Green Jack (27 page)

Thirst and
hunger and fatigue hit her in waves---but she mostly felt
mortification. Why did she have to keep falling apart around him?
She must have made some sound of frustration, something animal and
harsh, because he turned around in his chair. “You’re awake.”

She rubbed her
eyes. “If you say so.”

His smile was
fleeting. She might have imagined it. “What happened?” she asked
when she couldn’t bear the silence any longer.

“My guess?
Numen burnout. You have to be careful. I’ve seen people burned
inside out to a shell. You’re not an ocean,” he elaborated. “You’re
a cup. You need to be filled up so you don’t run dry.” At least he
hadn’t compared her to a silver goblet or a glass chalice,
something pretty but useless. Something from the Enclave.

“This never
used to happen.”

“Your numina
tattoo was different then,” Caradoc reminded her. “They use powder
from leaf masks mixed with charcoal and iron dust. Iron stops
magic. Or at least interferes with it.”

“But doesn’t
the Directorate want more numen?”

“Sure but they
want numen they can control.”

“Is that what’s
in the new Directorate tattoos too?”

“That’s my
guess,” Caradoc said. “They want to see who reacts and how. And if
they’re tagging everyone, they’re getting desperate.”

“There is no
numen poisoning, is there?”

He smiled a
little. “Not that I can see. It’s just another early-warning system
for the Directorate to keep an eye on everyone.”

“So they get
everyone paranoid to turn each other in as well.” She tried to sit
up but when everything swam out of focus, she lay back down.

“What did I
just say about resting?” he sighed.

“I can sleep in
my cabin,” she mumbled. “Out of your way.”

“I’d rather you
stay where I can keep an eye on you. Livia is less likely to try
her hand at murder in my cabin.”

Kristoff. Jane
turned her head away towards the cushions, blinking back tears.

“Hey.” She
heard Caradoc’s chair creak when he stood up but she didn’t move.
He crouched beside her and she concentrated on the pattern of the
stupendously ugly cushions instead of his scent of soap and cedar.
“This wasn’t your fault any more than it was Roarke’s.”

She didn’t want
to be comforted. But she didn’t want him to leave either. “I should
have been able to save him.”

He brushed a
strand of hair off her neck. “You saved my nephew. And Nico. And if
we’d gone tonight as planned, maybe Kristoff would have made it. Or
maybe none of us would have.” He bent closer, his breath soft on
her ear. “You did good.”

She turned to
face him then, something new blazing through her.

“I can do
better.”

Chapter
45

Saffron

Saffron waited
for Roarke outside the apothecary cabin. She knew he hadn’t spotted
her, she was too well camouflaged in the greenery. She leaned
against a tall tree and watched him descend the porch stairs in
long loping strides. Everything he did crackled with energy. Even
when he seemed lazy or relaxed it was a mask, his own form of
camouflage. His shirt was ripped, a neat bandage tied around his
left bicep. He was lean and strong, as if he always knew exactly
what his body could do.

Enough
thinking.

She pushed away
from the trunk, just as he stopped and glanved in her direction.
“Saffron.” She was mildly impressed. He shrugged his uninjured
shoulder, reading her expression. “I grew up around Green Jacks,
remember?”

She nodded at
his arm. “So they didn’t have to chop it off?”

“Couple of
stitches. Just a graze, no big deal.”

She remembered
the burst of the bullet, his body being flung through the rain.
“Does it hurt?”He shrugged again. She took that as a no, or close
enough anyway. “Good.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him deeper
into the forest, away from the camp, away from expectations and
recriminations and duties.

He followed,
perplexed but curious. “Where are we going?”

She had no idea
actually. But this spot by the lake was as good a spot as any. And
private, which was all she wanted. She turned, tugging him forward
with a fistful of his shirt. She kissed him hard, hungrily, and
after a very brief startled pause, his arms wrapped around her. His
tongue slid over hers in tiny hot licks. He tasted like rain. When
he eased back, she blinked at him. Everything inside her hummed.
“What was that?” he asked softly.

“Does it
matter?”

“Maybe,” he
nipped at her mouth. “Maybe not.”

