Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Katy, Paul, Maria, Gina, Diane, and Shandra.
CHAPTER 9-WHAT'S YOURS IS NOW MINE
They pulled into the parking lot of an old rundown hotel on the outskirts of LA just before dawn three days after having left New Orleans far behind them. Gina had slept most of the way, every once in a while waking up screaming out of a nightmare. More than once Paul had barely been able to recover from the sudden shock of her outburst to keep from going off the road. Paul helped Gina into one of the rooms before she collapsed down onto the bed and was asleep in seconds. Katy thanked Paul and then shut the door behind her as he slowly left. Diane and Shandra disappeared into a room of their own, pulling each other's clothes off as they flung the door shut behind them. Paul shook it off with a shrug and a sigh as he slowly trudged towards his room.
"It's a shame really, a cute guy like you out here, left all by yourself by the ladies, what's wrong, you don't like girls," A husky female voice asked from out of the darkness behind Paul before he spun around and gasped. "What…are you scared by little old me," A young woman said with an excited and daring grin on her face as she stepped out of the darkness, covered head to toe in blood.
"What…who, who are you," Paul stammered out with a confused look in his eyes as he quickly scanned the surrounding area to try and see if the mystery woman was alone.
"Your new best friend Paul, you see my friends ditched me to…left me here all alone, if you want we could keep each other company," The woman added with an innocent pout on her face as she shook her hips to one side and arched her back a bit so that Paul got a good look at her goods, barely hidden beneath a flimsy tank-top that was soaked clear through with blood.
"Why, why are you covered in blood," Paul asked still with a very nervous look on his face as he hesitated and took a step back as the young woman took a step forward and Paul could not fully see that it appeared as if she had been ready for bed before whatever had happened to her had happened. Other than the soaked through with blood beater she only wore a pair of short shorts that were criminally short and threadbare on top of it all.
"It was horrible, so horrible, hold me," The young woman exclaimed with a frantic look on her face as she flung herself onto Paul, pushing him back up against the wall as she buried her face into his chest. He tried not to think about two things, one being that he was now more than likely covered in as much blood as the young woman was and secondly that a young half naked woman was clinging to him for dear life. The warmth of her skin against his clue him into the fact that she wasn't a vampire but he still found it odd that she would be so at ease with being covered in blood and then suddenly switch to being frantic at a moment's notice.
"We should get you to a hospital," Paul stammered out with an overwhelmed look on his face and tone to his voice as he gently pushed the young woman away from him enough so that he could get a closer look at her.
"No…no hospital please, I…it's not that bad, this isn't my blood," The young woman said with a scared and horrified look on her face as she pulled away from him briefly before rubbing back up against him just right to get him to see things her way.
"We need to get you cleaned up," Paul stammered back with a nervous look on his face as he began to frantically fish around in his pocket for his room key as he took a step back away from the young woman.
"Okay, but you have to help me, they might come back," The young woman said with a timid and frightened look in her eyes as she grabbed his arm and then looked around into the darkness.
"I will okay, we just have to get you out of those clothes," Paul started to say with a very nervous look on his face before the young woman brightened up into a smile.
"I like that idea," The young woman said with an excited smile on her face before she grabbed the bottom edge of her beater and whipped it off, starring at Paul with a curious smile on her face as he tried to look away.
"That's not what…ah crap," Paul grumbled back with a startled expression on his face as he tried not to stare at her bare breasts before he turned around and opened the door to his room. He threw his gaze to the floor as she strolled in and dropped her clothes quickly on her way to the shower. "Something isn't right here, this is all to weird, it's almost like she was supposed to find me, like this is all a setup, but she's not a vampire, but a normal person would have freaked out because of all of the blood, but she seems to not mind it at all," Paul thought to himself with a frantic look of fear on his face as he flopped back down onto the bed and tried to think clearly without her there to distract him. "I should tell Katy…no, can't do that, I'll never be able to explain this…she'll hate me, I have to handle this on my own," He continued thinking with a scared look on his face before he jumped up and then rushed to the window, throwing the curtains closed and peering outside in between them before he was interrupted.
"Someone outside," The young woman asked with a curious look on her face as she stepped out of the bathroom and into the doorway of the room, dripping wet and completely naked.
"Huh, oh no…I was just, ah crap, here put this on," Paul started to reply with a very nervous and tense expression on his face before he half turned around, caught sight of the young woman standing there naked, and quickly rummaged through his small suitcase and threw her a pair of his old gym shorts and a clean shirt.
"Okay…are you going to help me now," The young woman said softly at first with a surprised look on her face before she looked sad and scared as she asked her question.
