Yes, I updated two stories in one day! I feel so accomplished. ;_;

Thank you to all the wonderful people who've reviewed, and to everyone who's supporting my story so far! I'm so happy you guys are finding it interesting. I was sort of afraid that my attempt at a story like this would fail and everyone would immediately hate it. xD

Well, enjoy!

I walked quickly through the studio hallway, seething with anger. Halfway through my drive to Condor Studios, I'd somehow managed to convince myself that the whole Penelope-breaking-out-of-prison thing was just an elaborate scheme that Chad had concocted to spite me. Why? I didn't know. Not that it mattered, because it had to have been Chad who'd done this. And if he hadn't made this all up, then... well, I didn't even want to think about the other possibility. It freaked me out too much.

Therefore, it had to be the work of CDC. It just had to be.

I turned a corner and stopped short, my eyes widening as I saw my picture on Chad's Do Not Admit wall. My picture. On his wall. Me. How dare he!

Fuming, I barged past the security guard that was sleeping at his post, pushed open the doors, and stormed into the room. "Chad Dylan Cooper, I need to talk to you right now!" I burst out angrily, glaring around the room.

I half expected everyone to ignore me and just go about their business as usual. But I guess my sudden dramatic entrance did the trick, because every head in the room turned to stare at me. Including the blond head of my ex-boyfriend, which whipped around so fast that I was afraid his neck would snap in two. "Sonny?" he asked, his eyes wide in surprise.

I gritted my teeth and began to stride over to him, but Devon, Trevor, and Chloe blocked my path. "Get out of here, Random," Devon spat, giving me the stink eye. "No one wants you here."

"I realized that when I saw my picture up on Chad's banned wall," I shot back, glaring over his shoulder at Chad, who was standing behind his castmates looking bewildered. "Your picture isn't on my banned wall," he said.

"We took the liberty of putting her picture up for you," Trevor said smugly. That new piece of information made me feel a bit less mad towards Chad, but not by much. "Now beat it."

I stood my ground firmly. "No."

Chloe, who I'd once considered my friend back when Chad and I were dating, frowned at me. "Please leave before I call security," she said curtly, no hint of friendliness whatsoever in her gaze. I felt a tiny pang of hurt and regret, but my anger and stubbornness won out. I didn't move. "Good luck with that, since your security is snoozing on the job," I retorted in the same tone she was using.

She narrowed her eyes at me and opened her mouth, probably to reply or to yell for the security guard. But Chad shoved past Trevor and Devon and rested a hand on her shoulder. "It's fine, Chloe, she can stay," he said in surprisingly calm voice, giving me a look so intense that I was forced to turn my head away.

Chloe huffed. "Hmph. I hope you know what you're doing, Chad." She tossed her light hair over her shoulder, turned, and walked off to join that one Mack Falls girl who never speaks over on the couch.

Trevor and Devon exchanged glances. "Last episode of the season starts shooting in a few minutes, so make this quick," Devon told Chad, sending me another glare. Then he and Trevor walked off, too.

"I need to talk to you," I repeated once they were gone. Before I could get any farther, though, Chad put a finger on my lips to shush me. "Not here," he murmured. "It's not exactly very private, don't you think?" He gestured at all the Mackenzie Falls cast and crew that were gawking at us.

I frowned. I really hate it when he's right. "I guess," I admitted grudgingly.

He put his hand on the small on my back (his touch sort of gave me the shivers, actually. Not that I'd ever admit that to anyone) and steered me out of the set, into the hallway. Once we were outside away from the ears of his castmates, I pulled away from him and started to speak once more. Yet again, he shushed me. "You don't want to wake the guard, do you?" he asked, pointing at the still sleeping security guard. Before I could protest, he tugged me off farther down the hallway, then stopped by a door and opened it. "After you, m'lady," he said smoothly.

I glared at him, annoyed that he was calling me his m'lady again, then turned my gaze on the door. "A janitor's closet? This is your idea of private?" I asked in exasperation.

A hint of a smirk appeared on his face. "Do you want to talk or not?"

I huffed and walked into the closet, pushing aside some brooms and mops to make room for myself. Chad stepped in after me, flipped the light switch, and closed the door behind him. And then we were alone in that tiny, cramped space. Talk about awkward. As it was, though, I was too ticked off to actually notice the awkwardness of being pressed up against my ex in a teeny tiny closet. Good thing I didn't notice, otherwise I might've been too embarassed to give him a piece of my mind.

