Home / Urban / Supreme Authority / Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Author: Sunshine

2026-10-27 16:21:33

He made it to the market four minutes before it closed.

Onions. A chicken. Rice. A bottle of dish soap that Brenda had underlined twice, as if he might try to escape without it. Three paper twists of roots for the general's tea. The fourth would have to wait.

He rode home with the chicken in the basket, folded onto the pink scooter like a deckchair.

That night he cooked. Brenda ate two plates and said it needed salt. Danny ate three and said nothing at all, but he sat up straight the whole time

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Chapter 15
At eight the next morning, something buzzed on the floor beside his pillow. The cheap phone.His mother."Alexander." Helen's voice cracked down the line. "The bank. I just looked. Your father's account. The company's. Everything. It's all open again. The lady said the freeze is gone. Just like that.""Not just like that, Mom. Seventy-two hours. That's all they could hold it."There was a rustle on the other end, and a different breath."Alexander."His father."Dad."A long pause. Alexander could see him without seeing him: standing at the kitchen window, holding it a little too far from his ear, the way he always did."Your mother says you told her this would happen," Richard said."I did," Alexander said."How did you know?""I read every page before I signed them, Dad. There was nothing in them a judge could hold on to.""So you read the papers now," his father said. "For the longest time, you only knew how to bow to that woman and forget your parents.""I've learned.""If this So
Chapter 14
He made it to the market four minutes before it closed.Onions. A chicken. Rice. A bottle of dish soap that Brenda had underlined twice, as if he might try to escape without it. Three paper twists of roots for the general's tea. The fourth would have to wait.He rode home with the chicken in the basket, folded onto the pink scooter like a deckchair.That night he cooked. Brenda ate two plates and said it needed salt. Danny ate three and said nothing at all, but he sat up straight the whole time, and once, when Brenda went for the pepper, he looked across the table at Alexander and almost smiled.---Sophia turned off the lamp.The radiator knocked under the window. Below them, the last dryer of the day thumped and slowed and stopped.Alexander lay on the floor with the blanket up to his chin. There was no warmth left inside him. Two hairs of spirit energy, grown on this floor, and he had poured them all into an old man's back.Worth it."Alexander?" Sophia's voice came softly out of t
Chapter 13
"Father!" Margaret screamed. "It's the wine! I told you!"Brenda grabbed Sophia by the arm and dragged her back from the table.Victoria stood. She did not go to her grandfather. She looked at Alexander, then at Sophia."You did this to him," she said. "You and your show.""It isn't poison." Alexander was already on his knees beside the old man. "Sit him up. Bent like this, he can't breathe at all."Derek grabbed his collar from behind. "Get away from Grandpa!"The general's left hand shot out and caught Alexander's wrist, hard as iron."Let," he rasped. "Him."Derek let go as if the collar had burned him.Alexander bent to the old man's ear."There's a sliver of metal by your spine, sir. Below the right shoulder blade. Forty years you've breathed around it. The warmth reached it today, and it moved."He had brewed that wine for joints and breath. He had not known about the iron. That part was his to fix.The general's eyes went wide. "Can you fix it?""Yes.""Then do it, son.""Do wh
Chapter 12
Margaret snatched the glass out of the general's fingers. Wine spilled across the white cloth, dark as tea.The general's right hand came up off his knee to stop her. It rose an inch, shook, and sank back down.Alexander saw it. Nobody else did."It's medicine," he said. "The bark is for his joints. The ginseng is for his breath.""Medicine comes from a pharmacy," Derek said. "That's swamp water.""Then you have nothing to worry about."Derek's chair scraped back. "Fine. Somebody drinks it. If your swamp water does more than Grant's wine, I'll kneel to you. Right here, in front of Grandpa. Both knees!" He swung round and pointed down the table. "And Uncle Danny can judge. He loves old junk."Margaret laughed. Brenda laughed louder, before her husband could.Danny went red to the ears. He sat the way he always sat, bent forward over his plate, one hand pressed to the small of his back.You never stop a man who is digging his own grave, Alexander thought. You hand him the shovel."Every
Chapter 11
While Sophia slept, Alexander sat cross-legged and breathed the cold air in, and with it the spirit energy, a grain at a time. By the time the dryers below began to thump, the thread inside him had grown one more hair.Once, he had moved mountains. Today, a hair. It was a start.Sophia's phone buzzed. She read it, went pale, and held it out."Grandpa wants you there too. Noon. Wear something decent. Don't be late."From Victoria."She's never wanted me beside her," Sophia whispered. "Why now?""Because if your grandfather gets angry today, she wants someone to blame.""Someone?""Two someones. You and me. The cousin and the husband, in one room."Sophia hugged her knees. "So we're her shields.""Shields can push back," he said.Sophia stared at him, then smiled.---The pawn shop beside the PC rental, watches under scratched glass, a crate of junk by the door. In it, a squat clay jar with a faded red seal.OLD RICE WINE. FORTY DOLLARS. NO RETURNS.Alexander lifted the seal and smelled
Chapter 10
Carter leaned back in his chair, smiling."For your next wedding ring," he said. "Since the last one ended up in the dirt."The whole table burst out laughing.Chloe laughed until she had to hold Blake's arm. Even Margaret smiled behind her napkin.Sophia's hand went tight in Alexander's.He let go of it gently, bent down, and picked up the coin.It was a quarter. Cheap. Shiny. He turned it over once in his fingers."Thank you, Carter," he said. "I'll keep it.""Keep it?" Carter snorted. "It's the only money you've got.""Then I'd better keep it safe," Alexander said, and slipped it into his shirt pocket.At the far end of the table, Victoria set down her glass."Enough jokes," she said. "Derek has waited long enough. You know the price, Alexander. I told you on the phone.""Remind me.""Two hundred thousand dollars. Tonight." She did not even look at him. She looked at her nails. "Or you get down on your knees in front of my grandmother, and you beg my brother to forgive you. Now.""

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