REPRECUSSIONS

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Amy, Kelli, and Alyssa.

CHAPTER 29-NEIGHBOR FROM HELL

"Okay…yeah, you know maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Alyssa mumbled to herself with a meek and scared smile on her face as she brushed a few stray locks of hair back behind her ear and got a better grip on her battle axe. She had been surprised that Giles hadn't immediately rushed out of the house and ordered her back inside when he had discovered her missing but she had guessed that he had found himself both unable to leave the potentials all alone or send any of them out after her. She pulled her thin jacket tighter around her body, cursing her misfortune to have packed the one jacket that did little for warmth, but accentuated her developing curves, before leaving Miami. She had expected that the nights in California would be warmer, and even if sunrise was only a few minutes away she knew that she wouldn't feel safe until the sun was directly overhead.

"Now what is wrong with this picture…ah yes, a beautiful young American girl out on a stroll through town at such a late hour…," Ethan cooed with a confidant smirk on his face as barely held back his fit of laughter as he watched Alyssa first nearly stumble over her feet at his words and then very nearly jump out of her own skin at his sudden appearance under a streetlight.

"W…who are you," Alyssa shouted with a scared look in her eyes as she took a step back and brought the head of the axe up in front of her face, determined to protect herself to the best of her ability.

"Just a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, much like you actually," Ethan replied with the softest smile that he could manage as he tried not to initially scare Alyssa.

"Really, and you actually expect me to believe that line of bull…," Alyssa started to joke back with a confidant, if possibly cocky, smile on her face before she felt a presence beside her and tried her best to dive out of the way. But she soon discovered that she had not moved quickly enough as the tip of a curved knife slashed across her back diagonally from the small of her back clear up to her shoulder. Her scream of pain was soon followed by the sound of oxygen being sucked out of the air as a ball of fire erupted from the tips of Ethan's hands and quickly engulfed the harbinger that had wielded the knife. That was the last thing that Alyssa remembered before losing consciousness.

"How much time do we have before whatever's coming gets here," Buffy asked with an impatient scowl on her face before she took another drag of her cigarette.

"We don't have enough information to formulate an exact…," Fred began to answer with a concerned and unhappy frown on her face before Gunn stepped in.

"It doesn't matter, we're on the run as is and still don't know where everyone is," Gunn interjected with a frustrated and unhappy scowl on his face as he shuffled over to an empty chair and sat down.

"Then the first thing that we should do if find everyone and regroup, if this…whatever it is out there is as bad as you're making it sound then we'll need all the help we can get, Fred, take Kelli and Cordelia and go to Buffy's house and get everyone there, if they won't come peacefully…make them, Spike…you and Buffy come with me, we have to find Faith and Wesley before we do anything else," Angel stated with a commanding tone of voice as he walked into the center of the room, allowing the hastily called Wolfram and Hart paramedics to rush in and load a barely conscious Sam onto a gurney and then tear out of the room.

"Are we part of the equation," Connor asked with an impatient and serious frown on his face as he stepped into the cafeteria, with a heavily panting Oz arriving a few silent moments later.

"Connor…," Angel shouted in both shock and alarm as he spun around and for a second hoped that it was just an illusion cast by the First.

"It's nice to know that you remember my name…Dad," Connor quipped with the smallest hints of a smirk playing about the edges of his mouth as everyone else in the room furrowed their brows and looked around in confusion.

"Dad…Angel," Buffy stammered out with a very confused look on her face before she choked on a drag of her cigarette and then coughed a couple of times to clear her throat.

"Well…it's, complicated…and when did you start smoking…," Angel started to stammer out with a flustered expression on his face before he quickly changed the subject and glared at Buffy.

"Don't change the subject Peaches, you have a son…," Spike jumped in with mostly a sarcastic look on his face that hid a bit of anger in his voice as he stepped up beside Buffy and took the cigarette from her before taking a drag off of it himself and then blowing the smoke directly into Angel's face.

"Yes, Angel has a son…so what," Cordelia stated with an impatient frown on her face as she glared across the room at Spike and Buffy and laid a hand on Angel's shoulder.

"We…found you, we tried to find Willow and Dawn and the others, but we found you first," Oz gasped out softly as he doubled over to try and catch his breath, hoping that Willow and the others had already been found.

