At Any Cost Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by K. M. Fawkes

  He ducked down and glared through the sights of the gun, looking for a likely target. Those soldiers weren’t going to stop shooting until they ran out of ammo, and he had no idea how much of that they had. He also didn’t really understand why they were bothering, since they hadn’t even attempted to mount a rescue mission for their general.

  Were they just shooting on principle?

  Either way, he needed something that would make them stop, so that he and his team could get out into the desert and regroup. A split second later, he saw exactly what he needed. A large fuel tanker was sitting just to the side of the main door of the building, and from what he could see, it had already been hit by one or two bullets. It was leaking fuel onto the ground beneath it—and that was all he needed by way of encouragement.

  He took aim, breathed out, asked for forgiveness from the military, and then pulled the trigger, pumping about twenty rounds into the tanker. It immediately exploded, the flames rushing up into the sky, and within seconds those flames had hit the military compound itself. They got into the shingles on the roof and spread like wildfire from there.

  As building after building began to catch fire, he heard shouting from the men in the building, and a second later, a row of soldiers emerged from a side exit and went fleeing into the desert, evidently forgetting entirely about the commander they’d been fighting for minutes earlier.

  Garrett and his team were free. They’d made it. He blew out his breath, hardly daring to believe it, and then rose up and started climbing down the stairs.

  Chapter 26

  The rest of his team met him at the base of the turret, Alice leading them, and Garrett grinned at them and threw his arms around Alice.

  “I can’t believe that worked,” she whispered.

  “Me either, honestly,” he answered, laughing. True, he’d hoped it would work. And he’d planned on it working. But that didn’t mean he’d truly believed it would be successful.

  Still, he’d realized the first day they were here that it would be better to be shot trying to escape than spend the rest of his life in forced labor. He supposed that had colored his decision to run rather than just staying and dealing with things.

  Now, it seemed, they actually had to figure out what they were going to do next.

  Alice cast a glance back at Green, who was on the ground, blubbering about his life and how much he would be worth to the authorities.

  “So what are we going to do with him?” Alice asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  Garrett knew the answer she wanted. And he knew she was likely right. Green had committed crimes against his country and against humanity itself. And as long as there was no law except for them…

  “I suppose the best and kindest thing to do is to take care of him. For humanity’s sake,” he said quietly.

  Alice gave him an amused look. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s go.”

  She tossed him back his gun, and when he popped the clip out and opened it up, he saw that there were two bullets left. Just two. Enough for this task, and yet not enough for anything more. That didn’t make him feel any more confident about what they were going to do.

  “You boys stay here, we’re going to go take care of this,” he said to the rest of the group. “Julia, you too. You’ve already seen too much. You don’t need to see this.”

  The others all nodded, evidently more than okay with leaving this execution to their leaders, and Alice and Garrett strolled toward the gate and the desert beyond, Green between them.

  By the time they got ten paces outside of the front door, Garrett was already tired of hearing Green beg for his life. The man, it seemed, had absolutely no pride, and wasn’t worried about his reputation.

  “You can’t kill me!” he sobbed. “I’m an important man, there are plenty of people who will pay to keep me safe.”

  “Say we believe you about that—which we don’t. What are we going to do with something like money, fool?” Alice asked, shoving him to his knees. “Where do you think we’ll spend it?”

  “You can sell me to the government!” the man blubbered. “They’ll want to have me back.”

  “Have you back for what?” Garrett asked, mystified. Did Green’s delusion run far enough to make him think he was actually valuable to the government for anything more than information about how he had done what he’d done?

  He held his gun up to the man’s head, ready to end the diatribe. But then he hesitated. Yes, killing Green would eliminate the man as an enemy, and that was important. Even if Garrett and his team escaped, he had a feeling Green would find a way to come after them, if he was still alive. This sort of man didn’t give up on his crazy dreams that easily, and he certainly didn’t let go of power once he’d had it.

  But could Garrett live with himself if he just killed a man in cold blood like that? Was that really who he was—or who he wanted to be? True, he’d killed men in the battle in the base, but that had been different. Those men had been trying to kill them. Green was a helpless, unarmed man.

  This wasn’t about Green, Garrett realized. This was about Garrett himself.

  And he wasn’t a man who killed helpless people.

  He drew his gun back, prepared to give some sort of speech about how he was better than Green, and was shocked when Alice grabbed the gun from him, held it to Green’s head, and shot twice.

  She was cool and casual when she handed the gun back, as if she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, and looked up to meet his eye. Then she nodded once.

  “For people like him, there’s no room for mercy. He never showed any for us. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They turned and walked back toward the fort and the rest of their team, leaving Green’s body in the sand of the desert for the buzzards to pick clean. And as they walked, Alice slipped her hand into Garrett’s, paused a second, and squeezed.

