Chapter 15
Thunder clashed against the sky while the wind tore at the building. Everything wavered under the power of the storm. Cassie crouched under the old desk, clinging to Buffy’s hand. There was no one to protect them. Spike was lying in a pool of blood, growing ever larger as precious seconds ticked away without any hope of help. Love was over. Shattered by a ’38. Buffy was screaming out her broken heart, crawling across the cement floor, until she was drowning in the red stickiness surrounding Spike.
“I love you, I love you,” Buffy's chant mingled with the other sounds of the tempest until death was too much of a temptation. Darkness drew her into its cold embrace without a second thought of the promising life she had once held.
It was over. They were both dead. In only moments, death would find her as well. Cassie pounded at the wood surrounding her, wanting only to escape. But Luke was searching for her. She couldn’t ignore it. Whimpering, alone in the nightmare, she gave up the fight. The bullet hurt more than anything she had ever known as it tore through her flesh. An unearthly scream burst from deep inside her soul, and the futile yowling prayers wouldn’t stop even as her heart went silent.
“Wake up.”
“No, no,” Cassie cried, wanting to know how everything went so wrong.
“Cassie, wake up, Cassie, you’re having a nightmare, wake up,” this time the voice was accompanied by a shake of her shoulders.
Yanked from her nightmare, Cassie shook in the aftermath. She gulped in oxygen hoping it would clear her mind. Forcing her eyes open, she looked around at her surroundings. The room was just as it had been when she first drifted into sleep. Plain white walls, two double beds with a nightstand between, the light still shone from the bathroom in the corner, and Kate and Lorne were on either side of her.
She wasn’t alone.
“Here cupcake,” Lorne said, sitting on the edge of the bed. He handed her a glass of water. “Drink it.”
Unable to do anything else, Cassie drank the cold liquid. It soothed the ravages of her throat brought on by her screaming. She wished it could take away the horrible images of her friends' deaths as easily as it slid down her throat. It didn't though, a lurking feeling of guilt wouldn't stop. It was just a dream, she told herself, and wished she could convince herself of that.
After she drained the glass, Lorne put it on the floor next to his feet. Miraculously Lorne produced a warm washcloth from his bag of tricks. Something else to soothe the pain away, but also giving her precious seconds to pull herself together. Cassie wiped the tears from her face, drawing it across her neck trying to cool the fire that was burning her body. Her hand covered her chest where the bullet of her dreams had penetrated, afraid she would find a gaping hole, yet she was…she was intact.
Kate took the washcloth from her and wiped the back of her neck while holding up Cassie’s hair. It felt good to be comforted. To be taken care of. It was a feeling she hadn’t had since her mother had died a few years before.
“You okay?” Kate asked, sitting back but taking Cassie’s hand in her own. “Sounds like it was pretty bad.”
“It was,” Cassie said, leaning back against the headboard. “They caught up to us. To Buffy and Spike.” She closed her eyes, but the images were only more vibrant against the blackness of her eyelids.
“It’s over,” Lorne said. He patted the hand Cassie held against her stomach. “We’ll be fine.”
“What if it’s not?” Cassie cried. She clung to their hands, fighting against the rising panic. The dream was too real. Almost prophetic in the details of the room they were trying to hide in, and in the evil of Luke’s laughter as he shot them dead one by one. “I’m scared.”
“I know,” Kate said. “I am too, but Spike is good, better than good, and he’ll protect Buffy.” She chuckled. “Buffy is a bit of spitfire so I wouldn’t worry too much about them.”
“They’re only human,” Cassie reminded them. “Spike isn’t the angel Buffy imagines him to be. He’s just a man.”
Their crestfallen faces made Cassie bite her lip, wishing she hadn’t said anything.
It felt like she had just sealed their doom.
~~~~~~
The warehouse was cavernous, yet somehow the members who lived there had made it as homey as possible. Old couches and chairs were scattered around a living and meeting area while there was a couple of tables with mismatched chairs in the corner they used as a kitchen. Nothing was new looking. Most of it looked like it had been heading for the dump when the desperate kids gave it a new life.
Meeting Gunn’s old friends wasn’t a fearful experience. A few of them, like Rico, made Buffy uncomfortable, but most were friendly. Or at least curious enough about her to give her a chance. Spike was the one having a hard time. Being a cop, he already had three strikes against him when he pulled the Desoto into the building.
Yet on Gunn’s word, they weren’t openly hostile to Spike. But, then again, they were watching him, waiting to see for themselves if he could be trusted. Buffy wasn’t sure how he was being so patient, but Spike was allowing them the time to get to know him.
There wasn’t any talk of business in the first hours they were there. They spent the afternoon with Gunn catching up with his buddies, Spike getting to know them, and explaining why they were there. Gunn, with money pitched in from Spike and Buffy, bought dinner for everyone. It wasn’t much. Pizza picked up from a restaurant a few blocks away, but Buffy suspected it was more than they usually had for a meal.
