“Stay awake! This is nothing!”
Vi was trembling. Her voice brittle with emotion. Rona’s pale mocha-colored hand clasped in hers. Their fingers wrapped firmly around each-other.
Rona was sprawled on one of the bench seats of the school bus, her back pressed beneath the window. Rona’s lap was filled with blood, the bunched out folds of her shirt sodden and heavy, clinging.
Sunlight angling through the windows of the bus leaving every one of those details in a bright, merciless clarity.
“This is nothing!”
As their eyes stayed on each other. Hands still clasped between them. As the brown eyes looking out at her turned unfocused. As Rona’s breath came desperately shallow gasps from her lungs.
As her strength seemed to leave her all at once.
As the light went out in her eyes.
Vi reached out one slender hand, gently brushing Rona’s dark hair back from her too still face with her fingers. Brown eyes, blankly staring.
Vi repeated softly, “It’s nothing.”
Xander, laying on the floor. His limbs limp and thoughtlessly splayed. Small pieces of shattered plaster in chunks and as spots of white dust clinging to his shirt.
The papers were spread out over the desk. Files folders open. On top of each of the files was the photograph of a different young girl.
Wesley was sitting at the desk. He held the photo of one of the girl’s in his hand. The young face smiled back at him. In a fit of frustration that suddenly seemed to wash over him like a tide, Wesley suddenly reached out and swept all of the files off his desk. The folders fell and loose papers fluttered to the floor.
“Problem, Wes?”
Harmony stood near the door to his office looking at him curiously. She held a coffee mug in one of her hands.
Wes was leaning against his desk tensely. He looked up from where his hands desperately gripped at the edge of the desk. “Have you ever . . . Have you ever have one of those days when you wished that you could just . . . not come into work. Just say the hell with the whole damn thing.”
“Yeah.” A bright smile passed across Harmony’s face. She put the coffee mug down on Wesley’s desk. “Sometimes I’m out and I meet that special someone who I wanna take home and bite and simply let his blood flow into my mouth, each final beat of his heart feeding more blood to me and flowing down my throat. The taste lingering, clinging in my mouth, as if the memory of it wants to stay with me. The taste, is just . . .”
Harmony smiled nostalgically.
Wesley blinked. “Frankly the idea of it makes me ill.”
“You’re alive. You’re supposed to say that,” Harm said carelessly. “But I like my job, as strange as that may seem. I’ve got a nice apartment, and I have nice shoes . . . they are nice aren’t they . . . and I finally feel like a grown up. I mean something, ya know. Plus I’ve got friends here . . . not many, it’s true, but you and Fred are cool. And Lorne is always nice to me, even if he dresses like a blind man and says things I don’t always understand.
“And on the other side there’s also the fact that if I did, Angel and the rest of you guys would hunt me down and drive a stake through me for killing someone, but . . . yeah, the temptation’s still there.”
Wes sighed, “This is one of those days.”
A few final blue sparks crackled around Gwen Raiden’s hands, electricity crackling in the gaps between her fingers before it was gone.
Angel stormed into Wesley’s office as Wes finished picking up the files from the floor and putting them back on his desk. Angel seemed tense. Nearly angry. He was holding a piece of paper in a death grip in one hand.
“Problem, Angel?”
“Spike,” Angel responded simply. “Our people just told me that he’s set himself up in an office across town.”
“So Casper decided once and for all to stay in Los Angeles and make a go for it.” A brief smile played across the former Watcher’s face. “Good for him.”
Angel didn’t seem nearly as happy. The vampire exhaled an unnecessary breath. “Spike is a . . . complication.”
Wes frowned. “How? I’ll admit that he is a bit trying sometimes, but Spike is clearly one of the good guys. I don’t think there’s even any question of that anymore. With him here the city and the people who live here will be that much safer. Frankly I’m glad that he’ll remain an available resource to us, even if he refuses to work for us directly.” That hint of a smile resurfaced. “To be perfectly honest I respect that about him.”
Angel sighed. “I don’t think you get it, Wes. I knew Spike for a long time. I’ve rarely encountered a situation that Spike can’t come along and somehow make more difficult. He’s got this . . . habit . . . you could even call it a gift . . . of screwing up everything for me. I can guarantee you that Spike is eventually going to be more of a pain in the ass for us than our clients and employees will ever be.”
A deafening crack split the air.
Plaster exploded outward from part of the wall in a white cloud, leaving behind a ragged hole.
Vi was standing there, a pistol held at the end of her extended arm. The red headed slayer was looking at the other woman down the sights of the gun. The normally carefree slayer’s face was crafted from stone.
