Bring Me To Life – A Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel Crossover Event
Part 50
Bend, Don't Break
Warning: The following chapter contains graphic descriptions of torture. Viewer discretion is advised.
Sunnydale, California - Shadow Valley Vineyard, lair of The First Evil
8:15 a.m.
Days left before the End of Days: 14
The first thing Faith noticed was that her wrists were sore.
The next thing she noticed was that her entire body was sore.
And as the heavy fog of unconsciousness finally began to lift from her senses and her blurred, distorted vision began to start getting concrete...that's when she noticed the chains.
Her wrists were clamped tightly against a stone wall, both arms hanging over her head. She could feel that there were things clamped at her ankles, and the faint rattling of chains told her that her legs were restrained. Her body was bound on an X-shaped cross, almost like a perversion of a crucifix. If she had to guess, it was that Caleb bastard's sick idea of a joke.
She was trying to recall the last few bits of memory that jumbled around in her mind…
...the vineyard…
...an attack…
...that damn preacher, hitting her so hard…
...being surrounded by all of the monsters in The First Evil's little army of hell…
She groaned softly as she tried to move, wincing as she found that the chains weren't budging. She squeezed her eyes closed, letting her eyes adjust to the brightness of the lights in...wherever the hell she was.
Her focus sharpened a little more to see a man in a red shirt and black dress pants, older, brownish hair, and holding some kind of book in one hand. He eyed her with a lazy smirk and something about the leering way he was looking at her made Faith want to take a shower. Which frankly she wouldn't mind seeing as how she could still smell the stink of wine on her clothes and skin from that barrel Caleb knocked her into.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, luv," the man said in a rich British accent. "See those chains holding you? Yeah, I placed a little spell on them. Enchanted runes, won't bore you with the details, but the long and short of it is that your impressive Slayer strength? Won't do you much good in getting out of those things."
Faith, ignoring him, tugged at her restraints again, but found she couldn't budge.
"Wh...who the hell are you?" she quietly rasped out, still tired, but the fight starting to pump back into her.
The man looked at her in a nonchalant manner, that irritating smirk still on his face. "Right, we haven't exactly met, have we? Ethan Rayne. I'm an old mate of Rupert's. Pleasure to meet you, Faith. I've heard so much about the other Slayer. The 'bad girl' who just wants to be told she's good. But that's just what I've heard."
Ethan Rayne? Faith searched her still-foggy memory to remember where she'd heard that name. Upon recollection, she steeled herself. She might be scared, but she wasn't going to give this asswipe the satisfaction of knowing that.
"Oh, yeah...Ethan Rayne. Heard about you. You're that sackless creep who keeps getting his ass kicked by Giles and Buffy whenever you head into town," Faith smirked back weakly, yet cheekily. "But that's just what I've heard."
A hint of anger briefly flickered in his eyes, but she could see Ethan doing that typical British thing and hiding it behind a wall of little emotion. "Charmed, likewise," he replied flatly.
"Hold that thought, weasel. 'Cuz when I get out of these things? I'm gonna shove my foot so far up your ass you'll be able to see my shoe size," Faith cursed as she came to and tried to free herself from the chains strapping her against the wall.
Ethan cocked a highbrow and smirked, "You're not exactly in the position to threaten me, Faith-y."
Faith glowered at him, the anger giving her back a little more of her old strength. She didn't much care for that nickname.
"Since you're up, why don't you take a look at your new accommodations? Apologies for the medieval look, of course, but then again, renovations are ongoing. Big project dates are ahead of us." Ethan gestured for Faith to look around the cellar.
Looking around, Faith's eyes widened in horror. The bodies of fallen, dead Potentials from last night, strewn alongside the corpses of several of Rondell's street gang, were littered around the edges of the walls around her. Bringers milled around her, pulling the bodies out one by one. Dozens of her fallen allies.
Turning her gaze to the other side of the wine cellar, Faith's bottom lip quivered to see the faces of those girls, these kids. They were gone too soon.
