Are you sweet?

Are you fresh?

Are you strung up by the wrists?

We want the young blood…

~We Suck Young Blood, Radiohead.

Getting Blood from a Stone

"Hey there baby!" Grace smiled as she recognized Liv's voice and saw her standing casually by the community centre's main entrance. She skipped a little to catch up with her and when she was in touching distance, Liv instantly flung one arm around her.

"Did that Rider dude ask any questions then?" Liv asked quietly, as they both walked towards the locker room. Grace shook her head slowly.

"He was very drunk and when I tried asking questions to see if he knew what happened he passed out." Liv breathed a sigh of relief. They entered the locker room to find Alo speeding around.

"Really low-key here, bruv." Liv said sarcastically, throwing up a hand as if to say 'what the hell?'

Alo stopped, but couldn't wipe the wide grin off his face. To say the least he was ecstatic about his power. Rich stood off to the side, shaking his head at his best friend. Grace gave him a small smile and waved in his direction, and Rich just nodded civilly back at her before beginning to rummage through the contents of his locker. He was already in his jumpsuit and was just searching for body spray and possibly looking for a hair product to make his shoulder-length hair less of a mess.

Grace went to her locker, which was opposite Rich's, and took her own jumpsuit out of it. She was grinning to herself, as if she had something to say. After glancing a few times back at Rich she finally went to stand by him.

"I healed a little boy in a wheelchair this morning!" She exclaimed and Rich could tell just by looking at her face that she had wanted to tell him that since she entered the locker room. He didn't know why she wanted to tell him and he didn't know why he didn't want to be truthfully honest about his opinion on what she had just said. His opinion was that it was most stupid thing he had heard that morning.

"What's wrong?" She asked, her smile fading quickly. He exhaled deeply before answering.

"Well, it's not very practical…" He muttered, hoping the probation worker would knock on the door and tell them to hurry up or something like that, so he wouldn't have to be a part of this conversation.

"Practical?" She repeated. The corners of her mouth were lifting again in pure bewilderment at what he had said.

"You can't save everyone, because that would just… you know, fuck up the world's balance… So you should just not use your power. Ever." It came across rather nasty and it made Grace blink her eyes rapidly in shock, but then she composed herself.

"Okay… So should I have just left Alo as a statue?" She said, mimicking Rich's usual tone of derision. Rich was annoyed that she managed to find such an obvious loophole in his statement, but had to give her credit for coming across so natural at being sarcastic, which was something he wasn't expecting from a girl like Grace.

"Yeah… but you couldn't just leave him like that, could you?" Rich asked, doing extravagant hand gestures to somehow make his point clearer. Grace crossed her arms in protest, so Rich knew this argument wasn't over. He turned away from his locker to brace himself for what she had to say and noticed Alo out of the corner of his eye smirking at this entire conversation.

"By your previous explanation, yes I should have."

"No, but that was an exception." Rich sighed and began to regret ever replying to her earlier. He realized, shocked, how different this was to his usual attitude. He would normally fight till the death with someone if he knew he was right.

"Exception? How do you know this boy wasn't an exception?" She was evidently getting angrier by the second and Rich was contemplating listening to her thoughts to see if there was something he could say to shut her up. That would probably mean agreeing with her, he thought sourly.

"Oh, was he conspicuously turned into stone?" He said, reverting back to his natural sarcasm. Grace shook her head and massaged her temples. Rich took this as a sign the argument was on a pause mode and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"How come you can argue with me like that, but not your friends?" He asked as nicely as he could, but Grace shot her head back up at him.
"What do you mean? I can stick up for myself." She wasn't raising her voice now and there was less conviction this time.

"I heard you yesterday when Mini was complaining about her powers. You couldn't say what you were feeling then." Grace looked down at her toes before responding.

"I wish you wouldn't listen to my thoughts, Rich… And I can say how I feel, but only when I have to." She started to walk away from him towards the bathroom, but Liv was still in there changing.

