The Divide (The Divide Series Book 1)

THE DIVIDE

©Copyright 2015 Kaitlyn Kroner

KINDLE EDITION

Cover Design:
Indie Solutions

Edited by:
Indie Solutions

Formatted by:
Ready, Set, Edit

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

For those who believed in me and pushed me toward my dreams.

“Why won’t you work?” I muttered under my breath. My fingers delicately turned the dial on the lock—hitting the numbers slowly and carefully—then skated up to the latch and yanked. The latch caught on the lock. Again. The damn thing just wouldn't open. As I groaned and leaned my head up against the cool surface of the locker, I imagined myself banging my head a couple of times but decided against it. School had let out twenty minutes ago, and I had been working on the stupid thing ever since. It wasn’t
my
fault I was given a defective locker. For the third year in a row. Why did
I
have to get the same one every year? As I took a deep breath, trying to calm down the frustration that was brewing inside of me, I lifted my head and glared at the locker. One more time. I turned the dial and lifted the cold metal handle; it still wouldn’t budge. I peeked around to find the hallway completely empty before looking back at the locker, fisting my hand, and punching it. Spikes of pain shot up through my arm, but it never opened.

“You might have won the battle, but I
will
win the war,” I said to the nonresponsive metal piece of crap. Picking my heavy backpack up from the floor, I slid my arms through the straps and heaved it onto my back. The backpack weighed a ton; it felt more like bricks were inside of it than books. I took one last glance at my locker, glaring at it with invisible lasers shooting from my eyes, before turning away and making my way down the hall.

The sun shone brightly as I stepped out through the doors. The warm rays hit my face for only a few seconds before the cold wind whipped it away. Pulling my jacket in closer, I shoved my hands deep into the jacket pockets and ducked my head. I tried to cover my ears as best as I could with my jacket, not wanting a repeat of this morning when I’d forgotten my hat and come to school with frozen ears. 

The trek home sucked. The bitter wind pushed against my back, catching on any exposed skin and covering my body in goose bumps. Tears kept forming in my eyes as the wind whipped across my face. My nose tingled, and I had to keep sniffing so snot wouldn’t drip down. If it were summertime, I would have taken my time getting home. I was never in a rush to get there, but I hated walking in the winter. These were the days I wished vehicles were still used. There were a few vehicles left after The Great War, but they were only used during special circumstances. The only way to visit a different region was to walk or take the community train. And trains weren’t cheap, so most people stayed in their own regions.

After The Great War that had wiped out hundreds of thousands of lives a hundred and fifty years earlier, the country had been split up into six different regions and was under the control of a new nation: Lorburn. A Leader had been formed to take control of Lorburn, along with a council, who’d considered themselves to be Ambassadors. They had been leading us ever since. The council would vote on laws, but it was the Leader who made the ultimate decision. And each Leader passed down the control to their child, making sure only one family could ever rule. In my opinion, this was ridiculous. But no one ever asked for my opinion.

Each councilman had a region to control and answered to the Leader. The Leader mainly kept to Gildonia, where he lived and ruled with his unhappy family. How did I know they were unhappy? Because I was his unhappy daughter. 

I hated Gildonia. I wasn’t sure how they did it in the other regions, but Gildonia separated the people. They put the wealthy on one side and the poor on another. They
literally
built a wall to keep both citizens separated. It wasn’t right. I remembered reading a passage in my history class about how they used to separate people by color. Thankfully, we didn’t stoop to that level, but learning about segregation in history really made me livid that we were doing it all over again. This time against all who were underprivileged. My father was to blame. The wall had never been there until he started to rule. He despised the poor and I could never understand why. They were just human beings, like the rest of us. After the war, instead of going forward, we went backward. Way backward. 

Gildonia was the largest and richest of the regions, with oil and farmland being its main produce. Inonia was the second largest; coal was an enormous product and helped the region bloom. Centonia and Minonia were both about the same size and located right next to water, which brought in our seafood delicacies. Baronia was known as the prison region. Instead of having a place to keep prisoners in every region, Baronia was made into one large prison. The poorest of the regions was Destonia. I didn’t understand how the people of Destonia survived. The land was barren, and they didn’t have enough money to take a train to get supplies. I wanted to bring up a solution to my father, but I knew better. My father never took me with him when he went to other regions, so I've never been outside of Gildonia, but I would have loved to be near the water. It was something we didn’t have. Of course, I didn’t know how to swim, but if I could sink my toes into sandy water, I could die happy. When I was younger, I’d read as much as I could on oceans, lakes, and even ponds and had this sense of adventure take over, but there was no way I’d ever be able to leave Gildonia.

I should have been happy with what I had and where I lived, but I wasn’t. Knowing there were people out there who had nothing made it hard for me to enjoy anything of value. I wanted to help the poor. It seemed I was the only one who wanted to help them. At school, I tried to get a group set up and start a food drive; of course the administration sent a note home to my parents, and I never tried again. I had to endure listening to classmates make fun of those less fortunate, about the clothes they could afford, the limited jobs that were available to them, and the lack of education they received. Kids who came from nothing weren’t allowed to attend my school. They had to go to a secondary one, where the supplies were limited. How could anyone learn if they didn’t have enough supplies?

