Chapter 5

The silence was deafening. Even the wind in this place seemed unnaturally conscious about what had gone down the other night, probably all the rest of the nights that somebody made a mistake of stumbling upon this damned house. Danny could almost imagine the wind tiptoeing around this place and making little whispers of air to soothe the wrecked souls.

His fingers twitched, he did not recall being out of breath after the marathon he did. He barely remembered being dragged here but he did not realize the expanse that was the Manson Acres and the distance of this lot from the city. The jerks did put an effort in keeping him out of consciousness and traversing their way into this earthly side of the town.

He even had to bicker his way with Tucker just to give him the address, though he admitted, he could have just looked up the place on his mobile before going off on his self-proclaimed confrontation with her. To be honest, he did try to search for it prior to calling Tucker but either he was so poor with technology, he couldn't sift through information or most of the things posted online were exaggerated stories that bordered to downright ridiculous.

One of the articles he scanned claimed that locating the mansion was not something that one could do out of nowhere if it did not want to be found at all. It stated that nobody knows the exact location of the place, but it was somewhere in the forest, where the grass was gray, and the soil was pale amber. One of the paragraphs even mentioned that there was no shrub surrounding the structure which was considered odd after all the years that it was abandoned.

Danny almost snorted. If this place was so haunted that once somebody walked in, they wouldn't be going out, how come there were descriptions of the estate and there were stories about it in the first place? If he had more time in his hands, he would have reported the articles for its sensationalism.

Although this was where Tucker came in, he was the one who cross-checked the references with any police reports for missing people, possible murder and other bizarre occurrences that were passed around. Tucker was surprisingly adept in digging relevant dirt that Danny sometimes wondered if someone was deliberately leaving bread crumbs for them to follow and take care of.

He could still remember the day he received his first tip.

He went with his mom to a three-hour drive from Amity to the next town to visit one of his mom's old colleagues. He was a rich bachelor seeking out his old pals and thought getting back in touch with Maddie was the greatest idea he could have and even planned to have them both for a week! Danny begrudgingly followed his mother to keep an eye on her and to sabotage the guy's plans because as a fourteen-year-old boy, he would defend his mother even if he would need to stoop to some levels that would make even a five-year-old cringe.

Danny could still picture out that day. If he tried harder, he could even still smell the burnt cigar from the man's fingers when he gave him a full envelope of cash, told him they were going to have lots of fun, like a man-to-man getting to know each other for the sake of the woman they both love and basically herded him to the largest arcade available in the city and subsequently asked two bodyguards to look after him while he seduced his mom on a dinner at the French restaurant across the street.

Danny had to admit, he first got distracted with the arcade, but eventually realized that the only men he would be getting to know were the beefy guys who watched him like a hawk and followed his every move. If it was not for the kid who threw the tantrum of the century right in the middle of the arcade, he would not have been able to get away from them and stumble upon the guy who was threatening a lady to come with him to an alley.

For all he knew, it was just a drunken boyfriend, or a date gone wrong, not that those instances were not risky issues, but he did not expect that the guy would turn out to be some dead person from long ago who seek to devour women in the alley where he got killed a few months back. Circulating rumors claimed that he was a sleaze ball who messed with the wrong girl's boyfriend. Townies gossiped that it was a drug addict couple he tried to score from, but the wasted boyfriend was an experienced slasher and the little maniac got cut into pieces for trying to take the girl.

Danny could still feel the depth of the dagger he buried to the guy's chest and the rotten-smelling, black oil that whisked him away to nothing afterward. The shock on Danny's face at that time was a sight to behold. He knew that his dad killed ghosts for a living (and as a legend, as Jack used to tell young Danny, when they were still on good terms and well, when he was still alive), and he was aware that those late-night fights were ugly and dangerous, but he never expected that he would have to inherit a damn knife and drive it repeatedly to ghosts' semi-solid bodies to permanently get rid of them.

