Chapter Twenty-Two

CW: Death, depression, suicide mention, emetephobia (holy heck do I tag that last one way more than I expected to)

Three weeks ago, Danny disappeared.

Three weeks ago, Jazz learned the truth.

Her parents woke her up that morning long before the sun was up, panicked and sobbing as they explained that impossibly, Danny and Phantom were one and the same. Phantom was injured in a ghost attack and Val found him, although Val didn't know what happened or what ghost was responsible. Val apparently went back out in an attempt to locate the ghost but failed. Her parents tried to help Danny, but he panicked and disappeared seconds after regaining consciousness.

They debated whether they should call the police and file a missing person's report. It took until seven a.m. for her Dad to make the call, and an exhausted detective came by shortly after. Detective Marsh listened patiently to her parents as they explained that they waited up all night for Danny to come home. They explained how this was fairly normal for Danny, so they weren't too worried at first even as he failed to answer their texts and phone calls, but once the sun was coming up it was well outside of the ordinary, even for him.

They did not tell Detective Marsh that Danny was Phantom, or that he might be a word Jazz could not bring herself to use or even think at that moment. But when they started to discuss Danny's recent academic performance, his struggles at school with his assignments and attendance, the fight with Dash, and how he struggled to maintain relationships with his friends . . . Jazz could see the obvious conclusion dawning and what the detective suspected. It was a waste of time. Her brother didn't kill himself. He promised her wouldn't, and she–he wouldn't. Whatever happened last night, it wasn't that. She refused to accept it.

She refused to accept that he might be gone for good.

"We have officers out looking for him now," said Detective Marsh as he tucked his notebook away. "They'll check the locations you mentioned. We'll need to talk to his friends, classmates, and teachers, too. If you receive any word from him, give us a call immediately. Do you have a location tracking app on his phone?"

"No," said Mom, her voice strained and exhausted, no doubt wishing she had, despite knowing it could have broken what little trust they had, still in the process of rebuilding the bridge over the chasm between them. Jazz genuinely thought they made progress with Danny, that talking to the ghosts was all he was up to, but now? She still couldn't understand how he could possibly be Phantom and Danny, because Danny wasn't dead. He wasn't a ghost.

"Right. We'll see if we can work with the phone company, but if he's run away, then he probably ditched it somewhere. It might not help much, but it'll be a start."

At least he didn't actually say the word "suicide." Not yet.

Privately, they hoped he was okay (but how okay could he be if he was already dead?) and that he would simply come back on his own. From the sound of it, Danny clearly panicked and was probably confused about what happened. She could tell her parents were stung by the idea that Danny might be out there thinking they hurt him, but it was a logical conclusion for Danny to make after everything, especially given what he was.

They called his friends over, too. Sam, Tucker, and Valerie. Asked if they knew the whole truth. Sam and Tucker shared a long, uncomfortable look before Sam quietly admitted they found out a few days ago when Danny came to them after the fight with Nocturn. They explained that he wasn't fully dead, that he could switch between being human and ghost, despite how fantastical and impossible it seemed. Her parents puzzled over it, working out an explanation for how it might work that Jazz barely listened to, because at least it meant that Danny wasn't gone, that he wasn't little more than a ghost, that there was still a real chance he was alive out there and not lost to them.

Valerie did not know. She stormed out, slamming the door behind her, tears burning in her eyes. Jazz might have considered following her, talking to her or just doing something to make it right, but instead, she sat on the couch, staring at the ground and a cup of bitter coffee in her hands. She despised coffee, but with how little she slept, she needed the caffeine too badly to be particular about it. Danny would tease her about it if he were here, about how she was trying to be an adult when she wasn't yet, or how she could drink something that actually tasted good instead. Danny would . . .

He would . . .

It took a few days, but Valerie eventually calmed down. She explained she was hurt because she worried she could have hurt him without knowing, wondered if she had hurt him, and Jazz saw the haunted looks in her parents' eyes, the two of them apparently not considering until just now how much they hunted and likely harmed him as Phantom. She offered to check in spots she found Phantom in the past to see if he might be there since out of all of them she interacted with Danny's alter ego the most, but so far, she had no luck.

They found his phone about a week after the search began, not far from where Valerie found Phantom, the screen cracked and part of the phone melted. The initial forensic analysis concluded it was probably from an ecto blast, and the police began to worry that perhaps something much more sinister occurred. They weren't wrong, of course, since Danny was definitely attacked by something that night, but it still didn't bring them any closer to finding him.

