The Divide: Origins (24 page)

After
about ten minutes, Max ordered them to charge the town. They massacred the few
remaining survivors. The battle was won, but it hadn’t come without cost.
Rebecca and Liam were back where they originally fired helping the wounded.
There weren’t many bodies, but Max figured that at least forty people had been
lost. He shook his head. Their deaths weren’t in vain because they were
protecting a town full of people they loved, but Max couldn’t help but feel
like all of this could have been avoided so easily. Why hadn’t the commander
left? He was clearly given a way out. Just before Max was going to walk back to
the wounded and dead, he heard a man laughing on the ground. He was a wounded
Raines soldier.

“What
do you find so funny?” Max asked.

“All
the people you love are going to die,” he said.

“What
are you talking about? We easily killed your company.”

“We
were only sent here to cut off any people trying to flee to the South. The
majority of our forces are hitting your town from the North as we speak.”

Max
put a bullet in his head and immediately ran to his car. He motioned for
Rebecca and Liam to get in. Then he addressed everyone.

“There
was a second force, and they’re headed for Norak. If you’ve got any medical
training, stay here with the wounded. Otherwise, come with me. Our people are
in danger,” Max said and got into the car.

“What’s
going on?” Rebecca asked as they drove away.

“One
of their men told me that they were only there to cut off any people running
away. We should’ve stayed put. This is
all my
fault. I
. . .”

“You
didn’t do anything wrong. The only reason you had us take the fight to them was
because you didn’t want a battle breaking out in our town.”

“And
how has that worked out for us? They don’t have any weapons back in Norak.
They’re sitting ducks. Everyone we love could die. That includes Zoe, you know.”

“That’s
not going to happen. It can’t,” Liam said in denial.

Max
sighed. He hadn’t thought about how that statement would affect Liam. Even if
he was starting to look like a man, he was still only a teenager. He had just
seen hundreds of people slaughtered, and now he was getting the news that his
girlfriend might be dead. How would I have handled this when I was his age, Max
wondered.

“I’m
sorry. You’re right. Zoe is a survivor. She always has been. Our house is on
the South edge of town, too. I’m sure she’ll flee if things get too bad,” Max
said in an attempt to make things better.

He
didn’t believe that Zoe would run away. She had grown to love Norak as much as
them. The people in that town meant too much to her for Zoe not to stay and
fight with them, even if that was a death sentence. Max put the petal to the
floor. They had to hurry. Zoe was like his daughter, and no one was going to
hurt his family if he could help it.

When
they got within view of the town, Max’s worst fears were confirmed. He could
see houses burning. The fighting had begun, and their people never stood a
chance. The smartest thing would have been to run, but they weren’t doing that.
Max was going to fight until he died or found the girl that his journey started
with. As Norak burned, he drove toward a moment that would define him forever.
Raines and
Norak’s
history was about to begin, and it
would be written in blood.

Chapter 24

No Regrets

When
Max and the others pulled into town, they saw that it had been easily taken
over. Without guns, the townspeople were forced to surrender without a fight.
That didn’t stop Raines’s men from killing some of them as an example. Bodies
littered the street. At least a couple hundred were dead. Max got out with his
weapon drawn, and the others followed suit.

“I
wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Troy said as he stepped forward with a gun to
Zoe’s head.

“We
can talk about this. What do you want with us?” Max asked.

“It’s
simple. I told you two years ago that your actions would have consequences. Now
they do. I want you and half of the supplies from this town. We’ve developed a
trade system in Raines. You can buy supplies with credits. I need the leader of
this place to agree that we’ll do business in the future. To be clear, if I
don’t like the business we’re doing, we’ll come back and take your supplies by
force.”

“We’ll
trade with you, but Max and our supplies are off the table,” Jacob said.

Troy
turned and fired a bullet into Jacob’s head. After he hit the ground, Troy
smiled and looked straight at Max. They were powerless. Max’s army was
outnumbered, and Troy’s people had found weaponry just as good as theirs.

“So
what’s it going to be? Do I have to keep killing people, or are you going to
give me what I want?” Troy asked.

“I’ll
go with you, and the people in Norak will agree to a trade system. We won’t
give you any of our supplies, though. We need them to survive.”

“Wrong
answer, Max,” he said and fired a shot into an innocent bystander.

“Damn
it! Work with me here! I’m telling you that I’ll give myself up. Just leave
these people alone.”

“We’re
running a little low on food, so I can’t. How many do I have to kill before you
give in?”

“Just
shoot, Max. I would rather die than give in to these assholes,” Zoe said.

“Careful,
girl. I would hate to have to make you the next example,” Troy said.

