A/N: Thanks to trouble for the quick beta! And thank you all so much for the reviews and favorites, so far! I'm sorry I'm slooooow. I can't seem to speed things along for the life of me, but gradual progress is better than no progress, right? :D

Dial The Combination

Dawn can't stop looking at her, at those eyes.

She's seen eyes like that before but her mind is rejecting the intel every time the memory flashes through. This girl is too young, can't possibly be practicing the dark arts, much less addicted to them. There are impotent little twitches of telekinesis that jolt a table leg a few inches or cause a mild breeze to flutter through the coffee shop's back room, Dawn's simple but effective binding spell tempering whatever limited power the child does possess. She would have escaped it by now if she were any kind of witch.

She's not a witch.

There's no addiction intervention needed here, but there is something badly wrong with this. There's something inside of her. It's not black magic but it is dark, and Dawn has no idea how to extract it, or what it even is because she's never run across it before. She has to figure it out soon, though, because the child is begging her. Pleading in her fleeting moments of control, which are coming fewer and further between.

She keeps saying, "Get it out," and, "Please just kill me," and Dawn badly wants to get whatever it is out, absolutely refuses to kill her.

It's only been an hour since the girl came barging in, but Jess is visibly wearing. Ropes can't hold the girl, they both know it, so it has to be Jess. But it's not physical exhaustion. A Slayer can fight for days if she has to, and Dawn has intimate knowledge of time's relativity in a fight, where a single minute seems like hours and adrenaline draws on the body's entire well of strength to survive, saps a normal person pretty damn quickly. It helps her understand just how impressive a Slayer's fortitude really is.

But Jess is still a person and people feel. Jess's emotions are weighing her down as she's forced to remain in close contact with the alternately pleading and thrashing child, her shoulders sagging with the odd form of empathy she seems to have, and the whole hostage situation isn't helping, either.

And Dawn still doesn't know what to do, doesn't even know where to start. It's pissing her off.

"Sorry to, uh, interrupt," Professor Hightower says.

Dawn jumps at the sound of his voice. She's been staring so hard at the girl it's giving her a headache, hadn't even heard him come out of the office, and frowns at herself. That kind of slacking is bound to get someone killed. She needs to get her head back on straight. "It's fine," Dawn sighs, running a hand over her eyes as she looks over at him. "Was there something you needed?"

He's taken his suit jacket off, collared shirt dark with sweat and his face flushed. He skids a nervous look at Jess and her prisoner, then at the huge gun in Dawn's hand. "Getting a little cramped in there." He sounds unsure of himself and annoyed about it, clearly struggling with the idea of taking orders from a student, normal hierarchy all in freefall. He reminds Dawn of the stuffier Watchers—not remotely approaching the awesomeness that is Giles, and without the cool accent.

Dawn doesn't know exactly what the hell is going on yet, but she knows more than the rest, and that makes her best suited for leader. It sucks, because it's not like she doesn't want to scream and flail and let anyone else at all make the decisions, but she's what they're stuck with. She's still gotta earn her place among the unenlightened, though, if she wants to prevent a mutiny.

"Sorry," she says, tucking the gun closer to her side, because manners and morale are important, Buffy's always saying that (while rarely exercising her own advice, but that part's not helpful right now). "We've got a... thing going on here, but you guys don't have to stay locked up anymore, I guess. Just," she bites her lip, "if any of them seem extra twitchy, it's probably a good idea to talk them into staying put until we get this figured out. It's a little weird," she adds unnecessarily, because what about this whole thing isn't weird.

But the professor nods like she's revealing sacred bits of wisdom, straightens at being charged with a task and scampers off.

"It's quiet," Jess says when Dawn turns back to her. The child's having one of her strange Zen moments, perfectly limp in Jess' lap and staring at nothing, and Dawn can see some of the strain lift from Jess' face. "Try again."

Dawn nods. It's been a good thirty minutes since the last shot or scream, at least, and she's taken over phone duty. She doesn't want to think about what the lull in gunfire means, tries her cell, then Jess's, and gets the same old, worthless static. She grits her teeth and tamps down the urge to hurl the freaking things at a wall, has to close her eyes and count to ten and not think too hard about Connor.

