CHAPTER 10 - Chains of love
Through the thick fog that had enveloped the night, soft rain began to pour helplessly. The weather now frighteningly chilly, sounds was heard in the darkness.
Angel was helping Cordelia out of the swamp that had broken their fall. She grabbed his hand with an amazing amount of strength and let herself be pulled out of the mixture of water and mud in which she'd found herself. When she was completely out, Angel knelt beside her, cupping her face with both his hands and staring into her eyes.
"Are you okay?" Angel asked in a bare whisper.
Cordelia, who uncharacteristically found herself at a loss for words, simply nodded in response. She felt Angel's hands brush some soaked strands of hair away from her cheeks and she briefly held her breath, as if to hold on to this feeling for as long as she could. When his hands left her skin, she reminded herself to breathe again.
He helped her up to her feet, and she slipped her hand into his, which came as a natural gesture for the both of them.
Angel shot a very futile look upward to the cliff from which they had jumped and took an unnecessary breath.
"Do you think that "thing", whatever it was, is still chasing us?" she asked, clinging to his hand.
"I don't think so." Angel whispered, trying to sound as reassuring as he possibly could. "I think we lost it when we jumped off." He stated, looking back down into Cordy's eyes.
She then felt a sudden panic in Angel's eyes and stared at him until he let go of her hand.
"What is it?" she asked him, sensing the urgency in his movements.
He patted the side of his jacket, and then searched through his pockets, obviously in desperate search of something.
"The key." He let out in a frantic tone.
"Do you still have it?" Cordy immediately asked as the rain intensified. "Angel?" she spoke up when he didn't answer.
After a few seconds, Angel found the key, safe and sound inside his jeans' pocket. He pulled it out, prompting a huge sigh of relief from Cordelia. Neither of them knew why Emily had given them the key, but they were positive that if she had gathered the energy to do so before dying, then its importance was meaningful.
It's only then that they realized just where they were standing - which basically was the middle of nowhere once again. Looking around, they noticed a few trees, but mostly just sand. They saw some rocky mountains surrounding them, bringing only more darkness to an already somber rainy night.
"Angel." Cordy said, gripping his hand tighter when a noise escaped from behind a large rock.
"Stay back." Angel whispered as he protectively placed an arm around her to keep her behind him.
The noise became footsteps to Angel's ears and he was just about ready to switch into vamp face when he saw a tall black man stumble down on the floor in front of him.
"Oh my god." Cordy whispered in a shaky breath as she realized that the intruder was none other than Gunn.
She and Angel rushed towards the man now spread across the sand. Gunn was holding onto his arm in pain, his breathing heavy and uneven. Angel was the first one to reach the young man, and he tried to see where Gunn was hurt through the pouring rain. Cordy arrived right behind him and threw herself on the ground beside the two men. Gunn was obviously in serious pain.
"Gunn.Gunn?" Cordy called out his name several time as the young man twisted in pain on the ground.
"Cordy..?" Gunn managed to ask, raising his eyes to meet the two faces that hovered over him. "You found her." he barely managed to let out, addressing Angel.
"Yes, what happened to you?" Angel asked, trying to keep his fears under control. "Where are Fred and Lorne?" He then asked, worries suddenly filling his voice.
Gunn didn't answer. He simply looked up and the pain and tears in his eyes revealed it all. Angel felt his fingers tighten into fists and he clenched his jaw, holding back his threatening burst of emotion. Angel cast a very emotional glance towards Cordelia, whose face was covered with a mixture of rain and tears. He couldn't discern which was which, but the look in her eyes told him both were very much present.
They managed to pull Gunn up into a seating position and made him lean against the rock behind him. Through the dark, Angel noticed the deep claw marks on Gunn's shoulder and left leg. But they weren't usual claw marks. They were filled with some sort of yellow slime.
"Angel." Cordy fearfully spoke up when she noticed what Angel was eyeing.
The vampire reached with a careful hand and touched Gunn's wound, making him jerk away from Angel's touch immediately.
"Gunn, what happened to the others?" Angel asked him, a bit in a rush.
"They just..we saw things." Gunn began, out of breath and struggling to get the words out. "Oh God Barbie we saw.they..they just.we tried." he gasped in between in-takes of air. "They're gone." He then finally spoke, leaving a dreadful silence hanging over their heads.
Cordelia suddenly jerked up on her feet and turned her back to Angel and Gunn. She ran both of her hands through her hair, desperately, and sighed inwardly. A weighty guilt seemingly fell on her shoulders as tears sprung from her eyes.
"Cordy?" Angel's voice rang from behind her.
She hadn't heard him calling out to her several times. When she turned around, their eyes met with an intensity unmatched before. He saw her lower her eyes and break eye contact after a moment.
