POV Faith
I feel like the world is spinning out of control, not the whole world, just my world. Every thought, every memory is flooding back to me at an alarming rate, all the while my head is pounding and I feel like I'm gonna be sick. The first thing I remembered was when the Council came for me. You always think you know how you would react in certain situations. You think if anyone ever tried to kidnap me I would fight, I would get away, no way they would take me without a fight. But the reality is that you just don't know until it happens to you. Everything happened so fast I didn't even get a chance to think, I was zapped and thrown into the back of a van and driven away. Away from everything I had ever known, away from my life, my family, my friends, from everyone who loved me.
"Faith, are you ok? Do you want to lay down?" my mom's voice brings me out of the memories running through my head. I finally notice where I am, in her hotel room, fuck...suite, it's so fucking huge, as I look around she mentions there are two bedrooms here and did I want to see my room. I nod and let her lead me into the bedroom, hopefully I can get some sleep and stop these memories of my life that are constantly running through my mind.
I sit down on the bed and look up at her, it feels like I've been here before and then it occurs to me this is like the time Angel helped me all those years ago. But unlike then, I say, "I'm cold..."
I don't know why I always feel so cold, it's like I can never get warm. She wraps a blanket around me and I lie down. I know I don't want to be alone, but I can't find the words to ask her to stay. My mom gently sits on the bed next to me and reaches out to push my hair back out of my eyes and says, "You rest...I'll be right here when you wake up, ok?"
I nod slowly and close my eyes and I think I fall almost instantly asleep. Unfortunately I don't get a restful sleep, instead I got to relive my last day in Boston.
It was February 16, 1998, and it was a frigid 9 degrees that morning and it was only going up to 17 degrees for the day. I had lent my nice warm leather bomber jacket to Jessica this morning cause she forgot hers and we didn't have time to stop at her apartment. Unfortunately, the only other things I could find was my old ski jacket which was kinda old and dirty and a light jean jacket and yeah, I was freezing my fucking ass off, but at least I looked good. The ten minute walk from the BU Bookstore to the Espresso Royale had seemed like an eternity on the frozen tundra.
I got a cup a coffee and snagged the semi-private booth towards the back part of the shop, I had hoped that the semi-private part might save me some embarrassment when I broke the news to Christine that it was over. Hopefully she wouldn't cause a scene, but that was highly doubtful as she wasn't the most understanding person to put it mildly. Then again my relationships usually end in a huge embarrassing affair so why should this be different. I tried to put the bad break up with Ashley out of my mind cause that was totally different, this time wouldn't be like that time. I wouldn't be finding my girlfriend fucking some loser beefstick jock at a party that nearly the entire high school was attending. Oh yeah, my pain on display for the entire school, what a great night that was, but this time I was the one in control, I was the one breaking things off. And besides, it was off hours at the shop, not a lot of other students around and if things got really ugly I could just never come back here. There are plenty of other overpriced coffee shops around campus, losing one wouldn't make a whole lot of difference in my life.
I had barely put my ass in the seat before my cell phone was chirping away at me, I frowned when I saw the number, Christine. I knew it couldn't be good news as she was supposed to be here shortly. I just kept reminding myself that I had to get her out of her apartment cause if we were alone together my thoughts wouldn't be on breaking up, it would be on getting some and that's what caused all the problems to begin with. I seriously have to learn to just say no sometimes, cause if I had I wouldn't be here right now.
I answered the phone, "Hey Chris...where are you?"
"I'm home, still trying to get the kids ready for school..." I could hear her telling Stephen to put his cereal bowl in the sink and to go brush his teeth. "Look Faith, why don't we just meet up here, I gotta drop Stephen off at school and Nicole is staying home sick today so I'm dropping her off at Steve's and then I can be all yours all day..."
The last part of the sentence dropped off into something that might have turned me on a few weeks ago, but now it made me cringe. What was supposed to just be some really good sex with a really hot woman, turned into a relationship that I was not prepared for, nor did I want. The only reason I hadn't broken it off sooner was because I was feeling guilty, guilty that Chris lost her job because of me and I felt that I owed her something. But after much whining to Jessica about everything, I finally made my decision to get out. OK...Jess actually threatened and badgered me until I admitted I wasn't happy, and I was in way over my head and couldn't figure out how to get out of it. Yeah I really screwed up royally and I was trying to get out from under everything all the while trying to keep my parents in the dark about it. I mean how the fuck do you tell your parents you nearly got expelled from school cause you got caught fucking a teacher on school property when you were supposed to be in class. And the only reason I wasn't expelled is because my best friend talked to the Principle and got my expulsion turned into a diploma. I have no idea what she could of said or done to get that accomplished and she's not likely gonna tell me anytime soon either, but I am grateful for it. Anyway...the point is, the more my parents don't know the better it is for everyone concerned.
