Blood Drops On Rose Petals

By DM Evans

Chapter One

I had given up hope of being rescued. I didn’t know any more how long I had been here, days, weeks, months. It all blended together, thanks to all the drugs that they kept pumping into me. They must have backed down on them since I was actually able to walk around my cell. It wasn’t much of a walk but there was a window to investigate. It was tiny and so high I had to stand on my tiptoes to see out. I could see the moon and a thick stand of trees. It’s enough to tell me I wasn’t longer in the city.

How would Buffy ever find me now? We had all gone to L.A. to celebrate, if that’s the word for it, the year anniversary of Sunnydale getting sucked to hell. It was more of a ‘we survived it and the terrible year that came after so we’re gonna party’ kind of thing. To say last year had been stressful was beyond understatement. Faith, Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles and I had traveled the world gathering all the new Slayers to train in London while the Council reformed. It was hard work. Xander had been surprisingly serious about it, but that was probably more to keep his mind off Anya.

Kennedy had been left at the Cleveland Hellmouth to guard it as she was the next most experienced Slayer after Faith and Buffy, but it was more we didn’t want her around. After one wild party, she had tried to organize a daisy chain to prove she could be, I don’t know, as fun as Faith or something. She had been hitting on me all night. Willow had found out and her reaction had been swift and cold. I was glad she was gone. I had never liked Kennedy. She was too full of herself, a total brat. She reminded me of the worst inside of myself and it was ugly.

Andrew had scuttled off early on once Xander had gotten over the shock of Anya’s death enough to blame Andrew for it, for all that had happened to Sunnydale. In many ways, I agreed. He and his friends were the reason Tara died, that Willow had lost it and that the damn seal had ever opened in the first place. I slept a lot better at night knowing I didn’t have to worry about Andrew and his camera.

We chose Angel’s hotel to celebrate the anniversary. Principal Wood had joined with Angel’s group after recovering from his injuries. Wes had asked him aboard even though I never understood why exactly. Now that they worked for Wolfram and Hart they had all the man power they needed. I think Principal Wood had simply seen too much to go back to his old life, but I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there. Angel was acting weirder than normal, more short tempered and scary. It didn’t help that Wolfram and Hart had brought back Spike as a human and a sort of unpleasant one at that. He whined constantly about all the stuff he had lost. He wasn’t adjusting to being weaker, to just being human, very well. And then there was poor Cordy. I hadn’t ever been a Queen C fan but I felt sorry for her. She had woken from her coma but her mind was gone. She remained child-like but seemingly happy in the group home Wesley had found for her.

God, Wolfram and Hart, I had to warn Buffy. My sister probably still thought they’re simply the group Angel works for but they’re not. They’re more. They’re evil. They’re the ones who kidnapped me. I had been going to meet Fred at the law firm and some of the guards grabbed me, injecting me with something.

I didn’t remember much after that. Occasionally I woke up to find doctors, I guess they were, taking blood, hooking me up to machines, running tests, doing a gynecological exam. When I was awake and vaguely clear of mind, I felt degraded and terribly afraid. The spookiest part was no one would talk to me. It was like I didn’t exist, or I was a lab rat that didn’t rate so much as a word or two. Occasionally, I saw Lilah. I remembered her from the tour Fred had taken me on. She was the one who orchestrated my kidnapping. I’ve never been clear enough to ask questions to find out why she had done this to me but now I felt unfogged enough.

I tried to move the cot so I could see out the window better but it was bolted down. I had been moved from L.A.. Maybe many times for all I knew. I couldn’t wait for a rescue. I flopped back down on the bed, wondering about my new state of awareness. Had someone mistakenly not given me a dose of the drugs or maybe they wanted me awake for whatever came next?

It was so hard to keep track of time but it felt like hours before I heard the locks on my cell door moving. I wasn’t surprised when Lilah came through the door. She smirked at me, sauntering into my cell, her heels making annoying clicking sounds on the cold floor. She paused, waiting for me to speak, to cry or rave or something. I didn’t give her the satisfaction.

“Nothing to say?” She cocked an eyebrow at me.

“What would you like me to say? Want me to beg you to tell me what’s going on? To tell you my sister is gonna get you good for this?” I think I had been picking up Faith’s sarcasm, and oddly enough the old Dawn would have done just that but this last year has aged me a lot.

“I doubt that she will.” Lilah beckoned me forward. “Let’s go for a walk and you’ll see why you’re here.”

I didn’t argue. I might as well go with her. After all, what did I have to lose? If I saw where I was, maybe I’d see a way out because I wasn’t going to get out the little window.

Lilah led me out of the room into a corridor that was too bright, too antiseptic and it put me in mind of a hospital, only the hall was deserted except for what looked like guards at either end. One stood aside and let us pass into another bright hallway.

“Does Angel have any idea?” I asked.

“Of what? That we have you? No, but Angel’s an idiot,” she replied, daring me to contradict her. She seemed disappointed when I didn’t oblige. I’ve learned a lot this past year, grown up fast and one of the things I learned was not to volunteer information. “He’s been battling us ever since he arrived in L.A. We make one pitch on how there’s been a change in management, that we were the good guys now and how we wanted to help him help the world. The square-headed doofus of the night bit on that so hard and fast he doesn’t even realize he has the hook in his belly. If we had known how easy it was to buy off Angel Investigations, we would have tried it years ago.”

“That doesn’t sound like Angel.” I wrinkled my nose. “Why would he believe that?”

“Not just him, they all did because they’re greedy and despite one or two of them having a modicum of intelligence, it’s strictly book smarts. The combined common sense of Angel Investigations is somewhere less than a sea cucumber’s. All we had to do was give Angel the one thing he wanted most in the world,” Lilah said, going through another door and down the stairs.

We left the hospital, going underground into a maze of corridors. I could tell they were well traveled. There were a few tricycles, adult-sized with baskets on the handle bars that suggested people carried stuff from here to who knew where. I got the sense this complex was huge and it was one of the reasons I didn’t just charge Lilah and run for it. I didn’t know enough yet to do more than get caught and I still felt a little wobbly from all the drugs. I tried to look for markers to navigate by should I get free.

“I know you’re lying, Lilah,” I said, thinking on her last statement. “You haven’t given him the one thing Angel wants most. He’s still a cursed vampire. He can’t be with Buffy or anyone.”

Lilah’s smirk made me feel young and stupid. “That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted us to erase something from everyone’s memory.”

I made a face. “What?”

“We’ll get to that when we get where we’re going,” Lilah said, then patted me on the shoulder, a happy look on her face. “But you, Dawn, were a bonus. We’ve been looking forward to getting hold of you ever since we first learned of what you are. You can do a lot for good for us, Dawn.”

I knew she meant things that didn’t require my cooperation. She was giving me a look that reminded me of Glory. But like Glory, she talked too much. Giles said that was probably one of the reasons Buffy managed to beat Angelus way back when. He talked so much instead of acting that she had time to find the strength she needed to skewer the man she loved. Don’t even think about it, Dawn. You’re scared and depressed enough as it is. “The time has passed for me to open the gate to Glory’s realm, all the alignments are off.”

“Awww, sweetie, you’re not a key for just one place.” Her tone was saccharine. “You’re a skeleton key to all sorts of places. One such place will be ready for opening soon. You don’t even need to die, just bleed a little in the proper spot.”

“Is that what all the exams were for?” How many right turns had we made? I was already losing track.

“No, that was to test how human you are. You’ll be delighted to know that the monks seemed to have made you human in every way that counts. The doctors even went up and saw you have active ovaries. Isn’t that nice?” She smiled at me again. Ugh, did Glory have children?

“Not especially.” I so did not like where this was going.

“We’re curious to see what we might be able to breed from you. Given the amount of hormones the doctors have been pumping into you, you should be ready soon.”

“What if I don’t want to be a mom.” Damn, my voice was shaking. She knew I was scared but that was okay if I could just keep her talking while I decided if I had a chance of breaking free. I had no desire to be a mother. I was barely eighteen. I haven’t even graduated high school yet. Giles was home schooling me now. I was still a virgin and I had no plans of losing that to some damn science experiment.

“Don’t judge it too fast. You haven’t even met Daddy yet.” Lilah took me through another door into something that looked like a zoo exhibit behind thick glass and bars. There had been an effort to create a rocky wall on one side with a cave-like area. The rest was greenish but battle scarred, like the indoor grass had been torn and bloodied. There were a few trees inside the cage and some ropes. It reminded me of the gorilla exhibit in San Diego’s Zoo. There was auditorium seating all around the enclosure, and the rocky theme had been continued there. It smelled worse than the gorilla exhibit, hints of blood, sweat and stuff I’d rather not think about.

“It’s a thousand dollars a seat to watch him fight. He’s earning the firm a ton of money,” she informed me proudly.

“Who is?” I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to know what they thought I’d be sleeping with.

“He’s there.”

She pointed into the cavernous area. I peered into the darkness. I could barely see him moving, more of a shadowy blur than anything.

“What is he?”

“The son of two vampires,” she replied.

I whirled to face her. “What? That’s impossible!” I wished I sounded more convincing but why did it have to be impossible? I should be impossible and yet here I am.

“He’s Darla and Angel’s son. He was the one thing Angel wanted protected so much so he signed off on joining with us and signed over all his friends, too. Just be grateful he didn’t hand us Buffy and Faith in the process. We should have asked. He would have given them to us.” She sounded smug, so sure of herself.

I wanted to argue but I could barely form thoughts. “Angel...he doesn’t have a son. We’d know.”

“Maybe you did know once. We erased him from all memory, similar to how the monks installed you,” Lilah said.

“Angel couldn’t possibly have wanted this.” I stabbed a hand at the enclosure.

Lilah laughed so coldly she invoked Glory in my mind once more. “Angel’s an idiot. He thinks a golem we placed with a family is his son. He believes the boy is studying abroad in Russia.”

“Why did Angel want his son to disappear?” I couldn’t help staring into the shadows, looking for him. I got the impression he was studying us as well. Angel had a son...I couldn’t comprehend it.