She recognized a small, tiny body at the edges. That kid from the sewers, part of Kate's gang. Matthew, she recognized him, swallowing down a gasp and blinking back tears. This had to be a trick. The kid wasn't even supposed to be part of the mission. No way would Buffy have greenlit a kid to come into the middle of a war zone. Yet there he was. Eyes still wide open in death, the front of his shirt red and torn from some kind of knife wound. He was just a kid...a little boy…
Catching her gaze, Ethan gave her a smug grin. "Right. Tragic, isn't it? I was told that boy gave his life to protect the real Slayer's dear little sister. Was Caleb who did the deed, I'm sure he'd love to fill you in on the gory details if you ask him nicely."
Panting with fear and anger, Faith grunted and thrashed, trying harder to free herself from the chains pinching her wrists and ankles to no anvil.
"Keep up with the smug, Angela Lansbury. I'm gonna rip you apart the first chance I get," Faith hissed. "And that preacher asswipe is next."
He was nonplussed. "Again, my dear...you're not exactly in the position to threaten." He looked to the shadows and smiled. "Him, on the other hand…"
Like some kind of monster or serial killer from a B-movie, Caleb slowly appeared from the dim shadows and stepped forward, watching her with biting interest.
Terrified on the inside but too proud to let this asswipe see her sweat, Faith looked back at Caleb glaring with fury. She needed to think fast. The plan she decided on was to piss off Caleb enough to beat her out of the chains.
Faith mustered enough energy to laugh at the psychotic preacher.
"What'sa matter, Jim Jones? Too much of a chicken shit to face me without the chains?" She threw him a derisive scoff. "Or you just one of those beta male types that can't get it up without a bondage kink?"
Caleb sat back, crossing his arms looking at Faith, then chuckled darkly. A curving smile tugged at Caleb's mouth. "You're just all kinds of filthy, ain'cha, girly? But then again, I supposed it can't be helped, your broken home life an' all."
Faith bit hard on her lip to stifle a surprised gasp. How the hell did he know about that?
She tried again to break herself free without success. "Save your strength, little lady." Caleb ominously told her, that dark smile flashing on his face as he leered at her. "I have a feeling you're gonna need it."
Finding her courage again, Faith flashed him a defiant glare. "Save the intimidation crap, Choir Girl. Been threatened by a lot bigger and meaner than you."
He chuckled, walking over to a table where a series of sharp, deadly looking tools lay, all lined neatly and with care. Instruments of torture, Faith grimly realized.
"Well, l'il missy, I know I probably ain't the tallest fella you've ever been around. Or the biggest, like Rock Boy over there," Caleb said as he motioned outside towards the Beast. " But as you probably know by experience, it ain't about the size that matters…"
With that, he picked up a small, but deadly-looking mallet, twirling it effortlessly in his left hand.
The way his dark eyes honed in on Faith made her involuntarily shudder. His smile was tinged with malice.
"It's how you use it," he winked.
Sunnydale, California—Summers Residence, Basement
10:07 a.m.
Days Left Before the End of Days: 14
"YOU ABANDONED HER!"
Spike snarled at Buffy with a venom in his voice that made her flinch and recoil back slightly. There was a fury in his eyes that she hadn't seen there since the first time they had done battle, when Spike, soulless and bloodthirsty, was hellbent on killing her during a nighttime raid on her high school years ago.
"I didn't...Spike...we had no choice," she hastily tried to explain.
But part of Buffy realized that Spike wasn't likely to be receptive to her earnest explanations. After all...he was chained to a wall and all.
Buffy had made the decision to restrain Spike in the basement after Spike had briefly regained consciousness the night before following the disaster at the vineyard. His first move? Bolt for the door to try and rescue Faith in what would have surely been a suicide mission.
As strong and cunning a warrior as Spike was, Buffy knew that even he was no match for the overwhelming power of The First's minions. Just The Beast alone would have given him trouble. And she wasn't even sure he could beat Caleb. Hell...Buffy wasn't even sure she could beat him; he knocked her out with one punch, and even when she regained her footing, she felt the full might of his blows and saw how skilled he was as he deftly went punch-for-punch with her. But those two combined with Drusilla, Amy, Warren, Pearl & Nash, and all those Bringers, and who knows how many übervamps, and those odds were too much for any one person, no matter how powerful, to overcome.