So here I am, poised to dump my so-called girlfriend in person rather than over the phone. I had suggested a tasteful email but Jess quickly pointed out that an email or a phone call break up would most likely result in Chris coming to my house and telling my parents everything, so hence the coffee house. And although this didn't guarantee she wouldn't do that anyway, at least I might have a clue ahead of time and could tell them myself, or you know I could grab a plane to Tahiti.
"I'm kinda without a car still so I'd hafta bus it all the way over, and then it's a really long walk to yours, could ya pick me up at Dunkin Donuts, at say around 10ish? We could still grab some breakfast..."
OK, I'm desperate to stay out of her apartment, and I'm pretty determined to finish this today because I just can't deal with this shit anymore.
"Your uncle still isn't finished with your car...what the fuck is taking so long?"
I sighed, I was so tired of her constantly bitching at me and everything I did. Nothing I did and nothing my family did was ever good enough for her, she always finds something negative to say about it. I just wanna tell her to shut the fuck up, but I'm trying not to push her to far over the edge. Sometimes I really envy her husband because he actually got away from her. "I told you...the rotors need to be cut, that takes time."
"The rotors can be cut in less than a hour, he's had the car for over a week, what the hell is he doing? You should really take it somewhere else..."
"I'm sure he's just taking care of his paying customers..."
"Whatever...you're his niece, he should take care of your car first. Or he shouldn't have volunteered to fix it. And what the hell is wrong with your brother...he shouldn't have let the car get so bad, why didn't he get it fixed?"
"I'm sure B was just studying and didn't have time to get it worked on and then he probably forgot."
She scoffed, but I ignored her and continued, "It doesn't matter, it's fine, I don't mind waiting for the car, I'm not in a rush. He'll get to it...but forget about that, can you meet me or not?"
She sighed like she was annoyed at me, ignored my attempt to hurry this conversation along and moved on to her next favorite subject, "You know, you should sell that crap car and the Mustang and buy something more practical for winter. I mean having a sports car is nice, but it's impractical, you can't drive it for four months out of the year. And since you're staying on the East Coast an SUV makes more sense. And with the kids and everything, the Ford Expedition we looked at would be better for you."
Better for me? Yeah right...like that's what she's worried about. I never should have let her drag me to the Ford dealership cause now she won't let it go. "I'm not selling my Mustang..."
No fucking way would I ever sell that car. It's beautiful, and fast, and shiny and MINE, there's no way I'm gonna sell my baby. I fucking love that car.
"Well. We'll see...maybe you could just buy the SUV too, it's not like you don't have the money..." And that ladies and gentlemen is what it all boils down to with her, the money. I'm not fucking stupid, I get that she's more interested in my trust fund than me. OK, I am kinda stupid cause it was Jessica that pointed this out to me. And Jess is right, I don't think I can recall one conversation with Christine after she got fired that didn't involve money one way or another. I just can't believe how much she's changed since then, she used to be really nice to me. Jess told me that it doesn't matter how people act at first, they never show you their real face until it's way too late, so best not to trust people. I really don't want to believe that's true about all people, but it seems to fit this situation. The stupidest thing about all this is that I don't have the money. My brothers and I won't be seeing a dime of that money until we're 21, and if my mom gets her way, we won't see it until we're 25. Before I could say anything Christine quickly moved onto yet another topic, "So, did you tell your mom you've decided to enroll full-time at BU?"
Uh...no...cause I'm not..."Uh...we were just discussing colleges this morning actually..."
OK, that's not technically a lie cause we were discussing it, of course I'm not gonna mention I was telling my mom I wanted to go to UCLA. Nor would I mention that my mom was not happy about it or that we fought about it the whole way to school that morning. Probably best not to give Chris any more ammunition to use against me.
Christine continued, "That's great, she should be really happy about that. And I think in a couple of weeks we can finally tell her about us, I'm sure she will appreciate the way I've gotten you in line."
I rolled my eyes at the phone, she got me in line? She got herself fired and nearly got me expelled from school because she just had to do it in the teacher's lounge. And also, she's way off base about my mother. My mom will mostly likely blow a gasket, finding out I'm dating one of my high school teachers, not to mention the fact she's 13 years older than me and has two kids and is only separated from her husband. My mother is not stupid, there's is no way she'd believe all this happened after I finished high school. Suddenly everything would make sense to my mom and she'd go ballistic. Christine would be lucky if any other schools in this area would hire her to be crossing guard by the time my mom was through with her. And I'd probably be lucky to be off punishment for my 40th birthday. I didn't have a chance to answer Chris because my other line buzzed and she was less than thrilled when I told her Jessica was on the other line.