“Connor went insane. We’ve been tracking him ever since he was born. He’s prophesied to do great things but with the Beast destroying much of the firm, we didn’t have time to act. I told the Senior Partners to snag the unnatural brat during the summer when Angel was MIA but they wanted to wait and watch him. A critical mistake. We never took away the Observers we had watching him. Ever seen an Observer? Cute little things, look like butterflies. They transmit massive amounts of information. We saw Connor go insane after he killed Jasmine.”

“Who’s Jasmine?” I felt so lost but since Lilah was obviously having fun showing me how little I knew, it was okay.

“Oh, right, you were busy with the First, weren’t you? Jasmine was going to bring world peace.”

“We did hear something on the news about L.A. going all mellow.”

“That was Jasmine’s doing.” Lilah ticked a finger against the bars. “Until Connor put a fist through her skull. So what if she was eating several dozen people a day to bring peace to the rest?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Sounds like a hell goddess.”

“I guess in a way she was.” Her eyes bored into me. “She was Connor’s daughter. We’re hoping he’ll continue to father children with such great potential.”

“Oh...no.” God, this was worse than I feared.

“The two of you could produce wonderful kids,” she informed me.

I tried to ignore that so I fished for more information. “I still don’t understand why Angel turned to you for help.”

“He lost track of his son in all the craziness after Connor snuffed his daughter. Our Observers didn’t. We watched him go off on a cop, babbling about family. We already knew how much that meant to him. It didn’t take a shrink to see he had had a nervous breakdown so we stepped in and showed him a whole bunch of people acting very unfamily-like and told him how to punish them. We rounded them up, wired them with explosives and wired him, too, since he was nuts enough to want to die. We even provided him Cordelia all wired up like a Christmas tree because we knew how much she meant to him.”

“Wait? What does she have to do with this?” This must be how Buffy feels when Giles starts going off about things he thinks she already should know about some demon or another.

“They were lovers. Cordelia was Jasmine’s mother. Angel was busy telling me what I could do with Wolfram and Hart’s deal while I was showing him the perks of his new office so I knew I had to do something to hook him before he got away. I let Angel see a newscast portraying Connor as a hostage taker. I guess he was, after a fashion.” Lilah shrugged. “Angel’s skull is so thick he never even stopped to think how an unarmed boy, even on as strong as Connor, could to subdue some thirty people in a place as big as a mall. Did Angel think Connor managed to carry an unconscious Cordelia into the mall like a gunny sack or did he think the hostages just sat there and waited while Connor ran out to get her? He never even questioned it, the moron. Hell, he never even stopped to think how Connor learned to make bombs. The boy was raised in a hell dimension with no education. He’s lucky he can tie his own shoelaces and somehow Angel figured out the boy learned advanced munitions somewhere. I hate working with stupid people.” Her face went dark like she was pissed off at Angel for not being challenging.

Put that way, Angel did sound like an idiot. I hated to think of him like that. “Why didn’t Angel just try to help his son instead of using magic to erase him?”

Lilah shrugged. “It involved actual work? He’s a lousy father? He’s dumb as a brick? How should I know? Angel beat the shit out of the little snot then asked us to erase all memory of him and to give him a nice normal family to live with.”

“And instead you brought him here?” Mom told me once a parent would do anything to protect a child, that sometimes they’re so afraid for their babies they don’t stop to think about the danger they’re risking. I guess that was true since Angel had believed his enemy would help his son.

“Of course. Angel somehow forgot that we’ve been after his kid since before Darla dusted herself to give birth to him. He robbed the boy of anyone who could have rescued him from his father’s stupidity by erasing all memory of him. The only people who know is Angel, me and now you and I’m only telling you because it hardly matters if you know.”

Meaning I was never getting out of here as far as Lilah was concerned. “And you’re what? Playing fight club with him?”

“Oh, just until the time is right to stage our apocalypse. The fighting helps to keep his skills sharp.”

“And he’s not insane any more?” I swallowed hard, hoping that was true if they thought he was getting near me. “Did he recover from his breakdown?”

“Possibly he could have but we give him enough LSD to keep the delusions coming.”

I stared at her, horrified. “Why?”

“Because it makes him more vicious and he’s learned to come to me for comfort. It took most of the year to train him but like Pavlov’s dog he responds to me. He’s a good little hound. I should change his name to Cuchulainn.” She sounded proud, almost motherly.

“Will he come out of the cave?” I asked, trying not to let it show I didn’t get the reference she made.

“Sure.” She opened a rock shelf the cage was anchored into and it turned out to be a cover for a refrigerator. She pulled out some tupperware. “You can feed him if you want.”

“What do you mean feed him?”

“Watch.” She grabbed up a slab of raw beef. “Come on, Connor. I know you’re hungry.”

He came out of the rock like a cat, stealthy and fluid. He was across the enclosure in one graceful leap. Lilah opened a small window in the bars and held the meat out. I thought he’d tear off her arm, the look in those startling blue eyes was that insane. Blue? How’d Angel’s kid get blue eyes?

He grabbed the meat and stuffed a huge mouthful of the bloody stuff into his mouth, chewing greedily. As thin as he was, I was sure he was starved. His shapeless clothing hung on him, a tattered red shirt and baggy brown pants at least one size too big. Both were crusted and stained. His hair spilled to the middle of his shoulders in a greasy, lanky mess.

“That’s a good boy, Connor. Want some more?” Lilah patted his shoulder.

He grunted something at her that was too animal-like to be words. She held the tupperware out to me but I backed away. Shrugging, she tossed him another blob of meat.

“Get him one of the bottled waters,” she instructed me.

“No, I’m not getting near him.” On the surface Angel’s son didn’t look dangerous, only deranged but I could sense that he was both.

“Do it. You might want him to get to know you.” She offered me another chilly, flat smile. “It’s safer that way.”

Somehow I decided she might be right. I took a bottled water and opened it. I handed it over. He caught my hand and I screamed in spite of myself.

Lilah tapped his fuzzy cheek. “Gently, Connor. Be nice.”

He stared at me as if there was an open door straight into my deepest parts. His rough hands still held mine but not hurting me. He stank. Obviously letting him bathe was low on Lilah’s to do list. His nose flared. He was drinking me in. This strange elfin boy had nothing in common with Angel that I could see except maybe the intensity of his eyes. He took the water bottle with one hand, still holding onto me. He licked the palm of my hand and I couldn’t escape the feeling he was tasting me, like a dog. Lilah was right. She had made him the perfect hound. His long tongue lapped my skin again and Lilah laughed.

“He likes you.”

I curled my lip at her and said, “Drink the water, Connor.”

His eyes widened and then he grinned at me. His smile was so wide I was expecting the top of his head to fall backwards. He reminded me of Lilo’s Stitch. His smile was psychotic and the worst part was he looked truly happy. He let me go and guzzled the water, some of it drooling past his full red lips and down the soft scraggly fur of his chin. I wiped my palm on my pants, realizing Connor wasn’t the only one who stank. I was still in the clothes I had been wearing when I was grabbed up.

“Visiting time is over,” Lilah said, going to close the little window to the cage. Connor shoved his hand back through, groping for me. “Behave, Connor, or the ‘you know whats’ will come back.”

Connor dropped back, fear in those incredible blue eyes. “No.”

It was the first word he had spoken. I guess I knew he could speak or at least he used to be able to. I couldn’t imagine Cordy letting anyone who communicated with grunts close enough to get her pregnant.

Lilah shut the window. “Come on, Dawn.”

“Da-awn.” Connor grabbed the bars as he said my name. Two syllables, like he was rolling them around his mouth experimentally.

“Bye, Connor,” I said, not knowing what else to do.

He grunted again and scaled up a tree, lounging on a branch. Again the image of a cat filled my mind. Lilah led me back into the underground labyrinth that I had no real hope of finding a way out of.

“So, what do you think of him?” Lilah asked eagerly.

“I think I’m not letting him anywhere near me so you can forget your baby,” I replied.

Lilah snorted. “Oh, it’ll be a lot more mechanical than that. Think turkey baster, dear,” she said as light and cheery as if we had been talking about boys after school instead of getting me pregnant against my will. “If we put you in with Connor in that state, he’s likely to rip you limb from limb.”

I shuddered at that. Then a loud scream echoed in the corridor coming from where we had just been. I looked back wondering what they were doing to the poor boy. Lilah laughed.

“The LSD is kicking in. Back when he spoke more, the things he’d tell you he was seeing, well, let’s just say it gave me nightmares for weeks.”

“Good,” I shot back and she just smirked again. “Why can’t he talk better? I mean, he wasn’t always like that, was he?” Lilah shook her head. “They’re calling it paroxysmal aphasia, kind of a transient loss of speech due to the fact that’s he’s out of his little mind. He just doesn’t want to talk is my guess.”

After that, Lilah went silent as she led me back to my cell. I was too shocked to do more than follow her, desperately trying to memorize the lay out.

“It’ll be another few treatments before we’re ready to take you in for the procedure,” she said. “And luckily it won’t even interfere with that little opening we want you to do. Oh and if you’re thinking about running, the guards will shoot you. It might not kill you, but don’t get it into that little head of yours that you’re going anywhere soon.”

I just flopped back on the bed, ignoring her. Lilah locked me back in and then I rolled over, burying my face in the thin pillow, trying not to cry. Tears got me nowhere. Buffy wouldn’t cry if she were in this situation. I just had to take what I had seen and work on a plan. Easier said than done.

Chapter Two

I wasn’t sure how long it was before Lilah came back for me; two, maybe three days judging by how many meals I was brought. I tried to refuse to eat or drink, realizing the LSD had to be in the bottled water I gave Connor. Lilah touched the meat with bare hands, but then again I didn’t really know if that would make you absorb LSD or not. Either way, I was afraid they’d try to drug me with food and water, but I couldn’t go without drinking no matter how hard I tried. The drugs ended up inside me and the hormones, too, no doubt. I could feel them. My breasts hurt. I was getting pimply and moody and I was horny as heck. I had never felt it this strongly. I hated Lilah passionately. How could she do this to another woman? I guessed all that mattered to her is the power. I was powerful, if she was right about me being a key to more than one dimension.

