Sorry About That

THUNK....

"The number of Smartalec answers you give will geometrically be in proportion to the amount of broken bones you end up with," Buffy told the screaming, tied to a chair and barefoot man. Noticing her companions staring at her she paused, "WHAT?"

"There is no chance that you know what geometrically means. Did you see it Vogue?" Kennedy asked with an incredulous sneer on her face.

"HEY! Not in front of the Badguy and by the way kiss my well-toned ass," she huffed. "The future Mr. Buffy has been coaching my grammar..People judge us by the words that we speak...JEEZ, you'd think I was an idiot or something."

"Or something...Can we get back to interrogating the Smartass, please?" Faith said grumpily, she was always grumpy at the mention of Buffy's fiancee.

"Oh wait, that's too good," Sam blurted out. "THIS is an interrogation...PLEASE, I've had Girl Scouts trying to collect their cookie money be better at this than you freaks...ARRRGGGHHHHHHH," he screamed when Buffy stomped on another of his toes, turning it into something resembling bread pudding.

"I told you, I don't like that word...Words like that can damage a girl's confidence."

"Sorry...to tell you this but you haven't been a girl for a few years there, Sweetie," Sam said wondering again why he felt the need to keep on provoking these kids. Maybe it was because he kept earning amused snorts from the two brunettes. Humor was the best way to get the girl, after all.

"Will you two stop encouraging him!" Buffy yelled at the other Slayers. "We're not getting anywhere here! As for you, funny guy," he screamed again as she stomped on more of his toes.

She walked over to a counter top in the dingy little room Xander had found for them to use and grabbed a foot-long lead pipe. "The stakes in this game are moving up a notch. Now I'm going to ask again, the woman at the vet's office calls you; What did she talk to you about? " Seeing Sam about to snark another reply, Buffy walked over to him and covered his mouth with her fingers, "Listen to me, Sam, this girl we're looking for is my sister. She is the pregnant wife to the man in the other room and the mother of his son.." Buffy prayed to God quickly that she hadn't just seen sorrow among the emotions that quickly slid across his face. "We're playing for keeps here, Sam, I don't like to kill people but for my sister, I'll make an exception. Hear me on this, I WILL KILL everyone involved, I will track them to the ends of the world and I will destroy everything they have ever loved. There will be no mercy at my hands." She stared in his eyes, letting the slayer shine out, causing him to swallow involuntarily. "I just want her back, Sam..I try so hard not to become a monster....Help me, Help me keep this beast inside of me."

Their foreheads were so close that their noses were actually touching. Sam had never in his life felt the other-worldly danger that was coming off of this petite woman in waves. Knowing that him and his friends were all likely doomed, he had only one play left to give everyone a fighting chance. Odell said the girl would die and that was gospel for him, Odell was a special kind of person, not unlike these people as he thought of it.

"Willow got through the interference, massive wards she said," Xander spoke as he limped on his bandaged leg into the room with a cell phone in his hand. "She still can't find her though, there's something big and bad blocking it. She's getting Sienna, Blake, and Mathilda together and arranging a flight down. They'll be here as soon as possible." He came to a stop and stared at Sam with chill-inducing coldness. "He did something to his phone, hacked it Andrew thinks. It doesn't have any contacts or keep track of any calls. No leads here."

Sam wished that fate had allowed this to play out differently, these people were strange and dangerous but not bad guys he didn't think...Oh well, if it's a choice between them or him, Michael, and Fiona..There really was no choice. Sometimes Sam hated the things he had to do in this line of work. "Give me the phone," he said to their surprised faces. "I've had enough of this, let's end it."

-------------------------

"Hey, Sam," Michael answered smiling as Fiona came out of the back room after her workout wearing a t-shirt that read, Will you be my new Daddy? I killed my old one.

"Hey, Dane." Dane...Coercion..D..at least four people involved, Michael thought without missing a beat.

"What's happening, Sam?" he replied snapping his fingers to get Fi's attention. Realizing what was happening she ran to the laptop computer and started loading their special tracing software.

"Listen, Mike," Sam said catching the reaction in one of the brunette girls confirming his guess that they had learned at least the names of some of his acquaintances.. "I've met some new friends. They would really like to find that girl..."

Buffy grabbed the phone out of his hand and said, "Hi, Mikey, I'll make you a deal, you bring mine, I'll bring yours yada yada yada."

"Is this the part where you're going to threaten Sam if I don't do what you want?" he replied waiting for Fiona. He could hear from the call that it sounded like they were in a moving vehicle.

Buffy gave off a quite convincing evil laugh, "No, I'm not going to threaten Sam. If he's not important enough to you, and I kinda hope he's not, I'll just get someone else. There must be others you care about right, Mr.Dane..Oh wait, I'm pretty sure that is not your last name. Ya know I would hate to involve family in this but mine already is, so why shouldn't yours be too?"

"You had better think carefully about this," he said with a lump forming in his stomach. Fi brought him the laptop and showed him that the call was originating right outside of his mother's house.

"NO! You think about this, Mikey, is Sam enough for you or do I get out of this van and go knock on the door of the house we're parked next to?" Buffy hated making these kind of threats, but for Dawn she would go a lot further than this.

Michael took several deep breaths as Fi started scrambling to put together duffel bags full of gear. "That won't be necessary, I promise you, Sam is enough. Let's get this over with. There is an old abandoned bottling plant down at the end of Poinsettia Boulevard, two hours, we'll be there." Hanging up, Michael quickly joined Fi in getting ready. Knowing that Sam would never under any amount of torture have given up his mother, he came to the conclusion that these people were the real deal, they were professionals, not just the thugs he had assumed from their strong arm tactics. Not even caring that Fiona had stripped off her clothes right in front of him to get redressed in tactical gear he said to her, "Load Heavy, Fi, this is the real deal."