At Any Cost Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by K. M. Fawkes

  Alice came flying back into the schoolhouse just in time to see John holding up Bart’s left hand, which was now missing its pinky, and stifled a shriek. She dropped to her knees next to the boy, clicking a lighter as she held the needle above it.

  “This is going to hurt, kid,” she warned Bart. “And we’re going to have to keep treating it with the antibacterial stuff to keep it from getting infected. This thread isn’t exactly sterile. But we have to give your skin something to heal around. You going to be okay?”

  “Can’t hurt any worse than it already does, I don’t think,” he answered shakily.

  Garrett grasped Bart’s other hand and squeezed, then pulled off his belt and held it up to the kid’s mouth. “Bite it,” he said.

  Bart turned big eyes on Garrett and bit down, nodding, the tears already starting to form, and Garrett’s heart broke. This should never have happened. Not on his watch.

  “Must have been the guys we saw,” Alice said, cringing as she slid the needle into the flesh left at the base of Bart’s now-absent finger. She pulled the thread quickly through, then turned the needle and plunged it in again, making quick work of the job.

  “Must have been,” Garrett agreed. Now he was definitely second-guessing what he’d done. If he’d left the tank there, would Bart still be whole?

  “No,” Alice said, guessing again at what he was thinking. “They would have done this regardless, and you know it. They’ve already stolen from us. I think we knew that already. And they’re going to keep doing it. Keep after us until we leave.”

  “That just makes our trip even more important,” Shane agreed. “We’ve got to get out of here before they actually kill anyone.”

  They were interrupted by the sudden arrival of Elisa, who came rushing into the schoolhouse, her face streaked with tears.

  “It’s Fawn,” she said, voice shaking. “Something’s wrong. Something more. I can’t wake her up, and she’s hotter than I’ve ever felt her.”

  Chapter 13

  Garrett didn’t think he’d ever run so fast in his entire life. He raced for the house where Fawn and Elisa stayed, his heart pounding against his ribs in a staccato, uneven beat. He couldn’t take this. First Bart and now Fawn? These kids were going to kill him.

  His thoughts went immediately to the medical supplies he’d brought back from Las Ramblas, and he prayed that Alice had taken whatever she needed and sent the rest with Riley for Fawn. They’d been trying to figure out how to ration them so that they didn’t go through them all at once, but he was now willing to spend them all on Fawn at the same time in an attempt to get her to pull through this. Whatever was wrong, surely they had something that could treat it.

  The only question was whether it was too late for even that. Penicillin and amoxicillin might be miraculous drugs, but they still took some time to work. And he was starting to think that time was exactly what Fawn was out of.

  When he got to the house, Elisa was already there, holding the door open for him. He had no idea how she’d managed to arrive before him, but thought that the desperation of a mother whose child is sick must have given her wings. Her face was still wet and smudged with dirt from the tears she’d been crying, but she was arranging her features into a calmer order, and controlling her breathing.

  Thinking that Fawn needed them to be strong, Garrett did the same thing, taking several deep, steadying breaths until he felt like he could at least think again. Then he nodded at Elisa to let him pass.

  “She’s in her room upstairs,” she said quietly.

  “Alice will have sent some medications,” he answered. “Bring them up as soon as you have them.”

  He took the stairs two at a time, not caring about how much noise he was making, and arrived at the landing on the second floor in seconds. He’d been here to tuck Fawn into bed before, and knew that her room was the second one on the left. Making his way for it, he tried to prepare himself for what he was about to see. No matter what happened. He needed to be a rock for Fawn right now. Nothing else was acceptable.

  He ducked through the door and found the girl duller than he’d ever seen her. Her eyes were open, but the spark that had always given them life was gone, her complexion dulled out. Her cheeks had always been rosy and flushed from the fever, or from a coughing fit, but they were pale now, as if she was slowly fading into the pillow behind her head.

  Still, she was awake. That was better than he’d been expecting.

  “Hi, Fawn,” he said, sliding onto the bed next to her and taking her hand.

  She brightened a bit at his voice, and tried to smile, but obviously didn’t have the strength. Her lips moved and he thought she was going to try to say his name, but once again, she faltered.

  Looking up, he saw a bottle of water by the bed, along with a cloth. He reached out, wet the cloth, and held it to her lips.

  “Water,” he said quietly. “It will make you feel better. Alice is bringing you some medicine, okay? I don’t know if it will heal you right away, but it will make you feel better. And feeling better will make you better.”

  He forced optimism into his voice, trying to sell the lie, and wished—not for the first time—that they had someone here who actually had medical training. Who actually had some sort of experience, and could tell them what was wrong with her. Tell them whether they could make her better or not. Then she started coughing and he focused only on holding her as the spasm wracked her tiny body.

  “We’re going to make you better, Fawn, I promise,” he said.

  Elisa walked into the room and laid her hand on his shoulder, then dropped to her knees and pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead.

