Twist of Fate: Chapter 3
by Lisette
Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings.
With shuttered eyes, Jarod hid in the shadows of a softly swaying stand of trees and watched the couple before him. They were in one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries, standing before one of many fresh graves that could be found in the small town. The couple, obviously married, looked older than they should, premature aging showing in their slumped shoulders and grieved stance. Silently, the woman slowly bent and placed a beautiful bouquet of yellow daises on the soft dirt, her hand unconsciously going to her lips to stifle a pained sob.
Wincing with understanding, Jarod remained hidden, his dark brown eyes taking in their every movement. He couldn't help but feel their pain - to place himself in their position, as he was taught to do so long ago, and feel the agony that they must be feeling. The heart-wrenching pain, so familiar, brought hot, stinging tears to his own eyes as he watched the man help his wife to her feet, supporting her frail form and leading her from the cemetery.
Unconsciously, Jarod couldn't help but wonder if his own parents had felt such profound grief when he was stolen from them as a young boy. Instantly though, that thought was replaced by a pained remembrance of his brief meeting with his father - a joyous reunion that had ended in a separation that was accentuated by his return to the Centre - this time as Lyle's torture victim.
Shaking his troubled thoughts away, Jarod waited until the couple was out of sight and then slowly abandoned his hiding place and moved to stand before the gleaming granite stone.
Harmony Kendall
1981 - 1999
We Will Never Forget Nor Forgive
Sighing, Jarod slowly withdrew his familiar red notebook and flipped past the articles on the high school bombing until he came to a small article that featured a grainy photo of a beautiful teenaged girl. Looking beneath the picture, Jarod strained in the growing darkness to read the small caption:
Parents left to wonder why: After the brutal slaying of their only child during her graduation commencement, parents of Harmony Kendall cannot even mourn in peace as her remains were stolen from her grave the following evening.
Shaking his head, Jarod slowly drew his eyes away from the grainy black and white photo to stare at the dull granite, now silverish in the bright moonlight... moonlight. Startled, Jarod followed the trail of light with his eyes until he was staring up into the dark, California sky. He had missed sunset and hadn't even realized it.
With the bright, full moon glowing in the sky above, lighting his way, Jarod finally turned away from the girl's grave. "I'll make things right," he murmured, repeating the vow that he always made when stumbling upon strange cases like this - cases that gave him an opportunity to fix things that were wrong with the world. A chance to make amends for naively making things so much worse for so many others while growing up in the Centre.
Pushing his troubled memories aside, Jarod walked across the smoothly cut lawn, his footsteps muffled in the oppressive night heat - a heat that didn't seem to be diminishing even with the lack of a bright sun. And then, his thoughts were scrambled once more as two shadows suddenly parted before him, taking shape into two figures, one slight while the other was tall and lumbering. Surprised, Jarod stopped and squinted in the darkness, trying to make out the forms. The detective's earlier warning came back to him: We may be a small town, but we have a history with... gangs on PCP. "Can I help you?" Jarod asked the strangers, pushing aside his uneasiness as he offered a bright smile, doubting that they could see it in the shadowed darkness.
"Are you lost?" came a quick reply as the smaller of the two strangers came forward, the moonlight shining softly on her blonde locks as she grinned at him, the picture of innocence.
But Jarod could only stare at the girl in wonder. He supposed that it was part of his being a genius that he had a photographic memory, but regardless, it didn't take long at all for him to recognize the girl from the photo that he had been looking at earlier. The photo of the dead girl that he was there to avenge. "Harmony Kendall?" he asked, his tone conveying his confusion.
And that was when the girl's face changed into something hideous, with glowing eyes, a protruding brow ridge, and pointed fangs. "Not anymore."
As the dark moonlight glinted off of the towering trees, Buffy and company slowly moved beneath their lowest branches, eyes trained on the creeping shadows that surrounded them. With a stealth and predator's gaze that were built upon years of training and experience, Buffy crept as quietly as the night itself, her ears trained to the silent darkness, awaiting an adversary.
Meanwhile, Willow and Xander traipsed behind her, noisily sucking cherry slurpees through long, red straws. "You know," Xander began around a mouthful of the icy liquid, "whoever invented slurpees must have been a genius - like Einstein or something."
"Yep, those geniuses at the 7-11," Willow agreed as she lifted her straw from the hole in the top of the plastic, licking off the chilly juices before noisily lowering her straw to once more continue slurping down the drink.
Sighing, Buffy flicked an annoyed glance at her friends as she lifted her finger to her lips. "Geez, you guys, loud much?" she hissed, rolling her eyes as she adjusted her tank top, feeling slightly chilled in the dark night air despite the oppressive heat.
"Why bother?" Xander quickly bit back as he once more took a long drag off of his slurpee, making sure to make it as noisy as possible. "Giles is right - we haven't seen a vampire in-" he cut off as a muffled cry broke the stillness of the night.