Jazz could feel herself slipping into an intense depression, going through her days on auto pilot, barely aware of what was happening even as she couldn't stop dwelling on everything, on how she must have failed him for him to not trust her enough to let her know the truth, about how lonely and terrified and exhausted Danny must have been all this time. For a moment, she allowed herself to ask if they would even have a body to bury, and then she found herself sobbing and throwing up in the bathroom while her Dad hovered over her, rubbing her back and telling her it would all be okay, that Danny was out there and that he would be back soon. She found little comfort in it, knowing her parents didn't know anymore than she did about what happened to her brother after he vanished from the lab. When the numbness returned afterward, she welcomed it. She didn't want to keep crying. She wanted to do something, to fix it somehow.

Tucker and Sam started coming over almost daily with Valerie, trying to get updates, proposing theories. It was almost two weeks before her Uncle Vlad answered her parents' phone calls and offered to hire a private detective and put money towards the search, too. She didn't know why it took him so long. Even Sam's parents stepped up to help ages ago despite disliking her brother, but they knew that Danny and Sam were close friends and even they weren't heartless.

Jazz found herself hating Vlad for it, knowing that he had money and connections far beyond what she or her parents did, even as she knew it was irrational because the chances were high that Danny wasn't in their world anymore. That no amount of money would find him, no matter whose pockets it came from. Thankfully, at least, her parents didn't tell Vlad the whole truth about Danny. He would hate it if Vlad knew everything, although the man asked once if they thought perhaps a ghost may have targeted him because of his status as a liminal. Her parents assured Vlad that wasn't the case, but truthfully, none of them knew for sure. They still didn't know what even attacked him that night.

The strangest and most unnerving piece about his disappearance, though, was the sudden lack of ghost attacks.

"I haven't seen any of the usual ghosts since he vanished," said Valerie as they sat at the table that night eating some takeout from a new Chinese food place. Her parents dropped it off on their way to the police station, where they had another meeting about the search for Danny and the next steps they would be taking. "There have been some animal ghosts, but that's it. There's barely been any activity at all, and while I'd usually like the break, I'm worried it means that they're planning something."

"Do you think they know what happened to him?" asked Sam as she twirled her noodles around on her chopsticks. She barely touched her food, not feeling overly hungry these days as she worried about Danny. "Do ghosts–do they grieve?"

"Danny would know the answer to that, but at this point, we don't even know if he's dead, Sam," said Tucker. Unlike Sam, he devoured his dinner, seeming to take some comfort in it. "Well, deader than usual, at any rate."

"If he is–if he died–I'm still not sure that they would," said Jazz. She doubted, in her heart of hearts, that it was an 'if' at this point. Even if Danny thought their parents hurt him, she could not imagine him not trying to check in with her or his friends, at least. "We talked about it a little bit, once, before I knew everything. Not, like, ghosts grieving but how they think about death. He said it's not the same."

"Your parents seem clueless about it, too," added Val as she took a few small bites of some steamed vegetables and fried rice. "But Danny disappearing is the only thing we know of that's changed. I know you don't know the ghosts, but do you think he'd want revenge or something? Your parents said he seemed confused, so if Danny or the other ghosts think your parents did this to him, then maybe he's planning something with them to make them pay for it."

"Wow, Val. Surprised it took you so long for that old prejudice to start shining through," said Sam bitterly, stabbing her noodles aggressively. "Oh, Danny's a ghost, that must mean he's an evil monster, too, and going to get revenge on everyone now."

"That's not what I'm saying!" snapped Val. "Just that we don't know what happened, and from the sound of it, neither did Danny! The Fentons said he completely freaked out when he found them over him, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he might've jumped to some pretty ugly conclusions there. I can't imagine how I'd feel if I thought my Dad tried to do something like that to me, no matter whether or not he knew the truth. Can you?"

Jazz considered it for a moment, grateful for the numbness she felt, knowing that if she thought about it for a moment she would only be able to dwell on how she was unable to fix something that was irreparably broken. "I don't think he would, honestly, but some of the ghosts do care about him," said Jazz, "and if they thought Mom and Dad did something to him, they might plan something with or without Danny."

