Perhaps love is a minor madness. And as with madness, it's unendurable alone.
― Andrew Sean Greer
For all twenty minutes of the drive home, Jack didn't speak a word. He had to hunch to fit in the driver's seat, even in the GAV. He cupped the steering wheel between his arms. Curled up on the passenger side in that stupid, flimsy dress, Maddie had never felt so small.
She stared out at the sky where it faded into a bruised purple above the buildings. She'd never realized just how many sharp corners their seats had; one pressed into her bare arm, cold and hard. The GAV smelled of old welding and stale soda, the heady chemical mixture of ectoplasmic fuel and gasoline. Comfortable smells, on any other day.
Street lights came on. Block after block they flickered over Jack's face, making the shadows between them seem darker. Maddie's feet ached in the tight high heels. The taste of champagne soured in her mouth. Somewhere far off a siren wailed.
He pulled into the drive and got out without looking at her. The FentonWorks sign traced his silhouette in shades of orange and green. Maddie bunched the hem of her dress in one hand and stepped down from the passenger side. Her heel caught in a broken patch of pavement they'd never gotten around to repairing. She reached for Jack's arm, but he'd already strode off, heading to the front door.
She stopped, hand falling to her side. Cold, twisting dread solidified in her stomach. Some primal part of her longed to bolt down the street and disappear. She shoved the urge away, clenching her fists, and followed him. He deserved better from her.
The kitchen stood nearly as she'd left it: cold, dark, and empty. A coffee mug―the blue one, Danny's favorite―rested among the jumble of equipment on the table. Jack made no move to switch on the lights.
Maddie licked her lips and smoothed down the dress. She had to say… something. Jack's silence weighed on her like a physical force. Was he disappointed in her? Angry? Maddie's hand caught on the hidden holster and she shuddered, goosebumps prickling up her leg at the memory of Vlad's touch. She had to explain. Jack had to understand. If she could just find the words...
"I'm not stupid," Jack said.
Maddie winced. She stared at the yellow tiles. That wasn't why she hadn't told him. She'd just… wanted to be sure. To not get his hopes up. To not ruin his image of Vlad. Right? "I didn't say you were."
His voice came low and rumbling, like distant thunder. "Maddie…why did you marry me?"
She flinched and took a step back, bewildered at the sudden turn. "Because I love you, Jack, I—"
"You left me."
"That's not..." Maddie's voice trailed off.
Because that wouldn't be a logical conclusion, her own voice mocked her. She remembered the absurdly opulent dinner, Vlad's hand on her cheek, the yes dearests he'd enforced. Vlad hadn't exactly been subtle.
Maddie's throat tightened; she shook her head, suddenly fighting back tears. She hadn't gone with him willingly. She'd gone to find―she'd wanted Danny. She'd done it for Danny. "I was only―"
"I saw what you were doing," Jack growled, storming to the table and snatching up the mug. He slammed it into the sink, turning on the tap, watching it fill up and overflow. The tap hissed. Dirty coffee-tinted water swirled down the drain.
Maddie's cheeks burned. "You have no idea what I did," she snapped, scrubbing the tears from her eyes. Maddie snatched up a handful of tools―a core thermometer, a spectral scanner, a phase-proof knife. They didn't belong here. The GIW should have incinerated them right along with her lab coat.
She took them over to the cardboard box Dr. Kerza had brought. It stood on the counter wide open, crisp and clean, its logo glaring at her. She stuffed the tools inside. "You can't just jump to conclusions. It's not fair."
"What else can I do?" he shot back. She heard the dishwashing brush swish, scouring the inside of the cup. "You won't tell me. You haven't told me anything. Not about Danny, or those creeps in white―and―and now Vlad?" His voice cracked. "You and Vlad? What kind of conclusion can I make?"
Maddie prided herself on her ability to articulate. That's what she did; she was a scientist. She observed, recorded and drew conclusions. She could grasp highly complex abstractions, taking nebulous scientific concepts and capturing them in words. It had made perfect sense to go to Vlad, to get his help, but the explanation―the words that would make it make sense, wouldn't come.
She rested her hands on the table, staring through the clutter of CDs and tools. Maybe her real talent was lying to herself. Fabricating intricate fantasies that allowed her to believe that she was right, while in reality she destroyed everything she loved. Dr. Madeline Fenton: brilliant delusionist.
Maddie opened her mouth, glanced at Jack, closed it. She seized the the CDs off the table, tossing them inside the box, on top of the tools. The top one splintered. Cracks spidered out across the clear plastic case.
Maddie stared at it, struck by a memory― that last day, walking in with every alarm screaming at her, finding the containment glass cracked. He'd been so weak. He'd nearly dissolved right in front of her had terrified her. She'd barely thought about the risk and ran right to his side.
