Ella was staring at Rhett.
Adam followed her gaze. Rhett was shaking slightly, and his gun was held out at the place Chase had stood a moment before.
Several thoughts piled their way into Adam’s brain all at once.
Rhett shot him.
That sound was a gunshot—it’s so much louder inside than it was on the beach.
They should have listened to me. I told them Rhett wouldn’t hesitate to kill.
The others, standing around him, seemed to be struggling to process what had happened too. Ella clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. Kathryn’s knees buckled and Langley grabbed her elbow to steady her, staggering slightly as he took her weight.
Adam himself felt as though his heart was racing a mile a minute, trying to batter its way out of his chest. This was what Ella had feared. This was the breaking point. An act of violence that could never be taken back.
The horror at what had happened seemed to balloon up and fill the kitchen. In reality, Adam was sure, it had only been two or three seconds since the gunshot, but it felt like minutes had gone by. Chase jerked on the floor, gasping in agony as blood pooled around him.
It hadn’t been like this on the boat. That man had been dead almost as soon as he’d hit the deck. But then, Adam thought, he had been half dead already. Chase had been healthy and alive.
God, was Chase really dying? Surely that couldn’t be true. Chase would be fine. Marsden would tend to his wounds and he’d get up, and everyone would finally see what Adam had been trying to tell them about Rhett. Maybe this would even be the final straw, the event that would make them all see how dangerous their habits were becoming.
Maybe they would reconcile, Adam thought wildly. Yes, they could hardly help it, could they? Tonight’s events would show them clearly the horror of failing to work together, and they would make a change. Everything was going to be fine—
Rhett let out a low moan and the gun slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor.
The sound seemed to spur everyone else into action. Ella dropped to her knees. Marsden raced forward to Chase’s side. “Olivia!” he snapped. “The first aid kit! Go!”
Olivia scampered out of the kitchen like a frightened squirrel.
Rhett took two steps backward, acting on what seemed to be instinct, moving farther from the McTerrells and closer to his own family. Langley moved half a step forward, as if trying to reach his twin, but he was weighed down by the burden of his mother, who had still not managed to get her feet under her.
Charles McTerrell dropped to his knees beside his son. “Chase?” he said, his voice ripe with anxiety.
“Dad—”
“It’s okay, son. Hang in there. Uncle Marsden’s got you, you’re gonna be fine.”
“It hurts—”
“I know. It’s okay. We’re right here.”
Chase let out a little gasp and his eyelids fluttered closed. The horrible jerks in his extremities subsided, and he lay still.
Charles looked over at Marsden.
Marsden closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Adam felt as if he was falling.
Chase McTerrell was dead.
Chase had been the one to sell him out to the others. Chase had planted evidence and had let everyone believe that Adam was guilty of the crime Chase himself had committed. When Adam had done nothing but try to help, Chase had thrown him under the bus.
But Adam had never wanted this. He knew what it was like to be an addict, to feel controlled by the substance you craved. Although he had never done anything as cruel as what Chase had done to him, he knew how it felt to watch yourself making bad decisions and to feel horrified by what you were doing. And to be unable to stop, because your need for your drug was so great.
He didn’t like or respect what Chase had done to him. But he understood. He could relate.
And now Chase lay dead on the kitchen floor.
Someone was crying. Adam wasn’t sure who. It wasn’t Charles, who was sitting back on his heels looking as though he couldn’t remember how to draw breath. And it wasn’t Rhett, who was rooted to the spot, shivering and looking as though he might collapse at any moment.
“Rhett,” Richard said, his voice suddenly sharper than it had been all night. “Go up to your room, son.”
But Charles’ head darted up at that. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a feral snarl. He looked more animal than human, and Adam was suddenly terrified. He grabbed Ella’s shoulder and drew back, pulling her with him.
Charles’ hand shot out and curled around the handle of a kitchen knife.
He wouldn’t, Adam thought, a thrill of dread coursing through him. He couldn’t.
But Charles McTerrell darted forward, moving with the speed and agility of a much younger man, and buried the knife to the hilt in Rhett Birkin’s stomach.
Rhett let out a surprised yelp and spilled forward onto the floor. Kathryn screamed. Langley let out a roar and dove at Charles, toppling him to the floor, pinning him down with one knee. He began to pummel the older man furiously, rage and grief warring for dominance in his features. Richard grabbed his wife and pulled her toward the pantry where Ella had slept.
The door opened and Olivia came in holding the first aid kit. She dropped it in shock as she took in the scene in the kitchen. Marsden reached out a hand for her, but she seemed unable to move. She pressed her back against a wall of cabinets, looking as if she’d like to climb into them and vanish altogether.
The pulses of blood emanating from Rhett’s stomach ceased, and the blood became a slow and steady trickle. He’s dead, Adam realized. The pulsing had indicated a heartbeat, and now Rhett’s heart had stopped.
Adam didn’t have the same feelings of regret and horror about Rhett’s death as he had had about Chase’s—Rhett was a murderer, after all, Rhett had wanted to play with life and death—but Adam had never wished him dead. Could all this be real?
