Chapter 3: Betraying
"This was the unkindest cut of all."
Shakespeare, 'Julius Caesar'
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- x-x-x
Seventeen. That was the number on the door. Xander stared at his own reflection in the golden figures, the only marking on the plain white door before him. He wondered what Buffy would say if she ever found out. Shuddering, he issued a quick prayer that she would never know and struck the door twice. Immediately Angel's voice rose from within.
'Momento!'
The doors white surface disappeared inward as the vampire pulled it open. He was clad in a white shirt that hung surprisingly loose and a pair of black jeans; looking at his pale face Xander noticed how gaunt his skin looked but the dark eyes met his gaze challengingly.
'Can I help you?' The voice was cold but politely neutral.
'I think I've gotta lead.'
The vampire before him did not answer. Xander had not noticed last night, with the time and darkness of the room and all, but Angel had definitely lost weight since he had last set eyes upon the creature. Maybe the post at the law firm was taking its toll.
'And Buffy's out patrolling,' he said, having no clue what Buffy was doing. 'Willow, Kennedy, Giles and your goofy Watcher are researching so I thought we could check it out.'
Angel didn't even blink.
'Have you called her?' Clearly he did not want to go with Xander unless he absolutely couldn't help it. Well, the feeling was mutual.
'Buffy left her mobile behind. She doesn't like too much interruption when she's working.'
Angel's jaw tensed and Xander smiled inwardly. It was incredible how easy it was to piss this guy off when it came to Buffy.
'So we're off...' Angel disappeared momentarily into the room before reappearing with the black duster over his shoulders. Xander was about to point out how hot it was outside but decided against it, opting instead for falling into track behind the vampire as he led the way down the corridor.
X
The old warehouse was stacked in at the back of a winding street that ran among a row of slanting buildings, which could all have benefited from a good patch-up. It was dark; the absence of lampposts and any light from within the houses resulted in the sparse light cast by the lead-grey night sky was the only source of illumination.
Angel slipped noiselessly from shadow to shadow, mending effortlessly with the darkness while Xander struggled to keep up without tripping over the garbage and rubbish bins that littered the street. The warehouse looked crammed in the small area as if it had been pushed tightly to fit in. The smashed windows reflected the faint night-time glow; the roof was near horizontal and dark patches stood out like black, boundless lakes where the building materials had been worn away.
'Creepy abandoned building? Check.' He glanced at Angel's dark figure which had paused before the iron fencing that ran the perimeter of the land. 'Jeez, don't these guys just scream 'predictable'.'
He had not expected an answer and didn't get one. Angel looked the gate up and down, his glance setting on the lock. His arm shot out with incredible speed, the fingers closing around the padlock and it slid off with a loud snap as he jerked it backwards. It had probably been very rusty, Xander thought.
Angel was carefully sliding one of the gates open and Xander followed in silence as he slipped inside.
The door to the deteriorating building squeaked shrilly as Angel pushed it open. The vampire paused in the doorway and Xander peered over his shoulder. The far end of the candle-lit room disappeared in the murky shadows and the floor was scattered with various objects; wooden and cardboard boxes, scraps of metal, planks of wood, and among the rubbish, concrete pillars rose towards the ceiling, supporting the strips of latticed metal floor that ran above their heads.
As Angel stepped cautiously over the threshold, Xander wondered whether he had smelt the trap.
'You sure this is the place?' the vampire whispered without turning his head.
Xander stepped into the faintly lit room. The dancing flames from the multiple candles arranged along the floor gave it a sinister look, dark shadows swaying, dancing along the walls and the floor.
'Dead sure.'
A strange, hissing sound reached Xander's ears. Before him, Angel groaned in pain and doubled over. In the silence of the vast, open space the snap echoed between the walls like a gunshot. Angel straightened and spun around, in vampire face now, and in his hand he held the broken off shaft of a wooden arrow. Xander felt his gaze involuntarily travel to the dark blot at the stomach of the vampire's white shirt.