Terror followed her every day now. It might be too late to reach him. Danny had left. Right after she'd nearly shot him―deliberate or not, that's the last he'd seen of her. He might never want to see her again. She could do nothing to change that―nothing at all, not if she couldn't find him.
The water hissed like static as Jack stood at the sink.
Maddie turned away and stared at the table. The cutting device sat there, dull grey in the dark kitchen, its blade catching a flicker of yellow from the street lights outside and turning it poison green. It was a selfish thing to want Danny back. He'd be in danger from the GIW. He'd looked so―trapped. Bringing him back would be another kind of trap. But… she had to see him. She had to.
"We've always been a team," he said, so quiet she barely heard him. He turned around, mug cupped in his big hands, still dripping wet. His eyes were red-rimmed, his mouth a thin, sad line. "Not anymore."
Maddie closed her eyes and shook her head. Her fingertips ran across the edge of the box, tracing its rough, corrugated surface. Jack didn't know what that meant, not anymore. He hadn't seen the lab or what she'd done there. Her fault. Her experiments. Her blindness. Her responsibility. She couldn't share it with him.
"Did you just up and decide you didn't need me? I'm not as smart as you, Mads, and I—" His face clouded with distress. "I know I rush in, a lot of times, and I can make a mess of things, but—but damnit, Maddie. You're my wife. What can you get from him that I don't have?"
"Vlad is…" she sighed, giving the box a shove further back onto the counter, then walked back to the table. Would Vlad even search for Danny at all? Or had it all been a ruse to guarantee her obedience? That was cruel. She rested a hand on the saw, smooth and cold. Not that she could talk.
"I thought he…he might have a way to find Danny," she said at last. "He's always been… interested in me," she felt slimy just saying it. "And he offered to… to help. If I let him."
"That-that-" Jack growled and made an empty gesture. Dishwater sloshed onto the counter. "He was my best bud back in college. I stuck up for him―and I thought he… we had that thing with the proto-portal, but… we were done with that. He hosted the reunion, invited us specially. He came for visits and everything. And with you, he's so… so…" Jack's face clouded with confusion and anger. He picked up the dish towel and gave it an sharp twist, then shoved it inside the mug. "Here I thought he was just―I don't know, a touchy feely guy. I mean―you're my wife. "
"He has resources and knowledge―you saw that lab he had, and if anyone could put the funds and the research into―"
"But―but that doesn't matter! Vlad couldn't hold a candle to you in college. He's won't do anything you can't do better."
"He's a ghost hybrid. Just like Danny."
Jack blinked, frowning. "Really? V-man is…really?" He sank down in the nearest chair, cupping the soapy mug in his still-dripping hands. "Well… well damn. That's something."
She nodded. Water dripped on the floor. Yellow, sulphurous street light outlined Jack's curved shoulders, leaving his face in shadow.
"The ecto-acne caused it, right? That stuff attacked his DNA like some freakish kind of cancer…or a virus, maybe. He never would give me a blood sample. Guess I can't blame him, huh? We were ghost hunters back then, too. Half ghost, huh? Vlad. The cheesehead. A ghost." He barked out a laugh and ran a hand over his face. "That makes two we've missed."
They'd wanted to hide, Maddie thought; and she'd wanted to believe them. Ghosts were monsters; it… simplified their work. To think otherwise had implications that neither of them had wanted to face.
"You're still smarter than him," Jack said. "And you…" His eyes trailed over to the white cardboard box and its official-looking logo. He ran a thumb around the rim of Danny's coffee mug, then set it carefully next to the sink. "You learned stuff about hybrids too," he said without looking at her.
The thought made her skin crawl. She'd learned things about Phantom? The strange ghost. The remarkably dense and complex ecto-entity. The sub-sentient thing that was positively, absolutely not in any way human. She hadn't even considered the possibility of a living, human hybrid. Not even when he said it right to her face..
"What did I learn, Jack?" Maddie snapped. She snatched up the saw and brandished it at him. "You think this will help Danny? I spent all those weeks experimenting, hurting him―"
He reached out to her, but she drew back.
"I kept telling myself that Phantom was a ghost. He couldn't really feel anything. He was… was pretending to scream. I never bothered to question my assumptions. I wasn't rational at all. If I was such a brilliant scientist." She said the words with deep disgust. Her fingers wrapped around the blades and sharp pain flickered through her fingers; she squeezed them tighter, shuddering. "I should have seen it."
She had seen it, momentarily, and that made it worse.
Phantom's body, which had been straining against the cuffs, went limp; moisture stood out in beads on the exposed skin. That young face went slack, pupils dilating. Maddie didn't need to check her monitors to know its breathing pattern had accelerated. Phantom was afraid.
She'd hesitated. Some part of her knew, even if her conscious mind dismissed the possibility of his humanity. Then she'd done it anyway.