"We're going to fix this." Angel whispered to her, helping Gunn stand up on his own two feet.
"How?" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "How, Angel??! How am I going to fix this when I don't even know how?" Angel's un-beating heart broke under the intensity of her outburst. "Why is it assumed that I know how to fix it? Why is it assumed that I'm supposed to know the way out of here?" she was now yelling at him and she realized so immediately after the words had left her mouth.
She paused and took a deep breath, wiping the rain out of her eyes with one shaky hand.
"I heard them." Gunn's voice was the catalyst that broke the silence that had wrapped its arms around them suddenly.
Angel and Cordy both looked at him expectantly.
"The Gargoyles." Gunn found the strength to speak louder and more comprehensively. Off their questioningly stunned look he continued. "They were talking about a garden.they don't want you there.to find it." he informed them.
"A garden?" Angel asked, his eyes going back and forth between a hurt Gunn and a soaking wet Cordelia.
Cordy looked both thoughtful and confused when Angel caught a glimpse of her expression.
"They said something about peace..and about torture and their master's plan."
"Where did you hear this?" Angel demanded through his teeth.
"The bridge.near the bridge." Gunn said while Cordelia and Angel grabbed each of his arms and helped him stand up more properly.
--
Revealed by the lack of her monk outfit, Dennis' mother took a few steps towards the middle of a large, creepy room. Her very pale features seemingly smirked into the night.
"Why let them go when you had them right there at your mercy?" a grumpy voice asked from the corner of the room where dozens of demons dressed as monks stood.
"It wasn't time." She grinned from ear to ear, obviously enjoying herself. "She needed to see more.to lose more." she then added, looking into her large bubble, where she could see Cordy and Angel carrying a severely injured Gunn through the rain.
"What if she finds it?" a female, somewhat familiar voice was heard among the crowd.
"She won't." Dennis' mother positively replied with a dry sigh. "It's her peaceful sanctuary.after what I'll do to her, she will never find it. She'll never reach that place inside of her again."
"What will you do to her? You already killed most of her stupid friends." the female voice half-stated and half-asked from a distance.
"I will make her watch." She replied, smirking to herself with evil pouring out of her eyes.
The room stayed silent for a while and Dennis' mother turned back to face the crowd of demon. Among her fanatic evildoers stood three colorful figures, unmasked, unlike the others. She looked at the three blood- sucking vampires and smiled playfully.
"It's time." She told them.
A blond vampire followed by two sultry female vampires stepped up from the crowd with hungry eyes.
"I love torturing the innocents.." The same female voice as before laughed, clinging to Spike and Drusilla's arms.
--
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Cordy asked after two hours of walking through tunnels and corridors.
"Yeah." Gunn breathed out, leaning on her and Angel as the three of them kept on walking.
After a while, the three soaking wet friends arrived at the aforementioned bridge and stared at the debris of the earthquake it had endured. Cordy let her eyes roam the wall and read the clues that had been carved into the rock. She then looked towards Angel, who had also read the words to himself. Gunn led them onto the bridge and that's when they saw it. Freezing in their tracks, a sudden pain grabbed their hearts and twisted it into knots.
Cordelia held her breath, the sight of Fred's dead and bleeding body spread across the squares almost making her stomach turn. Tears welled up in her tired eyes as Angel stared at her, equally moved by the sight that stood in front of them.
It's at that moment that Gunn let go of his two friends and let himself fall down upon his knees, never leaving the sight of Fred's tortured corpse. Before either Angel or Cordelia could ask, Gunn offered the answer to their silent question.
"Wrong password." He said as a painful explanation for what happened.
Quite frankly, neither Cordy nor Angel could stomach a longer explanation than this. Angel was the first one to take a step forward. He walked to Fred's body and swallowed difficultly as he reached out to touch her cold features.
Cordelia, for her part, walked around the squares, almost absent-mindedly, and tried to grasp the whole thing. All the demons Gunn had claimed to face were now gone, leaving only them, the squared bridge, and the loss of a friend.
"You spelled Angel." she then suddenly whispered out loud, prompting Angel and Gunn to raise their eyes up to her. "You picked 'Angel' as the password." she repeated, realizing their mistakes all of a sudden.
"Yeah.Fred thought." Gunn tried but stopped himself when he saw Cordelia shake her head with agitation.
"What is it? Do you know the password?" Angel got up and rushed to her side as he posed the question.
"Step on the 'U'." she told him in that voice that told both Gunn and Angel that it wasn't a suggestion but mostly an order.
Only Cordelia Chase could make these two men obey her so easily. And in this case, they had no choice. This was her head, and if anyone could make sense of anything in here, it would be her. At least she had better chances of knowing what she was doing than they were.
