Le Bella

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Two

Anni couldn’t believe how tightly Wes was holding her. Her heart lifted at the thought that maybe he hadn’t forgotten her when he’d left her behind after all. Maybe he would understand and offer her the kind of protection she needed. Wes stepped back from embracing his sister and looked at her straight in the eye.

Anni recognized his lecture-face, despite the general changes in his expression and demeanor since she had last seen him. His voice was surprisingly calm and not at all lilting like she remembered.

“Where are mother and father?” he asked calmly.

Anni looked him straight in the eye, not willing to lie to him over facts he could easily ascertain for himself. “A conference in Lebanon. Something about the rhetorical implications of an averted apocalypse, and the economical repercussions of the demon underworld on modern European nations.” Wes nodded, interested. His parents were always going off to those conferences, having been born and raised themselves in families of Watcher lineage. Until Wesley, seventeen generations of Prices and thirty generations of Wyndhams had been members of the Watcher’s Council. As his parents always so pointedly reminded him, he was the lone failure. It was part of the reason he never went home, and looking at the girl standing in front of him, he felt the guilt of abandoning her just because he was afraid of conflict with his parents.

“And your nanny?” Wes asked, earning an annoyed look from his sister.

“I’m almost thirteen, Wesley,” she replied. Wes looked at her.

“And if I know mother and father at all, you still have a tutor who doubles as a nanny.” Anni shrugged.

“I got rid of her,” she replied. “She was happy to go once I gave her mother’s reference and a severance check. Her services were being terminated next week anyway.”

Lilah stared at the girl, fascinated. For someone so young, she seemed to have excellent manipulation skills. All the more fun manipulating her would be for Lilah. It shouldn’t take too much to send little Anni running back off to England, she thought, and if anyone could do it, she could.

“So you thought you’d just hop on an airplane, fly halfway around the world by yourself, walk through the streets of L.A. unprotected, and nothing bad would ever happen at all? That’s stupid, Anni,” Wes said sharply. “Really, truly stupid.” His voice was rising, but still hadn’t yet made it to the yelling upgrade.

Faith and Lindsey were walking back to the Hyperion, and Lindsey made no comment when Faith suggested they take the scenic route, which just happened to pass by the elementary school. They stood side by side, by the gate that separated the children’s playground from the rest of the world, not holding hands as other couples might have, because even standing a foot away from each other, the connection between them was so solid, so constant that it was palpable.

The children playing on the playground were all much bigger than Hopie, and the couple know that even though the Shanshu was small for her age, she wasn’t that small for her age, so these children were obviously much older.

Faith sighed. “I hope she’s doing okay,” she said. “I feel like I should be there, to protect her.”

Lindsey chuckled. “No big bad is going to try to abduct Hopie from kindergarten, and she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself against any minor baddies.” Faith shook her head.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she said. “Demons Hopie can handle. Other children, those are the kinds of monsters she can’t fight.” After one longing look at the playground, Faith turned to walk away. Lindsey couldn’t help but see a tiny version of Faith and one of himself playing on the playground together. He felt like he had known her forever. She was his, and he knew deep down that someday his children, her children, would play on that playground.

“I hope she’s okay,” Angel worried. Cordelia laughed.

“She’ll be fine,” she said. “I just hope that she doesn’t try to slay something. What if she gets a vision? The teacher won’t believe anything she says.”

“And for that,” Angel replied. “We are grateful. Everyone will think we have the most imaginative daughter in the world. As long as they don’t know that she’s really a very straightforward child not given to whimsy, we’ll be fine.”

“Whimsy?” Cordelia asked. “What kind of vampire says whimsy?” Angel gave her a disgruntled look.

“The kind who’s trying not to think about his little girl on her first day of school, all alone.” Cordelia’s spirits were much lifted by the fact that Angel looked infinitely more pathetic than she did.

“If you’re just going to mope around all day, I’m going to do something productive.” Angel, knowing quite well what that something productive was, smiled as Connor entered the room.

“Are you up for it?” he asked.

