Variant Exchange by Fox J. Wilde

Author:Fox J. Wilde [Wilde, Fox J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781733636216
Published: 2019-05-14T22:00:00+00:00

Vivika was breathing hard as she stumbled down a dark alleyway. Under normal circumstances, this would be comfortable for her. She was of ‘the filth’—the undercurrent of the under-represented and under-noticed—an untouchable, by polite standards. Alleyways meant no less and no more to her than a roaring fire warming a house inside a fireplace, or burning the house down along with its inhabitants. A life poorly-lived in austerity and brief spurts of performance anxiety enabled her to sleep as well as she could, wherever her head lay that evening.

These weren’t normal circumstances, however. These days, nothing could be described as ‘normal’ even by her twisted standards. She was used to ducking the Stasi. Even after spending her time in the black cells, she had gotten used to flying under their radar, avoiding any untoward scrutiny. And yet, it appeared that she had finally rung her own bell. She had been warned. And now that she was in a different country, with different rules and different alleyways, well, it appeared that the devil had finally come to take his pound of flesh. She knew he was coming, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Yet, as the heavy boots tromped quickly after her through the foggy slime of the dark locales, she only wanted to stave it off just a little longer. She knew the wearer of those boots, and she knew what he meant to do to her.

“Vivika!” The whispering voice taunted, harsh in the cold air, “Oh Vivika!”

She feared him. She had feared him from the moment she had laid eyes on him. Victor was supposedly their lowly, mild-mannered tour manager. But she knew the truth. She always knew the truth that lay behind the eyes of men. He was a liar—a very talented liar, and precisely the opposite of the persona he had assumed. And as he called her name behind her in that annoyed-yet-triumphant tone, she knew there would be no more forestalling the inevitable.

“Vivika!” he menaced, “It’s been a long night, and I don’t want to play games. Show yourself.”

She knew it was the right thing to do: to just rip the band-aid off and let the chips fall where they may. There was no sense hiding; he would find her. There was no use fighting; his was the kind that could (and would) beat her to a bloody pulp and leave her for dead without a second thought. Her best chance for survival—now that she had run out of road—was to confront him and give him what he wanted. It would be better this way...even if not much better.

Shuddering, less from the cold and more from intense personal terror, she stopped and turned. Goosebumps spread like a rash on her skin as every second brought fate closer and closer like a knife’s edge slowly splitting the back of her shirt in two.

“That’s right,” he spoke from an ever-decreasing distance, recognizing that she had stopped, “no need to be uncivilized about this.”

“I...I...” she stammered, but no particularly helpful words helped her.

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