“Slow down.”
“Bite me.”
Fingers skimmed her arm, and before she could help herself, Buffy had Gunn sprawled on cold pavement. She balked in surprise but didn’t allow for apologies. As it was, she wasn't sorry.
She was pissed at the delay.
“Fuck, girl,” Gunn grumbled, climbing to his feet. “Do I really gotta remind you again that I’m helping you?”
“Grabbing me is not helping,” she spat, rolling her shoulders back and marching onward. “Getting me in and to Spike? That, on the other hand…”
“You can’t just march in there and grab him.”
“Yeah? Watch me.”
“They’re not dumb, you know!” Gunn snapped, jogging to catch up with her. “They know you’re comin’.”
“Good for them.”
“You’ve heard of a trap before, haven’t you? This one’s not exactly subtle.”
Buffy rolled her shoulders, a bitter smirk crossing her lips. “Neither am I.”
“Yeah. Gettin’ that.” Gunn pounded out a deep breath, and out of her peripheral, Buffy saw him reach for her again. Only this time he seemed to think the better of it and withdrew his hand almost immediately.
The boy caught on quick—she’d give him that much credit.
“Problem is,” Gunn continued, “Briggs ain’t subtle, either. They know you’re gonna try something and they know that something’s probably gonna involve you bustin’ in all John Wayne like.”
At that, Buffy paused. She couldn’t help herself. “John Wayne?” she repeated, favoring him with an arched eyebrow. “Really?”
“If John Wayne was young, hot, and had a thing for vamps, sure.” Gunn took a step forward, his hands coming up in a semblance of surrender. “You do it like this and you give Briggs and the rest of ’em exactly what they want.”
“Which is?”
“To kill you.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at that. “Oh, if that’s all.” And she started forward again, shaking her head. “You had me worried there for a sec.”
“Hold up! You didn’t let me finish.” Gunn jogged to catch up with her again. “They know you ain’t no vamp. This slayer stuff is new.”
“And?”
“And I know my boys. My boys are following Briggs ’cause to him, not being human’s as good as being a demon.”
Buffy came to a fierce halt at that and whirled on her heel. “Excuse me?” she snapped. “Who said anything about me not being human?”
Gunn paused, his brow furrowing. “I thought you were a slayer.”
“Yeah. And slayers happen to be human, thank you very much.”
“Really? You got them superpowers and you still get to play for the home team?” Gunn gave his head a shake. “That ain’t fair.”
“Not fair? Not fair is me being seventeen freaking years old and have the weight of the literal world on my shoulders.” Buffy balled her hands into fists, willing herself not to launch at Gunn and beat the tar out of him. “Not fair is the fact that I’ve stopped the world from ending a tally of two times now, and the last time came at the expense of running my boyfriend through with a freaking sword.”
“Okay. Okay.” There was that gesture of surrender again. “My bad.”
On some level, Buffy recognized what he was trying to do. She did. But she already knew that marching into an unknown situation with no plan and no weapons might not be the world’s best plan. Reminders weren’t of the needed.
Plus she hadn’t asked for this—any of it. She’d thrown herself at Spike this morning when he was doing his damndest to give her the space she’d told him she needed.
If she’d been with him, he wouldn’t have been grabbed. Instead she’d been wallowing in self-pity, bemoaning the fact that she had a gorgeous man essentially at her beck and call. A man who wasn’t really a man, but who was trying to be one. For her.
Tears stung her eyes. Buffy inhaled a deep breath and shook her head. She couldn’t go down this road now. There would be plenty of time for her to reflect later—mull over where she was now and where she wanted to go. Right now, she had to get Spike back.
“So,” Buffy said, her jaw tightening, “do you have any better ideas?”
“Better ideas than guns a-blazin’, you mean?” Gunn nodded. “Yeah. You come in as my prisoner.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Look, Briggs don’t know nothing about slayers and he wants to. You do your John Wayne thing and he’ll feel cornered—feel like he’s got no choice but to stake your boyfriend and put you down.” Gunn held up a hand. “But he ain’t dumb, either. He knows the only way to get to know what he wants to know is to make you think he’s gonna let your boy live. If he dusts the vamp the second you show, he ain’t gonna get shit.”
“So your solution is…”
“To make it look like you’ve been caught too. Let him think he’s in control. He won’t be expectin’ nothing.”
