That last reason didn't matter so much anymore.

Jake was dead.

Quietly, one evening, just a month earlier, he'd passed away from a massive heart attack. One of his former parishioners had been visiting-had gotten up to use the restroom and when she came out, Jake was gone. Suddenly. Too suddenly.

Angel's last solid connection to the world was gone.

Now, without anything to get her out of bed in the morning, she spent far too much time sleeping, not enough time trying to live.

All she wanted was to stay here in her isolated, run-down house and forget. Lose herself in the silence and forget.

But she couldn't lose herself in the silence right now.

There was an echo of music pulsating through the air. The sound of a deep, angry voice. Then another voice, just as deep, but lacking the anger.

No words, though. She couldn't make out any words.

"Since when do dreams make any sense?" she mumbled, dragging a hand through her hair. It felt startlingly short. Three days ago, she'd been in town for a meeting the lawyers had insisted on, and after that little fiasco, she'd ended up wandering the streets until she came to a halt in front of the barber where Jake had used to get his hair cut. Where Kel had come for his irregular appointments. Out of the blue, she'd decided she wanted her hair cut. The man hadn't been too thrilled-he'd looked at her like she was asking for something in Greek. Finally, he had rubbed his jaw and replied, "This ain't the beauty parlor, Miz Angel. If you want a new hairstyle, maybe you should go see..."

It had taken her five minutes to get him to stop worrying and just cut. Her hair, once down to her waist, was short, short enough to barely brush her shoulders. It felt weird and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she didn't quite recognize herself.

But she barely recognized herself anyway any more. What did a physical change matter?

Pushing the shortened strands out of her face, she leaned forward. With her brow resting against the window pane, she sighed.

Cool air drifted in through the opened lower half of the window, dancing along flesh left bare by the tank top and panties she wore in lieu of pajamas.

She shivered but didn't close the window. She needed the cool, early-spring air to clear the fog in her brain, a fog brought on by far too many nights like this.

You look exhausted, Angel. Maybe you should see about getting something to help you sleep.

Jake had been telling her that for years. But until recently, she hadn't bothered. She hadn't cared enough if she slept or not.

The past year, things had leveled out a little. Those violent, gory dreams that faded even before she woke enough to fully remember them weren't as vivid as they had once been.

The edgy mood that so often plagued her, the anger at nothing, it had gotten better, as well.

But as those got better, the depression riding her got worse. Jake's sudden, unexpected death made everything worse and she'd finally given in and gone to the doctor. She'd left with two prescriptions and a gentle reminder to consider getting help.

Help. Like that would do any good.

She missed Kel more now than ever. How that was possible she didn't know. But every morning, it seemed a bit harder to get up and every night took a little longer to fall asleep. It was like her body's need for sleep was decreasing regularly.

Sometimes she wondered if she'd sleep at all in another five or ten years.

Her body might not need the sleep, but Angel sure as hell did. Her brain might not want to shut down to rest, but she needed it.

So she'd given in and talked to her doctor, gotten some sleeping pills.

Supposedly, the pills were less likely to cause dependence. Definitely a good thing, because the last damn thing Angel needed in her fucked-up head was an addiction to sleeping pills. But so far, she hadn't taken one.

The bottle was sitting on her dresser, along with samples of the antidepressant she knew she wouldn't take. Dr. C. Jane Miller had listened politely while Angel explained she didn't need medicine for depression-then she'd handed Angel a pamphlet and a bag of sample medications, along with the prescription for the sleeping pills.

Angel had no desire to take the antidepressant. Not because she didn't think she was depressed. She was. She knew it. But the cause of her depression was a loss she'd never recover from-taking something that increased this chemical or decreased that one, wasn't going to do a damn thing to help her get over Kel.

But she was going to take the sleeping pills. It was Saturday morning, she had no sweet old man waiting for her to come and keep the loneliness at bay, no sexy young man who'd be waiting for her when she woke up.

Nothing. And nobody.

Maybe, just maybe, she could pop a pill, collapse on her bed and get some sleep.

Preferably a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Five.

Kel awoke feeling it. Two days after things with Phoebe went straight to hell, Kel woke to feel something pulling at him. Strong, demanding and determined to be obeyed.