"Hey, Mads!" Strong fingers unwound her own from the sharp blade and pulled the weight from her hands. She heard it crash into the box, probably splintering more cd cases. Maddie stared at her now-empty hands, fingers puckered with tiny saw-tooth wounds that oozed blood, turning her palms red.
Jack cradled her hands in his. He sucked in a breath as he peered at the cuts. "You can't just hurt yourself like that! Here, let's clean these up―"
She closed her hands into fists and wrapped her arms around herself, hiding them from him. "It did worse to Danny," she said, voice thick.
"You think that makes this okay?" Jack scowled at her. He grabbed her shoulder and steered her into a chair. "Sit. Don't move."
She sat. Jack fumbled for the light. It flicked on, bright and yellow and glaring. Her eyes went to the saw; it stuck up out of the box, its green blade tipped in red. She heard Jack pull the first aid kit down from above the refrigerator, the scrape and click as he opened the box and shuffled through the contents.
"I guess… I understand," Jack rumbled, big hands gentle as he dabbed at her wounds with a cotton ball. "Vlad and you, now."
"Jack, there isn't…" Maddie sighed and shut her eyes. There had been something. Even if Vlad had constructed it for his own sick pleasure. "I thought if I… cooperated a little, he'd actually…" She'd been so foolish. "He said he would find Danny."
"You let him be a jerk, because you think that's okay, for you. You…" he picked up her hand and covered it with his own, his voice going rough. "You think this is okay. Don't you, Mads?"
She bit her lip, glancing away from his searching gaze.
"I wish I could have been with you. I…" he sighed, staring down at her hands. "Maybe I would have made it worse. I don't know."
Maddie shivered. She couldn't stop seeing the look in Danny's eyes. The pain in his voice. The emptiness on his face.
Phantom dropped the arm, and his eyes took on a dead look. "I thought since I could still feel it that maybe there was a chance it could heal, but it looks like it's too late."
"I... " Maddie crushed the paper in her hands for the thousandth time. "I didn't know," she whispered, hating herself for making excuses but lost for what to say.
"Yeah," Phantom closed his eyes, letting his head fall to his knees. "I know."
"I should have recognized him," she whispered.
"You and me both, Mads. We had two years…and every single "defective" device honed in on Danny." Jack chuckled, but there was no humor in it. He leaned back to look down at her and touched her cheek. "If that makes you guilty, I'm right there with ya."
Maddie shook her head. He didn't understand. That didn't even compare to her… her willful, almost vindictive refusal to see the truth. "You weren't there. You didn't see what I did."
A long pause. Jacked reached for the bandages. He wound the soft white gauze over her hands and secured them with tape, deft and practiced. "You messed up," he said simply.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Maddie shuddered. "Yes."
"We all mess up." A faint hint of a grin. "Trust me, I'm the number one expert in screwups."
"Not like this." Despite all her efforts, tears spilled over and dripped down her chin. "You can't make up for something like this. I can't… ever… ever…"
Arms enveloped her in a warm squeeze. She stiffened, but he only held her tighter. "You don't have to."
She'd believed Vlad, Maddie realized, and all her breath left her in a rush. All those insidious lies he'd somehow seen inside her head and picked at till they bled: Jack wouldn't understand. How could he, when she'd been so unbelievably blind? He had to hate her for what she'd done. He wouldn't look at her the way he used to. He couldn't love her the way he had, not after she'd done something so hideous.
Yet here he was, looking at her. Holding her. Loving her.
Maddie slipped her arms around his chest and squeezed back hard, burying her head in his chest, taking deep, shuddering breaths. He patted her back and smoothed her hair, hugging her gently. Somehow, impossibly, that made it feel… like things might turn out alright. That she might be alright.
"Back in your arms already, Jack?" The voice had a stinging edge to it, like a maddened wasp. "You're always so eager to sweep things under the rug."
Maddie started. She looked up. In the doorway stood Vlad Masters, fine suit rumpled, just the slightest bit out of breath. Alarms shrilled in her brain―they'd locked the door. It hadn't even slowed him down. Her hand slipped down to touch her weapon, and found only the empty holster. Vlad saw the movement and smirked. He leaned against the doorframe, a sneer marring his face along with the reddish bruise already swelling on one cheek from Jack's handiwork.
Jack stood up and stepped behind Maddie, putting his hands on her shoulders. "She's my wife," he said simply, as if that explained everything. Warmth welled up in Maddie's chest.
Anger sizzled in Vlad's cold blue eyes. Any other day, their old friend would slather on the charm and play into Jack's good humor. Not today. It was like a mask had cracked and something dark peered through. "And Daniel is your son," he scoffed. "Yet that failed to protect the boy from estrangement and ruin. Love is blind, they say. Or in your case, blind, clumsy, and stupid."
So ready to point out blindness when he was so blind himself, Maddie thought. He wouldn't even let himself see how much she hated him.