“That
won’t be necessary. Everyone, lower your guns. We don’t stand a chance right
now. I’ll go with them, and they’ll take no more than half of what we have.
Anyone who interferes will only be hurting Norak and its people. This is how we
survive today,” Max said.

As
Max dropped his gun and walked toward them, Troy released Zoe. When she passed
Max, she gave him a look that clearly said
don’t
do this
. What else could he do, though? It was go with them or let everyone
die.

“I’ve
got to tell them the truth. Max can’t die because of what I did,” Liam said as
Zoe made it to him.

“You
can’t.”

“I
have to. I . . .”

“Liam,
I’m pregnant. That’s why I didn’t want you to go this morning, and it’s why
even if I love Max, you can’t sacrifice yourself for him. We’ll figure out a
way to save him.”

Liam
didn’t know what to say. He was in shock. Max was going to die, he had just
found out he was going to be a father, and men were taking their supplies. Zoe
was still looking at him expectantly, though. Even if the situation was almost
unbearable, she wanted some kind of reaction from him.

“At
least I found out one good thing today. I’m glad we’re having a baby. We need
to concentrate on what’s happening now, but we’ll talk more about this later,”
he said and refocused on the task at hand.

They
were forced to load Raines’s trucks with their supplies, and after they were
finally done, Troy told them one last thing that made Rebecca’s skin crawl.

“We’re
not going to kill him immediately. We’re going to show you what happens to men
who betray us. A piece of Max Green will be sent to you every day until you
have all of him,” Troy said and turned away.

As
they were leaving, Rebecca wanted to do something. She wanted Troy dead and her
husband returned to her, but what could they possibly do? They were outgunned
and outnumbered. Max was going to die a slow and painful death, and it was all
thanks to them. Liam had been the one guilty of killing Timothy, and it was her
who had just stood by and watched them take Max. She didn’t know what else to
do, but that still didn’t change the facts. She had watched the love of her
life walk away with men who were going to cut him into little pieces. Zoe felt
bad on some level, too. She had been the one to stop Liam from taking Max’s
place. It was understandable because he was the father of their child, but she
owed everything to Max. In some ways, she felt like she had betrayed him.

“How
are we going to fix this?” Zoe asked.

“I
have no idea. We need to get the fires out first. Then we’ll go after Max,”
Liam said.

“You
get people on putting those fires out. The runner up in the last election takes
power now by rule. I need to talk to him about what our next move is,” Rebecca
said and walked away.

She
found him and escorted him back to his house. His name was Matt Nolan, and he
had lost the last election due to Jacob being the brains behind everything they
were doing. Jacob being killed would have a terrible affect on their chances of
being able to complete the indoor city, but there was one good thing about Matt
taking power. He was a strong leader who was built to fight a war, and that’s
exactly who they needed.

“I
know what you want to speak with me about, but we can’t pursue Max right now,”
Matt said.

“Why
not? You heard what they said. They’re going to cut him apart piece by piece.
We can’t allow that,” Rebecca said.

“They
were only supposed to take half of what we had, and they did only take half the
food, but Raines decided they should completely disarm us. We have nothing to
fight them with. A small band of thieves could come into town right now and
take the whole place for themselves. Until we’re armed again, there’s no way we
can fight them.”

“Max
keeps a few pistols in our house. I know it’s against the rules, but he wanted
to keep some around in case a bad leader ever got into office. Maybe we can
send in a small team and . . .”

“No,
Rebecca. I know how personal this is to you, and I’m so sorry about your
husband, but attacking them while we’re weak will only make things worse.
They’ll come back and wipe us out if we do that.”

“Then
what are we going to do? I can’t sit around while he’s torn apart. I don’t see how
you can either. You ran on the fact that weakness will kill us in this world.
You wanted to make us strong. Now you finally have a chance to do that, and
you’re cowering at the thought of our enemies.”

“No
one is afraid of Raines. There will be a rescue attempt and retribution for
what happened today. There’s a military base several hours north of here. It’s
an entire day’s journey, and I don’t know if we’ll find anything there, but if
we do, we’ll be armed again. Then we can attack with full force and show those
people what a mistake it was to come here.”

“How
long until we can attack?”

“Three
days. We’ll need to give our gatherers two days to get what we need, and then
at least one day to prepare. If he’s alive after that, we’ll get Max back. I
promise.”

“He
recruited you. How can you wait three days? You do realize that he’ll be
missing three body parts by then, right?”

“It’s
all I can do. What would you do in my position? I can’t order our people to
attack without weapons. It would be suicide.”

“I
realize that, but I’m not sitting around. I’m taking the weapons I have and
rescuing him. Someone has to.”

“No,
you’re not.”

