Chapter 2: Need to Suffer... Need to Bleed...

Title: Damaged Souls
Character(s): Dana (a vampire slayer)
Warnings: Violence
Pairings: None
Fandom: Angel the Series
Word count: 1,394
Rating: R
Disclaimer: (These characters belong to Joss Whedon, The WB, UPN, and FOX). Although I am emoting these characters I did not CREATE them. No copyright infringement is intended nor implied.

Chapter 2: Need to suffer... Need to bleeed...

I felt dazed, and disoriented... my stomach growling with hunger and my eyes tired from the lack of sleep. The roaring engine of the plane was almost deafening as it landed. There were bags everywhere, all with tags and names, filled with meaningless mementos. The room was small and dark, with many different smells surrounding it, and on the furthest corner of the room, slicing through the shadows his eyes still peered back at me, his neck twisted at an awkward angle. There was no blood... no more blood spilled, but he was dead. I wanted to care, to feel something as his lifeless body lay on the cold floor, but I didn't, I couldn't. If I let it in, it would destroy the last of my sanity... so I simply looked away, and waited for the plane to stop moving.

Once it did, I smashed on the door, until it opened, letting the cool night breeze in. Without hesitation I jumped out and ran away from the plane as fast as I could, not really caring if anyone saw me or not. As the air hit my face I almost felt a wave of dizziness wash over me, but I didn't let that stop me. I began to run, run as fast as I could until I could no longer see the plane. In the distance I could hear the sirens, but they were not as loud as they had been at one point. I never stopped running, and I wasn't quite sure why. Something inside of me was pushing, pulling, towards... I didn't know, anywhere... somewhere... did it really matter at all?

Finally, after my legs were able to catch up with my mind, I came to a stop, not knowing where I was, or how I had gotten to this particular point. Nothing seemed familiar anymore, and then I realized that I wasn't in Los Angeles anymore, and I hadn't been in a long time. For years, even. Somehow, the air here seemed to make things clear, but I didn't want for things to make sense, I wasn't ready for that yet. Not yet. The pain was too real, too raw, and if I let it, it was bound swallow me up whole, and destroy me from the inside out, and- and I couldn't let that happen. Not now, not ever again. Not when I had all this power, and not until I had destroyed all of my own ghosts.

I looked around, and the streets were narrowed and dark, and the roads were pebbled, some, and others simply looked like black rivers leading towards death... of course. Death, simply waiting like a cat behind the shadows, only their yellow eyes visible in the darkness as they moved from one point to the next stalking their prey.

"I see you, standing there... looking at her... and she's looking back, shy, so young, and so unsuspecting... not knowing what you truly are..." I whispered under my breath, as I saw what seemed to be a young man with a cigarette in between his lips, his face almost hidden behind a veil of darkness and smoke.

The light that illuminated the street gave just enough light for him to be almost visible to the girl that sat across the street with a hot cup of something in her hands, her yes almost locked, as if in a trance with his.

I watched carefully as the light of the cigarette went out and then was tossed towards the black river. He waved at her- just a small gesture, but her eyes began to light up, and sparkle and it made him smile all the more. Slowly he retreated back to the shadows and into the alley, as he called to her with his eyes and his wicked smile and then, there was nothing left of him, but the empty space where he had been before. The girl got to her feet and cross the pebbled street, but as she reached the street light I jumped out, and cut her off.

"Silly girl, with silly dreams, looking for death in all the wrong places..." I said, my eyes cold. She started to protest but before she could, I punched her in the face, breaking her nose, making her scream in pain.

"Shh... doesn’t hurt if you hold still..." Her hands were on her face and I just tilted my head as I watched the blood pour from her nose. Silly, silly girl.

Without saying anything else, I turned around and made my way into the ally, where he was... watching. I could feel him right at the pit of my stomach, like a pull gravitating towards where he was, and just like that... the hunter had become the hunted. Head... heart, cut off the head... stab the heart... keep cutting until you see dust. I retreated into the shadows, slowly blending into the night just as easily as he was, but just as I could feel him, he could feel me too.

"Dark alleys are no place lost little girls, bella." He said with a thick accent, cutting through the air with his raspy voice. "May disappear out of the face of the earth, make your mother sad."

"She's already sad," I said, my gaze fixated on him, my right hand reaching out behind me to pull the stake that I had hidden. "She's also dead... like you are about to be." The air then changed, it was subtle, but I could feel it, and the man that had been hiding behind the light was there no more, in its place a death mask peered back at me. He was hungry, and I was ready.

In a quick and swift move I covered the distance that had been between us. He hadn't expected that, but he compensated by kicking me on the side of the ribs. Physical pain, it was really nothing, it didn't compare to all the years that I had spent locked up and... it just didn't compare at all. I coughed and my knees buckled, but it had really been nothing.

"Tsk. What? Did I kick you just a little too hard there? Sorry..." He turned around and laughed and then stopped. "On second though, not really." As he turned around to face me I looked up at him and smiled, and jumped high, and clean over his head, landing right behind him. I could have killed him then but I didn't. Need to suffer, need to bleed first. "Hold still," I whispered and he turned, a small look of surprise on his face. I kicked his left leg hard, against the bone hearing it break and he screamed in agony. A small smile covered my lips, faint, not really visible but I could feel it there.

"Hey! Che cosa state facendo? Aiuto! Sta danneggiandolo! Ha rotto il suo piedino! Aiuto! Polizia!" I turned to look and saw two women, and one man passing by the alley, their faces twisted with worry, and terror, and... they didn't understand. Always, the world didn't understand. I turned my attention back to the vampire, who tired to get up, tried to run. He was the prey now. I kicked him on the face and pulled him up by the collar, slamming him hard against the wall as he struggled to get free from my grasp. "Can't hurt me anymore," I said. "Can't touch me anymore."

His face turned back. His face soft, and young, almost too pretty to look at. "Che cosa? Che cosa è questo? Non li ho toccati mai! Io non mai. Voi... siete pazzeschi!" I tilted my head and punched him in the ribs, hearing the crunch and enticing me to doing once more, and so I did. He began to cough up blood. "I didn't touch you! Didn't hurt you! Didn't do anything to you!" He shouted at me in a thick accent. But I knew better.

"But you would have," I said bringing my face close to his and with my hands I twisted his neck and broke it. He fell onto the floor, his body convulsing and I bent down and watched for a moment before bringing down the stake to his heart and ending his agony. His pain was over, in an instant. Mine would never go away.