She left out the part where Danny might not exist anymore. That her parents quietly mentioned the high possibility that he de-stabilized, given what little information they had prior to him vanishing pointed to that being his likely fate. The fact that Sam and Tucker couldn't summon him, either, made it a depressingly likely possibility since she couldn't imagine Danny ignoring them. She felt the faintest flutter in her stomach, an urge to cry and vomit and scream, and she pushed it down hard as she set her food aside. She could not allow herself to feel right now. There would be time to process it later, once they were sure they knew what happened to him.

"Maybe we should try to go to the Ghost Zone," suggested Sam. "The police have looked everywhere else, and Tucker and I already tried summoning Danny and it didn't work. What else is even left at this point?"

"Mom and Dad are worried about getting lost or stuck there, which wouldn't help anyone even if he is in the Ghost Zone," said Jazz. "They've been trying for months to map it, but it doesn't stay constant. It shifts endlessly. And while the air seems breathable, there's a lot of free-floating ectoplasm. Without proper protection, it could cause radiation poisoning or other health problems due to ecto contamination."

"I could do it," offered Valerie. "I've been once before and managed to find the portal again thanks to the upgrades Technus accidentally made to my suit. We might not be able to find Danny, but I could find the other ghosts."

"And the ecto contamination?"

"I'm already ecto contaminated. I've literally got ectoplasm powered nanobots in my bloodstream," she said. "But if you're worried about it, I can keep the suit on. As long as I do, it should be fine" Silently, Jazz wondered how Valerie could know that for sure. A tiny part of her worried about what she said, too, about being ecto contaminated, and she felt like maybe her parents should check Valerie out, make sure she didn't have cancer or something else that she was completely unaware of. She doubted Valerie would agree to it, though, since if she did she suspected they would tell her she needed to stop using the suit and hunting ghosts.

"You shouldn't go alone, Val," said Tucker. "There are still a lot of dangerous ghosts in there that have a whole bunch of reasons to hold a grudge against you."

"My parents have the specter speeder. We could follow Val in it. It would keep us safe from the ecto contamination, and it can outrun just about any ghost." It was a bad plan. There were too many things that could go wrong, too many ways they could get hurt, and like the summoning before, they were rushing headfirst into this without really thinking it through.

Jazz didn't care. At this point, she would do anything to find her brother.

"Should we wait for your parents?" She could hear the undercurrent there, the question of whether or not this was really what they should be doing even as Tucker said it.

"I'd rather not. I think Mom and Dad would second guess Val's tech a lot more than we are, and if Danny does think they hurt him, then he might not be willing to talk to us if they're with him," said Jazz. Maybe. It would be smarter to talk to them about it, at least, and she even promised before that she wouldn't do something this rash again. But she didn't want her parents to talk them out of it, and she knew they would, or that they might not let her or Sam or Tucker go with them even if they did agree. "But I trust Val's judgment more here. They've been wrong about so much, and Val–you're probably a better ghost hunter than they ever were."

"Harsh," whispered Sam. "But probably true. So what do we need?"

They quickly finished dinner and headed down into the lab. Jazz grabbed what supplies she could - a couple of thermoses, a few earpieces that would allow them to communicate and that could help filter out certain types of ghost noise, the Fenton Fisher and the Fenton Peeler, and some ecto-blasters. The massive ecto skeleton sat on the side of the basement. Her parents started working on it again, seeking a distraction as they worried about Danny and whatever ghost hurt him and its potential power, but they still hadn't figured out the power supply issue and it was too big to fit on the speeder with the rest of them onboard, anyway.

She debated quietly whether she should leave a message for her parents or not, and after a few minutes of waffling about it, she picked up a pen and scribbled a quick note to let them know where they went and that they should be back soon. She didn't want them to have another child disappear without any explanation if something went wrong.

"Ready?" she asked as Valerie shifted into her suit. She, Tucker, and Sam sat in the speeder, with Sam buckled into the back while she and Tucker took the helm.

"Should be," said Tucker as he put down the manual. "They kept the controls pretty straightforward. There's a bunch of more complex equipment here designed for doing research, but we won't need that."

"I'm good to go," said Val, her voice coming through the earpieces loud and clear, and Jazz watched as she passed through the portal and into the Ghost Zone without even a hint of hesitation.

"We don't want to lose her," she said, and Tucker nodded as he swallowed, his hands shaking as he steered the vehicle through the portal and then came to an abrupt halt. "Whoa."

