The car was now going on a deserted street in a small town of the center of the United States. The wan lights of the town reflected on the car's glasses. It was late and Faith wasn't surprised that they had met almost no one. It was still warm and the Slayer had opened her window and let her arm fall along the door as she drove nonchalantly in search of the motel the barmaid had talked them about sooner.
She wasn't really tired. She was a Slayer after all. But Faith wouldn't say no to some hours of sleep. Maybe she was simply bored after the distraction that had been her fight with the demon-coming-out-the-hood. And Tara needed a good bed. After spending the last two nights in the car, the witch probably needed a good night of sleep in a bed, even if she wasn't telling anything.
Faith stopped almost mechanically at a traffic signals and scanned her surroundings, forcing her gaze to look as far as she could along the street. A detail, a light in the distance got her attention and when the signal turned green, Faith turned on her right.
"What are you doing?"
Faith almost jumped when she heard Tara's dry voice. She wasn't used to hear the blonde, even less used to hear her talking in that harsh tone.
"Looks like I'm turning" She answered in an annoyed voice.
"Why?" Tara asked immediately without any sign of stutter. "The waitress said to go straight"
Faith sighed deeply to show to her companion how her speech was bothering her.
"And I can tell there's a police car at the end of the street. They're doing controls or whatever. We'll find another road"
Tara frowned, obviously not understanding what the matter was.
"I didn't see anything" she said simply after a silence.
"Of course!" Faith replied dryly. "Between the fact that you're always lost in your own world and the fact that I'm a Slayer –which means enhanced senses- it just makes sense that I can see things you can't!"
"Okay. And what's the matter?"
Faith sighed again and rolled her eyes. Then she gestured to herself in a dramatic gesture.
"Convicted murdered here. On the run. Don't really want to explain the why and how to the cops"
Tara nodded slowly; looking like she was proceeding the information the Slayer had just given.
"The…the council and Mr Gi…Giles, they didn't do anything about that?"
Faith shrugged nonchalantly.
"Giles's working on it through the council and their contacts. But right now, it's too soon. Still no one enough high-placed to get the thing done… And I guess that with the council to rebuild and Slayers all around the world, there're more important stuff to deal with…"
Faith fell silent, seemed to hesitate, then added in a sarcastic tone:
"And it's not like they need me. Now, if I go to jail, there're dozens of Slayers to get the job done."
Tara seemed to consider the Slayer's words carefully during long seconds but she finally turned back forward without adding anything. Faith shrugged when she saw them doing so and simply repeated:
"We'll find another road…"
Faith went through the motel's door with Tara on her heels. The place was nothing like luxurious nor even welcoming or nice. It reminded the Slayer only too well of the too many motels like this she had attended in the past. But it wasn't time to complain and they couldn't afford better anyway.
A young man sat at the counter. He was bad shaven, wore a too large and too dirty tee-shirt and looked like he came directly from a bad movie about gangsters. He looked up from his reading and appraised Faith's curves, outlined in her just too tight jeans and her waisted black leather jacket. He hardly cast a glance at Tara who almost disappeared in her own clothes and said in a laconic tone, even before Faith opened her mouth:
"We're full, girls"
Faith crossed nevertheless the distance between herself and the counter. Tara followed, after pausing for a second to the guy's words.
"Full?" The Slayer repeated. "How that scruffy dump can be full?"
Faith leant both elbows on the counter and stared at the young man, as if she was searching for a clue that he was lying.
"We haven't got a lot of rooms" the guy explained as he let his gaze plunge into the Slayer's plunging neckline. "We're just a small motel and we haven't got a lot of doubles…"
"Who said we wanted a double?" Faith replied.
"I don't have two free singles" He answered. "I told you we're full. There's just only one single and…"
"We're taking it" Faith interrupted without waiting for the end of the sentence.
The young man looked alternately between Faith – who already scooped her hand to him to ask for the key- and Tara who was standing shyly behind her.
