by K. M. Fawkes
“Useless,” one of the soldiers finally said. And without another word, he lifted his gun up, fit the nozzle to the boy’s head, and pulled the trigger.
Garrett shouted in pain, confusion, and rage, and before he could think about it—and before Alice could stop him—he was shooting forward, his fists flying for the soldier’s face.
He got in two good punches before the other guards pulled him off and tossed him to the ground. They began kicking him and beating him with their guns, and though he could vaguely hear Alice in the background, screaming at them, he barely registered the outside world. Instead, he curled into a ball and wrapped his arms around his head, trying desperately to protect himself from the attack, trying not to feel the steel-toed boots driving into his ribs and belly.
When they were done, he was positive that he had sustained severe damage. His hand was most certainly broken, and he would be lucky if his ribs were still whole. The soldiers dragged him to his feet and one leaned in close, getting within inches of Garrett’s face.
“Keep complaining and you’ll come to the same end as the kid,” he hissed. “Now get back to work.”
Hours later, Garrett wrapped himself around the pain in his hand, wishing desperately that he could go to sleep and knowing it wasn’t going to happen. Not with this much pain. He’d managed to finish out the day despite the pain, but now that he was here, in his bed in the cell, and the adrenaline was leaving his system, it was getting harder and harder to remember why he was fighting so hard. Whether it was worth it.
Suddenly he felt tears rushing down his cheeks. He turned his face into the blanket underneath his head and let them come. Let himself cry for all the things he’d lost—all the people he’d lost. No, he didn’t have proof that Kady and Jon were dead, along with Zach, but he knew in his gut that it was true. Knew that they’d died the same way so many others had, with that fear and confusion in their eyes, that sense of absolute betrayal.
It was no way to go. But after what he’d seen today, he wondered whether it had actually been for the best.
Chapter 17
He woke up aching in every muscle in his body, and feeling even worse on the inside. His hand was throbbing so badly he was shocked he’d managed to fall asleep at all, and he could feel every spot he’d been kicked, hit, and jabbed at the day before. Worse, though, was the feeling in his heart. He’d had dreams about the boy they’d found, the look in his eyes when they woke him up…and the look on his face right before he’d been shot. The utter shock and terror, along with a hefty dose of betrayal that Garrett would never be sure was aimed at the soldiers instead of him and Alice.
Maybe they should have left him there on the floor. Maybe they should have let him just die in a peaceful way, drifting off in his sleep. He hated that he was even thinking things like this—hated that the world had become a place where he had to have these sorts of thoughts. And he would regret for the rest of his life having seen the hope in that boy’s eyes when he was found, and the terror when those soldiers showed up.
He wanted to go back to his life before. The life that had made sense, the life that had been comfortable and easy and hadn’t included people with guns or viruses that killed you or life-or-death choices every day. He missed his sister. True he hadn’t seen her often, but he missed the thought that she was even there, in Oregon. That he could see her any time he decided to jump on a plane—and that there was someone out there who remembered him as a child, and what he’d been like. Someone who cared whether he lived or died.
He missed the security of knowing that life would go on tomorrow, and the day after that, the way it always had. He missed feeling as if he knew what he was supposed to do.
Instead he was stuck in a world where nothing made sense, and his life was in constant jeopardy. And just as he’d decided that he was going to close his eyes and see whether he could go back to sleep, the door to the room flew open and let three soldiers in, all of them barking for the prisoners to get on their feet and get ready for breakfast.
Garrett groaned, but shoved himself up in a rough semblance of grace and managed to get to his feet. To his surprise, rather than gathering all of the prisoners from their cells, two of the soldiers opened his and jerked him through the door, and then out the door of the room.
“Where are we going?” he asked, instantly concerned. His mind went back to what the soldier had told him yesterday, and he gulped. Was this it? Were they going to execute him, just like that? No warning, no speech, no trial?
He flexed his good hand and narrowed his eyes, turning his gaze from left to right in a quick effort to see whether there was any chance of getting away before the soldiers got him to wherever they were going.
He might be wounded. He might be horrified at the nightmare he’d had to live through yesterday. But that didn’t mean he was going down without a fight. If they thought he’d go quietly into the night, they had another thing coming.
The soldiers shoved him through another door before he could throw together anything resembling a plan, though, and he looked around warily. This looked like…a living quarters.
It had been a large, open space once, but someone had put temporary walls up—more like room dividers than anything—and cut the space into an office and living area, with walls big enough to fit several men, shoulder-to-shoulder.
The architect in him suddenly snapped to attention and he started considering the space from a builder’s point of view. Smart. It was really smart. First of all, it took advantage of this room in an entirely new way, which appealed to him. The space would offer better airflow, courtesy of all the room and the windows on the side, and it would have been less expensive to build, courtesy of the lack of real walls.
But it would hold heat in the summer and stay cold in the winter, a voice argued with him. The vaulted ceiling would be impossible to get to and would hold the air you didn’t want. Impossible to warm this space up. Good for looks, bad for real living.
