They went a week, a full, anxiously painful week before even a clue came about Vlad's prisoners.

Danny interrogated every ghost he came, but none of them could give a clue to wear Vlad was holding his, well, victims. Even less was known about the people. But the clue, when it finally appeared, came just after lunch on a Wednesday. Danny had pushed away his plate, the food untouched, when his ghost sense went off. He'd made the usual bathroom excuse to avoid questions from Star and Valerie, who now shared the lunch table with the freak, the geek, and the ghost hunter. Danny flew around the school for the rest of lunch without finding a single ghost to release his misplaced aggression on. The clue ended up being less of the ghost, and more of what the ghost left behind in Sam's locker.

"Have you seen Danny?" Sam scanned the hallway for her friend, maybe it was boyfriend now-they hadn't talked about it much with all the betrayals and confusion going on-but saw no sign of him in the crowd.

"Still after that ghost, probably." Tucker said, finishing up the last bit of his sandwich. Sam grumbled and clicked in the combination for her locker.

"I was hoping to see him before class." The locker swung open with the sharp whine of long rusted hinges, and slip of paper fell out, catching the air and flying like a paper airplane.

"What's that?" Tucker snatched at it before Sam could, and missed. Tried again, and missed. Sam snorted as the note fluttered to the floor. Tucker bent down to pick it up, having a much easier time when it was not on the move. "A love letter? From Danny, perhaps?" Tucker wiggled his eyebrows. Sam rolled her eyes and stole it from his hands. Just in case it was from Danny, she didn't want Tucker's eyes on it before she got a chance. It probably wasn't, but it didn't hurt to hope. She squinted at the blank note, turning it over in her hand several times. Her eyes focused on the sole marking, one letter in the middle of the page. Her lips curved into a frown.

"It just says... 'E.'"

"Who's E?"
"I dunno." Sam muttered more to herself than to him. She traced her finger over the scrawling arms of the E.

"Sam, I guess E left a present." Tucker shouldered her aside and reached into her locker. A protest died on her lips when she saw the blue folds of material that poured over the edge of her locker and into Tucker's hands. "A bet you have a secret admirer."

Sam didn't reply. Her eyes stuck to the fabric in his hands like they were glued there. It was a soft blue, a beautiful color that would have been even more beautiful if the stains of time and hard work hadn't marred its smooth surface. Tiny tears dotted the material like stripes, each one carefully mended by delicate hands. Her eyes grazed over the steady stitching.

Sam took it from Tucker's hands gently and held up the stretchy blue material by the sleeves, watching as the rumples cascaded into a cobalt blue...dress? No, a hazmat suit. A blue hazmat suit.

Sam bunched the material in her hands and ran her fingers through it. She thought of Danny, of holding the tatters of his ruined suit after a fight. Of stitching the tears together, even though she knew the suit would fix itself on its own. But it meant something to her, to hold that piece of him, to try again and again to fix the rips in him that would open again no matter how many stitches she put in. Sam squeezed the blue suit. It was the same. A different color, but she knew the feel of that silken material by now. She knew.

"Tucker," Sam's voice was hoarse. Her hands trembled as she pulled up the hood of the suit. It would have stretched to the top of the head, with two holes around the eyes for glasses. She didn't need to see the name sewn onto the collar to see who it belonged to, but she had to look anyway.

"Maddie Fenton."

. Tears pricked at her eyes. She knew. She remembered.

"Sam? Is..is that?" She could hear the tremble in Tucker's voice as he spoke, reaching over to gently hold the sleeve against his palm.

Sam didn't know what it meant, but she knew that she had to find Danny. Tucker read the look in her eyes, like he had always been able to to, and without another word, they were running. Running through...midair. Sam's gasp was muffled by a cold hand clapped around her mouth. Sam thrashed against the hand, but she felt as if she was trying to fight with someone in outerspace. She was flying afterall, and gravity worked a lot different that way. The school hallway gave way to the ceiling, and soon the ceiling gave way to darkness.

"Mmphmm!" Sam's scream was muffled by the hand, but that didn't keep her from trying.

"Shut up, okay?" the owner of the hand snarled back. The voice was familiar, definitely feminine, but Sam's brain was too scrambled at the moment to place it with a name.

"Mbr?" Tucker murmured/shouted next to her. Their captor's other hand was cupped around his mouth.

Sam blinked her eyes as if that could help her see through the pitch black surrounding her. She fought against the terror manifesting in her stomach, slowly rising and rising up her throat. Another scream bubbled out of her lips, only to be cut short by the icy hand that held her. She thrashed, and the hand finally dropped. The next scream turned into a pained grunt as her butt collided with the ground..or whatever acted as the ground in this particular case.

