The Evil That Men Do
Author: MeB (aka XanWill4Ever-Michael B)
Email: lenoxfiles@hotmail.com
Spoiler: Majority takes place in the summer after the First Season. There are scenes that takes place some time after Lovers Walk from Season 3. There may be some slight AU, but not much.
Summary: Willow loses her memory and finds help from a private investigator in Boston.
Disclaimer: The characters from Spenser For Hire belong to Robert Parker. All characters from Buffy tVS belong to Joss.
Rating - R xwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxw
2
SUNNYDALE
Xander had spent the better part of the day getting nowhere fast. The receptionist that he had spoken with on the phone was the same receptionist that he met in the lobby of the computer camp. She told him once again that Willow Rosenberg had left the campsite with her parents. A camp counselor by the name of Sheldon Sunter confirmed this and firmly, but politely asked Xander to leave.
Xander had tried to look around the camp grounds but as he was not a member, he was politely asked again to leave the premises. It was close to five p.m. when he finally sat down on a bench in defeat just outside the computer camp grounds. He put his elbows on his knees and he put his face in his hands.
He was worried about Willow.
Something was wrong.
He didn't know why he knew that something was terribly wrong. He just did. It made him angry and frustrated. It also made him rely on things that he thought he would never have to rely on.
Like Angel.
He let out a weary sigh. Xander would have never thought that he would see the day when he wished the sun would go down so Angel could arrive to save the day.
"Xander!"
Xander sighed a heavy sigh of relief as he turned his head to see who had called him. "Willow, I..." he stopped.
It wasn't Willow.
It was Sylvia Landry, one of Willow's computer buddies.
"Oh...hi, Silver," Xander greeted.
Sylvia pushed her glasses back up her nose with her finger as she approached Xander. There was a time when she had let only one person call her by that name. That had been Joshua MacDonald, her boyfriend. Since his untimely death during the school year, all of her friends had begun to call her "Silver" and since she found it comforting, she didn't tell them to stop. In some ways, it made her feel close to Joshua. After all, it was Joshua whom had given her the name and so it was only reasonable that she start using it as a name.
Sylvia sat next to Xander and she looked at him sadly. Without knowing that she was doing it, she moved a strand of her dark black hair and tucked it behind her ear. "Hi," she said softly.
"Hey, how are you?" Xander regarded her with concern. "Are you doing all right?"
Sylvia shrugged her shoulders. "I...I'm doing all right, I guess. Thank you for asking." She hesitated, "Are you here looking for Willow?"
He nodded his head. "As a matter of fact, I am. Have you seen her?"
She shook her head. "Not for three days, Xander."
"The people I've talked to here..." He shook his head. "They're not being very helpful, you know? They told me that Willow has left and gone home early."
Sylvia looked at him. "Did Willow go home?"
He let out a weary sigh and the worry he had been feeling for Willow began to show on his face. He shook his head. "No, Silver. I've been to her house, and she's not there. Her parents have not come up here to take Willow home."
"This...this is bad, isn't it?" Sylvia regarded Xander. She looked like she wanted to tell him something, but was afraid to.
Xander looked at her. "What is it, Silver?"
"I..." she stopped. She took a deep breath and tried again. "Th-there's another girl at camp who we thought had gone home, too."
"Another girl? Who?"
"Kali. She shared a room with another girl across the hall from us. From me and Willow."
Xander didn't like the sound of this. "Kali is missing, too? She and Willow are both gone?" He didn't know who this Kali was, but two girls missing from the same camp at the same time was setting off alarms in his head. "Silver, when was the last time you saw Willow?"
Sylvia paused in thought. "We...we went swimming on Monday, Xander. Willow seemed tired and-and she went to her room early. I think Kali went to her room, too. She said she hadn't been feeling good." She looked at Xander with worry in her eyes. "My God, Xander! Willow was my roommate. If something happened to her--"
"We don't know that anything did happen," Xander replied lamely, attempting to reassure her.
"I stayed and I swam with my friends. B-by the time I got to our room, she was gone! I should have went with her!"
"Take it easy, Silver. I'm not blaming you and don't you blame yourself either." He put his hands on her shoulders. "We have to think this through. When Willow got to your room, something must have happened. She had to have gone somewhere from there...but where?"
Sylvia thought hard about what had happened. "Counselor Sunter told me that she went to the doctor's office feeling ill. I-I went to check on her, but she wasn't there." She frowned. "Xander, the doctor wasn't there either." She remembered something else. "Come to think of it, the Director of the campgrounds mentioned something about the doctor during assembly Wednesday morning. He said that someone was coming to replace the doctor."
