Tara sat cross-legged on a sofa in the lobby with her eyes closed. Angel looked over to her with concern. He wasn't sure what she was doing, but once they had returned and changed out of their rain-soaked clothes, she had remained like that the whole time. He guessed she was meditating. He didn't really know. He couldn't worry about it at the moment.
"They tried to take Tara, too," he explained to the others. "I'm not sure why."
"Lilah was here earlier today," Wesley said. "She said she just wanted to keep track of the new faces around here. She already knew Tara was here and who she was. Chances are they may have figured out more about Tara than what's in public record."
"We can worry about that part later," Angel said. "We need to figure out how to get the twins back."
"We can't just storm the fortress," Gunn said. "This is Wolfram & Hart we're talking about. We need a bigger army than just us."
"They've got those shamans that detect when a demon enters the building," Cordelia said. "Angel can't even go in there."
"Is there maybe a magical way to get in or a way to block the shamans from detecting Angel?" Fred asked. "Like some kind of invisibility thing or something?"
"It's too late." They were all surprised when Tara spoke. They looked over to her and saw the expression of sadness on her face. Her voice wavered as she spoke. "Tomi and Toshi are dead."
"How do you know?" Cordelia asked.
"I can sense it, with my power," Tara explained. "I could sense their living energies. Now I can't. They wouldn't cooperate."
"Well, Lindsey didn't waste any time with second chances," Gunn said. "He must've asked them once and just executed them."
"Swell guy," Fred said grimly.
They all remained in silence for a while. Tara stared at the floor, blinking back tears. She felt like she could have done more. She felt like she should have been able to stop those men from taking the twins. Now she had more blood on her hands. She didn't kill the twins, but she felt like she had. By not saving them, she had killed them. She jumped when Angel rested his hand on her shoulder.
"There's nothing more either of us could have done," he said when she looked up at him. Although he didn't look like he believed that.
"I'm just sick of all the death," she said, her voice cracking as she spoke. "I'm sick of it."
She ran her hand through her hair and then rested her head in her hands, crying silent tears. The others looked to her worriedly.
"Tara, you're injured and you haven't slept for over 24 hours," Wesley said, his concern evident. "You should really get some rest."
Tara shook her head and looked to Angel, sniffing back tears. "Those twins…they were important. More important than me."
Angel knew she meant he should've sacrificed her to save the twins. He shook his head. "We don't know that they were. The Powers have a plan for you. Possibly as much of a plan as they have for me."
"Wolfram & Hart getting their hands on you could've been even more dangerous than getting their hands on the twins," Wesley said. He paused and looked down at the floor. "At least now we know the future is safe from the enemy."
Tara looked up at him suddenly in shock. "Because the twins are dead."
"It's an ugly business we're in, but—"
"It's an ugly business you're in," Tara said angrily, interrupting Wesley and standing from the sofa. "I don't wanna be a part of this business. I came here to get better. If I wanted to fight evil, I would've stayed in Sunnydale." She shook her head. "I should've stayed in Sunnydale."
She walked off, not allowing any of them to say another word. They all stood in silence, not sure where to go from here. So Cordelia made a decision. She left the lobby and followed Tara. When she arrived at Tara's room she found her packing. Tara looked up briefly when Cordelia stepped through the door.
"Can we talk?" she asked.
"You're asking to be polite," Tara said as she continued packing.
"Okay, yeah, I am," Cordelia admitted. She sighed. "I know you're upset and freaked out and scared."
Tara stopped packing and just stood there silently. Cordelia walked over and sat on the bed.
"I'm sure if Willow told you anything about me, she told you how self-involved and shallow I was in high school. I thought I was so special, when I was really nobody special," she began. She paused and smiled. "When I first started getting the visions, I was scared. Then I was pissed off. I came to LA to be an actress. I didn't want to be some tool the Powers used to get messages to Angel." She waited for some kind of response. Tara remained silent. "But I realized I'm more important than the person I've been my whole life. I'm part of something so huge that…well, being an actress doesn't mean much to me anymore."
Tara finally made eye contact with her, staying silent. Cordelia could tell how conflicted she was just by looking in her eyes. Tara didn't know what to do.
"I'm not trying to guilt you into staying," she said. She stood and backed toward the door. "I just wanted to remind you that everything that happens isn't for nothing."
She grabbed the doorknob and was about to leave when she turned back. "Oh, and whether you stay or go, you really should get some sleep first. You look like hell."
