TW// When talking about the characters sentences/ jail time, violence, r*pe(, etc.) are mentioned.
Third Person POV:
In a meeting room at Fox River State Penitentiary, sat the FBI agent, Alexander Mahone. He sat at a table in the meeting room with a pen in his hand and a newspaper opened on the last page right in front of him. No one else was in the room, just himself waiting quietly for the other FBI agent who was working on the case with him. The newspapers weekly crossword sat on the page that he was so focused on. He would sometimes scribble a few words and sentences around the border of the crossword.
The heavy door in the corner of the room opened and Agent Mark Wheeler entered before closing the door behind him as he dropped files and documents on top of the newspaper Mahone was staring at.
"The escapee's," Mahone said, interrupting the silence, "who were they?"
"I've got a list right here," Wheeler replied.
"Read it to me if you could," Mahone spoke as he picked up the files. Wheeler nodded his head.
"Michael Scofield, structural engineer, five years for armed robbery." Wheeler started calling out the list of the eight convicts who had escaped from the prison the night before. Mahone opened the files that were spread out on the table in front of him, opening the file about Scofield. He quickly scanned it whilst Wheeler briefly talked about him, before putting it down and grabbing the next one.
"Benjamin Miles Franklin, former U.S. Army, eight years for possession of stolen goods...... John Abruzzi, don of the crime family of the same name. Life without parole for conspiracy to commit murder....... Fernando Sucre, five years for aggravated robbery...... David "Tweener" Apolskis, five years for grand larceny..." Agent Wheeler continued as Mahone flipped through all the files.
"....Theodore 'T-Bag' Bagwell, life for six counts of kidnapping, rape and first-degree murder.... Vanessa Tancredi, charged for 15 years for the counts of second-degree murder.... And Lincoln Burrows, scheduled to die next week for the murder of President Reynold's brother." Agent Mahone closed the files before looking up at Agent Wheeler.
"Tancredi.... Vanessa Tancredi..... she's the soon to be Vice-President's daughter? Frank Tancredi?" Wheeler nodded his head in response. "How did she end up in an all males Penitentiary?"
"It was requested that she was to be close to home.... but her father put her into Fox River. He said that, quote - unquote "That's where she belongs, that's what she deserves". Jordan Gonzales happened to be a close friend of Frank Tancredi's, Sir."
"How long has it been since they got over the wall?"
"Eight o' clock last night."
"Scofield-- he and Burrows were brothers." Mahone said as he went back to jotting down notes on the newspaper.
"That's right."
"And he's the mastermind of this whole thing."
"That's what they're saying." Wheeler nodded his head.
"I want everything they've got on him."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vanessa's POV:
My lungs were in agony. Begging for me to slow down and catch a breath.
I was so busy ducking under branches, dodging trees and running away from the cops that I never even realized the amount of pain my body was in. I had just been back from the infirmary the evening before and now I was on the run. You would think I would want to take it easy.
Dogs were barking and I could hear the cops shouting from the distance as they were following us. I could feel the paranoia falling in on me, I was looking everywhere, checking to see which was the best way to go, or if the cops were close, I was even stopping for a few seconds every once and a while to judge how far back the cops were. Nevertheless, I kept on running.
Eventually we came to a stop as we all tried to catch our breath. I leaned up against a tree, with my hands on my hips trying to breath in as much air as I could. Michael and Sucre had fallen behind us. Linc, Abruzzi, C-Note and I looked around like lost puppies.
"Where are they?" Linc asked over all of our heavy, loud breathing and a loud screeching noise.
"What the hell is that?" C-Note asked, referring to the screeching noise. We all paused for a moment trying to identify the source of the noise until we heard a whistle. The whistle of a train.
"Let's go," Linc said before he started bolting off towards the direction of the train. We all followed behind him. As we kept running forward the sound of the train got even louder and then eventually we got close enough that we could see it through the bushes and trees.