Jack made a low, angry sound in his throat, and would've stepped forward if Maddie hadn't caught his hand. She stood up herself, glaring at Vlad with all the disdain she could muster. "Why are you here?"
Smoothing the wrinkles out of his suit, Vlad straightened and gave her a smile. Maddie stared back in raw disbelief; was he still trying to charm her? "Retrieving you, naturally, my dear. We were so rudely interrupted."
"I won't go." She took a deep breath, and felt Jack's hand slip into hers. Maddie missed her jumpsuit fiercely―the thick, protective covering, the endless hidden weaponry. With nothing but black silk covering her skin, Maddie felt naked under Vlad's cold gaze as he stared at her.
One dark eyebrow arched. "You gave me your word."
"You violated my trust." Maddie balled her hands into fists, the back of her neck burning. Vlad had forgotten Danny; if he had ever thought about him at all. "And you threatened Jack. Those agreements are no longer valid."
"I violated? No, Maddie. You." He stepped into the room and began to pace, jabbing a finger in her direction for emphasis. "You agreed to come with me. You begged me to find your son. You walked away from me. You are to blame for any consequences." He smiled again, but this time there was an iciness to it that sent goosebumps up her arms. "Are you prepared to face them? To have Daniel face them?"
More threats. She'd had more than enough of them today―first from Kerza, then Vlad. "If I must," she said stiffly.
"You heard Maddie," Jack said, stepping up to stand next to her, arms crossed. "You're done here. Scram."
"Oh please, Jack. As if you know what's going on."
Jack scowled. "I know plenty. You've been messing with Mads. Because…" He frowned. "I guess because your face got jacked up by the portal. You've still got that grudge, even though you said we're squared away. And...and you're a ghost. Part ghost, or however that works."
The room's temperature plunged. Frost crackled across the sink. Maddie tensed. The story he'd told her over dinner came flooding back―that long, slow decline, the tortuous manifestation of his ghost half. Vlad had never been good at letting things go.
Vlad's eyes fixed on Jack, tinged with dangerous shades of red. "Who's fault is that? Who blasted me with putrid ecto-energy that ate away at my life as much as my skin? Who left me to years of torment and isolation for two decades?" Red energy arced across Vlad's shoulders, and for a moment his teeth looked more like fangs. "Who was that, Jack?"
"Vlad…" Jack paled and stepped back.
They hadn't left Vlad. He'd vanished. Transferred himself to a distant hospital without a forwarding address. They shared no small amount of guilt over what happened, but he had left them.
Maddie glanced at Jack; if he remembered that, it didn't show in his face. He looked… stricken. It caught her off guard. Jack… he hadn't seen the less pleasant side of Vlad. He still thought of him as their odd but genial old college friend.
Stray hairs drifted up around Vlad's head, crackling with static energy. Red ecto-energy sizzled over his taut fingers. He sneered at Jack's expression. "It's sunk in, has it? Only two decades too late. And you thought we could still be friends."
Jack licked his lips, glanced at Maddie, then back to Vlad. His eyes were sad. "Aren't we, Vladdie?"
"No, you idiot!" Vlad spat. He visibly calmed himself, red leeching out of his eyes, smoothing his hair back into place. "Still, in the end, I should thank you. All the wealth and power I now possess originated with you. And let's not forget about Daniel."
Maddie felt her own face pale; he hadn't forgotten Danny at all. He never forgot―or forgave. All those pretty lies to her, about understanding her position, were either delusional or a deliberate bid to control her. It had worked, for a while, preying on her shame and fear. She, foolishly, had believed him. She'd wanted to believe him.
"Imagine my surprise when I discovered him. A hybrid, like me. Another life you all but ruined. We're kindred spirits, you could say. I am the only one like him. The only one who could possibly understand his situation. The only…" he smiled. "Family. Funny, isn't it, Jack? Daniel has more in common with me, genetically speaking, than you. I am as much his father as you are."
He believed his own words, she realized. Her skin crawled. He wanted Danny, not just her. For what? Maddie remembered the high-tech machines in the penthouse, already deep into their search, and was seized by the urge to smash them to pieces.
Vlad twisted things, to get what he wanted, and to hurt people. Tucker had warned her, but she hadn't believed him. She'd thought of Vlad as… misguided. A creep. Lonely. Unhealthy. But this…Vlad spoke of his ghost half as its own entity, an inner demon that ectoplasm had given shape and force. Vlad, the quiet, intense, quick-thinking friend they'd known bin college… this wasn't him. He'd lost the battle, if he'd tried to fight at all.
"Danny is nothing like you," Maddie said fiercely.
"You had better hope he is," Vlad all but purred. He cracked his neck, touching the bruise on his cheek. "I've forgiven you for your role in my destruction. With my guidance, Daniel might feel the same."
Maddie's eyes narrowed. "Danny doesn't need you. Neither do I."
