FRIEND OR FOE

The heads of Cherry and Marcy popped out as they viewed the soccer field, it was time for the soccer and cheerleading practice and for some reason they were spying on Travis.

" so what's your plan", Cherry said in a quiet whisper.

" don't worry just, trust me, just do what I told you to do", Cherry nodded, she trusted Marcy with even her life. She had always been the responsible one and had always fixed all of her problems ever since they were kids and she doubted if she was ever going to stop.

Marcy walked into the field where the cheerleaders and soccer players gathered.

They usually for a while before practice, except Troy of course. He wasn't in school today not like it mattered, Travis always co-ordinates practice because Troy never got involved in anything, one may even wonder why he was the captain of the team.

"Hey Travis", Marcy said as she waved at him and he waved back, her phone suddenly started ringing.

"I have to take this", she said as she smiled at him.

"weird for you to bring your phone to practice, we leave our phones in our lockers so they won't break", Travis said with a brow up.

"yeah, I was expecting an important call today so I decided to bring it", she picked up her phone and the voice on the other side was obviously that's of Cherry's.

" Marcy, I'm scared I think I'm going to die" "calm down, what did the doctor say", for some reason Marcy had but her phones speaker on loud.

" he said.....he said he's suspecting a.... I can't say it over the phone I'll text you", Cherry's voice sounded like she was about to cry.

" it's okay, I'll be there in a moment", she said as she cut the call and rushed out of the field.

" I'm sorry I have to ditch practice today", she felt a hand draw her back and turned around to see Travis's face, the look on his face showed that he was worried.

"what's wrong with Cherry"

"she's been sick for a while now, shouldn't you know you're her boyfriend"

"she didn't tell me what's wrong I don't know but the doctor suspects an STD"

Travis I seemed to be filled with more worry. Marcy covered her mouth and seems to be a shock.

"Oh my gosh you've kissed, you should check yourself Travis", Marcy said as she rushed out of the field, she went to where Cherry was hiding and gave her a high-five.

" that should do it", Marcy said

A message entered her phone, it is was from Troy.

" Marcy, please come over I really need your help", she stared at Cherry as she grabbed her side bag to leave.

" I really need to get going Cherry I love you".

she started running, Cherry watched her leave and wondered how she was going to get home safely.

*********

Marcy paced around the room with her hand on her chin, she seems to be thinking. Troy on the other hand was seated by the corner, he seemed both worried and frustrated assisted as the bed where a middle-aged woman made unconscious, it was Olivia.

" how could you let this happen", Marcy Said in frustration.

"you know very well that my urges aren't quite the same Marcy, i couldn't control it"

"so what do you want me to do "

"I didn't drain all of her blood, she's still alive, you can heal her and wipe her memory, she can't find out what happened"

"she needs blood Troy, you know very well that it's hard to do permanent magic and I'm not my old self, even if I'm able to restore her blood the memory wiping spell would only last about 10 years"

" please just do this, for me Marcy"

Marcy still seemed to be contemplating and after about 5 minutes she reached a decision.

"bring me a glass of water"

Troy gave her the glass of water and she

places it on the floor. She sat on the floor and crossed her legs then stared at the water and began to whisper some things to herself, her eyes began glowing red and so did the water in the cup, she's stretched out two of her fingers from each hand, which glowed red at the tips then crossed them together, the glow in the cup seemed to become greater, the glow slowly started dimming and the water turned clear once again. She it took the cup and fed it down Olivia's throat then used her glowing finger tips to touch Olivia's head and whispered a couple of words, the glow seemed to transfer from Marcy's fingers to Olivia's head then it disappeared.

" she has enough blood in her, the memory wiping spell on the other hand would only last for 15 years, she should be awake in five minutes"

" thank you very much"

" what happens when the 15 years expire"

" I'll probably be dead by then so she'll have no proof"

Marcy's face suddenly had a sad expression, she didn't like in Troy talked about that like he didn't worry about it, maybe he just didn't care about the people that may be pained because of his death, yes, they may be few but that doesn't reduce the amount of pain they would feel if he died.

She slowly walked towards the door and heald the door knob then turned her head slightly in a way that she would only get a glimpse of Troy.

" you still have about three years left to live without taking her blood, you can't protect her for such a long time, they will get to her"

" I know that's why I want to teach her how to protect herself"

" then she'll have to know all our weaknesses"

Mercy's voice seems weirdly solemn throughout the conversation.

" yes but I trust that she wouldn't use it against us"

She walked out of the door without saying another word.

*********

Marcy decided to have a sleep over with Cherry that night, it was the easiest way of protecting her and teaching her at the same time. The blood Moon week had already passed but the effects of the blood Moon was still there so Troy couldn't come out till Monday so it so just her keeping an eye on Cherry.

Mrs Keller had come to check on them for the night before finally going to bed.

"all right let's start now", she said as she pulled out a big old looking book from her bag and dropped it right in front of Cherry.

" show me a spell", Cherry said she was curious on how she casts her spells on people. Marcy monthly didn't hesitate much, infact she seemed excited to show Cherry her skills. She grabbed the glass of water sitting on Cherry's with side table and fixed her glowing fingertip above it, the water in the glass cup glowed for a couple of seconds and dimmed off .

"drink", she said as she handed her the water.

Cherry rose an eyebrow obviously suspicious of what she did to the water.

"this wouldn't turn me into a bucket of dirty water or a frog or something funny"

"trust me just drink it",

Cherry gulped it down and waited for something to happen but nothing did.

"why isn't anything happening"

Marcy looked like she couldn't hold her laughter and after a while of holding it in she finally bursted out in laughter.

" what was wrong?"Cherry asked in confusion.

