Devil’s deal

Clay  sat in his room thinking. He had lots of work to get done, but was too fearful. Suddenly he heard a knock at his door. He got up and opened the door, it was his best friend Spencer. Him and Spencer had worked together for a few years, he helped with leading the group. Spencer asked “did you get the paperwork done, we need it by tonight. You know how strict the authorities are when it comes to traveling to another district. Especially with large groups like us.” They were a group of many young adults, they needed to get out cause they had a group after them, they were called the Diablo group. The best they could hope for was that the Diablo group would forget about them and not follow them. 

Clay wasn’t able to sleep all night, he was too worried. He wasn’t worried about the Diablo group following them, or anything like that, he was worried about Spencer. Spencer knew something that the others didn’t. If he told anyone, the whole group would abandon him and maybe even do worse. Spencer walked in and told him it was time to leave. He stopped Spencer though, he asked “you're not gonna tell them, are you?” It was a bit threatening, but he was desperate. Spencer replied with a quick “no” and basically ran out of the room. That definitely didn’t calm his nerves. 

As soon as the whole group was ready to leave they set out, with only one wish, that the Diablo group wouldn’t find them. They walked in the fields instead of the cities and tried to avoid contact with other people as much as possible. This was a hard feat since they had over 100 people with them, about a quarter of them being women. They walked for a few more hours before settling in an abandoned barn for the night. They had a few people take shifts keeping watch. Clay was able to sleep a little, but he woke up at every sound. 

It was around three in the morning when Clay heard something coming from the woods. The person supposed to keep watch had fallen asleep. He got up to see what it was. “Well, well, what do we have here?” asked a voice from the woods. He immediately knew who it was and followed it. When he got to the voice, he said in a hushed tone, “you have to be careful, my group might attack you.” The voice was his former best friend all the way from high school, Clay, Spencer, and the voice, Victor, were great friends. They split when Victor started to change, he made some bad friends, and Clay decided to end the friendship because of that. Victor was the whole reason they were running away, but the group didn’t know that. The group thought it was just a gang that wanted to scare them. “Sit down, won’t you?” Victor said in a menacing voice. They both knew this wasn’t a choice, so Clay listened. 

As soon as Clay sat down he felt something cold touch his neck. He looked over and saw a large knife. Victor spoke, “Glad we’re on the same page now, I want something, and if I don’t get it, there are a few things that might happen.” He heard some rustling coming from his group’s direction, he saw Spencer bound with ropes and his mouth covered. “Why did you have to bring him into this, he didn’t do anything.” Clay said in a quiet, but angry voice. Victor answered calmly, “just some encouragement, that’s all.” With nothing else to negotiate, Clay asked, “what do you want?” Victor replied with “I need some helpers, with over 300 people it’s hard to do everything ourselves.” “So you want slaves?” Clay asked in anger. He felt the knife on his neck start to cut into him. He looked over at Spencer and saw a knife also on his neck. “I can give you about three or four, but they’re gonna know something is wrong if you take more,” he replied in defeat. “I can do that, but I’m also gonna ask for something a little more.” They negotiated for a while, eventually Victor agreed to something. 

As Clay and Spencer walked back to the barn, they saw a few of the group members looking for them. They ran up to them happy to see them, it was about five or six of them. He gave a signal to the woods and a few guys came running in. They snatched the group members as Clay and Spencer ran back to the barn yelling. They watched as the group members got dragged into the woods. The rest of the group started to wake, Clay started to explain what happened to the group. He told the group they can’t go look for them, as it was the Diablo group that took them. They started to pack up to continue the trek, they needed to get out soon. 

Clay didn’t get a chance to look at his neck, but he felt the blood going down his neck. He needed to get the bleeding under control before the others could see it and start asking questions. He grabbed a shirt from his bag and put it up to his neck. Spencer caught up him, he spoke with a despaired and angered tone, “why did you do that, we just lost six of our people.” “Did you not hear Victor? He said something might happen if I don’t comply, and that probably meant us getting killed, and something happening to the group. The deal was the best option.” He replied. They both went silent for about an hour. He called a break as soon as they were near a river. This would give him the opportunity to clean his cut while everyone else was distracted. 

After cleaning his cut Clay peered over at the woods. He noticed the scouts from the Diablo group. He was immediately angered. The deal was that Victor would get the members that were looking for them, and Clay and his group would be left alone. He told Spencer to distract the group. He didn’t say why, he still didn’t trust Spencer for some reason. He quickly headed to the woods to confront the scouts. They got their weapons ready, but he ignored that. He looked back to see the group was gone, perfect. He yelled, “where is Victor?” One of them replied, “back with the group, we’re just on our regular patrol.” “That was pretty close to my group, you guys need to turn around now or I’m getting my group involved.” Clay yelled back. The scouts immediately turned around and started to walk in the other direction. 

