Green Jack
Page 41
Chapter 41
Saffron
By the time Saffron realized what was happening, she was caught between two soldiers. They were at a disadvantage, having been trained to protect Green Jacks at all costs---but she was at worse disadvantage, unable to reach for her knives.
“How the hell did you get out?” one of the guards asked.
Saffron did her best to elbow him in the head but she just didn’t have enough traction. The circle of light from the torches being lit around the gate got closer and closer. She couldn’t see Roarke or Kristoff, just the yellow mullein and Queen Ann’s lace growing up all around them. What was the point of the Green Jack’s gift, if she couldn’t use it to grow trees sharpened like spears or poisonous leaves to slap at her captors?
“They better get the damn power back up,” the soldier muttered to Roarke’s spy at the gate. “And call for a sweep, Gareth. The boss will hand us all over to Cartimandua if we lose his Jacks.”
Gareth nodded but his eyes were on Saffron. He knew damn well she wasn’t the same Jill that had been kept in the dome-pit. He ducked away. She wanted to raise the kind of hell that would sear their eyeballs but keeping quiet was a better strategy. She remembered Jane talking about seeing more when no one was looking at you. If she called all the soldiers down on them with her urge to descend into serious violence, it would be that much harder to get out. She needed to be invisible.
She slumped. It turned her into dead weight, which made the soldiers curse, but it also made them less concerned with her escape. Once they were inside the dome, she might be able to knock their heads together. Or strangle them with ivy from her leaf mask. She kept her eyes half-open for Roarke and the others but the rain was too heavy. It pattered on the glass dome roof like frantic paws scrabbling for purchase.
The plants inside the dome shifted in a wind no one else could feel, sighing at the presence of a Green Jill. The smell of wet earth and green things intensified. “Hell of a thing,” the soldier on her left murmured, distracted.
She aimed for him first. She managed a solid clout to his ear and he staggered. His companion was faster, jerking Saffron’s arm up behind her back. These weren’t street fighters like Argent, or rebels relying on speed and surprise, these were trained Protectorate soldiers. She didn’t have a chance. He smacked her head into a column. At least Gareth hadn’t raised the alarm.
Small comfort when the soldiers tossed her onto the bed down in the pit, not bothering with the ladder.