Langley was sobbing, howling, even as he continued to beat Charles. Beneath him, Charles was bloody and unmoving. Adam suspected he had lost consciousness. But Langley seemed to be completely unaware of Charles’ condition. He was lost in his own anger and grief for his dead twin. There would be no stopping him from administering this beating until he felt satisfied, Adam thought. Anyone who tried to get in the way would no doubt become Langley’s next victim.
Adam felt sick. It was just like being back on the yacht, on that final, awful day. It was just like the moment when Cody had realized they had drugged him and had exploded with rage, attacking Artem and killing him. Already two men lay dead on the floor, and if things kept on the way they were going, Charles would be next. And then what? Would the Birkins let Marsden and Olivia walk away from this? Would Marsden and Olivia want to walk away? Or would the fight continue, as it had on the yacht, until only one was left alive?
And would that one person, whoever they were, be able to live with everything that had been done here today? Or would they, as Sara had on the yacht, decide to take their own life?
Would there be no survivors?
Was this what was bound to happen in this new world every time a group of people got together? Societies had gotten along in the past because everyone had agreed on the basics of how they ought to live. But in the wake of the virus and the EMP, the rules had changed. Everyone would have different ideas about how to go forward.
Perhaps it was inevitable, now, that violence would break out when people tried to coexist. Perhaps societies just weren’t possible anymore.
A gunshot sounded, staggeringly close to his ear. Adam thought he could actually feel the wind as the bullet sailed by him. The shock of it jerked him back to himself.
He had to get out of this kitchen before the violence turned in his direction.
Marsden McTerrell was working his way across the kitchen toward his niece, who was now hyperventilating. Langley was still occupied in his attack on Charles. Richard and Kathryn had reached
the pantry and barricaded themselves inside by toppling over one of the shelves.
And the path to the back door was clear.
Adam grabbed Ella by the hand and pulled her forward, the two of them dodging puddles of blood as they went. They emerged into the chilly night air and sprinted down the lawn, back toward the boathouse.
Ella seemed to have understood immediately what Adam meant to do. She took the lead, guiding him through the boathouse and out onto the dock. Adam spotted the duffel bag full of supplies she’d packed—it was still on the ground where she’d dropped it on their first trip down this way—and he slung it over one shoulder.
Ella vaulted easily into the boat. “Untie that,” she said pointing to a rope that connected the boat to the dock.
Adam knelt to untie it. It was a tough knot and his fingers kept slipping. The harder he tried to loosen it, the tighter it seemed to become.
Finally, Ella nudged his hands out of the way. “Let me,” she said. “And hold onto the side of the boat so it doesn’t drift away.”
That he could do.
He squatted on the dock, holding the boat with both hands and looking up at the clubhouse, terrified that at any moment angry Birkins and McTerrells would come pouring out, wondering where Adam and Ella had gone, pistols and knives waving in the air.
“Get in,” Ella said tightly, holding out a hand.
Adam took it and clambered into the boat. He and Ella carefully pushed off against the dock, guiding the boat out into deeper water. He dropped the backpack on the deck.
“Oh, good,” Ella said, noticing it. “I thought I’d lost—”
The sound of gunshots interrupted her mid-sentence. Adam hunkered against the deck, Ella beside him.
“Who do you think that was?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No idea.”
“I guess someone’s still alive, though.”
Adam nodded. “I can’t believe it,” he said quietly. “I can’t believe everything went to hell so quickly.”
“No,” Ella said. “It wasn’t quick at all. Things have been falling apart for a long time.”
He supposed that was true. Looking back, it was easy to see the pattern of hate and bitterness, anger and violence. Hadn’t Rhett Birkin pulled a gun on him the moment he’d arrived on the island? He should have known then, he supposed. He should have realized they were on a very dangerous track.
But he had wanted so badly to believe that something good could happen. He had wanted to believe that he’d found a safe place with kind people, a place where he could stay and start to build something instead of watching everything he had always known and relied upon fall apart.
A current caught the boat and they began to move more quickly, the wind whipping at their clothes. Adam took a seat in the front of the boat, leaning back against its side and staring back at the island. How had the fight progressed? Had anyone gotten out?
He was willing to bet on Richard Birkin, at least, making it—the man seemed like a consummate survivor and like he wouldn’t allow anything, even the death of his sons, to prevent him from protecting his own life. Adam hoped fervently that Marsden and Olivia had also made it. Neither of them had ever done anything to him, and the thought of little Olivia McTerrell lying dead in that bloodbath of a kitchen made the whole thing categorically more horrible.
Ella was adjusting the boat’s sail, trying to catch the wind. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she confessed.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Where are we going? Back to the mainland?”
She nodded. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”
“Do you even know which way it is?” Adam asked. He was no longer sure. He’d gotten so turned around by the storm that had resulted in his washing up on this island that he couldn’t have said which way he’d come from.