Sam was instantly to her feet, but ended up stumbling in the darkness and falling back to her knees.

"Where are we?" she shouted at her invisible captor. "Tucker?"

"Sam!"

"Will you two please shut up? I don't have the patience for this-or the time. That Dipstick will be here any second." Sam squinted as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, just in time for a bright blue flash to light up the room. Sam stumbled and fell backwards as she found herself almost nose to nose with a pale, flaming haired girl that looked more than a little pissed off.

"E-ember?" Sam rubbed her eyes. She had to be imagining this! Last time she had seen the ghost rocker, Ember had been a little worse for wear after facing brainwashing.

"No shit."

"Oh man," Tucker griped.

"What do you want?" Sam stepped, more like crawled, a few feet back, fiddling in her jacket pocket for something to fight with. "I thought you were..."

"Brainwashed? That doesn't work for long." Ember snarled. "My whole gig is brainwashing. It's a lot harder to control someone who already knows the game."

"What'd you want with us, then?" Tucker crawled back to be shoulder to shoulder with Sam.

"What'd you think?" she hissed. The blue light of her hair illuminated the...wherever they were. Sam guessed it was the school's attic. Sam noticed the wearied lines that the light showed on Ember's face. Her skin was drawn, pale over her cheekbones, and the bags under her eyes were deep enough to catch raindrops. Sam felt a twinge of sympathy stir in her heart. "I brought you something from the Ghost Zone. To prove that I was telling the truth."

Sam noticed her empty hands, and suddenly it hit her. The blood drained from Sam's face until she was as pale as the ghost before her. She didn't know what made her tremble-the fear, the grief, or the fury. Probably all of them wrapped in one, fighting for dominance inside her. "Oh my God." she croaked.

"E," Ember. The suit, the humans, Vlad-Sam wouldn't have believed it if the proof wasn't right there.

"Ember, we need to find Danny. Like, right now."

"So he can hand me right back to Plasmius? I don't think so." Ember snarled, but her hands shook as she said it. "I came here to show you the proof. You need to know who you're working for."

"Danny had no idea Vlad was doing that to you." Sam shot to her feet, nearly fell again, but managed to keep her balance with sheer willpower. "He's been furious since we found out. He hasn't slept in days trying to figure out what Vlad is doing with the ghosts." Sam's stomach took a nauseating flip as she glanced down at the blue hazmat suit, still curled in her fist. "And the...the people."

"Have you seen them?" Tucker clamored to his feet, taking the suit from Sam's hands and holding it up to their captor. "Are they still alive?" The blue light shimmered on his wet eyes. "Are they?"

Ember stared at them a long while before answering, unmoving. Sam bit back her impatience. Ember was their only chance now, the only one that could give them the answers they needed. Sam couldn't risk pushing her too far and making her fly off with the last bit of hope they had.

"I've only seen little glimpses of them." Ember answered quietly, her voice just above a whisper. "I figured something was up when I saw Skulker" Ember bit her lip to keep it from trembling. Sam remembered him as the one Vlad gave the box of, what she guessed was food, to. "carrying in food. Ghosts don't eat, so that was my first hint." Ember nodded to herself. "Plasmius keeps them locked up pretty tight, but I saw them the first time I escaped. They're still alive, as far as I know. But that was a long time ago."

Sam didn't know she was crying until her vision blurred into a blue blob of light.

"You.." Sam wiped at her eyes, knowing that mascara and eyeliner were probably making a mess of her face. " you got this from the woman, didn't you?"

Ember nodded, her lips pressed into a firm line. "I was just going to fly out of that hell as fast as I could go, but I saw the suit just hanging there. I knew no one would believe me if I didn't bring back something. " Ember's eyes darted between the suit and the two people crying over it. "I hoped it would be enough to convince you two, and maybe you would be able to get it through Dipstick's thick head." Ember took their silence as an excuse to continue. Her hair licked at the ceiling.

"He may be an idiot, but he's our best chance. I hate to say it, but he's strong." Ember fixed them with stare that could pin them to the wall. "Crazy strong. He might not listen, but it's worth a shot. That woman," Ember wrapped the sleeve of the jumpsuit around her hand. "there's a kid out there that's missing its parents. I'm sure of it." The circles under Ember's eyes seemed to grow darker as the ghost grit her teeth.

"Two kids." Sam said quietly. Through blurry eyes, she watched her tears make tiny puddles on the jumpsuit before spreading into the material and disappearing.

"You-you know those people?" Ember's eyes shot open into wide, bright green pools. Sam and Tucker nodded.

