Honestly, the entirety of the quoted song is perfect for a certain part of this chapter. I'll let you figure out which part.

Chapter Three: Like Taking Candy From a Baby

"All this time I was wasting, hoping you would come around; I've been giving out chances every time, and all you do is let me down." - You're Not Sorry by Taylor Swift

Vlad

It's been three days since I learned of Daniel's fixation.

I wasn't lying when I told him I'd comb through my research, but I'm drawing a blank. Fixing a common medical problem in an ordinary ghost would be one thing, but we're talking about a ruined core in an Ancient who is also an angel.

I want to be annoyed with Daniel, but doing so would make me a hypocrite. After all, my own fixations contributed to more than a few wicked schemes. At least Daniel is keeping to his moral code.

So far.

I hadn't heard from him since that night, so I decided to pay him a visit. That's how I find myself on the couch with his human-self's head in my lap as he struggles through a core spasm.

His parents are in the lab, and his sister is at school. Daniel should be at his own school, but I don't blame him for sending a duplicate in his place. When I was fixated, I pushed through the pain and pretended as well as I could, but that was torture at its finest. I'm glad Daniel isn't doing that to himself.

Daniel shivers against me, curled into a ball. I have one hand on his side to keep him from rolling off the couch. My other hand is stroking his thick head of hair.

My heart is in pieces, seeing such a vibrant young man reduced to this.

"Was it like this for you?" Daniel asks between gasps.

"Yes," I say simply.

"And, yours lasted so much longer…" He hisses at another spasm. "I'm sorry I didn't help you sooner. I'm sorry I let you get to that point."

He means that by the time he started helping me, I was heavily sleep-deprived and starving myself because I was in too much pain to sleep or eat. He seems to be forgetting that he didn't know I was fixated until then.

I roll my eyes. "You are one of a kind, Daniel. I still can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. All I care about is that you did help me, even if not right away."

I owe you so much, I add silently.

His fragile state must be loosening his tongue, for he says to me, "I can't believe we used to be enemies. Why were we enemies, Uncle Vlad? At times like this, I can't remember." Right when the emotion hits, Daniel quietly snarks, "I meant that poetically. I know why we were enemies. It's 'cause you were a fucking asshole."

Despite his language - or maybe because of it, as he sounds more like his old self - I smile.

Before I know it, his breathing has evened out, and he is sound asleep. Good. I imagine he hasn't been getting much rest lately.

Yet, he is comfortable enough to fall asleep in my lap. My core purrs at this simple act of trust.

I lift my head and grow hot with embarrassment when I see that Jack has been watching us. There is a tender smile on his face as he stands in the kitchen entryway.

I carefully remove myself from beneath Daniel's head and place a throw pillow there in my place. Daniel doesn't react until a harsh and faintly blue breath bursts from his lips. He makes a small noise, and his eyebrows furrow.

I rest my hand on his side. "Whatever it is," I say gently, "I will handle it. You cannot help anyone if you are exhausted."

That does the trick, and Daniel mumbles what sounds like "thank you" before slipping back into dreamland. I have a sudden urge to kiss him on the cheek. Then, I envision him waking up to punch me in the face and call me a pervert, and I think better of it.

I turn to his father and mouth, "Ghost Sense." Jack nods and watches one of my duplicates, already in ghost-form, appear outside and fly off to scope out the area. Jack beckons me to the kitchen, and I follow. On the way, a mental word from my duplicate assures me that the mystery ghost is Eileen Merryweather, Daniel's imprinted mother, but it is going to keep searching just in case.

"Sorry to drop in unannounced," I say as loudly as I dare with Daniel sleeping in the next room. "I wanted to check on your son, and I'm glad I did. The moment he let me in, a core spasm came on."

Jack slumps miserably and gestures for me to sit down. I pull out a chair and do so. "Can I get you anything?" he asks. "Water? Coffee? A snack?"

"I'm fine. Thank you," I say.

He grunts and half-falls into a chair beside me at the table and rubs his face, drawing my attention to the bags under his eyes. Clearly, Daniel is not the only one who is exhausted. "Are those spasms supposed to be this frequent?"

"My experience says yes," I answer sadly. "They don't stop. They just vary in severity. If I know your son as well as I think I do, he's only let himself react to the really bad ones."

As expected, that doesn't make Jack feel better. "Danny told us about his last fixation. Maddie and I didn't know he was a ghost then, but how did we not notice that something was wrong?"

