Chapter 33
Saffron
The first thing Saffron saw on her return to the camp was Jane silhouetted at the window of the hall, surrounded by Greencoats begging for omens. Saffron pushed through the crowd, noting exits, suspicious glares, weapons. Jane was flushed, but happy enough.
Nico stood up smiling. “Ladies, let me take you to bed.”
Saffron daggered him with her eyes. Jane just looked amused, as if he was a little brother, even though he towered over them and carried himself like a fighter. “That’s Nico.” Jane said.
He bowed at Saffron. “I’m yours to command, Green Jill.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Outside, the stars clustered together like candles on a feast table. Lanterns guided them down the gravel walk to the cabins. Nico pushed the door open with a flourish, and hit the switch on the wall. The solar lamps flicked on instantly. “Only the best for a Green Jill,” he said. “Although there are no commtabs. Too hard to get a decent signal and we can’t take juice away from Caradoc’s surveillance of the Directorate.”
“Should you be telling us that?” Saffron asked.
He didn’t look concerned. “Not a secret. And we’ve got Beatrix. You’ll see her around. She spends her time researching and practicing pioneer techniques.”
“Why?”
“Worse times are coming. Everyone knows it, even out here. You can only repurpose technology for so long. And there wasn’t much out here to begin with.”
The cabin had a sitting room with a worn couch and chairs and a low table. A bookcase with old paperback novels and vintage clutter stood in one corner, under a truly ugly painting of what looked like a giant shaggy cow about to cry. Saffron shuddered.
“It’s a moose,” Nico said. “They weigh more than a truck, but they’re gentle enough if you don’t get in their way. No need to worry.”
“It’s not that,” Saffron said. “It’s the artwork.” She was offended.
“It’s not that bad,” Nico just shrugged. Clearly his eyeballs were broken. He leaned in the doorjamb. “I’d be happy to sleep over, ladies, in case you need… anything. Anything at all.”
“Go away now,” Saffron said cheerfully, even as she shoved him out onto the porch and shut the door.
Jane shook her head. “You’re terrible.”
“Saves time.” She circled the cabin. “This place is huge.” It seemed decadent, with only the two of them. There was a bathroom with a functioning earth toilet. The beds were saggy but serviceable, with blankets striped with red, green, yellow and black. Saffron lay down, suddenly exhausted.
The springs creaked when Jane lay on the other bed. “I still feel like were on the run,” she said. “I can’t convince my body that were safe.”
“I know,” Saffron agreed. She yawned hugely but her fingers drummed on the itchy blanket. “This place seems too good to be true.”
“I did get stabbed,” Jane pointed out
“True.”
“That actually makes you feel better, doesn’t it?”
“A little.”
“Glad to help.”
“I’m too wired to sleep,” Saffron said on another yawn.
“Me too,” Jane agreed. “We could…”
They were both asleep before she could finish her sentence.
Still, Saffron wasn’t so tired that she didn’t wake up the moment the floorboard by her bed creaked. She bolted upright, dagger in hand.
“It’s me,” Nico said, turning off his flashlight when she recognized him. She didn’t lower the knife.
“What’s going on?” Jane asked groggily.
“A very good question,” Saffron said, sliding out of bed.
“Come with me.”
She glared at him, disgusted. “Look, I don’t know what you’re used to, but we’re not interested.” She glanced at Jane. “Are you interested in seeing him naked?”
“I don’t th---.”
“She’s not interested.”
“Come with me now,” Nico insisted grimly enough that she registered that he was serious. She lowered her knife, frowning.
“What is it?” she asked, slipping on her boots. Jane was already dressed and waiting. Those Enclave school drills were good for something at least.
“Helicopters,” Nico said, just as she heard the low thrumming. They crossed through the sitting room, Saffron banging her elbow on the corner of the table. They eased onto the porch.
“Wouldn’t we be safer inside?” Jane asked, as bright lights stabbed at the cabins and the violent winds from the blades pressed down on the treetops. There was a whining sounds and something fell onto a nearby building, detonating. Fire and roof shingles flew like bullets.
“Guess not,” Saffron muttered.
“This way,” Nico led them along the side of the cabin, and into the thick trees. Smoke and dirt whirled around them, stinging their eyes. The helicopter lights were too bright, the darkness too dark. Bullets ricocheted off the ground, smashed through windows. A ladder dangled from a helicopter, a Protectorate soldier clinging to the rungs. Caradoc shot him through the leg with an arrow, and then through the chest. He fell into the lake, screaming. Roarke was on another rooftop, also firing arrows. The soldiers outgunned them by far but he didn’t seem particularly fazed.
A girl tripped, falling hard. There was a soldier on the ground behind her, running her down. She landed too hard; choking, trying to find her breath. Saffron flung her dagger. It hit him in the shoulder, not enough stop him, just enough to make him drop his gun. Saffron slid through the dirt, scrabbling for the knife on the girl’s belt. This time she got him in the throat. He toppled, gurgling and scratching at the hilt. More blood blossomed, like roses in a tea garden.
Saffron stared at him, everything sharp and everything numb fighting inside her head at once. She’d never killed a man before. She’d broken bones and left a girl with a severe limp but she’d never seen that look of shock, not aimed at her. The whirling lights seemed very far away.
The girl, finally able to breathe, hauled Saffron to her feet. Nico was there, yelling something she couldn’t hear. The soldier was very still, staring blankly. Greencoats raced passed him to form protective walls around a frail looking Green Jill and a Green Jack. And Saffron.
