Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. Especially those of you who let me know that you appreciate a slightly dark take on Spike. You have no idea how worried about that I was. And I have a beta now. Yay!
Chapter 2:

The Watcher's words ate at him on the drive back to the factory. He started to review everything the Master had said to him since he and Dru had arrived on the Hellmouth.

There had always been a certain smugness in the Master's voice whenever the topic of the Slayer had come up. He'd always thought that it was the older vampire assuming that the younger didn't really understand the danger posed by a Slayer.

The more he thought about it, the less sense that made. After all everyone knew he'd killed two Slayers. True, until he'd killed the second slayer, many demons and vampires had assumed the first one had been luck, but not after New York. No, the Master knew Spike to be a capable and experienced fighter. That couldn't be it.

And the other made only too much sense. Everything he knew about how the Master worked and planned told Spike that if he could the Master would imprison the Slayer in a second. Killing her would only result in the calling of another Slayer, but imprisoning her meant that the Master could follow his plans without serious interference for decades.

As Spike walked through the halls of the Master's blood factory, he kept coming to the same obvious conclusion. She was here, somewhere. The Slayer was here, and the Master had been lying to him this whole time.

Spike felt foolish that this hadn't occurred to him before, but the fresh blood had cleared his head. As he looked around the Master's domain he saw nothing but softness. Vampires that had forgotten their true nature. The place sickened him.

He entered the Master's throne room and knelt before the Master.

"Well my boy how did it go?" the Master asked as he motioned for Spike to rise.

"The Watchers are all dead Master. There was no trouble. It all went smoothly Although one thing worries me."

"What is that?"

"There was no sign of the Slayer. Perhaps this was only a distraction to keep us from her real location."

"An interesting theory my boy. But I'm sure it was simply a reconnaissance mission. The Council probably doesn't want to risk their precious Slayer until they are sure of our strength. It was likely nothing more than a test of our defenses. Remember, the Council is nothing more than a group of fanatics, eager to throw their brief lives away in the war on good and evil. Still, if you think extra patrols are necessary. . ."

'Me thinks the Master doth protest too much,' Spike thought. But instead he said, "Yes, Master. I'm sure you are right. You must know the Council better than me."

The Master nodded, and gestured to let Spike know that he was free to leave if he wanted to. Spike bowed and left the Master's presence. If he'd had doubts before, he was sure now that the Master was hiding the Slayer.

Spike returned to his rooms, thinking over where the Master might be keeping the missing Slayer. The obvious answer was that she was somewhere in the factory. The upper levels of the factory were cages for the humans waiting to be processed.

Spike had only been up there once when he and Dru had first arrived and been given the grand tour by the Master. He remembered there being an old beat up door. The Master told him that the rooms beyond that was empty space waiting to be converted into more holding cells.

It was a long shot, but the most likely place Spike could think of to keep the Slayer was there. Besides, if he went up there and was wrong he couldn't imagine any reason he'd get in trouble.

Even so he waited until the sun had risen so that the other vampires who lived in the warrens below the factory would be asleep. He fought the natural drowsiness that came with the sunrise, and left his subterranean room for the upper levels of the factory.

As he entered the cages the minion on guard duty rose to challenge him. "Sir. There's no sampling, sir."

"Yeah, I know. Just like the smell of fear. Don't mind if I just look around a bit? Promise not to snack."

The guard shrugged and let Spike pass.

Once he was out of sight of the guard, Spike hurried through the rows of cages ignoring the frightened humans as much as was possible. He was surprised that his lie to the guard had worked. The place was full of the smell of fear all right, but it was almost overcome by the smell of human waste. It only took a quick glance to see that there was no working plumbing in the cells. Spike was even more disgusted at the bottled blood the Master provided them all with, knowing that it came from such filthy creatures. He'd rather drink pig's blood. At least pigs were clean.

He made his way past the cages to the old beat up door he remembered. It was still there, and no sign that anyone was planning any sort of construction project. Spike reached for the handle, and found that the door was locked.

"Now why would a door to nothing be locked?" he smiled and said to himself, taking it as a good sign.

He tried to break the lock on the door and was surprised when he found the lock was too strong for him. The Master was defiantly hiding something. For a moment Spike doubted what he was doing. What if it wasn't the Slayer? Spike could think of a number of things the Master might want to hide from his minions, most of which Spike could care less about. If something other than the Slayer was behind the door he could find himself in no end of trouble for snooping and he wouldn't have accomplished anything either.