The question isn't directed at me, but I answer anyway. "You said it yourself, Jack. You didn't know he was a ghost. He was probably trying harder to hide it. After all, what would you have done at the time? Taken him to the hospital? With his biology, that would have done more harm than good." Jack sighs through his nose. "Is Maddie still working?"

"Sort of," Jack says. "She passed out at the desk. I wanted to bring her to bed, but neither of us has been sleeping much, so I didn't want to wake her."

"Is that why you're not down there with her? So, you won't make too much noise while you work?"

"That, and I needed a break." He smacks his hand on the table in frustration. "We got nothing, Vlad. Danny's been going to the Ghost Zone after school hours - his duplicates don't hold up if he leaves this realm - and he's learned about some old remedies. But, for them to work on something this serious, they'd have to be bumped up tenfold. We've tried all sorts of things, but we keep destroying the stuff. Have you come up with anything?"

I shrug. "I'm afraid we're in the same boat. Is Reaper still in the Far Frozen?"

"Danny hasn't told us otherwise."

I'm not going to tell Jack that his son could be withholding that information to buy himself time. It's only been three days, and supposedly it could take up to a week for Reaper to recover. As we've established, I don't know enough about core health to question that.

"I'm glad you're here, Vlad," Jack says suddenly. "I'm glad Danny's got someone who knows what he's going through."

I smile. "Well, the lad's done a lot for me. And, I'm not just talking about my last fixation."

"What was that about, anyway?"

"You don't know? Well-"

I stop when a ghost appears in the entryway. A tall, emaciated woman with off-white skin, wholly red eyes, and long, straight black hair. She wears a high-necked gray dress long enough to cover the wispy tail underneath.

Eileen holds up her hands. "Don't mind me. Just making sure the poor kid isn't home alone. Sorry for barging in."

Jack brightens the slightest bit. "Barge in all you want, Leena. You're family." He turns to me. "That goes for you too, V-man."

It's funny how things work out. Not so long ago, I would have spent my time with Jack constantly glancing at the clock and wondering when it was socially acceptable to leave. Now his company...isn't so bad.

Eileen frowns. "Leena?"

"I'll put it this way," I tell her with a grin. "If he's given you a nickname, you're doing something right."

Jack clicks his tongue and points a finger gun at Eileen. She smiles bashfully and puts her hand over her core.

"How's the research going?" Eileen asks.

Jack's good humor dies. "Not great."

I raise my hand. "Same. Is there anything you might be able to tell us?" I don't know when or how Eileen died, but I know it happened in the late 1600s. She would certainly have more information than we would.

Or, not. She shakes her head. "Where do you think Danny got the ideas for those other remedies? The only other thing I can think of would be highly illegal in this realm - not to mention, dangerous - and from what I hear, it doesn't do much for cores."

"Explain," I request.

Eileen takes a seat with us and folds her hands on the table. "Fun fact about illicit drugs: the majority of them came from the Ghost Zone."

"Really?" Jack asks. "Then, how do humans keep producing them?"

My turn. "I've read about that. Over the centuries, humans haven't been able to reproduce them exactly, but the results are similar enough. You know what they do to mortals, Jack, but take a guess as to what these so-called 'drugs'' purpose is in the Ghost Zone."

Jack's inner scientist mulls over the possibilities. "Medicine? Cleaning solution?"

Eileen and I answer together. "Candy."

Jack's brain malfunctions then resets. "Candy? The thing that kills and/or hospitalizes thousands of people daily…is ghost candy?" He chuckles in disbelief and shakes his head. "Wait till I tell Maddie."

I turn to Eileen. "How can candy be used to help Reaper?"

"Candy…" Jack breathes.

Eileen ignores him. "Rumor has it, if you mix a bunch of the really strong human versions together and boil them with ectoplasm, you can make a pretty powerful healing agent. But, again, it doesn't do much for cores."

Jack is stuck on the candy aspect. "So, when I saw Danny sprinkling 'powdered sugar' on cookies and he told me not to touch them because they were for a party…"

I snap my fingers. "Calling it now. That powdered sugar was actually cocaine." While Jack short circuits, I return my attention to Eileen. "Do you suppose this healing agent could be strong enough to work on cores?"

"That's the idea." Daniel looks pale and tired as he steps into the room, but it seems the worst of the pain has subsided for now. He nods at his imprinted mother. "Since you're here, Mama, I assume school's let out?"