He learned a little too late. If he only knew the gravity of the situation, if he was only trained enough–

Danny gripped his phone harder. He focused on remembering the events, not the emotions. That night, his mother dragged him back to Amity without any second thought and her date was left alone. Looking back, if he hadn't dispatched the rapist ghost, then his mom wouldn't think twice about her date and the chaos it would bring to their family. It was funny how life events could be so ironic. He gained some and he lost some.

Danny could hear himself snorting, stepfather, my ass, he wouldn't be going anywhere near that man. He would be taking care of his mom, even if it meant juggling odd jobs and continuing with the family legacy.

He pocketed his phone and stared up the house. He was getting these weird tips ever since his father died. If Danny was as paranoid as Jazz, he would get in the Conspiracy Theory Van she had been obsessing, where she had been claiming that someone plotted Jack's death, so Danny would take over the family business. He gave his head a mental shake, he almost believed it every time that there would be a trail they had to follow, and it would lead to a ghost causing havoc on the living, but he usually just chucked it down to some of his Jack's old clients learning about his take over and continuing as normal.

Danny tapped his fingers to his jeans. No, he was not stalling by conjuring up his past. He was merely strategizing and making her wait. A dead goddess like Sam should learn how to wait. She had been in this house for seven years ending lives with a flick of her wrist, so a bit of a wait should not be a problem. He was simply letting her stew inside.

Danny's mind flashed to the events of the night before. Dash, throwing him inside for the fun of it and being pulled inside just to be sliced in half, for Sam's fun, and all of Dash's organs jumping out of his body in pieces with him watching on a VIP seating as Sam gave them all a sneak peak for what she could do if someone ever stepped in her house. No, Danny was not nervous at all. It was not like she was the first ghost who had the strength of a freaking hurricane to ever show him that she could hand over his ass.

This is sick, he chewed his lower lip, the ghost boy who could not enter a haunted house, he almost laughed but he couldn't. Of all the ghosts, he fought and killed before, she was the most interesting and alright, frightening, that he ever faced, then lived to tell the tale.

His eyes found the windows empty, but he could feel her watching him from the inside. The predator, watching what the gazelle would do in its territory, sniffing the air of its fresh blood and tasting the victory of the kill even before the gazelle took its first step.

The front door swung open silently, beckoning him in. Danny couldn't help but smirk. At least one of his strategies were working, she became impatient. Under normal circumstances, he would have been mentally whooping in delight if he went to a girl's flat and she opened the door for him, knowing it would only be the two of them. He shrugged and realized he must be in the deepest slope of misery for fantasizing this was a date when he was about to put himself in the hands of what Tucker put in as the 'Queen of All Killer Ghosts'.

The windows on the front banged open. Danny's shoulders jerked but he recovered himself quickly. He strode to the gaping front door and stopped before it. "You just couldn't wait to get me inside your palace, huh?" He put a hand to his waist and leaned his forearm on the doorjamb. "I bet you couldn't wait to get a piece of me." He huffed, "Isn't that right? First boy who got your panties in a twist?"

Danny waited. He was met with nothing but the stale air and the rusty scent of dried blood. His eyes swept the side where Dash got yanked inside from the window and – he gritted his teeth. No, that was not going to help. He stared straight ahead, the clothed furniture was still covered by cobwebs and a layer of dead things. Whether a lady bug or a human died and left their ashes in here, he wouldn't be able to tell, and he wouldn't want to.

The sun itself was avoiding this house, its rays were shining everywhere except the perimeters of this graveyard, even the windows seemed impenetrable by mere sunlight. For some reason, the gray-blue glow was a constant, self-sufficient light source. Danny's eyes narrowed. "What, no things falling from shelves? No cupboards opening or closing?" Still no reaction. It was beginning to feel like he was taunting a stone. "Or are you just waiting for me to get in, so you can slam the door shut and everything will come alive?"

Yep, he was talking to a killer ghost who did not have any sense of humor. What a fun way to go down. He could almost hear Skulker baiting him, Whelp, is that the best you can do? Bad-mouth while you're outside? Like a dog yapping at a stranger standing on the other side of a closed gate? Pathetic. No wonder your dad died defending a coward boy!