"What is your problem?" I snapped once I'd gotten into a comfortable-ish position.

"Why do our conversations always start out like this?" he asked dryly.

"Chad, this isn't funny. You've got a wacked up sense of humor, you know that? I mean, maybe you and your cast might think saying something like that on TV is hilarious, but it's not! It gave me a real scare." I folded my arms across my chest. "If this is your idea of a joke, then you're failing miserably."

There was a moment's silence, during which Chad just stared at me. Then, finally... "Huh?"

"You heard me."

"Sonny, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, don't pretend to be innocent."

"But I am!" he protested.

"Sure. So you're telling me that you had absolutely nothing to do with what was on the news today?" I asked, not believing him at all.

"Of course not," he scoffed, then frowned. "Why, what was on the news?"

I ignored his question. "I'm being serious, Chad. I didn't think that what you got them to say on the news about Penelope breaking out of jail was very amusing. I mean, I guess I have to give you props for how real it looked, but - "

"Penelope what?" His shocked voice cut through my babble, and I paused to study him. His face was the picture of total surprise, and he looked like he'd never heard of this before. "What're you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about," I said accusingly.

"No, I really don't." He shook his head, and his face looked awfully pale in the dim light. "Are you sure that's what it said? Penelope actually broke out? How is that possible?"

My anger abruptly evaporated when I took in how worried he looked. "Wait. So you had nothing to do with this?"

"Of course not," he snapped. "Why would I have anything to do with that? I can't believe you'd even think I'd be involved with this. Is that really what you think of me, Sonny?" I flinched at how incredibly angry he looked all of a sudden. "I'm sorry," I murmured. "I just thought... well, I didn't want to think of the other option."

Chad closed his eyes and covered his face with one hand. I rubbed my arms and shuffled my feet, waiting for him to say something. Just when I thought he'd never answer, he lifted his head. He didn't look mad anymore, just... neutral. I couldn't read his expression. "Are you sure that's what it said?"

"Yes," I said softly. "Do you think it's true?"

"I don't think the news would lie about something to do with her," he remarked.

Dread filled me and made my stomach clench again. "Chad, you don't think she'd try and come after me again, do you?"

He looked uncertain for a moment, then shook his head resolutely. "Of course not. We're not dating anymore, so there'd be no reason for her to try anything on you."

What he said made sense. But at the same time I felt a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind. I mean, didn't certifiably insane people like to do things that no one could understand? That's the way it was in movies, anyway.

But instead of voicing my thoughts, I just nodded. "That's true. Um, sorry for taking you away from your rehearsal."

"It's fine. I probably would've done the same thing," he said emotionlessly.

I looked up at him and involuntarily met his gaze. I stared into the blue depths of his eyes and remembered how he'd once told me that getting lost in his eyes would lead to me falling in love with him. I wonder if he even realized how right he'd been about that. What happened to us? I thought unhappily. Why did things have to end this way?

"Is that it?" Chad's words cut through my thoughts. "I have to go back to the set now."

"Oh, yeah. Of course." It was getting hard to breathe in that closet, anyway. I fumbled with the doorknob for a second, then opened the door and walked out as casually as I possibly could. Chad followed me, straightening his tie and smoothing back his hair before making his way back to the set. I walked wordlessly alongside him until we got back to the sleeping security guard. Then Chad stopped, turned to me, and said, "Don't worry about Penelope, ok? She wouldn't dare try to hurt you."

"Yeah." I forced out a laugh. "What was I thinking? Obviously I wasn't thinking, because - "

"Sonny, I really have to go," he cut me off.

"Right..." I lowered my gaze and frowned down at my hands.

Without warning, he reached over, tilted my chin up, and said, "Smile. Everything'll be fine."

Yeah, sure. He wasn't the one who had a cheating cheater for a boyfriend (not that Chad would ever have a boyfriend, because he's not gay, but... well, you get the picture), and he wasn't the one nearly gotten blown up by a girl who'd just escaped from prison.

I gave him a weak smile anyway, then said, "Bye, Chad." I turned and started to walk off down the hall.

As I reached the corner, I couldn't help but pause and look back, just in time to see Chad take my picture off the banned wall, crumple it up in his hand, and toss it aside.

I turned away and trudged off to the So Random set, feeling as though he'd just crumpled and tossed aside my heart.

~.M.y.D.i.L.e.M.m.A.~

"And this is the So Random stage, where we perform all our sketches," I told the reporter in a perky voice, giving him a big smile as he nodded and moved the microphone away from my face, while the cameraman stood behind him and filmed us.