A few people trickle out of the office; mostly guys, Dawn notices, feeling this irrational annoyance that the women of their group—aside from her and Jess, obviously—are playing up that whole damsel thing. This is no time for out-of-the-blue rants about feminism, though, so she bites that back, too. She's letting the stress get to her, and that's no good. It's probably her imagination, but she swears she can smell slowly roasting death invading their temporary haven.

"What's up with her?" Greg asks, watching Jess's renewed strain as the girl starts pitching another cussing, spitting fit.

The others skirt them warily and wander over to the collection of food Dawn and a few others gathered from the front of the shop earlier, for no real reason other than giving everyone something to focus on besides their own fear. They all seem to be willfully ignoring the blatantly bizarre: someone even made a comment about Jess' endless adrenaline rush before. It's nothing new, the things people can explain away when they really want to, and anything else is just some interesting hallucination to be turned over to their psychiatrists later. It can be unbelievably frustrating sometimes but, in this case, Dawn is glad for it. They've got enough mayhem on their plates without her having to give the 'bump in the night' lecture.

"Gonna have to get back to you on that," Dawn says, weary. "Anything?"

Greg shakes his head, eyes Dawn's new gun same as the professor had, only Greg looks more assured by it than nervous. "They're just repeating the same stuff over and over, tellin' any hostages who might be watching to sit tight if we're not in immediate danger, but they aren't giving much in the way of progress reports. Guess the cops don't wanna give the media too much info in case the shooters are watching."

"Makes sense." It does make sense, if you're a regular cop who expects regular criminals, but it's no less disappointing. "How's the arm?"

He gives a one-shouldered shrug. "Hurts like a motherfucker, but I'll live."

"Good to know." Dawn likes Greg, she really does. He's calm and reasonable and doesn't ask a bunch of stupid questions. Being one of the few who doesn't constantly grate on her nerves, she can't have him keeling over on her.

Caden—the only other girl brave enough to leave the office—walks over with a mouthful of brownie, chocolate smudged across her lips. She's got pink hair and an inappropriate sense of humor, made apparent in the initial introductions when she cracked a joke about psycho breeders keeping their munchkins caged. Dawn still doesn't know quite what to make of her, just a sense that this girl is who she is and isn't about to apologize for any of it.

She offers Dawn and Greg a bottle of water each, fresh from the walk-in refrigerator. The three of them regard the ranting child thoughtfully for a minute, and Caden snorts when a thick jet of saliva and mucus comes flying out of the kid's foul mouth. Totally inappropriate, but Dawn went over that already.

Greg's a little more sane in his reaction, visibly wigged but not flipping out like the rest of the group: a variation of gaping mouths and bugged eyes and worried chatter as they all back themselves against the furthest wall. "Dude, somebody call a priest," Greg says.

"Right? If she starts puking pea soup, I'm outta here," Caden says, licking her fingers clean and not as outwardly bothered by all of it as her words imply.

Dawn smirks—she can appreciate inappropriate humor as a coping mechanism better than most, given her family and friends— then ends up choking on her water when her brain makes the connection like a knife jammed into a socket. "Holy shit!"

"Huh?" Greg and Caden both ask at the same time, and Dawn's not really sure which of them to credit so she doesn't answer. Doesn't matter, anyway. She's off in her own head, scrap of a plan gaining mass and velocity.

Dawn didn't bring her books to class but Jess did, so she runs over to snatch Jess' backpack up from the corner and digs around, too eager to bother with things like asking permission.

"Hey!" Jess grunts, offended but not able to do much about it at the moment.

Dawn doesn't falter. "The handouts," is all the explanation she gives.

Jess catches on, anyway. "Blue folder," she says, even though she's clearly thinking Dawn has lost her mind.

