A/N: Thanks to Raging Raven, Niffer01, guardian music angel, Love.Always.Music.and.Jasper, native-kitten and -harlem syndicate- for their reviews. Another long-ish chapter today, and I guarantee you another tomorrow, which will be accompanied by artwork (nothing to impressive, but you'll have to wait and see. Enjoy and Review!

They had driven Tyler to Ipswich General, where the doctor, after a couple hours of waiting and tests, confirmed that Tyler had indeed broken his forearm. It was a clean break, and the doc was confident that, providing Ty did a he was told, it would heal up fine.

Unfortunately, it meant that Tyler couldn't swim until the cast was off. To say that he was pissed off would be a massive understatement. Apparently, Tyler really enjoyed swimming. Go Figure.

As they were waiting for the cast to set, Tal's cell phone began to ring. After a disapproving look from a passing nurse, she excused herself, went outside and dug the phone out from her jacket pocket. Sarah.

"Hi," she answered wearily.

"Ohmygod! Someone finally answered! I was trying Ty's cell but it went straight to voicemail! What happened?! Is Ty okay?! People were saying all sorts of things, but Reid won't talk to anyone!" Sarah rushed frantically.

"Ty's okay. He broke his arm. We're waiting for the cast to set," Tal replied. There was talking in the background as Sarah passed on the info to whoever was with her.

"Oh that's so good to hear! Not, I mean, about Ty's arm, but that it wasn't worse. You should hear some of the rumours that are flying around just now. There's this really good one where…"

"Sarah! Look, I have to go back in. We'll probably only be another twenty minutes 'till we get back to the dorms. I'll talk to you there, okay? Is…is Reid there?" Tal asked reluctantly.

"Yeah. Shall I put him on?" Sarah asked politely.

"No! No. Just tell him Ty's okay, but he's pretty pissed off. I think Reid should keep his distance from all of us at the moment," Tal warned, feeling the anger boil again as she remember the things he'd said.

"Why would Ty be pissed at Reid?" Sarah asked, puzzled.

"Ask Reid," Tal snapped before ending the call and returning to her injured friend.

As they walked Tyler back to his room, he suddenly turned to them and said, "You know Reid didn't mean what he said, right?"

Tal snorted. "You're not actually defending him, are you?"

"No, what he said was wrong, and he definitely shouldn't have said it in front of everyone. But you have to understand, Reid says and does stupid, idiotic things all the time, and if you want to be his friend," Tyler shrugged, "it's just something you've got to accept."

"But why does he do these things?" Jess asked, amazed.

"Honestly? I don't know. He doesn't care what kind of damage he does to himself or others; at least not at the time he does it. He throws wild parties to anger his parents, and spends his evenings baiting Aaron into fights. He's always butting heads with Caleb, and you…" he shrugged again, looking away. So Baby Boy knew the game Reid's been playing with me. At least he looked uncomfortable.

Jess was looking between the two of them incredulously. "And you actually like Reid?"

Talia blushed, but it was Tyler that answered, "When he's not being a dick, he's fun to be around. Plus, he's a loyal friend. He' always had my back. Always."

Jess raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Loyalty was a big thing among shifters. If you weren't loyal to your pack or family, you were nothing. That was part of the reason Tal was so angry with Reid. She felt like she had been betrayed. Humans obviously had different standards, but maybe Tyler was right. Still, she wasn't just going to turn over and let him think he could do this sort of thing again.

-Wait, I though we were done with him?An internal voice asked Tal, but she ignored it. Before she could start wondering exactly why she was still interested in Reid, another though occurred.

"Where are Reid's parents?" she asked Tyler.

"Random, much?" muttered Jess.

"Maui. Maybe Paris. I don't know. I'm not sure Reid even knows. They travel a lot." Ty answered.

"And when they come back and find the house trashed? What will they do to Reid?"

"The same thing they always do. Scream at him, arrange for a cleaning crew and any repairs that are needed, them fly out again. Why?" Tyler looked curious.

