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They were stopped at the door of the Randall Building by a cop who looked considerably more fit than the one who’d tried to give Anya a ticket—and considerably more worried at the sight of eight angry-looking people facing him down. Still, the man tried to do his duty. “I need a photo ID from each of you,” he told Spike, who headed the group.

“Right,” Spike said, before pulling his gun out of his duster and laying it against the man’s throat. “Now,” he said in a slow, deadly voice, “Open the door for us like a good lad.” Wordlessly, the man obeyed. Spike crooked a finger behind him. “Whelp.”

Xander took a club and hit the man. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Spike turned to the rest of them. “Remember, we’ve got no idea where Buffy is, but she’s our goal,” he told them. “Someone dies, leave ‘em. We’ve gotta get her outta there. Got it?” They all nodded. “Good.” He paused, hesitating, before saying, “Thanks.”

“We all love her,” Xander told him. “We can’t leave her with Rayne.”

Cordelia nodded. “She has good taste in shoes.”

Red walked up to him. Her face was set in what people called her ‘resolve face’. “Let’s go, guys,” she called, and walked through the doorway.

Spike closed his eyes briefly. Here we go. The bloody Band of Buggered. Hell, we could die in there.

But if they didn’t recover Buffy, he didn’t care.

They were set upon as soon as they walked in the door. Police officers swarmed around them—Spike didn’t waste time counting, but it looked like there were at least a dozen. Fortunately, they were lightly armed, and his team had heavy gear with them.

They let loose shooting, aiming mainly at kneecaps and arms. Screams filled the air; bullets ricocheted off walls. Luckily for them, all of the bullets that found their mark landed in members of the LAPD.

The shootout, if one could call it that, only lasted a few minutes, but to Spike it felt like an eternity. Every minute that the bullets flew around was another minute Buffy was left with Rayne.

When all the cops were more or less incapacitated, they all looked around. Aside from their welcoming committee, the large room was deserted. Bloody hell, maybe we shouldn’t’ve knocked all Rayne’s men out, Spike thought, looking around frantically for some sign of where they’d taken Buffy.

It was Anya who found it. She walked over to a slightly uneven patch of wooden panel and pushed the button on it. As the others watched, astounded, an elevator opened in front of them.

“How’d you figure that out, Ayn?” Xander asked, looking considerably impressed with his girlfriend’s skills.

“Haven’t you people ever watched Alias?” she answered. “Now come on, time’s a-wasting!”

They all piled into the elevator, Spike last. Right before he went in, he stooped and picked up the nearest cop’s gun. Couldn’t hurt to have more ammunition, he mused.

He was about to straighten when something on the ground caught his eye. He stiffened and picked up the object in between two fingers. It was exactly one strand of blonde hair.

Buffy, he thought, and the agony washed over him again. He could remember her hair so well—shining in the sun, bouncing in the club, tossing over his pillow that long night before...

“Spike?” Cordy called. “Are you coming or what?”

He looked up and into the eerily pristine elevator. All of a sudden, utter rage took over him. The grief and the guilt were still there, but now there was another emotion: pure fury.

“Yeah. Let’s go.” He stood up, face grim. Right before he walked into the elevator he kissed that single strand of hair and let it drop.

He’d save his girl if he died trying that very night.

*

They’d paused for a moment, probably to discuss what they were going to do next.

Buffy’s legs were lacerated and scored with deep cuts. If they scarred, she was going to be so pissed off.

She knew it was ridiculous to stay stubborn and refuse to talk, just as she knew that all her thoughts about being pissed off were just bravado, but she had to keep it up. Someone was coming to rescue her. She was sure of it.

Common sense pointed out, as it had many times in the past—minutes? hours? there was no way to tell—that her rescue was far from a sure thing. From what she last knew, Spike hated her. They all did.

And yet, somehow, she couldn’t make herself believe it. Going with Riley had been uber-stupid, she could see that now. She’d had no evidence to believe that he was on the ‘good guy’s’ side, and all the reason in the world to believe that he wasn’t. Of course, she’d been half out of her mind with grief at the time—but that brought her to another possible mistake she’d made.

Spike had been cold and mean and basically a big jerk after Drusilla had attacked her. But...what if he’d had a reason to be like that? Somehow, now that she was lying in a torture chamber probably about to be killed, she could see things lots clearer than she’d been able to in the kitchen. She could remember seeing that look in his eyes, that grieving, regretful look, but at the time she’d paid it no mind. Now she thought long and hard on it.

What were the chances that everyone, from Spike to Cordy to Anya, would hate her? And Willow? Next to Spike, Willow was the person she loved most in the world. Buffy knew with more surety than she’d ever known anything before that Willow would not turn against her.

