Page 72 of Into The Green

"Is that door open?" a tentative voice said at my side.

I knew I wasn't supposed to try to free anyone else. I knew that wasn't part of my plan, that it would create problems. But two thoughts came to me at once. One, Baba Yaga and her steadfast determination for women to stick together, to champion for one another. Two, the fact that Doyle told me the guards dragged the women out to the fields to rape them whenever they wanted.

So yeah. I wasn't going to deny any of them a chance at a life free from that.

"Yes. Run. Run and find Baba Yaga and curse these mother fuckers with whatever foul shit you can come up with."

The woman who spoke grabbed my arms and held on tight, looking me in the eye so I got the full meaning. "Thank you," she said and ran.

"Jade!"

"Cece?" a very weak version of Jade's voice reached me from my right, making my heart fly into my throat. I dropped down beside the prone body on the floor as more feet shuffled past me. I was vaguely aware of some of the women plotting on freeing the men and I knew that if we all made it out of there, Jasper and Doyle were going to have my head for fucking with the plan. But it was too late to worry about that.

"Can you stand? I need you to get on Onyx and hold on and he will get you out of here."

"Onyx?" she asked, pushing up, and I tried to swallow back the rage I felt building at the blood covering the back of her dress.

"He's a barguest and he's here to get you out of here. Come on," I said, grabbing her a little roughly, knowing I didn't have time for soft and sweet, and dragging her onto her feet.

"How are you here?" she asked as I saw the guard lights flash on, flooding the room in light and I could see the bruises all over her delicate face.

"Don't worry about that now," I said as I heard the shit hit the fan out in the yard. I pushed her onto Onyx's back and coaxed her to wrap her arms around his throat. Onyx gave me a look that said he understood things just went really bad. And we didn't really have a concrete plan for what to do. All I knew was Jade needed to get out. And there was only one place I knew that was safe. "Take her to Baba Yaga. Now!" I said when he whined, obviously not wanting to leave without me. "She needs you more than I do. She's the damsel in distress," I reasoned and his eyes went a little red, full of determination, as he reared back then charged forward, moving faster than my eyes could follow.

I took a breath and made my way tentatively toward the opening in the doorway, trying to figure out what my best course of action was with all the chaos around.

Guards were everywhere, chasing down people as they tried to climb, beating, kicking, screaming, worse. I stood there frozen for a second, seeing Onyx disappear across the field and into the tree line. And then my eyes found a whir of white, the Dark fae with the light hair. Just like that, a well opened up. Whatever had been done to Jade, whatever she had had to endure, it was all because he found her and he dragged her there. The rage spilled from deep inside, moving around my organs, burning through my blood, until I felt it humming everywhere, until my skin sparked, until I knew I was a living, breathing weapon. Jasper was across the field, half pinned beneath a guard, his entire frame covering someone beneath him, someone small and gentle-looking. When he knifed up and plowed into the guard, I saw she was nothing but a child. But the haunted look in her eyes suggested she hadn't been allowed to be a kid for a long time.

From her side, a man appeared, just as ragged as she was, grabbing her arm and dragging her with him across the field.

"What have we here?" a voice asked. I couldn't say it was a voice I recognized per say. But there was something to it, a darkness, a sliminess, a sound that I heard every night in my dreams. I turned slowly, the field around my skin sparking hotter, brighter, because I knew what I was going to be faced with. Then there he was- tall, gray-skinned, black-haired, beady-eyed. I took a breath and looked up, seeing the red. "Oh," he said, looking surprised at first, then, taking in my forcefield, delighted. "Ohh, he has been so angry. So, so angry. He will be so pleased to have you back," he said, reaching out toward me, making me instinctively flinch back before I realized I was more powerful on the offensive. Reaching out, I grabbed his wrist. His face twisted in pain, but his smile only grew. "Oh, it has grown. It has grown and he will reward me for bringing you back."

"I don't know who he is or why he wants me, but he can take his rewards and shove them up his ass because you aren't taking me anywhere!" I exploded, reaching my other hand out for his face, going full-on self-defense training and attacking the eyes first. He screamed then, falling down.