"I don't know what you see in that girl, she's nothing but trouble Faith. Her whole family is nothing but trouble, and that mother of hers..."
I really didn't want to hear the rant against Jessica again so I interrupted, "Look Chris, I gotta go, see you at Dunkin Donuts around 10 ok?"
She huffed, "Fine...but we aren't done discussing this..."
I rolled my eyes again and hung up on her, and clicked over to Jessica.
"Hey Jess..."
"Did ya dump the bitch yet?"
I laughed slightly at that. Jessica and I have been best friends since kindergarten, since the very first day when I was nervous to be all alone without my parents or my brothers. My mom and Jessica like to tell people I was crying and begging my mom to take me back home, I deny that ever happened of course, but anyway, Jessica came over and said she'd be my friend so I wouldn't be all by myself. Ever since then we've been pretty much inseparable, I couldn't possibly imagine not having her around. She might be a little rough around the edges, but deep down she's a really a good person. Which is pretty amazing considering her mother pretty much sucks, but there's really nothing we can do about it. If we reported her mother they might send Jessica far away and into a worse situation, so we kinda sorta unofficially adopted her. We consider her part of the family cause she practically lives with us, and I can't remember a dinner or holiday or vacation where she wasn't with us.
"Um...not quite yet...but I'm working on it. Slight change in plans, I'm meeting her over at the Dunkin Donuts on Auburn by the bus stop."
"Don't back down, you need to tell her to fuck off. Or I could tell her..."
"I don't think that will be necessary." That's Jessica, always ready to kick someone's ass for me, she's quite chivalrous isn't she? "Hey, why aren't you in class right now?"
"I'm blowing off gym so I can meet with Todd..."
Blowing off gym was not unusual for Jess and I, we had our male gym teachers completely in our pocket. Not really difficult when you're a girl, you just mention cramps and you get a free pass to the library. Although god forbid if you had the female gym teachers, there was no getting out of that one. Fortunately we were both lucky to have avoided that all four years. "Todd? What happened to Bobby?"
"Uh...he's still around...for now..."
Jess went through guys like some people go through tissues, so sometimes it was hard to keep track. Although she had kept this Bobby guy around for the last few weeks, so maybe she was changing her ways. "When do I get to meet the infamous Bobby?"
She hesitated a moment and I wondered why she wouldn't want me to meet her newest boytoy, it's not like I'd want him. "Um...maybe this weekend..."
"Cool. So...who's Todd then?"
"Todd is going to help me finish my Trig homework since we didn't get to it last night because of the whole "I'm miserable, help me dump my girlfriend" convo. So did your mom stop giving you shit about UCLA after I got out of the car?"
"No...that bad conversation lasted all the way to school, and then she got mad at me cause I refused to go to see Brown this weekend, it doesn't seem to matter to her that I don't wanna go to Brown. She just keeps on pushing it and the more she pushes the more I push and we just wind up pissing each other off."
"Well don't worry about it, I'm sure she'll come around."
"Yeah I guess..."
"Aww...sweetie...what's wrong?"
"I don't know...I'm just...I guess I'm just tired. I haven't been sleeping well lately..."
"The nightmares are back huh?"
"Yeah..."
"You should really tell your mom they're back..."
"No...cause then she's gonna make a big deal about it like she did last time and I don't wanna deal with all that. So sometimes I don't sleep very well, it's really not that big a deal."
She laughed slightly, "I think you are more afraid if the nightmares go away so will your dream girl...am I right?"
"No..."
"Liar..."
"Whatever..."
"This girl must be something special huh?"
I smiled for the first time that day, thinking about my dream girl always made me smile. "Oh yeah, she is..."
I call her my dream girl cause that's where we meet, in my dreams. I know it sounds totally bizarre and corny, but ever since I was 8 years old I've dreamt of this girl. I don't know her name, but I know she has blonde hair and green eyes and lives in California, and had a whole Dorothy Hamill obsession when she was a kid. Hence the wanting to attend UCLA, I'm hoping I'll go to class and wind up sitting next to her and then everything will just fall into place.
The first time I met her was a few weeks after the nightmares started. And they started because I had almost drowned when I was showing off in front of my brothers and their friends down at the quarry. For weeks afterwards I had this dream about being drowned by a vampire, until one day I dreamt of her. She told me the vamp wouldn't be coming after me, he would be coming after her, but it was ok because she'd win and it would guarantee we would meet in person. And that together we would change the world.