The world that met her was awash in endless green. Scattered in the distance she could make out faint, purple doors and what looked like floating islands, and far beneath them, she could see black, broken stones and white bones glowing faintly. "Don't go near the doors or the ground beneath us, if you can help it," suggested Valerie. "The doors are gateways to different ghosts' lairs. They react really badly if you try to go inside."

"And the ground?"

"Skeletons. They'll try to drag you down. I don't want to know what's beneath it," she said, and Jazz shuddered. "Most of the islands are okay, though, if we do need to land in an emergency. They seemed like they were mostly inhabited by pretty weak ghosts, and the ones that are the homes to more powerful ghosts are pretty obvious. Like, think of giant skulls and crossbones and stuff."

"Why don't you lead the way?" suggested Tucker.

"Will do. Let me know if you see something before I do."

They sat in silence, the time ticking by endlessly as Tucker pushed the speeder through the zone slowly behind Valerie while Sam sat in the back and quietly flipped through the manual Tucker discarded. Jazz kept watch, hoping to spot someone or something that might help them, but so far she saw nothing but empty islands and doors. "Maybe we should've just tried summoning a ghost," she mumbled, staring through the glass.

"We could have, but we seem pretty bad at it, and I doubt any of them would respond to us if they didn't have to," said Tucker. "I'm really, really hoping we missed something obvious with it. I can't imagine Danny not responding to us. He knew that Sam and I knew what happened, that we weren't–aren't–y'know."

"Complicit?" muttered Sam. "What? Much as I hate to admit it, Val had a point, okay? Danny really might not know that your parents didn't hurt him."

"But if he couldn't tell who was calling him, then maybe he just wouldn't come." She was not ready to give up on Danny. Not yet. "I don't know if he knows or not, when it happens. We–I never asked."

"Me, neither, so I guess it's possible." Tucker seemed unconvinced, but at least he wasn't willing to argue it with her more than that, and then he squinted before tapping his earpiece. "Hey, Val?"

"Yeah?"

"Is that a castle up ahead?" Sam looked up for a moment, unbuckling her seat belt to come and take a closer look through the windshield, as Jazz tried to see what Tucker had spotted.

"Yup. There will be ghosts there, but they might not be friendly and they'll probably be pretty powerful, too. Want to check it out or look for someone else?"

"I don't think we have a lot of options. We've already been driving for almost an hour," sighed Jazz. If she didn't know any better, she'd swear the Ghost Zone was changing itself around deliberately to keep them from finding anyone, let alone Danny. "Let's go in slow. Maybe, um, fly a white flag or something?"

"Did you bring a white flag?" asked Val pointedly.

"No." She glanced around to see if there was anything in the Specter Speeder they could use, but nothing stood out, and who knew if ghosts respected that kind of signal? Danny, maybe, but he wasn't here, and yet again Jazz found herself regretting not asking him more questions about the ghosts when she had the chance.

"Right."

It was another twenty minutes or so before they finally made it to the outskirts of the island, and before they could figure out if they were going to land or not they were approached by a pair of seemingly identical ghosts in plate mail, their spears held out in front of them. "Halt," commanded the one on the left. "Ghost hunters are not welcome in my lady's kingdom. You will need to turn away from this place."

Jazz pushed a button on the dashboard and then spoke into a small microphone. "We're not ghost hunters. Well, not most of us. Val's just escorting us through here, she's not looking to hurt anyone."

"Then why are you here?"

"My name is Jazz Fenton. I'm looking for my brother, Danny."

The ghosts whispered to each other for a moment, and the one that spoke before lifted his visor as he pulled his spear back, his red eyes focused intently on her. "You are Sir Phantom's sister?"

"Danny got knighted? When?" wondered Tucker, and Jazz wanted to scream. None of that mattered at all, but apparently, Tucker's voice carried through the speaker since the ghost answered him.

"When he aided our Queen in her efforts to reclaim the throne that was hers by right," he said. "She honored him and offered him a place here, which he refused. How do you not know of your brother's conquests? Do they not sing songs of his deeds?"

"Not unless bad TikToks about Phantom count," whispered Sam, but thankfully the mic didn't pick it up this time, or if it did the ghosts didn't bother to respond.

"Uh, no, he kind of kept a lot of his, um, quests secret," sputtered Jazz. "Is he here now? Can we see him?"

"He is not here." Jazz felt her stomach drop. Of course not. It was incredibly unlikely for him to be in the first place they looked.

"Do you know where he went?" she asked.