"Oz…what are you doing here," Cordelia asked with a subdued look of surprise on her face as she walked around in front of Angel and turned her gaze towards Oz, intentionally not looking at Connor.

"Cordelia…," Connor breathed in a barely audible voice with a small smile of joy on his face before the memories of what had happened, and their aftermath, between himself and Cordelia flashed through his mind, and he lowered his gaze to the floor but kept a tight grip on his weapon.

"Connor…we need to talk…alone," Angel stated with a slightly nervous tone to his voice as he took a step forward, glaring around at everyone to make sure that they knew that he wanted to talk to Connor by himself.

"This ought to be interesting…I can't wait for Angel to try to explain all of this," Spike whispered softly into Buffy ear with an eager smile on his face as he handed Buffy back the cigarette.

"Me either, but it's going to have to wait, we have to much going on right now to go all Dr. Phil on anyone," Buffy whispered back under her breath in between drags on the cigarette while Oz staggered over towards them, still trying to catch his breath.

"So what's the good word wolf boy," Spike asked with an impish smirk on his face as he laid a hand on Buffy's shoulder and leaned into her slightly, an act that she reciprocated in turn.

"Always the comedian huh Spike…anyway we have to find Willow and the others, especially with Adam running around through the walls," Oz quipped at first with a sarcastic smile on his face before his expression grew grim and at the end he looked back over his shoulder.

"Ad…what, Adam…," Buffy spat out as she choked on a drag of her cigarette, prompting Spike to smack her on the back a couple of times with a flat hand before she straightened up and wiped a tear off of her cheek.

"I don't know how or why but he's back, we were all in some room that looked like the security room when he saw him on one of the monitors, then before we knew it he came crashing through the wall, Willow took Dawn and went one way, Faith and Wesley tore off towards the stairs, and Connor and I got out as fast as we could," Oz answered with a very concerned look on his face before he turned his face towards the bank of broken out windows and smiled inwardly as the first rays of sunlight began to creep over the horizon.

"We have to find them Spike, at least so that I can strangle Dawn for putting herself in so much danger," Buffy stated with a very serious and upset expression on her face before she took another drag on the cigarette and casually glance back over her shoulder at the approaching dawn.

The silk sheets were smooth against her bare skin. The warmth that enveloped her made it hard for her to leave the world of dreams that she was in. Consciousness came back to her slowly, allowing her to spread out across the bed. Almost instantly she was forced to squint and then squeeze her eyes shut as the rays of light coming in between the heavy curtains and landing squarely on her eyes. She tried to shake her head away from the offending beams of light but as she did so a searing pain shot up the middle of her back and brought tears to her eyes and a stifled scream of pain. Tears stung her eyes as she attempted to sit up, and after several painful moments she finally succeeded and sat up, letting the silk blankets fall down to her lap. It was at that moment that she noticed something peculiar. "What the fuck," Alyssa mumbled with a scared stiff feeling in the pit of her stomach as she glanced down and saw only what God gave her staring back at her. Her shirt and bra were nowhere to be found as she quickly glanced around the room, much of which was hidden in shadows because each large window was covered by heavy curtains. With a grim and scared pout on her face she stiffly shook her head before she started to painfully slip out of the bed. She stopped almost instantly at the sight of first one and then two unclothed legs. Biting her bottom lip and squinting one eye tightly shut, partially due to the horror of what she was dreading she'd see and partially from the pain in her back, she pulled back the covers the rest of the way. She very nearly passed out when the blanket slipped away to reveal that she did not have a stitch of clothing on. The shaking came as an involuntary reflex, almost making her miss the scent that was clinging to her like a bad rash. When she stopped for a moment and sniffed a couple of times the strong and almost overwhelming scent of alcohol and old overpriced cologne struck her nose. Still with one eye closed Alyssa turned her head stiffly to one side and noticed some bottles of cologne and half empty bottles of various liquors on the nightstand beside the bed. Shaking at the pain in her back that the exertion caused Alyssa reached out and pulled the bottles to her, first the cologne and after sniffing them briefly knew where the smell on her body had come from. She only casually wafted the bottle of whisky under her nose before she squinted her eyes and took a drink, nearly spitting some of it back up. While it was true that she had drank back home in Miami it had never been very much and mostly just to appear to fit in with the in crowd. Alyssa was just about to set the bottle of whisky back down on the nightstand when she hear movement behind her. She didn't need to turn around for the intruder spoke up quickly.