A scene was beginning to play in his head and Danny clenched his fists and stepped inside.

The last thing in his head was that he shouldn't have taunted the Queen of the Killer Ghosts before he willingly entered her palace.

"Danny?"

His shoulders jerked at the sound of shrill feminine voice. He turned around and was surprised to see a golden-haired woman whose alluring face conveyed shock, panic and suspicion.

He quickly pulled the hem of his green shirt and his brain went to overdrive, Shit! I didn't take a bath! I probably smelled like a hobo. Did I brush my teeth? What should I say? Keep it cool, man. Keep it cool!

The model-like girl pursued her lips and looked him up and down. "Well, you're definitely not Danny but you're in his room and I just saw him a while ago, and he did not say anything to me, not like he looked like the sharing type, but," She took a deep breath and shoved her hand to the pink purse dangling on her arm, he did not notice that before.

Tucker quickly raised both of his hands, palms up. "Okay, please don't shoot me or whatever you're going to do. Y-yes, I'm not Danny. I-I'm his best friend, Tucker?"

Blondie watched him with cautious blue eyes. She carefully took a step back. "I don't know why you're in his dorm and I'm not sure why you just asked me to confirm if your name is Tucker but I'm definitely calling someone." She pulled out the object out of her tiny purse and Tucker couldn't help but cower behind his arms as his feet propelled him back. He had to bolt. His feet wouldn't stop carrying him backwards.

He saw the blonde kept an eye on him while she speed-dialed someone, but he wouldn't stop getting away from her. She watched out of the corner of her eye and as she was about to put the phone to her ear, he heard her yelped.

"Watch ou—"

"—Aahh!" He crashed against the chair and it toppled over him.

The girl forgot about calling someone as she hurried to his side. "Oh, God, Are you okay?"

Tucker felt his back might have been pummeled by a wrestler and he couldn't breathe for a second. He heard a groan and after a moment, the weight on his chest was lifted. He scrunched his eyes open and froze at the sight of the porcelain, heart-shaped face hovering above him.

"Tucker?" Her supple lips pronounced his name in perfect clarity that he thought he might have died and gone in heaven. "Tucker, right?" Oh, lord, her angelic face puckered with worry, but he still thought she was the cutest thing. Then his shoulders were squeezed as she shook him, "Hey! Answer me!"

Tucker flinched at her strength and she quickly let him go. He groaned and struggled to turn to his side. She gave him some room and sat on the floor, while he labored to sit up. After several tries and dragging himself, he finally managed to rise, and he leaned his shoulder on the leg of the coffee table.

Princess Aurora leaned on the couch, opposite of him and they curiously watched each other.

"I'm sorry for scaring you."

Tucker dropped his eyes momentarily and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry for overreacting. I just panicked when I saw you."

She was about to point out that it would also be the exact reaction of a burglar, but his tone suggested that it was not because she caught him in Danny's room but how she looked, and she could not help but blushed. "Yeah, I get that a lot." Her tone was not boastful, but she stated it as if she was discussing the weather, it was just a fact and she was used to it but she did not let it get to her head, until he came and implied it.

He couldn't help but smile. She looked so adorable. He was about to get her name and discuss her interests when she stood up, closed the door and perched herself on the couch arm. Her sapphire eyes shone with determination. Tucker could not help but feel like a mouse cornered.

He watched as she pulled up a plastic card from her pouch and held it up. "I'm Star, and you said, you're Tucker." He caught a glimpse of the university logo and the blonde's – Star's – id picture with the words Student Assistant on the card before she slipped it back to her bag. She looked at him expectantly and Tucker felt like he should be doing something.

She tilted her head, but he still did not move. She exasperated, "Well, where's your id?"

Realization dawned on Tucker and he scrambled to his feet to grab his wallet from his jeans back pocket. He had the wallet opened and was about to pluck out his id when he paused and focused his questioning forest green eyes back at her. "Wait, are you cop? No, you're not, you just s-showed me a student assistant id, why would you be asking for mine?"

Star scrutinized him without saying anything.