"Are you kidding? They didn't punish him? My mom would have skinned me alive!" Jess said astonished.

"Did they do this when he was a kid?" Tal asked, ignoring Tyler's question and Jess' comment.

"Yeah, as long as I can remember,"

"Who looked after him?" Jess asked, seeing where Tal's mind was going.

"He had a nanny. Well a whole string of them. They didn't last long. That was until he was sent to live at Spencer."

"The poor thing!" Jess exclaimed, eyes wide.

"Huh?" Tyler asked, confused at the girl's sudden change in attitude towards his friend. They ignored him.

"Imagine growing up alone, or even worse, with strangers taking the place of family!" Jess said, her voice disgusted. "No wonder the boy's fucked up!"

Family was everything to shifters. Tal's parents had died when she was a kid, but she had still been surrounded by her pack. The idea that parents would willingly leave there children was appalling. She nodded a silent agreement.

Tyler was still a little lost, but didn't want the girls to stay too angry with Reid, so he didn't question them further.

"Okay, so we're not totally hating Reid. But he still can't get away with what he said. Got any ideas?" Jess turned again to her friend.

Tal looked up, eyes twinkling. "One or two, but they need refinement. Ty are you in or out?"

"In or out of what?!" Tyler asked, once again confused.

"Revenge, silly!" Jess rolled her eyes.

"Revenge?" Tyler repeated, sounding slightly worried.

Tal laughed. "Nothing…painful, just teaching him a lesson. Call it karma. Are you in or out, 'cause once you're in, there's no backing out. Ever."

Tyler gulped. "Stop it Tal, you're scaring the poor puppy! You'll help us, won't you Tyler?" Jess asked, standing next to him and batting her eyelashes. Sometimes she could be such a girl.

"Sure," he answered, not taking his eyes off her.

"Great!" She said, bouncing back, her sultry charm replaced by her natural bubbly-ness. "We'll come by tomorrow and work on our plan,"

Tal look up and realised they were at Tyler's room. The lights were off, so it looked like Reid had taken her advice. "Night, Tyler,"

"Yeah, sweet dreams," Jess added, giving him a saucy wink.

Tal laughed and shook her head as she and Jess began walking towards the girls' dorms, leaving Tyler at his door with a dreamy expression on his face.

When Jess and Tal finally made it back to her room, they found Sarah, Caleb and Pogue waiting.

"What happened?" Caleb asked, his voice tight. That boy is tense.

"Reid said some rather…unsavoury things about Jess, Tyler and I when he was playing pool with Abbot. Then Reid got into an argument with him, Aaron shoved him, he fell into Tyler, and Ty hit his arm on a table. C'est fin,"

Pogue frowned. "What kind of things?"

"Doesn't matter. Ty's already forgiven him, he just pissed 'cause he won't be able to swim 'till the cast is off." Tal gave Caleb a sympathetic look as he cursed.

"It's going to be difficult to find a replacement for Ty half-way through the term," Caleb sighed, running a hand through his short hair. "I might just kill Reid myself."

"Nah, man. You can't do that! Then you'd have to find tworeplacements!" Pogue joked.

"Is everything going to be okay with Reid and you guys?" Sarah asked frowning.

"Yeah, just give us time." Tal flopped on the bed.

"Are you crashing here tonight?" Sarah asked Jess.

"Uh, no. I've gotta get back to my hotel. My…mom was going to…call," Jess lied. Badly.

"Your mom? At two in the morning?" Pogue asked disbelievingly.

"She works late. She was real nice to let Jess come to visit on her own, since she only just seventeen." Talia covered for her friend. Jess stuck her tongue out.

"You're only seventeen? How come you're not it school?" Sarah asked.

"I graduated when I was fifteen, but I decided to wait 'till I was eighteen before going to university, so I've just been working and taking a couple classes at the local collage." Jess said, getting into the swing of things.

"Cool," Pogue nodded approvingly.

