Twist of Fate: Chapter 24
by Lisette
Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings.
With practiced ease, the large grating slowly slid out from the wall, long fingers wrapping around the slats and suspending it mid-air in the small room. A dark head of hair followed the grating, wide shoulders and a narrow waist until the body of a man slid from the opening and landed lightly on the concrete floor below. Winded, Jarod took a moment to catch his breath, careful not to jostle his broken rib, and cautiously handed the metal grating back up to his cohort.
"Thank you, Angelo," he whispered, forcing a smile for the wild looking man who accepted the grating behind him.
"Friend help Warrior. Help her," Angelo muttered in return, his eyes moving beyond Jarod before he replaced the metal grating once more in the wall and then disappeared from sight.
"I plan on it," Jarod murmured, finally turning away from the wall and getting his first good look at the room. While still in the dungeons of the Centre, the room he found himself in was a far cry from his dank prison many sublevels below where he now stood. While it shared the same cold concrete floors and walls, bright fluorescent lighting illuminated the room, erasing the shadows from the small bed that sat opposite of him - the bed that contained one Buffy Summers.
"Buffy," Jarod whispered, relief evident in his voice as he began across the room, only to stop as he finally recognized what he was seeing. The first thing he noticed was that despite the horrible beating he had witnessed just a few short days before, the one that still left him bruised and broken, the girl looked as though that day had never happened. Once more she was clothed in the black, loose-fitting cargo pants, form-fitting long-sleeve shirt, and heavy combat boots, hair pulled tightly back in a long French braid. Yet even more disturbing, once more there wasn't a single reaction to the name that had rolled off of his lips.
"Buffy," he repeated, his voice louder now, more firm as he finished the distance between them, falling painfully to his knees before her. Yet once more, it was as though she wasn't even there. She sat tall and rigidly on the bed, hands clasped on her lap and face forward. Yet while her large green eyes remained open and unblinking, it was as though they stared at nothing.
"Buffy," he insisted, not wanting to believe what he was seeing as he tried to take one of her small hands in his, only to find that he would have more luck trying to pry a statue's arm from its unyielding position. And in that moment, Jarod felt his world crash down around him. He was too late.
Sighing, Jarod slowly let his head fall down until his chin was resting against his bloodied shirt, his eyes drifting shut. Lyle's beating had left him so battered that it had taken most of the past few days to get up the strength to move without crying out in agony from his broken rib. From then, it had taken a little longer to work out his guard's routine and find a way to take advantage of it, buying his freedom. After that, Jarod made his escape and at the first air vent he could find, he ventured forth, counting his blessings when within minutes he had stumbled across Angelo - an old friend who was all too willing to lead him to where Buffy was being kept. Throughout it all, even from the moment when he was faced with the choice of his freedom or his return to the Centre with Buffy, Jarod's mind had been working through the possibilities, quickly discarding idea after idea until he realized that this avenue would be the quickest and easiest way of getting them both free of the Centre. If he had escaped when Buffy had given him the opportunity in Michigan, it would have taken far longer than these past few days in order to devise a way into the Centre to free her. But even now, after all that he had endured... his quickest hadn't been fast enough.
Shaking his head slowly, Jarod lifted his head and rest one hand upon her cool cheek. "I'm sorry," he whispered, knowing even now that she didn't hear him. "I'm sorry that I came too late," he added, knowing that once again he had failed someone. Just as with his little brother, this time, he just wasn't fast enough. Just not good enough to save everyone.
Then, all thoughts of defeat and self-recrimination were forgotten as the door opened on silent hinges behind him, admitting the last person that he wanted to see during his run for freedom. Swiveling, Jarod was on his feet quicker than he thought possible, biting back his groan at his protesting ribs, eyes moving from Lyle's surprised face to the freedom that the open door behind him offered. And then he was moving, trying to shove past his hated tormentor even as the words left Lyle's lips.
"Slayer, stop him!" Mr. Lyle barked, quickly overcoming his surprise and moving out of the way of what he knew was to come next. And sure enough, even as the words slipped from his mouth the girl was in action, diving forward as though she had merely been waiting in expectation of his command. With inhuman speed she crossed the distance between her and the Pretender, small hands clamping onto his shoulders as ten nails dug viciously into his back, drawing blood as she easily pulled him from the door and rammed him against a nearby wall.
