YAY!!! I have reached 100 reviews with 14 chapters!!!!! WOOHOO!!!! I'm okay, seriously, I'm fine.

Puppalupp2008: Ha. It's always funny to see people who are hyper.

Anim3-anj3l: I try to update whenever I can. I had been playing RPG games last week, so I kinda neglected my story. But, I found that NOTHING is better than writing stories and getting reviews!

Brandon McLeod: Haha. Good suggestion for a dare, but it probably wouldn't it this story. However, in my next one, the Bladebreakers are going to meet people who don't even know what candy is!

0bs3ssi0n: Well, I didn't want them to kiss until they really know that they like each other. It's better to share the first kiss with someone that you know you like and likes you back.

YBM: Thanks for the abbreviation. Now I don't have to look for the spelling five times before I can actually type your name out correctly. I'm glad you like the chapter! I had fun writing it instead of stressing over it. Actually, I did stress over it, because I felt bad for not updating for so long. At least it didn't take me a million years to finish.

a-A-a: Even though Max ruined that little moment, we still love him! He's just too cute and innocent for us to hate.

Kanilla: I just love watching my readers squirm and wait impatiently for a long awaited event. What can I say? I'm just evil.

Bra-two: I'm so happy to have another reader!!

Shandell: It sucks when all your friends are out on trips. I can't wait till they're back.

El-drydzia: I try to make my characters as real as possible. It's hard though because there's more OCs in this story.

Ihaveaname?: Great name you have there. :D SO happy you think it's great!

Nise-angel: I am not that fond of Hilary, but I like making her and Tyson fight with each other.

Sankikya2000: No offence, but what kind of review is, 'lazy'? I sincerely hope you aren't calling me lazy. I update a lot and I usually work on my new chapter everyday.

A/N: If I don't manage to get the next chapter up by tomorrow, it's going to have to wait until Sunday. I'm going somewhere on Saturday with my family.


Chapter Fourteen – The Tension Grows

Ray sighed as he walked back to the room he and Zarine were sleeping in that night. It had taken him forever to convince Max to go to bed.

He got into bed and put his arm around the sleeping girl. Feeling the tension in her body, he took a glance at her face, and saw that she was crying in her sleep. He shook her awake gently.

"What's the matter?" he asked, wiping the tears off her cheeks.

"Nothing," Zarine answered. "It was just a dream."

He said, "Okay, well, you don't have to tell me what it was about. Just answer this for me, do you have nightmares often?"

"Sometimes," she replied. She wasn't about to say, 'Yeah, I have nightmares every night because I believe I killed my parents.'

"From now on, you are staying in my room at night," Ray told her firmly.

"But..." she protested.

He cut her off, "No arguments. You are going to. I want to be there for you when you're upset."

"Don't you get tired of it?" she questioned curiously.

"Tired of what?" he asked, confused.

"Having to comfort me so often," she answered.

"No, you're my girlfriend. I love you and I care about you," he told her softly, holding her tight.

"Thanks," she said gratefully, hugging him back. She felt so lucky to have him.

Jewels was sound asleep beside Kai. He wondered what happened before Max came in. Well, he almost kissed her, which he knew, but why? He didn't like her that way or anything. Heck, he didn't even know how much she had changed, or if he liked the new Jewels.

When Carrie woke up the next morning, she found that she was holding Kenny's hand! She quickly let of it in surprise.

[Why on earth was I holding his hand?] she wondered. Not even wanting to think about it anymore, she got out of bed and walked out of the room to see if anyone else was awake yet.

First, she went next door to see how Kai and Jewels were doing, only to find Kai gone. Then she poked her head into Tyson and Hilary's room. She had to stifle her laughter when she saw Tyson taking over almost all of the bed and Hilary squished to the wall, covering her head with a pillow in an attempt to drown out Tyson's ground shaking snore.

When she went downstairs, she found that Zarine, Ray, Kai, and Max were already up.

"Hey guys," she said, yawning. "What would you like to eat?"

"I'll cook," Zarine volunteered.

"No, you're the guest," Carrie said.

"Don't worry, she's obsessed with cooking," Max said, grinning. "You'll be doing her a favor."

"What about the others? The stuff will be cold by the time they get up," said Carrie in a worried tone.

"I can guarantee they'll be up before I finish," Zarine told her confidently. "Trust me."

Carrie shrugged. "All right."

After a while, Jewels came into the kitchen and asked, "What smells so good?"

"Breakfast," Kai answered.