Tucker fumbled for more words, he looked at her, then at the pink purse she had on her lap, and back at the wallet in his hands. Star could almost see a light bulb flicked on his head and he shut the wallet closed and put his hands back in his jeans pockets. "You're a cop, aren't you? Or someone in authority or closed to someone in there."

Star kept her posture straight and her eyes unwavering. Tucker puffed out his chest and tried to match her aura, several thoughts running through his head. This girl could not have possibly known what happened to Dash already or had she talked to the other guy, worse, did she see Danny? On the other hand, if this was the same Star that Danny was talking about, man, he had no idea his best friend was such a chick magnet. Between the two of them, he always thought that hot chicks dig the nerdy type, but he supposed, Danny could be charming in his own, big blue-eyed, clueless way as well.

"I wish I could detain you or interrogate you because I'm pretty sure I'd be able to dig up a lot of buried secrets but, no, I don't have that level of authority yet." She leaned her back on the couch and Tucker zoomed back to reality, he felt the tension eased. He dropped his tense shoulders. "The smell of mysteries that you're hiding reeks from the way your body reacts to my actions."

His brows collided, and his shoulders coiled again. Talk about Victoria Secret Model slash witchy background. "I'm sorry, what?"

She casually flipped her hair and she caught him watching the strands caressed her shoulders. "Criminal Psychology," She beamed and drank in Tucker's understanding. She noticed the slight squirm of his body and she was surprised to witness a puzzling reaction, like there was an invisible curtain that fell out of nowhere, and draped over his body language and features. Star was open-mouthed to realize that Tucker just flipped on a character he obviously mastered.

His face was empty of any worries and inhibitions and he smiled at her openly. He snatched the chair that fallen on him and positioned it no more than four feet away from the couch. He sat with one of his legs crossed and flashed her his id, to which Star's astonishment the same university student assistant id she had.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. My name's Tucker Foley. I just panicked a while ago, I thought you're with the cops or something. I was worried that Danny's situation has reached public knowledge and you know, how kids and rumors go these days. I was afraid someone did something nasty again to him and I—" He took a breath as he looked down and uncrossed his legs. Star watched in fascination as one of his hands played with the hem of his shirt.

Interesting. All the behavioral patterns were there. Avoidance of eye contact, slumping of the body, focusing on inanimate objects, it was a textbook reaction and rather than being smug about being able to point this out, she felt a stronger pull to unravel the extent of this… performance.

Star gambled with her instinct and pasted an apologetic look on her face. Two could play at this game. "You don't have to call me, ma'am. I'm sorry to cause such a fear. I understand that you're worried about Danny but if you won't mind me asking, how are you related to him and why are you in his dorm without him?"

Tucker suddenly seemed to be pulled out from some reverie and his expression registered incredulity. "I'm his brother." He shrugged, "Well, not biologically but we treated each other as family ever since kindergarten. We have our own interests, but we decided to choose a school that holds the fields we would like to grow into. You may not believe that or even think we're gay – and we get that a lot, especially from the bullies, but we stick with each other."

Although it rang truth in her mental lie detector, Star could not help it, this sounded like a monologue delivered too many times already. "Why are you telling me this?"

Tucker was taken aback. "You said you're a psychologist!"

Star's eyes narrowed. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I thought you wanted to know everything!" He threw his hands up.

Star's jaw dropped and she stood up. "For the record, I may want to know things due to professional reasons but I'm not just some dumb blonde who runs around and pokes her nose to everyone's business!"

Tucker stood up and winced but he immediately straightened his expression and looked at her dead in the eye. "I'm sorry for being upfront and assuming on your account." Star gripped her phone harder.

"Your Highness", and Tucker topped it off by delivering a perfect bow.

Star had always been a model student. She made sure she was always in control but right now, all she could think was strangling this guy and dumping his body in the river.

Sam could use some Glaze or Purell, gallons of it. Danny almost suggested it out loud but he clamped his mouth shut. He knew the house was old and he was well aware that people died in there, butchered, to be exact, but his brain could not help but come up with cleaning and deodorizing comments.

