Last time:

Oh man, was I in for it now.

Chapter 4

All my arrogance fled, and I took a step back in the face of my doom bearing down on me. But then Dash seemed to stumble and hesitate. He looked confused, and put his hand to his head for a moment. Then he looked back up at me with a look I recognised all too well.

His back was too straight for Dash, and he was smiling at me, but it looked unnatural on him. The final giveaway though was the red glow in his eyes.

Vlad, now possessing Dash, walked towards me, and any friendly feeling I might have had for him vanished. I recognised the same sly lust in his expression from earlier in the bathrooms. Around us, people were beginning their sets of sit-ups, with their partners counting and holding their feet down.

"Ah, Daniel, I believe I am meant to hold you somehow?" he said innocently, looking casually around him. His voice sounded so strange. It was Dash's voice speaking with Vlad's smooth, rolling intonation and damned double-entendres. It was a voice that managed to sound amused and bored all at once, like he was entertaining himself with jokes in his head that were at your expense.

"Forget it," I spat back, crossing my arms defensively.

"Activity, Fenton! This is a gym class!" shouted Coach from across the room. I grumbled and sat down on the floor, with "Dash" following eagerly.

"Only my feet," I warned as fiercely as I could, crossing my arms over my chest to do my sit-ups.

"I'll think I'll be the judge of that," he said, smiling wickedly at me. He gripped my feet, stroking the arch of my foot through my sneaker with his thumb. I sighed angrily, resigned to my fate.

We were meant to take turns doing sets of twenty. I figured, the faster I did them, the faster I would get out from under Vlad. I started counting at about two a second.

"Slowly, Daniel, slowly. Enjoy it," said Vlad, silkily. I shook my head in disgust and did my best to block him out. This was so wrong on so many levels.

The only thing that allowed me to keep it up at that rate was sheer desperation and rage at the sight of his smug smile and red eyes rising and falling above me. He was enjoying this, the bastard. I felt his put more weight on my feet as he leaned forward over my knees, looking down at me. His position meant that if I actually completed the sit up, I would probably end up being kissed, but I was careful to avoid that.

His eyes moved down my body, making me cringe, and he sighed heavily, as if dreaming. I suddenly felt his hand leave my foot and stroke up my calf.

"Nineteen, twenty!" I said quickly, diving out of his grasp. My abs were on fire, but I would have taken a lot more pain than that to get away from him.

I saw Vlad lie down out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't care, I was sitting as far away from him as I could. But he wouldn't be ignored.

He cleared his throat to get my attention, then tapped his toes pointedly. He was lying with his hands behind his head as if he was on the beach or something. I rolled my eyes, and moved just close enough to rest my fingertips on the edge of his sneakers, looking determinedly to the side.

He started his reps, but I still ignored him. That is, I ignored him until I felt his lips catch my cheek as he came up.

I scrambled away from him, rubbing my cheek as hard as I could, trying to erase his kiss.

"For God's sake, will you cut it out?!" I shouted at him, as he looked perfectly innocently back at me.

"Problems, Fenton?" called the Coach wearily, coming over to us. I looked up at him, considering telling him, but I realised there was no excuse, truth or lies, that would make him let me out of this situation.

"No, Coach," I said, hating him.

"Good," Coach glanced at Vlad, but wandered away, obviously trusting the school's golden boy. I glared at him, and he winked at me.

"Bathroom, Coach?" I shouted desperately. I was waved permission, obviously just to get me out of his hair. I didn't care, I needed a break from that madman.

In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face and neck, and took time to calm my heartbeat, trying to work out a plan of action. My mind was blank.

I wasted as much time as I could in there, knowing Coach would never notice my absence. When I did eventually go back to my own personal living Hell, Vlad looked a little disappointed.

"I was just about to go looking for you. I thought perhaps you had changed your mind and were waiting for me," he said.

"Not even in your wildest dreams," I replied, kneeling down to at least fake activity. I regretted my words instantly. A slow, lazy grin spread across Dash's face as if I had reminded him of something.

"Oh? Are you sure about that?" Vlad replied, telling me so much more than I wanted to know about his dreams.

"You know what you're doing amounts to child abuse?" I accused him.

"Only because you're being so difficult. If you let yourself enjoy it, 'abuse' would be the last word on your lips, I assure you."

God I wanted to throw a brick into his face and knock out those perfect teeth of his. Even though it was Dash's body, I could just so easily see Vlad in my mind's eyes, as if he was super-imposed before me.

"How do you expect to get anywhere when you never even give me a straight answer?" I said.

"A straight answer. I wonder if you did that on purpose to hurt my feelings? Well, never mind, sticks and stones, as they say. But I take your point. Ask me anything and I will restrain myself and answer simply."

"Why me?" I asked quietly, afraid of what the answer would be. If this was more than some sort of game to him, he would be a lot harder to get rid of. If he thought he was – shudder - in love with me, then I knew he would never stop until he got what he wanted.

Vlad sighed heavily, dropping all pretence. He seemed to collapse in on himself until he was just a normal person. He looked down away from me.

"I was afraid you might ask that," he said. Then he suddenly brought his eyes up to look directly into mine, though it seemed as if it was hard for him to do. "The answer is simply this: I could never have with anyone else what I could have with you. I meant what I said earlier about we halfas sticking together. You may hate me, but you can't deny that you understand me. We are the only two people on the planet to have suffered such accidents as we did. We are fated to belong to each other," he said.

Crap, I was afraid of that.

What the hell do you say to something like that? What is an appropriate thing to say when your long-standing enemy confesses his love for you while possessing your other worst enemy during gym class?

"But... I'm just a kid."

Those were the words that came out of my mouth, though I was not aware of choosing them. I hated how small my voice sounded. But that was what this was really all about, wasn't it? How could he expect a high schooler to accept a relationship with someone who was the same age as his parents?

What was I saying? Would it really make a difference if I was older?

Would it?

Vlad leant forward and put his hand on my shoulder, making me retreat until we were tilted slightly with him hovering over me. His eyes had changed somehow, they glowed with what looked like sympathy and admiration.

As well as just glowing, of course.

"But you are not just a child, Daniel! You have seen and done so much more, you are so much more than any 'kid'!"

I was frozen under the power of his praise. I saw his eyes flick to my lips, but his intention didn't really register as he slowly leant forward to close the gap between us.

The long, shrill sound of Coach blowing his whistle made us both look sharply over at him. I fell back into reality feeling like I was dangling from dental floss over a bubbling pit of lava. Before Vlad had a chance to look back at me, I was out and racing for the locker room.

I heard him call out for me, but I didn't care. I got changed at the speed of light, and tore out of there before the last few stragglers had even come in, though I did notice a dazed and confused-looking Dash stumble through the doorway.

What the bloody fresh hell was that!?

This situation is getting way out of control! He was going to kiss me, in front of my whole gym class, looking like Dash, AND I HADN'T TRIED TO STOP HIM!! I needed serious, serious help. Nothing like that could ever be allowed to happen again.

EVER.

But I didn't know where to go, or where to hide. Dash was unpossessed, which meant ghostly Vlad was floating around here somewhere, invisible and undoubtedly looking for me.

My feet automatically took me to my locker, where I dumped my stuff and collected my books for next lesson. I was shaking like a leaf with a gun to its head.

It was lunch. I decided my best bet was to go to the cafeteria like normal, meet up with Sam and Tucker, and see what they thought. I would only tell them about being stalked by invisible Vlad, I wouldn't tell them about the ki-... about the gym part.

Oh god, don't let him find me again after that.