A/N: So I felt horrible about that cliffhanger. Not sure how long this'll actually take for me to type up, but hopefully I can post it before my next class starts on Monday….

By the way, I set up a playlist for each of the previous chapters, so if anyone wants to go back and reread, you've got a nice set of songs that go along with each chapter. If anyone has suggestions for songs that would work for any chapter, send the artist and song title in a review or private message and I'll check it out and add it. For this chapter, Breaking Benjamin's "Anthem of the Angels," Rise Against's "Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated," Shinedown's "Heroes," and Thousand Foot Krutch's "Smack Down" are suggested.

|23|) \/\/|-|!73 4|\||) |)34|)

Danielle and Valerie hugged each other, both crying, the younger girl with her face buried into Val's shoulder. JJ and Prentiss were teary-eyed but fought it, trying to focus on Hotch and Rossi as they thought out what needed to be done next. Garcia had shut off the phone so no one else would hear her sobbing.

Meanwhile, Morgan was attempting to pull Reid out of the funk he'd fallen into. "Hey, Pretty Boy, c'mon, we need that big brain of yours." Morgan searched Reid's pale face, not getting a reaction of any kind. "C'mon, we need you to help us plan how to catch this bastard!"

Reid blinked, glancing up at Morgan. "He's not dead."

Morgan closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. "Look, Reid, we can deal with that after we get Masters—!"

"No, I—I mean, he's half-ghost, Morgan. H—He could've…." Reid turned to the two teenagers. "Danielle."

The girl peeked up at him. "What?" she mumbled, voice thick from crying.

"Is it possible for a half-ghost to stop or pause their bodily functions? L—Like breathing and heartbeat?"

Danielle (and everyone else) stared at him in shock. Then, she blinked. "I—I don't know," she breathed. "I—I've never tried it…."

Reid turned back to Morgan, glancing between him and Hotch. "Danny probably is working under the impression that Masters doesn't know that, either. He'll just hear that—"

"That Danny died…." Hotch had caught on. "He'll have surprise on his side." Then Hotch shook his head. "But that's only if it's true. Reid, head to the hospital to see if Danny's there. We'll get ready to hit the warehouse." The ghost of a smirk flashed across Hotch's face, almost too fast for the others to catch the uncharacteristic expression. "Danny will need a distraction to really throw Masters off guard."

|23|) \/\/|-|!73 4|\||) |)34|)

Blue eyes snapped open, staring blankly up at the far-too-close metal ceiling. It took a moment, but then he remembered the panic attack that caused his heart to pause.

Danny pushed himself up onto his elbows, cursing when his head brushed against the "ceiling" of the small drawer he was in. Rolling his eyes, he phased out of the storage container, glancing around and pleased to find that his clothes hadn't yet been locked away until a relative could pick them up. He got dressed quickly, then phased up and out of the morgue, just as a nurse led someone else in.

|23|) \/\/|-|!73 4|\||) |)34|)

"I'll need you to identify the body before I can release his personal items to you," the nurse stated as she came to a stop beside drawer 312.

Reid nodded. "I understand, ma'am."

"Alright." She sighed, then pulled open the drawer.

For a moment, both stared blankly into the drawer. Then the nurse shrieked.

Reid jumped at the noise, then moved to calm her. "Ma'am, ma'am!"

She sniffled, glancing up at him.

"I actually expected this. My team and I have reason to believe Danny actually survived and has, most likely, left already. I need to go find him."

"O—Okay…."

"Can you keep this from leaving the hospital?"

"W—What?"

"We can't let anyone outside this hospital—no, outside his doctors—know what happened."

"B—But w—why?"

"Because of his involvement in our current case. It will be safer for him if no one knows he's alive. I'll bring him in for another check-up after we finish this case, alright?"

She shakily nodded.

Reid sighed, grateful that she'd been easy to convince. "Thank you," he breathed. He stood and ran out.

|23|) \/\/|-|!73 4|\||) |)34|)

"Okay, let's run through teams and weaknesses," Danielle ordered, herding the BAU agents outside. Once at a nearby abandoned parking lot, she glanced around at them. "Alright, Morgan, you're more of a hand-to-hand fighter, right?"

He blinked. "I can be, yeah."

"Alright, you're with me. JJ, Prentiss, you two can break someone psychologically, can't you?"

The two women shared a look. "Yeah," Prentiss answered, "so long as we know what to go for."

"Trust me, just keep saying she looks old. You guys can handle Spectra. Val, that leaves Hotch and Rossi to you. You'll have—"

"Technus, I know," Val finished. "We'll probably need to borrow your technical analyst for that one."

"And Reid, when he gets back?" Hotch asked, wanting to make sure they planned for everything.

"He'll join up with JJ and Prentiss against Spectra. If they don't need help, he'll go to whoever does." Danielle glared around at them. "We have to rescue the hostages before going after Vlad, and we can't let anyone alert him to our presence."

