Act4

The light of the sun crept into the room through the half-drawn curtains of the motel room, and lightened an impressive mess. The floor was covered with various objects: clothes were scattered on the floor between an empty pizza box and several beer bottles, empty as well.

Tara tried to open her eyes with difficulty, feeling an unfamiliar headache. When she finally succeeded, she tried to gather her thoughts. She was lying on her back in the bed on the motel room she shared with Faith these days, and her body appeared to be filled with unknown or forgotten sensations. Tara turned her eyes to Faith who was lying on her stomach beside her and was still sleeping. The blanket covered half of her back and Tara frowned when she noticed that the Slayer was half naked. Then she jumped when she realized that the weight on her own stomach was in fact Faith’s arm stretched over her, her hand resting on Tara’s hip and a finger wrapped in her panties’ elastic. Tara tried to focus on the moment and abruptly sat up when she realized what was going on after beholding the room. Faith slightly moved at Tara’s jump and opened her eyes. Her gaze landed on her bed’s partner. Faith fleetly smiled and still half-sleeping, she just managed to utter one word, which was not even really a word:

“Hey…”

Tara for her part was looking at her dumbfounded, her eyes wide-opened. The witch then retched and jumped out of the bed before rushing to the bathroom whose door slammed loudly behind her. Faith sat up then.

“Tara, you okay?”

The witch did not answer and Faith felt a little dizzy after her sudden movement. She lay down again just for a second to try to regain her balance but she sat up again then stood upon hearing Tara throwing up in the bathroom. She went to the door and lightly knocked on the door.

“Tara, you okay? Do you need something?”

Tara still did not answer and Faith came back to the bed to sit down. She considered all the empty bottles on the floor and the night before slowly came back to her mind. A fleeting smile appeared on her lips as she remembered. The bathroom’s door opened then and a very pale Tara came in. Faith looked up to her and her smile vanished immediately in front of her friend’s inscrutable face.

“You sick?” she asked casually.

Tara vaguely nodded, then turned around the bed to lay down on the deserted side again.

“Not surprising,” Faith resumed in the same tone. “You’ve drank so much…”

Tara settled in silence, her back to the Slayer, and threw the blanket over her.

“Going back to sleep?” the brunette asked. “Good call, after getting plastered like you did, nothing’s better than…”

“Can’t you just leave me at peace?” Tara interrupted shortly.

Tara’s sharp tone surprised Faith a bit and the Slayer opened her mouth to answer something, but eventually closed it without pronouncing any sound. She considered Tara’s back for a few seconds, appeared to waver then casually shrugged.

“Okay,” she said while standing up. “I leave you sobering up.”

She crossed the distance to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her a little louder than was necessary. Tara did not move an inch.

Faith spent a long time in the shower to relax, enjoying the feeling of the warm water flowing on her skin. Then she took a long time to dry herself, which was not usual for her, and she shamelessly used every single towel of the room in the process. Once her body was dry and her hair vigorously rubbed down, the Slayer left the bathroom completely naked, not bothering to know if Tara was still asleep or not. Faith supposed she was, because the blonde did not have a single reaction when the Slayer went back into the room and started to look for her clothes in the pile lying on the floor, still completely naked. She quickly slipped her underwear, jeans, top and sweatshirt, then ran her hand through her hair to comb it roughly. Finally she flopped down heavily on the bed to slip her shoes on and lace them up. Tara remained silent.

“Guess you don’t want anything for breakfast?” Faith asked, turning to the blonde’s unmoving shape.

As expected, the witch did not answer. The brunette shrugged, stood and nimbly crossed the room. The shower had obviously given her back all her abilities. She carefully closed the door behind her and hurtled down the stairs to the restaurant, her stomach now loudly yelling at her.

She came back more than one hour and thirty minutes later, her stomach now full and after a quick walk in the neighborhood. With a small paper bag in hand, she crept into the room, wondering if Tara would still be asleep. The blonde was still in bed, with her back to the door. Faith put the bag away on the table before turning to her friend:

“Feeling better?” she asked. “We missed breakfast and lunch too by the way.” she explained with a hint of regret. “I’ve gone to the fast-food nearby. I’ve brought you a sandwich if you’re hungry. I was starving myself.”

