The Divide: Origins

by Grace, Mitchel

  “Doc, I’m begging you here. Show a little mercy. I can’t take this pain, and Rebecca didn’t do anything wrong. She doesn’t need you sending parts of me back to her,” Max said as the doctor cauterized his wound.

  “I wish I didn’t have to. This is the only way, though.”

  “What if it isn’t? You could give me something for pain. How would Troy know the difference?”

  “You’re right. I could. What if I had an even better option?”

  “I’ll listen to any suggestion at this point.”

  “I could kill you peacefully. I can inject you with something that will make you go to sleep and never wake up again. It’s not completely painless, but it’s the most peaceful way to go. Then I can take the parts of you after you’re dead. I’ll tell Mr. Leland that you died in the night. He won’t be happy, but it’s better than cutting you apart alive. I think that’s what I want to do, if you’re on board.”

  “That still doesn’t help Rebecca. You’ll send her the parts of me, and she’ll think I suffered.”

  “I know, but it’s the best I can do.”

  “Then forget about it.”

  “Are you serious? Are you actually going to make me cut you up while you’re still alive?”

  “Unless you guarantee that Rebecca won’t see what you did to me, then yes.”

  “You’re crazy. I’m offering you a way out here. Take it.”

  “No. I’ve made my choice. Now it’s your turn to make yours. Are you going to be Troy’s lapdog or help me?”

  “I’m not going to help you escape, but I can’t do anything else to you right now. It might actually kill you if I did. Rest. Maybe you’ll change your mind over the next few hours.”

  Max closed his eyes and drifted away for a while. During the night, the doctor struggled with a choice he never thought he would have to make. Should he cut a man apart while he was still alive or sentence his family to death by trying to help him? There was no good option, and for six long hours, he fought what he knew had to be done. Max wasn’t going to change his mind. There was only one option. As he stood to finish what he started, Max opened his eyes and said something that the doctor loved hearing.

  “I’ll let you kill me on one condition,” Max said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I want you to write down my final thoughts to Rebecca, Zoe, and Liam. If you ever see them again, I want you to give them the letters and let them know I didn’t suffer. Can you do that for me?”

  “Of course. Just let me get a pen and paper.”

  Max gave him his final words to the people he loved most. It wasn’t easy for Max to come up with what to say. After all, how do you say goodbye to the people who saved you? That’s really what his new family did. Back in prison, he was lost, and somehow he found himself again through complete strangers who became everything to him. If there was one thing in his life he was proud of, it was that his actions had kept Rebecca, Zoe, and Liam alive until they got to Texas. Because of that, he could die without regrets.

  When the letters were finished, the doctor got what he needed and inserted a needle into Max’s arm. Just as he was about to give him the mercy he needed so much, Troy walked in.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Troy asked.

  “I, uh . . . I’m giving him . . .” The doctor said before he was cut off.

  “Just be quiet, and get that needle out of his arm. Whether you’re giving him pain medication or trying to help him go gently into the night, I don’t care. We’ve got to move him now. I’ll deal with you later.”

  “Why would you move him?”

  “The scouts at Norak caught wind of what they’re up to there. They’re planning to attack us in a couple of days. If that happens, they might have a chance at saving him. I’m not going to be here when the fighting begins because I want to make sure this man suffers as long as possible. I figure I can set up shop with him where the gatherers stay east of here. I’ll make him last as long as possible before I end his life. Then I’ll be back. Until then, follow Diaz’s direction. He’ll be in charge.”

  “Sir, I don’t think . . .”

  “I don’t care what you think. While our forces crush them here, I’m going to show Max exactly what it feels like to have everything taken away from you. If you keep objecting, I might just take your wife and daughter with us.”

  The doctor stayed silent the rest of the time. Two men came inside and escorted Max out to a car. After a minute, Troy joined Max in the backseat. All he wanted to do was kill Troy in that moment, but a gun was fixed on him at all times. If he even tried anything, Troy’s guards would kill him.

  “How does it feel to know everything is about to be taken from you, Max?” Troy asked.

  “You can’t take anything from me. The only people I care about are back in Norak. I don’t care what you do to me. I’ve lived.”

  “Consider this. I’m about to kill you, your family is going to attack a superior army with much better weaponry, and after that, Raines will hold the advantage in the trade agreement between our cities. You’re going to die, your family will, too, and the city you built will be nothing more than a shadow of mine. You messed up when you killed my nephew and left what should’ve been your home. I helped you when no one else would, Max. I even forgave you for killing my brother, and how did you repay me? You killed a kid who meant everything to me and took part of my city with you. I learned something on that day. There’s no such thing as friendship in this new world. There’s only power. Killing you and putting the people who dared to walk away from me back into their place will assure myself power for many years to come, so I’ll ask again. How does it feel to have everything taken away from you?”

  “You’re wrong. You might kill me, but I know my city. They’re loading up to kill all of you. There won’t even be a Raines in a few days.”

  “I get it. You need to hold out hope because what else do you have at this point? There is no hope, Max. You, and everyone you love, are going to die before I’m done here. I didn’t believe in vengeance before the disaster, but I had never known what it was like to lose then. In a world like this, sometimes vengeance is the only thing we have.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s still so much more to this world than that. If we’re going to make the world like it used to be, there has to be more.”