"I'm definitely sticking around for this meal," she said, plopping into an empty seat beside Kai. Carrie's eyes brightened at the sight of that. If Jewels was willing to be near Kai again, that meant things got better between them. An idea suddenly formed in her mischievous mind.

By the time the bacons were sizzling in the pan, everyone was at the table, waiting impatiently for Zarine to finish cooking.

"Voila, here you go," she said, putting a plate of eggs, bacon, sausages and toast in front of everyone. She gave Tyson a triple helping since he would be VERY hungry after that dare.

"Kai, I got a dare for you to do," Carrie said. "Are you up to the challenge?"

"Do you even need to ask?" he said. "You know I'm not scared of anything."

"I dare you feed Jewels her breakfast, and she feeds you yours," she stated.

Kai's mouth dropped. "What?!" he said, hoping that he had heard wrong.

"What happened to Mr. I'm-Not-Afraid-of-Anything?" she taunted.

Kai swapped plates with Jewels. "Hey! I never agreed to this!" Jewels protested.

"So you want to be on the list of Loonyville?" he questioned.

She thought about it for a moment. "I guess not..."

"Good," he said, spearing a bit of sausage with the fork. "Open up," he said, smirking.

After five minutes, he found that he didn't mind feeding Jewels her breakfast, or even minded the laughter of the others who were watching them.

Later, the Bladebreakers thanked the twins for a great time.

"I had a lot of fun," Zarine said, hugging Carrie.

"Yeah, totally," Max agreed.

"Let's get together and do something fun soon," Ray said.

"Don't worry about that, summer's coming soon!" Tyson said excitedly at the thought of school being over. "No homework, no waking up early, no teachers!"

Kai said to Jewels, "Think about what I said last night."

They bid goodbye and they started walking down the street.

"So what did you say to Jewels?" Tyson asked.

"It's none of your business," Kai said coldly.

"Did you tell her that you love her?" Tyson questioned. "Ooooo. Kai and Jewels sitting in a tree..."

Kai bonked him on the head causing Tyson to yap in pain. "Shut up," said Kai.

On Monday, Zarine rolled over and looked at the clock. It was seven. Groaning at the thought of school, she got up. She was about to open the door to Ray's room when he opened it.

"Morning," he said cheerfully.

"How can you be so happy? It's seven and we have school!" she said grumpily.

"What happened to you today? You're a morning person," he said, raising an eyebrow. Then he added, "Most of the time, anyway."

"Well I don't want to be a morning person today," she snapped waspishly.

She was in such a bad mood, even Kai was concerned. "What happened to you?" he asked.

She answered, her voice full of frustration, "Nothing!"

Ray looked at Kai and shrugged. He was wondering about the same thing himself.

Her bad humor continued all the way through breakfast and the trip to school. The boys didn't talk much. They were both worried that Zarine might blow up if they say one wrong word.

Ray waited patiently for her at her locker, hoping that she might tell him what her problem was. "Why are you still hanging around here?" she demanded. "I can find my way to class. You don't have to lead me everywhere."

He was hurt by her words. Whatever her problem was, it surely didn't give her the right to bite everyone's heads off. He was just about to open his mouth when Carrie greeted them both brightly, "Hey!"

"What do you want?" Zarine asked.

Carrie sighed. "Kai told me how snappish you were today. Would you like to tell us why you are making life unpleasant for innocent people?"

Suddenly, someone hurled herself at Ray, knocking him over.

"That," Zarine answered darkly, shooting a disgusted look at the girl lying on top of her boyfriend, "is my problem."

"Oh my gosh Ray, I missed you so much over the weekend!" Shea squealed, giving Ray a big hug before getting up.

He got up and said uncertainly, "That's nice," He looked at Zarine, who was now busy getting extra paper for her binder and judging by the look on her face, she wasn't happy.

"Guess what?" Shea asked him excitedly.

He questioned wearily, "What?"

"You have been framed the second hottest guy in the school!" she replied. "Isn't that great?"

"Sure," he said. Turning to his girlfriend, he asked, "Zarine, are you ready to go yet?"

"Oh, what? Yeah," she answered. She hadn't exactly expected him to pay attention to her when that blondie was there. "I'll see you later, Carrie," she said to her friend.

Carrie winked at her before walking away to go and find Hilary.

"See you later," Ray said to Shea, putting his arm around Zarine's waist. They strolled down the hall, leaving Shea, who stared at them with her mouth open.

She thought that they were supposed to be fighting with each other! Gritting her teeth, she vowed that she would come up with a way to break them apart.

"What's gotten you so mad?" someone asked. Shea whipped around and saw her friend, who had black hair and grey eyes, watching her.

