Trapped - Whatever It Takes

"There's one here", she realized, grabbing her last stake. She couldn't see behind a tall storage cabinet in the corner and approached it apprehensively, shielding Riley away. If she couldn't ambush the demon, maybe she could slow it down enough to grant her boyfriend a chance at escaping.

As she rounded the locker, a weak growl reached her ears. She jumped behind it ready for a kill, then stopped abruptly, recognizing the yellow eyes of the vampire hidden behind it.

"Spike?" She put her stake down, noticing his pitiful shape. He was badly beaten, bleeding from his mouth, and must've been at the end of the road if he decided to hide instead of fighting.

"Slayer." He shook off his game face and put his head against the wall. "Now that's fitting." He chuckled lightly, but ended coughing up more blood.

Her last blast of adrenaline wore out and she dropped to the floor heavily, clutching the stake in one working hand. Her whole body hurt and with Spike half-dead himself, possible outcomes only differed in how fast they would be killed.

"What happened?", she asked weakly. The most reckless vampire she knew hiding behind a closet, a super-soldier barely conscious on the floor, and a Slayer with a dislocated shoulder and no strength left. It sounded like the beginning of a very crude joke.

"Some wankers shot me with a tracer." Spike breathed deeply, unable to move from his spot. "Got it removed, then followed their scent here. Thought I could get some scoop, but couldn't take on all the minions they unleashed." He frowned at the soldier. "You on a date?"

"Commandos decided to send me to pasture." She couldn't believe she fell for that recon story. "How long have you been hiding?"

"Half an hour, maybe." His healing didn't kick in since? "But they won't follow my scent, unlike you-" He was interrupted by a loud thud on the door, shaking their makeshift fortification.

Spike closed his eyes. "We're done for."

"Not yet." Buffy scanned the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. "Riley, can you fight?"

"Negative." He laid down on the floor and spoke sluggishly, panting between words. "My ribs... knee... It doesn't look good." Moving his head around, he could almost see who Buffy was talking to before, a glimpse of bleached hair and black leather. "Is that... Hostile 17..?"

"Spike got here before us", she explained tiredly. And if he was so battered...

"You know him?"

She looked at the ceiling, gritting her teeth through another aching spasm. "We go back. Save your strength."

Spike snorted, but it didn't carry his usual energy. "Won't do him any good, Slayer." He paused to spit out more blood. "I always knew I'd go out fighting. Didn't account for the company, but it could be worse."

Riley spoke up before she could protest. "I hate to say this... but I'm out of ideas here. No comms, no weapons... They knew what they were doing. The Initiative never fails."

"Shut up." Their circumstances were dire, but she wouldn't give up just because they said so. "There must be a way." She could hear heavy steps near their hideout, forcing her to think despite the nauseating pain.

They were not going to sit around, waiting to be killed, no matter how hopeless it seemed. This was not the day to make her mother cry, to break her promise to Giles, perish while trapped in a disgusting sewer, ripped apart by doped vampires.

We're not dying here. We're not dying here. We're not dying here... Doped vampires?

"Spike." She turned her head to him, his face a giant bruise. "How fast can you regenerate?"