"Huh, oh of course, it's just that I can't help you until we get a few things straight, who are you, who attacked you, what happened to your friends, do you have anyone that I should call," Paul replied with a nervous look on his face as he was making this up as he was going along and hoped that the night wouldn't get any stranger for him than it already was before he was able to calm down.
"Raquel, Raquel Morrison, I don't know who attacked us, it all happened so fast and I was asleep in the other room, when I got up to check…there was so much blood, I just ran," Raquel stammered out with a frustrated and anxious look on her face before she dissolved into a fit of tears on the bed and curled up into a ball.
"Just great," Paul grumbled with an unhappy scowl on his face as he shook his head and sat down beside her.
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Maria, fresh from her shower and wearing her first set of clean clothes in a couple days, walked up to Katy and Gina's room and lightly knocked on the door. She had done this to Diane and Shandra's room but when she had heard muffled cries coming from inside she decided to leave them alone and move on, come back later if necessary. She waited a few seconds between knocking the first time and was just about to knock again when the door opened slightly and Gina peered out, looking still more than a bit frazzled but a little bit calmer as she had showered and changed her clothes since the last time that Maria had seen her.
"Maria…what is it, what's wrong," Gina asked with a scared look on her face as she pulled her still blue hair up into a ponytail and let her into the room.
"Easy there Gina, nothing's wrong, I just got ready and came over to see what Katy wanted to do next, she in the shower," Maria replied with a soft smile on her face as she shut the door behind her and then sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Yeah…so nothing's going on," Gina answered softly at first before she asked her question again, hoping that she had heard Maria right.
"Not as far as I know no, nothing's going on," Maria reiterated with a nervous smile on her face as she hoped that Gina would take her word for it and calm down, but at first she didn't.
"See Gina, what'd I tell you, everything's fine, hopefully if all goes well in a few days Anastasia and Chucky and the others will be nothing but dust and we can get on with our lives," Katy added with an impatient and tired look on her face as she walked into the room wrapped in a towel and trying to comb her hair out.
"It's not exactly that simple Katy, Mr. Giles isn't going to be happy that we took this little road trip when we were supposed to be going to Florida, not to mention that have you given any thought to going back to your old apartment and seeing if there's anything left, they might have just thrown it all in a storage locker, it might be nice to have some of your old stuff back," Maria said back with an almost scolding tone to her voice as she stood up and checked her watch before she turned the television on and pushed the mute button.
"Let him get mad at us, I'm not going to let my friends be killed and turned into vampires just because they're strippers, we're people to…and besides, slayers aren't supposed to care about that, we're supposed to save whoever is in trouble," Katy shot back with a serious look on her face before she grabbed a few things out of her small suitcase and then headed back into the bathroom to change.
"But there aren't enough of us to do that Katy, there are bound to be people that fall through the cracks, Buffy and Faith didn't save everyone that they could have either.
"So what you're saying is that we should just stop all of this and let them continue," Katy growled with an amazed look of anger on her face as she stepped back into the doorway while pulling her panties on, though she kept the towel on while she did it.
"Of course not, it's just that we didn't necessarily have to go and rush off and do this all on our own, maybe we could have asked Giles about it and he could have sent someone," Maria stated back with a small stutter to her voice as she tried to remain calm while not saying anything that would further aggravate Katy.
"As if he would have, you saw the way that he looked at me in London, he wouldn't care if he never saw me again," Katy grumbled back with an unhappy pout on her face as she disappeared once more from view into the bathroom.
"Shouldn't we check on the others, they might have an idea about what to do," Gina wondered aloud with a tense look in her eyes as she stood up and rubbed the thumb of her right hand on the back of her left hand in a nervous habit.
"Good idea, except we should probably wait before going to ask Diane and Shandra…they're…uh, otherwise occupied," Maria stammered out with a nervous blush on her face as she tried to explain it away as delicately as she could.
"Don't those two ever stop," Katy grumbled with an unhappy tone to her voice from the bathroom before she emerged wearing one of Paul's shirts and a pair of wind pants.
"Unfortunately not…isn't that Paul's shirt," Gina mumbled back softly with a nervous look on her face before she cocked an eyebrow and stared at the shirt that Katy was wearing.
"Huh…uh, oh yeah…guess it is, wonder how it got into my suitcase," Katy stammered out with an embarrassed and nervous smile on her face as she pulled the shirt down further a bit and searched for something to say to change the subject as quickly as possible.
"Another mystery," Maria quipped out with an amused grin on her face as she only half turned to look at Katy before returning her gaze to the television as the anchor was saying something about a wreck somewhere downtown.
"Maybe we should just go ask Paul, he's free…right," Gina asked with an interested look on her face as she put more emphasis on the word free than any of the others, getting a half grin from Maria and a scowl from Katy for the effort.