When Angel was firmly standing on the 'U', Cordy moved and stepped on the 'S' that stood nearby. Gunn stared as the gates began to open up on the other side of the bridge. He was now realizing the mistake he and Fred had made. He looked back and forth between the two letters Cordelia had added to their previous answer, and he subtly caught sight of the expression on Angel's face. The fact that it was Angelus and not Angel that the clues were referring to was not lost on the vampire.
As soon as the gates were opened, Cordelia and Angel stepped off their squares and turned around to go get Gunn, whom they had left on the floor a few feet behind.
However, they didn't have time to get him, for, when they turned around, two very familiar hands were holding him still. Angel growled at the sight of the person that was holding Gunn hostage. Sweat rolled down Gunn's forehead as he felt the fangs of the blonde vampire near his neck.
"Darla." Angel gritted through his teeth and pulling Cordy closer to him.
"Hello my boy." she smiled, jerking Gunn's arm backwards, causing him to yell in pain.
"Let him go." Cordy couldn't help but tell Darla.
Darla's laughter rang in the air like an evil call for pleasure. Unbeknownst to them, two other undead beings had made their way behind them. With a quick move of his hands, Spike jerked Cordelia away from Angel, who became alarmed by the girl's scream. Spike covered her mouth with his hands and laughed at Angel.
"New toy?" he asked, eyeing Cordy's body up and down.
"Son of a." Angel gritted through his teeth as he launched for Spike.
Unfortunately for Angel, he was stopped mid-sentence by a large object that came in contact with the back of his head. Angel crumbled to his knees, obviously knocked out from the blow, and even though she tried to call out to him, Cordelia's words only met a tragic fate against the palm of Spike's hands. Drusilla's smile brightened as she playfully swung the heavy and large piece of metal in the air a couple of times to celebrate her victory. She licked her lips as she turned to face a very hungry Darla, who was still teasing a very frightened Gunn.
Cordy tried to kick and scream but Spike's hands were to strong for her. Drusilla bent down on a weak Angel and injected him some drug that quickly reduced him to mush.
"Oh come on.aren't we having fun?" Darla asked, seeing a weak Angel slowly looking up from the floor. "I'm very disappointed in you.you had to sink as low as going for a brunette?" she raised an eyebrow.
Rage sprung from Cordy's eyes at the mention. But the thought soon vanished from her mind as she helplessly witnessed what happened next.
Darla lunged for Gunn's neck, sinking her sharp teeth into his warm flesh. Gunn's screamed in pain as he felt the blood being drained from him. Tears welled up in Cordy's eyes as the scene was displayed in slow motion in front of her.
She saw Gunn's body being dropped on the floor while Darla took a few steps towards her.
She didn't have time to comprehend what was happening to her before she felt a sharp needle being stuck into her arm. In a matter of seconds, she felt dizzy and her whole body became numb. Cordelia crumbled onto the floor helplessly while Darla, Spike and Drusilla stood over the three bodies with silly grin on their faces.
--
When Gunn's name was spelled onto the wall above Cordelia's bed, Emily let an angry sigh escape her throat.
One more name.
One more loss.
She closed her eyes for a moment and then sprung off her chair. The chair beside her moved and she knew that Dennis had stood up as well, alarmed by her sudden outburst.
"I can't let this happen." she said through her teeth, the look in her eyes reminding Dennis of Cordelia's determined expression.
He knew better than to argue with the young Ghost/angel.
"You stay with her, I'll be right back." She said, heading straight for the door.
Against his better judgment, Dennis stopped her by shutting the door in front of her. A word was quickly scrambled across the door with a large black marker.
"WHERE???"
"Just have a little faith Dennis." she whispered to him, looking straight in front of her. "Just stay with her, and take care of her while I'm gone." She added and then turned to face Dennis - whom she could see, contrary to ordinary humans. "There's something I need to do." she softly said.
After a few seconds, the door opened in front of her and she took a deep breath.
"Thanks Dennis." She whispered before rushing out of the apartment.
The door to Cordy's bedroom slowly closed once Emily had exited the building, and the black marker was placed on top of a desk. Over Cordelia's head, a wet cloth hovered and was slowly lowered on Cordy's feverish face.
--
Cordelia woke up to find her face plastered against the cold hard floor. She painfully moved her arms and heard the clinging sound of metal making her head ache. She stretched her neck and saw that she was chained to the wall behind her. Her hands and her feet were all chained. She managed to pull herself up into a seating position and that's when she saw it.
A gasp escaped her throat and she felt like she was going to be sick. Whether it was from fear or from the drug, she wasn't too sure.
