Chapter 11

Act 2: Aftermath

Danny looked at the finished model drying on his desk. He'd spent all day working on it, despite Jazz's protests to sleep when she found out he'd never gone back to sleep after his nightmare. It had given him exactly what he'd hoped it would; the buzzing anxiety in his mind had muted, and he felt like his old self. At least it had until he'd finished it, but he had to admit, it wasn't as bad as before.

Danny yawned, the exhaustion of his all-nighter beginning to hit him like a truck. He was about ready to fall asleep sitting in his desk chair, but he had to stay up at least until his friends left. He had to stay… stay awake… He shuttered, his body jerking to wake him up, and he looked at the time. Sam and Tucker would be here soon. He couldn't believe he'd dozed off so quickly. He spun around in his chair as he looked up at the ceiling, trying to focus on staying awake. The only thing about that was his mind began to wander and the guilt he'd been feeling since he'd overheard their conversation at the party was getting worse. He needed to tell them what happened, or at least the cliff notes version, so they could understand. He was about to doze off again when the door to his room opened and his two friends walked in.

"Hey guys," Danny said through a giant yawn.

"Dang, dude, you look exhausted. I thought you were supposed to be resting. Did you even get any sleep?" Tucker asked as he looked at him.

Danny laughed nervously. "No, I tried, and it didn't work out."

"What do you mean, it didn't work out?" Sam asked.

Danny sighed. "It means I had a nightmare and I couldn't go back to sleep." Danny looked at them with a guilt-ridden gaze, and they didn't respond. He decided that was as good of a lead in as any to the conversation he knew he needed to have with them. He stood, then checked the hall to make sure his family wasn't in earshot, and shut the door. "Look, I don't know where to start, so I'm just going to start." Danny went back over to his desk chair and sat down. He knew he wasn't ready to get into it, but he also knew he never would be and they needed to know. "I lied. I remember every bit of what happened to me while I was gone. It was… It was the GIW that kidnapped me. They took me to a lab and had this… scientist," Danny spat out the word, "perform on me what he insisted on calling experiments." Danny's face darkened and pinched into a scowl as he thought of him. He could feel the same anxiety-induced pit growing in his stomach and took a deep breath to suppress it. "His definition of experiment is apparently torture," Danny muttered.

"What did he do?" Tucker asked when Danny didn't continue, keeping his voice quiet.

"They, uh… put this collar on me that prevented me from using my powers, and could electrocute me with a remote. He used any excuse to electrocute me." Danny shook his head and paused as he tried finding a concise way to describe the rest. "He figured out he could use the collar to control my powers and tried to force me to change back into my human half. It took everything for me to hang on to my ghost half. To keep my secret from them. Now my powers aren't working right. I keep going ghost in my sleep and my powers keep going off when I don't want them to." Danny looked at the floor as he took a deep breath, not ready to get into the worst of it, but he knew he had to. "He tested toxic gasses on me, messed with my mind trying to convince me I'm evil, made me battle other ghosts to the death in this cage, and…" Danny gripped his torso the way he had when he was on the table holding his gaping wound closed. Danny couldn't even stomach saying it; even thinking about it made his throat constrict. "He cut me open. Dissected me like a frog while I was fully conscious." Danny's breath shook and his eyes stung as he took another breath to calm himself. "I begged him to stop, screamed, until my voice was gone, but it didn't matter. He didn't care. He treated me as a thing, something less than human. A lab rat." Danny spaced out, his mind going back to that moment. He shook away the awful memory and continued. "I kept trying to escape. Nothing worked, and every time, it would just make things worse. Every day, it got worse." His voice strained as he tried to hide how retelling everything was making his hands shake. He crossed his arms and hid his hands under his arms while Sam and Tucker sat in a stunned silence. Danny couldn't look at them.

"Danny… that's…" Sam started, but couldn't find the words to finish her sentence.

"How… did you get out?" Tucker asked.

