Previously: "Her heart. It's working over time. Like twenty-thousand beats a second overtime," I explained. Willow cocked her head to the side.

"I know. It doesn't make sense. But it is" I insisted. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. It dawned on me what had happened. She had been turned. The venom, etc in Angelus' blood and done that.

"Bloody hell" I said again. Again, only Willow heard it.

"What now?"

I turned to her, worry etched into every line of my face. "I think we have a problem"

Chapter 59

We had carried Angelina back to her and Lorne's apartment seeing as hwo it was the closest to where the incident had occurred. We had been sitting there for a good half hour before Xander sighed and suggested that he as well as myself should venture out and make sure that nothing horrible had happened to the both of them. I nodded. Willow could look after Lorne for a while. I needed to be able to hit things, it made me feel better. We left quietly after we explained to Willow what we were going to do.

We were out on the street in seconds and our frantic search for Buffy and the others began. They shouldn't have gotten too far. Especially if they had actually managed to find Angelus. He was too much of a talker and preferred to stand still when he did it.

"Any suggestions on where to start?" the whelp asked. I sniffed the air but caught a whiff of nothing but the faint scent of blood that was Angelina's.

"Where it all began" I reasoned and we set off back to the alleyway.

~**~

Faith had rushed Robin to a hospital as fast she could. It was kinda hard because he wasn't really with it and she had to be careful not to hit his head on anything as she ran along the street with him half in her arms.

"This sure does bring back childhood memories" Robin decided to crack jokes in order to break through Faith's worry. "Yeah. It was just like this when I broke my arm. Mom ran me all the way to the hospital" he was more reminiscing than breaking Faith's thoughts. Once she was thinking one thing, it was pretty hard to break her focus.

The hospital finally came into view and she breathed an internal sigh of relief. Robin was going to be fixed up… again.

Faith crashed through the emergency doors and started yelling at the nurses in the waiting room. They snapped to attention and an intern bought a trolley their way. Faith carefully placed Robin on it and gave him a smile. Robin smiled weakly back as he was being wheeled away. "See you on the other side" he waved.

Faith could do very little right now and she knew that if she bursted through those doors that Robin had disappeared behind, it would stop the doctors from doing their jobs. So she optioned to sit there all night long if need be.

She just wanted to make sure she was there when he woke up. Faith knew that Robin would do the same for her.

She made herself comfortable as possible in the crappy little plastic chairs and began the long waiting process.

~**~

Buffy and Giles ran as fast as they could. Angelus was cackling away in the distance, Buffy could hear him. The only thing was, he had had a head start and she wasn't exactly sure if she would be able to catch him.

"Come and get me!" Angelus cried over his shoulder as he sprinted towards the harbour.

Buffy dug deep and ran just that little bit faster. She was going to catch him. She had to.

They had neared the harbour by now and she couldn't see anything ahead of her. Nothing whatsoever. There was no Angelus, but there was a little cruise boat pulling away.

'Shit' was all Buffy thought. She had lost him.

"Buffy" Giles gasped as he caught up to the now motionless slayer. "Where is he?" Buffy pointed towards a character whooping with joy.

"See you on the other side!" Angelus grinned and gave them a salute, clearly knowing that neither of them would be able to follow him.

Giles was not a man of many profanities, but he felt now was the perfect time to let one slip. "Bollocks" he bent over, his hands on his knees, in an attempt to get his breath back. Buffy just stood there, watching Angelus as he now sauntered away from the two of them, melting in with the shadows of the boat.

~**~

Willow watched from the doorframe as Lorne sat on the bed next to Angelina's lifeless body and brushed stray hairs away from her face. 'Poor Lorne' Willow thought. He had lost so much already. Fred, Wes, Gunn, Angel and now Angelina. Life just wasn't fair.

Willow knew that it was a private moment for the green demon, but she just couldn't help herself; she was asked to watch him and after getting to know the demon/vampire/magical world with Buffy, she had realised that people do rash things at emotional times. She was a good example of this.

