It had just begun.
30
Daniel
They think it’s over.
That’s the first mistake.
I sit in the driver’s seat of a borrowed truck, engine off, watching the highway bleed into dusk. The radio murmurs low, some reporter repeating my name like it belongs to them now. Like they get to define it.
They don’t.
I switch it off.
Silence settles in, but it’s not empty. It’s sharp. Focused.
Controlled.
That’s the difference between me and the rest of them.
They react.
I plan.
I replay the footage in my head—not the version they’re celebrating, but the truth of it. The angle. The speed. The second where everything went wrong.
It was supposed to be nothing.
A warning. A close call. Enough to scare them into slowing down.
But she drifted.
Just enough.
Impact.
After that—decisions had to be made.
And I made them.
The right ones.
The only ones that kept everything from unraveling.
I didn’t create the system.
I learned how it worked.
And I used it.
They would have done the same.
They’re just pretending they wouldn’t.
My phone buzzes.
A burner.