There, in front of her, across the room, Angel lied, unconscious, on the freezing ground. Bruises and scratches marked his bare chest and his back as he, too, lied there, chained to his own wall. Cordy moved to her knees and realized that her chains allowed her to reach Angel's body.
She called out his name a couple of times, but he didn't move. Making her way across the floor, she grabbed her right arm in pain, noticing the scratch on her skin, which had ripped apart the sleeve of her shirt. Just as she was about to reach Angel, she saw him move briefly.
"Angel!" she called out, as he tried to pull himself up.
In his attempt, he only found himself falling back down onto the floor. Unsuccessfully trying to hold back her tears, Cordy reached him and wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders. Angel was obviously at his weakest, which scared Cordelia more than anything. She had rarely seen him in such a state. Whatever they had done to him while they were both unconscious must have been bad.
"Cordy." Angel whispered, unable to finish his sentence for lack of strength.
"Shhh.I'm here." she whispered back, cradling his body into her arms.
Helpless for one of the very few times in his life, Angel gathered enough strength to rest his head on Cordelia's lap. He could hear her heart beat faster from fear, and he also heard her fast in-takes of air. Cordy gently brushed his wet hair with her hand while holding his body close to him.
"I'm so sorry." she whispered in a shaky breath.
She tried to think of a way to keep him awake, so he would fight the drugs that Darla, Spike and Drusilla had given him, and that's when she remembered an incident that had happened a couple of months before. Wesley had been knocked out and fearing he could have a concussion, Fred had told Cordelia that the best thing to do in times like these was to keep the patient awake. To talk to him, to keep his attention long enough. So that's what she attempted to do.
"Angel.stay with me." she breathed, her lips pressed against his ear as she rocked him back and forth.
"C-Cordy." he tried to speak again but she hushed him with that tenderness only [I]he[/I] knew she could convey.
"I'm so sorry about all of this." she confessed as a tear fell from her eyes. "You and Wes, and Fred and Lorne.Gunn.you should never have been involved in this." she breathed out, sensing his body shivering underneath her warm fingers. "Don't you drift off.you stay with me.Angel." she said but he didn't answer. "Angel??" she repeated with a more panicked tone.
"Talk to me." he whispered to her.
Cordelia breathed deeply as he repeated his only wish.
"Just talk to me."
"Gosh, you must be very desperate to beg to hear my voice. I remember a time when it clearly annoyed you." She said, trying as hard as she could to lighten up the atmosphere. She paused and felt him relax a little, as he lied down, his head still resting on her lap. Tears continued to well up in her eyes. "I can't lose you." she finally whispered in an emotional voice that would have broken any man's heart. "I can't lose you Angel." she repeated softly as he closed his eyes.
"You won't." she heard him weakly reply.
"You know." Cordy then said, taking a deep breath and pausing for an instant. "When I was a little girl," she began, thinking back to a memory that had suddenly invaded her thoughts - just like magic. "And that everything went wrong. When.when my parents weren't there, or when things just sucked.I used to lie down on my bed, alone, and close my eyes, and just dream of this place.this place where everything was beautiful and nice and peaceful." she said in a bare murmur, as if soothingly whispering fairy tales into his ear. "Whenever I was sad, or lonely.or scared.I always had that place.in my head. That magical and enchanting place, with trees and mountains and sun.flowers.a place whose beauty transcends time." She kept on going, still running her hand through his hair. "I used to go there 'cause nothing could hurt me there. Nothing could touch me. I was safe." She then said, a tear rolling down her cheek as she kissed his temple. "It was my secret garden. With my hidden treasures.where there was no pain, no doubt.just peace." She continued softly, trying to keep him awake. "Growing up, I lost that place.I guess I lost my way."
Angel swallowed with difficulty as he heard the sadness in her voice.
"I wish I knew the way to that place now." She then admitted softly. "I would take you there.I would take you to that place. But I don't know.Angel." she whispered. "I don't know where it is anymore.I don't know the way to get there.I wish I did.I [I]so[/I] wish I did." she held back a few tears as she spoke. "Because I would go there..with you.and stop this madness."
She felt Angel's weak arms wrap themselves around her knees, holding her legs tight against his bare chest.
"I wish I could take you there." she whispered again, bending down and kissing the side of his face tenderly.
Cordy let her lips linger against his skin for a while, holding on to his body tightly. She kept her arms wrapped around his shoulders and rested her chin against back, nearby his tattoo.
She closed her eyes as they stayed like that, into the night, chained in a cell that held no resemblance to the secret heaven Cordy had just described.
--
SNEAK PREVIEW: The clock is ticking, and Angel and Cordelia find themselves running out of time, for when the skies open up, nothing will ever be the same.
