TITLE: Near-Life Experiences 4/?
AUTHOR: tanith
RATING: PG-13 - changed because ff.net altered their rules so that R-NC-17 fics don't show up without special settings.
SUMMARY: On the road with William, Anne, and Zoe. Sequel to "Dry Kind of Love."
ARCHIVE: It's all yours, just let me know.
FEEDBACK: Need it now more than ever. akirgo@yahoo.com
SPOILERS: Through Older and Far Away for BtVS, and season 2 for AtS, then AU. This installment takes place several months after the end of DKoL.
DISCLAIMER: Some are mine. Most are not. If you can't tell, thenthat's kind of cool.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the delay. I was invited to San Francisco, all spur-of-the-moment-like. Great city! Not conductive to my sitting down and writing.
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The weekly blood run would make for a nice break from the routine, only it's become *part* of the routine. Pull up at some hick-town hospital, sneak in the back door, avoid all the orderlies (*both* of them!), and make off with lots of bags of yummy red goodness. Anne has frequently made it clear that she'd prefer it if they drank animal blood, but butchers willing to cater to their unusual needs are hard to come by in Spot-on-the-Map, USA. It worries her that Zoe is being weaned on human blood.
What worries William is that he can no longer tell the difference between the two.
The little red cooler rides in the back with Zoe, and now she pries it open and takes a blood bag off the ice. She offers it to her father, but he shakes his head. "Not while I'm driving, pet," he says, and she feels that familiar lump of indefinable anxiety form in her chest. She shakes it off by vamping out and tearing into the blood bag with her fangs. She drinks, hungrily; wishing, among other things, that the blood were warm.
They cross the border into Arkansas.
**************
Just outside of Little Rock, William looks down at the dashboard and curses under his breath. Anne looks up from the copy of "Lonesome Dove" she has propped against her knee and glances over. "I thought you said you filled it up," she says when she sees that the gas indicator line is wavering dangerously close to empty.
"Forgot," he growls, but it's a half-hearted growl, bordering on a sigh. He turns off at the next exit, pulling into a Mobil station that sits looking lonesome across the street from a dark, nondescript building, identifiable as a bar only by the neon beer signs alighting its windows.
Anne's eyes light up when she sees it. "Oooh! Maybe they have fries."
Zoe is about to say something withering, like "And you think *I* have gross eating habits," but before she has a chance, her father betrays her by chiming in with, "Will you get me some chicken wings, luv?"
Anne nods. "Zoe, do you want to come with me, or stay here with your dad?" she asks.
"Hmm, noxious gas fumes or a chance to see someone else besides you two for once. Tough choice." She unbuckles her seatbelt, letting it slide back against the door with a clang, and gets out of the car. She starts across the street, not waiting for William and Anne to finish exchanging their "parental look."
Anne catches up to her at the bar door. "Don't go running off like that," she chides. "This place could be dangerous."
"*I'm* dangerous," Zoe mutters, but Anne doesn't hear because at that moment, the sounds of the bar overwhelm them. A jukebox is playing a song with a heavy bass beat that Zoe doesn't recognize, and in one corner, two men are having a loud, expletive-filled argument while a bored looking woman in a black strappy dress looks on. Zoe's stomach twists: these are just the type of men that used to make her cross the street when she saw them coming. Part of her still wants to cling tightly to her mother's arm. But Anne strides confidently up to the bar to order their food, and Zoe reminds herself that she could kill any one of these men before he had a chance to scream.
Her stomach rumbles at the thought, and she has to also remind herself that she just ate.
Meaty fingers tighten around her arm, and she finds herself staring into someone's toothy grin. "What's a pretty little thing like you doing here?" someone asks. His breath reeks of alcohol, and Zoe jerks her arm away. "Did you run away from home?"
*Yes*, she thinks, but she doesn't say anything. She walks to the bar and stands next to her mother. I want to leave, she thinks, but she doesn't say that, either.
"Hey, I was talking to you!" a drunk voice shouts, and fingers are tightening around her arm once again.
Her mother whirls around. "Let go of her. Now."
A meaty hand, twin to the one holding her, smacks Anne across the face. And before Zoe can even register what she's doing, its owner has been pushed up against the bar, both offending hands gripped firmly in her own.
"She said...let go," Zoe hisses, the words slurred against her elongated teeth. The man emits a high-pitched scream, and Zoe feels a tingle of pleasure rush up her spine. She squeezes, and she feels bones crunch. The man screams again.
"Zoe," Anne, holding her bruised cheek, warns.
"It's fine, Mom." Zoe's yellow eyes flash. "I've got it under control." She removed one hand from the man's twisted and bloodied fingers and grips his neck, jerking him forward, her gaze locked on his jugular.
"Zoe, stop!" Anne attempts to pull her away, but Zoe brushes her off like a fly.
"It's okay, Mom," she says, "he deserves it." She pushes his head back, and locks her mouth around his throat. He tastes like dirt and sweat, but her teeth to his vein are a perfect fit, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Hot blood rushes down her throat.
Then leather-clad arms are wrapped around her back, pulling her away. She fights against them, hissing like an animal when she finds they are too strong for her. The arms hold her tightly until she stops struggling. "Take control, Zoe," a calm voice says. "You're stronger than this."
And then everything stills. The bar's patrons all stare at her, their beer forgotten. The bartender stands frozen, holding a greasy take-out bag in his hand. In the corner, the woman in the black strappy dress is sandwiched between the two formerly fighting men, her face buried on one of their shoulders, her hand feeling desperately for the other man's grasp. And on the floor, a man holds his bloody fingers to the bloody hole in his neck and looks at her like she's a monster.
Zoe looks up at her parent's grave expressions and bursts into tears.
William pulls his daughter against his chest and holds her while she sobs. "It's all right, you stopped," he says. Her hands tighten around his shirt. "Come on, let's get out of here." He starts leading her towards the door, pausing only to snatch the bag of food from the bartender's hand.
Anne pulls a twenty out of her wallet and sets it on the bar, then quickly follows them. "Sorry," she says, and the door slams shut.
*************
They make her eat. They force french fries and spicy chicken wings down her throat, and then, with enthusiasm-cloaked desperation, offer her a stick of gum. "Would you like me to tell you a story?" William asks, chewing wildly on his piece of Juicy Fruit. Zoe, slumped against the backseat, shakes her head. No. She doesn't want to hear a story. She doesn't want anything at all.
The car succumbs to silence.
*************
William leans against the hotel room wall, holding Anne in his arms. A few rays of sunlight drift through the tightly closed curtains, but they drown in the darkness of the room. They watch their daughter sleep: a stiff, unmoving lump on the bed - a corpse. "We're losing her," Anne whispers. And they both know it's true.
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TBC