"You shouldn't be moving so soon miss…especially after last night," Ethan Rayne quipped with a sly and arrogant smirk on his face as he stepped into the room with a silk robe slung over his shoulder.

"S...stay away from me…," Alyssa mumbled out with an extremely nervous tone to her voice as she gritted her teeth through the pain and pulled the blanket up and tried her best to cover herself up.

"Funny…that's not what you said last night…," Ethan shot back with an evil grin on his face as he slid off his own robe and walked into the room.

"Nnh…damn," Faith mumbled softly as she lay motionless on the floor beside Wesley for a moment before she bent her elbow and brought her hand up to her face. Instantly she was aware that something was wrong. She cautiously, and painfully, opened one eye and very nearly died from shock at the sight of her fingers dripping wet with blood. For a brief instant her memory of the last several moments before she blacked out was blissfully lost to her. But that blissful world did not last very long as splintered bits of her past filtered back into her mind. With a pained grimace on her face, and a couple of tears slipping down her cheeks, she whimpered in pain as she used one arm to roll herself over so that she was on her stomach. Faith nearly retched as the pool of blood saturated the front of her clothes and was cold against her cheek. "Wes…," Faith asked, shakily at first before she yelled it out, an act that very nearly made her pass out in mid step because sparkles appeared before her eyes and the world in front of her began to spin. It was then that Faith spotted Wesley out of the corner of her eye. As carefully as she could, hoping to avoid any twinges of pain, Faith turned her head and took in the sight that would haunt her to her grave. Wesley lie there, crumpled up against a very dented filing cabinet, looking deathly pale and his hair drenched in sweat and blood. "No…Wesley, no…," Faith mumbled out through a sheet of tears that fell of their own accord as she scrunched up her face and hissed at the pain that each motion caused while she slowly crawled back over towards Wesley. Her heart almost burst out of her chest upon discovering that Wesley still had a pulse. "W…wait here Wes…I'll…," Faith started to say with a very serious tone to her voice and look on her face before she felt warm and the world started to spin around once more. But this time the world did not stop spinning around in circles until her world went black and she collapsed down overtop of her lover, unconscious.

"Amy…Vi, have either of you seen Alyssa," Giles asked with an impatient frown on his face as he walked into the kitchen and pulled the curtains closed to shut out the midmorning sunshine.

"Uh…nope," Amy replied with a little bit to sugary sweet smile on her face before she took a large bite of a granola bar and proceeded to concentrate fully on chewing.

"Really…," Giles muttered back in a skeptical reply with a growing look of concern on his face before his gaze flickered over the weapons on the island and he noticed the missing battle axe.

"Maybe she's upstairs…," Vi offered with a timid and scared smile on her face before she cowered and quickly looked away as Giles glared down at her.

"Okay…she got all huffy and grabbed the axe and left," Amy finally admitted through a mouthful of granola, much to Giles's shock, before she slumped her shoulders forward a bit and turned to glance up at the clock.

"My God…she could be anywhere by now, injured…or worse," Giles worried aloud with a very serious expression on his face as he fumbled in his pockets for his keys before he shook his head in dismay and stalked off out of the room to get the phone that had just started to ring.

Sam awoke to what she at first thought to be a dream. Her head swam merrily and her body felt as light as air. She could remember the ubervampire slashing her across the stomach with its claws but for some reason she could feel no pain. "Ah…the drugs," Sam thought to herself with a happy smirk on her face before she opened her eyes. Through the haziness of her vision she could make out that she was in a room that she had never seen before. At the far end of the room a young woman sat, wrapping her dark red hair up into a bun, while scribbling something down on a clipboard. Doctors in white coats milled about the room checking on several of the other patients. Sam thought that she recognized a couple of them. One a beautiful young woman with dark brown hair that looked to have collided with something very hard as she was very nearly overrun with bandages while the man beside her looked like he was hooked up to every machine that the doctors had to offer.

"Hey look, she's awake," A voice called out over the din before Sam breathed a deep sigh of relief as she saw Buffy walking up to her looking freshly showered and rested.

