2
Giles moved among the bookshelves. He trailed his fingertips over the spines of the books, muttering the titles under his breath, considering and dismissing them in the same instant. He took quiet pleasure in the tactile sensation of his fingers on the worn leather bindings. As fond as he was of Buffy and the others, there was really nothing better than perusing the stacks in solitude. Giles pulled a thick volume from the shelf and flipped it open. He scanned a page and was about to put it back when he heard a quiet sob. He looked up, puzzled. Was he imagining things? Another sob. Giles closed the book and replaced it on the shelf.
"Hello?" he called, starting to move in the direction of the crying, which was getting stronger. "Who's there?" The faint scent of a familiar perfume hit him, and his heart skipped a beat. Patchouli. Giles rounded a corner, and there, at the end of the row, was the huddled form of a woman. Even though her dark, cropped hair obscured her face, Giles knew who it was immediately. He knew, but he wouldn't let himself believe it.
"Jenny?" he whispered. The woman didn't respond, just continued to weep. He moved closer, slowly, cautiously. "Is it really you?"
Giles knelt down about a foot away from her. He reached out his hand to touch her face.
Giles woke abruptly, a little dazed. He had fallen asleep on a pile of books in his office. Good show, Rupert, he chided himself. Just then, the library doors swung open and the happy chatter of the Scooby gang drifted into his office.
Faith massaged her cramped muscles and brooded. She had freed herself from her restraints more easily than she had anticipated, but she was at a loss as to what her next action should be. Faith had already tried everything she could think of to escape. She had shouted death threats and pounded on the walls until her voice was hoarse. She had checked and re-checked the bare walls for hidden doors. She had tried breaking through the walls. Nothing. So Faith was brooding.
She didn't have the slightest idea where she was. Her clothes had been replaced by a hospital gown that ended just above her knees, which added to her confusion. She had no way to judge how long she'd been there, but she'd been conscious for a few hours now. Faith wondered if the Scoobies had even noticed she was gone, and if they had, would they try to find her? Yeah, I'm sure B and pals will come bustin' through that wall any minute, she thought bitterly. Faith looked around the room again, making sure no doors had materialized since the last time she checked. Four plain white walls stared back at her.
"Fuck," she muttered out loud. The word bounced off the walls and echoed back to her in a bleak chorus.
Half an hour later, Faith thought she could make out voices coming from outside. She closed her eyes and tried to locate the direction they were coming from. As she got closer, the voices got louder, but there were still gaps in the conversation, and she had to strain to hear.
"…don't see why all this is necessary."
"…may be awake, we… every precaution."
"..in first, don't know… dangerous beyond our…"
A mechanical sliding and whirring followed. Faith tensed. She had heard only three voices, but somehow she knew that there were more present. She was never much for strategy, but she knew that rushing them as soon as they came in the door was her best shot. They may have expected her to be awake, but they wouldn't expect her to have escaped her restraints.
Faith stood, legs shoulder-width apart, hands loose at her sides. Despite having been chained up for God-knows-how-long, she realized she felt physically better than she ever had. She was aware of her body like never before, and every muscle seemed to hum with unreleased energy.
A previously invisible panel in the wall slid back. Two soldiers with semi-automatic weapons rushed out of the hallway and pointed their guns at Faith's chains. Before they registered that she wasn't in them, she attacked.
Faith couldn't remember an easier fight. Maybe it was just that she wasn't used to fighting against humans, but her blows seemed to land with double the impact they had before. She fought like a woman possessed, fueled by rage and adrenaline, letting her instincts take over. More soldiers streamed through the door, but she felled them easily, sometimes with a single blow. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a grey-haired man in a lab coat fumbling with the code to close the door. In a flash, she leapt over the battered bodies of the soldiers and tackled the man. He dropped to the ground, and she came with him. Faith recovered quickly and stood on his chest, jamming a foot into his windpipe.
"What the fuck?" she growled. It wasn't the most specific question, but it summed up her feelings on the situation pretty well. He said nothing, just gasped for breath. Faith brought her other foot down hard on his nose and shattered it. He stopped gasping. "Wrong answer," she muttered, hopping off of him. Faith removed his lab coat and started unbuttoning his shirt. His clothes weren't exactly her taste, but they were better than what she was wearing. From that angle, she could see that she had cracked his skull when she broke his nose, enough so that fluids were oozing out onto the floor.
His slacks were far too wide around her waist, and the flannel shirt hung off her like a pillowcase. Faith shrugged his lab coat over her shoulders, glancing at the ID badge clipped to the pocket. Dr. Angleman. She hitched up her pants and made her way across the hall, where she inserted the card into an alarm next to the door. Verification password? prompted the screen. Faith responded by yanking the handle out of the door, then kicking it down. She ran through corridor after corridor, letting her instinct guide her on where to turn. She finally broke down a door that let to a huge open area, gleaming white and filled with people. Faith didn't have time to sightsee, though; alarms were blaring and she was beginning to draw attention. She broke into a sprint again, running so fast that everything was a blur. She could smell the outside. She was almost free.
Across town, the wind whispered with magic, and everyone who walked down Crawford Street that day felt it. Blood beating in the ears, a single shiver running down the spine, and a sudden urge to cross to the other side of the street just before reaching the abandoned, overgrown mansion at the end of the road. By the time night fell, the street was deserted, its residents all safe inside their homes. Friendly yellow light glowed out of every window of every house—every house but one. Not a soul saw the flash of blue light that lit up the mansion's windows for a brilliant second before fading away. And no one admitted to hearing the unearthly shouts of an empty house that had suddenly become occupied again.