Chapter 3: Those Red Eyes

"On a prayer, in a song

I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on

Raining down, against the wind

I'm reaching out 'til we reach the circle's end

When you come back to me again"

-"When You Come Back to Me Again" - Garth Brooks

I closed the distance rapidly enough, all but throwing myself at Danny. He caught me stiffly as I threw my arms around him in a giant hug. "You came back! Danny, I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have reacted like that, I'm so sorry, can you ever forgive me?" I knew I was babbling in my rush of relief. "I was so worried, I've been trying to find you for weeks! I was so worried something awful had happened because of me! I'm so sorry-!"

After a moment, I felt his cool arms around me as well as I bawled out my relief and apologies into his chest, only distantly wondering why he was in ghost form, and why he'd changed his appearance. I didn't get much of a chance to look him over in detail in between my initial cry and glomping him, nor did I particularly care how he looked at that moment. I was just so relieved he had come back, weak-kneed with joy. Hardly able to support my own weight, I leaned heavily into him, not minding how cool his body was to the touch. It made sense, but I had never been in such close contact with a ghost, half or otherwise before that moment, so I never truly realized just how cold their touch could be. I clung to him like a drowning person might cling desperately to a stray bit of flotsam.

Had I known then what I know now, I would have shot him with every gun I had and anything useful I could have taken from the Fentons' lab right then. But hindsight is 20/20, and it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.

"Valerie-?" He sounded distracted, his voice a touch deeper and more raspy than I remembered. I felt his embrace tighten, becoming slightly uncomfortable. We must have made quite a scene had there been anyone watching- a teenage girl who looked like a nervous wreck crying her eyes out and whimpering a tangled mess of apologies and relief into the black and white-clad chest of a ghost.

"Yeah, Danny. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean those things I said... I was just so shocked, I was stupid. I really-" I paused then, interrupted by Danny easing his hold on me, pushing me back to arm's distance and studying my face. I took the time to do likewise, a tiny twinge of worry trickling into the back of my mind, obscured still by my relief. His appearance really had changed. His skin had taken the slight blue tinge often associated with ghosts, his ears now tapered to delicate looking points. His hair no longer flopped in a careless mop in front of his face, it now flared upward and back. He smiled at me, and I noted he now sported a small pair of fangs. But then I saw his eyes.

Red. Not blue, not glowing green. Brilliant red, a shade that sent shivers down my spine and brought my tears of relief to a halt. This was not the face of someone happy to be reunited with a friend who had seen the error of her ways. There was something profoundly unsettling in the way he was smiling at me, but I told myself it was just my conditioned reflex making me paranoid. After all, until very recently, I had been trying in all seriousness to destroy him. A random thought crossed my mind that something about him distantly reminded me of that white-clad ghost that I'd seen briefly during that fiasco with the ghost invasion awhile back, but I tossed the thought aside as an irrelevant observation.

"Danny, are you-?" My question was very abruptly cut off by his hand gripping my left shoulder painfully tight, while his right pulled back into a fist that he slammed into my midsection and sent me reeling. I wasn't sure at that moment, but that was probably when a few of my ribs were broken. I just knew it hurt a great deal, but the physical pain was merely an afterthought to the emotional confusion. "D-danny? What are you doing!"

"What I should have done months ago." He replied coldly, looming over me with a wicked smirk as I staggered back to my feet, one arm clutching at my bruised ribs.

"I-I know you're probably mad at me, but Danny, after you disappeared, I was so worried-" I gasped out, stunned and hurt by his reaction. No sooner did I get upright again than his foot shot out in a deceptively graceful kick that I haphazardly dodged, so it only caught me painfully in the shoulder and sent me sprawling again.

"You had your chance, Valerie." Danny sneered, his voice positively devoid of anything but a sort of demented pleasure at my agony. "We all did."

"What are you talking about!" I struggled upright a third time. "Danny, I didn't know... if I'd known, I'd never have done what I did before. I know you're upset-"

I was cut off for a third time by one glowing green fist catching me hard in the face, knocking me down and almost instantly raising a large ugly bruise. I didn't cry out as I went down, staring at Danny with wide, hurt eyes. "Danny... why are you doing this? I'm your friend!"

Danny turned those disturbed red eyes on me, wicked smile turned briefly to a displeased frown. "I don't have any friends. Not anymore."

I cringed. For just a moment, I thought I almost heard the voice of the upset boy and not this almost alien monster. Instinct was telling me to fight, to whip out my weapons and attack this ghost. After all, ever since my dad lost his job and we hit rock bottom, I'd been trying to put Danny full of holes, not knowing that the ghost-kid was the shy boy I had started to develop feelings for. I watched with mouth gaping as he pointed one glowing hand, palm up, at a car passing through an intersection some hundred feet away. I didn't have time to shout out before a brilliant green ectoplasmic blast tore through the air, engulfing the car and its occupants in a violent explosion. I didn't need to examine the ruins to know that nothing survived that blast. The beam continued onward, hardly impeded by the car, or the few others beyond it that were likewise demolished, finally slamming to a halt against a building several blocks down, the explosion rolling through the air like a thunderclap.