As we got closer towards the track, Linc turned around and shouted to us: " All we got to do is make it to the other side..."
"Come on guys," C-Note shouted over the train. I turned around to see if the cops were behind but just as I turned I saw Michael and Sucre run out of the bushes, and they began catching up with us. "Come on!! RUN!!" I turned again to see the cops running behind us. They were a good bit away from us but their shooting range was getting closer.
"Run! Let's go! Move it!" Linc roared over the loud noise. "The thing is gaining speed, come on!" We quickly ran ahead of the train, jumping over the track and onto the other side. Michael and Sucre still hadn't caught up or jumped across yet.
I ran out of the way and crouched down to see under the moving train. I could still see the running legs of Michael and Sucre as well as the cops trailing behind them. Sucre jumped up onto one of the carts of the train as Michael was catching up. I could hear loud gunshots over the noise of the train. Linc got up and jumped onto the train. C-Note tapped my shoulder and pointed towards the direction of the woods. I looked back at the train to see Sucre jumping out. I grabbed C-Note and waved Abruzzi over before running towards Sucre.
"You okay?" I asked as Sucre nodded, catching his breath. "Where's Michael and Linc?" He pointed back at the top of the train without turning around. I looked up to see Linc and Michael jumping down off of the train a little further away from us. "Come on," I said as we all ran back into the woods.
As we ran further into the woods and was far away from the train tracks, we ran into Lincoln and Michael at a clearer area. We stopped for a moment to breath.
"I thought that I thought this out," Sucre panted. "You saw all those guys back there?"
"The key is that they're all back there, and we're up here," Michael nodded.
"Yeah? And how long is that going to last?"
"Yeah, especially since we don't have a pot to piss in thanks to Abruzzi's magically disappearing jet." C-Note complained. Abruzzi walked closer to C-Note.
"Hey, you were never going to be on that plane, brother."
"And don't think I don't know where you were going either, Tancredi..... and Scofield."
"Where are we going?" I asked looking at Michael and then back at C-Note. Everybody was pissing everybody off.
"Oh, I don't know. Utah? When were you planning on telling us about the money, huh?" C-Note snapped as he stalked towards me.
"What money?" Sucre asked.
"Five million dollars that Westmoreland planted in the desert in Utah," C-Note said. He was getting a little to close now.
"You don't know what you're talking about," I said in his face. The tension was getting very thick. Lincoln and Michael stepped in, separating C-note and I.
"You wish I didn't know.... I didn't take you for a money stealing bitch, Vanessa" C-Note snapped. That's what pushed me over the edge. I stepped forward towards C-Note, I didn't even care that he was twice my size but he was pissing me off.
"Call me a bitch again! Do it! I fucking dare you! All you've done since we got out is complain! Just shut your mouth and be thankful that you got out and can see your wife and kid again! At least you got someone to go back to!" I shouted at him as I got closer and closer to him. Linc jumped in front of him, pushing me back.
"HEY!" Michael shouted. "The both of you, stop it!"
I nodded my head and started walking ahead of the group, when I saw a fishing dock. I walked out onto the dock and then sat down on the edge, taking my shoes and socks off before putting my feet into the water. The cold water felt so good on my feet. I rolled up my tracksuit bottoms to prevent them from getting wet, so they wouldn't be heavy when we started to run again. I could feel my anger simmering down as I threaded my feet through the refreshing water. I heard foot steps coming up behind me and I turned around to see Michael and Linc.
"Never seen you get that angry before, Ness," Linc laughed as he and Mike sat down next to me. I chuckled slightly, thinking back at what happened, it was pretty embarrassing.
"Yeah, sorry about that," I sighed, putting my hands over my face.
"Don't be, we were all thinking of it. You were just the braver one to actually say it to him," Michael laughed. It fell silent for a while. Nobody spoke, we could only hear the sound of my feet moving around in the water.
"We've got to dump them now," Linc broke the silence.
"Can't" Michael sighed. "They know about Utah."
