Today You, Tomorrow Me

Darius doesn’t ask for the whole story. The Mercedes has already told him. He crouches by the front wheel, the snow squeaking under his boots, and he runs his glove along the belt path. The rubber is slick with condensation and broken in one place, a clean split like something snapped under strain.

“Fan belt’s gone,” he says. “That’s why the engine’s cooking. You need it turning. You need it now.”

The driver swallows. His eyes are wide, reflecting the flashlight and then losing focus as the wind jerks grit against the beam. “I don’t have anyone. My phone - ” He pats his pocket like it might magically restart. “Service went out. The roads are empty.”

Darius looks past him at the tree line and the distant headlights that keep appearing and vanishing - pairs of lights that never slow down, never commit. He thinks about how fast a body becomes a cold machine out here, how quickly panic turns into numbness. His goal is simple and immediate: get the belt replaced, get the car running stable enough to get off this shoulder before the next hour does what it’s been doing all night.

“I can fix it,” Darius says. “But I need you to stay with the car. Don’t try to drive like this. You’ll cook it or you’ll slide.”

The driver’s jaw trembles. “How do you know?”

Darius glances at the hood, still steaming in thin pulses. “Because I’ve seen this. Because the belt’s snapped. Because you’re not the first person to break down on a highway that looks like it doesn’t care.”

The man gives a laugh that isn’t laughter. “I didn’t even see anything. No accident. Just - ”

Darius keeps his hands working. He pulls the tool roll from his trunk - metal clacking softly in the cold - and he kneels again, feeling for where the tensioner should be. The wind whips across the shoulder, tugging at the hem of his coat and pushing snow into every seam. Somewhere behind the Mercedes, the night is so quiet it makes the ticking of cooling metal sound loud.

He loosens the fasteners with steady pressure. The wrench slips once - ice on the bolt head - and he curses under his breath, not because he’s angry, but because the cold makes everything harder than it should be. The driver shifts in the open door, watching like Darius is performing a trick.

“Do you - ” the driver starts, then stops. “Do you need money?”

Darius pauses just long enough to look up. “No.”

“I can - I can pay you.”

“You can’t pay me out here,” Darius says, and the words come out sharper than he intends. He softens it with the next sentence. “You’re freezing. Don’t waste time negotiating with the dark.”

The driver goes still, absorbing that. He nods once, quick and grateful and resentful all at once, like he can’t decide which feeling is safer to show.

Darius fits a new belt only after he checks the pulleys. One of them has a faint wobble when he turns it by hand, a tiny sign that something else might be wearing out. He doesn’t have time to chase a full diagnosis; he has time to keep the engine from turning into a dead heater. He tightens the tensioner until the belt sits true in the grooves.

For a moment, the only sounds are the wind and the thin hiss of steam. Darius runs his fingers along the belt and presses down, watching how it flexes. He wants it snug. He wants it quiet.

“Okay,” he says, and he stands carefully, knees stiff from the cold. “Start it. Slowly.”

The driver grips the steering wheel with both hands like it’s a lifeline. He turns the key. The Mercedes catches with a rough cough that turns into a rattling growl. The belt grabs, whirs, and the vibration changes - less frantic, more even - like a horse settling into a stride.

Relief hits the driver so hard it looks like shock. His shoulders drop. He exhales and laughs once, breath puffing pale. “It’s - it’s running.”

Darius watches the temperature gauge through the windshield, the needle crawling, then hovering at a safer line. He keeps his flashlight angled at the engine bay, checking for smoke that might mean something else is about to fail.

Then, because the night isn’t done with him, the Mercedes makes a different noise - lower, wrong. The engine stutters for half a second and then steadies again. Darius leans in, listening, feeling for the tremor in the metal.

The driver sees him hesitate and his face tightens. “Is it going to - ”

“It’s holding,” Darius says. “But you need to get off the shoulder and onto the road. Don’t let it idle too long.”

The driver’s hands shake again. “I don’t know where I’m - ”

“I know you don’t,” Darius cuts in. He points with two fingers toward the right lane. Snow blows across the pavement in sheets, and the headlights in the distance have shifted, as if time itself is moving faster than the cars. “Go slow. Keep wheels straight. If it starts doing that again, you pull over and shut it down. Understand?”

The driver nods like he’s being instructed by someone who can see the future. “Yes. Yes.”

Darius reaches toward the open door, then stops. He waits, watching the man’s eyes, because he knows what’s coming next: the frantic gratitude that tries to turn into a payment, the desperation that wants to buy safety with whatever currency is closest.

“Don’t,” he says before the driver can speak. “No money.”

The driver swallows. “I’m not trying to - I just - ”

“You’re trying to make yourself feel less helpless,” Darius says, surprising himself with how accurately he lands it. “But right now, you need to get moving.”

The driver’s mouth opens, then closes. In the windshield, the temperature gauge looks steady. The belt runs. The engine sounds almost normal if you ignore the cold in its throat.

