Hello. This is the rewrite of At A Price. I hope it is much better than the first version.
Note: I know Daniel didn't have the bat with him in the book, but he did in my story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
WARNINGS: NONGRAPHIC RAPE, KIDNAPPING
Fallen leaves and small twigs crunched under his feet as he dashed through the woods. Branches scraped his face and arms, and he was tripping over his own feet in his haste. Bumps and bruises littered his body from the multiple stumbles and falls he'd performed during his race through the thick woods. His knuckles turned white as his gripped the handle of the bat with all his strength. A stitch was forming in his side, and his chest was getting tight, but he couldn't stop. Simon was in enough danger already; Daniel didn't want to think about what would happen to the boy if he didn't make it in time.
Electricity still crackled in the air, and the scent of ozone filled his nostrils, growing stronger as Daniel burst out of the trees and into Simon's yard.
Daniel scrambled onto the trellis outside Simon's window, climbing the rungs with the bat gripped tightly in his hand, and the camera swinging quickly on the strap around his neck.
Daniel's fingers gripped the windowsill, and he pulled himself up, peaking over the sill and into Simon's room. What he saw made his breath hitch, and he nearly toppled backwards off the trellis. He barely caught himself before he would've fallen several feet to the hard ground two stories below.
A shadow… darker than the surrounding black. It loomed over a semiconscious blonde boy; electricity still sparked in his chubby hands, but the shadow didn't seem bothered by it. A glowing green object shined in the shadow's chest, almost like its heart, and the air in the room dropped several degrees.
Daniel quietly swung himself over the sill and into the room, but he wasn't quiet enough. The shadow turned, and while Daniel couldn't see if the thing had eyes, he knew it did because he could feel those eyes on him, burning into him despite the cold that radiated off of the shadow.
The shadow lifted a hand towards Simon, but his eyes remained on Daniel. Its fingers were inches from Simon's skin, and somehow, Daniel knew that he couldn't let the shadow touch Simon.
Daniel was moving before he could even process the fact that he was in motion, and the bat collided with the shadow's side. It did seem to injure it as the shadow hunched over, its hands flying to its injured ribs. It clutched the injury, tightly, but the pain didn't last long as it lifted its head to glare at Daniel. Daniel shivered as the temperature in the room dropped even more.
"Daniel Corrigan," the shadow hissed.
Daniel swallowed, harshly. How did the thing know his name?
He needed to run, but he couldn't leave Simon, and especially not when the said Super was almost unconscious and defenseless.
"I should've gotten rid of you ages ago," the shadow muttered, straightening as his hands left his side. "But I couldn't because I still cared about your grandmother, even though she forgot about me years ago. I should've taken care of you, despite Eileen's love for you."
"How do you know my Gram?" Daniel demanded, holding the bat higher, almost like a warrior holding a sword before a war cry leaves his lips. "How do you know my name?"
The shadow chuckled, as though he found something funny about the situation.
"What's so funny?" Daniel asked.
The shadow waved his/its hand. "It's just… I must've wiped your memory a little too good if you don't remember me at all."
"How would I know you?" Daniel asked.
"You wouldn't recognize me in this form, but you should recognize my voice. Uncle Herman?" the shadow asked.
Daniel frowned. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"Oh, don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to remember," the shadow said, beginning to walk closer. Daniel stumbled back, and not knowing what else to do, he snapped a photograph.
The shadow cried out, covering its eyes as the flash blinded it. The flash blinded Daniel, too, making him see dark spots dance across his vision, but Daniel was motivated by fear. The shadow knew him personally and had something against him, enough to come after him when Simon was laying right there on the floor. The shadow knew something Daniel didn't, and while Daniel was burning with curiosity, his terror overwhelmed his curiosity. Despite his natural instinct as a detective to search for answers, he wasn't brave (or stupid) enough to stick around to find them.
He climbed over the window sill and started climbing down, snapping another picture and blinding the shadow once again.
His sweaty hands were slipping and sliding on the metal rungs, and the shadow climbed to its feet again. Daniel snapped another photo, and the flash went off with a soft crack, blinding not only the shadow, but also Daniel.
His foot reached, blindly, for the next rung, and just when he thought he found it, his hand slipped, and he found out the hard way that he was wrong. He'd missed the rung of the trellis, and his stomach dropped out from underneath him as he toppled and fell.
For a brief moment, Daniel dared to hope that Eric would be there to catch him, but there was no flying boy that would come to his recuse now.
