“The Origin”
CASSIE
The truck is dying.
It wasn’t exactly healthy when we stole it, but ten miles of high-speed evasion and a shattered rear window have turned it into a rolling corpse. The engine knocks—a wet, metallic thunk-thunk-thunk—and the wind howling through the broken glass numbs my ears.
I’m shivering again. The adrenaline from the shotgun blast has faded, leaving behind a cold, shaky exhaustion.
“We need to dump it,” Diego yells over the wind.
“Agreed.”
“Next town. We find a swap.”
He looks grim. His cheek is still bleeding sluggishly where the glass cut him. He scans the mirrors constantly, eyes darting from side to side.
He’s not looking for the farmer with the shotgun. He’s looking for the invisible net. Drones. Traffic cams. The algorithm.
We cross the state line into West Virginia. The roads narrow. The houses get smaller, huddled against the hillsides.
“There,” Diego says.
A sign flashes past: Martinsburg - 2 Miles.
“It’s big enough to have a strip mall,” he says. “Small enough to lack high-end surveillance grids.”
He pulls the truck off the main road, navigating through a maze of residential streets until we hit a commercial district. A Walmart. A Lowe’s. A sprawling parking lot filled with morning shoppers.
“Perfect.”
He parks the truck behind a dumpster in the loading zone behind the Lowe’s. It’s out of sight from the main road.
He kills the engine. The silence rings in my ears.
“Out,” he says. “Wipe everything.”
I know the drill now. I use my sleeve to wipe the door handle, the dash, the seatbelt buckle. Erasing the evidence of our existence.
We step out into the sunlight. It feels exposing. I’m wearing a thermal tactical shirt that hangs to my knees, dirty jeans, and sneakers taped together with medical adhesive. I look like a vagrant.
Diego looks like—trouble. Even with the dirt and the blood, he moves with a predatory grace that screams soldier.
“Head down,” he murmurs. “Walk with purpose. Don’t make eye contact.”
We merge into the flow of people walking toward the store entrances.
“What are we looking for?” I ask.
“Sedan. Gray or silver. Ford or Toyota. Common. Invisible.”
“No.”
He stops. Turns to look at me. “No?”
“A gray sedan with two people looking like us in the front seat screams ‘fleeing felons.’ It’s the first thing a cop looks for.”
“It blends in.”