She nods. "Your duplicate dropped off your stuff in your room. I won't be angry if you make a duplicate do your homework, considering the situation, but I want you to at least try to do it on your own."

Daniel groans at the ceiling. "Fine. But, I wanna work on the drug mix first."

"The drug mix," Jack drawls.

Daniel laughs and sends me and Eileen two thumbs-up. "Thanks for explaining the candy thing. I've been wanting to tell Mom and Dad about it, but that's kind of a weird thing to bring up with your parents. Oh, and Vlad's right," Daniel adds to his father. "That powdered sugar was cocaine. There was also molly baked into the cookies themselves. Definitely not for human consumption. I wasn't lying about the party, though. It just wasn't an Earth party."

"Have you tried baking with crystal meth?" I suggest. "It adds texture without disrupting the flavor."

Daniel points at me. "Noted."

Eileen chuckles. "You men just love to overcomplicate things. Give me a bottle of straight vodka any day of the week."

"Oh, I love vodka!" Daniel exclaims.

That is apparently too much for Jack. He stands up and says in a haze, "I need to lay down."

Once he's gone, Eileen laughs again, but the sound is more sardonic. "Boy, imagine if he heard this conversation before he knew you guys were ghosts."

"To think," Daniel says, taking his father's spot at the kitchen table, "he actually took me being a ghost better."

"Speaking of which," I say to Daniel, "how is your core?"

"Terrible," he says bluntly. "But, at least I can move again. Since school let out, Sam and Tucker should be here soon. They're gonna help me with that drug mix you guys were talking about."

Eileen asks the question for me. "Is that a good idea?"

Daniel shrugs. "I told them not to, but they're insistent. We'll be careful."

"And, your sister?" I ask.

"Jazz has a group project. She and her partners are going to the library to work on it. She offered to tap out, but I told her we got this. I thought about asking Mom and Dad for help, but they've been working hard enough for me," he adds with unmasked guilt.

Eileen smiles kindly. "Parents work hard for their children. It's what we do."

"Perhaps Eileen and I should help you," I offer.

Daniel shakes his head. "Thanks but no thanks. You guys have done enough. Besides," he adds hesitantly, "Sam kind of pulled some strings in the goth circuit to get me certain drugs. She isn't backing down from helping me mix them up. As for Tucker, this whole Reaper thing isn't something he can tech his way through. He wants to help somehow. We'll be fine. Really."

I have a bad feeling about this.

Danny

"We are gonna be in so much trouble."

Sam scoffs. "You don't have to help, Tucker."

Tucker adjusts his glasses. "Oh, I'm helping. I'm just saying that if we get caught, we're screwed."

I look down at the supplies spread out on the kitchen table - namely the plastic bags of cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, regular meth, and ecstasy - and decide that, yes, we would absolutely be screwed if the wrong person walked into this room.

"Last chance to back out, guys," I warn. "No hard feelings."

Tucker blows out a breath. "I've come this far."

"And, I paid for both forms of meth," Sam reminds me, "so I'm in this."

"Thanks again for that, Sam," I say to her. "You took a big risk, and I'm paying you back. Don't say no, because one of my duplicates is leaving the money on your nightstand. Is a hundred bucks enough?"

Sam stares at me then hangs her head with a sigh. "Danny, you don't have to pay me back."

"I knew you would say that," I say with a smug grin. "That's why I already sent the duplicate. You know the town pays me. Whether I like it or not," I add under my breath.

"Argue later," Tucker says when Sam opens her mouth. "Let's get this over with before the cops show up."

"There are not gonna be any cops, Tucker," Sam says.

Tucker points a stern finger at her. "Try saying that when you're shaving your head, joining a prison gang, and getting pregnant 'cause you had a one-night stand with a hot guard."

"Dude," I say as I grab a saucepan and place it on the table, "you watch too many movies."

I start by uncorking the vials of ectoplasm I grabbed from the lab and not questioning where my parents got said ectoplasm. One, however, is a vial of my own ectoplasm so we can get some angel DNA in there. I pour them all into the pan while my friends stare at the various baggies that would send us to jail.

"How much should we use?" Tucker asks.

"I'm not sure," I say. "We want this mixture to be as strong as possible, so…just dump it in, I guess?"

