She spent the first few hours in a panic, petrified that her captor was hot on her trail. Hours running turned into days, the days turning into weeks and it wasn't soon before nearly two weeks had passed. Always on the move, covering the most distance under the cover of darkness that night offered. It wasn't safe to stay static.
He was always watching, his spies everywhere.
Liam Angelus was a name that brought fear into the eyes of the bravest of men. When she was a little girl she had thought he was only a story that parents told their children to scare them. But she wasn't a little girl anymore. No, thanks to Liam Angelus she had grown up pretty quickly.
I knew what he truly was.
A vampire.
The bedtime story that her parents had told her night after night for as long as she could remember of the two vampire covens fighting a war against each other and her kind, the chosen ones, for a millennium turned out to be real.
A tiny scrap of a child at the tender age of nine years old was when she had first laid eyes on the feared master vampire. She was in town with her parents buying food and supplies when her father had whispered quite fearfully for her to run and hide. She remember holding onto the posts of a wooden carts legs and watching as he rushed to her mother's side. Night had fallen less than half an hour earlier and if you looked hard enough from the hill where the market sat you could make out the barest sliver of light in the distance as the sun set. The market place was closing as it did early and only the cart owners remained, packing up their belongings before rushing home to their families and out of the darkness.
When darkness overcame the town an air of trepidation and fear always seemed to surround her and her family.
I had never understood why until that day.
"What a pretty little lass." His voice had sent shivers down her back from where she was hidden under the cart, his accent thick as his eyes leered at her mother. "Your name?"
Her father; she would never forget the look her father gave her mother, tried to push her forward and away from the beast but the tight grip Angelus had around her wrist was unrelenting and the men surrounding them stopped their moving forward.
"Your name..." His grip must have tightened because her mother let out a startled yelp and name all at once making her jump from under the cart.
"Joyce!"
Angelus's free hand ran through her mothers hair and down her cheek.
"Such a pretty wee thing."
"She makes such sweet little dollies. Ripe for the picking. Is has pulsatus. Electus is est. Can we keep her?"
She stayed hidden under the carts cover as a woman's black skirts swished passed by. The woman seemed to lose herself as she spoke the strange words before switching to a childlike manner and voice.
"She's been touched. Chosen she is."
Those words would be stuck with me for the rest of my life.
At the time of course she didn't understand what they meant and how much they would play a pivotal role in her upbringing. As far as she was concerned she was the daughter of two local farmers whose parents taught her archery at the young age of five for sport.
Upon witnessing the frightened look that crossed both of her parents faces she knew that what the dark-haired woman had said was not good.
Angelus had stared a few moments more at her mother before meeting her fathers glaring green eyes and letting out a grin. Raising an eyebrow he smirked at the dark-haired woman and let her mothers wrist go before turning, sliding his hand around the woman's waist and walking off into the night.
Her parents stood whispering in the markets empty lanes for minutes watching Angelus retreat before they rushed over to her and whisked her off straight home.
Angelus came for her mother just after dark not even two full days later. She had been in the stables practicing her archery like her parents had told her she must every night, at least that's what they thought she did. When they didn't stand watch on her nightly practices she was playing with the horses they kept. Rolling under the hay stacks and poking her head from underneath bundles of straw, giggling when the horses would sniff her out and nibble on her tangled blonde locks. Her mothers hair and her fathers eyes, that's what everyone said she looked like.
She was doing as such when the yelling had started.
"You cannot just take her!"
"Oh but I can and if you have any sense you'll stay quiet or your insignificant life will cease to continue!"
It was the accented man again. Angelus.
"Hank..."
Heart racing a mile a minute she crawled towards the stable doors, petrified at seeing all the men that surrounded her parents. Pushing the stable doors open her face cringing at the creek the door made and cursing herself for not putting oil on it the day before like her father had asked her to. She almost let out a startled yelp, heart skipping a beat when Barnaby, her father's horse nudged her in the back.
"Joyce run!"
Before her mother had a chance to move Angelus punched her father in the face, knocking him to the ground barely conscious. Elizabeth stifled the shout that was about to let loose using her hands to firmly clasped over her mouth. Three men surrounded her mother and grabbed her arms, pinning them to her body and doing their best to restrain her. She broke free or course, her mother was super strong like that. Grabbing a weapon from one of the mens belts Elizabeth watched on in shock and fear as her mother thrust something into one mans chest and he just disintegrated into a cloud of dust. A second man delivered a blow to her mothers stomach knocking her to the ground and Barnaby snorted at the noise.
"Joyce!"
Angelus spat at her fathers face where he lay on the ground and walked towards her mothers crumpled body as she too lay on the ground.
"You better learn quickly who your new master is girl. You are mine now."
Her mother, ever the fire cracker, spat in his face, eyes narrowed. She was injured and Elizabeth knew because she struggled to stand. Still, she growled out her words.
"I'll never be yours. I'll die first."
"We shall see. Take her away."