Lilah wore a smart linen pantsuit when she came to get me. I hated her for her clean clothing alone. All I had was a bare toilet in my cell, no tub, no sink, no toothbrush. I was covered with red marks from me scratching at my dirty skin. My hair felt like bugs were crawling in it.

“Come on. We don’t have a lot of time,” Lilah said, tapping her expensively shoed toes.

“I’m not going.” I had no plans of being hauled off and impregnated without a fight, but I had no way of really holding them off. They could overpower me or just drug me. Heck, for all I knew they had already done it while I was unconscious and something weird was growing inside me.

“What?” Her eyes widened then she waved me off. “No, not that, like we’d let you be awake for that. This is fun and games time.”

I got up and followed her, thoughts about me not being awake for the impregnation ringing in my head. That was my great fear. If they wanted to knock me out, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I felt cold and small, overcome by a feeling of helplessness so strong I could barely breathe. It was like being on the tower again, or under the earth with Buffy as the zombies clawed at us, or standing with Xander in the school, knowing I was about to die. I stumbled after Lilah, back down the corridors we had traveled before. She was taking me to Connor. Fun and games? They must be fighting him tonight.

My suspicions were confirmed. I could hear a cheering crowd through the door. The room was cool but jam packed with people, all human; men and women dressed like they were going to the ballet rather than watch a boy fight demons to the death. Lilah escorted me like a princess, a very filthy one, to the best seats. She sat beside me and I wondered how she could stand. I stank like the geeky gamers in the comic book shop Xander often took me to growing up. I liked the comic books, but I always felt like a lot of the men in there had never seen a girl, let alone touch one. At least Xander was a well-kept geek who knew what soap and water were for. Andrew fit in with the other crowd. Right now, I smelled like I fit in, too.

“Comfy?” Lilah asked.

I wanted to strangle her with her own silk scarf. “Does it matter?”

She scowled at me. “Not really.”

“If you cared, you’d give me a bath and a toothbrush.”

“You have a point,” Lilah said as a bundle of weapons were tossed into the enclosure. I noticed that a dome had been added so whatever they were putting in there with him could fly.

Lilah had made a mistake in bringing me here. I could see the other guests coming in across from me. I didn’t know where that doorway went, but I didn’t think it would be as labyrinthine as the path we took. They weren’t prisoners. I could be wrong, but I couldn’t see people paying a thousand dollars a seat being willing to put up with nonsense.

Connor came out of the cave as soon as the weapons dropped. He pulled the bundle closer to the cave and unwrapped it. I could almost feel the crowd tensing in anticipation. The cheering actually started when three gates into the enclosure opened. I heard a weird rustling noise and out of the gate popped what looked like three black giant mops wriggling under their own power. Once the mop-things were in the enclosure they uprighted and I nearly screamed. They were floating heads with eyes that seemed to bleed fire. Iron grey teeth gnashed like bars of the Connor’s cage. The hair writhed like snakes, propelling the heads along. One flew far too near for me, drooling gobs of yellowish spit on the glass. The stench was awful even through the protective dome. Would it be bad if the Slayer’s sister barfed everywhere? Connor didn’t seemed fazed. There was a gleam in his eye that said he was ready for this, that he enjoyed it. That was almost as disturbing as the things in the ring with him.

“What are they?” I shivered, shrinking back in my chair.

“Flying heads.” Lilah shrugged then off my look added, “Don’t blame me. I didn’t name them.”

“They’re horrible.”

“I’m sure the Iroquois thought so, too,” Lilah replied and I wondered what they had to do with it.

“They could swallow Connor whole,” I said. I didn’t know what the thing would do with him if it ate him. It was just a head. Maybe it had guts up in its skull. I didn’t want to think about it.

Connor had sword in hand. He grabbed one of the ropes and swung up at a head. The thing bobbed out of the way. Connor fell, hit ground, bounced and got another by its whipping hair. He shoved his sword straight through the eye. The crowd groaned as if disappointed he killed one so fast.

He leaped off the plummeting head, arcing in a back flip onto the tree branch. He was beautiful in motion, like Buffy and Faith. Or maybe I should say Spike and Angel. For once I could see his father in him. Connor moved quickly, maybe even more so than Angel.

He ran up the wall and kicked off, grabbing the hair of another head. He drew back with the sword and the third head’s strong jaws caught the blade, wrenching it free. Connor lost his grip and fell. The head he had been about to slay swooped under him and snapped him up like a Scooby snack.

Beside me, Lilah stiffened. It wasn’t in her plans to get Connor killed and as much as I didn’t want to be forced to have his baby, I didn’t want him to die horribly. A loud cracking sound echoed through the enclosure as teeth shattered. The thing howled and Connor popped free, coated in yellow drool.

He hit the ground running and snatched up an axe. Like a handball, he bounced off the stone wall and sliced into the injured head. It went down but Connor lost his axe. The last head flew after him, shrieking but he was out of distance weapons. He leapt and tore down a tree branch. He impaled the last head with an accuracy I’m sure Buffy would have appreciated. The crowd was on its feet, cheering

“Amazing, isn’t he?” Lilah asked.

“Yes, but why bring me here? Just to show off?” I was wondering about that. Removing me from my cell only increased my chances of escape.

“Actually, they say that having parents together, bonding, makes for a healthier pregnancy and better baby.” She patted my hand, faking concern for me.

“I’m not bonding to him. I’m a little afraid of him,” I admitted as if that would dissuade her.

“Understandable. We’ll wait for the room to clear before taking you away. Maybe you can have a little alone time with him.” She smirked at me again.

I looked at the boy covered in yellow spit. I didn’t want to be alone with him. I was more than willing to wait, my eyes on the public door as secretly as I could keep them there. It looked like a straight shot up from that door, a ramp. Maybe it led out but could I get away from Lilah?

Soon the room was empty and Lilah went back to the fridge in the wall, opening it. “I think just the water this time. It’s good to keep him hungry. Give it to him.”

I took the bottle but when she opened the window in the bars, I backed away. “He reeks. I don’t want to get near him.”

“You’re no rose, yourself,” Lilah snapped. “Now give him that water.”

“No.” I stomped my foot. I knew how to throw a monster-sized fit and was prepared to do so.

“Fine.” Lilah snatched the bottle away. “You’re tempting me to put you in there with him, just to see what happens.”

As she leaned in to hand him the water, I grabbed the barred window and rammed it into her. She grunted, dropping the bottle. I slammed the door on her a few more times. Connor ignored me, more interested in his water. He held the uprighted bottle with both hands, slurping noisily. Lilah slumped and I kicked her in the knee. I had to be sure that she couldn’t follow me. I grabbed her hair and jerked her head back so I could shove it into the wall.

I shrieked when her head came off in my hands. It slowly spun around as I stood there holding it by the hair. Her eyes winked at me and her perfectly rouged lips mouthed, ‘surprise,’ unable to make sounds without lungs behind them. I dropped the horrible thing and raced for the door. I had to dodge through the seats. As I reached the door, which thankfully wasn’t locked, I looked back and saw Lilah putting her head back on. Something clanked open, sounding like the gates the heads had come through.

“Go after her, Connor. Bring her back alive.”

Oh God, no. Thankfully I had on tennis shoes instead of those chunky heeled things me and Buffy were slaves of fashion to. I sprinted up the corridor and hit the door at the other end hard, nearly bowling over a few of the fancy dressed fight pervs who were loitering around talking. I was out the door and into a parking lot surrounded by woods. It was cool, surprising me. It was summer, after all.

I didn’t stop to see if I could get into a car. I knew nothing about hot-wiring. I had nothing to stage a car jacking with and I knew that if these people were here for the fight they’d hardly be likely to help me escape.

I made it to the tree line. I hated running in the woods. I was such a city girl. I was stunned that there wasn’t a fence but then, there it was a hundred yards out, Chicken wire topped with hoops of razor wire. How as I going to get up that? I ran along the fence line, hearing something in the woods behind me; Connor with a full load of LSD in him, no doubt.

I saw a maple or an oak or something. I don’t know one tree from the other. The important thing was that it had a fat branch that hung over the fence. I managed to climb the tree, which was harder than I thought it would be. I nearly slipped off onto the razor wire as I shimmied out on the branch. The drop to the other side jarred me so hard I thought my head was going to come off just like Lilah’s. I didn’t fall on my butt, shocking myself. It took me a moment to start running. I could see Connor nearing the fence. Don’t look, Dawn, just run.

I couldn’t listen to my inner voice. I ran, turning my head to see if he was gaining on me just like all those stupid chicks in the horror flicks Xander liked to rent. Connor cleared the fence in one mighty leap. Dear God, what was he? A boy Slayer? I couldn’t outrun something like him.

I concentrated on running, continuing my blind path through the dense woods. I wanted to cry for help, but not for Buffy. I wanted my Mom, as ridiculous as it was. My foot caught on a log and I went sprawling. Twigs and rocks tore into me but I managed to get back up. I grabbed the offending piece of tree and hefted it. He was right behind me now. I felt his approach, like a bunny feels the hawk. I whirled with that branch so hard I took him off his feet. The blow made my shoulders ache but I kept pounding him on the head with the log. Did I feel something break? Had I killed him? It felt like bone had given under the wood. I was going to be sick.

He wasn’t moving. I had nothing to tie him up with, not even a belt. He was gurgling. I could see bubbles on his lips, blood maybe? I could smell blood even through the reek of the flying head drool. I couldn’t see it in the dark and I couldn’t worry about it. He was down and this was my only chance. I brought the branch down in his face then dropped it.

I started running again. My scraped skin and twisted ankle burned like acid. I pressed on. I couldn’t believe how dark it was in the woods. I couldn’t see the sky. There was no moonlight. I kept tripping over roots and rocks. Old leaf litter proved to be as slick as ice. Branches tore at my hair; once I got so entangled I had to tear away so hard my scalp was bleeding. Let me get out of here and I swear I’ll cut my hair short.

