Page 77 of Into The Green

"Who was it?" I snapped, cursing myself when she shrank away from the sound, trying to remind myself that she had been brutalized for God-knew how long and didn't need my anger.

"Redcaps," she said with a head shake.

"Redcaps? Here?" I asked, looking over at Doyle who looked equally confused.

"They don't leave the Dark Court," Doyle said to the girl.

"I know what a redcap is," she snapped, shaking her head at him like he was dense. "They were redcaps and they were swarming toward her, chanting some crazy shit like they do. Then she just... hauled it up over the fence. A couple of them followed her, a couple went to wait for her on the outside. She jumped and fell. I think she hurt herself because she was limping as she ran with some weird glowing stone in her hands."

"Did they catch her?" I asked, jaw clenched tight.

"Not that I could see but they broke into the woods and I couldn't see her anymore. She saved us," she said a little sadly. "I hope she got out."

I had to do more than hope.

I had to find her.

Before even communicating my plan with Doyle, I took off.

I looked and looked and fucking... looked. For six goddamn days. In The Green and out. She was nowhere.

Eventually, on the seventh day, I made my way back toward Baba Yaga's, my heart a shriveled thing in my chest.

"Jesus," Doyle said, greeting me. I wasn't surprised to find him sitting outside Baba Yaga's property line. I figured that was exactly where he would go when he left the camps- right to Jade. "You haven't washed that blood off?" he asked and I looked down to still see it dried all up and down my arms, legs, clothes, everything. I looked like a fucking serial killer.

"I can't find her," I admitted, falling down onto the ground beside him, head in my hands. "If the fucking redcaps got her..."

"Jasper?" Jade's voice called, a little tentatively, not the usual gushing, excited greeting she usually gave me.

I looked up to see her in one of the drab brown dresses all of Baba Yaga's women wore, our biological mother's arm around her waist. She was Jade, but she wasn't. There was a sadness there that had never existed before, not even a trace of it. There were bruises in various states of healing on her arms and ankles, her face. Her hair was cut short. Her hands were cut and calloused.

The feeling then was a strange mix of relief, regret, and fear. Relief, because she was safe. Regret, because I didn't get her sooner. And fear that she would never be the same Jade again, happy, loving, open, unafraid.

That thought was another knife to the gut, a sensation I was getting way too fucking used to.

"Hey sis," I said, giving her the best smile I could muster.

"I met Mom," she said with a confused little head shake.

"Yeah, ain't that some shit?" I asked, snorting a little.

"Jade," Doyle called, his voice soft and her eyes found his automatically. He held out a hand and she shuffled away from our mother and over the protective border, getting down on the ground and folding herself into Doyle's arms, her head buried in his neck.

Knife. Gut.

I was fucking gutted.

"Take a walk with me," Alex, our mother, as odd as that still was to think, suggested, moving across the border and walking away, leaving me to follow behind.

I made sure we were outside of earshot before speaking to her back. "Tell me she's going to be okay."

Alex stopped, exhaling hard as she turned. "She'll be okay. Eventually. I think we both know what happened to her in that camp, Jasper," she said and I fought back the bile that rose in my throat. "And I think we also know that that is bad enough to happen to a strong woman. Jade was sweet, soft, trusting, loving. This just all..." she waved a hand, not able to find the words. I understood that feeling. "That man, though," she said, her eyes a little wet.

"Doyle?"

"That man," she said, nodding hard. "That is a good man, Jasper. He's been here since right after she showed up on that barguest. He left once. Once. Right after I told him what happened to her. He turned a shade of green I have never seen before and told me he would be back by morning. He was back by morning and hasn't left since. Jade has needed him so much, needed someone familiar, needed the touch of a man who didn't want to hurt her for a change."

"Where did he go?" I asked, thinking he went back to make sure all the fucks at the camp were good and dead.