I'm so obsessed with Starkid it's not even funny.

Seriously. Send help.

I've had Get Back To Hogwarts stuck in my head for over a week now. What are this. What are my life.

Heh. Jenna Marbles.

Okay, yeah, here's the next chapter. I'm sorry I suck at updating, I've had massive writer's block and alkkjdiuojklpoia. You know how it is. But I got it hammered out and now I'm gonna go watch another Starkid musical.

And then I'm gonna cry because I'm not in Starkid.

I don't own Danny Phantom, Starkid, or Jenna Marbles, but I wish I owned all of that. I do own the rights to attend an online government class for the summer. Woo, college.

Alrighty. Enjoy! (:

Wide Awake

Chapter Twelve

June 4, 2013

"Again." Sam said, the annoyance in her voice ringing through the air. Danny groaned, wiping the sweat away from his brow with the back of his hand. "C'mon, Seth, get up."

He was sitting in the dirt at the base of the cliff in the ranch's property, coughing slightly as the dust settled around him. Sam leaned against a large, rusted, blood-stained storage unit, which was faintly rattling and echoing as a zombie Sam caught hours before moaned and clawed at the walls to escape. "They're not gonna wait for you to get up."

He sighed and hauled himself up to a defensive crouch. He quickly counted in his head and choked down the urge to groan again when he realized this would be the eighteenth time he attempted to ward Sam's attacks off. Sam arched an eyebrow at him as he shifted his weight experimentally. He froze at the look on her face. "What?" He asked.

"Your weapon?" She sighed.

Danny dove toward the thin metal rod they found in the foliage earlier that morning. He tightened his grip around the rod as he dropped back into that defensive crouch before her. Sam shook her head slightly, a small half smile turning the corner of her mouth up, before she dropped into her own crouch. Danny clenched his jaw and swallowed as Sam began to circle him, a predatory gleam in her eyes. Beads of sweat gathered on his upper lip and dripped down his back. He wondered how hot it was outside, before a wave of annoyance made his temples throb at the thought of the farmer's tan he was sure to be sporting from the scorching sun overhead.

She darted forward, striking faster than a snake, completely catching him off-guard. After the fifth time she flipped him onto his back, he stated feeling a little less guilty about whipping her bare legs with the rod, so this time he did not hesitate to swing it across her left thigh as hard and as fast as he could. He heard her grunt, he saw the flash of a bright red welt rising against her porcelain skin, before her arm was around his neck and she was dragging him backwards. His ghostly instincts told him to use his intangibility to slip away like smoke through her fingers, but he resisted, quickly running through his human survival techniques in his mind to come up with an escape technique.

By the time Sam's center of gravity was reinstated behind him, Danny had her wrist in a vice-like grip in his left hand. He wormed his thumb up between her wrist and his throat, ignoring the way his nail scraped against the sensitive flesh of his neck and pressing the pad of his thumb against the veins connecting her hand to her arm. He pressed down hard, causing her fingers to slightly loosen their braid through his hair. Immediately he swung her arm up over his head and with one hand and pure brute strength he hoisted her up over his shoulder. He could hear her growling, he could feel her writhing against him, trying to break free, but his grip around her was too strong. He took a few quick steps forward and with that momentum he flipped her over completely, waiting until she landed solidly on her back before bringing the tip of the rod to the center of her neck. He let it rest gently against her windpipe, meeting her gaze as they both gasped for air. Sam's eyes were wide.

She swiped the rod away from her throat, and he allowed it to fall from his hand. It landed with a dull metallic clatter in the dust beside her. Danny stumbled backwards a few steps as Sam quickly picked herself up from the ground. She brushed the dirt off of her body, throwing furtive glances his way through her hair when she thought he was not paying attention. After a solid thirty seconds of silence, she brushed her hair away from her face and planted her hands on her hips, meeting his gaze evenly.

"That was impressive." She said, still breathing heavily. "Were you capable of that the entire time?"

