Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel belong to their copyright holders, I own nothing.

Chapter 15: Prisoners

Angel and Spike stared in horror. Neither could move, neither could speak as they looked at this new face of Buffy's; this demon face, this haunting face. The face of a vampire. It was frightening and unexpected.

Then the true realizations came. Not only was Buffy a vampire, but just looking at her gave pounds of information to the darkness that was inside of her. She looked evil. Consideration had to be taken into the fact that this mansion with bodies all over it was hers and that she was a leader to a bunch of evil vampires. She'd killed two Slayers, Rona and Vi. Just for Angel and Spike, like she was trying to play some sick game with them.

What had happened to her? Who had done this? Whoever it was, Spike swore that he would make that vampire pay.

"It shouldn't have taken you that long," Buffy continued, her vampire face still showing. "Although, I'm jubilant it happened this way. You know, with the no heartbeat thing, it could've gone either way with you guys."

"Buffy," Spike spoke cautiously. "Who did this to you?"

"Does it really matter?" With that, she switched back to her normal face, her innocent face. "He's dead now anyway."

Angel was too shocked to speak. There'd been some super shocking parts to his really long life. When Darla came back to life. When he found out about Connor. When Connor came back from that hell dimension. Those all had to be the most shocking parts of his life so far. And now this was added into the mix. Buffy was a vampire. The worst part was to think that she had died knowing Angel and Spike were angry with her to the point of unforgiving.

Of course! Buffy's soul. Why hadn't it been put back in yet? Surely Giles and Willow and Xander and—

Oh, gosh, Willow! She'd called Angel's office and he'd never called her back. If there was anything Willow would've called him about, this had to be it. And he'd blatantly ignored her call. Jeez, could he have acted any more stupidly?

Anyway, the point being, Willow and everyone should definitely have thought of putting Buffy's soul back in by now. So why hadn't they?

"So you're the ring leader here, huh?" Spike continued talking to Buffy. "Got all these vamps under your orders, got this giant mansion. Let me guess. Vamp Master. You killed him, Slayer."

"Well, it was only fair," Buffy shrugged. "He killed me, I killed him."

Spike wasn't sure if he should be glad that son of a bitch was dead by his own creation or sad that he wouldn't get the chance to kill him himself.

"Buffy…why?" Angel finally spoke. His throat felt raw, like it was the hardest thing in the world to speak. "Why kill Rona and Vi? Why lead us here?"

"They were presents, Angel! One for you, one for Spike. You should be thankful I'm thinking of you guys, giving the amount of more important things I have to do. I knew you wouldn't appreciate it, Angel, but Spike?"

"Not one bit," he shook his head. "I knew those Slayers."

"So that's soul's still ruining your mind, huh?"

"Yeah, well, apparently not yours."

"On the contrary," she retorted. "I actually have a soul."

Spike didn't know what to say. Obviously she wasn't being serious. Buffy would never do anything like this with a soul. Angel could detect the truthfulness in her voice, though. Not that that could be possible. A soul was a soul, and when you had a soul, you were less likely to do bad things. And when Buffy had a soul, she wasn't at all evil.

"What are you talking about?" Angel asked. Spike was still trying to recover from the ridiculousness of her statement.

"I mean that I have a soul." Buffy said, and Spike stopped laughing. "The strange thing is, though, is that the soul didn't make me good. No, no, in fact, it made me very bad. Strange, isn't it? With you guys it did the exact opposite. Having a soul made you two think you are all savior-y and are the best of the best."

"Buffy, it doesn't make sense for a soul to make you worse," Spike tried to argue.

"Yes, yes it does, Spike. You see, my situation was quite different from both of yours. I wasn't cursed with a soul, so I can't lose mine. And I didn't win my soul, so I didn't want it. Instead, Willow just placed my soul inside my body. The darkness inside my vampire self must've been too dark, though, because there was like this war inside my body and…well…I guess we know which side won."

"The darkness trumped the good," Angel stated.

"Exactly," Buffy grinned.

Okay. Okay. Buffy, a vampire with a soul, evil. Both Spike's and Angel's minds were racing, thinking of any other ways to stop a vampire from being evil. They couldn't really come up with anything on the spot. But there had to be a way to save her. Neither would take no for an answer.

"So what do you want, Slayer?"

"Vampire-Vampire Slayer, to you," Buffy shot at him.

"What the hell do you want?" he screamed angrily. "To rub it in my—our—faces that you're a vampire? To show how powerful, how evil you are? Or do you still have a grudge against us sayin' we didn't want you in our lives anymore? What is it, Buffy, what is it? You want us to love you again? What do you want?"

