A few of us looked at each other over the mention of the place. We didn’t know anything about it, but the idea of recruiting new Resistance soldiers from a prison didn’t sound very feasible.
“Screven’s prison is different than anything you’ve seen or heard of,” Allison said. “For the most part, these people are innocent. Most of them aren’t even from Screven. They’re from outlying villages that Jeremiah has sacked in order to create his blood trails.”
“You mean he holds them there to die?” I asked.
“They would all be more than willing to fight with us,” she said. “We just have to be able to break them out.”
“Danny and I can do it,” Heather said.
Danny looked at her for a moment, but then nodded with her. “Yeah. Whatever you need. We can get in, I’m sure.”
Martin shook his head at them. “You can’t go in alone. You can help clear a path for the escape team.”
“Escape team?” Evelyn asked.
Allison nodded. “I have a group that knows where the controls to the cell blocks are. If we can just get them there, they can open the cell doors. From there we have to get the prisoners into the sewers.”
“Sewers?” Aaron asked.
“There will be three openings in the streets that are near the prison. Those three can eventually lead to you here. Once the prisoners are here, they can rest and we can arm them to fight.”
“So wait a minute,” Heather said. “Did you say near the prison? Not in the prison?”
“Correct,” Allison said. “They will have to walk at least two blocks.”
“So, how do you plan on protecting them?” Evelyn asked. “Jeremiah will send soldiers, helicopters. Everything he has.”
Allison’s eyes fell on me. “Mora, you can take care of aircraft, right?”
I stiffened when she called on me. “I’ve never really tried. I’ve been able to flip a few trucks. I suppose I could grab hold of a helicopter.”
Allison turned to Eveturned tlyn. “She’s got the aircrafts. The rest of us will be on the rooftops guarding every route to the prisons. You’ll have sufficient cover, but we will only be able to keep the Screven soldiers away from the prison for a short time. I’ll wager we would only have fifteen minutes before it’s too late for us to all get out safely.”
“Fifteen minutes?” Danny said. “I’m confident we can get your soldiers in there, but I don’t know about fifteen minutes.”
“All you have to do is protect them,” she answered. “Your team will know where to go and what to do.”
Danny and Heather looked at each other. Neither was sure about the plan, but Heather reached out and rubbed his shoulder and nodded to him. They had been in tougher situations.
“The next part of the mission will be the more difficult one,” Allison said. “After we have enough soldiers, then we will take the Center. But the attack itself is just a distraction.”
She took a deep breath before continuing. I could tell that she was tired. There was no telling how long they had been planning for this. And even now, when it was time to execute the attack, they didn’t seem very organized. There just wasn’t enough support. It was a tiny group trying to take on the world.
“All we have to do is take control of the first floor and basement level,” Allison said. “The plan isn’t to take over the building. It’s to bring it down with Jeremiah inside it.”
Eyebrows rise all around the table as we look at each other.
“The Center is a twenty-story building with concrete reinforced columns,” she continued. “We’ve got thirty charges of dynamite. If we can hold the first floor long enough to let our teams set the charges in place, we can get out of there and take the building down.”
“Jeremiah’s office is on the first floor,” Aaron said.
“One of them,” Allison came back. “He will be locked away in the top, no doubt.”
“Or away from the building completely,” Evelyn said. “If that’s the case, then you might as well forget the attack altogether.”
“His only escape would be from the roof with a helicopter.” Allison looked at me again when she said this.
I shook my head. I didn’t even know if I would still be alive by the time we got to this part of the mission. “The closest the helicopter would be is twenty stories away. I don’t know if I’m able to do that.”
“All we can do is try,” Allison said.
I gave a worried look to Evelyn who returned it. It seemed that a lot of the planning ran on hope and not certainty. I knew Allison was doing the best she knew how, but perhaps all of this was just too big for the Resistance right now.
Allison turned to her papers. “The best way to take down the Center is to actually move our teams into the basement portion. That will give us easier access to the support columns, and hopefully there won’t be a firefight. The building is extremely wide, so the teams will have to communicate via radio to let each other know that the charges are in place and ready. Once the team is out, we can pull the soldiers back and blast Jeremiah into the sky.”
“What are the chances of this actually working, in your opinion?” Aaron asked her.
She looked at Martin, seemingly for reassurance, but he just stared at the table, unable to give it. “I would say there’s about a twenty-five percent chance of this actually working. We aren’t even sure if thirty charges will be enough, but it’s all we have.”
Heather spoke next. “And in order for this to work, the prison break thing has to work too?”
Allison nodded.
Heather mumbled something to herself where no one could hear it. Allison ignored her.
“After we free the prisoners,” Allison said, “we will all rest through the night and start the attack first thing in the morning. It will have to be quick and decisive.”