"He's a Fenton," Jack said, pride and a touch of defiance in his voice. "It may take him a while, but… he'll come around. He'll know what to do."
"As am I," Maddie said, with more confidence than she would have had even ten minutes ago. She'd made a mistake―a terrible one. She'd done terrible things. It was her fault, and hers alone. But that didn't mean she was alone. Neither was Danny. If they found him… when they found him, they had to remind him of that. "I'm Maddie Fenton," she said, and looked at Vlad steadily. "That's who I am."
Vlad seemed to sense the shift in her; he drew back, suddenly less the suave and deadly gentleman he'd become in his later years. His stiff, upright, closed-off posture echoed the classmate who'd showed up to their first ectology club meeting, shoulder to shoulder with Jack, glancing at her every chance he got. His eyes were a dim, uncertain blue. "Are you… so certain?"
"I will never, ever leave Jack." She said it firmly, slowly and clearly. He could not twist her words if she said it outright. "Not for you, Vlad, or anyone else."
For an instant, pain, then rage flickered across his face―there, gone, like clouds flashing across the moon. The smirk that took its place was no less deadly. "Then you're blind to the last, my dear."
A ring of dark energy materialized around his waist. Different from Danny's but Maddie recognized what it meant. Transformation. Vlad's ghost half. She stepped in front of Jack, eyes cast around for a weapon―anything. The box sat out of reach on the counter―her flimsy black dress was bare of weapons or protection. She clenched her fists and stood her ground.
The ring thickened and split, half traveling up his body, half down, leaving the ghostly transformation in its wake. A tall, blue-skinned ghost, leonine body clad in white, a swirling, red-lined cloak fluttering behind like some gothic spirit. He looked down on them, lips curled back over pointed teeth, eyes glittering scarlet.
Maddie's hands went numb; she felt Jack gasp behind her. She knew this ghost. It… he… had haunted Amity Park on and off for nearly two years. She'd had some vague idea of Vlad's ghost half as some shadowy figure, a dark secret he kept in his closet. He'd been right there, in plain sight, just like Danny.
"Vladdie?" Jack said, voice colored with disbelief. "That's Vladdie?"
They'd code-named it the Wisconsin Ghost, as its first sighting had been at Vlad's mansion in…. Vlad's mansion. Maddie's breath caught as that detail locked into place, flooding in with a thousand memories that had a new, awful context. Jack possessed by… by Vlad. Then later, whenever they'd spotted the ghost again he'd be locked in battle with Phantom. Usually winning. Brutally. The bounty hunt. Then again, at the park, at the mall, behind the school. And those had been the ones that they had seen.
Phantom who was Danny. Danny, their son.
Jack must have been thinking the same thing, because he brushed past her, stalking up to the ghost, and jabbed him in the chest. "You're the Wisconsin Ghost."
"Oh look, it's trying to think," Vlad drawled. His voice echoed with eerie, ghostly tones, but that didn't nothing to disguise the absolute loathing in his tone. "It's Vlad Plasmius. I know it's a challenge, but I do hope you remember it." His eyes flickered dangerously. "It's the last thing you'll ever learn about me."
"You―you knew, not like Mads. You knew from the get-go that Phantom was a kid―that he was Danny." Jack glared up into Vlad's scarlet eyes, unfazed by the inhuman rage simmering there. "You think you make a better dad, huh? Dads don't beat the crap out of their kids," he growled. "They don't put bounties on their heads. Dads don't throw him to the ghost hunters waiting to tear him apart."
Vlad had fought Danny. Hunted him. Of course he had the best machines to hunt Danny down, Maddie realized; he'd done it before. For what purpose? The possibilities sent chills down her spine. And she had almost helped him.
"Because he would never listen!" Vlad hissed. "He drove me to it―just as you have, Maddie. And you, Jack. You thick-headed, fumbling clod. Would I be forced to take such brutal measures if you didn't stand in my way again and again and again?"
"If that's your idea of how family works, you're one messed-up guy."
"Fortunately for me, your opinion matters little―and not at all in another minute." He examined his nails carelessly. "I'm rather grateful to Daniel for choosing to leave you. It frees me to arrange things in my own way." His eyes narrowed to scarlet slits. "The farce ends today."
He would actually do it, Maddie realized. He didn't see that Jack's death would seal her hatred for him. He only saw an obstacle to his obsession. That horrified realization solidified into determination. She had to stop him. She had to act, now.
Maddie lunged at the box on the counter. Her hands brushed the edge―ice-cold hands clamped over her wrists and yanked her around. Jack gave a shout and moved toward her, then went sprawling back as an ectoblast flashed by―Maddie heard the kitchen window shatter.
Maddie yanked and twisted, trying to loosen Vlad's grip, only to have her second arm caught. Her elbow crashed into the box, sending it crashing to the floor and scattering its contents. CDs went everywhere. The ectogun slid to the edge of the basement stairs. The saw spun under Vlad's feet and into the living room, serrated blades flashing. Vlad's… feet?