I paused, my sides feeling like I’d been knifed. It felt like I had swallowed fire into my lungs, my throat raw and thick. My legs trembled. Over my panting, the forest was alive with sound. They tell you the woods are quiet. They lied. Crickets, owls and other things I didn’t know, frogs maybe, chorused loudly. Then I heard something else, snapping branches. Someone was after me. It was Connor or maybe another of Wolfram and Hart’s people. Either way, I had to move.

I couldn’t get up to speed. My chest felt like it was being crushed, my muscles were spasming so badly. I was so out of shape, too dependent on a rescue from Buffy. If I lived, never again would I be dependent on anyone.

My foot found a hole and I pitched forward. The next thing I knew, I was tumbling down the hill. When the world stopped spinning, I was half buried in a stand of wild roses, their thorns pricking me. They smelled so pretty. For an insane moment all I could do was lie there, drinking in their scent in the summer air, heedless of the thorns spilling pearls of my blood.

I forced myself up and fell again. My ankle and knee ground like they were filled with broken glass. Oh, please don’t let me have a broken ankle. A loud inhuman growl sounded in the woods followed by thrashing. Somehow I knew it was Connor. Maybe the LSD had caught up to him and he was fighting things in his head. I should be so lucky.

I tried standing again and managed it, but I couldn’t run. There was too much pain and my ankle wobbled. I stumbled along the stand of roses. Fog started creeping around them, ghostly in the darkness. What more can go wrong? I can’t even see as it was. The fog thickened. I heard some strange sound rushing through the woods. It reminded me of waves but different.

I didn’t have time to think about it. Connor came through the underbrush. The fog made him seem bigger, more than he was. I should have killed him when I had him down. Only I’ve never killed a person before. Demons yes, but a person, I must not have it in me. I tried to go faster. I nearly stumbled into the roses then caught a tree, using it to push off. A few more steps and I found the source of the weird sound. I had run to a river. It was full and wide and so fast. If I went into it, I’d die for sure.

Gasping for air, sobbing maybe, I tried to find another way. Connor crashed into me and we went down into the roses. Thorns tore at my face as I hit ground. For someone so little, Connor felt enormous, like I had been run down by a pit bull. His growling only helped that image. I hit him in the face, feeling bristly hair and tacky blood under my hand. He head butted me, making me see stars. I tried to push him off and he bit my flailing arm, drawing blood. I screamed and hit him harder. He punched me in the gut, taking away my breath. My bleeding arm fell into the roses, tearing it more.

Connor sat on me, straddling me. I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I was too hurt to stop him. He had killed three giant heads like they were nothing, so I didn’t know what I thought I could do anyhow. He was staring at me curiously. Was he seeing me? An LSD hallucination or was he trapped in his own madness?

Then I heard something odd, felt it deep to the bone. Magic. The rose hedge started shimmering with a red light and it began to grow upwards. Both Connor and I watched it, mesmerized. It turned into a woman, beautiful and serene looking. Her hair fell around her in a long sheet that looked black in the night. She smiled at me and said, “No fear.”

And somehow I wasn’t afraid any more. Connor was still on top of me but his growling had ceased. He sniffed at the woman and she ran a hand over his face like a mother with a child.

“You poor boy. There is so much sickness in you. It mingles with the poisons you’ve been fed.” Her voice was like a melody as she caressed his face. “You are trapped in magics like a fly in a web.”

“Someone did this to him,” I stammered, not sure why.

Her dark gaze roved back over to me, her face utterly placid. “You are concerned for him even though he was going to hurt you.”

I nodded. “It’s not his fault. He’s sick and they’re making him do this.” I had no earthly idea why I was defending Connor other than it was the truth.

Her face finally showed an emotion, a hint of anger. “Once, sickness took those I loved. I was blamed and hunted for it. No one should suffer like this.” She captured Connor’s head with both hands.

Connor didn’t fight her. His eyes fluttered shut as he relaxed. I scrambled out from under him. Red light flowed out of her and entered him. Connor stiffened and jerked. She stepped back, and helped me up. She smelled of roses.

“What did you do to him?”

“This will hurt, but afterwards, he will be free of all the poisons, all the magics woven around him and into him.” She stroked my hair, leaving ruby sparkles in it. “I can help your pain.”

I nodded and her red light went into me. It felt warm, driving out all the pain, but if it was easy for me, it wasn’t for Connor. I could hear him moaning. He started thrashing and screaming. I looked at the woman, shocked. Had I blindly placed trust in someone I shouldn’t have? Had she hurt him?

“You helped me but him...”

“Your body only needed a little repair. He needs the badness drained out of him,” she replied, her voice still the same soft timbre.

I hoped she knew what she was talking about. Connor rolled to his side, vomiting. He kept retching until nothing came out. He managed to crawl just a bit away from the puddle of puke then started retching again. This time light, a bluish white started coming out of him. I assumed that was the bad magics. He collapsed, groaning, once the icky light stopped flowing. He stopped moving; exhausted, I hoped, not dying.

“Will he be all right?”

“Now he will. He’s been carrying that magic in him for some time now. He needs to rest.” She went over to Connor and touched his cheek. “Sleep.”

“Someone’s trying to keep us both prisoner. They might find us here. We have to get out of here.”

She smiled at me again. “You’ll be safe for the night. Tomorrow, follow the river south. It’ll take you to where you need to be.”

“Um...south?” Okay, so I didn’t have an internal compass.

She pointed the way then turned and gestured to a soft looking patch of grass under a tree. “You also need sleep.”

“Thank you.” I stumbled for the spot then looked at her. “Who are you?”

“Hitcoga.”

What an odd name, I thought as I stretched out on the ground. “Why did you help me?”

“These are my woods and innocents are safe here.”

“But how did you know I needed help?”

She mouth pursed. “Your blood on the roses called me.”

So she was from another dimension? I didn’t care. I trusted her. It felt completely right to do so. “Well, thanks...for my life,” I said, laying in the grass. I was never one for camping. I didn’t even like picnics much. I didn’t like being on the ground, with the bugs, but I could care less at this point. It didn’t even matter I was trying to go to sleep only a few feet from the person Wolfram and Hart had sent to drag me back. I trusted Hitcoga instinctively. I wondered if she was one of the goddesses Willow and Tara used to invoke. She seemed like one. She was still watching me from the roses when I shut my eyes.

Chapter Three

When I woke up, I nearly panicked. I couldn’t remember where I was, covered with dew; the air ripe with the scent of roses. As their perfume filled my nose, last night flooded back to me. Now that it was light, I could see the color of them, a delicate pink, like a hint of blood on pale skin. There was no signs of Hitcoga. I had nearly forgotten about Connor. Had he run off?

I glanced around but he was no longer lying on the grass anywhere in sight. I was a little nervous about where Connor had gotten off to. I wasn’t afraid, oddly enough. If Connor wanted me dead or captured, he had plenty of time while I was asleep.

I had to pee which was much more urgent than any fear. I’ve never peed in the woods before. How do you find a good spot? With my luck, I’d squat on poison ivy. I stood up, surprised I wasn’t the least bit sore. Hitcoga’s magic must have been powerful stuff. I headed for the river, figuring I’d have less chance of getting a rose up the butt there. When I got to the bank, I saw Connor’s clothing hanging on a tree branch. A large knife rested not far away. I swallowed hard. I hadn’t even realized he had that. He could have dismembered me with something that big and I realized how much Lilah had trusted him to do her bidding before Hitcoga’s interference.

I looked out into the water and a few yards downstream; Connor was in an eddy, taking advantage of the slower moving water. He must have been sitting on the bottom as he scrubbed his head furiously. It slowly occurred to me I was looking at a naked man. Okay, I could only see him from the waist up, nothing I hadn’t seen at the beach before but if he stood up...

I had never actually seen a naked man before. There had been a few close calls with Xander over the years and the time Andrew forgot to lock the bathroom door, but I didn’t see anything, thank God. I watched Connor’s muscles rippling as he tried to wash his hair, suddenly forgetting I needed to pee. Muscle, skin and bone, that’s all there was to him. I wanted to take him somewhere and get him a huge piece of caramel cheesecake or something. I could count the knobs of his spine. I’ve never seen a man so thin, not even Spike. Still, my hormone-riddled body was telling me things it might like to do with him.

Wasn’t he cold in that water? It was cool outside wherever we were. It certainly wasn’t southern California. My mind flashed back to Xander and Andrew doing the ‘shrinkage’ scene from Seinfeld. Great, the first time I’ll have ever seen a penis outside of the Playgirl’s Maria had stashed in her locker and it was going to be shriveled from icy water.

I really should have been trying to find a place to pee or to follow the river and escape. Anything but standing and staring, but I couldn’t help it. If I didn’t move now, I was going to be so embarrassed if he saw me peeking at him.

He got up, wringing out his hair. It was longer than I liked on a guy. Good lord, he had no butt. There was just nothing to him. He turned around and I couldn’t help but look. Why did it look like an elephant’s nose? The tip was all floppy, wrinkled skin; is that was a foreskin looks like? It must be since I hadn’t seen anything like it in Playgirl. For his sake, I hope shrinkage is real and not something guys tell themselves.

I glanced up into his face, feeling my own reddening. His pale face remained expressionless. I still didn’t move even as he sloshed out of the water. He didn’t appear to be embarrassed about being naked. It seemed like nude was simply natural to him. He didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt me any more either since he made no menacing movements.

‘Don’t watch him walk, Dawn, cause with that thing swinging, it just looks silly.’ I could have sworn Mom’s romance novels described a naked man walking slowly toward you as sexy and sensual. Should have known better than to trust a Harlequin.

Saying nothing, he walked past me, and stretched out in a patch of sunlit grass. He shut his eyes. Do I say something? Was he ignoring me because he’s humiliated? Or was he still insane and couldn’t even see me? Or maybe he’s just rude? Like I should talk, what with me staring at his thing.

