What you wish for
Chapter 2
"Get that one in a metal box." Jasmine said to Connor as she looked at Max.
"Why?" Connor asked her.
"Because, I said so Connor." Jasmine said smiling at Connor.
"Okay." He said grabbing Max by the arm.
"NO!" Fred cried out.
"It's okay Fred." Max said looking at them.
"Oh doll face." Lorne said sadly.
Connor shoved her out of the room and down the hall. He put her in the elevator as not too attracted attention from the media.
"So what do you do anyway?" Connor asked her.
"I can light this damn elevator up like a Christmas tree." Max said rudely.
"Then why don't you?" He asked her.
"I have spent my sad life saving the innocent. And although you aren't a good person that doesn't give me the right to kill you." Max said looking at their reflections in the shiny doors.
The doors slid open and he pushed her out and into a door right across the hall. She fell down a flight of stairs and hit her back on a cold stone floor. Connor followed her down the stairs and kicked her hard making her fly into the metal cage. He slammed the door shut and left the basement.
Max pushed herself up and stared at the wall across the room. Se could melt metal she knew it but what if she couldn't control that much fire? She knew it could turn deadly and far to many people were above her to risk it.
A good twenty minutes later Connor came back down the stairs with the rest of the group and shoved them into the cage with Max who was nursing a leg wound in the corner. She stood as they were pushed into the cage.
"Welcome to my corner of heaven." Max said looking at them.
"More like hell." Gunn said looking at her.
"Yeah well what can you do." She said looking at them all. "Well, I have an idea..."
She walked to the front of the cage and put her hand on the lock. A flame erupted from her hand and began to engulf the lock in a small flame. She cringed in pain as the metal began to melt to her hand. She cried out as the cage gate swung open. A large red burn on her hand indicated that melting metal had its prices.
She fell to her knees and held her useless hand to her chest. Wesley grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. He carried her out of the basement as screams came from above them. They sprinted up the stairs to see people running for their lives from the hotel and Angel standing in the mess of them holding a demon head.
"If this wasn't how normally my days went I would be freaked out to see a girl melt metal and to see a vampire holding a dead demon head and some freak standing on the stairs." Gunn said shaking his head.
"Are you okay?" Fred asked her.
"I'm okay." She said jumping out of Wes's arms as Angel left the hotel.
She followed him out the door without a word to the others. She was shocked to find what she did, the streets in chaos. Cars parked in the middle of the road. People just wandering down the streets in fear most likely of what tomorrow would be like without Jasmine in it.
Max looked around. She remembered something like this in China. A man had come to a small city and made the whole place love him with his magical powers. An ancient warrior who said no one else could see what he was but him had called in Max. Although the sorcerer had no maggoty face he was a wolf in sheep's skin, ready to devour the entire city.
She had spent the majority of her life fighting what evil could cross her path but the aftermath was what always got her. The suffering that came afterwards, people always died when there was something big at stake. After death it was time to mourn. And that's what LA was planning on doing, mourning the loss of their goddess.
"Its scary isn't it." Angel said coming up on the side her. "The fear. The loss."
"You got to feel the love of it all. They say its better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all. What do you do when no one has ever loved you? Or you have never loved anyone to which you could lose?" Max replied her mind fixated on the pain she felt inside, not her hand.
"I don't know." Angel said to her.
They began to walk down the street together. Angel took her hand in his and they walked together hand in hand. One who had lost something and one who had nothing to lose.
The two walked into the Hyperion hotel. After Angel explained what had happened with Connor and Jasmine the room was silent.
"I'm just afraid he might do something."
"Like end world peace." He turned to see Lilah Morgan walk into the lobby. "Well you already took care of that. Congratulations."
The whole of them listened intently as Lilah dished them something they never would have expected. Even Max, someone who was not originally from LA knew who Wolfram and Hart was and now Lilah was offering the LA branch of the firm up to them on a silver platter. They were all stunned, obviously.
"There is going to be a limo here at dawn to give you the grand tour." Lilah turned before she left the hotel. "That means you too Max. Your destiny is intertwined with theirs from now on."
