Firefly - Chapter 19
By: Suz Mc
"I hope you're not going to be too fucking big for my trunk," Lindsey said, pacing across the room but keeping her eyes focused on her prisoner.
"Excuse me?" Sam was being careful to watch for any sign that Lindsey was about to lose it and put a hole in his chest with that .38 she kept brandishing in his direction.
"You're certainly too heavy for me to drag out of here in one piece and I'll never be able to pick you up and load you as dead weight."
"Sorry 'bout that."
Lindsey stopped, pointing the gun squarely at Sam as he sat in the chair before her. "I know! I'll just walk you out to the trunk, you can get in, and I'll shoot you there! Brilliant!"
"You're quite the evil genius, Lindsey," he said, finding it amusing at how true that was. Extended monologues were the downfall of many a better villain than this girl. "How do you plan to explain busting a cap into a stranger to your neighbors?" Sam asked, watching Lindsey silently puzzle her way through all of her options for killing him and getting away. She had the upper hand, momentarily, and felt pretty confident. This might be the perfect time to get her talking. "So much for being bonded by tragedy, huh, Lindsey?"
"What the hell are you babbling about, Fake Ranger?"
"You and Calley in that explosion when you were kids, remember? All that gushing you did yesterday about watching your friends being blown up, did you bring that demon out to kill them?" Sam saw a brittle hatred settle over the woman's features.
"IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HER, BUT THE BITCH LIED TO ME!" Lindsey screamed across the room, the calculated sobriety left her voice and an unbalanced fury took its place. Sucking in a calming breath, she tried to get hold of herself. "Those bitchy cheerleaders had that book and thought it was some witchcraft bullshit they could use to get the college boyfriends they wanted and an assortment of other stupid crap but they couldn't read Latin!"
"And you could."
"Damn straight I could," Lindsey said, holding her head high with pride. "No dates equals lots of study time." After a quick straightening of her hair with her free hand, she continued, "They came to me and said if I'd help them get what they wanted, I could be part of it, too, so I said yes." Lindsey pulled up a chair, dramatically seating herself as if delivering a reading to an audience. "But once I got through the translations, I realized there was more to it than just spells. If we could summon Amora and provide her with a host that met all those pesky regulations, she could grant us everything we wanted."
"What did you want, Lindsey? What was it that made you deal with a demon?" Lindsey was a walking, talking illustration of what dealing with demons got you – screwed and on your way to Hell.
"To be Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman," she smiled saying the names of her idols, "and it could have happened if Calley hadn't lied to me."
"She was there with you, right? Did she know?"
"Hell, no! That delicate little flower?" Lindsey obviously didn't care to keep up the pretense of ever having cared for Calley Rail. "What a sap. I told her those girls were having a sleepover and a séance for fun and it was my chance to be part of the popular crowd but I was too nervous to go alone. Of course, she didn't want any part of the witchy stuff but I told her it was just playing around and I needed her so she was there."
"You thought she would be Amora's host," Sam said, disgusted that someone would sell out another human being to a demon; not surprised, but still disgusted.
"Dead mother. Never having given birth. She was always so scared of needles she'd never get a tattoo or piercings. She met them all but one." Lindsey's expression went dark. "She told me she'd been laid but she LIED!" Lindsey was on her feet again, anger making her move. "A fucking virgin. Poor pitiful Calley, living in a fucking mansion with those mean relatives and not even laid. We sat her on the circle so Amora would know clueless Calley was the one but when we summoned her, the whole room blew up."
"Because you're supposed to do that sort of thing outside when the demon is that powerful."
"Thank you, Mr. Demon Expert, Sir," Lindsey said, sarcasm twisting her face. "Anyway, Calley and those other two were laid out under the rubble and I crawled out trying to get away. Amora was plenty pissed that she couldn't get into Calley because, well, she was a stupid virgin so she found another host."
Sam began to get the picture fairly quickly. "She possessed you, didn't she?"
For a brief moment, Lindsey looked wounded. Not at all the crazed, sadistic witch who was willing to sacrifice another human being for her own gain. "I'm adopted. I didn't realize my bio-mom was dead and it seems Amora is a stickler for those details. She jammed herself down my throat and took me on a joyride to Nevada for a few weeks."
"The devil is in the details."
Sam's smartass remark hardened Lindsey again and she walked a bit closer. "Damn straight. That monster wasn't going to give us anything. All she wanted was to turn me over to every dirty bastard who would put his dick in me. Calley, on the other hand, got shipped off to the nuns to recover and paint and live happily ever after, while I went through hell." Lindsey walked away toward the window, clearly feeling and tasting her nightmare vacation of being ridden by a demon.
"That must have been horrible for a teenage girl, Lindsey," Sam said, forcing a compassionate hum to his voice and getting ready to make a move.
"It was brutal and sickening." She was fully immersed in the memory and a tear ran down the side of her face.