Warning bells began blaring in her head, but Buffy did her best to quiet them. There was a chance—and she’d call it a good one—that Gunn was trying to pull one over on her. That this was his way to turn one captive into two, reassert his authority over the group of slayer wannabes. Hell, she had no guarantee that Spike was still alive at all.
Except she was certain she’d know if he’d been dusted. She’d have felt it.
Even if Gunn was trying to earn favor with his crew, that didn’t make what he said wrong. Going in with a mind to put everyone who stood between her and Spike in the ground would only get them both killed. Plus, despite how piping mad she was, Buffy knew she’d never forgive herself if her actions claimed anyone’s life.
Going in as Gunn’s prisoner—whether for real or for show—was her best bet for getting Spike out of there.
Still, she wasn’t about to go in with her eyes closed.
Buffy inhaled a deep breath. “Fine,” she said and held up her wrists. “Take me to your leader.”
Gunn blanched, but reached into his back pocket and withdrew a length of rope. The fact that he was this prepared should have been more alarming, but Buffy forced herself not to react. If he tried anything, she’d feed him to Spike herself.
“He ain’t my leader, blondie.”
“Yeah, save it for someone who cares.” Buffy stood still, her heart thumping. Allowing herself to be tied up was new territory for her—the instinct to smash her leg into his gut then kick him in the head was so strong she worried her body might do so on autopilot.
After Gunn had her wrists tied, he stood back, his eyes wide and filled with enough reservation to make the part of her that worried this might be a trap take a figurative breath.
But she figured it was polite to warn him, anyway.
“Just to let you know,” Buffy said matter-of-factly, “if we get in there and you have a change of heart, decide to give me to your friends, this smiling face”—she flashed a brief smile for emphasis—“will be the last thing you see.”
Gunn snorted. “Yeah. Like I don’t know that.”
Nothing good ever happened at the docks.
“You guys couldn’t come up with a place any more cliché, could you?” Buffy snapped as Gunn led her toward the warehouse-looking building—something straight out of an 80s crime drama. The building seemed about three seconds from falling to the ground. “Seriously.”
“Shut up,” he hissed, prodding her forward with the blunt end of his stake.
Buffy inhaled a deep breath—one that tasted of salt and seaweed—and did her best to keep her head down. She hadn’t anticipated, truly, just how much she’d hate having her wrists tied behind her back while approaching enemy territory until this moment. It had been a damn long time since she’d felt physically helpless, and while she didn’t consider herself without options—being that she could totally kick her way to freedom if she needed to—being denied an extension of herself was a total pain.
Eyes on the prize, Summers.
And the prize was Spike.
“Showtime, blondie,” Gunn murmured next to her ear. Then, without ceremony, he gave her a good shove.
Buffy stumbled a few steps forward and made a mental note to kick Gunn’s ass after this was over.
“Yo!” Gunn called. “Anyone here order a slayer?”
A horrible sound rent the air—a long roar filled with fury and pain. Buffy’s chest tightened and her heart began to race with a surge of adrenaline. Her legs twitched, the need to run overcoming her so fiercely she had to dig her heels into the dock area to keep herself from doing something stupid.
The door to the port building opened. “That you, Gunn?” someone called.
“Me and my plus one here,” Gunn replied, shoving Buffy again. “Briggs in?”
Another one of those terrible roars tore through the air, this time punctuated by the unmistakable smack of flesh striking flesh.
“Briggs is busy,” Gunn’s anonymous friend answered.
Buffy was about to get real busy, herself. Busy kicking someone’s face in.
As though sensing that thought, Gunn dug the butt of his stake into the small of her back and paraded her forward. In seconds, the pale face of their greeter came into view. Long nose. Prominent brow. Greedy eyes. A mess of dirty blond hair. He grinned, revealing crooked yellow teeth.
“This the vamp’s girlfriend?” he asked, eying Buffy up and down. And though his attention made her uncomfortable, there wasn’t anything threatening behind it. No hint of sexual violence or thoughts that would really warrant the relocation of his teeth to his anus. Rather, he appraised her as she would a demon. A demon he was about to decapitate.
It wasn’t a nice feeling.
“She don’t look like no slayer.”
“The fuck you know what a slayer looks like?” Gunn replied. “Shit, Jerry, you ain’t even heard of one till the other night.”
“Just sayin’. She don’t look like much, does she?”
“Yeah, and how many vamps exactly have we dusted who didn’t look like much?”
The lackey—Jerry—gave a jerky nod. “She’s just so little. Sure she needs to be tied up?”
