Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

adding, “I trust Luca more than anyone in the world, including me and you, but I think we need to watch him around Paola.”
    Mary said, “I’m already on it.”
    They went downstairs, then outside. Everyone was inside their cars, six in total, except Will, who was standing outside the final car waiting for Desmond, Mary and Luca. Paola was already sitting in the back row. Mary and Desmond gave a light nod to John, sitting in the passenger seat of a town car in front.  
    “Isn’t anyone else concerned that John showed up from nowhere?” Desmond asked. “After disappearing for months, right when we needed him most?”
    It was said in a whisper, and only to Mary, but Will answered. “I am. And I’ll bet my share of the garden, if we get one at Honest John’s Shangri-La, that there’s something none of us are gonna like not too far away. He never did seem like much of a team player, and doesn’t strike me as the type to cross a state for a heroic I’m sorry . But then again, maybe I’m wrong. Sure as shit hope I am.” Will climbed inside the van. Desmond and Mary followed.  
    Like usual, Desmond felt he was only hearing the tip of Will’s iceberg. And though Will obviously thought they should follow John wherever he was going, he wasn’t happy about it.  
    Desmond and John had nearly come to blows, a heated argument in the aftermath of Jimmy’s murder. Desmond had backed down, not because he didn’t want to make John swallow every one of his teeth, but because the words coming from John’s mouth seemed so cruel they were almost inhuman. It was as though he’d forgotten every social boundary, demolishing the dam of what society saw as acceptable.  
    Desmond figured it for undiluted grief and turned his cheek. John disappeared. An hour later, the bleakers began to breach the Inn. Will led them all to the second floor where they barricaded the stairwell and waited for death. But by nightfall, every bleaker had disappeared. They never returned; neither did John.
    John had run off to have a temper tantrum, leaving them to certain death, but was now suddenly interested in their welfare? It made no sense. And it didn’t exactly seem like he was sorry; it seemed a lot more like he was turning a to-do into a to-did.
    Desmond wasn’t a guy who held grudges. And maybe the grudge he had for John was the first one he’d had in his life, but it was a grudge nonetheless. A grudge without an antidote. That self-centered asshole had taken off and left him to his fate, along with an old man, two children, a mom, and a murdered kid. Fuck him.
    The way John had been unable to handle his anger, the way he’d practically melted his humanity, center stage for all the Drury Inn to see, Desmond wouldn’t doubt it if he’d been the one responsible for Jimmy, even if the bleakers had done the act. And judging by the silences that sat between the sentences no one wanted to say, everyone else at the Drury thought the same thing. Fuck him.
    Even if he’d pulled them out of the fire today, Desmond harbored a frying pan’s worth of anger. But still, the rest of their new friends couldn't feel the same way, and Will was obviously on board, even if it was just to get them from point A to B. Desmond was enough of a team player to bunt so long as they needed him to. Fuck him later, follow for now.
    “What are you thinking?” Mary asked.  
    “He’s thinking that we’re driving into a rising tide of certain bullshit, and we both know he’s right,” Will said.
    Paola looked scared. Mary looked at Will, quietly pleading with him to be quiet.  
    “She’s old enough to know,” he said, “And help us when the time comes. Him, though,” Will pointed out the window at Luca, quickly approaching the van, “I’m not sure where he is right now, other than his own world. So let’s just play it cool, follow John to Nirvana, and see what happens.”  
    Everyone nodded. Luca opened the door, tossed his bag inside, then climbed onto the seat, swinging the door behind him.  
    “I think you might be surprised,” Luca said. “I don’t think we’re driving into a trap at all. I think we’re finally going where we’re supposed to go. I think we’re finally at the beginning.”
    Desmond stared at Luca, wondering how the hell he’d heard their conversation from so far away.

    * * * *

9 - LUCA HARDING PART 2

    The vehicles rolled in a procession down the highway; John’s car led. The van carrying Will, Desmond, Mary,