So she made the decision to keep him in the basement restrained. After punching him back into unconsciousness again following yet another brief skirmish. She just couldn't risk it. She couldn't risk him. Buffy had lost so much these last few days. Angel, the man she loved, was gone. Probably dead. The Keystone was gone. So many of her girls and other allies were dead. She very nearly lost Dawn, her own sister. And Xander...Xander...
God, she couldn't think about that right now. Thinking about it would only make her break down. Make her freeze. And she couldn't afford that. Not now. Not with so much at stake.
Spike's scoff was indicative that he wasn't buying it. "Seems to me you lot had no brain, either. Or eyes. How the hell could you have left Faith behind? She stuck out her soddin' neck for you time and time again, and you just left her to rot?"
Hurt, Buffy felt her face flush and immediately got on the defensive. "I didn't—! You think I wanted to do that? You saw what that place was like last night, Spike, it was a war zone! If we had gone back in there, we would have died! If we had—"
"If you had bloody well listened to us when we told you that it was a trap, none of this would have happened!" Spike snapped angrily. The anger, the fury in his accusing voice made Buffy involuntarily flinch.
For a moment, she had nothing to say. What could she say? He's right, she silently realized in guilt.
"I know," Buffy replied. Her voice was small, hushed, racked with guilt. "...I know. I screwed up, Spike. God, I get that. I-I-I made bad decisions and it cost us big time. And I'm sorry. Call me whatever you want, I deserve it. But I couldn't make it worse by letting you or anyone else go back. We were getting annihilated back there. If I let you go back, you'd be dead."
"What do you care? It's MY life! My bloody choice, Slayer!" Spike snarled at her, an anger in his blue eyes that she had rarely seen before burning a hole right through the tiny blonde warrior. "If that was Dawn in there, or Willow, or God forbid your precious Angel, you'd have been storming the damn gates and moving heaven and earth just to get them back, wouldn't you? But I guess letting the 'other' Slayer that you don't like so much die is just collateral damage, eh?"
Buffy looked at him, wounded and angry. "That's not fair, Spike, you know that's not—"
Spike suddenly lunged at her, but stopped short, the chains on his wrists holding him back. Buffy again found herself flinching in the face of his fury. "I don't know shit! And neither do you!" His lips quivered in rage, his voice dropping a few octaves as his tone became laced with accusation. "You left Faith there to die, and all you have left now are your goddamn excuses. And I don't want to hear it. Any of it."
Buffy swallowed, looking away as she felt guilt overwhelm her. Yes, she realized...she had left Faith there to die. It wasn't her first choice. If there was any way Buffy could have gone back for Faith, she would have. But she couldn't. She just couldn't. She realized now that Giles was right. They should have waited. It was all a trap, and Buffy let Caleb play her like a damn fiddle.
"Fine. I get it," Buffy said quietly. "Look, Spike, I know you don't believe me right now, but I swear, we're going to find a way to get Faith back. We will. But not before we figure out a safe way to do it. Until that happens, nobody is going near that vineyard." She met his eyes with a steel that only leaders had. Only a Slayer had. "That includes you, Spike. And if this is what I have to do to make sure you stay alive...then that's what I'm gonna do."
A low growl left Spike's throat. "You can't keep me here, Buffy."
Her lips set in a firm line. "Kinda can. I'm sorry."
With that, she turned her back to him and slowly, sadly walked back up the stairs.
Anger spiking through him, Spike began to shout back after her. "You think these little chains can stop me? Huh? You think I'm really going to sit down here like a sod with his thumb up his arse when Faith needs me? First chance I get, I'm outta here, Slayer. First chance! I don't care how many blows to the head I take, it's gonna take a lot more than that to stop—!"
Suddenly, Spike jerked backwards against the wall, his hands clutching his head in pain. Terrible pain.
Except, he realized in horror as strange, violent visions began to materialize in his mind's eye, it wasn't his pain.
It was hers.
"Faith."
Sunnydale, California - Shadow Valley Vineyard, lair of The First Evil
Now
Spike?
The thought of hearing his voice, something that was surely impossible, briefly made Faith's eyes widen before…
BAM!