Xander frowned as he puzzled over what he had just heard. "This doctor left...Willow and Kali are missing...What the hell is going on?"
Sylvia looked at him with concern. "You...you think something happened to them? T-to Willow?"
He hesitated, "It's beginning to look that way to me." He paused. "Who was this doctor? Why did he leave?"
Sylvia shrugged. "It's not a 'he' but a 'she'. Her name is S'ushi Alyssia...and I don't know why she left."
Xander couldn't help it. He began to chuckle. "Wait a minute. This doctor is a woman...and she's named after raw fish?"
"It's Sue-shy, Xander. Not Sue-she."
"Okay. I gotcha. But...this woman...this doctor...She left and Willow is missing."
"Kali, too." Sylvia frowned. "Do you think Dr. Alyssia had something to do with their disappearance?"
"I...I just don't know." And I can't do anything until backup arrives anyway, he thought in frustration.
"Xander...what should I do? I-I only came here because of Willow." Her lower lip began to tremble, and her eyes began to blur with tears. "S- she's helped me so much and...and I've been so selfish."
Xander got a little choked up in spite of himself. He remembered that when Joshua was alive, Sylvia was a spitfire who didn't take any trash from anybody. She walked tall and carried a big imaginative stick. But ever since Joshua's death, everything had changed. She just wasn't the same, and Xander's heart went out to her.
Xander shook his head. "You haven't been selfish, Silver. You have a right to grieve."
"But doesn't Willow have time to grieve? J-Joshua was her friend, too...I- I only dated him. Willow was the one who found him, Xander, and was I there for her? No! And now Willow's missing!" Her eyes suddenly widened in fear. "Oh, God...What if the Brotherhood took--"
Xander shook her shoulders gently and made her look at him. "Silver, stop! The Brotherhood did not take Willow again, and they're not going to either." Inwardly, he hoped that was the truth he was telling, because, unfortunately, the Brotherhood simply seemed to have vanished after he, Buffy, and Giles had saved Willow from a fate worst than death at the hands of that macabre cult. He didn't know where they had disappeared to, nor did he know if they would ever resurface. He could only hope they didn't. "Look, this is different. It's not about them. Silver...maybe it would be better for you if you just went home."
Sylvia frowned. Then she nodded as she wiped at her eyes. "Well...I-I am going home."
As if on que, a car pulled up with Sylvia's parents in the front seat. Sylvia gave Xander a hug and whispered, "Please find Willow."
Xander returned the hug. "I will. I promise."
He sat back on the bench and watched Sylvia leave with her parents and then he wondered just how in the hell was he going to find Willow. What could have happened to her? Why was he being told that Willow went home with her parents when her own parents told him that she was still at camp? Did this fishy doctor have anything to do with Willow's disappearance or Kali's, or did the doctor lady disappear, too?
Xander looked up.
He was actually relieved to see that the sun was going down.
"Imagine that," he said sarcastically to himself. "I'm actually liking the night."
He decided that there was only one thing he could do and that was to wait for Angel to arrive. He suddenly closed his eyes and he cursed. He realized to his own dismay that in his rush to get here himself, he had neglected to tell Angel how to get to the camp.
"Things cannot possibly get any worst than this!" he exclaimed to himself.
He was wrong. _____________________________________________________
BOSTON
The rain was pouring down hard as the two men stood within the foyer of the crack house. The crack house was centered between the Wharf and what was commonly known as the Combat Zone. The two men were sharing a smoke and they were looking forlornly out the window as the rain continued to fall without any signs of stopping. Both men were anxious, but only one of them managed to cover his anxiety quite well.
That man went by the name of Billiard.
Billiard was a tall, muscular black man with a bald head and an expression that was as serious as death. That is the way his expression always looked. It was also why he was called Billiard, because even when he played pool, his face was still an expression of seriousness.
His friend was called Snake-Eyes but that was because of the little mans oddly small head, pale face, and his beady little eyes. His eyes were literally like two dots on the roll of a dice. Snake-Eyes was pacing nervously in place, making him look like a kid who really couldn't hold it much longer, and he kept throwing glances to the front door and then his eyes shifted in the direction of the hall.
Billiard knew what Snake-Eyes was thinking.
And he didn't like it.
"That way leads to a horrible death, Snake-Eyes." The big man shook his head. "You don't want to go there."