Grunting on impact, Jarod felt his mind reel as he was quickly turned, his eyes locking on Buffy's deadened gaze seconds before her fist connected with his face, sending his head careening back until it pounded off of the wall behind him. But Buffy wasn't done yet. Instead, she continued to land a flurry of kicks and punches on his lean frame, so fast that each forceful move lifted him in the air and prevented him from curling upon himself to find whatever protection the floor might offer. In that instant, even as he had the crap beat out of him once again in a matter of days, Jarod understood the difference between this girl and the girl that he had known - even the girl that he had encountered in Michigan, a prisoner of behavior modification. Whatever Raines did to her it had completely obliterated whatever it was that made Buffy Summers the bright, fiery girl that he had known. In her place, nothing remained save the Slayer - a warrior who seemed to think that pain, torture, and death were her sole gifts to offer.
As the beating continued, Jarod caught a movement from the corner of one blackened eye seconds before the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked echoed in the room. Ignoring the pain that was being delivered upon his body, Jarod watched in amazement as Sydney stepped into the room, a gun pushed firmly against the small of Mr. Lyle's back.
"Call the Slayer off, Lyle," the aging psychiatrist ordered, his lips set in a thin line that only Jarod could see. "Turn her off." But at the other man's silence, Sydney shook his head curtly, his eyes dancing to his ward whose eyes met his briefly before a kick connected with the side of his head and tossed him further back into the room. "She's good, Lyle, but do you really think she can make it here in time to prevent a bullet from entering your back?" he asked, pushing the gun even harder against him for emphasis.
For a second more, Lyle seemed to consider doing just that before common sense kicked in. "Slayer, stop," he ordered as the girl reacted instantaneously to his words, staying her assault and backing away from the beaten Pretender. "Stand down," he ordered, using the command that moved the girl until she was once more poised on the bed, shoulders straight and hands clasped in her lap, eyes unmoving. "There, are you-" he began, his words cut off as the gun cracked against his skull, sending him to an unconscious heap on the floor before the aging man.
Without another word, Sydney quickly hurried into the room and knelt beside his ward, eyes taking in the fresh blood that oozed from various places on his body. "Jarod, are you alright to move?" he asked, heartened to see that despite the pain, Jarod's eyes were clear as they skipped from Lyle back to his mentor.
"Sydney, what.. what have you done?" Jarod rasped, painfully standing with his friend's help.
Ignoring his question, Sydney quickly began leading them towards the open door. "How did you plan on getting out of here?" he asked, his voice tight as Jarod paused, leaning heavily against him.
"But Sydney, Lyle... you can't stay now," he muttered, his eyes going wide as panic set in.
For a moment, Sydney allowed himself the luxury of reveling in his ward's obvious concern for him before he quickly focused on the need to get as far from the Centre as possible, as quickly as possible. "I'm not," he murmured simply as he caught Jarod's eyes slip to the small girl that sat motionless behind them. Sighing, he understood the unasked question all too easily and quickly dispelled the man's hope with a curt shake of his head. "We can't take her with us - not yet. Besides, we have to go after Miss Parker."
"Miss Parker?" Jarod asked, eyes quickly meeting Sydney's, just as the older man knew they would. "Why?"
"Because for some idiotic reason, Miss Parker got it in her head to use her freedom to fix the Centre's mistakes," Sydney murmured, confirming his suspicions that Jarod had indeed been the one to plant that idea as a small smile pulled at the Pretender's lips. "I think she's gone to Sunnydale."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Jarod asked, gazing once again at Buffy's deadened expression before allowing his mentor to lead him from the room.
The unsettling silence that had fallen over the group slowly began to melt into one of barely contained fury - fury that was radiating off of the older British man, the one that Miss Parker had been counting on to be the sane and logical one of the group. At least it wouldn't be the first time that she had been wrong.
With deliberately slow steps, Giles crossed the distance between he and their captive, his eyes boring into her own. "What do you know of Buffy?" he asked, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a smile that could only be described as Ripperesque - a glare that could melt all other glares and turn normal human resistance into a lipid pond of ooze. Then again, the Ripper had never been faced with the Queen of Ice, she who mastered the art of intimidation.
"Are the ropes really necessary?" she asked, as though Giles had never spoken, a small frown pulling at her lips. "After all, you have my gun," she added, nodding towards the aforementioned firearm sitting on the table across the room.
For a moment, Giles considered her request before he slowly backed away, pausing only when there was a good five feet between them, leaning back against the counter that divided his living room from his small kitchen. "Xander, untie her," he ordered, his eyes never once leaving hers.
"But-"
"Do it," Giles interrupted in a tone that brooked no room for argument. And for once, amazingly, Xander listened and slowly moved forward to begin working on his knots, all the while adding his own glare to the mix. Several tense minutes later, the lanky teen finished his task and slowly returned to his spot on the couch, sulking the whole way as the leggy brunette stood from the uncomfortable chair, absently massaging her rope-burned wrists. "Well?" Giles prompted, his patience waning.
