Green Jack (12 page)

Saffron knew
they’d find her leaf mask before long. She couldn’t let them have
it, not now that the heat was coming, anyone with half a brain
could tell that much. The rain had stopped but the air was humid
and thick, and when the hot months cooked the City it made
everything so much worse.

Soldiers
streamed out of their apartment building. “They’ve already been in
so it’s safe now,” she whispered to Killian. “Check on Oona. I’ll
be there soon.”

She darted
behind the soldiers, praying they wouldn’t turn around. Smoke
lingered between the buildings. The red light continued to track
through the alleys and the windows as dawn flirted with the
horizon. She was halfway across the rope bridge when more lights
snapped on, pouring painfully bright from the rooftops of the
buildings. She was starkly outlined, a target. The dying riot was a
dull roar, as if lions circled the Core, refusing to give up
entirely.

She made it
across to the balcony and dug out the mask. The ivy tendrils
wrapped around her fingers. She stuffed her pockets with radishes
and beet tops and tried not to notice how tightly the mask held
onto her. She made it back down to the street before someone
grabbed her. She whirled, dagger in each hand. The man collapsed,
making a strange sound, like a branch cracking. No, not a man.

The Green
Jack.

His hair was
the colour of soil, the kind that grows the best food. His skin was
nut-brown, bisected with scrapes and a raw hole where one of the
guard’s bullets struck him. His blood was such a dark green it
looked black. Oona might have been able to heal him a few days ago
but Saffron knew it was too late now. “I need your help,” he
wheezed.

She stared at
him. He didn’t know her. She could call the Protectorate. They’d
offer a reward for returning him and they’d never have to know her
part in it.

“You’re an
idiot,” she finally said. “I could be anybody.” She wasn’t of
course. She was the girl who’d stolen his mask. That was probably
worse.

“I followed the
mask,” the Jack replied. It was responding to his presence, growing
tendrils that reached out from under her jacket zipper towards him.
They were the same green as monarch butterfly cocoons. “It’s part
of me. I could find it anywhere.” He reached for it and she stepped
back, frowning. “I need it to heal,” he said simply.

“Shit,” Saffron
said, but she handed it to him.

The braided
leaves looked too simple to be so powerful. He held it up to his
face but nothing happened. He didn’t have the usual Green Jack
glow. He was a candle gutting out.

“I thought you
said the mask would heal you!” She burst out. Her throat cramped,
as if she was trying not to cry, which was ridiculous. Beet leaves
trembled in her pocket.

He sat back
weakly against a recycling dumpster. “It might have healed me if
I’d found it right away. But I had to track it for days, riddled
with buckshot. Now it will only buy me a few minutes.”

Saffron
squashed a small flare of guilt. How was she supposed to know he’d
be back for the leaf mask? Was she supposed to just leave it there
for the Directorate?

Still, the
guilt had her listening to the rest of his story. Until it was
clear he was insane, anyway.

“They found me
before I could get to the rendezvous point,” he explained, though
she hadn’t asked. She didn’t want him to be a real person. It was
easier if he was a symbol. She wasn’t sure what to think of herself
otherwise, or her part in his death. Tiny ivy leaves wound through
his button holes. “I let myself get caught so they wouldn’t find
the Greencoats.”

Saffron wasn’t
sure what to be more surprised about: a Green Jack, or the
Greencoats. The Spirit Forest was thousands of acres of trees days
away from Elysium City. The Directorate couldn’t control it and
they needed it too much to burn it down. The glass farm domes
they’d built on the edges produced the most food. It was full of
Green Jacks, and the Greencoat rebels who liberated them from domes
and laboratories and the constant battle between them.

“This is all
fascinating,” she bit out. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s
kind of a riot going on. The streets are lousy with Protectorate
soldiers.” He just stroked the leaves of the mask, looking
bewildered and tired. “Hell, just come on,” she grabbed his
shoulder, forcing him up. “We can’t stay here.”

“It doesn’t
matter. I’m dying.”

“Not yet,
you’re not. Let’s go.”

“You need to
wear the leaf mask now. It has to be you.” He tried to grab her
hand but he was pathetically easy to elude, even as she held him
up.

“What? Hell,
no.”

