Summary: A mistake, a hostage, and an attack

Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, Joss Whedon's, yadda yadda.

It was nearly midnight, but nobody slept. Lilah paced by the door, frowning furiously, turning the day's events over and over in her mind. Wesley! It couldn't be. How? Her thoughts chased themselves in circles.

Jenna sat by the table, staring into space. Her eyes were blank but her mind worked furiously, searching for a weakness, a flaw, in Angelus and Sirk's plan.

Nothing. Whatever strange entities sent her messages through her visions were silent tonight. She sighed, upset with herself. Why can't I be more useful? She looked around. Nikki was sitting immobile too, eyes closed, her eyelids flickering as she scanned her memory for anything that would help them fight Angelus. Not that you would know, from looking at her, but Jenna could tell.

She sighed again, her gaze lighting on Ivane, silent and… well, pretty much just silent. He was polishing a knife, one of the two he always carried. Hm. That's interesting. The carvings in the steel were similar, but not quite the same, to those on Kearm's knife. I wonder what the story behind that is. Glancing around, Jenna let her mind fall, spiraling down until she could control where it went, directing it stealthily towards the Watcher.

She sometimes wondered what the others would think if they knew she could do this. She would tell them, of course, except… well, what would they think if they found out she could read minds? Sure, she couldn't do it well, or even often, but still. Explaining to someone that you can only read their mind sometimes does not make them any less afraid of you, she knew for a fact. I'll tell them, she had long ago determined, but not now. Later. When I've had more practice.

Ivane never saw it coming. Slowly, she slipped into his thoughts. Damn, but they were restrained! He didn't even think loudly! The knife, the knife, she ordered her mind.

FLASH! Cold. Alone. Outside. Stars.

FLASH! Bright. Warm. Dust. Foreign.

FLASH! An arena, filled with people, blood used instead of water to keep the dust down. Fear, anger, injustice…

FLASH! Take the knives! This is WRONG! You won't hurt them!

FLA-

Jenna pulled out with a gasp. Suddenly the silence of the room seemed very, very loud.

"Jenna?" Lilah asked, concerned. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, yeah…" she stammered. "Yeah, I just… I just had a dream."

"Are you sure? You-"

"Ah!" The vision hit her as footsteps suddenly pounded up the stairs. "Carlotta!"

"Carlotta!" The door flew open and Kearm and Lindsey rushed in, ashen-faced.

"What the-"

"She's gone! They were coming after us-"

"Who?"

"Now! There wasn't-"

"QUIET!" Kearm bellowed, using his unusually-sized lungs to his distinct advantage. They all fell silent.

"One at a time," he fumed. "Lilah; Carlotta's gone."

Jenna paled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the knife Ivane had been polishing drop from his nerveless fingers.

"Gone?" Lilah all but had Kearm by the throat. "What do you mean, gone?"

"It's not his fault, Lilah." Lindsey stepped between them. "We had to split up. She said to meet by the old theater at eleven, then never came."

"It's after twelve now!" Nikki cried. "How could you leave her there?"

"She told us to!" Kearm answered, clearly furious with himself. "Believe me, I couldn't feel any worse about this, but she said before we left each other that anyone who didn't show by eleven thirty had to stay behind. She said we couldn't risk being split up any further!"

"She was right," said Lilah quietly. "Separating us is Angelus's plan."

"So we're just gonna leave her?" cried Jenna, leaping up from her seat.

"We can't risk being split up."

Lindsey looked at Lilah with grudging admiration. All of the others would eventually have come to the same conclusion, but she was doing the hard part and giving them someone to blame. When did you develop a heart, Lilah?

"Lilah's right," Lindsey announced. "We don't have any other choice. We just have to let her go and attack once we're back to full strength."

A low, menacing voice made them start.

"Full strength?" Ivane took a step forward, thrusting his knife into its scabbard. His eyes would have melted glaciers and frozen the Hellmouth. "Carlotta is this group's full strength. You cannot abandon her."

"Ivane, I hate this as much as you do, but-"

"NO! You can NOT abandon her!"