The wooden floorboards creaked when he stepped inside her house. He fought the urge to test it a little and stomp on it. He also fought the urge to turn around and ran back to the door to check if it was locked. Lastly, he fought the urge to puke. Danny started to focus on the layout of the house instead, he almost went for reciting "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" but he kept that as Plan B.

He went further inside. The living room branched into three other rooms, straight ahead was the kitchen as Danny could see the peeling paint of cupboards, to the left was the grand, rusty staircase and to the right was a door he presumed might be the bathroom.

Danny was about to trudge to the kitchen when the door to the right opened. He did not think twice and strode toward it. He convinced himself that he was only following his instincts and he was definitely not wanting to over-analyze each squirm and squeak of the house and might end up paralyzed with fear. No, he was absolutely not worried about fear taking over.

He paused before the door. It was so dark inside he could not see anything beyond it. He wanted to thrust out his hand and try to feel something but he would not have allowed Sam to see him in such an unbalanced state.

"Any clues or steps here, sweetheart?"

Danny waited for any reaction. Nothing. He opened up his senses and tried to pinpoint Sam's location but she was too powerful and consuming, she felt ominous.

He licked his lower lip, decided to brave it and put his foot forward.

That was when hell broke loose.

Danny's foot instinctively searched for ground, but it did not come. Instead, he felt his stomach dropped and his arms flailed wildly. It took him a second to realize what his body already reacted for, he was falling. He was freaking falling, and he could not reach anything to stop it. It also took him another second to realize that he was screaming like a little girl while his legs paddled for a foothold.

He immediately closed his mouth and extended both of his arms sideways, as expected, there were no walls. His body did him the favor of switching to his ghost form even before his slow mind thought of it. Two white rings encircled his waist and stretched in opposite directions, replacing his clothes with the black jumpsuit and revealing his alter ego.

His transformation was just in time to prevent him from smacking right to the ground. His own ghostly aura provided a bit of light and he floated down gently. His black boots scrunched as he touched gravel. He looked up and tried to gauge how far had he fallen from, but he could not see the door he came from.

He had been underground before and judging from the amount of rock and darkness this place offered, he knew this was at least five floors down, if the house had a collection of basements and dungeons, it sure was taking it to a whole new level. He sighed, okay that pun was so bad, it should be buried.

He heard something squished and he got to a fighting stance. The ethereal gray-blue light was back, and Danny saw the walls were the shade of rogue lipstick, he almost laughed. What the hell was happening to him? He was beginning to think spending too much time reading his mom's magazines were catching up to him. He snorted.

"Funny, huh?"

He whirled and there she was, Sam in her haunted, bloody state, hovering about five feet from the ground, the strands of her black hair swirling in the invisible water and her dripping dress swishing. He could see the purple veins snaking their way under her pale arms and legs. She kept the theatrics to a minimum this time and Danny almost delivered that outright as a compliment, but he was tongue-tied.

Danny knew it was impolite to stare but he could not help the pull. Her face was devoid of any emotion and her skin was almost translucent. Her mere presence radiated power and he wondered where it had come from. With all the studies and research about ghosts back in his childhood, his parents mentioned that ghosts' source of energy were strong emotions before their demise, some tied to objects, places or persons they had a concrete connection to.

He contemplated what would make a fourteen-year old girl so angry she would rip people apart once they stumble to her property. His pounding heart went out to her, she was just a fourteen back then.

She frowned, and it occurred to him that she was waiting for a response. He casually put his hands to the back pocket of his pants, but he remembered that he was already wearing his jumpsuit, so he awkwardly put his hands to his waist instead. He nodded to her as an acknowledgment. She continued to watch him with her oily eyes.

"Oh, you thought I was laughing at your basement?" He held his hands up as if to placate her. "No, I wasn't. I was just thinking about rogue, you know, the shade and your walls…" He waited for a reaction. He gestured in the air, "like the lipstick?"

Feeling like an idiot, Danny dropped his hands. "Okay, so you have a basement. Is this where you're going to kill me?" The dark veins started to crawl restlessly under her skin. "Sorry, did I ruin the surprise? Should you have struck me in the back and twisted me in the air like a rag doll? You're kind of the twister type."

