Thanks to YumaTakato, MsFrizzle, Catapapalilar x3, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, KTrevo, Xenopsyche, Hiei's Cute Girl, DannySamLover20, Invader Johnny, iloveyugiohGX93, and Fiddlehoffer for their reviews!

—10—10—

White Noise
Chapter 10

-Monday, August 26-

—10—10—

—Danny—

Danny woke up slowly the next morning with a dead squirrel chattering in his ear. "Shut up," he groaned, pulling the blanket over his head to cut out the worst of the sunshine. His small apartment still had no window coverings, and he had the misfortune that his lone window was east-facing, allowing the worst of the morning's rays to shine in. "It's too early."

Despite his grumblings, he knew it wasn't too early. The alarm clock on his phone had beeped some time ago. His stomach was grumbling that it was breakfast time and reminding him that he'd forgotten to eat supper. Lunch too, if you didn't count calories from beer.

He groaned as he sat up, letting his blanket tumble into his lap. His muscles felt like mush. His joints ached and creaked with each movement. His eyes burned and his mouth felt like sandpaper. Hands rubbed at his face, then prodded carefully at his temples. His head was screaming in pain. Hopefully there were still a few painkillers in his backpack.

With a scowl, he pushed his hand through his hair, wincing at the way his shoulder twinged with the movement. It was like a little zap of electricity racing to his already-damaged brain. "Ow." His hand fell back into his lap and Danny held his body still, arms and body limp, eyes closed, mind fussing about how much pain he was in.

Part of it was hangover, he knew, but most of it was due to how long he'd spent pretending to be a ghost yesterday. How long had he spent throwing ghost energy around? Most of the day? His body felt like he'd put it through a wringer yesterday.

"Hey, Pest," he said, not bothering to open his eyes. He could tell where the creepy little thing was by the little swirls of energy pushing against his battered nerves. "Get my backpack for me, would you?"

There was movement. Danny cracked his eye open enough to watch the squirrel race from one side of the apartment to the other, not once actually managing to stop before racing through the wall and into the neighbor's place. "Backpack," he said firmly. The squirrel stopped and stared at him, moonlit tail twitching. "There." He pointed. The muscles in his arm twitched seemingly of their own accord.

The squirrel looked around, then ran around in circles some more, chattering loudly and excitedly. Finally Danny just sighed and pushed his legs over the side of the bed. "You suck," he muttered. "If you're determined to be around, could you at least be helpful?" The squirrel glanced over at him, apparently not caring when it raced straight through the backpack in question.

"Thought not." Danny pushed himself to his feet, bracing himself for the wave of pain. He slowly hobbled over to where he'd dropped his backpack, snatched it, and collapsed back down onto the bed before digging through it. "Lint. A quarter. More lint. Garbage. Ah…" He eyed the little white pill-shaped thing he'd found. "No, that's a Tic-Tac. Wrapper. Yes!"

With a grin, Danny rolled the small pill around his palm. He popped it into his mouth and stumbled over to the sink to get a mouthful of water to wash it down. Propped up against the sink, Danny stared at his reflection.

His blue eyes were cloudy, looking sunken with dark circles under them. Black hair hung messily in his eyes with strands of white scattered through it. His skin was nicely tanned, but there was a pallor under the tan that have him an unhealthy, dull look. The scar that ran down the left side of his face near his ear was a neat white line. Little wrinkles in his forehead and around his eyes showed the stress of the past several years.

After splashing some water on his face, Danny hobbled back over to his bed and collapsed onto it, waiting for the Oxycodone to take effect. The blanket was still warm. His eyes slid part of the way closed, waiting for the pain to fade.

That was the last of the pills. He slung an arm over his eyes, frustrated. He'd have to try to find more. As he had no actual prescription for the narcotic, there were few options available. Every option that jumped to his mind were something Danny had been trying hard to leave behind. Stealing. Dealing. Bartering.