"Ivane…"

He stared at them for a moment, unable to speak. Lilah… how he hated her. She was doing the right thing… but how could the right thing be so wrong? Jenna was looking at him terrified. What had she seen? What had that inquisitive, over-bright mind of hers seen? Nikki, frightened but sure… how could a little girl be so callous? How could she stop caring? Why couldn't he? And Kearm… how could you betray me thus? At that moment he hated them all. They were closest he had ever had to friends, and he hated them. He even hated Lindsey – not for anything he had done, for he hadn't even known Carlotta. No, Ivane hated Lindsey because he had spent all of two hours with these people and suddenly he was being accepted. Why? What had Lindsey ever done? With an inarticulate cry, Ivane spun on his heel into the other room, the door closing behind him so forcefully that dust filtered down from the ceiling.

Lilah sunk into the chair.

"Damn," she muttered. "Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn."

"Lilah?" Nikki asked in a very small voice. "Are we abandoning 'Lotta?"

"She said to do it," Lilah replied heavily. Damn. "And she was right. We can't risk getting split up even more. Besides which, knowing Angelus-"

"Oh no."

Lilah's head snapped up.

"Oh no?" she demanded of Jenna. "Oh no? What 'oh no'?"

"Ivane." Jenna's eyes were huge. "Their plan is working. Ivane just left."

Carlotta opened her eyes. Where am I?

She sat up slowly, cradling her head. Oww…

The room she was in could have come straight from a Gothic horror movie. She knew she was under the subway, so it must have been something innocuous at some point, but a twisted mind had transformed it into a dungeon of the first order, complete with chains hanging from the stony ceiling and walls that had to be six feet thick. Someone had designed this dungeon for a Slayer.

Now, why was she here? Carlotta fingered the bruise on her right temple and winced. Oh. Right. This was the second time she had been knocked out in here.

The first time she'd woken up, she'd made such a racket that the set of vampires acting as her jailers had been forced to hit her over the head… again. She stood carefully, her head still throbbing. How long had she been here? She checked her watch. One o'clock in the morning. Two hours. She just prayed Kearm and Lindsey had gotten out and would stay that way. They couldn't risk being separated. This was no time for desperate rescues.

The Slayer circled the cell, closely examining its every detail. It had indeed been made to hold a Slayer, as she had supposed, but it was also just as clearly intended for more than one person. It was at least eight paces by eight, and, while her knowledge of dungeons and the like was limited, back in her homeless days she had spent the nights in far smaller places than this. The walls were stone and metal, the door about half a foot off the ground so as to give the prisoner an additional disadvantage. The only stroke of luck that Carlotta could see was that she wasn't chained or tied up. They probably didn't want to risk coming that close to her.

She shivered, and paced faster. She was the Slayer. She was afraid of nothing. She was afraid of nothing! But the thought that Angelus knew she was there, that he could come for her at any moment or leave her there as long as he wished made her hand tremble. She hugged herself with her one arm, forcing herself to slow her breathing. When he comes, she swore silently, I will not give that murderer the pleasure of seeing my fear. He will remember me to the end of his existence and beyond, but he will remember courage and the strength of a Slayer, not the terrified tears of a child!

This thought held her bravery for a moment, and then it collapsed like a punctured balloon and she crumpled to the floor, sobbing.

"Help," she whispered to the darkness. "Help me." But the shadows just stared back. She put her head down on her bent knees and cried harder. "Nora! Help me!" It isn't fair. I'm only sixteen. "Nora, please! Help me! Nora, I know you can hear me! Help me! Please!" Silence echoed back. "It's not the dying, Nora! I can handle that, it's… Nora, it's him! It's Angelus! Nora, I've been hearing stories about him since I was ten, I'm just…" Her voice faded out. "I'm just so scared."

For a time all she could think was thank God I'm alone. She didn't think she could have stood it if anyone saw her crying like this, if anyone saw that she was afraid. Time passed, several hours at the least, and her tears faded, giving way to complete emptiness. As the guard outside her cell changed, announcing to one another that it was three o'clock, it came to her.

Nora's dead, Carlotta. No one's coming to save you.

At that moment, the door swung open and Ivane was flung inside.

Coming soon: A confrontation, a confession, and a bluff.