Cordelia
pulled up in front of her house later that night. She was almost giggling; nothing could make the smile on her face
disappear. She climbed out of her
convertible and headed up her sidewalk.
"I
wouldn't be surprised if Buffy and Riley are still going at it," she laughed
out loud.
"What
the hmmph…" a cloth covered her mouth, and someone hit her over the head. Cordelia collapsed to the ground, and her
assailant sneered down at her.
"Let's
see how Angel does without you," the man sneered.
Angel
arrived at Cordelia's place about a half-hour later. As impossible as it sounded, Cordelia Chase had actually left her
purse at the office. Angel had drawn
the short straw and was granted the wonderful task of returning it to her.
As
he headed up the walk, his keen sense of smell pick of a familiar scent-
blood. Gazing down at the pavement, he
saw a few drops on the sidewalk. Angel
kneeled down and dipped his fingers into it; it was fresh! Realization dawned on him, and his brain
kicked into overdrive. Almost flying to
the door, the vampire pounded on Cordelia's front door.
"Cordelia,
open up!" he shouted, hoping that his first impression was wrong.
A
few minutes rolled by until someone answered. Buffy stood in the doorway with a perplexed look on her face.
"Hey
Angel, what's wrong?" she asked, noting that he was a lot paler than usual.
"Buffy,
where's Cordelia?" he almost demanded.
"I
don't know. She left earlier this
evening, but I haven't seen her since."
"Damn!"
"Angel,
what's the problem?"
"Buffy,
Cordelia's been kidnapped. Her car's
out front, and there's blood on the sidewalk." The slayer's eyes widened in
shock, and her blue pools filled with concern and worry.
"Who
took her?" Buffy gasped.
Angel
walked by outside and surveyed the area. Buffy went back inside and filled Riley in on the situation. Together, they headed out to help
Angel. The two of them froze, when the
vampire stood up and let a growl escape his throat.
"That
conniving, little son of a…"
"What
is it?" Buffy asked. Angel could smell
something aside from blood; it was faint but recognizable for him- cologne- a
specific person's cologne.
"I
can smell cologne out here; this must have happened within the last hour. There's only one person I know who wears
what I'm smelling- Lindsey." Angel let out another growl and clenched his
fists; the little rat was really starting to piss him off.
"Why
would he take, Cordelia?" Buffy retorted. Angel gave her a look that made the slayer regret asking that question.
"Let's
go!" Angel stomped down the sidewalk followed by Buffy and Riley, who was
asking his girlfriend for a quick catch-up on current events.
Angel
didn't even knock but rather kicked down Lindsey's door.
"Where
are you, Lindsey?" he roared. The
vampire prowled around the apartment looking for his prey. The young lawyer was nowhere to be
found. However, Angel found a small
slip of paper on Lindsey's desk.
Angel,
Come
to following address at midnight or she dies!
Rage
burned through Angel's veins. Messing
with him was one thing, but no one messed with his friends- particularly
Cordelia. An odd thought ran through
Angel's mind about why he was acting so strangely. Sure Cordelia was one of his best friends, but there was
something else…something that he felt that made him twice as angry. As he stood there looking at the few short
words scribbled on the sheet of paper, Angel came to realize that Cordelia
wasn't just his friend; she was…she was…she was special to him.
Across
town, the phone in the office of Angel Investigations ran just as Wesley and
Gunn were leaving.
"What
now?" the young black man groaned. Wesley picked up the phone.
"Angel
Investigations?"
"Wesley,
it's me…is Gunn with you?"
"Yes,
Angel, what is it?"
"Lindsey
took Cordelia. Meet me at 1200th
block of State St. as soon as you can."
"Right
Angel, we're on our way." Wesley hung up the phone and found Gunn gazing at him
with an anxious look on his face.
"So
what's up?"
"Cordelia's
been kidnapped…by Lindsey." Gunn's demeanor changed, and his face hardened with
anger.
"Let's
go!" Wesley was nearly pulled out the doorway.
The
party gathered outside the address that Angel had been given. It was an abandoned building that Wolfram
and Hart were planning to rebuild but had not started on yet. The lineup was quite impressive – a slayer,
a military-trained agent, a bad-ass from the streets, an ex-watcher – yet, all
of these put together did not equal the power radiating in a certain vampire's
eyes.
"Let's
go!" Angel ordered.
He
nearly ripped the door off its hinges, and the group entered the building. However, their advance was halted as a hoard
of demons emerged from the shadows. There was every kind you could think – ones with horns, one without
horns, ones with scales, ones without scales…the list was endless.
"Angel,
we can handle this, go find her," Gunn shouted as he ducked a swing from one of
the demons.
"Yes,
go find her, it's almost midnight!" Wesley added. Angel didn't want to leave them, but he knew that they were
right.