"Danny, stop it!" I found my voice, pitched higher from my hurt and confusion. "You don't need to do this!"

Danny stopped and turned to face me again, partly framed by the eerie green flames from the wreckage. I'll never forget the terrifying look on his face, the way those crimson orbs fairly glowed with a malignant light, that deranged smile as he raised one glowing hand and pointed it in my direction. "I don't need to do this. I want to do this. Goodbye, Valerie."

I sat there, staring stupidly as the green energy swirled around his palm, knowing full well that if I didn't do something, he was going to kill me. But I couldn't force myself to respond, I was paralyzed from the shock. This wasn't Danny, it couldn't be! But it was, I knew it deep down, and I couldn't bring myself to lift a hand against him. Not after what I did to him when he needed me. Instead, I stared my death in the face, waiting numb in confusion for the reaper to end its wandering and claim me.

I was saved by a pink energy blast sailing over my head and striking Danny square in the face, the force of the shot sending him flying backwards several dozen feet, both hands clutching angrily at his face, scorched red eyes peering through his fingers for the source of the blast. He first looked down at me, but my own startled gaze met his, my hands quite clearly empty of anything capable of delivering the blow. I watched his gaze slide upward, locking onto something a short distance behind me.

"Get away from my daughter!" If I wasn't still held rapt from shock, I would have gasped and spun around at the sound of my dad's voice. I heard a weapon click behind me, and I noted in the back of my mind it sounded like my ecto-grenade launcher.

"How quaint." Danny hissed, and I swear for an instant I saw a forked tongue snapping the air as he straightened to face my father. "Family to the rescue, is it?" I swear he spat that phrase out as if it tasted horribly bitter.

"I don't know who you are, ghost, but you're not touching Valerie if I can help it!" My dad stepped in front of me, and he was carrying two of my guns, fully determined to fight off the nightmare creature Danny had somehow become, clearly underestimating the danger.

Danny smiled again, that sickening, cruel smile, obviously not terribly fazed by my dad's threat. Heck, even enjoying it. He stood straight, twitching two fingers at my father. "You first then, old man."

With a wordless battle cry, my dad unloaded several rounds at Danny, but the ghost easily evaded them with a nearly serpentine grace. In a moment, he was right in my father's face, sneering. "My turn." Before my dad could react, he was sent flying by hard right hook to the jaw that spun him and sent him reeling. And all I could do was stare in horror. To my surprise, he got back up, glaring bloody murder at Danny.

"Valerie, snap out of it!" He called to me, narrowly dodging one of Danny's fists. While Danny snarled and tried to recover from his miss, my dad whipped that gun around, the grenade launcher's muzzle barely inches from the back of Danny's head. I'm not sure if I cried out then, when I saw the trigger pulled.

Both Danny and my dad were sent flying in opposite directions from the explosion, my dad skidding to a halt on the concrete, Danny phasing through a wall rather than actually hitting it. My dad got up quickly, ignoring the myriad cuts and bruises from being so near the center of the blast and from the road rash. My radar was beeping frantically at me, but I couldn't register the sound through my shock and fear. My dad scoured the area, waiting to see if Danny was gone or not.

"Hmph, shooting someone in the back. Hardly sporting." Danny's voice said from thin air. My dad spun to face the voice, eyes flying wide open in surprise as a bright green energy blast caught him full in the face at point-blank range. It wasn't on the same scale as the blast that had destroyed that car before, but my dad screamed in pain, staggering backward, one hand clutching frantically at his face as Danny reappeared, hand still glowing from the blast. "Oh, but I guess I'm not very sporting either, am I?"

I stared, horrified, as my dad panted heavily, trying to recover from that awful blow. Danny floated there, feet just an inch off the ground, smirking wickedly, obviously enjoying himself. Apparently to the ghost's surprise, my dad straightened, still breathing heavily, but determined to face the ghost anyway. I gasped when he turned slightly and I saw the damage from Danny's attack. The right side of my dad's face was a charred mess. I felt my stomach protest the sight, especially the bloody ruin of his eye. "Is that all?" My dad growled through tightly clenched teeth, firing another round at Danny.

Danny easily avoid the grenade, having had more time to react. "Look, this is really fun." He chuckled then, a low, evil sound. "But do you really think you can stand up to me?"

"Valerie, run!" My dad commanded me, his voice strained, obviously he was in a great deal of pain. "Get out of here!"

Entranced, I staggered to my feet, but my legs wouldn't hold my weight, and I fell back down with a pained cry. Danny outright laughed, and I swear my blood froze at the sound. How could he have changed so much in such a short time? Gone was the boy I had feelings for, this was Danny in name only. His behavior, his intent... everything about him was straight from the nightmare I had crafted in my mind months ago about the ghost-boy. Uncaring, a threat to society, little more than a ruthless monster.