  “Don’t give me that. We both know the world will never be like it was. Good men die now. All that’s left are the monsters. I guess there will be one less monster soon, though,” Troy said as they pulled up to the houses.

  Max was forced out of the car and into one of the houses. All day, he was tortured. Troy’s plans had to change a little because he didn’t have a doctor there. They couldn’t cut Max apart just yet. They had to settle for beating him. By the end of the day, Max was covered in bruises, and he could barely move. They tied him down while they slept that night, but the ropes weren’t quite tight enough. Max worked all night long to get loose, and in the early morning, he finally had some luck. He got his right hand free, and from there, the rest was simple. Once he was loose, he snuck into the next bedroom to find one of the guards sleeping. He had laid his gun and knife on the nightstand. This was going to be easy. Max slit his throat while he slept. Then he grabbed the pistol and walked into the next room. He found the second guard sleeping on the couch and put two bullets through his chest just as he woke up and stood. About that time, Troy stepped out of the other bedroom with his gun raised. Their eyes met at the same time as they fixed their guns on each other.

  “You better drop your weapon, Troy. I will kill you,” Max said.

  “As soon as I do, you’ll kill me anyway.”

  “No. I have some work for you to do first. Drop it, and there’s at least one scenario where you’ll live. It’s your choice, though. We can both die here, or you can take a shot at trusting me. What’s it going to be?”

  “Why in the world would
I trust you? You killed my nephew.”

  “That didn’t go down the way you think. There’s a lot more to the story than you know. I didn’t even kill him. I was protecting someone. Drop your gun, and you can do a little job for me. After that, we’ll talk about this.”

  “Fine. I don’t see where I have much choice,” Troy said and set the gun down.

  “You made the right decision. You hadn’t even chambered a bullet yet. You would’ve been the only one who died.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill me then?”

  “Because I really do want to work this out. Now, do exactly as I tell you,” Max said and instructed him to strip his guard in the living room.

  After that, he told Troy to cut the man’s ear and left index finger off. Then he made him gouge his left eye out. Troy was confused, but he shouldn’t have been. The guard looked remarkably similar to Max. With a quick change of clothes, it would look like Max had died in whatever took place there. Max walked over and stomped on the man’s face a few times until cuts and bruises covered it. Then he stripped and took the dead man’s clothes.

  “What are you doing?” Troy asked.

  “Making it look like I’m dead in case someone comes here looking for you. At the very least, they won’t be suspecting me when they can’t find their leader. Now, put my clothes on him.”

  “Oh, God! You’re going to kill me here, aren’t you? No one will ever know it was you, though. They’ll probably just think it was some bandit who got the best of us.”

  “Whether I kill you or not depends on how our next conversation goes. Walk with me,” Max said as he finished buttoning his shirt.

  He forced Troy to get the ropes out of the bedroom, and they drove the car across the neighborhood to another vacant house. Max led him inside where he made Troy lie down in the bedroom. Then he hit him in the side of the head with his gun. For a couple of minutes, the world went black for Troy. When he woke up, he had been tied down to the bed.

  “Why are you doing this? I thought you were above revenge,” Troy said.

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. I’ll decide in the next few minutes,” Max said and held his head.

  He was starting to get dizzy. He was in bad shape, and he hadn’t slept in a long time. Max had no idea how he was still going.

  “Maybe you should rest now,” Troy said in hopes that Max would sleep, giving him an opportunity to escape.

  “Nice try. Just so you know, there’s no way you’re getting loose, even if I do go to sleep. Before I do any resting, I need to talk to you first. You hate me for three reasons. I’m going to make it clear why those reasons are ridiculous. I killed your brother, and we both know he was twisted. He raped and killed a teenage girl. I stood by and let it happen. That’s the biggest regret of my life. I could’ve stopped it then, but I did nothing. I don’t hate that I killed your brother. If I hadn’t, he would’ve killed Zoe. I would do anything to protect that girl. She might not be mine by blood, but she’s mine. Jerome was my cellmate for several years, but I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else, especially her.

  The second reason you hate me is because you think I killed your nephew. Here’s the truth about what happened. Timothy tried to rape Zoe, and your wife walked in just in time to keep it from happening. Zoe didn’t even tell me what happened. She told Liam, and he confronted him about it. Timothy almost killed him, but Liam fought back. They were both hurt badly, but Timothy got the worst of it. When I found Liam, he looked like he was on the edge of death. I knew you would kill him if you figured out he was the one who killed your nephew, so I took the blame. You have to look at things from his perspective, Troy. He loves Zoe, and that boy tried to hurt her. What would you expect him to do? If a man tried to rape your wife and then he attacked you, how would that end? He did what both of us would have done. I covered for him because he had done nothing wrong, and I knew you would overreact.