She did not get any answer and supposed that the blonde was still sleeping. She considered the sandwich she had just left on the table, then again her friend’s unmoving back. After another second thinking about it, she grabbed the bag and the sandwich and eat her way through it.

Once the sandwich swallowed, the Slayer found herself at loose ends. After a brief moment, she decided to switch the tv on and lowered the volume as much as possible. She came to sit back near Tara and started to flick through the TV channels when she found nothing suiting her. Ten or maybe twenty channels later, a picture of what she thought was the front of the ‘Holding the night’ in a little frame at the top right of the screen, got her attention. The brunette turned the volume up to be able to hear what the speaker was saying. But she never got the chance to listen to the following report, as Tara abruptly turned round to her, obviously unhappy.

“Faith, I’d like to sleep, do you have to be that noisy?” she exclaimed angrily.

“Oh!!” Faith exclaimed and frowned. “You really have toworrows hard! Remind me of that next time we drink a little too much!”

“Next time?” Tara grumbled, turning round again. “As if there would be a next time!”

“What’s the matter with you?” Faith asked then, grabbing Tara’s shoulder to prevent her to turn her back again. “Why are you so mad?”

“Stop pretending you don’t know,” Tara hissed between her teeth, while trying to get free from Faith’s grasp without suceeding.

“Tell me,” Faith ordered.

Tara failed once more to turn her back to her again, and after another last unsuccessfull try, she decided to give up and frankly sat up and faced the brunette.

“What you did to me yesterday” the blonde spat.

Faith needed a second or two to process what the blonde had just said.

“What I did to you?” she exclaimed, with surprise and irony at the same time. “I guess you’re talking about what you did to me as well?”

Tara’s face briefly went red and she opened her mouth to offer a cutting reply but only a stutter came out and the blonde had to wait until she was able to master her stammering. Faith got the better of the situation to answer in her place.

“So, that’s the problem? You’re mad because we had sex?“ she said, dumbfounded.

“I guess we can put that that way,” Tara answered coldly.

“There’s another way to put it?” Faith replied.

 

“Don’t take me there,“ the blonde said, now perfectly awake.

“Oh I will,” Faith insisted, more and more irritated with her friend’s aggressiveness. “What’s the matter? Explain, because really I can’t see what’s wrong. You got your orgasm and I got mine, all’s well that’s ends well, right?”

“To begin with, I didn’t get an orgasm!” Tara exclaimed without thinking, and it earned her a knowing smirk from Faith.

“Not what I remember…” the brunette bragged.

Tara nearly interrupted herself to react to this but she finally carried on with what she was saying.

“You took advantage of my condition,” she resumed a little calmer. “You took advantage of the fact that I was drunk”

Faith almost choked and tittered with contempt at this.

“I took advantage of you?” she mocked. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Tara replied.

“Seems you ain’t, and that’s crazy.” Faith answered dryly, standing. “And I thought that you’ve finally gotten all your faculties back. Obviously, you’ve got a screw loose!”

“You haven’t found anything else to defend yourself?”

“Defend myself?” Faith shouted angrily. “Defend myself for what? For…”

“You perfectly know that I would never sleep with you if I wasn’t drunk!”

Faith stopped at this and her face darkened briefly. She furrowed her brow and clenched her teeth. For a second, she appeared on the verge of fury but she finally only shrugged with a condescending smile on her face.

“You were dying to sleep with me,” she scoffed, as she grabbed her jacket and slipped it on. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Except if the ex-con isn’t good enough for the so-called goody-goody you were.”

Then, without giving Tara time to answer, she strode to the door that she banged open. As she crossed the threshold, she turned to the blonde and said quickly:

“New murder at the ‘Holding’ by the way,”

And with that, she slammed the door behind her, leaving Tara alone.