Their Latin professor had them watch The Exorcist on their last day and assigned a bunch of handouts for summer reading, including a copy of the exorcism used in the script. He seemed to think that was pretty funny, and Dawn makes a mental note to send him muffin baskets and singing telegrams later if this actually works. She wants to kick herself for not thinking of possession sooner, but it's not like it's a common hurdle for the Scoobies or the new-and-improved Angel Investigations. They deal more in things they can stomp and crunch and rarely have to worry about innocent hosts getting in the way. This is progress from all the lack of ideas Dawn had before, at any rate, so she chooses to hang onto that.

"Ha!" Dawn says, victorious, and yanks the packet out. She flips through it and scans the relevant text, sends an apologetic look to the civilians. "You guys should probably go back to the office while I do this. Could get messy." She's not sure of that, really, but if it's anything like the movie...

"Uh-uh, no way," Caden says, shaking her head. "I'm sticking around for this."

There are some mutterings of agreement, everyone but Evan—a nervous-looking guy who quickly shuffles back into hiding—standing their ground. The child is crying again now, being ogled by these jackasses like some interesting sideshow, and Dawn's mildly lifted spirits crash down hard. She feels her face stiffen, argues with the dissenters for a few minutes. Some call her a whackjob, some call her a bitch, and they all want to watch absolutely nothing happen because it's impossible.

Dawn's seriously considering putting the giant rifle in her hand to good use before Jess breaks it all up, saying, "God, shut up! I'm letting her go in ten seconds." She nods down at the girl. "She's pretty pissed, so I'm guessing anyone still around gets a starring role in the bloodbath."

That lights a fire under their asses—impossible or not, they don't want to be left at the mercy of an unrestrained killer baby—and Dawn gives Jess a grateful look once they're all safely shut away.

Jess looks like the ever-pressing weight on her shoulders just got a little heavier, like she was gut-sucking it for the sake of the civilians. "Now would be good," she says, not angry, just tired.

Dawn nods and gets to it.

-:-

It's messy, long, trying, and downright fucking crazy.

Jess feels like she's coming loose in places, everything aching and none of the gears in her head catching right. It's surreal, not really happening, because an old horror movie script can't actually have any merit out here in the real world. Little girls don't get possessed by demons and shoot up schools and get themselves held captive by superwomen. Little girls' faces don't twist up into ugly, hateful-looking little masks, and little girls don't possess a vocabulary to rival the most filthy-mouthed degenerate anyone's ever met.

This is an awful, mind-bending nightmare, is all it is. Jess will wake up eventually, and Sam will be there looking concerned and cuddled close and not in any kind of unknown danger, and it'll all be okay again.

But it's not happening soon—she's already pinched herself raw a dozen times—so she'll just have to go along with the insanity until it washes back with that receding tide of jigsaw dreams and deep, deep sleep. Maybe she was drugged.

The girl thrashes and thrashes, sour-smelling and soaked in sweat, curses and threats tripping over a persistent clog in her windpipe. Jess's muscles ache but she holds on, and Dawn goes on reading, the Latin coming easily enough but her eyes skittish, like she wants to go faster, wants to stop, wants to run screaming from the room and right off a cliff.

Jess doesn't blame her. It's not right, the sheer level of violence and anguish packed into this little bitty form.

"Mommy's burning in Hell!" the girl manages to choke out, and Dawn goes still, mouth frozen mid-syllable and the color dropping from her face. Gasping hard, the girl stops trying to break free, tension running out of her at the Latin's absence. Her smile is shaky but so, so cold. "Send me back down there and I'm go-gonna p-pay her a visit," she pants, wriggles weakly and then gives it up again.

"Dawn," Jess tries, but the girl lets out a mad little cackle that rolls right over any attempts at encouragement, like she's dubbed Jess nothing more than a warm-blooded straitjacket and she's adjusting her behavior accordingly, nodding to herself and just laughing and laughing while Dawn stands there in mute shock.

"Yeah," she chuckles. "Yeah, g-gonna have a nice, long chat. So much to talk about." The girl laughs some more, kicking her feet like she's daring Dawn to come within striking range. "She hates you, ya know. You try and you try to fit in, forget that half the things that make you are forgeries. You think if you believe hard enough, someday you'll be a real girl, Dawnie. But you won't. You aren't. You're always gonna be a freak and you're always gonna be a traitor."