Snake-Eyes looked at him, but his shifty eyes couldn't make eye contact. "What are you, man? Brain dead or somethin'? Did you see that girl?"
"Do you know Dr. Alyssia?" He leaned closer. "I mean...really know Dr. Alyssia."
Snake-Eyes hesitated, "Uh...y-yeah, man. Shiiit! Yeah, I know her. She's one crazy-ass bitch!"
"She'll kill you if you touch what belongs to her."
Snake-Eyes scowled. "Damn! Shi-i-it! Man!" He threw his arms up in frustration. "Sh-she won't know a thin', man! See...this girl was here since yesterday mornin', man. How she gonna know?"
Billiard suddenly looked at the little man with suspicion. "Snake- Eyes...did you go and so something stupid?"
"Hey! No, man!" Snake-Eyes waved his hands in defense and took a step back. "See...I...well, you know how it is, man." He chuckled nervously.
"What did you do?" Billiard asked again.
"Nothin', man. I swear it!" He flinched under Billiard's glare. "Look, man. I just pinched and poked the girl a little, that's all, man. I swear, I--"
Billiard grabbed Snake-Eyes by the throat and slammed him hard against the wall. "Don't be a damned fool!" he hissed. "You'd be lucky if she ordered me to kill you, Snake-Eyes. If I don't kill you, it'll be worst than you can possibly imagine. Keep away from that girl. She doesn't belong to you."
Billiard released him and stepped back.
Snake-Eyes tried to catch his breath and he held up a shaking hand at a feeble attempt to keep the big guy away. "Hey, man...I-I won't touch her. I swear it, man."
Billiard's cell phone rang. He pulled it out and growled out a greeting. He listened. Then he closed the phone and put it away. He turned to glare at Snake-Eyes. "I have business to attend to," he said to the weasel slowly. "You best not go down to the basement, Snake-Eyes. If you go down there, I'll know."
Snake-Eyes nodded quickly. "Hey, man...I'm just curious..." He took a step toward Billiard. "Wh-what is the girl's name?"
Billiard frowned at him. "When they pass through here, they don't have names. You know that."
"But...i-isn't this one special?"
Billiard paused in thought. "Yeah. This one is special." He thought about his conversation with Dr. Alyssia on the phone just before the girl's arrival. S'ushi Alyssia did have a warped sense of humor. "You know, Dr. Alyssia didn't tell me the girl's name. But she did tell me that she was named after a tree."
Snake-Eyes looked puzzled. "Huh?" He thought about it. "The girl's name is Pine?"
"I gotta go." Billiard pointed meaningfully at the little man. "Don't touch her."
Snake-Eyes nodded. Then he watched him leave. When he was finally left alone, an evil leer appeared on his face. He turned, rubbed his hands together and he headed purposefully for the door at the end of the hall. It led directly to the basement.
On the way to that door, he passed the open doorway which led into the living room. A crack head who fell asleep, dropped an open, burning lighter onto the floor. He had been about to light one up for himself when he decided to take a trip to dreamland instead. The lighter hit the floor and made contact to the carpet.
The material began to burst into flames and the flames began to spread.
The flame touched the curtains on the window and quickly shot up to the ceiling. As the fire continued to burn, it would eventually destroy a terrible place and yet it would ultimately save the life of one young girl who was named after a tree.
That girl was in the basement of the crack house. She was lying on a cot with nothing on but a long sleeve shirt that stretched to her knees. Her wrists were bound to a metal frame at the head of the cot and the restraints were designed for the purpose of restraining without leaving marks. The same type of restraints were also bound around her ankles.
Even without the restraints, the poor girl could not possibly put up any type of resistance. The drugs in her system had her in and out of consciousness. At times she was aware of her surroundings, but most of the time, she was disoriented and confused. But in her current condition, she was barely aware of what was happening around her. She knew that someone was there with her, but she didn't know who it was. She couldn't move, and she couldn't understand why. She couldn't open her eyes. She felt like she was floating, and then falling. She wanted it to stop, then she wanted it to go on...like a roller coaster ride out in deep space.
Snake-Eyes sat on the edge of the cot and he put his hand on the girl's leg.
"Hey, Little Tree," he greeted with a leer. "This is your lucky day." He laughed. "Mine, too, sugar! And you know what? You won't even know what it is that's happenin' to you, baby."
He slowly moved his hand to her knee and he touched the soft fabric of the girl's shirt. "Just re--"
A blood-curdling scream sounded from directly above and it stopped him cold.
