Run in the Dark - rewrite

A teen, a veteran, and a journalist fight to expose a deadly conspiracy. Rewrite.

Chapter 1 – Elena’s Run - Elena

Elena ran. A horn blared. A semi roared past, throwing spray like a wall. She stumbled, barely keeping her footing. Her heart stuttered. She sucked in air, almost sobbing, then steadied her pace.

Rain slicked her hair and slapped cold against her face as she pounded west on Highway 19’s shoulder. Her lungs burned. Each step jarred her ribs as if the bones would splinter. She couldn’t stop. One step, then another. Away from the van. Away from him. Away from everything, she had to escape. The headlights of the panel van glowed in the distance, reminding her that Caleb would come looking once he changed the tire.

The van blew a front tire—a gunshot in the storm. Caleb cursed, pulling over near a service station, hands gripping the wheel as rain hammered the windshield. He didn’t move to change it, not right away. She knew he wouldn’t—not in the downpour, not with traffic slicing past. But when he did, he would start hunting her.

She had to be gone before then. Her only opportunity rested in evading Caleb.

Her sneakers slapped asphalt. Water splashed with every stride. The storm churned the sky. Low clouds glowed in the east, lit by refinery lights. The wet smell of oil and pavement filled her nose. Every sense screamed to run faster. Her body had limits. Pain lanced up her shins. Her breath caught—ragged.

She focused on distance, not speed. One mile—that was it. One mile between the service station and the highway intersection gave choices. She pictured that intersection; she could continue east. Or turn north. Or south. The rust-striped sign with faded paint. The wide gravel apron where half-dead pickups waited near a small garage. If she made it, she could pound on the steel door and pray it opened.
Her vision blurred. The rain stung. The panel van’s beams grew dimmer in the distance, swallowed by storm and darkness. Relief fluttered in her chest—temporary, fragile.

Keep running.

The storm eased, with drizzle replacing rain. Puddles shone like shattered mirrors on the shoulder. Her shoes were soaked and squelched with every step. She pressed on, arms pumping weakly.

When the garage’s security light glowed, tears blurred her eyes. The squat building crouched at the intersection, roof sagging, steel siding streaked with rust. A hand-painted sign read “Todd’s Auto & Diesel,” one corner peeled off. The roll-up door shut and locked. No cars out front. Office windows dark.

She stumbled onto the gravel apron, her shoes sliding on the wet rock, and reached the side service door. Her knuckles knocked on the metal, weak at first, then harder. ‘Please,’ she whispered, throat raw. ‘Please, open.’
The storm had passed, leaving a silence she couldn’t stand. Her fists were the only sound.

The door clicked, hinges groaning, and light spilled out in a rectangle. A man filled the frame, broad shoulders hunched, work shirt stained. His eyes went from her drenched hair to her shaking arms, to the empty road behind her.

His mouth tightened. “Shop’s closed.”

The words hit like a slap. Her chest heaved. She could barely keep her legs under her. The road stretched black and endless; the storm’s aftertaste lingered, sour. She shook her head, lips moving but no words coming.

The man’s hand tightened on the door, ready to shut it.

Elena’s vision tunneled. She forced her voice through her raw throat. “Please.” No strength for more.

She saw only his outline in the light, his eyes dark, unreadable. He hesitated—for an instant, no more.

The rain speckled the gravel. The panel van’s headlights were gone now, hidden past the bend, but in her mind they still blazed, coming closer.

She stood in the doorway, heart battering her ribs, waiting for the man to choose: would she live, or go back?

Chapter 2 – Garage Threshold - Todd

Todd nearly shut the door when he saw her.

Rain had turned the gravel lot into a broken mirror. The girl stood, drenched, hair slicked to her face. She looked eighteen, maybe older—hard to tell in the sodium glare. She swayed, as if the storm itself had flung her here.

“Shop’s closed”, he said, already pulling the door shut. But something in her eyes caught him—wide, pleading, not empty yet. He knew that look. He hated knowing it.

For a second, he considered locking up, abandoning her outside. It would be cleaner. Trouble always followed that look.

But the girl whispered one word, “Please,” and his hand stalled on the door.

Behind her, Highway 19 stretched dark under the muttering storm. No headlights, but Todd’s gut said they’d come—the kind that searched.

He let out a breath, stepped aside from the door, and motioned her in. She slipped past him into the garage.

Water pooled under her shoes. She hugged herself tightly, shivering, and deliberately avoided meeting his eyes. Todd closed the door, slid the bolt with a firm click, and leaned the full weight of his body against the steel door.

“Name?” he asked.

“Elena.” The word scraped out like she hadn’t spoken in hours.

Todd studied her narrow frame, drenched clothes, and mud streaking her jeans. She’d run hard. His eyes narrowed. ‘From where? From who?’

She hesitated. In that pause, Todd caught the drone of an engine on the highway. Not close yet, but present. He recognized the sound: a larger vehicle, probably. A searching vehicle, maybe.
The kind men used when they needed space in the back. For reasons that never saw the light of day.

He didn’t press her for details. Not yet.

Instead, he jerked his chin toward the shop’s interior. “Sit before you fall.”