'Xander go!' Angel roared, before swiftly spinning on his feet to face the three vampires that jumped at him from above. Xander took a couple of steps backward until his back was leaning against the wall, watching. As little as he wanted to admit it, Angel was a damn good fighter.
He was dodging the blows that rained down over him and had dusted a vampire using the end of the arrow he still clung to before it had time to register what was going on. Grabbing one of the two remaining, he hurled it forcefully across the room and it slammed violently against one of the pillars, stones and white dust raining down over it.
Xander's foot connected with a board of wood on the floor and after a quick glance at the brawl he picked it up. He couldn't let Angel win, he realized with a sinking feeling. Sad, but he had reached the point of no return.
After receiving a punch to his temple, Angel knocked the third vampire to the floor and he was turning to the door as Xander slammed the wooden plank into his distorted face with as much brutal force as he could gather. The wood splintered at the impact and Angel was sent sprawling against the floor.
'I've wanted to do that for six years,' Xander told the vampire, whose blank face suddenly paled in realization, his feral eyes widening.
'No!' He whispered, shaking his head as if to deny what was happening; his attempts at getting back on his feet was thwarted by the seven vampires that had come running from the shadows to hurl themselves at him. Uncertainty slowing his steps, Xander hesitantly backed off as Angel's struggling form disappeared in a merge of flailing clothing, kicking legs and lashing arms. Lying down the vampire was incapable of defending himself despite his valiant efforts.
'Xander, no!' His voice rose, shrill and desperate. Xander was quite sure he had never heard him like that before. 'They'll kill her!'
And all sympathy he had been in danger of feeling for him a second earlier evaporated at the mentioning of Buffy. Xander lowered the piece of wood and stared as a fiercely struggling Angel was pushed onto his stomach, still in vamp face, his wrists tied behind his back and gagged.
He slipped out of the door, forcing his head to turn away just as one of the vamps swung an iron rod towards Angel's head and the sound of struggling died.
X
Xander stepped into Giles' personal study, closing the door to the hallway after him. The room was brimming with activity though none of them looked up as he approached. Willow and Giles were pouring over the same book, conversing in hushed voices, the other Watcher – Wesley – was sitting secluded from the others, his head snapping from a sprawling, musty-looking old book to the notebook on his right. Kennedy was walking along the bookshelves, leaving a trail of books littering the floor after her.
'How's the snoring party coming on?' He snatched a biscuit from the plate on the table.
'No,' Willow said pensively. 'That's not it. He doesn't have horns...and, well, he's not green with purple dots.'
Giles pushed his glasses further up his nose. 'Um...uh, yes. I see.'
Xander slumped down in the couch. 'It's good to see ya too, you know.'
The outer doors slammed shut and he looked around at the sound to see Buffy walking into the room. 'Buffster! How'd the spanking go?'
She looked him, blinking. 'What? Oh, yes, it – it was good.'
Xander raised his eyebrows but she didn't notice since she had turned to the others. 'Listen; have any of you guys seen Angel?'
The two ex-Watchers both raised their heads.
'He's not here,' Giles announced helpfully. 'And, um, you didn't see him on patrol?'
'Was he still in his room?' Wesley actually sounded slightly uneasy.
'Double bill of no. I checked it out.'
Xander couldn't understand why she would be so worried. It was not as if she had acted all over the moon to see Deadboy again.
'He's a big boy,' he said. 'Devil's advocate and all. He can look after himself.'
'UH!'
Everybody's heads snapped round to Kennedy. 'What?'
She looked up from the book she was holding. 'No, sorry, it was nothing.'
Buffy looked back at Giles. 'I don't like it. I'm going out looking for him.'
Willow looked up. 'You're back on track? I mean like – together?'
Giles looked up too but his expression was far from similar to the red- head's.
Buffy shot her friend a look Xander roughly translated as 'you know better than to say stuff like that'. 'No,' she said aloud. 'But him being gone and all...it just feels wrong.'
'Sorry to interfere,' Xander said. 'But oughtn't we to concentrate on the rather more important matter at hand than 'lost Angel'?'
Giles nodded solemnly. 'Quite right.'