Punching
one demon in the face and drilling a second one with a sidekick gave him the
room to make it through.
Angel
ran through the shadows, his eyes scanning every sliver of light for a sign of
Cordelia. Finally, he found a prone
figure hanging in pillar of light; it was Cordelia! Her hands were tied above her head, which hung down like she was
unconscious.
Angel
rushed to her side and lifted her back onto her feet.
"Cordy…it's
me…c'mon wake up." He lifted her face into the light and gasped. Her lip was bleeding, both of her cheeks
were bruised, and she had a very large cut on her forehead.
Rage
began to boil inside Angel's veins as he cut her down and held her fragile body
in his arms. Her head slumped onto his
shoulder, and she let out a painful groan. Angel felt something sticky where his hands were on her back. Glancing over his shoulder, his eyes widened
with horror. Long, bloody marks
streaked across the skin of her back; she'd been whipped!
"LINDSEY!"
Angel roared at the top of his lungs. Hearing footsteps to one side, the vampire trained his eyes on the young
man who approached him.
"What
took you so long, Angel?" he sneered.
"Damn
you, how could you do this!" indicating Cordelia's bloody form. "This is beneath even you." Lindsey
snickered at him.
"Please…give
me a little credit, Angel; I don't beat up women."
"Then
who in the hell did this to her?" the vampire roared back. His keen ears picked up two more sets of
footsteps.
"I
did Daddy!" a familiar voice said in a demonic fashion. Angel turned to see Darla and Drusilla
emerge from the darkness.
"Hello,
my love, do you like Dru's work; she always did like using a whip!" Angel
ignored the sexual innuendo and turned back towards Lindsey.
"What's
the matter? Can't fight your own
battles?"
"Not
at all, Angel, Darla wants you to suffer just as much as I do," the young
lawyer sneered.
Angel
was in a tough spot. He knew that
Cordelia needed help…bad, but he also knew that Lindsey and Darla wouldn't let
him leave so easily.
"So,
Darla, do you want to kill me?" Angel asked as he turned to face her once
again. The blonde approached him and
merely sneered.
"More
than you know, but I'd much rather watch you suffer." Angel saw her eyes focus
on the body in his arms. "I can't believe you picked some stupid, little
brown-haired bitch over me!"
"Shut-up!"
Angel hissed. Darla laughed at him;
she'd struck a nerve.
"So…you
do care about her. Then, I'm sure
you'll love this…Dru's whipping session wasn't the only thing that we put her
through…"
"What
are you saying?"
"…Oh
nothing much. We just told her some old
stories…some of 'your' old stories…" Angel's face became even whiter. Dear God, there were things that he'd done
as Angelus that no one should ever have been told and most assuredly not Cordelia. She was the last person that he wanted to
know about his dark past.
"Yes,
she was quite a good listener, but she also put up quite a fight," Drusilla
laughed. "Hmm, it was
delicious…watching her face as she listened to all the things that you did…that
you did to me…and to Darla."
Angel's
anger was well pasted its boiling point, but there was an odd feeling inside of
him. He looked down at Cordelia once
again, and he felt a second source of rage inside of him – Angelus' rage. He heard a single phrase repeating in the
back of his subconscious, 'No one shall touch what is mine!'
"Ah!"
he cried out as something slammed into his side. Turning to the source, he saw Lindsey holding a sledgehammer in
his hand.
"Face
it, Angel, you are going to watch your precious seer die in your arms," Lindsey
snickered.
"Oh
no, he isn't!" Four heads turned, and Angel nearly grinned as he saw Buffy,
Riley, Wesley, and Gunn walk into the light.
"You
know, Darla, you really should screen your demons before you hire them cause I
gotta ya…those boys were pretty weak!" Gunn laughed.
Buffy
felt Darla's eyes on her, and she glared right back at her.
"So,
you're the little hoar that Angel bagged back in Sunnydale. I guess I should thank you for making him
lose his soul, but then again, he got it back…so I guess that I should kill you
instead."
Angel
picked up Cordelia and backed up towards his friends. They kept their weapons at ready in case either Drusilla or Darla
decided to attack.
"How
is she?" Wesley asked.
"Bad…we
need to get her to a hospital," Angel responded.
"Oh…but
don't you want to play?" Drusilla laughed.
"Watch
her!" Angel commanded and handed Cordelia over to Wesley. His eyes locked onto Lindsey's, and he put
his 'game face' on. Buffy stepped
beside him, and hers trained on Darla.
"No
more games." Those three words came from Angel's mouth, and the fight was on.
Lindsey
swung at him, but Angel ducked and drilled him in the stomach.
Buffy
and Darla were locked in an all-out catfight. They matched each other move for move until Darla managed to get in a
shot to the slayer's ribs, but Buffy countered right back with a spinning back
punch that sent the vampire reeling.
