Jazz had always protected her little brother. She was the one who helped him with nightmares, made sure he had food and clothes, took him to school, helped him with homework, everything their parents were supposed to do. Because she knew her parents wouldn't. Her parents tried sometimes, but they always ended up doing more harm than good, then Jazz would have to protect both her and her brother from them.
Protecting Danny from their parents had been a constant in her life, but ever since she found out he was a ghost two weeks ago, it's gotten worse. Their dangerous tendencies, poisoning leftovers with ghost repellent, setting off guns in the house, tinkering with dangerous machinery at the dinner table, they had always posed a threat for their children's safety and well-being, but now, they posed a very real threat on Danny's life, or afterlife. She had stopped allowing herself to leave Danny alone with them. She had been watching over him like a hawk for the past two weeks, not letting him out of her sight while at home.
But luckily, she didn't have to protect him from their parents today. Danny left yesterday for a sleepover with his friends at Tucker's house. He'd come back around 7:00 or 8:00, but until then, he was safe. As long as there weren't any ghost attacks, she didn't have to worry about him, so she had been spending the day out of the house, she had already spent the morning at the library, noon at an internet cafe, and now she was grocery shopping.
Her parents almost always forgot to buy food, and when they did they never got what they actually needed. It was always fudge, ice cream, tea, beef jerky, chocolate, coffee, and chips. So she always ended up having to restock the kitchen whenever they were out of food. And since she didn't have time for a job, what with keeping an eye on Danny and school, she paid for it all with her parents' money.
It wasn't all bad though. She was usually the one to cook since Danny needed the time to sleep or do schoolwork and her parents were always busy in the lab, so she was able to buy everything she needed for meals without having to rely on anyone else remembering to buy the ingredients. And her parents never noticed when she took their cards.
She brought the cart to the self checkout and started scanning items. It was completely full of food. Some of it would need to be used quickly, but most would last at least a month. They needed food that would last. She wasn't sure when she would be able to go grocery shopping next. She inserted her mother's card into the machine, put the last few items back in the cart, put in the pin and paid.
It was a hassle loading everything into the car. She had forgone the plastic bags, Sam had had a rant a couple weeks ago about how damaging they were to the environment and she decided to stop using them, so she ended up having to place everything in the trunk one at a time before putting the cart away, and getting in the car to drive home. She had forgotten to bring a tote bag, but at least now she didn't have to figure out how to fit things into the bags without damaging them.
The drive home wasn't long, and when she got home she immediately brought in things that needed to be frozen, then went back for whatever needed to be refrigerated, then the rest. She turned on the television and let the news play while she started cutting vegetables for dinner. Nothing serious was reported, just a high school basketball game and a cat loose in the mall. She filled a pot with water and put it on the stove to boil, then threw in a pinch of salt and a couple handfuls of broccoli florets. She didn't need to worry about Danny being hurt in a ghost attack, he was safe today. She started cutting up the chicken. She heard her parents talking in the lab, but she couldn't quite hear what they were saying. She put the chicken in a skillet, threw in a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and started tossing it around. She wondered what her parents were doing in the lab. She threw the carrot and onion pieces into the skillet with the chicken. She wondered if they were working on a new weapon. She threw in the potato pieces, then dumped it all from the skillet into a large pot and added the broth before turning on the heat underneath it. She wondered if she would have to sabotage whatever her parents were making before they used it on Danny. She turned off the heat under the broccoli and strained it. She should probably check just to be sure.
She set an egg timer for fifteen minutes and walked down the stairs. The closer she got to the lab the more she could make out.
"….Scalpel….Jack pin this……Does this look….It could be.."
She slowed down and tried to listen, to figure out what they were saying.
"…If that's where it produces…..manifests a whole new organ after death, I wonder if.."
She reached the bottom of the stairs and slowly moved towards her parents, looming over a green splattered table. She almost didn't want to see what they were doing. She felt like she wasn't supposed to be here, like she was intruding, like she should just hide in her room, under her covers, and pretend she didn't see anything, but she slowly moved closer.
"If only we could remove the organ and see how it reacts. We can't risk it destabilizing though, not until we're finished. What if we could do that when we're done."
She was right behind them now, but they hadn't noticed, they were too caught up in whatever they were doing. She was trying not to think about it, trying to pretend that her parents weren't doing what they were doing right now.
"For now let's focus on what we know, this organ is found in living mammals and is nonlethal to remove in those mammals, we can-"
"Hey Mom, Dad?" They turned and looked towards her, she felt trapped under their gaze, they seemed to tower over her and she felt so small. She couldn't see their eyes through their goggles, and when she tried to look, all she could see was her own terrified face staring back at her. She tried to think of what to say, she had to say something. her breathing was irregular, she tried to control it and averted her gaze to look at her feet. Not her parents, not the table, not the green splatters coating the floor. "That, that ghost you were wanting to study was j-just on the news. He's wounded and you, you could probably catch him now that he's weak."
Her dad smiled and took his goggles off. She wanted to pretend she hadn't seen what he had been doing, that she had imagined it, and it would be so easy to pretend that she had imagined it when he looked like this, when he looked at her like he cared about her, but his gloves were still painted green, she couldn't ignore it. "Thanks Jazzie pants, we've just got to finish this up real quick."
Shehad to convince them to leave, she couldn't let this go on. "Whatever it is, I can handle it, you'd better hurry before he gets away."
Her mother put her hand on her dad's shoulder. "But we need someone to keep an eye on this one, if it destabilizes before we-"
Her dad smiled at her mom. "Jazz is smart, she'll be able to figure it out."
Her mom stared at him for a couple of seconds before picking up one of the ectoguns on the counter and moving towards the stairs. Her dad picked up a Fenton thermos from a side table and placed it in Jazz's hands while smiling at her. "Keep an eye on the little guy and if he starts destabilizing, put him in the thermos."
She forced a smile on her face, she felt like she was going to vomit, and looked up at her dad. She tried so hard to stop her voice from trembling, but she wasn't sure if she succeeded. "Sure thing."
He took off his glove and ruffled her hair, like he used to when she was little. When was the last time he had done that? She wanted to cry, she wanted to cling onto him, she wanted him to comfort her, but she needed him to leave.
She ran over to the first aid kit and brought it over to the table, they hadn't taken anything out yet. Good. She threaded the needle and started to stitch him back together.
"You're going to be okay, everything is going to be okay, it's going to be okay." Her vision became blurry and her cheeks started to feel wet. She didn't know if she was reassuring him or herself.
"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry, I'm so sorry."
She sat on the couch in the living room, waiting. She didn't know why, but she didn't really know what else to do. She let her mind go blank, let time pass while she stayed still. She didn't know how long it had been, maybe a couple minutes, maybe a couple hours, when the door opened.
"Hey Jazz, where's Mom and Dad? Are they in the lab?"
She looked towards her brother, back from his sleepover. He was safe, he was okay, he was fine, everything was fine, she was fine. She forced a smile. "No, they're out ghost hunting. Probably won't be back for a while."
He lowered his duffel bag from his shoulder to his hand and looked around the room. "Oh, okay. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"
"Nope, nothing at all."
Jazz had always protected her little brother, she wasn't going to stop that now.