"My m—" Danny stopped himself. He couldn't mention that his mom was there. "I mean, one of the other scientists there was against what he was doing and helped me. Eventually." He finally looked at his two friends and they both looked horrified. Sam's eyes were glossy with tears and Tucker looked like he was about to throw up. He hated seeing them so hurt. Maybe he should've kept what happened to himself after all to spare them. He looked back at the floor. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you."

"No!" they both said at the same time.

Danny looked back up at them, still with an apprehensive look mixed with guilt.

"I'm glad you told us what happened. But Danny, I'm so, so sorry that happened. I couldn't have imagined…" Sam said as a tear escaped her eye.

"I'm glad you told us too, but you need to go to a therapist. Stuff like that will wreck you if you don't get help." Tucker added.

"I can't talk to anyone. What would I even say? 'I'm half ghost and a government agency kidnapped and tortured me'? Yeah, that doesn't scream getting a one-way ticket to a padded cell at all," Danny said harshly.

"Danny! He's just trying to help you. There's no reason to be mean about it," Sam scolded him.

Danny looked away as his guilt grew. "Sorry, Tuck."

"It's fine. I just mentioned it because, well, my uncle was in combat and refused to get help for his PTSD from it and he… He… Five months after he got back, he took his own life," Tucker said. In all the time he'd known him, Tucker had never mentioned it. But now that he had, Danny vaguely remembered about five years ago where Tucker was taken out of school in the middle of the day and was out for a week. That had to have been what happened.

"I wouldn't do that, Tuck."

"You don't know what you'd do or not. Who knows what could happen if you have too many sleepless nights clouding your rational judgement? I don't want to see that happen again to anyone I care about."

He was right. "I'm sorry, Tucker."

"No, you don't need to apologize. I get it. The GIW and that scientist put you through enough for a lifetime."

Danny got an idea. "I may not be able to talk to anyone, but I can get the guy who did this. With a little help."

"What are you talking about?" Tucker asked as he arched his eyebrow.

"This guy exists somewhere outside of that lab and I'm going to make him pay for what he did to me."

Sam looked at Danny, then Tucker, apprehension clear on her face. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Danny stared at the floor before looking back up at the two of them. "That's all I can think of that would make it easier for me to sleep at night."

His two friends gave each other guarded looks and were quiet for a second.

"What do you need me to do?" Tucker asked when Sam didn't respond.

"The guy's name is Minniack. I don't know his first name, but if you can find a picture, I'd know him if I saw him," Danny said.

Tucker pulled his PDA out of his pocket and began typing into it. "And you think I can just, I don't know, hack into a government database and get their confidential employee files?"

"Well, I—"

"Because I totally can, and I am," Tucker boasted.

Danny laughed at his friend's flippant attitude.

"Isn't that a felony or something?" Sam asked.

"Only if I get caught."

"Is this really such a good idea?"

"Sam, it's the only thing I can do."

"Danny, you help people. You're a hero. 'Making him pay' doesn't sound like something you'd ever want to do," Sam said, concern raising in her voice.

"Maybe not before, but it is now," Danny said, a steely tone overcoming his voice as a sharp glare settled on his features. "And that kind of hate is only in me because of the things he did to me!" By the end of his sentence, the words were snaking through his teeth.

Sam looked at him like he was a stranger and he could only meet her gaze for a moment before he had to look away. It was too close to the look she gave him when he was out of his mind attacking Technus.

"Danny, give me a good reason to go after this guy and I'll back you, no question, but revenge isn't a good reason. Take that first step and it will lead you down a path I don't want to see you on."

"Really? Torturing me almost to death isn't reason enough?" Danny asked as seething anger seeped into the tone of his voice. "If it's not good enough for you, then maybe I'm already on that path without choosing to take that first step. Like I said, there's something dark in me that he put there and he needs to know what that kind of pain feels like!" Danny slammed his fist down hard onto the desk, making everything on it shake.

"If he did all that stuff to you—"

"IF?!" Danny shot up as he roared, the rage that had been building suddenly blinding him. "If he did?!"

"Danny, I didn't mean—"

"What did you mean, then?!"

