Chapter Eleven: "It's All Coming Back To Me Now"
Faye's eyes slowly drifted open. Once she was able to focus, she found herself staring at a wall. The floor beneath her was cool but the room itself wasn't. She heard someone move behind her. Her body stiffened.
"Valentine ... you awake?"
It was MacGruder.
She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked over her shoulder. MacGruder leaned against the wall, his head tipped back as he stared into the empty room beyond. He chuckled. "Didn't think you were gonna wake up after that."
Faye brushed her hair out of her face then glanced around. The room they were in was massive. A few banners with the logo of the Red Dragon Syndicate fluttered against the far wall where a single unoccupied chair was placed. Her legs tucked underneath her body as she turned to him.
"Do you know where we are?"
He shrugged. "Couldn't say for certain, but if I had to guess, we're in Thug Central."
She rubbed her temples as she stared at the floor. Why did she have the feeling she knew where they were? Then she recalled a few days before, what Spike said about the Phoenix Corp. building being a front for the Red Dragons as well as their main headquarters.
"How long have we been out?"
"Couple of hours, maybe?" He leaned forward. "Haven't seen anyone since I came to. That's been about half an hour."
Carefully, Faye rose to her feet and cast another glance around the room. "No way out?"
"Oh, there's a door. You're just on the wrong side of it." He looked up to her. "I've tried already, Valentine." He watched her pace back and forth. "What's wrong?"
She stopped and looked down to him. "Isn't it obvious?"
"You don't have to worry. Spiegel ain't here."
She narrowed her eyes. "As though I would care -"
He held up his hands. "Let's not get into this, okay?" The woman continued to pace. "Still doesn't explain why you'd want to follow him without telling anybody."
Faye opened her mouth to say something but the sound of the only visible doors into the room creaking open cut her off.
Eyes on the shadowed figure in the doorway, MacGruder slowly got to his feet. "Wonder who this is?"
She only watched as the slender figure advanced. Soon, he came into the light. She was greeted by a set of the coldest blue eyes she'd ever seen and an even colder smile. The white-blond haired man stopped a few feet in front of her.
It's him ... she thought. Vash's brother.
She hadn't known what to expect, certainly not the person before her. So much like Vash, yet so very different. It was all in his eyes – not only their color but the intent behind them. His was so obvious. Murder.
"You know me."
She nodded once, unable to respond any other way.
Knives took two steps closer. "I know you," he said, voice hushed. His head tilted to one side. "Yet ... you're different." He closed the rest of the space between them. "My brother and the priest, they see you in separate ways. Vash ... he saw some of her in you ... "
Faye clenched her teeth together. It was all she could do to keep her cool. He was unsettling in ways she couldn't begin to describe. More than just her own fear, he seemed to instill it himself.
"You may imitate her somewhat on the outside ..." A hand lifted and extended towards her neck. He watched her as she refused to avert her eyes from his. The hand came to rest on her collarbone. "Not here, though. You're not like her at all."
She felt the urge to slap his hand away yet she couldn't. Something kept her from doing what she wanted.
"She would give her life for anyone." Knives' hand slid up to her neck. "You would not." His fingers wrapped around her throat. "Would you?"
She kept still. Her body wouldn't react to her commands.
"You have your effect on people; other human trash, and their silly emotions." His fingers gripped tighter but not enough to reduce her ability to breathe. He yanked her closer, so her face was mere inches from his own. "You, along with my brother, turned one of my servants against me."
Faye gasped loudly as scenes from Gunsmoke, in a town she was not familiar with, flooded into her mind. She saw him – Wolfwood – faced off with another man. She could only watch as he walked away, giving the man his reprieve, then ...
Please ... don't show me this, she begged, somehow knowing Knives could "hear" her.
