Buffy flung Warren down onto the couch, then kicked the coffee table out of her way, hard enough to slam it against the opposite wall – solely for dramatic effect – to stand directly in front of him, intimidatingly close, her arms crossed over her chest and her furious eyes boring into him.

“So…like I was saying,” she began with a smile. “About that fabulous coat you’re wearing…where’d you get it?” Her eyes were narrowed menacingly, and her tone was unyielding.

“I bought it,” Warren responded, his tone defiant. “What does it matter, Buffy? It’s just a coat.”

Dusting himself off as he walked to stand beside Buffy, Xander inserted sarcastically, “Right. You bought it. Like in, 1975. Oh wait…you weren’t alive then…never mind.”

“It *does* look a little worn around the edges, Warren,” Buffy said, nodding in a mockingly apologetic way. Her expression hardened as she added, “Like your story. Now,” she went on, gripping Warren by the collar of the worn leather coat in question and yanking him up off the couch. “I’m gonna ask you again, and if I get the same lie, I’m gonna start getting a little cranky. Where did you get it?”

“I bought it!” Warren insisted. “Not new…just from…some guy…”

His words were cut off when Buffy slammed his back against the wall, with enough force to take his breath, and make him groan in pain.

“Ok, I’m not playing around here, Warren,” she said, her voice softer now, and a frightening intensity in her green eyes. “I know where you got the coat. There’s only one thing that really matters to me right now. Where’s Spike?”

“How should I know? I haven’t seen him since I sold him that robot-you,” Warren sneered, obviously taking pleasure in the little flinch that reminder got from the Slayer.

The next reaction it got was not so welcome.

Buffy’s fist slammed into his face, hard, knocking his head against the wall behind him with an audible crack.

“Buffy!” Xander sounded alarmed. “Careful!”

“Yeah, you’re right, Xand,” Buffy said quietly, still smiling at Warren, who was looking up at her with genuine fear now. “I don’t want him unconscious before he tells me what I want to know.” She paused before going on, “Where is he?”

“I – I don’t know, Buffy, I swear!” Warren replied in a pleading tone. Obviously, he had underestimated the Slayer’s concern for his vampire slave. If she was upset now, he did not want to be around for her reaction when she saw the condition Spike was in.

“You know, I’m just having a really hard time believing that,” Buffy said, shaking her head sadly. Quickly, expertly, she spun the boy around so that his back was to her and twisted his left arm behind him, jerking it upward at an awkward angle and holding her other hand poised to strike. “You’re going to tell me where he is, right now…or I’m going to start systematically breaking every bone in your body…shall we begin?”

She twisted harder, and Warren moaned in pain. “Wait!” he gasped. “Wait, I’ll – I’ll tell you!”

“No,” Buffy smiled in triumph behind his back. “You’ll *show* me. Cause you know, if you’re lying…I’m gonna want to get started right away on torturing the truth out of you…so it’d kinda be better if you’re along for the ride.”

“Ok! Ok!” Warren gasped. “Whatever you say, Buffy! Please!”

Quite pleased with herself, Buffy turned and smiled at Xander, who was looking at her, aghast. “Remind me never to get you mad,” he muttered, as Buffy led her captive toward the door.

“Wait!” Dawn’s voice suddenly spoke from the kitchen doorway, and Buffy turned to look at her younger sister, suddenly wondering uncomfortably how long she had been silently watching the scene.

Torture and intimidation were not exactly qualities she wanted Dawn to pick up from her.

“I’m going.” Dawn’s voice was firm.

“No,” Buffy shook her head. “We don’t know what we’re gonna find there. You need to wait here.”

“No,” Dawn argued, coming to stand in front of her sister, her arms crossed in a mirror of Buffy’s stance only minutes before. “He’s hurt, Buffy. I need to be there for him.”

Buffy regarded her sister for a moment, troubled. She thought back to the last time she had seen Spike, all the badness that existed between them…this reunion could be a little on the awkward side. Maybe it would be better if Dawn was along, to be there for Spike if he really needed someone to be…and she couldn’t manage it.

“Ok,” she conceded finally. “But you’re staying in the car.”

“Ok,” Dawn chirped, rushing ahead of them out the door and to their mom’s old SUV, having absolutely no intention of actually staying in the car.

