The Desert — Roadside — A Few Hours After the Bridge Collapse
The sun had risen, but the real heat couldn’t be felt yet.
The air was cold, dry, with a wind that blew through the car’s gaps and stirred Lloyd’s hair.
The hood of the military vehicle was open like a stomach that had been operated on.
Wires and tubes and things whose names you didn’t know protruded from the metal.
Jonathan was bent over the hood.
He wasn’t wearing gloves — his wounded fingers were wrapped in medical tape, white tape on his wheat-colored skin.
One hand held the wires, the other was connecting a small metal coffee maker to the car battery.
The coffee maker was an old model, meant for camping.
The sound of coffee boiling rose — a hiss and gurgle, like the breathing of a small creature inside the car’s belly.
Lloyd was half-reclined in the back seat.
He had taken off his black glove and placed it on the dashboard.
His bare, white fingers were wrapped around the metal coffee cup — it was hot, perhaps too hot, but Lloyd didn’t flinch.
He stared at the steam rising from the cup and didn’t see it.
He was thinking.
Or perhaps he was trying not to think.
John sat beside him.
He held his coffee cup with both hands.
His gaze was on the road — on the distance, on where the horizon line faded into dust and light.
His face was tired, but calm.
The calm of someone who, after the storm, has just realized he’s alive.
Lloyd raised his voice.
Without preamble.
Without any warmth.
“How on earth… no, better to ask… why do you have a coffee maker in your car?”
Jonathan answered without lifting his head from under the hood.
His voice was mixed with laughter:
“For energy!”
John lowered his cup.
He fixed his gaze on Jonathan.
It was a heavy gaze — not a threat, not curiosity — assessment.
“Alright, I get that. But tell me… how did you find us? And why did you come? Did Gary really send you?”
Jonathan was about to answer when the sound of a ringing phone cut in.
John set his cup on the dashboard.
He took the phone out of his red jacket pocket.
The screen lit up: Gary’s name, in bold white letters.
Lloyd looked.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t raise an eyebrow.
He just said:
“His name appeared. And so did he.”
John answered.
He pressed the speaker button.
Gary’s voice came from the other end of the line — panting, as if he had been running or was in a hurry:
“Hello… sorry! I forgot to mention something important…”
John and Lloyd exchanged glances.
“I sent my own cousin to help you! He’s trustworthy… and he knows everything. He knows Lloyd has powers. He knows those people attacked—”
Lloyd cut him off.
Calm, firm, emotionless:
“Alright, I get it. Thank you, Gary.”
Gary’s voice softened.
As if he breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re welcome. But — you know Alice is in Russia. So why do you want to go to… Firan?”
Lloyd answered — fast, without thinking, as if he had known the answer for years:
“I can’t leave the country by plane. My passport is at the mansion. And I don’t want the Comson Organization to find me.”
A brief pause.
“I want Firan… to take me to Russia.”
Jonathan lifted his head.
From under the hood.
His face was full of surprise — genuine surprise, not an act.
“How?”
Lloyd fixed his gaze on Jonathan.
The same cold, calculating gaze.
“I have my own plan.”
John took the phone.
Handed it to Jonathan. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Talk to Gary.”
Jonathan took the phone.
Lloyd and John got out of the car.
A few steps away, where the wind blew less and their voices wouldn’t reach the car.
John stopped.
He placed his hands on his hips.
He looked at Lloyd — evaluating, measuring, calculating.
The way he had looked at him for years.
But this time there was something else in that gaze.
Something like respect.
Or perhaps something like worry.
“Do you think we should trust him?”
Lloyd answered.
Without hesitation.
As if he had reviewed the question in his mind many times.
“Gary trusted him. So I trust him too.”
John remained silent.
He said nothing.
He just fixed his gaze on the road — on the distance, on where the dust hung like a thin curtain over the horizon.
Lloyd broke the silence.
His voice was quiet — quieter than ever.
Not a whisper, not firm — something in between.
“The Harvester Beings… what are they? Where do they come from?”
John drew a deep breath.
As if he were preparing to stand up.
But his answer came quietly.
