Young Writers Society

Viggo has just escaped from jail. He is on the run with Nyssa, an old friend. They have just successfully gotten through their first roadblock but trouble is brewing between them.

To know more, read Chapter 6.2.

Viggo couldn't believe that he had lost time arguing with Nyssa. They were just posing as a married couple, they weren’t supposed to have the spats. Who cared that she had lied to him a hundred years or so ago? What did it matter? They had so many other things to worry about.

“You think they will remember us?” he asked.

“Not enough to recognize us from pictures.”

“They got a really good look.”

A small mocking smile came to her lips and he wondered if she was thinking about being ogled by that creep at the roadblock. “They've probably spent hours with their noses right on your picture and they didn't recognize you,” she reminded him.

“They weren't focused on me.”

Her smile softened. Damn her for being sincere. She was really happy to be reunited with him.

“She'll remember sassy, tacky Flora Ridgeway,” she said, “which probably won't be much more than a vague impression of a bottle-blond and cheap makeup. He'll remember 32B breasts and my ass in size 0 jeans.”

He gave them an almost thoughtless once-over. 32B and size 0, hm…They were talking quality, not quantity, there. Her cheeks turned a rosy shade of embarrassed. He could still make women blush. Hm…He liked that. He had forgotten just how much until that moment. He had always loved Angela's blush.

Angela.

Damn, he needed sex. Not with Nyssa, of course. What he needed was a one-night-stand or a professional – uncomplicated sex. Then, he wouldn’t ogle Nyssa.

“I'm sorry,” he apologized, owning up to his faults. “I haven't been with a woman in eight years.”

She tilted her head to him and the blush faded. “Is that one of the things you missed most?”

Easy answer. He had spent every hour of every day listing his grievances at first, until it had nearly driven him over the brink.

“Sure. Sex. Pizza. Real clothes. Mobile shower heads.”

“That’s two out of four, already, and I can order pizzas when we get there.”

Something in her tone made it clear that she wasn't touching the first item on his list. He decided to spare them both some awkwardness, “And I want a real bed. Long jogs on the beach. Being places nobody knows I am. Fishing.”

You, he thought, but he didn't tell her because, once he opened that door, he would start missing other things, personal things, things he had no hope of getting back.

“Jogging,” she repeated, disgusted. “You missed jogging?”

She couldn't imagine. Running out in the open. Feeling the ocean breeze on his face. Crushing sand under his feet. No one in sight. Alone. Completely alone. No one to fight. No one to fear.

“I did.”

She tapped her fingers lightly on the wheel. “Didn't you miss driving?”

“Not really.”

“No? You didn't miss the speed or the open road?”

“Not much speed to be had at the moment, hm?” She smiled at his teasing. “Don't worry, I know we don't want to get stopped for speeding.”

“Yeah. So, you don't want to drive?”

“No, drive away, Mrs. Ridgeway.”

It was lame, but she chuckled. He would have added a handful of items to his growing list, just to see if he could elicit another laugh or two from her – just wondering how rusty his few people skills had gotten, mind you – but she glanced at the time on the dashboard. Again. Five times in a row.

“What is it?” he asked. It annoyed him. “You’ve got a rendezvous or something?”

“No.” She worried her upper lip between her small square white teeth. “Russ’s already on shift, I should have called earlier.”

He stiffened, his hands instinctively balling in fists. “What the hell for?!”

He wasn't quite sure why he needed her completely free of Russ, but he did. He needed every bruise she had sustained to fade until she was back to being the Nyssa Malik he had once known.

“To keep him blissfully oblivious. I don't want him to suspect anything. Yet.”

Her tone dripped with viciousness. It made him uneasy. Where was the sweet, honest kid he knew? But she had a point. They needed Russ and everybody back home to stay off her tracks for as long as possible.

“Maybe you can catch him on his lunch-break. Let’s stop near Salinas. You try calling him and we eat. We’re driving straight down the US-101 S after that, right?”

She nodded. He squirmed, wished she would speak, help him stay focused. He felt antsy, out there in the open with nothing to drown out his thoughts. Without the prison’s routine, its walls, its noises, he was at a little bit of a loss. He didn't know whether he needed unforgiving order or to run completely wild, but he had to keep a cool head for the plan to work.