Her body jerked as the shots were fired. Wolfwood's enemy was dead and he was mortally wounded. She trembled as she "watched" him stagger into the nearby church, lugging his cross and leaving a massive trail of blood behind him. Soon, he collapsed to his knees then lifted his head to gaze upon the cross hanging on the wall. Something was different in his eyes, he actually seemed at peace with himself.
A single tear streaked from the corner of Faye's left eye and down her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that didn't prevent her from witnessing the rest of the vision - where Wolfwood finally succumbed to his wound and died.
"Faye!" MacGruder leaped at Knives when he realized the man was choking her to death. She was oblivious, for some reason. His attempt to save her was quashed when Knives pushed him away. His back slammed hard against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. Stunned, unable to breathe himself, MacGruder watched as Faye was strangled before his eyes.
"Knives."
Knives looked over his shoulder when he heard Vicious say his name. He found his co-conspirator, along with Julia, behind him. Unlike her consort, Julia appeared to be alarmed by what Knives was doing.
"She has no value dead. Let her go."
Gritting his teeth at the audacity of this trash to order him around, Knives released Faye. The woman fell to the floor gagging and grasping at her throat with both hands. He smiled ruefully at Vicious.
"Of course. What was I thinking?" He narrowed his eyes as Vicious headed back towards the open doors. Once he'd finished with Vash's friends, he would take extreme pleasure in torturing their enemy. His gaze shifted to Faye still laying on the floor, coughing. He opened his hand and the cross she wore around her neck softly tinked as it hit the floor in front of her face.
Julia looked from Knives as he passed by her back to Faye. She'd never wanted it to come to this. But what choice did she have? If she refused, she knew she would be dead within the next moment. She stared at the cross, her mind straying back to her encounter with Spike.
'The woman I loved died 12 years ago ...'
The words resonated. The expression on his face, the tone of voice he used, his body language – everything about him was cold and distant.
"Julia ..."
She turned at the sound of Vicious' voice. He waited in the doorway for her to join him. After casting one last glanced at Faye, she quickly walked away. When she reached him, she bowed her head as she accompanied Vicious out of the room. She closed her eyes momentarily as the doors clanged shut behind them.
Spike shoved his hands into his pockets as he took a drag off of his cigarette. Through the exhaled cloud of smoke, he gazed upon Faye's Red-Tail. He often wondered where she'd acquired it. More than likely, she'd suckered some poor bastard out of it in a fixed card game.
He exhaled another cloud of smoke as he shook his head. Wherever that damn woman and MacGruder were, they were in some kind of trouble. After scouring the city and the outer lying areas all night, they'd come up with nothing. No one had seen them. No one had any leads.
He pulled one hand from his pocket and removed the cigarette from his mouth. His head bowed as he watched the ashes flutter to the floor. "You gonna stand there the rest of the day or what, Jet?"
The older man emerged from the shadows of the bay. "Last place I thought I'd find you."
"Same here." He took another drag as he continued to stare at the gray ashes on the floor. "We won't find them. Not until someone wants them to be found."
Jet folded his arms across his chest. "And you have your suspicions of who that is?"
Spike dropped the rest of the cigarette and snuffed it out with his shoe. "Yes, I do." He looked to Jet. "Curious?"
"Vash's brother would be the obvious choice."
"That's true."
"But you think otherwise?"
He looked away. "Yes." He paused. "She isn't dead, Jet."
"Who isn't?"
"Julia."
Jet's arms dropped to his sides as he stared at Spike in disbelief. "What? How do you know that?"
"I saw her. Yesterday." His gaze shifted back to Faye's ship. "I spoke to her." He shook his head. "She's not the Julia I knew. Not anymore. She's changed."
"Fifteen years is a long time."
"It is."
"What does this have to do with Faye and MacGruder disappearing?"
He shoved both hands back into his pockets. "She's with him. She has been since that day they came to kill her." He looked at Jet again. "I'm not as angry about it as I thought I would be. What do you think that means?"
"Maybe it means you've moved on, Spike."
