Survival of The Fittest | Book 3 | Final Ride

by Fawkes, K. M.

  Jerry shoved me into the room—evidently the ‘prison cell’ consisted only of this single room, though I guessed there could have been others—and then closed and locked the door, leaving me completely alone.

  And at that point, I started to realize why this was a separate room. Because no matter how much I shouted or banged on the door, no one came. And the slightly fuzzy echo of the room—that feeling that the sound of my voice was hitting something a whole lot thicker than it should be and then bouncing back at me—made me think that the room was, in fact, soundproofed.

  “Ah,” I said quietly when that thought occurred to me. “So, Daddy wasn’t all good after all.”

  Because if Dear Old Dad had been the one who'd built this bunker, and he’d included a soundproof room—maybe more of them, honestly, I didn’t know—then I was going to give myself some room to doubt his motivations. I’d thought he had been so good-hearted, saving everyone in the amusement park before he even saved himself.

  But in my experience, good people didn’t build soundproof rooms unless they were musicians or into sound recording of some type. And I didn’t think Daddy-o had built this bunker as one big recording studio.

  I didn’t know how long I spent in that jail cell, but I did stop trying to shout loud enough for anyone to hear me. It didn’t make any sense to scream myself hoarse when no one had any prayer of noticing. Instead, I sat myself down in the corner and tried to build a plan. Tried to catalogue everything I knew, and everything I was guessing at.

  As long as I was sitting around cooling my heels, I figured I might as well be doing something. And coming up with a way to get out of this place seemed as good a task as any.

  The facts were: Adam was crazy, and this according to someone who had evidently once been his best friend. He’d been jealous of his dad’s amusement park and upset that he hadn’t been allowed to help run it—which his dad had probably done because he knew Adam was insane and he didn’t trust him. But Adam had evidently known about the bunker underneath the amusement park, because as soon as the attack happened, he’d grabbed his friends and run for the safety of said bunker. Once they arrived, they found that his dad had saved everyone in the amusement park but himself.

  Dear Old Dad was dead. Hundreds of people were safe and sound in the bunker.

  And Adam had… what? Either seized the opportunity for a whole bunker full of slaves or seen the opportunity to do something else.

  Everything I’d seen was leading me to believe it was the ‘something else’ in that particular guess. Because the place was running like a smoothly oiled machine and Adam was collecting more people by the day. People he was sending out to do something specific.

  Something to do with the machinery and metal of the rollercoaster. Blueprints and architectural plans.

  But what?

  And while I was at it, why the hell had there been military gear in this place? Most of that stuff wasn’t commonly available to the public, especially in large amounts. I mean sure, you could buy a military-grade SUV if you were rich enough and could pull the right strings, but someone like Adam or his dad? Doubtful.

  Had this bunker actually been a military outpost at one time? Were they the ones who had built it, and then deserted it for some reason? And had Adam’s dad somehow… found out about it and built his amusement park right on top of it, on the off chance that there might one day be an attack with biochemical weapons that would make a bunker the cool thing to have?

  There was an awful lot of guesswork in that entire thought process… but at the same time, it made a certain amount of sense. Maybe the military had built this in case of a natural disaster, and then either run out of funding for the project (hey, it happened) or decided that no natural disaster was forthcoming. Maybe Adam’s dad had found out about it—somehow—and rolled it into his plans to build an amusement park.

  Yeah, it sounded like a big coincidence. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

  And if it had… I bit my lip and twitched. Hadn’t Zach said that a bomb went off right above the amusement park… and that Adam thought, through his delusional paranoia, that the bomb had been meant for him? That seemed like another awfully big coincidence. Because who the hell bothers to bomb an amusement park in the middle of nowhere when you have the entire world to choose from for targets?

  Unless. If there had been military compound here, and the cult had known about it, then the spot absolutely made sense as a target.

  Too bad the military compound had been deserted, and replaced with a fairly innocent amusement park. Full of innocent people.

  Adam thought that bomb had been meant for him. But if my guesswork was correct, it had been meant for the military. And if that cult had managed to hit this spot, then they’d certainly managed to hit the hundreds of military bases that sat above the ground.

  I was starting to really doubt whether we’d ever find anyone from law enforcement or the military again. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that they were all dead. Which was… you know, a blow to my entire plan. And as such, I put it out of my brain for the moment. After all, it wouldn’t matter if they were all dead if I was doomed to die in this stupid bunker.

  I had to get out of here. Now, what information did I have that would help me do that?

  Not much at this point, I realized. And I was in here alone, with Will out there injured, being forced to do God-knew what in this screwy carnival world run by a guy almost as crazy as my uncle—and, I was afraid, twice as dangerous.

  Chapter 19

  Like I said, I didn’t know how long I sat in there, but it was long enough for me to start getting not only hungry but also really worried. I’d thought about trying to pick the lock, but I didn’t have any tools for that. Plus, Will had never actually gotten around to teaching me. It’s not like we’d had much down time together for teacher-student lessons.