  “Go to sleep, my love,” she said softly. “You know you always feel better if you’ve had a nap. I bet you’ll wake up in an hour and feel so much better. And Garrett will still be here, waiting for you. I bet he’ll even want a checkers rematch. Isn’t that right, Garrett?”

  Elisa looked up at him, her eyes big and tragic with the knowledge that there would be no rematch. That this was the end, and that she was giving her daughter permission to leave them. To end her own suffering.

  He nodded, doing his best to be strong for both of them in this moment.

  “I demand a rematch,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve let you win too many times, kiddo. This time I’m going to kick your butt.”

  Fawn breathed out a sigh of laughter, one corner of her mouth turning up, and then she closed her eyes, and grew still.

  And just like that, she was gone.

  Garrett stared at her, hardly daring to breathe, hardly daring to feel anything at the loss. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost someone he cared about. But he didn’t know if any death had ever cut him so deeply before.

  Chapter 14

  At noon the following day, after a morning of rising and wishing desperately that the past twenty-four hours hadn’t actually happened, Garrett joined the other members of their community in a memorial parade for Fawn. They started at Elisa and Fawn’s house—it would never be anything other than “their” house to him—where Garrett, Shane, and Greyson split the duties of carrying the rough wooden coffin they’d built for the little girl. Lifting it and putting his shoulder under it was the hardest thing Garrett thought he’d ever done, but he straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin, and kept the tears back.

  This was a time to be strong for Elisa. Not a time to show how much he was hurting. He could hurt later on, in his own bed, when his vulnerability wouldn’t affect anyone else.

  They marched through the streets of the small town, Alice at the front of their small parade, supporting Elisa, while everyone else followed behind them. John and Steve had already dug a grave in the town’s cemetery, and they didn’t hesitate as they lowered her tiny coffin into it.

  Yes, it was disturbing to think about her going into the ground, where she would lay by herself. But they had little choice in the matter. Garrett and Elisa were both practical enough to realize that without an embalme
r available, her body wouldn’t last. Better to remember her as she had been than see her as what her body would become.

  As they lowered the coffin into the ground, though, Garrett felt a sense of hopelessness overcoming him. If the children couldn’t survive this new world, then what was the point? Were any of them going to see the end of this? The lack of food, the lack of clean water, lack of medical supplies… and now the additional threat of the biker gang. After what they’d seen done to Bart, everyone in town was on edge, just waiting for the next horrible thing to happen.

  At least Fawn had died a natural death. She no longer had to deal with the idea that the world was dying around her. Garrett felt like a coward for thinking it, but just for a moment, there in the cemetery as he said goodbye to his friend, he let himself dwell on the idea.

  That night, at the town meeting, Garrett had himself back under control and was ready to fight for his people. He’d lost one of them, and he wasn’t going to lose another. Whatever it took to get them out of there, he was ready—and willing—to do it.

  It had become apparent to him, though, that not everyone was taking that step. Many of the townspeople were afraid to go out of town at all, after what had happened to Bart.

  “As far as I can see, we just can’t be sure we’ll be safe out there,” Kristy was saying.

  Shane was nodding, and putting a hand on her stomach. “I don’t mind going out there myself—feel it’s my duty to help, after all—but I don’t want her going. I want her here protecting our baby.”

  “I’ll be going out again, I can tell you that much,” Greyson cut in. “But I don’t think the women should have to make any more trips. Only those of us strong enough to take on any of the bikers we come across. I’ve got a thing or two to say to them about what they did to Bart.”

  His hands flexed into fists and his eyes narrowed, and Garrett knew immediately that if Greyson found any of those bikers, he was going to kill them for what they’d done.

  He couldn’t say he blamed him. He also didn’t disagree with him. But it was going to be nearly impossible to run any full raids without at least some of the women taking part. They just didn’t have that sort of manpower, literally speaking.

  He lifted a hand to signal for silence, and then spoke into the quiet. “I get where you guys are coming from, I do. But we can’t just give up on going out there to raid the other towns. If we stop going, then that’s the end of our supply runs. And we don’t have enough here anymore to see us through much longer. Surely you can see that.”

  This brought a chorus of agreements and disagreements, solutions and complaints, and through it all rode a thread of fear. Fear over the lack of supplies. Fear over the biker gang. Fear of dying.

  And though he hadn’t wanted to think about it before, he knew that there was an answer. An answer to all of it. It would require a dangerous move—a move he didn’t want to make—but it could just be the thing that saved them all.

  Holding a hand up again, he waited until the noise died down.

  “I have a plan,” he finally said. “I still think going to Mexico is our best possible option. It’ll get us out of here, away from the biker gang, whoever they are. It’ll get us out of this isolated existence. And it’ll put us back into a situation where we can actually survive in the long term, rather than living on the edge like this.”

  “Well if you have a solution, I think we’d all like to hear it, rather than you rambling on!” Steve shouted.

  Garrett bit his lip, holding down the angry response that threatened to bubble up out of his throat, and waited until he had his temper under control. Steve was never going to change, and getting in a fight with him now would just make the whole thing even more complicated. He needed to be patient for once in his life. Shrug it off.

