A/N: I have a lot more fun writing Vlad's POV. I don't know why. Anyway, here's another chapter! And thanks for not murdering me for taking awhile to upload stuff. Brother came home and all. Oh, and don't be afraid to PM me if you have a question about a chapter. I'll answer it, but I'm not giving anything away for the future.Vlad's POV
We had just left the restaurant. Walking as fast as I possibly could, we had only made it two blocks. This is because Daniel decided it would be fun to play the 'let's point at every hotel in the city and read every billboard in existence!' game. I couldn't take five steps without him trying, and failing, to convince me to get a hotel room. I just wanted to leave and get as far away as possible. We would be able to rest when we reach Spain.
If we ever get there... I thought.
"Hey, Uncy Vlad, look! There's another hotel! I think that one has a pool!" Daniel pointed at a one-story hotel that, indeed, had a pool. There were leaves all over the covering of the aquatic structure, however. The pool was obviously closed. No doubt some murder victim's body was found in it.
I shuddered. If we don't get moving, someone will be finding our bodies.
"Daniel, please, just listen to me." I said as I knelt down to his height and put my hands on his shoulders. Even though he was sixteen, he was now only the height of a fourteen year old. Probably due to his ghost powers. I could fix it when we get to Spain.
"Vlad?" Daniel asked, trying to shake my hands from his shoulders. I gripped them tighter and looked right in his blue eyes.
"Danny...we're in trouble, all right? They know where we are because of my idiotic mistake. They are on their way now, and we have to leave. If you would please help me by just listening to me the first time and doing what I say without complaint, that would be fantastic." I told him, feeling guilty for worrying him.
"They know? But how? What did you do?" Daniel asked, becoming enraged. His eyes flashed green, and he took a step back from me.
"Daniel-"
"Shut up! You turned us over so that I would get caught, didn't you? This has all been one huge game to you. You pretended to care just so I would trust you, then you'd just hand me over to them wrapped in a decorated box with a bow! Is that it, Plasmius? Is that what you've been planning this whole time? What deal do you have with them?" Daniel accused. Every word hurt in a way he couldn't imagine. Couldn't he see that I was trying to rebuild everything? He just can't leave the past behind him. I'm going to have to use logic to convince him of my innocence.
"Daniel, listen to me." I said as I grabbed his wrists and pulled him into an alleyway so no one would see us. I pushed him against a wall and pinned his hands above his head. I didn't want him to try to run away, and I didn't want him to try to attack me, either.
Daniel tried to kick, but he wasn't doing so well, considering he needed his legs to stand. Suddenly recalling he had ghost powers, he tried to transform, but I stopped him mid-morph. I wasn't taking that risk either. Daniel decided the next best thing was to yell for help. He did, and I put both of his hands in one of mine and used the other to cover his mouth. His eyes became wide, realizing he was running out of options. He looked around for something he could use against me, but the only thing in the alley was year-old trash. Daniel gave up, and looked into my eyes.
I shook the loose strands of hair out of my face, and began to talk.
"I am not working with the Guys in White. I have no deal with them, and do not plan to. I am not giving you to them, Daniel. Why would I do that? If I was giving you to them, why would I give you the watch? Why would I protect you during that first attack and take care of you since? And furthermore, why would I tell you where I was going?" I questioned, not expecting an answer. Daniel stayed silent and looked toward the ground.
"Will you run if I let you go?" I asked, becoming uncomfortable. Daniel shook his head no, and I slowly took my weight off him. I let go of his wrists and he slid to the ground of the alley. His knees were brought up to his chest and he wrapped his arms around them. He still stared at the ground. I sighed and sat down beside him.
"Am I going to die?" He asked, his voice shaking.
"No." I replied simply. Even if we're captured, I don't think the Guys in White intend to kill us. They'd rather run experiments on us until we were close to dying. Thinking about it, death would be a lovelier fate.
Daniel sighed. The look in his eyes told me he hated looking so vulnerable in front of me. He hated having to rely on me. He looked up at me and began talking.
"The mistake. You said you made a stupid mistake that costed us our cover. Was it the call you said you had to make? Who'd you call?" I sighed.
"Your parents. I was trying to tell them you were with me and safe." I sighed again, knowing, soon, I would have to tell him the fate of his family.
"And? What'd they say? Why didn't you tell me? I wanted to talk to them!" Daniel said, getting at least a little upset that I wouldn't have let him speak with his parents.
"They didn't answer." I replied, not lying. I really didn't want to tell him. His attitude would change. He would either want to go back and fight his way to his parents, or go with me but be completely depressed the whole time. Teenagers. Always acting out of emotions. They just can't think straight.
"That's it? I find it hard to believe that Dad wouldn't answer your call." Daniel commented. I smirked, but lost it as soon as I realized I was doing it. I sighed.
"I'll tell you the truth Danny, but you have to promise me something." I told him, looking right into his eyes. His face dropped and the color drained from it.
"OK."
"You have to promise me that after I tell you this, you won't run off, blame me, or do anything of the sort. Do you promise?" Daniel nodded, and I took that as his word.
"Your parents didn't answer the phone, because the Guys in White did. They know our secrets. They'll tell everyone. They have probably already told Maddie and Jack. I'm...I'm sorry, Daniel." He just looked at the ground some more. He was practicing his cursive signatures in the dirt, but one of them wasn't his own. One name he wrote was Sam Manson. I knew the girl and her parents. They were millionaires, so we had a little bit in common. Samantha, I knew, was also Daniel's girlfriend. I learned this the first night when I went to Amity to fetch him. Strange. I always thought he'd end up with Valerie.
"Any comments, Daniel?" I asked after he finished making the 'n' at the end of Manson.
"No." He simply said, then wiped everything away with his hand and stood up. "Can we just go?" He asked, pleadingly.