The wind howled in his ears as he tumbled through the air, and his back hit the ground.
For a moment, he didn't feel anything. It was like everything had moved too fast for his brain to register any of it. But that moment passed, and the pain set in. A burning agony in his left arm, and a splitting headache that left him feeling dizzy and seeing double. He couldn't make sense of anything; it was all mixed up, jumbled, and he couldn't sort all of his thoughts out.
Blackness started to cloud his vision…
The last thing he saw was the shadow appearing over him. He could almost see it smiling somewhere in the blackness that it was. When it chuckled, it confirmed his suspicion.
Daniel tried to climb to his feet, but he couldn't move. He barely managed a twitch, and even that exhausted him.
Fear was consuming him, and he felt like the panic would kill him before the shadow. The thing was going to kill him, wipe his memories, or worse. And Daniel didn't stand a chance; unable to move a single part of his body, he was defenseless. He was more powerless than he had ever been.
He opened his mouth to cry out for help, but he barely managed a whisper.
"Please… no," he murmured, unable to further convey his thoughts, his plea.
The last thing he saw was a bony hand- a human hand- reaching for him…
Then, it all went black.
Pain. It was all he knew. A horrible ache existed in his head, pounding and throbbing, like a bass drum. His left arm exploded in pain with the slightest twitch of the limb, and nausea rolled in his stomach. Daniel supported himself on his right arm as he managed to pull himself up and twist his neck so that his head was hovering over the ground a little bit away from his body. Vomit poured out of his lips, stinging his throat and making his headache even worse.
When Daniel's stomach finally stopped turning, he collapsed back on the floor and tried to open his eyes.
An excruciating pain developed in the skin around his eyes, forehead, and cheekbones, combined with the ache in his head worsening until Daniel couldn't even think through the pain.
"I wouldn't try to open your eyes if I were you," the shadow's voice spoke from somewhere in front of Daniel.
"Wh-Who are you? Where am I?" Daniel asked, fear leaking into his words.
"Come on, Daniel, you must remember me."
Daniel shook his head, but he abruptly stopped when it made the pounding in his head hit an unbearably high crescendo.
"Let's see if this will help…"
The frigid air in the room was pushed away by the warm breeze that brushed over Daniel's face. Someone- probably the shadow- took Daniel's right hand, and he felt a burning sensation in his fingertips as they grazed what felt like a heated, uneven stone.
And then, he could see again.
He opened his eyes and found himself standing in his living room, but it was different. It looked like someone actually lived in it whether than the empty, abandoned feeling it usually had, due to his Gram being in bed the majority of the time.
A soft giggle sounded, and he turned. His eyes widened.
He was staring at himself.
Although the boy he was staring at couldn't have been more than two or three years old, it was definitely Daniel. Same sandy brown hair, same green eyes, same features.
The younger him stumbled towards an arm chair that had a short, elderly man seated in it.
"Uncle Herman!" younger Daniel exclaimed, his voice much higher than it was presently. "Read me a story!"
"What would you like to read, Daniel?" Herman said, smiling as he lifted Daniel onto his lap. "What about Dr. Seuss?"
"Serlock Home!" Daniel cheered.
A small giggle sounded, and Daniel turned to see his Gram sitting on the couch, looking like she did before she got sick. She wasn't as thin; she wasn't as pale; her smile and eyes were brighter. She was full of health and happiness and life.
Daniel missed that.
"Don't you want to read an easier book, Daniel? What about The Little Engine That Could?" Gram asked.
"Serlock Home!" Daniel repeated, clapping his hands.
Herman shrugged. "What can I say, Eileen? The kid wants what he wants."
Gram nodded. "I suppose he does," she said, fondly, before entering the kitchen.
Herman picked up a thick Sherlock Holmes book and cracked it open, but before he could begin to read, the book flew out of his hands and into Daniel's, as though someone had pulled the book by a string.
But there was no string.
Herman's eyes widened as Daniel began to glow. The boy lit up like a nightlight, shining a golden light upon Herman and the nearby areas of the room. Daniel was oblivious to this development as he opened the book and garbled some words, unable to read them, but having almost memorized them after someone read the book to him so many times.
All of sudden, it stopped. The glow surrounding Daniel extinguished, and Herman yelped as he reached for his chest and pulled a pendent out from beneath his shirt.
It was a black rock with a small green sheen hanging from a cold around his neck. It was smoking, and Daniel had the feeling that it was not supposed to do that.
