Fight to the Finish (BTVS, Book Seven)

chapter 1 - Lessons

Dying to save my little sister's life, who turned out to be made from an eternal ball of energy and given life that could open hell dimensions, and then coming back from the dead, torn out of Heaven and forced back into the hell that is human life on what we called earth, especially when you couldn't feel anything for almost a year, sucked, but I wasn't trying to dwell on that anymore. I was trying to move on with my friends, Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenburg, and Xander Harris. And my sister Dawn, and my mother Layla. I was another Slayer like Buffy, named Zoey Francis. And yes, I had started to fall for a vampire named Spike, sleeping with him, after he had got a chip in his head, but I didn't know where he was now, because after everyone found out, he had taken off. Another thing that I was trying not to dwell on.

But what happened to Willow and her girlfriend Tara... after she was killed by Warren, and Willow went completely evil to get revenge, and nearly killed all of us and nearly destroyed the world... and was now in England with Giles for rehabilitating, probably going through agony because of what she went through and what she had almost did, and what she had done...

That was what had me so worried.

There were moments that I got to spend with my mother and my sister that made me feel normal again, so that was definitely progress to what it used to be.

Mom was always working at the hospitals, on very long shifts, and I was a Slayer that was almost always working too, so Dawn got to get close to most of my friends. But now, since the day that we had killed monsters that literally grew from the earth, knowing that I had to teach her to defend herself because she was always in danger or always getting hurt... I was training her.

So,  one night after dark, Dawn and I were standing in the cemetery, watching a new vampire rising from his grave. He was middle-aged, wearing a suit, getting stuck later on.

I looked at Dawn. "It's about power. Who's got it. Who knows how to use it. So..." I tossed a stake to Dawn. "Who's got the power, Dawn?"

Dawn sighed. "Well, I've got the stake."

"The stake is not the power," I told her.

"But he's new," Dawn told me. "He doesn't know his strength. H--he might not know all those fancy martial arts skills they inevitably seem to pick up."

I gave Dawn a look. "Who's got the power?"

Dawn rolled her eyes "He does."

"Never forget it," I told her. "Doesn't matter how well prepped you are, or how well armed you are. You're a little girl."

"Woman," Dawn corrected.

I nodded. "Little woman."

"I'm taller than you," Dawn told me.

"He's a vampire, okay?" I asked. "Demon. Preternaturally strong. Skilled with powers no human could possibly ever--"

"Excuse me," the vampire told us. "I think I'm stuck."

"You're stuck?" I repeated.

"My foot's caught on a root or something," the vampire told us. "And I don't even know how I got down there. If you girls could just give me a hand..."

Dawn looked at me sarcastically. "Hm. So, he's got the power?"

"Zip it," I told her, walking over to the vampire.

"I really appreciate it," the vampire told us. "It's just... it's so dark, and I don't even know what I'm doing here." I picked him up by his suit collar, putting him down standing on his feet. "Whoa. Ooh. Thanks. That was a help. Unfortunately, it was the last--" I gripped his throat tightly, so that when he tried to speak again, it was strained. "Thing you'll ever do."