'And still,' Wesley slammed his book shut and stood up, 'it's two hours after sunset and he hasn't shown.' He shot Buffy an impassive look. 'Have you tried calling his phone?'
'Please!' Her tone effectively said what she did not.
Wesley did not show it if he felt affronted. 'And?'
'Not answering.'
'No, I expected as much,' he muttered glumly.
'And still we're discussing Angel rather than the impending doomsday!' Xander couldn't understand Buffy. She had appeared furious. As far as he could tell, she had treated Angel as callously as he had always longed to see her do.
And now she was all for a major rescue operation for said loathed vampire.
'They are probably related,' Wes said.
'They are not.' The words had escaped him before he had any chance of stopping them. They all looked at him and he grinned sheepishly. 'I mean, you don't know that.'
'Maybe...' Wes trailed off. Buffy shot him a look.
'What?'
'Cerbero got away when we attacked his mansion. I think it is safe to say he is not exactly Angel's biggest fan -'
'Can you blame him?' Xander muttered under his breath though he was pretty confident nobody heard him.
'- and he will do anything to get his hands on the book.' Wes gestured to the innocent looking object on the table. 'It is possible that they may have attacked him.'
Buffy paled. 'They're gonna kill him.'
Xander stared at the show unfold from his position on the couch. 'Please fill me in on that one: that is bad because...?'
Buffy felt winded as if she had jumped into a swimming pool from a high point and landed on her stomach. She could not believe she had not seen this coming. She slowly turned to the young man on the couch.
'You turned him in.' And through the hazy mist and the buzzing in her head she marvelled at how steady her voice was.
Xander frowned at her and before she could realize what she was doing, she had taken a threatening step nearer to the sofa. Willow shrieked from behind her.
'Buffy!'
A pair of strong hands grabbed her arm from behind and pulled her away and she fought hard not to lash out at Wesley for touching her.
'Did it feel good, huh?' She was aware that Giles was fixing her with a shocked stare but she didn't care.
Xander stood up. 'Yes,' he said, boldly meeting her glare. 'It did feel good. And if you wanna know, I even think I did the right thing.'
She had experienced betrayal before. It was not uncommon when you fought for your life every, single day and often had to rely upon rather untrustworthy allies. But this was different. This was Xander.
'Course you do,' she snarled at him. 'Hero.'
'Hear me out on this one.' Xander looked so honest that she closed her mouth again. 'They were gonna go for you and use you as a way to get to him. I would not let that happen.'
Buffy didn't even realise that Wesley's grip on her arm tightened to the verge of being painful. It was strange how furious, how personally betrayed she could feel, when all Xander had really done was trying to protect her. But this was Angel.
She had been incapable of pushing him out of her thoughts and all day long he had whispered in her mind until she knew that it would drive her crazy if she did not try to talk to him again. Ask him why he had done it, what had happened to him to make him choose that road.
And now it looked as though she was never going to get the chance. That he would be ripped away from her again.
Her voice shook with contained fury as she spoke. 'So you gave them Angel's head on a silver dish with a little note of best wishes for enjoyment and happiness?'
Xander didn't break eye contact. 'Roughly.'
'How could you?'
'Seeing that he not only tried to kill me but also my friends and my then- girlfriend the 'how' bit wasn't exactly the limiting factor,' Xander answered bluntly. 'And since they only cared for getting their hands on Angel but would see nothing wrong in using you as bait, I did as I saw fit.' His voice rose to a near-shout. 'And I'm sorry if you feel stabbed in the back, but this isn't about you. It just so happens that you mean more to me than a homicidal vampire; I can't help it, that's just the way I am.'
Buffy was pretty sure she had never wanted to hit him as much as she did in that moment, though she probably had. Not only had he betrayed someone who was supposed to be on their side and thus placed them all in jeopardy, the 'someone' was Angel and he was even trying to justify himself.
Still, a snippet of hope slipped into her thoughts. 'Where did you take him? Maybe we can still stop them!'
