This is my most recent tank. I really really reALLY like comprehensible stories that have an exciting plot and don't revolve around romance and that's what I wanted to write. I based it off Getaway Car and I was PREPARED to write this. Had the middle and ending planned and everything. And then I couldn't figure out the beginning, & I just have to write everything in chronological order so I couldn't write the rest of the story. I've tried, I've rewritten the first few thousand words a dozen times, I've edited nonstop. It just didn't work out, but the idea was interesting.

Description

In the sleepy town of Elegiac lives just over a hundred people; one of them doesn't belong. After committing a heist worthy for the front page of the papers, Dallon Weekes drives off with millions worth of goods stashed in the trunk of a car he doesn't own in a town he's never heard of, accompanied only by himself and the crushing thought of his partner in crime four hundred miles away, willingly sitting in a cell.

He's on the run, living in Elegiac under his real name in place of the usual fake one, and blending in is the one thing he was never able to do.

Nothing good starts in a getaway car.

Prologue

Nothing good starts in a getaway car.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of crimes. I guess he should've been there, like he had planned. Like he had promised. I think that was the worst part.

It wasn't the carjacking, it wasn't running outside to see an empty parking lot, it wasn't breaking through the window of a black mustang at midnight and speeding through town with police trailing behind me. Any of those could've fit the spot as 'worst aspect of the night'. It was finding out I'd been ditched by my partner in crime.

So there I was; sitting in the dark, barely hidden behind a cluster of trees, crouched down in the backseat beside bags stuffed with expensive goods. The license plates were slipped under the driver's seat.

The cops had passed at least an hour ago. In that time, I'd done my best to rat him out through every social media I had access to and assess the damage he'd done to my own identity already. The new fake account had already gained thousands of people's attention, and from the likes of it, authorities were on their way to our home. I almost felt bad for the neighbors.

But fifteen minutes ago, it was plastered all over the news; they caught him. At home, sitting on the couch, doing absolutely nothing. It was concluded quickly as a mental breakdown, but I knew he wanted to be caught. He wanted me to be caught.

There were almost four hundred miles to an empty gas tank in the car. I had millions of dollars stashed in the back, and I was one person down in a two person operation. There were no options readily available other than two, maybe even just one.

So I drove.

1

On the outskirts of an ugly little town somewhere in Nevada, my getaway car broke down. I was never the mechanic he was, so instead of trying to fix it, I slammed an angry dent in the hood and left it behind with a multimillion dollar backpack hanging off my shoulder. The rest of the stash was nailed under the back seats, where I pray nobody will search.

I'd never heard of a town called Elegiac, but it was five miles away, and if I hadn't heard of it, then chances were that nobody else had either. The sign was faded from years of exposure to the desert sun, vivid colors turned muted and peeling. In bright white lettering, the bottom read, "Save Your Reputation", presumably their slogan. Maybe it was just a hallucination, but it was a horrible choice of words.

My name is Dallon Weekes, not Ryan Hudson, not Ben Wyatt, not Tom Winters. No more code names. He'd be able to single me out, but he'd never expect me to revert to my actual name, if he would even remember it.

My name is Dallon Weekes. I lived in New York City, and I was driving to visit a friend. My car broke down, and I need help.

No, then I'd have to leave, maybe find somewhere to settle down in a bigger town, with more people to recognize my face. Plastic surgery is not an option, even if I do have enough cash to do it.

My name is Dallon Weekes. I moved from Seattle, and I wanted to find a quiet place to live. My car broke down, and I'm taking it as a sign to stop here.

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.

My hair will stay brown. The brown contact lenses will have to go. My wardrobe has never changed, but the leather jacket stained in someone else's blood has to go. I can most likely find a way to work that into a story and pretend it's my own, but a cut on my knuckles and a scratch on my cheek isn't enough to gush over half the fabric. I pull out the keys from the old car out of my back pocket and run the blade of the keychain knife across the bridge of my nose and just barely above my hairline. I tear a couple slits in my shirt and pull at the loose seams on the coat so it jaggedly unravels to the hole near the wrist.

There's a car in the distance, kicking up a storm of dirt just over the horizon. I decide quickly to ditch the story I'd planned earlier, and deal the sympathy card. As it gets closer, I feel the warm blood drip down my forehead and down my cheek.

I wave to it, and the driver stops, almost reluctantly because they slam on the brakes at the last second and the friction blows up twice as much dust. It's a small car, peeling turquoise paint and a cracked windshield. The left back tire has layers of tape over the logo, scribbled black with a marker to blend in. It doesn't.

He rolls down the window with a hand crank and leans out. His hair is dark and styled up, peeking out from the front of a brimmed hat. Sunglasses hide his eyes, but he peers over the rims to stare at me. "What're you doin' all the way out here?"

"My car," I point over my shoulder, gripping the backpack strap tighter, "it broke down. It's just a few miles out, a-and I thought I could make it into town for help."

He puts out the cigarette in his hand on the side of the vehicle and takes a while to respond. Maybe he could tell I faked every word. "I suppose you're the black mustang causing a ruckus?"

I nodded. "How'd you know?"

"Got a call down at the station. All the other cars had trouble startin' so I had to take my own and pray I didn't have to arrest anybody with a handful of bullets and a gun."

It was just my luck to run into a cop within the first five minutes. The only problem I had with it was his connections to other stations, especially any four hundred miles away, or any that had my face on their radar. My face would be on their radar.

He looks me up and down again. "I might have to though. What happened t'you?"

"When my car broke down, I have to admit I was speeding a bit, and the sudden stop was worse than the walk." I tried to laugh it off, but he didn't find my lies to be very amusing.

"You got a license?"

"No, sir."