Jess has really had enough of that hateful voice coming out of that tiny mouth, and the fact that the demon, or whatever it is, can apparently read minds is not improving anyone's mood. She doesn't need the background to know the kid's stomping all over forbidden, eggshell territory, because Dawn looks a little confused but a lot like she's gonna puke, and Jess can't have the only person with a clue suffer a breakdown in the middle of the battlefield.

"Dawn, read the damn paper!" Jess snaps, adjusting her hold so that she can wrap a single arm around the girl, slaps her free hand over the girl's crazy, laughing mouth and tries not to retaliate when the she starts chomping at the air pocket behind Jess' palm, head rocking wildly and her teeth working to catch a stray finger.

Dawn jerks like her puppet strings just got picked up again, shakes the gut-punched fog out of her head. "She's not," she says, mostly to herself. "Mom was a good person, she wouldn't go—" Dawn's eyes are bright but noticeably harder as she shakes herself again and glares determinedly at the packet in her hand, an edge to her tone as she starts over.

"Oh, you're heading the worst kinda time-out, you nasty little punk," Jess grunts when a pointy elbow slams into her gut, and she has to give up trying to gag the girl or risk losing her grip.

The girl lets out another of those loony-bin cackles. "Bad kitty," she snarls, breathless, eyes spinning around in her sockets and her whole body twitching like she's being electrocuted. Jess can feel that crackling fissure that comes before a personality shift, and then the girl's face crumples, "Stop it! Please, you're hurting me, stop! Just kill—" She convulses some more. "Back in the kennel, kitty. Shhh!"

Jess has to work hard to catch her breath again; the child inside the monster takes it out of her every time.

"She doesn't love you! She never did!" the kid starts up again, flopping around like a great white snared in a net. "You violated her mind, her life! I'm gonna lay your gut wide open so you and Mommy can be together again! She's gonna smile so big when she cuts into you!"

"Shut up!" Jess shakes the girl as Dawn stumbles over her words, hands trembling and tears spilling freely now, but she doesn't stop this time and that's the only thing Jess can care about at the moment. Amateur therapy hour can come after.

The girl doesn't shut up, but words rapidly give way to screams, verbal blade dulled but no less painful. Dawn finds a better rhythm, a little quicker than before but not sloppy or rushed, doesn't risk eye contact again. The girl flails around so violently, Jess feels something snap under her grip. She winces, her own eyes going hot and her gut rolling around in time with her prisoner, and she just wants this to be over already, Jesus.

But the universe has its own schedule to keep, apparently, because the ritual is like a hundred freakin' pages long.

When Dawn stops talking, the kid's still flopping and writhing and foaming at the mouth, drool burbling up from her lips and her chest hitching with desperate little hurks for air. She hacks up something slimy and black and really, really gross—like an alien oil-spill flung all down her chin and chest—coughs and coughs and coughs until Jess is sure every last one of her insides are gonna come up the same way.

Then her eyes roll back into her head and she slumps back against Jess' chest, loose-limbed and utterly still.

Jess checks her pulse, sighing in relief at the steady flutter beneath her fingertips.

There's a tense beat of silence, Dawn and Jess watching carefully for a trick or a trap.

"Did it work?" Jess asks.

Dawn swipes a hand across her eyes, smearing wetness all over her face rather than banishing it. She looks around like the walls will give her a flashing neon sign one way or another, looks back at Jess and shrugs.

Jess's shoulders sag. She relaxes her arms to ease the ache some; doesn't let her guard down just yet, though. Despite the obvious effect the ritual had, she's still dubious of any success born from applying pop culture to real life. That ever-popular 'don't try this at home' disclaimer ruined what could have been a mightily adventurous childhood, and it's back to haunt her now, disapproving as ever and laying any hopeful optimism to waste.

"I'm gonna see if I can find something to tie her up with," Dawn decides after a thoughtful minute, clearly hesitant but low on options.

Jess can't play human shackle forever, and her numb ass and thoroughly abused joints are grateful for the reprieve, even if she does feel another stab of guilt at the idea of the girl waking demon-free to find herself tied up.

