Chapter 12: A Ghost of Happiness
"Oh my god, I'm gunna be sick." I rolled and vomited yesterday's meals into a plastic waste band.
"Can you puke quietly?" Jess groaned, a blue ice pack covering her head.
"Can I just not puke?" I cringed and rolled back under the sheets.
After I found Jess and pulled her from a pack of hungry-looking males, I told her what had happened out in the alley. Well, the drunken kiss was excluded but that wasn't important. I totally took out three vamps and Buffy was very impressed, enough to bring me out on a "demon-round".
"Congratulations!" Jess had exclaimed. Then proceeded to order two more rounds of drinks . . . then two more after that . . . then . . . I lost track. How exactly we made it back to the institute is a little sketchy, remembered somewhere between some drunk caroling and making a sweet pass at a trashcan.
"This is entirely your fault, by the way," I growled at Jess from beneath a pile of twisted sheets and a comforter.
"My fault? You were the one with the good news."
"You didn't need good news. You just wanted to get drunk."
"That maybe be but—"
"Hence. Your fault."
"Your sensible logic befuddles me."
"Sorry. I forgot to use troll logic."
"I am not a troll."
"Sure can drink like one."
"If I could stand, I would kill you."
"Shut up and stop screaming at me."
It was about twelve when the room finally stopped spinning and Jess headed back to her room, Ericka's sunglasses shoved haphazardly onto the bridge of her nose. It would be stupid for anyone to expect there'd be classes today, or that's what Jess had said. Not until later, at least. It was not until a loud female voice screamed firmly out of nowhere and announced that classes would started in an hour, first class then work outs would continue normally, did my day suddenly drop from being hangover bad to be a true living nightmare.
A shower was briefly considered before I realized that required moving out of bed. That motion would eventually have to be done, but it would preferably be later than now. Much later than now.
And right as I drifted back into sleep, a bell rang, signaling five minutes until classes began. I heaved onto my feet, my head swimming and my stomach swishing uncomfortably. This would only be cured one way. A quick set of clothes on, I rushed down to the cafeteria and grabbed a half-full cup of coffee, chugging it immediately. The onlookers stared and I let them.
Tremaine had some sort of demonstration set up. It was a hybrid demon, weaknesses and strengths brought together into a single body. The parts were obviously stuffed but next to them, there was a name and type of a real demon. We had to write down the best way to defeat this demon, by attacking a certain body part. The exercise was supposed to test our memory of which demon did what and the biggest weakness in each demon.
On a normal day, I would have been over with this in a minute flat. Memorization has always been my strong suit, despite many attempts to forget large chunks of life. But the booze and the nervousness that arose from the pit of my stomach every time I thought of the coming night, combined with tiny spaces and numbers, it was making me a little sick. Or really sick.
I sat in one of the front row chairs with my head hanging between my knees. Everyone else was standing around the display table, though there was a far less amount of "chipper" in the air.
All I could think about was Buffy's reaction after I slayed those vampires. She seemed impressed, maybe even proud. I really had done them in good. But what if there had been more? There had been that moment where one had grabbed me while the other beat me senseless. What if they just decided to kill me? There was nothing I could have done. That's it. I would have been dead. End of story. End of life.
Tremaine sat down next to me just as another wave of nausea swept my stomach into a riot. Oh, crap.
"How are you feeling?"
Ok, this is me. Thrown by the suddenly non-creepy Tremaine.
"Um, fine, I guess."
"It's simply moronic to have a day of lessons after the Christmas Eve." He said seriously. "Merry Christmas, by the way."
He tipped an imaginary hat towards me. I just stared.
"I should be cross with you, you know." Tremaine finally said, small talk over. "You should be up there with your classmates, solving the puzzle like a good Slayer. Why are you special enough to get to sit out just because you have a tummy ache?"
"If you're going to scold me," I said, the shock wearing off and now his old annoyance returning. "Then just do it."
"Oh, no scolding," Tremaine said and leaned back in his seat. "I'm not your official Watcher so I can do nothing, but you really should practice."
"Why?" I groaned, my head returning to my hands. "I don't think you'll appreciate your little monster over there being covered in vomit, for one thing."