  He squeezed back, his heart suddenly full, and kept his face toward the team who was suddenly starting to feel a whole lot like the family he thought he’d lost to the virus.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  Fight For Everything

  Copyright 2019 by K. M. Fawkes

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.

  All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Garrett stood outside the small building, his eyes sharp on the horizon around him. The dust was blowing in from the west, like it always did at that time of day, and for a moment he narrowed his eyes in that direction, his heart hammering, his breath utterly still.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen someone else out there. Someone else in a vehicle of some sort, coming straight at them at the worst possible time. At this point, he’d grown used to it—but that didn’t mean it was welcome. It certainly didn’t mean he wanted to encounter whoever might be in that vehicle.

  His left hand dropped to the Glock he held in his right and gripped the gun tightly while his right thumb reached up and flicked off the safety. He had a rifle strapped to his back, and if he needed something longer-range, he’d have to use that. He’d made sure it was within easy reach for just this sort of opportunity.

  For right now, the handgun would have to do. It was safer. Easier to sight down. More manageable in a tight space.

  He brought the gun up in front of him in one smooth, practiced movement, and pointed it directly at the cloud of dust in the distance, his gaze running down the barrel of the gun as he tried desperately to part that cloud with his mind. Tried to see what might be in the middle of it. Was it a vehicle? One of the mo
torcycles he’d seen on the horizon in the past? And if it was, did that motorcycle hold someone who might end up being a friend… or someone who was after the same thing he and his crew were after—and who might take offense to the fact that Garrett’s group had gotten there first?

  He blew out quietly, trying to steady his heart. There was no guarantee that it was anything. Could just be the wind. Could be one of the animals they’d seen around. Could be a random twister that had just sprung up out of the desert. The problem was, he wouldn’t be able to relax until he knew for sure.

  He took one step forward, then two. He wasn’t supposed to leave his post outside the building—and had, in fact, promised the people inside that he would be right there if they needed him. But he needed to know for sure what was going on in the desert, and whether they needed to get out of there in a hurry.

  Then, just as he was about to take a third step—maybe even start walking more quickly toward what might have been dangerous interlopers—the dust suddenly dropped back down to the desert floor, leaving… absolutely nothing in its wake.

  He huffed out a laugh that was half self-ridicule and half relief. “Starting to see things, boy,” he murmured to himself. “Starting to out-and-out imagine things, is the problem. Your paranoia is getting the better of you.”

  He spent another two minutes staring out at the horizon, taking in the groups of barrel cacti, surrounded by little more than sand and rocks. This area of New Mexico didn’t even have the scrub pine he’d grown used to in his old life, or the century plants about which he’d once made up stories. Very little vegetation. Very little wildlife. Absolutely no water. Just lots of beige out there, all against the backdrop of the chocolate-colored mountains in the distance.

  Not where he would have chosen to hole up. But it had been their best—and only—option.

  At the sound of the door behind him opening, he twirled around and strode quickly back to the building. Alice was just appearing through the doorway, her arms completely full of what looked like wine bottles.

  “Wine?” he asked sharply, searching for the sense of humor he’d once found so easy, and now seemed to be missing entirely. “Are we planning on having a party?”

  “Liquid,” she told him shortly.

  No-nonsense, that had always been Alice—and he loved her for it. Really. She’d kept him on the straight and true when he would have gone spinning off into the darkness. It was just that sometimes, he wished she would be a little more… optimistic.

  “Besides, wine is just as good when it comes to quenching thirst as a lot of the other stuff we’ve been hauling in,” she added. Then her mouth quirked in the half-smile he’d come to recognize as the biggest concession she was willing to give to hope. “And you never know when we might have something to celebrate.”

  He laughed at that, then moved toward the door to help with whatever the others had found inside. They’d hoped for a good haul at this vineyard, but they hadn’t been sure. After all, it wasn’t the sort of place where anyone had been living. Sure, they might have fuel and even the stock of wine, but their hopes for anything else had been tightly controlled. Still, if Alice was carrying so much, the others might be too, and now that they were nearly finished he could put his hands—and eyes—to use at something other than keeping watch on the world around them.

  “See anything out there?” Alice asked before he could get through the door. Her own eyes were now on the horizon, sharp and worried.

  “Dust storm,” he returned. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that looked like another human being.”

  “Thank God for that,” she breathed. Then she was gone, hurrying toward the truck they’d brought with them and leaving him to grab whatever he could get and join her.