 

 

***

 

The Slayer wandered aimlessly in the streets for some time, feeling a dull anger deep down. She needed to get rid of it but did not know how. She tried to focus on the latest news she had caught a glimpse of on the TV just before her fight with Tara, but did not really succeed. The blonde’s reaction was just as impossible to understand, as it was exasperating for the Slayer. The brunette had never given much importance to her various sexual experiences, and though she understood that it was not a general case, Tara’s attitude left her completely stuck. As the months went by, Faith had learnt not to always pay attention to her friend’s strange reactions, most of the time thinking they were the result of Tara’s resurrection post-traumatic syndrome. Maybe it was too personal this time; maybe as they had grown closer recently, she had forgotten how her friend could be acting weird sometimes; but the fact remained that Faith could not help being angry. She would not have said no to a vampire or two to let some steam off. But although they had slept nearly all day long, it was not late enough for that yet.

Following the run of an empty beer can she had casually kicked, Faith found herself in front of a newspapers stall behind which an ageless woman looked at her sternly when the can came to a stop under one of her shelving. Faith pretended not to notice and exchanged a few bucks she found in the bottom of her pocket against the evening newspaper. She settled at a café table a street away where she ordered a cappuccino before opening the papers. The front-page headline announced that another young woman had been murdered the night before near the ‘Holding the night’, just as Faith had seen on the TV before fighting with Tara. The details she read in the article confirmed that the woman had been killed under the same circumstances as the previous victims, which strongly suggested that Faith and Tara had been wrong about the murderer the night before.

“It’s still good to get rid off another demon…” Faith hissed between her teeth.

She resumed her reading of the article which recalled the dates when the previous murders had been committed, and the journalist was pointing the fact that the killer had struck two times very close unlike his former murders. That fact bothered Faith as well. Her instinct told her these two murders committed so closely and their intervention of the night before could not be just a coincidence. Maybe there were several demons? Maybe the waiter – or whoever was the summoner – had summoned another demon to replace the one the Slayer had killed? Tara’s knowledge in this area probably would have been precious to enlighten the brunette right now, but Faith gave up on the idea to go back to the motel to ask the blonde for help at the second when the idea came.

She glanced at her watch. The bar would open in less than two hours from now. It gave her time to flip through the rest of the newspapers, to find something substantial to eat for dinner before coming back to the bar to close the case. The Slayer, then, tookher time to skim through the papers, lingering longer over the jokes and weather pages than over local news or Stock Exchange ones. When she had exhausted every readable page for her and drank the latest drop of her coffee, she crumpled the newspapers, threw it in the nearest garbage can and walked away from the café, searching for a fast food. She stopped in the first one she found on her way, treated herself with a double cheeseburger, a giant portion of French fries and a box of chicken nuggets that she eat alone on a table in the corner of the restaurant. When full, she headed toward the ‘Holding the night’, ready to fight whoever was responsible for the events of the last few days.

Faith was annoyed when she noticed that the bar was not opened yet when she arrived in front of the closed front door. She paced in front of the door for a few minutes, but patience definitely not being her main virtue, she finally gave up on waiting and headed toward the small street where they had found the waiter the night before and where the back door was located. The street was deserted but Faith was happy to find out that the back door was unlocked and she slipped inside. The room she entered was the bar’s storeroom: dozens of alcohol boxes, mainly of beers, were stored here. Faith did not really have time to make an inventory despite her curiosity, as loud voices quickly brought her back to reality. She wormed her way to the other end of the room and very carefully pushed on the handle of the door. Once the door half opened, she was able to hear the voices more clearly. Two men werearguing.

 

“How could you?” the first one was yelling hysterically.

Faith sneaked into this new room, smaller than the previous one. One of the walls was lined with fridges whereas other boxes were piled up on the other side.

“I can’t believe you’d believe to that fairy tale!” the second man answered in a calmer tone. “It’s ridiculous!”

The voices obviously came from a third room located at the end of the one Faith was now standing in.

“How not to believe this?” the first one resumed. “I saw it!”

“You’d rather believe a stranger than your own father?” the second asked with disdain.

“She’s explained everything, she’s showed me!”

Faith crossed the small room, not paying attention anymore to being silent: she was sure at the tension she perceived coming from the other room that no one would notice her.

