Chapter Fifteen
Dawn looked warily around the stage. It was small - smaller than she'd expected, anyway - and lit all around with candles. There were candles in little boxes at the edge of the stage. Footlights. Dawn thought they looked dangerous, especially with Drusilla's long flowy dress brushing past all the time. But right now catching on fire was not the worst of her problems. Drusilla had turned the screw at Dawn's neck a hundred and eighty degrees and Dawn was finding it hard to breathe. She knew Buffy would do everything she could to find her - maybe send in the army or a SWAT team or... What did they have here? The SAS. James Bond and MI6. Spike.
She tried to concentrate on the bizarre relationship her sister had with this man. So he was being paid to look after her, but he was also sleeping with her. From the way he looked at her, Dawn knew he loved Buffy. But Buffy seemed pretty indifferent. Or maybe she'd just been hungover. It was sometimes hard to tell.
Angel and Drusilla had disappeared temporarily, after a heavy necking session, to one of the millions of backstage rooms. Dawn had been left under the watchful eye of a big, muscly man called Adam. He didn't look like an Adam. Adam was a cultured, refined name. This man looked like a brick shithouse, with braincells to match. And a very big gun.
Dawn was terrified.
Spike made his way on silent feet around to the front of the stage. The brilliant advantage of a place like this was that there were no house lights, so he could creep around the auditorium completely unseen. He knew that if you were on the stage, the audience was invisible, the lights were blinding. The amount of times he and Drusilla had played with people trapped on that stage, unable to see that anyone was watching them, aiming at them, shooting at them... Helpless on the stage, just like the little bit in her chair, unable to see a goddamn thing, no idea when death was coming, or even that it was coming at all...
Spike closed his eyes. God, he'd been a bastard. If Dru shot him here and now, it was all he deserved.
So long as he saved Dawn. And kept Buffy safe. He'd do anything, so long as Buffy was safe.
Suddenly he heard a sharp noise, a muffled pshew and a cry and a loud thud. A gun with a silencer.
The man-mountain watching Dawn toppled to the boards and rolled down the steep rake of the stage. Spike leapt up onto the boards to try and catch him, but it was too late. The body rolled towards the edge, knocked into a footlight and set the candle falling to the ground. The body went up in flames. The carpet caught fire. Spike spun around and saw Dawn still trapped in her chair, staring at him in horror.
"You all right, bit?"
But she didn't seem able to talk, and Spike knew they'd turned the screw tight enough that her voice was useless.
"Oh, Jesus," came a voice from the wings, and Spike looked up and nearly fainted in terror when he saw Buffy standing there, a gun in her hands. "Spike, help me get Dawn out of that chair thing. Dawn, it's okay. We're gonna get you out."
She rushed over, but halted in the middle of the stage, caught like a rabbit in headlights, and Spike turned to see what had stopped her.
Angel, standing there with a gun. And on the other side of the stage, Drusilla, also armed.
"Oh, bollocks," Spike said quietly.
"William," Angel greeted him, gun trained on Dawn's head. "Is this the fabled Buffy?"
"Yep."
"Very nice. Buffy. I'm Angel."
"Now that's the misnomer of the century. What do you want with my sister?"
"Oh, nothing much. She's a pretty little thing though, isn't she? Be a shame to blow a hole in her head. Which I might have to do unless you drop that gun you're holding."
Buffy glanced at Spike. Would he cover her?
"Drop it," Drusilla said from behind Buffy, and Spike tried to size up whether he could get them both before either of them shot at Dawn or Buffy. No. It would be impossible.
There was only one thing he could do.
He held up his gun and ostentatiously let the cartridge fall to the floor. Angel watched in amazement.
"I said she should drop hers, William," he said, "but thanks very much. Buffy, sweetheart, do me a favour. Drop your gun or I'll be making doughnuts out of your sister's brains."
Dawn's terrified blue eyes flickered at her sister. Buffy, looking stricken, tossed the gun on the floor.
"Nice piece," Angel said. "Riley's?"
She nodded.
Drusilla came forward and picked the gun up.
"Hey," Spike said, "don't I get a reward?"
They both looked at him.
"Reward?"
"For bringing her here?"
Buffy turned and stared at him. In the flickering light from the spreading fire in the auditorium, Spike's face was hard and cold. He flashed her a smile. "You were a damn good screw, pet," he said. "Took me bloody long enough to get you here."
Buffy put her hand to her throat. She felt sick.
"You were working for them?"
"You were working for us?" Angel echoed, just as amazed.