“Excuse
me? When did you start deciding what I could do?”

“When
I became the ruler of this town.”

“We
live in a free society, Matt. Good luck stopping me,” Rebecca said and walked
out.

She
went home and got the guns and a few rations for the road. As she was leaving,
three guards stepped onto the porch and grabbed her. They pinned her to the
floor and took her weapons.

“What
are you doing?” she asked.

“Mr.
Nolan has ordered us to keep you here and unarmed. If you leave this house
again, we won’t have a choice other than to shoot you.”

“This
is a free society. How can you think this is okay?”

“I
don’t, but we just went through a lot. The last thing this town needs is to
lose you, too. It’s the right call to keep you here, and you’ll thank us
later.”

“The
hell I will! Justify this however you want, but we’re sitting here while Max
dies. You’re all cowards.”

“Go
inside now, or we’ll be forced to make you,” the guard said.

Rebecca walked inside and slammed the
door behind her. She was frustrated. Were these men actually going to watch her
around the clock? She didn’t see how they could. It would be cold that night,
and there was no way she was letting them inside. They would have to go home at
some point. Unfortunately, she would learn that she didn’t have a choice other
than to let them come inside. The town was now under Matt Nolan’s control, and
the citizens had to do what they were told. A few got out of line but were
quickly put back in place. This wasn’t what Norak was supposed to become. Max
would know how to handle things, she thought as she sat on her bed that night.
He wasn’t there, though, and Rebecca had to find a way to make things right for
herself. For now, all she could do was wait on the gatherers to get back with
what she hoped would be an arsenal large enough to destroy every last person in
the city of Raines. She didn’t care which ones were innocent anymore. They had
taken the most important person to her, and Rebecca wanted to see all of them
die for it.

Downstairs, Liam and Zoe were avoiding
talking about the life growing inside her by discussing what had happened that
day.

“Do you think we’ll get Max back?” Zoe
asked.

“I know we will. He’s the toughest man
I’ve ever met. He’ll survive until we can get the supplies we need to rescue
him. I just hope they don’t cut off anything important at first.”

“I don’t even want to think about that.
He must be in so much pain right now.”

“He’s probably fine. It takes some time
to get back to Raines from here. I doubt they’ve even been back for long.
They’ll probably leave the torture for tomorrow. If we’re lucky, they won’t be
able to cut more than two parts off before we get there.”

“You say that so casually. For the past
two years, he’s been like a father to both of us. How can you
not
be in a panic right now?”

“He taught me to be composed in bad
situations. It certainly wasn’t something I knew how to do before we met, but
Max has brought out the best in me. Of course I feel panicked inside, but what
good would showing it do? I need to stay calm and ready for when we have to
act.”

“That’s fine, but it’s just us now. You
can tell me how you really feel.”

“Okay. I’m scared. Max is very important
to me, and if he dies, it’s going to hurt. I’m also afraid that we won’t be
able to defeat Raines. Even if I’ve been through a lot in my life, I’m still
only sixteen. I don’t want to die before I get to experience everything. Plus,
I’m a little afraid of what’s growing inside you. I’ve never thought about
being a dad. I know how to, thanks to my father and Max, but I’m so young. What
if I’m not what our child needs?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with
Max or the fight with Raines, but I can tell you one thing with confidence.
You’re going to be a great dad. I’m worried, too, though. We’re very young, and
it’s not like I know how to be a parent. We’ll figure it out together, though.”

“You’re right. I promise that we’ll
figure out this thing with Raines, too. I won’t die there. I can’t. I’ve got to
meet my child.”

“You better be fine. I wish I could go
with you. I’m used to being more proactive in situations like this. I was Max’s
backup before, so I can handle myself with a gun pretty well. The pregnancy
kind of makes it irresponsible for me to go, though.”

“Yeah, there’s no way you can fight right
now. The worst thing in the world that could happen is for you to get hurt. I
love you, Zoe. I want to marry you. I have for a while, but I figured we would
wait until we were older because that’s what people used to do. Marriage isn’t
such a big deal anymore, though. All it really is now is a promise between two
people to be together from then on. How would you feel about making that promise
in front of our friends when this is all over?”

“Are you just asking me because I’m
pregnant?”

“No.
The real reason is because I saw how much today affected Rebecca. She lost the
person she loved. We might still get him back, but it has torn her world apart.
If I lost you before I asked you to be mine forever, I would never get over it.
What do you say? Neither of us is going anywhere, so we might as well make it
official. I love you, and that’s not changing.”

“I
will marry you. First, let’s get this business with Max taken care of. You
might be the most important person to me, but he’s a close second. I can’t lose
him any more than Rebecca can. Can you bring him home in three days?”