"What the hell, man?!" he shouted angrily.
Snake-Eyes reluctantly left the girl alone and he stormed up the stairs. He flung open the door, and he stepped out into the hall. And he stared into the living room in horror as flames reached out into the hallway.
Snake-Eyes prided himself as a survivor. He thought of himself as a tough, street-smart hood who knew how to handle himself quite well in any given situation. He saw the flames, he saw the writhing dope-head on the floor covered in flames, and so he survived.
He ran out through the front door and he never looked back.
The flames was like an entity of its own. It went through the house rapidly, devouring everything in its path. The door to the basement had been left open and so the flames reached hungrily for the basement. By the time the stairs were engulfed by flames, and as the basement began to fill with smoke, firemen arrived on the scene.
Two firemen doing their jobs were heading for the basement. They were just doing their jobs, and part of that job was to look for anyone who could possibly still be alive and get them out. It was that simple. Or it should have been. Never in all of their years as firemen had they ever expected to find an unconscious girl tied to a cot in the basement of a burning building. They immediately took to rescuing the girl and they managed to get her out of the burning crack house. Moments later, she was on a stretcher and in the back of an ambulance. The Paramedics began to work on her but at least they knew that the girl was out of immediate danger.
Still, there had to be answers to what happened here, so one of them had placed a call. Less than ten minutes later, an unmarked police car pulled up beside the ambulance and two men climbed out. They both hurried to the back of the ambulance and climbed in to get out of the rain.
Lieutenant Martin Quirk looked down at the girl on the stretcher grimly. The man who had entered the ambulance with him, Sergeant Frank Belsen, cursed under his breath.
"Ah, Jesus, Lieutenant," he growled. "She's just a kid!"
"How is she?" Quirk asked the Paramedic.
The man let out a sigh. "She's stable for now. A couple of firemen pulled her out of the blaze, but...uhm...it was how they found her that was disturbing."
Quirk pursed his lips. He did that to keep a tight reign on his anger. "She was restrained to a cot."
The man looked at him, puzzled. "Yes. That's right. How did you know?"
"Open your friggin' eyes, Mac!" Belsen exclaimed. "Yer smack dab in the middle of the Combat Zone and the Wharf, for crissakes! This isn't exactly where a pretty little girl would want to be found in of her own free will! Trust me."
The Paramedic looked at Belsen. "Well, how do you suppose she got here?"
Quirk shook his head and cut Belsen off. "Who can say? She could be a run- a-way. She could have been kidnapped from her home or from a public place. Her being here in the first place is bad news." He looked at Belsen. "She got lucky. This time tomorrow, she could have been out to sea."
"Out to sea?!" the Paramedic exclaimed, appalled. "But...why would someone want to drown this poor kid?"
"Not drown. That would be a kinder fate."
Belsen looked at the man. "White Slavery."
The Paramedic looked at him. He was trying to comprehend what he had just heard. "What?" He stumbled over his thoughts. "Are you telling me that this girl was going to be sold?"
Quirk would have responded, but the girl suddenly opened her eyes, and weakly, she called out, "Kali! Kali! N-no...no...Kali..."
She tried to look around, but her new surroundings were just too unfamiliar to her. Everything was confusing to her.
Quirk looked at her sadly. He wondered if she was reliving some dreadful memory of her captivity. He watched as she struggled to keep her eyes open, but she lost the fight and her eyes closed.
"I wonder who Kali is," Quirk said softly. "Frank, I'm going to ride with the ambulance to the hospital. Take my car." He handed him the keys. "I want two uniforms to meet me at the hospital. Someone is losing money tonight and I'm betting that whoever it is will be looking for this girl. I want her protected."
Belsen nodded solemnly. "Right. I got it covered."
"If you happen to see either Hawk or Spenser...let them know that I'm looking for them."
Belsen nodded again. He took one last look at the girl, then he went back out into the rain. Once he was in Quirk's car, he started it up and drove away.
The ambulance drove off as well with its sirens blaring loudly to clear a path. Quirk found himself looking at the girl and he wondered who she was. At that moment, she opened her eyes again and her eyes met his.
"You're going to be all right," he said gently, wondering if the girl even understood him or believed him.
She didn't respond. She just looked at him.
"You're safe now." He didn't realize that he was doing it, but he had his hand open and toward her in a non-threatening gesture.