“Always,” Connor replied, having no idea what he was getting himself into, figuring it for a demon control issue.

“Great,” Cordelia said brightly. “I’ll grab my purse. You could use some more clothes, too, and I want to get something special for Hopie for surviving her first day of school.” Connor groaned. The last thing he wanted to do was to be stuck on Cordelia shopping duty. Angel smirked at his son.

“Angel said whimsy,” Cordelia told Connor laughingly, giving the boy some blackmail material.

“Did not,” Angel muttered as Cordelia left to get her purse.

“Come children,” said the teacher, “let’s sit in the magic circle and play a game.” All of the children ran to the center of the room, and shoved their ways into spots in the circle. Hopie frowned. It didn’t look like the magic circles Lorne and Daddy and everyone made sometimes, when they had to do something magical with crystals or weird smelling powder.

“This circle isn’t very magical,” Hopie said firmly.

“Use your imagination,” the teacher suggested, smiling. Hopie imagined a huge demon attacking the classroom. She imagined herself fighting it. She smiled. “There,” the teacher said, “you see, it can be magical.”

“Whimsical,” Hopie corrected. “There’s a difference between magic and whimsy.” She was careful not to say that Daddy had told her that. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that he had said whimsy, just like she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the time that Connor had played dress up with her.

“What’s your name?” the teacher asked kindly, a little mystified by the strange, but adorable child.

“Hopie,” the little warrior replied, “Hopie Chase Angel.”

“My name’s Sam,” a little boy said, wiggling, too excited to stay still any longer. “I can sing Happy Birthday and make dinosaur sounds. Grrrr. Arrrg.” Sam demonstrated his dinosaur sounds. Hopie smiled. Silly boy, there were no such things as dinosaurs anymore.

“I can make demon sounds,” replied Hopie. “Grrr. Arrrg.” Immediately, the entire kindergarten class was making those sounds, and the teacher let out a laugh and then a sigh. It was going to be a long, long year.

“It was not stupid,” Anni replied firmly. “I had everything under control. I planned everything carefully. I’m not an idiot, you know.” She glared at Wes, and the expression on her face made him think of the way she had looked when she was little. He had left for the watcher’s academy when she was only four, but she’d often said the exact same thing to him at that young age.

Images flew through his mind of Anni and his parents. Three-year-old Anni translating a rare archaic text, with his parents either watching proudly and then giving her the cold shoulder when she stumbled over the part of the translation that had taken them years to figure out. A little older, Anni’s tutor announcing that she had finished her fourth set of Chaotismic Prophesies. Anni running with scissors because her parents really didn’t mind what she did outside of her demon-centric education. Even then, Wesley had been the one to take the scissors from the child and give her a setting down about the dangers. And then he had left, and Anni had been all alone in that big house with no one but tutors and his parents and her own uncontrolled brilliance.

Here he was again, faced with a girl he hardly knew and still scolding her about the dangers of her actions. Only now, Anni had come into her intelligence, and was a much less susceptible opponent.

“You don’t think you could have gotten hurt?” he asked her.

She looked at him evenly. “I didn’t,” she replied. “I made it here, and if I have to, I’ll make it somewhere else. I don’t want to be found, Wesley. Mother and Father wouldn’t want to find me here, and I am not going back.”

Wesley kept himself from flinching when she mentioned his parents’ inevitable horror at finding their last child in league with their black sheep son. “What are you running from?” Lilah drew out the question, letting it hang in the air.

“I don’t believe we’ve met, and I don’t believe that’s any of your business,” Anni replied politely. Wes tried to keep the laughter out of his eyes when he saw the disgruntled look on Lilah’s face.

“Lilah,” he said. “You’ll have to excuse my sister. She’s a bit overexcited after her trip. Perhaps we can talk later.” Lilah left, realizing perfectly well that she had been summarily dismissed. She headed to work, anxious to see why exactly she had never heard of Little Miss Wyndham-Price.

“That was rude,” Wes told Anni mildly.

“And you loved it,” Anni returned. Wes shrugged.