Herman was stunned, but he stuffed the pendant back into his shirt as Gram reentered the room.
"He's just like you," she laughed as she saw Daniel trying to read the book.
Herman nodded, but his gaze was far away. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes, he is."
Daniel felt freezing air wrap around him, and he was once again lying on the rocky floor of… wherever he was with a blindfold over his eyes.
"Uncle Herman?" he choked out.
"Yes," the shadow- Herman- replied. "You had powers that I could not take easily."
"But why… I wasn't thirteen!"
"You weren't," Herman agreed. "Centuries ago, back in the time of the Indians, this kind of thing happened. People received powers from the very thing that could take these powers from them. A meteor. The Witch Fire Comet. They predicated that centuries after it first happened, a light would appear to fight the darkness. The darkness is the thing that takes the powers. The light is the only thing that can stop the darkness and restore the powers.
"You were the light, but Daniel, you have to understand. These magnificent powers in the hands of children? They'd destroy themselves. They're kids, and if they were allowed to keep their powers as teenagers, they would experience stronger emotions. Love, heartbreak… in some cases, like your friend Eric's, they could be abused. Or bullied. Or hurt. How would emotions affect their powers, their minds? They're just kids. They've barely started growing up. And they have such a responsibility with these powers and keeping the town safe…"
"So you decided to steal their powers?" Daniel demanded. "Was that right?"
"No, but it was the only solution."
"There is always another way!"
He felt the cold grow stronger as Herman knelt over him. His hands pinned Daniel to the ground, and his weight was present on Daniel's waist.
"What are you doing?" Daniel demanded.
"Getting revenge on you."
"For what?" Daniel asked, his fear growing, even though he didn't think that was possible.
"That memory… you almost fried my pendant. You could've destroyed it, and now, it doesn't work nearly as well as it used to."
"I was two! How could I have known that?" Daniel asked.
Herman didn't reply, and Daniel's panic tripled as Herman pulled his shirt and jacket off. His struggles didn't seem to faze Herman at all, and then, Daniel screamed as Herman tightened his hand painfully around Daniel's broken arm.
"Stop moving, or I'll make sure that it hurts a lot more than it already will," Herman threatened.
Daniel swallowed as his struggles halted, and he went still.
Herman pulled Daniel's jeans off.
Maybe if he didn't move, it wouldn't hurt as much…
He was wrong.
As Herman raped him on the cold, rocky floor, Daniel sobbed and begged and pleaded for mercy, but Herman didn't listen to him.
Daniel didn't know where he was, but wherever it was, no one was around to hear his screams.
Meanwhile, several miles away from where Daniel was being held captive, a group of child, all under the age of thirteen, were gathered in a tree fort in the middle of the woods. The kids all looked different, and they were sitting on bean bag chairs, crates, and the floor… and all of them were crying.
A tan boy with black hair sat on a crate, slouched over with his head almost touching his knees. He was wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans, but his outfit was rumpled, as though he'd thrown on the first thing he saw when he woke up. His blue eyes were rimmed red, and tear tracks had dried on his face. Occassionally, a tear would slip out of his eyes, but the flow of tears had dwindled, significantly. He'd cried so much, he wasn't sure of he had that many tears left.
A Tom-boy sat in the corner. She was wearing ripped, dirty jeans and a magenta T-shirt that had seen better days. Her black hair fell in a curtain over her face, and her knees were pulled up to her chest, secured by her arms, which were wrapped around them. Her forehead rested on her knees, and they could see her back shaking with silent sobs.
An Indian boy in a wrinkled, button up shirt (with only three quarters of the buttons buttoned) and khakis was learning against the wall. His glasses were foggy and painted with smears and droplets of water. Tears dribbled down his face, and he was continuously swallowing and wiping his eyes and glasses, but the tears refused to stop.
A pretty girl in a white dress sat against another wall, and she was comforting her five year old sister, who was sobbing, but it was hard to comfort her sister when she was crying herself. Her tangled black hair fell over her face as she tried to hide her tears and comfort her sister at the same time, but she gave up. After all, she didn't need to hide her tears; no one would judge her for crying, and she had a very good reason to cry.
A chubby, blonde boy sat on a beanbag. He was wearing a blue race cars T-shirt and jeans. There was a bandage wrapped around his head from where he'd smacked it against the dresser the night before when the shadow thing attacked. His face was buried in the bean bag, but he was trembling and sobbing, loudly. He'd made a friend and lost him in one night…
Daniel Corrigan was officially missing. Officially kidnapped.