So long as he wasn’t trying to kill me, I guessed that was all I cared about. Washing off sounded like a great idea. I knew it was time wasting, but I could probably move faster if I wasn’t stopping to scratch my filthy body every two minutes. Besides, I stank. Who’d stop and pick me up and take me to civilization looking and smelling like this?

I took my shoes off and wondered how exactly to do this. Connor had obviously washed his clothes first. Could I get naked in front of a stranger? Yes, I could. I took off everything and glanced back to see if he was looking. His eyes remained shut. I was slightly miffed. How does a teenage boy not look when there might be a naked girl around?

I went to the slow moving part of the river and soaked my clothes. Would they get clean without soap? Who knew? My shirt was torn and spotted with blood; so were my jeans. I beat them against the slick, smooth rocks then put them up in a branch, too. I waded into the river. It was so cold; the shock making me feel like I had to pee even worse. I couldn’t hold it, poor fishes.

I tried to move away from that spot even though I knew the current had already carried it all away. I nearly slipped on the round river stones. I couldn’t get too far from the bank. The water went too fast in the middle of the river. I hunkered down to get my hair wet, feeling my nipples harden in the cold but it felt good to have fresh water on me. I ducked under, letting my hair wave in the current. I came up for air, took a deep breath and went back under, digging my fingers in my scalp.

My cold tolerance must not be as good as Connor’s. I had to get out of the water. I didn’t care that I had lost travel time. I felt infinitely better. I climbed out onto the bank and Connor still had his eyes shut. What was wrong with him? What kind of guy doesn’t cop a look? I’m worth looking at, right? Well, if he was that sleepy, I wondered if I could get his knife. I almost got to it when Connor’s eyes snapped open, looking up at me suspiciously.

“Um, you might want to be careful that you don’t get a sunburn,” I said lamely, suddenly feeling as naked as I was. I moved passed him and found my own sunny patch of grass.

“Not a vampire. Sunlight won’t hurt me,” he muttered. So he did understand me and was sane enough to make some sort of conversation.

“I know that.” I laid down, even though I was thinking we should get moving. Wolfram and Hart had to be after us still. “But anyone can get a sunburn, you know, especially as pale as you and I are.”

He glanced at me. “I didn’t know.” His lips pursed, his eyes dimming. “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“I know you didn’t mean to. I know Lilah made you do it,” I said, thinking for the first time that he might be sane enough to deal with. “How do you feel?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he turned onto his side, making his penis fall down across his thigh. It seemed to like being in the sun, considerably longer now but still looking like an elephant’s nose. I was suddenly struck by the ludicrousness of it all. Two naked teens talking like being nude was a normal everyday thing.

“Bad,” he admitted finally. “Confused. I don’t know you, but you seem to know me.”

“Not really, just what little Lilah told me. I’ve never met you before. All I know is you’re Angel’s son.”

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. His face went ugly, full of hate maybe. It scared me. “How do you know him?”

The growl in his voice made me shudder. I had to calm him down or he might try to kill me or something. Maybe Hitcoga hadn’t really cured all his insanity. I mean, can that even really be cured? Maybe if I just kept talking, I’d say the right thing since what I knew about psychology fit on the head of a pin. “I’ve known Angel since I was a little kid. My sister’s the Slayer.”

His brow wrinkled. “Faith?”

“No.” I smiled. “Her name’s Buffy. She’s one of the Slayers, the oldest. Oops, she might not like me saying that. She’s been the Slayer longest, I mean.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know that name.” His eyes scanned the skies. “I don’t remember much...not since...Jasmine.” He swallowed his words, looking like he was in pain. His eyes went all empty and spooky.

“It might be better that you don’t remember, Connor. It was an awful place they had you in, doing bad things to you,” I said softly.

“I don’t know where I am.” He sounded younger than I thought he was, scared, like a lost kid at the mall. I knew how he felt.

“I don’t either.” I should feel more afraid than I did. Something, despite everything, I felt safe with him, like I knew now that he was free from Lilah he’d protect me. I knew it was foolish to trust so easily but I couldn’t help it.

“How...how did they get me?”

“They tricked Angel. He thought he was giving you a nice normal life.”

Connor hitched himself up on one arm, looking at me. A strand of his hair fell across his face, tracing the path of his nose, which was slightly off center. “What?”

“I’m not sure exactly.” I shrugged, wondering why I wasn’t more self-conscious about having him staring directly at my naked body. “Something about putting you with a normal family and making everyone forget you were you.”

His eyes slotted. “Why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have the answers, Connor. He probably wanted you to be safe and happy. That’s what Buffy wants for me. What I want is the family I already have, even if it is nuts. Maybe it’s the same with you and your dad. You’ll have to ask Angel yourself once we get out of here.” I ruffled my hair to help dry it. “You are wanting out of here, right?”

He nodded.

“Don’t you think we should go before they send someone after us both?” I asked.

He sniffed the air. “No one’s around. Let the clothing dry more.” With that, he flopped onto his belly. For his sake, I hope there weren’t ants in the grass.

I’ve never been a patient sunbather and I couldn’t get as relaxed as Connor. Maybe he was still exhausted from all he’d been through or maybe he was still a little mad. I remember the odd state of mind Willow had been in the few times Giles could coax her onto the phone when she was rehabbing in England. She had been apathetic and Connor seemed like that now.

Connor’s eyes were shut as he seemed to soak up the sun. He reminded me of a cat, a panther maybe. My eyes roved over his butt, what little there was of it. I shouldn’t be looking. The hormone overdose was doing strange things to me, or maybe it was regular teenaged horniness. I didn’t have to imagine him naked so I was one step ahead. Of course, I still didn’t know what it looked like erect. I’ve never seen that. Me and my friends were too shy to look at pornos. Just thinking about it made me feel tingly and I didn’t want that. Just then my stomach growled loudly. When was the last time I had eaten? I looked over and saw the noise had caught Connor’s attention. I flashed him an embarrassed smile.

“Sorry. I’m hungry.”

He nodded. “Me, too.”

“They were drugging you with your food,” I said, looking up at the sky. Black clouds were rolling in. Lightning hit trees a lot right? Oh great, I was going to get fried in a forest. “Connor, I don’t think our clothes are going to get dry.” I pointed upwards.

He sat up. “You might be right.”

Without another word, he got up and started to dress. I did the same. It was next to impossible to get my wet pants up.

“Hitcoga said to go that way.” I pointed downstream. I’m not sure why I assumed we had gone from predator and prey to partners but he seemed content with the new arrangement.

He just nodded and started walking. I trailed after him. As we walked along, I noticed he was definitely a shade shorter than me. He was such a slight creature he conjured up images of Peter Pan in my head. Peter Pan with a really big knife. Then again I think Pan had a sword. Connor suddenly scooped up a good sized rock from the water’s edge, cocking his hand back.

I flinched, thinking he was going to hit me. That’s when I saw the squirrel. “What are you doing?”

He pointed at the squirrel. “You said you were hungry.”

I grabbed for the rock. “You’re not killing a squirrel.”

“Why not?” He jerked away from me. “It’s good meat.”

“No, it’s not,” I argued and by then the squirrel was gone. He gave me a dirty look and dropped the rock. “We’ll get to civilization soon and then we can eat,” I added more optimistically than I felt.

He just glared and started walking again. I followed. It was a lot easier to walk in the forest in the day time. At least I could see the roots and rocks. Still, I was getting very tired. My butt and thighs burned, trying to keep up with him. Finally he asked me to tell him about my family. The way he asked it struck me as odd. The word family seemed to cause him pain.

For some reason I chose not to tell him about Mom and Buffy right off the bat. Instead I told him what I really was. I don’t know why I did. No one is supposed to know my secret but something inside me told me he needed to hear it. Lilah had been right. We were somewhat alike, strange creatures with no real place in the world except the one we made for ourselves.

He listened as the rain started pelting down, making it miserable to walk. My feet got wet and blistered in my shoes. My pants stuck to me, chafing me, but talking seemed to take my mind off it. He listened to how the monks did the opposite thing Angel tried to do to him, how they had implanted me in everyone’s memories. As lightning crashed, I told him that I really hadn’t ever known Angel as a child, that I just felt like I had since that’s the magic of me. We figured I didn’t come into existence until Buffy was at college but if you asked him, Angel would remember me spying on them from time to time, like a bratty little sister would.

Then I told him all about Buffy. Connor was very quiet as I told him all the good things Angel had done. By now I was so exhausted, I didn’t know how I was walking and talking at the same time. I slipped in the mud a few times but Connor always caught me before I fell. He was strong and sure-footed like a goat. I was just starting in on Angel becoming Angelus when Connor grabbed me, dragging me to a halt. He put a finger on my lips.

I shut up as he tensed, cocking his head to one side. His nostrils flared and I started to shake. Something was out there and from his body language, I knew it wasn’t another hiker or fisherman or hunter or something nice and benign like that. Connor’s fingers entwined with mine.

“Run,” he whispered and started off, pulling me along after him.

“What is it?”

“Don’t know,” he replied. “They’ve sent something after us.”

Connor dragged me through the blinding rain. If there was something behind us, I couldn’t tell. My foot slipped on the wet leaves and I fell, taking Connor with me. He landed on me and we tumbled until we slammed into a tree. Our legs were a tangle. Connor got off me, drawing his knife. I shook my head to clear it then I saw it above me in the tree; a black cat, bigger than a panther. Red eyes, mere vertical slits, stared down at me. The end of its long, twitching tail was a knob of spikes like an Anklyosaurus.

“Connor, above us!” I cried as the tail came crashing down at me. I barely rolled out the way in time.

The cat leapt, letting go with that tail again. Splinters of wood flew, some nearly blinding me. Connor wasn’t scared. He dodged the flailing tail and managed to get onto the beast’s back. He tried to slit the cat’s throat. The thing howled and crushed Connor’s leg against the tree. He grunted as the beast ground his knee into the wood. The cat yowled again and now there were answering cries. There was more of them somewhere but I couldn’t see them in the rain and through the thick trees. I couldn’t tell how many were out there.