  Finally, you hate that I took part of your town with me when I left. That was my only play at the time. I had to rally people behind me to try to build a new city because you were kicking me out of the one I had helped build. What choice did I have? I could leave with the three people who would always stand by me, and we could scavenge again, or I could rally people around me, and maybe we could have something like Raines again one day. I chose what was best for the people I loved, and so did the people who came with me. You were willing to execute me in the streets without a second thought. They knew they didn’t want to be in a society where stepping out of line automatically meant death. You can’t blame them for that.”

  “You really didn’t kill Timothy?”

  “No.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  “Would you have spared Liam if I did?”

  “I don’t know. Why are you telling me this now, though?”

  “Because I have two options here. I can gut you and go back home, or we can come to some sort of agreement for the future. You took an ear, eye, and finger from me. That makes me want you dead more than anything in this world, but I’m a reasonable man. I know that revenge would only cause more problems. If I kill you, Raines will seek vengeance on Norak just like my city is seeking vengeance for me right now. This feud has to end somewhere, but I have to be convinced that it’s truly over before I let you go. Think it over, and ask yourself if I really did anything wrong. I’m going to get some rest for a while. We’ll talk more in a few hours,” Max said and stumbled out of the room.

  He hadn’t realized how bad his body was worn down. Everything on him hurt, but it wasn’t the pain that was so debilitating. It was the fact that his body was literally shutting down. He didn’t have a choice. It was go to the next bedroom and rest or fall asleep in the room with Troy. As soon as his head hit the pillow, Max was out.

  Chapter 29

  Forgiveness

  Max awoke several hours later. He hadn’t meant to, but he slept nearly twelve hours. That wasn’t anywhere near close to normal for him. Max was lucky if he slept seven hours on most nights, but his body had been too worn down throughout the day. If not for Troy yelling out, he wouldn’t have woken up even then.

  “What is it?” Max asked sleepily as he slowly walked into the next room.

  “I’m going to piss myself if you don’t let me up. You’ve left me here all day with no food, water, or a bathroom. If you’re going to kill me, do it, but don’t make me lie in this bed any longer.”

  “Fine,” Max said and took the ropes loose from one of Troy’s hands.

  After he was done, Max took a step back and aimed the gun cautiously at Troy as he undid the other ropes. Troy wasn’t going to try anything, though. He knew he was at Max’s mercy. All he really wanted was to go to the bathroom. After Troy was done, Max let him get some water before they went back to the bedroom.

  “Don’t tie me up again. We can talk about this man to man,” Troy said.

  “We can’t leave here yet, so I’ve got to tie you up. I’m too weak to travel on my own, and I can’t trust you to take me back to your city. You might have me killed as soon as I get there. Keep thinking about what your relationship with me and Norak is going to be like in the future, and I’ll talk to you in the morning about it,” Max said before hitting him in the temple with the gun once again. Then he tied him up just like that morning. Afterward, Max walked to his room and lay back down. He felt like he could sleep twelve more hours. That’s not what Max did, though. He stayed awake for a long time and thought about what he should do with Troy. It would be so easy to kill him, and that was what he really wanted to do, but it probably wouldn’t have great results. The body he left in the other house looked a lot like him, but someone would figure out what happened to Troy eventually. Then Norak and Raines would be right back where they started, and Max would have a brand new enemy. He was struggling with what was right and what he felt. It would feel wonderful to kill a man who had literally taken parts of him. Would it be right, though, if he could find a way to make Troy
Leland leave their city alone? Was revenge just murder? Max was amazed at how far he had come over the last few years. Back when he first met Zoe, he could’ve killed just about anyone without a second thought. He was a better man today, though. Even someone who had harmed him wasn’t necessarily worth a bullet, if he could find a way to make peace. That’s what the world needed then. It needed men who could swallow their pride and put the world back to the way it used to be. Maybe that was supposed to start in that room with his worst enemy. If he could make Troy see that he and the citizens of Norak weren’t their enemies, their communities could work together to survive. That’s what it was going to take to maintain their cities. Building some walls or even an indoor city was going to be easy compared to maintaining order. There were enough madmen in the world. It would be nice to at least have some allies. Max didn’t think he and Troy would ever be friends, but maybe the citizens of Norak and Raines could be one day. It was worth trying to build a better future for Zoe and Liam, wasn’t it?

  He thought about that all night, and in the early morning, he finally fell asleep again. He awoke a few hours later to hear what sounded like a bomb going off several miles away. When he rolled over, he saw Troy with his gun.

  “You got loose. I guess I shouldn’t have trusted you,” Max said and sighed.

  “No, you should have,” Troy said and handed the gun to him.

  “What are you doing?” Max asked as he took it.

  “I planned to kill you if I ever got loose, but it took a long time to get out of those restraints, and I was able to think about things. I don’t blame you for killing Jerome. I hate that you did it, but I might have done the same thing to save the girl’s life. I can never forgive Liam for killing Timothy, but I’ll let it go. It’s already been two years, and you took his punishment for him over the last few days. Finally, I’ll always hate that you took part of my city with you before, but I did force your hand. My city is under attack right now, and I really want to go back there and see what’s going on. Here’s what I’m proposing. I’ll forget any bad blood we have between us. We won’t ever be friends, but I won’t attack your city again or try to kill anyone you love. In return, you’ll make sure Norak does us the same courtesy. What do you think?”