Sam rose carefully, trying to avoid and telltale creaks or pops to his joints from a night spent folded up in a Honda. "But you survived it, Lindsey. You were stronger than she was."
"Still am."
He stepped forward, almost close enough to reach out and take her in hand. He stretched out his arm.
"Sit the fuck down!!!" Lindsey spun around, cracking through the shell of memories and cocking the handgun.
Sam raised his hands into the air and backed away. "You don't want to do this, Lindsey. I can help you."
"You're not gonna help me do shit. All you're interested in is that doomed little girl," Lindsey yelled, backing Sam into his chair but staying just out of reach.
"Okay, okay. I'm sitting," Sam said, complying with her gun-punctuated directions. "If you're gonna put a hole in me and drive me around in your car, the least you can do is tell me why. What does Amora want with Emily?"
"The same thing she wanted with my baby," Lindsey said, nervously twisting a loose piece of brown hair at her neck.
"You have a kid, Lindsey?" If she did, it wasn't in this house and Sam felt a few added alarms going off in his brain.
"I was going to until I had it sucked out of me." She didn't make the mistake of looking away this time but bore her eyes right into him. "When her time was up, Amora came out of me and left, but I was pregnant and there was no way I was having some demon spawn kid. My parents were more than happy to get me an abortion because they thought I'd just lost my mind and slept with a bunch of guys after I'd run away from home."
Lindsey sat down in the chair once again. Her face was pale and far more lined than that of a normal twenty-six year old woman. This was more than likely the only time she'd told her story and it was bubbling out like shaken soda with the top popped off. Temporarily, her focus was off shooting Sam, which he liked immensely, so he wanted to keep that situation intact.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. I was free of that monster and some biker's baby and everything was going to be fine," she said, "until the bitch's followers showed up in 2007 looking for what Amora called her 'perfect creation', only to find out I'd killed it. She sent them because she hadn't yet found a host and they were about to kill me when I offered them a new solution."
"You sent her to Calley."
Lindsey looked at him, tears still in her eyes but that original hardness returned. Years of justifying and reordering reality to make her choices valid had long since colored Lindsey's perception of justice. "Damn right! She still fit the profile. Mother still dead. No baby. I was willing to bet she hadn't gotten pierced or tattooed and I was pretty damn sure she'd been laid by then. I also knew with Calley's 'sanctity of life' stance and if Amora got her knocked up, she'd keep it. It was a win-win for me and got me off the hook."
"What gives you the right to do that to Calley? To my brother? To Emily, for Christ sake?!"
"Survival, that's what!" she screamed at Sam. "Don't you judge me! Don't you dare judge me! I did what I had to do to stay alive, but once again, Calley screwed it up for me. Those stupid symbols! Amora showed up to collect her little hell baby and Calley had that damn necklace on her and those things painted on her door and she couldn't get the fuck in!"
"So you helped," Sam said, feeling the depth of Lindsey's selfish desire for survival over everything else. Dean was right. Demons were easy to understand. They were evil, period. Human beings and what they were capable of was full on crazy.
"It was so easy, Sam," she said, leaning forward and lowering her voice to a whisper. "I'm an excellent performer. Told Calley that horrible monster that hurt her was after both of us." Lindsey's entire body language changed. Her eyes became pleading and soft, her voice, a wavering shaky squeak. "Please help me, Calley. I'm so sorry I dragged us into this all those years ago. What are we going to do?" Then she reverted back to self-serving Lindsey Deaton. "God, what an old softy, that Calley. She wasn't suspicious one bit. She was scared shitless, but she wanted to save us all." She hesitated, as if waiting for applause then said, "I'm good."
"I wouldn't go thanking the Academy just yet."
Indignantly, she said, "Everybody's a critic. Anyway, Calley even painted that stupid symbol on my door, which did turn out to be helpful in the long run. She said Emily's father could help us and she started looking for him. All I had to do was show up the night she was leaving, yank that charm off of Emily while her mother was in the shower, scrape a hole in that symbol, and Amora walked right in."
"If Amora wants Emily so badly, why did she try to kill her?"
"Now, that's the million dollar question, Sam," Lindsey said, waving the gun in his direction. "I don't have a clue what happened. I was sitting down the street, waiting to take Amora and Emily to meet with her posse and the whole place just blew up. I guess Calley was trying to kill her and set her on fire, stupid bitch."
"Why did you save Emily?"
"I knew fire wouldn't kill Amora, and if I wanted to keep breathing, I'd better get that brat out of there. I sent in the firemen and hung around the hospital until I could snatch Emily and run." Lindsey was lost in her righteous justifications that made it easy for her to lie, betray, and torture to save her own hide. "I made sure she'd keep her little mouth shut and stashed her with her daddy. Before you so rudely screwed up my plans, I was on my way to snag her and step into my Amora-free future."
