Tragedy Strikes

A/N: Yes, I love being horrible to my characters. Just thought I'd warn you ahead of time—I mean it when I say tragedy. Also, this chapter is (or should be… eheh) shorter than the previous one, because I don't want to bore my readers to death. Enjoy just the same!

Oh, and PS: I wasn't sure if I should leave this chapter like this and break the next piece off into a separate chapter, so I did, cause I wanted to update. Don't worry, everything will be explained at some point, I promise.

I

One Week Later

"Hey Dad, I'm home!" Izzy slammed the door, a sure sign she was annoyed about something. It was well after midnight, though luckily her mother was out of town and as a result there was no real curfew, even on a school night. But the Bronze had closed an hour earlier, and the only reason it had taken the young girl so long to get home was she'd been accosted yet again by a group of bloodsuckers. You think I'd learn not to take the shortcut through the fucking graveyard,she thought, though she couldn't deny that she got a rush from the nightly battles. Maybe I'm just addicted to the adrenaline. A thought she couldn't exactly deny.

"Dad?" Izzy called out again, when her father didn't answer. Lights were on, so she knew he must be up; he never left lights on in the house, or the door unlocked for that matter, when he wasn't home or had gone to bed. Something was wrong, Izzy could feel it. She could hear the sound of canned laughter coming from the TV in the living room, but other than that, the house was completely silent. Usually she could hear her father laughing along with the TV, or talking to her mother on the phone, and he always heard her when she came home, even if he was asleep and Izzy did her best to sneak in silently. He never ignored her when she called for him, anyway.

She didn't see anything in the livingroom, at first. There was some sitcom or other running on the television (her father couldn't get enough of the stuff), but his armchair was empty. "Maybe he just forgot this time," Izzy murmured to herself, though she knew that wasn't true. Call her crazy, but she'd lived on her instincts for almost half her life, and she wasn't about to discount them now. Which is why, oddly enough, she wasn't surprised when she stumbled over something quite large, as she made her way across the room to shut off the TV.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as Izzy got up (she'd never been the most graceful of people), trying not to look but unable to stop herself just the same. She knew what it was almost before she looked up, but the sight still shocked her senseless. It was her father, lying spread-eagled on his back between the coffee table and the television, in a pool of blood that had more than saturated the carpet beneath. The young girl had fallen in it—there was blood on her knees and hands. And its source was quite obvious—the man had a dagger stuffed hilt-deep into his bare chest, and on his stomach lay a note with the words 'GET OUT SLAYER' written in blood. Izzy was having trouble breathing, accepting what she was seeing. She was in a state of acute denial; this couldn't be happening. Not here, not now. Sunnydale was supposed to be the place they had come to get away from the violence of New York, and now this. It had to be a dream. Had she been able to get herself to move, she would have tried pinching, but she was frozen.

The smell was terrible; it didn't take a PhD to know that he'd been dead for hours now. "Oh fuck…" Izzy said, turning swiftly to the side and just barely avoiding getting sick all over the body. She'd seen death before, but not like this. This… this was too much, even for her.

II

The Next Day

The police had been all over her house all night, when she'd finally snapped out of it enough to call 911. Izzy had taken the dagger and the note and hid them (it wouldn't have done the police any good to try tracking down the killer, as she was pretty sure it was a vampire or demon) before the cops showed up. She told them everything (except the part about the weapon and note), and they left four cops at her house overnight after they'd found out everything they could, worried that the killer (or killers) would come back. Nothing had been stolen, though they still pinned it down to a burglary gone wrong. Izzy knew better, though she wasn't about to tell them that.

Now she was walking up the steps to Sunnydale High; her gaze must have looked murderous (though it wasn't intentional), for everyone that looked at her practically ran to get out of her way. She kept her hands in the pocket of the black, hooded sweatshirt she wore, partly because it was bitingly cold today, partly because she had the dagger and note tucked away in it. The chains on her cargo pants (black as well) rattled with every step, and her breathing was deep and even, almost as you'd imagine it would be in sleep. In reality, it was taking all Izzy's self control not to go ape shit on everyone around her—harmless high school students had nothing to do with her father's death, she knew that, but every time one of them laughed or smiled or greeted friends, or said 'Bye!' to parents dropping them off, a sharp stab of venomous anger pierced through her, and there was a noticeable hitch in her breathing, before she continued to reign in her rage and keep her cool.

Of course, the façade dropped like a hot poker the instant she reached the library. She stormed in, nearly ripping one of the big double doors from its hinges, and Mr. Walker looked up, surprise written all over his face. Perhaps he was in fear for his life—he should have been. But Izzy wasn't going to take it out on him, either. Instead, when she reached the front desk, she pulled the dagger from her sweatshirt (the note stuck on the blade) and slammed it into the counter, burying it nearly as deep as it had been in her father's chest—she had used all her strength. "I'm in." She was gone a second later, leaving Walker to stare after her in disbelief, before looking down at the dagger and giving a half-hearted tug. It would probably take half the football team to get it out of the counter.