"All the more reason to dump them."
"But if they get caught, the feds will know exactly where we're going, and they'll tell them," I pointed out.
"We've just got to make sure they stay afloat until we're off in Utah, doing what we got to do," Michael said.
"You really think the money's gonna be there?" Linc asked.
"Charles might've had a flexible relationship with the truth, but at the end... at the end, there'd be no reason for him to lie about it," Michael answered. "I figure once we bag it, we cross over into Mexico, take a whole bunch of bumpy second-class bus rides till we hit Panama."
"You really got a fix on this dive shop thing, huh?" I chuckled. Both Michael and Lincoln laughed.
"Yeah, right now, I wouldn't mind swinging in a hammock for the next ten, twenty years," Michael replied.
"We got half the country after us," Lincoln groaned. "We ain't making it to Panama or Utah. Not without help"
"Veronica can't help us," Mike sighed.
"How can you say that? We don't have money, clothes..."
"I already got all that. Sorry, V, I don't think any of my stuff will fit you," Michael frowned. I smiled before pulling my bag out from under my sweatshirt.
"It's fine, I've got myself sorted out. Plus, I still have that necklace and ring, we've got a bit of cash, we'll be fine till Utah," I smiled before getting up and putting my socks and shoes back on.
"Vanessa, we don't expect you to sell them...." Michael started but I cut him off.
"Hey, don't worry about it, you got me outta there and now I owe you, don't...."
"You don't owe me anything, you saved all of our asses back in the SHU when Bellick.....when he...." Michael stuttered.
"He didn't do what you think he did, Michael, he just ruffed me up a bit. Don't worry about what he said, he was lying about that," I said, Michael nodded. "Now, you'll have to excuse me, I'm going to go over there to get changed..... Keep those peeping toms over there away from me," I laughed while pointing over to the far side of the docks.
"Will do," Both of the boys responded.
I walked over to the forest and started getting changed behind a bush. I made sure I wasn't being watched by anybody. I opened the plastic bag that held my clothes and the necklace. I quickly got changed into the khaki-green shirt and the black jeans, I decided to leave the prison shoes on as it would be harder to run in a pair of boots. The shoes weren't too bad anyways, they kind of looked like converse. I put the necklace into my pocket as it would bring too much attention to me if I wore it around my neck. I placed the ring on my middle finger and then walked back towards the others.
"Saddle up," Michael said.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere we can stop being cons and start being civilians."
"You know, why don't you cut out all of the riddles, snowflake, and just give it to us straight," C-Note spat. All of a sudden our attention was diverted to the sound of Sucre clicking his fingers at us.
"hey guys...."
"What?" C-Note hissed.
Looking in front of Sucre stood a little girl with blonde pigtails. She smiled over at us before saying hello.
"hi?" Sucre responded to her. She stood there with her hands in the pockets of her green jacket.
"Hey.... little one." C-Note smiled as he slowly walked towards her, kneeling in front of her.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"well uhh... we're just fishing," C-Note lied.
"With no poles?" She asked quickly.
"Well, we like to fish with our hands."
"Yeah, that's it." Sucre said nervously, trying to convince the little girl. "Hand-fishing."
"I think the question is, what are you doing out here?" Michael asked her. She shrugged her shoulders before answering him.
"Hunting."
From a distance, we heard the voice of a man. "Gracie?" He called, walking out from the trees. He appeared to be holding a shotgun. His happy face turned to fear when he saw all of us crowding around his little girl, Gracie. "Get away from her!" He shouted, as he pointed his shotgun at us.
"whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not trying to cause any trouble," I said.
"I know who you guys are.... you're the convicts that escaped from Fox River last night." He shouted, the gun was still pointing at us. "Get away from her!"
"Okay, okay.... just relax, relax," C-Note got up with his hands in the air and began to back away from Gracie.
"Sir...." Abruzzi started as he walked closer to the little girl. I looked at Abruzzi to see him holding the gun from the van behind his back.
