“We have to act fast,” Spike said as he pulled the car up at the back of the Rayne mansion. He took care not to park up where his father might see him.
Buffy glanced over to her left when Spike spoke, noticing the hard glint in his eyes. He looked even angrier now than when she’d first met him, with his hands braced against the wheel, and she wondered just why he was so set on bringing down his father.
And why now?
“Why do we have to act fast?” Buffy asked wearily.
“Ethan’s going to know you’re gone by now. No doubt that traitorous bitch, Gwen, will have spilled the beans. If we don’t act now then we’ll lose our chance.”
“Shouldn’t we…oh I don’t know…plan something first?”
“If we waste time planning we’ll lose our bloody window.”
Buffy nodded, not having the strength to argue. “Makes sense I guess. You really think we can do this?”
“I think we have to, love.” Spike lit up another cigarette, much to Buffy’s chagrin. He’d been chain-smoking like a chimney for the past hour.
“Those things’ll kill you,” she warned him with a glare.
“When you grow up in my world, dying from smoking-related diseases is the least bloody worry you have.”
Buffy licked her lips. She supposed he had a fair point. But her blood still ran cold at the thought of his world because she was firmly implanted in it now too. And didn’t that mean her life expectancy had just square rooted itself?
It occurred to her that it didn’t really matter anyway. All that this life had brought her was pain and suffering. Maybe she would be better off when she was dust to dust.
Spike watched as shutters slammed shut behind her eyes. It was like she was closing herself off from him, from the whole world. A hard mask replaced the moue of a sorrowful little girl as she clenched her jaw in determination.
“Okay. Let’s make this bastard fry.” Her voice was lined with steely determination.
“Hang on there one second, love,” he said as his hand shot out in front of her, holding her back. “You might need this.”
Seemingly out of nowhere he produced a small pistol and pressed it into the palm of her hand.
“What’s this?” she asked, staring at the gun as if she’d never seen one before.
“It’s a bloody three cheese pizza!” he growled sarcastically. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like something I’m not taking in there with me.”
“Don’t be a stupid little chit, Summers. You need some protection.”
“I got skills of my own,” she retorted with a pout. “I’ll have you know I’m the best hair puller west of the Mississippi.”
Spike flashed her a look that seemed to be the lovechild of frustration and murder before smacking his head against the back of the seat. “Fine!” he hissed, grabbing the gun and stashing it in the back of his jeans. “I’ll keep it. And you better button up that coat too, pet. You don’t want to be giving anyone we might run into an eyeful of your delicious goodies.”
Buffy glared at him, sticking her tongue out petulantly when he turned his back, but she did obey his words and closed all of the buttons. He was right, she didn’t want those perverts catching even a glimpse of her. Unless the glimpse was of her punching them in their ugly little faces.
The thought warmed her heart.
The pair of blonds clambered out of the old Desoto and made their way up to the house as clandestinely as possible. Buffy kept her arms crossed protectively over her chest, partly out of fear, but also because she was aware of how little she was wearing underneath the leather duster. She glanced over to Spike and felt a little smile flit over her lips when she noticed he was unwittingly mimicking her gesture.
When they reached one of the back doors, Spike tugged on it and found it was locked. It took him several minutes to jimmy it open, and Buffy spent the entire time complaining, but when the door finally swung on its hinges he flashed the blonde a look of triumph.
“Who’s bad now?” he said with a quirk of his eyebrow. Buffy just rolled her eyes, totally unimpressed at his posturing and urged him inside.
Spike gently put his hands on Buffy’s shoulders as he walked around to the back of her. “We need to get to Ethan’s office,” he whispered into her ear. She felt a frisson of something she couldn’t quite identify course through her veins. However she couldn’t miss the slight tightening of her stomach or the tingle at the back of her neck that his touch provoked.
“Okay,” she nodded, gulping audibly. “Lead the way.”
Spike led her through the labyrinth of hallways that comprised Rayne mansion. Buffy wasn’t sure which way was up in this place and she unconsciously clung to the back of Spike’s T-shirt as they made their way to his father’s office. It didn’t occur to her just how much she was already coming to lean on him.
Getting into the office itself proved to be relatively easy. Almost too easy. However, Spike didn’t stop to consider the fact that fate might finally have cut him a break. He immediately started rummaging through Ethan’s files looking for anything incriminating.
“Can you use a computer?” he asked Buffy as he sorted through a pile of folders he’d retrieved from one of the file cabinets.