I scrambled to my feet, looking for a weapon; a heavy rock would have to do. I went to slam it down on the cat when its tail swept out, nearly nailing me. I jumped back and threw the rock. It slipped out of my wet hand and flew erratically right over the cat and hit Connor in the chest. Shockingly it didn’t knock him off the cat’s back. Leaning down, he picked the rock up, smashing the cat with it. As the beast snapped after the rock, he stabbed it with the dagger in his other hand. He shot me an irritated look, stepping around the beast’s dead body. It didn’t have the decency to dissolve.

“Sorry,” I said with an apologetic wave of my hands.

“We need to move. More will come.” He took off, his bleeding leg not slowing him in the least, and I raced after him. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Is your aim always so bad?”

“I slipped,” I shot back and he snorted.

“Should have hit you in the head,” I muttered under my breath.

“And I would leave you here to those things,” he replied, too calmly for my tastes.

“Yeah, like you would.” Boy, I sure hoped he wouldn’t. “How’d you hear me anyhow?”

“Ears like a vampire,” he grunted then took a longer look at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?” I asked needlessly. He was running like nothing had happened. He just nodded.

We ran for what seemed like forever before deciding that the cat’s buddies weren’t hot on our trail. We slowed to a walk and trudged on in the damn downpour that seemed to have settled in for the day. I wasn’t used to storms like this. The sheer ferocity frightened me. I jumped almost every time thunder cracked. Connor started giving me aggravated looks after a while.

Connor didn’t speak as we fought our way downstream. My wet clothing felt like it had developed teeth. Blisters, from all the chaffing, raised along the lines of my under pants. I almost wished he’d start a conversation but I wasn’t sure if I could find the air to speak. I shook from fatigue and I was so hungry I was sure half the forest heard my stomach gurgling. All too soon, I was stumbling and slowing while Connor just kept chugging along. Finally, I flopped to the ground.

“I have to rest,” I told him. “Just for a minute.”

He came over, sitting across from me, staring intently like that would help me rest. What was going on behind those blue eyes? Was it the impatient look of a superbeing like my sister who rarely tired or something more sinister?

“I’m so hungry,” I moaned, wringing out my hair which had twigs and burrs in it. Ticks? Did rain keep ticks away? What the heck did a tick look like?

“You wouldn’t let me kill that squirrel,” he replied, his gaze never wavering. Why couldn’t he look away?

“And I’m still willing to wait until we reach civilization,” I said, even though I despaired of ever doing so.

He snorted, resting back against a tree. His eyes fluttered shut. So, he was just going to go to sleep on me? Actually that sounded good, but neither of us actually slept. We only sat for about ten minutes before Connor got up and started off.

I could hardly stand. I didn’t realize I was so out of shape. Thin is one thing, having honed muscles is another, I guessed. I was used to short dashes through Sunnydale, not sustained hikes.

“Connor, slow down,” I said, gesturing at the river. “At least let me get a drink.”

He pointed skyward. “Safer water. Things can live in rivers.”

I shuddered. I hadn’t even thought of that but he was right. I’ve heard horror stories about brain-eating amoebas and dysentery. I tilted my head back and let the rain water flood into my dry mouth. It tasted odd but cool.

Time wore on. I was so tired of walking. All the trees and rocks looked alike in the rain. I wished Connor would wheeze a little, like me, act a little less robotic. Maybe I was expecting too much. He was damaged. I could sense it, like how Buffy had been damaged ever since Willow brought her back. I just wish he wasn’t permeating my thoughts the way the rain was my clothing.

If he couldn’t at least look tired, he could talk to me. He had been silent ever since the conversation about family got interrupted. One of my girlfriends in school said the best kind of boy was the silent kind. She was wrong. This much silence was creepy.

I was beginning to think we’d never find civilization. I couldn’t tell what time of day it was. The sun was a blurry white disc, barely visible through the thick black clouds. Connor stopped.

“What? Are those cats after us again?” My head swiveled around, trying to find the hidden dangers.

He smiled, which was scarier than those cats. “You need a rest.”

I didn’t argue. There was a large rock by the river that had a nice flat spot. I sat on it, watching the water surge alongside my resting place. Connor climbed higher on the boulder, perching there. He reminded me so much of a cat sometimes, the kind if you go to pet its belly would tear your hand off.

The cool damp of the rock made my butt ache. I tried to take my mind off it. I stared at the water, bubbling white over the rocks. A howl punctured the air and one of those slit-eyed cats leapt out of the underbrush. Connor met its charge head-on while I tried to dodge the flailing tail full of spikes. My foot slipped on the slick rock and I went toes over head into the river.

My head cracked against the rocky bottom. For seconds, everything went black. When my head cleared, I was being rolled along the river bottom. I couldn’t breathe. My chest burned. I wanted to cough but didn’t dare. I must have already sucked in water when I was stunned. I was drowning. The world was watery and whipping by so fast above me. I tried to get my feet under me. I knew I could stand in this river and at least get my head above water, but the current was too fast. I couldn’t get a purchase. Rocks crashed into my legs, back, arms, everywhere.

The battering threatened to separate me from consciousness. Something snared my hair, yanking hard. The fresh pain cut through the blackness enveloping me and the last of my air bubbled out. Then I realized that whatever had my hair was hauling me out of the water. A hand flashed past my eyes and hooked under my arm. Now having a better hold on me, Connor dragged me to shore.

I curled up on the wet grass, sputtering out water. He knelt and looked at my head.

“Thanks,” I managed to gasp. “The monster?”

“Dead. Are you broken?”

I looked up into his blue eyes, reading concern there. I guessed he was asking if I had broken bones. I hurt all over so badly it was hard to tell. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re bleeding.”

And so I was, especially from my scalp. Connor carefully probed all the places that were torn open. He ripped the bottom third of his shirt off and pulled it into strips. It took more doing than movies would have you believe. He bound me up the best he could.

“Can you stand?”

I really wanted to do nothing more than sleep, then I was terrified that was a concussion talking. How serious could concussions be? “I don’t know.”

Connor helped me up and the world spun. I gagged, nearly vomiting. It felt like fireworks were going off in my head. My legs seemed like water. His arms tightened around me.

“I think...” I squeezed my eyes shut. “ I have a concussion.”

“Lean back,” he said and I did. He swept me off my feet. I didn’t think he’d be able to carry me since he was so small but he did, effortlessly. My nausea grew as he walked. I shut my eyes, gritted my teeth and buried my face against him.

It felt like lead weights were anchored to my consciousness. They took me under. When I woke back up my whole body throbbed with each beat of my heart. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. I was lying in the grass. I couldn’t hear the river. Connor was busy with a bunch of tree limbs but I wasn’t sure what he was doing. I sat up and his head snapped around, his eyes pinning me.

“I feel terrible,” I muttered.

“You can’t travel,” he said.

I wanted to protest but I knew he was right. I still felt dizzy. “What are you doing?” I asked, glancing around at where I was. We were near a rock outcropping. Connor’s branches were resting near one such spur of rock. Down the hill, he had some leaf wrapped limbs tied above a small fire, sheltering it, but it was still barely alive.

“Making a shelter.” Connor sat back, giving the lean-to a satisfied look. “Go in.” He cocked his head to the side. “Need help?”

He gave me a hand up. I took a few steps then shook off his hand. “I’m a little woozy, but I think I can go on my own.” I wasn’t sure of that, but I was sure of the pain and pressure in my bladder. I couldn’t ask him to help me into the bushes to pee.

His eyebrows raised. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I have to...” I trailed off with a blush. He nodded like he knew what I meant. I hobbled off. My right knee felt swollen. My vision didn’t seem quite right, but still I managed to find a fallen tree to sit on. I wasn’t good at squatting to pee as I had already discovered. Now with a concussion, I would be lucky not to fall down and whizz all over myself.

Once I managed it, I went back to Connor. He was feeding the little fire. He looked up and pointed at the shelter. I got on my butt and scooted in since my knees hurt too much to crawl. It wasn’t too damp inside, the rock shelves above us providing cover even before Connor had started work. He had laid leaves over the exposed rock and the branches provided a tight, almost water-proof cocoon. I could cry or kiss him or both. This little shelter he made us felt like the St. Regis Hotel and Spa in L.A. to me at this point.

Connor poked his head in. “You’ll be okay here. I have something I gotta do.”

“You’re not leaving me!” I didn’t even care that I sounded panicked.

“Not for long.” He handed me his dagger. “Rest.”

And then he was gone. I guessed he actually trusted me since he left me a weapon. I curled up on the ground, listening to the rain pattering on the shelter. My fingers touched the hilt of his dagger. I was shocked he left it with me but I guessed, like Buffy, he was a weapon in and of himself. I fought with my exhaustion just in case one of those cats came back.

A snapping sound woke me up. I couldn’t believe I had fallen asleep. I squirmed, trying to get the knife and turn myself so I could fight, only the knife was gone. My heart thudding, I poked my head out. It was still raining. Connor was back, sitting by the fire. I managed to crawl agonizingly out of the lean-to and walked down to him. He glanced up at me, cleaning his dagger. Something was over the fire on a thick branch, squirrel, rabbit, opossum, I didn’t even care. It smelled fantastic as it roasted and my stomach growled loudly.

“It’ll be done soon,” he said and I blushed, realizing he had heard that.

“Just don’t tell me what it was.” I leaned my head back and let more rainwater trickle into my dry, hot mouth. “I guess we’re staying here for the night. Do you think that’s safe?”

He shrugged. “No, but nothing I can’t handle.”

I should have his confidence. “But those cats...”

“Will find us either way if there’s more of them. Wolfram and Hart won’t just give up, but you’re in no shape to go further. Maybe tomorrow, there won’t be any rain and we can go faster.”

Neither of us addressed the fact that if I had a bad concussion I wouldn’t be able to go at all. I didn’t think I did since my nausea was passing, but I’d be so sore come tomorrow I wasn’t sure how I’d walk. I couldn’t worry about it. There was no changing things. Soon enough, the roast whatsis was done and between us we devoured the poor creature.

