Jacksonville didn't surrender quietly.
The Abels' bulldozers hadn't even rolled in yet, but their shadow already choked the valley. Avery felt it in the stiff silence at Hank's Diner, where coffee cups clinked like funeral bells. That's where he met Martha Vance for the first time.
She stormed in at dawn, silver braid whipping like a battle flag, slamming a petition onto the counter. "Sign this, boy," she rasped, ink-stained fingers jabbing at the paper. "My grandfather built his bakery on Elm Street with his bare hands. Abel Development thinks they can bury that under concrete and chandeliers?"
Avery recognized her, everyone did. The Vances owned the oldest orchard in town. Their apples sweetened generations of Jacksonville pies. Now Martha's land was Abel target NO.3.
Avery signed the petition. He didn't believe it would stop the Abels, but Martha's fury was contagious.
Half the town had already signed. "There had to be a way to revoke these rich punks' grip over our properties," Martha declared. The petition's demand was brutal: the Abels would void evictions only if families paid back the purchase price of their own homes in one month.
He signed. The petition's demand was impossible: "Abel Development will void evictions if original homeowners repay full purchase price within 30 days."
"One month!?" Avery's pen tore through the paper. "How the hell are we supposed to—"
"They know we can't," Martha interrupted, her voice like rusted steel. "That's the point."
Up on Ridgeview Hill, the renovated Laurent mansion gleamed like a bone in the sun.
Isabelle Abel pressed her forehead against the bulletproof glass of her bedroom window, watching the town through antique binoculars.
"Disgusting,"she muttered.
The town and everything it contains annoyed her since the day she stepped foot in the town and then the dust, It clung to everything here. No matter how often the maids polished, within hours, a fine layer of Jacksonville grit settled on the marble floors.
Her phone buzzed. Mother.
"Founders' Day is tomorrow. You'll attend. Wear something humble please"
Isabelle's lip curled. The festival would be another circus, another chance for Mother to play benevolent conqueror while security kept the locals at bay.
She zoomed in on Hank's Diner through the binoculars. A lanky figure burst out the door the angry boy from the porch yesterday, the one who'd glared at her like she'd kicked his dog.
"Avery." she tested the name she'd dug up from the property files.
He kicked a trash can, sending it clattering across the street. Isabelle's breath fogged the glass.
Pathetic.
And yet...
She whispered to herself. "I don't know what is wrong with all these people."
"We only purchased few properties not there lives. They could always go and live somewhere else, besides this stinky town gives me the cramps"
She watched Avery as he left Hanks diner, walked down the street and then into the paved roads downtown.
Avery had enough in his cup to start the day, wondering how he could possibly work his ass out to make so much in one month. He got to work late that morning, he has barely eaten a thing and since Dale was on holiday and mom was at her work.
Avery's shift at the auto shop bled into midnight, his knuckles split from over-tightening bolts on cars he'd never afford.
Across town, Martha's petition burned through its 200th signature—a funeral pyre of hope.
Up on Ridgeview Hill, Isabelle snapped her binoculars shut with a click.
Jacksonville would fight.
The Abels would break them.