Do or Die

  Escape the Dark Book 5

  K. M. Fawkes

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  K. M. Fawkes Mailing List

  Also by K. M. Fawkes

  Copyright 2020 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.

  Chapter 1

  Adam Parkhead stared in shock as Colonel White put the Humvee in gear and pulled into the center of the road.

  He should be dead, he thought blankly. He should have died.

  He glanced out the window at the canteen that now lay abandoned by the side of the road, the canteen that Colonel White had drained before tossing it away. That canteen had been given to Adam by President Knight, the leader of what remained of America’s government in the wake of the nanovirus that had eliminated so much of humanity and thrown the rest into chaos.

  That canteen had—allegedly—contained a deadly poison.

  Could Knight have been setting me up? Adam wondered. It felt as though his thoughts were coming too slowly, crawling through molasses, struggling to be realized. He said he wanted me to use that poison to kill General Thompson. But what if it was never poison at all?

  What purpose would a lie like that possibly serve?

  He could have been testing me to see whether or not I’d follow through, Adam thought. Maybe he’s still planning to help me—and Ella and the others—get away from Thompson’s militia base, but he needed to see me prove myself first.

  If that was the case, he was out of luck. He wouldn’t be able to even try to poison General Thompson, whether the poison was real or not, because he didn’t have it anymore.

  Colonel White turned in his seat a little, looking over his shoulder at Adam. “So,” he said. “You told the president about the general’s demand.”

  “I told him California wants to secede from the union”—Adam sketched air quotes around the phrase—“and that General Thompson would blow us all up with his makeshift nuke if he didn’t get his way. Yeah.”

  “I told you Riddick’s boys turned him,” White growled at Lieutenant Briggs, who was watching with concern. “You hear how he talks to me? Like he’s forgotten who’s in charge?”

  “President Riddick is dead,” Adam reminded them. “I already told you. Knight is in charge now.”

  “Knight. That idiot couldn’t lead a horse to water.”

  “And I’m not on his side.”

  “Then quit mouthing off.”

  Adam sat back in his seat and stared out the window.

  “Well?” White snapped.

  “Well what?”

  “What did he say?”

  “Colonel,” Briggs said quietly. “Keep your eyes on the road, sir.”

  “Why? In case of oncoming traffic?” White sneered.

  How could he joke about the fact that there was no one left alive? How could he find that funny? Adam hated General Thompson and his threats and machinations, but at least he took things seriously. At least he seemed to recognize the dire severity of the situation they were in. Colonel White behaved as if the whole thing was a big joke at somebody else’s expense.

  It was maddening. When Adam thought of all that he’d been through, only to end up in this Humvee with this man who was somehow able to laugh about the state of the world, he saw red. So many people had been lost. Adam’s mother. His best friend, Cody. His mentor, Artem, who had given him such crucial advice when it came to survival in this decimated world. Even the Birkins and the McTerrells, entitled country clubbers who had ultimately let their family rivalries drive them to murderous violence…they had taken Adam in when he’d washed up on their shores.

  In a decent world, all those people would still be alive.

  In a decent world, this road would be bustling, full of traffic, of people trying to reach destinations. Other people. Loved ones.

  In a decent world, Colonel White would have to shut up and keep his eyes on the road.

  Just as the thought took shape in Adam’s mind, White stomped on the Humvee’s brake hard. The vehicle jerked to a stop and Adam was thrown forward in his seat, the safety harness cutting into his shoulders.

  Damn thing stops on a dime, he thought dumbly.

  But why had they stopped?

  Briggs appeared to be confused too. “Colonel? What’s going on?”

  White didn’t answer. He threw open the driver’s-side door and spilled himself out onto the shoulder, hands on his knees. Adam leaned forward to see what was going on.

  White retched.

  Was he going to throw up?

  “You okay, Colonel?” Briggs called. “Need some water?”

  White waved a hand behind him as if to tell Briggs to leave him alone for a minute. He staggered slightly to one side and gagged again.

  Oh, God, Adam thought suddenly. The poison.

  He was certain as soon as the thought came to him that he was right. This was it. He hadn’t been tricked after all. President Knight hadn’t been playing him or testing him. The poison had been real all along, and now it was taking effect. It just must have been slower acting than Adam had originally expected.

  He felt a strange hollow sensation in his stomach. I killed him, he thought, the idea seeming to come from far away. He felt as if he were two people. One of him was sitting in the Humvee, watching the final moments of Colonel White life play out before his eyes. But he was also floating somewhere in the middle distance, outside of his own body, detached, watching himself commit a heinous crime.

  I murdered him, and he doesn’t even know it yet.

  White staggered, then dropped bonelessly to the dirt by the side of the road.