“I’ve got a compass,” she said.
“How do you have that?”
“It was on the boat.” She showed it to him. “This boat used to have one of those electronic tracking systems, but it’ll be dead now, of course, just like everything else.”
“Right.”
“But we’ll make it back.” Her voice pitched up slightly, and it seemed to Adam that there was a quaver in it. “We’ve got enough food to last us a while, and then we’ll be back on the mainland and…and we’ll just have to figure it out from there.”
He got up, went to her side, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She was shaking as badly as he was. Their systems must be flooded with adrenaline, he realized, after everything that had happened.
He felt vaguely sick and out of control. But he knew he had to pull it together. He had to stay strong if he was going to survive.
“Keep looking forward.” That was what Artem would have said. “Don’t focus on what’s behind you.”
Artem was gone now, but his advice had seen Adam through his worst days on the yacht. Adam would lean on that wisdom again now.
They turned toward the horizon and the sun began to rise.
TO BE CONTINUED
KEEP READING FOR A SNEAK PREVIEW OF ESCAPE THE DARK BOOK 3: INTO THE RUINS
Into the Ruins
Chapter 1
July 18, 2026
Adam had thought that putting the Santa Joaquina Country Club, the Birkins and the McTerrells, and everything that had happened on the island behind him would make him feel better. He had expected to feel more hopeful about his prospects as the island receded into the distance.
He had been wrong.
Things had started to go wrong almost from the outset of the voyage. As the sun had come up, he and Ella, the Birkins’ former housekeeper and now Adam’s companion on his escape from Santa Joaquina, had hoisted the sail of the small boat they had taken to find a neat rip right down its center.
“Was it always like that?” Adam had asked, watching it flap in the breeze.
“Definitely not.”
“Do you think Rhett did it?” Rhett Birkin had definitely been hiding out in the boathouse, and it had occurred to Adam that he might have been doing more than just tracking them as they tried to make their escape.
“Why would Rhett do that?” Ella asked.
“Why would Rhett do any of the things he’s done?” Adam said. “I saw him kill a man. Nothing would surprise me now.”
“That’s true.”
“If he suspected we were going to take the boat—and it seems like he did—he might have acted impulsively to stop us from getting away.”
“But he’d have been hurting himself, too,” Ella reasoned. “Because he cared about keeping the boat more than he cared about stopping us from leaving, didn’t he? And if the boat was damaged—”
“They still could have used it for fishing.” Adam pointed to the two oars that were tied against the hull. “It wouldn’t have been hard to row it offshore manually and fish that way.”
Ella nodded, understanding. “Getting back to the mainland will be a lot harder, though.”
“Right. Exactly.”
That had been hours ago. They had passed most of the day in silence, taking turns sitting at the front of the boat and peering out, looking for signs of the mainland. It felt optimistic to Adam to be looking for land already—they had just set out, after all—but he couldn’t seem to help it. It became even harder after the island disappeared into the distance behind them. There was nothing to orient them but the compass Ella had found, and even though he was fairly certain it was leading them in the right direction, it was frightening not having any visible guideposts to rely on.
And the sun was going down now.
They didn’t have anything to use for light. Back at the Santa Joaquina, they had been dependent on candles at night, and Ella, in her panic, hadn’t thought to bring any with her when she had packed the duffel bag for their escape. There were lights on the boat, of course, but they wouldn’t wor
k. Thanks to the EMP that had been set off two weeks ago, nothing electric functioned anymore.
At least that included the nanobots, Adam thought. It was hard to believe that just weeks ago he had been worried about contracting the deadly nanovirus. The bots had been invented as a means of curing all human illnesses, but they had done their job too well—they had perceived human aging as a threat and had begun attacking the hosts’ bodies. First, people who had received nanotech injections began to die in droves. Then the death toll had spread to include people who had never gotten the injection, indicating that the nanobots were communicable, like a virus.
So many had died, and the world would never be the same. Adam had lost his mother and stepfather. He hadn’t been close with them—had been estranged from them, more or less—but he wouldn’t have wanted to see them go like that. He assumed everyone he had known on the mainland was dead as well.
He’d made new friends—a new kind of family—on his friend Cody’s yacht, where they’d retreated to escape from the plague. But the stress of adapting to their new life—and of kicking a serious drug habit—had gotten to Cody, and things had turned violent. By the time Adam had washed up on Santa Joaquina Island, he had been the only survivor from the yacht.
And then things on the island had turned violent, too.
The EMP had killed off all electronic devices, which gave him every reason to believe that the nanobots were all dead. That plague couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. But in exchange, Earth had been returned to the Dark Ages.
Was there no safe place left?
Ella seemed sane so far, and Adam trusted her as much as he could trust anyone. But he had only known her for a few days, really. As much as he wanted to believe in her, he couldn’t allow himself to forget how little they knew of each other.
Now here they sat, together in a tiny boat with no sail, rocking over placid waves. They might as well be the only two people left in the world.
Escape The Dark (Book 2): Fearful World Page 16
