Chapter 7: A Bargain in the Dirt

Chapter 7: A Bargain in the Dirt

The world was a smear of wet darkness and suffocating pressure. Henderson’s grip on Leo’s bicep was a vise of bone and muscle, dragging him inexorably towards the edge of town. Gable walked on his other side, a silent, hulking shadow, his presence as heavy as the waterlogged air. Leo’s sneakers, the ones Lily had helped him pick out, were being ruined, sucked at by the greedy mud with every step. He struggled, a desperate, thrashing motion, but it was like fighting against granite statues. They moved with an unhurried, implacable certainty. They had done this before.

They passed the last house on the street, its windows dark and blind. The familiar, broken-down fence that marked the town’s pathetic boundary with the wilderness loomed ahead. Beyond it lay the field.

It was a solid wall of blackness under the starless, cloud-torn sky. The storm had passed, leaving behind an eerie, charged silence. The air smelled of ozone, wet dirt, and something else, something cloying and ancient that seemed to emanate from the dark expanse. It was the smell of a predator’s den. This was where they were taking him. This was the altar.

The sight of it, the place that had swallowed his sister whole, broke through his rage. A raw, animal terror seized him, cold and absolute. He was going to die here. His last moments would be the same as hers, a flash of impossible light and then… nothing. His mother’s final betrayal would be complete. I did it for you, too! Her voice echoed in his head, a venomous lie. She hadn't freed him; she had signed his death warrant.

His struggling intensified, but it was useless. Henderson’s fingers just dug deeper, a sharp, grinding pain that shot up to his shoulder.

“Save your strength, boy,” the big man grunted, his breath fogging in the cold air. “It’ll be over quick.”

And that was it. That was the phrase that cut through the panic. Over quick. It wouldn't be over. Lily would still be gone. The town would still be feeding its monster. His mother would sleep soundly with her debts paid. Nothing would change. He would just be another forgotten number in Mr. Abernathy’s “necessary arithmetic.”

No.

With a surge of adrenaline born not of fear but of pure, incandescent fury, Leo dug his heels into the soft earth. He threw all his weight backward, a sudden, violent anchor. The abrupt resistance surprised the men, and their forward march faltered for a single, crucial second.

He was still caught in their grip, but he had stopped them. They stood there, ten feet from the broken fence, ten feet from the edge of the abyss.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Gable growled, his first words of the night.

Leo ignored him, his eyes locked on Henderson. He forced his breathing to steady, channeling his terror into a cold, hard point. He was no longer a panicked kid. He was a negotiator at the edge of his own grave.

“You said the pact was broken,” Leo said, his voice level, cutting through the night with shocking clarity. “You said the entity is unsettled. Unsatisfied.”

Henderson stared at him, his expression unreadable in the gloom. “What of it? We’re here to settle it.”

“By feeding it a scared, screaming kid?” Leo shot back. He could feel the small, hard shape of the butterfly clip digging into his palm where he’d clenched his fist around it. The pain was a focus. “Abernathy told me about the pact. It’s a bargain. A transaction. It’s not just about a body. It’s about the soul. The intent.”

A flicker of something—surprise? interest?—crossed Henderson’s face. Gable shifted his weight, a low growl rumbling in his chest.

“You’re going to give me a lecture on theology while we stand here in the mud?” Henderson asked, though the certainty in his voice had lessened.

“I’m going to make you a better offer,” Leo said, his heart hammering against his ribs. This was it. The most insane gamble of his life. “You want to restore the balance? You want to satisfy the thing in that field? Then give it what it’s never had before.”

“And what’s that?”

“Me,” Leo said, his voice ringing with a conviction he didn’t know he possessed. “Willingly. Not dragged. Not kicking and screaming. A willing soul. A sacrifice made with eyes wide open. That has to be worth more than just… taking me. That has to settle the debt for good.”

Silence. The only sound was the drip of water from a nearby tree. Henderson and Gable exchanged a look over Leo’s head. He had their attention. He had introduced a new variable into their grim equation.

“There’s no such thing as a willing sacrifice,” Gable scoffed.

“There is if you give me what I want,” Leo pressed, his gaze unwavering. “A bargain. That’s what this whole town is built on, right? So let’s make one. My soul for an answer.”

Henderson’s eyes narrowed. “An answer to what?”

Here it was. The heart of it all. The desperate, impossible hope that had been flickering in the deepest, most terrified corner of his soul ever since he’d seen her vanish.

“Lily,” he said, his voice cracking for the first time, the name a raw wound. “Mr. Abernathy said it doesn’t just consume. It… absorbs. That they’re not entirely gone. I want to know if that’s true.” He took a ragged breath, the words tumbling out now, a frantic, desperate prayer. “Is there a way to get her back? Can it be undone?”

He saw his mother’s face in his mind, serene and calm. He saw Mrs. Gable’s fearful eyes at the window. He saw an entire town that had traded children for prosperity for over a century. The answer was surely no. It was a fool’s hope.

But Henderson didn’t laugh. The big man was silent for a long time, his gaze fixed on the impenetrable darkness of the field. He seemed to be listening to something Leo couldn’t hear.

“You ask a high price for your own death,” Henderson finally said, his voice a low rumble.

“It’s the only price I’ll accept,” Leo shot back. “My soul, offered freely, to settle your debt. All I want in return is the truth. One simple answer: is it possible to get her back?”

Henderson let go of Leo’s arm. The sudden release of pressure was so unexpected Leo almost stumbled. The Watcher looked at Gable, a silent communication passing between them. Gable gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.

Henderson turned back to Leo, his face a grim, stony mask. “The entity values a strong will. It finds despair… bland. You want an answer? The answer isn’t ours to give. It belongs to the field.”

A sliver of impossible hope, terrifying and sharp, pierced Leo’s despair.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you have your bargain,” Henderson said, his voice flat and devoid of any emotion. “The field will give you a trial. A test. It offers these sometimes, to the… noteworthy. A way of playing with its food, maybe. Or maybe it’s something else. No one who’s taken a trial has ever come back to tell us.”

Leo’s blood ran cold. A trial. A system. This was the hope he had been given. A chance to fail in a new and more horrifying way.

“Survive the trial,” Henderson continued, gesturing with his chin towards the black maw of the field. “Prove you’re worth an answer. Do that, and you’ll get what you came for. Fail… and the debt is paid regardless.”

Leo looked from the two Watchers, their faces impassive as stone, to the wall of darkness that had stolen his sister. He could still feel the phantom sensation of her small hand slipping from his grasp. He could feel the hard plastic edges of the butterfly clip in his fist, a talisman of his failure, and now, his purpose.

He was terrified. But beneath the terror, for the first time since the lightning strike, he felt a flicker of agency. He was no longer being dragged to his death. He was choosing his path.

Without another word, he turned away from the Watchers. He took a deep breath, the damp, ancient air filling his lungs. He looked into the impenetrable black of the spiky bushes, the place where everything was lost.

And he took the first step, walking into the monster’s maw on his own terms.