At Any Cost (Book 3): Bleak Horizons

by Fawkes, K. M.

  His heart skipped a beat at the thought, and then started hammering away again, and he bit his lip, wondering if anyone would even remember what he’d said to Steve. If anyone else had even heard it. He hadn’t said that he would step down—just that he would allow the people to decide. Would they have questions for him? Was that why someone was banging away at his door? Or had something happened, something that required some sort of immediate decision?

  Renewed hammering on the door had him jumping out of bed and grabbing for a T-shirt, then stumbling out of the bedroom and toward the stairs. He took them two at a time, his panic building as the knocking continued, and by the time he threw open the door he was ready for the worst news possible.

  Alice stood on the other side, her face flushed, and the rest of the night came flooding back to him. The fire pit after the scene with Steve. The things she’d said. Oh God, the fact that he’d tried to kiss her—and the fact that she’d practically run away from him to keep him from doing so.

  He cringed, then cringed again at the thought that she might have seen him do it. And in that moment, he knew he had to apologize. Had to somehow explain why he’d done what he’d done, and make it okay with her. She was the one and only person he truly trusted, and he couldn’t lose her over a stupid miscalculation.

  “Alice, about last night. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, I know what I was thinking, but I can see now that it was probably the wrong thing to think. And I want to offer my apologies. I don’t want anything to—”

  She reached out and shoved him right in the chest.

  “Save it,” she said. “I don’t want to hear your apologies. I need you to get dressed. Something’s happening at the schoolhouse, and you need to be there.”

  Garrett gaped at her for a moment, too surprised by this sudden change of direction to truly understand it, and it took another shove from her and a harried “Get dressed!” before he was moving quickly back up the stairs, his mind running through the possibilities. What was happening at the schoolhouse? Surely not the gang from Helen Falls. If they’d invaded, he would have heard shouts from the watch, gunfire, explosions, shouting…

  So if it wasn’t them, then what the hell was going on?

  The two of them rushed toward the schoolhouse, Alice still refusing to tell him anything, and arrived breathless to see that Steve had set himself up on the top step of the stairs to hold some sort of pep rally. His buddies were surrounding him—though they were keeping themselves to the lower steps, Garrett noticed—and were cheering him on, throwing up cries and pumping their fists with everything that he said.

  It was exactly like the jocks at his high school trying to rile people up for the game that night, he thought. Complete with the ruddy faces, and probably the hangovers. Only this was for something a lot more serious than a football game.

  “That man!” Steve suddenly yelled, pointing at Garrett upon his arrival. “He told me just last night that he would step down! He’s shown himself to be a less-than-stellar leader. A coward!”

  A roar from his friends—though Garrett noticed that the townspeople gathered between Steve and Garrett weren’t yelling along. It looked like everyone had been gathered, however, so the whole town was hearing this.

  “A traitor!”

  Another roar. But only from Steve’s friends.

  “Someone who has led us into trouble. Likely gotten some of us killed, in fact! Made trouble with the local bullies and given them a reason to hate us!”

  And at that, there was some murmuring in the crowd. Garrett didn’t like it—but he also couldn’t argue with them. He was carrying the guilt over Riley and Bart heavy on his shoulders, and he would have been a fool to think that no one else had had the same thoughts. But that didn’t make him a bad leader. It didn’t make him irresponsible. It made him a man who had tried to do his best, but had run into some trouble.

  It certainly didn’t mean that Steve would be a better leader, though that seemed to be exactly what Steve was building up to.

  “I say I should be the leader from now on!” Steve roared, confirming Garrett’s suspicion. “I should be the one making decisions! I’ve been in this town longer, I know you all better, and I swear that I won’t get any of you killed!”

  More shouting and cheering from Steve’s friends there, but Alice tapped Garrett’s hand and pointed with her chin at the people around them, and he could see what she was noticing: the people of the community didn’t look at all sure that Steve would make any sort of leader. In fact, more of them looked worried than not. They were glancing back at Garrett, as if they were wondering whether he was going to do anything, and casting doubtful—and even angry—glances in Steve’s direction.

  “Garrett has done nothing but scare us since he got here!” Steve screamed, practically frothing at the mouth now. “He came in and immediately started fearmongering. Well I ask you, what should we be fearing? We’re in the middle of the desert, in a country that has lost its government. No one is going to bother us. He’s been riling us up for nothing!”

  His voice broke on the final outburst, and Garrett almost gasped.

  “The man should have been a preacher, or a politician,” he muttered to Alice, who huffed out a laugh.

  Steve wasn’t finished yet, though.

  “He’s been scaring us to try to keep us from making any decisions of our own!” he shouted. “Telling us we had to flee when we have a perfectly good town right here. Telling us we have to be ready for something to happen when we’re what, four days along, and nothing has happened? Who would believe this man anymore? Who would want him at the front of our group?”