Get a hold of yourself, man, he lectured himself. For all he knew, he was in here to have his head chopped off—or worse. And if and when that happened, he doubted his thoughts on the room’s functionality were going to do him one bit of good.
That was when he noticed the man at the kitchen table, eating what had to be his breakfast.
To his surprise, he recognized the guy from the court. The judge. Which made this General Green. The man who had been dismissed from the military and had then returned in the midst of the confusion after the virus to perform his own coup. And who had then started executing people who didn’t agree with him.
Right. Keep your mouth shut and live, keep your mouth shut and live, he started repeating to himself. Better alive than dead. Better to be still kicking than right. At least if he was alive, he had the chance to find a way out. Dead and it was all over.
“Welcome to my quarters, soldier,” Green said.
He was eating, Garrett saw, scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns, and despite his disgust for the man, his mouth started watering. It had been so long since he’d had any real food. There had been food in the bunker, of course, but he hadn’t stocked the kitchen with anything that would spoil quickly—and that meant no eggs. Cheese had been out, and that had been one of his favorite foods since he was born.
The thought of scrambled eggs covered in cheese, with a hearty dash of salt and pepper and perhaps even some hot sauce, nearly brought him to his knees.
When Green pushed another plate of food across the table in Garrett’s direction and gestured to it with his chin, Garrett had trouble not diving into it headfirst.
“For you,” Green grunted. “I assume you’re hungry. Been a while since you’ve had a real meal, hasn’t it?”
Garrett swallowed heavily, trying not to look at the food. Green was right—and it hadn’t gotten any better since he got here. They’d had something that resembled food the night before, for dinner, but it had been tasteless mush, and no matter how hungry he was Garrett hadn’t
been able to get much of it down. Still, he shook his head.
“Sorry, sir, but the last time I saw you, you sentenced me to a year of hard labor for a crime I didn’t commit. You’ll forgive me if I don’t exactly trust you.”
Green barked out a cold laugh. “It’s not poisoned, kid. That wouldn’t do me any good. I need you alive, at least for the moment.”
Right. And Garrett was just going to believe this guy because he said so.
“Eat a bit of the potatoes,” Garrett said sharply.
Oldest trick in the book. But if they were poisoned, the man would refuse, and that would be that.
Green looked up at Garrett, scowling, then shoved his fork into the potatoes and lifted a mouthful to his lips. He lifted one brow in derision and put the morsel between his teeth, chewing three times before swallowing.
“Happy?” he snapped.
Happy would have been pushing it, but Garret was at least satisfied, and he took about ten seconds to get to the table and tuck into the food. It was difficult, given the state of his hand and the pain he was in, but he was making it work when he looked up and caught Green’s eyes on him.
“What is it you want?” Garrett asked, putting his fork down with effort and telling himself he could finish the food once this negotiation was over. Because this couldn’t be anything other than a negotiation. He just wasn’t sure yet what Green thought Garrett could—or would—offer.
“First things first,” Green answered. “I apologize for what my men did to your hand. They weren’t supposed to touch you. Definitely not maim you. I can have my medic set it for you if you like, give you some pain meds. Make sure it heals properly.”
Confused, Garrett opened his mouth to reply, then realized that he didn’t know what he was going to say. Of course he wanted the hand set; it was his left hand, and wouldn’t affect his writing or artwork, but he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of going through the rest of his life—however long or short it might be—with a crippled hand. But why would this man offer something like that? Had Garrett’s violence somehow got the guy’s attention, made him think Garrett was more like him? The man was a psychopath, from what he’d heard, and Garrett didn’t think he had any natural generosity of spirit.
What made him think Garrett was worth the time and effort?
“Why would you do that? Why would you do all of this?” He gestured at the food and table in front of him.
The general sat back and shoved his own plate forward, evidently finished with his food. “I don’t know how much you know about what we’re doing here, Mr. Floyd, but I thought it was time we got better acquainted.”
He wiped his mouth roughly with a napkin, then went on. “The truth is, the world out there is no longer what it once was. So much of the population is dead, and what’s left is threatened. There are gangs running the cities now, and what remains of the government is detonating EMP weapons above its own citizens, caring little for what might happen to the people without energy. It’s dangerous out there. There’s no place left for humans.”
Well that seemed like a lot of big assumptions. But Garrett didn’t say anything. He still didn’t know where Green was going with this, and until he did, he wasn’t going to add anything to the conversation.
At his silence, Green continued. “I know you’ve seen it firsthand. You’ve seen the towns where everyone is dead. The bodies on the sidewalks. You know the end of humanity is nigh.”
“What’s your point?” Garrett asked. He slammed his mouth shut again, furious with himself for having reacted at all, but it was too late. His smart mouth really was going to get him killed at some point.
Possibly sooner rather than later.
