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Buffy sat stock-still in the room, clutching her purse in her lap, unseen by the man in front of her.

Captain Rayne leaned forward and smiled. “Are you okay, Officer?” he asked seemingly solicitously.

“I’m—I’m fine,” she lied. The truth was that she could barely tell Rayne even the most insignificant details without bursting into tears.

She was vindicating herself, getting back at her betrayers. She was doing the right thing. They should have known I’d tell if they made with the lying!

So why did it feel like she was the traitor in the situation?

“Then tell me more details.” Rayne’s voice hardened. “Harmony was more useful than this.”

“I—I can’t,” she stuttered, gripping the bag even more tightly. I have a gun. If he tries anything, I can start the shootage. I have a gun. I have a—ohcrapI’mherereportingtoabadguy!

“Oh?” Now his voice was dangerously soft. Shit with a side of fuck, Buffy thought more than slightly desperately. “And why would that be?”

“Because, um, they keep me in the lobby,” she lied quickly, affecting a petulant whine. “And they never let me hear anything, and you told me to keep a low profile...”

“Okay, she is like so totally lying.” Harmony strode into the room. “Like, I just got off the phone with Veruca, and that Spike guy, he like records all his conversations, and they were talking about how she completely knew about everything just a few minutes ago.”

“Is that so?” Rayne’s eyes riveted on Buffy’s face. She tried to school her features, honestly she did—but even as she worked to keep her face blank, she felt awareness and guilt wash over her.

“I was just coming her to ask if, if I could join, because that whole helping the helpless thing they’re doing? Wicked lame,” she chattered, avoiding eye contact. She knew that as of now, she was in some serious trouble.

Rayne shook his head, sighed, and leaned back. “So that’s why you were acting so strangely. I should have known.” He sighed again, theatrically. “I had so hoped you’d come around to our way of thinking...”

Okay. She wasn’t going to talk her way out of it, that much was obvious. And even though Harmony looked like a complete ditz, she was probably packing some kind of ammo. So there was really only one thing to do.

“Sorry,” she said in a falsely cheerful voice. “I don’t play well with evil Mafia types.” She reached in her purse and yanked out her gun.

Adrenalin coursed through her when she looked up and saw that Rayne’s gun was trained steady at her face. Harmony, too, had a gun out—though Buffy noted with no small amusement that it was painted pink.

Okay, she was one perverse cop—ex-cop she corrected herself. Really, though. She was sitting there with two guns at her head and all she could do was grin cheekily and say, “Wow. That all you got?”

“You’re a fool, Officer,” Rayne informed her.

Buffy grinned even wider. “But I’m a cute fool.”

He leveled the gun at her forehead. “This is the day you die.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “I don’t think so” and pop him one with her own gun, and to hell with what Harmony and the other minions in the building might do, but just then, the door behind the Captain’s desk burst down. Rayne’s finger froze where it had been pulling the trigger when cool metal pressed against his temple.

“I wouldn’t do that ‘f I were you, mate. Could hurt someone.”

He smiled nastily at Spike. “That was the point.”

Buffy froze, staring wide-eyed at the scene before her. Faith had Harmony in a headlock; the gun dangled uselessly from her fingers. There were shouts and clanks coming from the splintered doorway, so she guessed the rest of the gang was fighting. Spike was standing behind Rayne, every bit of him completely relaxed-looking except the hand that held the gun—which signified that he wasn’t relaxed at all. “Buffy?”

Spike. There he stood, as incredibly sexy as ever. She should be thanking him profusely and help him get out of there, but all she could do was sit and stare.

He had been her betrayer, the person she was sure she’d never forgive...and he was saving her life. He didn’t have to, but he was.

She would have liked to explore the situation further, because the weirdness of it was really interesting, but he was staring at her like he expected some kind of response, or something. “What?”

“Well, you gonna get the hell out of here, or what?” Spike’s voice was desperate, and she realized just exactly what his team was doing: breaking into a building full of hundreds of trained fighters smack dab in the middle of a crowded city.

All to rescue me.

That thought made her decide. She wasn’t entirely sure that she could trust these people, but the gun clutched in Rayne’s hand was proof enough that she could trust the LAPD even less.

“This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven, ya know,” she informed Spike as she stood up and grabbed the gun from Rayne. It was a nice one; she wouldn’t want to waste it on such a big jerk.

