Green Jack
Page 43
“Wait. Please.”
The voice was soft, gentle. Roarke stumbled to a stop so suddenly he had to put his arm out to stop Saffron from ploughing them both to the ground. She tracked his gaze to the pale lithe young man pressed against a tree. He wore a leaf mask so delicate it looked like it was made from paper. An orchid glowed in his dark hair.
Roarke whistled once, a soft and haunting song from an impossible bird. Caradoc came out of the shadows within moments. He saw the Jack and his usually mild expression slipped. “What’s your name?”
“Roman,” he whispered.
“If you come with us,” Caradoc said. “We can take you out of here.”
“Do you promise?” he asked tremulously. “I’ve been here so long.”
Saffron could only imagine the iron chafe marks and bruises he must wear, like Madeleine’s sharp bracelets. His sleeves were long, covering his arms and wrists all to the way to the base of his fingers. His eyes were dark and uncertain.
“Come with us,” Caradoc repeated. Roman took a step forward, then froze, flinching when the solar light crackled and flickered above his head. He reached for Saffron’s arm. Sighing, she let him, but mostly because there was no time to tell him that just because she was a Jill, didn’t mean she was sweetness and sunshine. She had a feeling River would love him though.
They moved fast. The main gate was too far but there was another door within reach. But when they reached the circle of solar lights, Roman smiled once. It was crooked and smug and something shivered in warning inside Saffron’s chest, but too late.
He had already gripped the chain of the bell and was ringing it violently. The metal sound was like a hundred flung daggers. Saffron kicked his arm but the damage had been done. Already the guards were shouting to each other. “Over here!” Roman yelled. “Greencoats!”
Roarke knocked him off his feet but Roman only laughed, sprawled on his back in the mud. “As if I’d go live like a savage in the woods. Do you know who my father is?”
When recognition hit, Caradoc’s jaw clenched. “Roman Summervale. Goddamn it.”
“Your father did this to you?” Saffron gaped. She wasn’t sure why she was so surprised, parents did as much and worse in the City. He just seemed so proud, so happy about it.
“He raised me to greatness.” His gaze roamed her body. “If you stay, he can do the same for you.”
“I’d puke on you if I had the time.” But she was already running, feeling the tremble in the ground from Protectorate boots behind her. Caradoc made some signal she didn’t see, but the others veered left and she did the same. The fence loomed ahead, bristling with barbed wire. Gareth opened a small gate under an extinguished torch before disappearing. Smoke and rain made the air taste dangerous.
So did the electric dart that sliced past Saffron’s ear, buzzing and sparking when it slammed into the side of a wooden pavilion. She whirled, dagger in each hand. The rain made it difficult to see. She squinted, willing herself to be patient. If she threw too soon, she’d miss the target. Too late and it might leave a scratch but that was all. Soldiers poured across the wet grass, lights flashing on tasers and rifles. Saffron darted around Roarke to place herself in front of the others. “Crazy girl,” Kristoff thundered. “Behind the line”
“They won’t want to hurt me,” Saffron said. “So I am the line.”
Caradoc was already on horseback, thundering towards Jane standing in a circle of soldiers. Her chiton was lake-blue and made her look ethereal as mist. The soldiers gleamed with weapons and chemical light. Caradoc cut one down with his sword and bent to swing Jane onto the horse behind him.
A dart exploded next to Augusta’s head, blinding her. She dropped into a crouch, making herself as small as possible. Saffron threw her first knife, then her second. One of the soldiers grunted, the knife blooming from his shoulder, another ducked. The others formed a line and advanced.
“If you fire, you hit a Green Jill!” Saffron shouted at them. She stepped just inside the circle of light, close enough that they could see the burrs and thistles and dandelions gone to seed. Silky white pod fluff drifted like storybook snow.
“Shit, Saffron, pull back!” Roarke reached to grab her arm and stopped himself just before his fingers brushed her. She couldn’t throw a dagger if he got in her way. Later, she would decide it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her.
Kristoff wasn’t nearly as romantic. He tossed Saffron back into Roarke yelling “Run!” before he charged the line of soldiers like a demented bull. Roarke wrapped his arms around Saffron and they hit the ground just as the rain turned to bullets.
Kristoff was fast, but not fast enough. He took out three soldiers and crumpled with a smile on his face, his beard stained with blood. Saffron crawled back, shock tightening her throat. She bumped into Augusta, tears streaming from eyes gone to flint. A bullet hit Roarke in the arm when he rose into a crouch. His body snapped backward, blood spraying from the wound. He pushed back to his feet, fingers pressing into the wound, head down as if he was walking against a storm.
“No!” Caradoc pulled the reins tightly and blocked Roarke. “Don’t waste his sacrifice.” When Roarke hesitated, Caradoc kicked him lightly from the horse’s back. “Go.”
They pushed through the gate just as the fence sizzled back into electrified metal. When Saffron brushed too close to the chain links the power jolted through her. It was a brief song, one full of pain and bone and blue light searing into the spine.
They finally made it into the forest where no searchlight, no hunting dog or rifle, was stronger than a Green Jill. The woods closed around them like a fist.