Evelyn turned her head toward me and I knew she could tell I was worried. By that time, I was sure Christopher wouldn’t be able to help me. He had already been feeling rough from the early symptoms of my virus. By morning, I would be grasping for my last breaths. I would almost be a corpse. But I supposed that this was how it would have to be. I would at least be able to help with the prison break. After that, I guess my mission would be over. I would do what I could to help in that last hour or two, but by then it would be obvious that I was dying. The others wouldn’t want me around anyway.
When I looked away from Evelyn, I caught Aaron staring at me. He had a look of concern. He knew something wasn’t right. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell him that Connor was still on our side. I wanted to tell him that I was dying and that I had the grey cell virus inside of me. But I knew telling him those things just brought more problems. He would become overly concerned about me and the virus. He would try to make my passing easier, and I just didn’t think I could stomach that. And what if he were caught in the fight ahead? He would be interrogated. What if one of Jeremiah’s hunters had the ability to know if someone is lying and Aaron knew about Connor? Then they would both be killed.
I had been thinking about my own condition so much throughout the day that I hadn’t really stopped to think about how dangerous all of this was to everyone else, too. Just because I knew I was going to die didn’t mean that the others weren’t thinking that today could be their last too.
Danny and Heather faced an enormous challenge. Neither of them knew what they were facing with the prison. I’m sure everyone else considered how many guns we would be facing. Out of all of us, I was the only one that could stop a bullet, but even I had to see it coming. I hadn’t even really stopped to consider the possibility that I could die long before the greyskin virus took me over. We were facing unfavorable odds. Anything could happen.
Allison looked at Danny and Heather. “I’m going to have a prep team go over the plans for the prison break.” She looked around the table. “The rest of you need to prepare yourselves. We’re getting them out in an hour. Do any of you have any questions?”
“Alright then. I will see you in here in thirty minutes, then we will prep to leave.”
The others started shuffling around the room, not really knowing where to go. Christopher smiled at me and moved out into the hallway where he sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. He seemed like he was in pain. He would never know how much I appreciated him.
When I turned to look back into the room, I saw Martin coming toward me. He extended a hand to shake. I almost told him that I shouldn’t because I had a cold, but I knew there wasn’t a chance of him getting the virus. I didn’t have a wound on my hand that could infect him. Like a dainty woman, I shook his hand weakly. I hated the feeling.
“Mora, right?”
“That’s me,” I said.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Martin said. “I’ve heard a lot of things.”
“I didn’t know there were a lot of things to hear about me,” I said.
“Well, you’re modest,” he said. “When Jeremiah announced there was an attack in Salem by a rag-tag group, w-tag groe knew it was time to start this whole mess. Anyway, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” I said.
He walked away nervously. I had no idea that there were actually people that were interested in meeting me. The things we Starborns did in Salem were great, yes, but we never did what everyone thought we did. We never killed the Screven guards. We never started the fight. We simply tried to save the innocent people that lived there. Part of me liked having someone like Martin come up to me, wanting to meet me. But if it was under false pretenses, I felt uneasy about it.
When I looked around the room at everyone shuffling around, I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but I couldn’t just leave. I started making my way to the bathroom again when I felt a hand grab my shoulder. When I turned, I saw Aaron looking me in the eyes. At first he was smiling, but a closer look at me made his eyebrows furrow.
“You don’t look too good,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“No, I mean you look sick. Your eyes are bloodshot. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I haven’t been able to rest much.”
“Not sleeping?” he asked.
“No, I’m sleeping,” I said, thinking about all the dreams Evelyn sent me. “But when I wake up I don’t feel like I went to sleep at all. It’s nothing. Just a cold.”
“You haven’t really seemed yourself since the attack this morning,” he said. “It’s tough losing people you care about. But hopefully there won’t be any more attacks at Springhill, right? We’re finally going to stop Jeremiah!”
I couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm.
“If you’ve got a second, I wanted to talk to you about something,” he said.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“About when I kissed you,” he said. “I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward situation. We had just kissed before, and I know it was in private, but…I don’t know. I just want us to be okay. I understand what you’re going through right now. I know things are crazy, but maybe when this is all over and Jeremiah is dead, we can all move on. Maybe you and I can actually take some time and get to know each other instead of just killing greyskins and tyrants.”
Even though his words pained me because I knew it couldn’t happen, they still made me smile. His tenderness was exactly what I needed in that moment. I could tell that he sensed my fragility. He knew that I felt worse than I was letting on, but he didn’t pursue it and I was glad that he didn’t. It would break my heart to tell him that I was infected because it would break his heart to hear it.
With an affectionate pat on my shoulder, Aaron walked away from me with the understanding that he was there if I needed anything. The gesture was appreciated.
The next thirty minutes went by slowly. Every second counting down was one moment closer to realizing my end. Those thirty minutes were tough too. When I had gone to the bathroom, I stared into the mirror to look at my eyes. I had thought Christopher had worked his magic well, but the virus must have been growing stronger as time went on. My eyes were bloodshot and upon closer examination, I could see a speck of black on the side of my eyeball. The transformation was beginning.