Sam took a deep breath to keep from yelling back. "Let me finish before you cut me off again."

Danny pursed his lips and gave her a curt nod.

"If he did all of that to you, that man has that poisonous darkness in him much more than you do. You aren't beyond getting the poison out of you, but if you act on that poison, that darkness, it will consume everything you are. The only way to get it out is by seeing someone who knows how to help you heal."

Danny's eyes and posture softened. "Never thought I'd hear you advocating to get rid of darkness," Danny joked, but there wasn't quite enough humor in his voice. Although humor wasn't the real purpose to his joke; he really only said it to divert the conversation.

"Okay, I think both of you need a change of topic," Tucker said, picking up on the hint as he reached into his backpack and took out a folder. "Here's the make-up work the teachers wanted to give you."

"Ah, great," Danny grimaced. Then he opened the folder to see a huge "get better soon" card with almost everyone's names signed on it. He even saw Dash's name signed in it.

"What is this?"

"Nobody thought it was right to punish you for something you couldn't control, so the teachers and everyone at school thought this was a better idea."

"So, I just get a pass for all the schoolwork I missed?"

"Eh, more like it won't count against you."

Danny didn't know how he felt about that card. He bet most of the people who signed it didn't really care, but he supposed it was the thought that counted.

"Well, it's getting late and I really need to get home, so," Sam said as she stood, "see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I should probably do the same," Tucker said as he stood to follow, but Danny grabbed his arm before he left.

"Keep looking for Minniack," Danny whispered.

"I thought you and Sam agreed—"

"I didn't agree to anything. Just find him. Please, Tucker, I need this."

Tucker hesitated before answering. "Sure, Danny."

"Thank you."

Tucker nodded and left.

Danny sat on the edge of his bed and hung his head. He was conflicted about how his conversation went with Sam. He didn't like that he got so angry at her out of nowhere. They'd had their fights in the past, but nothing like what he'd just done.

A light knock snapped Danny out of his thoughts. "Come in."

Jazz poked her head into Danny's room. "Hey Danny," she greeted tentatively. "I heard yelling and Sam looked upset when she left and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, Jazz. Thanks for asking."

She walked into the room and sat next to him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Danny sighed. "I think I've done enough talking for today."

Jazz looked at him expectantly but didn't say anything.

"Okay, fine. I bit Sam's head off about something I shouldn't have. And I was kind of a jerk to both of them."

"Why were you being a jerk?"

"I don't know. I'm just so angry."

Jazz was quiet, unsure of how to say what was on her mind. "I know I sound like a broken record, but it would help if you talked to someone."

"And I already told you and everyone else that I can't talk to anyone!" Annoyance was thick in Danny's voice.

Jazz was quiet as she averted her gaze to the floor. "You can… if you tell your secret to whatever therapist you start seeing."

Danny gawked at his sister. "Are you kidding me? I can't trust anybody else with my secret! The more people that know, the more vulnerable I am." Danny stood and began pacing. "If the wrong person finds out, the more likely it is that the GIW will find out and drag me back to their lab!"

"Wait, the GIW were the people who took you?"

Danny froze, forgetting that he hadn't told her who'd kidnapped him. He slumped his shoulders, then sat back on his bed next to Jazz and nodded. "If they find out that I'm a half ghost, something they've never seen before, they'll rip me apart." Danny huffed a dry, humorless laugh and muttered his dad's favorite thing to say to his ghost half. "Molecule by molecule."

"Danny…" Jazz whispered, then put her arm around his shoulders in a loose hug. After a minute, Danny leaned into her, finally inching down the guard he'd had up since he got back.

They stayed like that for a while, neither one knowing what to say, until Danny moved away and spoke. "I'm exhausted, so I'm going to get some sleep."

"Okay, little brother. I'll let Mom and Dad know so they don't call you down for dinner." She stood and walked to the door, stopping in the doorway for a second to look back at him.

"Thanks, Jazz," Danny said with a small, reluctant smile, then flopped down onto his bed, sleep overcoming him almost instantly.