"Abruzzi NO!" I shouted as he grabbed the girl, pointing the gun at her head. She let out a cry.
"Put the gun down!" Abruzzi shouted at Gracie's father whilst everybody roared at him to leave her alone.
"Let her go!" The man pleaded as tears fell from his eyes.
"PUT the gun down," Abruzzi repeated. "Right now!"
"John, let go of the girl," Michael warned him.
"Shut-up!" He shouted back to Michael, pointing the gun at all of us now. He turned back to the man. "Drop the gun."
"Dad???" The girl cried. The man hesitated for a moment. Abruzzi began counting back from three but the man let go of the gun and tossed it aside.
"Good boy. Good boy," John kept staring at the man. "Get the gun, PICK IT UP!" He shouted at Sucre who stumbled, trying to get the gun off of the ground.
"Don't hurt her, don't you..." The man cried, begging for Abruzzi to leave her alone.
"You're going to be alright," John whispered in her ear. "Okay? Run to daddy, Gracie." As he let go of her she sprinted to her dad, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he picked her up.
"I ain't going to say anything to anybody, man," The father said as Michael walked towards him.
"You're not going to get hurt, so just calm down." Michael tried to reassure the man. "Where's your car?"
"Up on the road."
"I need your keys," Michael said as the man reached into his pocket and then handed the keys to him. When Michael took the keys from the man he took off through the forest towards the road. I started at the man as he hugged his little girl. I felt bad for how badly that escalated but I ran after the rest of the gang, trying not to waste anymore time.
~~~~~~~
I sat in between Michael and Abruzzi in the car. C-Note sat up front next to Linc who was driving and Sucre sat in the very back. The short distance we had travelled was very quiet. We were all shocked at how that situation was handled.
"That's it. I want Eye-Tie out of the car right now, man. That was a little girl! Don't you have a heart? God! I have a daughter. I have a little girl!" C-Note shouted. Even though I was still annoyed at C-Note, I was thankful he said something about the situation.
"I got one, too. But if I hadn't done what I had to do, we wouldn't be on our way to see 'em now, would we?" Abruzzi patted C-Note on the back.
"Turn right up there," Michael pointed at the oncoming road.
"Whoa, whoa. Hold on. Where we going?" C-Note turned to Michael.
"Oswego."
"That's west, man. We need to go east. My family's back in Chicago," C-Note panicked.
"And you think the cops didn't go there first? Your house is going to be watched by the cops for a long time, waiting for you to come running back home. What's the matter with you?" John shook his head.
"Well, what about New York?" Sucre piped up from the back.
"Well, what about it?"
"My girl's pregnant, bro," Sucre whined.
"I understand that your love is your weakness right now, and they know about it," Abruzzi tried to shut down Sucre.
"That doesn't mean it has to stop you," I said, "You just have to be smart about it."
"... Get to Oswego," Michael nodded.
"Oswego was not on the way, snowflake," C-Note sighed. His tone was heavy with annoyance.
"It's not where Oswego is. It's what's in Oswego," Michael smiled looking around at everybody. The car finally went quiet again and I was alone to think to myself. My head was pounding with everything that had just happened within the last 24 hours. As well as the last conversation I had with Sara, an argument in the infirmary.
"You're just like Dad, Sara. Gullible, you would believe anything you're told, even if it's not true."
"What are you thinking about?" Michael whispered. I looked up, my brown eyes meeting his blue ones.
"Sara," I sighed. He nodded his head, still staring into my eyes. "The last conversation I had with her was kind of an argument. She hates me."
"No she doesn't," He said quietly. I looked away from him, starring at my shoes.
"No.... she does. She thinks I'm a murderer, she hardly even looked at me when I was in that prison.... I don't care if she wants to hate me for the rest of her life... but I just don't want that conversation to be our last."
