A/N: It's not much, but it's better than nothing. I'll keep chugging along on this, but it's been a pretty crappy week and it might take a couple more days for the holiday cheer to kick in for me. As always, review!

Special Thanks to: lani_milani, Dreamin' Of Sirius, Nanes, krista, nomanslandvicki, and Razzel-Dazzel955. I really appreciate the reviews, so this chapters for you guys. Enjoy!

"Cupcake?" I offered the delicious treat to Alyssa as she slid onto the bench next to me.

"Thank you," she accepted the fluffy sugary piece of heaven solemn toned and curious eyed.

"No luck with Tokyo?" She inquired, biting into the cupcake.

"I called my father," I answered, licking frosting from the top of my own sweet brand of happiness as I stared contemplatively off into space.

"And?" Alyssa prompted when it became more than obvious I'd trailed off along with my thoughts.

"And I talked to him for five minutes." I pursed my lips and shook my head.

"And?"

"And I will not be flying to Japan to join my father, his business partner, and his business partners son, Kujo or Kojo or something weird like that."

"What?" Alyssa blinked in confusion but continued to eat her cupcake. I didn't begrudge her lack of attention; Zac's cupcakes were mind-blowingly awesome and deserved every ounce of attention they got.

"Apparently Mr. Yakimoru has decided that Junior's ready to settle down with someone who'll pop out a few kids for him. Since I have a womb, my father thoughtfully put me on the candidates list for this dubious honor."

"Is that legal?" It was a surprising question coming from the professed (by me) Queen of the LSAT.

"Don't know," I tapped my chin contemplatively. "The UN does have accords against human trafficking, but I'm not sure if Kujo marrying my womb would fall under that category…"

Next to me Alyssa sighed before daintily finishing off her cupcake and brushing the crumbs onto the table surface.

"What?" I asked, smiling gamely as Alyssa shook her head and shouldered her bag before walking away.

Oh, yeah.

She thinks I'm hilarious.


"I need to talk to you." After our little stint of mayhem, Danielle had parted ways with Alyssa and I, which wasn't that unusual. Trouble-making was a national sport to me and I had a marked tendency to scare off newcomers.

Funny…Danielle didn't have that 'what-the-hell-just-happened-and-how-can-I-make-it-go-away' look a lot of my former associates wore.

As a matter of fact, she looked peculiarly eager.

"What's up?" I asked, hitching my bag higher on my shoulder and offering her a chipper smile.

"You know that shirt you asked me to make and leave where Tyler could find it?"

"Shhhhh!!!" I hissed, frickin' alarmed and horrified by Danielle's failure to adhere to one of the primary codes of successful troublemakers everywhere: don't fucking air your misdeeds in public.

It's the first step to a downward facing slope leading to things like capture, incarceration, and, worst of all, rehabilitation.

Just the thought had me paling.

"Not here," I instructed, peering frantically through the nearly empty hall until my eyes lit upon one of Spencer's many, many janitor closets.

"What the hell!?!?" Danielle gave a startled yelp as I jerked her inside, making sure the door was firmly shut behind the two of us and placing my ear against it the second it was.

"What the hell are you doing?" Danielle hissed, her expression a nice blend of confusion, anger, and fear.

"Shhhh!" I silenced her again, pulling my best 'this-is-a-serious-matter-don't-distract-me' face to emphasis the dire straights she'd inadvertently placed us in.

Once I was satisfied that we had the all clear and that nobody was listening on the other side of the doorway, I turned to face Danielle with by best expression of polite interest.

"Yes?"

Danielle fear and anger abated slightly as her confusion gave way to whatever the hell it was she'd been about to say.

"About the t-shirt – "

"Call it the Thing," I instructed her, giving the closed door a nervous glance. Just because nobody had been listening before didn't mean they weren't listening now.

"The Thing?" Danielle sounded equal parts horrified and bemused, which weren't helping my burgeoning paranoia any.

"Yes?" I prompted again, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against my thigh.

"Right," shaking her head, Danielle muttered something so softly the only word I managed to pick out was 'crazy' which was only because my ears were trained to pick it out of sentence due to years of constant exposure.

"Anyways, you know the Thing?" I nodded cause I was tired of saying the word yes.

"Well, I've had several individual's approach me about the Thing expressing interest."

"Naturally," I cocked my head to the side, my eyes slightly glazed. "It was one hell of a Thing."

Cue the shivers.

"I know that, and so does everybody else. The thing is, these people have offered me money for the Thing, good money."

Since Danielle was a scholarship student, money meant something to her and I could tell this was a pretty big deal for her.

It was a pretty big deal for me, too, because I had the startling thought that maybe I wasn't the only one with an unspoken obsession with the blue eyed brunette son.

"How much are we talking?" I finally asked, steering clear of my irrational spurt of irritation at the thought of having the share my stalkee.

Danielle named a figure that had my jaw dropping.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I nearly yelled the words, remembering just at the last second to lower my voice to a vehemently whispered question.

Danielle was emphatically shaking her head.

"And those are just the ones from today. I had twice that many yesterday."

Geezus.

I mean, I knew the girls at Spencer had their fair share of the boy-crazy gene, which seemed to run particularly rampant among rich bitches who didn't have to worry about their grade point average to get into college, but that many?

My irrational jealously twitched as new thoughts traveled through my brain; the potential for mayhem here was nearly infinite. If the girls had liked the T-shirt, then what else would they like?