“She doesn’t,” Buffy agreed brightly. “If you’d do the honors—”
Gunn snorted gave her another push, and then she was inside the port building proper, where the stench from the outside met with the stink of sweat and neglect. She could barely draw in the will to breathe.
“She got spunk,” Jerry said, laughing. “I’ll give her that. Yeah, Briggs is interviewing her boyfriend.”
“Alone? Where’s everyone at?”
“Lookin’ for you and our friend here.” Jerry nudged his chin in Buffy’s direction with another leer before turning his attention back to Gunn. “I knew you’d come around. Always. Told ’em that Charles Gunn does not go soft for no vamp. Or his pretty piece of ass.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Gunn agreed with a tight nod. “Alonna? She out there?”
“Naw. Briggs grounded her. Precaution. Y’know.”
Buffy did her best to keep her expression neutral while the rest of her sighed in relief. That had been the largest variable in Gunn’s dumbass plan—whether or not his sister was out with the others or at home base. He’d speculated that Briggs wouldn’t want Alonna on a hunt because she’d be a wild card after what had happened earlier. It had been a gamble, but one that had paid off.
“Shit, she must be goin’ nuts,” Gunn replied, chuckling.
“You ain’t wrong. Good to have you back, man.”
“Back? Man, I never left. Just let a pretty face fuck with my head.” He reached around and patted Buffy’s cheeks and was fortunate, in her opinion, that he was able to pull away with all fingers intact. “Won’t happen again.”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Jerry said, and this time the look he gave Buffy was entirely sexual. “She does look tasty.”
Buffy tensed, her body tightening in that familiar way that preceded issuing out a thorough ass-kicking. If he so much as sniffed her hair—
But Gunn broke through those thoughts, pressing the stake’s point further into her spine. And then she remembered she couldn’t do anything. Not yet—not if she wanted to get Spike out of here alive.
“Tasty and dying to see her boy toy,” Gunn agreed, then jerked his chin to indicate a wall comprised of fencing and stacked boxes that gave way to a passage. “He this way?”
Jerry dipped his head and stood aside. “I’d get the tissues ready if I was you, sweetheart,” he told Buffy, a twisted smile stretching his lips. “What you see back there ain’t gonna be pretty.”
The roar came again, and trapped within the confines of the walls, it seemed to go on forever. This time, it was followed by an awful hiss Buffy knew all too well, and the scent of cooking flesh thickened the air.
Okay, Gunn had exactly three minutes before she went John Wayne on his ass.
Fortunately, he seemed to know it. “Briggs!” he yelled. “Got somethin’ you want.”
Gunn walked her around the wall, where she got a good view of discarded bicycles and yard equipment. The second he navigated her around the corner, Buffy slammed her teeth into her tongue to keep herself from screaming.
Spike was strung up what looked to be a forklift, his wrists cuffed against either prong. A thick gash ran the length of one cheek and his left eye had all but swollen shut. He was in full on game face, but his lip had been split and an angry, purplish mass consumed most of his right cheek. He’d also been stripped of clothing—completely—though it took her a moment to realize it because his skin was a patchwork of cuts and burns. His right side had discolored so dramatically that it seemed to blend into his surroundings, giving him the appearance of missing part of his body.
She remembered how he’d looked in the motel, run through with a sword courtesy of his crazy ex. He’d looked dead then—so much so she’d thought he might be. But even then, aside from the blood drenching his pale skin, he hadn’t looked broken.
Not the way he did now.
Hot, angry tears stung her eyes, the adrenaline from before charging through her system so hard her bones trembled.
“What have you done to him?”
At her voice, Spike seemed to stir. He growled and jerked forward violently. Again the air crackled and hissed, and she realized that the cuffs that held him in place were smoking. Like they had been dipped in holy water.
A flame erupted in her gut and began to burn.
“No!” Spike snarled, his yellow eyes finding her as he strained against the cuffs, which gave an awful hiss and smoked harder still. “Slayer!”
“Well hot damn, Gunn. Didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
The guy Buffy recognized as Briggs strolled leisurely from around the back of the forklift. He held a bottle of liquor in one hand and nothing in the other, though from how his fingers twitched, it was obvious he had a weapon at the ready.
It took Buffy all of three seconds to decide she would start by kicking the asshole’s self-satisfied smile off his ugly mug. If he had any teeth left after that, she’d knock them down his throat, then knee him in the gut so hard he threw them up again. Should he still be conscious at that point…
Well, she’d figure it out. Gotta leave some room for spontaneity.