They whispered to each other again for a moment while Valerie sighed and sat down on her hoverboard, letting her leg swing slowly over the edge. To a casual observer she might look bored, but Jazz could see the tension in her shoulders, the way she was ready to react in a moment's notice if the ghosts started to attack. "I will get the Queen."

"That's not necessary, I–well, never mind." The ghost had already flown off, leaving the other knight behind. She took her finger off the comm button. "That's probably not good, huh?"

"They're not shooting so far," said Tucker. "I consider that pretty great, actually. And I'm not really worried about a queen, especially if she was friends with Danny."

"She was strong enough to overthrow someone, or at least charismatic enough to convince powerful ghosts to help her do it," said Sam. "Feels like a mistake to not worry about her a little bit even if she and Danny were on good terms."

"Sam's right," whispered Val. "I wouldn't underestimate her or anyone else we meet here."

"Do you know anything about her at all?" Val shook her head, and after a few minutes, Jazz saw the ghost returning from the castle, a woman at his side. She was dressed in a flowing blue gown and had long blond hair that was carefully braided. A golden crown with delicate, red gemstones sat upon her head and there was a brilliant, green emerald fastened around her neck on a gold chain.

"Maybe you should bow or curtsey or something?" suggested Jazz, and she heard Val grumble as she scrambled to her feet and gave the approaching ghost queen a sweeping bow.

"My knights have informed me that you are seeking Sir Phantom," she said coolly, her red eyes locked on Jazz. "Have humans fallen so far that they have forgotten all traditions?"

"I—I'm sorry?" she stuttered as she pushed the button to speak. "What traditions?"

She felt like nothing so much as a bug beneath the queen's heel when she spoke once more. "The living should not seek to reunite with the dead."

"Um, but, Danny's not dead," said Tucker quickly. "I mean, we know he can be, like, ghostly sometimes, but he's not actually a full ghost or fully dead or whatever. He's a liminal, so doesn't that mean that rule wouldn't apply? Maybe?"

"Are you unaware?" She watched them through the window, her expression softening, and Jazz felt her world crash down around her before the ghost even finished speaking, knowing precisely what was coming. "I am sorry, then, that it must be I who informs you of your brother's passing. I welcomed him to the Infinite Realms with the others after he was struck down in battle."

"But–that's not–he can't–he's a liminal," Jazz stuttered out as she gripped the arm of her chair while pushing down so hard on the button with her finger that she thought it might break. "He's not–he's not dead, okay?!"

"Jazz . . ." Sam walked over, putting a hand on her shoulder, but she swatted it away, the grief and anger and denial bubbling up after she spent so much time suppressing it, and she could feel the dam about to burst.

"He is a liminal no longer by his own admission," said the queen. "I know it may provide little comfort to you in your time of grief, but he has been welcomed by those of us in this world. Your brother was kind to us before his passing and well-beloved. I and the other leaders in the Infinite Realms called a temporary peace in his honor with the living world. We could think of no more fitting tribute to him."

"That's why the ghost attacks stopped?" asked Val. No revenge quests, no desire to lead an army of ghosts against their parents. Apparently they did grieve, in their own way, despite death not having the same meaning to them as it did to humans. She should feel relieved, but she felt empty, barely holding back her tears now. "How long will this peace last?"

"It ends tonight," she said. "We will not do more."

"Why not?"

"Our nature is such that for many the satisfaction of their obsession may only be obtained in excursions to your world, and where we go, the ghost hunters follow, no matter our intentions," she said, staring coldly at Valerie, and she saw Val look away for a moment in shame.

"But Danny–I can't–can't I at least say goodbye?" Jazz whispered as the first few tears leaked through despite her best efforts to hold them back. "Can't my parents–can't we–please?"

"I am sorry, but it would be unwise," she said. "The transition to becoming one of our kind in truth is a hard one, and this time period is crucial in defining who your brother will be for the centuries to come. Lingering amongst the living can cause pain that would almost certainly warp him, twist him into something you would not want him to become as he became obsessed with reclaiming a life that he can no longer have. And you, as the survivors, would watch as he grew to be someone so far from who you knew and remembered and cherished that it would poison you slowly."

"But a quick goodbye can't–" began Jazz, but the Queen waved a hand, cutting her off.

"No. I have seen what becomes of even a small overstep with respect to this tradition. I will not assist you in this, and if you truly love your brother, then you will leave him be. But–" She glanced at her knights for a moment, smiling viciously, and Jazz could swear she saw fangs amongst her perfect teeth. "-you have not been sworn against pursuing justice. While we have made our realm hostile to your brother's killer, we and most of the others promised Sir Phantom that we would not actively seek revenge against him."