She should have known that about Spike, too, but for some reason she hadn’t. Why? Was it lingering doubt on her part, deep-set insecurity? Or was she just an idiot?

Her thoughts were interrupted when her tormentors again turned toward her. Her stomach sank; they all wore huge grins. That meant that she’d be back in a world of pain in a very few minutes.

Crap.

“Well, Ms. Summers,” Rayne said with an enormous smile, “We’ve decided that we’ve been a bit too easy on you. So, here’s what we’re going to do.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Angel walk over to the wall and pull of a very, very sharp-looking metal tool. She gulped.

Loudly.

“Now, Buffy,” Riley said, smiling as Angel approached, “Be a good girl and tell us what we want to know, okay?”

She stayed silent. Out-and-out defiance would mean that Rayne gave Angel permission to go full-on with the poking, which she really didn’t want, and saying something...that would be betrayal. Of what or whom she wasn’t really sure at this moment, but she was reasonably certain that if she started talking now, she’d be betraying...something.

What she didn’t realize was that her silence would be read as defiance. Smiling broadly, Angel stepped forward and pointed the poker at a cut in her leg. Buffy braced herself for what surely would be the worst pain she’d had to endure so far.

Just before the poker touched the cut, a ding sounded somewhere in the wall. Everyone in the room froze, Buffy included.

Ding. Like an elevator ding. Oh God, please, let it be who I hope it is...

It was. One second Angel was poised to stick a poker in her leg, and the next a gunshot rang out, Angel’s hand was halfway across the room, blood was spurting everywhere, and somehow over the screaming Buffy heard Spike say, “I wouldn’t do that ‘f I was you, mate.”

For one beautiful, shining second, Spike was standing there in the elevator door, gun in hand, eyes locked with Buffy. But that second was shattered when Buffy saw his eyes: cold and shuttered. Furious. With whom, she couldn’t tell, but at that moment it didn’t matter. She was left as unsure of everything as she had been before he’d blown Angel’s hand off.

“Spike,” she began, intending to ask him what was up and to hell with everyone else in the room, but at that second, Riley jumped him.

After that, everything was chaos. The seven that had been in the elevator rushed out at the same time Harmony, Veruca, and Rayne all had their guns out. Buffy screamed as loud as she could, “Harmony’s got the keys!” The little bitch had dangled them in front of her face awhile earlier.

It should have been an easy fight, but somehow, it wasn’t. Angel had gotten out a gun and was shooting bullets every which way, and though Xander tried to stop him, he didn’t get over soon enough. Buffy screamed when one of them hit Dawn’s arm. Dawn went down immediately. Buffy saw her face right before the girl passed out—intense pain was written all over it.

Kennedy and Cordy were fighting with Veruca, who was holding them off with a seriously formidable-looking gun. Buffy had no doubt that the two of them would win—eventually. Willow was trying to help Spike with Riley, and Faith was kicking Rayne’s ass—for the moment.

“Buffy!” That was from Anya, who’d been bitch-slapping Harmony into next week. She was dangling the keys from her fingers. “Catch!” She threw the keys frantically. Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Harmony take the chance to knock Anya out cold. She didn’t have time to dwell, though; she was too busy trying to catch the keys.

Of course she didn’t. There was no way she could have, chained up as she was. Fortunately, she managed to inch her way across the floor, smearing blood all over the place, and grab the keys with the tips of her fingers. She began to wrestle with unlocking herself, trying all the while to watch the fight.

There was clearly one objective for Rayne: keep the enemy away from Buffy. Fortunately that seemed to be her friends’—no, not friends’, rescuers’—plan, too. No one bothered her as she worked the key into the lock on her hands.

But as she watched, what she saw made her hardly believe her eyes.

Harmony was moving in on Kennedy and Cordy, and as Buffy watched she smacked Cordy across the face. Angel had somehow overpowered Xander, and though he was still streaming blood at an alarming rate, he was also fighting to pull the trigger of his gun again. Riley had disabled Willow. In fact, the only two people who weren’t losing were Spike and Faith, who was winning mostly because she had a long, dangerous-looking knife.

Buffy felt tears fill her eyes. They outnumbered the LAPD two to one. Surely...surely they couldn’t lose?

No. Not now, not when I was so close to being free. Come on, Buffy, unlock the Goddamn manacles! She was trying to bend her hand at a rather impossible angle in order to fit the key in the lock. It kept scratching the surface of the metal, never quite going into the hole—but Buffy kept trying. Once she got out of the things she probably wouldn’t even be able to walk, but she had to get free. She had to.

Spike, fortunately, was kicking Riley’s ass. Buffy watched with glee as he dealt three punches in quick succession to Riley’s face, ending with a blow that knocked the man halfway across the room. Standing up, Spike pulled out his gun, snarled something that Buffy couldn’t hear over all the noise, and pulled out his gun. He aimed carefully, shot three bullets—

And Riley fell to the ground, blood gushing from a bullet hole in his stomach, his arm, and his foot. Painful, incapacitating places. “OOOH GOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!”