"If you think you have a future, you're wrong, Lindsey," Sam said, trying to reach some part of Lindsey that hadn't been tainted. "Demons lie. Demons kill people. When she gets what she wants, you're done. Help me protect Emily and my brother and I will get you out of this."
"Do I look like an idiot to you? All men care about is what they want and you want to save that kid, period!" She squared her stance and steadied the gun at Sam's chest. "Start walking. Back door."
"Why does Amora want Emily?"
"It's in the book, baby, but since you're not going to be here it's really not your problem." Lindsey waved the gun again. "Get moving or I pop you right here and worry about the mess later!"
He started backing toward the door. "Okay, I'm going. See?" There was a lot of real estate between the living room and the car and he was sure he could trip her up somewhere along the way. "Did Amora say she'd made Emily special, different?"
"She's a child of light and fire, just like my freak baby would have been. That's why she's perfect for the ceremony."
"What cere—"
The brittle sound of breaking glass echoed through the room. Both of them jerked toward the sound and Sam took his chance to break Lindsey's hold on her weapon. The woman screamed and shrank back toward the sofa.
Sam was so focused on grabbing the gun that he almost missed the object spinning on the floor in front of him. It was a round black ball similar to a grenade with bright lights flashing from several tiny holes circling the sphere. He and Dean had seen one of these last year -- a tazer grenade. Those lights would be flashing out in laser streams in about ten seconds and the second one beam hit you, you were immobilized.
There was no time to grab the book or Lindsey. Tazer grenades were precursors to invasions. Sam dove toward the back exit, feeling the red hot sting of a beam of light graze his arm as he made it to the exit. It wasn't enough to stop him but his arm went numb from the tips of his finger to his shoulder.
Keep moving. If he kept moving, maybe whatever invader was coming in wouldn't know to look for him. Lindsey was screaming at whoever had kicked in the front door when Sam made it to the back door. He could hear footsteps and her body being dragged away. The pain ripped up from his arm to his skull and he stumbled off the back porch of Lindsey's house, fighting to stay upright and get away from the house and into the shrubbery. Hiding was the best he could do, and Sam scrunched himself down behind a fence. Three people, two men and one woman, pulled Lindsey's limp body across the yard and dumped her into the backseat of a rental car. The hellish book was gripped under the woman's arm and she hauled it into the car with her, then slammed the door.
The pain in his arm made him dizzy and sick, and he closed his eyes to ride it out. The car carrying Lindsey and the book sped away down the quiet, deserted street. Lindsey was on her own and it didn't look like those people were embracing her as part of their sick demon-worshipping cult.
It took considerable time before the spots cleared from his vision and the movement came back to his injured arm. Using his good arm, Sam yanked himself upright to rest against the fence and made his way back to Ellen's car. The pages still jammed under his shirt crinkled against his sweaty skin and he pulled them out, dumping them on the seat beside him.
The fingers of his left hand were still numb so he dialed Dean's number one-handed.
"Dean." He didn't intend to sound so completely wasted but he couldn't quite divert enough strength from managing his pain to his voice.
"What's wrong? Are you okay, Sammy?"
"No. Tazed, but it's wearing off."
"Did Lindsey taze you?"
Sam leaned his head back against the seat and turned on the air conditioning to blast into his face.
"Sammy! Talk to me!"
He raised the phone back to his ear and said, "Sorry. I'm okay, but it hurts like a bitch." Sam took in another deep breath. "She didn't, but some of her friends tossed a tazer grenade through the window."
"Damn, I'd love to get my hands on one of those," Dean muttered, longingly. "Where's the bitch now?"
"Gone. Kidnapped by some of Amora's cult," Sam said, getting his senses more under control. "Listen, Dean, I don't know why yet, but they want Emily. You need to grab that little girl and get on the road. They may not know where she is this second, but they will soon and you don't have a lot of time."
"We'll be gone in thirty," Dean said, not questioning Sam's judgment. Sam could hear Dean's heavy footsteps over the phone. "Why does she want Emily? Did Lindsey tell you?"
"She said a lot and I'll give you the details later," Sam said, pulling the car onto the street and pointed it toward his motel. "They took the book but I swiped some Latin translations. Should get some answers there. All I know is they want Emily and they're coming. Get away from there, now."
"Where do you want to meet?" Dean had opened a door and was talking to Ellen on the side, telling her to get Emily's stuff ready to leave.
Sam was about to say the name of a town and stopped himself. "Don't say it out loud, Dean, but go to that town where we killed our first werewolf. Remember?"
"I know exactly where you're talking about. Same motel?"
"If it's there, yeah, if not, first one in the yellow pages," Sam said, stopping at a red light. "There's a major airport within a couple hour's drive from there. I'm catching a flight."
"What about Ellen's car?"
"We'll get it back to her later. I don't think we have time on our side, Dean."
"Okay, we'll go there and wait for you."
"Watch your back and be careful, Dean. These people aren't playing."
"You, too, Sammy. See you soon."
TBC