A/N: Don't own Yu-gi-oh and I'm just a fan of Dean Koontz don't own his works either...

Chapter 6

"What do you mean she doesn't want to see me?" Tea gasped as she approached Kaiba. She had to have heard him wrong, there was no was Serenity would refuse to see her.

"She blames you for being trapped here." He shrugged. He tried to look innocent as well as keep up the air of indifference.

"This can't be happening," she mumbled. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen and I sure as heck didn't mean for her to be trapped on this boat. I wish you would've let us off Kaiba. Why didn't you let us off?" She looked quite panicked. He tried not to smile.

"By the time I arrived on the ship it was too late to turn around Gardner. Don't you remember that I came by helicopter?" He sneered at her back.

"Is there any way that you can at least get her home? How far are we away from inhabited land?" She asked, with her back turned towards him. She didn't want him to see the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. This was an impossible situation and now with Serenity hating her it was worse.

"We're too far out. It will take days for the ship to get back to shore and I obviously can't go back until I'm cleared. I won't rot in a jail cell."

"What about your helicopter? You could have one of your men fly her back." She offered, hope spreading through her veins.

"That has two flaws. One, I'm the only one on board who can pilot the helicopter and two, there isn't enough gas to make it all the way back from this distance." She was crumbling and he could see it. Her hands were shaking slightly, her bottom lip trembling, even her breathing was getting ragged.

"So, we are truly are your captives with no hope to go home at all?" She looked desperate. "Serenity will hate me if you don't let me talk to her, please Kaiba I need to see her and apologize."

"I can't go back on my word to her. She specifically asked to be left alone and I want to show good faith and respect that request." He was acting quite solemn. Inside he was quietly patting himself on the back for being the genius that he was.

"This is bad, this is really bad. Do you understand Kaiba? This isn't the first time I've gotten her into hot water." Maybe if she explained her desperation he would take pity on her and lead her to Serenity.

His eyebrow shot up. This was a common occurrence then? The Mutt's sister followed her into trouble before? This was all too amusing.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, trying to feign concern.

"Well, there was a time when I convinced her to…" she sat down on the bed and faced him. Was she going to spill her thoughts to this man? Then again who better to tell, he had no friends. Who would he tell? "I made her go on a double date with me."

"That's a bad thing?" He asked, not relishing the idea of hearing 'girl talk' but needing to attain enough information for his plan.

"It is when you have a great guy and you make your friend hang out with Weevil." Tea lamented, feeling worse by the minute. She thought Serenity was past that. Then again combine that with this capture and it made for the perfect reasons to hate the trouble maker who was Tea.

"Weevil Underwood?" Kaiba asked, disgust clearly in his tone.

"Unfortunately." She lowered her head. It had been the worst night. That boy would not leave poor Serenity alone. He kept touching her, trying to grab her hand, slip an arm around her and, even worse, he attempted to kiss her. Tea cringed at the vile memory. Serenity had swallowed her pride and allowed the date to go on for Tea's sake.

"I feel awful." She whispered. "I've also made her lie for me. More than once, I hate to admit. I guess I deserve this."

Kaiba walked over to the bed and sat down beside her. He picked up the book she had been reading and thumbed through it.

"You like reading?" He asked in an attempt to change the sensitive subject.

"I do, but I just never seem to find the time to indulge in it." She sighed. "I work my fingers to the bone at that lousy paper and I'm still low man on the totem pole, or should I say woman. I swear I think if I had testosterone flowing through my body I'd be higher up the food chain in that damn company." She seemed to get angry now, as opposed to the intense sorrow she felt a while ago. He took it to be a defense mechanism.

"I tend to read quite a bit myself." He looked at her, his blue eyes searching her face.

"What do you read? The Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune?" She snipped at him.

He smirked; he liked it when she was feisty. "I also read Hemmingway, Robin Cook, Shakespeare, and sometimes Koontz or King. There's so much you don't know about me Gardner." He looked at her to see how she was reacting to his attempt at 'sincerity'. He needed more ammunition in his game and her cooperation was necessary for that.

She smiled as she turned on the bed, now she was facing him. "I never knew you read other things besides business and computer information. Wow, we actually have some authors in common."