Imagining his life without the pain relievers, however, made Danny wince. He'd tried it once before - with pretty horrible results. Lucy had ended up scared enough that he'd been dragged to the ER, mostly unconscious. It absolutely sucked that anything more than a small use of the energy inside of him caused hours of pain. Ghost energy and human bodies simply did not mix well.

The last batch of pills he'd gotten from his cohorts at the group home had been strong ones – rapid-release drugs that sliced through the worst of the pain in less than a half-hour. It had been one of Jake's better addictions, in Danny's mind. An addiction Danny had used, but always had crossed his fingers that he hadn't been infected with. Jake's desperate need to take several pills every morning just to get out of bed had been rough, and watching him constantly chase around the city to get his hands on more had never been pleasant. Addiction was a scary and incredibly real threat in Danny's mind, one he struggled with on many occasions. But he'd had always been careful with the little pills he'd hocked from Jake, regulating them to 'only when necessary'. Three a week, tops. Half-pills taken when possible.

The twenty-some he'd grabbed from Jake's room after the young man had died had lasted the better part of three months. Danny'd been so careful to not use his ghost energy while traveling. In this town, with its many ghosts and ghost hunters, not using his powers wasn't feasible. While there was definitely a potential for another pill lost in the dregs of his backpack, finding something to help kill the pain was something Danny needed to deal with in the near future. Although with the caliber of renters in his building... he had no doubt one of them could get him something. Perhaps even the manager himself.

He stretched his legs out, feeling the pain dying away. His toes ached. His teeth ached. The inside of his bones ached. But the all-encompassing, soul-draining pain that kept him confined to bed had faded.

Shaking his head and sitting up, blinking into the sun, Danny decided it was time to start the day. A shower was a desperate need. As was a large amount of toothpaste. He ran his tongue over his grimy-feeling teeth. Then breakfast.

Pest watched from a spot perched near the ceiling light, chittering now and then as Danny stumbled around his tiny apartment. The sound of water running caused the squirrel to twitch its tail and vanish, racing through the apartment building. With the exception of a few dozen tiny ghosts, the place was empty. In this building, Danny's little pet reigned supreme over the ghosts - King of the complex.

Danny wasn't royal material in their small minds. He ranked somewhere closer to god. Blindingly powerful, unthinkably huge, and beyond their feeble comprehension. King was a rather large step down from god, which made Pest a perfect fill-in. And, like most people who worshipped a powerful god, they expected protection from the other, powerful forces in the world. In return, they obeyed their god's commands. Danny's commands.

Pest patrolled its territory. Today, it was the expanse of the apartment building. It was growing every day. Even in its dead, squirrel-sized brain, Pest knew. It sat in the shade on the roof, surveying the shadowed lands around the old building. Soon.

Soon Danny's domain would stretch into the shadowed lands the other had claimed. Tail twitching, Pest abandoned its perch and swirled back down to its master's side, jumping onto his shoulder as he walked out of the building and into the sunshine.

—10—10—

—Sam—

Sam avoided her greenhouse and her parents most of the morning. She slipped past her parents as they were eating breakfast and was out in the morning before the sun had peaked over the horizon. A quick rainstorm last night had left everything looking new and shiny. The air smelled of ozone and morning mist. She took a quick left on the sidewalk, hurrying away from her house.

Her night had been long and bothered. Every time she closed her eyes, she was inundated with images of a girl dying in her arms, memories of plants bursting to life and growing around her. What little sleep she had managed to get in the early morning hours had been tainted by dreams of a god-like creature with fingers like twigs and a rough, hard body and lips that tasted of chlorophyll. Unspeakably powerful. Demanding respect and obedience. Giving untold power and pleasure in return.

She shuddered. A small feeling of longing had set itself up in her heart, but Sam roughly pushed it out with the other feelings that surrounded it. Guilt. Hatred. Pain. Anger.