She regarded him, and it occurred to Danny that he should not be talking to his target. He should be reaching for his Fenton Dagger and giving her the fight of the century. His palms started to warm up as his body prepared for a battle, but his mind was arguing it was wrong of him to initiate violence, especially that she had been nothing but hospitable in letting him in and not ending him right away.

"Why did you come back?"

Her voice was deep, throaty and it resonated no breath at all. He knew that she was not talkative with her victims, heck, he might even be the first person she ever said something to after she died. Why did he come back? At the back of his mind, Danny knew he had a few reasons up his sleeves but right now, he could not pull them out. He did not even know that he stepped back and was looking up at her. He wanted to say something and did not realize his mouth become dry.

Danny swallowed. He knew Sam saw his vulnerability and sadness flitted across her face, but he might had just imagined it. It would have also been a good opportunity for her to make this her moment, seize that vulnerability and expose it and torture him, but she did not.

"I did not kill you. Do you think I let you out alive as a game? Do you want to die?"

Danny finally managed to clear his throat and gave a nervous shrug. "Well, for starters I'm here to finish you off. Second, no, I take my jobs seriously." He paused to brace her for his next answer. "Lastly, somebody already beat you to that. I've died a long time ago."

Sam did not seem fazed. She tilted her head and Danny was thrown to the wall, spread-eagled. The wall was spongy and clammy. She pinned him with her vortex eyes and Danny felt the wall adjusting, molding itself to accommodate him. He was slowly sinking, he realized that the dark red walls were not paint, it resembled a human organ. The house was eating him!

With all the movement, the living wall split open to the side and he turned to it. Big mistake. The rotting stench assaulted him, and Danny saw Dash's corpse was half-engulfed already. His skin was deteriorating, and his eyes were milky. Danny realized his hand was resting on Dash's lower region, the other half of him, that was.

Danny scrambled to break free. The urge to get out was becoming stronger every second. He concentrated his energy in his palms and he shot at the digesting wall with ecto-rays and freed his hands. He pulled himself out and when he did, he was bathed in slimy liquid. He flew to the center of the room and looked around, Sam was nowhere to be found. He was about to call out to her when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. There was a man that lumbered out of nowhere.

The man staggered and tripped over and that was when Danny saw an axe embedded on the man's back. He got up and as if seeing Danny floating there, his expression changed from surprise to terrified. Danny was stupefied to witness that half of the man's face was already showing the left-over cartilage and his skeletal structure was sticking out. Half of the mouth only showed jaw and no teeth, the other half was a mess of gangrene gums. The mouth opened in a roar of pain and his arms were torn off. Instead of running away, the man lurched toward Danny.

Danny knew the corpse wouldn't be able to reach him, unless it flew, but he was definitely not staying around for that.

He went higher and searched for the door. He gave a tentative glanced behind him just to make sure Mr. Cadaver did not turn to Superman Cadaver. He didn't, though what he noticed made him stop. There were now others joining around. There were bloody limbs, decaying arms and decapitated heads flooding the ground as if ants swarming to meet their queen. Danny's eyes bulged. The severed limbs were coming together as if to form back on their own.

The first piece came together and much to Danny's surprise rose up to his level. It was another male by the looks of its clothes, it was looking down at his comrades and when it glanced up to him, it was wearing a chilling smile with no teeth. Its cavernous mouth was shaped up on an empty grin and he could see the bugs and flies milling inside.

Danny recognized that manic smile and the moment he did, the ghost attacked him. His mind was struggling to comprehend. It could not be. He fired an ecto-ray right at it, but it ducked to the left, going for his foot. He swung his foot back and kicked it in the shins. The impact of his kick busted the ghost's kneecap and its bones shattered and fell. It watched its own leg and foot bones rained down, it glanced back to him with a look of contempt. He gritted his teeth. This was not supposed to happen. How could this happen!