Drusilla
approached the remaining three.
"Well,
looks like I get the leftovers, but you look tasty enough…" Riley and Gunn
stood up to face her. Wesley knew that
Cordelia was his priority, but he also knew how powerfully Drusilla was. As he watched the trio fight, he made a hard
decision and lay Cordelia down and rested her head on his coat.
"I'm
sorry, Cordelia, but they need my help. Please, hold on." Wesley grabbed his crossbow and went to join the
others.
Cordelia
felt so tired. Her body was in so much
pain that she could've died right then- even moving her eyes was painful. Biting back the pain, she forced open her
eyelids to see where she was. Her arms
felt a lot better which meant that she wasn't hung up anymore, but who cut her
down?
She
got her answer when she saw the fight taking place in front of her. Angel was duking it out with Lindsey; Buffy
and Darla were going head to head; and Riley, Gunn, and Wesley were fighting
Drusilla.
"Angel…"
her chaste lips murmured. Her brown
eyes filled with tears; she knew that he'd come.
Angel
drilled Lindsey in the gut, and then drove his knee into the young man's face,
knocking him onto his back.
Buffy
ducked under a punch from Darla then kicked her in the stomach and finished it
with a firm roundhouse to the vampire's jaw. She collapsed to the pavement, and Buffy caught her breath.
Gunn
hit Drusilla from behind, and she fell to her knees. Wesley grabbed her by the hair, and the demonic woman laughed.
"Oh,
I like it rough!"
"Shut-up!"
Wesley knocked her out with a hard right cross.
Angel
approached his friends and nodded at all of them. Each of them bent over slightly to take a breather.
Cordelia
noticed Lindsey slowly getting to his feet. Angel couldn't see him nor could anyone else. Her adrenaline kicked in, and she fought back the aches and pains
of her own body and staggered up onto her feet. She took a step…and another…and another.
Lindsey
didn't notice her; his eyes were fixed on his target. Anger poured from his eyes; Angel was going to pay one way or the
other. Raising the sledgehammer, he
prepared to deliver a near fatal blow to his nemesis.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!"
Everyone turned at the sound of the scream. Angel snapped around to see Cordelia jump in front of him just as
Lindsey's swing came down.
"AHHHHHHHH!!!"
Her cry of agony tore at Angel's soul as the metal head plowed into her lower
back. Her legs gave out, and she fell
into Angel's arms.
He
looked at her completely astonishment, but there was something odd. She actually had a small smile on her
face. Angel suddenly understood; she
was happy because he wasn't hurt. She'd
been there for him when he'd needed it.
When
Angel saw tears fill her beautiful brown eyes, his final wall of control
crumbled. He felt what she felt; her
pain was his pain.
"ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHH!!!"
A roar as mighty as an earthquake exploded from his mouth. Everyone, even his friends, stepped back
slightly not knowing what in the world was going on.
Lindsey
drew back in pure unadulterated fear as Angel's now golden eyes fixed on
him. They glowed with unearthly power
and pure hatred for him and what he'd done.
Kneeling
down slowly, Angel carefully laid Cordelia down. He brushed his hand across her cheek and stood back up. His fangs bared, and Angel launched himself
at his prey.
Lindsey
didn't stand a chance in hell! Angel repeatedly
punch him in the gut under he heard the man's ribs crack. Next, he beat the lawyer's face to a bloody
pulp. Angel grabbed him by the throat
and picked his limp body up off the ground. He drew back his fist and prepared the final blow.
"Angel
stop!" a choppy voice begged. The
vampire froze, and everyone looked down at the source of the voice. Cordelia was trying to move her hand…towards
Angel.
Angel
turned his head, and he saw Cordelia's eyes. They held only a single word, 'No.'
"No
more pain, Angel, please, no more pain." Cordelia coughed up her own blood, but
her eyes remained on him.
The
vampire felt his rage leaving him as his seer's warm gaze enveloped the anger
storming around inside him. He dropped
the unconscious Lindsey to the ground and went to her side.
Even
though she was in tremendous pain, Cordelia managed a small smile as Angel
gathered her up in his arms. His game
face disappeared, and she saw the tenderness in his brown eyes.
"Angel…"
she coughed out, "…promise me no more pain, please, promise me that there will
be no more pain." He couldn't believe that she was saying this to him- now of
all times, but he couldn't resist the plea from those gorgeous eyes. Her soul was shining for him, sending him a
silent message and hoped that he understood.
"I
promise, Cordelia, no more pain." Upon the completion of his statement, his
seer's eyes closed as a smile crossed her lips.
"CORDELIA!!!"
Author's Notes: Ah, don't you hate cliffhangers? What's going to happen next? Stay tuned to find out. Please R&R for me; I accept any type of criticism.