And then, several things happened at once. Buffy smiled savagely upon seeing Riley writhe in agony—

The key slipped into the lock, and her hands were free—

She bent over and unlocked her feet, and when she stood up she shook the manacles off her feet—

Faith’s knife got knocked to the floor when Rayne bashed her wrist with a gun—

Rayne hit Faith’s temple with the gun, and she fell to the ground—

Buffy lunged toward the gun dangling uselessly from Angel’s fingers, legs half collapsing under her, knocked Angel out, and tried with shaking fingers to cock the gun—

Rayne pivoted on his heel, took aim, and shot at Spike—

The bullet missed, but the distraction it caused Spike was just great enough to give Rayne time to grab Faith’s knife and rush at Spike with it—

Rayne shoved Spike down and was about to plunge the knife into him—

Buffy finally succeeded in cocking the gun. She yanked it up and aimed it steadily at the only two men in the room still fighting—

Spike’s eyes locked with hers—

And then, the whole world froze.

Seriously. It was like in one of those movies, when for just a second, everything’s frozen, and some things suddenly become clear. Even Harmony and Veruca was stock still and staring at their boss.

If she put the gun down, Rayne would stab Spike. He probably wouldn’t kill him—Spike was much younger and a far better fighter. But Rayne would probably manage to injure him badly.

Part of Buffy was urging her to put the gun down and give Spike his just desserts. In fact, most of her was. She knew that in many ways, he deserved to get shot. No matter what the reason, he’d treated her like trash the night before.

But disdain or hatred was not what she saw in his eyes just then. No, what she saw took her breath away.

It was love and, perhaps more importantly, it was trust. The one thing she’d lacked before, and the one thing that every love is built around.

And that was when she realized why she’d run off and straight into Riley’s arms. She hadn’t trusted Spike enough to wonder if there was a reason for his behavior beyond the obvious. Spike had betrayed her, but she’d also betrayed herself.

Trust. It was what she’d always refused to do, the one thing she’d been warned against as a police officer. Now, looking into Spike eyes, she saw it. Trust. Love. Hand-in-hand, entwined so that it was impossible to tell one from the other. And in that moment, Buffy realized that she didn’t want to.

He was trusting her to save him from Rayne, and if she did, then she would have to trust him to not break her heart again. It was a trade-off.

Was she ready to risk it?

She loved him; she’d already figured that out. Now all she had to decide was if she was ready to take the ultimate leap and trust him with something even more important than her life...her heart.

Yes.

She blinked. Her whirlwind thoughts had taken only a second to sort themselves out. Spike was still staring at her like she held the fate of the world in her palm, and Rayne’s arm was still descending.

She’d done it a million times before, and now was no different. Almost automatically, she raised the gun, sighted, and shot.

Rayne fell to the ground, blood spewing everywhere, emanating from the small wound in the back of his brain.

He was dead in an instant.

Spike pushed the body off of him with contempt. “Bugger died too quick, ‘f you ask me.”

Buffy just stared at him. After all that had happened, and he could make jokes?

But when he came nearer, she could see that it wasn’t a joke. That fury she’d read in his eyes was still there, and though she knew it wasn’t directed at her, she still shivered. Spike could kill someone and not think twice about it, if he was sure the other person was fighting for the wrong side.

But when he saw her legs, his fury melted into what to Buffy was an even more terrifying look: complete and utter heartbreak. “Oh, God,” he whispered. He lurched back, clutching his head. “God help me.”

“Spike!” Buffy took a step forward, wavering and cursing the pain that cut through her like knives with every step she took. “Spike, look at me!”

He only shook his head, staring at the floor, at the dead police officers—at anything but her abused flesh. “’s my fault,” he muttered.

Okay, enough was enough. Buffy put a hand on his shoulder. “No, it wasn’t,” she told him, her voice firm but gentle. “And even if it was, we don’t have time for this. The LAPD don’t have their police chief anymore. Within hours, all of LA is gonna be chaos. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

Abruptly his head came up. “We?” he asked with quiet intensity.

She held his gaze steadily, willing the love she felt for him to show. “We.”

The smile that graced his face was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. “Luv—“ he began, clearly about to explain something.

“Spike? Can you help me get Dawn out to the car?”

Two blonde heads swiveled around. Cordelia was next to Dawn, struggling to get her upright; Harmony and Veruca lay prone on the floor, out cold. Buffy’s fear for her friend came rushing back when she saw that Dawn’s arm was still gushing blood.