“Women all turn your head!”

“You finally admit it!” the first man yelled, and Faith recognized the waiter’s voice. “You always hated Rebecca!”

“Of course I did! She was arrogant stuck up!”

“You had no right to hurt her!”

“I’ve freed you!”

“You had no right!”

“Just as I’m going to free you now!”

“Don’t hurt her!” the waiter yelled even louder than before.

Faith heard then the distinct sound of a scramble, of breaking glass, and finally a muffled cry. Faith’s blood froze in her veins when she understood what meant the last exchange: there was someone else in the room with the waiter and his father. And the father looked resolute to make this person have a very bad time.

Once at the door, the Slayer opened it briskly, to be sure to draw anyone attention to her. The effect was perfect: Faith found herself on the threshold of a door leading to the back of the bar’s main room, the manager and his son turned to her, obviously surprised by her sudden appearance. But the mocking and satisfied expression on the Slayer’s face, quickly faded to be replaced with bewilderment when she noticed that the third person in the room was a blonde woman she very well knew.

“Tara??” She exclaimed with real surprise. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she added quickly, a hint of annoyance in her voice this time.

Saying this, she quickly inspected the blonde. She was sitting on the floor and her nose was slightly bloody, but apart from that, she did not look hurt. She wearily gestured at Faith to tell her she was fine, but did not answer to her friend’s question.

“Who is this?” the father grumbled. “Another conquest?”

Then he eyed the Slayer from head to toes and added:

“She looks different than the others.”

“She’s not a conquest!” the waiter replied, irritated. “She’s the woman I told you about, the one who killed your demon!”

A questioning and angry glimmer briefly shone in the manager’s eyes and he watched Faith again, as to make another advice with this new piece of evidence.

“That’s me,” Faith confirmed, with a hint of pride. Then, turning to Tara: “Can we go back to the beginning?”

The blonde stood up, crossed her arms over chest and gestured toward the manager.

“It was him,” she said, rather dryly.

“A new theory?” Faith asked, ironically.

“It makes sense,” Tara grumbled. “And he hit me.” She added, showing her bruised nose.

Faith turned to the manager who was looking furiously at Tara, and walked toward him.

“I know she can be really annoying,” Faith said in a sickly sweet tone. “And frankly, I have to admit I thought to do it myself from time to time, but really, you shouldn’t hit a woman!”

She concluded her sentence with a punch in the manager’s face, but took care to master her strength. He stepped back nevertheless and hit the counter behind him. A glimmer of hatred shone in his eyes as he stood.

“Who are you?” he growled, touching his jaw.

“I’m Faith, the Vampire Slayer,” the brunette said, somehow ceremoniously. “But my activity extends to any big ugly demons killing young girls at nightfall” she added mockingly.

“You’re crazy,” the man mumbled.

“That’s what your son kept saying until his demon – or yours whatever – arrived.”

“It’s not my demon!” the waiter protested vehemently, looking at his father with obvious contempt. “It’s his! He killed Rebecca in exchange for the bar success!”

“That’s ridiculous! How dare you?”

The waiter then grabbed an open book on the bar – book which Faith had not paid attention to before – and showed something on the opened page and asked:

“What about this? What can you possibly answer to this? You showed me that sign first, everything written in this book match!”

Faith then recognized Tara’s book, the one referencing the demonic brotherhoods that the blonde had showed her the night before.

“That’s nonsense! A book for mentally retarded teenagers!” the father replied, rolling his eyes.

“I saw that thing with my own eyes!” the waiter spat. “I know you have something to do with it!”

Faith watched the exchanged since her arrival, half-amused, half-bored, and eventually decided it was time to put it to an end.

“Listen guys, I hate make you miss a good father and son fight, but I have better things to do. So, let’s go to the essential already: dad, are you the one who summoned that demon? How many are they? Where can I find them?”

The two men stopped arguing, their attention now directed to her. Then the waiter turned back to his father and appeared to wait for an answer as well. The manager grumbled, annoyed to be stared at this way, then he snickered and shrugged.

