Please note: Due to how this website works, if you reviewed the prank chapter, you will not be able to review this chapter! Sign out and leave a guest review or send me a PM instead! -Hj


Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

— Winston S. Churchill


Danny woke, suffocating under some vast unyielding blackness. He couldn't see or smell. A strange ringing filled his ears. He tasted blood. He couldn't move—couldn't breathe—he—

Something warm brushed his cheek and that brought on a whole flood of sensations. Wet concrete pressing into the back of his head. Cold rain beading on his skin. Slippery hands, head pounding, distant cars, a chest that felt compressed in a vice, paper-flat, nothing but flesh and splinters, air just barely skimming his lungs— His head pounded as he gaped wordlessly. Breathe. He needed to breathe. He needed more air. Danny's lungs caught on and he coughed, choking and gasping, setting off a kaleidoscope of pain across every inch of his body.

Coarse hands rolled him on his side and he breathed a little easier, sucking in lungfuls of damp back alley air. The pain coalesced into familiar tightening bands across his chest that told him his ribs were broken. The memory of heavy boots impacting his side rattled around in his memory. He was fighting… someone… where?

For a minute He could do nothing but breathe, his face pressed into damp asphalt. It reeked of paint. Paint and smoke and blood. Danny felt like throwing up. His head spun, dizzy in that familiar sick way. His hands were shaking, knuckles scraping the ground. Cold. It was cold.

"Give— needs it—" a weak thread of a voice cut into Danny's murky thoughts. A mutter in return.

Plastic crackled and those coarse fingers were back, pushing something between his lips. "Eat it, boy." Peppermint flooded his mouth, with a slight aftertaste of sour tobacco smoke.

Gradually Danny became aware of two things—an old man's voice muttering a string of unintelligible words, and someone else gasping for breath, though the sound was oddly throaty, like soda rattling in a straw. Danny blinked and realized he was staring at someone's back; a hunched form under layers of jackets with a wisp of white hair on top, for once not carefully combed.

"Gabe?" Danny rasped, barely able to squeeze out a whisper.

"If you're talking, you can move," Gabe said gruffly without turning around. "Come and help me, spook boy."

Danny begged to differ, but he couldn't get enough breath to argue. He sat up, though it made his chest feel like broken shards grinding together. Black spots burst in front of his eyes, and it took him more than one try to pull his aching legs under him and crawl over next to the old man.

His eyes focused on the thing Gabe crouched over, and he forgot his own pain—forgot everything. Nicki. Nicki lying on her back, with the front of her white blouse drenched in bright red blood. Gabe had one hand pressed over a folded-up bue handkerchief on Nicki's stomach, and a second one just below her shoulder. Both had changed to a soggy purple.

All of the strength drained out of Danny's limbs. She was bleeding. She was… Nicki was—

"You'd better get Miz Nicki's phone and call an ambulance," Gabe said. His watery eyes stayed on Nicki's face, which was tight with pain, her eyes screwed shut.

Danny started, galvanized by being given something to do. He could help. She wasn't dead yet, he could help. He glanced around, spotted the purse, and stumbled over to it, tugging it open and fumbling through its contents—tissues, lipstick, wallet, keys, those stupid peppermints—there, her cell phone.

Danny dialed, fingers slipping and leaving red smears across the keypad. He shuddered and sent the call, listening to it ring.

Glancing around, he registered the dumpster just feet from him, a soggy cardboard box half shoved behind it. Rain dripped off the warehouse roof and thrummed on the dumpster lids. The alley. They were in the alley. Burned aerosol cans lay scattered around; the air reeked of smoke and old fries.

"911, what is your emergency?" A calm female voice came on the line.

Danny started violently and nearly dropped the phone. He wiped a smear of red onto his jeans and gripped the phone tightly. "Hello?"

"Hello, sir? Can I help you?"

"Okay. I'm at uh, West Street, on some side alley—" He put a shaky hand to his forehead, frustrated. Why was everything so fuzzy? Pull it together, Fenturd. "I don't think it has a name, I don't know. It's like a block from the bus stop. I'm—yeah, I'm fine, but my friend, she's bleeding." He glanced back at Nicki. "A lot, she's bleeding."

