Dawn Tracks
1618 Words
The Greyhound hissed out a breath, kind of like a dragon that just really wants a nap. Kentucky’s night smeared all over the windows, sticky and stubborn. Elara’s face was glued to the glass—cold as a freezer door—every bump in the road thumping out secret codes right into her skull.
Some dude across the aisle, probably cramming for finals last night, snored straight into his hoodie. Way back, a baby was auditioning for the world’s tiniest, loudest opera. None of that noise got past the little bubble Elara and Kaelan had carved out for themselves, pressed together, humming with that weird electricity only fugitives or lovers get.
She flipped her hand up, palm open, a silent dare.
“So, tell me what freedom tastes like tonight,” she muttered, low. “And don’t say pennies. Don’t you dare.”
Kaelan just laughed, barely louder than the bus’s old radiator.
“Copper’s old news. Today?” He squinted at the endless dark outside. “It’s gas station coffee. You know, the kind where the sign’s been sun-faded since the ‘80s. Tastes like burnt dreams and cheap hope. But it’s all ours.”
Elara traced the pale scars across his knuckles, half-distracted.
“I’m always bracing for the catch,” she admitted.
He shrugged, like maybe that was the point. “Maybe the catch is we get to make up our own rules for once.”
Outside, the night started bleeding purple, headlights flickering like confused fireflies who hadn’t figured out the sun was coming up.
Elara let her eyes slip shut. “Say it anyway. Just in case the sky decides it wants a different story.”
He leaned closer, lips brushing her ear, barely-there.
“I love you like a song that hasn’t been written yet. Every note illegal before it even gets played.”
Her heart went bonkers, hammering out some reckless rhythm against his arm. She opened her mouth to answer—and that’s when the burner phone, balancing on Kaelan’s knee like a bomb, started buzzing hard enough to rattle the seat.
Unknown Number.
Kaelan hit speaker, quick and sharp.
Victor Rhys’s voice oozed out, all expensive and polished, like a mahogany boardroom grew vocal cords.
“Morning, son. Scenic enough for you?”
Kaelan’s jaw went granite. “What do you want, Victor?”
A sigh, heavy with disappointment and money.
“You’re holding proprietary material—medical schematics my company owns. Bring them back by sunrise and I’ll call this whole thing a youthful mistake.”
Elara snapped upright. “He’s not your damn USB stick, Victor.”
Then Mrs. Vale dropped in, voice all chill and champagne that’s lost its fizz.
“Elara, honey, your little stunt knocked eight percent off Vale Holdings before breakfast. That’s a crisis, not a tantrum. Come home and we’ll sell it as a wild romance gone sideways. Stay missing, and suddenly it’s a kidnapping headline.”
Kaelan’s grip on the phone was so tight his fingers could’ve snapped the damn thing.
“Define kidnapping when both people can legally drink, yeah?”
Victor: “Legally? Influence. Financially? Scorched earth. We’re ready to freeze every scholarship, every trust fund, every last cent with your name on it. Collateral damage, blah blah, so sad.”
Mrs. Vale: “And the epilepsy foundation? Say bye-bye to that money at noon. Think about the kids, Elara. You always did.”
Click. Line’s dead.
Right then, the bus hissed to a stop—lights blasting in like a police search. People woke up, stretched, squinted at their screens. Overhead, some ancient TV snapped on: BREAKING: MISSING HEIRESS AND COMPANION LAST SEEN IN SOUTHBOUND GREYHOUND.
Elara stared at her own blurry face frozen on the screen, hood up.
“Well, guess my barcode finally scanned.”
Kaelan stood, yanking her up with him.
“Time for a new SKU, then.”
They slipped off the bus before the driver even started his spiel about hot coffee. The parking lot reeked of diesel; the grass glittered with dew. Sky looked like an old pair of jeans about to bleach out in the sun.
Elara zipped up her borrowed hoodie.
“How far to Nashville?”
“Fifty-three miles if you’re a crow, seventy if you’re stuck on these roads. Crows don’t need bus fare.” He eyed the sad little payphone, the snack machines, the lone taxi idling with its meter ticking like a time-bomb. “Option A: thumb a ride and hope for the best. Option B: that cab, but we’re broke after.”
Elara c****d an eyebrow. “Option C exist?”
Someone stepped out from the picnic shelter shadows—a woman, maybe early thirties, hair shaved and dyed steel-blue, tool-belt hanging like she was gunning for a showdown.