...a solid fist from Caleb connected with her delicate cheek, snapping her head backwards.
As she hung there chained up, Faith's head turned weakly to the side, her eyes rolling around in her head, focus seemingly more and more impossible. Drawing in a shaky breath, she steeled herself, trying to gather what waning strength she had. Oh God...oh God...hang on...you can do this, Faith...don't...let them...break you. Bend...but don't...break...never...break...
She had lost count of how many times Caleb had hit her.
Cut her.
Broken her toes one by one.
Doused her in ice cold water with a hose from head to toe until her body shivered violently.
Snapped her fingers out of and back into place.
It dawned on her that Caleb was cycling through the five basic torture groups on her; blunt, sharp, cold, hot and loud.
She had remembered taunting Wesley with those years ago, when she had tortured him in her apartment for hours. Just for kicks. Just so she could piss off Angel enough to kill her, when she was so miserable and broken and tired of being such a piece of crap of a human being that all she wanted was for it to stop. For her to stop. For her to find peace within death. She remembered the pain in Wesley's eyes, the look of betrayal in them as he tried to put on a brave face while her glass shards made shallow cuts on his skin, so he'd keep conscious through the pain. That look had haunted her nightmares for years. As did the look in the eyes of Professor Lester Worth, a good man, a volcanologist, that Faith had killed on Mayor Wilkins's orders years ago. The shock in them, the fear as he realized he was about to die at her hand as her knife plunged again and again into his back, his gut, his heart. And the sad, disappointed look in Buffy's eyes when she was chained up back in Angel's mansion when Faith revealed her double-cross in helping the mayor. Their faces haunted Faith for so long in her dreams.
SNAP!
Faith winced in agony, gritting her teeth hard as Caleb bent back her index finger and dislocated it again, the fifth time he'd done it. It had taken everything she could to not let out a scream of agony, but she did moan in pain loudly.
Other people would have lost consciousness by now, and Faith at times felt herself blacking out, but she summoned will from reserves she didn't even know she had just to stay awake. She didn't want to give this prick the satisfaction of his little BDSM kink against women; she survived Kakistos, the Beast and even Angelus himself. She could handle one douchebag with a preacher collar, she told herself.
Yet for all her thoughts of survival, a part of Faith miserably wondered if she deserved this. Deserved this pain. Deserved to suffer. She had done so many bad things in her life. Terrible things. Betrayed her friends. Killed innocents. Sided with evil. She had all this power, but she never felt like she deserved it. Was unworthy of it. Maybe this end...horrible as it was...was what she deserved after all…
No!
You've gone through too much to let it end here like this.
Don't you dare give up.
Fight, Faith. Fight and show this son of a bitch what you're made of…
Faith didn't know where that thought came from...but she knew it was right. She was not going to die down here. And she wasn't going to let some fake preacher asshole or his other flying monkeys break her. Dying was easy, but fighting was what she did best. She could bend...but she would not break.
As Caleb snapped her finger back into place, she heard Caleb's taunting voice asking her to scream for him. He always seemed to ask that question. But she never did. She refused to give him the satisfaction.
It seemed like hours since she'd been in this place. Days, even.
That's because unbeknownst to Faith, it had been days...in a manner of speaking. A cruel little spell from Ethan Rayne had created a temporal field inside of her makeshift dungeon cell. Sped up the time to be faster in that cell than out in the real world. Which meant her torture lasted much longer. And Caleb had been sure to make the most out of that time.
"Now, I do hate to try and speed this along, but there seems to be a mite of a problem that we could use your help with, little lady," Caleb drawled, eying the bruised, bleeding, sweating Faith with almost a lusty gleam. He wasn't turned on by the filthy pleasures of flesh like lesser men than himself, but to cleanse a dirty girl, particularly one as filthy as this whore, it made Caleb's nether regions grow tighter. "It seems that we can't keep track of that there tall undead fella your sister Slayer whore's sweet on. Ain-gelus, I think that's his name, right? No, wait, he goes by Angel now. Big ol' broody bastard with a savior complex, so I'm told? He seems to have gone off the grid, and well, shoot, we can't get a bead on where he is."