Her fingers tingled as green fireflies danced under her purple nail polish. She'd just applied a fresh coat that morning, but already the energy was was chipping at it. Peeling it away. Not liking being hidden. Clenching her fingers into a fist and feeling her teeth grind, Sam stalked down the sidewalk.

…her stalk was lessened by the boot still encasing her ankle. It turned her gait into something closer to a stumble. But it was still a stalk in her mind.

Eight blocks. Six up, two over. The sun was bright and full in the sky before Sam pushed against the small metal gate and stumbled into the cemetery. Metal roses tried to catch at her clothes as the gate swung back closed with an ominous creak. She carefully made her way down the rows, turned at the appropriate place, and located the old oak trees. They seemed to glow with orange light in the morning.

The roses near her friend's grave were open and showing a deep, bloody red. The little diamonds of ice were gone and only tiny beads of mist marred the flowers' pedals. The thick granite of the headstone glistened.

Sam dropped to her knees in front of the grave, reaching out to trace her fingers over the letters. She didn't speak, her amethyst eyes simply watching her fingernails move against the grain. There wasn't anything to say. Sam had never been one to be moved to talk with the dead – perhaps to a ghost that seemed determined to have a conversation, but never to a headstone. Tucker did, sometimes. She knew both Jazz and Mrs. Fenton did. But Sam found the idea illogical at best.

No body had ever been found, the day of the accident in the Fenton's basement or any of the days after. There was nothing buried underneath this grave marker. It was pointless to talk to the chunk of rock that simply had her friend's name inscribed on it. But sometimes… sometimes… it helped to just come here.

It allowed her a chance to think. Nobody came to the cemetery to be loud and raucous. Few people that walked by, seeing someone kneeling next to a gravestone, would stop to chat. Even fewer would question a young woman sitting by a gravestone, quiet and lost-looking. They would just move on and leave her to her thoughts. Every now and then, Sam felt horrible about using her friend's death that way. Just another little stab of guilt in her abused heart.

Today, though, the guilt was far away. She had too many other thoughts on her mind to worry about what her friend would think if he knew. Besides, most days she was sure Danny would just laugh and tell her to go ahead, shaking his head at her reasoning.

As her fingers traced over the letters of her friend's name, she let her mind rove over the thoughts curling in her brain. Ember's second attack in only a week. The ghost at the grocery store. The strange, white-haired ghost that seemed to have moved into town.

Her eyes narrowed at the thought of that particular ghost. He was invisible to their radar, that much was clear. He'd been at the library for the S.A.B.E.R ceremony. He was at the movie theater on Danny's birthday. He'd been at Ember's second attack – and that place had been littered with super-sensitive equipment.

And he hadn't set any of it off. The only time he'd even registered on a radar was at the convention center. He hadn't attacked anyone except for Ember. He hadn't even seemed to have a desire to feed on the humans of the city. Sam had surely been releasing some powerful emotions as the girl died in her arms, and yet the ghost had simply touched her hand. It had almost looked like sympathy on his face. And then, in the greenhouse last night…

Driven by necessity over the past few years, and given a crash course on ghosts through raw experience of having to fend them off – and Sam's own, unique connection to the other side – Sam had become one of the foremost undocumented experts on ghost theory in the world. Between her and Tucker, they could (and had) talked some of the world's best and brightest in circles at conventions. Tucker had more interest in the Fenton's aspect of ghost hunting – the technology. The innovative, money-generating, practical side of ghost hunting. Sam was more into the theory. The why's and the how's. After the last convention, when she had rather brutally destroyed leading expert Joseph Mantra's theory on corporeality, Sam considered herself one of the better ghost theorists around.

So, as a 'leading expert', Sam knew what ghosts should do and how they should act. A ghost does not reach out and touch your hand, offering sympathy for your pain. Ghosts feed on emotions and pain causes emotions. Ghosts don't recognize humans as 'people', they see humans as a food source, like most people see plants. Killing the unnecessary plants - pruning - allowed the best to survive and deliver the most successful crop. A ghost should have seen the situation in a similar light. It would have tried to enhance the food – the painful emotions. Not lessen them. Not to mention that ghost shouldn't have done what he did at the greenhouse.

