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I don't know where I am. It's dark. My arms hurt from being twisted behind me, but when I try to move them I feel rope around my wrists.
Who's kidnapped me? Who would even try? It's not as though I'm the Slayer. I'm just--
"I know you."
It's a strange accent, something British I think, exaggerated almost to the point of parody. A girl. She has a pretty voice. "If you know me, why are you doing this to me?"
"Nothing personal. Only the stars sing to me. They tell me it's your time."
My time. My birthday. I remember now. "They lied to me. I'm not a demon. I never was."
"Sh-sh-sh," she whispers, her nails digging into my shoulders as she rubs them. "You don't have to listen to them any more. Not ever."
"I know." She's very pretty, though her long brown hair has nothing on Willow's beautiful red. Even her accent in its own way. "They left. They're going to leave me alone now."
"Yes," she tells me, smiling. "Forever and ever. They were sweet in my mouth, but they made my belly bitter. The revelation, that was you."
Oh no. I ran from them, but they didn't deserve to be vampire food. Revelation. Drusilla's alluding to the book of Revelation. What does she mean? Think, Tara, think! Buffy and Willow and the rest of your...family. They'll get me out of this. "You heard them talking, didn't you? They told you I was a demon. But I'm not."
Her cold, shapely butt lands in my lap and her arm goes around me. "You don't want to be evil. I know. I know." As if she's trying to comfort me. She lowers her lips to my ear. "It's His secret plan. If you won't obey His plan...it's a sin. Good girls don't."
"That was my father's plan. Not God's. I don't think I believe in his God, Drusilla."
"Quiet. Hear them singing. Don't you hear them singing? I do. I always did. It was wicked, you know. I ran."
For a fraction of a moment, I pity her. "You didn't have to. Not from the magics, anyway."
"From the Angel," she replies. "Who came to punish me. And he delivered me from the belly of the whale."
Jonah. She's still talking about God's plan. I have to keep her talking. "And sent you to Nineveh?" I suggest.
Her smile is beatific and terrifying. "I knew you'd understand."
"You could have stayed," I tell her. "Used the magics. Been...evil another way. Look." In the state I'm in, it's all I can do to conjure up a firefly light, but her eyes widen and she watches, entranced. "What if...what if I gave you the training you should have had? What if I gave you what you deserved?" I can't. She's a monster now, and crazy. It would be like...like...like giving guns to the Aztecs. There's no good outcome, not even if it meant they beat the Spanish. But I can lie. I can survive this, and then....
We can make her stop hurting, at least. There is that. After what she's done to me, though, do I really want to put her out of her misery?
Her lips brush against mine. "What would the fairies say?" She holds out her finger, and I make the light land on the tip of it.
"Ask them," I suggest. "Who else is going to tell you?"
Her mouth firms up, and--
Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone moving closer. She doesn't.
She has the Sight. Why doesn't she see it coming when the crossbow rises? Before the arrow goes through her arm?
Ear-splitting shrieks. She vibrates in rage and pain but doesn't go after her attacker, cringing, leaning over a crate on one hand. Xander opens his eyes in recognition. "Shit." His knife slashes at my bindings.
He's on the edge of panic. I can sense it all over him. Sometimes Drusilla's madness makes her ineffective, but when it doesn't--
I pull hard and the ropes give way. "Yes!" he exclaims. "Run! Buffy, help!" Buffy must be nearby. Of course. They all came looking for me. They're family.
I grab his hand. Rough calluses and a strong grip. He'll lead me out of here.
My feet don't move. "Tara, come on! We have to run!"
Drusilla is rising, her shock at being hurt fading. She bares fangs. Goddess, even her serpentine forehead bumps are beautiful.
I tighten my grip on his hand and yank him backward so that he falls into my arms.
I don't want to be an evil thing.
(His blood is so sweet.)
But I am. I am.