Willow's question hung heavily in the air. Although Willow managed to hold her composure enough to stare Angelus coldly in the eye, her captor didn't even blink. Finally, Angelus turned with a wave of his hand and walked to the center of the room.

"Hmm...what do I want? Oh, I want a lot of things, little hacker. I want a good meal, I want more vases to throw, I want the Slayer dead, and I want the world to end. As you can see, Willow, I want a lot of things. So why did you ask?" Angelus grinned again. He knew he was tormenting her. He wanted to see how she would hold up. Not like he needed to know, but it would be interesting...

Willow gritted her teeth. Angelus was a pain in the you-know-where. "What do you want *with me*?" she restated, and steeled herself for any punishment he would deal out.

However, the evil vampire just curled the corner of his mouth. "Now, that's a different question, red. What do I want with *you*?" He turned to face her again, his chin once again resting in his hand. Narrowing his eyes at her, he approached her again. "Willow, I want you to imagine that you are nothing more than a worm," he said, the maliciousness clear in his voice. When Willow's eyes widened at his statement, he laughed. "Because I'm just waiting for the Slayer to bite the bait."

***

"Giles, I can't believe I'm just sitting here! I mean, I'm in school when my best bud is out God-knows-where and doing God-knows-what or getting God-knows-what done to her!" Buffy knew she wasn't making much sense, but she was frustrated. Willow was missing, she wanted her found, and no one was helping!

Giles turned his head and nodded at Buffy distractedly as he checked a pile of mail lying on the library counter. Shuffling through junk mail and college applications, he finally found the lumpy package at the bottom of the pile. Picking it up curiously, he read the label closely.

Buffy watched as her Watcher turned pale. "Giles, what is it?" She leapt to her feet and went over to Giles. The librarian just stood there, staring down at the label, then finally handed it to her.

"I-it's, uh, well, it's addressed to us..." Giles said, astounded. Buffy read the label out loud.

"Slayer and Watcher." She looked back up at Giles for a clue, found none, and turned back to the package. Turning it over, she ripped the lumpy package open at the seam.

***

"Dru, as much fun as this isn't, when are we going to get to end the bloody world?" Spike muttered as he rolled around the main hallway. His nutty vampiress danced in circles around him, humming and singing as she went. Basically, she was driving him to the limit. "Dru?!" he asked insistently.

"Oh, the world is pretty tonight..." she said drowsily. She was dressed in a ballroom gown, a dress that Spike had given to her nearly a hundred years ago. He hadn't seen it since the night he had gotten it for her...it had been a good night, too. The girl he had gotten the dress from had been a good meal, too.

Spike shook himself from his reverie as Drusilla continued to swirl around the room. "Geez, Dru, can't you bloody stay still? I feel like a bloody babysitter..." he muttered to the vampiress. Drusilla, if she heard him, made no notice of it. Instead, she sat on his lap like a child, and kissed him fully on the lips. Contented with his fate, he kissed her back.

***

Angelus watched Dru kiss Spike. A little part of him was screaming that the bitch was his, and no way no how was roller boy going to get to have a piece. But obviously he had no say in that now...and a larger part of him was telling him that Dru and Spike should dote over each other anyway. He had larger fish to fry...

The hacker. The redhead had been bugging him since she had gotten there. She just wouldn't shut up, talking about how Buffy would rescue her, or how he'd never make it through the scheme, etc...it had been driving him nuts. So, he decided to give in to impulse and send the message to Slayer. With any luck, she'd get moving.

Angelus smiled.

***

"Listen, Buff, I'm worried about Willow as much as you are, but I don't see how that can help us any," Xander said as he gestured to the item Buffy was holding. "I mean, what's it supposed to be? I'm certainly not struck with terror."

"Yeah, well, that's you," Cordelia muttered under her breath. Not surprisingly, Xander neither heard nor understood what she had said. He just shrugged and sat on a library table.

Buffy put it on the table next to him. "But why would someone send this to me...no, not just me, but the 'Slayer and Watcher', if it had no connection?" She sighed as the doors swung open, revealing an approaching Oz.

Suddenly, Oz's gaze drifted to the table and he came running. Picking up the slipper Buffy had placed on the table, he looked at them frantically. "This...is Willow's."

They were all so worried, nobody even thought to comment on how Oz knew it was Willow's slipper.