Ray, Egon, Peter and Winston all stood around the edge of the pool, staring down in disbelief at the unmoving water where Nikki had disappeared.
"Nikki!" Ray shouted, breaking the worried silence.
It was nearly impossible to see through the murky glow of the water. After a few seconds of waiting for Nikki to resurface, Ray shook his head and hurriedly started unhooking the proton pack from his back.
"I can't believe this." He muttered, setting the proton pack on one of the patio tables behind him.
"What, that she fell?" Peter asked.
"She deliberately jumped into that pool!" Ray said, rolling up the sleeves of his jumpsuit.
"You know she didn't do anything like that, Ray! We were all watching her – she was trying to get down!" Winston protested.
"Ray, what are you doing? You're not-" Peter said slowly, eyeing the glowing pool warily.
"I'm going in after her." Ray said, a tight expression on his face.
"Ray this looks really dangerous-" Egon had picked up Nikki's PKE meter from where Winston had dropped it and was staring wide eyed at the screen in front of him.
"I don't care." Ray said, shaking his head. His face was wrought with frustration as he neared the edge of the pool.
"According to these readings, that pool is radiating with enough psychokinetic energy to level the city!" Egon said.
"Ray, think for a second…we'll get a cable or something, tie it to the back of the car and get her out that way…" Winston suggested quickly.
"There's no time!" Ray exclaimed. He glanced back at the other three Ghostbusters, and then shrugged as he nodded past the fence where the Ecto-1 lay behind them. "If I'm not back in one minute, then you can try your idea."
Ray turned and faced the glowing pool of water warily. Before he could stop and rethink it, he leapt into the frigid water.
Ignoring the shock of cold that met his body, he swam down towards where he could hazily see Nikki lying near the bottom of the pool, unmoving. Ray hurried to reach her, nearly blinded by the strange green glow that surrounded him. The dizzying motion of the water seemed to try to divert him from where he was trying to go and he could see vague shapes flying by in the corner of his vision. Despite the unsettling feeling, he pressed on knowing that he didn't have much longer.
When he had finally reached the bottom of the pool, he grabbed on to the sleeve of Nikki's jumpsuit and turned to swim back upward. Before he could move, he was pulled back down by a strong force. Ray glanced down and realized that she was somehow weighted down to the bottom of the pool. He looked around hurriedly, and then grabbed her around the waist in an attempt to get better leverage. He then turned and kicked off of the bottom of the pool with Nikki in his arms.
"Ray!" Peter exclaimed in relief as he reached for his friend's hand when he broke the surface of the water.
Ray lifted Nikki's head above the water and pushed her in Peter's direction towards the edge of the pool. Peter and Winston both took the girl by her shoulders and carefully dragged her out of the frigid water onto the patio a few feet away. Egon was already helping Ray out of the pool by the time they turned back around.
"She's hurt!" Peter said, noticing that her right tennis shoe was missing. The leg of her Ghostbusters uniform was torn off jaggedly below the knee, as were her jeans underneath. Deep razor-like cuts were etched into her bare ankle, dark red blood pouring from the wounds.
"That's it…" Ray gasped, collapsing onto the cement, his frozen limbs numb as they met the cool December air.
"What?" Winston asked worriedly. Ray pointed to where Peter was looking over Nikki as she lay on the ground.
"She's going home…now."
A dark figure rose up out of the water as the man and his daughter were pulled free of the frigid depths. It watched with amusement as the father's rage overtook him.
"Ray, hold on a second. Don't let your anger-" Egon started to console his colleague but Ray shook his head.
"No…I knew this was going to happen! I should have…never agreed to-"
"Don't say something you're gonna regret, Ray…" Peter said, his voice sounding strangely quiet as he still crouched over Nikki.
"…to let her come back." Ray finished. The figure raised a dark eyebrow at the man's icy tone. Peter looked hurriedly up at Ray, his eyes sad.
"Winston, go get that blanket from the back of the car," Egon said gently. As the other man hurried back to the fence and toward the car, Egon knelt next to Nikki to examine her bleeding leg. Over his shoulder, he called back out to Winston. "…And something to stop this bleeding!"
"You're not gonna send her home like this, are you Ray?" Peter said gently, trying to change his friend's mind. Ray frowned and, shivering with the cold, he turned away.
"I – I don't know. What if this happens again?" He blurted out. Peter looked up at Ray's emotional tone.
"Ray, this was an accident –"
"She was the one who chose to climb onto that diving board. How can I know for sure that she won't decide to do something else reckless while she's here?" Ray said, his voice low. His arms were crossed over his chest in an attempt to stifle the tremors shaking through his body.
Unseen by the Ghostbusters, the dark figure smirked at their bickering. They were too busy arguing over the matter that they had completely dismissed the fact that the girl wasn't breathing just a mere few feet away from them.
"She's a kid!" Peter exclaimed as he faced his friend above him with his jaw set firmly. Ray turned on him with sad eyes.
"I know she is – that's why I want her to make it to adulthood! I'm sending her home!"
"Winston, could you hurry up with that blanket please?!" Egon called, interrupting the bickering between his colleagues. He had his hands pressed against Nikki's ankle, blood seeping through his fingers.