Behind her Giles cleared his throat. 'A-are you sure this is wise? I mean -'
'I don't care what you mean.' And she didn't. It was painful that every time Angel entered her life, he always seemed to have some extraordinary talent for splitting her friends but that was just a shame. Because she didn't care.
'There is an abandoned warehouse on the Eastern outskirts.' Xander was looking at her with his head slightly tilted. 'But I don't know where they took him. That was just the meeting place.'
Buffy shrug off Wesley's arm and turned her back to Xander. 'I'm going after him,' she announced.
'I'll come with you,' Wes said.
She glared at him. That declaration was unexpected but not necessarily pleasant.
'No. I really think I can handle a couple of vamps on my own,' she told him before adding in a voice that was strikingly snide: 'I have been doing this a long time, you know.'
'You'll need help,' he said, completely oblivious to her outburst.
She stared at him, doubting whether to be offended or not. 'Not yours.'
He gave her a cold smile that did not reach his eyes. 'I'll drive.'
Honestly, what did she have to do to make the wimp get her point? 'Which part of 'I'm going alone' don't you understand?'
She grabbed his arm as he walked past her but snapped her hand back as if she had been burned as a wooden stake whizzed out from his sleeve. She blinked at him in confusion. He smiled that strange humourless smile again, which made her want to hit him, by the way, and the weapon disappeared back up his sleeve.
'The ignorant part,' he said, opening the door to the hallway and looking back at her. 'Are we going?'
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
A/N: Thanks so much to my reviewers: legolasgal, nimwen, DDuck (thanks for the feedback. You will find I struggle more in this area since I'm kinda in denial of the whole 'moving on' business. I'm still a teenager so need someone to pin my ludicrous teenage fantasies on and, too bad for B/A, they were the couple I landed on :-), a2zmom (don't worry. Making Xander the villain would at this point seem like a bit of an obvious route, and 'obvious' is just too damn boring!), Tariq and AngelicDreams.
A/N 2: I'm afraid some of the content in the next chapter warrants an 'R' rating, but I'm reluctant to move the story, so please don't be offended :- )
"This was the unkindest cut of all."
Shakespeare, 'Julius Caesar'
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- x-x-x
Seventeen. That was the number on the door. Xander stared at his own reflection in the golden figures, the only marking on the plain white door before him. He wondered what Buffy would say if she ever found out. Shuddering, he issued a quick prayer that she would never know and struck the door twice. Immediately Angel's voice rose from within.
'Momento!'
The doors white surface disappeared inward as the vampire pulled it open. He was clad in a white shirt that hung surprisingly loose and a pair of black jeans; looking at his pale face Xander noticed how gaunt his skin looked but the dark eyes met his gaze challengingly.
'Can I help you?' The voice was cold but politely neutral.
'I think I've gotta lead.'
The vampire before him did not answer. Xander had not noticed last night, with the time and darkness of the room and all, but Angel had definitely lost weight since he had last set eyes upon the creature. Maybe the post at the law firm was taking its toll.
'And Buffy's out patrolling,' he said, having no clue what Buffy was doing. 'Willow, Kennedy, Giles and your goofy Watcher are researching so I thought we could check it out.'
Angel didn't even blink.
'Have you called her?' Clearly he did not want to go with Xander unless he absolutely couldn't help it. Well, the feeling was mutual.
'Buffy left her mobile behind. She doesn't like too much interruption when she's working.'
Angel's jaw tensed and Xander smiled inwardly. It was incredible how easy it was to piss this guy off when it came to Buffy.
'So we're off...' Angel disappeared momentarily into the room before reappearing with the black duster over his shoulders. Xander was about to point out how hot it was outside but decided against it, opting instead for falling into track behind the vampire as he led the way down the corridor.
X
The old warehouse was stacked in at the back of a winding street that ran among a row of slanting buildings, which could all have benefited from a good patch-up. It was dark; the absence of lampposts and any light from within the houses resulted in the sparse light cast by the lead-grey night sky was the only source of illumination.
