Saphire by S. E. Gutierrez (read e book .TXT) 📕

have to call my mom. A lot."

He smiled a crooked smile. "Great. We better get some sleep. While we're here, I want to get some training done, you need to know how to defend yourself."

I nodded. "Night Zane."

"Night Fire." he said as he walked in.

I stayed out for just a little longer, relishing the sight of the moon on the water. I sighed, I really should get some sleep. I decide to head in, the porch will still be here tomorrow.

By the time I finally fell asleep, it was somewhere around midnight or one. Ugh, morning was going to be here way to soon.

Someone was shaking me. I rolled over and stuck a hand out, trying to keep whoever it was away. The shaking stopped, but now there was light. I groaned and stuffed my head under my pillow.

"Holy crap, do you ever

wake up?" I heard Zane say.

Crap, I think as I remember last night. I bolt up. Zane, who was kneeling over me, fell off the bed.

"Sorry." I got between spurts of laughter. His face was turning bright red from laughing so hard. I reached out a hand to help him up. As soon as he grabbed my hand, he pulled me down onto the floor with him.

The laughing continued.

After a few minutes Zane stopped laughing. "Saphire, what the frigging CRAP are you wearing?" he burst out.

"What?" I blush "They're just yellow Soffe shorts and a black camisole. It's not, like, bad."

"But they're so. . . short." he blushed, actually blushed.

I laughed.

If possible he blushed even harder.

I got up. "Well, unless I wear my dress, I have no other clothes." I say as I stretch.

"Good thing I have money. C'mon, I'll take you shopping." He says, staying on the floor.

I squeal. "I must warn you though, I do tend to be indecisive."

He chuckled. "Well, I hate to play Dad, but I'm not letting you out of this house with that on. Where did you get it anyway?"

I let out a little giggle of my own. "I had the camisole on under my dress, but the shorts, I left in my purse, that doubles as my overnight bag. Lucky too."

Zane nods. I grab my dress and head for the bathroom.

When I came out, Zane just stared at me.

"I will never get over how good that dress looks on you." he complimented.

My turn to blush. "C'mon, I need some shoes I can actually walk in."

Zane smiled.

Chapter 12

I had a mental list of 'Needs" for shopping. A good pair of tennis shoes and flip-flops, durable pair of jeans, and a just a few plain V-neck T-shirts. And a pair of exersise shorts for 'training'. that should last till sunday.

"Oh and by the way, I'm getting you new pajamas that I will be picking out." he said as we entered the first strore.


A long hour later, or to Zane at least, my shopping had finally been done.

"Now what about you, do you have clothes?" I ask as we started out walk home.

"I always keep a weeks worth of suplies, clothes included, there. That house, believe it or not, gets quite a bit of use." He said.

"Oh, good. Still I think we should go shopping for you, it's only fair." I said, batting my eyelashes.

"Nope, my savings has already been conseiderably depleted." he said.

I laughed. "Sorry about that."

"No problem." He replied.


When we got home, I immediately changed, wanting to wear regular clothes again.

There was a knock on my door. "Come in." I said, setting my sketch pad on the bed.

"Time for training." Zane said as he walked in. "Wow, you're really good."

He picked up my pad and flipped through it. "You don't happen to play an instrument do you?"

"Yeah, I play, piano, flute, clarinet, and violin. Oh, and guitar." I said, listing my very loved collection of instruments.

"Apollo." he murmured. "How are your grades?"

"Straight A's." I said, suspicious.

"Athena too. Are you a night person?" he continued.

"Mm-hmm." I replied.

"Nix. Do you like the ocean?" he said, focusing his gaze on me.

"Love it, and the sky." I said, thinking about all the time i spent on the beach and staring up at the clouds.

"Zeus and Poseidon. Wow, looks like you have quite the mix of blood Fire. You need to be careful, our world is going to want to eat you alive. I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen. Now let's get training. We'll start with archery." Zane said, serious again.


