Chapter 3: Vampire Strikes Back

Grace signaled to Rich with a thumbs up as he nervously returned it. She threw down her bag to him and he surprisingly managed to catch it. She moved her leg over the balcony and tried to get her gripping on the pipe with her feet. She used the gaps in the bricks and the growing creeper plants for her hands to grab onto something. She tried not to look down in case she got scared and eventually she was close to the bottom. Rich was at the bottom to help her down, so she didn't fall. He took one of her hands and she hopped down.

"Thank you," She began, brushing down her polka dot dress. "Did you climb over the gate?"

"Yeah," Rich said, shaking his head. "Your house is fucking… huge."

She smiled, tightening the grip on his hand and leading him around the house.

"Wait, aren't we going back out this way?" He asked with a look of confusion, as he glanced between her and high front gates.

"Don't kill me, but there's a back gate that's much smaller." She said, not meeting his eye and continuing to hurry quietly to the back of the house.

"WHAT?" He shouted, before Grace motioned for him to quiet down. "Why would you do that?"

"I thought it would be funny." She smiled, ignoring his frown and stopping to wrap her arms around his neck so she could softly kiss his lips.

"Well -" He began, but was cut off by her dog barking. Grace's eyes widened and she pulled Rich along as they took off at a run. She climbed over the gate with a bit of difficulty due to her dress, but Rich did it with far more difficulty and fell down on the other side. Grace laughed, as she helped him up and they began to walk to the nearest bus stop.

"Shots!" Alo shouted, handing them out to Mini and Liv. Mini smiled appreciatively and Liv downed hers before continuing to dance on the spot. Mini pulled on the sleeve of her jacket uncomfortably, despite the fact she chose to wear gloves again, as more people moved around her. Alo noticed how uncomfortable she was and tapped her shoulder.

"You wanna dance?" He asked, displaying a few of the moves that he might do on the dancefloor. She laughed before stopping herself and giving a small nod instead. He walked ahead and she followed, at first she moved awkwardly in time with the music, still cautious of people grinding and jumping around her. She glanced up at Alo, who was doing the robot and pulling a stupid face.

In that moment, she decided to forget everything… Just for a second. She stopped moving and took a deep breath before moving about manically as if she didn't have a care in the world. Alo was taken by surprise at first, but soon smiled and copied her moves. She did the running man as Alo copied and couldn't stop herself from laughing.

"HARDBECK IN THE HOUSE!" Alo suddenly cried, as Rich and Grace were searching the packed dancefloor for their friends. They glanced in the direction of the shout and both looked equally surprised to see Mini and Alo dancing together. Grace smiled in wonderment at her best friend as they approached.

"Hey Mini Moo," She shouted squeakily with a wave, whilst Rich walked slowly behind her before getting attacked by his ginger friend. He rolled his eyes as Alo continued to jump up and down, trying to force Rich to jump as well. Grace watched this with amusement in her eyes, before pulling Rich away.

"You can dance with me," She said so sweetly that it didn't seem like a command, but Rich knew it was. He groaned and wrinkled his nose in disgust. She placed her hands behind his neck, giving him a pointed look when he hadn't immediately wrapped his arms around her waist. Reluctantly he did so, smiling as Grace sang along to the song and moving her body for Rich to follow her rhythm.

Liv watched this whole scene play out from the bar where she still stood. She sighed, downing another shot. Rich and Grace getting together was lovely, she thought, but it kind of changed the dynamic. Mini wasn't really hers to look after anymore and Alo… well, Alo seemed to have a crush on Mini, which made Liv feel more alone than she usually felt. Please say that they're all going to pair up, she glared at them all dancing in pairs, why did Mini have to dance with Alo anyway? Why couldn't she just stay and dance with Liv? And why did people feel like they had to dance with a member of the opposite sex anyway? Liv shook her head, signaling for another shot. Might as well get pissed…

As the music continued to pump on, Alo and Mini were both jumping up and down fist-pumping, and Rich somehow persuaded Grace to stop dancing by simply kissing her. Alo needed more space than he had for his jumping, so he bumped into Mini and she instinctively pushed him away hard which ended up with him toppling into another girl.

"Bloody -" The girl began, stopping suddenly as she noticed Alo properly for the first time. She was a short brunette with wide brown eyes. She smiled slowly as Alo began to orient himself with his current predicament. "You alright there?"

He blinked a few times before his eyes finally rested on her. He began to smile and gave a quick nod, standing up a little straighter. Mini stopped dancing as she saw the two looking at each other.

"I'm Poppy," The girl began, giving him her hand to shake. He looked at it for a second, before taking it in his and shaking.

"Alo," She didn't say anything else, but simply turned around – still holding onto his hand – moving her hips against his.

Mini walked back to the bar where Liv still sat. Liv raised her eyebrows expectantly at Mini, but all she received was a blank stare as she grabbed Liv's still full shot and downed it.