Angel slipped noiselessly from shadow to shadow, mending effortlessly with the darkness while Xander struggled to keep up without tripping over the garbage and rubbish bins that littered the street. The warehouse looked crammed in the small area as if it had been pushed tightly to fit in. The smashed windows reflected the faint night-time glow; the roof was near horizontal and dark patches stood out like black, boundless lakes where the building materials had been worn away.
'Creepy abandoned building? Check.' He glanced at Angel's dark figure which had paused before the iron fencing that ran the perimeter of the land. 'Jeez, don't these guys just scream 'predictable'.'
He had not expected an answer and didn't get one. Angel looked the gate up and down, his glance setting on the lock. His arm shot out with incredible speed, the fingers closing around the padlock and it slid off with a loud snap as he jerked it backwards. It had probably been very rusty, Xander thought.
Angel was carefully sliding one of the gates open and Xander followed in silence as he slipped inside.
The door to the deteriorating building squeaked shrilly as Angel pushed it open. The vampire paused in the doorway and Xander peered over his shoulder. The far end of the candle-lit room disappeared in the murky shadows and the floor was scattered with various objects; wooden and cardboard boxes, scraps of metal, planks of wood, and among the rubbish, concrete pillars rose towards the ceiling, supporting the strips of latticed metal floor that ran above their heads.
As Angel stepped cautiously over the threshold, Xander wondered whether he had smelt the trap.
'You sure this is the place?' the vampire whispered without turning his head.
Xander stepped into the faintly lit room. The dancing flames from the multiple candles arranged along the floor gave it a sinister look, dark shadows swaying, dancing along the walls and the floor.
'Dead sure.'
A strange, hissing sound reached Xander's ears. Before him, Angel groaned in pain and doubled over. In the silence of the vast, open space the snap echoed between the walls like a gunshot. Angel straightened and spun around, in vampire face now, and in his hand he held the broken off shaft of a wooden arrow. Xander felt his gaze involuntarily travel to the dark blot at the stomach of the vampire's white shirt.
'Xander go!' Angel roared, before swiftly spinning on his feet to face the three vampires that jumped at him from above. Xander took a couple of steps backward until his back was leaning against the wall, watching. As little as he wanted to admit it, Angel was a damn good fighter.
He was dodging the blows that rained down over him and had dusted a vampire using the end of the arrow he still clung to before it had time to register what was going on. Grabbing one of the two remaining, he hurled it forcefully across the room and it slammed violently against one of the pillars, stones and white dust raining down over it.
Xander's foot connected with a board of wood on the floor and after a quick glance at the brawl he picked it up. He couldn't let Angel win, he realized with a sinking feeling. Sad, but he had reached the point of no return.
After receiving a punch to his temple, Angel knocked the third vampire to the floor and he was turning to the door as Xander slammed the wooden plank into his distorted face with as much brutal force as he could gather. The wood splintered at the impact and Angel was sent sprawling against the floor.
'I've wanted to do that for six years,' Xander told the vampire, whose blank face suddenly paled in realization, his feral eyes widening.
'No!' He whispered, shaking his head as if to deny what was happening; his attempts at getting back on his feet was thwarted by the seven vampires that had come running from the shadows to hurl themselves at him. Uncertainty slowing his steps, Xander hesitantly backed off as Angel's struggling form disappeared in a merge of flailing clothing, kicking legs and lashing arms. Lying down the vampire was incapable of defending himself despite his valiant efforts.
'Xander, no!' His voice rose, shrill and desperate. Xander was quite sure he had never heard him like that before. 'They'll kill her!'
And all sympathy he had been in danger of feeling for him a second earlier evaporated at the mentioning of Buffy. Xander lowered the piece of wood and stared as a fiercely struggling Angel was pushed onto his stomach, still in vamp face, his wrists tied behind his back and gagged.
He slipped out of the door, forcing his head to turn away just as one of the vamps swung an iron rod towards Angel's head and the sound of struggling died.