She perched on the rim of a chair near the workbench, hands knotted in her lap. Rainwater pooled from her sleeves onto the concrete.

Todd busied himself with the kettle, keeping his gaze averted but his ears keen. Outside, the highway stayed quiet. Soon, whoever had driven the van would discover the missing passenger had stopped running.

And when they did, they’d come here.

Todd poured scalding water into a mug, dropped in a tea bag, and set it on the bench near her. She clung to it as if it were a flame.

Her eyes flicked up. “Thank you.”

Todd didn’t answer. He leaned back, arms folded. Listened to the storm’s ebb. His gut knew what his mind denied. The night had shifted. He’d opened the damn door.

Chapter 3 — The Reporter at the Door - Todd

Todd shoved the garage door up, letting in the morning. The storm had rinsed Wynnewood clean. Puddles under the awning flashed like tin. He sipped his coffee, tasting its warmth and the metallic after-smell of rain on brake dust. Deliberately, he didn’t glance at the couch, where Elena slept curled in one of his old flannels, sleeves swallowing her wrists. He had hung her soaked hoodie by the space heater; now it no longer dripped.

By noon, he told himself, she’d be gone. He’d arrange an Uber for her or hand her cash. The problem would roll away. The thought grated like a stripped bolt.

By ten o’clock, under a bright sky, Todd stood in the shop holding his coffee mug. He watched as a woman came quickly up the drive, dressed in a blazer, hair pinned back, notepad in hand. She moved with the confidence of someone used to doors opening for her.

“We’re not open,” Todd called.

“It’s ten-oh-two.” She flashed a press badge. “Cassandra Vale. Cass. You Todd Vance?”

He didn’t answer. She paused at the edge where sun met shade and deliberately did not step closer. The notepad remained down at her side, and she waited, letting the silence stretch between them.

“What do you need?” Todd said.

“Information.” Her eyes swept the shop—bench, couch, coffee. Then, her gaze snagged on the hoodie hanging by the heater. She didn’t smile, but he saw the click behind her eyes: confirmation. “A girl was seen on Nineteen last night. Someone said She banged on this door.”

“They ‘someone’ ought to mind their business.”

“I write about people who can’t mind their business anymore,” she said, even. “Girls who don’t come home. I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

“That’s what people say before they do.”

Her hand brushed a pocket. He heard the faint click of a recorder and watched her decide against using it. “Sheriff Ellison’s office says there’s nothing to see,” she said. “They’ve said that for months. This county strangles every lead.”

The name slid into him like a splinter. Mark Ellison: the grin that got out of trouble. Todd kept a straight face.

“No one here’s part of your story,” he said. “Move along.”

“Mr. Vance,” Cass said, softer. “If she’s here, I can help. But I need to know if she’s carrying something. Something that could burn them down.”

He stepped forward so the light caught her eyes. “No.”

A faint sound came from behind him—a breath, then the rasp of fabric. Elena peered around the tool cabinet, hesitated, then jerked back and bumped the metal. The clang felt like it echoed in his teeth.
Cass didn’t look past him. She kept her hands low and open. “I’m sorry,” she said toward the shadow. “I won’t record. I won’t use your name without asking. I’m here because girls are disappearing and men with badges are pretending not to see.”

Elena’s whisper floated from the dark. “She’s with him?”

“She’s leaving,” Todd said, still watching Cass.

Cass swallowed whatever argument she had and set a card on the bench like a truce. “If there’s an object—something that proves what happened—keeping it secret makes her a target. Let me copy it. Copies are harder to kill.”

He hated it made sense. He hated that he’d thought it at three a.m. and shoved it away. “We’re done,” he said.

“Understood.” She backed out of the shade before turning. In the sunlight, her shoulders looked smaller. Todd didn’t feel any taller. He closed the door, threw the deadbolt, and kept his hand there a second longer than necessary. Behind him, Elena had crept closer, thin and still, as if movement would draw fire.

“She said his name,” Elena whispered. “Ellison.”

“I heard.” He found another blanket, brought it to her, and handed it over—doing what he knew how to do. He kept the questions bottled up inside.

The day went on with ordinary noises that didn’t feel ordinary. Todd worked with half his head and kept half on the door. Once he saw Cass’s car two houses down, tucked between lilac bushes. He pretended not to.

He chained the side door and tested every window, fastening them one by one, as if rehearsing a routine he’d invented at noon and wanted to fix in his mind. Elena curled on the couch with her dry hoodie on, staring out the window. He put the kettle on the stove because preparing hot water seemed like the only thing to do.

His cell phone hummed a familiar tune once. A single rhythm, then nothing. They both watched it not ring again.

Headlights slashed across the window, left to right, slow, then back again. Tires ground the outer gravel. The engine idled low and patient. Hair lifted on his arms. No horn, no knock. Just sweep, sweep, as if the lights themselves were fingers feeling for life.

Elena spoke so softly he leaned to catch it. “He waits,” she said. “So you know he’s close.”

“Who?” he asked, the useless question you ask to keep from naming the thing yourself.

She shut her eyes. The light swept the pegboard and made the sockets glint. The idle went on five minutes—ten—and died only when the kettle screamed.

