Beth didn't know if she was actually happy that school had started up again. On one hand, she got to see Nadja and would have to cut down her parent-on-child smackdowns to just the weekends, but on the other hand, it was school, and she had to attend. Thankfully, unlike last year, evil principals and teachers were for the most part currently on an indefinite break, although her math teacher looked she might boil a few kids just for the heck of it.

"Praise be, is it good to be back," Nadja said with a low groan, sitting down on the bench next to Beth under the tree. "I missed you like crazy."

She smiled, noting with envy how tan Nadja's skin was. Her friend was already naturally gifted with a darker complexion, but after spending a month out in the Utah sun, said coloration was much more noticeable. "I missed you too," she assured. "Zack's all good and fun, but you're the first girl friend I've ever had and that's something you miss once you got it."

"Well, now we've got the whole school year to spend together," Nadja promised. "And we should start with some fun times this weekend, school work be darned."

"If I'm not too sore," she muttered. "Now that I have to cut sparring down to the weekends, my dad wants to go extra hard to make sure I don't 'fall behind.' Not quite sure how I'd do that, considering I never got ahead."

Nadja gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm sure you're much better than you think you are. Heck, you would totally kick my butt. And remember how you whaled on those Harbingers in the alley? You're chalk full of that tough stuff."

She was grateful that Nadja gave it her best shot to try and cheer her up, but she wasn't feeling the uplifting. Besides, what was the third-grade finger painter's opinion to Picasso? It was easy to think someone so much better at something if you yourself weren't any good at it to begin with. Nadja's talents laid outside of fighting. Her strength was the only thing she had going for her and she sucked at it.

"You have a point," Beth conceded, "but it's hard for me to see it when it's being blocked by my kick ass parents."

"Who had kick ass parents?" Zack interrupted, sitting down beside Nadja to steal some of her chips.

"So nice of you to join us," Nadja mumbled.

"I do. Duh," Beth snorted.

"It's rude to come into the middle of conversations, especially when you have your own friends and own eating place," Nadja snapped at him, clutching her bag of chips to her chest possessively.

"Free country," he responded before looking over at Beth. "I just came to ask if you were up for a little magical fun."

"What kind of 'magical'?" Nadja asked before Beth could reply.

"The standard kind," Zack deadpanned, turning his attention to Beth once more. "My cousins and I are trying to have a party where we can practice. Would you be interested?"

"What exactly is it you're talking about? Because if it's some sort of local gathering, my aunt will probably be there and then my dad will hear about it, and then that leads to all sorts of bad, usually of the bloody type."

"No, it's not local," Zack promised. "It's family and friends. And about your dad finding out, how bloody—"

"Wait, are you talking about the 'family' gathering that consists of only men, you sexist pigs?" Nadja asked. "You can't invite an outsider in!"

"I know that, dilo," he retorted, rolling his eyes. "It's an informal thing between us boys."

"You mean your cousins?" Beth inquired, her expression souring.

"They'll be there, but I promise they'll be on their best behavior! They'll be bringing their own friends too," he quickly assured, seeing her backing out already. "Come on, I know you're curious and your dad won't let you so much as watch Harry Potter."

She thought about it for a moment. "I always like seeing my aunt practice magic. The electric in the air…"

"Yeah," Zack agreed, his eyes wide and his voice a little breathless. "Feeling the power surge through you…"

"...and that connection," Beth continued. They sighed in sync, and a zap went through her when she realized how intensely he was looking at her.

Nadja glanced between them, eyebrow raised. "Are you two quite done yet?" she asked, noticing the gaze between her best friend and her cousin.

"What?" Beth asked, snapping her eyes away from Zack to look at her friend.

"The magical talk, is it finished?" Nadja asked, "I felt like I just saw something intimate and it was gross."

Beth didn't know why, but the look Nadja was giving her made her blush and she ducked her head. "Yeah," she murmured.

"So, you want to go?" he asked again. "Come on, say yes. I know you want to."

"I do want to," she agreed, still sounding hesitant. But she saw the pleading look in his eyes and she caved. Why'd she have to be such a people pleaser? "Okay, I'll go, but we'll have to be sneaky, so my dad doesn't find out. He already doesn't like you as it is."

"Yeah," he said a little awkwardly, like it'd just occurred to him that this invite might have Spike going for his head.

"Yeah, forgot about him, didn't you?" Nadja asked with an amused snort.

"I'll come around eleven," he decided. "I can come up behind your house and you can sneak out your window."

She nodded in affirmation. "Sounds like a plan. As long as my parents are out patrolling, we shouldn't have an issue."

He grinned. "Great. Well, see you later then." He stood up off the ground, offering Beth one last wave and making a half-hearted attempt at stealing more of Nadja's chips—which earned him a not-so-pleasant growl—before walking back to his school.

Nadja turned to look at Beth, who was smiling a little. "So, when are you going to tell him?"

"Tell who what?" she asked.

"Tell Zack about your...genes I guess would be the best word?"

She looked at Nadja incredulously. "Whatever made you think I'd tell him?"

Nadja barely contained her eye roll. "Well, watching you two just now made me want to vomit, so I know you're getting close. Did you just think you could conveniently 'forget' that you're part vampire?"

"Shh, not so loud!" she warned. "Don't need China to know."

"And you're avoiding the question!" Nadja accused. "You can't just not tell him."

"And why not?" she asked. "It's not as if it's a topic that will come up often. I only told you because you saw."

"So, if it hadn't been for extenuating circumstances, you never would have let me know?" Nadja tried not to sound hurt, she really did, but it still gripped at the edge of her voice, something that did not go unnoticed by her friend.

She winced, guilt creeping in on her. "You don't know how tough this is for me. I've never been around people who liked me for what I am," she explained. "At the Slayer Academy, I was ostracized because I wasn't all human. In fact, they dehumanized me. I was not better than the monsters they fought."

