Note: Sorry this took so long! I'll try to finish the next chapter faster.

Chapter 2 - Picture Perfect

The girl ran quickly through the back alleys of LA, dodging dumpsters and the occasional homeless person. Nothing else tried to attack her, fortunately. She was too tired to fend off any attacks after banishing three bumpy-faced things in a row. She intended to use her remaining energy for other things, like running the half-mile from that particular alley to the abandoned office building she'd been staying at for the last week. It was a pretty good place. Lots of rooms, only a few other crashers, doors that locked, and a very small number of rats.

She had a plan. It was the same thing she always did, in every place she'd had to run away from. After going to the office building and getting her things, she would use some of her money for a bus ride to a new city in a new state, like Santa Fe, or at least Phoenix. There, she would lay low for as long as she could, or until her aunt found her and dragged her back home - which she hoped wouldn't happen.

It wasn't a very good plan, but at least it would take her away from L.A.

She hoped that any bumpy-faced things around had bad hearing, because the thick, clunky shoes she wore thumped loudly with every step she took. Silently, she berated herself for not getting different shoes when she ran away from her aunt's house. But there hadn't been any time then.

And there wasn't any time now. She pushed herself to run faster, in her head thanking all the coaches in every sport she'd been in for keeping her in shape.

*****

"So, where're we headed?" Spike asked, as he leaned back in the seat of Angel's fancy Viper, pretending to look relaxed and comfortable. The truth was, he couldn't feel the chair at all. But it was fun to make Angel mad.

Angel scowled at the sight of him sprawled out on his expensive leather seat. "We're not going anywhere. Get out of my car."

"Make me not dead."

"No."

"Well then," Spike mocked, "I guess we can't always have what we want, can we?"

Before he could retort, Angel's cell phone rang. "Hello?"

Fred's voice came from the other end of the line. "Angel?"

"Fred? Did you locate that thing?"

"Um, no, sorry," she said apologetically. "The equipment for that is impossible to use with just two people, so me and Knox are waking people up to help. But actually, I was calling to tell you to bring whatever the creature is back here alive so we can see what it is. 'Cause you know, you get carried away sometimes during fights..."

Spike snickered.

"... just don't kill it, please? It could be something important."

"Right," Angel agreed, then ended the call. Without another word or glance at Spike, he climbed into the driver's seat and pulled out of the garage. He was so quick that he caught Spike off guard, leaving Spike's body sitting where the passenger's seat had been only moments before.

Spike drifted down slowly to the floor. He stared out after Angel's car.

"Idiot," he grumbled.

*****

In five minutes, the girl was running up the office building's stairs to her room. The door was unlocked. She climbed onto the cheap wooden desk near the wall. When she put her arms up, Her fingertips barely reached the removable ceiling tiles. She jumped and pushed one of the tiles sideways, revealing about two feet of space from the tiles to the roof. She jumped again, but this time instead of moving tiles, she put her hand in the space and pulled out a blue backpack.

She let out a sigh of relief. The backpack and its contents were all she had left of her old life. She was glad no one had stolen it. Her idea of leaving it behind probably hadn't been one of her best decisions, but it was easier to go places when she wasn't carrying it. To reassure herself that it was untouched, she opened it.

Everything was where she left it, but the girl dug through it until she found the most important thing she had packed.

It was a candid picture taken by her aunt last summer during mid-afternoon. It was set in the shade of a big tree at a park near to where she used to live. Her father, Lucas Shane - a tall, handsome, man with blond hair and blue eyes - was leaning against the big tree alongside her mother, Megan Shane. Megan's skin was a few shades darker than the pale cream color of her husband's, thanks to her mother's - the girl's grandmother's - Asian and Spanish roots. The girl's mother was a beautiful woman, and it was always a complement when people told the girl how much she looked like her, which was often.

One of her father's hands was playfully twirling one lock of her mother's dark, wavy hair around his finger. They were both laughing. Standing by them was the girl herself. She was laughing along with them.

The girl forgot all about running away and leaned onto the wall, slowly sliding down until she was on the ground hugging her knees. When was the last time she had laughed like that, she wondered?

It was a little hard for the girl to believe that her life had been like that only five months ago. Back then; all she had to worry about was her next test or her next softball game. Now she worried about whether she would be able to eat.

The girl turned the picture over. There, in her aunt's neat print, it said, "Lucas, Megan, and Isabelle Shane. Summer 2003."

Finally remembering her plan, she put the picture back into her backpack. She had to move on. This was definitely not a good time for reminiscing.

*****

Angel was really starting to regret using a car to find the source of the power. The traffic in the power's aftermath was the worst he'd ever seen. And with him being more than 240 years old, that was saying something.

Giving up on using the road, he turned into the parking lot of a fancy restaurant with big bay windows. There were many other expensive cars in the lot. He parked as close as he could to the entrance, so a thief would hopefully bypass his car and go for a different one.

Angel wasn't going into the restaurant, though. Instead, he crossed the street and walked into an alley.

A strong sense of leftover magic cut through the middle of the path. Whatever the creature was must have been leaking massive amounts of magic when it had passed, Angel concluded, since it was powerful enough to feel. There was also a scent, going northwest, towards the industrial part of L.A. It seemed human, but when Angel bent over the ground to smell it again, he could tell that it was also something else he didn't recognize.

Angel stood back up. He knew which way the creature had gone; now all he had to do was find it.

Note: Her name is finally mentioned. I tried to stay true with the old- fashioned names Joss usually gives to the female characters on the show (Cordelia, Winifred, etc.). Review!!