  Suddenly his voice dropped and he looked around at the crowd, arranging his face into a more responsible mask. “And that’s why I was so glad when he said he’d step down and hand over the reins to me. So glad he finally saw reason and bowed to my natural leadership abilities. We’ll be better off without him. And I have some changes I’m going to start making immediately. That group from Helen Falls isn’t coming. We’re going to stop with that foolishness right now and start cleaning up this town. Enough with these barricades! We want our furniture back in our houses, don’t we? We’re going to go back to life as it was before. Before Garrett and his friends came into the picture.”

  “I never told you I would step down,” Garrett called out, no longer able to hold his tongue. “I said that if everyone wanted it, I would consider it.”

  A ripple ran through the crowd, everyone growing stiff as they started to look back and forth between Garrett and Steve. Garrett felt Alice grow tense next to him, and flexed his own hands, balling them up into fists. If a fight was what Steve wanted, then he was going to give it to him. And everyone here seemed to know it.

  In fact, he was willing to bet everyone here had already chosen a side. Even if they didn’t realize it yet.

  Garrett was just taking a step forward, ready to get up the steps and come face-to-face with Steve and his ego, when a gunshot rang out and Steve fell to the ground, screaming in pain.

  Chapter 10

  Garrett yanked the gun from his waistband and dove for the side of the building, flying through the screaming crowd as people ran in all directions, shouting for their friends and family. He hoped they were all running for cover—if they were smart, that was exactly what they were doing—but just for the moment, he wasn’t worrying about anyone else. He was running for his own life.

  As the leader of the community, he was also keenly aware that he would be the first target in any shootout. The first to be shot—or the first to be taken hostage. Neither sounded appealing to him.

  He rammed his shoulder into the corner of the schoolhouse on his way by, and ducked down to his knees on the other side of the building, chest heaving and gun up in front of his face, finger on the trigger. Not two seconds later, Alice was next to him, her rifle at the ready.

  “Where are the shots coming from?” Garrett said, trying hard to listen. To his
ears, it sounded as if they were coming from everywhere.

  “Sounds like there are at least four guns,” Alice said. “I can’t pinpoint their exact locations but we definitely have multiple shooters.”

  “Dammit,” Garrett breathed.

  No one in the town was primed for an invasion. Those who had guns had probably left them at home when they were called to this stupid meeting by Steve.

  No one was prepared because he’d wanted to get up there and brag.

  “That idiot has backed us into a corner, and half of us are here unarmed,” Garrett groaned.

  He peered around the corner and glanced quickly across the square in front of the schoolhouse. Everyone had fled, thank God, and he could see several of the townspeople peeking around corners, their guns up and ready. At least some of them were armed. But not nearly enough of them.

  Even worse, they hadn’t had any warning—which meant they hadn’t been able to use any of their explosives on the outskirts of town. They might have caught some gang members in their traps, but not enough of them.

  “Wait a minute,” he said suddenly.

  He started scuttling backward on his butt, moving quickly toward the back of the schoolhouse, where it hit the desert. From there, he knew, he’d be able to see the front of town, the place having been built on a fairly even square. From the back of this building, he should be able to see the guards—the men who should have been guarding the town.

  When he arrived at the opposite corner and looked one way, toward what he thought of as the front of town, and then the other way, toward the other end of Main Street, he saw… nothing. Ben and Greyson had been on watch, he remembered, seeing the schedule in his mind’s eye. Ben on one side, Greyson on the other. They’d always taken the night shift because they were some of the best with guns. Manny and Garrett had been their backups.

  But he didn’t see either one of them in their places at the ends of Main Street.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  Shots were ringing out from all around him, now, and people were screaming. His people were screaming. Garrett didn’t see any bodies outside of town, but he was guessing that Greyson and Ben were both either dead or taken prisoner. And it didn’t take much to guess at who had done it.

  He’d known the Helen Falls gang was going to arrive to take their revenge. He’d put plans in place to be ready. But those plans depended on some sort of warning—or the guards at least calling out when the bikers arrived. Each guard had been armed with a flare, specifically to light the explosives at either end of Main Street. The explosions should have not only alerted the townspeople but also thrown any invaders off their game.

  He had no idea how the bikers had managed to sneak up on both Ben and Greyson. But that also didn’t matter right now. What was done was done, and Garrett had to figure out how to save his people.

  He scuttled back up to where Alice was still sitting, his shoes filling with sand, his breath coming hard and heavy.

  “Ben and Greyson are both gone,” he said. “The Helen Falls crew must have surprised them.”

  He snuck an eye back around the corner and looked desperately out into the street, in one direction and then another. He needed to know where those shooters were. He needed to know how many of his people were armed—and how many were already hurt, or dead.

  “And now we’re in trouble,” Alice confirmed. “And half of the guns are still in the houses. God.”

  Garrett blew out a quick breath. “Exactly.”

  At that moment, he realized that Steve was still out there—and alive. It looked like he’d been shot in the leg, because he was desperately crawling for cover, one leg dragging out behind him as he worked his arms to drag himself forward. The sand around him was flying up in spurts, though, as bullets hit the ground surrounding him. At this rate, he wasn’t going to make it.