Buffy paused. "Oh, Spike, you'll always love me. So will you, Angel. Do you really think I'd need to find a way to make you want that?"

She was right. Could either of them even possibly deny that?

"That's why you want to save me," she went on. "I'm sure you both are trying to figure out if there's a way too. And you're free to think about it and have all your little fantasies. But no. You won't be saving me any time soon. Why are you here, Spike? Because I want some fun. I can only mess with Willow, Xander, and the rest of the gang so much. Which reminds me. Spike? Angel? There's probably something I should tell you."

"What could you possibly have to say?" Spike asked.

"Giles lied to you. He blamed Fred's death on me…but no." Buffy's entire demeanor seemed to change, and for just an instant both Angel and Spike could see the old Buffy, the alive Buffy, the Buffy they loved. "I would've offered to help in a heartbeat—no pun intended. I would've searched through every book in the world to try and help you guys because I—the living me—loved you guys. One more than the other, yeah, but I'll get to that. I loved you guys. We have such a history together. I would've done anything to save your friend, even if I didn't know her. But Giles thought you two were bad influences on me, or something. He thought our relationships were toxic and destructive. Maybe he was right. I don't know. But he lied to you guys to get you to do exactly that which you did—forget about me. I was angry when I found out so I went patrolling but…it didn't go so well."

They knew they shouldn't believe her. She was a vampire now, a truly evil vampire, and truly evil vampires lied and played as many mind games as they possibly could. If there was anyone who knew about that, it was Angel. As Angelus, he'd played so many mind games.

Could it possibly be true, though? Giles had lied to them about Buffy saying she wouldn't help Fred? Neither was sure. It was possible, and then it wasn't.

But if it was true… If it was true, then was it their fault that Buffy died? When she found out the truth, she went patrolling and met her death, apparently. If they hadn't told Buffy they didn't want to talk to her anymore…if Angel had listened to her…they might not be here in this situation now.

He shouldn't assign blame yet. He didn't even know if Buffy was telling the truth.

For Spike, he was more on the side that he didn't want to believe it was true. So he'd deny it until he knew for sure.

"Well, I guess that's all for now," Buffy clapped her hands together. "I've had enough fun with you guys today. Given you some things to think about, I hope."

"Great," Spike moaned. "You gonna let us go now?"

Buffy frowned. "Oh, Spike, come on. You should know better than that. Let you go? I'm not letting you guys go anywhere. You're gonna stay in this mansion no matter what."

"You mean like a prisoner? No thanks," Spike snorted.

"Boys?" with one single call, the door to the room opened. There were vampires standing outside the room, a lot of them. Even Spike had to admit that there couldn't be a way to fight their way out of this one. There were too many of them. "You're going to do whatever we want you to," Buffy told them. "Bring them to the rooms," she told the vampires.

Like a giant wave, the vampires came forward, a bunch grabbing Angel and a bunch grabbing Spike. The next thing they knew, they were being dragged in different directions and brought into different rooms.

The room Angel was brought to was dark, but that wasn't a problem. It was extremely large and devoid of anything other than a couple shackles chained to the wall. They brought Angel there and locked his wrists around it. He tried to get away, to fight, but there was no hope. Buffy's minions were determined.

Spike was brought to a different but similar room. He gave more of a fight than Angel, but, again, there was no hope. There was no escape. Once he was chained to the wall, everyone left, and he was alone.

Both Angel and Spike were alone. They couldn't do anything, couldn't break the chains. All they were left with was their thoughts about Buffy.

Dawn was by herself also, but in a different way. Physically, there were plenty of others around her. Willow, Xander, Oz. They really didn't understand, though. They didn't understand the pain.

Okay, they were Buffy's best friends, but Dawn was Buffy's sister. She missed her sister immensely. Her sister was everything for her. She'd taken care of Dawn and helped her through every little part of her life. She'd sacrificed herself when Dawn was in danger.

Now she was evil. So evil a soul couldn't even help her.

Dawn was plagued with many questions. Was that kind of evil always inside of Buffy but just at bay before? Because now, even with a soul, she was more evil than before. Maybe becoming a vampire had just awakened the evil inside of her?

She shouldn't think like that. They could save Buffy. Willow had said it enough times that Dawn almost wanted to believe it. But really, what could they do? Find a spell? Do some magic? And then what? What if they did save Buffy? There was no way she would be okay with what she'd done as an evil vampire. And even as a good vampire she'd hate herself because being a vampire was her worst nightmare.

They couldn't save Buffy. But they couldn't kill her either. Which left Dawn wondering: What were they going to do?