“You found the
mask,” he replied, as if that explained everything.

“So?”

“So you don’t
have a choice anymore. It’s already linked to you. You’re a Green
Jill now.”

“You talk too
much,” she grunted, dragging him to the fire escape. She had to
hook her arm around his waist and tip him half-against her,
dragging him like a backpack.

“The mask
already chose you. You have to have noticed that it winds around
you like ivy growing on a tree.” She refused to admit to it. “It
knows I’m dying. Certain plants require certain types of soil and
shade and sunlight. This mask just happens to need you now.” He
looked at Saffron, the leaves twined in his hair wilting. “If you
ignore the calling, it will die. As will its power.”

“And if I
answer, I die,” she pointed out.

Green Jacks
couldn’t have babies, not through science or witchcraft. They
reproduced like strawberry plants sending off runners. Saffron
didn’t need to be told that the world needed all the Green Jack
help it could get.

She couldn’t
help but remember the very first Jack she ever saw. He was barely
twelve years old and his collarbones jut out like knives. He was so
skinny; she could see them even from the rooftop she’d hidden on.
It took a lot of energy to help plants grow and that energy had to
come from somewhere. The Directorate used them up until they were
sad, dancing skeletons. She wouldn’t be a slave to the
Directorate.

But the mask
had already sent another curling tendril to wrap around her arm.
The Jack sighed once, his head falling limply back. “Go to the
Spirit Forest, you’ll be safe there.”

“Sure,” she
replied. “Right after I get invited to an Enclave Society
ball.”

He didn’t
respond.

“Don’t you
dare,” she snapped, propping him up against the wall. “Hey,” she
slapped his cheek. “Wake up. I don’t want your damn mask, so wake
up!”

His body
cracked; it broke apart, turning into rich, dark earth. It smelled
like spring and rain, as it crumbled between the metal slats. The
leaf mask toppled out of his empty coat, tightening around her. He
could have been lying. It was absurd to think otherwise. She was
just a scavenger, a Core rat.

It was too much
too think about crouching on a fire escape. She climbed up the
ladder and slipped through her bedroom window, careful not to knock
Oona’s plants over. The mint responded immediately, scenting the
air as it stretched its leggy stalks up.

“Thank the
Green Gods,” Oona sighed from her rocking chair. The bruises on her
face were still dark as soot. Killian stood beside her. “You made
it back.”

Saffron tore
the vine off of her arm and tossed the leaf mask onto Oona’s bed.
The creaking of Oona’s chair snapped into silence. She reached out,
stroking it the way she’d stroked a dying wren she’d once found on
the balcony. The mint was already halfway up the window. Saffron
leaned against the wall, as far from it as possible and told them
everything.

“This is a
little piece of the Wild,” Oona said quietly. The green started to
look dusty. “It’s precious, Saffron. We can’t let it die.”

“I’m not
handing myself to the Directorate.” She clasped her hands behind
her back.

“Who said
anything about that?” Oona snapped. “As if I’d send my only
granddaughter into that nest of vipers. Now take the mask before it
crumbles away completely.”

Oona’s gaze
didn’t falter and she didn’t lower her arm. The leaf mask looked so
simple in her hand, made of leaves and braided vines. But she was
right. It was wilting too fast. Killian snatched it. It continued
to wilt. Saffron brushed her fingers over it. For a moment nothing
happened. She met Killian’s eyes and laughed out loud. The Jack was
wrong.

And then
tingles and sparks shot up her arm. Her laugh strangled. For a
brief moment, she could taste mint and sage. She could have sworn
she could actually hear plants growing, leaves unfurling. Tendrils
wrapped around her, leaves turning green again, though the edges
burned like fire. Tiny red berries glistened. Oona’s miniature
garden shot up, growing so thick so fast it blocked the fires still
burning from the riots.

Saffron sighed,
disgusted. “I guess he was telling the truth.”

Oona smiled. “I
always knew you were special, my girl.”

She stepped
back. She didn’t want to touch the leaf mask anymore, not until she
absolutely had to. “You always said I had demon blood.”

“And so you do,
with a temper like that,” she answered easily. “Being special’s not
easy.”

“Oh, Oona, I’m
not special. I just stole the wrong thing from the wrong
person.”