But what's a little bondage trauma on top of evil bodysnatching? Jess thinks bitterly, running a gentle hand across the kid's brow.

Her slack face is deceptively peaceful, suggesting an innocence that shouldn't be the terrible lie it is, small hands with so much blood on them before the poor thing's even lost her first baby tooth. Jess doesn't even want to think about the kind of damage that will rear its ugly head when this short reprieve of unconsciousness passes. She desperately hopes all the gunslinging midgets will be under control by then so she can slink back into her life like a coward and let the professionals deal with it.

It's a stupid thing to hang her hopes on, though, she knows. She may be new to this but she's still superpowered, and Dawn has all the freaky know-how—two people just barely prepared to draw and accept impossible conclusions, and it was nothing more than a random shot in the dark that got them this far. No way any normal-person officials are going to have a handle on this situation anytime in the foreseeable future.

Which means someone crazy enough to think outside the box is going to have to step up.

God, Jess hates the whole world right now.

"Looks like this is what we're working with," Dawn says when she comes back from the storage closets by the back door, bungee cables swinging from her grip. She bites her lip, looking around, then pulls up a chair. Taking a fortifying breath, she kneels down and starts to lift the girl from Jess's lap. "I guess I'll keep watch with the rifle. I don't trust anyone else with it, unless—"

Jess shakes her head. "Don't look at me. I didn't grow up in the south," she says. A wry smirk at the way Dawn holds the rifle like it's crucial to her sanity and she can't stand that very sight of it at the same time, and Jess adds, "Or, ya know, a war zone."

Dawn chuffs, and Jess stands to help her wrangle the kid into the chair, knees groaning like she's eighty instead of twenty-one.

"So I've been trying really hard not to think ahead without realizing I was trying really hard not to think ahead," Jess says conversationally, because she may have been slow to the table but she thinks Dawn's known all along. She loops a bungee around, looking for the best way to secure it without cutting off the girl's circulation, Dawn holding her up so she won't flop around too much. "And wow, did I figure out why. We gotta go out there and do something heroic, don't we?"

Dawn's smirk is brittle-looking. "I'm still working on that plan," she admits. "We can't take the civilians on a slaying field trip and I'm not sure we should just leave them here."

Jess nods. She's already so very sick of this hot, cramped room and the relentless pulse of volatile emotion from all corners, but she feels a guilty kind of relief at the delay. Someone forgot to drop the fearless bad-ass in her personality when they signed her up for this gig, she supposes. "Well, I'm untrained but I know how to throw a punch, so I'm good for that, I guess. I just." She sighs, resolutely staring at her hands as she works. "I feel like I should make you sign a disclaimer that I'm not responsible if you get folded, spindled, and-or mutilated."

"Sorry. Forgot to bring my newbie contracts with me," Dawn says, smiling in reassurance. "It's cool, anyway. I can handle myself."

"You've lived this long," Jess agrees. "Not really sure how you do it, though. I've got the mutant perks and I'm scared as hell."

"I've trained long and hard in the arts of sneaking around and running away really fast. It's all about the timing."

Jess snorts, and they work in silence for a few more minutes before she notices the tension crowding back into Dawn's shoulders. "You wanna talk about it?" Jess asks, careful not to sound invested one way or another. The demon really got to Dawn with all that stuff about her mom (and hell if Jess has any idea what the vague taunts meant, aside from the obvious fact that the lady's dead), but she doesn't know Dawn well enough to know if she's a heart-to-heart type.

Dawn shakes her head. "Hazard of the job," is all she says, which doesn't really sound encouraging. It's getting easier and easier to see why the Slayer line can't rely on volunteers to keep itself running.

They've just finished tying the kid up when the office door flies open and Clark stomps out, a blur of agitated voices spilling out behind him.

"We got a problem," he says, gesturing helplessly at the office. "Liz is outta her fucking mind, and I can't—" He does that gesturing thing again, like words just aren't enough to express anything in life right now. "Professor's trying to talk her down but I don't think it's gonna work."

"Crap," Dawn sighs, straightening, doesn't bother trying to hide the roll of her eyes.