“Thank you,” the driver finally says, and his voice cracks on the last word.

Darius doesn’t accept it like it’s a gift. He sets his jaw, turns away from the cab, and looks at his own trunk as if there’s something there he needs. It’s not. He just needs the driver to stop reaching.

“Today you, tomorrow me,” Darius says, loud enough to carry over the engine’s rattle. He doesn’t say it like a slogan. He says it like a rule he’s lived by longer than he’s willing to admit.

The driver blinks, confused for a second, then the meaning catches. “Today you, tomorrow me,” he repeats, and the phrase sounds different in his mouth - like he’s trying it on to see if it fits.

Darius nods once. “Get in and go.”

The driver turns the key again, and the Mercedes rolls forward with a hesitant lurch that sends a spray of slush across the rocker panel. The headlights sweep the snowbank; the narrow beam catches Darius’ boots for a heartbeat. The driver inches past him, tires crunching softly, and then the car clears the shoulder.

Darius stays where he is, watching through the windshield glare, making sure the wheels keep their line. The wind keeps shoving snow into his face. He adjusts his stance, shoulders tight against the cold.

The Mercedes turns onto the road with a clean, controlled arc - almost graceful - and then the driver slams the brakes instead of accelerating. The car shudders to a stop, angled toward the ditch like it’s deciding whether to obey.

Darius steps forward, one hand raised, palm out, and calls. “What are you doing?”

The driver’s door swings open again. His face is pale, and his eyes are too bright. “I - ” He starts to climb out, then freezes as if the cold has grabbed his bones. “I can’t - I can’t leave you out there. People don’t - ”

Darius hurries to the side of the car, anger and concern tangling together. “I’m fine. I’m not the one with the broken car.”

The driver shakes his head violently. “No, you - you fixed it. You - you could’ve been - ” He can’t finish. He looks past Darius toward the dark shoulder like he expects danger to arrive for him too.

Darius feels something sharp under his ribs. Not fear exactly. Recognition. There are people whose gratitude turns into panic the moment they’re not in immediate danger anymore. Their minds scramble for a way to repay, a way to close the loop before it opens again.

“I told you,” Darius says, leaning close so the driver can hear over the wind. “Today you, tomorrow me. That’s how it works. You don’t get to climb out of this and make it about me.”

“I don’t want to owe anyone,” the driver whispers.

Darius studies him through the open door. The driver’s hands are clenched tight enough to whiten his knuckles. He looks like he’s holding back a sickness - something bigger than gratitude. Something that turns receiving help into a threat.

Darius chooses his words carefully, even though the cold is making his patience thin. “You don’t owe me. You owe the next person. That’s it.”

The driver’s throat works. “What if I can’t find the next person?”

Darius hears the question underneath - what if he doesn’t survive the rest of the night. What if he doesn’t make it far enough to matter. What if the world stays empty.

“You will,” Darius says, and it’s not certainty. It’s insistence. “Because you’re not the only one out here.”

For a moment, the driver looks like he might argue again. Then his gaze flicks toward the dark where the highway disappears. Distant headlights pass, and their sound is swallowed quickly by snow. The driver’s face changes - something in him decides the risk isn’t worth the conversation.

He makes a choice that isn’t rational but is deeply human. He slams the door shut, almost too hard, and grips the wheel.

“Wait,” Darius calls, but the Mercedes jerks forward before he can reach it. The tires hit slush; the car fishtails just enough to make Darius step back instinctively. The engine revs too high, like the driver is trying to outrun his own fear.

The Mercedes surges into the lane, then veers off again toward the dark shoulder, not toward safety but away from the moment that made him vulnerable. It doesn’t come to a full stop. It just keeps going, headlights swinging across the snow like a frantic searchlight.

Darius stands with his flashlight lowered, watching until the taillights vanish behind a bend. The wind fills the space where the car was, pushing snow against the Mercedes’ abandoned position. Steam still curls faintly from the hood, settling into silence.

He exhales and realizes he’s been holding himself upright like a brace. His hands ache from the cold and from the work. He could call out. He could chase. He could do a hundred things that would turn into effort without certainty.

Instead, he checks the engine one more time, just out of habit, just to confirm what he already knows: the fan belt is in place, the tension holds, the overheating should ease as the system cycles. The Mercedes will run if the driver doesn’t panic himself into trouble. The driver - Evan Caldwell, he thinks suddenly, because he heard the name when the man talked earlier, because names stick when you’re trying to keep someone alive - has chosen not to accept the last seconds of help.

The night doesn’t end. It only rearranges itself.

Darius turns back toward his own trunk and the bitter quiet of the shoulder, the air biting at his knuckles. In his head, the phrase stays stubborn and plain: Today you, tomorrow me. He can feel the promise hanging in the space the Mercedes just left, not solved, not closed - just planted. Now it has to survive the part where someone runs away from gratitude and into whatever comes next.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters in the full book.