"I didn't want to hurt you," He shrugged sheepishly, glancing down at his feet.

"Oh," She said softly. He peered up at her through his bangs. Her eyes were unfocused and she was nibbling on her lower lip. She shook her head and turned to glare at him. "Next time we run this, don't worry about hurting me. I'll be fine, okay?"

She turned away from him and knelt to scoop the rod up from the ground. "Okay, but I'm not gonna purposely hurt you for the sake of training," Danny said as she marched toward the storage unit.

"I'm not saying you should," Sam said, seizing the strap of his backpack and slinging it over her shoulder. She paused beside him, allowing him to unzip the largest compartment to extract a water bottle they packed earlier from the depths. "But I'm saying that if you'd done that on the first drill, we could have gone back inside a long time ago."

He let her walk a few steps ahead of him, watching the way his backpack bumped and swayed slightly against her back as she picked her way through the brush. Valerie allowed him to hide it in her closet that first night after seeing Tucker and Sam. He snuck in later, when he was sure Tucker was out, before dumping its' contents onto the floor of the closet and presenting it to Sam to use for training that morning. She'd frozen when he first pulled it out, as if part of her recognized it, but she was not sure where she knew it from. He could the moment she decided it was just coincidence in her eyes, the exact second that spark of joy died and her lovely violet eyes fell flat. He sighed.

"How'd it go?" Valerie asked as they trooped into the dining room. She was sitting at the table with Tucker; Danny saw them quickly retract their hands from the table top as he and Sam entered.

"It sucked all the way up until about ten minutes ago, when he almost killed me." Sam said, throwing a grin over her shoulder at him. "After that, it was pretty cool."

"So Seth's gonna be a good Zack killer?" Valerie asked, flashing a smile at Danny.

"We'll need a little more time to train, but I think he's gonna be pretty good. Maybe Zack Bowl good."

"Well, is he good enough for a recovery right now?" Valerie quipped.

"As in right now, right now?" Sam asked, all traces of humor gone from her face.

"We're almost out of fuel, so I need someone to go tap into the supply over in Ponderosa before the next raid."

"So send Dom and Artie!" Sam dropped his backpack at her feet and leaned on the table. "Seth's not ready for a real recovery, not yet. He hasn't even fought a real Zack."

"Dom's sick." Tucker said, planting his right elbow on the table and dropping his chin into his right hand.

"Make Eams to it, then, he's getting on my nerves." Sam grumbled.

"Sam," Valerie said firmly.

"Fine! Send Mal with him! Seth's not ready to go out there, not by a long shot."

"Why can't you go with Artie?" Valerie asked.

Her question was immediately met with cries of protest from Sam and Tucker alike. "Okay fine I get it!" Valerie shouted over their shouts. They both quieted considerably. "Jesus, calm down. It was just a suggestion."

"A stupid suggestion," Tucker said irritably.

"Seth does need to get out there, though." Valerie said, ignoring Tucker's heated glance. "It doesn't have to be a recovery, it doesn't even have to be very far, but he needs to get out there. Why don't you take him out, Sam?"

"Okay," Sam said slowly, suspicion flickering in her eyes. "What are you two doing?"

The couple exchanged a glance, before Valerie took a deep breath and turned a steeled gaze back to where Danny and Sam stood. "We were trying to come up with how we're gonna tell the group what's going on."

"Say no more," Sam turned on her heel and brushed past Danny, making her way to the front door. Danny brought his hand up, a half-hearted wave goodbye, as he started to follow her. He was half-way through the front room when he heard Tucker call his name.

"Hold on a minute," Tucker said, jogging toward him. Sam froze in the doorway, narrowing her eyes. "Go outside, princess, I'll send him out in a second. I need to talk to him."

"I swear to God, Tuck -"

"Get out!" Tucker shouted. Sam rolled her eyes and slammed the door behind her. Danny watched her stomp down the pathway, before Tucker crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat. "First of all, I want you to know that I don't hate you. Val pointed out that the way I've been acting lately hasn't exactly reflected that, so I just wanted to verbalize it. I don't hate you."