Tara smiled and shook her head. That sounded like the Cordelia that Willow had told her about. She watched as she left the room, and Tara sat on the bed. Her thoughts returned to the night this whole mess started, the night she had saved the world. She had been fairly certain she would die that night. She thought that would be it. She saved the world and that was the end. That was her purpose.
Coming back, all she cared about was being the person she was before. She remembered the night she had truly met Willow. She had seen her in Wicca group, but when they truly met, she had felt complete. She had been running for her life and suddenly there was Willow. She had never thought that night would've led up to where she was now. She had changed so much. She could never be who she was before. She could only be who she was now.
She laid back on the bed and closed her eyes, but a voice startled her and caused her to roll off the bed. She knelt on the floor and looked across the room. Her eyes widened in fear and she backed up until she was crouching in the corner, staring at the owner of the voice.
"Who you are now," the girl said. Her skin was grey and cracked, her hair thin and dry. She looked like the embodiment of death. The only color of life in her was her bloodshot eyes. "A killer. Blood on your hands. My blood from when you devoured me. Hacked me into little pieces."
"No no no," Tara said repeatedly. She couldn't take her eyes off the girl. All she could stare fearfully at her.
"More blood on your hands. The twins are dead," the girl said. She walked toward Tara and it became visible that she was holding a knife made of bone. It had blood stains on it. "You create death. You bring it wherever you go. You are death."
"No!" Tara shouted at her angrily as tears stung her eyes. The girl smiled and lashed out with the knife, in Tara's mind striking her arm and creating a deep cut on her left arm. Tara cried out and immediately covered the "wound" with her right hand. She whimpered, "I'm sorry."
"You're sorry," the girl said. Her voice changed and mimicked Tara's. "Sorry for killing you. Sorry for chopping your limbs off while you were alive. Sorry for making you my dinner. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."
"Stop it! Stop!" Tara cried out. She jumped to her feet and charged at the girl, only to pass right through her and crash into the dresser. All the items on the top of the dresser fell to the floor and Tara's fist cracked the mirror at the bottom corner. The glass cut her hand and blood began to run down the back to her wrist. She turned and looked at the girl again. She was standing beside the bed, shooting a fearsome grin at her. Tara shook her head and charged again, this time crashing into the bedside table. The only item on the table—the framed picture of her and Willow—fell to the floor, the glass breaking in the frame.
She looked down at it. The break in the glass began directly over her face and the cracks radiated outward like a sunburst, stretching across Willow's smiling image. She reached forward with trembling hands and picked up the frame, carefully opening the back and removing the picture.
"Death comes to all you touch," the girl said. "Her too."
"But not because of me," Tara said as she dropped the empty picture frame and stared at the picture. She crawled over to her bed by the window. She diverted her eyes from the picture only for a moment to glare at the girl. "Not because of me. Never because of me."
"Always because of you," the girl said. Tara curled up on her side, turning her back to the girl. She placed the picture beside her on the floor. She closed her eyes tight and did everything she could to ignore the girl as she fell into a fitful sleep. "Always because of you."
The girl smiled and watched her try to escape from herself.
* * *
She awoke with sunlight streaming in across her face. She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was Willow's smiling face in the picture. It was a good thing to wake up to.
Then she looked around, seeing the aftermath of the episode she had experienced the previous night. She looked down at her hand and saw the back of it was covered with dried blood. Her bags were still half-packed on the bed. She still had a decision to make. So she began cleaning up the mess, starting with her hand.
When she walked down the stairs to the ground floor of the hotel, Fred and Gunn were surprised to see she wasn't carrying any bags. She walked directly toward the office where Wesley and Cordelia were researching.
"What happened to your hand?" Gunn asked, notcing the bandage on her right hand.
"Punched a mirror," she said.
"Oh," Gunn said, as if it was something everybody did all the time. He watched her walk past into the office.
"Why am I here?" she asked. Cordelia and Wesley were startled and looked up.
"In Los Angeles?" Cordelia asked. Tara shook her head.
"Why did the Powers bring me here?" she asked. "Why did they manipulate my friends into bringing me back here? I want to know. I need to know."
Wesley nodded his head. "You will know. We'll find out why." He fumbled through some of the books in front of him on the desk, chose one and handed it to her. She took it and sat in a nearby chair. Cordelia and Wesley returned to their research, trying to find out Tara's plan.
THE END