The dark figure glanced down at its hand, where the girl's blood had stained its own clawed fingers. Its eyes drifted back down to her unconscious form on the cold cement ground. It flew down slowly to where the girl lay, surrounded by the worried men. The girl's face grew paler by the second, the life draining out of her body. The figure stared levelly at the unconscious girl and reached a shadowy hand out in front of her.
Nikki suddenly jolted to life choking out lungfuls of water, rolling over as her body was wracked with painful spasms. She coughed until her throat was raw and then she collapsed to the patio beneath her.
"…did you hear me, Nikki?" Ray was saying as her mind tuned back in to the present. A dull throbbing in her ankle caused her to wince in pain. She slowly lifted her head and coughed before answering.
"W-what?"
"I said, you're going home – right now!" He exclaimed angrily. She shook her head and tried to lift herself off of the patio. Peter and Egon crouched over her, steadying her movements.
"Wh- why?" She protested. She looked up at Peter and Egon's worried faces above her.
"Are you serious?" Ray scoffed.
"Ray! Easy…" Winston tried to reason with his colleague as he jogged up to the group with a large blanket and handful of work rags in his arms.
"Are you alright, Nikki?" Egon asked worriedly before Ray could continue his confrontation. Egon wrapped the heavy blanket around her shoulders and she suddenly realized that she was numb with the cold.
"I…don't know…" She said, her teeth chattering as she clutched the blanket tightly around herself.
"What were you thinking?" Ray asked. She glanced up at him, noticing that he was soaking wet too. Her eyes lowered to the ground as she fell into silence, trembling.
"What happened to you?" Egon asked, looking at her leg. Her gaze landed on what looked like blood-soaked rags that Peter was pressing against her ankle. Immediately, her heart started hammering fearfully in her chest.
"There was – something down there…" She raised her quivering arm from under the blanket and pointed at the pool that still glowed weakly a few feet away. As the Ghostbusters turned to look where she was pointing, a strange bubbling rose up from the center of the pool.
"Something's happening –!" Winston called out, drawing his proton thrower and charging it up in anticipation. Peter too, stood up and reached for his thrower.
"What the-" Peter said under his breath, confusion etched on his face. The water churned and swirled towards the center. Nikki leaned forward, eyes wide as she watched fearfully. Egon held her back carefully as the ground started to rumble.
"Stand back!" Ray called out. Winston and Peter both backed away as the water continued to swirl down.
"It's…draining," Winston said confusedly after a moment. Ray peered down and could see that the pool now only contained about half of the water it had previously been filled with. Nikki trembled with cold and attempted to move towards the pool.
"Nikki, what are you doing?" Egon asked, still holding her shoulders so as to shield her. She looked around him at the disappearing water.
"I saw-"
"What is that?!" Winston shouted over the sound of the rumbling ground. He stood on the edge of the pool next to Peter and Ray. Nikki strained to see past them from where she still lay on the ground.
"It looks like a portal…" Ray said slowly. Peter charged up his thrower.
"Then if anything comes out, we'll get it." He muttered.
"I don't think anything is going to come out…" Winston said after a few more seconds.
"That's where the water's going." Ray confirmed. The rumbling intensified and Nikki clung to Egon's arms, terrified. A bright green flash threw the three standing Ghostbusters back a few feet and then there was silence. The glowing water was gone.
"…Is it over?" Winston asked, still holding his thrower at the ready. Ray slowly turned back towards Egon and Nikki, his face masked with a neutral expression.
"It seems to be." Ray said as he reached Nikki's side and knelt next to her. She remained in silence, sensing the anger that was all but radiating from him. "Come on, Nikki. We need to get you to a hospital. And then I'm putting you on a plane myself. You're going home."
Ray hoisted her up carefully with Egon's help. Balancing on her left foot, she limped between the two Ghostbusters back across the patio and towards the Ecto-1. Tears streamed down her already drenched face and she shivered uncontrollably.
"I can't go home." She said through her chattering teeth. Ray bent and opened the back door of the car.
"Why not?" He asked. She met his gaze, her eyes red from crying.
"There's no one there. Mom won't get back from her honeymoon until late next week." She said firmly. Ray blinked and hesitated a moment as he stared at the cold expression she gave him.
"Then...as soon as she gets back, you're gone." He said slowly.
Nikki looked away from him and shrugged out of the blanket, sliding into the backseat of the car. Ray held the blanket in his hand and stared at Egon who shook his head slowly.
"You need to keep warm until we can get you to the hospital." Ray said, his voice slightly gentler. Nikki was already pressed up against the window far away from where Egon and Ray stood outside the car.
"I'll be fine." She said. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was visibly shaking with the cold from her soaking wet layers of clothes.
"Nikki…" Egon tried to reason with her. Nikki shook her head.
"Dad obviously got soaked too, why doesn't he take it?" She asked icily. Ray sighed.
"If you get sick, I don't want to hear you complaining." Ray said, tossing the blanket into her lap before ducking into the seat next to her.
"I'll drive." Winston quietly offered as he carried Ray's proton pack to the car. Egon nodded and shut the door on the drenched Ghostbuster and his daughter before helping Winston and Peter load the rest of the equipment into the back of the car.