"You do realize you were out there for an hour and a half?" Liv asked, still eyeing Mini suspiciously.

"And?" Mini asked with a shrug. She glanced back at the dance floor where Alo and his new lady friend were still dancing as close as they could with clothes on.

Rich was sitting at a bar stool with Grace standing in front of him. He was pursing his lips as he thought of the toughest question to ask her.

"Cats or dogs?" Rich asked, smirking at the whine Grace made in reply. She pouted, shaking her head.

"You can't ask me that," She said, continuing to shake her head wildly before Rich grabbed either side of her head with both his hands. She stared up at him as he smirked at her.

"No, you have to answer that…It's the rules, y'know." He said, as if asking her to challenge it. He let go of her and she bounced up giving him a peck on the lips.

"Fine, cats," She said, with a Grace-version of a scowl, which wasn't really a scowl at all but just a sad expression.

"A month without Metal music or a month without Alo?" Grace asked, satisfied with her considerably difficult question. However Rich simply scoffed before immediately saying,

"A month without Alo," He shook his head, taking another sip of his beer. "Space is healthy, he needs it…"

As he said that he glanced around looking for his buddy, which was when Grace instantly knew his last answer was a lie. Rich had his mouth wide open and he tapped Grace's arm repeatedly until she looked behind her.

"Fucking Alo… He's actually found someone drunk enough to -" He stopped himself when Grace swiveled back around and furrowed her eyebrows at him. Rich gave a defensive half laugh before pointing at Alo. "He has never got himself a girl that interested in him… Interested at all actually."

Grace glanced back at Alo and the tiny girl he was making out with, before smirking back at Rich.

"And I'm sure you've had a lot of attention from girls," She said and Rich shrugged, taking another sip of his beer to save himself from answering that. Grace gave a satisfied smile before pulling him up.

"You can walk me home now," Rich was about to argue about how he had never agreed to walk her home, but Grace shut him up with a kiss.

Mini stumbled home around 2am after stomaching as much tongue action Alo was getting as she could, let alone Rich and Grace being cutesy the whole time. After fumbling in her bag for a good minute, she found her key and managed to push the door open. The house was dark and on first thoughts, her Mum must have been sleeping, but a loud moaning noise confirmed otherwise. She winced at the noise and tried to escape upstairs. Her Mum heard the door close though and made a big fuss of standing up and covering herself with a pillow.

"Who the bleeding hell is that?" Mini rolled her eyes as her Mum turned the lamp nearest her on.

"It's your local rapist with a key… Who else would it be?" Mini snapped, turning to go up the stairs when the man lying on the sofa took her by surprise. Not because he was there, as she knew there was a guy there, but he was familiar. He sat up and her eyes widened.

"What. Is. He. Doing. Here?" She said slowly, not to seem menacing but it was due to the fact that she was actually terrified.

"Sorry Mini, didn't mean to scare you." He said nonchalantly, smiling and looking a bit embarrassed of the state he was in. Mini's Mum moved back to the sofa.

Mini was frozen with disbelief as she stared at the man, who was no longer a man, and was supposed to be made out of stone….

"Thanks for walking me home," Grace softly said, as she leaned her head on Rich's arm. "Did you have fun?"

"Fun? No, I wouldn't call it that… It was alright spending a bit of time with you though." Grace smiled, ignoring his attempt to cause trouble with her.

"You know after we're done in community service," Grace started.

"Two weeks and counting."

"Yeah, well what are you planning on doing afterwards?" She asked, biting her bottom lip. She all of a sudden felt silly for they had taken so long to get together in the first place and she hadn't once thought about what their future plans were. Was it already going to be over before it began?

"Err…" He crinkled his nose. "I applied for university, but they found out about the whole drug thing and rejected my application."

He tried to look nonchalant about it, but Grace could tell as she lifted her head and glanced at his face that it was upsetting him.

"Me too," Grace said, "Well, mine's still conditional, but I bet they reject me when they find out about shoplifting."

"Where's your university?" Rich asked, realizing that things for them would be different after community service. The month of August may still be fun and easy for them, but if she got accepted to her university then what would that mean for them?

"London for dancing." She stated, stopping and standing in front of him. "We don't have to worry about it yet though… I want this to work, so let's take it slow?"

"Yeah," Rich nodded, trying to hide his smile. He pulled her closer to him, tilted his face and kissed her lips softly. "Don't fucking make me go over your gate again."

"I'll go through the back gate." She said, smiling. She wasn't ready to let go of his hand yet, but knew it was around three in the morning and she should get some sleep. Grace had to basically pull her own hand away from his and walk away. When she glanced back over her shoulder, Rich was still watching after her.

A/N: Hope you enjoy the third installment of this! There is like zero mention of powers in this I know, but I think this is the only chapter that fails to mention powers. Next chapter just has two of the characters in it!