Oona and
Killian exchanged one of their secret speaking glances, the kind
that made Saffron want to scream. They had a way of making her feel
all of five years old sometimes.

“We can’t let
the Directorate turn us into small petty creatures who don’t fight
for what’s proper and good. Ain’t enough Green Jacks in the world
that we can be wasting those we have. He didn’t deserve to die
alone. None of us do.”

Neither Killian
nor Saffron looked convinced. They’d met lots of people who
deserved to die alone. Though to be fair, the Jack wasn’t one them.
“You get to the Spirit Forest,” Oona continued. “You find the
Greencoats and you make them protect you. And you remember to offer
tobacco to the spirits when you get there. Could be they’ll
remember your ancestors used to do the same.”

Killian looked
like his head might actually explode. Saffron knew exactly what he
was thinking. People died trying to reach the Spirit Forest. People
died just trying to cross out of the Ring sometimes. Not to mention
that according to the Directorate, the Greencoats were cannibals.
“I’d happier on my own,” Saffron muttered. She didn’t see how
trusting a bunch of strangers was a good choice.

“You promise
me,” Oona demanded fiercely. “You can’t do everything alone.
Certainly not this.”

The only person
Saffron would trust in this was Killian.

“Promise me,
Saffron.” Her lips were pale. That only happened when she was
agitated and straining her heart.

“Fine,” Saffron
said, before Oona made herself ill. Bad enough the cuts and the
bruising and the bloody gash scabbing in her hairline were
Saffron’s fault. “I promise. But it doesn’t matter anyway. I can’t
pay the Ferryman,” She reminded her. “How am I supposed to get
across the Wall? Even without the damn riots, they’d shoot me on
sight if I even get near it. And I clearly can’t wait.” She pointed
to the mint plant which now touched the ceiling.

Killian pulled
a tin coin from his pocket. It was stamped with the Directorate’s
symbol on one side, and the roman numeral for one on the other.
Saffron gaped at him. She’d had no idea he had a coin, never mind
where he got it from. They were the only way through the Wall. They
were incredibly rare in the Core, even if you had money to buy one,
which no one ever did. “You had a chance to leave this place all
along,” she accused. “To get out of Elysium City and away from your
brothers. Why the hell did you stay?”

He raised his
left eyebrow at her as though she was an idiot. He held up two
fingers. He’d been waiting for another coin, so they could leave
together. And now he was offering her his only chance out of
Elysium City.

She started to
hate the Green Jack, just a little, even though it wasn’t his
fault.

Killian fetched
his sister’s extra Protectorate uniform from his room. Even with
the coin for passage, she would have to be careful. The uniform was
a little short but not by much. Her boots were tall enough to cover
the gap. She tucked her braids up into the black cap. “Don’t let
the idiot brothers take any of your rations,” she said
severely.

“As if they’d
dare.” Oona kissed her cheek, her lips dry and wrinkly. “Be
careful.”

“You too,
Oona.” Saffron hadn’t cried since her mother died. She had to
remind herself of that. Curfew and lockdown bells rang out from the
Core again, reverberating through the Rings.

“Go,” Oona gave
her a little shove.

She’d have
climbed up to the roof but people always went to the roof when the
alarms sounded and there were too many gardens growing in clay pots
and discarded oil drums up there. The mask would leave a trail of
thriving carrots, cucumbers, and lettuce. The Protectorate would be
able to eat their way to her location. Killian ran at her side,
crossing rope bridges until they finally reached the Wall. There
were still bodies on the ground from the last time the electricity
shorted. “Look after my Oona,” she told Killian. “And use my bed
from now on, away from the idiots. I’ll try and send word if I can.
And if----.”

He cut off her
rambling with a fierce hug that made her eyes sting. He smelled
like leather and rain and metal. She smelled like leaves and mint.
Already, she wasn’t the same person. She was the first to pull
away.

She walked
towards the Wall, and the mask in her rucksack felt like a ball of
sun. The guard lights glinted off barbed wire. She forced herself
not to look back. She already felt the loss of Killian, as if one
of her arms had been lopped off. “I can pay the Ferryman,” she
called out, hands lifted to prove she was carrying nothing but a
passage coin.