It'd been a few days since I'd found out that Penelope had broken out of prison, and life at the studio had gone on as usual. I hadn't broken up with Patrick yet, though, mostly because I was too cowardly to end another relationship. I mean, I'd already ended it with Chad, and having to break up with someone else just felt like too much. Both Mel and Tawni were the only ones who continually offered to break up with him for me. I knew they had good intentions, but I couldn't let them do that, so each time they suggested it I politely declined.

Today was different, though, because it was the day the reporter from Tween Weekly came to do a special on me, my castmates, and our show in general. I'd been half hoping that the reporter would be Santiago Heraldo, because even though he was classified as one of the meanest reporters in Hollywood, I'd had fairly good experiences with him in the past (not counting the time when Chad made me look like a diva on TV). But this reporter was someone I'd never seen before in my life. Maybe he was new? I don't really know. But so long as he wasn't Ryan Loughlin, that was fine by me.

"Thank you for the tour, Sonny," said the reporter, and I gave him a bigger smile in response. My smile faded slightly at what he said next, though. "Your show really is the bomb. Speaking of bombs, have you heard that Marta Balatico recently broke out of prison?"

"Um, yes," I said, nodding.

"Any thoughts on this shocking piece of news?" he went on, holding out the microphone to me again. I stared blankly at the camera for a second with no clue what to say. Luckily for me, Tawni happened to pass by at that moment, and she spazzed out when she saw the camera. "Ooh, a camera!" she said excitedly, flipping her hair and shoving me aside so she could be in the view of the lens. "Were you talking about me?" she asked, batting her eyelashes.

"Actually, no," the reporter said bluntly, and Tawni visibly deflated.

"Hey, um, how about I give you the tour of the snack table?" I asked quickly, desperately trying to avoid the subject of Penelope or Marta or whatever the heck her name is.

"What about your ex-boyfriend, Chad Dylan Cooper?" the reporter went on, and I froze. "He was at the scene of the attempted murder. What are his thoughts on this?"

I felt my face burning under Tawni's curious gaze and the keen eye of the reporter, not to mention the camera that was filming all this. "Oh. Well, I, uh, I mean... you'll have to, uh, ask him, I guess," I stammered, nervously fiddling with my honey colored hair.

The reporter looked a bit disappointed that I didn't have any dirt on Chad, but he thankfully changed the subject. "So tell us about your new boyfriend, Sonny. Patrick Myers is his name, right?"

All right, so the new subject he was on wasn't much better, either. "Uh..."

"What Sonny means to say is... things are going great with her boyfriend," Tawni interrupted. The cameraman focused on her, and she smiled and waved primly at the camera. "Now who wants to talk about me? I've recently started a new campaign against skinny jeans that you might be interested to know about..."

"Fan mail for Tawni Hart and Sonny Munroe," came a voice from beside me. Tawni and I turned to face Josh, the mail delivery guy at Condor Studios. I gratefully took my stack of fanmail from him, while Tawni eagerly snatched hers up and promptly began reading one letter aloud to the camera.

While the reporter and the camera guy was focused on Tawni, I sifted through my stack of mail, smiling at one letter that's envelope was covered with tiny pen drawings of grinning suns wearing sunglasses.

One other letter caught my eye, which was strange, since it wasn't exactly eye catching. It was just a plain, white piece of paper that had been folded and messily taped together at the ends. On the front was my name, Allison Munroe, in red ink.

I stared at my name for a second, then pried away the tape and opened up the letter. I read it. And then afterwards I felt like someone had dropped a weight into my stomach.

Clutching the edges of the paper so tightly I thought I might accidentally rip the letter apart, I reread the message, hoping maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me and I had read wrong. But it was the same as the first time.

I'm going to kill you. ~ M

Short, simple, to the point.

It didn't exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out who had sent it.

I dropped the letter as if it was a hot potato and watched it flutter down to my feet, feeling faint. I vaguely heard Tawni say in annoyance, "Sonny, are you even listening to me? I'm trying to talk to you." Then her tone changed abruptly as she took in my expression. "Sonny, what is it?"

I turned to look at her, then down at the letter. Ignoring the camera and the reporter, I pointed at the piece of paper with my name on it and said weakly, "Penelope sent me my first death threat. That's kind of thoughtful of her, don't you think?"

With that said, my eyes rolled back into my head, and I promptly passed out.

Review please? Pretty please? c:

And thank you for reading. ^^ Until next time!

~Ginger