But I guess there's just no pleasing you
Your lip tastes sour
But you think that it's just me teasing you
You got a reaction
You got a reaction, didn't you?
You took a white orchid
You took a white orchid turned it blue
-Blue Orchid by The White Stripes
Cordelia sat in Angel's armchair, flicking channels on a television set that looked like it had seen better days. On the floor seated next to the lazy-boy and leaning against it sat Faith, watching the channels flash by with disinterest. The silence that had begun after Wesley left had encompassed the entire room and Cordy bit her lip, trying to think of a way to alleviate it. "You sure you don't wanna watch anything?" she asked the Slayer again.
Faith, for her part, continued to stare vacantly at the television. "Xena?" Cordelia suggested, pausing her hand as a scantily dressed Lucy Lawless appeared on screen. "Kick-ass warrior woman? Leather? Medieval weaponry? Yes?" The Slayer barely blinked. "No? Okay, moving right along then." The channel flicked again to a blue clad super hero. "Ooh, look. Superman. You and Xander were always talking about whether or not the Hulk could kick his ass, right?" At the mention of the floppy haired boy, Faith seemed to shrink further into the corner. "Okay, so that's a no to Superman?" she asked needlessly and flicked the channels once more.
"When's Angel gettin' back?" It was the first thing the dark-haired girl had said in a while, and Cordelia was saddened by her tone. She sounded like an abandoned child, not a supernatural warrior.
"Umm, Wesley said he was going to pick him up and make him pay for the pizza, so if he ordered from Dominoes again they should be back-"
"Los Angeles police in conjunction with Federal authorities are looking for this woman tonight: a felony suspect from the California town of Sunnydale." God, that was a bad photo. Cordelia wrinkled her nose distastefully. If they're gonna put people on TV without their permission you should at least make them look good. The police report caught Faith's attention too. "The young woman has fled to Los Angeles in recent days," the announcer continued and the eyes of both women remained glued to the screen. "Eyewitnesses identified her as being involved in several recent assaults. Police want your help in finding her."
"No…" Faith was on her feet faster that Cordelia could follow. The Slayer had her back firm against the wall, as if she were trying to hide herself inside the cement. Though her head was down and her hair was covering her face Cordelia could still tell that the other brunette was freaking badly.
"Faith, it's okay," Cordy began, half out of her seat. Faith flinched away from the Sunnydalarians outstretched hand.
The announcer continued speaking, oblivious to the distress he was causing the woman he had pointed out to the entire city. "A press conference was held earlier." The voice of Kate Lockley dragged Cordy's attention away from the younger girl and back to the screen. "Anyone with any information about the whereabouts of this subject should get in touch with law enforcement immediately. Do not approach her. She is violent and unpredictable. I'll take a few questions..."
Cordelia hit the power button on the remote. There goes Kate making a bad situation worse. She was standing next to the Faith by now, invading what the Slayer would definitely call her personal space. Cordy ignored the "bad, bad idea" feeling in the pit of her stomach and hesitantly placed a hand on the Slayer's arm. "Listen to me, Faith. You're safe here." She tried to catch the other girl's eyes. It was so hard with that mass of wavy brown hair acting as a barrier between them. "You hear me? You're safe…"
A blue creature picked that moment to drop in on them. The black tendrils that served as the bug demon's hair whipped down behind it as it dropped on top of the two women, causing them both to fall under the thing's weight. It screeched in Cordelia's ear, mandibles clacking noisily next to her face. Then it was gone, and Faith, who had been next to her, gone with it.
Faith was thrown over the couch. She landed heavily on her arms in an attempt to absorb the impact. "Argh!" Those pink bandages proved little protection against the concrete that slapped her arms upon impact. Her left arm… Oh, fuck… It was burning and she couldn't move it. Spots appeared before her eyes and the demon was on top of her again, rolling her over and then pinning her to the ground. "No! NO! GET OFF ME!" She pushed at the creature with her right arm and made little leeway before the blue bug demon grabbed it with both claws and squeezed.
Cordelia heard Faith scream from across the room. She had never heard the Slayer scream before. It shocked her out of immediate action. Meanwhile the demon had managed to grab hold of Faith's wrists and forced the woman's arms to her side. It used the floor as leverage and pushed its upper body off the girl. A deep gurgle came from somewhere deep within the blue bug's throat and the plates that covered its chest began to withdraw away from the center.
Faith didn't notice the motion. All she could see through tear-blurred eyes was the hulking figure pinning her down; all she could feel was his hot breath on her neck. Suddenly her mind was a decade younger and she was back in that shit-hole in South Boston. "Please…" she whispered, unknowingly begging to a demon who did not comprehend or care. "Please daddy… don't…"
Two fourteen year old children sat leaning against the chain-link fence that separated the train yard from the cracked asphalt streets of the older city.