  I hated being trapped in the best of circumstances—not that there are any good circumstances for being trapped—but when my one and only friend was still out there at their mercy, and I didn’t know whether they were ever going to come let me out at all, it was even worse.

  I did have the drill, of course, and I was just trying to figure out whether I could actually take the entire doorknob mechanism apart with it when that door was suddenly yanked open right in front of me. And there was Jerry, looking down and shaking his head, a piece of a smile hiding at the corner of his mouth.

  “Why am I not surprised that you’re trying to undo the thing that’s keeping you enclosed?” he asked, his tone almost joking. “Get up. You’ve been summoned.”

  I got to my feet, too tired and hungry to really argue with him at this point. “Is it to the dinner table?” I asked hopefully. “I’m starving.”

  “Food after,” he said in what sounded like it might actually be a promise.

  I marked this down as further proof that the guards might not be as happy as Adam thought they were—and further, that they might be allies, sort of, if I could figure out how to use them—and then followed him out of the room. No, I wasn’t going willingly, and I wasn’t letting down my guard. But I wanted out of that room. And if Jerry was offering me a way, then I was going to take it.

  I already knew I wasn’t getting dinner right away. But it broke my heart a little bit to pass right by the dining room and see everyone else eating. I let my eyes roam quickly over the room as we went by the doorway, looking desperately for Will—feeling like I was missing an important piece of myself the longer we were separated, and worried about whether he’d even made it through the day—but I didn’t see him.

  And then we were past the dining room and marching toward Adam’s library. And I have to admit that I was wondering more than a little bit about whether this was going to be my last march. Adam didn’t like me, and at this point I’d done nothing but make trouble for him. I’d started out our acquaintance by asking question after question, and had since then broken out of my room, broken into h
is office, escaped the work duty he’d assigned me to, spied on him and Zach, and then argued with him when I was turned in.

  I was trying not to think about it too much, but it wasn’t exactly hard to guess that his opinion of me was probably getting lower and lower. In fact, it wasn’t a big jump to think that at some point, he was going to decide that I was probably more trouble than I was worth. I gulped. Could it be that he’d already decided that? Could this actually be my walk toward my doom?

  I decided not to think about it—again—because even if it was my walk toward my doom, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Not really. And I didn’t like the idea of spending my last couple of minutes scared out of my mind.

  Instead, I focused on sending good thoughts toward Will, and then toward any friends who might have survived the attack. If I was about to die—and I didn’t want to think I was, but just in case—then I wanted whatever was good in me to go to the people I loved. The people I hoped would make it through.

  Then we were at the door to the library, a lot faster than I’d anticipated, and I started wishing I’d been paying more attention. Because we’d gotten there more quickly than Will and I had, and that meant there was another route. Some quicker, easier way to get from one end of the bunker to the other without having to pass through the dormitories.

  A route I would know if I’d been paying attention rather than daydreaming.

  I cursed myself as we walked through the door into the library itself, and was still cursing myself when we made our way into Adam’s office. To find Adam there, behind his big desk, flipping through his journal.

  Dammit.

  Any hope I’d had that he’d forgotten about that thing—and the fact that I’d seen it—flew right out the window. Because today, it seemed, was not a day when everything was coming up Michelle. Instead, I was having a whole boatload of bad luck.

  Adam glanced up, his face cool and his eyes emotionless, and looked me up and down once. And then a second time.

  I did my best not to fidget, and fought the urge to narrow my eyes at him and stick my tongue out. I hated it when people looked at me that way, like I was nothing more than an object. But I also didn’t want to get shot on the spot. So I was working hard to keep my mouth shut and my face just as neutral as his.

  Yeah, it was hard. And definitely went against my nature. But I wasn’t ready to die. Not today, and not here. Not like this.

  “Michelle,” he said quietly. “It seems you’re pretty good with electrical things.”

  He said it like it was a statement, but then paused… like he was waiting for me to give him some sort of answer.

  Well, he had another thing coming if he thought I was going to do that. Because I’d already decided that I had no intention of giving up any information if I didn’t have to. So instead, I just gave him a one-shouldered shrug.

  I saw his mouth twitch at that, and he gave a small nod. “You don’t have to answer. I’ve already seen the work you did on that box in the amusement park. And I know how quickly you must have done it. Zach and I spent quite a bit of time talking about just that, actually.”

  Okay, well technically, he was right. I was good with electronics and wiring. But that box? That had just been your basic hotwiring job. I didn’t mind if he thought it was impressive, but it was no big thing. Still, though, I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t going to interrupt him until I knew where exactly he was going with this. So far, I was just happy that I hadn’t been shot on the spot.

  I was also intensely interested in the mention of Zach. If I hadn’t been shot on the spot, was it Zach’s doing? Was he somehow pulling for me, trying to point out that I could be useful?

  And if so, why?