"What happened in the graveyard?" Miss Parker demanded, obviously used to getting her own way as she ignored their impatience for answers.
"Are you frigging kidding me?" Xander cried out, springing forward on the couch as his angry gaze swung over to the Watcher. "I want to know what she knows about Buffy!"
"And I'm not talking until I find out what the hell happened out there," Miss Parker countered evenly, a cold smile lifting her lips.
Before yet another angry tirade could break out from Xander, or before Giles could do more of his freaky Ripper-act, Willow quickly broke in. "Vampires," she stated quietly, catching the woman's attention as she arched one fine eyebrow at the young woman. At her skeptical look, she quickly squared her shoulders as she flashed her resolve face. "They were vampires, and it's what we do... well, what Buffy did," she amended with a small shrug.
At the mention of the girl that brought her across the country to this shitty little town, Miss Parker felt her curiosity grow. "What do you mean, what Buffy did?" she asked, slowly moving until she was settled once more in the hard backed chair, this time sitting as though she was God's gift to Giles' apartment.
"Buffy was - I mean is," Willow quickly corrected herself, faltering slightly at her slip, "the Chosen One - the one girl chosen in every generation to fight the evil of this world."
"The Chosen One?" Miss Parker parroted back, unsure if she should be amused or not, eyes skipping over to see the stoic faces of the other two in the room. "And then what?"
"What do you mean, and then what? She fights until she dies, and when she dies, a new slayer is called," Giles explained curtly, his eyes flashing before settling back into a mask of indifference.
Frowning, Miss Parker glanced back and forth from the different people that occupied this room, and then to the odd collection of wooden pieces that littered the floor, the ancient looking, yet well-maintained crossbows, axes, swords... and then she thought back to that day in Michigan, when Buffy dove through the window and fell two stories, only to land on her feet and run faster than was humanly possible. Sighing, Miss Parker closed her eyes briefly as she thought to how the girl moved, to the footage of her fight against the bear. And for the first time, she began to understand. The idea of Good and Evil with a capital G and E were still a little out there for Miss Parker. It would be so much easier to imagine that there was something else that drove the horrible actions of others, but when she thought of all of the horrors and wonders that the Centre was able to create, prodigies like Jarod, clones like Gemini, and atrocities like Angelo... well, this story wasn't that difficult to buy. At least the basic idea - the fact that the girl was special somehow. "And because she's this chosen girl, she's different than the rest of us. Right?" she asked, her gaze swinging back to the British man. "Stronger, faster... a warrior," she murmured, answering her own question as everything finally clicked into place, remember Angelo's name for her.
For a moment, Giles cold anger disappeared under a curiosity that he was unable to quell. "Yes, quite different," he agreed, absently plucking his glasses from his nose and polishing them on his dirty shirt. "Because this town sits on the doorway to Hell itself, it is a magnet for all things evil. And I'm afraid that without Buffy here to fight and keep them at bay... well, it's slowly overrunning the town," he explained, pausing in his polishing as he voiced aloud all their fears. "We - we've done what we could since she went missing last summer, as has another group - government of some sort - but we're nothing without the Slayer."
"Slayer," Miss Parker murmured, a look of disgust twisting her features as she recognized the name that her brother called the girl. In the eyes of the Centre, Buffy Summers had died and disappeared forever the day that she was brought to the Centre. In their eyes, the Slayer was all that remained.
"Who are you?" Giles finally asked, breaking her reverie as he replaced his glasses atop his nose.
Sighing, Miss Parker slowly settled in her high-backed chair and prepared herself for the final step in the betrayal of everything that she had known. "My name is Miss Parker, and I used to work for a private organization in Delaware called The Centre," she murmured, forcing the words past her lips. In this moment, she knew that there was no going back. Maybe there hadn't been any room to turn back for quite a while now. Sighing, she quickly continued on. "The Centre's public front is a think tank, but really they've been working on numerous controversial projects for years, selling their results to the highest bidder, far from the public eye."
"And this has to do with Buffy how?" Xander asked, slowly shaking his head.
Ignoring the boy, Miss Parker pushed on. "For example, we mastered human cloning years ago - the first successful clone, Gemini, born over fifteen years ago. However, The Centre's most prized project, and the one that you're familiar with, is the Pretender project."
"And I'm still guessing that it's not to do with the Buffster," Xander added, by now growing exasperated as Willow elbowed him sharply in the side.
