Night — Desert — A Road Leading Nowhere
The car moved through the darkness.
There were no streetlights, no houses, nothing to suggest humans lived here.
There was only the road, cold and cracked asphalt, and on both sides, endless sand.
The morning mist had not yet arrived, but the cold air carried the scent of dampness.
Lloyd leaned against the window.
His eyes were fixed on the desert, but he saw nothing.
He was thinking.
He raised his voice.
Quiet.
Without looking away from the window:
“I didn’t want to bring this up in front of Camila, Mr. John…”
John was behind the wheel.
His hands were tight on the steering wheel.
His eyes were on the road, but his ears were on Lloyd.
“…had you seen that fortune teller — I mean Sofia — before?”
A question John had waited years for someone to ask — and had always hoped no one would.
He answered.
Quiet.
Heavy.
“We were colleagues once. She is five thousand years old. That’s what she told me. But as far as I know Sofia, she is a liar.”
Lloyd turned his head.
His gaze rested on John’s profile — on the firm jawline, on the wrinkles around his eyes that seemed deeper in the dim dashboard light.
“So she really is my aunt?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Lloyd turned back to the window.
To the endless darkness.
To something that couldn’t be seen but could be felt — perhaps the supernatural being, perhaps something else.
“And regarding you having power…” John continued.
“…it’s your own. You didn’t make a deal with anyone. You owe no one.”
Lloyd said nothing for a few seconds.
Then — without a trace of emotion in his voice — he said:
“Truth is, I haven’t even told Gary or my father about this. The fact that… I have no memories of myself from childhood. They’ve all been erased from my memory. I only remember my mother. I only remember her white hair and her blue eyes.”
John tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
Harder.
The veins on the back of his hand stood out.
But he said nothing.
Gas Station — Roadside
The gas station lights flickered in the darkness — one working, one broken.
It was an old station, faded, with prices from a decade ago.
Beside it was a small shop with a window through which the dim, yellow light of old lamps could be seen.
John pulled the car over.
He turned off the engine.
Silence returned — the silence of the desert.
“Let’s get some clothes and food.”
Lloyd got out without a word.
The Clothing Store
It was small.
The walls were filled with metal clothing racks bending under the weight of the garments.
The colors were all dark — smoky blue, swamp green, burnt brown, black.
Black was the standard; the rest were margins.
The ceiling lamp didn’t give much light.
It was yellow, dim, casting shadows in one direction so the corners of the shop were lost in darkness.
An old man sat behind the counter.
He had thick bottle-cap glasses with a gold frame whose color had worn off.
He glanced at John and Lloyd, nodded, and returned to the newspaper spread out on the counter.
No greeting, no offer of help.
John placed a light hand on Lloyd’s shoulder.
“You go pick out some clothes. I’ll wait here.”
He said to himself:
“I need to choose the clothes carefully… so they’re useful.”
His fingers ran over the fabrics.
Thick black pants — the fabric was rough, but thick, good for falling, for running, for scraping against walls.
He took them.
A black shirt — collared, simple, no design.
He took it.
A black jacket — not so thick it was heavy, not so thin you’d feel the bite of the cold.
He took it.
And shoes — shoes like a soldier’s.
Their soles were thick and dry, their laces firm and dark.
Lloyd bent down, picked one up, weighed it in his hand.
It was good.
Not heavy, but sturdy.
He went toward the fitting room.
He pushed aside the old, dark curtain and went inside.
The light there was even less than outside.
He stood in the middle of the fitting room.
He looked in the mirror — an old mirror, with stains blackened from mercury damage.
He saw himself: short black hair, brown eyes that no longer held that old anxiety.
He put on the clothes.
One by one.
The pants, the shirt, the jacket.
He put on the shoes and pulled the laces tight.
He stood.
He looked in the mirror.
A shadow of himself.
A sixteen-year-old boy whose knee no longer hurt, who was no longer afraid.
But who no longer felt.
He picked up the gloves from the shelf beside the mirror.
Short, black, one piece.
He put them on.
His fingers moved inside the fabric — comfortable, without pressure.
He came out of the fitting room.
John had changed his clothes.
A bright red jacket — with a black shirt and pants, simple, no details.
He looked at Lloyd and nodded.
He didn’t compliment, didn’t comment.
Just confirmed.
Lloyd said in his thoughts: “Standard black clothes are good at night. And the shoes… are good for running.”
His gaze fell on the gloves for a moment.
He moved his fingers beneath the fabric.
“Gloves so there are no fingerprints… excellent.”
He went to the counter.
The old man, without looking up from his newspaper, stated the prices.
John counted the money and placed it on the counter.
They left the shop.
The air outside was colder than before.
The wind was blowing, salty and dry.
It stirred Lloyd’s hair.
Lloyd fixed his gaze on the sky — on the star-filled blackness, on the galaxy that was bare and indifferent.
The stars weren’t looking at him.
No one was looking at him anymore.
He got into the car.
Leaned back in the seat.
He didn’t take off the gloves.
John returned with a bag of food.
The smell of hamburgers and French fries wafted from the bag, filling the cold car with imaginary warmth.
He handed a hamburger to Lloyd.
He looked at it.
He stared at the paper wrapping for a few seconds.
Then he opened it and took a bite.
He chewed.
He swallowed.
He could taste it — salt, meat, sauce — but there was no pleasure.
Only fuel.
Only energy to continue.
John started eating too.
Slower.
Thinking.
He raised his voice.
Between two bites:
“So… any ideas on how we get to Alice without getting caught by the police?”
Lloyd swallowed his bite.
His gaze was on the windshield.
On the road that, in the dim light of the car’s headlights, stretched gray and endless to the horizon.
I don’t know.
I don’t know where she is.
No one knows.
He said to himself: “There’s one person who can help us.”
John fixed his gaze on Lloyd.
Looked away.
Looked back.
In the silence, he asked:
Who?
Lloyd set the hamburger aside.
He pulled the black glove off his fingers — slowly, one by one — and placed it on the dashboard.
“Firan. That woman… the head of eight mafia families.”
John’s hand stayed on his hamburger.
His gaze fixed on Lloyd.
His face held no emotion, but behind his eyes, heavy calculation was flowing.
“The head of eight mafia families?”
Lloyd nodded.
Calm.
Unhurried.
“Yes… she would marry mafia bosses. Then… they would be murdered, and that’s how she became the head of several mafia families. But where Firan herself is — I don’t know.”
John set down the hamburger.
He placed his hand on the steering wheel.
His fingers drummed softly on the leather — tap, tap, tap.
A few seconds later, his voice came.
Calm, firm, resolute.
“Don’t worry. I’ll call Gary. He’s in the FBI.”
Lloyd turned his gaze back to John.
His cold brown eyes glinted slightly.
“The FBI? Wasn’t he fired before?”
John smiled — briefly, from exhaustion, not humor.
“He’s been rehired now.”
The car started.
The headlights cut into the road.
And the black desert ran backward on both sides — the sands, the rocks, occasionally dried shrubs that from a distance looked like people waiting for something that never arrived.
Lloyd stared out the window.
At the darkness.
At the stars that weren’t looking at him.
And in his cold, emotionless mind, the silent words arranged themselves: “Firan… the last person I thought would help me. But nothing in this world is logical anymore. Not me, not Heaven, not Hell… nothing.”
The car drove down the road.
Toward a distant city.
Toward a woman who had killed eight of her husbands.
Toward a hope no one believed in.
To be continued…