"Last time I checked," Maria grinned back with an amused smirk on her face as she settled in to play devil's advocate between the two cousins.
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Paul wondered how Raquel could have made it as far as she had in the state that she was in as he followed her down the sidewalk block after block. They were now almost five blocks away from the hotel that he had pulled the bus into. He had wanted to at least tell Maria or Katy that they were leaving but Raquel had been adamant about not wasting anymore time. After waking up a couple of times with nightmares Raquel had slept through the night and woken up before hurrying into the shower again, claiming that she needed to get it off. Paul guessed that she meant the blood from the night before so he stayed in the room watching television until she came out and he handed her some more clothes to wear, but this time he had them waiting so that she wouldn't repeat the same show that she had put on for him the night before when she had strutted back into the room completely nude, surprising him.
"Raquel wait, slow down," Paul exclaimed with a nervous and anxious tone to his voice as he hurried up and caught up with Raquel, who was busy mumbling something about her hair as she checked both ways at an intersection.
"We can't, we have to go, my friends might have realized that they forgot about me and come back, I have to know for sure," Raquel replied with an irritated and unhappy frown on her face that inwardly Paul thought made her look even more beautiful.
"What about the police, if what you told me was true then the police might be there, they might think that this is your fault," Paul stated with a tired look on his face as they passed a darkened alley.
"That's because it is," An eerily familiar voice said softly from the side before Paul snapped his head around just long enough to see Anastasia with a happy grin on her face before something struck him from behind and he blacked out.
"Did I do good," Raquel asked with a hopeful look on her face as she began to slowly bounce up and down on the spot, looking like an excited child.
"You did very good child," Anastasia said softly with a proud smile on her face before she reached out and pulled Raquel close before kissing her passionately. When she broke the kiss Anastasia whispered a few words and suddenly Raquel's entire body began to shake violently in convulsions. Moments later she collapsed to the ground. "Now come home to momma baby," Anastasia whispered with a delighted grin on her face as she pulled an empty vial from the inside of her coat and pulled the stopper. Slowly a black mist poured out of every pore of Raquel's body before swirling around a bit and then being sucked into the vial.
"What about her my mistress," Stacy asked with an impatient pout on her face as she nodded with her head down towards Raquel's body, which lay just a few inches into the bright sunlight.
"Forget about her, even if she remembers anything she won't be able to tell anyone, at least if she does no one will believe her," Anastasia remarked with a now bored expression on her face as she shrugged her shoulders and turned to leave.
"Certainly did have fun with her friends last night though," Stacy mumbled out softly with a hurt pout on her face before she turned and followed off after her mistress.
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"Hey guys where's Paul," Diane asked with a lazy yawn as she and the others met in the hotels courtyard.
"Isn't he in his room," Gina asked with a surprised look on her face as she eyed the calm surface of the pool sadly, wanting so much to take a dip.
"Nope, I checked after I got dressed, I didn't see him anywhere," Shandra replied softly as she shook her head a bit before fishing around in her pockets for a breath mint.
"Me either, he wanted to talk to me about something last night but I told him to wait till today, guess it must have been something important for him to leave without his bags," Katy stated with a nervous look on her face as she checked her watch and tried to appear like she wasn't beginning to get a little worried about him.
"Well then maybe we should," Maria started to offer with a serious look on her face before a normal white van drove up, a rock with a note attached was thrown out, and then the van sped away again.
"What the hell was that," Gina asked with a confused and surprised look on her face as she shook her head and watched the van disappear out of sight while Katy cautiously hurried over to the rock and untied the note.
"Damn it, she has him…Anastasia has him," Katy snarled with an angry scowl on her face as she balled up her fists, crushing the note up into a little ball, before she half screamed in frustration and threw the note away from her.
"What…how, he wouldn't have gone with her willingly, and it's not like he would have invited her into his hotel room," Maria said softly with a deep in thought look of confusion on her face as she tried to figure out how Anastasia had gotten to Paul.
"Maybe she can tell us," Shandra interjected with a nervous look on her face as she turned and pointed at Raquel, who had woken up enough to stagger away from the scene of Paul's abduction but looked to not know where she was and to be walking around in a daze.
END OF CHAPTER 9
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Raquel is yes acting like a tramp but there's a reason for it, she's possessed by a demon that's trying to get to Paul, so in other words the real Raquel wouldn't be acting this way and it will all be a shock to her system when she finally finds out what happened. If you haven't guessed yet Paul likes Katy and vice versa but Gina also likes him so…and Raquel isn't to young, she's in her early twenties, I consider that young…