Rating: R for violence! Wheeee!
Disclaimer: Hey! Just because I gave them personalities doesn't mean they're mine! They're still Joss' even though all he contributed were SOME of the names. Well, that's not fair. Quoted lyrics are by Brand New.
Random Question: Is it wrong to feel a strange sense of glee because Spuffy writers don't get many reviews?
A.N. - Thank you's at the bottom. Also, I accept anonymous reviews (you don't have to be a writer on here to review)...I'm just sayin'...Not hinting are anything *coughs to cover that lie*
A.N. Sorry about the delay, I was banned from posting for not removing an author's note that had been posted as a chapter. The email only said "for a period of time" so I had no idea how long it'd be and I haven't tried until recently.
- Chapter Sixteen -
They were both still on the floor, Buffy's sobs had softened but Angelus was still whispering soothing words as he rubbed small circles over her back to calm her. She dried her eyes on his black cotton T-shirt. "I'm sorry," she barely managed to quietly murmur.
"It's not your fault...and I'm sure that Liz knows that," he delicately brushed back the hair that clung to her skin.
"But it is! I shouldn't have confronted her! I don't even like confrontation when it involves my friends. I should have waited. The light would have made her safe. She hates me," she mumbled incoherently and lowered her head back to his damp shoulder.
"You don't know that," his hands resumed the soothing circles over her back. "And I'm sure that she doesn't. You two were friends, really good friends. No matter what you said to each other, there's no way either of you could truly hate the other." Neither noticed Faith take a step into the kitchen see them. She retreated to eavesdrop.
She sniffled and raised her eyes to meet his. "Are you sure," Buffy meekly asked before looking down at his shirt.
He gave her the most genuine smile he could manage. "Yeah. I'm sure."
"I didn't get to really say goodbye," the tears she didn't know were left began again.
He wiped them away as they fell. "I didn't either," his voice masking whatever emotion lay beneath it's surface.
"Do you hate me," she pitifully whispered.
"It wasn't your fault." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Maybe...maybe you need some kind of closure."
She remained silent for long moments before raising a hand to sweep away the teardrops that had silently slid free from Angelus' eyes when Buffy's heartbroken words had mixed with his own sense of loss. "You're right. I think I know what I need to do," she finally broke the quiet.
Faith smiled sadly, her face wet. A knock drew her away from the bittersweet scene. Her eyes held vague surprise when she saw Spike standing on the other side of the door.
"Spike," she kept her voice as nondescript as she could.
"Faith," he greeted back. "I think we all need to have a bit of a chat," he plastered a fake smile to his face.
"Fine. Get the guys and bring them to the Bronze. Someone'll be waitin' for you."
.:.:.:.
Riley Finn never knew what hit him. One minute, he'd been at his door, inches from safety, then the next he'd been struck down.
He had heard a soft laugh-like noise before darkness took over.
Buffy opened his door and threw the bat, his bat, on the floor. "Haven't you ever heard that it's not safe to leave your door unlocked," she asked the unconscious form.
"Take him to my place," she told the figure waiting in the shadows before calmly walking away, humming a slightly off-key tune.
The sound of something being dragged let her know her command had been followed.
.:.:.:.
Spike lit a cigarette and studied the Bronze. A sign proclaiming it "closed for fumigation" hung on the metal doors. He pressed a finger to his forehead and pushed down roughly in counter-clockwise circles, beating back the headache that seemed to be taking over his thoughts.
"What are we going to do," Kendra wrapped her arms around her midsection, trying to fight the cold that had descended upon the room.
"You know what they say, Payback's a bitch.' I think a little bitchiness' is in order," Faith walked behind the bar and poured herself a glass of water from the faucet.
A chair crashed to the floor. "This was a fuckin' stupid idea," Spike raged.
"What the hell is you're problem," Piper questioned, her expression clearly showing how pissed off she was.
"This will never work! It's not like you'll do anything!"
"This is what Liz wanted! What she died for! And all you can say is that it won't work? This just in Spike, this goes beyond what we all wanted! You think I want to be stuck with you a moment longer? I don't." Faith took a drink of water and stared deeply into the glass.
"Why are you so against this?" Angie tore apart a napkin.
"Because Bu-...Because Buffy could have done something, should have! But instead, she acted like a lit-"
"Shut up!" Angelus and Faith yelled in unison.
"You don't have any fucking idea what you're talking about," Faith screamed at him.
"Where is Buffy?" Angie frowned.
Faith looked at the basement door.
.:.:.:.
Riley coughed as he slowly awoke.