Todd didn’t drink the coffee. He took the flashlight outside. The night cooled everything back to black. He swept the beam across the tire ruts in the gravel. Something bright winked. He crouched.
A burnt match. Head charred, stick chewed. He didn’t have to pretend he didn’t recognize the habit. It was a calling card if you knew him. It said: I was here. It said: I can mark your yard, and nothing will happen to me.

Todd closed his hand around the match and listened. The night stitched itself closed. Somewhere an engine idled in a distant driveway. He turned off the light and let his eyes gather what they could—fence, ditch. Then he went back inside.

Elena now stood closer to the door. On the bench, where earlier the headlights had briefly reflected off it, Cass’s card lay. Todd placed the burnt match beside the card.

“You know him,” he said.

Elena’s fingers found the seam of her hoodie and pressed. A latch gave inside her. She spoke to the floor. “Ellison,” she said. “He was there. At the warehouse.”

The world tilted a fraction. Todd saw the grin under a letterman jacket and the badge that came later. He didn’t know if the words left his mouth or just his teeth: “It’s him.”

Elena hugged her hoodie tighter. “If I give you the thing,” she whispered, “will you make it so he can’t pretend anymore?”

He looked at the card, the match, the phone, the chain on the side door, and the small stack of tools he’d laid out earlier without admitting it. He was a mechanic—he fixed what people broke. But some jobs didn’t take patches. Some meant pulling the engine and starting from the frame.

“We’ll make copies,” he said. “So many it won’t matter who hides one.” The certainty surprised him. Maybe it was anger finally landing. Maybe it was the way Elena said “pretend.” Like the lie itself was the crime.

The kettle softened to a hiss and went quiet. He flipped the sign to CLOSED for no one and checked the bolt again because the feel of it steadied him. He sat on the stool and watched Elena’s fingers find the pocket seam. The night pressed close, patient as a man waiting in a darkened car. Inside, Todd listened for the sound of plastic sliding free. He told himself a thing he could almost believe: this time, when trouble pushed in, he would not be alone with it.

Chapter 4 — What the Drive Holds - Todd

Todd kept the matchstick on the bench, its blackened head pointing at Cass’s card. Elena stood by the heater, arms crossed inside her hoodie.

He turned the card over: Cassandra Vale, a number. He pictured her at the motel, waiting.

“You sure?” he asked Elena, shifting his weight as if wanting to hand her a dozen reasons to say no.

She nodded at the phone. “Copies, you said,” she said.

He dialed and held the phone close to his ear. Cass picked up on the first ring. “Back in three minutes,” she said, and hung up.

He checked angles and sightlines the way he did with a wreck: where force had traveled, where stress still lived. Lights low, heater steady, chain set.

Cass arrived on foot. He opened and closed the door. She wore a laptop bag and looked like someone containing more words than the room could hold. Her eyes grazed the heater, Elena in her hoodie. Relief flickered, and she smoothed it away.

“Rules,” Todd said. “No names on tape. Nothing published that gets her found before we’re ready. You make copies; one stays here.”

“Agreed,” Cass said. “Where’s the drive?”

Elena’s fingers paused at the seam of her hoodie pocket. She waited for his signal, but he didn’t tell her what to do. She drew the flash drive out with caution, as if holding a live wire.

Cass set the laptop on the bench. “We won’t open anything that changes dates or writes metadata,” she said. “Copy first, view from the copy.”

“Use that outlet,” Todd said. He liked the sound of not changing anything.

Elena plugged in the drive. A tiny light blinked, steady and quick. Folders appeared Todd couldn’t make out from where he sat. He watched their faces instead.

Cass’s mouth tightened as she took in the file list on the screen. With deliberate clicks, she selected the files, copied, and pasted them. A progress bar crawled across the display. Todd’s hand drifted to the phone, but stopped before touching it.

He set his hand on a wrench instead. It knew his grip.

Cass opened the copy. Thumbnails pictured concrete, pallets, part of a face, a wrist with a zip-tie. There were audio files with dates and a spreadsheet with columns that looked like routes. He wanted to avoid the details, but he also needed to know.

Elena leaned in. Her breath slowed, as if moving the images off her body eased something in her ribs. Cass hovered over a video, then pulled back. “We don’t need to play it,” she said. “Just make sure it opens.” Two seconds of gray hallway, a man’s back, a numbered door, scrape of boots. Enough.

“Two more copies,” Todd said. “One for you. One stays here.”

“My office has a lockbox and a dead switch,” Cass said. “If I don’t check in, a colleague publishes. Last resort. For now, one on me, one offsite.” She looked at Elena. “If you agree.”

Elena didn’t remove the drive from the laptop. Cass, hands now steady with a task, started another copy, then a third.

The phone rang once. No second ring. Cass’s shoulders tightened. Elena froze. Todd checked the chain and peered through the glass at only his reflection.

He thought of calling Ellison, but didn’t. Mark would ask questions and arrive with permission. Caleb’s chewed match on the bench said permission wasn’t needed. No one bigger was coming to stop them.

The progress bar reached the end. Cass labeled one drive SHOP and set it on the table. Another went into her bag with VALE on tape. She put the third into Elena’s palm. The way Elena closed her hand made Todd think of someone catching a tossed key and holding it like a promise.