“’D figured,” Spike said grimly. “Now, pay attention. This is what we’re gonna do.

“I told everyone I’d call ‘em off as soon as you were free. We’re gonna run out to the lobby, you’re gonna scream as loud as you can, an’ we’re gonna run like hell. Got it?”

His voice was cold enough that Buffy could tell that she wasn’t exactly forgiven yet, either. Which makes sense, since the last time I saw him I was acting completely insane.

She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Great. Let’s get it done, then.”

He threw Rayne away from him, dealing the man a powerful enough blow to the head that he slumped down on the desk, unconscious. Faith did the same thing with Harmony, who somehow managed to get an ear-piercing squeak in before Faith silenced her.

The three of them strode as one toward the door. Buffy opened it—and almost collapsed from shock.

Xander, Anya, Kennedy, Cordelia, Willow—every single person who had become her friend over the past few weeks was there, and fighting for their lives. Bullet holes riddled the chairs of the detention area. The glass in several windows was shattered, and the secretary was nowhere to be seen. Bodies, all of them in uniform, littered the ground. Buffy didn’t know if they were dead or alive.

Faith summed it up well: “Damn, this place is a mess.”

“I—“ Buffy began, not even sure just exactly what she was going to say, but it didn’t matter, since Spike cut her off.

“Jus’ go out there an’ scream, would you?”

“And, B—make it loud,” Faith advised.

Buffy sighed. They did realize that she wasn’t big in the screaming department, right?

She took a few steps forward, inhaled as much of the dust, acrid air as she could, and let loose.

“AUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It was a scream that could have rivaled anything produced in Harmony’s lungs. It pierced through the gunfire and yells of the combatants.

As soon as they heard it, the employees of Jenkins’ Incorporated whacked their opponents on the head with whatever blunt instrument was handy and headed for the door. Buffy stood stock-still, watching them.

That is, until Spike poked her in the back with his gun. “Run, Blondie,” he yelled, sprinting ahead of her.

Okay. Sort-of-friends do the whole rescuing thing, you run. Easy enough rule.

Buffy ran out of the smoky, chaotic building like everyone’s lives, not just hers, depended on it. When she caught up to Spike she gasped, “Parked—my car—a block away.”

“’ll send someone out to get it later,” Spike said, seemingly not at all out of breath. “We gotta get the hell outta here b’fore squad cars get on our asses. C’mon,” and he veered into an alley, “you’re ridin’ with me.”

Buffy gulped as she hopped into the passenger side of the DeSoto and slammed the door. Spike. Hot sexy rescuer Spike with me in a very small space.

Crap.

*

He gunned the engine and drove away, hitting ninety before they even got out of the city. To anyone else he supposed his driving style would have been at least distracting, but to Spike, it was pure exhilaration.

Mixed with a bit of chagrin, he admitted as he glanced over to the girl sitting next to him. Really, you’d think that bursting into a building chock full of evil-ass cops would be enough to impress one silly bint, but no. The girl he’d wanted to earn the forgiveness of was staring out the window of his car, her face completely empty.

She hadn’t gone insane when he’d burst into the room, and she’d complied when he told her to scream and then run—but since he’d stopped that rat-ass-licking bastard Rayne from shooting her, he wasn’t sure if that was just gratitude or if she actually trusted him again. She’d told him he wasn’t forgiven...

Bloody hell, now she had him analyzing every little thing she’d said. This couldn’t be good.

It took them all of five minutes to get on the freeway. They were tailing Anya and Xander’s car, which also carried Cordelia; Willow, Kennedy, and Faith were riding in the Ford Focus right behind them.

Spike gave a relieved sigh. “We’re clear, luv. Rayne won’t chase us down now.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Jesus Christ, even her voice was expressionless! “’S the rules. ‘F we get out of LA, we’re home free. Well, till we get back to Sunnydale.”

“Sounds dangerous.” Still quiet, opaque.

“That’s the name of the game.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Um, dangerous? Name of the game?” Bugger it, he’d thought she was smart, but even Harmony coulda caught that one!

“No, not that.” Now she sounded impatient. Oh, well, he’d take what he could get. “I don’t understand...this.” She waved her hand expansively. “You come in, guns a-blazing—literally—and save my life, even though I called you all kinds of names and said I never wanted to see you again. Why?”