“Option C is my van.” She twirled keys shaped like a tiny Stratocaster. “Jules. Heading to Nashville—band’s loading up at noon. And hey, my business is my own. You two in?”
Kaelan shot her a look. “You always scoop up randoms at rest stops?”
“Only the ones messing with the script.”
Elara looked Jules dead in the eyes—steady, not buying the media circus—and finally exhaled for real.
“Gas money and grilled cheese stories, that’s what we’ve got.”
Jules cracked a grin. “I’m lactose intolerant, but I never turn down a good revolution.”
---
The van was a ’99 Econoline, midnight blue with rain stains. Inside, it smelled like spilled coffee and the ghosts of jam sessions. Jules drove one-handed, humming off-key, miles disappearing behind them.
Elara and Kaelan were wedged between amps and tangled cables, wrapped in a music that wasn’t theirs, but felt weirdly safe anyway.
Kaelan smoothed out a battered page of engineering notes.
“Mateo’s lab—East Nashville. Old garage, now a makerspace. We drop this off, he uploads it everywhere. Open-source, worldwide. Dad can’t patent what’s already out there.”
Elara traced the lines of the seizure-detecting wristband sketch.
“And my folks can’t auction off stuff that’s free.”
Jules caught their eyes in the rearview.
“You two sound like Bonnie and Clyde, but with Wi-Fi.”
Elara barked out a laugh—loud, a little wild.
“They got riddled with bullets. We’re more ‘happily ever after,’ just with stronger passwords.”
Kaelan nudged her. “We’ll need a cover story when the press finds us. Something less tragic.”
“Open-source philanthropists?” Elara said. “Makes a killer headline.”
Jules flicked on the blinker.
“First rule of indie rock: you spin the story, or someone else will.”
Man, Nashville just sort of exploded outta nowhere—like somebody dumped a sack of rhinestones on the horizon and forgot to sweep ‘em up. Flashy, messy, buzzing with that weird kind of promise you can almost taste.
Jules dropped them off near Five Points, van coughing up exhaust and good vibes as it clattered away. The makerspace squatted right there, jammed between a taco truck and a mural of Dolly Parton giving a wink to nobody in particular. Inside? Solder in the air, 3D printers grinding away, some bass-heavy dubstep/theremin experiment thumping in the background.
Mateo stood out—couldn’t miss him. Tall, hair coiled up like he had better things to do, repping a T-shirt that screamed PATENTS ARE JUST FANFIC FOR CAPITALISTS. He glanced up from his circuit board, eyes popping like he’d seen a ghost.
“Kaelan Rhys, look at you. Didn’t your old man lock you in a tower somewhere?”
Kaelan just shot back, stone-faced: “Tower had Wi-Fi. I dug my way out.”
Elara, always on point, reached out a hand. “We’re here to set something free.”
Mateo’s eyes flicked to the schematic Kaelan handed him, then spotted their fingers tangled together. He grinned—slow and wide, like he knew they were up to something.
“Well, let’s make a racket nobody’s gonna forget.”
—
They didn’t bother watching the time. Sunset came and went. Mateo shot a quick video—Kaelan doing the techy explain-y bit, Elara flipping the science into something that actually made sense, maybe even gave folks a little hope. Before midnight, they’d blasted it out to three public sites.
That upload timestamp? Felt like a middle finger to the universe.
Outside, neon guitars buzzed to life, soaking the sidewalk in fake cherry and blue. Elara leaned back against the wall, chest tight with that electric, risky feeling.
“We just flipped our poison into a cure.”
Kaelan brushed a rogue curl from her face. “Still us?” Soft, like he needed her to say it.
She went up on her toes, kissed him under the streetlamp’s hum. “Yeah. Always.”
Down the block, some busker kicked off “Ring of Fire.” Elara snorted into his mouth. “Wow, subtle soundtrack.”
Kaelan spun her, wild and a little dizzy. “Let the world have its clichés. We’re already writing the next chapter.”
The lab door chimed—Mateo’s head popped out. “Hey, your video’s blowing up. #PoisonToAntidote is everywhere. Better figure out your next move before the dragons show up.”
Elara squeezed Kaelan’s hand. “Next move: sunrise.”
They stepped into Nashville’s after-dark blur—just two shadows stitched together by starlight, hearts thumping that dangerous, maybe-stupid rhythm—right as a new headline lit up above them:
MISSING HEIRESS TURNS WHISTLEBLOWER—FAMILIES SILENT.
The city hummed around them, part threat, part invitation.
Screw it. Chapter 5 was already waiting.
- Writer