“There’s no demon, you should stop with that cra…”

He never had time to finish his sentence: Faith had crossed the distance between them, grabbed his collar and pressed his body against the bar behind him.

“Countdown’s over,” she explained icily. “There’s a limit to my patience. Where’sthatdemon?”

 

The man remained silently staring at the Slayer, and the waiter got slightly closer, his former anger now being replaced by a vague feeling of worry as he watched Faith’s dangerous expression. But the Slayer’s look apparently did not worry his father, as the man remained perfectly indifferent.

“I won’t ask another third time.” Faith said in a threatening tone and grabbing the man’s hair at the back of his neck. “Where’s that demon?” she repeated, making sure every word stood out clearly.

As the man did not react, Faith pressed his face against the bar and tightened her grip in his hair to make the threat more tangible. He tried weakly to get free, but the Slayer took a nasty pleasure in keeping him into place. That strength demonstration impressed the son, whose anger had apparently completely vanished now, replaced by his growing worry for his father’s health.

“Don’t…” he started shyly, hardly daring to look at Faith.

But Tara, who had finally got closer too, gave him a firm look and slightly nodded at him to inform him that he did not need to worry, that Faith would not hurt his father. He wavered, glanced from Faith to Tara, then to Faith again, and finally decided to trust Tara and kept quiet. Hearing him starting a sentence, Faith had turned to him and looked at him expectantly for a second. The father made the most of this short moment of distraction to get free from Faith who had slightly eased her grip. He slid from the Slayer’s hands, and with a surprising ability, he rolled to the end of the bar and disappeared behind.

The brunette instantly reacted and pushed on one hand to jump across the bar. She landed nimbly on the other side and witnessed the man rip something he wore round his neck off and throw it against the wall on the other side of the room, near the door where the Slayer had entered. Whatever it was, it exploded as it met the wall and threw greenish flames around. Faith had to put her arm across her face to protect her face from the light. When she opened her eyes again, she was surprised to find, not one, but two demons standing where the object had exploded. She cast an annoyed glance to the manager and slightly rolled her eyes. The man looked quite satisfied with himself.

“What?” he said, shrugging casually. “Good things always come in threes, don’t they?”

Faith had to control a very pressing urge to send her fist connecting with his face, and she was about to answer sharply when she heard a panicked cry. Her attention then came back immediately to the demons, who were exactly similar to the one she had killed the night before. The waiter, who was closest to the demons, had just cried out, unable to refrain his terror when one of the monsters had took a step toward him.

“Don’t panic Jason,” his father told him. “They won’t hurt you, they obey me!”

“Yeah, right…” Faith mumbled, rolling her eyes again.

She jumped again above the bar as fast as she could, but was surprised to see Tara reacting before her. The blonde stepped forward to stand between the demons and the young man and conjured a soccer ball-sized fireball in her right hand. Without hesitation, the witch threw it to the closest demon, who only partially avoided it, and the flames licked at his left arm. An unhappy cry rang in the bar and the demon charged at Tara and the young man. The waiter cried out again and Faith hurried to help. But the creature stopped dead in its tracks less than two feet from them, and to their great surprise, it turned around and rushed with its companion to the storeroom where Faith had come from earlier.

Once the surprise had wore off, the Slayer turned to the manager of the bar and noticed that he still held something tightly in his hand as he looked to his troops’ retreat with satisfaction. Faith briefly wavered, but when Tara dashed after the demons, the Slayer had no other choice than doing the same.

“Tara! Wait!” she yelled in vain.

Faith rushed to the door after the witch, pushed the waiter from the doorway and arrived just in time to shove a demon from Tara, whereas the witch apparently had the other one under control. Faith kicked the demon in his chest to get him away from the blonde and cast another glance to the witch to be sure she was still okay with her demon. Then, armed with the experience of the night before, Faith decided to go directly for efficiency and got her two daggers out of her jacket.

“C’mon, guy…” she breathed between her teeth, not moving, simply waiting for the demon to stand up and to charge again.

