I looked out of the car window as we approached shopping street. My parents hadn't questioned where I suddenly got a painting from and agreed to take me to pick it up. I had also ended up agreeing to help them load up the car with the Halloween decorations though, so that was going to be not fun.

I guess it was worth it though, I would hate to just leave Zach's painting in a vault somewhere. Sure it was a pretty safe place to leave it with its bare metal walls and sterile environment, but somehow it still felt wrong.

"Here we are," My mom said as we came upon the multi-story parking lot close to shopping street. I looked outside and smiled at the thing. Despite the mundane nature of the structure, the city had gone out of its way to make it fit in with the rest of the buildings around it, painting it in natural colors and covering one of its sides with a mural.

I never got tired of looking at the mural whenever we parked in here. It was a bird's eye view of the city, or at least how the city had been years ago. I was pretty sure that the only building I could recognize that was still around was the clock tower.

…Oh right, the clock tower. I was going to have to be careful to avoid it. Because snipers shooting with magic ice to exploit my elemental weakness was a thing I just had to deal with now.

I got out of the car and stretched my leg out. It hadn't acted up since I saw that flash in the clock tower, which only furthered my suspicions. At least Zach had done me the kindness of leaving me at the entrance of the apartment and away from my mom.

I was not having my first non-Robby friend scared away by an overeager mother grilling him on every part of his life like he's a hamburger at a barbeque. No, best to keep my parents and Zach as separate as possible.

"Oh hey Rita,"

"Hi Zach,"

I froze and looked back as I saw Zach standing in the middle of the parking complex. He was standing in front of an older man who looked a lot like Zach who was getting something out from the back seat of their car.

"Rita, who is this?"

I jumped as my mom almost teleported behind me. I gulped as my brain shut down.

I slowly turned to mom and tried to form words.

"This… friend. Name Zach," I lifted my arm up so that my arm was pointing to Zach. I was also pretty sure that my arm was shaking like crazy but that was probably just my imagination.

"Hi there Mrs.… Now that I think about it, you never told me your last name Rita," Zach smiled as my Mom gave me an intrigued look that I didn't like.

The shaking got worse.

"Oh you can just call me Mrs. Margy," She said as dad walked up to us.

"Hey guys why are you all still standing around here?" Dad said as he walked back towards us.

"Oh it looks like we found one of Rita's… 'friends' from school," My mom said, putting a strange emphasis on the word 'friend' that I hated already.

"Nice to meet you sir, are you guys here to pick up my painting?" He asked as my parents looked at each other. I hadn't told them how I got the painting after all.

"You're painting?" Dad asked which I took as my cue to interject.

"Zach's an artist. He's the one who painted the art that we're going to Uncle Nick's to pick up," I explained as I looked back at him. "So that's us, but what are you doing here? You went from never having gone to shopping street before to going two days in a row,"

"Yeah about that," He chuckled nervously and looked to the side as the older man walked forward with a stack of painting shaped containers under his arm.

"Alright, I have them here," He said before looking at us. He looked like a cross of Zach's face with his Aunt Sherry's hair color. Unlike Zach who still had his 'hair-over-one-eye thing, his hair was cut short. He was also freakishly tall, and with a good bit of muscle. The contrast with this son could not have been more extreme. "So are you going to introduce me?"

"Oh dad this is my 'friend' from school Rita. She's the one who I gave the painting to and the one who showed me the vault place," Zach explained, also putting a weird emphasis on the word 'friend' that I didn't hate in the same way I hated the one my mom used.

"Got it you're girlfriend," His dad said as he shuffled paintings under hi… what did he say?

"Dad, for the last time," Zach protested, his face lit up like a tomato. "She's my friend, not my girlfriend,"

"See," His father shrugged as he looked down at his son. "You keep saying that and for some reason you keep expecting me to believe you,"

He used his free hand to shuffle Zach's hair as my own dad burst out laughing. I just covered my face, feeling the heat and trying not to think about how red it probably was. It was a good thing lamia had fire resistance, or I was pretty sure I would have burst into flames by that point.

"Why are you like this?" Zach groaned.

"Probably because you keep filling his house with so many paintings that you're about to buy an actual vault to store them all in?" I said from behind my hands still covering my face.

"So," Zach's dad said as he smirked at his son. "So you decided to got a girlfriend smarter than you,"

I felt myself getting redder as the adults laughed and started walking down to the entrance of the parking lot.

Zach and I just stood next to each other, neither of us able to look the other in the eye.

"Want to just move on and pretend that this never happened?" I muttered while starring straight at the floor.

"Please," I heard Zach mutter too. "And I'm sorry for… him,"

"Is he always like… that?"

"Yes,"

"Then you have nothing to apologize for," I told him as we started walking down the ramp to meet up with our families.

We met up with them pretty quickly and soon the conversation turned to how the two of us had met. Zach had explained about his Aunt recommending him Fangs over Hearts and then I told everyone about how he had seen me reading it during lunch. After that we had ended up telling them about how I had brought Zach to shopping street the first time.

"Oh, that reminds me," Zach said as he glanced downwards. "Is your leg doing better?"