That gave him pause, since it was a question he’d been asking himself ever since that morning. He thought he’d come up with an answer, but it sure as hell wasn’t one he could tell her.

So what was he going to say? Because you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met and I’ve got a thing for you? Because I genuinely care about you? Because I want to shag you more than I want to breathe? Somehow he thought that any of those would just piss her off.

So he settled on, “Dunno how it happened, but you’re one of the gang now. We don’t leave our own in the hands of the lap-dancers.”

She smiled slightly at the mention of the infamous nickname. “Why lap-dancers?”

Now that was a question he could answer. “Well, when this whole bloody thing started, it was just me an’ the whelp. We figured ‘f we named ‘em lap-dancers, we could talk ‘bout it in public an’ no one would care. We were still teens, an’ teenage guys are all about sex.”

“That makes sense.” Silence for a moment, then: “Wait. What about Anya?”

“Anya got in on it after Willow did. Anya an’ Willow were friends. ‘D recruited Willow after Rayne tried to rope her into his prostitution business. Willow accidentally let slip to Anya, so Anya demanded to be able to join.”

“Bet you didn’t like that.”

Spike remembered the day crystal-clear. They’d had a row of epic proportions over Anya helping him with the whole fight-the-LA-police thing. “Well, no. But you know Anya—‘f she wants something, she’ll get it, one way or ‘nother.”

“So...Rayne runs a crime ring, right?” At Spike’s nod, Buffy sighed. “God, I can still barely believe it. I mean, it’s like out of a movie or something. A bad movie.”

He’d thought so many times himself. “Yeah, well, where d’you think they get this stuff? ‘F you look back in history books, real ones, not the poncy shit they teach you in school, you’ll find ‘s all like that. Rayne’s deal is no more remarkable than, say, the bootleggin’ the in twenties.” Oh, bloody hell. Now she had him talkin’ like a professor.

And judging by the grin on her face, she knew it. “Well, well, well. Somebody used to be a geek,” she said in a teasing voice. He growled, which made her laugh out loud. “So, teach, where does Jenkins’ Inc. fit into all this?”

“On the surface we’re jus’ what the sign says. People pay us to get them jobs. But we also pull homeless brats off the streets an’ help ‘em out. Former whores, drug dealers, gang members, you name it, we’ve helped ‘em. After they stop whatever they’re doin’ acourse. We get ‘em jobs an’ they pay us a dividend of what they earn for a year. We use that money to keep the evil nasties away from them.

“That’s why,” he continued, “Rayne wants to take us out. He reckons on expanding his little trade business out of LA, an’ Sunnydale’d be the perfect jumpin’ off point. Only problem is, we’re not gonna let him.”

“Hence the fightage,” Buffy finished for him.

He smiled at her phrasing. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Oh.” For a few minutes, silence reigned in the car as they sped down the freeway. After awhile, she said, “I guess that explains the whole keep the secretary in the dark thing.”

“Well, we knew you were a plant,” Spike said uncomfortable. “That is, y’know, a spy. We just didn’t figure you to be one of the good guys.”

“Is that what I am?” He glanced sideways at her in time to see her smile bitterly. “I feel like I don’t even know anymore.”

“’F you hate Rayne an’ all he stands for, you’re a good guy,” Spike said firmly. It damn near broke his heart, seein’ her sitting there so incredibly unsure of anything in her life.

She smiled slightly at his assessment. “So...what happens now?”

“Well, you’re out a job,” Spike said. He’d rehearsed this bit so many times he felt like a bit of a ponce, sayin’ it to her now. “So I figure, ‘f it’s alright with you, you can maybe still work as m’ secretary?”

She gave him a you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “Um, is that a joke?”

“Wasn’t s’posed to be...” he trailed off, unsure of what to say. Did she think he was kidding? Jesus, hadn’t she learned that when it came to her, he was never kidding around?

“Look, it’s nice of you to ask, but I know damn good and well that you don’t really need a secretary.”

He smiled, not because of her words, but because of the way she said them. So tough, even when she was at her most vulnerable—that was his Buffy.

“Actually, we do. An’ we’d all be honored if you’d join the gang.”

“Join the gang? As in, help you in your crusade again evil-ness, or whatever?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.” He held his breath.