"Are you putting pressure on the wound?"

"Gabe is. He's here. He's helping her, but—" Danny noticed the spreading puddle of blood creeping around Gabe's knees. Fear thrilled through him, sharpening his thoughts. "Oh man, it's bad. She needs help. She—she needs help now."

"Honey, I want you to take a deep breath. I've already contacted emergency dispatch, they'll be there any minute. Are you injured?"

Numb, Danny shook his head. Bruised, dizzy, exhausted, but that was all. "The blood, it's hers. Nicki's." He'd passed out and she'd fallen on top of him. He still had the taste of her blood in his mouth. Blood and peppermint. The bright red and white candies had spilled from Nicki's purse; the lay scattered around his knees, floating in the filthy puddle growing under the dumpster.

"Do you know the source of your friend's injury? Are you in any danger where you are?"

Peppermints. Danny picked one up and rolled it in his palm. The plastic wrapper crackled. Nicki had tons of them, in case… his blood sugar. It was low, wasn't it? Numb, he unwrapped the mint and put it in his mouth.

"You still with me, honey?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here." Danny took a deep breath; things were coming into focus now, the pieces settling together. "I was getting mugged. By these guys. Five of them. Nicki showed up and she, she wouldn't leave. She tried to talk to them." He grasped at his hoodie. It squelched under his fingers, sodden with paint and red, sticky blood. Danny shuddered again. "I tried to stop it. I saw him pull out the gun, and I swear, I tried to..." His eyes widened. He remembered pouring every last drop of energy into getting up, getting between them, before— "I think I got shot."

Danny's hand drifted to a spot on his chest that felt hot and sore. He remembered now, seeing the blond's eyes narrow, the flash from the gun as it went off right in front of him. Danny yanked up his T-shirt and stared at his own bruise-mottled chest. No bullet holes. How? He remembered vividly the blond's face, a bright flash. Sudden ice-cold fear, and—

"Where are you hurt?"

"I'm not," he murmured. Cold. Danny went pale. Ghostly cold.

He looked back at Nicki, Gabe still bent over her, pressing on on her wounds. Every muscle in Danny's body tensed; blood rushed in his ears as he realized what must have happened. He'd gone intangible at the worst possible moment on pure reflex. No wonder he'd fainted—he shouldn't have had any ghost energy left at all.

"That should have been me." Danny whispered. The phone fell from his hand. He'd flinched and let his ghost powers save him. Save him, and hurt Nicki. Danny somehow rose and stumbled the few steps back to Nicki's side. Nicki's eyes slid over to meet his. Danny realized with a pang of horror that she was awake and feeling everything. Not knowing what else to do, he reached over and took her hand.

"I'm sorry," he croaked. Blood soaked warm and sticky into the knees of his jeans.

"Quit it," Nicki rasped, barely above a whisper. Her fingers flicked against his. She looked ashy pale, but her eyes were fierce. "I walked into it."

She'd been home. Nowhere near here. She'd come to help him, and this was what happened. Wasn't he supposed to be the hero? Wasn't he supposed to be the one saving people? How had he messed it up this bad?

Nicki's squeezed her eyes shut. "Shit, Liz's pizza."

Danny shook his head. "Nobody cares about pizza right now!"

"I know that. I know. But she's alone." Her face twisted with frustration and tears slipped down her cheeks. "I can't leave her alone. There's nobody else, damnit."

"I'll make sure she's okay," Danny promised, refusing to read that as Nicki probably meant it. "She'll be fine. You'll be fine too, just—just wait, okay?"

"Not going anywhere," she whispered, eyes dropping shut.

Gabe was mumbling to himself, eyes squinted shut, hands still pressed to Nicki's wounds as the handkerchiefs darkened from purple to red. A strange shadow fell over them; Danny looked up. The shades had gathered thickly behind Gabe, a single mass of shadow that hovered like death in an old painting. Waiting. Watching silently.