My core hasn't stopped aching and throbbing since my fixation began, and the pain strengthens at the reminder that I have no idea what I'm doing. Luckily, this spasm isn't that bad, and I'm accustomed to ignoring pain.

Sam opens a bag of heroin and grimaces as the reality of what we're doing sinks in. "Maybe we should get your parents to help us."

I shake my head. "Mom's sleeping in the lab. Dad went upstairs to 'lay down,' so you know he passed out. They haven't been sleeping much since this whole thing started. I'm not going to disturb them. Besides," I gesture to our supplies, "they wouldn't know how to work with this stuff."

"Plus, they'd call our parents," Tucker says with rising panic, "and then we'd be goners!"

I try to placate him. "Tucker-"

But, he's not done yet. "You guys would be fine." He points to me. "You have ghost powers." Then, to Sam. "You're just plain scary."

"Damn right," Sam says with a proud smirk.

Tucker points to himself. "But, me? I'm a scrawny nerd! And, I'm black!" He grabs Sam by the arms and gets in her face. "Do you know what they do to black guys in prison? Worse things than they do to white guys! At least, that's what my uncle Lenny told me."

An irritated goth girl pushes a panicking black nerd off of her. (That is quite a sentence.) "You good?" Sam asks. "Is it all out of your system?"

Tucker visibly relaxes. "Yeah, I'm done."

"Great." Sam picks up the heroin again. "Now, let's make some terrible decisions."

We decide to dump most of the…ingredients into the ectoplasm, saving a little bit as back-up. Sam turns on the burner on the stove, and Tucker mixes the ingredients. While he's doing that, I go ghost and wrap my hands around the pan and let my energy flow out in the form of my Healing Touch. I don't know if doing so will endow any extra healing properties into the mixture, but it can't hurt. The mixture gains a soft yellow glow until I let go, so I know it did something.

Once the ingredients are all mixed together, Sam takes the saucepan from us and places it on the burner. "How long does it have to boil?"

"Roughly twenty minutes," I say. "And, once it comes to a boil, it has to keep boiling until it solidifies or the mixture is ruined."

Tucker furrows his brow. "Solidifies? I'm no science wiz, but doesn't boiling liquid turn it into a gas, not a solid?"

I shrug. "We all know by now that ghost physics are weird."

"True."

The door to the lab opens, and Mom groans as she steps into the kitchen. She arches her back in a stretch then rubs her neck.

"Here, Mom," I say as I walk up to her. "Let me help you with that."

I place my hand between her shoulder blades and let my healing power flow through me and into Mom. The lightness in my head and dots at the edges of my vision make me stop. Normally I can use the Healing Touch a lot longer without it affecting me, but I guess using it on the drug mix took up more energy than I thought. I revert back to human-form so my ghost-form can recover.

"Thanks, Danny," Mom says. "That'll teach me to fall asleep at the desk…"

She trails off and goes pale when she surveys the kitchen. Specifically, her eyes land on the various illegal drugs that are still scattered over the table before locking on the saucepan of boiling substance.

"This is not what it looks like," I say.

Mom opens and closes her mouth a few times then waves her hand in a circle. "What is this?"

Tucker jabs his finger in my direction. "It was his idea! Bro, I love you, but I am not going down with you!"

Sam lightly smacks the back of his head. "Mrs. Fenton, we know this looks bad, but-"

"'Looks bad' is an understatement." Mom stomps up to the table and gestures to our supplies with the fury of a scared and disappointed mother. "These better not be what I think they are!" She points to the mixture on the stove. "And, I don't even want to know what that is!"

"Mom," I plead, "it's okay! We're not doing drugs. We're making-"

Mom holds up her hands. "Oh, good God, please don't finish that sentence."

"It's for Reaper!" I say. "If you mix all this stuff with ectoplasm, you can make an edible healing agent. That's why I have all this."

Mom bluescreens for a moment. "Danny, that makes no sense."

"Well," Sam says, "he never said it was meant for humans."

Tucker throws in his two cents. "Sam and I are being careful. And, since Danny's a ghost, drugs and alcohol have no effect on him. I once saw him popping painkillers like he was eating potato chips, and he was fine. It was disturbing!"

Mom looks like she's about to collapse, so I explain. "Drugs originated in the Ghost Zone. Humans got ahold of them somehow and tried to recreate them. Hence the horrible effects they have on mortals. But, for ghosts, it's actually candy."