  Move forward and save his people.

  “I know for a fact that Las Ramblas has more than I brought back,” he said firmly. “If the one house I hit was still that well-stocked, other houses will be as well. I think I could bring back a month’s worth of supplies if I stayed in that town long enough and hit all the houses I could. We have plenty of fuel, courtesy of that trailer we found. If I could gather a month’s worth of supplies…”

  “We would have what we need for the trip to Mexico,” Alice finished for him, coming up on stage and standing beside him. She gave him a knowing look and a nod. “And we could leave now, rather than waiting. Garrett, it’s the perfect solution. It will get us out of here more quickly, before the bikers can do anything. Get us to safety more quickly. Do you really think Las Ramblas has that much in the way of food and supplies?”

  Garrett shook his head. “I can’t know for sure, obviously. I didn’t go into any of the other houses. But I think it does. I’m willing to bet my own life on it.”

  She pushed her lips out in thought at that, but then nodded. “I’m willing to make the same bet. I’ll go with you.”

  But he shook his head. “I won’t let you,” he said firmly. “It was a dangerous situation before, and it will be even more dangerous now that they know to watch for us. I want you here, taking care of the others so that I don’t have to worry about them.”

  He could see that she disagreed with him on this point, and that she was ready to argue with him. He could also see that she wasn’t going to do it here, in front of the rest of the community. And for that, he was grateful. He needed the people of Trinity Ranch to think that their leaders were a united front.

  And he didn’t have time to argue with them. His mind had already moved on to the trip and how he was going to prepare for it—as well as whether he was going to dedicate any of his precious time in Las Ramblas continuing to look for Evie.

  Chapter 15

  At sunrise the next morning, Garrett was already on his way toward Las Ramblas. He’d been up for two hours already, preparing, and was confident that he had everything he needed.

  The surplus of gasoline in their storeroom meant that he could avoid the hassle of going to any parking lots or car-heavy areas. His plan today was to go straight to the neighborhood where Evie had lived. He’d get into her house again and search one more time—while grabbing anything he hadn’t taken before. From there, it would be a process of going into each house, grabbing whatever he could, and loading it into the truck before he moved to the next house, then repeating the process for as long as he could.

  He’d decided that he would stay in Las Ramblas for as long as it took until he reached his goal of collecting a month’s worth of supplies. Once he had that much, he would head back. No point in staying and putting himself in even more danger for supplies they didn’t need.

  Putting himself in more danger. Yes, that was the part that he was refusing to think about. He knew this was a dangerous operation, and that it was even more dangerous because he’d insisted on coming on his own. But he wasn’t willing to put anyone else in danger. Not after what had happened to Bart.

  As far as he could see, there were also benefits to going on his own. Raiding with other people meant that you had to keep track of them, and wait around for them to show up when you wanted to leave. It definitely had drawbacks, especially in a situation where leaving quickly became important.

  If it was only him, on the other hand, he could leave the moment he felt something was wrong.

  He looked as far down the highway as he could see, straining his eyes for the sign that indicated he was nearly there. He thought he must be getting close, given how long it had taken him and Bart to get there on their last trip. As far as he was concerned, the sooner he got there the better. He was already feeling anxious about being so far away from his community when he knew there was someone hunting them.

  The first thing he saw when he drove into town was a body lying in the middle of Main Street. He slowed, biting his lip in confusion, and it wasn’t until he was nearly on top of the body that he recognized the kid that had let him and Bart go when they were last here. He’d been shot right between the eyes in what
could only have been an execution.

  It was an ominous sight. But he didn’t see anyone else around, and gunned the engine, heading for the neighborhood he wanted to get into first. He wasn’t going to take this risk and then leave empty-handed. The sooner he started collecting, the quicker he could leave.

  He turned right at the first street after the body, relying on his memory to lead him the right way, and sighed in relief when he saw the hacienda-style homes lining up in front of him. Yes, that was the one, right there. The first one on the corner. He wouldn’t have recognized it if he’d seen it anywhere else, but here, leading the march of a thousand other homes that looked just like it, he could see that it was the one he wanted.

  The house where Evie had lived. The house where she might still be hiding. And though he knew it was overly emotional and the opposite of rational, he could also feel that he’d transferred some sort of extreme importance to that. He’d lost Fawn. He wasn’t going to allow Evie to die out here on her own. Not if he could do anything about it.

  When he parked and turned the truck off, Garrett was surprised—and startled—to hear what sounded like a grunt coming from the back of the truck. He paused, confused and alarmed at the sound.

  Was someone actually back there? Or was his paranoia starting to play tricks on him?

  He grew still, listening closely, but there was no other sound, and after a moment he became convinced that he’d been hearing things. He was in the middle of a deserted city in the middle of the New Mexico desert, for God’s sake. How would anyone have happened to find their way into the back of a truck that hadn’t stopped until right now?