"S-Simon," Eric Johnson stammered. "You need to tell us what happened. It may be the only way to find Daniel."
Simon Towns sat up, wiping his eyes, as he took a deep breath and tried to recall the events of the previous night.
"I-It was right after he went to check on Mollie… This thing came through the window, a shadow darker than night itself with this green, glowing heart. When it appeared, it became really cold, like Antarctica cold."
The other Supers shivered just thinking about it.
"I started firing whisps at it, but the power only seemed to be making it stronger. I stumbled back, tripped, and hit my head on the dresser. It was reaching for me when I saw it turn… and Daniel spoke.
"I don't remember most of what happened, but I remember one thing."
"What?" Mollie Lee demanded.
"I'll never forget it," Simon murmured, horrified. "He knew Daniel's name. He said something about how he or it or whatever it is should've gotten rid of him a long time ago. I didn't hear much else, but that was enough. This thing knew Daniel, but Daniel didn't seem to know it or him or whatever it is."
"Which means Daniel may be in even more danger than we thought," Eric realized. "Where would the shadow take Daniel?"
Mollie pursed his lips before her eyes widened. "What about the Old Quarry? The rules say it ends at thirteen, and if this shadow made the rules and warned us to stay away from the Old Quarry…"
"That's probably where its hide out is and where it took, Daniel," Eric said. "Good thinking, Mollie."
The children climbed down the ladder of their tree fort (except for Mollie and Eric, who just stepped off the platform and floated to the ground). Louisa slowly faded out, becoming transparent, but she kept her hand solid, and she took Mollie's hand. Mollie slowly began to rise above the ground.
Simon wrapped his arms around Eric's waist, and Rohan climbed on Eric's back. Eric picked Rose up and held her securely in his arms. For an average boy, they would've collapsed under the weight of three people long ago, but for Eric, it was as easy as carrying a light backpack and a few books in his arms.
Eric slowly began to rise.
Together, Eric and Mollie darted off, flying directly towards Louisa and Rose's house, where they would drop off Rose. This mission was far too dangerous for the five year old girl.
After they left Rose on the sidewalk outside her house and she waved goodbye, shouting a good luck, they flew a good distance away before Eric asked Mollie to stop.
"We don't know what this thing is capable of," Eric muttered, his gaze fixed on Mount Noble in the distance. "We're going to need some help."
Mollie blinked as she realized what he was implying. "You're not seriously suggesting…"
Eric nodded. "If we're going to beat this thing and save Daniel, we need them, Mollie."
She sighed, but she nodded, not wanting to waste any more time arguing with him. Besides, she knew he was right, but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it.
"It's settled then," Eric said. "To the junkyard!"
"What are you doing here?" Clay demanded as the Supers walked into the clearing in the center of the junkyard, where Clay and Bud were throwing bricks at cars and smoking cigars (at least Clay was).
"We need your help," Eric said, simply, before Simon launched into the story about the plan and the shadow and Daniel's kidnapping. Clay and Bud's eyes only got wider with each word Simon said.
"What are we waiting for?" Clay exclaimed. "Let's go."
"Wait. You're actually going to help? Didn't see that coming," Mollie muttered.
Clay shrugged. "We may be bullies, but we're not cruel. Who knows what that thing could be doing to Daniel right now?"
Eric smiled. "I knew there was a hero in there somewhere."
"Don't make me change my mind. Besides, this could be our chance to keep our powers," Clay added, but they all knew that hadn't even crossed his mind until now. He wanted to help Daniel; they all did. Losing their powers didn't matter when they compared it to losing Daniel.
"Well," Bud said, "Daniel needs us. Let's go."
Clay and Bud got in a car (it used to be a piece of junk, but Clay had fixed it up a while back) while Eric and Mollie (carrying the other Supers) rose into the air.
And then, they were off, racing towards danger.
Daniel flinched in pain as he moved, ever so slightly.
Herman had finished raping him an hour ago, and it still hurt.
Footsteps sounded, and a heavy weight appeared on his waist once again as a Herman pinned him to the floor, ready to begin round two.
Daniel prayed his friends would find him soon… before it was too late.
I hope it is much better than the original version of At A Price. I would appreciate your feedback, so please leave a review! Thanks for reading! Goodbye, everyone!