Lilah left the hotel and they all began to talk at once. About taking the job then decided to split up in an attempt to find Connor instead of deciding to go to Wolfram and Hart or not.
"Okay..." Max said as Lorne came into the hotel later.
"Nothing." Lorne said slightly discouraged.
"We will find him." Angel said pacing the large lobby.
"Angel..." Gunn said to him. "Maybe if we..."
"If we what?" Angel barked stopping dead in his tracks. "Used Wolfram and Hart? You five can make the decision to get in that limo in the morning for yourselves. But if you do, before the ride is even over you will be corrupt."
He turned then and stalked out of the hotel his face lit with anger. The others looked around then agreed to see each other the next day. It had been a long day.
Max left the hotel and made her way to an all night diner. She was hungry and homeless but she had some money. So until she had better things to do she sat at one of the shiny seated booths and opened over of the laminated menus. She pulled her black framed glasses out of her pocket and put them on so she could read the menu.
She let out a sigh, if she worked for Wolfram and Hart she wouldn't have to eat at a diner in the middle of the night. She wouldn't have to walk around all night instead of sleeping because she would have to accept the fact that she was homeless if she slept on the ground.
"May I take your order?" Max looked up and immediately felt stupid for feeling bad for herself. The waitress couldn't have been more then sixteen and she looked as if it had been a few days since she had showered.
"I'll have a burger and a coke." She said closing her menu and handing it to the girl. "Thank you." The girl smiled at her and turned away.
Max looked down at the table and at her own reflection. Her black hair was soft and clean, she had showered at the YMCA down the street before she had run into Fred. Her hair hadn't always been black. After the accident it had turned black, her eyes had gone from a mud brown to a bright green. She had become a completely different person after that crash then what she probably would have turned out to be.
She probably would have gone to college, gotten married and had a few kids. But now it looked like kids were out of the question. She didn't dare pass this on to someone else if she could help it.
"So." She looked up to see Angel's son, Connor sit down in the booth with her.
"You hungry?" She asked him immediately.
"Yes." He said to her. "I don't have any money."
"I do." Max said, she knew it would hit her hard in the pocket book but she had enough.
She flagged down the waitress and made it a double. Connor stared down at his own reflection in the shiny table. He stared as if he was questioning his own existence, like there was nothing left in the world.
"I didn't love her like everyone else did." Connor said as the waitress set two glasses of coke infront of them.
"You loved her as a father. Like Angel loves you." Max said to him.
He didn't say anything he just nodded solemnly he looked up at her his eyes boring into hers. She understood him, breed from impossibilities. Having a destiny that he didn't want to be a part of.
"Why do I feel like you understand me better then I do?" He asked her.
"I don't. Your just confused, I understand you but you will come to a place in your life where you understand yourself perfectly. Maybe not today or tomorrow but someday. I promise." Max said to him.
"Do you understand yourself?" Her asked her.
"No." She said as the waitress set the two burgers infront of them.
They ate and Max paid. Then they left the diner and walked out onto the streets that were still somewhat reeling from the chaos.
"Jasmine said you don't have any family. And that you live on the streets." Connor said to her as they walked toward the Hyperion hotel.
"I do have family. But they don't speak to me. Connor," She paused and stopped then turned to him. "You have family, a family that wants you. Fred, Gunn, Wes, Lorne, Angel, they all want you and love you."
"And you?" Connor asked her.
"I want a family Connor. I want to be part of this family but with my special circumstances I doubt I will." She began to walk again. "You need to go home Connor. With your father."
Connor turned and fled down the street in the opposite way. Max stood in the middle of the street staring at his retreating figure. She looked up at the sky, the sun was going to set soon and she was just a few blocks from the Hyperion.
She walked the rest of the way to find the A.I. team standing infront of the Hyperion near the black limo parked outside.
"I thought you of all people wouldn't come. Morals and all." Gunn said to Max as she stepped onto the curb her hands in her dark denim jeans.
