A tumult of a thousand various thoughts went through Spike’s head as he stood over his fallen enemy and slowly began to comprehend just how thoroughly and completely the tables had turned in his favor. One moment it had appeared that all was lost, that in spite of all their efforts Warren would turn out to be unstoppable; and the next, everything had changed with the revelation of Anya’s little personal addition to Dawn’s wish.

The full truth hit Spike in an instant of victorious realization.

Warren really, literally *couldn’t* hurt him – was now as helpless as Spike had once been in his hands. It was a tremendous concept for the former victim to take in. But the undeniable evidence was right before his eyes, reeling and moaning in pain on the floor at his feet.

Finally, Spike could feel free to carry out his own vengeance against this monster that had abused and violated him in so many ways, and not have to even consider the dreadful fear of retaliation that had haunted him and kept him from even being able to make a vengeance wish on his own behalf.

But fortunately, Dawn had not suffered from any such fears.

And Warren would never hurt him again.

For her part at this moment, Dawn was exultant, thrilled with this unexpected turn of events that had given her friend the chance to find the justice and closure that he deserved. She was on her feet and bouncing on her heels in excitement as she crowed in triumph, pointing a finger in Warren’s face, though he still didn’t seem to be able to hear her, “Take that, you sick little freak! Now you’ll finally get to see what it’s like, you monster!”

“Niblet,” Spike said suddenly, breaking into her taunting, his own voice low and controlled in contrast to her excitement. His ice blue eyes had darkened with barely restrained rage, and his intense gaze never left the face of his former captor. “Do me a favor, pet, and go downstairs to wait for your sis, yeah?” he said softly.

Dawn’s lips turned down in a slight pout, not at all happy with that idea. “But Spike,” she objected with only a slight hint of a whine in her voice, “I wanna see this creep finally get what’s coming to him! Can’t I just…?”

“No, Bit,” he cut her off, his voice still soft but firm in its resolve, as he slowly shook his head. “I really don’t think you do. Besides…this is personal.” He wasn’t even sure himself just exactly what he intended to do with Warren, but he knew without question that it was nothing he wanted Dawn to witness.

The cold intensity in his voice sent a little shiver down Dawn’s spine, and suddenly she thought that he just might be right. The force of the rage that had been slowly but steadily building in Spike toward Warren for the past few months was revealed in his vengeful, hate-filled midnight gaze, and she began to think that maybe she wasn’t quite ready to witness the long-overdue retribution of a legendary master vampire upon someone who had tortured, starved, and raped him for months, after all.

“Okay,” she said softly, her tone almost awed, recognizing that something intensely powerful and private was about to occur in this room. Her eyes never left his as she slipped quietly past him toward the door. She knew that this was something that Spike needed to do – to face the fears that had imprisoned him and fight them down once and for all.

And it was something that he needed to do alone.

Fearing that he might have unsettled her a bit with his words and manner, Spike turned to give her a distracted but reassuring smile, before focusing his attention once again on Warren as he spoke. “Buffy’ll be along any minute, Bit,” he assured her. “Let her know what’s going on. And the others’ll be here soon, too. You’ll need to let them in. But keep them out of here, okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded and left the room without another word, leaving him to his vengeance.

The former slave was now alone with his former master, who had once reveled in the savage power he had wielded over him. But now, the dynamic of power was much different than it had ever been before.

Warren was just beginning to regain control as the pain from the vicious shock began to subside, and his pitiful moans of agony faded away with it. Realizing at least in part the terribly vulnerable position he was in, on his knees before a vampire who had every reason to kill him, he began to attempt to struggle to his feet.

“No,” Spike said harshly, walking around in front of him and placing a heavy hand on his shoulder to shove him back down. “Don’t move,” he ordered sharply.

Warren had not quite made the same connection about the chip that Spike and Dawn had made, due to his writhing and screaming in pain during their discussion of the matter. Furious, still not quite comprehending that the situation was hopelessly out of his control by this point, he jerked out of Spike’s grip, ignoring the command to stay down and struggling to his feet. Enraged that the vampire had the nerve to give *him* orders, he raised his hand to strike, as he had so many times before.