"ID card?"

"I don't. Haven't gotten the chance to get a new one since my dog got to it."

"Why're you driving then?"

I shrug. "Nothings illegal unless you get caught."

"Cellphone?"

"Flew out of the windshield when I stopped."

He rips the sunglasses off his face and gives me another glance from head to toe. He reminds me slightly of a lazy cop from a low budget crime flick. "Get in the damn car. I'll send someone out to get yours in a bit."

I thank him and take my time walking around the back, trying to concentrate on the details I'd told him already that I needed to stick to. I played the victim card, and I needed to keep with it.

Despite the outdated shell of the car, the inside is anything but. The seats are pristine leather, the dashboard glimmering with buttons and switches galore, and in the middle of the Nevada heat I wouldn't have found anything to be better than the steady air conditioning circulating throughout the car.

The tinted windows may have been an issue. If he was employed at the police station, the glass would most likely be reinforced, thus more difficult to break through in case of an emergency. By emergency, I mean protection from the countless laws I'd broken that could sit me for a life behind bars.

The car starts up again with an angry growl and a lurch forward, but it calms to a loud purr and infrequent sputtering. I was far from a car expert, but it treated death as a close friend.

"What's your name? And how old are you?" The faster he drives, the scent of smoke grows stronger with each mile.

"My name is Dallon Weekes. I'm twenty four years old, and I have no place to go."

"Brendon Urie. Sheriff. Anyways, mind telling me what you're doin' all the way out here?"

"Just trying to get away, sir. You know how it is."

2

Elegiac is built around one street and branches off into a simple web that only loops back around to the main. The roads are coated with a thin layer of dust, beginning to match the fronts of buildings packed with dirt and tumbleweeds begging for entry at the locked and barricaded doors to old shops. It was one long line of nothing with sad alleys of even less.

"It's a little boring around here," Brendon gestures to the lack of, well, anything, "but the people here are somethin' else. They make up for it."

We cruise by a pair faking a sword fight with broom handles, then park in front of a group of women all fawning over the same hairless Sphinx cat. "How many people pass through here?"

"Well, we have a constant flow of tumbleweeds," he scoffs, "and five or six human beings on a good month. Usually they're drawn over here to blow some cash on assloads of cheap alcohol. We are pretty close to the California border, but nothing is on the other side."

California is an odd state. If I headed out there, I'd either be found immediately or never. Truthfully, I'd rather take my chances out in a place nobody ever goes willingly, like Nebraska or Wyoming. "It's a nice town."

"Thanks," he glances at me in the mirror before grabbing a backpack on the front seat, "but you don't have to lie."

I follow him out and up a stretch of cement into a large building on its last life as a police station. "I'm not. It's nice and quiet, very... low-key. It could be a vacation spot if it wasn't so damn hot out here." 

He fumbles for a set of keys and shoves open the door against a rusted lock and frame to reveal a crusty front office with absolutely nothing but a few chairs and an empty desk. There's a window with dusty slats that display an ugly desert behind it. The fan bolted to the ceiling turns slowly, a sorry excuse for air conditioning.

"Not much happens here," he shoves the keys in the front pocket of his pants and hangs the hat on a metal coat hanger full of empty gun holsters, more hats, and a woman's duster coat, "but there's always an exception."

He means me. "Sorry."

"Don't be. Gives us something to do." Brendon taps a little silver bell on the desk three times and a woman sits up in her chair so fast, she topples backwards and rolls to the ground and on her feet. Her blonde hair hangs loose at her shoulders and little flecks of mascara spot across her cheeks from sleep. The silver badge pinned above her breast pocket reads 'Swift'.

He stares her down for a few seconds before turning his attention to the stack of crossword puzzles barely out of sight. "This man's car broke down just west of here. Take the truck and go get it instead of fucking around for the rest of the day."

She frowns, still dazed and confused. "Is the tow truck guy off duty?"

"No."

"Then why — doesn't — how come...?" She trails off, sighs, and snatches a pair of keys off a shallow bowl on the desk. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Thank you, Taylor. Don't forgot to take a water bottle and—" He says but the door slams before he can finish. However, it does creak open an inch and she does grab a plastic bottle and she does nearly break the door when she slams it again.

Brendon points to the tragically weathered chair in front of the desk. I take a seat, he does on the other side, and begins rustling through one of the drawers. "Name?"

"Dallon." I say. He eyes me suspiciously. My name is my real name this time. I don't have an ID. I'm twenty four. My car broke down. I'm alone.

He pulls out a small stack of papers and sets them on the edge of the desk. He begins typing on the thick keyboard to the first computer ever made.

"Can you not afford a new computer?" I ask. Brendon shrugs and squints at the screen.

"We had a real nice one, some fancy Apple computer, and then one of our previous officers spilled a can of soda on the monitor and it was shot. Last name?"

"Weekes. I think you should invest in an upgrade, it would be worth it."

"It would be, but we're waitin' until this one breaks down. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, you know what they say."

I force a smile, but on the inside I have to dismiss the strong urge to connect my fist to his throat. "Yep." 

He types and clicks around the screen but his expressions turns sour after a few minutes. "You're not in the system at all."

"I told you a new computer would be a worthwhile investment. I bet your system is a thousand years old." I think I'm still registered as Benjamin Wyatt, but I can't tell him that. My hair was black back then. "I also bet you don't have facial recognition software."

He frowns. He clicks a few more times. "We don't. Fingerprint scanner burst into flames last week. Now you don't have an ID, do ya?"

"No sir, I don't."

"So you were drivin' around without a license?"

"Yes sir."

"You do know that's breaking the law, don't you?"

"With all due respect, it's only illegal if you get caught."