Sam POV-
At some point I guess I must have fallen asleep because I was awoken by the loud voices of guards who pulled us off of the floor and forced us off the plane and into another unmarked van.
I was glad to see that Danny had at least gotten a little sleep because he woke up drowsy and disoriented.
"Welcome home, Princess," Jacque sneered.
This van had windows so I was able to look outside at my former home as we drove through. It was probably done intentionally so that I could see the ruin it had been reduced to in the past eight years.
The once gleaming lakes, hills, and buildings had been reduced to looking like a war zone. Earth was scorched, water was clouded and murky, and buildings had been flattened to rubble.
We passed the palace which looked almost normal at first glance, but when I looked at it again I could see that the exterior was cracking, most windows were broken, one of the columns had fallen down and the grounds had grown wild and unkempt.
This was not my home anymore, this was a nightmare.
We continued to the prison that was located on the far side of the island. It was about half as large as the castle but, when I had lived here, it rarely ever held people. Now I guessed it was full of loyalists to my parents. It had been designed to hold invading Germanic tribes during the 5th century, back when Amour Ville had first begun to thrive.
It was also deigned to be a maze, so that even if the prisoners managed to escape, they would have a hard time getting out and, would theoretically be easier to catch once they had exhausted themselves looking for an exit.
When I was little, I spent hours poring over maps of the prison, it had always fascinated me. And because one of my friend's fathers was in charge of the prison, I spent quite a bit of time there.
We entered the prison, went down the center hallway, took a left, then a right, then took three flights of stairs down to the lowest sublevel of the prison, then we took two rights, another left, and one more right before they threw us into a cell.
And, of course, they stationed a guard in front of our cell. Thankfully, for us, the guard only understood Spanish which meant we were free to converse without fear of our plans being foiled.
"Well this sucks," Tucker announced, sitting down on the floor.
I nodded, sitting next to him.
"So when…" Danny asked, looking at the guard and lowering his voice, "are we going to get out of here?"
"I think that the best time to do that would be late tonight after he," I nodded my chin in the direction of the guard, "Is asleep. Until then, we should all get some shut-eye. We have a long night ahead of us."
Tucker didn't argue, and curled up to get some more sleep.
Lucky him.
… … … … … … … … … …
Danny POV-
It was roughly one o'clock in the morning when I phased the three of us out of our cell.
The guard had fallen asleep, which made it incredibly easy for us to float right passed him. You would think that there would have been greater security on us, but it seems they had underestimated the ability of three teenagers.
"Which way do we go?" I asked Sam when we reached a three way split in the corridor.
"That way," she pointed to one of the corridors, "The largest cell in this prison is that way. I think that's where they will be keeping her, because it's also the deepest into the maze of tunnels. They expect that anyone trying to find her will get lost and wind up getting caught before they are do."
"Then how are we going to avoid getting lost and caught?" Tucker asked with apprehension.
"Just trust me," Sam said, leading the way.
Just when I began to think we were going in circles, we reached a dead end.
I nearly asked Sam if we were going the wrong way, but she kept walking down to the end of the hallway.
In the last cell (a cell nearly three times the size of the others) at the end of the corridor lay a woman with long, matted blonde hair.
"Mother!" Sam exclaimed, as she stepped into the light and reached through the bars. The woman was startled awake but when she looked and saw Sam her eyes filled with tears.
"Samantha!" her mother cried, trying to reach for her. Sam looked a lot like her mother. Same facial structure and same eyes, the only difference was their hair color.
"Oh, my baby! You are so grown up! What…what are you doing here? You need to leave before they catch you!" her mother exclaimed in fear.
"We're here to get you out!" Sam replied. For the first time, Sam's mother seemed to notice Danny and Tucker. Danny gave her an awkward wave.
"Darling, please, just go. Save yourself, I'll be fine," she begged, putting her hand on Sam's cheek.
"We're not leaving here without you and Father," Sam said resolutely.
"How? Only the guards have the keys and these bars are very solid," her mother sighed in resignation.
"Danny?" Sam looked at me.
In one quick motion I ripped the metal door off of its hinges and set it to the side.
"You know you could have just phased her out," Tucker pointed out under his breath.
Oh, right. That probably would have been easier.
"Oh my!" Sam's mother said staring at me in awe, "How did…" then she suddenly seemed to realize that she was now free and that she could finally hug her daughter.
Sam embraced her and fought to keep herself from crying.
"I have missed you, Samantha," her mother wiped away a stray tear that fell down Sam's face.
"I missed you too. Where's Father?" she asked.