“I wouldn’t move, Electro-girl. One move and they’ll be picking the inside of your skull up with a sponge.” She took a few steps closer, her eyes never leaving the dark haired woman that stood across the room from her. A merciless smile passed across Vi’s face, though that smile never reached the turbulent storm in her eyes, “You’re pretty remarkable . . . you know that . . . but I somehow doubt you’re bulletproof.”
Vi briefly glanced down at the body laying motionless near the wall at one side of the room. Her soft voice spilled his name, “Xander.”
The body lay there motionless.
“Xander!” Vi’s face trembled visibly. A tear brimmed up in her eye and rolled down her cheek. Vi grit her teeth and her eyes hardened. The gun raised slightly in her hands.
Xander suddenly coughed. His cough stirred up faint clouds of plaster dust. Xander groaned as he rolled over onto his knees. “Ow!” One hand clutched at his chest. “Holy fuck that hurt!”
Some of the tension slipped from Vi’s shoulders. Vi suddenly smiled awkwardly and threw a brief glance his way. A soft voice, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Xander said a little weakly. “I think I’m gonna be fine. Though I don’t think my hair will ever be the same again.”
Vi looked back at the woman angrily. The pistol was steady in her hand. “I don’t know who the fuck you people are, or what the hell you’re trying to do, but if you ever . . . ever . . . come near Xander or one of our girls again, I will fucking end you! There aren’t words for the pain I’ll leave you in.”
The dark haired girl just watched Vi silently with fear in her eyes. She didn’t seem to move at all.
“Now I’m gonna ask a question, and if I don’t hear the answer I’m wanting to hear, things around here are gonna get a hell of a lot more . . . colorful.” Looking at Gwen down the sights of the gun. “Insides to outsides and all that,” Vi said evenly. “Let’s just say, in the mood I’m in, I’m willing to be . . . creative.” Vi’s expression was remarkably cold. “Where . . . is Jane?”
The woman’s voice was unsteady. “She’s, uh . . . She’s chained up in the other room.”
“Chained?!” Vi repeated distastefully. “And where would be the key?”
“In my pocket.”
“Put it on the floor and take a step back.”
Slowly, Gwen did what Vi told her to.
Vi narrowed her eyes and took a step closer. “To honest, given the choice I’d kill you. Either that or hold onto you so my friends could pry the answers to all the questions I have out of your head. But I don’t know exactly how I could even hold onto you that long. I really wanna kill you.”
The sound of a groan from off to one side.
“Your guy is waking up,” said Vi, never taking her eyes off of Gwen as she held the gun on her. “Though I imagine he has a hell of a headache. Your other man is in the hall behind me. Take them and get the hell out of here. If I see any of you again, you and I are gonna have a confrontation.” Vi delivered the threat coldly. “Now go.”
Dave, Gwen and Ernie stumbled into a narrow alley.
“Oh God,” Dave looked at the other two with the sudden realization of the worst kind of horror in his eyes. “Angel’s gonna kill us.”
Ernie looked at him wide eyed. “Oh shit!”
Gwen looked back and forth between the two men. “Angel doesn’t have to know.” Her eyes still darting back and forth as she swallowed with visible effort. “We’ll . . . We’ll just tell him that Buffy’s people found the girl and we leave the rest of this crap out of it. Agreed?”
“Gwen,” Ernie said, “Does it look like I want to get my fuckin’ head chopped off? A zero tolerance policy doesn’t exactly give us a lot of wiggle room here.” He ran his fingers back through his hair and looked at her desperately, “Okay, agreed. Does it look like we have a choice?”
Gwen looked between him and Dave briefly. They were both silent. “Alright, we play what really happened here on the down low and hope it all blows over. Just keep our mouths shut, keep to our story, and we’ll all be fine.”
“It better blow over,” Dave said quietly. “For all our sakes.”
Vi turned the key and the golden bracelet fell away from Jane’s wrist.
“There you go,” said Vi as Jane rubbed at her wrist and awkwardly struggled to her feet.
Xander said, “I guess all’s well that ends well.”
“I don’t feel so good.” Jane stopped. She was unsteady on her feet. She carefully leaned against the wall. Her arms trembled as if she was struggling even with that. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Trust me. I’m right there with you.”
Jane looked up and shared a look with the other slayer. “Who the hell were they?”
“I don’t know,” said Vi. “They were high class whoever they were. Not exactly cheap, and not the kind of people you run into by accident. They worked for someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” Vi said. Something in her eyes was merciless. “But if it’s the last thing I do I’m gonna find out.”
Author's note: Sorry that it's been awhile. I hope this satisfies all of the people who were worried that I'd killed Xander. I kinda loved turning Vi into something of a badass. Next chapter should return to the Buffy & Spike melodrama.