Nadja sighed. "And I'll never know how hard it was and I'll never completely grasp what sort of mental scarring that left you with. But listen to me when I say this Beth: Zack's a bigot. A really big bigot. All vampires are bad, no matter what, whether they be part or whole, with or sans soul. He's going to feel duped, maybe even tricked. And so he's going to be angry. But he likes you. He knows you. He'll war with himself a little and I'll help him out—"

"By threatening him with bodily harm?"

"—and so ease his transition and he comes to realize that vampire does not have to equal bad. It'll be hard, but he can do it. I believe in him and his feelings for you. But say he finds out like I did. Then, you might have a little more work cut out for you. Zack's not as forgiving, you may have noticed. He still holds a grudge against Angel and he's never even met the guy. I don't want external circumstances to force your hand and ruin what relationship you have with Zack."

"I thought you hated that me and Zack hung out," Beth said, recalling her friend's face every time Zack came into the picture.

"I don't hate it, per say," Nadja began with a wave of her hand. "I don't like that you think Zack's worthy of your attention, because he's not—let me tell you—but I know it'll hurt you if he rejects you. I don't want to see you get hurt."

She sighed. "I see your point, but I think I know what's best in this situation. You never held the beliefs that Zack does, so it wasn't hard for you to accept that part of me. But Zack is entrenched in his anti-vampire agenda. Not that I can blame him exactly—"

"You can always blame a bigot. It's quite fun, actually."

"—and I like Zack as he is and he likes me as he thinks I am," she continued, ignoring Nadja's comment. "I don't want to change what we have."

Nadja pursed her lips. She saw the determination in Beth's eyes and knew that she alone couldn't convince Beth to spill to Zack. "I still think you should tell him. What's the point in being friends with someone if they don't accept all of you?"

"Because then I would have less friends?" she replied like it was obvious. "And if he tells your grandfather, I'd probably never be able to see you again either and then I'd be all alone with no one?"

"That sounds like a slippery slope. And that would never happen! I wouldn't let it," Nadja snorted.

"I don't want to chance it," she said. "There's a reason why your family still tells that story."

"Because my family literally has no other fun stories to tell?" Nadja offered.

"Let it be," she told Nadja firmly. "I'm not going to tell Zack ever and nothing you can do or say will change my mind."

-.-

Beth slowly made her way down the hall, bathroom pass hanging around her wrist. She moved her arm, spinning the block of wood around and around until even to her superior eyes it blurred together into one arcing shape. Her steps slowed as she focused in on the bathroom pass, not minding that it only meant it would take longer for her to get back to class. After all, she hadn't chosen the bathroom farthest from her classroom if she had wanted to make it back to Geography quicker. What kind of teacher started lessons on the first day of class anyway?

Beth pouted. Here it was, seventh period, and she had only seen Nadja at lunch. Such would become a daily occurrence, since the two didn't share any classes this semester. Looking at their schedules, it almost looked like someone had purposefully set it up so they wouldn't have a class together. Considering last year's lineup of administrators, Beth had little faith in the ones now. The Council may have said they were fine, but so was Jeffrey Dahmer until they found the head in the fridge.

As she continued her slow trek back to her classroom, mind totally enthralled by the swinging bathroom pass, she barely noted the growling sound that emitted from behind a door. It only registered for one simple reason: Beth was attuned to all things vampiric. She halted, the bathroom pass coming to a swinging stop as she eyed the door. It said Boiler Room on it, a perfectly dark and dank room for a vampire. Sure, maybe it wasn't the epitome of vampire luxury (her father had, after all, lived in a basement when he went cuckoo for cocoa puffs), but dead guys were dead guys and dark places were dark places.

She took a step towards the door, unsure if it would be unlocked. She knew the basic lock-picking skills, courtesy of aforementioned once loco vampire, and jimmying a lock was beyond easy, but she didn't think she'd have the time before she got caught. Some hulking teacher stuck on hall monitor duty during their off-period could come barreling around that corner, barking at her with a detention slip with her name on it. And wouldn't that be a fun one to explain to her parents? Besides, this was her thing.

She tested the doorknob, surprised that it gave under her hand. For shame, the janitor not locking the door behind him. She opened the door slowly, the mechanical sounds of whatever was running under the school filling her ears. She didn't hear much else.

Quietly, she made her way down the concrete steps. The room was dimly lit and she did her best to adjust her eyes without vamping out. She considered it, but didn't want to run the risk that someone was down here. If it was a vampire, well, she could dust them before he ran off to tell all of his other vampire buddies about the freaky half-vampire.

She listened for any more sounds, but heard nothing. She almost called out, but decided against it. Besides, in every horror movie ever, that only ever led to bad things and she refused to be the dumb blonde stereotype. Still, though, she had heard something.

She jumped when her heard a groaning from behind her. She whipped around and came face to face with what looked like a furnace maybe. St. Reneveir's was a new school built in an old building after all. She eyed the hunk of metal. Maybe that was what she had heard.

She almost laughed aloud. Here she was, hearing vampires in furnaces. It was dumb anyway. She had been going to this school for a year already. Surely she would have known about any monster living in the boiler room. Someone would have, at least. Just because Kelsey had left didn't mean the rumor mill was broken.

Beth sighed inwardly, turning and walking back up the stairs, consigning herself to another half hour of isthmus, peninsula, and plateau.

As soon as the door to the boiler room shut, a lone figure stepped out from behind the furnace. He dropped a bundle to the floor, which looked suspiciously like a sleeping bag, and kicked it to the side.

"Well, ain't that an interesting thing?" he muttered to himself, pulling a cigarette out of his pants pocket and lighting it with steady fingers. "Got me one helluva lady at this here school."