Being Amber (16 page)

“What are you doing?” she yelled.

Rock’s knee was in the center of Asher’s back while he retrieved cuffs from their holder at his waist. He cuffed Asher, then hit his com and called for backup.

“Are you okay?” he asked breathlessly as he got up from the grassy area where he took Asher down.

“I’m fine. What’s…”

Jordan ran out the courtyard doors of building seventeen, gun in hand. She looked at Jaci. “Are you okay?”

Jaci looked at Jordan, at Jordan’s gun, then to Rock.

“I’m fine. Are–” She looked around again because she was having trouble understanding what was going on. “Are you guys watching me?”

“I’ll meet you at HQ,” Rock said to Jordan, without looking at Jaci. He lifted Asher off the ground and walked him through the darkness of the courtyard.

“Come on, I’ll explain everything on the way there,” Jordan said as she holstered her gun at the small of her back and covered it with her shirt.

Jordan tried to turn Jaci in the direction Rock had gone with Asher.

“You’re police?” Jaci asked as she resisted going in the direction Jordan tried to lead her.

Jordan stopped to face Jaci. “Yes.”

“Do you work with Xander? He’s in on this too?”

Jordan hesitated for a moment. “Yes. We’ve been watching you, trying to protect you. We think someone is trying to hurt new fallows. Come on, we can talk about this at the station.”

Jaci’s anger was like a storm gathering little by little. Once it came together and was at full force, it would be treacherous for anybody in its path. “Where’s Xander?”

Jordan pressed her lips together and then looked down at her shoes.

“It’s his night off.”

She looked at Jordan with disbelief. Her mind worked hard to reform her reality to fit the facts she had only now learned. Feelings of betrayal simmered the blood in her veins. Then, as the extent of everyone’s deceit became clear, her blood boiled.

“Am I under arrest?” Jaci asked. Her stubbornness took root.

“No.”

“Then, I’m not going anywhere with you.” She seethed as her heart beat furiously in her chest. She was beyond words as she turned and walked away from Jordan.

“Jaci, come on,” Jordan said as she started following her toward the building’s entrance.

Jaci whipped around. “Stop following me,” she gritted through her teeth as Jordan caught up to her. “I’m going to my apartment. Leave me alone.” Jaci’s tone escalated to a shout. She was on the verge of making a scene when Jordan finally retreated from her.

Jaci turned and stepped into the building, and thankfully, Jordan let her have the head start up to the apartment. But, she was positive Jordan would follow to make sure she got there okay.

When the elevator door opened on the fourth floor, the hallway was uncharacteristically empty. Jaci saw a woman standing outside their apartment door. It was the woman who held Xander’s hand that first night they had their door open. She was sensuous, mysterious looking with her bronze skin and cascade of straight hair that gracefully tickled the small of her back. She was locked in an embrace with Xander. A flash of jealousy joined the fury that already engulfed her as she watched from the elevator.

The woman gently cupped both hands on Xander’s cheek and looked into his eyes. “Love you,” she said to him.

“Love you too,” Xander answered. “Thanks for coming. Next time your place. I promise.”

The elevator door began closing as the woman turned in Jaci’s direction. “Hold the door,” she called.

Xander turned to look in the direction of the elevator and locked eyes with Jaci right before the door closed in front of her.

She stood stunned and alone in the elevator as it made its way down to the lobby. She stared at her blurry reflection in the stainless steel door, and the strong urge to scream rose within her and bottlenecked in her throat. Her shoulders heaved with every drowning breath.

Xander had a girlfriend. He was in love with somebody else.

By the time the elevator opened on the main level again. Jaci’s ear bud signaled an incoming com from Xander. She pulled the bud out of her ear and threw it to the floor as she exited the elevator. She turned toward the front entrance of the building, toward the exit that led out of Circle City.

Away from Xander.

Chapter 10

When the elevator door opened again, Xander and Gwen were standing face-to-face with Jordan.

Jordan seemed surprised to see them standing there. Then with an increasing look of dread, she asked, “Where’s Jaci?”

“She never got off the elevator,” Xander said. “She saw me hugging Gwen in the hallway and she never got off.”

“Shit,” Jordan said. “We’ve got problems. She’s pissed as hell.”

“What’s going on?” Xander demanded.

“Rock took Asher down. Wait,” she said quickly, presumably to stop the deluge of words that were about to spew from his mouth and crash down all over her. “I don’t know why. He commed me for back up. Looks like Rock jumped the gun though and Jaci knows that we’re watching her. I tried to take her down to the station to get it all worked out, because I wasn’t sure what happened either. But once she found out what was going on, she wouldn’t come with me.

“She was livid. I gave her some space to cool off. Dammit. She said she was going to the apartment. She must have come right back down again because I only gave her a minute head start.”

“I tried to com,” Xander said. “She didn’t answer. Jordan, get a hold of Brady. He’ll locate her with the position finder. I’m going down, maybe she went into the courtyard or back to the mix.” Xander looked at Gwen. “Sorry.”

She smiled at him. “Maybe this will turn out for the best. Don’t blow it when you get your chance to talk to her.”

The three of them rode the elevator down together. Gwen said her goodbyes when the door opened, leaving Jordan and Xander to coordinate their next steps. They agreed to meet back in ten minutes after Jordan called Brady, and Xander checked the mix and the courtyard.

