'I will do my best, Miss Grayson,' he assured her.

     'And stop calling me miss!' she snapped at him, irritated by his increasing sense of formality.

     'Yes, Madam Shard,' Shadow said to her before quietly slipping away from her to position himself better to protect his master and her friend from the drunken boys.

     Marlene gave a slight groan as she felt Shadow leave. She was fine with him protecting her and Gracie, but she hated it when he got tense. Because whenever he got like that, he also became annoyingly polite and formal which made her uncomfortable. She sighed to herself, knowing it would most likely never change, and returned her attention to what was going on. While she had been distracted with Shadow, the conversation between Gracie and the seniors had continued to go downhill without her.

     "Aww, come on baby, please?" Another one of the seniors begged her. "Ditch the walking bad luck magnet and come home with one of us?"

     "What part of 'Hell No!' and 'I don't care!' do you Not understand!?" Grace told him, practically roaring her response at the drunken boy.

     Marlene grimaced and took another step back from her friend as a precaution. She recognized the signs of Gracie's temper reaching the point where if anyone, including Marlene, so much as poke her friend they would receive a fist to their face and a bloody nose to take home as a souvenir. If they were lucky.

     "I promise it'll be safer and more fun if you come with me...." he said while reaching out to touch Gracie.

     "I wouldn't touch her if I were you!" Marlene said as she called out to him from where she was standing behind her friend. He shifted his gaze from Gracie to her and gave Marlene a dirty look.

     "I didn't ask you!" he told her just as his hand touched Gracie's arm.

     Wham!

     Marlene winced as Gracie's lightning fast fist nailed the senior on the nose with sickening crunch. He flew backwards from the force of the blow and into his friends behind him, knocking all but one of them over. Marlene stared at the fallen group of teens in surprise. She knew her friend was strong for her size and stature, but she didn't know Gracie was that strong.

     However, Marlene's bad luck streak was only getting started. The one left standing was also the least drunk of the group and had quite the nasty temper of his own to boot. He became enraged at the sight of Gracie hitting his friend and charged over to her while the two of them were momentarily distracted.

     "You Fucking Bitch!" He yelled as he grabbed Gracie by the arm before she could react and threw her to ground. "You’re going to pay for that!"

     "Gracie!" Marlene cried as she rushed to her friend's aid only to have the enraged teen to turn his anger on her instead.

     "Oh no you don't, you witch! You're the reason why he got hurt in the first place!" he told her as he grabbed her by her shirt and stopped her from reaching Gracie. He raised a fist to hit her and she closed her eyes to brace for the inevitable impact, but it never came.