--
Through the thick fog that had enveloped the night, soft rain began to pour helplessly. The weather now frighteningly chilly, sounds was heard in the darkness.
Angel was helping Cordelia out of the swamp that had broken their fall. She grabbed his hand with an amazing amount of strength and let herself be pulled out of the mixture of water and mud in which she'd found herself. When she was completely out, Angel knelt beside her, cupping her face with both his hands and staring into her eyes.
"Are you okay?" Angel asked in a bare whisper.
Cordelia, who uncharacteristically found herself at a loss for words, simply nodded in response. She felt Angel's hands brush some soaked strands of hair away from her cheeks and she briefly held her breath, as if to hold on to this feeling for as long as she could. When his hands left her skin, she reminded herself to breathe again.
He helped her up to her feet, and she slipped her hand into his, which came as a natural gesture for the both of them.
Angel shot a very futile look upward to the cliff from which they had jumped and took an unnecessary breath.
"Do you think that "thing", whatever it was, is still chasing us?" she asked, clinging to his hand.
"I don't think so." Angel whispered, trying to sound as reassuring as he possibly could. "I think we lost it when we jumped off." He stated, looking back down into Cordy's eyes.
She then felt a sudden panic in Angel's eyes and stared at him until he let go of her hand.
"What is it?" she asked him, sensing the urgency in his movements.
He patted the side of his jacket, and then searched through his pockets, obviously in desperate search of something.
"The key." He let out in a frantic tone.
"Do you still have it?" Cordy immediately asked as the rain intensified. "Angel?" she spoke up when he didn't answer.
After a few seconds, Angel found the key, safe and sound inside his jeans' pocket. He pulled it out, prompting a huge sigh of relief from Cordelia. Neither of them knew why Emily had given them the key, but they were positive that if she had gathered the energy to do so before dying, then its importance was meaningful.
It's only then that they realized just where they were standing - which basically was the middle of nowhere once again. Looking around, they noticed a few trees, but mostly just sand. They saw some rocky mountains surrounding them, bringing only more darkness to an already somber rainy night.
"Angel." Cordy said, gripping his hand tighter when a noise escaped from behind a large rock.
"Stay back." Angel whispered as he protectively placed an arm around her to keep her behind him.
The noise became footsteps to Angel's ears and he was just about ready to switch into vamp face when he saw a tall black man stumble down on the floor in front of him.
"Oh my god." Cordy whispered in a shaky breath as she realized that the intruder was none other than Gunn.
She and Angel rushed towards the man now spread across the sand. Gunn was holding onto his arm in pain, his breathing heavy and uneven. Angel was the first one to reach the young man, and he tried to see where Gunn was hurt through the pouring rain. Cordy arrived right behind him and threw herself on the ground beside the two men. Gunn was obviously in serious pain.
"Gunn.Gunn?" Cordy called out his name several time as the young man twisted in pain on the ground.
"Cordy..?" Gunn managed to ask, raising his eyes to meet the two faces that hovered over him. "You found her." he barely managed to let out, addressing Angel.
"Yes, what happened to you?" Angel asked, trying to keep his fears under control. "Where are Fred and Lorne?" He then asked, worries suddenly filling his voice.
Gunn didn't answer. He simply looked up and the pain and tears in his eyes revealed it all. Angel felt his fingers tighten into fists and he clenched his jaw, holding back his threatening burst of emotion. Angel cast a very emotional glance towards Cordelia, whose face was covered with a mixture of rain and tears. He couldn't discern which was which, but the look in her eyes told him both were very much present.
They managed to pull Gunn up into a seating position and made him lean against the rock behind him. Through the dark, Angel noticed the deep claw marks on Gunn's shoulder and left leg. But they weren't usual claw marks. They were filled with some sort of yellow slime.
"Angel." Cordy fearfully spoke up when she noticed what Angel was eyeing.
The vampire reached with a careful hand and touched Gunn's wound, making him jerk away from Angel's touch immediately.
"Gunn, what happened to the others?" Angel asked him, a bit in a rush.
"They just..we saw things." Gunn began, out of breath and struggling to get the words out. "Oh God Barbie we saw.they..they just.we tried." he gasped in between in-takes of air. "They're gone." He then finally spoke, leaving a dreadful silence hanging over their heads.
Cordelia suddenly jerked up on her feet and turned her back to Angel and Gunn. She ran both of her hands through her hair, desperately, and sighed inwardly. A weighty guilt seemingly fell on her shoulders as tears sprung from her eyes.
"Cordy?" Angel's voice rang from behind her.
She hadn't heard him calling out to her several times. When she turned around, their eyes met with an intensity unmatched before. He saw her lower her eyes and break eye contact after a moment.