The mad preacher eyed Faith expectantly, smirking. "You wouldn't happen to know where Angel might be, would ya?"
Faith did know. All the main White Hats did, except the Potentials. But she sure as hell wasn't about to spill the beans on her friend, her mentor, the man she considered to be like a big brother to her.
"Sure," Faith smiled sharply through blood-caked teeth, looking badass and beautiful at the same time. "Try checking up your ass and to the left. That help, Joel Osteen?"
Caleb smiled back.
Chuckled.
POW!
And then he savagely backhanded Faith across the mouth. Blood and saliva flew out in a sickening stream, splattering the floor beneath them.
A weak moan left Faith's lips, her head hanging limply for a moment. Yet she managed to turn her head, flash yet another cheeky smile at the sadistic preacher.
"You hit like a bitch." Faith laughed softly, mockingly. "What's the matter, hot shot? Not man enough to throw a decent punch? Or maybe you got into church work to hide the fact that you preferred a man's touch? Going in through the back door? Not that there's anything wrong with that."
Rage twisting his features for a moment, Caleb reared his hand back for another savage blow...
...when he felt his hand caught by a pair of hands.
A pair of hands that belonged to Pearl.
"This is getting us nowhere, Caleb," she replied, impatiently. "Clearly your crude brand of physical torture isn't going to work. Stop gorging your own penis on sadism and let's get to work on getting results."
Her tone, and her hands on him, did little to cool Caleb's fiery temper. "Girl, you better get your hands off me, lest I decide to keep yours for myself."
"Try it. Though I assure you, it'll be hard getting through life with only half your body intact," Nash's cold voice came from his other side.
Faith watched as Caleb's eyes grew hot with anger, and for a moment, she wondered if these three were going to start a rumble. That might give her an opening to find a way out if she played her cards right…
"Our orders don't come from you, McDonald. They come from The First," Pearl replied coolly, smirking at him. "And you know the boss doesn't like to be kept waiting. Take a break, old boy, read a sermon, go...play with your rosary beads, or something. We'll take it from here."
McDonald? Faith silently realized, remembering Lindsey's last name. No way...couldn't be...could it?
Faith could see Caleb's gears whirling behind those dark eyes of his, obviously considering his options…
At last, Caleb relented. "Fine. Get results then. You just better damn sure hope it works." He began to move towards the door, stopped for a moment, and turned back. "And just remember, Albino Twins. The pecking order says I'm at the head of the table y'all are eatin' off of these days. So put some respect on my name."
Pearl merely laughed. "Oh, please. You're the busboy. The First is the head of our table. And until it says otherwise, The First calls the shots, Caleb. Not you."
Caleb scowled at her. "Keep talkin', girl. My memory's long and my patience is short."
Then he disappeared through the door, the air around it rippling as he passed through the temporal field. Something Faith noticed, filed away for later.
Pearl turned to Faith with a smirk. "Such a bore, isn't he?"
Faith weakly flashed a smirk of her own. "Yeah...a real snoozefest. So what makes you think you guys can do any better, Thing 1 and Thing 2?"
Nash eyed her lustily. "Ooh, I like her. She is a feisty one."
Faith scoffed at him, unimpressed. "Blow it out your ass, David Bowie."
"Let's dispense with the pleasantries, Faith." Pearl smiled cruelly at her. "I could go on and try to bond just between us gals, coax you into giving up the information of your own free will, but we both know that won't get us anywhere."
"Not as...stupid...as you look," Faith groaned.
"Ethan was right, you are charming," Pearl grinned, casually reaching up and brushing one of Faith's long dark locks back from her face. Like she was playing with a broken doll.
"Yeah, that's me. I'm a regular Marsha fucking Brady," Faith faintly chuckled, then coughed a little as the ache of her broken left rib began to throb.
"Right," Pearl drawled. "I have heard about how much punishment you Slayers can take. But can you take the punishment given to someone else?"
A puzzled Faith looked at her like she had two heads. "The hell are you talking about?"
Pearl's azure eyes glinted with malice. "Hearing any familiar voices lately?"
A look of confusion spread on Faith's beautiful face. "...what?"
