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Hours later, my eyes fluttered open again. My head was on a pillow, and there was something warm underneath me. I put my hand down and used it to lift myself up. Daniel was still here, and he was sleeping with a cute little smile on his lips. I looked down and realized my hand was on his leg. I quickly removed it. As I surveyed the room, I noted all the other boys sprawled across the room, some snoring, some not. I smiled to myself. The ending of the movie must have been pretty boring for everyone to have fallen asleep.

Since I had been curled up the whole night with my head on Daniel's lap, I could feel numerous kinks in my body. I immediately regretted the decision of not sleeping in a bed, especially on a day when I would have to do some intense training. I got up and began stretching out my body. I heard Daniel begin to stir.

"Good morning, sunshine," He said, smiling as he saw me up.

"I would think it would be more like 'good evening, moon,'" I said, laughing.

He grinned at me, "Sunshine fits you better I think. After all, the sunshine is the enemy of vampires, not the moon."

I laughed again.

"You have a point there," I said.

I looked at the clock next to the staircase. It was almost six o'clock. I could take a shower, get dressed and eat breakfast within an hour and then be on my way to school and get there early.

"I'm going to go take a shower," I said.

"Was that an invitation?" Daniel asked.

"You know it wasn't," I said, already making my way to the staircase.

"But how my heart wishes that it was," Daniel said, smiling at me.

I laughed at him, "You wouldn't know what do to if I told you that I wanted to take a shower with you."

He raised an eyebrow, "You want to test that theory?"

"Not incredibly," I said. "Besides, I'm still a minor, so you would get in trouble." Daniel was nineteen.

"Oh but if anything happened, you wouldn't want to tell on me, sweetheart," He said, giving me a confident grin.

I wiggled my fingers in a wave and went up to my bathroom. After my shower and a change of clothes, I was feeling much refreshed. I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and donned a pair of tennis shoes before going back downstairs.

"Hey man, I didn't know you could cook," came George's voice as I descended the stairs.

As a strong familiar smell wafted towards me and I realized someone had decided to cook us a real breakfast. I walked to the kitchen and found all of my boys sitting around the table and digging into scrambled eggs, pancakes, toast, and orange juice.

"How did you find the stuff to make all this?" I asked. As far as I knew we hadn't had any of the things he had made anywhere in our house.

"Hey Ally," Daniel said, smiling. "I ran over to my place to get some. I figured you guys would like a good breakfast every once in a while. Besides, I had to keep myself busy otherwise I might have been tempted to do things I shouldn't."

No one was really paying attention to us so they didn't notice the innuendo in Daniel's words. I rolled my eyes at him and grabbed a piece of toast and a paper towel.

"See you guys later," I said. "I'm off to training."

"You can't take five minutes to sit down and eat with us?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah Ally," Daniel said. "Why don't you sit down and relax for a few minutes."

As all the boys echoed requests of me to stay, I looked at the clock again. It was seven now, so I could probably lounge for at least five minutes.

"Okay," I said, slipping into the last seat at the large table.

James pushed over his plate so that I could eat some of his eggs and pancakes. As jokes and banter were exchanged over the table, I munched lightly. I made sure not to eat too much since I knew it could quickly become a problem during training.

"Hey Daniel," James said. "You're a fun guy. You ought to move in here once Ally is gone."

I laughed, "You're thinking awful far ahead. I'm not going to be leaving for another three or maybe even longer."

Dusty cocked his head, "But the head of housing sent us a notice to start looking for another housemate since you'll be gone in a month."

I noticed the smile slip from Daniel's face.

"That's right," Daniel said. "After three months with a partner, they move in together."

"You'd think they'd make an exception for you guys, but guess not huh?" Ricky said.

"Guess not," I said. When my eyes wandered a bit, they caught sight of the microwave clock. I jumped out of my seat.

"Yeah, I have to get going now guys," I said, grabbing my water bottle. "Thanks for breakfast, Daniel!"

As the byes chorused behind me, I made my way downstairs and out into the dark hallway. So, in a month, I would be moving in with Zach. Was that good? What was it going to be like?

"Hey Ally!" Came a very feminine voice from behind me. It kind of sounded like—

"Rena," I said. "How are you?"

"I'm doing great," she said. "And I'm so glad I bumped into you! I've wanted to talk to you for a while."

I wouldn't put it past Rena to have waited outside my house's door, ready to pounce on me as soon as I left to training.

"So what's up?" I asked, trying to keep a quick pace in order to get to school faster.

"Oh you know," Rena said. "We just haven't talked in a while. I thought we should catch up since we're two of the few girls here."

"Okay," I said. "So what do you want to talk about?"

"Um well," Rena said, hesitating to come right out with it. "I heard you got a partner."

"Yes, I did," I said, deciding not to make it easy for her.

"So, what's he like?"