Before Spike had the chance to further consider what he was doing the door was opened from the other side and he found himself staring at the barrel of a shot gun held by a vampire.

"Uh, Sir? You're not supposed to be here. I'm sorry the Master left strict orders."

Spike smiled at the minion. The fact that the minion had a gun told Spike that he was there to guard against humans, not vampires. Spike was once again sure that the Slayer was the treasure behind the door.

"Of course, I understand. Loyalties to the Master and all that. Must have made a wrong turn."

The vampire lowered the gun. The moment he did so, Spike grabbed the barrel and shoved the butt into the vampire's chest. After that it was easy to wrestle the shot gun out of the guard's grasp. A second hard blow with the butt to the guard's head and Spike was able to step over the unconscious body.

Spike looked around the small room. There was one other door. It was a sturdy looking metal door. At the base of the door was a smaller sliding panel.

The only furniture in the little guard room was a desk and a chair. Dirty magazines where lying out on the desk next to a small black and white TV. Spike peered at the screen. It was obviously hooked up to a surveillance camera and it showed a room that was mostly bare except for a small cot, a sink, and a toilet. As Spike watched, the figure of a girl did push ups in the middle of the room.

Spike was momentarily frustrated as he watched her. She was little more than a blur on the screen. He wanted to see her, but he wasn't quite ready to open the door and be rushed by a Slayer. Then he noticed how the door appeared on the screen. There he could see the other side of the same door he was looking at, but in front of it was another set of bars.

Smiling he pulled the body of the guard into the room, and searched him until he found the keys. Hesitating only for a moment Spike shoved the key into the lock, opened the heavy steel door, and really saw the Slayer for the first time.

She'd tucked her long blond matted hair into the back of her grey tank-top to keep it out of her face, but as she looked up the front strands came loose and framed her face. She jumped to her feet and Spike could see that she was a very small thing, but he had no doubt she was powerful.

'She might be powerful then the other slayers I've killed,' he thought as he noticed the well defined muscles on her bare arms. It occurred to him than that the cell was empty of anything other than the most basic necessities. All the time she'd been in there she'd had nothing to do but exercise and train.

His eyes flickered across her hands, and he saw the rough calluses on her knuckles. Out of the corner of his eye he could see blood, and minor dents in the door he'd opened. He could almost imagine this young girl, calmly, patiently beating at the door, with controlled measured punches. Unwilling to give in or give up. He had no idea whether that was lunacy or not.

He looked at her face and noticed that she had a wicked looking scar that cut across her mouth. What really drew his attention however, were her eyes. Wild, dangerous hazel eyes. They were the eyes of a predator and for several moments her gaze held him rooted to his spot.

Those eyes called to him with a promise of danger and death. Never before had Spike been less sure of whether he could kill an opponent, and never before had he wanted the dance quite as badly.

But then he thought of Dru, his Dark Princess. He couldn't take the chance that he would have to leave her behind.

He broke away from the wild green depths of the Slayer's eyes, turned, and started to walk away.

"Say something."

Her voice was so quiet, he almost didn't hear her.

"Huh?" he turned back to her.

"Say something. Anything. Please?" she repeated, only this time there was a little more strength in her voice, as if she'd found it again after putting it away for a long time.

He saw it then. The metal tray on the floor near the door, which still had the trace, remains of something food-like on it. He understood that for however long she'd been in that cell, she'd been completely alone. Her captors slid open the panel on the front of the first door to slide her food in and out, but no one talked to her. They left her, alone with nothing and no one but herself.

Those hazel eyes were wild with desperation and the first hints of madness. Who knew how much longer she could stand it alone in that tiny cell before she cracked completely.

'And then she'll be free,' Spike thought. Nothing would be able to touch her then, not once she'd gone completely around the bend. At least, that is what he thought, judging by his experiences with Dru's madness. He looked at her through the bars of her cage, and for a moment it seemed that he was the one in the cage and she was the one who was free.

The months of doing the Master's bidding, of begging for scraps of affection from Dru, of restraining his demon and avoiding the violence his whole being craved. All of it pulled him down as if they were weights wrapped around his body. And in front of him, stood this magnificent creature, wild and free.

"Do you want to get out of here?" he asked her without thinking.

"Yeah," was all she said.





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