Chapter 14:

It took less than ten minutes to drive to where Wood held Dawn and Buffy captive, although for Spike it seemed to take hours. At first glance, it looked as if no on was there, but the pungent odor of fear and blood belonging to both of the Summers' women, begged to differ, and instantly, both vampires' eyes darted to the trap door leading to the basement.

Spike was already in game face as he ripped the wooden barrier completely off it's hinges and tossed it to the side. The scene he witnessed as he descended down the stairs, was enough to send him into a blind, animalistic rage.

Buffy was pulling mercilessly on the chains that confined her, with tears streaming down her face, and the look of seething hatred and disgust in her eyes, that even Spike, himself, had never even bared witness to.

And Dawn, his beautiful, amazing, full of life, Dawn, now laid bruised and battered in a bloodied heap on the ground, barely moving and almost entirely nude as blood trickled down her thighs, and she was making it a point to look at the wall and not at the man standing above her, who was pulling his pants up to his waist with a smug leer written upon his features as he landed his last kick to the side of her fragile and broken body.

Spike rushed at him at a speed that would have most likely gone unseen to the human eye, and slammed him into a wall on the furthest side of the room. In this moment, Spike could neither think nor speak, every fiber of him was consumed with anger, and he struck the other man repeatedly to his face, torso, and every other part of his body that he could manage.

Seconds later, Xander, after he was pulled out of his shocked stupor by Angel pushing past him to get to Buffy, hurried to Dawn's side.

Angel managed to rip the chains straight from the wall. Now free, Buffy started to go to Dawn, but saw Angel trying to pull Spike off of a badly beaten, and nearly unrecognizable, Wood.

Buffy put a hand to Angel's arm, "Let him go, Angel." she demanded.

"Buffy, if I let him go, he's gonna kill him." Angel tried to explain, even though he wasn't sure if Wood was going to make it either way, considering how bad of shape Spike had already put him in.

"I know." she replied as she lowered her eyes, "And he deserves it."

Angel was stunned, the only time he had ever seen her with such a disregard for a human life, no matter how despicable the human's life in question was, was when she tried to kill Faith to save him.

Spike stopped struggling in Angel's grip when he heard the Slayer's soft spoken words of admission . He thought that surely, she would be the one to try and stop him.

"Buffy, you don't mean that. He's a human, he-" Angel tried to reason, Buffy shook her head, "He's a monster. Look what he did to Dawn. He deserves to die." "Buffy, I can't just-" "You don't let Spike do it, I'll do it myself." Angel nodded in acceptance, he knew she meant it, and he could never allow her to carry something like this on her conscience. He knew that no matter how justified it felt at the time, that it would eat away at her soul for the rest of her life, and he would never let her know the burden of taking another human life.

As soon as Angel released his grip on Spike's arm, Spike stalked over to Wood and picked him up by his shirt collar and held him against the wall. "I told you I'd kill you if you ever came near Dawn again. It's poetic, innit? Knowing that you'll die by my hands, in the exact same way your mother did." Spike whispered in his ear and watched his eyes go wide, just before he snapped his neck. He dropped his lifeless body to the ground and turned to look at Buffy. A silent nod of appreciation passed between them, as he moved towards Dawn on the other side of the room.

Spike knelt down next to Dawn and stroked his fingers along the side of her face. "I'm here, luv." Dawn flinched away from him immediately, and tried to crawl as far as she could before she heaved the contents in her stomach from the day before, onto the floor. When she was done, she sat with her back against a wall and buried her head in her knees and choked back a sob.

Spike took his duster off and approached her slowly, "It's me, pet. He can't hurt you anymore." he told her softly. As he tried to reach out to her again, she jerked her head in the opposite direction, "Don't touch me!" Spike scrunched his brow together and blinked back a tear that was threatening to fall, "Dawn, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm just gonna put this around you, a'right?" He held up his coat, offering it to her. Dawn lifted her head up and noticed Xander and Angel standing behind Spike, observing her ever move. She quickly lowered her head and wrapped her arms around her body in embarrassment.

Spike wanted to shout at them for acting like a bunch of wankers, standin' there gawkin' at her, like they would a bleedin' car accident, but not wanting to frighten Dawn any further, he kept his voice calm and even, "Give us a bit, yeah?" Once Angel and Xander were trotting back up the stairs, he looked over to the Slayer.

Buffy was still standing in the same spot she had been when he killed the principal. She was staring at nothing in particular, and her gaze seemed somewhat unfocused, as if in a trance, and Spike's mind briefly flashed back to the way she looked when Glory had taken Dawn. Spike assumed she was in shock, wether it was from Spike snapping her former boss's neck or from what she had been forced to watch him to to her sister, or from both, he wasn't sure, but now was not the time to be concerned for her. Dawn was his first priority.

Dawn looked up at him, not daring to meet his eyes, and accepted his duster and Spike helped guide it around her slender frame. "Let's get you outta here, pet." As Dawn tried to stand, she used the wall for support. When Spike reached out to steady her she shook him off, "I got it. I can do it myself." As she took a step forward, she closed her eyes and had to bite back a groan, as pain shot through her lower half.

Spike saw the pain register on her face. "Bit, I know you can do it yourself, but please just let me help you. There's no use in puttin' yourself through more pain when I'm right here." he softly tried to reason with her, he understood that she needed to feel like she was in control, but he couldn't bear to watch her go through the agony of trying to walking herself, when he could easily pick her up and carry her, and avoid adding more pain to her already abused body.

As Dawn seemed to contemplate this, her eyes wondered to the limp corpse, laying several feet away from her. He was lying motionless, with his head twisted at an awkward angle. Spike stepped in front her to block her view, "Come on, pet. You shouldn't have to see that." Dawn lowered her head, "Is he dead?" she asked uncertain, although, it was fairly obvious that he was. Spike recognized her need for confirmation and nodded his head, "Yeah, luv, he's dead. I killed him, won't ever be able to hurt you again." As tears slipped down her bruised cheeks, Dawn leaned in to him and Spike swiftly scooped her into his arms, and she buried her head in his chest, as he carried her up the stairs.

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