Author's Note: Wow, I did not mean to let this go without an update for so long, sorry about that. I am hoping that I'll get back to a more normal writing schedule in the middle of July.
Planned
It couldn't be true—
It couldn't be true—
It couldn't it couldn't it couldn't be—
Danny denied it over and over like a mantra, a broken record stuck in a painful loop as he flew home as fast as he could.
Because he didn't want to believe any of it. Vlad had to be lying. His parents wouldn't do that to him. His mom wouldn't do that to him.
But all the clues, the scattered bits and pieces that were at first perplexing and nonsensical were now falling into place.
Don't you know what they've done to us? To you?
His ultimate enemy's words had no meaning for him before but now they all rushed back into his head making such terrifying sense.
And then a second ultimate enemy, a number tattooed on his upper arm just like all the dead clones in that graveyard.
I was created to be used and then destroyed. To live a short time before she killed me.
She. She.
He did not want to believe that she could be his mother.
It had to be a lie. He would go home and down into the lab and there would be no clone there. He was sure of it.
He wanted to be sure of it.
Danny phased through the walls of Fenton Works and maintained his ghost form as he searched for his parents. He found them upstairs in their room with the door shut, their voices muffled as they spoke about something. Danny stood outside a moment before floating away, past Jazz's door and down the stairs, down to the basement. Taking the long way instead of just phasing through the floor because he was stalling, afraid of what he might find once he reached the lab.
The lab was dark. Danny switched on a light and went down the stairs, one step at a time, slowly, slowly, holding his breath.
God, he didn't want to keep going. He wanted to go back up to his room and hide under his covers.
But he gripped the stair rail and continued his descent, down into whatever hell was waiting for him.
He froze when he saw what was belted to the main examination table.
No, not what. Who was on the table.
Unmoving. Sleeping. Or perhaps unconscious.
Danny approached the table to get a better look, but even from a distance, he recognized that thick dark hair, the point of that nose, the curve of that neck, the jut of those eyebrows.
He had seen them in photographs. In mirrors. Every day for over sixteen years.
"Oh, my God," he breathed out, not even realizing he had been holding his breath.
He braced himself against the table, leaning and hanging his head, on the edge of hyperventilating. Gathering courage, he looked up again and studied the clone. On his back with his arms down by his sides, dressed in a hospital gown, wrists and ankles strapped to the table with anti-ghost belts pulled tight. No cuts or incisions, no signs of trauma. It appeared the experimentation had not yet begun for this clone.
A flash of memory. The second incarnation of his ultimate enemy pulled down his sleeve, revealing a tattoo of the number 26.
Danny shakily lifted the right sleeve of the clone's hospital gown. The number 26 was tattooed in black on the clone's upper arm.
One day you will see me again. I won't look like this, but you'll know it's me when you see this number. And then you'll understand.
Yes. Danny understood now. The past version of his second dark enemy looked very different indeed.
A small metal side table stood nearby, holding tools and a clipboard. Danny picked up the clipboard and leafed through the sheets of paper clipped to it. Notes written in his mother's handwriting, details and instructions for what was to be done with Clone 26.
Flay the skin away from the arm in one piece if possible so it can be restitched on, will see how quickly and how well it is able to reattach and heal—
Danny dropped the clipboard, which clattered back onto the metal side table. He covered his mouth and turned back to look at the sleeping clone, so peaceful and unaware of the horrors planned for him. No white hair, no ghostly complexion. His skin was warm and pink with blood, his lashes dark on his closed eyes.
His mother was planning on destroying him knowing full well he was her son.
She wasn't even going to pretend he was just a ghost.
Danny stood there. Motionless. Staring. Hell stared back at him.
An involuntary shudder jarred the return of his senses. His parents were probably going to come down soon.
He made a decision in just a split second and knew he had to act quickly. No time to think or consider his options.
He loosened each belt holding the clone to the table and lifted him, one arm supporting his back, the other beneath his knees. The clone did not wake as Danny jumped into the air and phased through the ceiling, up and up to his bedroom. He laid the clone on his bed and pulled a pair of jeans and a T-shirt out of his dresser drawers. He removed the hospital gown and redressed the clone in his own clothes, stepping back when he was done, watching as the clone continued sleeping supine on his bed, on top of the covers.
God, the clone really did look exactly like him.
He heard shuffling noises from his parents' bedroom down the hall. Still holding the clone's hospital gown in his hands, he dropped through the floor, all the way back down into the basement lab. He changed into his human form and quickly stripped out of his clothes, phasing all of them off and tossing them out of sight. He then slipped on the hospital gown, shivering in the frigid, sterile lab air.
He imagined all of the clones that had been here. That had died here.
Such a frightening place to wake up in.
He climbed onto the lab table and placed the four belt restraints around his wrists and ankles, loose enough that he could easily slip out of them. He then lay back on the cold metal surface and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, trying to control the erratic tremors seizing his whole body.
Then he waited. And listened.
His heart began racing when he heard the basement door open.