And nearly turned blue, since she spent a good ten minutes thinking it over.

“Am I gonna have to eat bugs to prove my loyalty or something?”

He laughed, and she joined in. “No, nothin’ like that, pet. Jus’, ‘f you ever try to betray us, we’ll kill you.”

He saw her wince and wished he hadn’t sounded quite so menacing. But then, it was his job. He was the leader of their little crack team, and if she was even thinking for a second about betraying them, well, he’d lock her up and have his wicked way with her.

Okay, not that. But he would have her killed.

“I think I can handle that,” she said, her eyes slightly hard.

“Plannin’ on bein’ a turncoat, pet?” His voice was teasing; he hoped she realized that he’d stopped being serious.

She did. “Not unless you force me,” she said, teasing him back.

“And how would I do that?” His voice was low, seductive, and as soon as it came out of his mouth, he could have kicked himself. You just got her out of a death trap, you wanker. Not twenty-four hours ago, she was sayin’ she hated you!

And now he’d really screwed up. Her face went blank and she said flatly, “To be honest, I have no idea. But then, I don’t really care.”

He sighed. The whole seductive purr thing had been goin’ a bit too far, obviously. As if he hadn’t known as soon as it came out of his mouth. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

They drove on in silence. He would have liked to say something, anything, to make sure they were still okay...’Course, she said that you weren’t back in the police headquarters. So just shut your gob.

He zoomed past a sign: Sunnydale, next exit.

Thank God.

Not that he was getting a religion, or anything.

Still, he was thanking every deity he could think of when he pulled into the driveway of Buffy’s house. The other two cars carrying He cut the ignition and stared back at it. “’S a pretty big place. You gonna be able to afford the rent?”

She winced. “Crap, I hadn’t thought of that. D’you think it’ll be a lot?”

He shrugged. “Seven, maybe eight hundred a month, prob’ly.”

“Oh, God!” She paled. “I can’t afford that! Hell, I can’t even afford half that!”

He was about to respond when he saw the bush next to the walkway rustle. Just a tad, but in his experience, bushes didn’t rustle like that unless someone was in them.

“Hold on a sec, pet.” He held up a hand, not really expecting her to obey his request—but to his immense surprise, she did. She fell silent as a church mouse.

He watched the bush intently. Was that movement amongst the leaves? It was too damn hard to tell, sitting here in the car.

“Okay,” he said in a low voice, glancing at Buffy. She was fixated on the bush. Smart girl.

“Okay what? Spike, is someone in that bush?”

He winced. Bloody hell, Rayne couldn’t just leave us alone for awhile, could he? M’ girl’s been practically traumatized! “I don’t know. Jus’—get out ‘f the car with me. If there’s someone in there, ‘ll beat ‘em to a pulp, yeah?”

“Great plan,” Buffy muttered, fishing around in her purse.

“’S the only one we’ve got,” he retorted, watching her closely. That purse was huge. What was she looking for?

He got his answer a second later when she pulled out a pistol. “This,” she said, cocking it, “will help. A little, at least,” she amended.

“Uh-uh.” He held up his hands. “No bloody way are you gonna brandish that thing with me around.” He’d known she was dangerous, but what if she decided to shoot him instead of Sir Hides-A-Lot over there?

“You don’t trust me!”

Oh, this was just terrific. Now she was gonna look all hurt. Yep, there were the eyes, the big green eyes full of tears, and there was the lip, and—

“Bloody hell! Fine,” he growled. “But you point that thing at me and—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’ll ‘rip my bleein’ eyes out’.”

He winced. Her approximation of an English accent was worse than the whelp’s. “Let’s jus’ do this, a’right?”

“Fine by me.”

He grabbed his own pistol and stepped out of the car.

Nothing happened. Buffy followed suit and slammed the car door. She darted her eyes over to the bush; Spike did the same. They both saw the glint of metal amongst the leaves.

Left to his own devices, Spike would have just raised the gun and started shooting at the little glint. Buffy, though, apparently had other ideas.

She swooned forward, lowering the gun and looking at Spike with wide, worshipful eyes. Eyes that begged him to go along with this little plan of hers.

“Oh, Spike,” she simpered, swaying forward a bit more. “Thanks so much for driving me home.” She raised her hand and rested it on her arm.