Liz was one of the girls cowering underneath a table (her friend Sara was the other, Jess thinks) with a dead body before everyone relocated, and it didn't take long for her grief to give way to useless hysteria and then pure bitchiness. She's pre-med and painfully anal-retentive. Jess can forgive a lot—everyone has bad days when they're not at their best, and control-freaks are more prone to meltdowns when the shit hits the fan without booking an appointment first—but it's everyone's bad day today and Jess is a tad cranky herself. She doesn't envy Dawn the task ahead.

"Take this," Dawn says, scowling and pushing the rifle at Jess. The scowl's a pretty flimsy cover with her lip trembling the way it is, and Jess gets it, she does. She kind of wants to find a corner and cry the madness away, too, but no one can afford that from either of them.

She gives Dawn a sympathetic pat on the back instead, doesn't bother reminding her that she's completely incompetent when it comes to firearms. She can point it and look menacing and bluff the shit out of anything that comes her way. Sam said she was a natural bullshitter when he taught her poker at that party a few months ago.

Easy peasy, lemon-squeezy, Jess thinks, a bit too gleefully given the circumstances. She might be adjusting to the insanity a little too well, but that's not really anything to dwell on. Nothing for it until normality reasserts itself.

Dawn squares her shoulders in that way Jess is coming to be familiar with, and marches off. Clark decides to hang out right where he is, turning to watch from a safe distance, and Jess can sense the others' rising panic all too keenly, tumbling around in her chest like a runaway wrecking ball. Curious, but mostly worried Dawn might need backup, she angles the chair around so she can keep an eye on the sleeping child and see into the office at the same time.

"What are you doing?" Dawn says shrilly as soon as she steps through the door. The crowd makes it difficult to visibly confirm just what's got her hackles up, everyone turning to face her like they got caught scribbling on the walls in crayon.

Jess doesn't see Liz right away, but Sara is saying, "Liz, please! Don't be stupid!" and then there's a loud bang and Liz's incensed voice, "Fucking thing's nailed shut!"

Everyone gets shuffled around as Liz pushes through, short but feisty, all expensive salon-styled hair and neatly pressed slacks. Sara's close at her heels, frazzled and pale with her hands held out and her pleas softer but no less frenzied. "She was my friend, too. Don't you think I know?" but Liz ignores her, ignores the Professor's logic and the group's general terror that she'll call homicidal attention down on all of them if she doesn't knock it off.

The brief hole in the crowd allows Jess to see a chair pushed up underneath the tiny, high window in there, and she guesses Liz is trying to make a break for it.

Clark was right. She's out of her ever-loving mind.

Liz heads for the desk and starts yanking the drawers out.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dawn drawls a little more forcefully, moving forward. Sara fades back to let someone else have a shot at reaching her friend, face slick with snot and tears.

"Looking for a paperweight," Liz mutters.

Dawn moves faster than Jess thought her capable, and the next thing anyone knows Liz's arm is twisted up behind her back, Dawn shoving her out of the office and out into the middle of the break room. The crowd follows the unfolding drama.

"Hey, ow!" Liz yells, belatedly flailing. "Get your goddamn hands off me!" She spins around when Dawn lets go, shaking her arm out indignantly. Before Dawn can get a word out, Liz's focus has shifted to the barricaded doors, eyes lighting up.

"Stop," Dawn snaps, stepping neatly in front of her. She takes a deep breath, and Jess is impressed with how calmly Dawn has handled everyone so far, hasn't completely lost her temper yet, even though it's been clear a few times that she's wanted to bitch and moan like the rest. "Can you just, please, explain to me what you're trying to do?" Dawn says, words measured.

Liz cocks a patronizing brow and says, "Leave," drawing out the vowels like she's talking to a dim-witted child.

"Why?" Dawn tries, not stopping Liz again when she skirts around and starts pulling boxes away to let herself out. Dawn looks like she's got half a mind to just let her go.

"Why?" Liz laughs without turning around, a harsh edge to it. "She wants to know why," she mutters to herself. "It's hot in here, for one." She pulls another box down. "I'm tired, everyone smells bad, and, oh yeah! I have to call my best friend's parents and regretfully inform them I watched her fucking die today!"