"Pass the J, man."
Nate took another drag and then began coughing out clouds of white smoke. He blindly handed the joint to Fai as he wiped at a suddenly runny nose. "Fuckin' featherweight," Fai muttered. The tip of the blunt glowed a steady orange in the darkness. From this angle, in this light, Nate could barely see the dark purple welts and bruises that covered his friend's left eye and the split through her bottom lip. And if he kept his eyes only on her face he wouldn't notice they way she sat with her legs tight together and one arm tucked against her stomach, as if she were in pain. Apparently her mother's most recent "boyfriend" was getting bored with the aging crack-whore and now had his sights set on fresher meat. The scum. Nate would kill the bastard for Fai, had offered to do so before, but she had declined. He would be arrested leaving Fai alone. And her mother would only replace the scum with something dirtier.
"So, ya comin' to school tomorrow?" He asked. Fai shook her head, no. "Then what you gonna do? Hang 'round home?" She gave him a dark look and Nate knew he had stepped out of line. "Soz."
"S'okay," Fai brushed the remark off and blew a smoke ring. "Anyways, thought I'd just hitch a truck to the quarry. Chill there for a day or two." At least until the swelling goes down. Not that the girl cared that the other students thought she was Trailer. It was the teachers. If they thought she was fighting again they would expel her and she needed school. It was somewhere to be. The joint passed hands again and Fai made a face as Nate bum-puffed it. "Take a drag and hold it like a man, chicken-shit."
The boy did as the younger girl instructed. "Want me to come with?" he asked, his voice tight as he held his breath. He exhaled a plume of smoke. "Keep you company?"
"Don't you have to go sniffin' after Tanya Ford, or something? Thought you wanted to score this weekend."
"I can scam for squirrel anytime." Truth be told, Nate wasn't that interested in Tanya anymore. Not after he had heard her calling Fai a cheap white-trash 2-cent hooker in front of the whole cafeteria. As cool as it would be to have bragging rights over the senior cheerleader Fai's feelings meant more to him than his teenage hormones.
Fai took the J once more and inhaled until the embers reached her fingertips. "Want the roach?" Nate shook his head and she slipped the last bit or marijuana into her jeans pocket. "You can come if you want."
"Coolies."
She stood and winced at some ache Nate couldn't see. "Times'a movin'. Think ol' Mitch is working at the Corner Bar tonight?" Mitchell was the forty something owner of a local bar on the Bad Side of the tracks with greasy hair and an even greasier smile. He had a tendency to tick off the pigs by serving minors, provided they had the money. Fai and Nate were frequently broke but they relied on Mitch's immorality and Fai's low cut shirts to distract him enough into a free round or two.
Nate nodded, jumping to his feet. "Sounds like a plan."
"Let's motorvate."
Kate had been staring at the computer screen for what seemed like hours. It was late and if she were married she would be giving her husband just cause for a divorce lately. She sighed and rand a hand through her blond hair. "Married to the job, right dad?" she asked absently to the air. Her hand moved over the case files again. Thank god they had brought the precinct into the twentieth century. The mouse changed into a timer as she double clicked the forensics files.
The DNA matched up exactly. They had the fugitive's blood samples from her prolonged stay in Sunnydale General. But why was there so much of her blood at Victim Number One's apartment? And the knife…
The girl must have been attacked. From the shoe size and style Kate had been able to determine that the footprints left in the blood puddle at the crime scene belonged to two men. Had the fugitive been attacked? And then there was still the puzzle of this fugitive's so-called "super-powers."
Her hand moved of it's own accord, coming to rest on her phone. She picked up the receiver and began dialling a particular number for the third time. Stopped again for the third time. Hung up the phone for the third time.
"This is ridiculous," She muttered to herself quietly. She had thought to call Angel and that little Private Eye business he ran. Surely, with all the spooky dealings they had hands in they would know about a girl that was strong enough to beat a grown man into submission, right? But then she would have to admit to herself, and more importantly to Angel, that damn vampire that she needed help.
No. She'd puzzle this through on her own. She had to. Her father would be disappointed if she didn't.
"… please," Faith whispered again in a voice hoarse with tears. The bug demon screeched as the final chest-plate slid aside revealing a second mouth the size of a watermelon embedded in its chest. The new orifice vaguely resembled a food processor. What seemed like hundreds of teeth gnashed together in a circular formation inside the creature's chest.
The blue demon lowered its chest onto the Slayer's face. A long, forked tongue flicked out from the second mouth to taste the girl's face. Her tears tasted delicious…
And then there was pain.
The blue demon had the Slayer pinned and Cordelia willed the girl to get up and fight. Why was she just lying there? "Dammit," the ex-cheerleader cursed as she sprinted into the kitchen. Her hand was on the knife block in an instant, gripping the largest handle, and she was rewarded by Excalibur-ing a large butcher's knife.