Danny nodded, wondering where Tucker was going.

Tucker heaved a sigh. "That being said, I need to talk to you about something really important. Last year, when all of this shit started, Sam and I lost our best friend. He died that night. We aren't even sure how he died, we never even saw him that night. I made a promise to that friend that I would keep Sam safe at all costs if anything ever happened to him. So far, I've kept that promise. I'm gonna respect her wishes and Valerie's wishes and step down from fighting, but I need you to make me a promise before I can fully come to peace with that decision." Tucker took a step forward, bringing the tip of his nose within inches of Danny's. "I need you to keep her safe. I've seen the way you look at her, I know you think she's hot or whatever, but I need you to promise me that you will protect her at all costs. I need you to swear that you'll die before you let her get hurt." He was breathing hard, his eyes were wide. Seriousness radiated from his body.

"I swear." Danny said solemnly, sincerity coursing through his limbs. "I'll die before I let anything happen to her."

Tucker drew back a few inches, blinking in surprise. Silence swelled between them as the gravity of the situation settled. After a moment of examination, Tucker nodded slowly. "Alright. Go."

"What did he want?" Sam grumbled as Danny closed the front door.

"He was giving me a pointer before we left. He said you always dive to your left when you're fighting a group, so I should be prepared to counter that." Danny lied smoothly. Sam nodded, before stooping and seizing the backpack from the ground.

"We're taking the Jeep, I don't care what Valerie says." Sam said, marching toward the back of the house quickly. She twirled a set of keys around her index finger as they went. "You should go ahead and come to terms with me driving, because that's what's about to happen." She threw over her shoulder.

Danny snorted. "Done." He murmured.

They rode in silence to the gate of the property. Danny leapt out of the car and shoved the gate open. It took nearly every ounce of his strength to make the rusted hinges move, but he had it done in less than two minutes. Sam drove through, parking just outside and sliding out to help him close the gate.

He turned his gaze out the window, watching the empty horizon bake beneath the midday sun as they drove south. Sam was humming to her self, so quietly that Danny almost thought he was imagining it. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the window.

"There's another Jeep over in this body shop on the other side of town," Sam said suddenly. Danny turned toward her, still leaning against the door. "Tucker and I go over there sometimes when we need to get away from the group. We've been working on restoring the engine so that we can use it for ourselves whenever we get it fixed. It's pretty much the safest place outside of the ranch in Clifton, but there's a chance that a zack could find us, so we're gonna need to be really careful. Vigilant. Okay?" She glanced over at him before quickly returning her gaze to the road.

"Okay," Danny nodded. They were already driving through the out most reaches of Clifton, and fifty yards ahead on his right, he could see a rundown building with two giant garage doors coated in a thick layer of dust. Sam pulled the car off to the side of the road, slowing the car until they rolled to a stop outside of the body shop. He slid out and glanced around, feeling incredibly exposed at the lack of other buildings surrounding them. Sam rounded the Jeep and yanked one of the garage doors open, revealing the front end of a Jeep Wrangler. She was grinning as she turned back to Danny.

"You comin', Alexander?" She asked. He grinned and followed her into the shadows of the body shop.

"So," She huffed slightly as she sat on the floor. He perched on the edge of a work bench, watching her slide under the car on her back with a wrench in hand. "You're from Wisconsin,"

"Uh, yeah. Milwaukee."

"Cool. You ever hear about a guy named Vlad Masters? He owned some football team up there."

"Oh, right! Yeah, I heard about him, he was kind of weird right?"

From beneath the Jeep, he heard a muffled, scoffing laugh. "He was a fruit loop." She called. They were quiet for a moment. "Did you have family up there?"

"I mean, I still lived at home when all of this happened. My mom and I were in Dallas visiting one of her sisters when all of this happened. We were in an outlet store when chaos broke out."