  At my continued silence, Adam finally decided, I guessed, that he’d done enough playing around. He knocked once on the wood of his desk and then stood, put his hands behind his back, and started to pace.

  “And though I thought you had outlived your usefulness—which you never really had in the first place—Zach is of the opinion that you might still help us. Since you’re good with wiring, he has a task for you. A more important task than walking the grounds of the park and figuring out how to take things apart. I suspect you know that that is just a waste of time.”

  He made this last statement with a slight smile, and I gave him an even slighter nod. Yeah, I’d figured that out. It didn’t mean I was going to help him with any information.

  He lost the smile when I didn’t return it. “My father had solar panels installed in the desert outside of the park,” he said firmly, his voice changing tone suddenly and becoming all business. “But they’ve never been finished. Or rather… they were never hooked up to the park itself. They are there, and functional, but not connected to the main grid. I want you to fix that. I want the park’s electrical grid to be rerouted to use those solar panels. We’ve already started the process, but we haven’t had anyone with the knowledge necessary to make it work, and it was going to take us months to figure it out. Now that you’re here, you can do it for us. I want to be able to run all the electronics here off those solar panels.”

  “Why?” I asked, giving him the most obvious question—and giving it to myself as well. Because he had plenty of electricity here, evidently. I don’t know how he was getting it, but the bunker, at least, was already running and fully charged.

  Although. If those panels were functional and at least partially hooked up, then it meant that he might be using them for the bunker. And now he wanted them to power the amusement park as well.

  But my question remained the same. Why? What was he doing that he needed that much electrical power?

  His mouth thinned at my question, like he’d been fine with giving me information but didn’t like that I was asking for more.

  Still, he did give me an answer, of sorts. “I want the park off the main grid, and I want it functional,” he said, his words clipped. “I want to be able to power the entire park, and more.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. “Why?” I asked again.

  I mean, it was a completely logical question. If he was planning to blow up the world, I figured I should get a choice in whether I helped or not.

  He took a deep, considering breath, wondering, I was sure, how much more he actually had to tell me to get my cooperation. Because he had to know that if I didn’t want to do this, I would refuse—even if it meant he shot me. He needed to give me enough to get me to agree to it.

  “I’m building something big,” he finally said. “And it requires power. That attack was meant for me, but I’m not going to let them get to me. I’m going to build protection for myself. For all of us.”

  Right, back to that old story. But still not enough for me to know what was actually going on here.

  “And if I refuse?” I asked. “I’m not going to help you do something that’s going to hurt anyone.”

  He walked right up to me, leaned in until we were only inches apart, and leered. “If you refuse,” he hissed. “I’ll have your boyfriend killed.”

  Then he made a motion toward Jerry, who jerked me around and marched me out of the room before I could ask him anything else.

  Chapter 20

  Jerry didn’t have anything else to say to me as we marched through the halls toward the residential wing—I knew now that we were heading in that direction, thanks to the map I was keeping in my head at this point—and I didn’t really ask too many.

  My mind was too busy trying to figure out what the hell Adam was up to. And how I was going to navigate my way through it. Hell, I’d been given a chance to live to see another day, but at what cost?

  What, exactly, was I going to be helping him build?

  When we got back to the bunk I’d been assigned to and opened the door, I found Will there, pacing quickly from one side of the room to the other. The moment he looked up and saw me, his face melted from pure tension into relief, and he darted forward, grabbed me up into his arms, and swung me around in a wi
de circle.

  “I have never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life,” he whispered into my ear.

  Okay, I admit it, the whole thing gave me chills. And I know I said that I wasn’t going to get romantically involved and I wasn’t a damsel in distress and all that.

  But God, was I happy to see him.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, squeezing with all my might, and didn’t even try to stop the tears from coming to my eyes. I’d been worried about him all day—on top of being worried about myself—and I’d thought there was a better-than-average chance that I’d been marching down that hallway to my actual doom.

  Even worse, I thought there was a good chance that he wouldn’t have come back from his work detail of the day.

  So, seeing the one person I thought I could trust? Yeah, it made everything feel like it just might be okay. For at least a few seconds.

  When he put me down, though, he put a hand to his shoulder, his face creased in a grimace, and I hustled him right over to one of the beds, where I pushed him down.

  “What are you thinking, swinging me around like that when you know you’re hurt?” I asked, my worry for him coming out as a snarkiness I didn’t mean.

  His grimace turned into something more like a grin as he looked up at me. “What, I’m supposed to sit around complaining about my wounds when you’ve been missing most of the day and didn’t even make it to dinner, and there are rumors flying that you were caught spaying—again—and were taken right to the prison room, whatever the hell that is, and that people thought you weren’t going to come back? You thought I’d just not worry about you? You thought I should just be A-okay with the whole thing, assuming you’d be fine and that I wasn’t left here alone?”

  I dropped to a seat next to him. “There were rumors?” I asked, half amused and half interested. “You mean people are actually starting to talk?”