"What happened to your leg Rita?" My mom asked as I felt her grip on my shoulders. I knew that she meant it as a gesture of affection, but at the moment her hands felt like iron clamps.

"Oh I had a cramp in my leg while we were walking around," I glanced at Zach, Our eyes met and I gave him a quick look that hopefully only he saw. "We had to stop after that and he helped me home. My leg's been fine since then though, so I'm pretty sure that it won't happen again,"

"Are you sure you're alright Rita?" My dad asked as we reached Uncle Nick's storage.

"I'll be fine. I haven't felt anything weird in my le, and I think it'll stay that way," As long as I don't get within sniping range of the clock tower, but I didn't say that part out loud.

We entered the store and Uncle Nick came up to greet us. A quick explanation later, and he was leading Zach and his dad down to one of the smaller vaults on the third basement that they could use to store Zach's paintings.

My parents and I waited upstairs while the other three were down there.

"So…" My mom walked up so that she was standing on my right. "Anything you want to say?"

"Not a thing," I said while looking straight ahead at the wall. I knew what my mom wanted me to say and I wasn't going to give in that easily.

"Nothing at all?" She grinned.

"Nothing at all," I repeated.

"Oh leave the girl alone Margy," My dad cut in watching both of us.

"Alright then, fine. You two take this at your own pace," I groaned as my mom put her hand on my shoulder. "Just… well I'm sure you already know where we stand on this,"

"Your stories have been pretty clear," I told her as we heard people walking back up the stairs. Considering that the basement only had one entrance, I was pretty sure that there were only three people it could be.

Uncle Nick, Zach and Zach's dad walked out a second later, proving me right.

"Well, that's your vault taken care of. I suppose you want me to take you to your vault now?" Uncle nick asked my dad.

"Yeah, figured we might as well start taking out the Halloween decorations early this year since we're already here collecting this painting of Rita's," My dad explained as Zach's raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not doing anything for the rest of the day, want any help with that?" He offered. "I can help you out a bit while Rita shows Zach the rest of shopping street,"

"Good idea," My dad nodded and before I knew it, Zach and I were standing outside the store.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"I… I think our parents just head-canoned us into a relationship and then set us up on a… date," He gulped.

"This would actually be really sweet if we were actually dating," I pointed out as I looked down the street. Would the sniper on the clock tower still be there? If they were then this was about to get real complicated real quick. "Why don't you lead this time?"

I walked carefully behind Zach, making sure to keep him between me and the clock tower at all times. I changed the rules this time around. Instead of taking the lead and pointing out all the interesting shops, I let him choose where he wanted to stop with me only stepping in if I felt like he missed something to vital to skip on accident.

I only had to do it twice though. The first time for a smoothie stand that sold special drinks on Sundays and a particularly famous statue of the town's founder that a lot of people used as a meetup point.

"And that's almost all of shopping street," I told him as we came to the last shop on the street before reaching the clock tower. A small family-owned restaurant that sold some pretty good barbeque. "So what do you think?"

"I think I see Kenny serving some people food over there," He pointed over to the restaurant and what did you know, Kenny was indeed there serving a couple seated outside a plate of ribs.

"So it is," I told him as Robby walked out of the door carrying a serving tray too. I waited for him to finish setting down the man's food and walking away before intercepting him. "Table for five please,"

He glanced back at us and smiled.

"Oh hey Rita, and you must be Zach. What are you two doing here?"

"Long story I'll tell you on Monday," I told him. "What about you, since when do you have a part time job?"

"Since yesterday, it's only for the weekend since two of the servers were unavailable. It was really weird, they just sort of collapsed," He explained. "The five of us were nearby when it happened so we offered to take their place,"

So it wasn't just me then. This problem just got worse. And instead of some out of the way church, now the problem was in the middle of the most crowded parts of the city.

"Love to talk to you guys but I got to get back to work," Robby said as he walked away from us.

"We should head back too," I told Zach as I turned around and started walking back down the street.

I made sure to walk slowly and under the trees as much as I could. My leg going weak like that once was already pretty weird… but twice in a row was probably just a bit too suspicious. Now that I thought about it, I got hit in the knee and lost all muscle control in my leg, what if it had hit higher?

I gulped as I realized just how lucky I might have been.

We made it halfway down the street when someone fell. It was a biker looking guy who suddenly collapsed. I was pretty sure that I had heard the zap of lighting too.

"Dude are you okay?" His friend said as he helped him up.

"Ugh, yeah," He said as Zach and I kept walking. "Man someone get the number on that lightning strike that…" He faded out as Zach and I got too far away to hear him.

About an hour later I stood in my room looking at my new painting hanging on my bedroom wall. We also apparently had an invite to a barbeque that Zach's dad was having in two weeks. Plenty of time to deal with this.

I looked away from the painting to my desk. I pulled the desk drawer open to reveal a pair of black and red goggles.

"Since when is this my life?" I asked myself as I put the goggles on. "I mean, I'm a teenager. I shouldn't be protecting the town from supernatural threats,"

I looked myself in the mirror and bowed my head in defeat.

"But if not me… then who?"