Sam slid out and propped herself up on her elbows. "Where was your dad?" She asked.

Danny swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked. "He was still in Wisconsin with my brothers and sisters." He said solidly.

"How many siblings did you have?"

"Three brothers, four sisters." He answered. "I had an older brother and an older sister, but the rest were younger than me."

"And they were all in Wisconsin when it hit?" She asked, disbelief wrinkling her nose.

"Yep. I don't even know if they're alive or dead at this point. I mean, I highly doubt they're alive, but...you know," Sam looked down at her feet. "What?"

"My dad and grandma were in Europe when it hit my hometown." She said quietly. "So I know what you mean. About not knowing for sure," Another heavy silence rose up between them. "My mom, on the other hand, was with me when it happened."

"What happened to her?" Danny asked carefully. She glanced up at him briefly.

"Everything was fine the night before. I had dinner with Tucker and -...and then I went home, and it was fine, but then everything went to shit. I was hungry, I didn't eat much, so I went to the kitchen to make toast. It was three, maybe four o'clock in the morning. We were supposed to be leaving the next day for the mountains, he said it was supposed to be safe there. But we never made it to the morning. My mom...I don't know when it happened, or how. I don't even really know if she knew it'd happened. But she fell to the plague and...I think it was probably the smell of the toast that did it." Danny could feel his eyes bulging from his head. He could still picture it so perfectly: the flames licking the walls, the heat making the air dance, and the faintest trace of her plum lip gloss on the burnt surface of the bread. "She came down the stairs and saw me and obviously went ballistic."

"What happened next?" Danny asked breathlessly. He could feel himself edging closer to her, gripping the edge of the bench tightly.

"I had to get out of there. I had to survive." Her eyes were unfocused and far away, as if she was still in the kitchen of her home. "We were pretty well-off...we were rich. There was this big trash chute in the kitchen that dropped over a furnace. And I...I stabbed her with a butcher knife and pushed her down the chute. I stabbed her in the heart. It was before we figured out that a headshot is the only thing that can kill a zack. She fell down the chute and the furnace sort of exploded and my house caught fire. I almost didn't make it out, but luckily Valerie happened to be flying by on this hoverboard she used to have and she pulled me out. She took me across town to this giant community storm cellar and that's where I found Tucker."

"Damn." Danny whispered. "And...and then you guys left Amity the next day?"

"Um...well, yes. But we went back out a few minutes after I got there. We were trying to find our other friend." She heaved a sigh. "Tucker, Valerie, and I all went out and made it to his house. We came out of this alley and I almost got run over by my own car."

Danny felt the blood drain from his face. He could still see it, he could see it swerving and dodging people as they went sprinting by. He wondered if he'd seen her without realizing what he was seeing. "Someone hotwired it and stole it that night, drove right past me with it. The dumbass crashed it into a gas pump and the whole thing exploded. The bastard probably never knew what hit him." He swallowed hard, desperately trying to focus on her words over his thundering heart. "Anyways, we...we got to his street and...his house was gone."

She peered up at him and he realized with a start that the edges of her eyes were tinged with red. "We don't know exactly what happened...there was nothing left." She sniffled and wiped at her nose. "I've gone over it a million times in my head, I've tried to imagine what exactly went on in that house that night but..." She released a small sob. "I don't know. I don't know if he was even awake, if he was ever even aware of what happened to him..." She buried her face in her hands and sobbed in earnest. Every nerve in his body yearned to comfort her, but he remained motionless on the bench. "I hope he slept through it. I hope he still thinks he's sleeping, right now. I hope he thinks he's dreaming. I know he's not in the Ghost Zone, he would recognize it."

"What makes you say that he's not there?"

She parted her fingers and arched an eyebrow at him. "He would have come back by now. He would have come back the second he realized where he was, the second he realized what happened to him. He wouldn't just leave us here, not in the state the world's in now." She wiped at her eyes and shook her head vehemently. "That's not the kind of guy he was. He would never abandon me and Tucker. Ever."

