He tried to hit her, but Bram kicking him in the chest stopped him. Joy got a piece of his hair from Alex and she used it to hold him still.

"But, you two are human! Why are you defending that beast?" he asked while holding his chest.

"Wrong! I'm not human at all, I'm a vampire mage."

"You fucking moron, I'm a human mage and he's a better person than you will ever be."

To my surprise, other students started to yell at the anti-werebeast students. I was surprised that many humans were joining the side of the werebeasts. Bruce tapped me on the shoulder while I was watching in shock.

"Come over here so I can heal you. I don't want you to have an infected cut under my watch."

I saw Joy remove the hair off the doll as I followed him to a chair to sit down. He pulled out a small first aid kit that was hidden in his pants pocket.

"Bruce, do you think that the fighting will ever stop?" I asked as he started to put some stinky herbs on the cut.

"Nope, because it is in all of our basic natures to fight each other. The main problem is humans; we fight against others and ourselves. When humans hate werebeasts, vampires, and mages, it is a basic 'you are different and we hate that'. However, with other humans, it gets complex with 'we hate you because you have a different coloration than me and you think that a different deity moves the sun across the sky'. If it gets bigger and messier then war is wanted by most but it is not needed at all. I swear that humans crave blood more often than most vampires." He said before tilting my head. "Wow, I think he was wearing a sharp ring when he punched you."

"Wow, that was very insightful. I think that is the right word I was looking for."

In the corner of my eye, I saw Joy hand him some cloth right before she sat down next to me.

"This is clean and it might help you get rid of the blood to make it a lot easier to heal him."

"Shit, I'm not skilled enough in magic to heal this. It is too deep. I don't want to make it worse by accident."

"Move over then, I am skilled in stitching. Ash, do not move. Bruce, watch, and learn. This will be good for you to learn when you can't use your magic."

Not moving was easy for me, the idea that my first day of real life is me getting stitches was not. My fingers twitched every time the needle moved in and out of my face. I guess making dolls is the perfect practice for healers. I looked over to her and saw that the guy was about to hit her from behind.

"Um, Joy! Behind you!" I tried my best to not move too much as I spoke.

The guy froze as Joy was finishing the stitches. She got up and punched him in the face. I saw that she had one of her dolls in her hand with a piece of hair tied to it.

"Ew, I got some blood on me. Here you go, Bram."

Bram came out of the nearby shadows, licked up the blood on her hand, and then went over to help me up.

"He tasted gross, livable, but still gross. Just like his personality." He said before wiping his mouth.

Joy used the doll to move the guy towards the door to under the boat. We followed her down to the guard's room. She opened the door and made him go in first.

“Uncle! I got a troublemaker here! He tried to throw a friend of mine overboard and started a couple of fights and riots.”

I think both Bram and me got scared while looking at Joy’s Uncle. He was a human that was built like a fortress. He was unnaturally huge with broad shoulders and great height even by sitting down.

“Okay well, I guess he will stay down here until we get to land, and then I can punish him there,” he even had a scary, deep voice, “now, Joy please remove the spell.”

She removed the hair off the doll and the guy walked into the room he was pointing towards.

“Ash, Bram, this is my Uncle Wilhelm, Anna’s Dad. He’s head of safety and security at school.”

“I guess I will be seeing you two a lot.”

“Um, we are not troublemakers, sir.” Bram stuttered while I stayed silent.

“Oh, I’m not calling you two troublemakers, it just people are still hating werebeasts and I could tell that you,” points to Bram, “are a vampire, the red eyes and fangs give it away. Plus, Joy is very hot-headed.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’m just saying the truth. Your temper has gotten you in trouble before.”

“Well, we will do our best to stay out of trouble,” I told him.

“Good, could you three run along? I would like to talk to the boy you brought in. He needs to learn that his behavior will not be tolerated here. I had enough to deal with werebeast haters last year.”

We nodded our heads at him and walked out together.

“Joy, I knew that you were always a little scary but now I see where you get it from.” Bram pointed out. “He could scare a starved vampire!”

“Nope! His wife is related to my mom. If you ever meet my mom, then you will understand where I get my nice personality!” she looked up at my head and started to laugh, “Ash, your hair is spiking up!”

I tried my best to fix my hair but the seawater dried out and made it stiff. She grabbed both Bram’s hand and mine and started dragging us off somewhere. She stopped by a room that had our bags in it.

