Willow hung up the phone and turned to Buffy. "I'm worried, Buffy Cat hasn't been answering the phone, she hasn't been to class. It is like she just..." Willow trailed off not sure if she dare say the word disappeared. In Sunnydale people that just disappear never come back.

Buffy glanced up from her magazine, "She still not answering? Well we can stop by her place on the way to Giles'. Would that make you feel better if we stop in to see her?"

Willow just nodded, got her coat and waited by the door for Buffy.

As they opened the door to Cat's house they both knew something was wrong. The place was a mess, broken glass and over turned furniture. "Oh no, Buffy what do you think happened to her?" Willow tried to straight as much as she could in an attempt to stay calm.

"I don't know Will. Let's go to Giles' and see if we can figure something out, OK?" Buffy put her arm around Willow and led her out to the house. On route to Giles' Buffy kept thinking of Cat and wondered if Riley knew where she was. Maybe she should go see him, then she stopped herself. Did she want to see Riley because of Cat or did she just want to see Riley. They had reached the apartment anyway so Buffy push Riley to the back of her subconscious.

As Giles hunted his texts, Xander called the local hospitals, etc. Willow was on the laptop searching as well. That left Buffy to patrol and lucky her Spike was with her under the guise of looking for the underground labs he had yet to reveal to them.

Below Buffy and Spike in the Initiative Labs, Cat was coming to on an examine table. She remembered the day before, the mirror then when Riley found her. She had wanted to die, she had needed to die but now after the last few hours of "testing" she just wanted to leave. Before she had been treated like a person, now she was nothing but an animal to them. She had heard parts of conversation and had liked none of it, "organ samples" and "internal examination" Her survival instincts kicked in and she planed to make her move.

They had thought she was still drugged and when no one was looking she raced out of the complex, courtesy of the pass card she had lifted from a lab technician. She was racing across campus when she collided with a hard object, "Oufff...... Damn it"

"Bloody hell, why don't you watch where you are going .." Spike had started in on Cat just as Buffy called out "Cat, thank god. You are OK! Come on let's get you inside somewhere"

Buffy took Cat to Giles' place after all her house was totalled. Cat was seated on the sofa with the gang gathered around her offering food, drink, etc. in an attempt to make her comfortable. Spike had gone straight to the kitchen to get his "special" cup. He flipped on the radio and hummed as he warmed the blood, "I want to live like animals, oh yeah I'm a bloody animal". He sang all the wrong lyrics of Savage Garden's The Animal Song and he waited for his meal.

Cat had been unresponsive to all the offers of food but as Spike drank from his cup, Cat looked up. She looked straight at him and as she did she felt her face morph.

The group on the sofa jumped away from her, Buffy grabbed a stake and prepared herself to kill her friend. "Looks like we are gonna have a spot of fun!" Spike said gleefully.

Cat just sat there, she knew what Buffy had to do but still she dreaded it. When she first saw what was happening to her she begged Riley to kill her, but the time in the Labs had given her time to come to terms with the changes in her body. She felt like the same person, she hated what she was but still she could sense the power that came with it. She craved it and feared it with equal strength. Finally she said, "Please...." leaving it up to Buffy whether she was fit to live.

TBC