“Yeah,” Buffy drawled, “here’s the thing about slayers…”
She flexed her wrists and felt the threads strain. In a second she was free—hallelujah—and she had a human shield courtesy of the stranglehold she had on Gunn.
“We’re kinda hard to wrangle.”
The smirk faded from Briggs’s face almost immediately. Pity. She’d been kinda looking forward to the kicking it off him thing.
“Fuck!” he yelled. “She’s loose!”
“Shit!” Gunn gasped. A nice gasp. Full of fear and disbelief. If this hadn’t been planned, she might have thought he was genuinely surprised.
Of course, she had his back bent toward her at an angle that couldn’t be comfortable, forcing his long legs to stretch out farther, lest something valuable break. Maybe he didn’t need to dig too far in his bank of acting chops to find the fear.
Footsteps echoed from behind. That had to be Jerry, coming to the rescue. Buffy dragged Gunn around like a limp doll. She released him for an instant—just barely a blink—twisted and greeted her new assailant with a hard kick to the chest. Jerry’s eyes widened in shock, his mouth falling open and wheezing hard gasps of air between those yellow teeth. She reached back and let her fist fly, and the next instant he was on the ground, unconscious.
Then Gunn was against her again, her forearm pressed against his throat and the stake he’d held at her back poised and waiting at his heaving chest.
“Now,” she said cheerily, “where were we?”
Spike made a sound that might have been a cough or a chuckle, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t afford to.
“Whoa!” Briggs said, holding up his hands, the bottle of beer shattering in an explosion of gas and amber liquid.
“Fuuuuck,” Gunn wheezed, grasping her forearm. “Do you…gotta…do it…so tight?”
She didn’t think he meant others to hear that, but she didn’t care. She jerked back, applying just enough pressure on his windpipe to knock him out should the need arise. The result was a belly-deep gasp that made her own chest tingle with sympathy-pain.
“Now,” she said, aiming a sweet smile at Briggs, “let me tell you what’s going to happen. The vampire? You’re going to release him. Slowly. Then Charlie and I”—she tightened her hold on Gunn again, earning the theatrics of another gasping breath—“are gonna go for a walk. You try to stop us, follow us? You’ll find out just how strong a seriously pissed off slayer really is.” Buffy narrowed her eyes, tilting her head. “Questions?”
Briggs was still for a long moment—long enough to have uncertainty shoot down her spine and her heart start to jack-rabbit. But then he shook his head and stretched his hands into the air above him and nodded.
“All right,” Briggs said, his eyes never leaving Buffy’s. “I’m gonna back up now real slow like. No sudden movements, the full nine yards.”
Buffy dug the tip of the stake into Gunn chest. Not hard enough to draw blood, but more than enough to earn another whimper. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. Is there an Alonna in the house?”
Briggs’s eyes flashed and at last, he looked away from her, shifting his attention to Gunn. “You told her about—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Buffy drawled. “Can’t tell you how many bad guys have been taken down due to over sharing. You guys should really work on that.”
“We are not the bad guys,” Briggs all but snarled, though his hands remained over his head. “You fuckin’ fang-banging groupie.”
“Not the bad guys? I don’t remember torture showing up in the How to Be a Hero guidelines.” Buffy nodded toward Spike but still refused to look at him again. Every inch of her body throbbed with awareness, with the need to rip heads from necks for what they had done to him. It was primal, bone-deep, and one good slip away from slipping out of her control. “So yeah. Gonna go with bad guys. But even bad guys have family, which is why Alonna will make sure that her hand doesn’t slip when she’s releasing my vampire.”
Briggs’s lips curled. “You’re sick, lady.”
“Pot, meet kettle.” Buffy shifted her attention to the wall of black behind the forklift. “Alonna Gunn, come on down, unless you wanna be scraping bits of big brother off the pavement.”
Briggs didn’t say anything else, just glared daggers.
There was a beat of silence, then another, then a frightened face emerged from the shadows, her hands up, her wide brown eyes filled with gritty determination. She looked to Buffy, then Gunn and then to Buffy again and her jaw hardened.
Buffy drew in a deep breath and willed herself not to falter now. Threatening the jackass that had been torturing her vampire was one thing—ransoming a girl’s brother was something else entirely. But she couldn’t blink. Not now. She was too damn close.
“Free Spike,” she said. “Walk him over to me. Anything happens, and I break your brother’s neck. Nod if you understand.”