“You never asked.” He had no idea what she was mumbling about and he leveled a look of inquiry at her. “You never asked anything about Angela,” she clarified.

His hands formed fists again. Damn. “No. I didn't.”

“Aren't you curious at all?”

Something started buzzing in his head. He replied through gritted teeth, “Did she fight for my reputation? Wait for me? Hell, raise our love child? No? Didn’t think so. She never even visited me. So, no, I don’t give a damn.”

Nyssa didn’t have enough sense to leave it alone, “You're being unfair. Everybody thought…”

“I don't care what everybody thought!” She jumped, and he tried to suppress his rapidly rising temper, but Angela…Why did she have to bring up Angela?! The rest emerged as an almost scream, “We were together for three years and a half. We were about to get married.” He would have stuck with her through anything. “She said she loved me. Times and times again, she said she loved me! But did she trust me?! No. Not for one second.” Not even long enough to hear him out. And he bit it out, the real betrayal, “She didn't visit. Not once. She didn't show her face at my trial. She didn't…”

“She had to protect herself! You've got no idea how rough it was to have been your friend after…”

“Then she should have come! She should have been there to scream abuse in my face! You did.” She blenched. “It would have been better, like she actually cared. But not coming…”

“C…Vi…Peter,” she said in her conciliatory tone, “Angela cared, but…”

“Like hell! I'm done talking about her!”

They both fell in a sullen silence. He was so angry. How dared she defend Angela's betrayal? She had no idea what it had done to him. He had paced his cell for days waiting for Angela, worrying about Angela, trying not to start hating Angela. It had been the hardest thing he had ever done, to give up on her and get busy preparing his trial. He had never stopped torturing himself.

Nyssa's face was flushed with her own resentment, her eyes still flashing, her breathing shallow with emotion, coming out in pants. He ignored that. He ignored her. But now that she had forced him to wonder about Angela, he couldn't seem to push her back in her allocated corner of his mind.

Gruffly, he finally asked, “Did she?”

“What?”

“Did she fight for me? Wait for me?”

Nyssa shrugged. “In a way. She was shell-shocked. Everybody was in a rush to turn their backs on you. To sully your memory. I was. She wasn't. She never said a word, one way or another.”

He snorted. Couldn't help it. Silence? Silence was the best the woman he had loved had been capable of?

“She stayed single for the longest time. Gun shy, Russ said, but I always thought that there was more to it. She was brokenhearted. Grieving. She kept wearing your ring, though. Not on her finger – she didn't need that kind of handicap while fighting for her job. On a chain around her neck.”

His heart ached a little at the thought. Damn the Defoe coverup. Damn it and everyone for hurting Angela and him both.

“She only started being happy again in the last couple of years. She met an FBI agent. Charles Levy. Good guy. Jewish. I heard that her mother blew a casket over that. They got married and she moved to Philadelphia with him. I got a card from them last year for Christmas.” She hesitated before adding, “She's pregnant.”

It hurt. God damn it. It hurt like a bitch. She had moved on. He was dead inside, but everyone had moved on.

“Don't hurt yourself.”

Nyssa's hand pried his fingers from his injured arm. His nails had sunk so deeply that little drops of fresh blood permeated the bandages.

“You two stayed good friends?”

“No,” she answered simply.

“How come?”

“I'll always admire Angela. She's got class, smarts, a good heart. But once you were gone…” She shook her head. “It was over. Our friendship was over. We couldn't go on together.” She smiled tightly. “Different stages of grief. She wallowed in denial. I jumped right over it into anger.”

And her anger had burnt long and bright. It had changed her. Russ's manipulation, Russ's ill treatment of her had changed her too but Viggo's loss had no doubt contributed to forging this new Nyssa Malik.

“Where are you now?” he asked.

Her smile turned more genuine. “My bargaining paid off. I've got you back.”

No, it had failed. Foolish child. But he didn't want to fight again so he shut the hell up. He let his head loll against the door, pretending to be asleep. It wasn't long before it wasn't pretense anymore.

***

Seven years ago

“Peter.” The voice in his ear, the hand on his naked shoulder woke him up. “Peter, wake up.”