Spike was frozen. “Oh, God,” he breathed. “Bit.” He glanced at Buffy, clearly torn.

Buffy just said, “Go. Cordy needs your help.”

He went. Slowly and reluctantly, and glancing back at her every two seconds, but eventually he was helping Cordelia get her into the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, Buffy slumped against the blood-spattered walls and, for the first time, allowed herself to consider the horrors around her.

Kennedy was coaxing Willow into awareness. Xander had apparently just woken up; he was fighting to wake Anya up, saying things like, “Come on, sweetie, you can do this, just wake up...”

Blood was all over the place, in pools and in strings, like some kid had gone insane with a can of red spray paint. Angel’s hand lat clear across the room from its owner, and judging by Angel’s pallor, he wasn’t going to last long. Riley had ceased twitching sometime—Buffy wasn’t sure—and she was relatively certain he was dead. All of her friends were cut up and weary-looking.

It was a nightmare.

A nightmare made worse by the fact that she still wasn’t sure what Spike would say. Oh, she knew what she wanted him to say, but what she wanted didn’t really have any bearing on reality. She knew she loved him more than she ever had previously, even last night when she’d given herself to him, but did he feel the same?

He had to. If he didn’t, all this horror was for nothing.

“Buffy?” A sharp intake of breath. “Buffy, what did they do to you?”

Buffy looked down at her deeply scored legs. Somehow, she found the courage to shrug. “They tortured me.”

Willow exhaled slowly, her eyes still on her best friend’s mutilated limbs. “Merciful Goddess,” she whispered.

“Yeah, pretty bad,” Buffy agreed. Bracing one hand against the wall, she struggled to stand up.

“Um, I can help you,” Willow suggested, clearly unsure of what to do in such a situation. What did you say to a friend when it was your fault they’d gone through almost unspeakable torment?

Buffy was about to shake her head, saying that she could walk on her own—though she knew she couldn’t—when a voice sounded nearby. “’ll get her, Red. Tell the others to get their arses down to the car.”

Willow nodded and made a beeline for Anya.

Spike knelt down so that they were level, face a heart-wrenching combination of fear, shame, and hope. Buffy looked at her hands after a moment. She couldn’t take what she saw in his eyes. “Dawn?”

“Bit’ll be fine,” Spike told her. “Worse for wear, yeah, but she got lucky—the bullet din’ hit any big veins or anything. Rest and food, whether she’s peckish or not, and she’ll be good as new.”

“That’s...nice,” Buffy said, wondering at the ridiculousness of their situation. She was standing in a virtual graveyard with a man she knew she loved but wasn’t sure loved her back, and she was making small talk.

“Spike—“ she began, but he cut her off.

“I had to do it. That ponce Riley had cameras in the house. I figured...I dunno. maybe ‘f I made you hate me, ‘f the LAPD thought you were gonna go back to ‘em, that you’d be safe.”

It was the explanation she’d been hoping for. Granted, it was a bit short on details, but for now, it was enough. “So all those things you said—“

He closed his eyes. “Were lies,” he said in a pleading tone. “All lies. Please, Buffy, just for—“

“I do.” She interrupted him before he could say forgive me. “If you’ll forgive me, that is.”

He shot her a confused look. “Can’t imagine why I’d be doing that.”

“I just ran off. Didn’t even bother to wonder why you were acting so wiggy all of a sudden. I just...ran. I didn’t trust you enough, I guess.” She reached up and traced the scar on his brow before smiling into his eyes. “I do now.”

Spike shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said heatedly. “’m not sayin’ you weren’t a little carrot-top, but what I did was unforgivable.”

Buffy shrugged. “Well, I forgive you anyway. Deal with it.”

That brought a smile to his face, as she’d hoped it would. He slipped an arm under each of her shoulders. “D’you trust me enough to carry you?” he asked quietly.

She nodded. “Always.”

He scooped her up in his arms, careful not to touch any cuts, and carried her to the elevator.

As the doors closed, Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his, savoring the contact, ignoring the pain it caused her. Electricity shot through the both of them at the contact. “I love you,” she whispered.

Awe and gratitude shone out in his eyes. “And I love you,” he replied.

Later, she’d have nightmares about what she endured in that horrible room. Later, she’d get a full explanation from Spike about the night before. Later, they’d work out the details of their love.

But right now, all they wanted was some rest.

They whispered words of love to one another the whole way back to Sunnydale.

~*~

A/N: Um...feeling really unsure about this chapter :/ Horrible torture stuff, again I’m sorry about that but I felt it was necessary. I’m not the greatest at writing action scenes, that’s probably why I write AU all human fics... I have to say again, thanks times like three billion for the reviews of chapter 18. I loved getting feedback, and I’m hoping you guys’ll find it in your hearts to tell me what you think of this one, too =)





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