"He's like any of the other guys at our school." Except he was exceptionally good-looking, intelligent and experienced.

"Just like any other guy?"

"Yep." God I was such a liar.

For a moment, silence hung between us. I noticed that Rena's walking made it sound like an elephant was barreling down the hallway. With every sound she made I cringed as I thought about what Zach would say if I walked like that.

"Is he nice?" She asked finally.

I sighed. I couldn't really lie about that.

"Yeah, he's really nice. But he knows how to be mean when necessary."

"Is he a good fighter?"

"Yes."

Another moment of silence.

"Do you think I'm going to get a guy partner?"

And how would I know the answer to that?

"Um, sorry to disappoint, but I don't think so," I said slowly. "Now the amount of girls at school are perfectly even. They might end up pairing you all together."

"Oh," Rena said, obviously unhappy. "Well, why were you the one who got a guy partner?"

I could see this conversation turning very ugly very quickly.

"I don't know," I lied. "They probably just picked randomly." The council had probably known I had more dedication and passion against vampires than any of the other girls. They had probably also know that I wouldn't have gone crazy over Zach once we were partners.

Rena humphed, "Well that just doesn't seem fair."

"I trust the council's decision," I said. "Don't you?"

"You wouldn't say that if I had been chosen instead of you," Rena said. I realized then and there that I never wanted to have to talk to this girl again.

"Think what you like, Rena," I said. "I'm going to be late, so if you'll excuse me." And I began jogging. At a run, I was able to get to the school door in five minutes. I knocked, entered, and made my way through the main rooms. There only a few people milling about since class wouldn't start until nine o' clock today. One of the clocks I passed by stated that it was 7:46, so I was going to be perfectly on time.

I entered the gym and pulled off my jacket as I made my way to my training room. Just as my hand grasped the doorknob, something wrapped around my shoulders and yanked me backwards. It was holding onto my body so tightly that I couldn't even move my elbow to jab behind, so I settled for using my legs instead.

I quickly reached my right leg back to wrap around my attacker's leg. Then I yanked both forward, forcing us to fall backwards. A grunt of pain came from under me and the attacker's hold loosed. I turned around to put my hands around his or her neck, but instead froze in surprise. It was Zach.

He arched an eyebrow and said, "Bad choice. You almost had me."

As I tried to regain my position and get my hands around his neck, he flipped me off him and pulled himself over me in one fluid motion. Once he put his forearm to my neck, I knew it was over.

"Gotcha," He said. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You got lucky this time," I said, pushing on his chest so that he would let me get up.

"How was I lucky?" Zach asked, slowly getting up and brushing himself off. "I created a situation that you could find yourself in any day and you didn't handle it."

"I was just surprised that it was you attacking me," I said. "That's all."

"And that second of hesitation cost you your life," Zach said, reaching a hand down to help me. "Take care never to repeat that mistake. Anyone who is attacking you means you no good."

"Unless they're you though, right?" I asked, using his hand to pull myself up into a standing position.

"Right," He said. "But during our practices, you must act as if I want to kill you, and you need to defend your life, and end mine."

"Okay," I said. "Never show you mercy again. Got it."

"Good," He said, walking away. "And now, we practice."

I let out a deep sigh, "Yay."

We started with a four-mile long run in silence followed by weights and crunches. It was not fun.

"Twenty more," Zach said, as we came up from a frog-leg crunch.

I could feel my hair sticking to the sides of my face as I completed the 61st frog-leg crunch of the day. My abdominals were burning, screaming out for a relief. It was all I could do to keep myself from grunting every time I came up for another crunch. Hey, on the upside, I was going to have a killer bikini body. Not that I would ever need one since I couldn't remember the last time I had gone to the beach or swam in a pool.

"Eighty," Zach counted, as I let my head fall back on the floor. I felt like curling up into a little ball and falling asleep.

He got up quickly, "Alright, time to get back to sparring. But now we're going to concentrate more on hand-to-hand combat with just our fists and with weapons."

"That sounds great," I grumbled. "Can we do that in thirty minutes?"

"No," Zach said, looking at me sternly. "Our bodies are incredibly warmed up right now. If we waited half an hour, you would be more sore at the end of our workout."

I groaned, "I'm going to be in some serious pain tonight."

"We are building up stamina by having long workout sessions, Ally," Zach said. "You never want to be the one to tire first. Whoever gets tired in a fight is usually the one who goes down."

"I know," I said. "I know. This is all going to make me a stronger fighter. It's just a lot to handle all at once, you know?"

Zach just stood there and waited for me to get up.

"I know it's hard to go through the tough training at first, but once you've done it for a while, you'll be stronger and it will get easier. The first couple times are the hardest, but you just have soldier through them. And I know you can, Ally."

I sighed and stood up. He always knew how to chastise me without saying it outright.

"All right, what now?" I said.