"Because you have the potential for becoming something spectacular." He looked at me with eyes like flint. "You are already amazing, why not push the envelope?"
My mouth dropped. He did something that resembled a grin before standing up and going back to circling the table to give hints and answer questions.
He thought I could be a good Slayer. No, a spectacular Slayer. A spectacular Slayer. He was challenging me, and instead of ripping him a new one, like anyone who challenges me, I nodded inwardly and stood. Fine. Reverse Psychology, nice touch. I am not going to loose this one.
When Tremaine handed me back my list of guesses, I only got four out of six body parts to attack first. So maybe memorization isn't my best, but hey, look at that. In a big showdown, I had the better chance of winning because I knew what to kill first. Tremaine had mentioned something about an epic battle with one demon where it will be nothing but you and the evil spawn in front of you. Either you would win or it. And for the first time since arriving here, I had some sense of knowing; knowing when it came time to tell if the Slayer inside me was stronger than evil itself, I would be. I was strong.
Tremaine wanted to talk to me about the patrol later tonight; how I felt, what weapon I would use, the usual. He seemed genially interested. I couldn't figure why. It was not until he handed me a square sealed letter did I realize he was just Buffy's messenger. He was just being polite. An unhappy grumble of tiny guilt fluttered in my stomach for my previous assumption of this guy. He wasn't an ass; just a little bipolar.
As I took the letter, something was off. Maybe someone, somewhere had forgot to wash their hands after the bathroom, or a girl realized their boyfriend had cheated on her, or there was a car crash. But the second my hands touched the white paper, the world was momentarily wrong.
Tremaine nodded again as I left the classroom and turned up the stairs, into a secluded hallway. The wrong feeling was getting stronger and if this was some sort of bomb thingy, the damage should probably be contained. That and I wanted to be alone.
My thumb slipped under the glue and jerked forward. I pulled out a thick letter and began reading.
Reid-
The landlord called the cops last week to take out everything from apartment 301 because the owner hasn't paid rent or been in for over a month. Banks told me this over our morning coffee. We've been having morning coffee ever since you disappeared. I think he misses you. But I think I miss you enough for us both.
A formal letter arrived from the Burger Bonanza, saying you've been fired because you haven't returned any of their calls, or been in to do the job for a month. You told me quit that job weeks ago. What else are you not telling me?
Here the letter was smudged as though water had run on it.
Obviously, I'm terrified. No one has heard from you or seen you since that night you ran from the hospital. How could you run away after being hit by a car? I asked myself. How could you move? How are you alive?
Where are you now?
Then yesterday I got another letter in the mail, from a man named Rupert Giles. Rupert has met you and it seems to him that "you're not the type of person that would tell their kin something very important". Apparently, you're a Slayer. A super-powered girl who saves the world. . . from demons . . . .
I don't know what he's smoking, or you're smoking to believe garbage like that but I honestly thought your mother raised you better than that.
Rupert says you're safe. Maybe you are. I just had to send this out to say all the things I haven't said for years, maybe ever.
Reid, I love you with all my heart and you are the most important thing in my life. What I wouldn't give to see you smile, or hell, now to see you. I saw you grow up from a terrified child, to an unhappy teenager and now I don't know what you are. And I don't care. You could be the Thing from Mars and you will always be little R to me.
I miss you.
You need to know that before going to a place you can never come back. My heart will always be yours. I can't ask you to come home because I know you will do just the opposite to spite me. And that's ok. Be yourself but don't run from your past.
I love you forever and always.
-Dina
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?" I screeched as I ripped back the curtain to Willow's tent. The witch froze in the middle of demonstrating something and the rest of the class turned to look at me. I was seething; my hands were clenched into fists, one crushing the letter and the other digging holes into my palm. My chest rose and fell in fury and well-trained tear ducts were restraining furious tears. If smoke came pouring out of my nose and ears, it would only have been slightly funny, more expected than anything. But I wouldn't have laughed. I don't think I would ever laugh again.
"Well?" I demanded. Willow's brow furrowed.
"I don't know what you're—"
"How can you not know?" I howled. "How can you not know that my old woman wrote a letter?"
