“Buffy’s gonna be home any minute!” Dawn informed Warren, her voice trembling and much higher than she had intended for it to come out. “You’d better take your hands off me, because she’s gonna kill you if you touch me!”

“Did you not hear a single word I just said?” he asked her, a smirk on his face, his voice slow and exaggerated, as if speaking to a slow, stupid child. “She’s gonna be home soon? I’m counting on it, Babe! I’m a lot stronger than I was before. Of course, it’s not as permanent as that was, but…” He shrugged, smiling. “…but it’ll last long enough for me to kill your sister and take back what’s mine.”

“You *monster*!” Dawn muttered in frustrated anger as she struggled uselessly to free herself from his iron grip. “You’re wrong! I don’t care how strong you think you are, Buffy’s gonna kill you!” she insisted. And she truly believed it.

Warren’s eyes blazed with fury at her derisive tone, and without warning he shoved her back onto the bed, a vindictive menace in his smile. “Oh, yeah?” he shot back, leaning over her threateningly, holding her down but not yet moving to take things any further. “What if she’s too late?”

Dawn was more terrified than she had ever been in her life. Of all the supernatural threats she had faced in her short life, none had come close to that most primal, basic fear that his sick threat was bringing out in her. She knew that it was very likely that Warren could do whatever he wanted with her, beat her, rape her, kill her, and be finished and long gone before Buffy got home.

She also knew that if he did, running would not help him.

She forced a defiant laugh as she met his intimidating gaze boldly, staring up at him without a thought of backing down as she responded slowly and clearly, carefully pronouncing each word to be sure he didn’t miss a single one.

“Either way…you die!

Buffy might have had difficulty actually taking Warren’s life while he was chained and helpless in the crypt. However, Dawn had a feeling that if she walked in to find Super-Warren back again, and attacking her little sister, it would be an entirely different matter.

And if Warren was right, and Buffy arrived too late to save her little sister, Dawn knew with all certainty that no power on earth could protect Warren from the wrath of the Slayer and her vampire lover. They would track him down relentlessly, and they *would* find him, and make him pay for taking her from them.

“Please!” Warren scoffed. “Buffy’s not gonna kill me! Even if she could – which she can’t, Dawnie – she hasn’t got it in her to kill a human being. Even if it’s me,” he sneered.

“You’re right.”

A low voice spoke from the doorway, and both turned in surprise to see Spike standing there taking in the scene. But this was not the subdued, frightened version that both of them had become accustomed to seeing. His characteristic aggressive stance from long ago was back in place, and his eyes blazed with a fiery rage at the sight of Warren with his hands on Dawn.

“She *hasn’t* got it in her,” he agreed, his voice quiet but dangerous. He paused, his lower lip curving upward in a slow smirk that sent a thrill of triumph and joy through Dawn’s heart at the mere sight of it, before he went on softly.

“So it’s a good thing *I* do.”

Warren let out a surprised laugh, slowly releasing his grip on Dawn and standing up straight again, turning to face Spike with an amused, mocking expression in his eyes.

“Spike. Hey,” he said, his tone one of pleasant surprise, as if unexpectedly meeting an old friend again. But the mockery was obvious in his dark, menacing eyes as he asked softly, “How’ve you been?”

“Better,” Spike replied softly, his eyes focused unyieldingly on Warren’s as he took a couple of slow, deliberate steps toward the boy. “A lot better. Feeling up to a bit of payback at the moment, actually.”

“Careful!” Dawn called, even as she spoke sliding across the bed on her back toward where she had hidden the control device, though still trying not to call too much attention to herself. “He’s all strong again, Spike!”

That unexpected news caused a slight falter in Spike’s step – very slight, barely noticeable at all, and he immediately recovered and bravely advanced another step.

But not before Warren noticed.

A slow smile spread across his face, his cold eyes hardening with pleasure at the subtle sign of weakness. “Yeah, we all know you’ve got it in you to kill a human, Spike. You’ve done it before. In fact, we know you’re capable of a *lot* of nasty things, arentcha?” His tone was cruelly mocking, and Spike flinched a bit at the reminder of the worst of his mistakes. Warren took another intimidating step toward him, taking advantage of the slight bit of ground he knew he had gained. “The question is, Spike…have you got it in you to kill *me*?”

To his credit, though Warren was using the weapons in his arsenal that he knew would be most effective, Spike did not back down. Though he tried not to reveal it, however, he could feel the inkling of his fear and self-doubt returning from the place in the back of his mind where it had been driven by his sheer desperation to get to Dawn and help her.