"I'm afraid I don't know, I haven't seen him for a week," she shook her head sadly.
"My guess is that he's probably somewhere in the castle," Sam told us, "Let's head there before they notice that we've escaped."
We nodded and headed away from the cell as quickly as we could, pausing at every corner to see if the guards were coming.
Suddenly the alarm sounded.
"Maybe it's not for us?" Tucker asked hopefully.
"LOS PRISIONEROS HAN ESCAPADO!" a voice announced over the loud speaker.
"I don't need to speak Spanish to know that that is definitely for us! Let's go!" I replied. The four of us broke into a run.
We raced down a maze of hallways and cells. Most were empty, but a few prisoners yelled out to us as we passed. I was too focused to pay attention to what they said, it was in Spanish anyway, but it sounded encouraging.
All the way, Sam yelled out directions.
"Left!" She shouted, "We're almost there!"
"How do you know this so well!" I shouted back.
"Used to play hide and seek in these halls with the servant's children!" she shouted back.
"I used to scold you for that, I am glad now that you did!" her mother added a little breathlessly—despite her breathlessness, I was surprised she was able to keep up with us especially considering she seemed to be malnourished.
"Left!" Sam shouted.
I saw the light at the end of the hall, I also saw the guards, eight of them, lined up, blocking our escape.
We all skidded to stop, and Sam, Tucker and I stood in a fighting stance. Behind us, the Queen watched, wide-eyed.
The guards charged us, and Sam took on two at a time, using one's weight to knock down the other, and then landing a roundhouse kick in third's head.
I don't tend to worry too much about her in a fight. She's been trained in martial arts since she was ten and she uses helping me with ghost fighting as practice.
Meanwhile, Tucker was managing to hold his own against another guy.
I punched a few guys in the face—hard—tapping my paranormal strength. And I tried to ignore the sickening thud when they hit the ground. I swung one guy against another and they both crumpled together in a heap.
When two more guys charged for the Queen, she screamed. I blasted them both with a ghost ray and they fell down, unconscious.
Obviously, the Queen didn't miss what just happened. She stared at me incredulously.
"Come on," Sam jumped in, "Let's go."
Her mom broke her attention from me when we started to run again.
"Nicely done, Danny," Sam remarked accusingly, in a low voice, running next to me, "Why don't you just get a billboard that says 'I'm Danny Phantom.'"
"It's not like I had much of a choice! I couldn't have gotten to her before they did," I whisper-shouted back, "Which way should we go in?" I asked as the giant castle came into view.
"Back entrance, servants quarters. This way," she motioned for me to follow her behind the castle where many identical little houses were lined up between gardens. I guess these must be the servant's houses. And the gardens, while I'm sure they had once been immaculate, were now overgrown and unmaintained.
"Come on," Sam breathed.
The back door was locked.
"I've got this," I said, prepared to break the door down.
"No, it's better that we don't make any extra noise. I'll do it," Sam pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and knelt in front of the lock.
"Where on Earth did they send you?" her mother mused as she watched Sam pick the lock.
"Got it," Sam said, and pushed the door open.
The inside of the castle was just as neglected as the grounds, a thick coating of dust was on everything and cobwebs hung in the corners.
"Where would your dad be?" I asked Sam quietly.
"Probably as close to Jacque's HQ as possible so that he could…um…" she looked down.
'Torture him,' I thought, knowing what she meant. If Jacque didn't want to torture her father he would have left him in the prison with her mother.
"Let's just go," Tucker added, "It's been ten minutes since we took out those guards, I'm sure they know by now."
"Where would his HQ be?" I asked.
"Probably the North tower," the Queen piped up, "It provides the best view of the kingdom."
Sam nodded, "Let's take the secret hallway."
At the end of an ornate hallway there was a ceramic bust of a man. It had since been chipped and was also coated in a layer of dust, but Sam reached for it. She turned the man's head around 360 degrees until there was a click. Then a section of wall opened up. It had been so seamlessly disguised I would have never guessed that a secret passageway was there.
"Good, it looks like no one's been here in eight years," Sam pointed out.
"No kidding," Tucker remarked, scrunching up his nose in disgust. The secret corridor was practically one big cobweb, so think you could barely see into it.
"Why don't you just use one of those green blast things?" the Queen asked me.
I looked at Sam who shrugged as if to say "she already saw you do it once."
I shrugged and fired a ghost ray into the hallway. The cobwebs burned away and the ghost ray illuminated the corridor which was much longer than I thought it was, until I couldn't see the end.
"Well," I held a ghost ray in my hand to illuminate the hallway, "Let's go."