"Oh," she said surprised. "That I know. Yeah, it came in this morning."
"What gives you, or stupid Rupert, the right to get into my personal life?"
"We thought we were doing you a favor—"
"WELL IT FUCKING WELL WASN'T!" I roared. "YOU STAY OUT THE HELL OUT OF MY BUSINESS! YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE AT THIS DAMN SCHOOL!"
With that I turned and stormed out of the tent, up to the building, into a dark, forgotten hallway, sat down . . . and cried.
Thousands of feelings ripped across my chest, I was sure there was some mark left; ugly gashes, red and purple lines tearing ribbons of flesh like buzz saw slicing through thick wood. A life was continuing outside of these walls and I had completely abandoned it, hoping that like a certain philosophy, people and places and things only existed when you needed them to go on. But as I so fiercely had learned, that is not the case and the world continue to buzz though I was not a part of it. I was fired. I had no job. My apartment was probably being given to someone else this very minute. My furniture, my clothes, my bed, was all going in the garbage, tossed out unceremoniously as a chef tosses out a ruined meal. He gets to start over though, the cook. He has the parts and pieces to try again; I don't. To ever return to Dina empty-handed would basically signing a form that gave permission to throw my crazy-self into the nuthouse. And, if I ever went back, it would be to say this, all this, the windows, the beds, being a Slayer, never existed. I would just be one more crazy person trying to get back something that was never theirs. But this was my destiny, right? I was Chosen for this, above everyone else.
No, a small voice in my head said. You're not special. Just look around; there are hundreds, maybe thousands of other girls given your calling and doing much better with it. They don't have to be trained by a psychotic vampire, lagging behind everyone else.
I wasn't a real Slayer, probably never was and never will be. As long as my life continues, I will be cursed as a murderer from Manhattan. I'm not the hero; only a villain dressed and taught to dance the hero dance.
Dina still didn't know what I had done. She still wanted me. She missed me, even if I didn't. With a sudden rush of guilt that moved so fast within me, for a moment I was nauseated, I thought of my mother. I thought of Policeman Banks and I cried for him too.
A part of me said that I should go to bed and sleep all of this away. The other part said, no, go kill something. Maybe that was the Slayer part, or maybe it was just me, simple and no other way to deny it. So I walked down from my corridor, my red and wet face gone in an instance, to be replaced by a heavy scowl.
I could feel eyes following me, the number growing until something large and thick was snipping at my heels, waiting to sink its vicious claws into my back. As I came down the stairs and rounded the corner to the other gyms, a sudden hand grabbed my forearm and I spun, shocked that the hand made no tear into my skin.
It was Jess. That bitch.
"God, what the hell happened?" She asked worriedly. "You totally flipped out on Willow today. What was in that letter?"
"NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS!" I suddenly roared, anger breaking through the scowl. Jess's mouth dropped.
"I don't know why the hell you think its ok to hang around me," I snarled. "I don't remember ever asking some super-powered bitch to follow me around constantly."
Jess stared.
"We're not friends. I don't know where the hell you got that idea but its damn well not true. It never was. Leave me the hell alone."
Then I told her to do something very obscene with herself and stormed off.
The sinister cloud that had been boiling in my mind ever since I read the letter was broken a bit by the horribly shocked and hurt look from her face and I yearned for more, like more poison in a cigarette. I practically kicked open the gym door. Spike turned his pale head in my direction, annoyance and preparation for the coming boredom flickering back and forth.
"Thought you were passed out in a gutter somewhere," he scowled. "Feared I was going to have to call Buffy."
Buffy.
The conversation Jess and I had before the heavy drinking began suddenly spewed itself to the top of my mind, the details clear and perfect underneath the blurry remembrances. Buffy and Spike had a thing, a big complicated thing that seemed like true love and yet . . . she chose this other guy, Angel. Supposedly before the souls, Angelus made Spike his bitch in every sense of the word and now that he's got the girl, Spike's not too happy. In fact, he's an angry bastard that can't get over the past, filled with memories that burn him like fire.
Lets see if they leave a mark.