Vlad still hovered in the doorway, watching her with a bemused smile on his face. Maddie jerked in surprise, twisting her head to find an identical blue-skinned ghost―a copy? The second Vlad smirked down at her and pulled her tight against his chest. Maddie shuddered at the icy, moist skin pressed directly against her bare back. The ghost's aura prickled against her; she tasted metal in her mouth.
The copy's icy breath burned her cheek as it whispered in her ear. "Watch carefully, Maddie."
The Vlad in the doorway chuckled. "Now where was I?" He looked at Jack. "Ah, yes. A ghost hunter found dead in his own home, slain by a mysterious ectoblast."
He pointed a finger and a narrow beam shot out toward Jack. Jack flinched and jerked to the left; it seared a bubbling scorch mark into the arm of his orange jumpsuit. The reek of burnt rubber filled the air.
"You can't shoot me, Vlad," Jack said, half joking, half pleading. He raised his empty hands. "I always beat you at dodgeball, remember?"
Vlad ignored him. Another shot―this time over Jack's head. He dodged a little too slow. A thin line of blood trickled down Jack's cheek. Vlad was toying with Jack. Maddie glared daggers.
"His grieving wife finds comfort in her oldest, closest friend. The only man who can return her child to her. The only one who truly knows them both. I hear they've moved to Wisconsin, to be with family."
"Vlad, I'm not going with you," Maddie snapped. "I never will."
Vlad raised a hand; ectoplasm gathered in his palm, thick and red. It lit his face in an eerie glow, warping those features into something completely inhuman. "Tragic, of course, but not entirely unexpected."
"I love Jack. Nothing you do to―to anyone will change that." Maddie strained against the icy hands holding her back, her voice twisting towards a pleading tone. "Vlad!"
"Ghost hunting is such a dangerous business. Especially when one dabbles in extradimensional portals. They destroy lives so easily." The last words came out as a hiss, full of venom. "It only takes one shot."
"I am not going down," Jack said grimly. He straightened and took a step toward Maddie. A blast zinged past Jack's nose, stopping him short.
"What are you going to do?" Vlad sneered. "Dodge?"
"Even better―" Jack dashed across the room and grabbed for the ectogun at the top of the stairs.
Good plan, Maddie thought―if he could get into the cover of the stairwell, he could―
A red ectoblast struck the gun. It clattered down out of sight. Jack pulled back, clutching his smoking fingers. Two more near-hits sent him reeling back into the kitchen.
"Ah ah ah," Vlad said, shaking his head. "No escaping. This is a small room, my corpulent friend. Hitting you is like aiming for the broad side of a barn—it's not much of a feat. Ironic, considering how much time and effort culminates in this one small act."
Jack seized the flimsy card table and held it up like a shield. "Oh yeah? Then how come you're still talking and I'm still not hit, buddy?"
Vlad glowered. "I am not your buddy." A blast hit the center of the table, cracking it in two. Jack stacked the two parts on top of each other, crouching behind them.
Maddie struggled. Her shoulders burned, but she couldn't break the ghost clone's grip. Her martial arts training was useless against a ghost's supernatural strength. Ghosts didn't have the pressure points and anatomy that allowed grappling techniques to work on bigger opponents. Ghosts… only… her eyes fell on the CDs scattered across the floor, and she froze.
Vlad threw out shot after shot, pummeling Jack's flimsy defense. Smoke filled the kitchen and splinters flew.
Ghosts didn't. But hybrids… she'd studied every inch of Phantom, especially his hand. He'd had muscles and joints and nerves. His body didn't follow the laws of physics, but… it reflected the human body in a way no true ghost ever did. It wanted to be corporeal, mimicking the human flesh it was built on. Maybe, with the element of surprise...
She had to try. Maddie took a deep breath, gathered herself, found her center of gravity. Then she shifted her weight, torqued her hips, and yanked. The clone made a surprised oof, flying over her head. He toppled headfirst toward the floor. The hands loosened on her arms. She threw her weight forward, flipping to fall with him, driving her elbow into his gut.
The clone made a high-pitched wheeze. Maddie scrambled back out of reach. It wavered, glitched and slid across the floor toward the real Vlad. Maddie had only seconds until Vlad noticed. She groped for a weapon, a scalpel, anything―her fingers brushed a hard metal corner. The containment cube. She seized it.
Vlad's clone merged with the original. He hissed, half doubling over, turning. Maddie sprang at him, slinging all her momentum into the heavy device in her hands. The sharp-cornered chunk of metal struck him right on the chin. Vlad's neck whipped sideways and he went sprawling.