She reached up for his hand and she grabbed it. Then she closed her eyes again. She didn't let go of his hand until they arrived at the hospital to wheel her into the ER.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TO BE CONTINUED--
Author: MeB (aka XanWill4Ever-Michael B)
Email: lenoxfiles@hotmail.com
Spoiler: Majority takes place in the summer after the First Season. There are scenes that takes place some time after Lovers Walk from Season 3. There may be some slight AU, but not much.
Summary: Willow loses her memory and finds help from a private investigator in Boston.
Disclaimer: The characters from Spenser For Hire belong to Robert Parker. All characters from Buffy tVS belong to Joss.
Rating - R xwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxw
2
SUNNYDALE
Xander had spent the better part of the day getting nowhere fast. The receptionist that he had spoken with on the phone was the same receptionist that he met in the lobby of the computer camp. She told him once again that Willow Rosenberg had left the campsite with her parents. A camp counselor by the name of Sheldon Sunter confirmed this and firmly, but politely asked Xander to leave.
Xander had tried to look around the camp grounds but as he was not a member, he was politely asked again to leave the premises. It was close to five p.m. when he finally sat down on a bench in defeat just outside the computer camp grounds. He put his elbows on his knees and he put his face in his hands.
He was worried about Willow.
Something was wrong.
He didn't know why he knew that something was terribly wrong. He just did. It made him angry and frustrated. It also made him rely on things that he thought he would never have to rely on.
Like Angel.
He let out a weary sigh. Xander would have never thought that he would see the day when he wished the sun would go down so Angel could arrive to save the day.
"Xander!"
Xander sighed a heavy sigh of relief as he turned his head to see who had called him. "Willow, I..." he stopped.
It wasn't Willow.
It was Sylvia Landry, one of Willow's computer buddies.
"Oh...hi, Silver," Xander greeted.
Sylvia pushed her glasses back up her nose with her finger as she approached Xander. There was a time when she had let only one person call her by that name. That had been Joshua MacDonald, her boyfriend. Since his untimely death during the school year, all of her friends had begun to call her "Silver" and since she found it comforting, she didn't tell them to stop. In some ways, it made her feel close to Joshua. After all, it was Joshua whom had given her the name and so it was only reasonable that she start using it as a name.
Sylvia sat next to Xander and she looked at him sadly. Without knowing that she was doing it, she moved a strand of her dark black hair and tucked it behind her ear. "Hi," she said softly.
"Hey, how are you?" Xander regarded her with concern. "Are you doing all right?"
Sylvia shrugged her shoulders. "I...I'm doing all right, I guess. Thank you for asking." She hesitated, "Are you here looking for Willow?"
He nodded his head. "As a matter of fact, I am. Have you seen her?"
She shook her head. "Not for three days, Xander."
"The people I've talked to here..." He shook his head. "They're not being very helpful, you know? They told me that Willow has left and gone home early."
Sylvia looked at him. "Did Willow go home?"
He let out a weary sigh and the worry he had been feeling for Willow began to show on his face. He shook his head. "No, Silver. I've been to her house, and she's not there. Her parents have not come up here to take Willow home."
"This...this is bad, isn't it?" Sylvia regarded Xander. She looked like she wanted to tell him something, but was afraid to.
Xander looked at her. "What is it, Silver?"
"I..." she stopped. She took a deep breath and tried again. "Th-there's another girl at camp who we thought had gone home, too."
"Another girl? Who?"
"Kali. She shared a room with another girl across the hall from us. From me and Willow."
Xander didn't like the sound of this. "Kali is missing, too? She and Willow are both gone?" He didn't know who this Kali was, but two girls missing from the same camp at the same time was setting off alarms in his head. "Silver, when was the last time you saw Willow?"
Sylvia paused in thought. "We...we went swimming on Monday, Xander. Willow seemed tired and-and she went to her room early. I think Kali went to her room, too. She said she hadn't been feeling good." She looked at Xander with worry in her eyes. "My God, Xander! Willow was my roommate. If something happened to her--"
"We don't know that anything did happen," Xander replied lamely, attempting to reassure her.
"I stayed and I swam with my friends. B-by the time I got to our room, she was gone! I should have went with her!"
"Take it easy, Silver. I'm not blaming you and don't you blame yourself either." He put his hands on her shoulders. "We have to think this through. When Willow got to your room, something must have happened. She had to have gone somewhere from there...but where?"
Sylvia thought hard about what had happened. "Counselor Sunter told me that she went to the doctor's office feeling ill. I-I went to check on her, but she wasn't there." She frowned. "Xander, the doctor wasn't there either." She remembered something else. "Come to think of it, the Director of the campgrounds mentioned something about the doctor during assembly Wednesday morning. He said that someone was coming to replace the doctor."