"Joyce, no!..." A groan came from her crumpled father and Elizabeth couldn't stop the tears that formed in her eyes with fear of what was to come. The hands covering her mouth shook as she struggled to contain a scream.
"No!"
The last vision Elizabeth would ever have of her mother was blurred with tears as Angelus bound her hands together and placed a sack over her head before swinging her onto his horse, nodding to one of his men to stay behind as the rest of them rode off into the night.
She didn't remember much of what had happened next because she was blind with rage. The man left behind to kill her father had started kicking him with all of his body weight behind each blow, Hank struggling to rise.
She didn't remember reaching for her bow or her quiver; the satchel she kept her arrows in as she ran from the barn, bow and arrow in hand, screaming.
"What th- You're next little girl. Can't leave anyone behind."
One arrow released in a matter of seconds and she grinned when it hit it's mark and buried itself in his gut. A wound which any normal man would have fallen down at, except this wasn't any normal man. He span and her heart stopped. The face that met her had not been the one she had just glimpsed moments before. He growled, eyes yellow and feral as he rushed towards her.
"The h-heart." Her father fell to the ground and she shakily grabbed for another arrow, aimed and fired. He crumbled into dust in front of her wide and terrified green eyes and only afterwards did she let herself crumble.
"E-Elizabeth."
"Father... mother she. What was that man? Mother.... sh-"
"Vampires...."
....................................................
Things were never the same after that.
I was never the same.
Running, they were always running. Her father and her had adopted different names, it wasn't safe to be Hank and Elizabeth anymore. No, now it was Henry and Buffy.
Not exactly the names she would have chosen but they had been funny to her mother at one point in time. It helped them remember.
The nights were getting colder now and it was getting harder and harder to survive off-road. There had been a few towns that had offered her refuge in the way of abandoned buildings in the lower class parts of towns where no one paid any mind to you or your business. It suited Buffy just fine. Anything to escape the bitter winter air that made sleeping out-doors unbearable.
With the cold nights brought along more sleepless nights. It was futile. Every step she took away from her captors had her chest tightening and her scars burning. She couldn't afford to be afraid of the dark but every night when her eyes closed her heart raced. She was plagued by nightmares, memories, haunted by images of what had happened and what could still happen. Fear was Buffy's worst nightmare and had become a constant cloud surrounding her every move. Letting out an involuntary shudder she placed a hand on the most recent scar she had been left with.
It burned red-hot.
The bite mark on her hip brought tears to her eyes. Buffy knew that her back was ripped to shreds, she could feel the bumps and rises of the old scars of her healed skin but the thing that made her cry at night was the fact that her most recent scars were in her direct sight. Forever marked.
Without fail every night the burning would get worse, sweat would break out on her forehead and she would feel the tug and tightening in her chest as she felt something trying to pull her back into the void. Every night she struggled, knowing that when daylight came the pain would become a dull ache but never seeming to stop completely.
The further she ran the stronger the pain got.
Still she never stopped.
It wasn't safe.
Angelus was no doubt hot on her heels, Riley leading the hunt during the day.
Head down, cloak up always.
Angelus had had her for how long exactly Buffy wasn't quite sure. She was kept indoors mostly, locked away in a cell beneath the castle in a pitch black wet and cold room before being moved upstairs to a windowless room not far from his own.
He watched her always, sending shivers down her spine when she pretended to be asleep. He taunted her with wicked words, telling her of what was in store for her when the time was right. Buffy knew she was to be his new play thing.
Like her mother before her.
When I became what my birthright said I would become.
And become she had.
A chosen one.
Which meant that nearly two years had passed since Angelus had taken her.
She shuddered at the thought.
"You and I are going to create something great together."
All for a prophecy.
Staring at the sky above she sent a silent curse their way.
Angelus always touched her, pinching, stroking and running his hand suggestively over her body but never invading. His vampire mate Drusilla, the dark-haired woman who had been at the market place that day was insane. Literally. Buffy, petrified of her as she was, was almost thankful for it some days. She was always screaming and rambling on in her childlike voice about Buffy's purity and that she must not be broken in until after the becoming. Buffy was thankful for her insane words but that didn't stop her heart from racing or the screams she would let loose until her throat was too sore to make a sound anymore.
That's when the torture came.
The biting, the cutting. She squeezed her eyes shut at the memory.
Seeing Angelus's yellow eyed feral beast break forward in a flash never ceased to make Buffy's heart race in a panicked frenzy.
After being betrayed by a friend of her fathers who had given them refuge at a time when they had needed it most she was captured. Angelus had spent weeks tormenting her, painting images of what he had done to her mother before killing her while she was left to wallow in the dark cold wet of the prison cell.
Buffy had seen him feed on helpless women, watched on as he and his insane mate Drusilla fucked in the blood of their meal as it lay strewn across the floor while she stood, swaying in her starved and weak state, shackled to the wall.
Never again.
squawks
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!