Chapter Three
Danny obeyed the push and got down on his knees.
"This creature a friend of yours, Masters?" the hoarse voice asked.
"Not exactly," Vlad said. "But he isn't an enemy, per se." He gestured calmly and the cold object was removed.
Danny whirled around to look. Tucker and Sam were wide-eyed but silent. A figure passed them.
It was a woman. She looked to be close to their age, but she was frightening. Her leather jacket was torn, and she stripped it off stiffly, exposing ruined tattoos on her arms. Her white tank top that was beneath it was bloodstained and torn. Gashes coated
her arms and torso, catching the light as she tucked a rather large pistol in the back of her jeans. Loose black curls fell to the middle of her back.
"Children, this is Hadley Reyes," Vlad introduced. "She's the hired gun solution to our little beast problem."
Hadley turned around to acknowledge her introduction. The three teens gasped lightly at her face.
She had fair bone structure and cold, steely blue eyes. But the most shocking thing about her was the collection of scars. She had three raised marks starting at her hairline beside her eye and running jaggedly at an angle across her cheekbone, stopping
at her jaw. A cut was scabbing over across her nose, and her bottom lip was reddened, coming down from swelling.
"Close your damned mouths," she snapped.
Danny heard the clap of Sam and Tucker's teeth hitting as they obeyed, embarrassed. But he couldn't move his eyes. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen. These looked painful. He couldn't imagine what did it.
Hadley met his eyes, agitated. "What the fuck are you looking at, ghost?"
Danny dropped his eyes immediately.
"Masters, I could really use a first aid kit," Hadley turned to him tiredly.
"Certainly," Vlad left to retrieve one.
Sam's voice was low and careful as she spoke, "What happened to you?"
Danny waited for a snap or to hear a gun pulled out.
"You were the three dumbasses out in the woods back there," her coarse voice was an octave higher with realization.
Tucker blushed, but Sam nodded. Danny dared to glance at Hadley.
"Did you think your fancy outfits would save you? You're lucky I was there. That thing would've torn you to pieces and eaten your intestines," she snapped, flopping onto a stool.
Tucker turned green.
"I should thank you then," Danny said.
Hadley turned her cold eyes to him. "No. You should've been smarter."
"We aren't just some dumb kids that you can talk down to," Danny stood, looking down at her.
"Then what are you?" she snapped. "A hero squad?"
Danny looked mad. Sam and Tucker took a step back.
"We've been protecting this city for nearly four years," Danny fired back.
"Four years?" Hadley asked uninterestedly. "Good for you." It was completely sarcastic, and Danny knew it.
"What is it you're here for, exactly?" he snapped. "Are you a motivational speaker?"
Hadley stood up and looked him in the eye, only about four inches shorter. "I'm the one the mayor called to kill the abomination that nearly got your shrieking friend over there."
Tucker frowned, and Sam bit back a smile.
"Do you even know what it was?" she was gaining ground. "The beast that made you all scream like little kids?"
Danny remained silent, fuming.
Hadley laughed coarsely. "I didn't think so."
She sat as Vlad returned, accepting the first aid kit.
Danny watched angrily as she cleaned a gash in her side and began to stitch it up.
"Miss Reyes is quite experienced in this sort of thing. Apparently it isn't entirely uncommon," Vlad said.
"What exactly is it that 'this sort of thing' is?" Sam asked.
Hadley cursed under her breath, breaking the thread she was stitching with and patching the gruesome wound.
"Amity Park is known for its Ghost activity," Hadley answered. "That type of energy attracts other things."
"What other things?" Danny asked.
"Other supernatural creatures," she pulled her shirt back down. "This place is a beacon for that kind of activity."
"What does that mean for Amity Park?" Sam asked.
Hadley grunted as she got back up to close the first aid kit. "It means you people better start to learn how to kill things and be okay with it."
"Kill things?" Danny asked. "Why?"
Hadley cut her eyes to him coldly, "Some things don't stay in a little play pen like your ghosts. These creatures are bloodthirsty. Your only defense is to shoot the fuckers dead."
Danny frowned, "It's not a play pen. It's an alternate dimension from which they originate."
"One that you dumbfucks connected to ours," Hadley swore. "As if there wasn't enough out there already, let's throw in a couple hundred ghosts. Fucking brilliant."
"Why do we even need you?" Danny spat. "We can handle supernatural."
"The news this morning said otherwise," Hadley smirked.
Danny fumed.
"Wait a minute," Hadley said, recognition crossing her mutilated face. "You're that Phantom kid."
"Danny Phantom," he hissed, eyes glowing.
"Amity Park's own little hero," Hadley said dramatically. She leaned into his face, "Nice to have met you."
She turned, grabbed her coat, and walked out of the room. Her heavy boots made her footsteps heard until she exited the mansion.
Danny looked at Vlad.
"She's something, isn't she?" he chuckled to himself.
"She's a bitch." Danny's words bit into the warm room with their iciness.
"She's a hunter, Daniel," Vlad said. "A trained killer. And a woman. You don't survive in that line of work by being polite."
"I think she's awesome," Sam said.
Tucker didn't say a word.
Danny leaned into Vlad's arrogant face, "You didn't need to hire a stranger. It's just some animal. The three of us can take care of it."
"My, my," Vlad responded. "Did Miss Reyes dent that little ego of yours, hmm?"
Danny's frown deepened. He turned around and flew out of the same window he entered earlier.
Hadley's Blazer was already down the street, but Danny caught up easily. He followed her to a little shack of a house in the middle of the forest. He landed, keeping silent and invisible.
She pulled two worn duffle bags from the truck and hauled them inside. Danny phased through the wall, but she was nowhere to be seen in the dark front room. He looked around, listening. Still invisible, he stepped further into the room. He didn't see
or hear anything.
He looked at the bags thrown on the makeshift bed. One was open, exposing various firearms, knives, and bottles of chemicals he couldn't identify.
Suddenly, he felt a poke on his back.
"Show yourself," Hadley's rough voice spoke lowly.
Danny became visible, his hands in the air.
"How'd you know I was here?" he asked.
"It's my job to know when things are near," was all she said. "Why'd you follow me?"
"I don't trust you," he said, still facing the wall.
Hadley lowered the knife, "I didn't figure you would. Someone coming in to show you up at your own job? That never sits well with me either."
"That's not what I mean," Danny snapped, turning to face her cold eyes. "I don't trust you because you work for Masters."
"I got the vibe that you two didn't get along," Hadley remarked.
"He's an evil creep with a thing for my mom," Danny muttered.
"He has a thing for your mom?" Her tone questioned why this was relevant to her rather than the weirdness of it.
"That's not the point," Danny shook his head. "The point is that he's a bad guy. He's not who he says he is."
"And you are?" Hadley's steely eyes met his directly, without vulnerability.
Danny eyed her, unsure how to respond.
"I'm not an idiot," she said. "I knew he was a ghost when he found me."
"How?" he asked.
"Same way I know you're human," she responded. "I've been doing this for so long, you could say I have a sixth sense for sniffing out the supernatural."
"What's out there right now?" Danny asked. "What's killing people?"
Hadley flashed a bright white smile, "You haven't guessed?"
Danny just kept his eyes on her.
"The bodies were slashed open by claws, as were the lockers. An ordinary animal wouldn't have gotten into the school that far without being noticed. It selectively ransacked a specific row of lockers, the bodies in the park were strewn about haphazardly…"
Hadley gave him clues, but he didn't look very convinced. She gestured out the window.
Danny looked where she had motioned with her head. There was a bright white circle in the night sky. A full moon.
"Werewolf."