He quickly complied with her expectation and threw himself to her without any care. Faith was definitely waiting for him and she dodged the attack easily. Then, she turned around on the side to find herself behind him just as she intended. She raised her arms above her head and drove her two daggers in the demon’s back before taking them off and driving them again sharply and deeply in the same place. The demon yelled in pain, reared up slightly, before falling to the ground, still. Faith did not take time to check if he was dead to hurry to Tara’s help. The blonde wasn’t doing too bad in fact, but if her spells were enough to keep the demon at a distance, Faith doubted they would be enough to finish him before the witch’s strength abandoned her.

“Hey!” the Slayer called.

The demon interrupted his attack to turn to her. His blank eyes stared at the Slayer for a moment, then he turned again to Tara, then again to Faith. The Slayer walked over to him, her bloodied daggers still in hands. It decided the demon who finally turned away from Tara to charge her. Tara then stood up from her kneeling position and called him in her turn.

“Hey!” she said, annoyed. “We’re not done!”

She conjured another fireball, and the monster turned to her again, unsure about what to do. Faith made the better of this distraction and jumped forward, her daggers raised forward. Both blades went in the monster’s chest with all the Slayer’s strength and the demon yelled even louder than his companion. He kicked out with rage to get free, and punched Faith who was sent across the room. The Slayer found herself empty-handed, her daggers still in the monster’s chest as he yelled in anger and pain. The brunette felt slightly dizzy for a brief moment after her head had hit the ground hard, enough for the demon to get dangerously close to her. But she reacted quickly, and Faith swept the demon’s legs nimbly as he was about to punch her head. He fell backward and hit the ground in turn. Tara’s fireball then crashed on the wall, just above the Slayer’s head.

“You crazy or what?” she yelled as she got up.

Tara vaguely gestured to tell her she had not done it on purpose and slightly rolled her eyes to Faith’s furious expression. The Slayer decided to take her anger out on the demon and before he had time to stand up, she kicked the daggers more deeply in his chest. The monster gave a few death rattles and his body jerked two or three times before he remained still on the floor.

Faith slightly kicked his side before removing her daggers from his body. She looked around for something she could use to clean her blades, but finding nothing, she just put them back at her belt as is. Then, she turned to the door where stood the father and his son after having witnessed the entire scene. When he saw her turning to them, a hint of panic flashed into the father’s eyes and he ran away as quickly as possible. Faith reacted at lightning speed and dashed to the door. She shoved the waiter again and ran after his father. The man did not go too far. He had not even crossed half of the main room when Faith caught up with him.

“Don’t hurt me!” he yelled in terror. “I’m so sorry! I won’t do anything like that again, I promise!”

“Sorry?” she said with disdain. “You’re sorry?”

“I won’t do that again!” he repeated.

“I’m sure you won’t” Faith said coldly.

Saying this, she plunged her hand in his shirt and grabbed his pendant. When he understood what she was doing, he tried to get free without succeeding. Faith tore the chain off his neck and looked at the pendant: it was a little worn glassed-sphere, surrounded with a leather strap. It had nothing particular at first sight. After turning and turning it again between her fingers, Faith finally saw engraved in the glass and nearly erased, the original symbol of the demonic brotherhood that Tara had shown her in her book. Satisfied to find there the confirmation she was expecting, Faith crushed the sphere in her hand and threw the resulting bits of glass to the floor where they crumpled to dust as if by magic.

“No!” the man yelled in despair.

Faith released him and he threw himself to the floor, looking for the pieces of the broken marble.

“You won’t do that again, uh?” she said with even more pronounced disdain than before.

He did not answer, still looking for any sign of his disappeared marble.

“He won’t do that again,” his son said then. “I promise you.”

Faith turned round and saw the young man catching up with them, closely followed by Tara.

“But why?” he asked in a tired voice, looking at his father quite severely.

But instead of the anger one would expect him to express toward the man, he was more showing a huge disappointment for his genitor.

The manager sniffed contemptuously at the question.

 

“What else could I have done?” he asked, rather annoyed. “After your mother left, I did my best to raise you despite all the work I had with the bar. All these years, I thought that my efforts would not be in vain, that when you’d be a man, you’d help me to have the bar be going well. But instead of that… you never were serious, never helped as much as you could, just enjoying yourself with girls… I had to do something to avoid going bankrupt.”