"Hey, mate, no hard feelings. I bring you the chip, I get a share of the proceeds, right?"
Tears rolled down Buffy's face. "All that stuff you said...?"
Spike laughed softly. "'Anything to keep you safe'? 'Protect you with my life'? Oh fuck off, Elizabeth. Did you really think I'd fall for a skinny whelp like you? You were a good fuck, but-"
"Stop it," Buffy said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, it hurts, does it? Poor little sheltered Buffy can't take it like she can deal it. I'll tell you what bloody hurts, love. Broken soddin' ribs, gunshot wounds, having to look at you like I loved you. Made me feel bloody sick. And you know what? I nearly was, the first time I went down on-"
"Stop it," Buffy said, louder. She raised her hand and yanked off the ring. "Is this what you want? This little ring? Why do you want it? What was that about a chip?"
"Very important chip," Drusilla said, looking at Spike like a cat with cream.
"Yeah?" Buffy let the ring fall to the floor and Angel and Drusilla started after it but Buffy caught it with her heel.
And crunched it, hard.
"No!" Angel yelled, and switched his aim from Dawn to Buffy. And fired a shot.
Buffy crumpled to the floor. A tiny scream escaped from Dawn's constricted throat, as Spike whirled around and fired one shot from his apparently empty gun, hitting Angel right in the head.
Drusilla screamed, an insane mad scream, which was suddenly echoed by a loud yell from the auditorium.
"Drop your weapons. This is the police. Drop your weapons. The fire is spreading."
Drusilla aimed her gun at Spike and fired one shot. He fell to the ground, close to Buffy, and reached for her hand.
There was a fourth shot, and Drusilla fell, a large red hole in her chest.
"Baby tricked me," she gasped, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
The fire surged higher.
Buffy woke in hospital, her sister sitting beside her, holding her hand.
"Hey," Dawn croaked. "How're you doing?"
Buffy rolled her shoulders and registered immediate pain.
"I've felt better," she said. "Dawn, your neck..."
The brunette touched her hand to her throat. "Iron collar," she said. "Hurts like fuck."
"Dawn, Summers, watch your language!"
Dawn smiled. "You can't be that bad if you're still scolding me."
"What happened?" Buffy asked, and Dawn looked torn for a moment. She held up a finger and left the room, and Buffy sat up in bed, looking around in confusion. Her chest hurt, but not horribly - more like a bad bruise. She peeked under her gown. Yep. Pretty nasty bruise. Almost as bad as Dawn's.
Her sister came back in, followed by Willow, who smiled and said, "Dawnie's throat really hurts, so she asked me to tell you what happened."
"Oh," Buffy said. "Okay..."
"God, I don't know where to start. When Giles found out I'd told you to go to that theatre, he insisted on calling the police to alert them. They sent out like one British bobby, but when he got there he smelled smoke and called for backup. They got in and saw you all shooting at each other..."
"I think someone shot at me..." Buffy said, looking at her chest again.
"Yeah. Angel did. It's a good job you took Riley's Kevlar."
Dawn rolled her eyes. "You could have said," she croaked. "I thought you were dead."
"We thought all of you were," Willow said. "After Giles shot Drusilla-"
"Wait, Giles shot Drusilla?" Buffy said. "Since when was Giles there?"
"He crept in around the back with a seventeenth-century duelling pistol he stole from the museum," Willow said cheerfully, as if this was perfectly normal. "Made quite a mess. He said he would have hit her in the head, but those ancient pistols are not very accurate. He does game shooting, you know."
"Hence the cottage on the moors..."
"Yep. Riley said you were hinting that he should go there...?"
"I was trying to get him out of the way," Buffy admitted. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine," Willow said. "He wants to come in and see you."
"Well, he'll have to want," Buffy said firmly. "I am so pissed at him."
Willow and Dawn exchanged glances.
"Don't you want to know what happened to Spike and Angel?" Willow asked.
Buffy closed her eyes. Images filled her head, images of Spike telling her he'd been lying all the time, making it up, working for the man who'd nearly killed her, and Dawn...
"I'd really like to be alone right now," she said.
"But-"
"I just want to be on my own. I don't feel too good."
"You want me to get the doctor? They said-"
"No. I'm okay. Just go. Just go away!"
Willow left, and after a horribly long pause, so did Dawn.
Buffy slumped back against her pillows and cried.
Okay, so that was a really short little chapter. But I feel like making you wait for the ending… I'm almost as evil as the Angelus gang themselves…
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