“I bloody well do,” he replied, his voice soft but full of a firm resolve. If it meant protecting Dawn from Warren, he knew that he could definitely find the strength to take him on. “If you harm a hair on her head, I’ll tear you to pieces, you soddin’ git!” The conviction he heard in his own words gave Spike a measure of courage, and he added in a slightly cocky tone, with his old standard smirk and a casual shrug, “Well, actually…I’m probably gonna do that anyway.”

Warren’s smile faded a bit in anger at Spike’s boldness, something he was definitely not used to seeing. He fully intended to take Spike back with him, make him a slave once more. Now, it appeared that some extensive re-training was going to be required before he would have the same control again that he had once had over the vampire.

“Are you,” he said softly, his voice low and menacing as he continued to advance on the cautious but determined vampire, who was ready to lay down his life if necessary to protect the girl on the bed behind him. Warren’s lips turned up slightly in just the hint of a smile as he went on in a soft, cruel voice.

“Well, I’ve got some plans of my own, so we’ll have to see about that. I’m really not liking your attitude right now, Buddy.” He shrugged, his smile widening at the brief flash of fear he saw in Spike’s eyes at the familiar words of warning. “But I can fix that real fast. You wanna know what *I’m* gonna do, Spike, if you open your stupid mouth to talk to me like that again?”

The painfully familiar tone that had preceded vicious agony so many times before froze Spike in his tracks for a moment. He tried to maintain control, but he could feel his own fears rising up in him again, and he knew that he would have to beat back the internal demons that hounded him before he would be able to defeat the one he was face to face with.

“You’re not gonna do a bloody thing to me,” Spike forced himself to speak the words, his voice low to disguise the slight tremor that had just formed there. “I’m not about to let you hurt Dawn, and I’m not going anywhere with you. One of us will be dead before I’ll let that happen.” He could not completely conceal his fear, but his tone was one of conviction and assurance, and it was clear that if he was going to go down, he was going to go down fighting.

“One of us already is,” Warren reminded him with a cruel smirk. “Or have you forgotten about that, Spike?” As he spoke he moved closer to his former slave, menace in his posture, voice, eyes, every facet of his being. “You aren’t a person. You aren’t even alive. You’ve been playing house with the Slayer for so long that you’ve forgotten what you are,” he went on contemptuously, his voice becoming softer and more intense as he neared the vampire.

Spike stood, silent and still a few steps from the door, frozen in an agony of indecision and insecurity, wrestling with powerful fears and memories of past defeats – but standing his ground.

“You’re nothing, Spike,” Warren said, holding his gaze with an expression of sadistic triumph in his dark eyes. “Nothing but what I say you are.”

Spike suddenly realized that his breathing had become rapid and shallow, and he had dropped his eyes without really meaning to, without even realizing he had done it. His fledgling confidence screamed at him to fight back, not to let Warren do this to him with the weapon of his well-aimed words. But the fearful, broken part of him that was still struggling just to stay above water reminded him of the dangers of resistance.

*Fight! You’re free, you bleedin’ wanker, just drain the git dry!*

*No! He’s too strong! Don’t risk making him any angrier than he already is!*

“That’s a lie,” he said quietly at last, but he did not lift his eyes from the floor. “I won’t – I won’t let you do this.”

“You won’t *let* me?” Warren laughed in disbelief, stepping even nearer to him, deliberately invading his space to intimidate him, and Spike fought with everything in him the impulse to take a step backward away from him. “I don’t think you can *stop* me!”

“I mean to,” Spike replied immediately, his voice barely above a whisper, raising his eyes finally to meet Warren’s hate-filled gaze, though his wide blue eyes revealed the fear he was trying to hide. “I won’t be your slave again, Warren. You’ll have to dust me first.” It was clear from the emphatic note in his soft voice, the firm resolve in his frightened eyes, that despite his fear, he meant the words with everything in him.

Somewhere along the way, Spike had crossed a line; he would never willingly return to his slavery.

Warren was furious. Time to take control of the situation, he thought.

“I don’t think that’s going to be necessary,” he said with a cold smile and a shake of his head, and his hand shot out and gripped Spike’s arm tightly, jerking him toward him.

Spike tried to pull out of his grip, but immediately found that Warren was indeed stronger than he had ever been, and he was no more able to break his hold than Dawn had been. Still, something deep within him cried out in protest at the idea of being imprisoned in torment again, after the sweet taste of freedom he had experienced over the past month.