“Grab your school clothes and then follow me because you might as well change due to us almost being there.”

The three of us went into our bags, grabbed our clothes, and then Joy took us to two large bathrooms.

“Wow! Boats are so huge!” I said while looking around, “Joy, how do you know where to go?”

“Uncle told me where everything is so I wouldn’t get lost.”

Bram and I walked into the left bathroom while Joy went right. The bathroom was fully equipped with a large multi-shower area; the only problem was that no curtains were separating each part. We looked at each other, and we both had a nervous look on our faces.

“Well, this is awkward.”

“We might as well get it over with before anyone else tries to take a shower as well,” Bram said as he grabbed some towels. “Then, awkward will be an understatement here.”

I guess that there is a day in everyone’s life where someone has to swallow their pride and shower in front of their best friend. I just hope he does not see my little secret.

“Dude! You got a little puffball tail! It’s so cute!”

Damn! He saw my tail after all that hard work trying to hide it. Might as well get it over with and I walked into the shower. I saw his hand reach for my tail during the shower. I smacked his hand away from my tail.

“Bram, don’t do it. If you touch my tail, I will rip out some of your hair and give it Joy.”

“Geez, someone is easily pissed off when naked.”

“Do you even realize how wrong that sounded right now?”

I have to laugh when he face-palm after that. Luckily, the shower did not get any more awkward after that. When we got dressed, I found out that the school pants made a hole for my tail.

“Oh great, I hope no one will make fun of me.”

"Please, as long as they are not me, I will smack them with my fangs!"

I had to stare at him for that comment. Bram is my best friend, but there are moments where I wonder what the hell goes on in his head. I wonder if he loses any blood in his brain whenever he does not drink for a while.

"I think you were in the shower too long because the cold water froze your brain cells. How the fuck do you smack someone with fangs?"

"Good point," then he pointed at my arms, "How are your cuts doing?"

I looked at my arms and saw that it is not as bad as it was before. All of the cuts scabbed over but I could tell that they will scar. I looked near them and saw that some of my older scars have not faded at all.

"A lot better! It is a good thing that I heal fast. I don't need to wear bandages anymore!" I said while fake smiling at him.

"Just don't overdo yourself. I'll help you put on your school shirt anyway."

It felt like he could tell how fake my smile was because of the look he gave me. When we were done, we walked out of the bathroom to see a ticked-off Joy. I swear I could almost see smoke coming out of her ears.

"And they say women take forever getting ready. I swear I have been waiting for you two for at least twenty minutes!"

"Joy, go shove an apple up your ass," I told her.

"Wow! Ash finally got some balls! What happened in there?!"

"He's just mad at me because I found out that he has a tail," he said as I flipped her off.

Luckily for me, Anna came out of nowhere and grabbed Joy.

"Come on cuz! I know some cute guys and girls that you could date!" she started dragging Joy away.

"Where did she come from? I couldn't see her at all."

"I would help her but Anna's dad is scary and I don't want to piss him off before we even get to the school!"

I nodded my head at that comment, and then he decided to try to grab my tail again.

"No! Don't do that!"

"But it's so fluffy! I just want to grab it and squeeze it!"

"Fangs," I decided to use Joy's nickname for him, "do you ever realize what comes out of your mouth sometimes?"

"Sometimes, but not all the time," he scratched the side of his head, "for some reason, that normally happens when I'm talking to you."

The boat horn went off and I jumped into Bram's arms. I almost forgot how strong he was with his vampire strength.

"What the hell is that?!"

"I think it means that we are almost there. So, we should go up before everyone comes running down here to change," he told me as he put me down.

We made it to the deck right before the crazy rush. I looked around and saw other boats going towards a large set of buildings on the edge of the island. Bram tapped my shoulder and pointed to my left.

"That is a pod of dolphins."

I saw a group of weird-looking grey animals swimming close to the boat. I waved at them and then they made strange clicking noises. They started shooting water out of a small hole in their backs.

"Wow! What are they doing?!"

"They are getting the water they breathed in, out of their bodies by using a blowhole. They have to do that because, unlike the many other creatures in the sea, they don't breathe underwater."

"Wow! I can't wait to learn more about these dolly fins!"

"Dolphins."

"That's what I said!"

"No, you said dolly fins, not dolphins."

"Sounds the same to me."

"Oh, never mind. Go watch the dolly fins."