"Now today I was thinking along the lines on something of—"
"No," I said firmly. "No. I don't want to. Let's call Buffy."
My eyes glittered; I let them. I was gauging his reaction and to my disappointment, he didn't even flinch.
"Great. Let's call her and she can do whatever she'd damn well pleases."
"Awesome plan. Well maybe she'd be too busy, screwing a human Angel and all."
At this he twitched, froze in his pacing. "What?"
My heart raced in excitement; there! "Bet they're making sweet love right now. Him being human, something that is very special. Something not everyone has."
Spike's eyes narrowed, the blue leaking into a dark black. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing," I said simply. "Just trying to make a point."
"Then make it," he hissed.
"Alright," I shrugged and began pacing exactly like him: that shift of the hips that spoke of gaudy superiority and that slow placement of the feet to show exactly who was in control. "Buffy saw you as a thrill ride and now she's back with the man she had always loved, love that never wavered or strayed. She liked you. Liked to use you. A lot."
As though the ground had lurched him forward, Spike was suddenly in front of me and with a swing of a backhanded fist, blood began to pour from my nose. There is came again; that rise and swell of excitement and pleasure. With a sadistic grin, I smeared the blood from my nose onto the back of my arm.
"You had no idea what we had." Spike said, frightfully calm.
"Yeah, I don't." I said, still smiling into his face. And there, in the way he seemed to be blurred with fury, there was a weakness. I swung up, faster than I believed possible and my fist connected with his jaw. He stumbled back, a stream of blood trickling down from a split lip. "I don't know what you had but I can guarantee its nothing to what they have."
Spike bent down, his hands resting on his knees, completely silent and allowing blood to drip onto the mat. The silence that surrounded us was furious, twisting and horrible like a train crushing a bike. And suddenly I noticed the hands on his knees were shaking.
"Stop, please." He asked.
This fantastic show of frailty was like sweet wine; bitter and numbing and excellent to taste. I was addicted to it, obsessed with drinking it in. I wanted him to writhe in agony.
"She's happy. Without you and with Angel, and you take it out on me. You're not training me, you're playing punch-bag with my face."
"I made her happy too." Spike snarled and stood, all traces of pain gone and leaving but nothing but a glare, marring the shine to a bear trap covered in fresh blood. "Exquisitely happy, if I do remember correctly . . . "
He had begun to circle me again, but I didn't move, only stared transfixed at the vampire ahead.
"But obviously, Angel has something with her that you don't."
Spike froze again, the words of hot truth making walking, or any movement unbearable.
"Buffy gets you hot. But you wouldn't be half as pissed off and despairingly pathetic as you are, if the man making her hot wasn't Angel. You just can't stand the fact that he has something you don't."
Something that resembled utter fury flickered Spike's blue eyes to life. But I didn't wait to see how that flame mutilated the rest of his face, for then I turned and stepped off the mat. A hand as tight and biting as a set of metal manacles grabbed my arm and threw me into the wall on the opposite side of the room. I only hit brick, instead of a wall full of sharp weapons, my head snapping against the concrete, and I hit the floor. I had never been thrown across a room before and it wasn't experience I was about to forget.
"You have no idea what you are talking about!" Spike roared. I pushed up on to my knees, something cold, like running blood, making the back of my neck shiver. I chuckled.
"Get over yourself, Spike. Jealousy isn't a pretty color on you."
His jaw set, Spike moved and suddenly he was pushing me up against the wall by my collar. His eyes were as dark as coals, churning and bubbling like the ocean before a hurricane.
"I love her. I got a bloody soul for her." His voice was low and deadly, shaking slightly in his fury. "Don't dare to tell me what I feel."
"Hey," I chuckled, my laugh and words coming out in pocketed breaths; his knuckles were driving into my neck. "I'm sure you want to do all sorts of nasty little things to her. And from what I've heard, you got about halfway through your list. So congrats."
The pressure on my throat increased.