I threw up in the sink, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of sickness or if it was the thought of altering into a greyskin. I felt for the gun tucked under my belt at my back. I entertained the thought of using it before I changed any more, but I quickly shook it away. I couldn’t. Not yet. There was still a chance that I would be useful. I still had tonight andd tonigh the early morning before death would take me. Granted, those last few hours would be torture, but I would be okay. It would have to end at some point.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what Jeremiah felt like all the time. Over the years he constantly had to fight his rotting skin. He fed into the desire for flesh. The beginnings of transformation were terrible. I could only imagine that living with it for years on end was even worse. Good. Jeremiah deserved it.
I left the bathroom and sat next to Christopher for a while. He was asleep with his chin resting on his chest. I was glad he was able to do that. At least he wouldn’t be feeling any pain so long as he remained unconscious.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Danny and Heather leaving their meeting with Allison and their team that was supposed to get them in and out of the prison. When they saw me, they came and sat across from us. Heather was shaking her head. Danny seemed pale.
“These people are nuts,” Heather said. “Do you realize how much of their plan relies on us to be some kind of unstoppable force? That whole meeting in there was about how Danny and I are supposed to kill every guard in the compound while the team goes in and opens the cell blocks.”
I smiled. “Well, I’m expected to be able to take out helicopters, so I guess we’re even.”
“You don’t think you can do that?” Danny asked.
“I have no idea. Never tried.”
“He okay?” Heather asked, nodding at Christopher.
“He’s tired,” I answer. “Let him sleep.”
“I still can’t figure why Evelyn wanted to bring him along,” Heather said. “Talk about a casualty. If Jeremiah gets him, it’s all over.”
“Well,” I said, “Jeremiah may catch Christopher and be healed and all that, but that doesn’t mean Jeremiah can’t be killed. Obviously we don’t want anything to happen to Christopher, but Jeremiah is not invincible. He can still be
conquered.”
Heather perked up when she saw Evelyn, Jeffrey, and Aaron walking down the hall. She called them over and the three of them sat in the middle of the hallway.
“Talking about the mission ahead?” Evelyn asked.
“What do you think about all this?” Heather said. “Allison doesn’t even think this is going to work. Why don’t the seven of us just try some covert operations? Sneak in, sneak out and we’re done. All this stuff is too big. Too easy for Jeremiah to fight.”
“There is some covert aspect to it,” Jeffrey said. “The dynamite charges are covert, masked by the fighting on the floor above.”
“You know Jeremiah is going to escape,” Heather said. “He sees them fighting at the Center, he’ll be out of there in a second. Mora doesn’t even think she can take down a helicopter.”
“I didn’t exactly say that. I just said that I’ve never done it before.”
Heather shrugged. “That’s not my point.”
Evelyn broke in. “I have been preparing all of you for a day like today.” She looked at Heather, Danny, and Aaron. Some of you for the past six years,” she nodded at me, “and you for the past few days. This isn’t the time to have doubts. Most of us here have been committed to taking Jeremiah down for a long time. All of you were a part of a much bigger plan that you see unfolding into a battle that will happen this afternoon and hopefully tomorrow morning. It’s difficult to finally come to this. It’s har
d to know exactly how to approach it. But you must do as you have been trained. You must do this with all of the passion that has been within you for a long time.” She looked at me again. “This passion to s passiodefeat Jeremiah has been inside you for a long time too. Though you may have never had a target, you have always wanted to take down the greyskins for good. You have always wanted to protect your family. This is our chance to finally take down the man who created all this strife.”
Her eyes went to Heather. “You may not be facing the best odds or even have a good plan, but since when have you not been the underdog? Today we turn the tables. Today we show Jeremiah that he can’t keep us down.”
Her eyes fell on me again. There was a hint of sadness in her voice as she uttered the last few words because she knew that they weren’t truly meant for me.
“Today, we will win.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
None of us were ready when Allison announced that it was time to leave. Aaron and Danny stayed silent and calm, probably thinking about the day to come. And it was the first time that I had ever seen Heather act without confidence. But we all felt the same: ill-prepared and worried. Allison seemed poised in spite of the outnumbered fight we were about to wage.
When we went outside, we found a convoy of trucks waiting for us. “These will take us near the prison,” Allison told us. “Martin went ahead of us to spy it out. He’s told me that it’s quiet for now.”
None of us said anything as she briefed us. We all got into separate trucks in groups of two or three. Christopher sat next to me and smiled as he got into the third truck from the front. I knew he was putting up a brave front, but he wasn’t feeling well. Neither was I, but I imagined he was feeling worse.
“How bad is it?” I asked him as several soldiers climbed into the truck with us.
“Not good,” he said. “I know I don’t display physical effects of what is happening, but I think I know what you would be experiencing if you hadn’t used me to help you. Your eyes would be swollen and you would be more congested than you are. You would probably be vomiting too.”
The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) Page 51