"About time. I hardly hit you and you went down like a pansy!" She looked at his obviously broken nose and the scrapes across his cheeks. "Liz really did a number on you. Good! At least she went out fighting instead of the fate that'll soon find you."
"Who are you," he blinked in confusion and tried to see through the blinding light in his eyes.
She stepped forward, clicking off the flashlight, "You don't recognize me? Really? Damn, and here I thought I was somewhat of a local celebrity."
"Buffy?"
She gasped in exaggerated surprise. "Let's go for two. Do you know where you are?"
He looked around at the metal shelves filled with boxes marked in scrawling acronyms. "Is this a basement?"
"Wow! Now for the million dollar question: Do you know why you're here?"
He shook his head.
"Think about it."
"Um...Liz," he guessed.
She punched him as hard as she could, "We have a winner!"
She laughed harshly as she walked to a covered table. "You probably thought you were so clever. That I would think it was Angelus since his spy had been discovered. Of course, it would've helped if you'd shown a little restraint. You were in a neighborhood, man! Do you know what that means? People live there, walk the streets. Even if I hadn't seen you myself, someone would have told me!" She lovingly touched the sheet then sighed and looked up to find him staring intently at the object of her attention.
She cleared her throat to draw his focus away as her hands snaked out to grab something from under the cover.
He tried to get up. For the first time, he noticed his hands were chained around the arms of the chair, to the floor.
"What are you-"
"I gave you a bit of give so you could move...it makes it so much more fun." She glanced up to gauge his reaction, his fear as she pulled the cloth dramatically off the table. "Now you know I intend to torture you. I know people think I don't do it myself - that I think I'm above that. Truth is, I've just been so busy with the club and all...But I made time for this. The last time I did this, we didn't even have one of those nifty little electric knives. So, I'm a little rusty. Plus, all I could get on such relatively short notice were some of Kendra's knives." She laughed as he eyed a hacksaw. "That I borrowed from a friend, the same one that brought you here for me."
"I thought I was doing you a favor," he lied, desperate to be out of this.
"Oh really? You thought leaving a message' was doing me a favor?" She didn't wait for an answer before crossing the small distance to him. She caressed his hands, which were resting on the table, before quickly pulling two short daggers seemingly out of nowhere and driving them straight through his hands, effectively nailing them to the table. She giggled at his cry of agony.
She sighed in an almost bored manner and pulled a new knife out of her back pocket. "Do you recognize this," she questioned with a strange smile, turning it in the light, making it gleam maliciously.
He shook his head, almost choking on the fear and pain.
She feigned shock. "No? But you should. What about the handle?" She turned it so he could clearly read the "R.F."
His gaze went from the knife to the look on her face. He began tugging on the chains, unmindful of the pain it caused in his hands.
"Yeah, I wouldn't suggest doing that," she drawled. "I guess that means you do. I cleaned it but the blood's still there...no matter how hot the water was or how hard it was scrubbed, all of it wouldn't come off. I've been thinking about you punishment," she walked around him and he watched her powerlessly. "What do you think I should do," she asked suddenly, almost scraping his forehead with the knife.
"Let me go," they both said at the same time, his voice serious and panicked, hers mocking.
She softly ran the tip against his cheek. "You're not very helpful. But that's okay! I've been thinking. Lyrics inspire me, torture is an art form you know. There's this great song called Good To Know If I Ever Need Attention All I Have To Do Is Die.' Long title, but there's this one lyric that's been stuck in my head. "We prey as wolves among the sheep and slit the necks of soldiers while they sleep."
His eyes widened.
She stood beside his chair then rested on her knees. The sharp edge once more touched his cheek but this time it drew blood. He gasped in pain.
"But that ends too quick to be the punishment for your crimes. There's another one in that song though... I am hell-bent on extracting all of my revenge. Take heart, sweetheart, or I will take it from you," she recited with a dangerous smile, "I think it's a bloody marvelous idea! Cutting out your heart then letting you watch it stop beating while your life fades away. It's rather poetic in a maudlin sort of way."
She straddled him and cut away his shirt. He drew in a breath as she cut into the skin over his heart. He felt the warm blood trickle down.
"Fuck! Thank goodness I remembered to wear black." She stood up and looked at her handiwork. "That's good."
He looked down to see a heart etched into his chest still oozing blood.
"Maybe you should bleed to death." She seemed to be thinking about it. "Nah, I like my original plan better."
"What are you doing," a voice from the stairwell asked.
Buffy sighed and leaned against the table facing Riley. "He has to pay."
Angelus walked towards them, ignoring the fact Riley was there. He gently pulled Buffy against his chest. "I know he does. But I don't want his murder on you," he whispered.