Spike didn’t move, didn’t flinch, a triumphant glow in his eyes as he gave Warren an unnerving smile. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said softly, and his tone stopped Warren short, frowning in suspicion, and the beginnings of fear, as he began to wonder why Spike was no longer afraid of him.

“Things have changed a bit here, mate, in case you hadn’t noticed. You’re no longer the one calling the shots – and the sooner you learn that the better it’ll go for you,” Spike echoed Warren’s words to him upon his capture with an ironic note of amusement in his voice, and a light of vindication in his eyes.

Warren’s eyes widened with shocked comprehension as it finally occurred to him just what had caused the terrible pain moments before, and he finally began to understand just what had happened to him.

“Actually,” Spike mused with a frown and a casual shrug, enjoying the new sensation of power he felt to know that *he* was the one in control for once. “This isn’t going to go well for you, no matter *what* you do. I can promise you that.”

Then he took advantage of Warren’s stunned state of shock to deliver a powerful blow with his fist across the boy’s face, knocking him backward onto the floor on his knees, following up the blow with a couple of savage kicks to his stomach that caused him to double over in pain. “And I believe I said, ‘Don’t move’,” he added, his voice soft and restrained, and all the more frightening for it.

He had learned well how this particular little game was played. He had had a particularly demanding teacher.

He smiled down at Warren, who was staring up at him in shocked disbelief, still quite unable to accept that this was really happening to him, unable to believe that his “slave” had had the courage to strike out at him – and more than once!

“It’s odd, in’it?” Spike commented lightly, thoughtfully, but his eyes were smoldering flames of fury as they stared into those of his former tormentor as he paced slowly in front of him, his arm crossed casually across his chest.

“Don’t really matter how bloody strong you are, with that soddin’ chip in your head, does it? Here you are…your whole body basically a weapon – should be able to take on anyone you bloody well please – but that little scrap of wire and metal in your head won’t allow it. Makes you fair game to anyone who’s taking. And the one who’s taking seems to have a yen to make you suffer.”

He crouched down in front of the boy and met his eyes with an intensity of mingled exultation and menace that made the boy look away. “Ain’t rightly fair, is it?” he added softly, mockingly, a triumphant feeling coming over him at that small victory.

He had become so weary of the shame and fear that had consumed him for so long, taking from him the confidence even to maintain eye contact with anyone, least of all Warren – and here was the source of that shame and fear, shrinking away from him in fear, unable to meet *his* gaze for once.

“Actually,” he frowned thoughtfully for a moment, and then corrected his own comment with a slight shrug and a smirk as he looked back at Warren and struck him another hard, backhand blow across his face. “It *is* fair. Can’t think of a single soddin’ thing more fitting.”

“Look, Spike,” Warren said hastily, gasping in pain as he tried to recover from the blow. His voice trembling with fear as he went on desperately. He was starting to understand that he was clearly in no position to make threats anymore, so he decided to try another tactic. “I’ll just get out of here, I obviously can’t hurt you, your little friend saw to that. What will the Slayer think if you hurt me? Come on, Spike, it’s her job to kill vampires and the only reason she doesn’t dust you is because you *don’t hurt people*! If you do this…”

“Shut the bloody hell up!” Spike snarled suddenly, cutting off Warren’s desperate ramblings with a savage slap across his face that knocked him backward onto his side, standing over him and trembling with rage as the boy struggled back to his knees.

There had been a time, not so long ago, when Warren had known exactly what to say to bend him to his will, to get whatever response he wanted from his helpless slave. But things were different now -- *Spike* was different now – and there was no way that he was going to allow this sadistic but intelligent young man to twist the truth and use his words to confuse and control him anymore.

Never again.

He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself, and managed to bring his own anger under a measure of control before he repeated the command in a voice trembling with barely restrained fury, “Just shut up. You don’t get to talk. You didn’t allow me the privilege of speaking, so you’re just gonna keep your soddin’ mouth shut, you miserable little wanker!”

Warren was silent, subdued, warily watching the furious vampire standing over him, murder in his rage-filled, midnight blue eyes.