Then, among the screams, the curses, the sick sounds of fists hitting flesh, I heard it. I heard it and I dropped my hand, turning with dread moving from my stomach and up my throat until I felt like I was choking on it.

There they were. More of him. More of them. The men from the nightmare memories. The men who carved me up and kept me hungry and cold and scared. They were moving toward me in a swarm, a half circle bent on closing around me. And I didn't know what it was, my own intuition, some kind of higher guidance or what, but something told me that I could take on one, but that I was nothing against a group of them.

I looked around frantically, not seeing Jasper or Doyle and I knew I was on my own. I turned and ran the five feet left, grabbing the fence in my hands that, for reasons unknown, did not burn, and I climbed as fast as my weak muscles would let me. Halfway up, my foot attached to my sore ankle got stuck and screamed pain up my leg. Below me, two were following me up. The others were moving toward the gates, trying to head me off on the other side. I yanked it free and finished climbing, I swung my legs over the top of the fence. I climbed about a third of the way down before I decided I was wasting time. They were closing in from all sides. From above them, I could see the tops of their head, sticky and red with blood.

My stomach turned, I pushed off, and I jumped down. I landed on a roll that took my breath away, scrambling up onto my hands and knees then forcing myself onto my feet, despite the angry ankle I was pretty sure was going to end up broken sooner or later.

Then, I did the only thing I could do, I reached inside the rip in my dress where I had stashed it, and grabbed for the stone Baba Yaga gave me. In pulling it out, the jasper the gnome had given me falling. I froze in that second, turning back, wanting to grab for it. But it fell near the feet of the men who were following me, losing all pretense of keeping up the act of being creepy and slow moving, and following me at a dead run. My heart seizing in my chest at leaving it, despite the warning the gnome had given me, and despite knowing it was attached to my Jasper in some way, I couldn't risk it. I turned forward and flew into the tree line, holding the cloudy stone aloft like a homing beacon as I tried to dodge the creepy, gnarled Dark realm trees in the pitch black of the night.

I ran as fast as my legs could take me, my chest burning, my heart slamming in my rib cage, the sounds of the men behind me all along. Then, just as desperation was starting to choke me, the stone lit up bright as could be. I knew from my trial and error at finding the camp that it had its own way of showing you that you were on the right path. Sometimes it would flicker. Sometimes it would go on and stay on, but in a dull kind of way. When it lit up like a Christmas bulb, it meant keep going perfectly straight and in under a couple minutes, you would break through the trees.

So I held it tighter, forcing my body to keep going, to fight the urge to look behind me, to keep my eyes on my goal.

I wasn't even fully aware that I was free until I nearly slammed into a 'no trespassing' sign. Then and only then did I let myself turn. The trees were a few yards off. I could see the half a dozen eyes staring at me through the pre-dawn light and I wondered if they were going to follow. Unsure, I decided not to take any chances, turned, and kept running.

The only problem was, I didn't know where the hell I was.

See, Jasper once told me that the distance we'd traveled in The Green was the equivalent to an inch of sidewalk in New York. But he hadn't exactly told me that an the days and days of walking in The Green meant that when I popped back out of the Dark realm, I wouldn't be anywhere near something familiar. Also, I found about ten minutes later when I finally hit a town, not only was it unfamiliar, but it was a complete different fucking state.

I was in freaking Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. And from the looks of it, not one of the border towns. I mean I was deep into the boonies of it. I stopped at the side of the building, catching my breath, suddenly painfully aware of something else. I wasn't any cooler than I was in The Green. Which meant the human realm was hitting a record high of the year or, just possibly, months had passed in the course of a few days in The Green.

"Oh, my God," I groaned, raking my hands down my face, also realizing that I was still filthy, covered in dirt, sweat, blood, with bruises everywhere and a torn dress. If I walked into that town, I was pretty sure people would think I was either homeless or a victim of a horrible crime. Either filled me with a feeling of dread. I had nothing. I had no car, no keys, no ID, no phone.

What the hell was I going to do?