Clay waited for a moment then turned around to catch up with the group. But he still heard rustling, then a voice. Victor said with his menacing tone, “telling my people what to do now, that was a bit reckless.” “Having them follow me after we had a deal is reckless” he replied with anger. “I didn’t break the deal, I just bent the rules a bit.” Victor replied with a smile. Suddenly something fell from the trees, before he could turn around, he felt his arms get mingled back. “This is why you don’t make a deal with the devil,” Victor said while laughing. He started to make an effort to break free, but failed. He got shoved to the ground, now with his arms bound, he had no choice but to obey. “Now, should we wait for Spencer, or go to him?” Victor asked. “Let’s just head in his direction, we’ll decide there.” Victor said with his horrible smile. Victor definitely had something planned, there wouldn’t be a decision to be made, it’s almost always made beforehand. 

“I think we should go quickly, let’s not leave Spencer waiting too long.” Victor said, watching the panic set in. They started moving, Clay was having a hard time keeping up because his arms were behind him. Finally, after about 10 minutes of running they stopped. He fell to his knees, struggling to breath. They traveled about a mile. Victor headed out of the woods. He waved at someone and he heard Spencer tell the group to go to the pond. He saw Spencer walk into the woods and look at him. Spencer had a surprised look on his face, this was a bad way for him to be seen. He was on his knees breathing heavily, bound. 

Spencer looked over at Victor and asked what he wanted. Victor replied with “reveal the secret.” Spencer looked at him in surprise, “why would you want that.” You don’t ask questions, just do it. This is what he was worried about the past few days, somehow he knew this would happen. Spencer looked over at him, he didn’t do anything, he didn’t want his group to feel betrayed and lied to, he didn’t know how they would react. Clay felt the familiar cold on his neck, he looked over at Victor. “So, what is it,” Victor snickered, obviously getting a kick out of this. Clay gave a quick nod to Spencer, telling him it was fine to tell the group. 

Clay was taken to the edge of the woods, just out of view from the group. He heard some rustling behind him, Victor's whole group had come. Victor came up to him, “You ready?” Victor asked. He gave no reply, Victor just ignored him and laughed. “Who would have guessed, two former best friends, now leaders, but one bound by the other.” Victor said, staring at him. Finally, Spencer called the group over, he told them to sit and began talking. He told them the story about Victor, himself, and Clay, still not naming Victor. He said there falling out and how Clay made the decision to stop the friendship after Victor's bad choices. He said Clay has remained in contact with Victor and was the reason the Diablo group was after them. Eventually, he named the third friend as Victor, the leader of the Diablo group. It had been done, the betrayal, but way different than he had expected. 

The group started to stir with this news, than one of them stood up. “Where is he now?” The group member asked. Spencer looked back into the woods, Victor nodded. “He’s here, right in the woods.” Victor had two of his group members grab Clay, the four of them walked out. The group immediately became fearful. Victor spoke with a loud voice, “You guys have two options, join my group willingly, or we will make you join my group.” Right after this was said, Victor's whole group walked out, weapons in hand. With the group, the six that had been taken the night before, bound and beaten. 

The group looked at Spencer and Clay to make the decision. Spencer looked at Clay. Victor called Spencer over and let Spencer come talk. Clay only looked in despair, how would they be treated if they agreed, but they would definitely be treated worse if they didn’t choose to join. Clay asked Victor, “will we be treated like members or workers?” Victor gave a smile as if this was a merciful matter, “I can’t speak for you, but your group will be treated like one of us.” Clay looked over at Spencer, “we’ll join, it’s not like we have a better choice.” 

Victor gave a nod and told the group to sit back down. They listened, and Victor began speaking, “you are now part of the Diablo group, you will listen to my orders, and you will not have any issues. Is that understood?” The group nodded, they looked at Clay with longing eyes, he couldn’t help but feel like he betrayed them. He was worried about Spencer betraying him, but he never looked at the big picture, that he betrayed his group. The only thing left to do was to hope for a good experience with the Diablo group. Clay knew life might be tough for him, maybe even death, but he needed to do whatever was best for the group. Hopefully Victor would do what right, not just seek revenge on him, the group didn’t deserve that. 

The next morning, Clay found himself in a small building, with bars on the window and a large iron door. He looked outside and saw his group no longer in despair. They seemed happy, all of them except for one. Spencer came up to the cell, “are you gonna be ok?” Clay responded with, “as long as the group is happy and not mistreated, I will be just fine, life or death.”