When they reached the old house, about fifteen miles out of town, and Xander parked the car, Dawn was out the door almost before the car had stopped.

“Wait,” Buffy said quietly, and Dawn actually did, surprised by her sister’s calmness and the lack of ordering her back into the vehicle.

Gripping Warren’s arm tightly in one hand and a handful of his hair in the other, she jerked his head back threateningly and asked him in a soft voice, “Are your friends inside?”

“No,” he whispered, obviously terrified of this infinitely more frightening version of Buffy that he had never seen before. “No, I swear it!”

“If you’re lying,” Buffy warned him softly. “You’re going to be very, very sorry, Warren.”

“I’m not,” he insisted fearfully, and Buffy looked at him carefully for a moment before nodding her okay for Dawn to go along. After all, if Warren was the only one here besides Spike, and Buffy had him under control, what was the danger of allowing the girl to go inside?

The moment they were through the door, Buffy began looking around for Spike, but saw no sign of him. All was quiet and still.

“Spike?” Dawn called, glancing around the living room before heading for the stairs. “Spike?”

There was no response, as Buffy followed her sister up the stairs, dragging Warren along with her, with Xander bringing up the rear.

Buffy heard Dawn’s startled, horrified gasp as her sister reached the doorway to Warren’s room before she did, and released Warren, thrusting him toward Xander, to run through the door. Xander caught the smaller boy firmly by the arms and held him there, before he could even consider making a break for it.

By the time Buffy entered the room, Dawn was already kneeling at Spike’s side, tears streaking her face as she spoke his name in a scared whisper, trying to rouse him. He lay facedown on the floor, unconscious.

Buffy reached them and gently helped her sister to turn him over, speaking to him in a quiet but urgent voice. “Spike? Spike, wake up! Spike!”

She stopped talking, drawing in her breath sharply at the sight of his battered face. It was a mess of bruises, some very fresh, layered over others that were older – the evidence of many brutal beatings. She was troubled as she gently shook his shoulders, trying to get him to wake up, by the way his body was trembling oddly under her hands, although he was unconscious. A slow burning flame of rage began to consume her as she looked at the decimation of this man, once her lover, who had loved her so deeply for so long and sacrificed and given more for her than a few dark moments in her bathroom could possibly erase.

She slowly raised furious eyes to the figure in the doorway, restrained by Xander’s strong hands. He was responsible for this, and he was going to pay. She stood up, approaching him with such malice in her eyes that the boy’s eyes widened with terror and he shrank back from her.

“Buffy…Buffy, wait…please!” he gasped as she reached him and grabbed him by the throat, spinning him around and slamming him hard onto his back across his desk.

“What did you do to him?” she demanded in a voice of cold steel.

“I didn’t do it!” Warren pleaded. “I – I found him like this! I’ve been – uh – taking care of him,” he lied.

Buffy’s hand at his throat gripped him harder, choking him and cutting off his words. “Lie to me again and I’m gonna lose my temper, Warren, and *then* you’re going to find out what pain is, little boy. Do you understand me?” she snarled. “What is wrong with him?”

“I – I don’t know!” Warren insisted, but as he spoke his hand unconsciously went to his pocket, closing protectively over the device concealed there.

Buffy was standing too close to him to notice the action. But Dawn wasn’t. She was holding Spike’s head in her lap, gently rocking him, trying to coax him awake, but for the past few moments she had been anxiously watching her sister’s interrogation of Warren, desperate as well to know what was wrong with her friend.

When she saw his hand go to his pocket, she rose purposefully, gently lowering Spike’s head to the floor and walking across the room to her sister. Against the protest that began on Buffy’s lips, she shoved her hand into Warren’s pocket and yanked out the control device, holding it up for her sister to see.

Buffy stared at it for a moment, not understanding. She slowly took it from her sister’s hand before turning back to Warren. “What is this?” she demanded quietly.

“It – it’s nothing, Buffy, it has nothing to do with…”

Buffy’s fist smashed into his face brutally, and she repeated in a voice that was almost a shout, “What is it?”

“It controls the chip!” Warren finally admitted, in a trembling voice, the pressure finally too much for him.

