A/N Story picks up after the events of In The Shadows of Love and Hate Chapters 1 through 5.
######
Xander spotted the body lying at the entrance to the Chase's grounds as he approached them himself. At first he didn't even realize it was a body, just a bundle of something tossed out of a car perhaps.
Than he saw the red hair and he just knew, this was going to be bad. He knelt beside it and tried not to scream, Willow's beautiful face had been cut, her long hair half burned away, half her scalp was an oozing mess. He couldn't bring himself to look under the canvas she was wrapped in, but he could see her breathing. Was it a miracle she was alive? Depended on what was under the canvas. A note was pinned to the canvas. "She cried for you." - Best wishes, A."
Angelus. The son of a bitch had done this to Willow, his Willow. The girl he'd wished was his sister when they were little kids, like he'd wished Jesse was his brother. She had red hair, like his mother, it was easy to think of her as a sister. He took a step to the side and threw up, then stood and forced himself to walk up to the house and inside.
"Xander?" Cordelia stared at her boyfriend. "What's wrong?"
"Angelus dumped Willow out by the gate."
"It's just barely dark, when did he, how did he?"
"She invited him into her house, remember? Back when Ford was in town. All he had to do was wait for her inside, get her into a car with blanked out windows and take her to the Mansion. It's got a garage, he could load and unload her there. Then bring her here, he didn't even have to get out of the car, just literally kick her out of the car door. I need to call an ambulance, she's still alive, I intend to make sure she stays alive." His face went hard. "And then I'm going to do something about the son of bitch who did this to her." He moved passed her and the stunned Lupe and picked up the phone and called 911. "I'm going to wait with her, she shouldn't be alone. If I'd left Buffy alone at the hospital, I wouldn't have been there to stop him from hurting Buffy and he'd have left Willow alone."
"You don't know that, Xander." Cordelia protested. "Hurting Willow hurts Buffy too and he wants to hurt Buffy. He might have gone after Willow anyway. This isn't your fault."
"No, you're right, it's not. It's Buffy's. She chose to let that monster into our lives, knowing better than any of us what he was capable of. Her and Giles, he let her and than both of them blamed Ms. Calendar rather accept that they'd screwed up. They let themselves forget that he wasn't a harmless kitty cat."
The two women silently followed him down to where Willow lay. Cordelia was horrified by the sight of the girl she'd once picked on. The truce they'd declared between them had been holding, because they both cared about Xander. Cordelia laid her head on Lupe's shoulder and cried for the girl she'd been getting to know, who might not survive the horror Angelus had visited on her.
Detective Stein arrived first and silently swore when he saw the girl wrapped in canvas and the note pinned to it. 'This was not going to end well.' He thought, staring at the hard, expressionless look on Xander Harris' face. This morning he'd found his parents butchered, now his lifelong friend was clinging to life and Paul Stein knew it could all be laid at Angelus' feet and the boy who'd stared down a master vampire the night before was going to turn the powderkeg that was Sunnydale into an inferno, to burn out that monster.
"I'm riding in the ambulance with her." Xander told them. "Right now I'm the only family she has in town, her parents are at a lecture. I can call them from the hospital and they can be here by morning."
"How old is she?" The paramedic asked.
"Seventeen, her birthday's in October." He answered, still dry eyed and even voiced. But his eyes were filled with rage. The paramedics let him ride along and Lupe drove the shell shocked Cordelia, both determined to be there for Xander. Once there, Willow was rushed into the emergency room and Xander spoke softly. "I'm going to go see Buffy. She's still here recovering from the flu. She needs to know what her boyfriend has done."
"I'll come with you." Cordelia decided and took Xander's hand.
"I'll wait here for any news on your friend." Lupe told them and took a seat, before she began praying for all of them.
Xander paused at Buffy's door before entering.
"Xander!" Buffy exclaimed. "Mom told us about the news report on your parents, do the police know who did it?"
"I doubt the police would ever guess just who was responsible." Xander said, still expressionless. "But I know exactly who's responsible, he signed his work. Just like he did for Ms. Calendar's Uncle and for Ms. Calendar herself."
"What are you talking about, Xander?" Buffy asked, staring at the hard faced man in front of her, no trace of the boy she knew.
"The monster that killed my parents, the monster that dumped Willow in front of Chase Manor, it's the monster you invited into our lives. The monster you let go after we destroyed the Judge. Angelus. Congratulations, Buffy, more people are dead because of you."