"I don't think you can. You can't say anything that would hurt someone else." Rich said with a shake of his head, as he followed her. Alo was waving his arms wildly at him, as if he was telling him to stop. He tuned into his thoughts, 'She's gonna be pissed! ABORT! ABORT!'

Grace snapped her head around in Rich's direction and her eyes were watery, but she wasn't crying yet. She wiped at them brusquely, as if her tears annoyed her.

"What's so wrong with that?" She wasn't angry, but she was hurt. Rich didn't know what to say to fix this and didn't know if he should bother.

Liv opened the bathroom door, with a spliff hanging out of her mouth.

"Bathroom's free…" Comprehension dawned on her face when she saw Grace. She turned to Rich angrily. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Nothing…" Grace mumbled, pushing past Liv gently to get inside the bathroom.

"Grace -" Rich started, just before Grace shut the door behind her.

"It's fine, Rich. Everything's fine." She didn't even turn to face him as she said this, but shut the door behind her.

"Mate, you like her." Alo said with the same smirk he was wearing earlier, running quickly over to Rich. Liv stopped glaring and instead raised her eyebrows in surprise. Rich prayed that his cheeks weren't flushed.

"Shut the fuck up, Alo."

Mini yawned as she sauntered into her kitchen. She paused mid-yawn when she saw her Mum's new boyfriend, who had just moved in last week, was making what looked like a sandwich. She considered turning around and going back upstairs, but her stomach grumbled unattractively and so she cleared her throat loudly.

"Oh, hi… Didn't see you there." He mumbled uselessly and Mini rolled her eyes before squeezing past him – being careful not to make physical contact – to get to the bread.

"Where's my Mum?" She asked in a dull tone, while grabbing two slices of bread.

"She went to a spa for the day." Mini lightly shook her head in disbelief. Her Mum totally needed relaxation from her busy schedule. She buttered the bread and tried to stay as far away from Bob, or whatever his name was, so she didn't get another guy turned into stone.

"Don't you have community service to do today?" Mini could hear the judgment in his voice, but continued buttering her bread.

"No, Bob." She answered curtly. Of course she did, but she didn't want to see the others being excited over their powers. She despised hers and would do anything to get rid of it. There must be a way for her to get rid of it… She couldn't be stuck with this for the rest of her life, could she? Forever being unable to touch someone, hold someone or kiss someone.

"It's Dylan actually." She shrugged to show that she really couldn't give a shit what his name was. "You shouldn't really cut it like that."

Him correcting her as she cut the cucumber made Mini want to throw something extremely sharp at his head.

"I know what I'm doing, alri—Ouch, SHIT!" She shrieked as she managed to cut one of her fingers. Blood came trickling out and she waved her hand around manically before running to the sink so she could let cold water pour over it.

Dylan for some reason was not fussing around like she had expected him to. She tilted her head a little behind her to see what was happening and saw he was holding his head with two hands as if he had an abnormally painful headache.

She moved away from the sink, so she could search for a plaster but to her dismay the cut was pretty deep and the bleeding had not yet ceased. Dylan was inching closer to her, eyeing up her cut in a semi-creepy way.

"Uhhh… What the hell are you looking at?" Mini snapped. She noticed his eyes grew darker and he was covering up his mouth. He let out a wild groan that made Mini yell out and back away from him as fast as she could. He flung himself towards her and bit down hard on her hand.

"GET. THE. FUCK. OFF. ME!" Mini yelled with all her might. She first thought it might be some sort of fucked-up fetish, but his teeth were far too sharp to be human.

She tried to search for something heavy that she could possibly hit him with, but she realized she had the ability to stop him herself. She had no clue whether or not he was already turning to stone by biting her hand, but she quickened up the process by touching his cheek with her other hand.

She tried to remain calm and still, but she was in excruciating pain and didn't know how much more she could take. Finally his neck was beginning to turn into stone and he must have realized this himself as he let go of her hand in shock. She pushed herself away from him and slid down the cabinet. She watched him as he continued to yell unearthly noises and finally he was made completely out of stone.

