Free The Remaining: Fractured by D.J. Molles

Lee searched the narrow kitchen and came up with a can of corn and a half-full gallon of water from the pantry. He uncapped the water and sniffed it. It smelled fine. He took a sip, swished it around in his mouth. It was cool on his tongue, and tasted slightly of plastic, but otherwise was okay. He took a longer drink, then recapped the jug.
    He rummaged through the drawers, pulling up a can opener when he found it and setting to work on the can of corn. He opened it and ate it there, fishing every last kernel out. What was left in the bottom of the can was a murky-looking water. He pulled out the cornmeal he’d taken from the other house and mixed small amounts into the water until he had created a thick paste.
    Deuce sat before him, very attentively.
    Lee scooped a big wad of the paste onto his fingers and held it down to the dog. Deuce moved in quickly and it was gone from Lee’s finger tips in a flash of pink tongue. Lee pulled out another mouthful. “Go ahead, buddy. You earned it. You already saved me once.”
    Lee ate the last half of the cornmeal. He took a moment to think more than five minutes ahead. He stood quietly in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and looking out the kitchen window into the backyard. The yard ended in a thin patch of trees that separated this house and the house on the next street over. Through the layer of trees, the houses on the next street looked strangely untouched. Like he could just step through that bit of forest and find himself in a neighborhood without violence and chaos, with joggers and dog walkers and people in robes stepping out to get the newspaper. Fresh cups of coffee in hand.
    He looked down at his dirty old boots. Mud-caked and blood-spattered. Bits of leaves still clinging to them. He didn’t want to think about a neighborhood without violence and chaos, because such a thing was not real. He would not delude himself. This was the world. This was his world. He may as well have been born into it, because everything else was so long gone, it seemed that it had never existed.
    Think about what you need to do, he told himself.
    Eddie Ramirez shot you in the head and stole your GPS.
    You need to get your GPS back.
    How the fuck are you going to do that?
    It was easier said than done. Eddie had a big head start on him. And he’d taken Lee’s Humvee. And Lee could only take an educated guess as to where the other man was heading at that moment. But he knew that he should know where Eddie was going. He just couldn’t make it clear to himself. He closed his eyes, his face scrunching up in what looked like pain, but he was only trying to think. His scattered mind seemed to be avoiding him. Like something recently forgotten that only recedes deeper back into your mind the more you try to haul it to the surface.
    Lee touched his head where it ached, as though the overstress and confusion and multitude of questions were going to split his skull open like an over-pressurized pipe. Whatever wires had been jarred loose by taking a bullet graze across his dome, Lee could feel that he wasn’t thinking as quickly or making connections as well as he’d done before. He felt stunted. Like his thoughts were being suppressed. Like he had the truth rolling around in there, but he just couldn’t lock it down into place.
    He started with what he knew and tugged at the thread gently.
    Eddie Ramirez. He stole my GPS and tried to kill me.
    Why?
    Because…
    Because…
    Because of Abe Darabie.
    Lee’s eyes popped open. His fingers suddenly wrenched down into a fist.
    That one little thread had suddenly unearthed the whole ugly truth that had been hiding beneath the silt of his injured mind. And it hit him like a gut-punch, just like the first time he’d learned it. Abe Darabie—his closest friend—had sent people to kill him. To terminate him. To execute him. To keep him from opening any more of his bunkers. Because that wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t in the plan to let North