“I don’t want
to think,” she slipped her hands over his hips, his leather belt
digging into her fingers. “And I don’t think you want to
either.”

“So I’m
convenient.”

“No. Yes. I
don’t know.” There was too much talking, too much thinking again.
“Are you going to take off your clothes or chat me to sleep?”

“Is everything
a dare with you?” She just widened her eyes impatiently at him.
“Challenge accepted.” His grin was wicked. Something sparked inside
her belly.

His mouth found
hers again but this time the kiss was slow and lazy. She was
suddenly no longer sure whose idea this was in the first place and
she didn’t much care. She wanted him to keep kissing her like this
forever; like they were both drowning or flying—like they needed
each other to survive. Somehow they found themselves lying in the
ferns, all ragged breaths and desperate hands. His body pressed
against hers and she arched to meet it. He dragged open-mouthed
kisses across her throat until dandelions bloomed in her hair. She
smoothed her palms over the hot skin of his back, pulling his shirt
up when it got in the way. His knee pressed between hers. She
pulled at the rest of his clothes, he at hers.

The ferns
closed over them as he closed over her—and there was no thinking,
no thinking, only the wild voice within, finally allowed to
sing.

Chapter
46

Jane

Jane woke up to
the sound of whispering. She sat up, feeling groggy but refreshed.
Caradoc was in his chair and Saffron and Roarke stood around the
consoles and the radios. It didn’t take Oracle training to know
there was something new between the two of them. She hid a smile
even as Caradoc noticed her. “How long did I sleep?” she asked.

“Eleven hours,”
Saffron replied. She was twirling a knife between her fingers. “I
held a mirror to your nose to make sure you were still breathing.
You tried to slap me.”

“I did?”

Saffron
grinned. “Your aim’s improving.”

Jane ran a hand
through her hair, trying not to care that she must look dishevelled
and rumpled. As usual, the shadows under Caradoc’s eyes and the
stubble only made him look more rugged. Clearly this infatuation
wasn’t as easy to get over as a case of numen burnout. Her stomach
complained loudly that it wasn’t getting any of her attention.
Roarke tossed her an apple. She bit into it gratefully. “What did I
miss?”

“Training. A
memorial for Kristoff,” Saffron replied. “And Livia being a bitch.”
she grimaced ruefully. “I’m sure there’ll be a repeat
performance.”

“She’s just
upset,” Roarke said.

Saffron
snorted. “Don’t defend her to me, Roarke. Lots of people can be
upset without being jackshits about it.”

“Can you?”

She grinned.
“Nope. So remember that.”

Jane looked
away. Saffron flirting seemed more intimate than the hours they’d
spent sealed together in a bedroll against the Red Dust. Caradoc
was, of course, entirely focused on his screens. “Any word out on
our raid?” she asked quietly.

“Plenty of
words,” Saffron was the one to reply. “Most of them unsavoury.”

“Any
retaliation?”

“Not yet,”
Caradoc said. “A message was sent to Summervale and to the
Directorate headquarters, but that’s it.”

Jane finished
her apple. “Good. Then I’m going to go practice.”

He shot her a
telling glance. She held up a hand. “After I fill my numen cup with
pancakes and eggs.” He nearly smiled.

“I’ll come with
you,” Saffron said. “I’m starving.”

Roarke grinned
knowingly. She shoved him amiably. Jane barely saw it, just a blur
of motion out of the corner of her eye. Saffron paused, snapping
her fingers in her face. “Jane? Hello? Are you trancing out
again?”

Jane shook her
head mutely. The others tuned to follow her frozen gaze as the
blood drained from her cheeks. The screens flashed one after the
other, switching from Directorate emails and hacked video feeds to
the same bounty poster.

Jane Highgate.
Wanted for crimes against the Collegium and the Directorate.

She saw herself
in all of the screens, a grainy but identifiable image of her
inside the Summervale farm dome in her Oracle chiton. “Security
feed,” Caradoc said darkly. “Must have had just enough battery
power after even Augusta took the grid down.”