"Well...what if...what if he thought that you guys died that night, too? What if he thinks that you two are dead as well, and you just haven't materialized in the Ghost Zone yet? Maybe he's just there, waiting for you guys to come find him there. Maybe he'll show up here when he realizes you guys aren't dead."

Her face was expressionless, her eyes were flat. "He's not coming back from the Ghost Zone. Ever. Because he's not in the Ghost Zone. But even if he was, we've lost all contact with the Ghost Zone."

"What?" Danny leapt off of the bench. "I thought you were supposed to be from the most haunted city in the world! What happened to them?"

"Nothing happened to them." Sam spat. "Our dimension fell apart. They used to come here because we were the whole dimension, they were the broken dimension. We were heaven, they were hell. And now, look around." She gestured out of the garage door toward the vacant landscape outside of the body shop. "If this happened to the Ghost Zone, you can be damn sure we'd cut contact with them, too. I don't blame them for avoiding us. We're a cancer now. We're the plague. Ninety-nine percent of humanity has fallen to the disease, and the majority of that last one percent is so bloodthirsty they're hardly classified as human anymore. They're animals. I'm an animal. People like you don't exist anymore, Seth. They just don't. How you've survived this long is beyond me."

"Sam, you can't just give up on mankind," Danny reasoned as she stood and wiped her hands on her pants. She scoffed and made her way around the car, snatching a grease-stained cloth from the floor in front of the car. "That last one percent is the only hope mankind has of surviving this. You're one of the last chances mankind has of surviving."

"Yeah, and so is Lars. believe me, you don't want people like me and Lars to reproduce. Mankind is better off dying out."

"Don't lump yourself together with that creep." Danny said firmly. Sam's head whipped toward him, a dangerous look flashing in her eyes. "Lars is the absolute bottom of the barrel. You are ten thousand times better than the very best version of Lars."

"I take it Valerie told you what happened, hm?" She planted a hand on her hip. He nodded. "Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna tell you something about that night, for the sake of this argument, that no one else knows besides me and Lars. I don't know why, but I trust you with this. You can't breathe a word to anyone. Not even Val. Understand?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"Lars...well...he really did try to rape me that night. But...we'd had sex before. Consensual, mind you." She turned away from him, missing him stagger backwards several steps and latch on to the work bench for support. "And only once. But I knew that if people knew that we'd hooked up before, they wouldn't believe me about the actual rape."

"Y-you- you- you slept with Lars?" Danny gasped. Sam threw a confused look over her shoulder. He straightened immediately, wiping stray grease off on his shirt.

"Once. Back at the beginning. I was lonely, vulnerable. I missed Da-...I missed my best friend, and...I don't know, he was just there, and he'd been really nice to me beforehand...I know, big mistake. We did it once and from that moment on he wouldn't let me out of his sight. He kept trying to get me to be his girlfriend or whatever and it was just creepy. Finally I told him to fuck off and that night he snuck into my bedroom and...well...you know the rest."

Danny had to swallow hard against the bile rising in his throat. If the urge to kill Lars before had been strong, it was all but destroying Danny now. He clenched his fingers into fists. "If he ever comes near you again, you just let me know. I'll obliterate that asshole."

A faint smile crossed her lips. "Will do, captain. C'mon, let's get out of here. I'm starving."

They climbed back into the original Jeep, Danny still rather numb from Sam's confession. They started back toward the house, passing through town quickly. Danny was so busy studying her profile furtively from the window that he almost did not notice the jet black SUV barreling down on them until it was right behind them.

The car lurched forward with a metallic crunch. "Whoa!" Sam shouted, leaning forward in her seat and craning her neck to see out of the rear-view mirror. "What the hell is that?"

The SUV lurched forward again, ramming into the back of the Jeep. Sam immediately jerked the wheel to the left in an attempt to make room for the SUV to pass, but the vehicle stayed directly behind her, slamming the back end of the car again.