'How do you deal with it?' he recalled asking Faye two years ago, when he thought he'd lost everything important in his life. 'I just move on, Spike.'
After a short silence, Jet continued. "You think he's involved, don't you?"
"Why would she choose now to come to me?"
"Then Faye mysteriously vanishes." Jet wasn't so sure but it did seem credible. It wasn't the first time Vicious had used Faye to draw Spike to him. Though, that time, the circumstances between the two men were much different.
Spike turned on his heel and began to walk away. He froze when Jet spoke again.
"Does she matter to you, Spike?" Jet didn't turn, he didn't even look over his shoulder. Both men remained with their backs to one another as the silence between them continued. One that wasn't broken until ...
"AYE! Jet! Spike!" Ed bounded into the hanger. "Mr. Mean Bounty Man is back!"
Jet and Spike looked at each other. MacGruder.
"Is Faye with him?" Jet asked.
The girl frowned and shook her head. "No Faye-Faye." She saw the expression on Jet's face. "Says he knows where she is, though! Yep, yep!"
Faye leaned against the wall, her fingers weaved through her hair, her elbows propped on her knees as she stared at the floor in front of her. It'd been almost two hours since MacGruder had vanished. She wondered what happened to him. The last clear memory she had was of Knives choking the life out of her.
Her eyes closed as she recalled what he'd so cruelly subjected her to during it. She'd never wanted to see that – to watch him die, helpless to do anything about it. That was even more painful than knowing he was dead.
Suddenly, there was a flash of a woman's face in the midst of the event. Gasping, her eyes flew open and her hands slapped onto the floor beside her. Blinking and wide-eyed, she continued to breathe heavily.
Who was that?
Again, for a slightly longer duration, the smiling, kind face flashed in her mind's eye. As she tried to latch onto that image, another hit her. She recognized something in this one. A group of young girls. They'd been on the beta tape, yet this wasn't a scene from it. It was new. Like someone channel-surfing in her head, a series of new, some also familiar images, assaulted her.
Once they stopped, she pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead. "What is wrong with me?" she whispered. After she shut her eyes, the woman in the first vision returned. Sound accompanied this memory.
'Remember that Mommy will always love you very much!'
Then, a voice she recognized as her own as a child, replied, 'I'll always love you, too, Mommy!'
Faye's eyes flew open again. Her heart pounded in her chest as she lowered her hands. She remembered that woman – it was her mother. She also had a faint stirring of the emotions related to her; a warm feeling, one she rarely experienced these days. Tears welled up in her eyes and brimmed without her knowing it. She could call up that image of her own volition, even if for a few seconds, and remember her mother.
"Are you all right?"
Faye startled when she heard a woman's voice softly speak. Her head whipped around to find the blonde – the mysterious Julia – standing a few feet away. Quickly, she wiped away her tears.
"Wonderful. How else would a hostage feel?" she muttered in reply.
Julia frowned as she cautiously approached. "I'm sorry about all of this," she apologized. "I didn't know they would involve you."
"And it's okay if they involve your ex?" Faye snapped back. She looked away, embarrassed by how venomous that had sounded. "I'm - "
"No. Don't apologize." She stopped next to Faye then knelt down. "I deserved it. I deserve much worse for what I did to him."
"Luring him into a trap was pretty damn low."
"Not that. That wasn't my idea." She raised her head, her gaze locked with Faye's. "Honestly, I'd hoped he wouldn't come."
"Really?" She didn't know whether she could trust anything coming out of this woman's mouth or not. She'd already "lied" about being dead and tried to use her relationship with Spike against him. "Scared of what he might have to say about you deserting him?"
Julia blinked, surprised that Faye even knew so much about them.
"You don't have any idea what he's gone through because of you. Ever since I've known him, he's been preoccupied with you. Even when he thought you were dead. He almost killed an innocent man because he believed he was partly responsible for your 'death'."
Julia sat back on her heels as she let Faye have her say. With each word, it became more apparent to her why the woman was so upset. She wondered if Spike knew?