Xander frowned as he puzzled over what he had just heard. "This doctor left...Willow and Kali are missing...What the hell is going on?"
Sylvia looked at him with concern. "You...you think something happened to them? T-to Willow?"
He hesitated, "It's beginning to look that way to me." He paused. "Who was this doctor? Why did he leave?"
Sylvia shrugged. "It's not a 'he' but a 'she'. Her name is S'ushi Alyssia...and I don't know why she left."
Xander couldn't help it. He began to chuckle. "Wait a minute. This doctor is a woman...and she's named after raw fish?"
"It's Sue-shy, Xander. Not Sue-she."
"Okay. I gotcha. But...this woman...this doctor...She left and Willow is missing."
"Kali, too." Sylvia frowned. "Do you think Dr. Alyssia had something to do with their disappearance?"
"I...I just don't know." And I can't do anything until backup arrives anyway, he thought in frustration.
"Xander...what should I do? I-I only came here because of Willow." Her lower lip began to tremble, and her eyes began to blur with tears. "S- she's helped me so much and...and I've been so selfish."
Xander got a little choked up in spite of himself. He remembered that when Joshua was alive, Sylvia was a spitfire who didn't take any trash from anybody. She walked tall and carried a big imaginative stick. But ever since Joshua's death, everything had changed. She just wasn't the same, and Xander's heart went out to her.
Xander shook his head. "You haven't been selfish, Silver. You have a right to grieve."
"But doesn't Willow have time to grieve? J-Joshua was her friend, too...I- I only dated him. Willow was the one who found him, Xander, and was I there for her? No! And now Willow's missing!" Her eyes suddenly widened in fear. "Oh, God...What if the Brotherhood took--"
Xander shook her shoulders gently and made her look at him. "Silver, stop! The Brotherhood did not take Willow again, and they're not going to either." Inwardly, he hoped that was the truth he was telling, because, unfortunately, the Brotherhood simply seemed to have vanished after he, Buffy, and Giles had saved Willow from a fate worst than death at the hands of that macabre cult. He didn't know where they had disappeared to, nor did he know if they would ever resurface. He could only hope they didn't. "Look, this is different. It's not about them. Silver...maybe it would be better for you if you just went home."
Sylvia frowned. Then she nodded as she wiped at her eyes. "Well...I-I am going home."
As if on que, a car pulled up with Sylvia's parents in the front seat. Sylvia gave Xander a hug and whispered, "Please find Willow."
Xander returned the hug. "I will. I promise."
He sat back on the bench and watched Sylvia leave with her parents and then he wondered just how in the hell was he going to find Willow. What could have happened to her? Why was he being told that Willow went home with her parents when her own parents told him that she was still at camp? Did this fishy doctor have anything to do with Willow's disappearance or Kali's, or did the doctor lady disappear, too?
Xander looked up.
He was actually relieved to see that the sun was going down.
"Imagine that," he said sarcastically to himself. "I'm actually liking the night."
He decided that there was only one thing he could do and that was to wait for Angel to arrive. He suddenly closed his eyes and he cursed. He realized to his own dismay that in his rush to get here himself, he had neglected to tell Angel how to get to the camp.
"Things cannot possibly get any worst than this!" he exclaimed to himself.
He was wrong. _____________________________________________________
BOSTON
The rain was pouring down hard as the two men stood within the foyer of the crack house. The crack house was centered between the Wharf and what was commonly known as the Combat Zone. The two men were sharing a smoke and they were looking forlornly out the window as the rain continued to fall without any signs of stopping. Both men were anxious, but only one of them managed to cover his anxiety quite well.
That man went by the name of Billiard.
Billiard was a tall, muscular black man with a bald head and an expression that was as serious as death. That is the way his expression always looked. It was also why he was called Billiard, because even when he played pool, his face was still an expression of seriousness.
His friend was called Snake-Eyes but that was because of the little mans oddly small head, pale face, and his beady little eyes. His eyes were literally like two dots on the roll of a dice. Snake-Eyes was pacing nervously in place, making him look like a kid who really couldn't hold it much longer, and he kept throwing glances to the front door and then his eyes shifted in the direction of the hall.
Billiard knew what Snake-Eyes was thinking.
And he didn't like it.
"That way leads to a horrible death, Snake-Eyes." The big man shook his head. "You don't want to go there."