Heavy.
Like someone pulling a stone up from the bottom of a well, rope by rope, breath by breath.
“They come from the Spirit World. They make deals with humans. They give each individual power… and that individual must give them a hundred souls a year.”
Lloyd asked — without trembling, without flinching:
“What if that individual doesn’t give a hundred souls?”
John answered — without looking at Lloyd, his eyes still on the horizon:
“Then… they lose their own soul. The Harvester Beings take their soul. And these contracts last for ten years.”
Lloyd was silent for a few seconds.
He was calculating.
As if numbers were parading through his mind — ten years, a hundred souls a year, a thousand souls.
A thousand souls for one person.
For one power.
“So if that individual dies… what then? Is there even a cost for them?”
John turned.
He looked at Lloyd.
Directly.
Long.
“If the contract period ends and that individual dies… the Harvester Being takes their soul.”
He gave a bitter smile.
A smile that showed he carried this truth with him every day, like a heavy bag you can neither put down nor run with.
“And using supernatural power… whether contractual or innate… has a cost. For example, myself — I have premature aging.”
Lloyd, for the first time — something like surprise.
His eyebrows didn’t rise, his eyes didn’t widen, but his voice changed slightly.
A note.
A frequency.
Something you wouldn’t hear if you weren’t paying attention.
“How old are you?”
John answered.
Simple.
Like stating an address, a number, a colorless truth:
“I’m forty-three years old.”
Lloyd’s eyes widened.
Not a large widening, a small widening — the kind that shows the brain is processing new information and the result doesn’t match previous beliefs.
“Forty-three years old? Really?”
John shrugged.
As if his age didn’t matter.
As if age was just a number, and he had stopped taking numbers seriously years ago.
“Each individual’s cost is different.”
Lloyd unclasped his hands and clasped them again. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
White, slender fingers.
Short nails.
No trace of fire, no trace of Hell.
Just a sixteen-year-old boy asking about things sixteen-year-olds shouldn’t know.
“So using supernatural power… has a cost.”
John shook his head.
Not confirmation, not denial — correction.
“No. But if you use more than your capacity…”
His gaze fixed on Lloyd.
Heavier than before.
“…the costs become horrific. Your body gets exhausted, your mind diminishes. You reach madness. You become a mindless being.”
He raised his hand, opened his fingers — one, two, three, four.
“Memory erasure. Genetic alteration. And more.”
Lloyd looked at his coffee cup.
Steam was rising from it — less than before, but still there.
It twisted into the cold air and vanished.
Like memory.
Like emotions.
Like himself.
His gaze went to Jonathan — who was still under the hood, connecting another wire.
He was smiling.
Not a fake smile — a real smile.
Pleasure from the repair.
Pleasure from being.
No sign of a cost he had paid — if he had paid one — on his face.
Lloyd turned back to John.
“The Spirit World… what is it?”
John breathed.
Deep.
Long.
Like someone preparing for their last breath.
“The place where the Harvester Beings live.”
A pause.
“I don’t know more than that — and perhaps it’s better that way.”
His eyes went to the distance — not to the road, to somewhere further.
To something that couldn’t be seen.
“But I do know one thing…”
His gaze returned.
To Lloyd.
“…the Spirit World is tied to the soul. To the very thing whose name you speak and tremble.”
His voice softened.
Not warm — cold.
The cold of truth.
“The beings there make deals with humans. Yearly. Each one… a hundred souls. From each human. Like a tax. Like breathing. Without you knowing you’re giving it.”
Silence.
Jonathan’s voice came from behind: “The car’s ready!”
John looked at Lloyd.
He said nothing.
Then — he smiled.
A small smile full of the wrinkles around his eyes.
He placed his hand on Lloyd’s shoulder.
Firm.
Warm.
“Let’s go.”
Lloyd set the coffee cup on the hood.
He pulled on the black glove.
His fingers moved beneath the fabric — open and close, open and close.
He looked at the road.
At the distance.
At where Firan was waiting, at the Russia he had to reach, at the Alice he hoped was still alive.
And he said nothing.
He just took a step.
To be continued…