"But," I spluttered. "That doesn't mean she won't do them again, this time with Angel on top—"
I almost laughed again but the pressure increased to an unbearable level before I was thrown into the air again, landing face first into a stool. But I flew through the stool, catching it inside of me as I crashed into a brick wall. The thing exploded against the wall, a sharp pain in my side and when I rolled onto my back, a broken chunk of the stool was bedded firmly into my side. But no sooner had I pulled out the piece of wood, two hands clapped onto my back and I was thrown again, only this time I didn't go as far but hit the ground twice as hard. Thankfully, he had chucked me onto the mats, but something in the back of my mind said the mats wouldn't do much good in the long run. A hand yanked my shoulder and I fell onto my back.
His face twisted with anger and hate and his eyes burning like a house on fire, Spike was snarling as he stared down, his legs straddling the mat beneath me. I shook my head, smiling sickly-sweetly as I touched the wound on my side.
"You can beat me until I'm bleeding out all my pores, broken in half and blind, but that won't change what is. Buffy doesn't love you like you want. She picked Angel over you and that pretty much makes you second-rate to a human. To Angel."
His hand moved so fast to my neck, the ground fell away before I realized what had happened. My feet hung in the air as he held me by my neck a full arms-length away. To him I probably felt no heavier than a small chair.
"What kind of death-wish are you playing at?"
"Wouldn't you like to know . . ."
His fingers squeezed harder.
"You know what?" He said in a low voice. "I like your plan. Beating you until you're blind sounds real good right about now."
The motion was more instinct than anything; my hands were grasped around his wrists as though I meant to pull it away but of course that effort was futile. Now, I dug my nails into his hand, my eyes never breaking contact from his.
"Do it." I murmured.
"I could do it, you know. Snap you right here and now, and if I felt like it, it could be real painful . . . and slow . . ."
"Doubt it," I said, my throat burning under his hand. "I've heard stories about William the Bloody and frankly it's a shame he's gone, or this might even be slightly threatening."
"I could tell you stories that would make you want to claw your own ears off." Spike muttered in a voice that since the day I met him made my hair stand on end. "And the best part? They're not just stories, ducks. I've done them and I still remember how."
"Maybe that's why Buffy never loved you. You're a fucking psycho—"
A furious roar echoed around the room and I flew upwards, an ice-cold hand holding me in the air by pressing into my stomach, accompanying the other hand around my neck. Something sharp and extremely painful ripped open my back as there was a distant crash. I could feel bits of glass and wires digging into my skin as he held me against the wall, shoving me deeper and deeper into a shatter light. Blood began to spill over my sides and splatter onto the mat below. It ran forwards into my hair, causing me to shiver from the cold feeling and sending another shot of agony into my back.
"That's a lie. You're crazy, mentally unstable. That's why you're not training with the other Slayers. Everyone's scared of you. No one trusts you." Spike said this with a sharp point, as though this was meant to hurt me emotionally too, but the lack of air getting to my lungs and the mounting agony in my back and sides were clogging the sound of his voice, making the world thick and jumbled.
He said something else, unintelligible. I shook my head, not listening even if I could hear. My mouth was dry and heavy, like I had been sucking on cotton.
"You're pathetic," I drawled. "You're Buffy Summers' bitch. If there was anything remotely close to a vampire inside of you, you'd move on. Hell, a human man would to better than you. You're not a man, you're a rat. A big dumb stupid . . . pathetic . . ."
The hand around my throat completely closed down on my windpipe and pushed me harder into the metal, the material whining and protesting almost as much as I did as it bent and twisted deeper into my skin. Spike didn't seem to notice I was loosing consciousness or the amount of blood I was loosing or the amount of pain I was in.
Now see, these are three factors that would certainly affect anyone's hearing capabilities. But as the world around me slowly started to fade to black, my lungs on fire from lack of air, I swore heard him whisper something in my ear.
"One day I will kill you. I promise."
Suddenly, the hands were gone and I gulped in air, immediately smashing to the ground. My head bounced once and I was still. What remained of the light above me flickered and died, throwing me into shady darkness. I knew Spike wasn't standing nearby; he had left a while ago, leaving for someone else to do the clean up.
Maybe it was lack of air or blood loss that had heard the hallucination threat, but in the moment before I completely gave into the black surrounding me, I knew, without a slight hesitation, that he would eventually kill me.