Chapter 3

Alex found his usual friends sitting together. Every single one of them stared at him in shock as he approached.

"What exactly is going on?" Matthew asked.

Alex sat down, took a deep breath, and said. "I'm being blackmailed by the vampire girl because my mom doesn't have anywhere else we can stay there's nothing I can do right now and everyone thinks we're dating but we're not."

"What?"

"I'm being blackmailed by her," He said. "There's nothing I can do."

"With what?" Daniel asked.

"My mom and hers go way back apparently," He said. "No idea how far back, or in what way. They're letting us stay at their guest house."

Daniel raised a brow. "And...?"

"And... YOU nearly hit Elizabeth with a rock yesterday during the protest." Alex sighed, "If she tells her family about that, we're definitely getting kicked out."

"So what?" Matthew asked. "You'd be better off."

"There's no-where else to go. Not for a while anyway," He said. "It's only a month. That's all. After that, I'm home free."

Alex got the sense Matthew wanted to push the issue more, but he let it go.

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The rest of the day went much more smoothly. Alex didn't see Elizabeth once.

She probably still expected him to show up for work after school, but at least he got a brief respite from her.

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Elizabeth's family didn't live far from school. It took him less than an hour to walk back.

Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth was waiting for him at the front gate.

She carried a smug expression. He could already tell this was going to be unpleasant.

"Ready for work?" she asked.

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On one hand, the work wasn't as hard as he thought it would be, granted he wasn't doing even half as much as the other servants. Alex was only expected to clean up around the house. He wasn't preparing meals or anything fancy like that.

On the other hand, Elizabeth was doing her absolute best to make his work as awful as possible. It wasn't anything major. She wasn't having him do back-breaking menial labor with zero breaks and rests.

Instead, she would pop in and make a slight comment. Maybe she'd request something. Maybe she'd ask him to do something totally insane. But she always did it in a fashion so overly polite, so entirely-too-pleasant, it was completely obvious she was mocking Alex.

It was actually pretty clever since even by the end of the day, the rest of the staff didn't think anything was odd. After all, she was just making a few 'slight requests'.

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Alex had an hour or two of sunlight left before being informed that he was done for the day. He half expected Elizabeth to show up with perfect timing to inform him that he needed to do just a few more things.

She actually did show up unexpectedly. Alex had been making his way to the guest house out back when she popped up out of nowhere.

Literally. He had looked off to the side for just a second and she was suddenly there.

She eyed Alex up and down.

"Can I help you?" He asked.

She frowned. "So, what's your deal?"

"Huh?"

"Why were you with that mob?" Elizabeth asked. "Do you really hate my kind that much, or...?"

"Uh...Well...It's what my friends were doing...I didn't really question it beyond that."

"It's what we were doing....", he said

She raised a brow.

"My friends needed my help, so I helped them."

She stared at me for a long time.

And then burst out laughing.

"Seriously!?" Elizabeth asked. "That's it? No sob story about how a vampire killed your best friend or something? It's 'just what my friends decided we were doing'?"

"Hey!"

"I mean... come on!" She laughed. "Can't you think for yourself?"

He scowled. "Yes!"

She rolled her eyes. "Right. Well, if you want my advice-"

"I really don't."

"You should get yourself some new friends," Elizabeth said.

He walked around her and continued on to the guest house. "I'll keep that in mind."

To Alex's surprise, He actually did get paid for his work. He was surprised Elizabeth hadn't popped by to tell her parents he was volunteering his time as a thank you for their hospitality.

Forty bucks weren't too shabby.