“We should talk about when this goes public,” Cass said. “We can blur girls’ faces until they’re safe. We can name men with badges. We can name the warehouse.” She looked at Todd. “With your permission.”

He recognized respect when someone chose it. He nodded. “Not tonight. Tonight, we don’t give them a reason to run.”

“So we run?” Cass asked.

“We move,” he said. He looked at the back wall, where old flight charts sat under a layer of dust. “Tomorrow we go where I can see anyone coming a mile off.”

“An airfield,” she said.

“An old hangar,” he answered. The word had weight he didn’t drop in front of people. He didn’t say wife or daughter. He held his jaw until the ache moved his mind.

A car passed. Normal sound, going away. The night settled into patience.

Cass zipped her bag. “I’ll be back before dawn. If you want this in other hands, I can move fast.”
“Keep your head down,” he said. He took the drive labeled “SHOP” and slid it into the small safe under the counter—the one containing deeds, old photos, and petty cash. Turning the safe’s dial steadied him.

Elena touched the bench. “Thank you,” she said. Small in the hoodie, more real at the same time.

“You take the couch,” Todd said. He caught himself and added, “Door stays chained.”

Cass left. Careful footsteps faded. Deadbolt, chain, heater down a notch. Small fixes. The kind that adds up.

He dropped the match into a glass jar where he kept other tiny mysteries: odd screws, a sheared bolt head, a nail from a tire. He turned the jar so the match lay on top.

The shop smelled like damp cotton and hot metal. He told himself Ellison was just a name. A badge could be peeled off a shirt. He could walk a runway he hadn’t touched in years. He didn’t believe all of it, but he believed enough to carry the night.

Near two a.m., Elena’s breathing slowed and evened out. Todd watched the windows for headlights but saw only his own reflection.
He pulled the county map from under the tray. Back way to the edge of town. Past the refinery. The flint road to lose a tail. Farm-to-market, then the airstrip. He saw the hangar door, the padlock, the Cessna under its tarp. He never saw the house he’d sold after the crash.

He packed quietly: a socket set, two flashlights, spare keys, gloves, the gun he hadn’t touched in three years, and a box of rounds, which he checked out of habit. He set the packed crate by the door.
He thought about calling Ellison like a test flight he had no intention of making. He turned off the cell phone. It could ring in silence.

He sat on the stool and watched Elena sleep, sleeves pushed to her forearms now, her hand closed around the third drive as if someone might take it back. Cass would return before dawn. They would leave when the sky went gray enough to make them anonymous.

Copies, he thought, and felt the word settle like a tool in his palm that finally fit.

Chapter 5 — Hangar Refuge - Todd

Todd drove the back roads out of Wynnewood with the headlights dimmed low. The truck’s suspension jolted over ruts he knew by heart. Cass sat rigid beside him, clutching her laptop bag. Her eyes locked on the window as if staring at the black fields could anchor her. Elena slouched next to the window, hoodie hanging off her shoulders. She looked too small in it. Her face was pale. Her eyes traced the fences and trees sliding by.

The town’s glow died behind them. Out here, the dark felt wider, emptier. No neon. No porch lamps. Only distant pinpricks of stars and the faint blink of a refinery stack northward. Todd knew the roads by memory, as a mechanic knows every scar on his hands. He had driven them in joy and in ruin. Tonight the wheel throbbed under his grip, as if it shared his pulse.

The hangar appeared suddenly, crouched in weeds like a barn stripped of its farm. Its metal skin dulled to gray, streaks of rust clawing down its sides. He crept across the cracked tarmac. Weeds choked the painted lines. The headlights swept once, then faded as he cut the engine. Silence pressed in, thick as the heat before a storm.

Elena’s voice came small. “Where are we?”

“It’s mine,” Todd said. “An old place.”

He stepped out first and gravel snapped under his boots as he walked a few paces, scanning the fence line, then the tree line, then the cut of road. The area seemed empty. Only the wind and Johnson grass answered him. He turned back and waved Cass and Elena out of the truck.

Inside smelled of dust, oil, and forgotten metal. His flashlight beam found the Cessna still under its tarp, hulking like a shrouded body. Elena drifted forward and laid her hand on the canvas. Her fingers lingered. “You flew?”

Todd’s throat tightened. He saw the cockpit glass lit by the sun, his wife’s hand steady on the yoke, his daughter’s laughter bright over the propeller roar. The memory landed like a blow. “Once,” he said, roughly. “Not since the crash.”

Cass’s gaze flicked from Elena to him. She saw something he didn’t mean her to. Without comment, she pulled her recorder from her pocket, thumbed it off, and set it down. The click was a small mercy, louder than words.

Todd busied himself. He checked the side door and jammed a crowbar across its handle. Then he rolled a toolbox under the narrow window. The weight of action steadied him. He walked the walls, reading signs like a mechanic diagnosing damage. He spotted sharp footprints in the dust near the north wall. On the ground was a match with a black head and chew marks. It wasn’t old.

“They’ve been here,” he muttered.

Cass turned. “When?”

“Recent. Boots like county issue.”