Full, content and tired, Buffy sat on an old crate, leaning against the wall with her arms wrapped around her knees. The guys were talking about playing some poker. She wondered if they would ever get around to talking about Manuel. The waiting was driving her crazy even if she did understand the game Spike and gang members were playing.
She was worried about Cassie and her friends. Even about Fred. If anything happened to the other woman Spike would be devastated and filled with guilt that nothing could ever diminish. She refused to think about the ramifications of that ending.
“Who cut your hair, girl?”
Buffy looked up to see Anita, a woman not much younger than Buffy, studying her. The pretty Hispanic woman reached out to play with the ends of Buffy’s hair.
“It looks like someone butchered it,” Anita continued.
“They did,” Buffy smiled. “It was done in a hurry with a regular pair of scissors.”
“Well, come on,” Anita said, reaching for Buffy’s hand. “I’m in my last semester of cosmetology so I can fix it for you.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Buffy protested. She glanced over to where Spike was shuffling cards. He didn’t look up. There wasn’t any assurance that it was all right. It was up to her to make a decision. Biting her lip, she stayed seated.
“Don’t trust me, do ya?”
Feeling flustered by being so open with her feelings, Buffy shook her head.
“Hey Kendra,” Anita called to one of the younger members Buffy met earlier. Kendra was a pretty girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen with an accent Buffy was still trying to pin down. “Tell Miss Careful that I know what I’m doing.”
Kendra rolled her eyes before sauntering over to them. Crossing her arms across her middle, she stared at Buffy with a blank expression that she wasn’t sure how to take. Buffy shrank back, waiting for the other girl to say something.
“You have a problem with Anita?”
“No, it’s not that,” Buffy said, running her hands through her hair. “I just don’t want to be a bother to anyone.”
“Anita offered so I don’t think it’s a bother,” Kendra said, shrugging. “I think you’re afraid.”
Kendra's barb hit its mark. Buffy hopped off the crate. For a moment, she met Kendra's gaze before turning to the other girl. "Okay."
Anita broke out with a big grin. "Kendra get my backpack," she said, grabbing Buffy's hand to pull her to a bathroom in the small adjacent room.
The bathroom had three stalls, which stood in the darkness that existed outside the reach of the two light bulbs over the sink. Buffy shivered despite the damp heat lingering in the air. It was too small for her comfort. She wanted to get out of there, but the reappearance of Kendra and a few other girls left her more determined to see this through to the end. The idea of a haircut wasn't the big deal. Even after all the changes she'd undergone, and all the advances, she was still unsure of her own beauty.
Spike always told her she was attractive, so did Charles, but so did the others she'd dated. The ones who tried to grope her body, or expected her to have sex with them just because they went out. For her, wanting to draw attention to her looks was an open invitation for trouble, yet there was a woman inside who wanted to feel beautiful.
Someone put a chair in the middle of the floor along with a floor lamp to help illuminate the space. She took a seat on the chair while Anita unloaded the backpack on the sink.
"Men are trouble," Kendra said, as if she could read Buffy's mind. "Gives you a power over them. They're all fools for a pretty face. Easy to play them when they're too busy drooling to pay attention. You look good for you, not them. "
"Come on, Kendra," Anita said, combing through Buffy's hair. "Buffy only wants to attract one man. A new look will give him a kick in the fucking ass and make him sit up and take notice."
"He's engaged," Buffy parroted. It still sounded absurd, no matter how many times she said it.
"Like that stopped any man who wanted a piece of ass," Kendra said, with a laugh.
"He wants more than that," Anita said, studying Buffy's face in the mirror. She rearranged Buffy's hair in several different ways. "They're in love. Gunn even said that."
"Gunn is a fool who dreams of things he has no business dreaming about," Kendra snapped. "There is no out for us. Except for death."
"Come on, Kenny, not everyone is a welfare mom on crack," Anita whispered. "Not everyone is going to get shot in a drive by. I'm counting on Gunn. If he can make it, maybe I can to."
"Humph," Kendra muttered. "Yeah, then they fall in love and live happily ever after. Bullshit."
They reminded Buffy of the little voices in her head that warred over what direction she should take. Whether she should fight for Spike, be alone until she met someone else, or forget about love altogether.
Her eyes fluttered shut as Anita started cutting. A fantasy unraveled of the night before when Spike was in her arms, holding her like he used to, before Fred took him away. No, before they both grew cowardly about what they felt, and tried to do the right thing in society's eyes.
Something in her heart cracked as she accepted that no matter how big the ring was or how long he stayed with the other woman, Spike belonged to Buffy. Sometimes love transcended every right and wrong to explode for two people. Like it had the day Spike found her in the basement. Each click of the scissors was like a piece of the puzzle falling into place. No longer could she deny what she felt. No longer would she stand by and let some other woman claim the man she loved.
She just had no clue of how to go about getting him back.
"Okay now, I'm going to put some makeup on," Anita said.
Buffy opened her eyes to the girl standing between her and the mirror.
"No peeking until I'm done," Anita grinned. "Close your eyes."
For the next few minutes Buffy followed directions. Opening her eyes, scrunching her lips, and lifting her brows while hoping that she wouldn't look like a freak. It had been almost a decade since she wore so much makeup. A once daily event that she'd perfected to a science, but now she wore minimal makeup.