"The Pretender project?" Giles asked, ignoring Xander as well as he slowly crossed his arms, curious despite himself.
"A project that capitalizes on the mind of a genius. A pretender is a person who has the ability to become anyone: to think like them, act like them, talk like them... and throughout the years of the project, the Centre's most successful pretender - really, their only pretender worth anything - was a man that was taken from his family when he was just a child."
"Jarod?" Giles surmised, his voice grim as the woman's description, while horribly unscrupulous and morally corrupt, was so similar to the actions of the Watcher's Council when procuring potential slayers. In the end, only their goals differed. The Centre took children from their families and raised them as orphans in order to bank a profit. The Watcher's Council did the same, with their justification that each girl held a slim possibility of being called as a Slayer - an action that would guarantee the girl an early death. The Council argued that they needed to take the girl under their wing and train her from a young age, giving the girl every chance possible of survival, of success - yet some, if not most of these potentials were never called.
Buffy had somehow escaped the Council's eye and in doing so lived far longer than most Slayers, lacking in obedience rather than skill. If anything, Buffy was a testament that perhaps the Council's old ways served no other purpose than in controlling the girls that could become the most powerful warrior in the world.
"Yes, Jarod," Miss Parker confirmed, interrupting Giles' musings. "He escaped from the Centre four years ago, and it's been my job to bring him back ever since."
"So," Willow murmured, adding to the conversation as a slow play of horror twisted her pixie-like features, fully realizing for the first time the part that she had almost played in his capture, "last August... you were - you were trying to bring him back - back there!"
"Yes," Miss Parker affirmed, struggling to maintain the air of indifference to the horror that the girl obviously felt. It didn't matter, she kept telling herself. She did what she had to do in order to survive. In order to gain her freedom. He was a job and she was just doing her job.
"And while proving that she is indeed a bad guy," Xander added, ignoring Giles' frustrated glare, "I'm still waiting to see what this all has to do with Buffy."
Sighing, Miss Parker flashed the boy an exasperated frown as she stood from her chair and began pacing before it. "What I was about to explain," she continued, pausing to allow her eyes to rake over his lanky form, "is that was how Lyle noticed Buffy for the first time."
"Lyle?" Giles interrupted, trying to recall anything that Buffy may have mentioned about Jarod after his departure. To be honest, he was coming up with an alarmingly little amount of information. Despite the fact that his slayer had spent close to an hour alone in the man's presence, she had little to offer about him after - stating only that he was a good guy that was running from a troubled past.
"Mr. Lyle," Miss Parker corrected with a small grimace. "My twin brother."
"Your twin brother?" Willow echoed, mirroring the disgust that was evidenced on Miss Parker's sharp features.
"So... this is like a family thing," Xander added, unable to restrain himself.
For a moment, Miss Parker graced the teen with a strained smile as she thought about how true his analysis was. She didn't even plan on mentioning the fact that her father, currently missing in action, had been the director of the Centre since his own father had passed away. She didn't need to discredit herself any further with that admission. And then there was the fact that her mother had been employed at the Centre herself, up until the day that she was murdered for trying to make things right. Yes, Xander hit the nail right on the head with that one. The Centre had been, and was always to continue on to be an integral part of her family. There was no Centre without the Parker family.
"Well what does your brother want with Buffy?" Xander continued, asking the question that had been on all of their minds.
In response, Miss Parker could only shake her head slowly, fumbling for the right words as she slowly moved behind the chair. "My brother is... an evil man," she murmured, her eyes turning down as she locked her hands on the high back of the chair, her nails digging into the wood. "What wouldn't he want with a girl who is that strong? That fast? That... lethal?" she asked, finally lifting her eyes until they locked with Giles'. "He just needed to figure out how to control her."
"Whoa, hold up!" Xander quickly protested, not liking what he was hearing one bit. The cold knot that had formed in his stomach the day that he heard the news from Willow last summer, the one that had never went away, began to tighten, making it difficult to breathe. "So, you're trying to tell us that your evil twin brother took Buffy?"
"And killed her mom?" Willow added, unshed tears sparkling in her eyes.
But before Miss Parker could confirm their fears, Giles slowly moved away from the counter until he was standing before the tall woman, the chair between them. "And how, pray tell, does he plan to.. to 'control' her?" he asked softly, not wanting to but needing to hear her words. For a moment, he didn't think that she was going to answer as her eyes locked with his own - eyes that contained such fury.
"He... has his methods," she finally murmured, and by her tone, things began to be clear. Way too clear as Giles began to understand a part of the hell that had been forced upon his Slayer... upon his little girl.
"Buffy..."