He climbed the ladder to the catwalk. From there, he raised his binoculars, scanning the treeline beyond the cracked apron. Two figures leaned against a cruiser half-hidden by brush. One flicked a lighter again and again. The flame sparked too fast. Todd didn’t need the glass to name him. Mark Ellison had the same nervous tic before a lie he couldn’t sell. Caleb stood beside him, broad frame still as a post, jaw chewing slowly. A matchstick, Todd knew. Some habits have branded themselves deep.
The sight collapsed years onto him at once. Locker rooms. Ball games. Ellison’s grin carried him through every lie. Caleb’s silence was watchful even then. Now, both wore uniforms as he stood on the catwalk.

“Damn,” he whispered.

Cass’s voice rose from below. “What?”

“Ellison,” Todd said. “With Caleb.”

“You’re certain?”

“I know him. Same tells since high school. He’s sweating under that badge.”

Elena approached the ladder, her arms hugging herself. “They found us?”

“They always were going to,” Todd said. He forced calm into the words and spread them through the cavern of air.

Chapter 6 — The Getaway - Todd

Todd hadn’t brought them to the hangar to hide. He brought them because the plane was the only road left.

He pulled the big doors shut with both hands. He paused to listen, then switched on a work lamp. Its click was sharp in the dim light. The beam landed on the Cessna, still under its tarp. Dust covered it, untouched for a year.

“Elena,” he said. “Hands here. Walk it back.”

She grabbed the canvas with him. Cass waited at the edge of the light, holding her bag. The tarp slid off and dropped to the floor. The airplane looked worn but intact: faded paint, low tires, a prop he knew well.

“Can it fly?” Cass asked.

“It will,” he said. He needed that to be true.

He checked the fuel first. Climbing onto the wing, he twisted the cap and sniffed. It smelled old, but not bad. He dipped the stick, wiped it on his jeans, and put it back. Then he checked the oil: wiped, read, nodded.

Battery would be the question. He checked the bulkhead for the ground-power cart. It sat where he’d left it a year ago.

Somewhere out by the county road, a truck revved and let the engine fall. Sloppy sound, more noise than purpose.

“Cass,” he said, “red box. Coiled cord.”

She opened the ground power cart, uncoiling the heavy red cord and passing it to him as if it might bite. He clipped the cable to the battery lug by feel. Elena stood on the step, both hands braced on the windshield frame, waiting for what to do next.

He slid into the left seat. The master came on with a tired hum. He primed twice, mixture rich, throttle cracked, mags both. He spoke the words out of habit—the way you talk yourself through a task to keep your hands clean.

“Hold the chocks,” he told Elena. “If she jumps, pull and toss them in.”

“I can,” she said, her voice steadier than her hands as she pressed them white against the window.

He twisted the key. The starter pulled. It hesitated, then pulled again. A cough. Then a catch. The engine found a ragged idle and smoothed. Exhaust curled under the wing. The vibration came up through the seat, into his spine, and steadied something in him that had been loose.

Cass stood in the doorway, hair lifting in the prop wash. “If this doesn’t—” she began, her voice small against the noise.

“It will,” he said, and leaned the mixture a hair until the engine sounded happier.

Headlights swept the far wall. Gravel, a brake squeal, laughter with no humor. A shot cracked high and went nowhere. Elena didn’t flinch. She’d used up her flinching earlier.

“Doors,” Todd said.

He left the engine low and stepped into the wash. He and Cass took a door each and shoved, rollers complaining as they moved. Cold night came in. Weeds bent in the prop blast. He dragged his door wide enough for a wingtip with room to spare. Cass hauled hers to match, without being told.

The truck’s lights found them. Ellison’s voice carried on the wind—big words about rights he didn’t own. Another shot, closer, the ricochet dying fast on concrete.

Todd jogged to the nose of the aircraft, crouched, and pulled the wheel chocks free. Elena grabbed them and threw them in the back cargo area. He squeezed her shoulder; she let him.

“Strap in,” he said. “Back seat,” he told Cass. “Buckle now.”

Cass hesitated one heartbeat, then climbed in. Elena already had the belt buckled across her lap. Todd settled himself in the left seat, tapped the gauges with a knuckle, and felt the seat take his weight, fitting him like a socket that still fit.
He breathed once, remembering the runway as it had been—clean, long, endless. Now it was broken tarmac, split by weeds. There were no margins left. He told his hands to pretend otherwise.

He eased the throttle. The plane crept forward. The tail wobbled and corrected, as if it remembered how to do this. He kept the nose straight with light rudder. Debris ticked the skin. The truck lunged, clipped a hump, and bounced. Someone swore.

He pointed the nose down the strip that wasn’t a strip anymore—a darker cut through pale grass. He didn’t pause. Throttle forward to the stop. The engine took a deeper note. The world began to blur. He kept his eyes far ahead, on where the weeds would be when they got there.

“Todd,” Cass said, small in back.

“Breathe,” he said.

The truck tried to swing across and misjudged the distance. Brakes locked. It slid, found a rut, and bogged at an angle. Headlights threw wild shapes across the field. Another shot, luck, and noise. It hit nothing that mattered.