Believe me, I get that it sounds like something a crazy person would tell you, especially the vampire part but it feels so real. It's kinda hard to explain, but those dreams are always more intense, they feel real, like I'm actually there. Sometimes in these dreams we're fighting vampires together, and sometimes when I dream of her we're having sex. Those are some 5 alarm dreams I'll tell you, if the sex is half as good in person it will be un-fucking-believable.
"Damn girl...you got it bad huh?"
"Oh yeah...kinda crazy huh?"
"Just a little. I'm telling you, when you find her, Blondie better take good care of you or I'm gonna kick her ass."
"I don't think you need to worry about that..."
"Well good, we won't have any problems then, now will we?"
"Nope...no problems... And speaking of problems, how are you doing? Anything you want to talk about?"
"Smooth FJ, real smooth...nope I'm fine, I'm 5 x 5..."
"You're loud and clear? You do realize that phrase makes absolutely no sense..."
"Yeah, yeah...you're just mad you didn't think to use it first..."
"Whatever... Seriously though, you can tell me anything..."
She didn't say anything for a few seconds and I thought she might finally be ready to tell me why she was acting so weird lately, but instead she said rather icily, "I told you I'm fine, now let it go already."
Opps...pushed too hard. I knew Jess would tell me eventually, but she didn't like to be pushed, so I backed off. "Alright, ok, I'll let it go... I just wanted you to know..."
"I know...thanks Faith..."
"Welcome. Should I pick you up when I get Luke?"
"No, it's ok...I got some stuff to do, but I'll be home for dinner."
"What kinda stuff?"
She paused, "Uh...just got some stuff to do... Hey FJ what bus were you planning on getting?"
"The 9:36 why?"
She laughed, "Yeah, it's 9:40...you might want to buy a watch that actually works..."
I looked at my watch and sure enough it's still said 9:15, "Shit...that means I gotta wait for the 10:36, damn it I don't have time for this..."
"If you run across the bridge, you can get the 9:59 Cambridge bus back here."
"Yeah...good idea...I'll do that...See ya laters Jess..."
"Yep bye...oh...and FJ?"
"Yeah?"
"If you can't be good, be bad baby..."
I chuckled as I hung up with her, Jessica and her fifty million catchphrases. I swear I don't know where that girl hears some of these things. As I made my way outside, I thought that if I took the bike path by the Charles it would be faster than having to walk all the way around to get on the bridge.
I didn't give a thought to the fact that the bike path would be completely deserted on this very cold day in February, which was just the opportunity the Council was waiting for.
I made my way along the bike path, mostly thinking about how cold I was and how long it would take for my numb toes to get warm. I hadn't really paid attention to the van coming the other way, it didn't seem all that strange to me. We had a really bad ice storm a few weeks ago and repairs were still going on all around the area so I didn't even think about it. It wasn't until one of them started walking toward me that I noticed he wasn't wearing any kind of uniform, then my eyes zeroed in on his hands which had big black leather gloves on them. A wave of fear ran over me at the sight of those gloves, they looked a lot like...well...the kind of gloves a serial killer might wear. Suddenly pain exploded in my left shoulder and I fell face first into the snow and my only thought at that moment was "fuck that's cold". Panic set in immediately when I realized I couldn't move at all, there was nothing I could do. Two of the men picked me up as a third opened the back door to the van and they literally threw me into the back of the van. I landed hard on my shoulder and head, which brought a whole lot more pain as I tried not to pass out.
"By the order of the Watcher's Council of Britain..."
By order of the who of what...I didn't really hear the rest of what he said as the doors where slammed shut and the engine started up and we were moving to God knows where. The thing that was really scaring me about these guys is that they weren't wearing masks of any kind, and I knew that didn't mean good news for me. I would know what they looked like, so most likely they had already decided I wasn't going to get out of this alive. Whatever they wanted from me, they'd probably take and then kill me. Images of my parents and brothers went through my mind as I thought of the possibility of never seeing them all again. I tried not to cry at the thought of dying, but the thing is I'm only 17, it's not supposed to be this way. I have things to do, I have to pick up my little brother from school, this can't be happening, can it? Is this really how my life ends? And would death be the worst thing they could do to me? The man in the back with me pulled out a syringe and came towards me, I could feel the tears stinging my eyes as I watched him pull out my arm, jab the needle in it and release whatever drugs they were using into my system.
As he pulled the needle back out he said, "Nighty night slayer..."
Huh? What did he...
That was my last thought as everything faded into blackness.