Buffy’s eyes widened and she looked back at the tiny thing in her hand. “Spike’s chip?” she repeated dumbly. “It – it makes it fire?”

Warren nodded slowly, in defeat.

Buffy stared at it for a moment longer, before her mind registered the depressed button on the top of it, and the tiny slide catch that was holding it down. She didn’t know how long the button had been down, how long the chip had been firing, but it had been long enough to drive Spike into unconsciousness. As her finger quickly slid the catch back, allowing the button to rise, she turned her icy glare on Warren.

“You disgusting…you little piece of…” she hissed, shaking her head, her words trailing off as she could not think of anything bad enough to call Warren.

Dawn had immediately returned to Spike’s side, and was relieved to note that with the end of the vicious electric current coursing through his body had come the end of the tremors that shook him, though he still showed no signs of returning to consciousness. The lack of dusting was the only good sign at the moment. She pulled his limp form close to her again, rocking slightly and whispering to him, trying to rouse him.

Buffy released Warren with a shove back down onto the desk, stepping back and regarding the device in her hand. With a firm resolve in her eyes she dropped the thing to the floor and raised her foot to crush it.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Warren smirked, and Buffy was surprised and infuriated by his nerve even in the face of the revelation of what he had done.

But something in his tone gave her pause, and she asked warningly, “Why not?”

“If you do he’s dead…well, not dead, exactly…worse…the chip will go into an automatic fire mode that’s pretty…well, pretty much permanent,” Warren explained, slowly raising his back off the desk, but still leaning on it for support.

Buffy quickly moved her foot from over the device, leaning down to pick it up.

“And also,” Warren went on, his voice stronger now. “I put a lot of work into that, and I’m not really willing to let you just destroy it.”

Buffy looked up quickly at the change in his voice, and froze, stunned. Warren had reached under the desk and taken out a pistol that he kept there, and now aimed it at her. Slowly she stood up straight, an odd sense of fear going through her.

Demons, she could handle. Vampires, no problem. Bullets…she didn’t know how to defeat.

Xander stepped forward, moving to come between Buffy and the gun, but Warren ordered coldly, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot her,” and he froze where he was.

“Warren,” Buffy said softly, instantly changing modes as she held out her hands placatingly in front of her. “You don’t want to do this.” Her heart pounded with fear and her mind raced, desperately seeking a way out of this situation.

“Don’t I?” he sneered. “Why not, exactly, Buffy? It’s not like you guys were gonna let me walk away from this, were you? I mean, you either kill me, or if I’m *really* lucky,” he went on sarcastically, “you let me live and just call the cops on me, and I get twenty for armed robbery. I mean, come on, Buffy. Why would I *not* want to do this?”

Buffy didn’t have an answer for him. For someone with Warren’s deranged view of things, there was no argument that would convince him to lay down the weapon. Her eyes darted past him anxiously to where her sister and Spike were on the floor behind him. She tried to think, tried to come up with a plan. She had to get the gun away from him; she had to get Dawn and Spike away from him – she had to do both without getting anyone killed.

*Except maybe Warren,* a growing part of her mind amended. *That might be all right.*

“Ok,” she said softly, still trying to calm him down. “Just – just go, Warren. We won’t stop you. But if you try to actually kill us…you’re gonna have a hard time getting rid of all these bodies, all the blood, my car, every bit of evidence to keep yourself from getting caught…your only option is to go, really…and we won’t try to stop you…just go…”

If he left right now, that would be best, she thought. They could go home where it was safe, and come up with a way to catch him – later, with no guns involved. But it would diffuse the dangerous situation they were in at the moment, without anyone getting hurt. Ordinarily, she was not one to back down from a fight because of the threat of death.

Ordinarily, the threat of death was not also aimed at so many people that she loved.

“I’m way ahead of you, Slayer,” Warren laughed derisively. “I’m out of here.” His eyes hardened cruelly as he added, “But not without what’s mine.” He gestured with the gun in his hand to the device in her hand. “Throw that over here.”

And with a chill Buffy realized that, although she could not fathom why, he meant to take Spike with him. Otherwise why would he need the controller?

And she realized in the same moment, as her hand tightened around the tiny device, that she would die, or he would, before she would let that happen.