The controls told him the nose was lightening. He waited a heartbeat past where fear says pull, then drew back a fraction. The tires let go in a stutter. The bumpiness changed to air. He held a shallow angle. The fence slid under them, then the field, and then the access road, where the truck sat small and out of place.

Elena made a sound—half laugh, half sob. Cass thumped the back of his seat in a wordless thanks. Todd didn’t answer. All the talk had left his body. What stayed were hands and gauges and the straight line ahead.

He kept them low. Low buys time if an engine quits. He watched the temperature and pressure. Tiny alarms flickered, warning only if they stay on. The town’s few lights flickered beyond the river. The runway fell behind them. It became a dark line he could erase with one blink.

The truck’s lights dwindled. A late shot popped at nothing. It was thin now. Todd set course by the black ribbon of river and by the memory of a field twenty miles south where a man could put a plane down without asking anyone first.

Elena’s hand found his sleeve and rested there. “Thank you,” she said.

He nodded. Words were weight. He gave the engine a sliver more throttle and listened. It gave him only speed.

Cass leaned forward to be heard. “Where?”

“South,” he said.

“You haven’t flown in—”

“Now I am.”

The river slipped under them and was gone. Fields opened like pages. The wind settled into one lane and smoothed. His shoulders dropped a notch; he hadn’t known he’d raised them . He didn’t think about after. He thought about the horizon, needles, and lift. Things he could touch with his hands.

Behind and below, the hangar shrank to a square he could block with a thumb. He pictured the glass jar on the bench with the match inside. The prop wash would have rattled it. Maybe it fell. He let that go. He had taken what mattered.

He leveled a touch and trimmed. The airplane stopped arguing and held where he put it. The night ahead wasn’t friendly. But it was wide enough. He put them into it and kept them there.

“Old bird,” he said, where only the panel could hear him, “keep going.” The airplane kept going.

Chapter 7 – Airborne - Todd

The old Cessna shuddered, as if it had no business in the air. Todd’s fists gripped the yoke, knuckles white against the dim instrument panel. The hangar doors were splinters behind them, night rushing past as the wheels left the gravel. He thought the engine might cough and stall, dragging them down. Instead, it caught steady, droning in a rhythm he knew better than his own pulse.

He glanced right. Elena was strapped in, hoodie clutched tight, eyes fixed on the blackness beyond the window. Cass sat behind them, recorder stowed, notebook on her knee, pen trembling each time the plane jolted. Neither spoke. The engine’s roar swallowed Todd’s thoughts.

“Hold on,” he muttered, not sure if he meant it for them or himself.

The climb leveled. Wynnewood’s lights dwindled below. The vast sky could swallow them whole. Todd tapped the altimeter, more habit than need. It wavered, uncertain of its own reading.

The radio crackled faintly. His thumb hovered before he pressed the transmit. “Mayday, mayday, this is November Four-Five-Six-Tango. Civilian Cessna out of Wynnewood. Request immediate contact with the Oklahoma State Police. Repeat, urgent.”

For three heartbeats, there was nothing. Then a clipped voice broke through: “Cessna Four-Five-Six-Tango, this is State dispatch. Say your emergency.”

Relief edged Todd’s breath. “I’ve got two civilians with me. Pursued by Garvin County Sheriff Ellison and known associate, Caleb Brant. Both armed. Both compromised. We’re en route to the county airstrip. Need deputies on site.”

Static swallowed the reply, then returned, steadier this time: “Copy, Cessna. Units will converge at County Field. Can you make it there safely?”

Todd checked the dashboard. Oil pressure hovered low; a stubborn warning light blinked. “We’ll make it,” he lied, releasing the button before his voice cracked.

Elena shifted, finally tearing her eyes from the window. “They can’t reach us up here, right?”

Her voice was small, but not the panicked whisper from before. Todd softened his grip on the yoke, forced his tone even. “They’ll be right behind on the highway. But no, not up here. Long as this bird keeps beating her wings.”

She nodded, and he saw her shoulders ease fractionally.

“Think of it like a car engine,” he added. “Every knock, every sputter—she’s talking to you. All you gotta do is listen close.”

Elena’s mouth twitched like she wanted to smile but didn’t trust herself. Still, her fingers loosened from her hoodie, resting gingerly on the buckle.

Behind them, Cass scribbled furiously. The pen scratched through the drone. Todd didn’t turn but felt her eyes burning his neck.

“This is bigger than your scoop,” he said without looking.

The pen froze. “I know,” she admitted, quieter than he expected.

A gust jolted the Cessna. Todd steadied it, heart hammering. Below, red and blue lights raced the highway, chasing south. He didn’t need binoculars to picture Ellison’s cruiser surging forward, Caleb leaning in with a matchstick between his teeth. They’d be close—minutes, maybe—when he touched down.

The county strip was a scar in the dark—no tower, no lights, but a lone sodium lamp. Todd trimmed the throttle and started descent. The plane groaned, every rivet flexing.

Elena’s hand found the side brace. “We’re landing already?”

“Yeah,” Todd said. “Short hop. Safer that way.”

Her knuckles whitened, but she nodded.

Cass leaned forward. “And if they’re already there?”

Todd did not answer at once. The runway drew closer, rough and narrow. Sweat pricked his back under the leather jacket. He ran through possibilities: ditch in a field, swing to the highway, keep circling until fuel ran out. None worked.

