. I won’t have it. Things are getting worse. Every day is a little more dangerous. People are disappearing into thin air. Children are reporting their parent’s private conversations to the Guard. Neighbors are spying on neighbors. Anything out of the ordinary is scrutinized and questioned.” She shook her head. “No. All it would take is one person noticing something different and reporting you. I’m not going to lose you to the Gov, too.” A sob hitched in her throat, and Patrick knew his mother was within an inch of losing it. She turned her face away from him and covered it with their hands.

Patrick glanced over at his father, who was staring cold-faced right back at him. Aaron O’Conner couldn’t abide one of his boys making their mother cry.

“Ma.” He knelt next to her and grasped her hand in his. “It’s the right thing, on so many levels. What’s going on here is wrong. I surely don’t have to convince you of that. Organization against the Gov is inevitable. At some point, we have to join those who are working to change it.

“That woman, Jordan, risked her life last night to stop Amber women from being forcibly sterilized. She’s brave and–” He sighed. “Ma, I don’t know why, but I need to see her again.”

His mother lowered her hands. She had tears in her eyes as she slumped, looking defeated. Then, finally, she gave him a slight nod. “Okay, Patrick. You’ve got my blessing.” She looked up at him, with bright eyes full with unshed tears. “Far be it for me to prevent you from following your heart and fighting for what you believe.”

“Thanks, Ma,” he whispered, squeezing her hand tightly before returning to his chair.

She nodded at her son, looking resigned. “If you’re going to do this, you might as well do it right.”

He froze with a glass of orange juice halfway to his mouth. Alarm rose from somewhere deep in his gut when a look of determination passed across her face. “You’re going to need some help.” She pointed at him. “And I won’t be takin’ ‘no’ for an answer.” She stood and headed toward the threshold that led into the rest of the house. “I’ll call the kin,” she said over her shoulder on her way out of the kitchen.

Patrick met the pacific blue of his father’s gaze.

“Don’t bother,” Aaron O’Connor said with his distinct Irish-hued English.

“What?”

“Don’t bother tryin’ to talk her out of it. It would be wasted breath.” His father rose. “I’m proud of you, son.” They shared a moment between them before he nodded once. “I’ve got to get to work.” He turned and followed his wife’s path out of the kitchen.

“I want to meet this girl who’s caught your eye, Patrick,” his mother said a few minutes later as she breezed back into the room with her ear bud already in.

And just like that, Kate O’Connor, the woman he grew up with, was back. The small hope of maybe having Shane with them again seemed to put her sound footing and iron-clad composure back in place.

He laughed and rolled his eyes, pushing his chair away from the table as his mother sat back down. “I’ll see what I can do, Ma.”

Kate O’Connor grabbed his forearm to stop his retreat from the table. “You’re a fine man, Patrick.”

He leaned over and pecked a kiss on her cheek. “I’m going to bed.”

Patrick made his way to the bedroom he and Shane used to share and sat down at the desk instead of flopping into bed as per usual. There were so many things he wanted to express to Jordan. So many ideas running around in his brain. He felt like a dumb-ass, giddy teenager instead of a grown man.

He reflected on the facts that led him to this crossroads in his life and acknowledged there was so much more that landed him in this moment of time. Shane’s designation wasn’t the only reason he’d made this sharp turn, rushing full speed toward a head-on collision with a regime fast becoming an unstoppable machine. It was that. And more.

When he’d been recruited to the National Guard seven years ago, he’d been proud of his job and held total loyalty to the Gov. Since then, leadership changed and his loyalty had eroded.

National Guardsmen, and their leader, General Morgan displayed an increasing sense of superiority toward the population. Small infractions of the law were being met with punishments of progressively disproportionate intensity. Rumors about the execution of people who wanted to leave New Atlanta to try to make it on their own in the Onyx Zone were frequent. And the massive number of surveillance cameras being installed throughout the Sapphire Zone was hard to dismiss. They were a tightly controlled population.

He’d heard General Morgan speak many times. The man delivered powerful speeches that drew the listener in and swayed them to his point of view. But lately, the speeches more closely resembled rants and his words reeked of racial superiority and the elimination of those who didn’t measure up to standards that were getting harder and harder to meet. Every year, more genetic conditions were added to the list of Automatic Disqualifiers that sent a person to the Amber Zone, and for the first time in almost a decade, the number of people being designated Amber had increased.

He was on the wrong side of what was right. He was a small cog in an authoritarian government reeking from the putrid decay of ideals the United States was built on.

Patrick sat, staring at the blank piece of paper sitting on the desktop in front of him. It took about thirty minutes of thought to sort out how he wanted to approach this first contact, this first admission of hope that there’d be something more between them. He had to address his personal feelings, his need to get to know her better as well as the cooperation and coordination of their groups. But he wanted to keep the two separate. He didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the others of her group by putting her personal business out there for all to see.

He decided on two messages: one for Jordan alone and one for the leader of the resistance. The notes would have to be in code, but not so vague the reader wouldn’t know the true meaning of what he was trying to say. He didn’t want Jordan to be caught in possession of communications that implicated her as anti-Gov. He picked up a pen and began to write.