"That woman," Sam rumpled the fabric under her fists. "is Danny's mother."

The only sound in that attic was the sound of Ember's flaming hair licking at the air around them, curling around the wooden beams that held up the roof. The firm line of her lips weakened slowly until her bottom lip hung in a silent gasp. Her heavy eyes narrowed in confusion before widening with a horrible understanding. Trembling hands dropped into her lap.

"Oh shit!" She gasped. An appropriate response, coming from Ember McClain. "This whole time, Dipstick has been..." Ember's hands rose to clutch at her pale cheeks. "And he doesn't know?" She nearly shouted.

"He thinks they're dead." Tucker told her.

"We have to tell him." Sam spluttered frantically. "Ember-"

"He must know I'm here by now. Come on." Ember extended her hands to them. "I can't believe I'm doing this." She muttered under her breath, but considering the silence of the attic, the two humans didn't have to strain to hear it. She shook her head. "I kind of hate that Dipstick, but I hate Plasmius even more."

Sam tied Maddie's suit around her waist and took Ember's hand. A second later, they shot out of the building and into open air. Ember only had a second to catch her bearings before a red ball of light ripped through the air and nailed her right in the chest. She dropped Sam and Tucker as she was sent tumbling backwards through the air. Her two captives fell to the roof with a resounding thud. Sam felt the pain in her ribs, and groaned as the hot tar and rough tiles dug into her back.

"Coming back for round two, ghost?"

Sam groaned again. Valerie. It had to be Valerie.

"I'm not here for you." Ember snarled. "Get lost." Her black shirt sported a smoking hole just below her neck. Sam's eyes widened as Valerie flew, yes, flew over her head on what looked like a floating surfboard. Armed with the red suit and a whole arsenal of weapons on her belt, Valerie proved to be an intimidating sight. Sam and Tucker glanced at each other, both having wide eyes and bitten lips. Apparently Valerie hadn't spotted them yet.

"I think you should go find Danny while I take care of business." Ember said through gritted teeth. It took Sam a second to realize that Ember's statement was directed at them rather than Valerie. Ember's eyes flicked to Sam's for only a second. Sam nodded, and Ember took off, soaring through the air. She faltered for a second, and Sam couldn't tell if she was just waiting for Valerie to take chase, or if Ember was feeling a lot weaker than she let on. Sam watched her for a second, the two figures quickly retreating into the sky. Sam chewed her lip, thinking once again about those bags under Ember's eyes, her pale skin tight against her bones.

"She'll be fine." Sam told herself. "Come on, Tuck." Sam snatched up the jumpsuit that she had dropped in her fall. "We gotta find a way off this roof and get Danny." She ignored the tar burning her knees as she peered over the edge. It was a long drop, and unlike some people, she didn't have superpowers or cool hoverboards.

"Or we could just call him."

"Oh." Sam froze mid step, thinking herself rather foolish."Right."

"Thank you, 21st century." Tucker chimed, pulling out his cell phone. "It's ringing." Sam raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Damn. He didn't answer."

"Try again!"

"What do you think I'm doing?" Tucker typed in a few more buttons and held it up to his ear, pacing the roof and rubbing the sweat from his forehead with his free hand. Sam scanned the skies for any sign of him.

"Come on, Danny." Tucker muttered, punching in the buttons with much more force this time. "Finally, dude! I've called you three times already."

Sam silently cheered. "Look, Sam and I are stuck on the roof...yeah, the roof. I'll explain later, okay? But we really need to talk to you. Like, right now." He looked to Sam and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, she's fine. I'm fine too, thanks for asking...But hurry up, we've got something really-"

"How'd you guys even get up here?" Sam jumped as Danny appeared behind her in all of his ghostly glory. "There's not even a ladder or anything."

"Ember dropped us off." Sam scrambled to her feet.

"Em-EMBER?" Danny's green eyes scanned the sky. "Where? How? Sam-are you crying?"

"Danny," Sam spoke as calmly as she could. Given the news she had to tell, Sam figured she would have to be the calm one out of the two of them. "Ember came to find us, and to show us this." Sam draped the jumpsuit over his arms. His eyes stayed on her face for a long time before he brought them down to the fabric stretched over his arms. His brow furrowed as his eyes stared at the suit he held in his arms. His lips muttered wordlessly, thoughts for only him to hear. Sam's jaw clenched as she watched him clutch the suit in two trembling fists.

"This," he shook his head, blinking. "This is my mother's." The glow around him seemed to soften and dissipate into the air. He brought the hazmat suit to his chest and held it there tightly, like it would fly away if he loosened his grip for even a second. "How?" Sam fought the urge to cry when his wide, glistening eyes rose up to hers. She suddenly found it very difficult to speak.