Without wasting a second, Buffy broke into action as she quickly darted through the underbrush and vaulted over towering granite tombs, making her way across the graveyard in seconds. Then, as she broke through additional vegetation and into a clearing, Buffy stumbled to a halt, her eyes quickly taking in the situation. There were two vampires, no problem for her Slayer prowess, but there was the added difficulty of the guy that was trapped between the two, busy getting his life sucked from his veins.
Grimacing in disgust, Buffy quickly darted forward and whipped her stake from the small duffel she carried, dropping the bag to the ground beside her. "Hey, room for one more?" she quipped, gaining the vamps' attention as they turned away from their dinner - which was when Buffy recognized the petite vampire that had the grace to look frightened at her appearance. "Harmony?" Buffy asked, her shock giving the vampires the slightest advantage they were looking for as the other launched himself at her.
But whatever advantage gained by her distraction was quickly lost as Buffy ducked his clumsy swing and retaliated with a sharp kick to his chest, sending the large vampire flying back and to the ground. Smiling grimly, she shifted her attention to Harmony, the barely conscious stranger still held in her grip. "Listen, I'm sorry about the whole undead thing," Buffy began as she slowly began to move in on her old high school acquaintance, "but since you're not really Harmony, I guess you can't take this too personally," she finished as she raised her stake.
"You always were a bitch," was Harmony's snooty reply as she tightened her hold on her half-conscious meal. Licking her lips, she quickly bared her fangs and hissed at her enemy, her eyes glowing a pale yellow in the bright moonlight. "And you come any closer I'll break his neck," she whispered, smiling as she tightened her hold on the guy's neck.
Pausing for the first time, Buffy finally took a good look at the stranger that Harmony held captive. He was older, probably in his thirties - not as old as her Mom or Giles, but definitely older than her and her friends. But then again, he was kind of cute, in that older sort of way, with brown eyes that watched her with a detached kind of worry, eyes that shone with fear and sadness.
"Run," the man whispered, surprising them both as he weakly pushed at Harmony, trying in vain to dislodge her death lock on him. "Get out of here," he continued, beginning to turn panicked as his large brown eyes bored into Buffy's green.
It was the eyes, she decided, that spoke to her most. There was something in those eyes that hit her on some lower level, something that spoke of a pain and sorrow that she could relate to - a deep sadness, almost. A sadness that did nothing to hide the fact that he was dying from blood loss. Shaking away her thoughts, Buffy smiled sweetly at Harmony as both Xander and Willow came crashing through the shrubbery behind her. "Listen Harmony, we'll make a deal. You run real fast, right now, and maybe you'll live through the night."
For the briefest of moments Harmony considered Buffy's offer before she quickly shoved her captive in the Slayer's direction and then proceeded to bolt from the clearing. For a second, Buffy considered following - up until the guy stumbled and then fell to his knees on the hard ground.
"Uh oh," Buffy muttered as she dropped to her knees beside him, just as he fell the rest of the way to the ground, his head landing in her lap. "Uh oh," she repeated as she quickly and firmly held her hand against the oozing neck wound.
"Ooh, he's looking kind of pale," Willow murmured as she took in the man's dusky appearance.
"That's cause Harmony was using him as her own version of a Slurpee!" Xander hissed as Willow elbowed his side.
"Hey, you're gonna be alright," Buffy quickly assured the guy, ignoring her friends' passing conversation. Smiling encouragingly, or so she hoped, she gently smoothed away his matted brown hair with one hand. "You're going to be fine."
"Who... who are you?" the guy asked, his voice faint as he squinted up at her in the darkness.
"My name is Buffy," she quickly replied, her smile faltering as his eyes began to blink shut.
"Jarod," the man whispered, so quietly that she had to lean close to hear. "I'm Jarod," he repeated as he finally succumbed to the darkness that had been beckoning to him since the monster had begun to feed.
Startled, Buffy pulled away and looked down at the man's face. "Not again," she murmured, her eyes fluttering shut for the briefest of moments before her green eyes quickly snapped to her friends. "Xander, get help!" she ordered, straightening as her eyes bored into the lanky teen.
"Got it," Xander shot back, his humor forgotten as his mind registered the weariness on his friend's face. A weariness that had begun to appear more and more often since graduation... since Angel had left. Shaking his thoughts away, Xander hurried to his feet and was off like a shot as Buffy continued to hold her hand against the wound, trying to staunch the blood flow.
"Is he going to be okay?" Willow asked, her voice timid as she looked to her friend for reassurance.
"I don't know," Buffy murmured, worrying her lip as she glanced down into the man's face. He looked so peaceful then, his eyes closed and the lines on his face smoothed away. "See if you can find some ID on him or something," she offered, trying to give her friend something to do to occupy her thoughts.
Nodding, Willow tentatively reached forward and felt along the man's pockets, quickly coming up empty. Then, as she traced her hands along the outer pocket of his shirt, which was quickly becoming stained with his blood, she let out a triumphant cry as her hand emerged with a small black device. "Oh, cell phone," she murmured, her voice falling once more as she flipped open the small device. "I guess that we didn't need to send Xander for help after all," she continued as she examined the phone. "So no ID, but he does have some numbers programmed in," she murmured as she randomly selected one number from the rest, putting it to her ear as it began to ring.