"We're done," Anita said. "Except for this."
"What?" Buffy looked up to see a shirt being handed to her. She didn't reach for it. "I don't need…"
"Yes, you do," Anita said.
"You look kind of hot," Kendra said. "Go ahead and put the shirt on and let's see the new Buffy girl."
Standing up, Buffy undid the safety pin holding her t-shirt together then pulled it over her head before reaching for the silky shirt that Anita was holding. She slid it on, staring down, unsure of how to fasten the lacy top. Surprisingly Kendra reached out to help her get it fastened.
Buffy giggled as Kendra arranged the material over her frame. At least, she did until the two girls stepped back so that she could see herself. Her reflection was that of a woman, not the teenage girl she once was, nor the battered shell who only wanted to survive, not even the shy woman struggling for a place in the world, but a bona fide woman.
The white material fastened by tiny hooks down her stomach, starting low enough to give a good view of her breasts and then flowing outward over her hips. She forced herself to look upwards at the hairstyle that Anita created. Most of it still reached her shoulders, but the front was layered to frame her face.
"You like it?" Anita asked.
"I love it," Buffy smiled, turning to the hug the young woman. "You're hired from now on to do my hair. Thank you."
"You did good," Kendra added. "Now, you going to do something with those looks, or are you going to continue to sit on the sidelines?"
A flush crept over Buffy's cheeks as she wondered how transparent she was in her feelings for Spike. "We have to…"
"You have to do nothing tonight," Anita said softly. "It's late. The guys aren't going to do no talking. They're playing cards until they trust each other so that means you can be waiting for him."
"Where? We checked out of the hotel this afternoon," Buffy said, with a shrug of her shoulders. When the two girls laughed, she crossed her hands in front of her.
"Let me show you around the place," Kendra said, opening the door. "Some of us live here, you know?"
~~~~~~
"Get in the back room," Wesley ordered, reaching for his gun and the cell phone at the same time.
Fred stood still for a second, uncomprehending of what was going on around her. This wasn't anything she was used to, despite working for the police department. She worked in a lab, pouring over evidence, samples of blood and DNA all day, not putting herself in harms way day after day. Her well-ordered and planned life was shattering into thousands of pieces of adrenaline-fueled panic. This wasn't what she planned on when she accepted Spike's proposal.
In the few months of their engagement nothing like this had happened. Spike may have dealt with this pending violence every day, but it was left at the door when he came home. They were friends and lovers, the perfect combination for a lifetime commitment.
At least it was until Buffy called Spike for help, and brought all this trouble to their lives.
"Go," Wesley said, pushing her on the back enough to propel her to run for the bedroom. "What the hell is happening?" She heard Wesley ask as she pressed herself to the wall, out of sight of the front room, but close enough for her to hear.
"What do you mean nothing? What's with the call on the emergency line for then? Damn it, there was someone banging around outside the door and then you bloody call…whatever. Let us know."
"Is it safe for me to come out?" Fred asked, still pressed against the wall.
"Yeah, the idiot downstairs in the car decided to check on us." Wesley ran his hand through his hair. "May as well put a damn arrow over our heads telling everyone where we are."
"Am I going to be moved again?"
Can I go home…is what she really wanted to ask, but already knew the answer.
"No, not yet. We're going to be stuck here awhile," Wesley said, turning to her as he tossed the phone on the couch. "You okay?"
Suddenly nothing was all right. All of the rationalizing of the situation exploded in a storm of emotions that burst of her.
"No, I'm not all right," Fred ranted. "I'm stuck in some damn place that I don't even know where it is, with a stranger that ignores me all the time, while my fiancé is with some little whiney brat that has him twisted around her little finger." She grabbed a glass from the coffee table and hurled it against the wall. It didn't make her feel better. "I love him, but it's not good enough for him. All he thinks about is Buffy. I hate it…I hate her." She burst into tears, letting all her frustration out. "Why doesn't she just go away for good?"
"I’m sorry," Wesley said.
He tried to put his arms around her, but Fred batted them away. She didn't want comforting. She wanted her life back. A part of her knew that it was probably gone for good. There was no way that Spike could be around Buffy for this long and not want to sleep with her. If he hadn't already done it.
"No, don't be sorry," Fred cried, backing up. "He should be sorry. He knew when he asked me to marry him that all he wanted was revenge for her fucking other men, but no, I thought he would love me because I was the one who waited for him, loved him. It's not supposed to be this way," she screamed.
"He's a fool," Wesley said.
This time he fought back when she tried to pull away. She gave up, sagging against Wesley's body letting him soothe away her anger. The strong arms holding her made her feel safe, as the tears poured in a torrent of pain. Fred let herself be led to the couch where Wesley cuddled her close to his chest. Wesley whispered comforting words in her ear until she quieted. Even as reality seeped back in, Fred didn't want to move, Wesley didn't push her away, and she wondered if Spike would even care as she looked up into the eyes of the man holding her.
to be continued…
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