"Danny," Tucker came to her rescue. Laying a supporting hand on Danny's shoulder, Tucker's mouth pressed into a grim line. "Maybe you should sit down. We have a lot to talk about."

Sam couldn't think of a time when she'd seen Danny angry. Even as a child, as spoiled as children tended to be, Danny just never seemed to have it in him to be angry. Over time, she had assumed that he was just one of those crazy people who somehow never got mad, but when he flew off the roof, carrying Sam and Tucker with him, and barged through Vlad's laboratory door with hell fire in his eyes, he was far beyond angry. Furious, enraged, something like that.

Sam and Tucker followed behind, nearly sprinting to keep up as Danny pulled the secret lever to Vlad's lab down. The lever, a Packer's football encased in glass, shattered and popped when his fingers touched the glass surface. The towering steel doors slid open with a bang.

"Vlad." Danny growled in a voice that would make Sam want to run for her life if she was in the millionaire's position.

"Daniel!" Vlad exclaimed with a wavering smile, stepping hastily in front of Danny. An awfully familiar crimson glow radiated from the folded hands behind Vlad's back. "Shouldn't you be in school?" Danny chose to ignore that question. He marched up to Vlad so close that they were nearly nose to nose, neither of them backing down. Neither of them wavering.

"Vlad, care to explain this?" Danny shoved the rumpled blue material of his mother's suit in Vlad's face. His only answer was silence. Sam waited in the quiet, feeling the rage rippling off her friend, only getting stronger every second Vlad stalled. She felt it like a presence, an invisible being, turning the air around them numbing cold.

"My," Vlad placed his hand over the suit and slowly lowered it from his face. "my boy-"

"I'm not your boy." Danny spat. "I need answers, Vlad. Now. Starting with why my mother's suit was found in the same prison that you've been lying to me about this whole time. The prison full of ghosts that I caught, by the way."

Vlad composed his salesman smile, and the innocently raised hands, but he couldn't cover the fact that his face had gone more pale than any ghost Sam had ever seen. Which was a lot of ghosts, considering she was a life long resident of Amity Park.

"Now, Daniel, I know this all seems a bit overwhelming," he chuckled nervously, "but you of all people know that things aren't always what they seem."

"Where are my parents, Vlad?" Danny's voice was quiet. The low, terrifying quiet of one who has lost all patience. Vlad's smile faltered, and then fell entirely. His shoulders slumped as he gently shook his head, silver ponytail glittering red from the staff behind his back.

"Like I told you two years ago, my b-" Vlad cleared his throat, catching himself before he could cause further damage with names. "-Daniel, your parents were killed in the accident. Crushed under the rubble of the house."

"And the bodies were-"
"Crushed beyond recognition." Vlad laid a hand on Danny's shoulder, but quickly retracted when the boy flinched away. "I know the pain still haunts you, Daniel. So much. And it's so terribly easy to fall for lies." he blinked slowly, as if it really did pain him to say so. "But lies of hope are still lies, Little Badger." The red glowed brighter. Sam looked past Danny to see the glowing orb of the Staff peeking at Danny from behind Vlad's hip. "Let's forget about this painful lie, yes?"

Danny's shoulders fell. The cold eased slowly, receding back towards Danny's core. Sam reached for him as his face turned red under the glow of the staff. The room suddenly grew warm again, and Sam remembered the way the staff captivated him. His eyes were fixed on it, even then. Sam's grip tightened around his arm. He didn't move.

"Danny." she said his name softly.

"Put this behind you, Danny. You're letting the past drag you down." Vlad spoke over her. "Think of your future, my boy." He raised the staff, not bothering to hide it anymore. "Think of us-"

The staff suddenly lurched out of Vlad's ringed hands, dragging Danny's eyes with it as it flew across the room. Vlad was after it the second it left his grip, leaving the thrashing, shrieking prisoner behind him out in the open.

"Ember!" Sam gasped. She guessed it was Ember's boot that had sent the staff flying in the few precious seconds of consciousness Vlad gave her as he took the staff from her sight to Danny's. She silently thanked the girl in her head.

"Mph!" Ember's whole body thrashed against the glowing restraints that tied her to the chair, her head shaking and pressing against the cloth wrapped around her mouth. Sam did her the favor of tearing it away.

"Dipstick" Ember cried breathlessly. "Don't listen to him! He's-"

"Daniel, she's only trying to trick you. Who do you trust, some ghost who's been trying to kill you, or the man that's cared for you since your parents died?"

"I'll decide that once I figure out if they're really dead or not!" Danny shot back, his own conscious taking over again.

