“I know, I know.” She wiped her cheeks with both hands, her lips turned up in an embarrassed smile. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I headed for the stairs. But at the top of them, I had to stop and look back. “Why do you stay with him?”
She shook her head, smiling sadly. “Oh, son. Your father doesn't want to be a bad man. He's just trying to save the world, in his own way.”
And instead, he was wrecking it all to Hell and back.
I turned, walked down the stairs, and left my home for the last time.
CHAPTER 7
I made a quick stop at a home improvement store for three flashlights, batteries, and bolt cutters. My first and last planned purchase on Mom's card. Then I headed for the park.
The trees were sparsely positioned at Bergfeld Park, letting in enough moonlight on the grounds to let me see that the park was empty.
Only Mike and his friend, who introduced himself as John, waited under the slide as we'd agreed.
“Gary didn’t make it,” Mike said, keeping his voice low.
While I hadn’t known Gary, I had respected his intentions. He had been willing to risk his life to save others, even if it had probably been for the glory more than anything else. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Mike nodded. John scuffed the toe of his sneakers in the dirt for a few seconds in silence.
Feeling like they were waiting for me to say something motivational, I muttered, “Let’s make sure he didn’t die for nothing.”
Mike and John nodded quickly, and then we started laying out a new plan.
“We'll ride separately to the camp.” I didn’t bother to make another sketch in the dirt. We’d all seen the last one in the woods. And with just the three of us, getting to the camp’s perimeter was going to be a lot simpler now. “We'll need the vehicles to transport prisoners out of there. There’s a dirt road with deep ditches on either side of it to the camp’s south where we can park out of sight. Then we'll circle around on foot and enter the compound together on the east side near the prisoners’ building. Mike, you’re going to have to make sure we’re completely invisible as soon as we start approaching the camp on foot. Think you can keep it up for about an hour or so?”
“No problem. But we’re going to have to be real quiet. I can only hide our appearances, not sounds.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Once we get through the gate with bolt cutters, we’ll have to find a way to get past the guards at the prisoner building’s door.”
“I could throw a rock or something to distract them,” John offered.
I nodded. “Yeah, that could work. Nothing too major, just enough to get them both to move a few steps away while we duck inside. Once we’re in, we’ll have to start detoxing people. I’ve never tried to heal anyone, though. Have you?” I looked at them.
They both nodded.
“My mom was a healer,” Mike said. “I picked up a few things from her that we’ve been practicing with. But we should probably detox the known healers first so we’ll have some help. I don’t know how much energy we’ll have to work with. Healing saps it out of you quick.”
“Okay.” I paused, debated, then made the decision to go ahead and say it. “I guess Gary’s proof that I wasn't exaggerating earlier about the live ammo. Tonight, what we're planning here, is going to be as dangerous as it gets. But if you can use non-lethal stuff on the guards, do it.”
“Gary—” Mike began.
“I know what he said,” I replied. “But you saw what happened to him. He used lethal force, and all it did was make them determined to kill us.”
“Okay,” Mike said after a few seconds. “We’ll try not to kill anyone. Or get anyone killed. If we can.”
John nodded as well.
“Right,” I said. “Then let's get out of here.”
I led the way to the internment camp in my truck, with Mike and John riding together in Mike’s little black Saturn. As I drove, I tried not to think about the “leading” part of what I was doing. Every time I did, my hands started shaking on the steering wheel.
What was I doing?
I wasn’t Damon. Just because I was a Shepherd didn’t mean I was born knowing the first thing about leading others, no matter what my parents claimed. And Damon had never just led. He’d inspired. He’d made people want to do amazing things and believe that they could.
And now here I was trying to follow in his footsteps. But I had no clue how a prison break should be done. We probably had way too few people to even consider trying this. We were going up against anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five armed guards, with flashlights and bold cutters as our only physical tools and zero protective armor.
This was crazy.
Tarah would be proud. Maybe Damon would be too.
I just hoped I didn't wind up getting anyone else killed tonight until the more experienced Clann people at the camp could take over.
We cut our headlights as we turned off the main road onto the same side road Tarah and I had used only hours earlier. Mike parked behind me while I shucked off my bulky coat so I would be able to move around easier. My hoodie would have to be enough to keep me warm for awhile.
Then we gathered in the ditch.
“Everyone ready?” I whispered.
They nodded.
We crossed the field that separated our road from the side of the camp, circling wide along the way then cutting back to the east side. We had to move slowly, using the moonlight to help us avoid cactus, rocks and prickly mesquite trees until we reached the east fence between two guards.
The night was too still, amplifying every little crunch of rock and dirt our footsteps made. I was worried Mike’s visual cloaking spell might not be as good as he’d claimed back in the relative safety of the park. Especially when we were so close to the guards that I could make out their eye color beneath the stadium lights flooding the entire camp. With all the prisoners apparently locked up for the night, there was nothing to distract the soldiers from any noise or movement they might pick up. But Gary was as good as promised. The guards never even looked our way.
It took about ten minutes for me to carefully, slowly cut the chain link with the bolt cutters so they wouldn’t make noise. We probably could have used a spell for this too, if any of us had known how to use magic to cut through metal. Which we didn’t.