Maddie grabbed the cube again. She fumbled for the button-shoved it up against Vlad's chest. His eyes locked with hers, scarlet pools of fury, ectoplasm seeping down from his right eye and running into his open, snarling mouth. She mashed the button. A click, a hiss. He melted into smoke, billowing up over the cube and surrounding her in an icy fog―then the cube beeped, whirred, and sucked the fog away.
The kitchen went dark. Maddie knelt, frozen, clutching the containment device. The sudden darkness of the kitchen left after-images in her eyes, a distorted caricature of Vlad's angry snarl. That…had not been the man she knew in college. If Jack hadn't―her thoughts ground to a halt in sudden terror. Jack.
She whirled, dashing over to the corner where her husband sat in half-buried in scorched and splintered wood. "Are you okay?"
Blood streamed down the side of his face, scorch marks criss-crossed his arms and legs, but… she could have cried from relief. No gaping wounds, no major injuries. He grinned up at her and tossed away the last, tiny chunk of table. "That's my Mads."
Harley's nails clicking on the wooden floor downstairs woke Shannon. For the first five years of the dog's life, Harley had been a manic chewer, and that sound could still jerk Shannon out of a dead sleep, fearing for the well-being of her antique table legs.
She'd peeked in when she came home from work to find the big black dog in bed with Danny, the teen's arm draped around her neck and both snoring away. Harley wouldn't leave Danny to sleep alone; the boy must be awake.
She grabbed a sweater to put on over her pajamas and opened the door to the landing. Sure enough, the door to Todd's room stood ajar and a faint light filtered up from downstairs. Shannon crept down, careful to skirt the creaky bits.
Danny sat on the couch in the living room, swathed in a flannel blanket, Harley curled up on the floor at his feet. The eerie blue-white flicker of the TV cast odd shadows on his face; he seemed to stare right through it. A tupperware dish—the one she'd put their earlier supper's leftovers in—sat on the side table, scraped clean.
Shannon stepped into the room. "Couldn't sleep?"
Danny jumped, then relaxed. "Nah."
"How's the leg?" He shrugged. She smiled wryly; forthcoming as usual. "Need anything for the pain?"
"It's fine."
She moved behind the couch and looked at the TV. Her eyebrows shot up as a massive pile of what looked like ice cream dissolved a man into a skeleton in seconds. "Was that...acid ice cream?"
A ghost of a smile drifted onto the boy's lips. "Yup."
The film cut to a powdery face with long yellow fangs and a goofy red grin, frizzled hair circling its deformed brow like a miasma. Shannon tilted her head. "Are those...
"Yeah."
"What is this?"
"Killer Klowns from Outer Space." He paused, then added, "With a 'K'."
She tilted her head further. It was oddly mesmerizing, in a campy sort of way. "That's...weird."
"That's the eighties for you. Everything came with a big helping of cheese."
Shannon grabbed a second blanket off the recliner and draped it around her own shoulders. She wasn't exactly cold, but it felt cosy. "What's happened so far?"
"The usual." He stretched, long arms reaching over his head, then shifted the blanket back over his shoulders. "One sane person runs around warning everyone else, and they believe him five minutes too late."
"Guy meets girl, girl gets him into trouble, and then he spends the rest of the movie trying to rescue her. Right?"
"The lady's genre-savvy. Who knew?"
"I do have my moments."
An almost-comfortable silence fell between them. Shannon watched the movie, which unveiled itself with gloriously predictable timing; every now and then she glanced at Danny out of the corner of her eyes. He seemed perfectly absorbed, or at least spacing out in the right direction, anyway.
"So you like horror movies?" she asked as the film cut to commercials.
He hit the mute button, then reached down and scratched Harley between the ears. Her tail thumped on the carpet. "Yeah. Well, zombies and stuff. We'd watch the Dead Teacher movies the minute they came out."
"Ooh, I can't stand zombies."
"That's the whole point, isn't it?"
"I don't like all that rotting and eating people's brains. Ew. And you know from the beginning that only one guy will survive. Give me a good scary ghost over all that gore any day."
"Ha! You wouldn't believe my ghost stories. They're pretty nuts. Not very scary, though. Unless you're terrified of bubble wrap."
"Bubble wrap?" she echoed blankly.
Danny wiggled his fingers. "A nefarious device combined with all things square and corrugated. Beware!"
"Ookay then, that does sound interesting. Let's see, what are the classics? Nosferatu, that's the first Dracula movie. There's always Frankenstein."
Danny grabbed the empty tupperware and scraped the spoon around the bottom of the empty container, frowning at the streaks of tomato sauce. "Frankenstein gives me the creeps."
"Oh really?" Shannon looked at him, curious. "How so?"
"Well, Dr. Frankenstein makes this monster in his lab, right? Spare body parts, a little electricity, and bam. Whole new person. Except it comes out all creepy and gross―something that shouldn't exist. People run screaming the minute they see him. But he's not like the zombies. He still thinks and has feelings and stuff. I don't know, that's just depressing."