Pearl laughed cruelly. "Surely you have. How about you...Spike?"
From his spot on the floor of the Summers basement, Spike looked up, shocked.
"Pearl?"
Faith's eyes widened. "Spike? Is that you?"
"Faith," Spike breathed, stunned. He stumbled to his feet. "Faith, where are you? Are you okay, luv?"
"Oh, she's definitely not okay, Spike," Pearl taunted, suddenly grabbing Faith roughly by the hair and chin, yanking on Faith's dark locks until Faith cried out in pain.
Spike felt a sharp pain on his own scalp suddenly burning, gritting his teeth as he growled in pain.
Hissing as he grabbed his head, he tried to process what was happening. "The bloody hell is this?"
"This...is payback," Pearl smiled evilly, and from where he was, Spike could somehow see her white teeth gleam sinisterly. As if he was seeing it all from Faith's point of view.
And he wasn't the only one. Faith couldn't explain it, but she could somehow sense Spike. His fear. His concern for her. His worry. His...his pain.
And it made it all so much worse. Added to her humiliation. She didn't want him to see her like this. Never like this.
"Spike…" His name escaped her lips in a hushed, pained sound.
"Faith," Spike uttered her name in worry.
He could feel her, too. She was hurting. Everywhere. She was scared. God, he'd give his left nut and his bloody soul if he could somehow reach through time and space and pull her out of there. Comfort her. Hold her in his arms, like he did the last time they kissed.
Growling, he yanked in futility at his chains, to no avail. "The hell is this crap, Pearl? What the hell have you done?"
"It was Drusilla's idea, mostly," Pearl replied, smirking as she reached behind a wincing Faith's ear and traced the scar there. "You really should check your body more often for scars, Spike. During our little tumble in the park a few nights ago, your ex-squeeze was kind enough to implant a little something to bring you two burgeoning lovebirds a little closer together. Ever heard of a Prokaryote stone?"
Prokaryote stone?
Oh, did Spike ever remember that.
Spike's mind flashed back to several weeks before. When Buffy and the gang, in a desperate attempt to rid him of the trigger that The First had used to turn Spike into a hypnotized homicidal monster it could control, had implanted that bloody liquid stone crawled into his body and inside his brain through his damned eyeball. Made him relive all those horrible memories of his long-dead mother, turning her when she was sickly, how the vampire she had become had tried to seduce him. How he was forced to stake her to dust. The only person in the world that had ever mattered to him.
Until now.
Shaking those dreadful memories loose, Spike frantically checked the back of his own neck, finding a scar that matched Faith's own. Bloody pissin' hell…
"Funny thing about these stones. Their main purpose is to unleash ideas, images, memories that might have forgotten or suppressed."
Pearl toyed with a dazed Faith's face, brushing her hair back from her face gently, tauntingly. The pale-skinned half-demon was putting on a show and she was enjoying it.
"Sadly, they can't extract information directly from the brain that isn't suppressed. But when they're engineered in just the right fashion...they can also serve as kind of a telepathic and even empathic link between two people," Nash drawled. "In other words, when one person with the link suffers…"
At that, Pearl dragged a glowing green, white-hot fingernail slowly down Faith's slender neck, watched with delight as Faith's skin sizzled as it split apart. Faith gritted her teeth and threw her head up as she let out a moan of pain, her vision getting blurry from the agony.
"The other feels the pain," Pearl chuckled, her laugh full of malice. "Tell me, Spike...how does it feel?"
"AARGH!" Spike cried out in pain, clutching his neck as if Pearl had burned his own neck.
Steeling himself, Spike gritted his teeth. "You soddin' bitch!"
"Now, now, Spike, that's no way to talk to Faith," Pearl drawled, delighting in how Faith's head turned weakly to the side, the brunette Slayer's eyes rolling around in her head, helpless, weak, unable to focus.
"So you see, Faith, you're not the only one who gets to suffer for being so stubborn," Pearl hissed in her ear. "Just tell us where Angel is, and this all ends. Or Spike can spill the beans, it doesn't really matter to us. Or…"
She dragged her burning hot green nail along a small patch of flesh on Faith's left shoulder, drawing a loud groan of pain as she winced from the burns.
