I looked him straight in his cobalt eyes with conviction. “Never,” I said without a shred of doubt in my voice.
The boy before me sighed as he pushed his dark sunglasses on his face. He then pushed his hands in his leather jacket’s pockets, looking at me through his black shades. “Why not? You’d have ultimate power, everlasting life, and a purpose. What’s so terrible about that?”
“It’s too high a price,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Fame… Wealth… Romance…” he grinned lopsidedly at me. “What about that isn’t appealing?”
I looked down at my shoes, realizing with a bitter taste in my mouth that I did want those things. I wanted to unreachable. I wanted a purpose. I wanted answers, for God’s sake.
The boy’s grin widened. “Tempting, isn’t it? Now that you’ve thought about what we’re really offering you?”
I didn’t have to ask who ‘we’ was. I was filled with dread and awe at the thought of it. Still, the idea of fame, power, money, answers… There was a sweet, warm taste on my tongue that was mixed with a burning, acrid one. The upsides and downsides, viewed in the same light.
“And…” he sounded hesitant now, which was such a change that I jerked my head up to look at him. He wasn’t looking directly at my face anymore; his eyes were cast downward from behind his reflective sunglasses. “We’d be working together.”
“Working? I asked suspiciously. “Working on what?”
The crooked, mischievous grin was back. “Anything that the Devil wants us to do.”
Chills went up my spine, even though I had had a hunch that this deal had come from something that wasn’t of this Earth. The Devil was asking for me to sell him my soul. I knew the costs. I knew that I’d be used for terrible, awful things. I knew I’d be going to Hell once I died.
But I’d be getting answers. Answers about why my mother died. Answers about why I had a terminal disease. Answers about why horrible things happened to good people.
Tempting. It was so tempting.
“Think about it,” he said, walking past me, his bleach-blond hair catching a ray of spare sunlight. I felt a cold, inhuman presence radiating off of him in a wave that was colder than the snow at my feet. I shivered. Suddenly, I felt a weight in my coat pocket. I turned around too look at the boy, who was now a foot behind me as opposed to in front. He then glanced over his broad shoulder at me and smiled his lopsided smile, the same one I had first seen him wear. My heart flipped over like a smoking pancake.
“Read the terms and agreements,” he said before looking forward once again.
“Wait!” I jerked forward and almost grabbed his arm, but I froze at the last minute, afraid to get any closer to the icy feeling that radiated from his very being. I swallowed with difficulty before being able to ask my question. “Who… who are you?”
He hesitated before turning around, his face unfathomable, his eyes hidden from behind his sunglasses. His face seemed as if it had been carved from stone. He moved his hand up and took off his sunglasses. I flinched back from him to see the pain, turmoil, and confusion that swam in his beautiful cobalt depths.
“They call me Jack,” he finally said. Jack looked into my own blue eyes, forcing my gaze to meet his, not letting me go. “But I don’t know who I am anymore.”
I blinked, and then blinked again.
Because Jack was gone. The road was empty of all but the gray sky and the powdery snow drifting and sliding across the white sea around me.