"We're going to fix this." Angel whispered to her, helping Gunn stand up on his own two feet.
"How?" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "How, Angel??! How am I going to fix this when I don't even know how?" Angel's un-beating heart broke under the intensity of her outburst. "Why is it assumed that I know how to fix it? Why is it assumed that I'm supposed to know the way out of here?" she was now yelling at him and she realized so immediately after the words had left her mouth.
She paused and took a deep breath, wiping the rain out of her eyes with one shaky hand.
"I heard them." Gunn's voice was the catalyst that broke the silence that had wrapped its arms around them suddenly.
Angel and Cordy both looked at him expectantly.
"The Gargoyles." Gunn found the strength to speak louder and more comprehensively. Off their questioningly stunned look he continued. "They were talking about a garden.they don't want you there.to find it." he informed them.
"A garden?" Angel asked, his eyes going back and forth between a hurt Gunn and a soaking wet Cordelia.
Cordy looked both thoughtful and confused when Angel caught a glimpse of her expression.
"They said something about peace..and about torture and their master's plan."
"Where did you hear this?" Angel demanded through his teeth.
"The bridge.near the bridge." Gunn said while Cordelia and Angel grabbed each of his arms and helped him stand up more properly.
--
Revealed by the lack of her monk outfit, Dennis' mother took a few steps towards the middle of a large, creepy room. Her very pale features seemingly smirked into the night.
"Why let them go when you had them right there at your mercy?" a grumpy voice asked from the corner of the room where dozens of demons dressed as monks stood.
"It wasn't time." She grinned from ear to ear, obviously enjoying herself. "She needed to see more.to lose more." she then added, looking into her large bubble, where she could see Cordy and Angel carrying a severely injured Gunn through the rain.
"What if she finds it?" a female, somewhat familiar voice was heard among the crowd.
"She won't." Dennis' mother positively replied with a dry sigh. "It's her peaceful sanctuary.after what I'll do to her, she will never find it. She'll never reach that place inside of her again."
"What will you do to her? You already killed most of her stupid friends." the female voice half-stated and half-asked from a distance.
"I will make her watch." She replied, smirking to herself with evil pouring out of her eyes.
The room stayed silent for a while and Dennis' mother turned back to face the crowd of demon. Among her fanatic evildoers stood three colorful figures, unmasked, unlike the others. She looked at the three blood- sucking vampires and smiled playfully.
"It's time." She told them.
A blond vampire followed by two sultry female vampires stepped up from the crowd with hungry eyes.
"I love torturing the innocents.." The same female voice as before laughed, clinging to Spike and Drusilla's arms.
--
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Cordy asked after two hours of walking through tunnels and corridors.
"Yeah." Gunn breathed out, leaning on her and Angel as the three of them kept on walking.
After a while, the three soaking wet friends arrived at the aforementioned bridge and stared at the debris of the earthquake it had endured. Cordy let her eyes roam the wall and read the clues that had been carved into the rock. She then looked towards Angel, who had also read the words to himself. Gunn led them onto the bridge and that's when they saw it. Freezing in their tracks, a sudden pain grabbed their hearts and twisted it into knots.
Cordelia held her breath, the sight of Fred's dead and bleeding body spread across the squares almost making her stomach turn. Tears welled up in her tired eyes as Angel stared at her, equally moved by the sight that stood in front of them.
It's at that moment that Gunn let go of his two friends and let himself fall down upon his knees, never leaving the sight of Fred's tortured corpse. Before either Angel or Cordelia could ask, Gunn offered the answer to their silent question.
"Wrong password." He said as a painful explanation for what happened.
Quite frankly, neither Cordy nor Angel could stomach a longer explanation than this. Angel was the first one to take a step forward. He walked to Fred's body and swallowed difficultly as he reached out to touch her cold features.
Cordelia, for her part, walked around the squares, almost absent-mindedly, and tried to grasp the whole thing. All the demons Gunn had claimed to face were now gone, leaving only them, the squared bridge, and the loss of a friend.
"You spelled Angel." she then suddenly whispered out loud, prompting Angel and Gunn to raise their eyes up to her. "You picked 'Angel' as the password." she repeated, realizing their mistakes all of a sudden.
"Yeah.Fred thought." Gunn tried but stopped himself when he saw Cordelia shake her head with agitation.
"What is it? Do you know the password?" Angel got up and rushed to her side as he posed the question.
"Step on the 'U'." she told him in that voice that told both Gunn and Angel that it wasn't a suggestion but mostly an order.
Only Cordelia Chase could make these two men obey her so easily. And in this case, they had no choice. This was her head, and if anyone could make sense of anything in here, it would be her. At least she had better chances of knowing what she was doing than they were.