Dawn clears her throat, visibly searching for the best approach here, but Liz is still going.

"This morning we were skipping Anatomy to go shopping for bathing suits, because there's this beach thing next week, and we just . We just came for coffee!" Liz shouts, like everyone else here lined up for the shooting deaths they ended up serving, and she was the only one out of the loop. Her movements are a little more frantic now, slapping at the stack and letting boxes fall where they may, kicking at the shelves that are too heavy to move. "We could've gone to Starbuck's because it was closer to the mall, but she likes those stupid scone things and no one else makes them right so we had to come here and now she's dead! She's out there and she's—" She stops, breathes deep. "I'm leaving, and that's all. Okay?"

"It's really not," Dawn says, firm but not unkind, edging closer as she talks. "I get it, I do. Believe me, I understand how you feel. But you can't—"

"No, you don't!" Liz whirls around and shoves her out of her personal space. Dawn catches herself easily enough, hands up in temporary concession, and stays put for the moment. "You don't fucking understand anything! You're in here playing Father Damien with the psycho baby while the rest of us are just sitting in here waiting to be picked off, and who the hell put you in charge anyway?"

"You're gonna get yourself killed out there!"

Liz's fragile composure is shattering so fast she looks near-rabid. She spins and snatches up a smaller box and hurls it, eyes red-rimmed and wet. Dawn sidesteps just in time, and Jess can't tell if she wants to punch Liz or hug her. Maybe Dawn can't tell, either.

"There's no more shooting!" Liz flings her arms all over the place. "Hasn't been for like an hour! They've sent in SWAT by now! They're probably just doing a final sweep or whatever!"

"She's got a point," Marcus says, hovering at the edge of the gathering and eyeing the doors thoughtfully. Long, garage-band hair and a pretty-boy face, he hasn't said much of anything so far. Mostly seems content lurking and looking really intense. Fine time for him to feel like socializing.

Sara, Jenna, and even Evan (Jess swears if he had a tail it'd be firmly tucked between his legs) start to waffle, shifting around and mumbling about the possibility that Liz could be right, now that she's taken the time to make any kind of point rather than just scrabble at the walls like a trapped tiger. Professor Hightower looks for all the world like he'd love nothing more than to take his one-man survivor party to the roof and wait it out, while Caden, Clark, and Greg can't seem to wrap their heads around all the crazy in their midst.

"You don't know that, though," Jess speaks up, because the dissension is catching quicker than a superbug, and Dawn really doesn't deserve to be fielding this madness all by herself. Liz's gaze snaps over to her, flaring.

"You can't know what's going on any more than the rest of us," Greg adds. "What if they haven't even started and you run into one of those kids? Or if they're sweeping the area, how're they gonna know you're not a shooter? We just need to sit tight and wait for the all-clear, okay?"

"No, I'm done waiting!" Liz shakes her head firmly: that's that, this is her cliff's edge, clearly marked, no trespassing. "I just wanna go home and—"

"Holy shit!" Clark shouts, and jumps back like he's been stung.

Jess sees Dawn's face pale and her eyes and mouth go wide with surprise before anyone even fully processes what's happening. The point of a knife protrudes from her gut, blade shiny with blood, the same staining her shirt and spreading too rapidly when the knife recedes, ripped out of her back.

"Oh my god," Caden gasps, hands cupped over her mouth.

Dawn croaks out something unintelligible and falls to her knees, hand groping weakly at the wound.

Jess's stomach flips violently when she realizes her mistake. She let herself get distracted and turned around—one little job and she fucked it right up and let the maybe-dispossessed girl get too far out of her line of sight.

The girl's not dispossessed.

She's standing behind Dawn when she goes down, eyes still black as night. "Exorcisms are such tricky things," she says, letting the knife swing lazily from her fingers like a hypnotist's pocket watch. Wet lines of Dawn's blood slide down the blade, bright red drops splashing slowly to the floor. "One little typo and the whole thing's a wash."

The demon's mouth curls up in a vicious smile, and everything goes to hell again.