Chapter 4 Kal
Kal expected the liberation of the creche to be much more chaotic than Tess predicted.
He hadn’t wanted to argue with her, not least because he respected her authority as the de facto leader of Free the Children.
He had also expected the mission to be successful, just messier than Tess’s plan suggested. About this, he’d been wrong in the end.
Patrick managed to lure six guards right into an ambush.
Meanwhile there were still two guards left, and they were neatly disposed of.
That left the matrons to deal with. The creche compound was sprawling.
It had a maze of hallways that could be a little confusing, especially as you tried to herd older children around and chase down fleeing adults, their footsteps and shouts of alarm echoing in the linoleum corridors where walls were painted with rainbows and butterflies as if it were a wonderful place for children to live.
He should’ve expected that Tess knew what she was doing with matrons.
She’d dealt with them before. Only one gave them trouble, attempting to stab Kal with a giant knife she apparently kept in her apron (which made him wonder).
He grabbed her, spun her around so her back was to him and dug his fingers carefully into the pressure points under her ear until she went still.
The others whose responsibility it was to take the matrons had chloroform.
But Kal thought his method was neater and now he hauled the matron over his shoulder and made his way to the cargo vans.
The children were the most surprising part.
They were why Kal had assumed things would get messy.
Carrying babies and toddlers out was easy enough but older children might not understand they were being helped.
He should’ve realized that Tess had experience.
She knew that older kids were more adept than Kal gave them credit for.
They knew immediately that Tess’s people were resistance, and they didn’t flip out or fight their liberators.
Instead they helped with the smaller children and the infants.
To an untrained eye, once the quick bout of fighting was over, it looked as if a creche was just relocating as Kal, Mark, and a couple other Vampyren on the resistance side led a quiet bunch of children in a well behaved line to the vans.
It was all over in less than half an hour and with no witnesses, it would not be immediately reported to the Council leadership.
By noon, Tess was ushering the children into the school building on the other side of town and Crystal and the staff greeted them with juice and cookies and showed them to their beds.
The babies they took to their cribs and checked to see if they needed to be changed or fed.
Every kid was going to get a medical exam, courtesy of a couple doctors working with Free the Children.
Kal watched it all go down like clockwork, hands shoved in his pockets as he leaned against a chalkboard.
He watched Tess console an eight-year-old boy who appeared to be crying from happiness.
When she was done, she came up to Kal and fixed him with a grave expression.
“That went well,” she said. But she was frowning. He chuckled and nudged her.
“Yes, you look very happy about it,” he said lightly.
“I’m always tense with missions,” she said sighing, and she leaned against him, clasping his hand in both of hers.
“And I was worried about our blood supply but we have a really good stock and Crystal's got a solid source. So that’s good. We’ll be alright on food and we’ve got a nurse who’s going to be living here full-time with the kids and—
“Tess,” Kal said in her ear. “You did it. Nobody on our side died. It went very smoothly. Take pride in that for a second.”
“Right,” she said, sighing. She turned around in his arms and kissed him, long and sweet.
“Thank you… I still have to deal with the matrons though. I’m accepting one to work here voluntarily but she’s undergoing fresh training.
I don’t believe anyone who worked in that creche knew what they were doing with children.
But this one doesn’t seem so terrible. She’ll be heavily supervised.
The second we’re just holding to bleed for a while but she was an abusive bitch to the kids anyway, and—
“ Tess.” He gave her a long look, and she started to open her mouth and he kissed her, ending the conversation. “Just give yourself a minute,” he whispered.
He was eager to give both of them a minute or two to relax, possibly even all night.
He couldn’t be sure yet, but he’d spoken to Mark about a part of the plan he felt Tess hadn’t taken into consideration.
But he didn’t want to bring it up now and ruin her moment of victory.
They might still have plenty of time before the raided creche was discovered by the Council. Or they might only have a few hours.
They stayed around at the school until late that night, setting up and making sure everything was squared away for the kids to ensure they were calm and felt cared for.
Kal watched Tess run around like her hair was on fire and he had to practically force her to sit down and eat at about eleven that night.
It was two in the morning when they finally made their way home.
He drove the SUV and Tess snoozed in the passenger seat.
Mara, Crystal, and Mark sprawled in the back and the other resistance vehicles followed them back to Urbana.
They left one van for the school site to use, so everyone was packed in tight.
They were still about ten minutes out from Urbana when Kal looked in the rearview mirror to meet the eyes of his brother.
“What are you thinking?” He said.
“I couldn’t say,” Mark said, shrugging. “Loren said it could be hours, or it could be tomorrow morning. Not much longer.”
“Hmm.” Kal tapped his thumb on the steering wheel.
Everyone else was asleep and Mark cleared his throat, leaning forward into the front seat to speak to Kal. “I’ll tell you something, I didn’t want to tell Tess, because I’m not sure. But I think one of the guards got away. At the ambush.”
Kal raised an eyebrow and looked at his brother before returning his gaze to the pitch black road. He hated driving in this kind of darkness without any street lights around. He couldn’t help but imagine one of those creepy pale Lucian coming out of nowhere. It seemed like something they would do.