"It's a sad story," Shannon agreed. She hugged her pillow and gazed at the muted TV, where commercials flashed by in a colorful blur. "It's easier when the bad guys are just mindless or evil. Frankenstein's monster didn't see himself that way."
"Not till the end," Danny said. "When he finally came back, and even the scientist was scared of him. If even the one who made you can't look at you, how messed up must you be?"
Shannon studied the boy, hearing the underlying tension but not understanding it. "It wasn't his fault," she said, keeping to the casual tone.
"Didn't matter," Danny muttered back. He dug his hand into Harley's fur, working his fingers under her collar to scratch the itchy spots. "He's still a freak."
"It's not like he could help it. And hey, didn't he end up with a bride in one of the sequels?" She grinned, hoping to break through his gloomy mood. "She seemed pretty happy with him as-is."
Danny snorted. "If you're weird and into dead people, then sure." The commercials ended and he turned up the volume.
Somewhere in Wisconsin, in a lab dark except for the cool green glow of a dozen monitors, an electronic tone pinged. Maddie's likeness flickered into crudely three-dimensional existence.
"Potential location triangulated, Dearest!" she chirped out in a metallic, upbeat voice.
A map flickered up on the largest screen, littered with dots―red where the hunting ghosts had disappeared, green where they had returned and reported nothing. A little cluster of red dots marked a wandering trail into the Southeast. Three small towns occupied that area.
"Accessing local feeds." The map disappeared. Dozens of low-res feeds popped up―security cameras in stores, at traffic lights, on street corners. They flashed through footage, the program pausing for the slightest moment on every face, spinning each through its database.
Images flickered by, reflected in the unblinking eyes of the Maddie hologram. "Searching… searching…"
The cameras froze. One screen enlarged, a blurry figure that glanced up from under an oversized hood, the shot frozen on his briefly upturned face. A fine series of lines netted over his features in a geometric pattern, blinking red. "97% match to Daniel Fenton. Search objective―found."
KREUGERVILLE popped up under the feed. The low-res, black and white face lingered on the screen as the other images faded.
"Danny is―found―I found, Danny. Found." Maddie's image remained, facing the screen, its two-dimensional face in the smile it had been programmed to wear at all times. "Dearest. Danny. Found."
:: Those That Break :: End
...tbc...
A/N:
This chapter. This chapter was hell. I feel as if my soul was dragged to the underworld and beaten with whips made out of author's tears and blank paper. I think I worked through like, six major drafts. This chapter made me cry, and not in the good way, and rant, also not in a good way, and I definitely threw it across the room at least once. I even wondered, sometimes, if it would be such a bad thing if I just let the rest of the fic fade into oblivion. But I'm a stubborn sonova, so here it is.
This is the halfway point, guys. I can do this.
The Vlad/Jack/Maddie thing was super tough to write, but it's the fight between Jack and Maddie that means more to me, I think, because I've been through rough times with my spouse in the past. His capacity to still love me after I've been extremely unlovable just makes me feel so humbled and happy. I love that guy.
Okay, enough mush and angst, on to credits!
Deepest thanks to MyAibou, Cordria, and Phantomrose96. These beta readers stuck with me through a lot of moaning, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and like, four different versions of the same character conversation. Bless you, all of you. Also thank you LunarMothim for proofreading!
I borrowed the Frankenstein-as-ghostly-existential-angst idea directly from Little Earthquakes by A Perplexing Puzzle, an absolutely awesome fic that used the concept with wayy more elegance than it's handled here. Everyone should go read it. It's awesome.
And of course, thank you, my dear readers, for your patience and your awesome reviews. You're the best. Seriously. I checked.
What does Part 2, End mean?
I know some people have found the parts thing to be a bit confusing, so I'm going to explain it real quick here. SoaD is a four-part story, but it's all one fic that will be posted together. I've broken the chapters up into groups for my own sanity and to help me work out the pacing. It looks something like this:
Part 1: Ties that Bind
Chapters 1-10
Part 2: Those that Break
Chapters 11-20 (you are here!)
Part 3: Hands that Heal (tentative)
Chapters 21-28
Part 4: (name tbd)
Chapters 29-39
We've just finished Part 2 and next comes Part 3. Part 4 is supposed to include the epilogue, but it might get bumped off into its own thing depending on how well I stick to my current outline. I'm striving to make it as short as possible while still bringing together all the story elements I've established thus far, hopefully into one cohesive whole. Wish me luck!
Next Update:
When I said SoaD wouldn't continue until the end of the summer that was SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE. Joke's on me, I guess. Argh. Well, July is Camp Nanowrimo and it will be dedicated to kicking Part 3's butt and getting it as close to fully drafted as I possibly can. The next chapter will come out sometime in August.
Until then!
-Hj