As Dawn made her way across town to Spike’s crypt, the place she had chosen for everything to go down, she was too focused on the harsh words she had spoken to Spike to notice her not-very-stealthy pursuer. How could she have talked to him like that? she wondered, the flush of shame at the memory causing her face to burn, despite the chilly evening air.

The words she had spoken played over again in her mind and she cringed. How could she have been so thoughtless? Deliberately throwing in his face the weakness and fear that he was already so ashamed of and struggling with so desperately? She of all people, the one he had trusted first, and most, in all of this, to be so cruel! But at that moment, standing on the porch with him, all she had been able to think about was throwing him off his game enough to just get away.

She would have to make it right, would have to apologize…later. Right now, she had pressing business to attend to.

She slipped into the crypt and headed straight toward the sarcophagus. Though the room was pitch black, she knew it well enough that she had no trouble finding the ladder and making her way down it into the darkness. At the bottom, she felt around just to the right of the ladder, and found what she hoped was still there, as the almost tangible blackness surrounding her was beginning to freak her out a little – a hand-held torch that Spike used to always keep there.

She took a lighter she had pocketed at a gas station the week before out of her pocket, and lit the torch, squinting a little as her eyes adjusted to the faint but growing light it gave off. As they did, she took in the room before her – set up by Anya to exactly her specifications. Every item she had wished into existence and into this room was there, ready and waiting to be used to exact vengeance upon the object of Dawn’s wrath…

…who was also waiting for her in the underground room, though he didn’t realize it yet, chained against the far wall, apparently unconscious or asleep.

Warren.


His hands shaking, Spike fought off the panic rising up in him at the realization that the one object in all the world that could hurt him worse than any other had disappeared. He no longer had it in his possession, and there was no telling who did.

Only one idea kept playing itself again and again in his head as to who might have taken the device…Warren.

His heart dropped at the thought. “It’s not possible,” he said aloud, his voice trembling with fear, his breathing deep and uneven, as he paced across the living room. With an emphatic shake of his head, he continued, “No…no! There’s no bloody way…”

But Warren *had* been watching him. He had told him so, and Dawn and Xander had both confirmed it. Had he gotten close enough that night at the Bronze to his coat, left carelessly over his chair, to get the device out of his pocket?

The sense of terror began closing in on him, and suddenly he couldn’t bear the fearful, lonely silence of the house anymore. He wished that Buffy was there…or that Dawn would have left. At that point, he would have been glad to see *Xander* walk through the front door!

He headed toward the door, not really sure where he was going, just not wanting to be alone here anymore. He froze, his hand on the doorknob, as a new fear gripped him.

What if Warren was waiting for him out there, now in possession of the thing he needed to control him, just waiting for the “few minutes” he had said he would need to take possession of his slave once again? He felt sick as he unconsciously took a couple of backward steps away from the door, shaking his head a little.

No. That was not an option.

He hurried to the phone and with trembling fingers dialed the phone number for the Doublemeat Palace. It rang and rang interminably, with no answer, which Buffy had told him was not unusual. In a fast food restaurant like that, the phone got answered whenever somebody got a moment to do so, which could be a long time, or not at all.

After about the fourteenth ring, someone picked up the phone and said breathlessly, “Doublemeat Palace, can I help you?”

“Buffy Summers, please,” he said quickly, his tremulous voice little more than a whisper.

After a few moments, Buffy’s tired voice came on the phone, sounding a bit frazzled. “Hello?”

“Buffy…” he began, his throat constricting and his eyes welling with tears of relief at the sound of her voice.

“Spike?” Her voice was suddenly alert, and full of concern at the obvious fear and distress in his voice. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

He wanted to explain, but the various emotions coursing through him at the moment would not allow him to form enough words. All he could manage to get out was, “I…I need you.”

Without hesitation, Buffy said, “I’ll be right there.” Then there was a click on the other end of the line, and the sound of a dial tone. Spike looked blankly at the phone for a moment before putting it back in its cradle, fighting to control the fear, the memories that assailed his mind.

Then suddenly, he gave up the fight, and let his head rest against the wall beside the phone, as he allowed the helpless, shaking sobs welling up inside him to take over.


Dawn’s eyes narrowed to slits of seething anger as she watched the boy before her begin to stir, frowning a little as the light from the torch began to awaken him. She was silent, just standing there staring at him as his eyes opened and he blinked a few times, looking quickly around, trying to take in his surroundings and figure out where he was, what was going on.

Soon enough she would make it all clear, she thought with a cold smile.

He tried to move forward and found his wrists restrained by the chains that held him to the wall, and she felt a perverse yet justified sense of pleasure when his eyes widened in fearful surprise, and he yanked against his restraints uselessly. He would not be able to break those chains, no matter how hard he tried, she knew. They were magically enhanced, provided by her friend the vengeance demon, and could only be opened by one key – the key that had magically materialized in her pocket, she realized with a smile as her hand closed around it.

Warren wasn’t going anywhere – not until she decided that she wanted him to.

Finally his eyes fell on her, and she saw a vague understanding rising in them – and also a very irritating sense of relief. She realized that Warren saw absolutely no reason to fear her.

Another misconception that she was more than ready to clear up for him.

Then, the relief on his face was quickly replaced by anger. “You stupid little bitch!” he snarled at her, pulling against the chains again. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing but you’d better unchain me right now!”

Dawn smiled coolly at him. “Or what?” she smirked. “I don’t really feel like unchaining you, Warren. Especially since the moment I did you’d probably attack me.” Her smirk widened with a knowledge that he did not have – yet. “Or at least try to.”