“Do you actually expect me to let you go? To be that bloody stupid? After everything you’ve done, just because you can’t hurt *me* anymore, to release you so you can find some other poor sod to terrorize and abuse?” Spike asked him incredulously, then added quickly before he could speak, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “Don’t answer that. Rhetorical.”

He continued immediately, his voice unusually soft and controlled, his eyes growing distant with painful memory and the slow burning anger that was growing ever stronger inside him, as he stared past Warren, seeing not the boy or the room surrounding them, but his terrible past.

“You bloody near destroyed me, boy. You made me helpless and…and afraid, and…ashamed.” He swallowed back the hard lump that had risen in his throat, blinking back tears as he somehow managed to go on.

“You had no right. The things you did to me…I can’t even begin to express…” He shook his head, simply at a loss for words. It was as he had expected when he had first set off for the crypt to confront Warren. There were just no words to say, nothing that could possibly make things right or even the score. Some things Warren had taken from him could never be regained, no matter what anyone said or did.

“You…you thought you could just…do whatever you bloody wanted to do. Because I’m not a person…just a demon…a vampire,” Spike went on, his voice trembling with outrage and pain, meeting Warren’s eyes again with his own full of justified accusation. “A monster.” The irony was back in his eyes.

“No,” Warren started to protest, to insert some inane and utterly useless comment in his own defense. He still thought there was some way out of the situation, and was determined to find it.

“Shut *up*!” Furious, Spike kicked him hard in the chest, knocking the breath from him, before striking him in the face with his fist, and then again – utterly unaware of the presence of the silent Slayer that had appeared in the doorway.

Buffy watched impassively, not saying a word. Dawn had informed her of what was going on, and she had rushed upstairs to see if Spike needed any help. It had quickly become apparent that he did not, and she did not want to interrupt the intense scene playing out before her.

For a moment she had been stunned by the violence of Spike’s attack – and also very pleased. The contrast between what she felt now and what she would have felt not long ago surprised her. Such unrestrained violence against a human being, kneeling and helpless, at one time would have appalled her and possibly resulted in Spike’s being staked.

But that was a lifetime ago, when she had still seen things in stark black and white. Now her life, her thinking, was a mottled palette of shades of grey. She wondered how many times Spike had been beaten cruelly while he knelt helpless at Warren’s feet. No matter how violent he became, no matter how brutal his vengeance, Buffy knew that she could not hold anything Spike chose to do to Warren against him.

In that moment, as she watched him pour out his pent up anger and pain, she could feel nothing for him but love and pride.

“You know why people are scared of vampires, Warren?” Spike asked him, his voice soft and speculative. “Why they call them monsters? What it is that makes them so evil and dangerous?” He paused, giving the boy a questioning look, though he knew at this point that he would not dare to answer.

He continued softly, answering his own question, “It’s because they drain the life out of people…literally. They take that life force, what it is that makes them strong, and alive, and…and *them*…and they steal it away to meet their own unnatural needs.” His blue eyes were intent on Warren’s, silently demanding, as he went on, slowly, his voice barely above a whisper.

“You know what I think?” he said softly. “I think *you’re* the bloody monster, Warren. And you need to be stopped. Before you can destroy anyone else. You stole *everything* from me. Everything. My freedom…my courage…my bloody *life*, Warren. So who’s the bloody monster, boy?” By the end of his question, his voice was a whisper, and his face was mere inches from Warren’s.

He leaned in yet closer, gripping the boy’s hair and yanking his head back, exposing his throat as his features shifted and took on his natural form. If Warren had thought to, he probably could have at least prevented it, being as unusually strong as he was at the moment, if he had had the foresight to attempt to defend himself without actually hurting Spike. But he was too frozen with fear to move, and just stayed there on his knees, trembling and wide-eyed with fear as the vampire moved in for the kill.

“You might have stolen everything from me,” Spike whispered, his fangs inches from Warren’s throat. “But I won’t let you keep it. I’m taking back what’s mine.”

And with those words he lowered his mouth and plunged his fangs viciously into Warren’s throat.