And still, I couldn't bring myself to raise my weapon against him.

With a shout, my dad launched himself at the ghost, a barrage of shots preceeding him. Danny simply raised a shield of green energy, looking incredibly smug, floating with his arms crossed as the blasts pinged harmlessly off the barrier. My dad's momentum carried him smack into that green shield, which Danny quickly dissolved, one hand catching my dad around the throat as the shorter ghost floated high enough off the ground to be eye-to-eye with him. The grenade launcher was dropped and forgotten as I watched my dad clawing at the gloved hand that apparently held him with an iron grasp, depriving him of air.

"I think I'm done playing now." Danny smiled then, fangs gleaming. The hand at my dad's throat steadily tightened, my father flailing wildly.

I finally snapped out of my stupor at the blatant threat to my dad's life. I silently launched to my feet, activated my jet sled, and slammed it and myself bodily into Danny at maximum flight speed before he could strangle my dad further. I caught him by surprise, my only advantage. He dropped my dad and glared daggers at me, firing a volley of green blasts. I swerved through the storm as best I could, feeling the heat of several narrowly missing, one scorching my back and sending me tumbling, shouting when I hit the ground, my ribs making their condition known. I heard my dad taking in pained gulps of air just a few feet from me as I worked myself back upright.

Just in time to come face-to-face with my nightmare, red eyes just inches from mine. Danny smiled, showing his fangs again. "So you still have some fight left, Valerie?"

"D-danny-!" I yelped, backing away unsteadily.

"This is amusing." Danny grinned at me, stalking forward as I backed away. "You really think I still care for you? That I still have feelings for you?"

I felt tears stinging at the corner of my eyes. "Danny, stop this, please!"

"Why should I?" He demanded. "Why should I care about anything? About you, this town, about anything? I'm through with caring."

I shrank back in fear. I wanted desperately to fight back, to pull out a weapon and shoot him and stop this madness. But still, even then, I couldn't. I cringed as he roughly grabbed the front of my shirt, biting my lip hard to refrain from loosing the yowl of pain as my midsection was roughly pulled forward by the fabric. "Danny, stop-!"

"I'll stop when I'm ready to stop." Danny hissed at me. I cringed again, seeing the tips of that forked tongue. "I hate this place. I hate the Nasty Burger. I hate Casper High. I hate Vlad Masters, that stupid man. I hate FentonWorks. I hate this city. And I hate you When I stop, I won't have to look at any of it anymore. It will all be gone, and I'll never see any of it again."

I stared in horror at him then, watched him raise his free hand. The green energy swirled into being again. "No, don't-!"

"And goodbye." His voice was devoid of that deranged glee from just a moment ago, as if the statement were merely a formality.

"VALERIE!"

The next instant was a blur. Something slammed into me and Danny, and I staggered, momentarily blinded by a green flash of energy and momentarily deafened by the most piercing, agonizing scream I had ever heard. That sound still haunts me to this day, sending chills up my spine, making the hair on my neck stand on end and my blood run like ice. It was my father, having knocked me out of the line of fire as the ecto-blast ripped into him.

"Dad-!" I yelped, activating my jet sled and diving back into the middle of things, grabbing my thrashing dad and painfully hauling him onto the sled behind me. He was still screaming in agony, wordless shouts mingled with coarse words in a discordant tirade, his remaining hand clamped tightly over the shredded, bloody stump that remained of his left arm. I kept one eye on Danny, who now looked not so much angry as amused, a predatory grin on his face as he simply stood there, arms crossed. I still don't know why he didn't finish us then and there- it was certainly within his power to do so, and I was in no position to offer any resistance. My only thought was escape, fleeing that demon and getting my dad safely away to somewhere that his wounds could be treated. Perhaps despite his words, some small sliver of kindness remained, making Danny stay his hand and let me fly away.

Perhaps kindness had nothing to do with it, and he was enjoying my suffering, a mouse in the cat's paws.

It was a long flight, both physically and emotionally. As I came down ever slowly from my adrenaline surge, my injuries made themselves painfully known. I was drained mentally. My world was turned upside down in an instant. My friend had become in truth the very monster I had assumed he was in my ignorance, apparently now bent on destroying everything, either out of grief or madness. My father was very near mortally wounded, and I was pretty certain I had some serious internal injuries as well.

I heard the first stirrings of panic, saw the smoke from the first distant explosions as I brought my sled down at a hospital well-distant from where Danny had apparently commenced his rampage. It didn't take the emergency room staff more than two seconds to realize we needed help badly. My dad was taken away to surgery for his wounds, and I felt myself lose my frail grip on consciousness as well. Between my bodily injuries and the heights of joy, surprise, and sheer terror I had just gone through, I had no strength left. My last thought as I slipped into the painless freedom of unconsciousness was one that still troubles me even now.

Is this my fault?