“Hm?”

“Peter, wake up. You had another nightmare.”

Viggo opened his eyes, feeling wretched and knowing that Angela was indeed right. He was hot and sweaty, his legs were tangled in a sheet, but, worst of all, his face was wet.

“Shit.” He wiped the last tears away. “Did I cry?”

“Yes.”

Angela was lying on her flank, studying his face with barely concealed exhaustion. He didn't begrudge her the weariness. They hadn’t had an uninterrupted night since he had come back from the hospital. Strange thing, that. After his openhearted conversation with Malik, he had slept like a baby every night, all through physical therapy. But now that his body was supposedly sound again, his mind was going screwy on him.

“Want to talk about it?”

He rolled on his back, unwilling to face the pity in her eyes. “Nothing to talk about. I just dreamed about getting shot again.”

“It didn't sound like it,” she said. “You mumbled something about your dad.”

“Transference. The docs said it could happen. I'm mixing up stuff.”

“Stuff?”

He made a small displeased sound. Angela normally didn't pry. She had to be seriously fed-up with his night terrors. “The fishing accident with my dad when I was ten.”

“When you got the scar on your back?”

“Yes.” She breathed out in empathic pain. He decided he might as well get it all out and hurry this discussion along, “I don't know why I associate the op with that accident, but I do. Actually, maybe I know. A rope snapped. That's how I got hurt. A rope snapped and got me smack in the back. Dad saw it happen. I was looking at him and I remember the look on his face. Stark panic. I saw it at the time, but I didn't recognize it until the shouting. I had never felt it. Then…”

“Tell me.”

He threw his arm over his face, wishing for oblivion. “I'm not comfortable speaking about that with you.”

She was silent for a long time, but he knew she wasn't sleeping. Then she spoke, and he knew she was hurt, “Don't you love me?”

“Of course, I do!” He sat up, eyes wide open. “Of course, I do. I want to marry you, Angie. I want to make a life with you.”

“But you don't trust me,” she said, heart-break in her eyes, the beginning of a pout on her lips. “When it comes down to it, you don't trust me. How can you love me if you can't confide in me?”

He breathed deeply through his nose. “We work together, Angie. Ours are hard jobs. I'm afraid we're going to burn out if our couple isn't a haven. I've just been trying to keep our professional and personal lives separated.”

“Well.” She crossed her arms – she always did that when she was annoyed, and he loved what it did to her breasts, not that he was stupid enough to tell her. “It's not working anymore.”

“I know that.” He rubbed his eyes, they felt gritty and the beginning of a headache pounded in his temple. “I'm sorry.” He touched his fingers to her face and stroked all that womanly perfection. She let him. “I'm not a big talker, Angie. I've got feelings I probably shouldn't keep bottled up, but I don't know any other way. If I could talk to anyone about them, it would be you, but I just don't have the words.” The look in her eyes was as raw as he felt, so he forced himself to voice some of that damn sentimentality, “I can tell you something, though, the most important thing. After that dealer shot me, when I was lying on the floor bleeding out and I heard the door splinter as SWAT came in, and as Russ shot the bastard – bam, bam, two clean shots – all I could think about was you. I saw the white light and I told it, 'Like hell I'm dying. I'm going back to my Angie.'”

She melted like chocolate under his heated gaze. “I love you, Peter.”

“I love you too.”

He showed her too, dropping a kiss on her forehead, then loving every inch of her beautiful body. It was sweet and tender, and she fell asleep after she climaxed, naked, which was a rare lapse on Angela's part. He stroked her back for a long, long while, staring up at the ceiling. He didn't fall asleep for the longest time.

He dreaded having another nightmare and he was wrestling with guilt. He had proposed to Angela while he was still recovering from being shot. He hadn't imagined that he would be lying to her so soon or so blatantly. But she would understand, he told himself, he was only trying to protect her.

And as he lied there, a beautiful woman in his arms, he had no idea how many nights would find him thus awake, in a tiny prison-cell, wondering if his life would have been better if he had told ADA Angela Macdenn what he had only begun to suspect.

To see more of Nyssa and Viggo, read Chapter 7.2.