I slathered peanut butter across a slice of bread, grumbling under my breath.
"Would you calm down?" Jazz asked from behind me.
I tried to refrain from rolling my eyes at her. It was Saturday night, several days after our little spat, but that didn't mean that it was okay to piss her off now. We were breaking into Vlad's tomorrow night and I needed Jazz, Tuck, and I to be working like a single unit. We were usually pretty good at getting down to business and sticking to it, if I do say so myself, but I didn't want to take any risks when it came to the Masters mansion. There was no telling what fucking ghost would be roaming around, waiting to make mincemeat out of us.
"I'm fuckin' freaked about tomorrow," I admitted. "Vlad's been such a motherfucker lately. He keeps making threats and I know he's just waiting for a reason to act on them."
Jazz's face rearranged into an expression that was more sympathetic. "Danny, this is the only course of action. It's better he be stopped completely."
"I know. It's just … Sometimes I think about how fuckin' dangerous this is and I wonder why I let myself get caught up in this bullshit. Why did I think it would be fun to fight fucking ghosts when I was fourteen? Why?"
Jazz was unaffected by my rant. She'd heard similar things too often. "It's because you're a hero, Danny. Somehow, my little brother was born to save people. You're doing a wonderful job at it. Don't doubt yourself. I have faith in you."
"Thanks," I grumbled, knowing that she was probably the only one who felt that way. "Jazz, are you going somewhere?"
"I'm meeting a friend," she said, although her voice sounded far off. I had my head stuck in the fridge, looking for the strawberry jam. "Is that a problem?"
"No, just be careful. Dammit, where is the –"
"Top shelf," Jazz interrupted helpfully. She said something else while I was distracted with finding the jam from behind the bottle of mustard.
"Whoot! Got it. If you see Vlad, kick him in the balls for me, okay, Jazz?"
In response, the door slammed shut. I laughed, but only because if there was one of us that undoubtedly had the power to take Vlad down, it was Jazz. Sometimes I thought it was a little unfair that I was the one with the powers when Jazz would be so much more useful, but then I remembered that if Jazz did have ghost powers, then I would be the one who suffered because of it.
I slathered the jam on top of my peanut butter, thinking about tomorrow and breaking into Vlad's mansion. I bent my bread in half and shoved most of it in my mouth. Time for me to rest up.
(-.-)
I woke up in the middle of the night to an agonizing sensation. It was taking over every bit of my body and making me feel like I was going to die.
I had to pee like a motherfucker.
Cursing that fact the pissing was a thing – because seriously, it's inconvenient as hell – I lurched out of bed, wrinkling my nose at myself. It was a hot night and I was sweating my balls off. Grumbling about everything, I managed to make it to the bathroom without wetting my boxers. I quickly washed my hands; I felt tired but better as the cold water washed over my hands. Even with my below average body temperature, I was steaming. I finally convinced myself to leave the bathroom and stepped into the hallway. I almost walked straight back to my bed when I something caught my eye: Jazz's door. It was hanging wide open. I frowned, and headed for it. Jazz hated to sleep with her door open. I stuck my head around the doorframe, but her room was empty.
I froze, trying to listen to the house. I could hear the subtle creaks as the house settled. I could definitely hear my father's snores and my mother's restless sleeping. But aside from my own shallow breathing, I couldn't hear anyone else in the house. Using my ghost powers, I quickly phased through all the rooms in the house. I even went down into the lab, but just like I had feared, Jazz wasn't there. I went back to my bedroom, trying not to panic as I calculated how long she had been gone.
She left home around eight … I think. It was currently about one a.m. If we had been talking about any other adult on the planet, I probably wouldn't worry. But this was Jazz, who never stayed out late and who had a bounty on her head because of me. I grabbed my cell phone, begging for her to pick up. But, of course, I just got her cheerful voicemail.
Fuck.
I transformed into Phantom. The only thing that I could do now was search Amity. Once I found her, I was going to have to get her micro chipped. Tucker too, now that I thought about it, just in case Vlad managed to get his grubby hands on my sister or my best friend. As I slipped through the streets at a rapid pace, I wondered if there was any way that I could get Sam chipped too. You know, for safety reasons. In the height of my musings, I sped past something on the street. I skidded to a halt, because it had looked like a person. Slowly, I turned in midair, praying that I had taken the scene in wrong.
But I hadn't, of course I hadn't.
"Jazz!" I screamed her name and it tore my throat. She didn't respond and I flew to her side.
I had faced a lot since I had become Phantom. I had broken bones and lost more blood than I cared to know. I had been beaten and threatened. While it had been horrific when I was younger, now I just took the blows. I thought that I had been hardened to every type of blood and gore out there, because I had seen it all on my own body. But as I landed next to Jazz, my fear threatening to kill me, I knew that it wasn't true.