"Oh, hey, Katie. It was just that Ray and his dear girlfriend had made up with each other. He even put his arm around her!" Shea said angrily. "Why would he even go out with someone like her? I mean sure, she's good looking, but compared to him, she's a midget!"

"Well, they are going out," Katie pointed out. "They have every right to do that."

"I thought I had him for sure. I will get him, one way or another," Shea said.

Katie suggested, "Why don't you just go out with Leo?"

Shea replied, "Because Ray is way better than he is. Didn't you see him beating Leo at basketball last week?"

"Yeah, well, good luck. I heard that Ray and Zarine are crazy about each other," Katie said.

Shea scoffed, "Like I care."

Leo heard the news that Ray had took over his spot as the second hottest guy in the school with great dislike. What the hell did Ray have that he didn't? Girls were drooling over Ray instead of him, Ray was better at basketball than him...What is Ray going to take away from him next? His friends better not like him.

Then he had an idea, if he managed to steal Zarine away from Ray, Ray would be heartbroken. Yes, he should do that. Zarine was the dearest person to Ray. She's the perfect person to target.

Ray led the silvery haired girl to his locker. "So were you in such a bad mood because of Shea?" he asked.

"Well, duh!" Zarine replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Are you going to be civil to people now that I've proven I'm not going to forget you whenever she's around?" he questioned, opening his locker.

"Yeah, I guess," she sighed. "I just don't like it when people try to steal my boyfriend away. I'm sorry I was so mean to you earlier."

"It's okay, I don't like it either when people try to take you away from me," he said, kissing her on the forehead. He took out his binder and said, "Let's go to class now."

At lunch, the gang decided to eat outside since the weather was so nice.

"Can we go for ice cream after school?" Zarine asked Ray.

"No...I can't," the black haired boy answered.

"Pppppllllllleeeeaaaaaaaaassssssseeeeeeee??' she begged. "Pretty please?"

He touched her face affectionately and said, "I can't. I have basketball practice."

"Skip it," she suggested hopefully.

"No," he refused. "I'll take you there after, okay?"

"Fine," she said.

"Gosh, sometimes, you guys make me sick," Tyson remarked. "Do you have to be like that in public?"

"Tyson, it's not like we're kissing or anything, why should it bother you?" Zarine questioned. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "Are you jealous because you don't have a girlfriend?"

"Of course not!" he denied. "I don't even want a girlfriend. All they're good for is push me around like you're pushing Ray around."

"AM NOT!" she said loudly.

"ARE TOO!" he said, raising his voice.

People around were looking at them curiously now, wondering who were fighting with each other.

"Well, Ray doesn't have to take me anywhere if he doesn't want to!" she said.

"But you'll pout for the rest of the day because you didn't get any ice cream," Tyson countered.

Zarine thought about it for a moment before saying, "Yeah, but we're talking about ice cream here! Ice cream! You'll be sulking too if you don't have any food to eat!"

Tyson opened his mouth but nothing came out. He could think of nothing to say.

She stuck her tongue out triumphantly at him, grinning broadly.

"Tyson doesn't get along with girls very well, does he?" Leo questioned, walking over to them.

"Hey, Leo," Zarine greeted.

"So, beautiful, are you doing anything after school tomorrow?" he asked.

She almost turned around to look for who Leo was talking to before realizing that he was talking to her.

"Um..." she said uncertainly.

Ray stood up and warned, "Back off, dude. She's my girlfriend."

"I couldn't tell. You were all over Shea last week," Leo spat. The two boys just stared at each other, the tension growing every second.

"You mean she was all over me," Ray corrected. "I was never interested in her. She's the one that likes me. Besides, it's not my fault if she likes me more than you."

Zarine suddenly had a feeling of déjà vu. That was what Shea had said to her. She stepped between them and said, "Stop it."

"Get out of my way," Leo said to Zarine, his hands balled into fists. "I don't care who he is, I'm going to teach him a lesson."

"No," she said firmly.

He backed off and said, "Zarine, I like you, so I'll leave him alone for now." Turning his gaze on Ray, he said menacingly, "Don't think for a moment that this is over."
There are some great stories I think you should check out if you haven't already.

The Blue Blader by sapphire-sword
Chosen: The Lost Soul by Queen of Fantasy (You HAVE to read this. It's so wicked! It's definitely one of my favourites!)
Only A Summer's Romance by Kai-cutie-angel
Island Adventures by White Wolf Demoness. (This one is good too!)
Dancing is Life by BaBeS7
New Beginnings, New Love by O.o-GoDsMaCk-o.O