Green Jack
Page 57
Chapter 57
Saffron
Saffron wasn’t entirely sure how she’d gone from the Core to the Spirit Forest to the tunnels, only to end up in a room made of stone. The amphitheatre curved around them, sunlight falling in blocks through narrow barred windows. Saffron was in a cell with Roarke, Livia and Nico. Caradoc was across the hall next to Anya and Shanti. She couldn’t see the other Ferals. She couldn’t see Killian. Something hot and raw tangled inside her.
She pressed against the bars, trying to see into the other cells. She saw Argent chained to a wall, inspecting his sword. Now she knew why the soldiers had carted him off. She didn’t see anyone else though, no one that mattered. “He’s not here,” Roarke said flatly, knowing exactly who it was she was searching for.
“He has to be.” Her eyes were so wide they hurt. “They wouldn’t have killed him.” Couldn’t have killed him.
“I don’t think they did.”
“Then he has to be here. There has to be an explanation.”
“There is,” he agreed. “Your friend is one of them.”
Saffron punched him in the face before she even registered her own reaction. He didn’t say anything, didn’t make a move to retaliate which infuriated Saffron further. She wanted blood on her knuckles; she wanted to make the world bleed until it made sense.
She hadn’t trusted the rebels, but she didn’t trust anyone. She blamed the leaf mask for her uncharacteristic faith in Jane and the Greencoats. It didn’t make things any easier, only sharpened the weapon growing in her gut.
“I knew you couldn’t resist, little brother.” Cartimandua strode down the walkway, trailing soldiers.
Caradoc stepped forward, cursing under his breath. “Cartimandua.”
Saffron had never seen her this close before, only propaganda posters and the statue in the Rings. She had the same presence as that statue: cold, beautiful, and unmovable. “It’s been too long,” she said pleasantly.
“The rebels are yours,” Caradoc stated.
“Of course they are. Everyone is mine.”
“All this time?”
“Mostly. Titus has been very useful. We need someone to fight and the people need a thread of hope. And to be shown how impossible it is for anyone else to do what we do.”
Saffron felt both hot and cold all at once. Killian would never have given himself to Cartimandua, not for anything. The only other option was that he was gone. Hurt. Dea---. No. No.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Caradoc’s hands curled around the bars.
“I agree. So isn’t it time you gave up your annoying quest to coddle the Jacks and come home?”
“You know I can’t do that. Someone has to protect them.”
“Then, I can’t imagine why you’d think I could give up Elysium either. I owe this City better than that.”
“As if you care about the City,” Roarke spat. Saffron, who knew the catharsis of mouthing off to the people who tried to hold you down too well, didn’t know how to get him to stop talking. But she was suddenly very certain that no one was allowed to punch him but her.
Cartimandua’s smile widened, as she turned around. She motioned a soldier back, when he aimed his taser at Roarke. “No need. He’s family.”
“You’re not my family,” Roarke said. “You killed my mother.”
Her eyebrows rose. “More lies, Caradoc?” she asked her brother. “Really, I thought you were the people’s hero and above all of that.”
“It’s not a lie though, is it?” Caradoc said. “You forced our sister to wear the leaf mask.”
“Only because you refused.”
Caradoc flinched. It was the first time Saffron had seen him betray a moment of pain. Even when the land mine tossed him into the trees, he’d been less affected. “I didn’t know you’d turn on her. We were so young. You were supposed to look out for her. She was only sixteen!”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said.
“It matters,” Roarke ground out.
She shook her head. “Nothing matters, you stupid boy. The Green Jacks are dying, quicker and quicker.”
“Listen to me. We know the Jacks better than you do. They don’t get used up in the forest, not the way they do here.”
Cartimandua narrowed her eyes. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. How do you think we manage to send so much food out of the forest? You’ll never keep them alive in labs and chains.”
“Then join me. Because the satellites are falling. And after that, the power will go. We’ve always known it was coming, and now we’re out of time. The grid is teetering. Without the Jacks, there’s not enough food. People are already hungry.” She turned slightly, meeting Caradoc’s eyes. “And I don’t need to tell you how desperate hungry people get.”
“Oh, so you turned megalomaniac because you needed a snack?” Saffron asked loudly. She'd been hungry, hungrier than Cartimandua ever would be. But mostly she said it because Roarke had opened his mouth to say much worse. She shoved his swollen face into the bars and the pain momentarily stole his voice. Behind her Nico sighed, “Shit, Saffron.”
Cartimandua raised a dismissive eyebrow. “Core rat,” she said. “I’d know one anywhere. One of yours?” she asked Caradoc.
“Actually, she was a rebel,” he answered smoothly.
“Not a very good one, it seems.”
Belatedly, Saffron remembered she was a Green Jill and really ought to shut her damn mouth. And then it didn’t matter because Cartimandua tasered her and the volts of power snapped her back teeth together. Roarke and Nico struggled to catch her before her head hit the stones. “Cartimandua, enough,” Caradoc snapped. “What are you really up to?”
“Saving my people.”
“Then let me help. Free the Jacks. You’ll get your food then.”
“It’s too late for that.” She shook her head. “I’d hoped for better, Caradoc. I really did. But now I’ll have to make an example of you.”
“Fine,” he agreed. “I surrender. But let the others go.”
Cartimandua just smiled again and then walked away without another word. Roarke crouched beside Saffron, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. She shuddered, tasting copper. She tried to sit up, but could only lift her neck. Her jacket had fallen open. She stared down at herself, horror growing exponentially. “It’s gone.”
Roarke glanced down at her questioningly.
“The leaf mask is gone.”