Snake-Eyes looked at him, but his shifty eyes couldn't make eye contact. "What are you, man? Brain dead or somethin'? Did you see that girl?"
"Do you know Dr. Alyssia?" He leaned closer. "I mean...really know Dr. Alyssia."
Snake-Eyes hesitated, "Uh...y-yeah, man. Shiiit! Yeah, I know her. She's one crazy-ass bitch!"
"She'll kill you if you touch what belongs to her."
Snake-Eyes scowled. "Damn! Shi-i-it! Man!" He threw his arms up in frustration. "Sh-she won't know a thin', man! See...this girl was here since yesterday mornin', man. How she gonna know?"
Billiard suddenly looked at the little man with suspicion. "Snake- Eyes...did you go and so something stupid?"
"Hey! No, man!" Snake-Eyes waved his hands in defense and took a step back. "See...I...well, you know how it is, man." He chuckled nervously.
"What did you do?" Billiard asked again.
"Nothin', man. I swear it!" He flinched under Billiard's glare. "Look, man. I just pinched and poked the girl a little, that's all, man. I swear, I--"
Billiard grabbed Snake-Eyes by the throat and slammed him hard against the wall. "Don't be a damned fool!" he hissed. "You'd be lucky if she ordered me to kill you, Snake-Eyes. If I don't kill you, it'll be worst than you can possibly imagine. Keep away from that girl. She doesn't belong to you."
Billiard released him and stepped back.
Snake-Eyes tried to catch his breath and he held up a shaking hand at a feeble attempt to keep the big guy away. "Hey, man...I-I won't touch her. I swear it, man."
Billiard's cell phone rang. He pulled it out and growled out a greeting. He listened. Then he closed the phone and put it away. He turned to glare at Snake-Eyes. "I have business to attend to," he said to the weasel slowly. "You best not go down to the basement, Snake-Eyes. If you go down there, I'll know."
Snake-Eyes nodded quickly. "Hey, man...I'm just curious..." He took a step toward Billiard. "Wh-what is the girl's name?"
Billiard frowned at him. "When they pass through here, they don't have names. You know that."
"But...i-isn't this one special?"
Billiard paused in thought. "Yeah. This one is special." He thought about his conversation with Dr. Alyssia on the phone just before the girl's arrival. S'ushi Alyssia did have a warped sense of humor. "You know, Dr. Alyssia didn't tell me the girl's name. But she did tell me that she was named after a tree."
Snake-Eyes looked puzzled. "Huh?" He thought about it. "The girl's name is Pine?"
"I gotta go." Billiard pointed meaningfully at the little man. "Don't touch her."
Snake-Eyes nodded. Then he watched him leave. When he was finally left alone, an evil leer appeared on his face. He turned, rubbed his hands together and he headed purposefully for the door at the end of the hall. It led directly to the basement.
On the way to that door, he passed the open doorway which led into the living room. A crack head who fell asleep, dropped an open, burning lighter onto the floor. He had been about to light one up for himself when he decided to take a trip to dreamland instead. The lighter hit the floor and made contact to the carpet.
The material began to burst into flames and the flames began to spread.
The flame touched the curtains on the window and quickly shot up to the ceiling. As the fire continued to burn, it would eventually destroy a terrible place and yet it would ultimately save the life of one young girl who was named after a tree.
That girl was in the basement of the crack house. She was lying on a cot with nothing on but a long sleeve shirt that stretched to her knees. Her wrists were bound to a metal frame at the head of the cot and the restraints were designed for the purpose of restraining without leaving marks. The same type of restraints were also bound around her ankles.
Even without the restraints, the poor girl could not possibly put up any type of resistance. The drugs in her system had her in and out of consciousness. At times she was aware of her surroundings, but most of the time, she was disoriented and confused. But in her current condition, she was barely aware of what was happening around her. She knew that someone was there with her, but she didn't know who it was. She couldn't move, and she couldn't understand why. She couldn't open her eyes. She felt like she was floating, and then falling. She wanted it to stop, then she wanted it to go on...like a roller coaster ride out in deep space.
Snake-Eyes sat on the edge of the cot and he put his hand on the girl's leg.
"Hey, Little Tree," he greeted with a leer. "This is your lucky day." He laughed. "Mine, too, sugar! And you know what? You won't even know what it is that's happenin' to you, baby."
He slowly moved his hand to her knee and he touched the soft fabric of the girl's shirt. "Just re--"
A blood-curdling scream sounded from directly above and it stopped him cold.
