CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Friday, October 28th

LANCE BOUGHT MATTRESSES FOR THE SPARE ROOMS upstairs in preparation. With the mission a week away, Lance thought it would be best if everyone was under the same roof until it was over.

"It's important to live and breathe the plan so they would carry it out flawlessly," Lance said.

They planned to stay up a little later than the day before and sleep in later. If everyone switched to a night schedule, the overnight mission would be easier. Blake fell into a night routine the first night and came over after he woke up. He liked having a mattress he could rest on while Lance and Kandice slept.

Kandice and Lance had a little more trouble. They sparred each night to get their adrenaline pumping and forget about wanting to sleep.

The first few nights, it was hard to make it to 4:00 AM but by Thursday it had moved to 6:00 AM.

Kandice's skills showed improvements.

After the first two days of training, she was up to winning about half the matches. They always went for the best of five rounds.

Some days, it would take two hours, others thirty minutes. Kandice learned to anticipate Lance's moves, and in return, Lance changed up his moves to avoid her. By Thursday, their matches morphed from sparring, to full-fledged stratagem, like chess matches.

When they woke up Thursday afternoon, around 3:00 PM, Kandice and Lance both agreed to keep each other awake until 2:00 PM Friday. The plan was air tight. All four of them could list their duties and the duties of every other person.

There was no more prepping needed, now it was just a waiting game. Blake switched to waking up around 10:00 PM and going to bed around noon. Slava was almost always awake and took power naps throughout the day.

Kandice learned that, for the past four years, Slava hadn't been able to sleep for more than two hours at a time. It was one of the many side effects from shifting for so long, but it did make him great for reconnaissance. It seemed like with each negative to shifting there was also a bonus to counter it with.

Part of the plan centered around Slava's sleep needs, since he was only awake for about five hours at a time. With them hitting the mayor in the dead of the night, everyone in the neighborhood would be asleep.

By the time 1:30 PM rolled around on Friday, Lance and Kandice both agreed it was close enough. Blake had been the only reason they made it that far. He'd done everything he could to keep them awake and entertained. Sparring would have taken too much out of them so they agreed to skip it. Blake made fun of them the whole day because they were too young to not be able to pull all-nighters with ease.