“Look,” he said in a patronizing, overly patient voice of barely restrained anger – and the absolute worst tone he could have chosen to take with Dawn Summers, “Dawnie. Sweetheart. You don’t know what you’re doing, Honey. This cute little game you think you’re playing here is gonna get you in some serious trouble if you don’t just end this right now, and let me out of these stupid chains. Okay?”

His mocking smile matched the tone of his voice, and she wanted nothing more than to slap it right off of his face.

“You know,” Dawn said, her voice softening dangerously. “I think you’re the one that’s in trouble here, Warren, even if you don’t know it yet.” As she spoke, she slowly advanced on him, taking her time. She was in no hurry. “Things are a little different now.”

Her eyes hardened, flashing with barely controlled rage as she went on, “I’m sure you had a lot of fun using my best friend as your personal toy…but haven’t you ever wondered…what it’s like from the other side, Warren?” That cool smile was back on her lips, as she reached him, standing just a foot or so out of his reach.

He laughed, as his features twisted into an ugly sneer. “Not really, Sweetie. I guess I was just enjoying myself too much to care.” His eyes held her gaze boldly, revealing to her his utter lack of fear, as he deliberately tried to provoke her. He was firmly convinced that this little girl couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hurt him.

*Time to prove him wrong,* she thought.

“You’re going to care,” she said, her voice trembling slightly as her eyes narrowed in fury at his calloused words. Slowly, holding his gaze, she took her hand from her pocket, enclosing in it the item she had stolen from Spike’s room.

He looked down at the hand she held out, with just a hint of apprehension as it slowly opened. Then he recognized the thing in her hand, and a slow smile began to spread over his face.

“And just what do you think you’re gonna do with that, Honey?” he asked her, laughing. “You may have forgotten, but I’m not the one with a chip in my head. That would be our little friend Spike…”

“He’s not your friend,” Dawn spat out the words in a low, furious voice. Then a strange glint of triumph came into her eyes, as she smiled. “And he doesn’t have a chip. Not anymore.”

“Wha…”

Before Warren could even finish the word, Dawn had depressed the button on the controller in her hand, and his words were cut off in a convulsion of fiery pain shooting through his body.

She only held it down for a few seconds, but when she did he was shaking and gasping for breath, collapsed against the chains that held him. He struggled to pull himself back up to his feet, dark eyes wide with shock and rising fear as he looked back at her, shaking his head slightly with growing realization.

“What….how….?” he stammered, as she took a step closer to him.

Dawn just regarded him in silence for a moment, her smile fading into a hard look as she said quietly, “My friend told me you wouldn’t let *him* talk…you’d beat him and torture him and do unspeakably horrible things to him and the whole time you wouldn’t let him so much as beg you to stop unless you. said. he. could.”

Her words came out, slow, deliberate, each one a separate point in itself, emphasizing the depth of hatred and rage she felt for the cruel, sadistic person before her, now at her mercy.

“He wasn’t allowed to ask questions…to ask for mercy,” she said, softly, shaking her head a little as she held Warren’s gaze intently. Suddenly, her hand flew out in a stunning slap across the larger boy’s face, knocking his head back against the wall behind him as she snarled, “So *shut up*!”


Buffy flew through the front door, her eyes wide, breathing hard. She glanced around for a moment before her eyes fell on Spike, huddled in the corner of the sofa, his knees drawn up in front of him, his head buried in his arms rested across his knees.

At the sound of her entrance he looked up quickly, blue eyes wide with fear until he realized that it was her. She rushed to his side, putting her arms around him and pulling him close to her.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

“I…I can’t find it,” he whispered, panic in his voice. “It’s gone…I don’t know where it is…”

“Where what is, Baby,” she pressed him, trying not to sound impatient. “What is it?”

“The controller,” he whispered, gazing up at her through fear-filled eyes. “It’s gone, Buffy! It’s gone!”

She felt her heart do a funny little flip at the words; suddenly she felt very sick. “What do you mean it’s *gone*?” she asked, her voice low and worried.

Spike tried to explain through the panic that scattered his thoughts and shook him to his very core, his voice rising with fear with each word. “It was in my pocket and I reached in for my lighter and it’s gone, Buffy, and oh, God, what if he’s got it and…”

“Shhh, shhh,” she whispered, holding him close to her, one hand protectively behind his head, the other wrapped around him as she tried to comfort him. “No. He hasn’t got it, Spike. If he had it…we’d know it by now.” She finished, choosing her words carefully. “Are you sure you didn’t drop it out of your pocket somewhere in the house?”

“I…I don’t know,” he whispered miserably as he pulled away to look at her. “I don’t think so…I’ve looked everywhere, Buffy…it’s not here!”

Buffy paused for a moment, thinking, trying to come up with some kind of solution. It had to be here somewhere. Warren had not been able to get near enough to them to take it, so it couldn’t just be *gone*.

“Has Dawn seen it?” she asked him suddenly, looking at him with hopeful eyes. “Did you ask her?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated, fresh tears welling up in his eyes at the mention of Dawn. “I – I haven’t had the chance to ask her.”

Buffy frowned at his reaction, then glanced up the stairs, just realizing for the first time that while Spike had sat here on the couch, terrified and in tears and alone, Dawn had been nowhere nearby. That in itself was terribly unusual. She looked away from the stairs and back to him, catching his gaze and holding it firmly with her searching green eyes, as one tender hand wiped a tear from his cheek.

“Spike,” she asked, her voice soft but with a slight sound of worry to it, “Where *is* Dawn?”