“It’s not like
you were going to back to Elysium City anyway, right?” Saffron
tried for a reassuring tone, with which she clearly had no practice
whatsoever. “I mean take it from me, you’re not missing much.”

Jane thought of
the Program, of the warnings, of the girl shot when she tried to
escape the headquarters. She thought of her family, of Kiri. She’d
hoped they would just let her go, that Jane was as unimportant as
she had felt. The apple sat like a stone in her belly. “I have to
go back.”

Saffron gaped
at her. “Jane, you have a bounty on your head.”

“Your
reputation is not worth sacrificing yourself over,” Roarke pointed
out when Saffron nudged him sharply with her elbow to help her
out.

“But that’s not
it, is it?” Caradoc asked, crossing the cabin to stand in front of
her.

She swallowed,
forcing words out through her suddenly dry throat. “They’ll kill my
family.”

“Because of the
Program,” Caradoc said. “But mostly because a Numina who can’t be
controlled, has to be stopped.”

“You can’t know
that,” Saffron argued, though it was obviously the truth. She knew
the Directorate. It was written all over her face.

Jane thought
about the way Cartimandua circled her at the parapet the night
she’d fled. As if she knew something. She reached blindly for the
cup of tea by the keyboard. She drained it even though it was too
hot and burned a path down to the icy stone in the stomach. She
slammed the cup down, turned it three times and then flipped it
over again. She pointed. “A swan for deceit, a horse for destiny,
and two crossed swords.” It might not mean much to them, might just
be the dregs in a tea cup, but to her it told a story. A story
without a happy ending.

“I have to
go.”

“And then
what?” Saffron asked. “What’s your plan?”

“I’ll figure it
out.”

“Ah, the plan
of martyrs and madmen everywhere,” Roarke muttered.

“You’re not
ready yet,” Caradoc said softly.

She stared at
him, eyes dry and hot. “Maybe not. But I have no choice.” She went
back to staring at the bounty announcement. “I could tell them I
was kidnapped or something. To buy myself some time.”

Caradoc tilted
his head. “Might work.”

“It will have
to.” She spun on her heel, ready to pack her things and walk out
into the forest. He caught her elbow even as Saffron squawked her
protest. “Jane, it’s midnight. You can’t leave now.”

“I can’t wait
either.” Even now, Kiri might be being dragged out of her bed. Her
mother might be in prison carriage, her sisters cornered at school.
She felt sick. She’d been naïve, selfish. Idiotic. She couldn’t
beat Cartimandua and the Directorate. She’d been mad to think it
was possible.

“You can’t
travel alone at night so soon after a raid. At least wait until the
morning,” he urged. “We’ll come up with a proper plan.”

“He’s right,”
Saffron said. “You need to give us a fighting chance.”

“Us?” Jane
echoed. “No.”

“Saffron,
you’re a Green Jill,” Roarke said. “You can’t just---.”

Saffron cut him
off, her smile as sharp as her knives. “Us.”

When Jane
couldn’t convince her otherwise, she gave up in favour of gathering
her belongings and food from the dining hall. Saffron followed her,
as if she didn’t trust Jane not to run off when her back was
turned. There were hours and hours left until the sun rose but Jane
knew she couldn’t sleep anymore. She paced the training grounds
instead. Saffron and Roarke watched her. She pointed to Roarke.
“Come at me.”

He didn’t move.
“Like hell.” He jerked his chin towards Saffron. “She’d kick my
ass.”

Saffron snorted
a laugh. “I need to practice,” Jane insisted. And to get out of her
own head before she gave in the scream building in her throat. “And
it might not be as easy as you think.”

“She’s right,”
Saffron conceded. “And she knows how I fight. This will be a better
test.”

Roarke shook
his head like he thought they were both insane but stepped onto the
beach regardless. The stars watched them. Jane remembered a Feral
story about the stars being the eyes of the ancestors. “You should
at least have a weapon,” Roarke said.

“I don’t need
one.” She plucked a staff from the stand and handed it to him.
Something new burned inside her, something strong. “Use this so you
don’t pull your stitches out.”

He spun it
one-handed, grinning. “I think I can manage.”