She tried to get away, "Then who will do it?"
"That would be me, Pet," Spike came in the same way Angelus had.
"What are you going to do," Buffy pouted slightly.
"Go upstairs and wait. The others are there," Angelus urged Buffy toward the stairs.
She sighed. "All right."
He waited until the door had closed behind her. He signaled for Spike to get something out of the closet then reached into his pocket.
Does he have a gun? Riley stiffened in his chair, his fight-or-flight instinct oblivious to the fact that he wasn't in the position to do either.
Angelus pulled out a videotape. "There's an outlet over there," he pointed to a space of wall directly across from Riley's chair.
Spike rolled a television on a chart into Riley's line of vision.
Angelus crouched by the chart and lifted a panel of wood to reveal a VCR then inserted the tape. A few lines of static flooded the screen before disappearing as quickly as they'd come.
"Do you know who that is?" Angelus pointed to the little girl on the screen. She appeared to be around five or six with her long, reddish-brown hair in pigtails on top of her head. She beamed, her mouth a few baby teeth short. Angelus sadly answered the recorded smile. "That's Liz," his voice wavered slightly before he abruptly stood to his full, imposing height over Riley. He walked toward the chair and knelt beside it. "She was an innocent," he hissed in Riley's ear. "Surprisingly untainted by the world we put her in."
They both watched the tape, Angelus in bittersweet remembrance but Riley in macabre fascination. Liz sat on a swing and demanded to be pushed. From somewhere out of the frame, a little dark-haired boy ran to her. Neither could clearly make out the words from the worn tape, but both knew what they were arguing over whose turn it was.
Both watched Liz fall down on the pavement and scrape her knee and the boy who'd just came into sight in the previous scene rush to her side to make sure she was all right. Riley knew without asking that this was Angelus. She sniffled and pouted her way into an ice cream sundae from her smiling parents, who kept insisting she wasn't badly injured. Riley looked over to find Angelus still wore the sad smile. He grabbed Riley's head and roughly pushed it back to the screen with the words, "Watch what you destroyed."
The image of a teenage Liz filled the screen as her and Angelus cried, hugged...promised to write and call then said goodbye at an airport. It'd been the day his father had moved them to England. The screen went blank and Angelus didn't move, staring into the television as if it hadn't ended. "She was better than you," Angelus sneered. He took the knife out of Riley's left hand, slashed him across the untouched cheek, then returned it to it's resting place in a new spot. Riley make a horrible screeching sound that Angelus and Spike hoped didn't carry.
"All she really wanted was to be with her best friends without having to hide. She finally gets her wish but she can't appreciate it. Why? Because of you," Spike's fist connected hard with Riley's already bloody face. "We're gonna have a little fun with you. Ryan has a score to settle y'know. Then maybe we'll kill you," Spike struck a match, used it to light a cigarette, then threw it into Riley's lap. He laughed as Riley tried to stop it from burning him.
"I'm sure Piper will want to play as well. Everyone should get the chance to disfigure him in some way. Sort of like a real memorial service for Liz," Angelus stated as he moved the knife Riley had used on Liz close enough to give him the illusion of hope but far enough away to taunt him.
"Let's go," Angelus moved toward the stairs.
"What do we do about him," Spike gestured towards Riley.
"Gag him. Then we leave him here to heal and tomorrow we reopen the wounds. Maybe add a few more," Angelus smiled coldly down at Riley.
"I really didn't think she had it in her," Spike spoke softly as they ascended the stairs.
"I think I may have pushed her to," Angelus turned to look his friend in the eye.
"I'm sorry. Earlier was uncalled for. Might have had too many drinks," Spike rationalized.
"You're right," Angelus cut his babbling off. "It was uncalled for. You have no idea what's going on inside of her, how much it's killing her that she couldn't save L-..."
Spike watched the struggle for emotional control play over Angelus' face. "I think that now I do."
.:.:.:.
Ok, before I go into "Thank you"s, I'd like to say that I might need a new beta. I'm not getting rid of Liz or anything, I just need a second person to do it. Liz is busy with school and she can only do it some weekends...Although I could deal with that (it would mean an update once a week - which is more stable than normal). Let me know what you think/if you're interested - it's not that much work, I promise! (southernaquarius@hotmail.com or talk to me on yahoo messenger - ecstatic_piper918)
Thank you: Selphie, Arobow, angelgirl, "not needed", Britt, Tariq, Jess, Sith Lord Darth Omar, ecstasy_of_grief, TK2, Kinky Angel, and Rbrittsmom73 - Thank you all so much for reviewing, it really means a lot to me :)