Finally, he muttered, “Then we land harder than they do.”

The wheels screeched against the asphalt, jarring their teeth. The Cessna fishtailed, tires skidding. Todd hauled the rudder pedal, fighting physics. The nose straightened, and the plane stopped half a breath from the chain-link fence.

Silence dropped heavy. Only the tick of cooling metal filled the cabin.

Todd’s hands dropped from the yoke, trembling. He clenched them still, exhaled. “Everybody out,” he said.

Elena fumbled with her belt but managed it. Cass snapped her notebook shut and stuffed it into her bag. The three spilled onto the cracked tarmac, night sharp and damp.

Todd scanned the horizon. Blue and red lights swelled north, cutting fast across the two-lane road. Caleb and Ellison were close.

“Stay behind me,” Todd said, wrench still clipped to his belt from the hangar. His eyes never left those approaching beams.

Elena clutched his sleeve, her voice steadier now. “You said the deputies would be here.”

“They will,” Todd answered, though he wasn’t sure if he believed it. “Hold tight.”

The engine ticked, the night stretched, and pursuit drew relentlessly and closer.

Chapter 8 – County Airfield Showdown - Todd

The Cessna dropped, wounded. Todd gripped the yoke, knuckles rigid, as the county strip appeared. The wing dipped hard left, then right, skimming air like a drunk reaching for a wall.

“Hold on,” he growled, more prayer than warning.

Wheels slammed. Tires shrieked, metal rattled. For a sickening instant, he thought the plane would cartwheel into wreckage. But the fuselage skidded, bounced, and finally lurched to a stop, nose inches from the fence. Silence dropped, broken only by the tick of cooling metal.

Todd sagged, chest heaving. He wanted to stay, just breathe, but headlights cut across the far strip, slicing the dark.

“Out,” he snapped. “Now.”

Elena fumbled with her seat belt buckle, finally freeing herself as Cass, rushing, shoved her notebook into her bag. The three of them quickly climbed out of the small plane and stumbled onto the cracked tarmac. The night air wrapped cold and damp around them, carrying the scents of oil and dust.

The cruiser’s engine thundered closer, tires gnashing gravel. Caleb climbed out, rifle dangling, gnawing a charred matchstick. Ellison followed, face glazed with sweat.

Todd stepped forward, wrench loose in his hand. The tool felt pitiful against the rifle’s weight, but it was all he had. “This ends here, Mark.”

Caleb’s smile was small, contempt curling at the edge. “You ain’t armed, Vance. Step aside and I’ll make it easy.” His voice was flat, certain, the voice of a man who’d hunted too many times before.

Todd didn’t move. Asphalt pressed hot through his boots, though the night was cool. Behind him, Elena clung to Cass’s sleeve. She whispered, too quietly to hear.

Caleb closed the distance. His rifle rose. Todd swung the wrench, wild and desperate. Steel rang against the gun barrel. Caleb snarled and drove forward. His shoulder slammed Todd to the ground. The rifle’s stock cracked against Todd’s ribs. Pain flared hot, his breath leaving him.

They grappled, muscles straining. The wrench locked between them. Caleb’s weight pressed down, heavy and strong. The burnt match smell was inches from his nose.

“You never had the stomach,” Caleb hissed. “Always soft. Always hiding.”

Todd’s vision blurred, but he pushed anyway, every ounce left in him poured into keeping the barrel from swinging toward the girls.

Behind, Ellison’s voice wavered. “Caleb—hey, don’t—let’s not—” His eyes darted, unfocused. The rifle wavered as Caleb’s grip shifted.

Something skittered on the pavement. Ellison, fumbling at his holster in panic, accidentally let his sidearm slip free. The gun clattered near Cass’s boots. She stared down at it as if it had fallen from another world.

Todd saw her hesitate, pen and recorder still in her bag, hands trembling.

“Cass,” he rasped, throat raw. “Pick it up.”

She bent, fingers closing on the grip. The gun looked alien, too heavy, her arms shaking.

Elena’s voice was sudden, cutting through everything. “Don’t let him take me back.”

Cass’s breath hitched. Her knuckles whitened. Caleb’s eyes cut to her, contempt sharpening. “You won’t do it. You write stories. That’s all.”

The shot cracked the night.

Caleb staggered, eyes wide, a burnt match tumbling from his lips. The rifle slipped, clanged on asphalt. He fell heavy, breath rattling once, then nothing.

Silence held, stretched too long.

Cass stood frozen, gun still raised, body trembling. Elena pressed to her, pale but steady.

Ellison broke the silence, stumbling back, words spilling high and cracked. “She fired—she fired on him—I didn’t—I never—this isn’t—” He dropped the lighter, hands twitching at nothing, eyes darting like a cornered rat.

Todd rolled to his knees, ribs screaming, wrench still in hand, though he didn’t remember grabbing it. He pushed upright, staring at Ellison, who looked smaller now, all swagger gone.

Sirens wailed then, distant but rising fast. Red and blue washed faint along the horizon, growing brighter with each beat.

Ellison crumpled at the sound, knees giving, words tumbling into excuses. Todd didn’t bother to parse. The law was coming. The real kind.