Val picked up there. "Our plan only works if Vlad doesn't think we know where he is. The way the warehouse is designed, there should be doors from each holding room to Vlad's personal room, so we can make use of those in our attack on Vlad himself."

"But we'll need to time it perfectly to surround him," Danielle added. "We have to take him completely by surprise, or he'll get away."

"And what about the hostages?" JJ asked.

Val blinked. "What about them?"

"What happens with them while we're fighting the ghosts and Vlad?"

Danielle replied, "Jack, Maddie, Jazz, Sam, and Tuck know how to fight. Once the guards are distracted, those five will get to work, either on getting the others out of helping us. Either way will work out. If need be, we can go back to free the hostages after Vlad's in custody."

Rossi, along with the rest of his team, just stared. "…You're how old again?"

"Um, two, but physically I'm thirteen," Danielle responded.

"Sixteen," Val added.

"And you came up with this plan between the two of you at thirteen and sixteen?"

"Well, it was mostly Danielle's idea," Val stated.

Now, all turned to stare at the blushing clone. "L—Like I said, Vlad wanted my batch of clones to have advanced mental capacities…."

Morgan chuckled. "Too bad we don't have Reid to translate for us. He's the only one who knows Super-Brain-ese."

Val smirked. "I've got a passing knowledge of it, but I'm nowhere near fluent."

Danielle's blush darkened. "L—Look, c—can we forget that and get on with our rescue mission?"

Hotch nodded, leading the way to their SUV's. "Which way to the warehouse?"

|23|) \/\/|-|!73 4|\||) |)34|)

Danny had no map or directions on where to go. Instead, he had to trust his instincts as they led him around the town. Every few minutes, he'd drop down, invisible, to street level to let his ghost sense scan for Vlad and his lackeys. He continued this way for nearly an hour before he felt the blue mist and his ice core pulling him to the left.

He followed the tug, letting it pull him along as it pleased, each tug getting stronger, more urgent.

Finally, after another ten minutes of being led by his senses, Danny felt them dragging him straight down. He turned invisible before dropping down through the clouds, past buildings, and through the roof of a warehouse.

He landed in a crouch, listening for the tell-tale signs that he'd been caught. But there were no screams, no attacks, no alarms or flashing lights. Danny stood, slowly turning to familiarize himself with the room.

There were three doors, one on each wall except the wall behind him. A rather large, luxurious mahogany bed was beside Danny, situated so the headboard was pressed up against the doorless wall and the bed itself stuck out into the middle of the room, maroon and gold covers draping elegantly to the dark wood floor. A maroon shag rug lay in front of Danny, stretching across the left side of the room and leaving about a foot of space between its ends and the two walls it was placed between. A mahogany nightstand was between Danny and the bed, and a small tea service of gold stood in the corner diagonally from Danny.

Something in the back of Danny's mind whispered that this style, this spartan layout was similar to a place he had seen a long time ago, but he shoved the thought away easily, not allowing it to distract him as he began to rifle through the nightstand, looking for anything that could point him to where his friends and family were. Finding nothing there, he moved on to search the pillowcase and mattress of the bed.

When that also came up empty, he sat back on his heels and sighed, but froze when the door directly across from him opened. His wide blue eyes locked onto an equally shocked navy pair, but the surprised look was quickly dropped in favor of a feral smirk.

Vlad Masters shut and locked the door before stalking forward, staring Danny down. "Well, well, well," he purred, moving to lock the two side doors as well. Danny was too startled to even attempt to escape through them, still stuck staring, wide-eyed at Vlad. "It appears the stray has come back to the pound!" Vlad was still coming at Danny, who had come to his senses and began backing up, quickly hitting the wall with his back. He glanced over his shoulder, then back at Vlad before turning intangible—

And slamming straight into a ghost shield. Danny yelped, cradling his aching head as he squinted up at Vlad.

The man grinned at him—though it was more a baring of teeth than a grin—and leaned down to look a terrified Danny in the eye. "Unfortunately," he hissed, "you're still unwanted. And you know what happens to unwanted strays in the pound, don't you?"

Danny was shaking, unable to move, to blink, to speak—unable even to hear as the FBI broke into the outer rooms of the warehouse. His world was spinning out of control, and only Vlad's voice seemed to break through the pandemonium. He let out a strangled gasp as Vlad's hand clawed into his collar.

"They are put to sleep."

|23|) \/\/|-|!73 4|\||) |)34|)

A/N: So, again, I'm sorry in advance for any delay there might be in posting the next chapter. This will, sadly, be due mostly to school but partially to me wanting to make sure the battle scenes are up to par with the rest of the story. My original version of the next chapter mainly focused on Danny and Vlad, so the BAU and Val and Dani kinda got shunted to one side and their fight scenes are a bit lacking, so I'll need to fix that up some.

In other news, yay, I got this out before my next summer course started! YES! Now, hopefully I can spend a lot of time on the next chapter and get it awesome before it goes up. Well, I'll go off and go insane in chemistry now…. Review, please.