DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters, they're just being borrowed. They belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and co. I own the story idea and the story itself. Do not rearchive or repost without my permission.
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I opened my eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the darkness of the room.
As I struggled to sit up, my head began to pound and I groaned, my hands shooting to my temples. My left hand found blood coating my temple and hair, sticky from beginning to dry. I blindly searched my head for the injury and found it above my left ear. The cut wasn't very long but it was deep, I had lost a lot of blood.
My right hand was the next thing I inspected. It seemed to be sprained and a dark bruise coloured parts of my hand and most of my wrist.
The pain finally subsided and I slowly got to my feet, leaning against the wall until the wave of dizziness passed. My next job would be finding out where I was.
The last thing I remembered wasn't very pleasant. It had been a baseball bat flying through the air toward my head. The person swinging it had been Angel. So wherever I was, I figured Angel, or Angelus I should say, was responsible. That thought brought a chill to my spine and I was suddenly very frightened.
"I'm a rouge demon hunter." I reminded myself, biting my lip nervously as I scanned the dark room.
There wasn't very much in the room. A bed sat in one corner, sheets tucked tightly around the corners and that was all. I staggered over to the bed and lowered myself down onto it, careful not to aggravate my sprained wrist.
"Now what?" I asked myself, staring at the locked door and the barred window. "You don't have much hope of getting out. Not after what you had done."
Buffy would kill me if she ever found out I was the one responsible for the loss of Angel's soul. I had thought I was helping when I found the spell.
It was a simple and easy spell to return any creature to the form they most wanted to be. In Angel's case I had assumed it would be human. Apparently the vampire wasn't as stable as I had thought.
After finishing the spell, I dropped by the agency to see if Angel had discovered his new life as a human. Instead, I found him grinning manically over a very frightened Cordelia. Upon seeing me, he had left Cordelia and she had run from the agency, promising to return with help for me.
I hadn't been lucky enough to be around long enough for the help to come for me. I closed my eyes, remembering the conversation that had taken place between Angelus and myself.
* * *
"Wesley," Angel murmured, circling around me and placing his hands on my shoulders. "Sit, please." He said, gesturing toward a chair.
I trembled as I lowered myself into the chair, then stared up expectantly at Angel.
"Yes?" I asked, praying that my voice wouldn't quiver.
"I like you Wesley," he began, sitting on the desk in front of me. "It's because of you that I feel this great again."
I nodded slowly, still staring at him like I didn't know what was going on.
Angel got up and began to circle me once again. "You did the spell, didn't you?"
"I did." I confirmed.
A small smile crossed Angel's lips, a smile that held promises of my slow, agonizing death.
"Please don't kill me." I began, then clamped my mouth shut. It was my fault that Angel was like this, I would take the punishment that the vampire doled out.
"Please don't kill me." Angel imitated my voice with amazing accuracy and I cringed, realizing how truly pathetic I sounded. He tossed a laugh over his shoulder as he moved away, "You definitely are not what I used to think Wes." He smiled. "You're much more pathetic than I thought."
I glared angrily at Angel, a comment about all the times I had helped him ready on my tongue before remembering that this wasn't Angel. This was Angelus.
"What's the matter Wes?" He asked, drawing out the s in my name. He grabbed my chin and twisted my face toward him, "Cat got your tongue?" He pressed his hand harder against my face and grabbed my bottom lip, pulling it hard before letting go of me and walking away.
"Why did you choose to be Angelus?" I asked, wringing my hands nervously in my lap. "I wanted to help you, I thought you'd choose to be human."
Angel smiled. "The spell you did Wesley, you didn't read it properly. If you had, you'd realize that it wouldn't put me into the form I most wanted but that it would put me into the form that I had the most fun in." He chuckled. "And Angelus had a good life."
"He killed." I spat angrily, "Was that really fun?"
Angel cocked an eyebrow, "Apparently, I thought so."
He turned his back on me and I did something I never thought I would do. I leapt out of my chair, attacking him from behind. Angel growled and threw me to the floor, grabbing the nearest thing he could find.
I thumped against the wall, the scrambled to my feet as he came after me with a sharp letter opener. He stabbed forward, hoping to kill me in one blow but I moved aside, the blade missing me by bare inches.
I swung hard, my fist connecting with his jaw, sending a jarring pain down my arm. He got up and threw a punch of his own. His fist hit my cheek and I tripped, falling against the filing cabinet and landing hard on my wrist.
That was where I had received the sprain.
I got up again, ready to fight to the death if I had to and I looked toward Angel to find the bat swinging through the air. That was the last I remembered.
* * *
And now I was here, stuck in some room that Angel had picked for me. I wasn't exactly sure why he hadn't killed me, I was probably an inconvenience to him but he still chose to keep me. I found that strange, but I felt no need to question why I was still breathing. I was just happy that I still was.
I stood up and walked toward the door and tried the doorknob. It was locked as I had suspected.
"Angel, what are you doing with me?" I asked, leaning against the door and sighing.
"I'm keeping you around for bait." He answered and I jumped, realizing he was standing on the other side of the door. "Took you longer to wake up than I expected Wes."
"Bait?" I asked, ignoring the rest of his statement. "Bait for what? No one will come for me."
Angel laughed, "I don't mean bait in that context Wesley. I mean bait as in using you to attract many, many vampires and watching them slowly kill you. Isn't that fun?"
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to digest what Angel was saying.
"Why?" I asked finally. "It makes no sense."
"Oh, but it does." I could hear the smile in his voice. "You see, when news reaches Sunnydale of the grisly death of Wesley Wyndham Price and the details are shared as to exactly how you and Cordelia Chase died, Buffy will be on her way here. Either to make sure I'm okay or to kill me."