 

His son looked down, somewhat ashamed.

 

“You killed Rebecca…” he breathed after a silence. “And her sister…”

 

“She was distracting you,” the father went on. “I figured that without her, you’d more focused on your job… And Sarah… Don’t know how, but she suspected something, she came around with too many questions… I had to do something to protect our business…”

 

“I can’t believe it…” the waiter said, his voice quivering slightly. “How could you? You couldn’t just… I don’t know… Talk to me?”

 

“Andwhat? Threaten you to have your girlfriend eaten by a demon?” he ironically replied.

Faith listened to the explanations in silence and considered both of them before looking at her watch.

“We’re going to leave you judge your father, “she said. “You’ll decide what to do with him. If you need any help, you can call these guys, they’d know what to do.”

Saying this, she rummaged in her pockets and got out a creased and dog-eared card of the Watchers council. The young man took it and distractedly read what was written before putting it in his own pocket.

“Thanks,” he whispered. “I guess.”

Then, he slightly kicked his father to get him out of his trance.

“Get up, Dad,” Faith heard him saying as she was on her way to the exit with Tara on her heels. “We haven’t much time to clean up this mess before the opening. I’ll have to work for real now on.”

***

 

 

Once outside, the girls walked in silence to the motel. Faith walked quickly enough to force Tara to make an effort to follow her, but not fast enough for the blonde to get tired and give up. From time to time, the Slayer cast a glance over her shoulder, hesitated to say something and waited for Tara to say something. But none of the two taking the initiative, they finally reached their room’s door without having exchanged a single word. Once the door closed, Faith turned to Tara expectantly. But the blonde did not look as if she was about to say anything to her, and just plopped onto the bed where she started to untie her shoes. Faith looked at her doing so for a moment, then unable to wait more, she flared up:

“Can you tell me what the hell you were doing there all by yourself?” she asked dryly.

Tara slowly looked up and shrugged.

“You said there had been another murder at the bar,” she said casually. “I thought you wanted to go there to resolve the case.”

“Yeah, right,” Faith growled in anger. “Am I so used to send you first doing bullshit?”

“It wasn’t bullshit,” Tara protested calmly.

“You just threw yourself into the lion’s mouth, how it’s not bullshit?” Faith resumed in the same tone. “I thought we had clear that one before, didn’t we? You’re not supposed to take risks!”

“I was trying to resolve the case, I’m perfectly able to manage!”

“Of course! That’s what we see each time! What do you want? Getting killed? If that’s so, you should tell me right now, I’d stop to waste my time trying to get your precious arse back to Buffy and company!”

“I was just trying to help!” Tara replied in a sharper way this time. “Why is that so unbelievable?”

“I don’t need your help!” Faith yelled in anger. “How many times will I have to tell you that? The only thing you can do to help is to stay alive so that I can fulfil my mission and keep the promise I made to B! Is it too hard to understand?”

At first, Tara did not answer. She crossed her arms over her chest, looked away for an instant and bit her lower lip.

“You’re angry about yesterday night and about this morning,” she finally said, calm again. “It has nothing to do with my so-called taste for risks.”

“What?” Faith said, arching her eyebrows with contempt. “Don’t tell stories to yourself. I couldn’t care less about that stuff.”

“That’s why you’re yelling?”

“I remind you that you were the one to kick up a huge fuss about it. I’m yelling because you risked your life again for nothing and as a consequence, you put my mission in danger.” Faith answered coldly. “I don’t need to spend my time looking after you like you were a toddler.”

“Then don’t!” Tara replied scathingly.

 

“Like I have a choice!” Faith grumbled, rolling her eyes.

 

Then, she turned around, opened the room’s door again.

 

“I’m getting out, I need some air,” she finished, slamming the door behind her.

***

 

 

A few hours later, once her patrol finished, Faith found herself in front of the ‘Holding the night’ and noticed that the bar had opened despite what had happened. She wavered only a brief moment before pushing the door opened, after a glance to her watch. It was not late enough for her to return.