"So I take it you guys didn't meet in school, then?" Sarah continued her questioning.

Tal had already told Pogue, but obviously he hadn't been sharing intel. "When my folks died, and my brother became my guardian, he wasn't very good at the whole 'looking after' thing. You know, regular feeding, curfew, mothering stuff. I guess Jess' mom kind of adopted me. They lived nearby." Like, in the same house. But that's where things got complicated.

"How old were you?" Caleb asked.

"When my folks died? Nine."

"Bummer," Pogue began, "How did they…"

"I can't get no-oo, sat-is-fac-tio-on. I can't get no-oo, sat-is-fac-tion 'cause I tried, and I tried! And I tried! And I tried!! I CAN'T GET NO!" A female voice sang badly from the hallway. They looked at each other, then as one, moved towards the door.

After a brief confusion as everyone tried to go through the door at the same time, they managed to make it out, and followed the voice down the hallway.

"…when I'm drivin' in ma car! And that man comes on the ray-dee-oh! He's tellin' me mo' and mo'…"

They walked down to what turned out to be Kira's room, and found a tired looking girl on the floor, with her back against one side of the doorframe and her feet braced against the other.

"…about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination, I can't GET! NO!" she yelled at the door, thumping her fists on the door in tune with the last two words.

"Are you drunk?" asked Pogue over her painful rendition of a Stones classic.

"No-no, No!" She sang along, look at Pogue to show she was also answering his question. He grinned.

"Uh, then why are you singing in the hallway?" Sarah asked, frowning.

The strange girl sighed, and then explained, "Kira locked me out. She hates The Rolling Stones. It's psychological warfare, man."

Psychological warfare, hmm? Methinks I have a plan. Watch out, Garwin.

"You'reKira's roommate?!" Caleb asked, astonished. The girl sitting in front of them was complete opposite of Snider. Laid back, kinda surfer-bohemian, with chucky jewellery and flip-flops.

"Unfortunately," she replied, looking annoyed that they were interrupting her karaoke time.

"Why did she lock you out?" Jess asked, confused.

"Abbot. Hence the song," she gave Jess and Talia a strange look. "What do you want?" Her eyes were suspicious, and Talia felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She quickly looked at the girl's wrist and saw a wooden bracelet carved with witch-runes.

"Can I talk to you a sec? In private?" Tal asked, nodding towards the end of the hall. Jess gave her an odd look, but didn't say anything.

The girl slowly nodded, and got up to follow Tal. When they were far enough from the others, she said, "I know what you are," her tone perfectly even.

"And I know what youare," Tal replied.

The girl laughed. "I highly doubt that. I'm a Void," she spat. A Void. A witch without power. Damn.

Voids were generally shunned by other witches, they were seen a freaks by their own kind. Outsiders. They usually avoided anything to do with the supernatural world.

"We're here on a job. They can't know," Tal stated, indicating the others waiting down the hall.

The girl shrugged. "I ain't tellin'. You know they have power?"

Tal nodded. "What do you know?"

"Not much more than that, just that they're different. They don't seem so bad though," she replied.

Tal just shrugged. "You need somewhere to crash?"

The girl looked at her intently for a moment, sizing her up. "Yeah. I can't remember the whole song," she smiled hesitantly.

Tal chuckled, "What's you're name? I'm Talia,"

"Alex, Alejandra," she replied.

The walked back toward the others. "Hey Sarah is it okay if Alex here crashes with us tonight?"

"Of course. But you should really tell the Provost. Kira shouldn't do that," Sarah answered. Tal just rolled her eyes.

"Well, that's our cue. Come on Jess, we'll give you a ride home," Caleb smiled.

"Thanks," Jess turned to Tal, "I'll call you tomorrow?"

"Yup. Say hi to your mom for me,"

"What? Oh, right. My mom. Okay." Jess waved as she disappeared round the corner.

"Hey, Alex. You're okay with the floor, right?"