He dressed hurriedly. Most of the Hunters had adopted a uniform of sorts, sturdy cargo pants done in basic black, close-fitting black shirt-long sleeved to keep as much skin concealed as possible, and sturdy, thick-soled boots. The shoulder holster went on over his shirt and then he put a jacket over that to conceal his weapon.

Tucking extra ammo clips into one of the pockets on his pants, he grabbed his gun, checked it and then slid the modified Beretta into the holster.

A couple of knives, one in his boot and another sheathed at his waist. After snagging a pair of reinforced cuffs, he was ready.

Slipping out of the room, he left the basement and headed to the main floor. A quick glance around told him that none of the other Hunters had felt it.

But he did. That low-level burn deep in his gut, one that would get stronger and stronger until he obeyed. Until he listened.

Until he Hunted.

He was tired. His daytime slumber had been restless. Although he couldn't fight the urge to sleep yet, he didn't always sleep well. Normally, it wasn't so bad. Dreams of Angel, which really sucked, but at the same time, they'd soothed him. Made him feel a little closer.

But this time? Instead of falling into that deep, mostly restful sleep, he 'd kept feeling something pull at him. Like he wasn't supposed to be asleep.

That totally fucking pissed him off. If it was the only time he could be close to her, watching her without her knowing, drifting through her subconscious mind while he slept, then damn it, he wanted those dreams.

Odd-he'd spent twelve years waiting for something to reduce the in-living-color intensity of those dreams and the one day something did intrude? He woke resentful, tired and pissed.

Usually once the sun was nearing the western horizon, his body forced him into wakefulness, tearing him from the dreams long before he was ready. The vampire instincts took control, though, and sleeping once the sun had set was all but impossible. His body wouldn't let him.

Tonight, different story. If he could shut down a deep, basic instinct and just stay in the bed, he knew would have slept. His body needed it, craved it.

But that low-level burn was there. That primal urge that no Hunter could ignore, pulling-like something had wrapped an unseen rope around his gut and was jerking on him.

Ignoring it wouldn't do much but bring him pain and stretch his control.

So he didn't ignore it.

He slid out of the house without speaking to anybody, although he knew both Rafe and Toronto watched him leave. He took the bike. Usually that was one thing that would ease the restlessness in him. Tonight, the powerful rumble of the bike didn 't do a damn thing to help.

The restlessness wasn't just restlessness-it had grown into a full-out frenzy and if he didn't find it...

No.

Not it.

Her.

He could feel that much now. Hear a woman's scream as though he was right next to her. He kept going and going, following that internal summons all the way through town, heading for the Mississippi state line. There were no formal lines to Rafe 's territory-Rafe and his Hunters followed urges into other states plenty and Kel was evidence of that. The calling a Hunter heard wasn't anything clear and defined and Kel wouldn't know where it was going to lead him until he was there.

In this case, it led him into Mississippi and along Highway 78 towards Tupelo. He left the bike in the parking lot of a crowded bar and continued on foot, following that summons. It led him to an industrial area that had definitely seen better days.

It was clearer now, that summons, coming from a big, sprawling warehouse that looked abandoned. But that was deceptive. Kel felt something moving in there. Something living and hungry...

His skin crawled.

Foreboding choked him.

The scent of blood and pain colored the air around him in vivid, dark shades. The scent of blood didn't call to him at all, the stink of fear and pain drowning out what might have once been appealing.

Under the sour, bitter stench of violence, there was something disturbingly, distressingly familiar. It tickled his memory until Kel had no choice but to work past the abhorrence and make himself focus, make himself drag in a deep breath of the fear -tainted blood.

He went cold and for just the briefest of moments, he couldn't move. Denial wrapped itself around him, followed by some futile hope he wouldn't even allow himself to cling to. Hope was such a bitter, ugly disappointment.

Instinct took over, instinct that hadn't existed until twelve years ago. It wasn't just the instincts of a vampire-the fear coming from that place was enough to have the typical civilian vamp backing away damn quick. Definitely not vamp instinct-it was the instinct of a Hunter and while he'd do damn near anything not to have it, ignoring it hadn't ever been an option.

It pushed him into action. Without consciously realizing it, he slid into the shadows and cloaked himself within them. He pulled the darkness around him and used its cover as he made his way inside the warehouse.