Green gave him a look that agreed with that thought, then shrugged. “We have to have a place where we can find safety. Where we can continue to exist,” he said. “That’s what we’re building here. A fortress.”
“A fortress?” Garrett asked, the words forced out by the sheer shock he felt. Was this guy crazy? What did he think, they were living in medieval times, when castles were a thing?
He wasn’t surprised when Green merely nodded as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
“A fortress. I want this place to be impregnable. I don’t know what else is going on out there or who might be coming for us, but I want to be protected when they do. I want us all to be protected, as we deserve to be. And that’s where your skills will come in handy. Your background. You’d be a useful addition to my team.”
My God, the man was completely insane. Certifiable. He was acting like this was all no big deal, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“My skills?” Garrett asked, evidently having lost his ability to do anything more than repeat what was said to him. What did this guy know of his skills? Had he somehow found out that Garrett had gone to military school, and was that even what he was talking about?
“Your skills,” Green said, putting special emphasis on the last word. “You know how to build things, and how to design structures. Isn’t that what you did?”
He paused for long enough that Garrett nodded, still dazed, and then continued. “I want you to help us design the place so it’s as secure as it can be. Beyond that, your practical skills, your toughness, will come in handy. You went through almost a full day with a broken hand, and my soldiers tell me you never even complained. I could use more men like that on my squad. I want more men like that on my squad. What do you say?” He narrowed his eyes as if he’d just realized that he’d asked a stupid question, and shook his head. “And I must warn you that refusal isn’t an option. Not if you want to live.”
Garrett gave himself a moment to breathe deeply and really consider what this man was saying. A part of his team. Probably an important part, if he was going to be helping to design the so-called fortress. It could be a smart decision. It could get him closer to the outside.
Closer to escape.
“And what happens to the other prisoners?” he asked, as if he was working through the options in his head. “Are you going to add them to your team as well?”
Green gave a mild shrug. “They are murders, looters, and undesirables. The men will be worked until they die. The women will be used to repopulate our country.”
Garrett very nearly threw up the breakfast he’d just been eating. Worked to their deaths? Used to repopulate the nation? The man was talking about something diabolical—something evil, and he was doing so without batting an eye.
He’d been right to call Green a psychopath. In fact, he was starting to wonder if that was doing a disservice to all the psychopaths of the world. This man was entirely devoid of humanity.
What was more, he was positive that the prisoners had absolutely no idea what was in store for them. If Alice knew what Green had planned, just to fulfill some crazy dream of his…
But he did his best not to let the disgust show on his face. Green had offered him something valuable, and if he was going to take advantage of it, he had to get better at hiding his revulsion. Pretending to play along.
Fake it till you make it, my boy, he told himself. Hide in plain sight for a little while, until he’d figured out a way to get himself—and his new friends—out of here.
“It seems you leave me little choice,” he said, taking another bite of potatoes. He glanced up at Green. “I’m in.”
Green gave him a curt nod. “I thought you’d see it my way. This confirms my assumption that you’re a logical man and will be a valuable part of the team. Go with the soldiers. You’ll have a room of your own from now on, and you’ll be taken to see the medics after you’ve settled in. They’ll see to your hand. Make sure you’re ready to get to work tomorrow. I may have moved you up, but I can move you back down just as easily.”
Before he could answer, Garrett was grabbed from behind by one of the soldiers and shuffled out of the room.
The soldier hustled him down the hall, up a set of stairs, and to a narrow door, where he pulled out
a key and shoved it into the lock. The room he was pushed into was narrow—only enough room for a twin-sized bed and a dresser—and looked as though it had a bathroom attached. There was a window—with bars on it—and very little in the way of decoration.
He’d just turned around to ask what the rules were when the door closed in his face and the lock turned from the outside.
Garrett sank onto the bed, mind churning. Okay, better room, a bed, the promise of medical treatment. All good things. Access to more air, and potentially access to escape. Definitely good things. But he’d been taken from the rest of the prisoners without a word, and now there was no way to let them know what had happened—or that he knew what he was doing.
Worse, there was no way to let them know what Green had just told him, or what his plans for the prisoners were. He’d known they had to escape, but it had just become even more important. They were in more immediate danger than they’d ever realized, and Garrett had started to think of those prisoners as his own gang. Something, somehow, had brought them together, and he wasn’t going to let them come to harm.
The problem was, those people needed a hero if they were going to escape. And he was the only one available.
He wasn’t sure he was a big enough person to do it. He also wasn’t sure he had any choice in the matter.
Chapter 18
The next morning found Garrett in what he quickly began to think of as the factory. Really it was just a large room that might once have been a cafeteria and had now been changed into a sort of community office, full of desks and bookshelves and chairs. He didn’t know anything yet about Green’s team or who exactly was on it, but it included enough of a range that he’d found three new characters in this room, all of them dressed in what could once have been business attire. These guys were nothing like the soldiers, who all wore something that at least looked like it belonged outdoors—and all had boots on, as if boots were their only form of uniform.