“Hello? Teenager here! Do you live in this world?”
Spike scowled and tossed her a flash drive that was sitting on top of a shelf. “Have a look through his computer files and save anything you think is a mite interesting to that.”
“Yes, Master!” she retorted, he voice dripping with sarcasm but Spike only leered in response.
“Think I like you calling me that, pet.”
“Really? Well I think you’re a pig!”
Spike chuckled.
After that the pair worked in near silence for almost fifteen minutes, accumulating as much incriminating information on the gangster as they could. It wasn’t the most interesting job in the world, but both blonds were determined to find everything there was to bring him down.
“Come on!” Buffy encouraged the computer, drumming her fingers on the desk as the files transferred over to the flash drive. Her body felt like it was filled with nervous energy and she thought she might explode.
Spike looked just as nervous as he raked through file cabinet after file cabinet. His entire being was vibrating with a mélange of excitement, fear and residual anger.
The longer it took to gather the information, the more chance they had of getting caught. Spike wasn’t foolish enough to think Ethan or any of the guards would just let them walk out of there if they were discovered.
He shivered at the recollection of the kind of tortures he’d seen his father favor.
“Bloody hell!” he sighed as he flicked through one particularly salacious document. “My Da’s got some deep skeletons in his closet.”
Buffy frowned, a thought suddenly striking her. “I don’t understand why he’d keep this stuff in his office. I mean, isn’t it like saying: ‘Hey come catch me!”
“You got a good point there, Summers,” chuckled Spike. “But that’s exactly why he does it. Da’s putting two fingers up to everyone by keeping it in plain sight. He wants to prove that he’s untouchable no matter what. Ponce really believes it too.”
He was prevented from saying another word as the closed door flew open. Buffy let out a little ‘eek’ and jumped at the fright, while Spike just rolled his eyes in frustration. Framed in the doorway like a perverse Freddie Kruger was Ethan Rayne. His face was a mask of twisted fury, coupled with a strange kind of amusement.
“Well now,” smirked Ethan his dark eyes darting between the two blonds. “What have we got here?”
Buffy gulped at the subtly murderous expression on the older Rayne’s face and when she glanced at Spike he looked similarly fearful, even though he was trying to conceal his feelings. The concealed terror in Spike’s expressive blue eyes didn’t help to calm her suddenly frazzled nerves.
Ethan’s eyes flickered to Buffy and he huffed out a sigh. “You’ve been a bit of a naughty girl haven’t you, darling?” he said slowly, his amusement building when he saw her flinch. “Running away from Gwen and the girls like that was a very bad thing to do. Not to mention stupid. I don’t like to lose my property. Now I have to discipline you like the bad girl you are.”
“I’m not yours,” she spat defiantly, refusing to lower her eyes when his icy gaze bore into her.
“I beg to differ but let’s not waste our time with petty squabbles. Not when it could be spent so much more usefully with punishing you.”
He tugged at his belt buckle, loosening the thick black strap from his pant loops, and fingered it lovingly. “I think we’ll start with introducing you to the metal end of the belt, my dear.”
He brought the belt down against his own hand with a heavy thwack and smirked at the blonde teen. However, he hadn’t counted on his son’s apparently new penchant for protecting damsels in distress. The peroxide blond stepped in front of the girl.
“You don’t touch her,” he warned his father.
Ethan chuckled mockingly, his eyes flitted between the two blondes. “Well aren’t you a throw himself to the lions kind of sap these days, son? I don’t believe I raised you that way.”
“You didn’t raise me at all!” Spike insisted. “You palmed me off on other people while you were busy ruining lives.”
“Now William, I did the best I could with a lily livered wimp. You’ve never been much of a man have you? No wonder your woman felt the need to turn to me to garner some satisfaction.” At Spike’s shocked look Ethan laughed even harder. “Oh yes, son. I know that you know. Dru tells me everything, silly bint that she is. She told me you saw me shagging her nutty little brains out.”
Buffy’s eyebrows raised at Ethan’s words. She actually felt a little pang of sympathy for Spike.
“Don’t you talk about her!” Spike growled.
“Why not?” Ethan glanced at Buffy with a leer. The petulant blonde merely glared back at him. “You look like you’ve moved on to…tighter pastures. Although you said it yourself. This bird is as loose as the Grand Canyon. Probably not as loose as your last tart though.”
“You fucking bastard!” yelled Spike.