A siren wailed on the street, and a glittering play of red and blue lights rushed up the alleyway. Danny flinched at the noise. They would want to look him over, ask him questions. He didn't need that. He couldn't just sit by uselessly in some hospital. There had to be something he could do.

Danny glanced around, and his eyes fell on Nicki's purse. He grabbed it and fumbled through it, pulling out her keys. He paused, then grabbed a handful of the peppermints, too.

Gritting his teeth, Danny pulled himself into invisibility. It felt like walking through quicksand, but he made it. The ambulance pulled into the alley and paramedics rushed out toward Nicki. A police car screeched in behind them. Danny staggered past unseeing paramedics and men in uniform, pausing at the mouth of the alley to lean on the hood of the police car and catch his breath. He glanced back. Behind the bustle of people surrounding Nicki, Gabe looked right at Danny, as if invisibility meant nothing to those odd mismatched eyes. Danny backed away and rounded a corner, then another before he dropped the invisibility. He took a second to yank the black sweatshirt out of his backpack and tug it over his bloody clothes

Danny glanced back at the alley, where he could still see the blue-red flash of emergency ights. Adrenaline buzzed through his veins, pushing back the darkness that clawed at his peripherals. Stuffing two more peppermints in his mouth, he turned toward Nicki's apartment building and forced his aching legs into a run.


Maddie started the engine of her little four-door sedan, scanning the street ahead. The van had already disappeared off to the right. Tucker took the front seat, while the Foleys along with Damon Gray piled into the back. Maddie took off toward the end of the street, sparing a glance for the rearview mirror—the adults looked frightened. She couldn't blame them. She didn't know what was happening exactly, but any child in the hands of the GIW spelled disaster.

"Do you know where they're going?" she asked Tucker as he fumbled to fasten his seatbelt.

"No—maybe. I think they want to get her out of the city. They were talking about decontamination," he added with a shudder.

Maddie pulled up to the next stop sign and glanced left, then right. No van. Damn. In the gathering dark it would be twice as hard to track them down. She took a chance and turned left, heading toward a major road, scanning as she went.

"What did you mean, she's part ghost?" Maurice demanded, leaning forward between the seats. "I thought you said it was just a suit!"

Tucker ignored his father and rummaged through his cargo pockets, emptying them of a rubix cube, a calculator, and a handful of Tamagotchi before producing a stubby little flip phone.

"Where'd you get that?" Angela added, indignant. "You're grounded, mister."

"Sorry, this is an emergency." Tucker punched in a number and put the phone to his ear. He glanced back at his parents. "Part ghost is way oversimplifying things, okay? But it's kind of true. Her suit's technically a part of her. A ghostly part. It listens to her mental commands, so I'd have to guess it bonded with her electromagnetically."

Maddie's eyebrows rose; the science wasn't wrong, but it was a far more in-depth explanation than she'd expected to hear from a teenager. From the stunned silence in the back, she wasn't the only one surprised.

"Is that even possible?" Angela asked. "Maddie?"

"It is," Maddie said, thinking fast as she maneuvered the rain-slick streets. "Ectoplasm can bond to a much more complex electrical matrix than we had originally suspected. That includes adapting to a human nervous system. Rare, but not impossible." There was a white van two lights ahead; she prayed that was the one.

"The point is you can't just take something like that off. If the GIW try anything on the suit, they could seriously hurt Valerie. Like, brain or nerve damage. Permanant damage." Tucker's thumb rapped on the side of the flip phone as he held it to his ear, eyes scanning the road ahead. "Come on, pick up..."

Maddie pulled alongside the van—a stock woman in blue coveralls looked out. Wrong van. Damn. She pulled away and sped down another street.

"She's not actually a ghost though, right?" Angela said. "Valerie's human. How could the GIW just drag her away like that?"

"Because they're psychopaths!" Tucker shot back. "Haven't you picked up on that yet? What's it going to take?" He snapped the flip phone shut and glared at it.