  He didn’t waste time looking after her. They might be safe for the moment, but that didn’t mean they’d be safe indefinitely. And they needed these supplies too badly to put them at risk by taking too long in this location, where there was very little protection and every opportunity for someone else to find them.

  Chapter 1

  October 2026

  Garrett leaned against one of the posts on the porch of the house he’d adopted in Trinity Ranch, his eyes on the street in front of him. It had been three months since they’d escaped the general and his band of merry men, along with his plan for the future of the human race, and Garrett had rarely thought about it since that night. Well, sort of rarely. He still had the nightmares about that prison. The room full of individual cells, the bars, the cold concrete under his cheek…

  The fact that General Green had executed some of his friends without bothering to think twice about it.

  He shook his head and tried to send that thought away, using the sight of the desert on the horizon to replace the dank, dark memories. Out there, it was wide open spaces, fresh air, and the wind in his hair. Things he’d never thought he’d appreciate as much as he did now.

  He turned his eyes to the dusty street in front of him—dirt, just like so much of the rest of the landscape—and smiled at the sight of a boy riding a rusty bike down the street. Three months here now, and they’d collected a ragtag army of their own, building a family out of the people they’d found along the way and the few who had managed to wander into town on their own.

  Trinity Ranch was miles from anything else, set in a section of New Mexico that boasted nothing, really, except for military base after military base where they conducted weapons training—or what they hid under the heading of “weapons training.” And he had to admit, the military bases had made him tense at first. Incredibly tense. General Green had set his operation up in an old military base, and Garrett didn’t think he was ever going to be able to pull up to the gates of a camp like that again without thinking about the way Green had twisted the entire operation.

  But when they’d been running for their lives that night after they escaped and Alice had said she knew of a small town where no one would ask their names, and where they might find not only shelter but also food and water—and maybe allies—he’d agreed to it immediately.

  He’d never thought to ask how she knew of the town, or what her history was here. He knew enough of her past to know that it was scattered with ghosts, and that she wouldn’t want to bring most of them back up. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d had any better plans at the time. A vague idea that Mexico might be a good idea, but no real method for getting there. Certainly no access to a vehicle.

  Now, courtesy of Alice’s plans, they were within one hundred miles of the border. And they’d been hearing from travelers who passed their way that there was a place in Mexico they might aim for. Some town where refugees were welcome. A town where, he thought, they hadn’t been struck down by the virus. A town where they might be safe.

  For the moment, this place would do.

  So far, Trinity Ranch had treated them fairly. When they arrived, tired, frightened, and thirsty, they’d found the place nearly deserted, with only a few people still sticking it out in their homes.

  Most of the people in this area of the country hadn’t faired so well, but Trinity Ranch seemed to have had its fair share of doomsdayers. People who had been hoarding food and water for months, maybe even years, before disaster actually struck. They’d been able to save at least some of the town’s inhabitants, though certainly not all of them.

  Garrett let out a sigh of laughter. Doomsdayers. In another life, in another world, he’d worked for that sort of person. Wealthy ones, to be exact. People who’d had enough money to not only collect supplies, but actually build their own forts in case something like this happened. People who’d wanted every comfort while they were in hiding from the zombies or nuclear winter or whatever else might have come their way.

  Little good it did them. The man he’d been working for when disaster arrived hadn’t even made it to the home Garrett had designed and then built out for him. He’d died in the city of the nanovirus, just like nearly everyone else in the U.S.

&n
bsp; Those who hadn’t died had been taken out in the riots and anarchy that reigned in those final weeks, before the government utilized EMP weapons to try to kill the minuscule robots who they’d thought would reverse aging, and which had ended up becoming a manmade pandemic.

  The EMPs might have taken care of the virus—he still didn’t know for sure, since there was no way of finding that out without any newscasts—but they’d also doomed what people were left, sending them back into pre-electric times without any preparation. People had starved to death or died of thirst or medical issues without important things like electricity, transportation, and the lines that brought them food and water.

  The government might have killed the nanovirus. It also killed most of the country’s people. And even those with enough wealth to have built and fully equipped fallout shelters hadn’t been able to escape the situation.

  Even more frightening was the fact that it had happened so quickly. Mere months between when the nanobots were introduced and the first wave of deaths to a previously unheard of disease. Another few months, and they’d been facing the destruction of all American civilization.

  He coughed and brought himself back into the present, turning his eyes to the street before him. Bart, one of the teenagers they’d found here, was still riding his bike along the road, making for the supply warehouse where he did double duty as both a user of the stores and a daytime guard. Across the street, another couple strode along together, making small talk. Though Garrett expected it was something slightly more complicated than “small talk” would have been a year ago. No one had much time these days for anything that didn’t directly contribute to their survival.