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Storm Warning by Lilachigh
 
Chapter 11 The Big Plan
 
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Storm Warning by Lilachigh



 



 



Chapter Eleven:   The Big Plan



 


 



Dawn Summers hurried through the dark Sunnydale streets, the hood of her jacket pulled tightly over her head.  Anger made her braver than usual: she glared into black shadows where eyes gleamed brightly, green and orange and crimson, for seconds before she rushed past.  It was as if the whole demon world had heard that this teenager really should not be messed with this evening!



“I hate her!” she muttered in little gasps as she broke into a run, racing across the main highway into the parking lot of the shopping mall.  “I hate her so much!  She doesn’t care about me. She doesn’t care about anyone except her stupid self and being the stupid Slayer.”



A gleam of light in the distance drew her attention and she swerved towards it, vaulting over a low wooden fence and heading into a dense cluster of bushes and shrubs.

 


“Hey, Dawn.”   The words in English were echoed by chirrups of Lynfra by a group of teenage demons, boys and girls, who were sitting under the trees. These were her friends, Dawn thought proudly. Buffy might be hanging out with a vampire, but she had a few very dangerous demons on her side now.  Some were smoking, others swigging from bottles wrapped in brown paper.  Eriddny, her best friend forever,  distentangled her various arms from around a young male Lynfra  and raised three eyebrows as Dawn threw herself down on the ground and sat, hugging her knees, anger coming off her in waves.

 


“What’s up?”

 

“Need you ask!”


“Buffy?  Your sister?  What’s she done this time?”



The boy Lynfra chittered crossly, but Eriddny glared at him and he moved away, sullenly, snatching up one of the half empty wine bottles.

 

“Jeez,  Blinkracht is such a big baby when things don’t go his way,” Eriddny said in disgust. “He knows I was only hanging out with him until you got here,  but he’s all hands and feet and groping.”

 

Dawn pushed back her hood and tried to look as if boys groping her was something that happened all the time.  “I know. Human boys are just the same. They only have one thing on their mind.”



“So, Buffy?”

 

Dawn nodded gloomily.  “I hate her.  She’s complaining that I’m not working hard enough at school and that I don’t do enough chores round the house.  Willow and Tara - I told you about them? - they don’t do half what I do.  Well, Tara does, I suppose. She cooks when Buffy is out and boy, is she forever out!  I know she’s hanging with Spike, who used to be my friend, remember?  I think they’re doing - it!”


“It?”



“You know, having - sex.”

 


Eriddny giggled. “I so would with that Spike if I was older and, you know, human, not Lynfra. He’s hot!  I mean think of him and then look at Blinkracht.  That’s whom I’ll probably end up with next year when my fur comes in.”   She offered a cigarette and with only a moment’s hesitation, Dawn took one.  She didn’t want to smoke - she’d tried it once and it made her sick, but there was no way she was going to show Eriddny that she was some stupid kid who wasn’t cool.  


 

“Is that what happens when your fur grows?  You have to, you know, have sex?” Dawn thought that Blinkracht was a hulking idiot of a demon and she was secretly glad that there was no hard and fast rule of when she had to sleep with a boy. Although just to annoy Buffy, she was determined to do it as soon as she found someone to do it with!


 

Eriddny’s face, weirdly centred where humans had their waists, looked gloomy. The heavy black Goth make-up round her three eyes stood out against the white base she’d plastered over her cheeks to make her look paler.  “Yup.  Fur comes in and then it’s all nest building and mating and raising brats.  Girl Lynfras never get a chance to travel or fight or have any fun once fur’s in. My mom can’t understand why I’m not over-joyed at the thought. She wants me to build a nest right next to hers and Dad’s!  Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be?”

 

Dawn had a vivid memory of the eight foot tall Lynfra who was Eriddny’s mom. There was no way she wanted to meet up with her again, ever.  “Well, I don’t have to build a nest, but I’ll never get a chance to go anywhere different or have any excitement until I’m twenty-one and far too old to enjoy myself. Buffy said tonight that I’m grounded for two weeks!” Dawn blurted out.  “And I bet she’ll find a reason to ground me again once that time’s up. She’s so mean.”


“But you’re here.”

 

Dawn coughed as the smoke caught at the back of her throat and surreptitiously, she pinched out the cigarette. It was beginning to make her feel nauseous. “Too right. I just climbed out of the window and down a tree. She can’t tell me what to do. She’s only my sister, not my mother!  I hate her. We were going to have such fun together when she came back from the dead. She said we’d do things, go places. But it was all lies. All she wants to do is patrol and have sex with Spike!”

 

“Wish we could get away from moms and sisters and everyone,” Eriddny said bitterly. “I’d love to go to Los Angeles, wouldn’t you?  I bet they’ve got great shops and loads of clubs playing really hot music.”


 

“Oh yes. It would be amazing. Buffy’s been loads of times, of course, but she never takes me. One of her old boyfriend’s lives there but she never talks about him.”

 

“My mom and dad are just plain weird about me going anywhere on my own. They say it’s dangerous.  How can that be true?   Have you seen the length my claws have grown?”

 

The nails on the fingers of each arm flashed out into four inch purple claws - or they would have been purple except Eriddny had painted them a tasteful black.  Dawn admired them: she had to admit that her friend would surely never be in any danger from anything with those weapons ready to strike at any time.

 

Suddenly an idea sneaked into her head.  “Hey, why don’t we go to Los Angeles anyway?”

 

Eriddny looked up, all her eyes suddenly bright.  “You mean run away?”

 

Dawn tossed back her hair.  “No, not actually run away, because that’s childish and would make everyone unhappy.  We are not children: we’re nearly grown up. We can go on a short visit to Los Angeles if we want to.  We can leave notes and everything. Say we’ll be back in a few days time, then no one will worry or need to follow us. Not that I reckon Buffy would worry about me, anyway. She’ll probably be glad to have me out of the way for a few days so she can concentrate on Spike.”

 

Eriddny jumped to her feet, the chains decorating her black leather jeans jangling. “Yes! Why not?  It would be fun, but....” she hesitated. ....“How would we get there?  I can’t get on a bus. People would freak out.”

 

There was a silence and then Dawn laughed. “Spike told me a story once about how him and a lady friend of his had to escape from a town called Prague a long, long time ago. I don’t think his friend was very well, anyway, she couldn’t travel far without collapsing so they hid in the back of a truck, under some boxes and went right across Europe that way.”

 

Eriddny grinned. “We can do that!  There’s loads of trucks coming into the mall every evening with goods for the shops. They drive out empty, back to Los Angeles. I bet we can hitch a lift with one of those and no one will know.”



Dawn’s eyes gleamed in the starlight. She could feel the excitement fizzing through her body. This would show everyone how adult she was. This would show Buffy that she couldn’t treat her like a silly child any more. “And we can come back the same way.  It’s a great plan. No one can say we’re being irresponsible. We won’t be in any danger because we’ve worked it all out.”

 

“Tomorrow, then.  Meet here at midnight and bring food and something to drink.”

 

“OK.”  Dawn reached out to hug the Lynfra girl, then remembered she mustn’t  because Lynfa’s got sick when humans touched their skin.  “Promise you won’t tell anyone.”

 

“Promise! You, too.”

 

“Promise!”


She turned and pulling up her hood, ran back across the parking lot, past the mall and down the streets towards home.  Apprehension and a sick anticipation battled inside her. This time tomorrow she would be heading for Los Angeles and the biggest adventure of her life.  And Buffy and Spike could just -  well, they could just get on with doing whatever it was they spent their time doing.  It certainly wasn’t worrying about her!



 



tbc . 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 

 
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