  “Colonel!” Briggs jumped out of the truck and ran around the front, dropping to his knees in the dirt. “Are you all right, sir?”

  Adam felt frozen, immobile, as he waited for Briggs to discover what he himself already knew.

  I killed him.

  No. I didn’t kill him. Not really. I was carrying the weapon that killed him, but he took it from me and impaled himself with it. I’m not guilty, any more than I would be if he’d slit his own throat with my knife.

  But that wasn’t true. White would have understood what a blade would do to him. He’d had no way of knowing that there was poison in the canteen.

  And I didn’t tell him.

  I couldn’t have told him. He would have killed me.

  Adam shivered. Was he a murderer, or had he simply been acting in self-defense?

  And does it matter? I was going to give that poison to General Thompson either way.

  He hardly recognized himself.

  He had left people to die since all this had started. He had even been party to deaths—he would never forget the fact that he was the one who had been holding his best friend Cody down when he had been strangled. But this felt different. This hadn’t been passive. This hadn’t been impulsive. Adam had carried the poison away from the president’s bunker like a loaded gun.

  And I always meant to pull the trigger. It’s just that I hit the wrong target.

  Outside the Humvee, Lieutenant Briggs was getting slowly to his feet. Adam watched as he dusted off the knees of his pants, staring off into the distance. Right now, the realization must be settling over him that his commanding officer was gone. He was in charge now.

  Briggs was always nicer than White. He had never exactly been an ally to Adam, but he had certainly been more sympathetic. Adam felt a brief glimmer of hope.

  Briggs climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut, and turned to face Adam. His face was a mask of fury.

  “You did this,” he hissed. “You killed him.”

  “What—what do you mean?” Adam asked. How could he possibly know?

  Briggs was practically vibrating with rage. “I don’t know how you did it, but I know it was you.”

  “You’ve had eyes on me the whole time,” Adam protested helplessly. If Briggs had any proof that his accusations were correct… He’ll shoot me where I stand, Adam thought. He’ll think I killed White on purpose—no one would ever believe it was an accident—and he’ll probably assume White was right, and that I’m working with the president now.

  Of course, the truth was an even worse betrayal. Adam hadn’t been trying to harm White, but he had certainly intended to use the poison on General Thompson. And if that ever came out, Adam knew his life would be as good as over.

  Somehow, I have to make Briggs believe that I didn’t have a hand in this.
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  He thought of Ella, who was back at the compound, waiting for Adam to return and tell her he had secured their freedom. She was counting on him. No matter how overwhelming the odds seemed, he couldn’t give up. Not while there was still any chance of getting her out from under General Thompson’s thumb.

  So he looked Briggs in the eye. “I couldn’t have done anything to Colonel White,” he lied, hoping the waver in his voice didn’t sound suspicious. “I came up the road and I got in the truck, and I’ve just been sitting here. You’ve been watching me. I never had the time.”

  Briggs looked momentarily stymied.

  Adam allowed himself to hope.

  Then Briggs shook his head. “I don’t know what you did,” he said. “And I don’t know how you did it. But I know you did something. Healthy people don’t just die for no reason!” He slammed his hand against the dashboard in righteous fury.

  Adam didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t further incriminate him, so he sat silently.

  “Colonel White was right,” Briggs said through gritted teeth. “It was the president, wasn’t it? He turned you against us. Whatever you did, you did it on his orders. He never trusted you to go into that bunker. I was stupid. I thought you’d play your part honestly. I believed you, damn it.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Adam protested. “All I’ve done is what you told me to do. I don’t know what happened to Colonel White.” In spite of the fact that he was lying, he was beginning to feel defensive. Briggs had no proof. He was making baseless accusations.

  “The general will deal with you,” Briggs said. “I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

  Adam reached for the door handle, thinking that this might be his only chance to run.

  Briggs gave a low, unfriendly chuckle. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not going anywhere,” he said, and Adam heard the clunk of the door locks. “You made your bed. Now you’re going back to the general. You’ll be lucky if he lets you live long enough to try to explain yourself. He might just shoot you on sight.”

  Adam swallowed.

  “Then again, maybe I’m wrong,” Briggs said, and Adam heard a rasp of emotion in his voice. “General Thompson cares for his men, you know. He won’t be inclined to show you any mercy. If I were you, I might be praying to be killed quickly.”

  Adam tried the door handle. The door didn’t open. Of course it won’t. It was a military vehicle. The driver had to have the ability to control the rest of the door locks.

  And he couldn’t run anyway. He couldn’t abandon Ella. She was waiting for him. She was counting on him.

  Even if I’m probably going to be killed, he thought. Even if there’s almost no hope of survival, I have to go back to her. I can’t leave her to the general’s mercy, because he doesn’t have any.