There was nothing in the world that could have prepared me for finding my sister beaten and bloody in an alley. My hands were shaking as they hovered over her, and I choked back sobs, trying to figure out what I should do. There was blood everywhere, staining the ripped blue dress that I knew was her favourite. Her face was already swollen from bruises. I wanted to reach out and touch her, to see if she'd respond, but I was scared to touch her. Her arms looked twisted, and her legs looked worse.
"Jazz," I whispered, and then I noticed the heave of her ribcage. She was still breathing.
Of course she was. Jazz doesn't give up that easily.
I grabbed my cell phone, letting myself fade back into Fenton as I did so, not caring that I had left the house in nothing but boxers and an old t-shirt. I dialled 911, and was yelling at the operator before he even got through with asking me what my emergency was.
"Please, it's my sister. Someone's attacked her," I rattled off the address, Jazz's age, full name, and her height. I said that she wasn't allergic to anything and that she didn't take medications. I begged, "Hurry. She's barely breathing."
I touched the skin on the underside of her forearm, a piece of flesh that hadn't been marred by blood or bruising. "Hold on, Jazz. You're gonna be fine. I know it."
The ambulance was there before I knew it, and I was thankful for their speed. One of the paramedics tugged me into a standing position. "Has anyone called your parents?"
I shook my head, Mom and Dad – sleeping and unaware – had never crossed my mind.
"Get in the front of the ambulance," she ordered me, and while I wanted to stay with Jazz, I also didn't want to be in their way.
I crawled into the front of the ambulance and my cell phone was back in my hand. I called home, unsure of what else to do. If I couldn't have my sister, I needed my mother.
She answered.
"Hello?"
I could tell that she was mostly asleep.
"Mom," I sobbed.
"Danny? Where are you? What's going on?" Mom demanded, sounding way more alert. I heard Dad snort awake in the background, muttering, "Mads?"
"I … Jazz …" I huffed out, trying to control myself enough to tell them something, anything, but I couldn't get Jazz's puffy face, streaked with blood, out of my mind. "Hospital. She's not okay."
"We'll meet you there," Mom assured me. "Danny, it's going to be okay."
"K," I sniffed out, and then the line went dead.
I clenched my hands together as the ambulance went roaring down the streets of Amity, the lights on and the sirens blaring despite the fact there wasn't really anyone on the roads beside us right now. The hospital appeared in front of us – bright and gleaming. To anyone else, it would have looked intimidating, but to me it looked hopeful. This was the place that would help Jazz. Here, she would get better.
I shuffled out of the ambulance as the paramedic threw himself from the vehicle. He helped the others get Jazz from the back of the ambulance, and they were speaking quickly amongst themselves, using terms that I couldn't understand. I followed them into the hospital, but doctors were starting to swarm her and I was losing her. I kept up as best as I could until a hand grabbed my arm. I tensed, ready for a fight, but it was just a nurse. The guy was taller than Tucker and was built like a gorilla, but the look on his face made me feel a lot calmer. If everyone in this hospital looked both as peaceful and confident as this man, then my sister was in good hands.
"Come on," he said. "I'll grab you some scrub pants. You might want to clean up a little too."
I looked down at myself. There was blood on my knees from where I'd been kneeling close to Jazz.
I planted my feet and looked toward where they had taken Jazz.
"She's probably set to go into the operating room," the man said firmly. "She's being taken care of, okay? Now let me take care of you and then we'll find your family. My name is Eric, okay?"
He dropped me off at a bathroom so I could wash off my knees. When I was finished scrubbing my legs free of Jazz's blood, he returned with pants. I pulled them on and let him take me to the waiting room. Mom and Dad weren't there yet. I sat down in a hard chair, while Eric said he had patients to check on and that he would be back. I hung my head, staring down at my hands. I may have sponged Jazz's blood from my legs but I couldn't wash her blood from my hands.
I was responsible for this. I wasn't the one who had raised a hand to my sister, but I was the reason why someone had. If I wasn't Phantom, if I didn't exist, then Jazz would be just fine. Trembling all over, I grabbed my cellphone.
"It's late."
"Tuck …" I hiccoughed, feeling like I was going to throw up. "I'm at the hospital."
"The hospital?" I could hear fear in Tucker's voice. He was terrified of hospitals and everything that had to do with them. "You never go to the hospital. What the hell did Vlad do to you?"
"Not me. Jazz. He fucking got to Jazz. She looked like she'd been hit by a truck or fed to a bear or both. It was so bad, Tuck. There was blood and bruises and she looked so broken." I was losing it. I could feel myself losing it.
"Jazz?" Tucker whispered. "He wouldn't."
"He did!" I shrieked. "I know you hate –"
"I'm already halfway out the door," Tucker assured me, cutting me off. "I'm not leaving you alone, either of you."
"Thanks Tuck."
"See you soon."
I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky.
~TLL~