X
Xander stepped into Giles' personal study, closing the door to the hallway after him. The room was brimming with activity though none of them looked up as he approached. Willow and Giles were pouring over the same book, conversing in hushed voices, the other Watcher – Wesley – was sitting secluded from the others, his head snapping from a sprawling, musty-looking old book to the notebook on his right. Kennedy was walking along the bookshelves, leaving a trail of books littering the floor after her.
'How's the snoring party coming on?' He snatched a biscuit from the plate on the table.
'No,' Willow said pensively. 'That's not it. He doesn't have horns...and, well, he's not green with purple dots.'
Giles pushed his glasses further up his nose. 'Um...uh, yes. I see.'
Xander slumped down in the couch. 'It's good to see ya too, you know.'
The outer doors slammed shut and he looked around at the sound to see Buffy walking into the room. 'Buffster! How'd the spanking go?'
She looked him, blinking. 'What? Oh, yes, it – it was good.'
Xander raised his eyebrows but she didn't notice since she had turned to the others. 'Listen; have any of you guys seen Angel?'
The two ex-Watchers both raised their heads.
'He's not here,' Giles announced helpfully. 'And, um, you didn't see him on patrol?'
'Was he still in his room?' Wesley actually sounded slightly uneasy.
'Double bill of no. I checked it out.'
Xander couldn't understand why she would be so worried. It was not as if she had acted all over the moon to see Deadboy again.
'He's a big boy,' he said. 'Devil's advocate and all. He can look after himself.'
'UH!'
Everybody's heads snapped round to Kennedy. 'What?'
She looked up from the book she was holding. 'No, sorry, it was nothing.'
Buffy looked back at Giles. 'I don't like it. I'm going out looking for him.'
Willow looked up. 'You're back on track? I mean like – together?'
Giles looked up too but his expression was far from similar to the red- head's.
Buffy shot her friend a look Xander roughly translated as 'you know better than to say stuff like that'. 'No,' she said aloud. 'But him being gone and all...it just feels wrong.'
'Sorry to interfere,' Xander said. 'But oughtn't we to concentrate on the rather more important matter at hand than 'lost Angel'?'
Giles nodded solemnly. 'Quite right.'
'And still,' Wesley slammed his book shut and stood up, 'it's two hours after sunset and he hasn't shown.' He shot Buffy an impassive look. 'Have you tried calling his phone?'
'Please!' Her tone effectively said what she did not.
Wesley did not show it if he felt affronted. 'And?'
'Not answering.'
'No, I expected as much,' he muttered glumly.
'And still we're discussing Angel rather than the impending doomsday!' Xander couldn't understand Buffy. She had appeared furious. As far as he could tell, she had treated Angel as callously as he had always longed to see her do.
And now she was all for a major rescue operation for said loathed vampire.
'They are probably related,' Wes said.
'They are not.' The words had escaped him before he had any chance of stopping them. They all looked at him and he grinned sheepishly. 'I mean, you don't know that.'
'Maybe...' Wes trailed off. Buffy shot him a look.
'What?'
'Cerbero got away when we attacked his mansion. I think it is safe to say he is not exactly Angel's biggest fan -'
'Can you blame him?' Xander muttered under his breath though he was pretty confident nobody heard him.
'- and he will do anything to get his hands on the book.' Wes gestured to the innocent looking object on the table. 'It is possible that they may have attacked him.'
Buffy paled. 'They're gonna kill him.'
Xander stared at the show unfold from his position on the couch. 'Please fill me in on that one: that is bad because...?'
Buffy felt winded as if she had jumped into a swimming pool from a high point and landed on her stomach. She could not believe she had not seen this coming. She slowly turned to the young man on the couch.
'You turned him in.' And through the hazy mist and the buzzing in her head she marvelled at how steady her voice was.
Xander frowned at her and before she could realize what she was doing, she had taken a threatening step nearer to the sofa. Willow shrieked from behind her.
'Buffy!'
A pair of strong hands grabbed her arm from behind and pulled her away and she fought hard not to lash out at Wesley for touching her.
'Did it feel good, huh?' She was aware that Giles was fixing her with a shocked stare but she didn't care.