Alonna nodded, her eyes unblinking and shining with hatred.
“Good,” Buffy said. “We all understand each other. Briggs, where are the keys to Spike’s cuffs?”
“Pocket.” He began to lower his hands.
“Umm, no.” Buffy nodded to Alonna. “She can get them for you. Front or back?”
Briggs hesitated. “Front.”
“You know what happens if you try anything.”
“Yeah, message got.”
“Good.” Buffy nodded at Alonna again, this time to get moving. And the girl thankfully didn’t need to be told twice. She moved forward, eyes never leaving Buffy, and dipped one hand into Briggs’s front right pocket.
“Slowly,” Buffy said. “Pull it out and show me.”
Alonna sent her another glare but obliged. She put a space between her and Briggs, then lifted the keys into the air high enough for Buffy to see them.
“Good. We’re almost there. Now for the big finish. You let Spike go and walk him over to me.”
It seemed to take forever, and maybe it did. Now that they were so close to having the vampire back, Buffy would have sworn her heart was vying for freedom for the way it thundered against her chest. She knew Gunn could feel it, and a part of her thought Briggs might, too. Every nerve stood on edge, waiting, gambling for the moment when something went wrong. When Briggs made a move or Alonna decided to play the hero herself, but it didn’t come.
Instead, Alonna uncuffed one wrist, then the next, and Spike fell to the ground with a hard thud.
Buffy’s throat tightened. “Spike?”
“All good, Slayer.”
He rose to his feet the next moment, and she couldn’t help herself now. The need to see him, feel him, know that he was all right overpowered the part of her that knew better than to get distracted now, and her attention shifted.
Spike was a walking bruise. The marks she’d seen earlier were nothing but the highlight reel. The closer he got to her, the worse the picture became. Until the logical, plan-having Buffy side of her brain couldn’t take it and the primal mate part started growling. Primal hunger bloomed in her chest, reared its head and gave a vicious roar.
They had hurt Spike. Her mate.
Impulse and instinct overpowered rationale, and in that moment, she wanted to taste blood.
Gunn must have felt her slip, as his body went tight. “Stay cool,” he whispered. “Almost out.”
Yes, that made sense.
So did impaling Briggs on one of the forks of the forklift.
The monster that lived in her chest purred at the thought. A hungry purr that stoked the fire pumping through her veins. Buffy blinked hard, trembling. The more distance Spike closed between them, the more she could see, the more that bloodthirsty voice screamed.
“Buffy,” Gunn said, louder this time.
Loud enough that, behind Spike, Alonna stilled and the stony hatred in her eyes blinked into confusion.
Spike must have seen it, too, for he began to hurry toward her, wincing each time his feet—which she saw now were raw and bleeding—hit the ground.
“Stay cool, stay cool,” Gunn urged.
“I’m…trying.”
But the next thing she knew, she was no longer holding Gunn. He was holding her—or rather, holding her back. The line in her head separating instinct from logic had snapped and she needed blood. She needed to tear into Briggs. Put him down. She needed to dig her fingers into his chest and rip and shred until every wound he’d dealt her vampire—her mate—was repaid tenfold.
“The fuck, Gunn!” Briggs was rushing forward now, a blade drawn in his hand, his face contorted in rage. “You motherfucking traitor!”
And Buffy saw what would happen if he got any nearer. Saw it unfold like a movie. Or a nightmare. She saw herself bursting free of Gunn, leaping over him and smashing her feet into Briggs’s chest. She saw him thrown back on the ground, his eyes wide, the knife clattering beside him. She saw herself straddling his chest as her fists swung down in bloody arcs, hammering him into the cement floor until his face was nothing more than a mask of ripped skin and broken bone. Until her hands were drenched in red.
No, the part of her that was real—that was Buffy—cried out.
The wounded animal had no use for human sentiment. It just knew its mate had been hurt and the only way to make that better was to eliminate the person that had caused the pain.
Then she was free, bursting away from Gunn and tearing toward Briggs. Time to put that asshole in the ground.
“Buffy!” Gunn screamed. “Buff—”
Arms closed around her—strong arms, arms she knew. “Slayer,” came a raspy, familiar voice. “I got you, love. Time to go.”
But Buffy didn’t want to go now. She wanted blood.
“Sweetheart,” Spike murmured, lowering his head until his mouth was over the mark at her throat, “we gotta move.”