"Girls gotta eat." Max said deciding in her head to not tell Angel about Connor yet.
"I'm glad you did come." Fred said smiling at her.
"Thanks Fred." Max said to her as Angel walked up.
Angel got in the limo, Gunn and Wes behind him then Fred got in and after her Max got in and closed her door.
"Does that have to be so loud Lorne?" Wes asked him.
Max was silent the whole ride to Wolfram and Hart. She just stared out the window. It was surreal, Maxine Tripp was in a limo. That never would have happened without these people and now she didn't know what to do.
They reached the evil law firm and stuck together until they got inside. Lilah was standing in the main lobby with six people standing behind her and her hands clasped infront of her with a cruel smile on her pretty face.
"Good morning Mr. Angel." A man said walking past Angel.
"Oh no!" Max said nearly doubling over with laughter.
"There is no way this is gonna go well." Angel said shaking his head.
"Good morning Mr. Angel."
"Good morning Mr. Angel."
"Good morning Mr. Angel."
"Well, you've all made it. What a shock." Lilah said to them. "We've got a lot of ground to cover, so best we get started. Let me introduce you to your guides."
"Guides?" Angel asked her narrowing his eyes.
"Yes there are six of you, six guides. Six different areas of expertise, specific interests. Do I have to explain everything to you Angel?" Lilah said shaking her head.
"Divide and conquer." Angel said shaking his head.
"Now Angel, if we wanted to hut you we would have the limo blown up." Lilah said looking around at them.
"She's right Angel." Lorne said to them.
"What's with the glasses?" Gunn asked Max.
"Oh." Max said touching her face. "Can't read without em. Side effect."
"If you don't trust us you can be armed." Lilah said as a man rolled a full cart of weapons into the lobby.
Fred grabbed a gun and cocked it then nodded with a polite smile on her face. Lilah motioned for the rest of them. They all shook their heads.
"Okay let's get this show on the road." Lilah said smiling. "Preston, will be your guide, Lorne."
A short little guy walked to Lorne shook his hand and showed him a long list of clientele in the entertainment division.
An older, more distinguished man stepped up. Lilah introduced him to Wesley as Rutherford Circe. He invited Wesley to follow him and without a word but with a quick glance at the rest of the group he followed.
"Charles Gunn, this is Lacey Shepard." Lilah said to Gunn about the beautiful African-American woman Gunn had been eyeing.
Gunn scurried off with the woman. A young man in a lab coat stepped up and Lilah introduced him as Knox. They left after an awkward introduction.
"Max Tripp, this is Jason Heatherford." Lilah said introducing a young attractive man with dark spiked hair who smiled at her.
"Angel." Max said looking at him.
He nodded and she followed the young man. They walked up a flight of stairs then down the hall. Max noticed the way people looked at her. Her AC/DC shirt and dark jeans probably made people a little nervous. And the fact that the whole place probably already knew how powerful she was.
"So who are you?" Max asked Jason.
"I manage the special projects division." Jason said smiling at her.
"Whoa a whole division lucky you." Max said as they walked down the hall.
"I manage it. You're the head of it." Jason said turning down a large hall.
A sign on the hall said Special Projects. The hall was large and well lit, at the end of the hall was a large door where they were heading. The nameplate on the door read Maxine Tripp on it. Max stopped looking at the door.
"I know this is happening really fast." Jason said to her. "But it will be okay."
"Yeah thanks I'm not seven." Max said as they walked to the office.
Jason pushed the door open and inside there was a large desk with a huge desk chair behind it. The office had ceiling to floor mirrors in it and it had its own mini bar. Max shook her head and knew at that moment that was totally the job for her.
After listening to Max explain the gist of the special projects area she left the office and went back down to the lobby. The group was standing there waiting for her she smiled at them.
"It's tempting." She said coming to the group.
"I want it." Gunn said to them.
"So do i." Lorne said smiling at them.
"I must say I do as well." Wes said smiling.
"So what are we doing?" Fred asked Angel as he came down into the lobby with them.
"We're taking it." Angel said to them.