Spike hissed and bit his teeth as he muffled his own cry of pain that threatened to leave his throat, his own shoulder feeling as though it was on fire.
"Or you can suffer together," the sultry demoness smiled darkly. "Personally, I love the idea of the latter, since the idea of hurting Spike physically and torturing someone he cares about simultaneously is like Christmas come early. But please, choose wisely."
Faith weakly lifted her head, her eyelids fluttering as she struggled to concentrate. A pang of agony of a different kind flooded her.
Spike.
God, how could she put him through this? She had been going through literal hell in this horrible place for what felt like forever. She could take it. She was strong. But to ask Spike to suffer through this as well? How could she ask that of him? Hadn't she hurt enough people because of her actions in the past? Caused enough suffering? How could she ask someone she...someone she cared for to take this hell with her? What gave her the right?
I can take it.
Faith's eyes widened as she heard that voice in her head. Spike?
I can take it, luv. Don't worry about me.
Part of Faith wanted to laugh, and maybe cry, at the sound of his voice in her head. He was there. With her, in a way. She wasn't alone.
Spike, I can't ask you to do this. I can take it as long as I've got left, but—
But nothing. Faith, they'll kill you as soon as you tell them. Or me. I don't know how they haven't figured out where Angel's gone, but that bit of intel is the only reason why you're still breathin'. Listen, we're going to get you out of there, we will, I swear it. I'll do whatever it bloody well takes. Just hang on, pet, you hear me?
It hurts...God, Spike, it hurts so bad…
I know, luv. I can feel it, too. But I'll be right there with ya. Every moment. Faith, please...just hang on. I'm coming. We're coming. Just listen to me, we'll get through this together. It's okay to bend, just don't break. Bend, but don't break. You're not alone. You hear me? Long as I'm around...you'll never be alone.
Faith felt warmth spread through her chest at his comforting, urgent, passionate words. She could feel that Spike meant them. Every word.
She wasn't alone in this.
And knowing that, it gave her fading will a kind of boost. Filled her with resolve. With strength she didn't know she had.
She could do this. She would get out of here. She was not going to die down here, damn it. And Spike was out there. If he said he'd come...he'd come. She believed him.
Faith smiled weakly. Alright, Blue Eyes...you talk a sweet game. Just don't let me down.
From his own shackles in the basement, miles away, Spike gave her a faint smile of his own.
Never, luv.
With that, Faith lifted her head up slowly. Met the surprised eyes of her tormentor Pearl.
Smiled.
Then spat a glob of blood at her face. Smirked as Pearl recoiled slightly, wiping the defiant mess of blood from her pale face in anger, her eyes glowing green and hot.
Faith only smiled wider. "Okay, bitch. Bring it on."
From the basement, Spike smirked. Steeled himself for the imminent pain. Tried to will whatever strength he had to pass to Faith.
That's my girl.
To Be Continued...
NEXT: Angel struggles through the Trial of Courage as he continues his quest for Hope's Dagger. Connor's faith is tested when he receives a ghostly visit from a face from his past. With Spike lending her his strength and support from far away, Faith continues to try and withstand her torment at the hands of The First's minions. And as Buffy struggles to keep her allies' morale afloat, will a secret about Dawn pit the Summers sisters against one another? And The First Evil makes yet another move that will rock Sunnydale down to its core…
More to come!
A/N: Happy New Year, all! Sorry for the long absence. I was in a bad car accident in August and I've been in rehab for a few months. I'm finally at the point where the worst is now behind me, and I decided to ring in the new year with a new chapter. :) Hope you all like it. My apologies for the somewhat graphic nature of the torture scenes (poor Faith!), but it was necessary to set up further blocks that will shape both Faith and Spike's futures in later chapters. (Assuming Faith survives!)
IM me if you'd like to talk more, and please remember to review, share, and follow this story for updates! Seriously, reviews do help. Whenever I get into a lull, sometimes new reviews spur me on and motivate me to finish. So all feedback, suggestions, etc., is welcome. :) Until next time!
Best,
Jean-the Guardian