"But you're two…" The young man protested. "It's a really small room, there's no room for two people and…"
"Listen to me guy" Faith interrupted again, impatience obvious in her voice this time. "I don't give a damn to know if that room is small or comfortable. I don't expect anything such from that hole anyway. But that girl here" she gestured to Tara behind her. " Needs a bed for tonight and if there's one free, she'll have it. Got me?"
The young man stared at Faith for a second, gauging the reality in the threatening tone Faith had used. Without knowing why, he couldn't help but feel cowed and slightly afraid of that stranger coming from nowhere. In others circumstances, he would certainly not have granted her request and given in to her implied threats. But no one was there to see him bend to a girl, so…
"Easy girl, you'll get the room"
He bent under the counter and got out a key he gave Faith.
"First floor, last door on the right. You'll sleep on the floor"
Faith took the key and nodded.
"That's exactly what I'm gonna do"
Then she seized the bag Tara had dropped at their feet during the speech and went to the door, closely followed by the blonde.
They young man watched them going out and going to the stairs. When they weren't in sight any more, he settled back comfortably in his seat behind the counter and resumed his reading where he had left it.
Faith stopped in front of the last door on the right as the young man had said. She compared the number barely readable written on a small piece of paper fixed upon the key to the one engraved on an old copper plate that almost magically stayed on the door in front of her.
Both wore thirteen.
Satisfied, the Slayer put the key into the keyhole and opened the door after struggling some seconds with an uncooperative door lock.
The door opened to reveal a small room. It was barely lighten by the light of the moon coming through the doorstep blocked by Faith. The Slayer came in and ran her hand to her right, searching for the switch. When her fingers came into contact with the greasy plastic she was looking for, Faith switched it on and a weak ceiling light lightened the room.
The receptionist hadn't lied. The place was tiny and untrimmed and there wasn't any kind of interior decoration to give the room some appeal.
"At least, it's cheap…" Faith grumbled and threw the bag she was holding on the bed.
It squeaked in protest and the mattress sank deeper under the bag's weight than it probably should have.
"Well, it's not the best room in the world Blondie, but it'll serve us for the night"
Faith turned to Tara who had stayed in the doorstep.
"Where…where are you going to sleep?"
Faith shrugged flippantly.
"On the floor Blondie… No problem for me. Slayer here"
Saying this, she gestured to herself. Then she considered the whole room. There was not much furniture: a single bed against the left wall, a simple wooden chair and a white decrepit washbasin whom tubing was rusty.
Faith shrugged again and she relieved herself from her jacket without waiting more. She put it on the back of the chair before sitting on it to unlace her boots.
"Come on Blondie, time to sleep" The Slayer urged.
Tara came in and closed the door behind her. She came closer to the bed and simply stood beside it, considering Faith who had just get off her boots and passed her tank top over her shoulders. The Slayer got free from her jeans, which landed above the jacket and the tank top. Then, Faith got to the bed where she seized the bag under Tara's gaze.
"What are you waiting for Blondie?" Faith grumbled when she noticed Tara stood still. "You're gonna sleep all clothed?"
Saying this, Faith took off her bra and slipped on an oversized tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, before grabbing the pillow on the bed.
"'Taking the pillow"
Faith then put the aforementioned pillow against the wall near the bed and lied on the floor, wedging her back against the pillow in the process. Tara still hadn't moved. Faith stayed in her position for long seconds before laying a questioning gaze on the witch. Finally, the brunette rolled her eyes and sighed with annoyance, and nimbly got to her feet.
"Got it. I'm gonna smoke a last cigarette"
Faith rummaged in her jacket's pockets and got her pack and her lighter out. She exited the room without adding a word.
She closed the door behind her and leant against the guardrail in front of her. She lighted her cigarette and slowly dragged puff after puff while looking at the night in the distance.