  Maybe he would be able to convince Thompson that he hadn’t had anything to do with White’s death, Adam thought. After all, there was no proof. There was only Briggs’ accusation.

  An accusation that just happens to be correct.

  As Briggs put the vehicle in gear and pulled back out onto the road, another frightening thought occurred to Adam. Not only was he being called to account for a crime he had never intended to commit, but he was also being followed by President Knight’s men. They would be watching him, waiting to see if he did what he had been ordered to do. Waiting to see if he gave the poison to General Thompson.

  They must have seen what happened by the side of the road just now, Adam thought. If they’re following anywhere nearby, they would have seen White die. And even if they didn’t actually witness what happened, I’m sure they’ll come upon his body. They’ll see him dead, and they’ll realize the poison isn’t going to make it to the intended target.

  But would they blame Adam for that?

  He was afraid they might.

  And what was more, he thought, they might still expect him to carry out the mission he had been given. They might still expect him to kill General Thompson.

  How the hell was he going to do that without a stealth canteen of poison?

  But maybe he was going to have to find a way.

  At this point it might be him or me, he thought grimly. Either I take out Thompson or he’ll have the chance to punish me for White’s death. And if Briggs is right, he’s probably going to assume I’m guilty and kill me for it.

  He and Ella had been together for too long to give up on each other now. He couldn’t run out on her, and he couldn’t give up and allow her to live under the oppressive regime General Thompson was cultivating.

  And he couldn’t let the nuclear weapon Thompson had built be set off either.

  So in the end, there was only one choice.

  He was going to have to find a way to kill General Thompson.

  Loath though Adam was to commit any further murders—haunted as he was by the deaths that had already occurred at his hands—survival had to come first. His own survival, and that of the people he had aligned himself with. Ella, who had been with him through thick and thin. Her sister Julie, long lost, now finally found again. And Julie’s son Matty, too young for the horrors of this new world.

  That was what Artem had taught him during the long weeks they had spent on Cody’s luxury yacht, in self-imposed quarantine against the nanovirus, before the government’s EMP blast had finally killed the nanobots for good.

  Survival always had to come first.

  So Adam would bide his time. He would cooperate. And at some point, he would be taken to General Thompson to face a reckoning for what had happened to Colonel White.

  And then he would act. For the sake of his and his friends’ survival, Adam Parkhead would do what had to be done.

  Chapter 2

  “Hey. Wake up.”

  Adam blinked awake. The vehicle, which had been rumbling down the highway for hours now, had come to a stop. Briggs knelt before him, fastening a zip tie around his wrists. It was painfully tight.

  “That hurts,” Adam said, squirming slightly.

  Briggs ignored him. “Get out,” he snapped, reaching around Adam to open the door.

  Adam pivoted in his seat and slid out gracelessly onto the ground. There was no point in trying to run, he saw immediately. They were already back within the perimeter of Thompson’s compound. Soldiers—armed soldiers—were everywhere.

  A moment later, Briggs was at his side, one hand firmly gripping his bicep. “Let’s go,” he said, marching Adam into the camp.

  Adam squinted into the setting sun. General Thompson was hurrying toward them. Briggs stopped before his commanding officer and saluted.

  “What’s wrong?” Thompson demanded. “Where’s White? And why is Parkhead tied up?”

  “Colonel White is dead,” Briggs said. “Cause of death unknown. He had an attack of illness, very suddenly, by the side of the road. But I know this traitor had something to do with it. It couldn’t have been anything else. Nothing else happened that could have killed him.”

  “He didn’t eat anything funny?” Thompson asked. “Unidentified berries, perhaps?”

  “Approved rations only,” Briggs said. “I ate everything he did.”

  “And he didn’t drink from an unsafe water source?”

  “No, we only—” Briggs trailed off suddenly. “The canteen.”

  Adam’s heart sank.

  “What canteen?” Thompson asked.

  Briggs gestured to Adam. “When he came back, he had a canteen, one we never gave to him. White assumed it was water and drank it. But it must have been contaminated!”

  Thompson faced Adam. “Is this true?”

  “President Knight gave me the canteen,” Adam said. “It was just water.”

  The look on Thompson’s face told Adam everything he needed to know: Thompson already knew that Riddick was dead. He’d known it this entire time, but had kept it to himself.

  “Did you ever see him drink from it?” Thompson asked Briggs.

  “No,” Briggs said. “He never drank any. And that doesn’t make any sense. He would have finished it before he got back to us if he had known it was safe to drink. He wouldn’t have saved it, knowing that we would have water for him when he returned.”

  “A poison,” Thompson said quietly. “And you’re right. His behavior suggests that he knew what it was. And he gave it to Colonel White?”

 

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