"Then you appear out of nowhere with your sad letter, pleading for him to meet you, and he goes. No hesitation. You don't realize how fortunate you are," Faye finished.
"No," Julia softly said once it was apparent Faye was done. "I do realize how fortunate I am." She stared at her hands clasped together in her lap. "Trouble is, I never knew ... until it was too late. Whatever Spike felt so many years ago, it's nothing but a memory for him now." Her lips pressed together. "I didn't apologize to him yesterday. Of all of the words I said, 'sorry' wasn't one of them. The one he most deserved to hear."
Faye didn't have a chance to reply. Both women looked up when the double doors opened. Quickly, Julia rose to her feet and backed away from Faye.
Vicious, accompanied by Knives, Lao and several of Lao's men, approached. The head of the Syndicate glanced from Faye on the floor to Julia standing diminutively by the wall. He could only imagine what they would have to say to one another.
"Julia ..." A hand raised and waited expectantly for her accept it.
Without a glance in Faye's direction, Julia joined Vicious, clasping his hand into one of hers. She smiled warmly on him.
"Come on," Lao snapped. He seized Faye by her right elbow and yanked her to her feet. "We have a service to attend. Somebody's funeral."
Knives, a sadistic smile on his face, stepped in front of her. She'd been crying. How weak of her. He thought she might've been different. Apparently not. She was as silly and useless as the rest.
"If only we had more time ..." He lifted a hand and allowed it to linger half an inch from her face. "There was so much I would've loved to have shown you ..." He laughed as her eyes narrowed on him. "Don't worry. All of your pain will end soon enough."
"Are you sure you're all right, Nate?" Linares tried to take a closer look at the nasty bruise above his left eye.
He moved away. "I told you fifteen times already, I'm fine." He looked up when Ed led Spike and Jet into the room. "Hey, fellas," he brightly greeted.
"Where the hell have you been?" Jet demanded. "And where's Faye?"
"I'm fine, thanks for asking. I'm sure the bruises will heal soon enough," was MacGruder's sarcastic reply. He shook his head. "Like I was saying to them -" He jerked a thumb at Meryl and Vash. " - I know where Faye is."
"Well? Where is she?"
"Some busted up old church on the other side of town." He looked to Spike. "Guy said you'd know exactly which one it was."
"Guy?" Meryl raised her eyebrows. It wasn't Knives?
"He knows 'im." He waved a hand in Spike's direction. "No wonder you have half the Red Dragons lookin' for your ass. Don't envy you, pal."
"Then we go to this church and get her back," Meryl stated. She turned to look up at Spike. He only stood there with his hands in his pockets. "Right?"
"It's not that easy. There are conditions."
"What conditions?" asked Linares.
"Only you -" He pointed to Spike. "And you." He shifted the finger to Vash.
"Why me?"
"Because that brother of yours is with him."
"What?" Meryl exclaimed.
"What do you mean, he's with him?" Vash asked at the same time.
"Somehow, they've buddied up." He shrugged. "They're using Faye as bait for a trap. You're walking into an ambush."
Vash stood. "It doesn't matter. If that's where Knives is, then that's where I'll go."
"You aren't going alone." Meryl put her hands on her hips.
"You can't - "
Spike held up a hand, cutting Linares off. "Vicious will expect it, anyway. If you follow, it won't matter." He looked to Vash. "You know you could die during this, don't you?"
"If that's what I have to do to help Faye and my brother."
Meryl bit her lower lip. She wanted to ask him – no, beg him – not to go. It would be pointless. He'd made his decision. The only thing she could do now was try to keep him alive.
Spike patted Vash's shoulder. "Nice to hear you say that, because we probably are." He glanced at Jet, who half-glared at him. He ruefully smiled then left the room.
"At least someone's an optimist," MacGruder said.
End Chapter Eleven
Song Title Used: "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" - Pandora's Box