When Angel was firmly standing on the 'U', Cordy moved and stepped on the 'S' that stood nearby. Gunn stared as the gates began to open up on the other side of the bridge. He was now realizing the mistake he and Fred had made. He looked back and forth between the two letters Cordelia had added to their previous answer, and he subtly caught sight of the expression on Angel's face. The fact that it was Angelus and not Angel that the clues were referring to was not lost on the vampire.
As soon as the gates were opened, Cordelia and Angel stepped off their squares and turned around to go get Gunn, whom they had left on the floor a few feet behind.
However, they didn't have time to get him, for, when they turned around, two very familiar hands were holding him still. Angel growled at the sight of the person that was holding Gunn hostage. Sweat rolled down Gunn's forehead as he felt the fangs of the blonde vampire near his neck.
"Darla." Angel gritted through his teeth and pulling Cordy closer to him.
"Hello my boy." she smiled, jerking Gunn's arm backwards, causing him to yell in pain.
"Let him go." Cordy couldn't help but tell Darla.
Darla's laughter rang in the air like an evil call for pleasure. Unbeknownst to them, two other undead beings had made their way behind them. With a quick move of his hands, Spike jerked Cordelia away from Angel, who became alarmed by the girl's scream. Spike covered her mouth with his hands and laughed at Angel.
"New toy?" he asked, eyeing Cordy's body up and down.
"Son of a." Angel gritted through his teeth as he launched for Spike.
Unfortunately for Angel, he was stopped mid-sentence by a large object that came in contact with the back of his head. Angel crumbled to his knees, obviously knocked out from the blow, and even though she tried to call out to him, Cordelia's words only met a tragic fate against the palm of Spike's hands. Drusilla's smile brightened as she playfully swung the heavy and large piece of metal in the air a couple of times to celebrate her victory. She licked her lips as she turned to face a very hungry Darla, who was still teasing a very frightened Gunn.
Cordy tried to kick and scream but Spike's hands were to strong for her. Drusilla bent down on a weak Angel and injected him some drug that quickly reduced him to mush.
"Oh come on.aren't we having fun?" Darla asked, seeing a weak Angel slowly looking up from the floor. "I'm very disappointed in you.you had to sink as low as going for a brunette?" she raised an eyebrow.
Rage sprung from Cordy's eyes at the mention. But the thought soon vanished from her mind as she helplessly witnessed what happened next.
Darla lunged for Gunn's neck, sinking her sharp teeth into his warm flesh. Gunn's screamed in pain as he felt the blood being drained from him. Tears welled up in Cordy's eyes as the scene was displayed in slow motion in front of her.
She saw Gunn's body being dropped on the floor while Darla took a few steps towards her.
She didn't have time to comprehend what was happening to her before she felt a sharp needle being stuck into her arm. In a matter of seconds, she felt dizzy and her whole body became numb. Cordelia crumbled onto the floor helplessly while Darla, Spike and Drusilla stood over the three bodies with silly grin on their faces.
--
When Gunn's name was spelled onto the wall above Cordelia's bed, Emily let an angry sigh escape her throat.
One more name.
One more loss.
She closed her eyes for a moment and then sprung off her chair. The chair beside her moved and she knew that Dennis had stood up as well, alarmed by her sudden outburst.
"I can't let this happen." she said through her teeth, the look in her eyes reminding Dennis of Cordelia's determined expression.
He knew better than to argue with the young Ghost/angel.
"You stay with her, I'll be right back." She said, heading straight for the door.
Against his better judgment, Dennis stopped her by shutting the door in front of her. A word was quickly scrambled across the door with a large black marker.
"WHERE???"
"Just have a little faith Dennis." she whispered to him, looking straight in front of her. "Just stay with her, and take care of her while I'm gone." She added and then turned to face Dennis - whom she could see, contrary to ordinary humans. "There's something I need to do." she softly said.
After a few seconds, the door opened in front of her and she took a deep breath.
"Thanks Dennis." She whispered before rushing out of the apartment.
The door to Cordy's bedroom slowly closed once Emily had exited the building, and the black marker was placed on top of a desk. Over Cordelia's head, a wet cloth hovered and was slowly lowered on Cordy's feverish face.
--
Cordelia woke up to find her face plastered against the cold hard floor. She painfully moved her arms and heard the clinging sound of metal making her head ache. She stretched her neck and saw that she was chained to the wall behind her. Her hands and her feet were all chained. She managed to pull herself up into a seating position and that's when she saw it.
A gasp escaped her throat and she felt like she was going to be sick. Whether it was from fear or from the drug, she wasn't too sure.