"Sometimes I wish you'd come back as a ghost," she muttered darkly, not even really aware that she was doing the irrational and talking to an empty headstone. Danny couldn't hear her. He wasn't even buried here. "Then you could explain this stuff to me. I don't like having to figure it all out all the time."

She blinked down at the stone, suddenly realizing she was talking to a hunk of rock. Annoyed, she stood up and brushed the dew off her knees. She stood there, wavering slightly. Having begun a conversation – even with an inanimate object – it felt weird to walk away without finishing the conversation. But Sam wasn't going to say goodbye to a rock.

Finally, with a scowl and a snort, Sam turned and strode away, appeasing her conscience with the fact that if Danny really could hear her, he'd understand.

—10—10—

—Danny—

He'd found the most curious place to eat lunch. It was a small fast food restaurant with a sign that read 'Nasty Burger' – although the 'N' didn't match the rest of the letters. The young woman behind the counter, after giving a start and staring at him oddly for the longest moment, had stumbled through an explanation. Apparently the place was really the 'Tasty Burger', only someone had stolen the 'T' and was holding it ransom. The owner, unwilling to pay ransom to thieves and letter-nappers, had fashioned an 'N' from wood and transformed his menu. Now, instead of tasty sauce and tasty value items, one could purchase nasty sauce and nasty value items. Danny had ordered the nasty burger with fries after being assured the food had only acquired a name change, not a taste change.

The girl – a dark-skinned teenager with a name tag reading 'Valerie' – brought his food after only a few minutes, staring at him again before giving herself a shake and telling him to have a nice afternoon. She glanced over her shoulder as she walked away. Danny gazed after her, confused and bemused, before shaking his head and turning to his lunch.

The food was, as the name used to imply, pretty good. Danny dunked his french fry liberally in ketchup before gazing out the plate glass window at the city and watching the people pass by. Tiny animal ghosts were scurrying around, chasing after each other in a ghostly game of tag. Many were simply lying under benches. Danny smiled slightly - surrounded by the ebb and flow of the human world, the ghosts here seemed to existed in peace.

Pest nipped at his fingers. Danny grinned down at his pet, moving his fingers so they passed through the little squirrel's body. The body moved and misted and reformed like fog, the squirrel chattering in distaste. It sat down on the table, scratching at its ears with a hind foot.

Danny got some ketchup on his finger and pushed a tiny spark of energy into it, holding the ketchup out to the squirrel. The red substance would have appeared in its world with Danny pushing energy into it. It sniffed the ketchup, then sent out a cold, ghostly tongue to lap at it. The squirrel, like most ghosts encountering ketchup for the first time, sat back and blinked in confusion. Its eyes were wide, the normal green swirling with strange orange sparks. Pest sneezed and started to run its hands over its head over and over. Danny snickered, licked the ketchup off his finger, and went back to staring out the window, slowly eating through his french fries.

"Excuse me."

Danny recognized the voice from somewhere, but he didn't know where until he turned his head to look. It was the Hispanic girl from the grocery store – 'P'. He still couldn't remember her full name. His eyes flickered from her to the goons standing behind her. They didn't seem quite happy. "Hey," he said cautiously.

"This is our table," 'P' said primly. "Move."

Pest had started rolling around on the table, scratching at its head with its back feet. Danny ignored his pet, glancing around the busy, but far from full, restaurant. "Um… there's lots of other tables."

One of the male goons, blond hair slicked back and small blue eyes nearly lost in his thick face, leaned forwards. "I think you don't understand. We don't let losers sit at our table."

