Chapter 3 Tess #2
“Everything depends on one of our members,” Tess said, clasping her hands behind her back.
She nodded at the youngest and smallest member of Free the Children, an eighteen-year-old boy named Patrick, himself an escapee of a creche.
His parents died in the first sweep of invasion. “Patrick here is eighteen and looks…”
“Thirteen,” Crystal said with a snort.
“Yeah, yeah,” Patrick said, giving everyone a little wave. “I know it.”
“Patrick here is going to sneak into the creche.” Tess went on, her gaze flitting over the faces of everyone in attendance.
They were all sitting up and watching her with rapt attention.
On her way to Urbana, she had been bracing herself for people who mightsaythey were committed yet not be able to follow through.
They might even have the best of intentions or they just might not have anything better to do.
But she’d been pleased to discover that Free the Children was full of determined, skilled, strong, and serious people.
Not that they were humorless. But they knew when it was time to buckle down and get shit done.
It heartened her that she had such a talented group at her disposal.
“Sneaking into a creche is a lot easier than sneaking out, particularly if you look like Patrick. All he needs to do is get past the walls, catch the attention of a guard, and run out again. The guards will be on the lookout for groups like us or other Vampyren. They’ll be on the lookout for a lot of things.
They won’t be on the lookout for a teenage boy breakinginto a creche. ”
Tess saw Crystal hesitantly raised her hand and she smirked to herself. “Uh, I’m sorry,” Crystal said. “I don’t totally follow. Why is the kid breakinginto the creche just to run out again?”
“Right,” Tess said. “I was getting to that. He’s going to break in, look like he belongs there, and then look like he’s escaping.
The idea is that he’ll be distracting the guards, making them give chase.
He’ll get them far enough from the creche so the rest of us will have the opportunity to break in and liberate the children.
We will also have a small group nearby waiting to ambush the guards once Patrick leads them to the site, about five blocks from the creche. ”
“Huh!” Crystal said, nodding. “I like it.”
The rest of the plan was pretty straightforward, though it relied on corralling a bunch of children into a large cargo truck, and that included a couple of dozen babies and toddlers.
They had car seats strapped to the floor of the truck and some people would be carrying the babies.
They were going to have to be careful. Tess had already given everyone a talk on child safety.
It was a bit like training a bunch of rookie babysitters.
Tess went over the weapons, the routes to the creche, and to the underground site she’d found where they’d be taking the absconded children.
That part of the plan broke her heart a little bit.
The dorms at Urbana would have been a perfect place to take the kids, but they could hardly hide them right next to one of the brothels Vampyren soldiers frequented.
Stashing Free the Children there was one thing; they could pass for squatters easily enough if they were discovered, and the campus was large enough.
Most soldiers weren’t going to go poking around the other dorms once they’d gotten their fix.
But hiding children was another matter entirely.
Instead, Tess was taking them to an abandoned school on the fringes of town.
She’d sent out one of her people to scout the site and trusted their assessment.
It was clean and a little remote but not too far from town, and there was plenty of room there.
They’d just convert the classrooms into bedrooms and nurseries.
A few people were already supplying the place.
Tess asked them to try and make the place look “cheerful.” It was a start anyway.
Since she was their resident all-star trader, Crystal was going there to supervise the work instead of going along on the mission.
“Mara, Lou, and Sajir will be in charge of taking the matrons hostage,” Tess explained.
“Now we will be offering them the chance to provide the Vampyren kids with blood once we have them in custody. In exchange, we don’t keep them as prisoners until we can abandon them about five hundred miles out when we get the chance. ”
“Might be a stupid question,” Crystal piped up, “but why can’t we kill the matrons? They sound like assholes?”
“We will if we have to,” Tess said curtly. She didn’t much like killing anyone. But sometimes there was no other choice. “It’s a quarter to nine now. Be ready to leave at ten from the dorm parking lot.”
Everyone dispersed just as the breeder women started to arrive for their breakfast and then it was just another day.
About half of the breeders, Tess suspected, weren’t at all fooled.
They knew there was a resistance on campus and some of them were supportive.
The ones who weren’t seemed apathetic about the whole thing but unlikely to talk.
The matrons at Urbana however, Tess wasn’t sure about.
They always looked like they suspected some funny business but weren’t sure what.
It would be best to get them on their side.
But she figured she’d worry about that after this mission.
She heaved a sigh and got to her feet, heading off to get a tray.
Breakfasts at Urbana weren’t bad. The eggs were powdered, but she’d become used to them and there was vegan bacon and usually potatoes.
She had just gotten in line when two trunk-like arms wrapped around her from behind and she smirked, her breath quickening as she turned her head and saw Kal.
He kissed her hotly, and she rubbed his arms, basking in his embrace.
“Did you even make the meeting?” She said.
“Yeah!” Kal said, sounding mildly offended as he lifted her off the ground a little and kissed her neck. “Got here with Mark. I just sat in back.”
“You should be more punctual,” she murmured, but when his fangs grazed the soft skin of her neck only for him to plant a soft kiss there, she sighed, half forgetting what she’d been saying.
“I had to talk to Mark about something,” Kal said, swaying with her as they inched up the cafeteria line.
“About what?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he murmured. He pulled away and gave her a funny sort of wistful look that she didn’t like at all. It was the kind of look you gave people when you might not see them again and she narrowed her eyes.
“ Kal,” she said. “What is it?”