Late February seven years ago, he drove the Fenton Dagger to this maniac's chest and watched him dissolve into black smoke. This must be some nightmare Sam had induced. He shot at it again and again but either its bones would pelt down, or it would just come back together. Danny clenched his jaw. "You're not real. I already killed you."

The ghost tried to straighten its spine, as if to say, "You think so?" It threw a finger bone to his face and in Danny's perplexed state, it grazed his cheek. When a fat lump of blood oozed from the scratch, his first ghost-kill disintegrated.

Danny almost sighed in relief when he became aware that the army of reattached corpses had now floated and were all watching him. He was at their center and every single one of them were prepped for battle. He made out the familiar faces, his previous kills in different states, the shutters ghost was also among them and of course, their newest member, Dash Baxter was smack in the middle.

He knew he wouldn't stand a chance against the legion of the dead or undead, whichever, so he did the only rational thing, Danny fled from the scene as fast as he could. He burst from the wooden door.

He landed face-down on the floorboards, heart-pounding and still reeling from the pungent, reunion of the massacred freakshow back there, Danny slowly raised his head and examined himself. He felt wet when he got half-gobbled by the house and he was certain that his fight with his previous jobs also damaged him, but he surfaced unscathed.

He slowly glanced to the left and he was mesmerized by the sight. Sam was staring off by the window, her dark hair swaying on her back almost peacefully, her bleeding dress appeared calm enough it almost looked normal.

Danny gathered what was left of his masculinity and strode toward her. He did not hover anymore because he couldn't even if he wanted to. He was spent, and he knew that if Sam would want to end him, he would not stand a chance. He was hers for the taking and he no longer cared. He suddenly felt exhausted from his own life. He wanted to get this over with, but not before he had some answers.

He stopped in front of her, his bravado had been stripped away by this goddess, this bone-chilling creature and he no longer give a shit if he was to become part of her collection downstairs.

"So, are you ready to give me some answers?"

Sam turned to him cautiously. She let him witness the force of the monster she was through her soulless eyes. Her dark veins sprang free from her pale skin, no blood came out with the veins. Instead, all the blood welled from her dress, it oozed from the lacy straps, flooded to the waist and painted the skirt red. The tendrils of her onyx hair churned. She drifted away from the window and paused in front of him.

"What's your name?" She observed him like a bug under a microscope.

He wanted to point out that he was the one who asked first but he felt enchanted by her.

"I'm Danny. Danny Fenton."

She gave a slight nod and closed her eyes. Her eyelids, like the rest of her skin was chalk-white and flimsy. Danny watched curiously. He did not know what she was doing. She could have been gathering her massive power to annihilate him, but he still stood there, savoring her presence, her actions.

It began as a subtle change and he was fascinated as the blood on her dress dried up and darken. The veins on her arms and legs shrank back and her skin become more solid. The tendrils of her jet-black hair stopped squirming until her hair stopped moving entirely.

Danny was stunned as her dress was replaced by a purple tank top and a plaid skirt. Her skin was pale, but the veins were no longer visible, and her lips became fuller with a hint of pink.

Danny's jaw hit the ground.

Sam opened her eyes and they were a vibrant shade of purple.

A/N: Hi guys! I usually start my author's notes with apologies and this one won't be any different.

I'm sorry it took three years to update. I've been through a lot, and I'm pretty sure all of us did but I'm happy to announce that I've been doing some life/self-evaluations and I've been trying to get back to writing every now and then. Things have fallen apart and are now also falling into place. As they say, "Life goes on" so here we are.

Okay, I've drifted from my stories but I'm still picking up the pieces and reviewing the partial ones I've left from my files. I've been consulting back on the book where I got this idea from, "Anna Dressed in Blood" by Kendare Blake, so the scenes would resemble the ones in the book but there are some things I tweaked as well. The book is an amazing read but be sure to keep your lights on, just to be safe. :)

I would like to thank everyone who has read, reviewed and followed/favorited this story. I appreciate all of your responses and I would love to hear more. I have ongoing ideas but I would also want to hear from you.

Comments, suggestions, opinions, questions, violent reactions? Please review.