“Well…” Kal glanced at Tess and swallowed. He wasn’t looking forward to upsetting her. “Maybe he just took off. Hell, after the first few months of invasion there wasn’t much incentive to remain loyal to your post or even your unit. Maybe he left.”
“Or he went straight to the Council,” Mark said darkly.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Kal muttered.
It turned out, they didn’t have to wait long.
Their car was the first to arrive back at Urbana and he knew there was something wrong immediately.
It wasn’t so much the black armored Humvees in the lot right next to the breeders’ dorm.
Vampyren men were likely to be there in the middle of the night, having sex with the women there.
It was something about the way they were parked; the headlights were on and there were a couple soldiers waiting there in lot, as if on the lookout.
“We’re fucked,” Kal murmured.
“Okay,” Mark said. “Then it’s time to face the music.”
Tess’s plan had been great. The only drawback was that the Council wouldn’t first suspect the squatters quietly living in the dorm across campus as the child-liberators; it would be the mothers of the half-Vampyren babies who populated the creche.
It had happened before. Breeders flipped out when their babies were taken away from them.
There had been reports of mothers murdered trying to break into creches to get their children back.
Mark had spoken to Kal about it that morning. They’d thought they would have more time to prevent the innocent breeders being pinned with the crime. Now Kal’s stomach turned. They should have evacuated the place. They should have planned for it. They should have…
Tess stirred awake as Kal parked the SUV and she smiled at him. But when she saw his expression she sat straight up as the others shuffled out of the backseat, under the impression that they could just go to bed now.
Kal avoided Tess’s gaze and hopped out of the car.
He glanced back at Mark who nodded at them and the two brothers started jogging toward the breeders’ dorm to everyone else’s confusion.
But he didn’t miss Tess’s look of alarm and she ran after him.
Crystal was just getting out one of the vans and when she saw Kal and Mark running off, she took off after them, following Tess.
The two Vampyren soldiers in the lot were ignoring them. They already had their prisoners.
“Where are you going!” Tess said. It was almost three in the morning now.
The night was eerie and dark with only the moonlight shining on the cobblestone path to the dormitory.
There were lights all over campus for safety but they didn’t stay lit.
Electricity was too valuable now. It gave the place the feel of a graveyard so late at night except now when Kal’s ears perked up as he heard a commotion coming from the dorms.
“Don’t worry about us,” Kal said, walking backwards to shout back at Tess and Crystal. “Just go back to your dorm! Just trust Loren. It’ll be alright.”
He saw Tess and Crystal glance at each other in alarm just as the first breeder woman was dragged out of the dorm building.
Like any other breeder in the middle of the night, she was all made up and wearing lingerie.
Her face was bruised up like she’d been knocked around a bit and a stone-faced Vampyren soldier was dragging her by the arm as she screamed.
“It wasn’t us! Stop!” Finally, she gave up on words and just howled in terror.
Behind her, the other breeders in the dorm were being similarly dragged out of the dorms toward the Humvees.
Many of them, Kal knew, were mothers of children in that creche.
Kal and Mark ran toward the soldiers but stopped at a safe distance with their arms raised.
“They didn’t do it,” Mark said firmly.
One of the soldiers stopped short and scowled at them. “What are you talking about? These women are being arrested on suspicion of raiding a creche—
“Right,” Kal said. “It was us.”
The others in Free the Children had (wisely, Kal thought) already sneaked off to their dorms. That was probably because Mark and Kal had quietly warned them to do so on their return even if it was not part of the plan.
“Kal, what the fuck are you doing?” Tess said tightly.
“We raided the creche,” Kal said calmly.
One of the soldiers, the one in charge, Kal was sure, let go of his prisoner and marched up to Kal.
He was an old-fashioned type of traditional Vampyren soldier and he looked at Kal and Mark with disgust. There was a certain stiff brutality about him as he scowled at them.
“Who are you?” He said slowly.
“We’re deserters,” Mark said, which was a lie in his case. He was doing it to protect the men of his unit. “Call us traitors if you want to. The two of us liberated the children from that creche—
“What just the two of you?” The soldier said, snarling.
“Mark! Stop.” That was Crystal, standing there and holding Tess's hand as the two of them looked on in horror and astonishment. “Don’t do this!”
“These women had nothing to do with it,” Kal said flatly. “It was the two of us. We’re happy to confess to the Council.”
The soldier narrowed his eyes. “If you’re lying—
“If it was to free their own children,” Mark said, “then where are the children? You think these women care about half-Vampyren babies they were raped into birthing? They’re just common whores. You need to make an arrest tonight. We’re happy to go down. We’re trying to make a statement.”
The soldier gave them a long look as Tess and Crystal watched with bated breath and then he turned to his men and said, “Let the breeders go. We’re taking these two traitors.”
He wouldprobablybe executed, he thought.
That was unless Loren was able to pull off some kind of miracle with the Council.
The soldiers were slapping manacles on his hands and Mark’s.
When he turned to look at Tess, she knew.
She should have known anyway really. But things were happening fast. Yet he could tell now as he met her eyes that she knew and Crystal realized it at the same time.
The girls could only cry and scream as Kal and Mark were taken away.