"Danny, do you think really think I would have come back if I didn't know that your parents were alive?" Ember's chest heaved against the restraints. Sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped down the sides of her pale face. Sam fell to her knees, struggling to untie Ember's heavy chains.

"She fabricated this suit to deceive you." Vlad snarled.

"I've seen them, Dipstick." Ember's breathing was growing more labored by the minute. Her hair, once a bright flame, slowly diminished into a tiny ponytail. Wet bangs matted her forehead, the fire in them already gone. "The woman, she has red hair..." her chest heaved in another gasp of breath. Sam realized that the green chains grew brighter as her breaths got shakier and her hair grew smaller, losing its flame. Somehow it was draining her. Sam begged her hands to work faster.

"...and...the most peculiar eyes...purple. Like Sam's...and-"

"Liar!" Vlad roared. He was suddenly there, tossing Sam away from Ember like she was a ragdoll.

"SAM!" Danny and Tucker screamed. Danny flew to catch her before she hit the wall, but Vlad stood in his way.

"Move!"

"Daniel, please-"

Tucker threw himself against Vlad, the only thing standing in between him and Sam. The two fell with a crash and screamed curses, a flurry of kicks and punches and everything Tucker had in him. Danny flew faster than he ever had before, but all he could do was pick Sam's limp body up off the ground. He cradled her head, holding the ebony strands of her hair that were now streaked with a sickening red.

"Get off me!" Vlad caught Tucker by the wrist and threw him to the hard floor. "Let me talk to my son!"

"He's not your son." Tucker panted, wiping the sweat from his eyes. "Not now and not ever. Danny's a hero, and you're nothing but a-"

"Enough!" Vlad raised the staff over Tucker's head with both hands, but Tucker just stared up at him with a ferocity that would have made Sam proud, if she could have seen him through the blood pouring in her eyes. But Sam could only hear Danny's voice, muttering her name over and over as his hands fervently wiped at her forehead. Then, suddenly there was only one hand pressing against her forehead. A rippling cold washed over her, the kind the made her gasp and rose goosebumps on her arms. A flash that Sam saw even with the red blur in her eyes, and then a shout.

Her hands moved slow, but Sam managed to wipe at her eyes and blink most of the blurriness away in time to see Vlad crash against the wall, his tuxedo suit smoking from a glowing hole in the back. Tucker's wide eyes found something behind her, and he nodded at whatever it was before crawling away from Vlad's growling figure. Sam turned her head, despite the pain racing through it, and guessed that Tucker was looking at Danny, who knelt beside her with one hand on her head and the other one extended in Vlad's direction. The hand was clad in a silver glove, glowing with green light so intense it made her eyes sting.

"Boy.." Vlad's growl only grew more ferocious as he struggled to his feet. Sam, in her delirious state, could have confused it with the growl of a tiger, or some other wild animal. Sam's eyes were torn between the rising man, and Tucker, who had finally managed to pry the iridescent chains from Ember's body. The chains were vibrant now, pulsating with the same blue light that had vanished from Ember's hair.

Ember tumbled from the chair. She fell to her hands and knees, limp hair falling around her face like wet string

"Tucker," Sam heard Danny's voice in her ears, in her head, reverberating through her whole body. She didn't know if that was good or bad. She didn't really know anything at that point, except that the air felt as thick as honey. "get them out of here." For some reason, Sam wanted to protest against that, but her lips felt too heavy to move.

Then arms were around her, but they didn't feel like Danny's arms. She somewhat stumbled to her feet, and kept stumbling with only the help of the arms to keep her up. She heard shouting, and flashes of light. Her eyes were getting blurry again. Thick, red splotches clouded her vision.

"Oh, Sam." Another voice bounced around in her head, full of concern. Tucker's.

"Tucker," she slurred. "Danny." she heard Danny's voice somewhere behind her. Why was he yelling? "Is...Danny...with us?"

"He will be." Tucker answered. She wondered why his voice was so shaky. Sam tripped over herself, but Tucker caught her. She heard another grumble, and blearily recognized the blob of blue on Tucker's other arm as Ember.

"But..Vlad has the staff..and Danny," Sam lost her train of thought for a second as she swiped at that painful itch on her forehead. The shouting was quieter now, but Sam could still hear it somewhere behind her. Then she remembered.

"Tucker!" Sam struggled in his arms, trying in vain to run back to Danny. But she couldn't see where she was going, and Tucker had gotten a lot stronger than she last remembered. "We can't leave Danny! The staff, it...it's..not good.." And then the red suddenly turned to black, and she didn't feel anything after that.

A/N: Thanks for reading!