The younger Rayne wasn’t even sure which area of his father’s ‘bastard-ness’ he was referring to now but he’d just had enough of his father. The comforting familiarity of rage rose up within him. Almost autonomously his arm drew back and smashed into Ethan’s smug face.
Ethan’s head snapped to the side, but the older Rayne barely flinched otherwise. He gritted his teeth and turned his head slowly back to face his son. “Now, that wasn’t very nice, son.”
He stalked forward, relishing the fact that Spike took a tentative step backward in response. Both of the men knew that even though Spike was an excellent fighter Ethan could outdo him on most days in a fair fight. And Ethan didn’t even fight fair. Spike shuddered as he remembered the many times that he’d actually been on the end of one of Ethan’s beatings.
With careful precision Ethan’s foot shot out and caught Spike in the center of his stomach. The surprise attack gave Ethan the edge and Spike didn’t have time to respond. While the younger man was doubled over with pain, Ethan whipped the heavy metal end into his temple. The dark haired man marched over to his son and pinned him to the wall. He thrust him backward with so much force that some plaster actually flaked off the wall. The bash to his head left Spike even more winded and he blinked wildly, trying to keep conscious.
“No!” cried Buffy as she saw Ethan’s hands creep around his son’s neck. A pair of thumbs pressed into the younger man’s windpipe, cutting off his air.
In spite of the pain, Spike tried desperately to claw at Ethan’s hands but it was to no avail and the pair of meaty fists tightened around the column of his neck. Blackness started to cloud the edges of his vision and he choked under the strain, becoming increasingly limp.
Buffy felt her breath catch in her chest at the sight of the darker man’s fingers tightening around his son’s throat. The younger Rayne spit and gurgled, trying to draw breath as his father’s hands squeezed the life out of him. Without thinking the teenager glanced around wildly searching for a weapon until her eyes landed on a bronze bust sculpted in the image of Ethan.
With shaky fingers she picked up the hefty statue and calmed her nerves before marching forward to where Spike was still struggling in his dad’s grip. Almost without conscious thought, Buffy slammed the bronze statue into the soft temple of Ethan’s skull.
In the moments that followed, it was as if the world had slowed almost to a halt. She watched as his fingers loosened and fell away from Spike’s bruised neck. Ethan plummeted to the ground, blood cascading in crimson rivulets down the side of his face. He hit the ground heavily, and Buffy couldn’t see him breathing.
She was frozen in place, wide eyes trained mercilessly on the body. Her heart felt like it might beat right out of her chest. She could feel it pounding out the death march underneath her breast, like a mocking tune to rub salt into the gaping mass of guilt that was already starting to fester within her veins.
Oh God. There was a body because of her.
“We gotta get out of here, Lamb,” Spike called to her in a hoarse voice, sucking in the oxygen he’d been denied.
Buffy whirled wildly to face Spike. “Is he dead?” she panted, holding back the tears.
Spike’s eyes flickered to Ethan’s motionless corpse. He was just about to approach it to feel for a pulse when they heard the noise outside the door.
Footsteps.
“I don’t know, love. But we need to get out now before his boys find us.”
“No, Spike, we need to see. Maybe we can help him.”
Spike marched over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her slim frame gently. “Listen to me, pet. We have to go now. If his boys find us here with his bloody corpse then we’ll be corpses too. Those gits are loyal to him. You got that?”
The decision was taken out of his hands when the office door burst open and two of Ethan’s bodyguards came marching through. Two pairs of eyes glanced at the prone body on the floor, darkening with anger as they realized their master was in trouble.
“Bloody hell!” Spike swore, rolling his eyes.
Before the two guards could attack he tucked the documents into his pocket and hoisted a near-catatonic Buffy over his shoulder. With his free hand his pulled out the pistol he’d tucked in the back of his jeans and shot one of the men in his kneecaps, grinning as he plummeted to the ground like a felled tree with a blood curdling shriek.
It distracted his companion long enough that Spike was luckily able to side step him. Even with a feather-light Buffy hung over his shoulder, he was still more nimble on his feet than someone twice his size.
He raced out of the door, ignoring the remaining man’s cries to stop. The back of his brain barely registered the sound of gunfire behind him but he was already out of the house.
With a heavy sigh he dumped the girl into the car again and climbed in himself. He was getting a strong sense of déjà vu about this. At least this time he didn’t feel like he’d just gone ten rounds with a pride of lions.
Without glancing back at what used to be his life, Spike sped off into the night.
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