I nodded, finally understanding what he wanted. "I see. But why have a group of vampires kill me? Why not do it yourself? Break my neck like you did Ms. Calendar?"
"Because that's much too obvious. I'd love for Buffy to come to Los Angeles to make sure I was still alive and have her so easily in my grasp. So trusting."
"But I trusted you!" I exclaimed.
"And that was your first mistake," he said, "that was everyone's mistake."
I shut my eyes, listening to Angel's plan.
"Come night fall I'll take you to the park Wesley and the vampires will come."
"I'll be able to fight back."
I heard his laugh further down the hall, "You won't be alive long enough to fight." Then he was gone, a door shut behind him somewhere in the house.
A sigh escaped my throat and I leaned heavily against the door, wondering exactly what I was going to do in my current situation. I had to admit, in language I didn't often use, I was screwed. All I could do was sit and wait and hope that when the sun set, I didn't die.
* * *
I awoke to see Angel standing over me and I scrambled to my feet, surprised I had actually been able to fall asleep.
"Wesley, good and rested?" He asked, grinning mercilessly at me.
I nodded slowly, "Yes Angel," my voice remained calm and unwavering to my surprised and I continued, "I'm ready, you have shown me the way."
He laughed loudly, "Don't give me that bull Wesley. I know you're terrified of me."
"No Angel, not of you." I said quietly.
His hand shot out and caught my throat and he lifted me off the ground. My hands tore at his, trying to rip them away from my throat, trying to take in one breath.
"Not scared of me?" He asked, slamming my elevated body against a wall. "Your eyes tell me differently Wesley. They're wide with fear."
I tried desperately to control the look in my eyes, to continue to look scared as I brought up a dangling knee and slammed it into his groin as hard as I could.
Angel's eyes went wide and he dropped me to the ground where we both lay. Angel writhing in pain and myself sucking in deep breaths of air.
I recovered before he did, but with not enough time to escape.
As I moved toward the door and tried to step over him, Angel's hand grabbed my ankle and pulled me back as he got to his feet.
"It's time to die Wesley." He rasped, then clamped a steel hand on my upper arm and led me out the door.
* * *
I was tied to a bench in a park. No wonder he was so confident of my death, I was totally incapacitated. How would I be able to fight back or even run while I was tied down like this?
"Ready Wesley?" He whispered, close to my ear.
I ignored him and continued to concentrate on all the things I could do to get myself out of the situation. I couldn't rely on anyone else any longer, it would be all up to me if I wanted to survive.
"Have fun." He called, his voice deeper in the park. He was moving away, I knew the vampires would soon be here.
The first one came a few minutes later, she obviously worked for Angelus as I'm sure many of them did. She trailed a long fingernail across my neck, hooked it under my tie and ripped through the material encircling my throat.
The second one was also female. She raked her long nails through my hair from behind, jerking my head back in the process. I wondered how many of them Angel would send.
A third appeared and soon after, a fourth. I lost count around the ninth vampire, all female.
"Time to die Wesley," one of them whispered in my ear, repeating what Angel had said earlier that night.
As she leaned down to bit my neck, I closed my eyes. This was the end, I was certain. There was nothing I could do to save myself now. I was startled by the gasping noise by the side of my head and turned in time to see the vampire burst into dust. The arrow from a crossbow clattered against the bench as it fell to the ground.
I searched the park wildly, trying to find it's origin as the vampires dispersed. One, still intend on killing me bent down and bit me hard. I screamed, but the pain didn't last long. Another arrow and she was dead.
Someone's hands yanked at the ropes and began to untie the complicated knots.
"Who's there?" I called, still somewhat frightened.
Buffy stuck her head over the bench and grinned, "Nice to see you again Wes."
From the shadows Willow, Xander, Giles and Cordelia emerged, all armed with crossbows and stakes.
"You can thank Xander for the expert first shot." Buffy said, finishing with the ropes and freeing me.
"But," I began, "How . . . I mean, how could you know?"
Cordelia smiled, "Didn't I promise that I'd come back with help Wesley? I never break a promise."
Still wanting to complete the job, another vampire threw herself at me but Buffy intercepted with a stake in her hand. They were no match for the slayer.
"No!" Someone roared. "This is not possible! Not again!"
Buffy turned toward the sound with a smug grin on her face, "Oh but Angel, it is possible. And it is happening to you."
Angel moved into the light cast from the street lamps, his face fully contorted into the demon.
"You're not supposed to be here." He said.
She shrugged, "But I am."
"No!" He yelled again, then launched himself at her. Buffy was ready for the attack and spun into a high kick, knocking him away. He was up on his feet again in a quick second and Willow tossed a stake to me quickly, I was part of the fight.
We came down on him from all sides, pulled him down and shoved him against the wet grass in the park.
He struggled, but with the five people holding him, he couldn't get up.
Buffy pushed her way into the circle and knelt down near his body.
"I'm sorry it has to end this way Angel." She said and I knew she wasn't talking to the demon that we held down on the ground but the soul that was still floating around in some limbo. "But it's the only choice have. I can't keep pretending that you're not a killer because you are."
Then, before he could reply, her arm arched downward and her stake pierced his heart. Angel burst into dust and we were holding nothing.
As I stared around the circle, I could see it in everyone's faces. They were all thinking about a friend, a loved one or a pet they had lost to that monster.
I stood up first, the others followed and as I stared at the ground when Angel had lain, I sighed. "For everyone he killed, they can now rest in peace."
The others nodded their agreement before we walked out of the park in silence.
At the mouth of the park I turned to look once more at where Angel had last been and I imagined I could see the real him, the Angel we had all loved, rise out of the dust and make his way to whatever happy place his true soul would rest.
The End
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