"What do you read Gardner?" He asked, leaning back on his hands. He was beginning to relax now that he had accomplished his goal.

"I read a lot of Koontz, that's why I picked this up." She motioned towards the novel that now lay on the bed. "I never read this one before."

The two fell into casual conversation about the novels that they had read. Kaiba constantly expressed his arguments as to why certain things that had been written could never happen. Tea laughed at his ideas and explained that it was fiction, not fact and if he wanted reality he should try reading non-fiction.

A grumble alerted Kaiba to Tea's hunger and he left her in order to have dinner brought to the room. She smiled as he left. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all. Aside from Serenity hating her she was actually beginning to enjoy the company of a certain CEO.

Serenity poked at the plate before her. She was so uncomfortable being here and Tea's absence just made it more unbearable. She should have insisted they stayed together at all times. If Tea hadn't wandered away from the room in the first place this wouldn't have happened.

At least one of the crew members took pity on her and gave her a change of clothes. Unfortunately, they made her feel ridicilous. The shirt kept falling off her shoulder and the sweat pants had to be rolled several times to prevent her tripping over her own feet. Still, it was better than being in 2 day old clothes. He was nice, not like Seto Kaiba. She hated him. He was always lurking in some shadow and their last encounter was still making her twitch.

She hated the food on this stupid boat as well. There might be a world-class chef on board, but she would take a hamburger or chicken fingers over this mystery stuff any day of the week. She ate her salad and the vegetables that she could identify but left the stuff covered in white gravy alone. Maybe she could ask for something simple like a sandwich, but then again, the chef had told her earlier that this wasn't a vacation.

She started poking at the meat that was covered in the white mucus-like substance.

"So Wheeler," Kaiba was rewarded with her fork being dropped as she jumped at his voice. "Is the food to your liking?" He smirked as she stared at him in terror.

"It's fine, thank you." She would try being polite to the monster and then maybe he would grace her with his absence…

He sat down in the chair next to her. He liked how he unnerved her. Were her hands actually shaking?

"I don't see why you're mad that I want you separated from your 'so-called' friend." He sneered at her. "The way I see it you should regard my magnanimous gesture as a favor." He leaned closer to her, waiting for her stammering reaction. He wasn't disappointed.

"W-why would you say th-that?" She could barely shove the words out of her uncooperative mouth.

"She has quite a few unflattering opinions of you." He waited for her to rise to his lure.

"What do you mean," she managed to whisper. She tried to tear her eyes away from his, but the deep blue of them made her feel warm and woozy. It wasn't unpleasent, as far as feelings go.

"Seems she finds you weak and a bit whiney. She was going on and on about how you complained about this great guy she set you up with." A normal person couldn't pull off the lie, but he was the master. Not only could he manipulate people but he also enjoyed it. Two girls were falling into his trap quite easily and what better way to pay back the Scooby gang than by turning the members against each other?

Serenity looked confused for a moment as she traced back to the last time Tea set her up. "You can't mean…"

"Weevil Underwood," he finished her sentence. "Seems Tea finds you a bit ungrateful for the efforts she went through to arrange the meeting."

Serenity cringed at the thought of Weevil and his bugs. He repeatedly tried to grope her; it felt like he had borrowed extra arms from his damn insect army at times. Then when he tried to kiss her she had to feign an illness to get away. If she hadn't the bile would have risen in her throat for sure and then he would have been wearing it.

Tea was mad because she had a lousy time with the slug? How could she? Worse than that…she confided in Kaiba? Since when did she do that? Since she was in his room. What were they doing in there anyway?

"It also seems that she thinks your ability to maneuver her out of certain situations lacks intelligence." He waited for her reaction and wasn't disappointed.

"She what?" Serenity was getting a bit outraged at his insight.

"She told me that you have offered to stretch the truth a bit in her defense, but you always do a lousy job at it." Her frown at his statement meant she was thinking about what he had said.

"She told you that?" Serenity asked with a catch in her voice.

"I'm sorry Wheeler that I had to be the bearer of such bad news." His eyes darkened, the trap caught its mark. Her eyes flashed with the start of anger.

"Tea is hardly a saint Kaiba…"

A/N: So, his plan is starting to be revealed, but there are more complications to it…