A/N: So, um, welcome to my first ever Degrassi fic! Obviously AU, but I couldn't resist the idea of Eli going undercover. :)

Warning: this fic includes quite a bit about both gangs and undercover agents, neither of which I have personal experience with, so please suspend your disbelief and just go with it! Though if I get anything way off base, please feel free to tell me! Also, in this as opposed to Canada, Degrassi is its own city in Illinois. I have my reasons: namely, I'm familiar with America more, and I haven't got a clue about gangs in Canada, while I do know that Illinois is a big place for them!

Rating is currently T, but WILL change to M later, because you can't have a story about gangs without things getting graphic.

This chapter is just the intro/prologue, so it's really short and pretty wordy, I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Disclaimer: disclaimed.

Clique

Prologue

She sucked in a breath as the phone started to ring, shifting her weight uneasily from one leg to the other. There was no denying it; Clare Edwards was anxious. With good reason too, she thought.

"Hey babe," a rough, deep voice on the phone greeted her.

"I'm not your babe, babe," she snapped. Not anymore, anyway, she didn't say. "And I want to cash in on that out you promised me before we started this thing."

From the muffled sound that came through the phone, she could tell that Mark Fitzgerald was stifling a laugh, and it was this fact that that frustrated her more than anything else going on. "God Clare, you're so fucking gullible. Did you really think I could get you an out? I warned you before you joined that this was a messy business, but you were wrapped up on some naïve idea of love and being together forever. Well, you got your wish. And a nice little souvenir to make certain that you'll never forget it. See you at the usual place next week, babe." There was nothing but dead air on the phone now, he'd hung up without letting her get a word in edgewise.

She threw her phone across the room at her bed to resist the sudden urge she had to break it. She glanced at herself in the mirror briefly and noted that if it weren't for the contorted look of rage that was currently frozen on her face, she'd look practically incapable of some of the horrible things she'd done in the last year since her initiation.

She had light brown, curly-ish hair that barely reached her shoulders, and a round baby face that only seemed to assure the world of her innocence. It was so ironic and frustrated her to no end, how little her reflection had changed as compared to how much she'd changed on the inside. Sometimes she just wanted to scream out to the world that she wasn't who they thought she was, but she always refrained.

She turned away from the mirror to go retrieve her phone from her bed and tried not to cringe away as she glanced back and saw the intricately designed tattoo of a 'C' on her back. It was innocent enough, if you were lucky enough to not be privy to the knowledge of what it actually meant. Clare wasn't lucky and it wasn't an innocent mark. It marked her as theirs.

She had just rolled onto her bed, when she saw it: the scrap of paper her father had given her the previous week with a phone number written on it. It had a 917 area code, and after a little bit of research, Clare had found out that it was from the New York City area.

He'd given it to her when she'd come home at two in the morning, her shirt ripped up exposing the tattoo on her right shoulder blade, skin covered in dirt, smelling like a mixture of various drugs and alcohol. She'd felt caught red-handed and exposed in more ways than one, and he had just stood there stiffly taking in her appearance. He'd then written down the phone number on a ripped up sheet of paper and handed it to her. When she'd asked "what's this?" he'd responded with much more composure than she felt. "An out."

And so, because an out was all she'd been praying and hoping for for, oh, the last six months (at least), she finally dialed the number and held her breath as she pressed the call button, feeling like this could either be the worst or best decision she ever made.

"Agents Elijah, Adam, and Imogen, please report to my office immediately," came the voice of Audra Torres from the intercom, Adam's mother and their boss. Adam and Eli sighed, but nonetheless stood from their seats in the lounge, noticing Imogen do the same from across the room. She reached the door first and held it open for them, and the three of them trailed a bit unsurely to Audra's office.

The last time Eli had been called to her office it was because he was being-

"I have a mission for you." she said, before Adam had even fully arrived in the room. "If you're up to it, that is." she added the last bit as a challenge, her smirk tilting up and Eli noticed that her gaze had settled on him, as if making sure he was ready after last time.

"Oh, we're up for it," Eli assured her coolly, and she nodded in approval at his confident tone.

"Good. Last night we got a call from a girl named Clare Edwards in a place called Degrassi, Illinois. She's been sucked into the gang life over there for a little over a year now, from what we could gather. Ordinarily we would just offer protection and retrieve and remove her from the situation, but she called us willingly and this seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity to get the inside scoop and possibly put an end to the Degrassi gang for good. Miss Edwards agreed."

"And where do we come in?" Adam asked cautiously. Eli had a feeling he knew, though.

"Well, it just so happens that three of our most promising agents are the perfect age to enroll at Degrassi Public High School and both get the inside scoop on this gang of theirs and offer Miss Edwards some protection. That is where you three come in."

Audra handed them three copies of the same file to go over together. "You leave tomorrow."

"I guess we'd better go and pack our bags now boys, we're going to Illinois," Imogen said cheerfully.