Danny switched his gaze from his coworker to the goon. He tipped his head to the side, just so slightly. He'd given up almost everything to come half way across the country in a blind attempt to escape his friends, the system, and what little bits of his past he could remember. But for this moment, with this jerk, California would come in handy.

One of his group home brothers had been named Carlos – a Latino with a deported mother and an abusive, drug-riddled father. Covered in tattoos detailing his alleged crimes, Carlos had always been the epitome of a city gang leader. He'd run the kids of the group home with an iron fist, demanding obedience and respect when the actual adult did nothing but drink himself into a stupor.

This jerk in Illinois had never met anyone like Carlos. But Danny was more than willing to introduce them.

Danny's gaze went cold. The small smile on his face vanished. He very slowly leaned forwards, his elbows on the table, and stared at the small town kid. Little bits of his ghost half started to stretch out, digging their claws into his mind and demeanor. The temperature dropped slightly. "I think," he said blandly, his voice empty of emotion, "you don't understand. I'm not moving."

The goon crossed his arms over his chest, puffing up like a chicken. The other boy, a darker-haired young man with even broader shoulders, stood next to him. "I think you need a lesson on etiquette," the blonde growled.

Quirking an eyebrow, Danny wondered if the kid could even spell 'etiquette'. He was quite done with this. The ghost inside of him caught wind of his thoughts, sinking painful teeth into his insides as it clawed for attention. He ignored the stab of pain, his mouth slowly spreading into a smile and baring his teeth. Carlos had perfected the ability to show every tooth in his mouth with a single smile. Danny couldn't quite pull that off, but the effect was close to the same.

With the smile, Danny let out the predator. It screamed in triumph as it raced up to gleam through his eyes. Both males blinked in unison, taking a small step backwards. Danny let his smile grow just a bit more. "No." His voice was quiet. "I think you should go away."

He tapped his fingers against the table, as his ghost created a quick illusion of a knife lying on the table. The sound drew the boy's eyes to the imagined knife, their eyes widening. The darker haired boy paled and glanced towards Blondie. "Dash..." he whispered.

The blonde, looking unsure finally, crossed and uncrossed his arms. Confusion stained the air. Uncertainty. He wanted to leave, but didn't know how to admit it without losing credibility to his friends.

Danny met his gaze unblinkingly. The goon flinched, just a bit. Danny had won. They both knew it.

Slowly, Danny stood up. His chair scraped on the floor in a loud squeak. He didn't take his eyes off the blonde as he let his smile fade into an expressionless face. The boy took a step backwards, his eyes widening and his face draining of color. Fear started to curl through the air.

After a long, empty second, Danny grabbed his nearly empty tray. "I suppose," he said blandly, "that I'm done anyways." He took a step towards the group. Both boys took a similar step backwards.

"Scam, then, loser."

Danny flicked a glance towards 'P', noting the haughty expression on her face and the tip of her hips. She'd missed the entire confrontation, somehow, even though she'd been standing in the middle of it. He sent her a grin, suppressing a laugh. "See you at work, later," he said, walking away from the table. The two boys scrambled to stay out of his way without looking like they were scrambling.

"Wait, you have a job?" one of the people in the group said. "Why?"

Danny dumped his garbage into the receptacle and stuffed a handful of ketchup packets into his pocket. He headed towards the door, glancing over his shoulder at the little group of teens. Only 'P' had sat down, the others were fidgeting and shooting looks his way. Fighting down a snicker, Danny let his eyes roam back towards the door.

Only the dark-skinned girl at the counter caught his gaze. She was staring at him, mouth open slightly, her eyes wide and still. Danny hesitated as his hand touched the door, gazing back curiously. But then, with a shrug, he pushed open the door and vanished into the outside world. Pest, its eyes still sparking orange now and then, raced after him, tail twitching madly.

—10—10—

—Sam—

"Hey, Mr. Fenton," Sam greeted, slowly letting the door to the Fenton home close behind her.

The man looked up from the TV, a grin splitting his face. "Sam!" Then the grin faded, replaced by one of seriousness. "Feeling better?"