Xander stood up. 'Yes,' he said, boldly meeting her glare. 'It did feel good. And if you wanna know, I even think I did the right thing.'
She had experienced betrayal before. It was not uncommon when you fought for your life every, single day and often had to rely upon rather untrustworthy allies. But this was different. This was Xander.
'Course you do,' she snarled at him. 'Hero.'
'Hear me out on this one.' Xander looked so honest that she closed her mouth again. 'They were gonna go for you and use you as a way to get to him. I would not let that happen.'
Buffy didn't even realise that Wesley's grip on her arm tightened to the verge of being painful. It was strange how furious, how personally betrayed she could feel, when all Xander had really done was trying to protect her. But this was Angel.
She had been incapable of pushing him out of her thoughts and all day long he had whispered in her mind until she knew that it would drive her crazy if she did not try to talk to him again. Ask him why he had done it, what had happened to him to make him choose that road.
And now it looked as though she was never going to get the chance. That he would be ripped away from her again.
Her voice shook with contained fury as she spoke. 'So you gave them Angel's head on a silver dish with a little note of best wishes for enjoyment and happiness?'
Xander didn't break eye contact. 'Roughly.'
'How could you?'
'Seeing that he not only tried to kill me but also my friends and my then- girlfriend the 'how' bit wasn't exactly the limiting factor,' Xander answered bluntly. 'And since they only cared for getting their hands on Angel but would see nothing wrong in using you as bait, I did as I saw fit.' His voice rose to a near-shout. 'And I'm sorry if you feel stabbed in the back, but this isn't about you. It just so happens that you mean more to me than a homicidal vampire; I can't help it, that's just the way I am.'
Buffy was pretty sure she had never wanted to hit him as much as she did in that moment, though she probably had. Not only had he betrayed someone who was supposed to be on their side and thus placed them all in jeopardy, the 'someone' was Angel and he was even trying to justify himself.
Still, a snippet of hope slipped into her thoughts. 'Where did you take him? Maybe we can still stop them!'
Behind her Giles cleared his throat. 'A-are you sure this is wise? I mean -'
'I don't care what you mean.' And she didn't. It was painful that every time Angel entered her life, he always seemed to have some extraordinary talent for splitting her friends but that was just a shame. Because she didn't care.
'There is an abandoned warehouse on the Eastern outskirts.' Xander was looking at her with his head slightly tilted. 'But I don't know where they took him. That was just the meeting place.'
Buffy shrug off Wesley's arm and turned her back to Xander. 'I'm going after him,' she announced.
'I'll come with you,' Wes said.
She glared at him. That declaration was unexpected but not necessarily pleasant.
'No. I really think I can handle a couple of vamps on my own,' she told him before adding in a voice that was strikingly snide: 'I have been doing this a long time, you know.'
'You'll need help,' he said, completely oblivious to her outburst.
She stared at him, doubting whether to be offended or not. 'Not yours.'
He gave her a cold smile that did not reach his eyes. 'I'll drive.'
Honestly, what did she have to do to make the wimp get her point? 'Which part of 'I'm going alone' don't you understand?'
She grabbed his arm as he walked past her but snapped her hand back as if she had been burned as a wooden stake whizzed out from his sleeve. She blinked at him in confusion. He smiled that strange humourless smile again, which made her want to hit him, by the way, and the weapon disappeared back up his sleeve.
'The ignorant part,' he said, opening the door to the hallway and looking back at her. 'Are we going?'
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A/N: Thanks so much to my reviewers: legolasgal, nimwen, DDuck (thanks for the feedback. You will find I struggle more in this area since I'm kinda in denial of the whole 'moving on' business. I'm still a teenager so need someone to pin my ludicrous teenage fantasies on and, too bad for B/A, they were the couple I landed on :-), a2zmom (don't worry. Making Xander the villain would at this point seem like a bit of an obvious route, and 'obvious' is just too damn boring!), Tariq and AngelicDreams.
A/N 2: I'm afraid some of the content in the next chapter warrants an 'R' rating, but I'm reluctant to move the story, so please don't be offended :- )