"Today we're going to work on how to get out of a strong hold, like a headlock, and then also some basic hand sparring," Zach said. "Now, come up behind me and get me in a headlock."

I nodded and wrapped my arm around his neck. I felt Zack laugh.

"If you held your enemies like this, you would be dead in seconds," He said. "Hold your arm like you mean it."

I pulled his neck closer and held the best headlock I could.

"Good," He said. "Now, there are multiple ways to get out of a headlock. One:" He jabbed his elbow lightly into my ribs. "Two:" He mimicked stomping my foot. "Three:" He lightly bit my arm. "Four:" He reached back to lightly grab my face.

"And you have to be able to respond very quickly because a headlock can potentially cut off your oxygen. Especially if it's a vampire holding you."

"And they would probably try to bite me if they were in that position," I said, letting Zack go since I assumed the demonstration was over.

"Probably, so you want to keep out of that position," Zach said. "Another position is the one I surprised you with earlier, where they wrap their arms around your upper body. For that one, you have to either use your legs or your head.

"If your attacker gets inventive with his holds, just remember, the face, groin and feet are always great places to target. The shins are really painful as well."

I nodded.

"Okay, I'm going to hold you in a restricting position, and you have to get me off," Zach said. "Okay?"

I nodded again and turned around so Zach could do his thing. He chose a choke hold.

"Fight me off," He said, tightening to the point where it was harder to breath.

I stomped and jabbed at the same time and Zach immediately let go.

"Ouch!" He cursed. "You have a hard elbow."

"Hey, it worked right?" I said, smiling sweetly at him. He glared at me while he rubbed his ribs.

"Okay, one more," Zach said. "I don't want to be too bruised today."

I turned around once more. This time, Zach chose a position with more contact. He wrapped his left arm around my neck and his right arm around my upper body. His spread my legs apart with his own so that it would be hard for me to reach back and trip him with one leg. I could feel his chest up against my back, and I was starting to feel a little overheated in the small room.

"Go," He whispered.

He immediately tightened his hold on me. I thought about what body part was free: my head. But that could really hurt me and Zach. Instead, I dropped into a split. Zach, in his surprise, fell forward when he tried to keep his grip on me. One of my arms slipped free and I used it to jab Zach again, taking care not to hit too hard. His grip on my head loosened even more. I slipped out of his hold and stood up quickly over him, putting my sneakered foot on his stomach.

"I win," I said.

Zach's hands reached down to my foot and grabbed it.

"You should never do this either, because giving me control of your foot gives me the ability to twist your leg and make you fall down," He said, slowly twisted my foot around and not letting go.

I immediately saw that he was right. He could make me fall down quite easily from here. I tugged my foot to get him to let go, but he held on tight.

"We all have to pay for our mistakes," He said grimly.

My eyes widened in horror. I looked down at the ground, only covered by a thin mat.

"Please Zach," I said quickly. "It's going to hurt a lot if you do it. Just let go of my foot."

He shook his head solemnly, "I'm afraid I just can't do that. If I was a vampire, there would be no way in hell I would let go of your foot."

And without another word, he twisted my foot hard to the left. My whole body lurched in an attempt to follow it and within seconds, I was crumpled on the floor next to Zach. I groaned.

"Why does the ground have to be so hard?" I mumbled, feeling the pain of contact with cement up and down my body.

Zach chuckled and sat up.

"I think that's enough for today," Zach said. "I have an appointment in an hour anyway, so I have to get going."

"We're done?" I asked, perking up.

Zach smiled and nodded at me. I immediately stood up.

"Alright, then," I said. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow!"

I grabbed my jacket and loped out the door, glad to be finished with training for the day. I smiled and waved at people walking by, and they all kind of just gave me weird looks. I saw George and Ricky coming out of a classroom and I went over to them.

"Hey guys," I said. "Nice to see you can still drag yourselves away from the TV."

"Ha ha, you're so funny," Ricky said sarcastically. "What class are you coming from?"

"I just finished up training," I said. "Tomorrow's going to be a sore day."

"That's right," Ricky said. "You don't take classes anymore, huh?"

I shook my head. Class consisted of vampire history, slayer history, fighting techniques, physical education, etc. But now, Zach could teach me all these things, and we could work together to become better partners. Class wasn't really necessary for me anymore. I could always go though.

"We just came from learning why blood appeals to vampires," George said. "Real fascinating stuff."

I laughed, "I can tell that you're loving vamp class."

"Apparently, next week, we're dissecting a vampire," George said. "It should be fun. You should drop by if your partner will let you."

"I'll ask him about it," I said, not really wanting to see the dead insides of a vampire. "See you guys later! I'm off to shower and sleep."

George and Ricky each grinned and waved as we separated. I smiled back as I thought about the hot shower I was about to take. Thank God for plumbing.