I was surprisingly good at archery. And knife throwing. And sword fighting. I looked at my hands. "What the-"

"It's natural. Athena is the goddess of warfare too, so you'll have more of a talent with weapons and fighting. Don't worry about it." he said nonchalantly.

Great. I'm a freaky half-ling thing, with semi-creepy abilities, and now, I'm scared of myself. Why did this have to happen to me?

"Saphire, It's going to be okay. You don't need to be scared, you can protect yourself. It's gonna be fine." My face must have shown my emotions again.

I sighed. "It's not that. It's just- argh, I'm so- well- I guess I'm just scared

of myself now. I mean, c'mon, as of right now, I think I could officially kill around eight people in five minutes flat. I don't want to be able to do that, I don't want to be so- so- violent. I scare myself Zane, that's not right." My voice progressively got quieter until the last little bit was nothing more than a whisper.

Zane's face softened. I closed my eyes. Before I could even open them, I was in Zane's arms. Again. "It's going to be okay. Trust me when I say I know the feeling. We all do. It gets better though. Maybe I'll let you meet some of the others in this area. It's gonna be okay."

For some odd, odd reason, my emotions lately had been going overboard, and a second later, my eyes were filled with tears and Zane's shirt was slowly getting soaked. I buried my face in Zane's chest, life was suddenly so weird. My best friend, my worst enemy, me, all the same thing? So freaking me out right now, plus, my emotions decided to stack up against me, and I was now officially balling. Then again, Zane was being ridiculously nice.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn't realize I was still in Zane's arms till I felt his hands rubbing slow circles into my back, massaging it. I sniffled.

"Thanks Zane, sorry about all the water works, that usually never happens."

He squeezed me, still not letting go. "Maybe we should break, it's lunchtime anyway."

I relaxed a little, letting the rest of the tension roll off my body. Zane still wasn't letting go. And the odd thing was, I kind of didn't want him to. He was so different than the show he put on at school, so much more compassionate, understanding. Real. I leaned into him just a little more.

"You want to know one thing? All that stuck-up-ness, all that sarcasm everyone at school knows me for is just a cover-up. A smoke-screen to prevent monsters from finding me. You know, this is actually where I live right?" He explained, burying his face in my neck. His breathe tickled.

"What about your family? Where are they?" I asked, confusion taking over.

He froze, straightening and dropping his arms. "My mom, she was a demigod too, she died when I was three. Jace, the camp director took me in. When I was ten, he was killed my a monster. I got six years of foster care till I was emancipated when I was sixteen."

I felt my mouth open and quickly snapped it shut. It was my turn to comfort him. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him tight. He once again enveloped me in his arms, only this time, he was the one in need of comfort. I started rubbing his back, just like he did mine, and slowly, I felt him relax.

Zane sighed. "Thanks. You up for some Chinese?" He asked, squeezing me before letting go.

"Sounds great to me." I replied.

"Alrighty, C'mon, we're gonna have to walk there, but it's not far."

Chapter 13

When we got there, the resturant was small, but homey.

"I know it's not much to look at, but trust me, you've enver had chinese until you've had Mae's Flower chinese." He said as he led the way through the entrace.

"Zane," i heard someone with a thick chinese acceent exclaim. "Welcome. Whose this? She's a cutie."

The woman speaking to zane was a little on the older side, and, no matter what, made Zane blush.

"Yup, she's just like us, she's a mix too." i heard Zane say as he conversed with the lady as she lead us to our table.

After we had ordered our food, I asked Zane "Is she one of us too?"

"One of the oldest. We usually don't live past 50 if we're lucky. She of mixed blood like you and me. That means that we have more than one godly parent." He explained.

"Huh, so she runs this place, it's nice. It makes me feel, safe I guess." I replied, taking the resturant in.

"Hate to be the one to break it to you Saphire, but we're never safe. Don't forget that." Zane just had to go and ruin my good mood.

"That's not what I was talking about." I mumbled.

Zane didn't know my history. Nobody did. I've been through several foster houses, all of them hurt me emotionally or physically. I always