Faith goes looking for her father to answer some of her questions left by her mother's return. Buffy tries to help as best she can, leading her to ask questions about her own relationship with her father and whether she should do the same.
We walk through the doors and the atmosphere immediately shifts, even if people aren't paying attention to us.
This isn't exactly a place I feel the most comfortable. It's probably a good thing that they don't really exist in Sunnydale. Not sure how I'd feel about having to clean them out. I might wait outside to pick them off one by one. Although they might go out and get replacements if I did it that way. Guess it's better that I don't have to deal with it at all. One of the best reasons for living in a small town. Regular people would notice if a club like this showed up in Sunnydale. They don't have that problem here unfortunately.
As we make our way through, some of their customers notice us but I do my best to ignore them.
But my wait and see strategy doesn't work for this kind of situation. If we do that, they'd end up hurting Faith's dad or worse, killing him. We have to be able to strike hard and fast at the top if we're going to make any headway. Which is why we're here. Faith's father said that whoever's in charge also owns this club. So we'll have to find a way to get his attention. Hopefully either by him being here or screwing with his manager.
Not that either of us know exactly how we're going to do that. Her father didn't really know much about how things are structured. He just gets regular visits from the two guys we met before and sometimes is dragged in front of the guy who loaned him the money. We need a lot more than that. Otherwise when we leave, things could get a lot worse for him. And if we did that, Faith would never be able to forgive herself. After all we've been through, I can't let her lose even a chance to have a relationship with her father.
I just have to make sure that I don't get distracted because of where we are and who we're getting into a fight with. That way we're not going to end up in a bad place ourselves.
Suddenly, a very large vampire jumps out in front of us, forcing us to stop. He's got a big smile on his face underneath the teeth and bumpies.
"Whoa, new girls are seriously hot. How much?"
Is he asking...
"How much for what?"
That makes him growl.
"Whatever it is you're willing to give."
He follows that up with giving us both a hungry look and I'm not sure how much is about seeing us as blood bags. Faith jumps in.
"You couldn't afford us."
Not sure that's the best way to handle it.
"I'm sure I could make up the difference. Really earn it."
Faith's expression gets more serious.
"Another time big boy."
Also probably not the best idea.
She tries to move past him but he backs up to stay in our way. He grabs her by the wrist pretty firmly. Before I can react, Faith uses her free hand to squeeze his wrist even harder, clearly threatening to break it as his face goes from happy to pained.
"I told you... you can't afford us."
He lets go of Faith's hand and pulls away, which Faith lets him. After a short stare down, Faith keeps walking to our destination, then I follow.
I wouldn't have handled it that way, but at least it looks like it worked.
We find our way to the back where the office door is. She knocks and I keep an eye out for any more eager vamps who might want to make an offer, but no one comes. Then a voice calls out from the door.
"Yeah..."
Faith opens it and we walk through.Behind the desk is a man in a badly tailored suit, sitting in a pretty badly upholstered chair. The whole room is tacky. Eventually he looks up at us.
"Are you the new recruits?"
Geez...
"Why does everyone think we're strippers?"
Faith tries to play it off.
"Oh come on babe, we're two hot chicks in a strip club. Who else would we be?"
What I'm guessing is the owner of the club frowns at us.
"Well if you're not the new recruits Tony was supposed to send over, then who are you?"
I cross my arms over my chest, shifting into a more serious mode.
"We're here about Pat LeHane."
He gives us a confused look.
"Who?"
Are we really going to do this?
Faith gets there before I do.
"Don't even try and deny it. He told us you're the one who he sees when he makes a payment. So let's skip right to the point."
He gets up from his chair and moves out from behind it.
"Which is?"
I do my best to lay things out for him.
"Pat's under our protection now. You mess with him, you mess with us."
Faith adds to what I said.
"And trust us when we say, you don't want to mess with us."
He gets a more curious look on his face.
"Why is that?"
It takes him a second to clue in.
"Wait... are you them? The ones who beat up Charlie and Phil? You're those guys?"
Faith frowns at the question.
"Obviously not guys."
A grin crosses his face.
"I did notice that. But if you two have some power behind you, maybe there's a different type of job you can do for me."
My ex and I look at each other, obviously suspicious of him, but he continues.
"I could use girls like you who can handle yourselves. Collect some money from some deadbeats."
Is he serious?
"And why would we do that?"
"Think of it like an instalment plan. Do some collecting for me and I'll knock some of Pat's tab off."
Faith points out the obvious.
"Not gonna happen."
"All right then, I'm sure we could come to some kind of... mutually beneficial compromise."
Okay, this isn't getting us anywhere.
I close the distance between me and the club owner, grabbing him by the throat and pinning him down on top of his desk.
"Here's a compromise. You stop harassing Pat and we promise not to kill you and all of your employees. How's that for a compromise?"
The club owner gets very concerned about what I'm going to do next, but is still looking pretty confident.
"Well that sounds good... might be a bit of a problem though."
Problem?
Faith joins me so he can see her being intimidating too.
"Why's that?"
"Because I sent my boys over there right before you came in. They should be getting there right about now."
They are?
I look at Faith and she looks just as concerned as I feel. That makes me squeeze his throat a little more. Faith makes the demand.
"Call them off."
"Can't... no way to get in touch until they come back."
Crap... that's definitely not good.
We give each other a look, Faith obviously worried. She puts on her angry face instead.
"Are they going to kill him?"
"You can't get money out of a dead guy. But... Charlie and Phil were my nice guys. The ones I just sent, aren't going to be as nice."
Damn it...
I let go of his throat and pull back.
"Faith, we have to go."
She keeps staring down the owner.
"We have to get to Pat."
She looks at me briefly.
"We can't just leave him here."
I turn my attention to him and he's looking pretty pleased with himself.
"He's not going anywhere... and we'll definitely be back."
That gets her to move, heading to the office door. Making sure the owner doesn't attack from behind, I back up towards the door and when I'm far enough away, we leave.
I hope we get to him in time.
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