"What the hell, man?!" he shouted angrily.
Snake-Eyes reluctantly left the girl alone and he stormed up the stairs. He flung open the door, and he stepped out into the hall. And he stared into the living room in horror as flames reached out into the hallway.
Snake-Eyes prided himself as a survivor. He thought of himself as a tough, street-smart hood who knew how to handle himself quite well in any given situation. He saw the flames, he saw the writhing dope-head on the floor covered in flames, and so he survived.
He ran out through the front door and he never looked back.
The flames was like an entity of its own. It went through the house rapidly, devouring everything in its path. The door to the basement had been left open and so the flames reached hungrily for the basement. By the time the stairs were engulfed by flames, and as the basement began to fill with smoke, firemen arrived on the scene.
Two firemen doing their jobs were heading for the basement. They were just doing their jobs, and part of that job was to look for anyone who could possibly still be alive and get them out. It was that simple. Or it should have been. Never in all of their years as firemen had they ever expected to find an unconscious girl tied to a cot in the basement of a burning building. They immediately took to rescuing the girl and they managed to get her out of the burning crack house. Moments later, she was on a stretcher and in the back of an ambulance. The Paramedics began to work on her but at least they knew that the girl was out of immediate danger.
Still, there had to be answers to what happened here, so one of them had placed a call. Less than ten minutes later, an unmarked police car pulled up beside the ambulance and two men climbed out. They both hurried to the back of the ambulance and climbed in to get out of the rain.
Lieutenant Martin Quirk looked down at the girl on the stretcher grimly. The man who had entered the ambulance with him, Sergeant Frank Belsen, cursed under his breath.
"Ah, Jesus, Lieutenant," he growled. "She's just a kid!"
"How is she?" Quirk asked the Paramedic.
The man let out a sigh. "She's stable for now. A couple of firemen pulled her out of the blaze, but...uhm...it was how they found her that was disturbing."
Quirk pursed his lips. He did that to keep a tight reign on his anger. "She was restrained to a cot."
The man looked at him, puzzled. "Yes. That's right. How did you know?"
"Open your friggin' eyes, Mac!" Belsen exclaimed. "Yer smack dab in the middle of the Combat Zone and the Wharf, for crissakes! This isn't exactly where a pretty little girl would want to be found in of her own free will! Trust me."
The Paramedic looked at Belsen. "Well, how do you suppose she got here?"
Quirk shook his head and cut Belsen off. "Who can say? She could be a run- a-way. She could have been kidnapped from her home or from a public place. Her being here in the first place is bad news." He looked at Belsen. "She got lucky. This time tomorrow, she could have been out to sea."
"Out to sea?!" the Paramedic exclaimed, appalled. "But...why would someone want to drown this poor kid?"
"Not drown. That would be a kinder fate."
Belsen looked at the man. "White Slavery."
The Paramedic looked at him. He was trying to comprehend what he had just heard. "What?" He stumbled over his thoughts. "Are you telling me that this girl was going to be sold?"
Quirk would have responded, but the girl suddenly opened her eyes, and weakly, she called out, "Kali! Kali! N-no...no...Kali..."
She tried to look around, but her new surroundings were just too unfamiliar to her. Everything was confusing to her.
Quirk looked at her sadly. He wondered if she was reliving some dreadful memory of her captivity. He watched as she struggled to keep her eyes open, but she lost the fight and her eyes closed.
"I wonder who Kali is," Quirk said softly. "Frank, I'm going to ride with the ambulance to the hospital. Take my car." He handed him the keys. "I want two uniforms to meet me at the hospital. Someone is losing money tonight and I'm betting that whoever it is will be looking for this girl. I want her protected."
Belsen nodded solemnly. "Right. I got it covered."
"If you happen to see either Hawk or Spenser...let them know that I'm looking for them."
Belsen nodded again. He took one last look at the girl, then he went back out into the rain. Once he was in Quirk's car, he started it up and drove away.
The ambulance drove off as well with its sirens blaring loudly to clear a path. Quirk found himself looking at the girl and he wondered who she was. At that moment, she opened her eyes again and her eyes met his.
"You're going to be all right," he said gently, wondering if the girl even understood him or believed him.
She didn't respond. She just looked at him.
"You're safe now." He didn't realize that he was doing it, but he had his hand open and toward her in a non-threatening gesture.
She reached up for his hand and she grabbed it. Then she closed her eyes again. She didn't let go of his hand until they arrived at the hospital to wheel her into the ER.
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TO BE CONTINUED--