There, in front of her, across the room, Angel lied, unconscious, on the freezing ground. Bruises and scratches marked his bare chest and his back as he, too, lied there, chained to his own wall. Cordy moved to her knees and realized that her chains allowed her to reach Angel's body.
She called out his name a couple of times, but he didn't move. Making her way across the floor, she grabbed her right arm in pain, noticing the scratch on her skin, which had ripped apart the sleeve of her shirt. Just as she was about to reach Angel, she saw him move briefly.
"Angel!" she called out, as he tried to pull himself up.
In his attempt, he only found himself falling back down onto the floor. Unsuccessfully trying to hold back her tears, Cordy reached him and wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders. Angel was obviously at his weakest, which scared Cordelia more than anything. She had rarely seen him in such a state. Whatever they had done to him while they were both unconscious must have been bad.
"Cordy." Angel whispered, unable to finish his sentence for lack of strength.
"Shhh.I'm here." she whispered back, cradling his body into her arms.
Helpless for one of the very few times in his life, Angel gathered enough strength to rest his head on Cordelia's lap. He could hear her heart beat faster from fear, and he also heard her fast in-takes of air. Cordy gently brushed his wet hair with her hand while holding his body close to him.
"I'm so sorry." she whispered in a shaky breath.
She tried to think of a way to keep him awake, so he would fight the drugs that Darla, Spike and Drusilla had given him, and that's when she remembered an incident that had happened a couple of months before. Wesley had been knocked out and fearing he could have a concussion, Fred had told Cordelia that the best thing to do in times like these was to keep the patient awake. To talk to him, to keep his attention long enough. So that's what she attempted to do.
"Angel.stay with me." she breathed, her lips pressed against his ear as she rocked him back and forth.
"C-Cordy." he tried to speak again but she hushed him with that tenderness only [I]he[/I] knew she could convey.
"I'm so sorry about all of this." she confessed as a tear fell from her eyes. "You and Wes, and Fred and Lorne.Gunn.you should never have been involved in this." she breathed out, sensing his body shivering underneath her warm fingers. "Don't you drift off.you stay with me.Angel." she said but he didn't answer. "Angel??" she repeated with a more panicked tone.
"Talk to me." he whispered to her.
Cordelia breathed deeply as he repeated his only wish.
"Just talk to me."
"Gosh, you must be very desperate to beg to hear my voice. I remember a time when it clearly annoyed you." She said, trying as hard as she could to lighten up the atmosphere. She paused and felt him relax a little, as he lied down, his head still resting on her lap. Tears continued to well up in her eyes. "I can't lose you." she finally whispered in an emotional voice that would have broken any man's heart. "I can't lose you Angel." she repeated softly as he closed his eyes.
"You won't." she heard him weakly reply.
"You know." Cordy then said, taking a deep breath and pausing for an instant. "When I was a little girl," she began, thinking back to a memory that had suddenly invaded her thoughts - just like magic. "And that everything went wrong. When.when my parents weren't there, or when things just sucked.I used to lie down on my bed, alone, and close my eyes, and just dream of this place.this place where everything was beautiful and nice and peaceful." she said in a bare murmur, as if soothingly whispering fairy tales into his ear. "Whenever I was sad, or lonely.or scared.I always had that place.in my head. That magical and enchanting place, with trees and mountains and sun.flowers.a place whose beauty transcends time." She kept on going, still running her hand through his hair. "I used to go there 'cause nothing could hurt me there. Nothing could touch me. I was safe." She then said, a tear rolling down her cheek as she kissed his temple. "It was my secret garden. With my hidden treasures.where there was no pain, no doubt.just peace." She continued softly, trying to keep him awake. "Growing up, I lost that place.I guess I lost my way."
Angel swallowed with difficulty as he heard the sadness in her voice.
"I wish I knew the way to that place now." She then admitted softly. "I would take you there.I would take you to that place. But I don't know.Angel." she whispered. "I don't know where it is anymore.I don't know the way to get there.I wish I did.I [I]so[/I] wish I did." she held back a few tears as she spoke. "Because I would go there..with you.and stop this madness."
She felt Angel's weak arms wrap themselves around her knees, holding her legs tight against his bare chest.
"I wish I could take you there." she whispered again, bending down and kissing the side of his face tenderly.
Cordy let her lips linger against his skin for a while, holding on to his body tightly. She kept her arms wrapped around his shoulders and rested her chin against back, nearby his tattoo.
She closed her eyes as they stayed like that, into the night, chained in a cell that held no resemblance to the secret heaven Cordy had just described.
--
SNEAK PREVIEW: The clock is ticking, and Angel and Cordelia find themselves running out of time, for when the skies open up, nothing will ever be the same.
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