"It wont be. Don't worry about it, you'll see her again, V," Michael whispered.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
We pulled up to a storage unit and all of the boys got out of the car. As I got out, Linc handed me the keys.
"Will you stay in the car? You can be the driver," he asked. I nodded my head.
"Sure thing," I sighed before taking the keys from his hands and then getting into the drivers seat. I closed the door and watched as they all walked off towards the storage unit.
"I better not be just the driver from now on," I said to myself. "I can take care of myself." A few minutes later they all returned with shovels in their hands and they all got back into the car. Michael gave me directions for a graveyard, not far from the storage unit.
Driving the car felt foreign to me for a while, but I guess it was because it wasn't like my own that I got when I was 20, I had it for nine years. Took me almost all of my adolescent years to save up for that piece of crap and then to be never seen ever again.
After I parked the car at the cemetery, everybody got out with their shovels. I had a feeling were this was going. Graveyard + shovels = maybe digging up a grave. It gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. I followed them to a gravestone that read : E. Chance Woods. Since we were limited shovels, I sat aside. I could barely watch what was going on, not to mention I felt bad that I wasn't doing anything.
After a ten minutes of digging, the boys had dug a big, deep hole. Linc was sitting on the edge, wiping the sweat off of his forehead.
"Somebody's gonna see us," C-Note said, looking around the place,
"Keep digging," Linc ordered.
"We're gonna go to hell, guys," Sucre whined as he blessed himself. "Swear to god, we're gonna go to hell." Michael began tapping on the soil with his shovel before putting it down.
"Help me out," He panted as he picked up a heavy, bulky plastic bag from the soil, throwing it out of the hole in the ground.
"You are one sick cat, I hope you know that," C-Note grumbled as he helped Michael out of the hole. Lincoln opened the bag and started pulling out the items that were inside of it, which were clothes. I grabbed a black hoodie, which sat on top of the pile, and pulled it on over my head.
"Originally, this was supposed to be a week's worth of clothes for me and Linc. But, uh, figured you all need just as much help as we do so..."Michael explained.
"You're just doing this out of the goodness of your heart, fish?" Abruzzi asked.
"That's right John," I said as Michael threw clothes at him. "You remember what the heart is, don't you?" I walked over to the bushes in front of them, so my back was facing them to give them privacy. I could still hear them talk behind me.
"Damn, Snowflake, this is a little bit tight," C-Note commented.
"It's like I said, we got to stop being cons, and start being civilians." Everyone was silent for a while and the only thing I could hear was the plastic bag being rustled through and clothes dropping to the floor.
"Nice... Trousers are a little bit too short, don't you think?" John asked.
"Chop your feet off. You're good at that," Linc bluntly replied.
I turned around to see everybody dressed. I walked back over to the bag to pick up a hat when I saw Abruzzi's gun sitting on the ground. As I picked up the hat, I subtly grabbed the gun, placing it inside the waist of my jeans. I put the hat on and walked back towards the bushes where Linc stood.
"Red's a nice color on you," Linc chuckled, pointing up at my hat. I laughed poking him in his side with my elbow.
"Linc," Michael called out , walking towards up. He tossed a backpack to Linc.
"Money, passports... pre-paid phone cards." Michael called out as Linc went through the items in the bag. "I'm sorry, Vanessa, I don't have a passport for you, I didn't know..."
"That's completely understandable, it's fine," I smiled. Lincoln chuckled beside me.
"Archie Ryan?" He laughed, looking at the his passport.
"Did you see mine?" Mike grinned, "Phineas McClintock." Lincoln reached into the bag again and pulled out a set of keys.
"Woah. These?"
"Keys to a car that's waiting for us, a couple hundred yards from here."
"Is that a three-of-us or six-of-us?" Lincoln asked, nodding his head back to the others.
"That's a three-of-us," Michael answered.
"They know?" I questioned. Michael and Lincoln looked back at them.
"Not yet."