"Yes, dear boy. We can go." I told him, and he transformed and waited for me to do the same. I did, letting the black rings around my waist expand around my body. I closed my eyes when I transformed, and when I opened them back up when I was done, I saw a ghost-proof net coming straight for Daniel.
"Danny!" I yelled and pushed him out of the way. He fell to the ground to my left, and the net enclosed me within itself. It cocooned itself around me, and I was trapped. I couldn't phase, and I couldn't blast my way out. That was all I was able to try, considering my arms were pinned to my sides.
Daniel opened his eyes and blinked a few times, trying to make since of the scene in front of him and what just happened. After a moment of realization, his eyes flashed a brighter shade of green than they already were in the general direction the net came from. He ran over to my side and looked over the net.
"Don't touch it," I warned, "it'll shock you."
"Don't need to." He said. He placed his hand a few inches above the net and used his ice powers. He was trying to be as gentle as possible, knowing I was feeling it too. I didn't have to use words to question him. He saw it in my eyes.
"I'm freezing it so that one hard punch will shatter it. This thing is ghost proof, not element proof." He stated. Just as he finished explaining, the Guys in White appeared in the alley on the same hovercraft machines. They wore bright white, metal suits. Each one, no doubt, equipped with some ghost fighting and catching equipment. They had helmets with masks attached to them on their heads. The suits looked like a high-tech Fenton Peeler or whatever Jack idiotically called that thing. One agent pulled a bazooka out of a pack attached to his back. And began walking over toward us.
I didn't want to admit my fear.
The agent stopped about halfway and two more agents stood off to the sides behind him. They, too, held large weapons.
One aimed a gun at Daniel, and I immediately put an end to that. Shooting lasers out of my eyes, I knocked the gun out of the agent's hands.
"Sorry Vlad, this might hurt a bit, but I have to rush. We're a little low on time." Daniel said, and created a large ball of ice in his hands. I nodded, telling him it was all right. He slammed it down on my chest, effectively shattering the net, and knocking the wind out of me. He then charged a green ectoball in his hands and shot it at the disarmed agent.
"That's for trying to shoot me, punk!" He said. The agent on the other side aimed his gun at Daniel, but the agent up front stopped him. I held a hand to my chest and sat up as much as possible. Daniel kept his fists glowing green in case of an emergency.
The agent up front took his helmet off. He held it in his right hand and a gun in his left. The agent who wasn't unconscious looked at him like he was crazy, and was about to speak, but the other, obviously the leader, stopped him.
"Now now, Danny, why don't you put that blast away? We're all people here, right?" The agent said, admitting to both Daniel and myself that they knew. The agent went on even though Daniel didn't absorb the attack. "I'm Operative O, leader of the Guys in White. You two have been quite elusive. Listen, things will be easier if you just come along..."
"No!" Daniel and I said at the same time, and both blasted Operative O. The dark-skinned agent was knocked to the ground. I stood up and flew into the air, knowing Daniel would know to do the same. From above, we watched the only conscious agent get the other two and talk into some kind of walkie-talkie. He was calling for backup.
"Let's go." I said, ordering Daniel in a very stern voice. He didn't argue. We flew far away from them at a speed of at least three hundred miles an hour. We didn't stop until we couldn't possibly go any longer. Well, until Daniel couldn't possibly go any longer. We stopped, and both started to catch our breath.
"Are you OK?" Daniel asked me. "That net looked pretty tight." I waited a moment to answer, catching my own breath. Flying that fast in that short of time span is like running a marathon in twenty minutes. It's virtually impossible.
"Yes, Daniel, I'm fine." I said as I stretched out my arms for the sake of being able to do it. Being constricted within that net restricted my ability to move.
"I don't know, that doesn't look so good." He said as he pointed at my arm. I twisted it over so that my palm was facing the sky and saw the laceration from my wrist to my elbow. Ectoplasm was coming out at an alarming rate. That net must have cut me when it wrapped around. Was it barbed? It must have been to cause this. I didn't feel anything though. I know it'll hit me ten-fold when the adrenalin works its way through my system.
"We need to wra-" Daniel began, but I interrupted him this time.
"It's fine, Daniel." I put my glove back over it. "See, good as new." I began to slowly fly away from the city and he followed.
"Don't ever tell me I don't take care of myself again." He said when he caught up. "'Cause at least I took care of my wounds." It took every ounce of my self control to not laugh out loud. I had already been planning on giving the boy a check-up when we got to Spain. I wanted to see the extent of his injuries over the years, and see what I could do to heal them properly. Yes, he may have 'took care of' his wounds, but he didn't heal them.
"I'm fine Daniel. I have a little more experience than you. See down there?" I pointed to a long river that seemed to flow for miles. "That's the Mississippi River. We'll follow it back up north. From there, we can find an airport and get one of my private jets to take us to Madrid." Daniel seemed to hardly notice I was talking. He was staring at the river.
"It's so long..." He observed.
"Daniel, did you hear-"
"Yeah, yeah, follow the river north to an airport to get to Spain. I got that. But look! All that green grass and trees! It should be easy to find food, water, and shelter from the Guys in White there. Oh and Vlad," Daniel looked at me. I recognized that look. That was the same look he always gives me when he's about to say something smart. I looked at him to show I was listening. "I don't think you have any money. The Guys in White are government agents who know your human half. To put it gently, your accounts are frozen." He said with a sly smile on his face. He was waiting for my reaction. I definitely didn't let him down.
"Oh, butter biscuits!" Oh, c'mon, who didn't see that bank account thing coming? And it's a fanfic with Vlad. If you don't make him curse food at least once, you've failed. Reviews put a smile on my face every time I get the alert on my phone, so...yeah! Virtual brownies to everyone who's reviewed. Still love you guys!