Then she felt his tongue on her skin, and raging animal trapped in her body immediately calmed. The angry throb in her chest waned, her head cleared, and the world around her came back into view. She looked up then and met Spike’s good eye. Whatever he’d done had done the trick. She felt completely in control again.
“Thanks,” she said.
He blinked at her, but she didn’t have time to explain, because Briggs was not going to let them go without a fight. And though she knew not to doubt Spike’s strength, she also knew he’d need whatever he had left to get home.
However, when she swung around to deal with Briggs, she found he wasn’t even gazing in their direction. He was too busy with Gunn, looking at him like he didn’t recognize him. “You put a vamp above family?” he said, holding up the blade. “What the fuck happened to you, man?”
“You know this ain’t right,” Gunn said, panting, shaking his head. “We go after killers. This girl wasn’t a threat until you made her one. We got enough enemies around here without worrying about makin’ new ones. You saw what she did to Jerry. She’s not a vamp, bro. You mess with her and she’s gonna take all of us down.”
“One little girl ain’t gonna take shit from me!”
Gunn looked at Buffy, who offered a weak smile.
“She ain’t no little girl and she ain’t no monster, either. And I dunno, but I think the only thing holding her back from killin’ you now is the vamp you decided to string up and torture.” Gunn spread his hands. “We’re gonna let them go. We’re not gonna follow and you’re gonna let the others know that the Slayer and her honey vamp are off limits.”
Briggs’s eyebrows shot skyward. “Is that what’s going to happen?”
“That’s right.”
“Interesting. Wanna hear how it’s actually gonna happen?” Briggs nodded at the knife. “This? This here goes in your stomach. Spent too much time with that monster lover, brother. She rubbed off on you.”
“So you’re gonna kill me. Because I—”
“Because you side with monster lovers over your family. Over us. That makes you a monster.” Briggs shook his head. “You wanna die for them? You start here. They’ll get away, sure, but me and the boys’ll hunt ’em down. And—”
A hard crack broke through the air, and Briggs collapsed to the ground in a heap. Behind him stood Alonna, her chest heaving, her eyes wide and wild, the piece of plank board she’d smacked over Briggs’s skull still suspended above her. She stared at the tangle of limps sprawled before her, blinking rapidly, then slowly raised her gaze to Gunn.
“Is it just me,” she said slowly, “or is he a little unbalanced?”
Gunn grinned and took his sister in a bear hug. “Nobody ever messes with the home team, little sis.” He turned to Buffy, and she winced when she saw the thick bruise swelling at his throat. “Promise is a promise, right?”
“I told you not to bring her here,” Spike said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “Bloody—”
“Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t see this coming, dude.” Gunn shook his head, grinning. “Couldn’t keep her still if I tried.”
“I gotta say,” Alonna drawled, “next time you got a master plan like that, you need to tell me. I about had a heart attack when I came out here.”
“Had to be real.” Gunn shrugged, then turned his gaze back to Buffy. “Get your boy home, Slayer. We’ll take it from here.”
Buffy wet her lips and spared Spike a glance, that pang in her chest resurfacing when she took in his swollen and cut face. But the bloodlust didn’t return—thank god—and she’d call that a win for the moment. Or at least until she could process what had come over her and figure out how she felt about it.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, looking back to Gunn. “I mean, he’s just gonna come after us again.”
“Gonna tie him up then give the boys a talkin’ to. Remind them why we do what we do.”
“You think that’ll work?”
Gunn shrugged. “Dunno. We’ll give it a shot.”
Buffy pressed her lips together, her gaze falling to Briggs once more. “You know them better than I do, so maybe you’re right and they will listen. But smart money says he won’t. What happens when he comes looking to dish some payback?”
“He does and he’s a dead man,” Spike muttered. When she looked at him, he offered only a soft smile. “Not gonna hold back, love. Can’t ask me to, especially if he’s after you. Won’t stand for it. He gets within ten feet of us again and I’m gonna rip out his sodding throat.”
Buffy stared at him a long moment, her mind swimming, adrenaline fading in favor of relief and exhaustion. These were things she didn’t want to think about just now. She didn’t trust herself to make good decisions, or any decisions at all. Not without processing what had just happened—what she’d seen. What she’d nearly done herself.
So she turned it off, nodded, and filed it away for future consideration.
What mattered was Spike was alive. He was with her. Whatever conversations they needed to have would come later. Right now, she needed to get him home.
Everything else could wait until tomorrow.
TBC