He swallowed—hard. How in the world could she make him hard, make him want her, with that simple touch? “Um—it was my pleasure,” he said, loud enough for the man in the bush to hear.

“Do you maybe wanna...come inside?” she purred, looking up at him through her lashes.

God, yes. For a second his lust-addled brain forgot that this was a charade. Then said brain noticed the anger beginning to spark in her eyes and kicked back into gear. He smiled suavely and wrapped an arm around her waist. His smile widened when he saw her seductive smile falter. Two can play this game, kitten. “’D love to.” He began to guide them to the door.

They were halfway up the steps when a rustle behind them informed them that their mystery man had decided to step out. Spike felt Buffy’s body tense, and he squeezed her waist in warning before as one they yanked out their guns and whirled around.

To both their surprise, it wasn’t a man standing there with a gun pointed at them. No, it was a girl—and Spike recognized her.

“Veruca,” he spat.

Buffy shot a glance at him. “Veruca? Harmony said she was the one who—“

“Pretended to be homeless so you could snoop around my house?” Spike addressed the woman in front of him. He shook his head contemptuously. “How low will that bastard sink?”

“Pretty low, apparently,” Veruca said in that sultry tone of hers. She then looked over her shoulder and called, “You can come on out, boys.”

Spike’s whole body went cold when three more men popped out of the nearby shrubbery. Footsteps behind him informed him that more had come out of the house. And at that moment, he was terrified.

Not for himself, of course. He’d been in more situations like this than he could count. But Buffy—they were pointing all those guns at her, too, and the idea that they’d hurt even a hair on her head scared him half to death.

Which was why he said in what he hoped passed for a reasonable tone, “Now, let’s not get hasty. Maybe we can work somethin’ out.”

Everyone there, Buffy included, looked at him like he was terminally insane. He was starting to think he was, actually.

Veruca was the first to speak. “I don’t think so,” she said, and pulled the trigger.

Spike jumped on Buffy not a moment too soon. He felt the bullet graze his back, and pain like fire tore through him. He shoved it aside—he’d tend to it later. Grabbing her tight, he rolled them behind a bush.

“What the hell are you doing?” Buffy shrieked as he rolled off of her.

“Just stay here,” he ordered, and prepared to jump out from behind their meager cover.

He really shouldn’t have been surprised to hear her come behind him.

Apparently Veruca wanted to see them die; she could easily have had them taken out in the bush, but when he emerged, she was standing there calmly, sneering at him.

“Take a bullet for your lover. How cute.”

Crack! A gun went off, and Veruca jerked to the right. A bullet grazed her hair.

“He’s not my lover, you skanky bitch,” Spike heard Buffy snarl. A second later a blur of blonde hair shot by him, and Buffy was tackling Veruca, shoving her onto the pavement.

He would have liked to worry about her, but six of Veruca’s henchmen were getting ready to pull her off and probably inflict some serious damage while they were at it. He fired a few bullets at them before unsheathing his wrist knife and diving into the fight.

He was hopelessly outnumbered and he knew it, but all he could do was hope that someone—Anya, Kennedy, even Xander—had enough sense to come by and check on them, preferably before they both died. He grinned fiercely and knocked one man out. ’Course, that might take awhile.

A punch to his right eye had him down on the sidewalk. He felt the hard cement cut into his head and winced, but this wasn’t the time for self-pity. Veruca had Buffy in a stranglehold, and he’d be damned if he was gonna let that continue.

But then two men pinned his arms behind his back. He saw Veruca deal Buffy a blow of astonishing force—

He heard himself scream, a strangled sound that might have resembled his girl’s name—

And then cold metal impacted with his skull, and he was out cold.

~*~

A/N: Arg. Another cliffhanger...do you hate me now? See, the thing is, I kinda got, um, grounded (insert embarrassed blush here), so it’s no computer till next Saturday. Big big sorry. I can promise that stuff’s gonna be okay, and in the next chapter there’ll be some Spuffy. So please don’t smack the crap outta me? OW THAT HURT YOU STUPID SONOFA—breathe. In, out, in, out...lol ;) Anyway, thanx to Nic, Rachel, and Jessi for reviewing! As always, feedback is very much appreciated...please? *hopeful look* Again, sorry about the wait and the cliffhanger!





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