He headed toward the mix, trying to com Jaci again. And again, he got no answer. He walked into the huge room that held the monthly party. It was packed. The dim lighting, noise and crowds of people made it almost impossible to find her. He scanned as he walked the perimeter of the room, twice. He didn’t see her. She wasn’t there. This operation had turned into a dismal mess in less than a minute, just the short time it took for an elevator to ride up to the fourth floor and down again.

He hadn’t wanted Jaci to find out about everything this way. He’d planned on telling her in a way that would help her understand why they kept the whole operation under wraps. At least that way he would have had a chance of her understanding the reasoning.

Learning about the operation like this, in combination with overhearing Gwen and him at the door, definitely gave her the wrong idea. It looked like everything was a lie. God, he’d hurt her again. He’d hurt her so badly she felt she had no other choice than to bolt.

He exited the rear doors of the building and jogged up the courtyard path in both directions.

Nothing.

Brady probably knew where she was by now.

He met Jordan back at the spot where they had separated.

“Did you get a hold of Brady?”

“Yeah.” Jordan opened her hand and held it up for Xander to see. It was a com.

“Jaci’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck!” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an attempt to calm himself. He looked down at the floor and scrubbed the top of his head while he pieced a game plan together. “All right, let’s get the team to the station. I’ll call Captain Rush.”

Xander went back up to the apartment to put Jaci’s com on her night table in hopes that she would take it with her if she came back.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments looking at it, trying to think about where she would go.

Caroline.

Xander dressed in his uniform for the first time in almost two weeks, holstered his police-issued revolver and stopped at Caroline’s apartment. The door was closed. He knocked. No answer. He put his ear on the door. No noise came from inside. Caroline was probably at a mix in a different building since he hadn’t spotted her at the one downstairs. He shot her a com asking her to hit him back if she knew where Jaci was.

As he headed toward the station, he was deep inside his own head, lost in his thoughts, replaying what he and Gwen said and did as they were saying goodbye. It was obvious Jaci thought Gwen was his girlfriend based on what she saw from the elevator. She’d heard them say, “I love you” to each other.

She probably thought he was hiding a girlfriend from her too. The thought of what he did with her the other morning crept into his conscious mind. Thoughts about that morning hadn’t been too far from his awareness since it happened. The realization that she would think of him as someone who took advantage of her and cheated on his girlfriend made him flinch. She was going to think she didn’t mean anything to him, to any of them.

The thought shot ice-cold fingers of dread down Xander’s spine. Jaci thought she was truly alone. Fear began to penetrate, overtaking everything else. If she was despondent enough, would she attempt to kill herself again?

He groaned at the thought.

* * * *

Jaci slipped off her high-heeled sandals and started walking. Even in the dark, the Amber Zone outside of Circle City was urban ugly. Plain, square buildings that housed manufacturing and processing plants dotted each side of the street. It was picture perfect urban sprawl, depressing and dirty. It was what she thought all of the Amber Zone looked like before she arrived there.

Tonight was a massacre. Jaci’s heart physically ached. Her feelings for Xander were not only
not
returned, they would never be returned. He’d already chosen someone else to love, probably way before she’d ever even walked into the Amber Zone. She choked down a sob, refusing to cry. The true reality of the situation was that Xander wasn’t even her friend. She was a work assignment to him. He was under cover, acting out a roll to fulfill his job duties.

She thought he cared about her.

She’d been kidding herself, maybe because the lie was so much kinder than the truth. The truth, that she meant nothing to anybody and was completely alone in a strange place, unanchored her soul and set it adrift. She was lost, like a cork bobbing in an endless ocean, trying to find its way to shore. She’d take any shore right now. She needed solid ground, because she felt close to drowning.

Reality was heartbreakingly brutal, and she no longer had the luxury to pretend that it wasn’t. To survive, she would have to develop some calluses fast. She needed to suck it up and let the wounds make her stronger, let the bitterness curdle the illusion of her phony life in Amber and reveal it for what it was, spoiled beyond saving.

After about an hour of walking away, both mentally and physically, from the painful, disturbing mess her life had become, Jaci noticed that a neighborhood with townhouses, schools, and strip malls replaced the businesses and manufacturing plants closer to Circle City.

She stopped walking and let out a deep sigh as her butt met the curb in front of an elementary school. The street was deserted. She was exhausted.

It was late. Too late for transports. She fixed her gaze on the traffic light in front of the school. It continued its cycle of green, yellow, and red despite the absence of drivers to follow its commands. The air was still and quiet. It was eerie to be alone in the dark so far away from…she snickered. Home? Where was that exactly?

Now that some of the initial hurt and shock had been walked off, the emotions remaining ate away at her. Anger at herself took root in her tired mind. She was a trusting fool who’d been easily scammed and knocked on her ass as a result. She was disappointed in herself the most. She would have liked to think she was smarter than this farce. That she wasn’t some gullible dumbass that would believe any sweetly told lie.

God, she didn’t want to go back to the apartment tonight. She wanted to hide away from the world.

She wished she could go home and cry on her mother’s shoulder. She needed to feel loved. Being in familiar territory, even if only for a day, could shore up this newly found determination to survive and help her face whatever awaited her when she returned to the Amber Zone.