 

The ‘Holding the night’ had not very much changed since the nights before. Nothing could have told what terrible events had taken place there a few hours earlier. The same soft light lightened the same crimson curtains in the back of the bar. The same waiters were bustling about behind the counter to serve the same drinks to the same patrons when the same music rang in the bar.

Whereas it could have looked a very similar night as the previous ones she had spent there recently, Faith, for her part, did not look the same as the woman who had danced and drunk here the night before.

Sitting at the bar, the once rogue Slayer, made her beer casually turn between her fingers, looking without really seeing it the white foam dancing at the rate of her wrist’s moves. Sometimes, she interrupted herself, just to take a sip.

Lost in her thoughts, Faith let herself be rocked by the sweet and melancholic melody of a Bonnie Raitt’s song that was being played in the bar and just added to the depressing mood of the night.

Turn down the lights, turn down the bed
Turn down these voices inside my head
Lay down with me, tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don’t patronize – don’t patronize me

The speakers played the song only a few feet from Faith who was too much engrossed in the circular moves of her beer for the words and their meaning to reach through her.

Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t

Faith stopped making her glass turn, considered it for a moment with the same blank expression, apparently wondering about some dark matters about the liquid, before making it turn again in the opposite direction this time.

Here in the dark, in these final hours
I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power

A few hundreds feet from there, the light was switched off in the motel room Tara and Faith were sharing for some days. The curtains were still opened and the light of the clear moon mixed with the street lamps one, was lighting Tara’s tired face, as the blonde was sitting cross-legged on a corner of the bed, her eyes fixing the deserted street where there was nothing to look at.

An attentive watcher probably would have noticed a discreet tear rolling on the pale cheeks of the young witch. But no one was there to look at her.

But you won’t, no you won’t
‘Cause I can’t make you love me, if you don’t

Tara looked down and her gaze stopped for what felt the thousand times this night on two pictures she was holding gently in her left hand.

I’ll close my eyes, then I won’t see
The love you don’t feel when you’re holding me

At the bar, Faith had not moved from her stool at the counter. Her drink was still almost full, which probably was related to everything she had drunk the night before. Or maybe not.

Morning will come and I’ll do what’s right
Just give me till then to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight

Faith turned around when Luke sat next to her, smiling, and he tried to start up a conversation. He suggested another drink but Faith shook her head politely before returning her attention to the drink she already owned. The young man insisted a little and Faith gestured to him to tell she was not interested. He looked disappointed but stood up and left after telling Faith where she could find him if she changed her mind. Faith did not even look at him as he got away.

Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t

At the motel, Tara had raised the pictures toward the window to get a better view of them. One of them showed Faith and herself side by side, in front of the Multnomah falls, smiling slightly. Tara had her hands crossed in from of her whereas Faith had one of hers on the railing behind her and the other shyly on the Wicca’s shoulder.

Dawn had given her the other picture before she left Cleveland: it showed the whole scooby gang, probably just before Sunnydale collapsed because Anya was there and Tara could only notice how more mature and grown-up than what she remembered from before her death they all looked. Her gaze stopped longer on Willow and she could not help caressing the redhead’s face with her thumb. Her eyes went from a picture to the other several times before stopping again on Willow, and Tara could not refrain another silent tear.

Here in the dark, in these lonely hours
I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power

At the ‘Holding the night’ bar, Faith’s drink was half empty and the stool where she was sitting earlier was now empty. A few couples were dancing on the dance floor and the whispers of the conversations did not drown out Bonnie Raitt’s plaintive voice.

In the men’s bathroom, Faith was pressed against the cold wall with Luke’s face in her neck, his hands massaging her chest fervently before going down to her belt and unzipping her pants. As she skilfully did the same, Faith tilted her head back and bit her lips with an expression that could be read as bored. Then she looked again at her partner and tried to give Luke a half smile when she saw the enthusiasm in his eyes as he made her pants slide along her hips.

But you won’t, no you won’t
‘Cause I can’t make you love me, if you don’t

***