Chapter 11
"Daniel Fenton!" Lancer roared when he saw the teenager curled in a ball atop a desk in one of the empty classrooms.
Danny jumped and toppled off the desk with a loud thud and the scraping of metal on tile as the desk slid away. The chair behind it clattered when Danny slammed his head upon it. The man groaned, rubbing his throbbing skull as he climbed back onto his feet.
"What are you doing here after hours?" Lancer demanded, glaring at the youth before him until he noticed the puffy red eyes and tear stained cheeks.
"I, um," Danny mumbled and averted his gaze. His chest squeezed painfully, but he wasn't sure what caused the sudden surge of sorrow in him.
"Fenton, did someone hurt you?" Lancer asked, shifting into his sincere and concerned teacher mode. He couldn't see any visible signs of abuse, but that didn't mean the man hadn't been hurt beneath his clothes or verbally abused.
But Danny didn't know how to say. The ache in his body was from falling off the table, but he couldn't place why he had the strange squeezing of his chest. It did hurt seeing Dash in the hallways, but he didn't think this pain was caused by the jock.
"Fenton?" Lancer tried again when he received no response from the teenager. Walking over, he went to lay a hand on the man's shoulder, but Danny flinched away at the last second, avoiding contact.
"I - I should go," Danny stuttered as he stumbled over the fallen chair on his way to the door, leaving behind a rather confused English teacher. Taking long strides, he walked quickly through the hallways as he tried to ignore the dull ache. It seemed to lessen as the moments passed, but it still confused him greatly.
"Stop running away!" The shout echoed through the hallways, making Danny freeze in his footsteps. His eyes darted around the hall, searching for the source of the voice. He gasped as a wisp of blue mist escaped him and a chill ran down his spine.
"I am the Box Ghost! Prepare-" the ghost's statement was cut off by something similar to a squeak before he flew down the hallway, passing the teenager.
Danny groaned and turned the other way to see if the ghost hunter was present, like he thought. A shout of "shit" preceded the pain that accompanied a larger body slamming into his body. The pair fell to the floor in a heap of tangled limbs. The air rushed out of the half ghost's lungs as he was crushed under the weight of Ahura. Danny lay dazedly on the floor as Ahura climbed onto his hands and knees, staring down at the teenager.
"Because of you, the ghost got away," Ahura stated with a bit of growl in his voice, causing a shudder to run through Danny, who had just realized their compromising position. What if someone saw them like this?
"Sorry," Danny muttered, his eyes narrowing at the helmet clad hunter. "It's not like I meant to get in your way."
"Try not to let it happen again." Even though he sounded angry, Ahura made no attempt to climb off the teenager. Danny squirmed, feeling naked beneath the ghost hunter's gaze despite not being able to see Ahura's eyes behind the helmet's visor. When they heard footsteps down the hallway, the ghost hunter finally jumped up, releasing the teenager. Then he raced off in the opposite direction of the footsteps.
Sitting up, Danny saw Lancer coming down the hallway toward him. In a panic, he leaped to his feet and dashed off, followed by Lancer's shouts of "Fenton, get back here!" He didn't even want to think of figuring out how to explain what had happened with the ghost hunter if Lancer had seen that, which Danny assumed he had.
Once he was a block away from school, Danny slowed down to a walk, panting heavily from the exertion. He paused and tilted his head back to stare at the late afternoon sky. A lost feeling overcame him as he stood there. And now he couldn't even go talk to Speedstar about it because his online friend had turned out to be Dash in reality. His hands went to his hair, yanking on the dark locks. He had been so open to Dash about his feelings without even knowing it was him. There was so much the jock could use to blackmail him. He was about ready to shout out his frustrations when someone gave him a good hard shove from behind. After stumbling forward a few steps, Danny spun around to glare at the other person.
"Dash," Danny growled heatedly through clenched teeth.
"Don't block the sidewalk, Fentina." Dash snickered at the angry blush staining the other man's cheeks.
"You could walk around me instead of pushing me." That strange squeezing sensation in his chest returned, and Danny cursed in disbelief. How could Dash of all people be affecting him this way? Dash only smirked, ramming his shoulder into the other teen's shoulder as he passed. Danny glared at the jock's back, silently fuming at the poor treatment just because he was dubbed a "loser" by the popular crowd.
"Beware!" the Box Ghost shouted in the half ghost's ear, startling the poor teenager. Danny stumbled back off the sidewalk into the street. By the time he heard the shriek of brakes, it was too late.
Dash turned back when he heard the squeal of wheels followed by a sickening thud. The car remained undamaged, no dents or shattered windshield, but the teenager lay on his side a few feet before it. A sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Despite how he treated Fenton, he never would have wanted the other man to get hit by a car. He jogged over to the scene as the driver climbed out of the car.
"Oh god!" Paulina exclaimed in a shaky voice as she and Dash looked over the injured teenager. "I – He just jumped into the street without looking. I – I couldn't stop in time. I didn't mean to hit him!"
"Paulina, calm down!" Dash shouted, checking for any visible injury. From his experiences on the football team, he knew not to move the man. Dash spotted a few scrapes and cuts along the man's body. What concerned him the most though was the large gash on Danny's forehead where he had hit it on the asphalt. "Get your cell phone and call 911," he told Paulina as he tried to remain calm.
While Paulina ran back to her car, Dash pulled out a clean handkerchief and pressed it to the cut. His hands were shaking badly, and the only thought running in his mind was "what if Fenton died like this?" He had never even thought about something like this happening. There were usually a bunch of little news stories about car accidents, but those usually involved drunk driving. No one was drunk in this situation, and Dash knew both people involved in the accident. It was all too surreal, feeling more like he was watching another news program on television rather than acknowledging it to be real.
"Is – Is he going to be all right?" Paulina questioned after calling 911. The situation terrified her. She didn't think she could bear it if Danny died, if she killed him. Thinking about that possibility made tears spring to her eyes.
"I don't know," Dash answered in a whisper, shocking Paulina a little since she had never heard the jock talk in such a manner. But I really hope he'll be all right, Dash thought, scared at the idea of seeing someone he knew die.