She exhaled deeply and tried to contain the tears of shock that were surely going to come if she let them. She stumbled up and with a shaking hand she wrapped a cloth around her other hand in an attempt to stop the blood from flowing.

She picked up her phone and looked up Grace's number in her contacts. She picked up on the fourth ring.

"Hello?" Grace's melodious voice instantly managed to calm down Mini.

"Grace… I need your help." She hated admitting for help, but Grace was the only one who could right now and she was the only one she didn't mind asking for help from.

"Of course. Is this about-" Her voice drifted off and Mini nodded before remembering Grace couldn't actually see her right now.

"Yeah… Will you come now?" She was speaking in a softer tone than she had for a while. The events of what had just happened were still playing on her mind.

Finally Mini heard a knock at the door and she scrambled up from the sofa to get it. As she yanked the door open, she said,

"Took you long en—What are you all doing here? What the hell, Gracie?" She shouted, staring at the faces of the other members of the community service 'gang'. Rich looked less than bothered to be there, Alo was smiling up at Mini with his hands in his coat pockets. Liv was in the background with her hands on her hips and Grace was standing in front of the others looking eager to get inside the house to sort out whatever mess Mini had made.

"Mini moo, we're a team now!" She may have used her term for endearment like Mini had just used 'Gracie' for her, but there was a hidden anger in Grace's voice as she said this and she raised her eyebrows almost challengingly at her. Rich smirked at this statement as he followed Grace inside.

"Yeah, Mini moo." He said, clearly mocking Mini. She glared at him as he walked past and wondered why he was showing an interest in Grace all of a sudden.
"Hey, hey, hey! Have you seen my power?" Alo said, as he whizzed past her. Great, Mini thought miserably, now he's got one too…

"Wow, that's great ginger minger." She took pride in the fact that she came up with a nickname so fast.

"How did you all manage to get here during service?" Mini asked, directing her question at Liv.

As Liv walked through the door she noticed Mini's hand and her eyes widened.
"It's our lunch break... What is that?" Mini automatically covered her hand with her other hand, but the bloody stain was too obvious to be hidden so easily. The cloth untied and fell to the floor. Liv picked it up and stared, horrified, at Mini's hand.

Grace and Rich were standing over the statue and Grace was about to press her hand to it. She sucked in air in a way to prepare herself for the pain she was about to suffer.

"NO, Gracie! Don't!" Mini shouted, but it was too late… Grace was already stuck to the statue.

"What?" Grace asked, feeling slightly uneasy now.

Soon enough she realized why Mini hadn't wanted her to heal him, because his head slowly started to turn back into human form and blood was dripping from his mouth that was filled with abnormally sharp teeth. She tried to back away from him, while screaming loudly, but she was stuck to him. Rich instinctively grabbed on to Grace to try pull her away, but it was impossible. The man snapped his teeth at her and was edging closer and closer to her as more of his body reverted back to its normal human form.

Alo was holding onto Grace now as well, while Liv pulled on the man and Mini shouted from the sidelines.

Finally he was no longer stone and Grace was pulled backwards into a heap on the floor along with Alo and Rich. Liv let go of the Mini's Mum's boyfriend and moved back against the kitchen cabinet. He was no longer interested in Grace as he could smell something else…. blood.

He stood up slowly and as he did so, Alo whispered audibly,

"A v-vampire!"

A/N: I kind of like this chapter, so that probably means nobody else will like it :P

It's getting a bit dramatic, right? Again thanks for all the reviews and please continue to do so, because they really make my day! If you haven't reviewed before but are reading the fic I would love to hear from you!

Oh, and just for fun who's side are you on in the Rich vs. Grace argument? Don't worry it'll all be sorted out soon between them ;)

Also we will discover Liv's power very soon, so place your bets!

Sorry for the super long note, but this was a very long chapter so I felt like this section had to be long!

Thanks,

TheCheeryCherry x