"You know who did this?" said Val, her fingers going to her blaster at her side on instinct. One of the knights flinched, his own weapon shifting slightly as he prepared to defend against Val's perceived attack, but thankfully Val noticed and released her weapon, the knight doing the same once he saw she didn't intend to hurt them.

"But of course," she said. "He is incredibly dangerous and powerful. I suspect your brother's desire that we do not actively seek revenge against the one that felled him is more out of concern for our well-being rather than any sense of forgiveness."

"Tell us who," demanded Jazz. She was not one for retribution, for continuing endless cycles of violence, but she would make an exception for the ghost who murdered Danny. Whatever creature did this to him would suffer brutally for it.

"His name is Plasmius," said Jazz, and she saw Tucker and Sam glance at each other, Sam's hands going up to her mouth. They knew. They knew this ghost, didn't they? "You know of him?"

"He's a liminal," said Sam as Jazz stared at her. Why hadn't they told anyone about such a dangerous ghost, especially when they knew Danny was missing? It was a stupid, irrational thought. They didn't know it would matter, of course, just as nobody else knew who killed Danny that night, and no doubt Danny had dozens of powerful enemies, but she could not help the irrational anger bubbling inside of her. "Like Danny is . . . was. I don't . . . shit. Shit. We need to get back right away. This is bad. Like really, really bad."

"Sam's right," insisted Tucker, his hands shaking. "Jazz? Val?"

"Thank you," said Val. "We'll definitely make sure he pays."

"Um, yeah, let's go, but, um . . . if you see my brother again, can you please at least tell him that we love him?" asked Jazz, her voice cracking. "That we know, and it's–that I wish we could have told him we accepted him and loved him when he was still here, too, but–but–please?"

"If I see him, I will pass along your message, but from how highly he has spoken of all of you, I have no doubt he knows the truth," she promised, and as they turned away Jazz curled up on herself in her chair and burst into tears. She didn't notice Sam lean over and hold her until they were almost back, didn't notice the others crying, too, and when they returned to the lab, their parents were there waiting, anxious, and worried about her. They didn't know about Danny, though. She had to tell them. She knew she had to tell them, but she couldn't get the words out.

But it was Val who spoke up instead, and Jazz wondered if she was made of iron or simply viewed death differently given the ghost hunting. "The ghosts haven't been attacking because they called some kind of truce," she began, "in Danny's honor. He–he didn't make it. I'm sorry."

Her parents held each other tightly, then, clearly having suspected as much from the start. They had witnessed firsthand how bad Danny's condition was, and Jazz could see their tears starting up. She personally felt hollowed out. Empty. Done. She didn't know if she should take solace in the fact that at least he hadn't destabilized, too. Did Danny even like being a ghost?

"We know who did it, too," added Val. "It's a ghost named Plasmius. I haven't fought him before- have you?" Her parents shook their heads, but she wasn't surprised. Jazz didn't recognize the name, either. Yet another thing from Danny's life she knew nothing about and probably never would, except his friends recognized it, didn't they? The name? They said he was a liminal.

"You do know him, though. Danny said you call him the Wisconsin Ghost," said Tucker.

Her eyes widened. That name she recognized all too well. The vampire-like ghost had attempted to kill her father and almost succeeded at the reunion at Vlad's mansion. It was sheer luck he hadn't, or maybe it wasn't. Maybe Danny did something to stop him, back then, without them even realizing it.

"But he's not just a ghost," added Sam. "He's a liminal, like Danny, and . . . look, I know this is going to sound completely nuts, but it's the truth, okay? We heard this from Danny himself, before he–before he died." The word stuck in her like a dagger, and although she didn't think she could cry anymore, she felt her chest ache and the tears began to gather again. "I'm sorry, Mr. Fenton, too. I know you think he's your friend, but he's not. Danny says he's hated you for years, ever since his portal accident in college."

Oh.

Oh.

"It's Vlad Masters, isn't it?" said Jazz, the name shattering the air like glass, and then Valerie turned away and barely made it two steps before she started puking.

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, faves, follows, etc! I didn't expect to get this posted this week, but here we are! I will likely post the next chapter next Friday, too. I don't have a lot of edits I need to do for it and I am done with the first draft of my Invisobang fic, so I have a little more time again.