Suddenly, the sound of yelling broke through my thoughts. As I crossed the street, I looked up at the construction site ahead. A miter saw screamed into the air, mingling in with the yelling. Metal rigs were set up against the theater and men were walking around on top of the roof, while others were working on the ground. One night, a few weeks earlier, somebody or somebodies had set fire to it. My dad assumed someone from outside of the wall had sneaked in and done it. He claimed people on the other side were jealous of everything we had, so he put out a notice. Everyone who lived over there would lose half their paycheck until the theater was fixed. It sickened me. It wasn’t right. Especially since I knew who had set the fire, and they came from very wealthy families. I wanted to tell my father, but two things stopped me. One, I would be known as the rat, and school would be horrible. And two, my father wouldn’t have cared anyway. One word would keep popping up in my head when I bit my tongue from telling the truth—coward. 

Shaking my head, I looked at the theater. Half of the theater was blackened from soot while the other half was missing. I grimaced and looked away as a gust of cold wind whipped through me, causing me to stumble. The wind was strong, and I had to pull my hands out of my pockets to grab on to the straps of my backpack. Every time the wind whisked by, it felt like a hand covered in ice was slapping me across the face. Chills danced up and down my spine, causing one long shudder to erupt from my body. It didn’t help that I was in stockings and a skirt.
Stupid uniforms
. Another gust whipped through, pushing my heavy backpack to the right and as I tried to balance myself, my foot slipped off the curb and I tumbled sideways. I slammed into something hard, bounced off, and fell forward hard onto my hands and knees. Tears formed at the back of my eyes as my palms and knees started to sting. Gulping in a few deep breaths, I willed the tears back—
stupid wind
—and leaned back onto my feet, gently removing my hands from the ground; pebbles and debris were embedded into my skin. A piece of glass stuck out of my right palm and I slowly removed it, wincing as blood trickled down my hand. I wiped my hands together to get the pebbles and debris off. Then I looked up. The something hard I had slammed into was staring down at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said breathlessly, looking into deep green eyes. I wanted to get up off my knees—I could feel a large rock pinching into one of my knees—but I was afraid to move. The man standing in front of me was enormous. He had to be doubled—maybe tripled—my height, and definitely had to be doubled my weight, in muscle. At only five foot three and a hundred pounds, there wasn't much to me. But the man in front of me had a lot to him; his legs were long and looked like they went on forever, he had a light tan and a long-sleeved shirt on, but it was tight enough on him that you could make out a six-pack, and it wasn’t until my eyes reached his face that my jaw dropped. Literally dropped. He was gorgeous. And when I say gorgeous, I mean
gorgeous
gorgeous. He had a strong square jaw, a small scar above his full lips, and dark brown hair covering his head. As I looked back into those green eyes again, I sighed.
I’m an idiot. Who sighs like that?

“You should watch where you’re going,” he said. His eyebrows pinched together as he glared down at me.

“The wind caught my backpack wrong and I stumbled,” I said. “I didn’t mean to bump into you.” God, he was gorgeous. I could have started naming the babies we would one day have.

“You’re going to blame this on the wind? You people are always blaming everything on someone or something else.” He rolled his eyes. He still looked gorgeous when rolling his eyes. I could look into those gorgeous, rolling green eyes all day. It wasn’t every day I stumbled across such a fine specimen.

“Well, the wind is pretty strong today, and my foot caught the curb.” I pointed over to the curb lamely.

He shook his head. “Right. Maybe next time you should watch where you’re going,” he repeated sharply. He crossed his arms. I could see a muscle tick in his jaw as he clenched down on his teeth.

I frowned while I fumbled with the straps to my backpack. I looked down at the ground, hoping it would give me answers to why he seemed so angry, it didn't have any, before clearing my throat and looking back up at him. “I’ve already apologized.” 

His lip curled. He gave me one long look before walking away. I sat there, on my knees, in disbelief that someone would appear so angry over this. It wasn’t a big deal. “There’s nothing to get mad about!” I yelled after him. He just shook his head and continued to walk away. I could feel a flush creep across my cheeks, tingling dancing along my neck. Why did I feel embarrassed? I didn't do anything. I scratched my head before remembering how dirty my hands were and let out a sigh. 

Laughter drifted over as I stayed kneeling on the ground. I peeked around and spotted a couple of guys laughing, nodding their heads toward me. The beautiful stranger I ran into walked past them without a word. The others continued to laugh. My chest tightened, and I forced myself to look away. 

I sat there on my knees, dumbfounded. How could someone that gorgeous be so mean and get upset over something so small? I shook my head. There were more important things to get upset about. Maybe he’d had a bad day.
Maybe he’s just a dick
. But I did have those days, where I only had to drop my pen and I’d end up with a meltdown. Everyone had those days. But that didn’t mean he had to be a dick about it.
There go the names for our non-future childre
n. Slowly standing up, I brushed off my knees the best I could while murmuring the different ways he could shove his head up his ass. I frowned as I stared at my ripped stockings and the blood dribbling down my leg. I took a deep breath and looked back toward the ground then moved forward.