Focus. Focus. Must focus on anything. Anything but there. It was calling to her, pulling and scratching at her mind, ripping apart her sanity.

Buffy choked hard on the wall of tears caught in her throat. She forced her eyes to focus on the peaked perfection of the ceiling, the chandeliers hanging in uninterrupted uniformity, on the slight cracks wedging their way across the roof like tiny black webs on a pristine landscape...on anything but the vicious all-consuming diatribe of images flashing behind her minds eye.

She had no concept of how long she'd been laying in Cainen's house, in his pretentious, opulent...what was this room anyway. Ballroom? Dance place? Not that it really mattered no one was making with the merry at the moment. Not quite.  She could feel them more than she could hear them. The laughter. It was like angry ants crawling under her skin. The high pitched cackle-like sound from that black haired bitch. It reminded her of that witch in that movie Dawn made her watch over and over when they were kids. What was that movie? Doesn't matter. The laugh was better though. Better than his. His was lower, a slow chuckle of benevolent mirth for the hapless figures writhing on his floor. Almost like he hadn't expected to enjoy it so much.  But hadn't he? Didn't he? Or else, what was the point? They weren't even to the main event. This was just a prequel, an appetizer.

Her head rolled to the right. Had to be right because she couldn't turn left. No way was she going to look at...so, right it was.

Right wasn't much better though, that brought her face to face with...Rain, curled up in a ball, pulling at her hair, mewling like a wounded cat, scratching at her eyes. Buffy wanted to help her, pull her hands away, clean off the blood. Wanted to. Couldn't. The images pulled harder, like long fingers ripping into her mind, dragging her down, finding a weakness in her distraction.

Concentrate. Cainen was talking again. Telling her to give in. She wanted to spit in his face, lay him flat with a quip...tear out his heart and stomp on the mess. Couldn't. All that Slayer strength was banished behind the hell in her mind. The hell she had made. Was that how Rain felt? No more magic. Had to suck.

Cold liquid dripped down the back of her throat. Tears. She hated that. Didn't want them to see her cry. Just couldn't stop it. Would she choke? Would this end if she did?

Buffy rolled her body to match the direction of her head and assumed the same position she'd witnessed Rain in.

It should have worked. It should have worked. Why didn't it work? They'd had a plan. A good plan. An address even. No research needed to find the Big Bad, he'd left directions. That had to be good right? A bonus. Not so much. Course it had been a stained missive. Dark brown...wet...sticky...cold. No. Not right now. Couldn't go there yet. Had to concentrate.

She'd given him his coat. That counted, didn't it? He'd snatched it away as if she'd been a snake holding his prized possession. Angry. He was so angry at her. Said it wasn't true. Couldn't be true. But she could see it churning behind his eyes; he believed. She'd laughed then. Laughed at him. Told him he could think what he wanted. Didn't make it true. A snake. Maybe he was right?

No.

Cainen. Cainen was the snake. Or the spider. Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly. Three vampires, a witch and a Slayer could take down one bad guy, right? A little team effort, some distraction and, don't forget, good ole brute force. No problem.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The mind is a powerful weapon. Giles taught her that. With the right attitude and strength of convictions a person could accomplish anything. Giles should have taught the other side of the coin. The part where your powerful weapon gets turned against you. How do you fight your own mind?

Cainen was so smooth. Sitting there all cocky. Not a care in the world. Like this didn't matter. Like they didn't matter.

They didn't.

Ian went down first. He'd taken maybe two steps in the room before his body hit the floor. Course, Rain was right there. Holding him, trying to wake him up. Stupid. That's what Cainen wanted.

Didn't know that, though. Not then.

Rain started shouting orders and they were followed. Well, mostly. In defense of the group, everything went to crap right about then anyway.

Spike's fingers had curled around Cainen's throat, lifting him in that way that all vampires seem to hold near and dear to their repertoires and then...

Why do power orbs have to be so damn bright when they go off? Really, either hand out sunglasses or get a black one. The red ones are especially bad. They give off such an extreme flash that everything looks drenched in blood. Which was pretty apt, considering.

That's right about when the laughter started. Not that you really care about maniacal giggle fests when you're clutching your head like your brain is trying to ooze out of your ears. It kinda seemed like an elaborate display of female empowerment, because the boys got to go to sleep all peaceful-like while the girls got to roll around on the floor.

Cainen detailed his plan at that point. Pretty sure anyway. Kind of distracted what with the brain oozage, but he's a bad guy and they invariably always tell you the exact plan even though most times you don't really give a shit. So it stands to reason that's what he did.

Rain should have won an award, what with the careful fluttering she was doing over her unconscious boyfriend , the threats of retribution she managed to scream, very inventively, at her brother, and the steady hand she kept clutched to her head.

Yeah, there should be a multi-tasking award.

Course, even the most erstwhile threat dies pretty quick when one of your faithful, trusted companions slaps you upside the face.

So that would make Tasha the snake. Cold, deadly, vindictive, backstabbing...yeah. Tasha was the snake.

Rain's body started thrashing harder beside her.

Strong, smart, dependable...naive, Rain.

She really wasn't prepared. Oh, she thought she was, thought she could handle it, but reality and the misty haze of detachment we throw up in our minds to block out the bad bits are two entirely separate things. What had he called it? A taste of things to come? Something like that but entirely more British sounding. Ian and Spike were going to get their old lives back, completely free of past pain and guilt and just so we were under no illusions of what that would entail, we would get an unguided tour through their memories. Yay! Not.

Rain went under first. She actually took Ian's hand. Contact being the tie that binds, so to speak. Stupid. Cainen was smarter. He lashed their hands together with a strip of leather. It hadn't taken long for Rain to start screaming, for her to pull away from her beloved.

Which left the thought, was she the victim or the prey in those visions? Didn't have long to wonder. No matter how big of a stink Tasha put up over it. Gotta admit, it was pretty funny watching Tasha fly across the room from the backhand Cainen dealt her. Not so funny when he explained how much better it would be to watch Spike kill a Slayer that knew his pain intimately.

Intimately. Walk a mile in another man's shoes. See the world through another's eyes. Watch and watch and feel and cry but never touch.

 Another low scream from Rain brought her crashing back to the present. Gotta concentrate. Can't go back there. Not again. Can't see anymore. Can't. Rain's eyes are open now. Not an enjoyable experience. Especially when all you can see are the white parts. Gotta move. They're laughing again. Or still. Doesn't matter. Concentrate. Rolled too far. Too far left...left. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't...