"Gee, lucky us…," Spike groaned with a fake tone of annoyance in his voice as he rolled his eyes and followed along after Buffy.

"Shut up Spike," Buffy mumbled harshly under her breath back to Spike as she lightly elbowed him in the ribs.

"Buffy…where am I," Sam asked weakly with a half smile on her face as she turned her head to the side and looked up at Buffy and Spike.

"In one of Wolfram and Hart's private hospitals, this place is just for their elite," Buffy replied with an almost mocking smile on her face as she thought of the waste of potential that the hospital represented.

"H…how," Sam mumbled back softly as she swallowed hard and closed her eyes against the room's bright lights.

"Magic…same way that they got these two here so fast, the watcher wouldn't have made it otherwise, and Faith well…," Spike drabbled on with an almost bored look on his face as he nodded his head back towards the people in the two beds nearest to the one that Sam was in.

"I didn't…know that Wolfram and Hart, had a facility in Sunnydale," Sam wondered aloud with a confused frown on her face as she feebly attempted to rub her right eye.

"Uh…they don't," Buffy started to reply with an uncomfortable and unsure smile on her face before she turned and looked over at Spike, who looked shocked and surprised for a bit before he helped out.

"You're not in Sunnydale anymore luv, you're in Los Angeles, Angel's boys didn't have the right equipment with them in Sunnydale so they sent you, Faith, and Wesley back here for treatment," Spike added with a calm and almost impish smirk on his face as he pulled up a couple of stools and sat down on one after Buffy sat down on the other.

"How bad is it…," Sam asked with a hesitant look of fear on her face as she tried to sit up enough to get a glimpse of her heavily bandaged stomach.

"Let's just say that you won't be entering any beauty contests in the near future," Spike replied with a nervous smile on his face as he tried to stay positive but found it impossible.

"Spike…," Buffy exclaimed with an angry scowl on her face as she smacked Spike in the back of the head before calming down and turning back to Sam and continuing, "Don't listen to him…nah it's not really that bad, hopefully if these medics did their job right you won't even have a scar."

"I just hope that Riley doesn't…oh God, I forgot about Riley, Buffy…I need to…," Sam began to exclaim with a very worried look on her face before Angel slowly entered the room.

"Easy luv, I'm sure that ole Captain Cardboard can survive a few hours away from you," Spike joked with a somewhat tired smile on his face before Angel walked up and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"He's going to have to…we have reports of harbingers and those super vampires massing in the high school, not to mention whatever blew that hole in the side of the school…and then Adam and…the list goes on and one…Buffy, Spike…I need the two of you to be ready, because one way or another…this all ends tonight," Angel stated with a very serious and matter of fact look on his face, given the strong impression that his mind could not be changed from its current course of action no matter what.

"Andrew…Andrew," Robin shouted as he saw the former nerd stumble into the openness of the gymnasium, looking like a tourist on their first time to the big city, starring all around. After Glory's impromptu visit Robin and Andrew had fled as fast as they could, with them ultimately going their separate ways after Andrew had tried to take a corner to fast and had slid down the steps. Robin had finally found what he considered to be a safe spot on top of the folded up bleachers, feeling that Glory would not be looking for him there.

"Mr. Wood…," Andrew exclaimed with a great smile of relief before he heard a sound behind him and had to glance back over his shoulder.

"Get over here," Robin shouted again as he slowly crawled down the edge of the bleachers and checked their escape route out to the parking lot.

"Where is she," Andrew exclaimed with a very scared look on his face as he scurried across the gym floor and would have hugged Robin if he had been turned towards him instead of still checking out their escape route.

"I don't know, but my car should still be in my parking spot, I left it unlocked and there should be enough gas in it to get us back to Revello Drive," Robin replied with a very serious and hurried look of exasperation on his face before he snuck a peek around the nearest corner.

"But what if she follows us," Andrew gasped out with a terrified and frantic expression on his face as he leaned heavily up against the bleachers to try and catch his breath.

"We'll have to worry about that later then, we have to get out of here and warn Giles that there's a new player in town," Robin stated with a very certain and confidant look on his face as he began to scoot through the hallway towards the schools back doors towards the parking lot.

"I hate running…," Andrew moaned with an annoyed frown on his face before he took a deep breath and hurried off after Robin, hoping to not run into Glory along the way.

END OF CHAPTER 29