Being Amber Read Online Free PDF

emotions to seep in. “Holy fucking hell. Dammit.” He stormed, knocking a chair over and kicking it across the room. Then, he sat heavily in the one remaining by the table, leaning over, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Air rushed savagely in and out of his lungs. He attempted to calm the fury he felt, taking long minutes to recover from the massive adrenaline surge.
    Finally somewhat calmed, he took a deep breath and looked up at Jaci’s unconscious body. This was his fault. He hadn’t been here. She didn’t know that she already had family here, had someone who cared about her, who would take care of her.
    Well, there was absolutely no chance she’d get the opportunity to do something like this again. She was going to see just how seriously he took his responsibility.
    Xander stripped down to his underwear and slid into the bed. He grasped Jaci’s wrist firmly. She wouldn’t be going anywhere without him knowing about it.
    Soon, the hens on the Sit-In Team would take over. And the leader of the hen parade, Caroline, would be trying to shoo him out. He grunted. Good luck with that .

 
    Chapter 3
     
    She wasn’t dead.
    Disappointment settled, cold and painful, in the pit of Jaci’s stomach.
    When she learned there was no hospital in the Amber Zone and that she’d be transported back to the apartment after her sterilization, she’d been shocked. But she eventually realized that they gave her the easy out she’d been searching for. The clinic staff provided a bottle of painkillers to take home.
    But it hadn’t worked.
    She cracked open her eyes. A quick sweep of the room told her it was dark outside. It was hard to see anything other than all the women who surrounded her. There were several in bed with her, touching her, comforting her. Jaci’s head was on a pillow in a woman’s lap.
    “It’s okay, Jaci. We’re all here for you,” someone whispered in her ear. It was the person caressing her hair.
    “Are you my roommate?” Jaci’s throat was dry, her voice gravelly.
    “No, I’m Caroline.”
    “Why are all these people here?”
    “Jenna from the sterilization clinic sent a u-com about you.”
    “They sent a universal com about me?”
    “Only to building seventeen. It’s standard procedure.”
    “So, everybody in the building…knows?” Jaci paused. “How humiliating,” she whispered more to herself than anybody else in the room.
    “Shhh, don’t worry about that.” Caroline raised her up so she could take a sip of water from a straw somebody else held to her mouth. “Oh, before I forget, your assigned com is on the night table when you’re ready for it. A lot of our numbers have already been downloaded in.
    “I would tell you everybody else’s name, but you wouldn’t remember them right now anyway.” Caroline was still gently raking Jaci’s hair with her fingertips. “Tomorrow, you’ll feel much better and we’ll all have plenty of time to talk. For now, relax. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”
    For the rest of the evening Jaci succumbed to a hazy flurry of women everywhere.
    She fell into a bizarre funhouse sleep with oddly realistic and suffocating dreams. Pain woke her occasionally, and each time she opened her eyes, she was still surrounded by women. Later, they slept with her. A tangle of females covered the big bed, their bodies pressing close to her and each other. It seemed like a dozen hands reached out, touching her. Their vigilance kept her prisoner in a cocoon of female flesh. The oddity of their behavior drove away her immediate despair and provided brief moments of respite from the amalgam of physical and emotional pain.
    When Jaci woke up the next morning with a clearer head, Caroline and another woman, Emily, whose name she remembered only because of her purple-tipped hair, were still there. She recognized the two other women present, but she couldn’t remember their names.
    “How are you feeling?” Caroline asked when she realized Jaci was