INTERNAL CONFLICT CONTEST POSTED

Today is posting day!! 


A few days back I entered The Alliterative Allomorph blog's INTERNAL CONFLICT CONTEST. We're to post a scene which shows some internal conflict of a character or characters. In kindness to all, she limited it to 800-1,000 words. 

This is part of a scene from my current manuscript, MARKED BEAUTY. 

Two fingers tapped the dampness at her knee, and her foot moved even with the drummer. She’d fully shed the blanket. The drumbeat, the guitar strings, and the raspy voice vibrating off the speakers triggered the memory of the bonfire. Ana narrowed her eyes at Viktor.

He was staring at the headlights, flushing against the wind and rain. She was tempted to flag her hand in his face, see if he was awake. Was he hiding something for real, or was she being paranoid like the rest of her life? But the figure she saw—they saw—was real. Why wouldn’t he tell her, admit what they saw? Or couldn’t he? If so, why did he risk himself, saving her and Katee from the pit of danger in that field?

She chastised herself and heeled out of her sneakers, soggy socks stuffed inside. She’d always steered clear of odd senses like Mem instructed. Why couldn’t she with him?

She shifted in her seat, unable to handle his stillness any longer.

“Are you always a statue?”

“What?”

“You don’t move at all. I’m constantly fidgeting.”

“That’s you.”

Glaring at him, she pouted.

What she wanted was to hit him like she’d smack Josh or wrestle with the guys at the firehouse. A torrential wave splashed over the windshield, blurring her view.

“Look where you’re going!”

“Anastasia, I don’t…” his brow stiffened, knitting whole as the road returned to his sights.

“What the heck. Are you trying to get us killed?”

“I apologize for frightening you.”

“Sure, sweet...whatev.” Her voice trembled, childishly, innocently.

Viktor wished it hadn’t. The little girl naivety in her throat urged him to protect her, to want her to be the one. But he couldn’t and wouldn’t risk another and the fallout it would cause. He cranked the volume up.

“Do ya’ have to listen so loudly?”

His hand slipped off the volume button from frustrated perspiration. Each drop had her name on it. Palming his jeans, the sweat came clean.

He watched her press her warm hands upon the cold passenger window. Her cloudy imprints stamped the glass. Viktor felt assured Ana wasn’t paying him any attention, just as he wasn’t paying any attention to the road, again. With built in radar and feelers able to sense disturbances far in advance, he was fully equipped to focus on her and the road.

Magnetized by her beauty, his eyes journeyed the wet denim sticking to her thighs like nail glue. Every curving muscle showed. Viktor drifted to her face where her eyes—his favorite feature—were shadowed by her stringy locks. The smell of her hair was remarkable. If she knew the trance she held him under, it’d all be over. How did she do it?

Tightening his grip on the wheel, his long life played on a theatrical stage before him. Had the events and tragedies of his shameful past brought him to this point, to this girl? Was she his prophetic cure—the Foretelling? Was that why he’d felt her waning heartbeat pulse in the woods that day?

The metal box housing his soul cracked again. After the ills he’d defended against with strengths beyond imagine, a simple girl was crushing his iron. Should he ask her to risk her life and at best give up her mortality to unbind him from his prison? Getting closer to her was selfish. But was it? The fact he questioned proved she held some foolish power over him. Before her, it had been about freeing himself. Was she the saving grace to cleanse his marked beauty?

Regardless of the answer, this was too dangerous for her, like it had been with Gazelle. It was his own fault for involving Ana in his nightmarish life, even if it was to help her. Maybe the accident had been her time to die. What had saving her life given her? Here she sat: ignorant to the savage next to her and that he’d marked her with a bull’s eye for other immortals.

Her long fingers gripped his clear box of eclectic CDs and thumbed through the assortment. Ana held up a CD and grinned.

“Can we listen?” Her dark eyes hinted trouble.

His insides chuckled, seeing such freedom in her. Freedom he’d longed for…but accepted he’d never have again. So he glared at her instead of smiling.

“What? So, I snooped in your car.”

She obviously misinterpreted his blank face.

“Don’t give me those eyes or be so shocked.”

But he was shocked. He thought she was asleep in his car after the bonfire fiasco.

“You left me there with Katee canvassed across the backseat, making small lamb noises. Her noises are limitlessly aggravating.” She shook the CD at him, and for the first time, he couldn’t contain his grin. “What was I supposed to do? I woke up. I was bored. You and your gang were busy having your top secret powwow.”

“There was no secret meeting, Anastasia.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Duh?” She squirmed in her seat. “I fell back asleep.”

“Oh.”

“So fess up.”

“Anastasia, please drop it.”

Out of frustration, she fragmented her original statement to one word, “Listen.”

Strong fingers crept over the case and touched hers. He tugged. She yanked back. He pulled. She grunted.

“Are you going to let go?”

“I can do it. I’m a big girl, you know.”

That, he definitely had noticed.

Viktor gunned the engine at the green light, jostling her. Her irritated eyes energized him.

Ana blanketed her shoulders in his fleece-suede throw as calming violins chimed in tune with the piano keys and base. Her eyes drooped as she melted into Viktor’s comfortable seat; the leather toasted her warm and massaged her muscles. The song harmonized her gently, tenderly releasing her inhibitions.

Thanks for reading and click HERE to check out some other great scenes from fellow Fab-U-loso writers. The link to their posts are on The Alliterative Allomorph Blog.

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Why do I suddenly feel like scurrying down the yellow brick road????