P R O L O G U E

New Field.

A small town like so many others. Passing it without noticing would be incredibly easy if only the presence of a diner, Carl’s Diner, didn’t cause all the cars to pull over.

The town with so many differences yet a bag full of similarities between the residents. With an excessive amount of coffee shops, exactly six parks (four small, two big), and a huge mall, it didn’t look much strange to anyone.

If they had only known...

The town’s two sides had been forced into a rivalry from the early generations. The civil war between the two had made the residents hate each other, even now, hundreds of years later. After the North of the town won the fight, it got divided in two: the Northside and the Southside. The development and the manner the citizens acted were greatly influenced by the side they lived on.

The Northside was a place with the perfect white picket fence around every two-story family home that had a beautiful garden and happy children playing inside. The schools were great, the high school had a nice reputation, and most of the teens were accepted to the New Field Community college.

The town intended to keep young people from leaving. They tried to give them jobs after high school, get them private apartments for a cheap price (which caused the deforestation, obviously), and every year, they were lectured about how important it was to stay in the town, and not let it die out as many had in the past centuries.

The Southside, though, was a place of its own. It had a bigger population than the Northside, which resulted in everything packed and full of people. The crappy apartment buildings were surrounded by trailer parks, and bars full of litter. The schools were overcrowded and starting to fall apart.

The Northsiders had been warned from their early years not to set their foot over the bridge of the Waterfield River that divided the town. Children were told horror stories about the place, and by the time they were eighteen and going to college, most of them had never gone there, unable to find out the truth.

The rumors weren’t true, mostly. There were no rats on the streets, and the kids on the Southside didn’t cry every second of the day. They were happy, even knowing that the North of the town had money and they sometimes didn’t even have food. They were still kids. They played in the trailer parks with their neighbors and the stray dogs.

Lives there were different, but not horrible.

While the Northside kids were held onto by the town, the Southsiders were thrown out. Not literally, of course, but it felt like it. The town on their side of the river was crowded. Nobody needed new Southside babies of teenage parents. But that happened—maybe a bit more frequently than sometimes.

The Southsiders were told things, too. The people in the North of the town were alleged to be snobby, rich, and very unpleasant. That wasn’t a myth. It applied to most of them. But, still, they kept visiting the Northside. Many parents worked there, there was a better hospital, the mall was located in the center, and, of course, the police station that lots of Southsiders had been to, multiple times.

It didn’t mean necessarily that every single one of them had done something wrong. Normally, the cases were simple like stealing groceries when they were hungry or smoking and drinking underage. But, occasionally, the problem was in the two gangs on the Southside: the Demons, and the Southside Vipers.

They had a rivalry of their own. The Demons, who wore jean jackets with a ghost on the back, were the dangerous ones. They dealt with guns, drugs, and completed tasks that people—mostly rich business owners who were in trouble—paid them for. Usually, those contained murders or kidnapping someone.

The Southside Vipers, though, were a group of bikers dealing easy drugs to everyone who paid cash. They were recognized by other people by their attitude and black leather jackets that wore a symbol of a snake. Usually, for smoking, they sold simple weed and everything similar. Sometimes, high school students needed to get their hands on a few packs of cigarettes even, and they traded them, asking for an extreme amount of money, but the kids always went through.

Northsiders had money to pay. Everyone knew that.

New Field was a small town, and the Vipers knew how to deal without getting caught. They did it on street corners, and never got spotted when doing a striptease in their bar.

They were a group of people from messed-up families, who needed support and friends. That’s what they found from the gang (besides the thrill of committing petty crimes and putting their lives in danger).

The Demons, though—they went way over their heads most times. Printing cash, stealing, creating new drugs in their labs; they knew they needed to keep it down. But, ever since the Vipers some decades ago found out about them trafficking young women to abusers, they had started to try to get the attention of the Demons.

There was no proof about the women, but one got kidnapped about every half a year, usually from the Southside where people wouldn’t miss them. After finding out the truth about who the Demons really were, the Vipers’ new mission had become to bring justice. To help people. And to get all the gang members to jail.

The Demons were aware that they knew. And they did everything to stop them and keep doing their business themselves. That, sometimes, meant members of both of the gangs dying, and some thrown into jail cells that, in some cases, would never be opened again.

That’s how the rivalry was created. And it was something that most of the Northsiders weren’t even aware of.

What brought the whole town together besides the river and the beaches on distinct sides?

Carl’s Diner. The typical diner with a greasy smell that stuck to your clothes, but with an owner so kind and generous, that people were just unable to keep away. It was located on the rim of the town, next to the highway. Opened 24 hours a day, many workers and tractors pulled over to get some food or rest, the neon lights shining in the dark.

It had the best milkshakes, burgers, and onion rings that anyone could find.

Everyone went there. Gang members, politicians, or kids after school; didn’t matter. In the diner, the differences were set aside, people sharing perky smiles, no matter if you wore leather, jean, or nothing at all.

You were welcomed at Carl’s.