Warren would not take him without a fight.

He raised his fist to strike out at his attacker, but Warren caught his wrist firmly, effortlessly holding him back. He smiled mockingly. “That’s a pretty strong spell,” he commented appreciatively. “I’m gonna have to thank Jonathan later.”

Spike still fought ineffectually to free himself, but couldn’t overcome Warren’s unnatural strength. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Dawn, still on the bed, but sitting up and watching them intently as she moved to the far side and reached under the mattress.

Unfortunately, Warren noticed the shift in Spike’s attention and released him with a shove hard enough to throw him off balance a little, but not to knock him down. He turned to see what had drawn the attention of his quarry, and saw Dawn reaching under the mattress.

Spike rushed forward to stop him, but Warren was faster and had reached Dawn in a second. He gripped her wrist and with a quick, painful twist, forced her to drop the item she had retrieved, with a cry of pain. Warren immediately released her, focused on the control device in his hand.

With a triumphant laugh he immediately dropped the device to the floor and crushed it to bits under his foot.

Spike stopped short in his advance on the boy, confused by the action. Hadn’t Warren said that destroying the device would cause the chip to fire permanently? Yet Warren appeared to be in no pain.

“I thought you said it couldn’t be destroyed!” Dawn said accusingly, her voice trembling with anger and fear that their last hope of defeating him seemed to have faded.

Before Warren could even respond, Spike remembered the day they had rescued him from Warren’s house, and the cruel, terrible lie that had been revealed that day. Warren had lied about the sensors on the doors and windows of the house, lied to prevent him from attempting escape. And now, Spike understood.

Warren shrugged. “I lied,” he admitted, his tone smug. “It worked, didn’t it? Kept you from destroying it.” He frowned down at the crushed bits of metal and circuitry at his feet. “Too bad you just made me destroy it. I put a lot of work into that. You know how long it’s gonna take me to build another one?”

He glared back up at her, his eyes narrowing in menace as he added softly, “Stupid little bitch.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward him, slapping her in the face again before hurling her onto the bed.

“Watch closely, Sparky,” he taunted Spike over his shoulder as he slowly advanced on her, without even looking back. “This is what you have to look forward to until I can build another chip and get another girl – cause you know I’m gonna kill yours.” He shrugged with a cruel laugh as he leered down at Dawn on the bed. “Hey, I may have even found my new girl already!”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Spike was upon him, landing on his back and hurling him to the ground with a ferocious roar of fury. He did not even think of the fact that Warren was impossibly stronger than he was at this moment. Only what thought consumed his mind – he could not let Warren hurt Dawn.

Enraged by the unexpected attack, Warren raised one powerful arm and threw Spike backward off of him, so hard that he slammed into the wall ten feet away, hard, landing dazed on his hands and knees on the floor, colored lights flashing before his eyes and a loud roaring in his ears. As the stunned sensations slowly passed, and he staggered back to his feet, anticipating Warren’s follow up blow, the roaring gradually subsided.

And then he could hear the screaming.

As his eyes focused again, he became aware of the reason that Warren was not coming after him. Warren was on his knees on the floor by the bed, holding his head and screaming in agony. The position Warren was in, the pain, seemed terribly familiar to Spike, but he couldn’t seem to process what had happened. It didn’t make sense.

Dawn got it before he did, sitting up on the bed and staring at Warren, wide-eyed, for a moment before looking up at Spike in excited realization.

“It’s the chip!” she gasped. “It went off when he hit you!”

Spike shook his head, frowning, watching Warren in suspicion. “It didn’t go off when he hit you. And if you gave him *my* chip, it shouldn’t have gone off at all. I’m not even human, and it didn’t work on anyone but him anyway…”

“But now that he has it,” Dawn interrupted, her eyes lighting up with the glorious realization. “maybe it doesn’t work on anyone…but *you*!”

Spike’s eyes widened with the revelation of her words. Could it be possible? Technically, that wasn’t *exactly* what Dawn had wished for. If she had wished for Spike’s chip to merely be transferred to Warren’s head, such a change should not have been in the picture.

But then, Anya had always had a very creative way of interpreting her vengeance wishes.

And Spike was not about to complain. *Thanks, Anyanka,* he thought with a warm sense of affection toward the vengeance demon. He would have to remember to actually thank her...later.

His eyes narrowed as he regarded the keening figure on the floor, once the object of his terror, but now completely at his mercy, and a low growl rose in his throat. Gratitude would have to wait.

He had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.