Afterwards, Connor doused the fire and I went back to our shelter. Night was falling. I crawled inside and wondered if he was going to keep watch or should I. He came inside the lean-to with me, making me suddenly aware of how small it was. He laid down beside me, leaving me closer to the rock where I’d be better protected.

“Shouldn’t one of us keep watch?” I asked.

“Probably. You hurt your head. You can’t really do it. I’m used to being alone. Not safe but at this point, probably the best we can do.” He looked over at me. “Try to sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy just yet,” I said, thinking how very odd it was that the first two times I’ve slept anywhere near a guy in the same room, more or less, it wasn’t in a room at all. I never liked camping and yet the first time sharing space with a boy was in the great outdoors. Of course, there was nothing sexual about this but tell that to the hormones still racing around inside me. They were saying this was the perfect mate. He saved my life. He built me a home and he dragged home food bare-handed. What more could a girl want deep in her primal self? I answered back with thoughts of a good job, a nice car and a big house. God, I was sounding like Anya. “Talk to me,” I said, hoping that would get my mind off his skinny body.

“About what?”

“I told you about my family. Tell me about yours,” I said then regretted it. I knew that couldn’t be a safe topic. “Or about anything, if you don’t want to talk about Angel.”

“Can I tell you about my father?” He shifted on the dirt, trying to get comfortable. “The one who raised me?”

“If you want.”

I listened to him telling me tales about the man he called Father and about how he grew up. I couldn’t imagine such trauma and yet he seemed perfectly all right with it. I thought the things his father had done to him to ‘train’ him were cruel, but I could tell he didn’t think so. I wanted to tell him to stop, that the night was scary enough without tales of life in hell, but I didn’t. I just wanted to hear his voice.

I didn’t know when I had fallen asleep but I had. A loud peal of thunder woke me up. I was on my side, facing the rock and Connor was wrapped around me. For a moment, I thought he was taking advantage of me in my sleep, touching me where he shouldn’t then I realized he was asleep himself. He snored softly, his breath warm against my neck. One of his hands was tossed over my arm and the other curled up under his head. So what was poking me?

For a moment of blind panic, I thought a snake had crawled in with us then I realized it was him. His erection tented up his baggy pants. I bit my lip, remembering sex ed when they told us about how guys averaged two to three hard ons in their sleep. Mostly the class tittered about that and I’m not sure we all believed it. Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I reached back and touched him lightly through his pants. I froze, wondering if I had awakened him but he snored on. I handled that rigid organ more curiously the second time and he shifted, pushing into my hand. Oh, God, he is awake...okay, no he isn’t. Still, I moved my hand away. The last thing I needed to do was make him mess himself. I squirmed away a bit, so it wasn’t poking me any more.

He murmured in his sleep, then rolled over the other way. With him gone from around me, I could feel the dampness seeping in. I wondered if he was cold. He was missing half his shirt since it was holding together the tears in my skin. I curled up along his back, slipping my hands around his chest. His spine dug into me. He needed to put on some weight, but at least he was warm. I shut my eyes and tried to go back to sleep and forget about what the raging hormones were telling me to do.

Chapter Four

I woke to the twittering of song birds. It was oddly a pretty way to wake up despite the fact I was lying in the dirt, in clothing that smelled like mildew. It was beginning to overpower the stench of sweat. I climbed out of the shelter in so much pain I had to clamp my jaws to keep from crying out. As I stood, I felt the scabs stretch, some tearing, oozing under the makeshift bandages.

It wasn’t raining, and if I had to guess it was just a little past dawn. Connor was tending the fire. He looked up the hill at me but said nothing. I went to my bathroom tree then headed past Connor to the river. It might have parasites in it, but I was willing to risk it to wash my hands. Wiping yourself with leaves sucked. What did people use before toilet paper? No, I decided I’d rather not know.

Something smelled yummy, making my mouth water. I wondered what he had caught and killed this time. I hobbled up to Connor’s side.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Very sore, but I can walk,” I replied, managing to sit without falling. “What are you cooking?” I didn’t see a spit this time, but there was a wad of leaves in the fire.

He poked the wad out of the flames with a thick stick then used it to peel away the leaves. Inside was a fat fish with the skin and head still on. That made me a little queasy, but I was hungry enough not to care.

“How did you get a fish?” I asked as he slipped his dagger into it.

Connor cut it in half, handing me part of it, happily head free. “The river.”

I took the fish, cradled in the leaves. “I know that part. What I meant is you don’t have any fish hooks.”

He flexed his fingers at me as if that was an answer. The fish was good but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the skin. Connor ate most everything. He went to the river afterwards and rinsed his hands. “No more rain so we have to drink from here,” he said.

I had noticed the lack of rain. I cast a glance up and saw that the sky was perfectly clear, an endless stretch of blue. I drank from the river. Even though we were both filthy, neither of us took the time to bathe. We weren’t as crusty with blood and demon drool like we had been yesterday.

“Ready?” He stretched, joints popping.

“No, but there’s not much choice.”

He didn’t argue and we headed down river.

“Connor, I wanna say thank you.”

He looked over at me sharply, his soft brown hair flipping into his eyes. He brushed it back irritatedly. “For what?”

“For taking care of me. I know you don’t have to do what you’re doing. They sent you after me and I know that wasn’t your idea, but I also know you have no reason to help me. I’m just slowing you down, giving Wolfram and Hart a better chance at getting you again.”

He shrugged. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Maybe, but you saved me from those cat things.” I smiled. “You even built me a little home.”

“Built it for us,” he corrected me. “Wolfram and Hart don’t want to capture us any more.”

“I sort of thought that too since these cats seem more interested in eating us than catching us.” I shook my head, my hair whipping. “But that makes no sense. They need my blood.”

Connor sucked at his lower lip, considering that. “We’re not far from Wolfram and Hart’s prison. Maybe the cats are just random guards and we’re unlucky.”

“I vote unlucky,” I said and he grunted again.

His face went all broody as we walked on. Even though he looked nothing like his father, I recognized Angel’s ability to mope. Connor fell silent again. It gave me time to concentrate on all the aches and pains in my body. Finally, I pleaded with him to talk to me. When will I learn to be careful of what I ask for? He asked me about Cordelia, sobering when I told him about her coma. When I asked had he and she really had a child, he told me the whole story. It left me scared, almost shaking as we hiked. He had loved her. I could hear it in his voice and she had hurt him terribly. I wasn’t sure he even understood how he had been used since there was still love in his eyes for her. She had kicked him out of his own bed, told him it was a mistake and he had been so sheltered he didn’t even seem to know that he shouldn’t be telling me this. When the baby came, his memories got fuzzy and there was something he didn’t seem to want to tell me. I didn’t force it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

When he went quiet again, I let him stay that way. I’d lost track of how long we marched on when his head snapped up, stopping me.

“Hear that?”

“More monsters?” I wasn’t ready for that. I hurt too much to run. I think going down river had damaged me worse than I thought. My knee felt like it was half unhinged and my head still throbbed.

“No. Cars.”

I couldn’t be happier if he told me I’d won a million dollars. “Where?”

He canted away from the river, going faster now. I followed as best I could, pain momentarily forgotten. We got to the edge of the woods and I could see the road a few hundred yards off. We both broke into a jog. No cars were coming but I didn’t care. Roads meant people. Suddenly, there was a crack like thunder and Connor went hurtling backwards. He rolled on the ground before regaining his feet.

“What was that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He headed back towards me only to get tossed again. I went to him. Whatever barrier he was running into didn’t bothering me. I squatted down next to him then my knee buckled and I landed in the loam. He looked at me, his eyes sad, his lips parted just a bit. They quivered.

“They told me I was leashed to this place.” His eyes hardened into blue chips of ice, as he concentrated, as if trying to grab onto a slippery thought. “Leashed like a dog. They won’t let me go.”

“But Hitcoga removed all the spells around you.” I felt a shudder race through me like yesterday’s lightning. He had saved me. How could I leave him? “The spell must be on the land itself. It recognizes you. They must not have had time to add me to the spell.”

“Didn’t think you’d get this far,” he said.

I frowned. He was right. Wolfram and Hart considered him dangerous, not me. “I wouldn’t have without you. Stay right here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I said excitedly. I had an idea. I tried to jog out of the woods, but my knee had had enough. It felt like a balloon ready to pop out of my dirty jeans. By the time I got to the road, its deserted condition hadn’t changed but just down the hill was a sign and a little further down a mile post. I stumbled down hill, read the mile maker then the sign telling me which state park Wolfram and Hart had somehow buried their complex in. I turned around and limped back to Connor.

“I know exactly what sign post we’re next to,” I said, proudly. Now if I only knew what state that sign was for. “I’m going to go for help. One phone call and I’ll have Slayers here and a witch. Willow will get you out of this.”

He made a lemony face. “Hate magic.”

“You have reason to,” I said, placatingly. All I needed was for him to be as stubborn as his darn dad. “And I’ll get your dad.” His face darkened at that. “I know you don’t like Angel but we might need him. Do you think you can stay safe around here? They’re all in Los Angeles. It might not be until tomorrow before we can rescue you since I’m not even sure what state we’re in.”

He smirked and for the first time, slightly resembled Angel. “No problem.”

“Great, because I’ll be able to find you here...how will you know when I get back?” I couldn’t just expect him to hang out in this very spot. Something was likely to come for him.

He tapped his nose. “I’ll know.”

“You can smell me?” I stared. “Is that how you followed me through the wood?”

“Yeah.”

“Ewwww.” I shuddered, seeing one of the makeshift bandages on my arm flutter. I took off all the strips of Connor’s shirt that were holding me together. I might end up at a police station or hospital. I didn’t want anyone to know I had help. That would mess up the story I planned on telling. Some of the bandages stuck to the wounds and I teared up as I pulled them free, blood running anew.

“Be careful,” he said, gathering up the discarded bandages. I didn’t want to know what he was going to do with them.