  And though he might have been Garrett’s enemy in town, he was still a member of the community. Garrett wasn’t going to let him be shot like that.

  He was up and moving into the square before he could question the decision, his gun shoved into the waistband of his jeans and his feet flying over the sand, his hands over his head as he ducked for some sort of cover.

  He swerved back and forth as he ran, hoping it would make him a more difficult target—and that those bikers weren’t actually very good shots—and didn’t even slow down when he reached Steve. Instead, he snagged the man’s shoulders on his way by, jerking the man to his feet and then hauling him along as he made for the corner of another building, and the shelter it promised. Steve was screaming in pain and horror, but still Garrett didn’t slow down.

  At least he was still screaming. If he was shot again, whatever chances he had would be gone.

  When they slid around the corner and skidded to a halt in the sand, he turned and saw why Steve had been screaming. It wasn’t his leg that had been shot. It was his body.

  A wound gaped in his stomach, the blood spurting in a way that made it look like some major vessel had been hit. Potentially an artery, given the amount of blood and the spray. Garrett might not have had any medical training, but he did know that being able to see the man’s intestines was a bad sign. If those were ruptured, there was no way they would be able to save him. They had virtually no medical supplies left, and the bacteria in Steve’s intestines would likely contaminate the entire body cavity.

  The man was going to die. Dammit.

  Garrett put it on the back burner for the moment. He didn’t have time to mourn one of his own. He had to do what he could to try to save the others.

  He paused to listen for a moment, and realized that the gunfire was getting heavier, and though he might be imagining it—because how could you really tell—he thought the shots were coming from closer now. As if their assailants were actually getting closer to the square. They must have realized that Garrett’s people didn’t have many guns with them, and were only sporadically returning fire. They must have figured out that they had the upper hand here.

  Well, they weren’t all unarmed. He could see Shane and Manny on the other side of the square, each of them with a sniper rifle, each taking careful aim at someone. Wherever Alice was, she had a rifle as well, and Garrett was guessing she hadn’t hesitated to start using it. He had cover. Just not enough of it.

  He cast his gaze out into the street and the buildings beyond, wondering exactly where those guys were. They wouldn’t have made it into many of the buildings, he thought, which meant they must be out in the street or hiding around corners, just like he and his people were doing. And that should mean…

  Ah, there one was. At the side of the bank, shooting away as if his life depended on it, and not even bothering to aim. Well, that was his mistake.

  Garrett leveled his Glock in front of him, sighting down the barrel and breathing out as he’d been taught to do. He needed to make this one count. Couldn’t afford to miss, not with how scarce bullets were and how many bikers there might be out there. He shifted the nose of the gun slightly to the left, to take into account the fact that it would inevitably pull to the right with the pressure of the trigger, and then let off a shot.

  He barely had time to congratulate himself on the guy going to his knees when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

  He turned and found another biker on the other side of the street, just aiming his gun at what could have been any of the people from town. Garrett steadied himself and pulled the trigger again, though he didn’t aim as carefully this time. The bullet still hit, and the man flew backward into the wall, leaving a blood spatter on the concrete behind him, and was still.

  Then another flash of movement caught Garrett’s attention, this time from behind him.

  Whirling around, he found another biker right behind him, gun out and already pointed at Steve. The man pulled the trigger, killing Steve with a bullet to the head, and then looked up at Garrett, his eyes wild.

  Garrett bit the inside of his cheek. Lance. Here with the b
iker gang, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that he’d been doing recon when he was here before. Trying to figure out how much weaponry the townspeople had—and probably even what they were doing to defend themselves. And Garrett had had him released into the desert. There was no telling when he’d come back, and whether he’d seen the defenses themselves. Hell, he was probably the reason the Helen Falls gang had known exactly how to get into Trinity Ranch without triggering any alarms.

  He should have known that guy was a liar and a cheat. Should never have given him the benefit of the doubt.

  Well, that ended right now.

  Garrett jerked his gun up, aimed, and pulled the trigger twice, sending bullets right into Lance’s face. The man fell without a sound, flying back into the sand and seeming to crumple in on himself, and then Garrett was whirling around and moving again. There was nothing else he could do for Steve. He needed to start gathering the rest of his people and getting them the hell out of town before the bikers took them hostage—or killed them outright.

  Chapter 11

  Garrett ran into the street, uncaring about the bullets flying past, and made straight for one of the corners. He could see the flash of bullet fire coming from the shadows there, and that meant only one thing: someone was shooting from that area. Given that they were shooting toward the schoolhouse, they weren’t one of the townspeople.

  He didn’t have a plan. Not yet. But whatever he did, it had to start and finish with taking out as many of the bikers as he could.

  He raced past several bodies, not slowing down to look at who they might be, and skidded to a stop directly next to the corner where he’d seen the muzzle flash. Just on the other side of the wall from him—not two feet away—would be one of the bikers. A biker who was trying to kill his people, and therefore needed to die.