"Don't pull over, don't pull over!" Danny shouted. "Get back on the road and floor it!"

Sam yanked the wheel to the right and pulled the Jeep back onto the road. Danny turned in his seat, trying to make out the face of the driver as the SUV bore down on them. He slammed into the back of his seat as Sam floored the gas pedal of the Jeep. The SUV fell behind instantly, leaving a rapidly widening gap between the two cars.

"Crawl to the back seat and grab the gun. Bring it back up here." Sam's voice was harsh and commanding. Danny complied immediately, tearing his way into the back seat. He peered over the back seat and flinched as he realized the SUV was catching back up. "Hurry up, Seth, they're gaining on us!" Danny seized the butt of the shotgun stored in the trunk and quickly climbed back into the passenger's seat. "Okay, good. I need to drive, so it's up to you to shoot their tires out."

"Wait, what?" Danny gasped. "I'm a horrible shot!"

"You better get good, then, because this isn't the moment for shitty shots! Take the two front tires out, we'll leave them in the dust." She reached up to the ceiling with one hand and hit a button. The tinted sunroof began to roll away, leaving a perfect hole for him to stand in and shoot from. "Go!"

Danny carefully balanced himself on the center console and slowly stood through the sunroof. The SUV was practically on top of them again, easily close enough for him to see the front tires. He tried to recall the three shooting lessons his mother's sister had given him. 'Always brace the butt of the gun right where your armpit begins! The meatiest part of your shoulder!'

He tucked the butt of the gun into his shoulder and brought it up to his face. He rested his cheek against the body of the gun, aiming the barrel at the SUV. "Is it loaded?" He bellowed over the wind.

"Yes! Just shoot!" Sam screamed up at him. He exhaled slowly through his nose, closed his left eye, and aimed.

The gun jerked against him when he pulled the trigger, but he still managed to puncture the tire driver's side tire. The SUV slowed. He could see arms flailing in the windshield, but he could not see who they belonged to. "Shoot the other tire out!" Sam screeched.

Without much thought, he aimed and fired again. The bullet found purchase and immediately the passenger's side tire was torn to shreds. He could hear Sam whooping in exhilaration below him as he dropped the gun, watching the SUV slow to a stop on the side of the road with a grin on his face. That grin faltered, though, when he felt the Jeep slowing as well.

"What are you doing?" He demanded as he dropped back into his seat. She ignored him and pulled a U-turn. "Sam!"

"Relax and give me the gun. We're gonna go see who the hell this ass crack is." She ripped the gun from his hands and kicked her door open. Without waiting to see if Danny was following, she approached the car quickly, aiming the gun at the windshield as she went. Danny scrambled out of his seat to follow.

"Get the fuck out of the car and keep your hands above your head." She called harshly. The driver's side door opened and a man leapt out, his hands high over his head. He kicked his door shut and took a few slow steps forward, his eyes on the ground. "Alright, I wanna know who you are and why you just tried to run me and my friend here off the road."

"My name's Luke and I tried to run you off the road because someone told me to." Luke recited in a hollow voice.

"Who?" Sam demanded sharply.

The passenger's door opened slowly, revealing a shadowy figure from within the car. It was not until he closed the door and took a step forward - smug smile on his face - that Sam and Danny realized in dismay that they knew him.

"That would be me." Lars said, raising his hands over his head.

Right, so, yeah. Basically I thoroughly enjoy torturing everyone. Everyone.

Not like George R. R. Martin torture. A lesser, still painful, but slightly more bearable torture. That's me. (:

Ahum, I think that's it. Quick poll to those of you who are still reading and also happen to be Starkid fans - which should I watch first?

Holy Musical, Batman!

OR

Starship

Help!

Oh, yeah, right, about the reviews. Leave them if you want. Shmee. I don't care. I mean, I do, I LOVE reading [positive] reviews but if you don't wanna leave one then don't feel pressured to.

Thanks for reading! :D

- Tori