"Guy-Guy-Guys, we got company," Sucre whispered, waving us over to look at what he was seeing. I stayed as quiet as I could as I watched a guy get out of a large black Chevrolet jeep. The man was wearing a black suit and a matching pair of black sunglasses. If it wasn't obvious enough, he looked like an FBI agent. He walked past the graves and kept walking towards the headstone we were just previously at.
As he was getting closer to the dug up grave, he took off his sunglasses and put them into the pocket on the inside of his blazer. He knelt down in front of the grave: 'E. Chance Woods', staring down into it.
"Guys, we gotta roll," Sucre muttered as he turned around heading for the town.
"uh... How did he know?" C-Note groaned as he followed Sucre. Abruzzi and Linc followed after them. The FBI agent looked around the cemetery before putting his hand into the pocket of his jacket. I tapped Michael' arm. He didn't turn around to look at me. Instead, he kept his focus on the agent.
"Mike come on, we gotta go now, before it's too late," I turned to follow the guys, who were well ahead of me at this point. I kept running yet heard no footsteps behind me until I could see Michael in the distance running behind me.
"GO! Keep going!" He shouted to me. I turned and kept running until I caught up with Lincoln and the others at a railway track, just at the edge of the town.
In the distance, church bells were ringing. We were right in the middle of the town square, crossing the road with a bunch of people. It must have been quite obvious at how nervous I was as Michael leaned towards me and said: "We're civilians; remember that." I nodded my head and kept on walking catching up to Lincoln. From where I was I could see the FBI agent standing in the middle of the road, he was turning around in circles, looking everywhere for us.
He seemed frustrated as he couldn't notice any of us in the large crowd. I followed Linc and the others to what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. Michael said he was going into town to get something to eat for us all. Linc took one of the pre-paid phones from the backpack and walked away to make a phone call, leaving me with Sucre, Abruzzi and C-Note. C-Note tapped my shoulder.
"Hey, can we talk?" He asked me. I paused for a second before nodding my head. We walked away from Sucre and Abruzzi and it was just the two of us.
"Look, I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted earlier, I shouldn't of called you a 'money stealing bitch', that was wrong of me and I would never call a girl anything offensive, that's just not right, I guess I was just stressed out. So I would like to apologize for starting that argument," He said. I nodded my head.
"It's fine, I understand, I guess everybody was feeling angry, sick and tired of having to be running for that long and it would of felt good in the moment to take it out on somebody. I get it. And I should apologize as well, I shouldn't have retaliated I should have just kept my mouth shut.... so, I accept your apology and I'm sorry too."
"Like you said, I get it," he chuckled, "Apology accepted... we good?" I smiled before nodding. My smile dropped when I heard Lincoln shouting from the other side of the warehouse.
"Veronica!" I looked up to see him drop to his knees and heavily panting. I quickly ran over to him.
"What happened? Linc? Lincoln? Is she okay?" I asked him wrapping my arm over his shoulders. He just pulled me closer to him and started crying. I tried to comfort him or at least calm him down by rubbing his arm. "Lincoln.. what happened?"
"She... she...she's dead." He tearfully stuttered. My heart broke for him. I was close with Veronica, but I wasn't as close with her unlike Link, I mean she was my lawyer and sometimes I hung out when her and Linc when they were going out, but that was only the odd time whenever I saw her. She was a genuine person, she looked out for LJ even after her and Linc broke up. There was no bad blood between the two of them, they remained the best of friends.
"She's dead."
~~~~~~~
A/N:
HAPPY NEW YEARS! Let's hope this year is a good one. I want to be on top of my game more this year and hopefully write some more and update often. I'm not going to make up excuses or anything but just please know that I have a busy year and I'm preparing for college, so I'll update as often as I can.
Please don't be shy to comment. I think some of my readers are ghost readers, they seem to shy away from the comments. Some of you guys are SO funny. I also get loads of comments on chapter one about all the languages you guys can speak, that's so impressive!!!
I love you guys, hope you are all doing well and staying safe!
xx