"I thought they could help her." A profound silence fell over the van as everyone looked at the man slumped in the back seat. Damon had rested his elbows on his knees, palms up, and was staring at them. "I called them in," he said in a low voice. "I thought they'd be able to take the thing off, destroy it. Save my baby girl from this dangerous insanity she's involved herself in. They weren't supposed to shoot her down, or—or take her prisoner like that."

"You made a mistake," Maddie said, eyes fixed unseeing at the red light ahead of her. "I know what that's like."

The phone in Tucker's lap vibrated. He pounced on it. "Hey, Sam— yeah, it's me." A pause. "Valerie. The GIW found out and took her away in a van. I know she's not your favorite person, but—" he stopped, listening, then grinned. "I thought you might say that." Another long pause, then Tucker nodded. "Okay, we'll make it happen."

He hung up the phone and called out to Maddie. "Sam says if we keep them inside the city limits she can stop them." Tucker tapped a code into the flip phone's keyboard and a little green light winked on. "I'm activating the GPS so Sam can follow us. We just have to find the van and stall."

"Got it," Maddie said, and swerved into a narrow gap between two cars, ignoring the horns blaring front and back. If she took the main street toward the highway, they could watch the on-ramps and catch the GIW trying to leave the city. Not the best plan, but it was the best they had.

"Sam? Your friend, Sam?" Angela threw up her hands. "What can Sam do? She's a teenager. You're a teenager. That girl's a teenager. All of you are practically children!"

Tucker sighed and twisted around to face the back seat. "Mom, I know it's hard right now, but trust me. We've been ghost hunting for two years. I know what I'm doing."

Maddie frowned; this wasn't the time for this— Valerie's odds of being found were dwindling by the second. They had to find the van, now.

"You don't have her ectosignature logged somewhere, do you?" Maddie cut in. "Anything that could help us find her? I'm driving blind— at this rate they'll be out of town before we even figure out which direction they went."

Tucker glanced out the front windshield. He reached for his pocket, then groaned. "If I had my PDA I could find them easy. Even with a decent phone I could do something, but this one's only good for calls." He glared at the flip phone. "Grounding sucks."

Maddie's wasn't much better. None of the Fentons carried high-tech phones.

Maurice exchanged glances with Angela, then pulled out a sleek modern phone and handed it to Tucker. "Use mine, son."

"Sweet!" Tucker snatched it out of his father's hand. "Now we've got a chance."


Minds that Move :: tbc...


A/N:

It's not over yet. They've got this.

Hi everyone! Sorry this is late, I know I said Sunday night but flying home and sleeping and work got in the way. I hope you enjoyed SoaD's final prank chapter! I know I did, hehe. (don't kill me)

For those of you not in the know, it's a long-standing tradition for me to post a fake-yet-plausible dark ending on April 1st, a habit inspired by Cordriawho did something similar long, long ago in a fic far away. If you fell for it, don't feel bad, you're in good company. If you missed the fake chapter and wanted to read it, don't worry! It'll get republished in the short collection Edge of a Knife in a week or so.

Anneria and I have just completed our road trip across the vast and dusty Southwest to install her at her new job. I'm so happy and proud of her, and it's been such fun watching anime and roaming the desert together. Good luck with your new life, friend! You'll be awesome.

Much love to my talented and observant beta readers, MyAibou, Anneriawings, LunarMothim, Misfit-toy-haven, Pumpernickel Muffin, Attu, Chintastic, and Cordria! Thanks especially to Anneriawings for talking plot with this one, and MyAibou for talking me out of getting too crazy with the angst.

And thank you, my dear readers, especially those of you who reviewed! I wish I could respond to all of you (I will at least get through all the prank reviews), but know that your comments are read and loved.

One last announcement, and this is a huge milestone for me: I finished writing SoaD! The unpublished chapters haven't had their final polish edit, but still: It can be read from beginning to end without blank spaces, OOCness or talking heads. I'm so proud and so grateful to all my beta readers for helping me get this far - and I cannot wait for this fall, when you'll join us at the end. :)

Till next time!

- Hj