“You, too.”

I looked into his baby blues. He was trying hard not to look afraid but I could see it hiding in those almond-shaped orbs. I didn’t know why I did it but I grabbed his face and kissed him, surprising him. He broke away, staring at me as he shoved the bandages in a pocket. Then he put his arms around me, kissing me back. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. Okay, my whole experience was with a vampire boy, Justin, but this was nothing like that. Connor made me want to forget about rescue. I ended the kiss this time and broke away from him before the hormones got the better of me.

“I’ll be back as fast as I can,” I promised and hobbled for the road. That wasn’t all hormones. Maybe it was because of how he saved me, or because, like me, he was unique, without a real place in this world, but I was feeling something strong like I had never felt before. Too bad I didn’t have time to worry about it.

I started going down the road, so relieved to have this bit of civilization under my feet, so afraid that Wolfram and Hart would still be looking for me that I started crying. I was still crying when a car slowed down for me.

Luck finally went my way. Not only was the driver armed with a cell phone, she was a doctor on her way back to Madison. I was in Wisconsin of all places. I wouldn’t have even guessed I was so far from my family. She called the police then got her medical gear out of her trunk - she did home health and her trunk was a mini-doctor’s office - and she fixed me up some. When the cops got there, I lied the best I could. I sent them looking miles away from where Connor was hiding out. I had to tell them I had been kidnapped in L.A. and I didn’t know how I escaped from the creep’s RV. I described my kidnapper, only vaguely aware that my description was actually that of my father. Well, just let them try to find him. No one else could.

They took me to a hospital and Dr. D’Mayo came with me. She was sweet, holding my hand as I waited in the E.R. and answered more questions. I kept telling them that he didn’t rape me, that he was feeding me some kind of drugs, that I wasn’t aware of how long I was in his control and that he didn’t talk much. I figured keeping my story simple was the best since I was lying to the police and filing a false report. Finally, they decided they had enough information and the doctors decided I didn’t have to stay at the hospital. They gave me pain killers, antibiotics, several stitches in my scalp and a knee brace. Dr. D’Mayo drove me to Madison and she gave me forty dollars and paid for a hotel room. I made sure I got her address so I could send her a thank you and so I could pay her back.

Finally safe, I called Buffy. I had wanted to call from the hospital but I knew her. She would have wanted to come to my rescue immediately and I would have had to wait at the hospital since there’d be no way of contacting her until she got to Wisconsin. I didn’t even have a cell phone. Could you even call collect to one? I hadn’t even been sure the police wouldn’t have made me go with them once the hospital released me so I decided to wait to make that call. The police had called the number I gave them, Buffy’s phone back in Cleveland at our base there. There was no answer but I didn’t expect that there would be. Buffy wouldn’t have gone back there, not without me. The cops were concerned that there was no missing person file on me in Los Angeles, but given my age it was easy to convince them that my sister probably thought I had just run away again.

I think we both cried all through the phone call. I told her about Connor and she already knew he existed. I guessed when Hitcoga destroyed the magic around Connor, everyone remembered him. However, no one from Sunnydale knew about him other than Willow. She hadn’t said anything before because Buffy needed to concentrate on the First Evil. Giles got on the phone, asking me about Western Union. I found out the hotel office had a way of getting money wires and I called them back. Giles sent money because they wouldn’t make it until late tonight at best. They didn’t even know how they’d get here yet. I used some of the money to rent the room for an extra day just in case.

I just wanted to lie down and sleep until my rescuers made it here, but I found the strength to go shopping, which required me to find a bus to a strip mall. People looked at me funny, but who could blame them? I looked and smelled horrible, hence the shopping trip. I got the cheapest jeans K-Mart had to offer, a three-pack of underpants, a couple t-shirts and a cheesy night shirt. Tooth paste, tooth brush, hair brush and deodorant all made it into my cart, too. I got back to the hotel as fast as I could and into a hot shower. I scrubbed hard then dressed in my new clothes. I had forgotten to buy a bra but sadly I could get away without one. I dumpstered my old clothes then headed across the street to a Chinese restaurant to get take away sesame chicken, egg drop soup and fried wontons. I went back to my room, and ate ravenously, watching HBO.

It wasn’t even six in the evening but I was exhausted. I changed into my night shirt and crawled under the covers. I curled up, thinking about poor Connor. I was stuffed with Chinese food, clean, warm and sleeping in a soft bed watching crap on TV. He was probably lying under tree branches munching on burnt rabbit if those cats hadn’t killed him. Connor could take care of himself. I knew that. I could feel it, like there was some strange bond between us. Had Lilah known we’d jive so well or was it bizarre luck or was I just imagining it, white knight on a horse and all that? Well, more like filthy knight on sore feet, but close enough.

I went to sleep thinking of him out there and he percolated into my dreams. They were frightening, me and him naked in rivers of blood. The knock on the door that dragged me out of dreamland was a blessing.

“Dawn?” Buffy’s voice sounded through the door.

I jumped out of bed, hit the light switch and threw open all the locks. Buffy was through the door, lifting me up in her strong arms before I even knew what was happening. The greetings were mostly a jumble of words and tears. It took several minutes for me to realize that almost everyone was here; Xander, Willow, Giles, Angel, Wes and Faith. I got passed along to all of them for hugs. Faith kicked the hotel door shut.

“I can’t believe you’re all here. It seems so unreal,” I said then reached for Angel. “I told Connor you’d come. I wasn’t sure how since I know you aren’t into plane travel.”

“Wolfram and Hart has a necrotempered plane for Angel but we didn’t trust them, not after what you just told us so I did a big teleportation spell,” Willow somehow bubbled, her pale face etched with exhaustion. “It kinda took it out of me.”

“Yes, Willow ought to get some rest,” Giles said and Angel’s head snapped around, an irritated look on his face.

I glanced at the clock. It was after two in the morning. “You’ll never get to him in time, Angel. The sun would be coming up by the time we even get there. He’ll be okay.”

His dark eyes were like coal. “Not with Wolfram and Hart after him.”

“He did fine with me weighing him down,” I said. “And he’ll be recovered more now than he was, thanks to Hitcoga’s spell. I think so, at any rate. He seemed to be connecting with me more as we went. He can build a shelter and catch his own food. He’ll be okay for another day, probably more.”

“We can go tomorrow in the day,” Buffy said. “It might be better that way rather than bumbling around in the woods in the dark.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Faith said. “And you know that boy can handle himself, Angel.”

“Not in the condition I last saw him in,” Angel argued, not ready to give up.

“He fought just fine,” I said. “They had him in a fighting ring but they fed him L.S.D. too, trying to keep him nuts. Hitcoga healed him, and he was fighting those cat creatures without any trouble. He saved my life.”

“Do you know who this Hitcoga is, Dawn?” Wes asked.

I shook my head. “She came out of the roses and fog. She said these woods were hers.”

“We can worry about that later.” Buffy wrapped a protective arm around me. “Dawn needs to rest.”

That got rid of half of them; Faith, Xander and Willow who went to their freshly reserved rooms. Giles, Angel and Wes insisted on hearing the whole story. Buffy sat with me on the bed, resigned to it. I told as much as I could until I got too tired to talk coherently. Buffy shooed everyone out and climbed into the second bed.

“Where’s Angel going to sleep?” I asked, thinking in the trunk of the car or under the hotel bed, ewww.

“The shower stall. It’s not ideal but with a do not disturb sign he should be okay,” Buffy replied, curling up on her side, looking at me. “He’s sharing with Xander who I guess will have to go to Giles and Wes’ room if he has to pee.”

“Xander’d probably rather pee on Angel,” I mumbled.

Buffy snorted. “Don’t give him any dangerous ideas.”

“I’ve never been so glad to see you,” I muttered.

“I know how you feel,” Buffy said and started to tell me how scared she had been, but I faded away in the middle of it.

*

*

*

It was late in the morning before any of us woke up. I was still sore so I took the pain pill along with my antibiotics. Pulling on the knee brace was more painful than leaving the knee alone but I managed to get the piece of neoprene up and velcro’ed on. It was decided that Wes and Xander would stay behind with Angel to research and to contact Fred, Gunn, Robin and Lorne who had remained in L.A., trying to see if they could find out anything about the Wisconsin complex. I think there was some tension there, too, because of what Angel had done.

The look on Angel’s face when we left hurt to even think on. It was killing him to be left behind. I gave him a hug before we left. I sat up front in the rental car and directed Giles to the spot. We decided it wasn’t safe to just leave the car on the side of the road if a cop or a ranger came by. There was a small, kind of overgrown scenic area about a quarter mile up the hill so we parked there, armed ourselves with knives and walked. I didn’t want to do any more hiking but I had to, no matter how sore I was. At least Faith and Buffy were the ones backpacking in the other weapons, just in case. Once we got to the mile marker, I stopped.

“What’s wrong, Dawn?” Buffy asked. “I know you don’t want to go in there.”

“That’s not it. Connor might get a little nervous if he sees everyone. He doesn’t know you and he might think that Wolfram and Hart has captured me or something,” I said.

“You’re not going into the woods alone,” Buffy said, sharply.

“I want Faith to come with me. He knows her,” I replied.

Buffy’s eyes went grim, her body tensing but she nodded. “We’ll be waiting right here.”

Faith and I headed into the woods. Her lips curled as the forest closed up behind us. “I hate the woods.”

“I’m not thrilled either,” I said.

“Did he give you any idea where he might be?” Faith asked.

“I told him to wait in this area, but who knows? Wolfram and Hart might have come after him,” I said. “He said he’d know when I came back.”

“How?”

“You don’t wanna know,” I replied.

“You know, kiddo, I’m impressed. You almost got away from him when Connor was hunting you down.” Faith gave me a look of approval. “I’ve fought him. The boy has moves.”

“I thought I killed him,” I admitted. “I kept hitting him in the face with a log. I don’t know how he recovered so fast and came after me.”

“He heals like a Slayer,” Faith said. “Look at this.”