Todd staggered up, chest tight, blood in his mouth. He looked to Cass, still clutching the sidearm. Her eyes met his, wide and raw. For once, she had no words.

He lifted the wrench, the old familiar weight. Not a weapon, not really. Just a tool. But tonight, it had been enough.

“It’s over,” he muttered. Not loud, not for anyone but himself.

The sirens screamed closer, the night swallowing the last of the fight.

Chapter 9 – Elena

The sky was pale gray as the sirens faded. Then, quiet. Dawn peeled the night back slowly, as if the world itself wasn’t ready to face what had happened on the county strip.

Elena sat on an ambulance bumper. A blanket hunched around her shoulders. The wool scratched her neck and smelled faintly of limon, but she clutched it anyway. Her other hand gripped the flash drive. Its edges pressed into her palm. She hadn’t let go since the hangar.

Todd stood a few yards away, arms folded, eyes on his wrecked Cessna being commented to the tower. The plane looked battered and stripped of power. He didn’t speak, but his heavy shoulders and clenched jaw made Elena’s chest ache.

Cass argued with a deputy by the cruisers, her voice low but sharp. Her notebook stuck out of her pocket. She looked wrung out, with wild hair and red-rimmed eyes, but she stood firm. She pressed the flash drive into the deputy’s gloved hand. Then she turned and met Elena’s gaze. Cass gave the smallest nod, a promise.

Across the tarmac, Sheriff Ellison slumped in the back of a patrol car, wrists cuffed, mouth running with frantic excuses: “It was Caleb—he pushed everything—I was trying to stop him—don’t you know me?” Deputies ignored him, doors slamming harder, radio chatter drowning him out. He looked shrunken to Elena, hollow-eyed and gray, deflated. Not a monster, just a man crumpled by his own lies.
Elena’s chest tightened, but not from fear. The grip he once had over her was gone. Now, his voice was just a distant noise behind the glass.

Cass crossed the pavement, slowing near the ambulance. “The state police are locking it down,” she said softly. “The story runs before noon. With names. With proof.”

Elena lifted the flash drive, still in her fist. “They’ll listen?”

“They’ll have to.” Cass’s eyes flicked to Todd. “But you don’t have to be in it. You can stay anonymous. Safer that way.”

Todd stepped closer, boots scraping gravel. “She’s right,” he said, voice flat but not unkind. “You can walk away from all this. Let them carry it.”

Elena looked between them, then at her hands. They shook, but not like before—not from fear anymore. Now her whole body was alive with something hotter, sharper, a fuse burning inside her ribs. She thought of the barn, of sleepless nights, of names whispered in the dark. Thought of always running.

She swallowed hard. “No.”

Cass blinked. “No?”

“My name is Elena Ruiz.” Her voice cracked, ragged with emotion, then steadied as she lifted her chin. “I want them to know it was me. That I survived. That they didn’t win.”

Todd’s mouth tightened, and for a second she thought he’d argue. But he only looked at her, something unreadable in his eyes, then gave the smallest nod.

The blanket slipped as she stood. The air was sharp, but she didn’t pull it back up.

Cass reached out, squeezing her hand briefly before pulling away. “Then they’ll know,” she said.

---

Hours blurred. Deputies came and went. EMTs checked her pulse and ribs. They asked too many questions. She answered what she could. Cass wrote in bursts, phone pressed to her ear between scribbles. Todd remained close, silent. His eyes were distant.

When the tow truck pulled the broken Cessna away, Elena saw him look down, lips pressed thin. She touched his arm. “It got us here,” she said.

He glanced at her, startled, then gave a low grunt—agreement, maybe. His eyes softened for a beat.

Cass later admitted, in a whisper only Elena heard, “I never thought I’d fire a gun.”

“You saved me,” Elena whispered back. “Words matter. But so do actions.”

Cass looked away, but her hand shook less.

---

Weeks later, the garage again smelled of oil and metal. Tools clinked under Todd’s hand. Elena leaned over a carburetor, grease on her fingers, listening as he explained each step. She still flinched at loud bangs and dreamed of headlights cutting through rain, but here fear loosened its grip.

Cass stopped by often. Sometimes she brought coffee. Other times, new papers marked in red. Her office in town was small, but her voice carried louder than ever. People listened now.

On a brisk morning, Elena stood at a makeshift podium outside the courthouse. The crowd included neighbors, shopkeepers, and teachers. It wasn’t big, but every eye was on her. She gripped the sides, heart thundering, and steadied her voice.

“My name is Elena Ruiz,” she said. “I was taken, but I came back—not because I was stronger, but because people stood with me when I couldn’t stand alone. What happened to me—to others—can’t stay hidden. We deserve better. We’ll fight for it.”

Her words carried. She didn’t look at Ellison in chains or at the reporters scribbling her name. She looked at the faces of ordinary people, standing and listening.

At the crowd’s back, Todd stood with arms folded, expression shadowed. When her eyes met his, he nodded once. It was enough.

Elena drew a breath that felt like her first clean one in years. The air was sharp, bright, alive. For the first time, she wasn’t running. She was standing.

And she wasn’t standing alone.