Sins of the Father
Chapter Sixteen
Author's Note: Some Angelus and Lottie stuff here, there'll be more next chapter, but I thought I'd warn that Angelus is torturing someone. It's not as explicit as some torture scenes I've read, but for the squeamish, be warned there is some torture.
They were awkward. She should be used to it by now. She guessed she deserved it. But that didn't mean she had to like it. These guys didn't know her, they heard a few horror stories and they figured she couldn't be trusted. They didn't know what drove her to it, they hadn't seen anything. Hell, not even Wesley knew what happened before Sunnydale.
She faced Gunn, Wes and Connor and put her hands on her hips.
"Ok, if we're gonna work together, you need to back off my past, got it? I was what I was, but I've changed. People do, it's a human thing. So, if any of you reckon you can't trust a reformed convict, turn around and walk away, 'cause I don't go out there with people I think might stab me in the back."
She waited. Gunn glanced at Wes who nodded and turned back to Faith.
Connor however, needed no confirmation from Wesley.
"I got your back," he told her.
She smiled at him, the sexy smile she reserved for guys in bars and grabbed a crossbow. "Then lets go hunt us an asshole."
Angelus pushed the body to the ground and wiped his mouth. He glanced at a smear on his thumb and grinned at Lottie who sat in frozen terror, unable to look away. He fell to his knees before her and held up his blood stained thumb.
"Y'know," he said. "Some people think blood's yucky. But it's actually quite tasty. Tastes like - well, not chicken, but that's what everyone says."
He ran his thumb roughly over her lips and she pulled back away from him. He chuckled and turned to the vampire he had chained to the wall, who was staring at Lottie hungrily. Angelus pulled him down from where he had chained him to the wall by his hands and pushed him to the floor.
The vampire kept his eyes fixed on Lottie and attempted to use his feet to push himself toward her. She shrank back and whimpered as Angelus pinned the vampire in place with his foot between the vampire's shoulder blades.
"When you're as old as me, Lottie," Angelus said conversationally. "You learn a lot. Pick up a lot of useless bits of information. Like, did you know that if you cut a tongue in half, the two bits work as two separate tongues? Interesting, huh? Oh, you don't believe me," he straddled the vampire's back and wrenched his head back, tugging his mouth open.
The vampire whimpered in protest, but Angelus ignored him. He pulled the vampire's tongue further out of his mouth and pulled a knife from his boot. In one swift movement, he rammed it through the tongue and pushed the vampire's head forward. While the vampire gargled a scream, Angelus pushed the knife forward, cutting the tongue in two from the middle to the tip.
"The thing about vampires," Angelus continued. "Is they heal quick. See, if I'd done this to a human, they'd have passed out from the pain, then bled to death. Good thing he tried to take me on, huh? Or I'd be getting through more bodies than that," he pointed to the dead body of a young man in the corner.
Lottie was extremely pale; Angelus would go so far as to say she was slightly green. He hung the vampire back on the wall and shackled its legs as well as its hands. He glanced out into the hall, which was slowly being filled with sunlight.
They would move on tonight. He hoped the vampire would fit in the trunk of the car he'd stolen. He hauled Lottie to her feet and pushed her toward the closet in the corner. It was the smallest one he could find in the entire place and the darkest. He opened the door and gave her a nudge with his boot. She stumbled, unable to balance properly with her hands tied behind her back. She glowered at him.
"My Dad's going to kill you," she hissed, though shook with fear as she spoke.
He sank down in front of her and smirked.
"I'd like you to see him try," he pushed her inside, slammed the door and locked it. He paused for a moment, savouring her screams, before turning to check his vampire victim was secure. He couldn't risk him getting free while he was out looking for the Shaman. He opened the door to the basement and looked back toward the closet, hearing her screams start to fade as he added in a low voice, "And fail."
If he was truly honest, he was losing hope. They hadn't found a thing. Not even a clue. If this carried on, he didn't know what he would do. The worst thing was that Angelus might move onto a place they already checked and that would cost them time.
He sighed and stood up, he couldn't sleep. He didn't know how he could be expected to. What was Angelus doing to her? He shuddered as he remembered Drusilla, the things he had read about her and Cordy's descriptions. Drusilla was proof that Angelus didn't have to hurt someone physically to destroy them and Drusilla was a grown woman, Lottie was only a child.
But the thing that absolutely terrified him, the thing he couldn't bear to even imagine was screwing this up.
When Melissa picked up Lottie and introduced them with the words, "Charlotte, this is your daddy." His startled response was born of fear. His own life was a mess and he was now completely responsible for another life. He was scared he would make a mess of it, just like his father always said he would in everything he did.
If he didn't get her back, he would never get the chance to prove he could be a good dad. This whole thing terrifed him because if he screwed this up, he was just like his father and after everything his father had put him through, he had sworn he would never be like him.
God, all he was asking for was a chance to be the kind of dad he had always wanted. The kind of dad his daughter deserved. That's all he wanted. He wanted Lottie back, safe and unharmed.
Was that so much to ask for?
With a long, sad sigh picked up his glasses and toyed with them as he went down to the lobby and sat on the couch.
"Couldn't sleep, huh?"
He jumped and stared into the blackness, pushing his glasses on and straining to make out the figure on the chair opposite. He needn't have bothered, he knew that voice.
"No, Faith, I couldn't."
"I get that."
"Maybe," he shrugged, though she couldn't have seen.
He heard the pattering of bare feet on the cold floor and then the click seconds before the light flooded the lobby. He squinted in Faith's general direction and found that when he finally regained his sight, she was smirking at him. He rolled his eyes and sank back into the couch, intent on brooding.
She nibbled her lip, giving him a sympathetic look. She sat back down in her chair opposite him and watched him as his brow furrowed and he sank into a depression.
He was different. He had been different when she last saw him, less like the Watcher from Sunnydale. But this new Wesley was something else entirely and she wasn't sure she understood him. Finally, she spoke.
"Things'll get better, Wesley," she told him softly.
"How do you know that?" he looked up at her and looked genuinely serious, as though he actually wanted an answer.
"Because this looks familiar… Looks pretty much like rock bottom," she gestured at him and glanced toward the ceiling as she added. "Nowhere else to go but up."