When she came back some minutes later, she found Tara lying in the bed under the sheets. She also wore a white oversized tee-shirt and she had carefully folded her clothes that were now put on the chair. The witch had stripped the blanket off the bed and had laid it down on the floor beside the pillow. Faith looked alternately the blanket and Tara with a little surprise on her face but said nothing. She put flippantly her lighter and pack on the chair, above Tara's clothes. Then she came to the switch near the door and switched the light off. Finally, she settled on the floor, curled up into the blanket and let her head sink into the pillow before wedging herself on her side.
"'Night Blondie"
She didn't get more reply than she had expected.
When Faith awoke a little later with all her senses in alarm, she immediately knew that not much time had gone by since she had fallen asleep. The feeling of weariness left by hours on the road hadn't disappeared. And the night was still dark outside.
Faith sat up on her elbows and listened carefully around her, searching what had waken her. She didn't wait long to find out.
Just above her head, Tara was tossing and turning in bed and muttering in her sleep. The words – if there were really ones – were unintelligible and sounded more like growls.
Faith turned to the bed and waited. Tara moved about some dozens of seconds more before the silence fell again on the small room. Faith craned her neck to see that Tara seemed to be calm again.
The Slayer lied again, threw the blanket over her body and tried to resume her night. She was about to fall asleep again after several minutes of struggle when her roommate started to whimper in her sleep again. Faith sat up again and saw that Tara was tossing and muttering nervously in her bed. She sighed, lied, sank into the pillow with the blanket over her head, hoping not to hear Tara this way.
But when the witch's growls transformed into speech and sobs, Faith had to accept the truth: a simple blanket over her head wouldn't be enough for her not to hear Tara. She sat up on her elbows again and sighed an annoyed sigh, cursing Tara and her nightmares, her Slayer's hearing and her desire to sleep right now. She stayed that way for what seemed to last an eternity to her – but probably last less than a few minutes- wondering what to do.
"No, no…"
Faith turned to Tara, surprise to hear understandable words for the first time in long minutes and frowned to the obvious anguish in the blonde's voice.
"No…" Tara repeated as she began to shake even more than before. "Help! Help!"
Faith jumped up when she heard Tara's voice go dramatically high. And she sighed again unhappily as spine-chilling sobs shook now the witch's body.
"No, no… please… No…"
Faith rolled her eyes.
"Okay. I'm not gonna get any sleep"
The Slayer moved the blanket aside and got up. She stretched herself and went to the chair where she grabbed her clothes. She slipped her jeans and tank top on as Tara was still asking for help behind her. Then Faith put her boots on and laced them before slipping her leather jacket on. She cast a last glance to the blonde whose anguished face was generously bathed by the moonlight and exited the room with a bored sigh without forgetting to take her cigarettes and lighter with her.
Outside, Faith enjoyed the silence and sighed with pleasure this time. She stretched again, enjoying the night's coolness and feeling her Slayer's senses awakening. She looked carefully around her for minutes, and then went down the stairs, as she sensed nothing particular around. Her boots echoed noisily on the old iron steps of the motel's outside stair but Faith didn't care.
When she was at the bottom of the stairs, she scanned her surroundings again. Still not sensing anything threatening, she got her pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lighted one before starting to walk aimlessly.
She went away from the motel along the sidewalkmoving one foot in front of the other in equilibrium on the edge, spreading her arms to assure herself, just like when she was a kid and she pretended to be a tightrope walker.
Un brief smile lightened her face for a second.
Faith stopped to drag on her cigarette. She breathed in deeply the smoke and got it out with indifferenceShe turned back to the motel whose figure was now a hundred meters across from her.
Around her, stood the small buildings of an average town and Faith realized she hadn't paid attention to the name of the town when they had arrived and that she didn't know where she was.
She shrugged to that observation and the Slayer resumed her random walk. At a traffic signal, she crossed a barrier separating the road from the sidewalkShe jumped to sit on it. She turned around again to where she had come from: the motel was nowhere to be seen this time.
Around her, the streets were deserted.
Faith dragged a new puff from her cigarette and relaxed, letting herself go in her loneliness.