“Perhaps,” he replied, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I know that something is going on with you. Or the fact that I will have to call Mother and Father. They’ll be worried sick.”

“About their reputation,” Anni said, knowing that her parents didn’t give so much as a flip about her as a person. Wes ignored the fact that what his sister said was true.
“I have to call,” Wes insisted.

“But,” Anni started. He cut her off with a look.

“Then I’m leaving,” Anni said. “I thought you would help me, but I should have known that I was on my own. That’s just fine. I can handle myself.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Wes told his sister, putting his hand gently on her shoulder. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

Anni glared at him. “You’ve already made up your mind about calling them,” she said. “What’s the use of telling you anything?” She jerked her arm and stalked out the door. Wesley stopped it from closing behind her.

“Annabella,” he said dangerously. Anni paused. He hadn’t ever called her that unless he was very serious and very upset. Still, the old Wesley had never sounded quite so deadly. The smile returned to his face.

“I suggest you return inside and fix yourself a snack,” he said. “And then we’ll talk.” Anni stormed inside, temporarily giving up.

“Talk to yourself,” she replied. Wes ignored her tone, figuring that whatever had her in such a frenzy was somewhat of an excuse for her appalling behavior. Anni allowed the tension to flow out of her body and formulated a plan. If she had to run away from Wes in order to keep out of the hands of the Watcher’s Council, then she would do what she had to do. Annabella Wyndham-Price was not a quitter, and she was convinced that she would rather die than spend the rest of her teen years training for a destiny that may or may not prove true.

If she was called, she would slay, but she wasn’t about to let her parents sign her life over to the Council just because she had been identified as a Slayer-in-Waiting. That was the future they dreamed of for her, but they didn’t know her, and she was far past loving them. She knew she had to make her own future, no matter what it may turn out to be, and if she had to fool Wes into thinking she had acquiesced in order to escape the other life, then that was what she was going to do.

Wesley stared at his sister, convinced that she would not try to leave and face his anger. Anni had always been spirited, but never deceitful. Now he had a phone call to make and a mystery to sort out. Who was Anni running from? Surely it couldn’t be more than a teenage fit. He sighed, not believing that little Anni was almost a teen, that he had missed her growing up.

Lilah looked at the information she had on her desk regarding one Annabella Suzette Wyndham-Price. The child had had private tutors her entire life, of both the supernatural and human varieties. Her IQ tests were off the charts. Otherwise, she could find very little information. Someone was hiding the girl’s records.

Angel tried not to brood as Connor and Cordy left for the mall. At least he wasn’t going as Cordelia’s shopping buddy. “Get Hopie a sword,” Angel said, sounding pathetic even to his own ears, “or maybe a teddy bear. Something fun.” Cordelia, feeling sorry for the pathetic Daddy, leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. Connor averted his eyes.

“She’ll be fine,” he said. “Trust me, Hopie can handle anything anyone throws at her.” Connor refused to admit that his own stomach was tied in knots for the little girl.

Hopie was, in fact, doing quite well. She could read fairly well, and she and Sam were put in the same reading group. Now they were coloring.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, looking at Hopie’s picture.

“A Shekorith demon,” Hopie replied Then she remembered tha she wasn’t supposed to talk about demons. “I mean a really ugly monster. To kill it you have to cut off its toes.” Sam giggled. Secretly, he thought Hopie was very pretty, for a little girl, and she knew an awful lot about lots of cool stuff. Maybe they could play dinosaurs together sometime.

Anni composed herself. If she had to run, there was only one place she could go that her parents wouldn’t follow, one more person who could protect her from the Council. She hoped there was a midnight bus to Sunnydale, because she would have to wait until evening before Wes completely let his guard down against her leaving. Once there, she would take refuge with the Slayer, or otherwise, disappear into anonymity. She would not live her life as a puppet of the Watcher’s Council. They had stolen her childhood. The rest of her life would be no one’s but her own.

Sorry, Wes, she thought. I can’t stay; you know how that is, or at least you should, since you didn’t stay either. She refused to believe that she was still angry that he had left her. This wasn’t about anger, it was about liberation.

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