" look in the mirror"

Cherry looked in the mirror and discovered that she looked exactly like her brother and for some reason Marcy found it amusing that her voice was coming out from the mouth of such a handsome fellow.

"it's a shape-shifting spell, don't worry I set it to last for just five minutes".

Cherry gave a sigh of relief, she didn't want to look like her brother for the rest of her life, she preferred her perfectly full flawless face.

Marcy opened the book ready to teach Cherry all she needed to know.

"alright let's begin, we have at least 30 types of terror beings but three main types" "the vampires, witches and ware wolves"

"you also need to learn the rest"

" fox demons, snake demons, bull demons....", Cherry continued listing untol she completed all the 30 types and Marcy just watched in astonishment.

" how did you....."

" i read up", she said as she flashed a smile of pride at Marcy.

"in the days of old we had a group of people that hunted us, captured us and killed us. They known as Terry hunters to become one of then you need to know all the terror beings weaknesses, you need to hunt them by they're weaknesses".

It took all weekend for Cherry to learn half of what she needed to know but she was progressing very fast.

**********

The next Monday was a rather quiet one or at least she thought so. She didn't attend the soccer match on Saturday but Marcy did and she sent her some videos. She had to admit, her paper that week was boring. Travis also hadn't spoken to her all morning and she understood why, she actually preferred it that way.

Today a new kid was introduced to her class, his name was Zack, he seemed really social but Cherry he felt that there was something off about him or maybe she was just being paranoid.

A school trip to a reserve had been announced it was going to be a 4 days trip and everyone was expected to go. Cherry attended the private school so they were very few, they were only 83 in the high School section and 90 in the Middle School section. The school said that this trip was only for the high school students so it would be eighty three of them going. Honestly, Cherry had mixed feelings about this, she was very excited but also very scared, she was going to be vulnerable.

********

She walked into the dining hall and her eyes darted towards Troys seat, it for some reason she was relieved that he was there reading a book her heart skipped a beat and she didn't know why. He had barely noticed her walking in so she was left admiring him, there he was with his crystal blue eyes looking at who-knows-what, she couldn't help but imagine what he was looking at, she didn't even know the reason why she cared so much. She mustered up the courage to sit at this table again.

"Hey" , she said as she dropped her food, he looked up but her and there it was again his devilish and yet sexy smile that made her heart sink deep into her body. She opened her mouth to speak up but the words didn't come out, why? she had never felt like this around any guy before, what the hell was coming over her. Was she afraid of Troy? Probably not she had never been afraid of any guy before so why now.

" you know Cherry the fact that the blood Moon has passed doesn't mean it's safe to be around me it just means it's less dangerous".

Cherry just chewed on her food she had no words to say and she felt like even if she talked it would come out from her mouth in a big mess.

" would you like to eat", she finally asked after she noticed that Troy was just staring at her without doing anything else, he even stopped reading his book.

" I'm not hungry, thanks anyways"

There was a brief and awkward silence afterwards but Cherry was bent on making a conversation.

"have you heard about the trip"

"yeah, it's is dangerous but we have to. go because it contributes to about 20% of our grade, not like I really care though, I'm considering you. You know everything you need to know, right? You can protect yourself"

"yeah, are you sure you don't want to eat?", she said as she dropped a cupcake on the table and passed it to him. he sniffed as though something had suddenly hit his nose and obviously unwillingly rejected her offer.

" are you sure, it's strawberry", Cherry said with a smug expression on her face as Troy struggled to stop himself from picking it up but miserably failed to conquer his urge to eat strawberry.

"Maybe I'll just keep it for later".

Cherry's smirk suddenly turned into a blush that she found hard to hide as he smiled at her.

It was already lunch over so Cherry stood up to go for class. On her way to class, she noticed that someone was calling her name behind her she turned to find out who it was and realised that it was the new guy, Zack .

" I've wanted to talk to you for a while now"

The expression on her face remained as stiff and cold as ever. She noticed that Zack was hot, the green-eyed blonde was about 6 feet tall and his body shape seem to resemble that of a professional. his lips seemed so rossy and pretty that it could get any girl wanting you to kiss him within seconds of staring at them

" you've barely spent 5 hours in the school"

she replied him with a very straight and unfriendly face.

"yeah I know, I heard that you write the school's paper, I was a paper writer myself in my old school and I was just hoping if I could join you, there are probably going to be a lot big stories during the trip you won't be able to handle it alone"

" you're right though you can join me", Cherry didn't hesitate, she didn't need to think or contemplate, she knew for a fact that she would be way too busy gathering information about the paper, she'll just leave all the work for him because she knew that Zack wouldn't let her down because it was his first chance so impress people and cause his popularity rates to spike up with in just a week, it favored them both.

"maybe we could talk after school so you could give me some pointers, I'm new here I would like to know how things are done.

" no problem".

Turned out that Cherry and Zack had the same schedule so they were both heading to the same place, the chemistry lab. Today was going to be their first practical session, this meant they would be picking permanent partners and guess who she got paired up with Zack.

Zack had a smug look on his face as he walked over to Cherry to sit by her side.

" wow, paper partner, now practical partners, what else could we be partners in?", his voice sounded as dirty as the look on his face as he gave a nasty smirk, the expression on Cherry's face was obviously that's of disgust and confusion.

" come on, are you taking me seriously? I was just kidding"

"but we are here to study Zack", Cherry said " Can't you loosen up a bit, we're working together let's be friends"

Cherry for the first time gave him a smile, even though it was a bit fake. Maybe she could try to being friendly with him who knows maybe they will actually become friends but though she had an unsettling feeling within her that she shouldn't make friends with him.

He smiled back at her back and the smile was as stunning as it looks.

" fine, now let's read the instructions" .