She ran towards the demon, only to stop short a few feet away as her ears caught the sound of the younger girl's voice pleading to someone to stop…
"Yarr!" Cordelia yelled as she thrust the knife between the demon's scales. The blue creature reared up and hissed at his attacker with both mouths, making to grab for her. The woman squeaked and jumped back as the demon landed on the floor. Florescent blood was seeping out of the knife wound and it made a last ditch effort to escape. By now the demon had lost feeling in its legs and was trying to drag itself away with its arms alone. When it was nearly halfway across the room, a good distance from both Slayer and actress it collapsed, succumbing to death's touch.
Did I actually just kill that thing? Cordelia thought in wonder. "Wow. Go team Me." Suddenly her mind snapped back to other matters. "Faith," the older woman said in a voice she usually reserved for animals and small children. She couldn't decide which one Faith reminded her of more at the moment. The Slayer lay with her back to Cordy, huddled into herself. Dropping to a crouch next to the girl Queen C tried figure out exactly what had just happened there. The Slayer had malfunctioned or something. She certainly hadn't done what she was meant to do, which was slay. "Faith, are you okay?"
She reached out a hand and gently ran her fingers through the younger girl's dark hair, amazed at how soft it felt between her fingers. She wondered if Faith even realised she was there.
The vampire had a look of solid disgust on his face. Wesley had never actually seen the vampire revolted. Unsettled, yes, especially when they had ended up virtually covered in pink potpourri-scented blood after accidentally blowing up an exceptionally obese Traguij demon. But the gaping hole that served as the blue creatures secondary mouth seemed to particularly disturb the vampire.
"I know what this is," Angel stated unexpectedly.
"Oh? You've encountered this species before, hen?"
His brow was creased in concern as he nodded in response to Wesley's question. "Yeah, it's a Krillian Trooper." He didn't sound too happy about he fact.
"Krillian… Krillian…" Wesley repeated, tasting he word on his tongue. "Yes, I believe I've heard of them before. A insect-like species," Wesley pointed out, relishing the chance to play Watcher for a few moments. "They live in small family groups of up to ten. The largest "hive" was record at twenty-five during the Xiao dynasty in ancient China, but it has been speculated that the group was two families forced to share the same territory for a brief while." He returned his attention to the dead specimen on the floor before him. "I wouldn't worry too much about this fellow, though. Cordelia seems to have killed it good and dead."
"You forgot one thing, Wes," Angel brought up, sounding very Hollywood as he did so. "Krillian's have a hive mentality. They share a psychic link, so you can bet that now this one's dead the others will be gunning for it's killer."
"Good Lord. Cordelia-"
"And probably Faith too, simply because she was here when it died." He shook his head. "This one's whole hive knows what they look like now, I guarantee it."
"What should we do?" Wesley asked, looking to the older male for guidance.
Angel sighed in a very human way for someone who ha no breath. "We'll have to eliminate the nest," he said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"And the girls?" Wesley asked, his eyes focusing on the door to the vampire's room where both women waited for the men to remove the corpse. "Taking on that many demons is a two person job."
"What about them?" the broody vamp asked irritably. "Wesley, if you're worried about Faith doing something-"
"No," the British man cut him off. "I'm worried about leaving them alone," he confided to Angel. "I'm worried about leaving them unprotected."
Both men where silent for a moment, pondering the meaning of Wesley's words. What had happened here? They had returned with the pizzas promised only to find a dead demon lying in the middle of the floor. Both Wesley and Angel had grown concerned for the women and began calling for them until Cordelia came out of the bedroom and told them to keep the noise down. She briefly explained the situation: a demon had attacked, taking advantage of Faith's injuries so Cordy herself had surprised it by coming from behind and stabbing it in the back. Now Faith was a little sore again so she had returned to bed for while to rest and no they could not see her, because she was resting.
"So what should we do?"
"Go after the demons," the certainty and force in the voice made it difficult to believe that it could have come from Cordelia. She closed the door to the bedroom behind her but remained standing in the doorway, as if she were guarding the threshold. "We'll be fine here," she said with surprising conviction considering how aware she was of Faith's violent history. Cordelia gave them a look that said she would brook no argument. "Go save us damsels from distress."
Cordelia had made sure they'd taken the demon with them before returning to the bedroom. She perched on the edge of the bed, beside the Slayer. "It's okay, Faith. It's okay, they're gone now." She combed her finger through a few soft wisps of the other girl's hair in what she thought was a comforting manner. Faith didn't even try to pull away, she was so lost. "It's okay," Cordy said again, though she wasn't sure whether she was reassuring Faith or herself more.