After all these years, Sam was still taken aback by the show of emotional caring. She blinked back a burning sensation in her eyes. "Yeah, I'm better." Her voice was a bit thick. When the look of concern settled onto his face, Sam tried for a smile. As much as she loved the Fenton adults, she didn't want them prying into her carefully constructed life. "My parents set up an appointment with my psychologist," she lied smoothly. "I'll be fine."

The worry lines in the man's face smoothed out. "Good." That apparently settled, the man jumped to his feet with a renewed grin. "Come look at this. Mads has figured out a way to amplify the spectral emitters."

Sam nodded and followed the man into the basement lab, only half listening as he babbled away. Something about creating two compatible energy waves to create a shielding effect that was much more powerful than the previous. The current version of the ghost shield was little more than an anti-ghost device. It acted similar to the way people keep deer from eating their flowers – by spraying it with something that causes the deer to want to stay away. This new version seemed like it would act more like a proper shield, not allowing the ghost through even if it wanted to.

"That's really neat, Mr. Fenton," she said after a long description. The man had a screwdriver in his hand, seemingly ready to pull the entire device apart to show her how it worked. Given the chance, the man would happily keep chattering until supper. He really was like a puppy with new technology. "You'll have to show Tucker how it works when he comes by. But I really wanted to work on a problem I have…"

His face fell, but he set the new emitter on the table and glanced at her. "What's the problem?" he asked.

Sam hesitated. Mr. Fenton was a certified genius with technology and was extremely creative, but he was a bit… overzealous. She blinked into his blue eyes, catching the genuine interest locked inside them. A small smile drifted onto her face. "The new ghost-"

"Z2742X8," Mr. Fenton interrupted with a grin.

Sam couldn't help the small laugh. Both of them found the government's desire to give all the ghosts ID numbers idiotic. "Yeah, that one," she continued. "He's not fitting into a lot of the theories we have right now. I want to track him down. Get more data."

The man nodded, turning to head over to the radar display. It was blank at the moment, which was no real surprise. No alarms were going off. "He's not on radar."

"I know," Sam said quickly. "But I was hoping to try to track him using one of your old inventions."

"Which one?"

"Um…" Sam looked around. "The boomerang."

The grin on the man's face was startling. "The Fenton Boooo-merang!" he said with a laugh. His eyes were twinkling with delight as he turned and hurried over to the old shelves. They were rickety and falling apart, but the man moved his bulk between them with ease, apparently knowing exactly which of the overflowing boxes of crap to grab.

He reappeared and set one large box of stuff on the table. It took a few minutes of digging, but the invention was soon in his hands. "It'll probably need a recharge," Mr. Fenton was saying, running his hands over it and eying the ancient technology. In only three years, the Fentons had advanced ghost technology incredibly far. "I could rebuild this, make it smaller, but it still doesn't solve the basic problem. When the ghosts retreat from this world, the thing stops tracking them." He held it out. "You can sure try it out, though."

Sam took it, not quite expecting the weight. The older technology weighed quite a bit more than the new gadgets. "Thanks," she said softly.

"Anything for you, Sam," he said with a wink. "You remember how to program it?"

She nodded, tucking the device under her am. "It's probably not going to work anyways."

The man cocked his head. "Still worth the effort. Sometimes you don't get results unless you try stuff that's not supposed to work."

Sam smiled. "Yeah, I suppose. Thanks, Mr. Fenton."

"Staying for supper tonight?" he asked when she started to turn and walk away.

"Can't, my parents are expecting me," she called over her shoulder, limping her way up the stairs. She paused in the kitchen to riffle through the knife drawer, grabbing the folder that contained the information on the newest ghost before heading out the back door.

The boomerang was cold and heavy under her hands. She walked towards home, trying to imagine what it would be like to actually find this strange ghost. The boomerang was incredibly powerful and a very sensitive locator, but it required a specific ghost signature to work. Fortunately, she had that.