"How much do you think you could get for a pair of Reid's underwear?"

"Reid?" Danielle snorted. "Nothing much. From what I hear, he doesn't wear any."

That drew me up short.

"Seriously? Blondie goes commando?" I was torn between horrified and curious, but for the sake of my sanity, I stuck with horrified…with a hint of amusement, because – seriously – why was I surprised? This was Reid we were talking about.

"Tyler's, on the other hand, would fetch a pretty penny. Word is it takes a lot to get Baby Boy out of his briefs."

"We talking time or money?" I asked, curious.

"Time," Danielle replied before continuing on, "Pogue's would be a little bit higher, but then you'd have to deal with Kate and nobody really wants to have to deal with Kate."

"And Caleb?" In for a penny, in for a pound. I might as well get the scoop now so I know who to hit on an emergency panty raid in case I'm ever short of cash.

"Four digits, easy."

"Wha - ?" I couldn't even finish the word, I was so dumbfounded. "You're fucking kidding."

"Betting pool holds that he's still a virgin."

"Caleb?" My eyebrows skyrocketed and I nearly choked on my tongue. "A virgin?"

But he was so…mature.

Chicks loved that sort of thing. I knew this for a fact since I was one of them. He had this whole smoldering good looks coupled with a commanding presence, soulful sensitivity, and a smokin' hot bod.

Hell, I'd jump him given half the chance.

"If anybody at Spencer has slept with him, they're not talking and neither is he."

Wow – I mean, just – wow.

"But back to the t-shirt," Danielle redirected the conversation. "I still have the stuff, all I need is the supplies."

"And that's where I come in." I knew the score; I was a trust-fund kid with plenty of dough and Danielle had a small stipend that barely covered Friday night pizza.

"I drew up a financial plan," Danielle ruffled through her bag for a minute before pulling out a crumpled piece of paper and handing it to me.

I skimmed it, duly impressed by both her business acumen and her penmanship – on my best day, chicken scratch was a compliment for me.

"Okay," I replied, not really caring that she'd done all this work and was offering me a share of the profits. "I'll do it."

I was just in it for the Trouble, honestly.

"On two conditions." Danielle twitched slightly, but otherwise kept her cool.

"What?"

"First, draw up another plan and substitute any mention of the names Tyler and Reid with the words Sam and Dean."

"As in Winchester?" Danielle's eyebrows skyrocketed in disbelief.

"I like the show," I replied, shrugging my shoulders in a 'hey-what-can-you-do-about-it' manner.

"And the second?"

"Burn this," I thrust the paper back at her. "In my line of work, this is called incriminating evidence. The sooner you get rid of it, the less chance I stand of having two people trying to kill me instead of just one."

"Hello, Angel," Reid slid onto the seat next to me, letting his books fall to the table top with an echoing thud that earned him several dirty looks but no reprimand.

Oh to be rich and powerful…

I ignored him, the same as I had been for the past two days.

For once, it wasn't personal, it was just…business.

Alyssa had gone in with me with Danielle, more as a stabilizing influence than a financial backer. Danielle, bless her heart, had the heart, but her brains were weathered by stress and maintaining her GPA. Alyssa had military precision going for her in that department, plus she could handle all the legal aspects if any should ever arise. She was also great for basic manpower

And I was providing the money. Buying two-hundred basic black girl-cut t-shirts had earned me a few funny looks, but since you couldn't make a very effective bomb out of them, the government pretty much left me alone.

Danielle set up the machines and printed off the first fifty or so before I had taken over. I'd spent the last eight hours printing off t-shirts before going to class and not sleeping. I didn't have a Twilight-high supporting me any more, leaving me in a somewhat grumpy mood, compounded by the fact that I had an essay due in a half and hour and Reid Garwin was touching me.

"I'm going to bite it off," I warned Reid when he poked me for the seventh time.

"Fine. But I bite back," he snapped his teeth for emphasis, grinning at my dirty look before reaching up and looping a strand of my bright red hair around his finger.

"So what have you been up to the last couple of days?" He inquired in such a casual tone I knew he was dying of curiosity.

"Sleeping, eating, breathing, existing – you know, the usual."

"Right," Reid's tone had a patent on disbelief. "And pigs can fly."

That drew me up short.

"You know, if you throw a pig off the roof of a two story building, they will fly for a couple of seconds before they impact on the ground, so I really don't understand that statement."

That shut him up.

The statement was entirely logical to me, but I'd learned several years ago that my logic and real peoples logic diverged somewhere along the way, which was okay; it was a great way to shut people up when they were being annoying as hell.

"You're up to something," Reid continued to twirl my hair for a moment before letting his fingers drift down to my neck. I ducked my head in irritation and turned to scowl at him only to find him smirking at me.

"I'm always up to something," I replied, but it was minus my usual flippant air. Sure, I was practically the president of TroubleMakers, Inc, but Reid was rapidly becoming the CEO – I could so recognize that look in his eyes.

Blue on blue is military code for friendly on friendly fire, but blue eyes on blue eyes was a whole different story.

A whole new kind of grin, that of a predator, stole onto Reid's face as he caught sight of the comprehension on mine.

"It's a good thing I am too, then, isn't it?" Reid licked his lips and let his gaze drop once more to my bustline.

"Later, Angel."

"It's Angela!" I called after his retreating backside, ignoring the irritated looks that earned me as I frowned worriedly at Reid's back.

Oh yeah, he was up to something.

The question was what.

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