Lorne removed himself from the bed and began to rummage through the draws and cupboards in the bedroom until he found what he was looking for; the red dress that Angelina had liked so much. Willow gasped. So he had bought the dress. She thought so.

Lorne returned to the bed in order to spread the dress out on it, next to Angelina. He then straightened and exited the room.

"Where are you going?" Willow asked as she watched him walk to the kitchen. She hoped it wasn't for any bad reasons.

"I need a drink. A nice strong one at that" Lorne called from the kitchen. Willow could hear him opening the fridge and finding the ingredients he needed for a Seabreeze. So he was going to drink til the cows came home.

It wasn't as bad an idea than what Willow had originally thought, so she joined him in the kitchen and together they drank.

~**~

We were halfway to the harbour when we ran into Buffy and Rupert.

"Did you show him whose boss Buffster?" Xander asked hopefully. Buffy looked troubled and Giles refused to talk. After a moment of waiting quietly, Buffy looked at the two of us and whispered, "He got away".

Well there was no point looking for him right now if he 'got away'. There were more important things to do. I slung my arm over Buffy's shoulders and together, now as a group of four, we began to trudge back to the grieving Lorne, the lifeless Angelina and the sombre Red.

~**~

Angelina couldn't see anything but a small light. A light that was so far from her she was sure it was nothing. She couldn't feel anything. Her limbs weren't working at all. It was if she was floating towards the small light, because it was getting bigger ever so slowly.

As she was floating forward her mind was assaulted with visuals of blood and gore, her ears filled with screams and the sadistic laughter. There were images of children dying. Of women fleeing but never quite getting away. While being forced to watch these, as they were in her mind, Angelina began to realise that she enjoyed the sight of the blood and the dying people. The evil laughter was music to her ears. It was all so intoxicating.

Suddenly the images stopped violating her mind, and she was left with one single short film. Her death. She saw how she had fought against Angelus and lost. She saw her life being drained by some vicious animal that cared very little about anything. She could feel her heartbeat becoming slower and slower. She could also feel that she wanted to be the one that ended people's lives just like that.

The light at the end of the very dark tunnel was becoming increasingly bright and if Angelina had been able to, she would have covered her eyes. It hurt, as if it was burning her. Then without warning, she was flung back, the light once again becoming smaller and smaller, until she couldn't see it at all.

And that was when she woke in her bedroom.

Everything about it was different now. Colours were brighter, smells were stronger, and objects felt different. It was all so new. Angelina took a breath so she could sigh in relief that nothing terrible had happened to her. But found that her lungs no longer worked the way they had. Neither did her heart. It didn't beat anymore. Without panicking Angelina felt her faces for lumps and bumps. There were quite a few.

Silently she opened the wardrobe door. There was a mirror on the inside of the door that would be able to prove her suspicions. She stepped in front of the mirror and it remained visionless. Her guess had been confirmed. She was indeed one of the eternally damned.

~**~

We arrived back to the apartment to find a really drunk looking Willow and a not so drunk looking Lorne.

"Isn't supposed to be the other way round?" Xander said as he observed Willow giggle and fall out of her chair.

"Turns out she cant handle her alcohol as well as she thought" Lorne explained as he rose from the table. "Any news?" he asked hopefully.

I shook my head as Buffy explained that Angelus had gotten away. Lorne was clearly upset, but all he muttered was 'Figures'.

"So how is Angelina?" Giles asked, trying to sway the conversation. Lorne looked even more miserable at the mention of her name. "You can go see if you like" he led the way to the bedroom door.

We all filed in as he opened and held the door open, head bent.

"See what exactly?" Xander asked.

"Can't you be pleasant when a guy's grieving?" Lorne began to chide the whelp but stopped short when he found the bed empty and a note lying on his pillow.

Lorne made his way over to the note and read it, while also noticing that the dress he had lain there was untouched.

As he read the short little note, his face dropped into his hands, freeing the note and allowing it to fall to the floor.

"Lorne what is it?" Willow asked, the scene before her sobering her up a tad. She bent to the ground as best she could to grab the note.

"Lorne…" she began to read.