Red {Wolf Rebellion I}

Chapter 38~No Turning Back~

You already bought a ticket and there's no turning back now.

-Melanie Martinez, "Carousel"

Chapter 38~No Turning Back~

We left early that afternoon. After explicit instructions from Carmine, I had taken a quick shower and dressed in a dark pair of pants, a red tank top, and a black long sleeve shirt. It would be hot, but we needed to conceal all possible skin, and once we were inside, the red might be the difference between life and death in a split-second.

So I could stand the heat. Of course, then Shani had come up with the perfect solution for everything else; our faces, necks, hair. It would all need to be covered. We would use gloves for our hands. The outskirts of the forest where headquarters was, it let in too much sunlight, which was part of Red's defense. All of that light made it extremely hard to hide in, so we needed to make ourselves as dark as possible

"I hope there's a special hell for you, making us do this. It's going to take forever to get out of my hair," Cas paused in the passenger seat, shivering in disgust. "God, I can taste it. Do you have any idea what mud tastes like? I think I might puke."

Kat grinned at him, a smear of brilliant white against the dark grayish-brown covering every inch of her face. "You'll taste it less if you'd shut up for more than ten seconds," she told him sweetly.

He gave her the finger in response.

That was how the beginning of our four hour drive went.

For the first part of the drive, I kept repeating the plan in my head, memorizing every little detail of what would go down. I felt like I could have some control if I didn't let anything deviate from the plan.

We'd park four miles from Red, which would leave three miles between us and the towers. Carmine estimated it would take us near an hour to close the distance between us and the guards, we'd have to be extremely careful when we moved. If they saw us, or a flash of bare skin, it would all be over.

We would get close enough to see the towers with binoculars, and watch for the guard rotation at four-thirty. If they did, then we would know that Kitler's information had been right. If not, we all decided we would leave then and there. It would be too much of a risk to try and wait for the next rotation, especially if it meant Kitler was in contact with Claret and that they were ready for us.

Once we were past the towers, there wouldn't be much security between them and headquarters. No one got past the towers, at least, no one who didn't have what we had. We would go through the elevator shaft that Carmine and I had taken when we left, it would be too dangerous to take the actual elevator, seeing as how it was monitored by cameras.

We'd get to the tech lab, get what we needed, and then get the hell out of there. Cas, Shani, Phoenix, and Carmine, would go to secure Claret. Ginger and I would go to the second floor, and find any evidence we could, files, photos, it didn't matter.

Meanwhile, Kat and Scarlett would be standing by to lockdown the compound after Claret called any faculty members to her office. Carmine had been adamant that he helped take care of Claret and everyone else, and I could understand his reasoning. They were going to be outnumbered five to one, and they'd need all the strength they could get. Besides, I was confident I could handle anyone who happened to see us. Once we got our hands on some sedatives, it would make me feel better.

After lockdown, we would expose everything Claret was working on. We'd decided to turn her over to the human authorities at the very least. She wouldn't dare speak a word of the wolves to them, but we would leave just enough evidence with her that would make it seem like she was conducting genetic experiments on humans.