He heard a broken, tortured moan.

It was a pitiful, faint sound and as it faded into the air, there was a laugh-icy and amused, so damn evil it made Kel's skin crawl. The part of his brain that wasn't controlled by instinct was screaming to get the hell away. That kind of evil wasn't anything he wanted to look at, anything he wanted to face, anything he wanted to fight.

A fucking failure, that was Kel. Hunter instincts, Hunter drive, and he still didn't want this fight. But he didn't turn around. He didn't leave.

There was no way he could, even when he heard her heartbeat falter, heard the rattle of her breath. It was the sound of death edging closer and Kel could even feel the chill of it looming near.

A man's voice broke into the silence, underlined by a dry edge of humor. "I told you that it was pointless to fight, darling girl.

And yet...still you fight. Why is that? Unless it's to amuse me."

Kel's lips peeled back from his teeth as he heard a familiar sound, a wet thwack as a fist struck flesh. The only sound she made was a distant, almost non-existent moan.

He emerged from the shadows just as the feral bent down and fisted a hand in her hair.

"Let her go," he said in a flat voice. As he spoke, he also released his control on the shadows, an illusory talent some vampires had. It was all a trick of the mind, but it came in handy-muffled his presence, could cause an aversive effect where people avoided something without even realizing why.

And apparently, it worked on this one, because when his brown eyes cut towards Kel's, there was surprise in his gaze. His eyes widened and the faint, bored smile on his lips widened. Dropping his victim to the ground, he stepped over her...like she was so much garbage.

Something about the feral's features, the way he moved, was disturbingly familiar but Kel didn't know where he had seen this guy before. Hunters didn't let ferals live-if this was one Kel had fought and not killed, then Rafe would have sent another Hunter to do the job.

But he'd seen him before- No time to worry about the past though, because the present was bearing down on him, hard and fast. Kel wasn't about to go hand-to-hand with a vampire that probably had a good century on him. Shit, if he'd known he was going to be dealing with a feral this strong, he would have enlisted help.

For vampires, strength came with age and in relative terms, Kel was just a baby compared to this fuck.

As the feral circled around him, something about the man's moves, something about that ugly sneer on his face, kept tickling at Kel's memory. "A bit young to be out here trying to tangle with me, aren't you, boy?"

He slid a hand inside his shirt and closed it around the Beretta. Drawing it, he leveled it at the feral 's brow and smiled. "I'll manage."

The feral paused, cocked his head as he peered at Kel. Something flashed in those brown eyes, curiosity. "Hmmmm... You're a cocky one, aren't you, boy?"

"Yeah, I keep hearing that."

"The Council really should be more careful."

Something cold slivered through the air. The temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. But it didn't affect Kel. The fear that might have had some sway over him was one Kel had been trained to resist. As the temperature dropped and fear rolled through the room like a river, all Kel did was tighten his finger on the trigger.

The feral lunged to the side. Kel moved with him and when the vamp tried to circle around behind him, Kel echoed his moves.

Deja vu...

I've done this before, he thought. The feral across from him stilled, narrowed his eyes as he peered at Kel. Something measuring...

They both figured it out at the same time.

Kel snarled and his finger tensed on the trigger as he stared at the feral that had forced the Change on him.

And the sick fuck laughed. That icy, cold laugh that Kel heard in his nightmares.

"You made it through the night." Abruptly, he stopped circling around Kel and tucked his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. "That damn Hunter-should have guessed he'd find you and feed you. Should have just killed you, you pathetic waste. Of course, you did slow the Hunter down a bit."

"Shut up."

The feral laughed. This time, instead of icy cold fear, the laugh seemed to emanate hot, ripe fury, stabbing into Kel's ears like little knives.

"Oh, so angry. Boy, you should thank me. Don't you get what you are now?"

Shoot the bastard, his common sense screamed. But he didn't want to shoot this one.

He wanted to gut him. Peel the skin from the bastard's body and then rip out his tongue.

"Put the gun away, boy." The command came flying through the air, hitting Kel with leaden force.

But Kel had been able to resist twelve years ago as a human. Now? There was no way the bastard's mind tricks would work.