They were pushing her up a ladder and suddenly she was back in Elysium, running the rope bridges. The familiar dangerous sway snapped her back to her body, away from the whirling thoughts. Her hands were shaking but at least she was running. Jane looked nauseous but determined, an unintentional mirror. They paused on a wooden platform, breathing heavily. Saffron concentrated on the burn in her lungs, the smell of smoke.
The helicopters circled the camp like deadly metal insects, gleaming blades and glass like eyes, bullets and bombs for stingers. Someone screamed. “I thought his place was protected,” Saffron shouted.
“It is,” Nico said, a stolen Protectorate gun at the ready. “The Directorate can’t get in on the ground. They’re too scared to damage the forest and the source of the Green Jacks, but too scared not to try. And mostly the forest doesn’t want them here.”
Smoke bombs were being launched by Greencoats to cover them, but the shots were already ringing out. A man lay dead, blood pooling in the hole in his chest. Jane’s eyelids began to flutter rapidly, the whites of her eyes rolling, “We have to move,” she barked suddenly.
Nico looked confused. The others stayed where they were. Saffron grabbed Jane’s hand and pulled her up. “Let’s go.”
Jane’s distant gaze snapped into abrupt, intense focus. One of the Greencoats instinctively cringed. “That way,” she ordered, pointing back to where they’d come from. There was nothing polite or apologetic about her now. She looked slightly crazy, as one of the girls pointed out. Gunshots peppered the camp.
“She’s an Oracle,” Saffron reminded the others. “She says run, you jacking well run.” She took off after Jane, pausing only briefly to glance at Nico. “Well? Are you
coming to protect me, or what?”
It galvanized him into movement, shoving at the others until they abandoned the sturdy platform for the unsteady rope bridges and ladders. When the explosive hit the tree, everything shattered. A deadly shrapnel of broken branches and wood and rusty nails filled the air.
The force knocked Saffron to the ground. Pain screamed through her as if her bones were the branches, her blood green sap. Heat shrivelled along her spine. The grass growing on the edge of the clearing smoldered. People screamed, she could see their open mouths but the sound of the explosion had temporarily robbed her of all sound except a high pitched ringing that throbbed like an open wound. Jane was sprawled nearby, her head tucked under her arms in a poster-perfect Directorate safety pose. Nico crawled toward Saffron but she waved him off. The delicate Green Jill with the freckles needed more help than she did. She was rocking back and forth, blood staining the white mistletoe berries in her hair.
Another explosion, this time from Caradoc’s cabin. It detonated invisible energy, knocking out the power in the helicopters. Saffron flattened herself down. “EMP,” she shouted at Jane. They used them in the Core sometimes when the Elysians meddled with the jammers that saved wifi and power for the Rings alone.
The helicopter dipped, the propellers catching in the trees. There was no way to get control back in time. It spun, landing on the other side of the pond with a burst of light and noise.
They were left with crackling flames and the groans of people digging themselves out of debris. Saffron and Jane stood together, turning to assess each other’s condition. “Are you okay?” Jane yelled. The smell of smoke and burning sap lingered.
Saffron nodded, pointing to her ears. A burr tumbled out of her mask, charred to a tiny lump of coal. An old-fashioned hunting horn pierced through her muffled hearing.
“That’s the Green Jack’s call,” Nico shouted.
“What?”
He pointed at her leaf mask then gave up and grabbed her arm, tugging her back towards Caradoc’s cabin. She kicked the back of his ankle and he released her. Roarke dropped off the roof, melted tar sticking to his boots and soot on his face. “Idiot!” He yelled at Saffron. She had no trouble hearing that. “You’re supposed to stay the hell down during a raid.”
“I did!” She yelled back. “What’s your problem now? Jane saved us with her Oracle thing.”
“Not that,” he growled, frustrated. “You went back for Julieta.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“The girl who fell, damn it.”
“Is that supposed to be a thank you? ‘Cause you’re really bad at it.”
“You were selfish.”
“Selfish?” she squeaked. “I saved her life, you ingrate.”
“But it’s not about us,” Caradoc interrupted, the hunting horn in his hand and the other Green Jacks at his heels. “It’s not even about you. It’s about the mask.”
“Oh, screw the mask,” Saffron snapped. When someone gasped out loud, she nearly snapped again. They were ankle deep in blood and fire. Their priorities needed sorting. And the irony that she was supposed to be feeling guilty for saving a Greencoat and not for killing a soldier was not lost on her. She very carefully avoided looking in the direction where she knew the body lay.
“How can we help clean up?” Jane interrupted, ever the peacemaker. There was already a bucket brigade gathering water from the lake. One of the cabins was engulfed entirely in flames but the others looked mostly salvageable. The end of a pier snapped off with a loud crack and sank under water.
“Gardens first,” Caradoc ordered.
“They weren’t hit,” Livia jogged up. “But the palisades need work and the left side of the apothecary was hit.” She noticed Jane and snarled. “This is your fault. They tracked you with that damned Enclave tattoo.” She hurled herself at Jane but Caradoc intercepted her, snatching her calmly around the waist in mid-air.
“That’s not how it works, Livia,” he said. Jane went pale, until her lips looked faintly mauve. “It’s not,” Caradoc repeated. “They didn’t microchip you, though they would have sooner or later. This wasn’t you. Not the first raid, not the last.” He shook Livia sharply when she struggled, fists raised. He dropped her unceremoniously. “Cool off,” he ordered.
Saffron stomped out an ember burning near her foot.
“Remind me again how this place is safer than Elysium City?”