And she also had a theory. The theory that the ghost boy – Danny, he said his name was – was still in Amity Park.

—10—10—

—Danny—

It was just before 3pm when Danny slipped into the convention center, doing his best to remain unnoticed. People were moving around, many of them getting ready to be off for the day, creating a bustling scene. Dozens of ghosts hovered around, taking in the stress and relief that the humans were exuding.

Danny slunk up to the wall that displayed the activities going on that evening. His eyes scanned the listing until he found the name he'd been looking for. Dr. Corvin, room 58. The map hanging nearby showed the room to be just down the hall on the right.

Glancing around at the tons of people, Danny hung against the wall as he worked his way down the hallway, glancing at room numbers. 52. 54. 56. There it was. A messy, handwritten sign was hung on the door, asking non-conference members to stay out between the hours of 3 and 4pm. It was signed by a Dr. W. Corvin. It had to be the place.

Hanging against the opposite wall, Danny rubbed his sweaty hands against his jeans. People walked passed. Several – many of them very nicely dressed – pushed open the door and headed inside. Danny ran a hand through his hair, attempting to make it lay down a bit, and steeled himself. He still wasn't sure he really wanted to do this. Heart nearly in his throat, Danny worked his way across the hallway and slid into the room.

A dozen chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room. More than half were already occupied. One older gentleman in a frumpy gray suit – who Danny had to assume was the Dr. Corvin person – looked up at him with a frown, then back down at his phone. Several of the other people glanced up. Each of them was older. Danny figured the youngest person to be in their thirties.

"Excuse me," came a quiet voice.

Danny glanced to the side and came to a dead stop. Red hair, green eyes. It was the other ghost hunter he'd seen that day, nearly two weeks ago. The one who looked remarkably like the two older ghost hunters Danny had set his heart on avoiding with all due prejudice. What had her name been? "Um…" he said, shifting his weight, confused as to why the girl was here.

"This is a… group therapy session," the young woman said firmly. "It's not open for observation."

"What?" Danny blinked, startled. "I'm not… I…" He shook his head. "Who are you again?"

She drew herself up to her full height – nearly four inches taller than Danny. "My name is Jazz Fenton. I'm Dr. Corvin's assistant. I'm helping run the meeting."

Danny felt his heart sink and his stomach churn. She ran the meetings? But wasn't she a ghost hunter, not a therapist? Danny just kept staring at her, completely off balance, until the air started curling with suspicion. Her eyes narrowed and Danny took a small step backwards. "I'm… um… Danny. I… just moved here from California. I was… hoping…" His fingers curled around the strap of his backpack. Suddenly the idea of admitting everything felt like too much. And to a ghost hunter, at that? He felt his face heat, his eyes train on the ground. "I'll just go," he muttered.

A hand touched his shoulder as he turned to leave. "Wait," the girl said softly. The suspicion was gone, replaced by something calmer. "I'm sorry." His gaze flickered up to her face. Her eyes were sincere and there was a tiny smile on her face. "I misunderstood why you were here."

Danny shifted, tightening his fingers around the strap of his backpack. He swallowed. "It's okay," he said, shaking his head. "I'm gonna go, though."

Concern swirled around her. "You said your name was Danny?" she asked, taking a small step forwards, a smile on her face.

Danny stepped backwards to match her movement, nodding. "Maybe I'll see you later," he said, turning around and grabbing the doorknob. It was strangely warm as he twisted it and slid out the door.

"I really hope so," the young woman, Jazz Fenton, called after him. "We meet again on Wednesday."

"Yeah," he muttered, hurrying through the convention center and back out onto the street. "We'll see." Sun bright in his eyes, now with an hour and some to burn before he had to show up at work, Danny sauntered towards the park. He'd survived California and the group home and the system and his brush with addiction without help. He could survive Amity Park without help too.

To be continued.