"Candy…" Mom says slowly. "So, you're…making ghost candy…"

"In a sense," Tucker says.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you any of this sooner," I say. "In my defense, I never thought it would come up."

Mom stares at me for a moment before laughing and shaking her head. I'm relieved until she tosses her hands at her sides and says, "Wow. You kids really want to stay out of trouble, don't you?"

The feeling in my chest has nothing to do with my core. "You don't believe me?"

Mom takes one look at my face and hesitates. "Well…you have to admit, it sounds pretty unbelievable. Let's say you are telling the truth-"

"I am!"

Mom ignores my statement. "You really thought it would be a good idea to boil illicit drugs with ectoplasm in the kitchen?"

"Well," Tucker points out, "you and your husband do weird ghost stuff in here sometimes."

Mom processes that statement. "That's fair."

"I know what I'm doing, Mom," I promise. "I've worked with this stuff before. I know how to clean everything and-"

"You've worked with-" Mom throws her hands in the air. "I don't wanna know. Just get it all out of here, and we can have a nice, long discussion about this."

"Mom-"

Mom ignores me and points to Sam and Tucker, who are thrown way off by the turn of events. "Because this is ghost-related, I won't be calling your parents. But, you-"

"Don't be mad at them!" I beg. "They're only here because of me."

So not telling her where I got the meth.

"Mrs. Fenton," Sam says, "we know this is wrong for humans-"

"Not one more word!" Mom snaps. "I don't know where you kids got this insane idea, but I'm putting a stop to it."

She marches up to the stove, and my core rebels. Stop her stop her stop her.

I leap in front of her. "Mom, no! It needs to keep boiling until it's ready! It's medicine, Mom. We're making medicine for Reaper."

Mom puts her fists on her hips and smirks like she caught me in a lie. "You said it was ghost candy."

I throw my hand toward the table. "That stuff is. But, if you mix it with ectoplasm- No, Mom!"

She shoves me aside and reaches for the saucepan. Sam and Tucker call out protests and try to wrestle her away. I try to pull them away from the stove-

-and yank them back when Tucker's elbow bangs into the pan's handle.

Before the pan even hits the floor, I watch in slow motion as the glowing, bubbling green sludge in the pot turns dark gray and, instead of splashing, flutters to the floor like a million tiny specks of ash.

My first thought: thank God no one was hurt.

My second: the mixture is ruined.

"I'm guessing that's not what you meant by 'solidified,'" Tucker says meekly.

I can't take my eyes off the ash on the floor. My stomach knots. My heart is pounding at a rate closer to a full-human's.

My core explodes.

I scream and collapse into Tucker's arms and he drops me in a chair. I can barely hear everyone asking what's wrong and if it's my core again. My hands connect to my chest, the center of the pain, but every part of me feels like fire and broken glass. Or, like the Portal turned on inside of me.

I think Sam is pushing Mom away from me. I can't tell. Everything's blurry. I scream again. This is the worst my spasms have been. I'm terrified of how much worse they can get.

It wasn't like this with my last fixation. I was hurting, sure, but I didn't really notice. Maybe because I was constantly working on it, working any time I wasn't sleeping. I knew what to do about it then.

This one has me stumped.

There's an echoey voice that sounds like Dad. I hope I'm not the reason he's awake. Large hands that might be his are holding me in place, keeping me from falling to the hard floor where the remains of my grim's medicine lie.

A useless waste. We should have saved more of the drugs than we did. Their Ghost Zone counterparts won't cut it. It's the Earth variants that can create medicine. I know where to go to steal most of these, but I can't ask Sam to buy more meth, and she refuses to reveal her friend's identity.

I'll have to force it out of her.

No! I can't do that! I would never!

But, if I have to…

I can't tell how many of my tears are emotional and how many are physical.

When the spasm ends, I'm panting and sweating and shaking and nauseated and still hurting so much.

Dad is knelt down in front me and is brushing the tears off my cheeks. "Are you back, son?"

His gentle, worried tone breaks through the fog in my head. "Y-yeah," I say weakly.

Mom says in despair, "You were making medicine, weren't you?"

"Yes!" Sam shouts at her. "That's what we've been saying!"

"Sam," I chastise.

Tucker eyes the ashy substance on the floor and says with fake hope, "Maybe we can salvage it."

My head is clearing and the nausea is dying off, but I still feel like shit. In more ways than one. I shake my head. "I don't see how."

Dad has been putting the pieces together. He stands up. "We'll figure something out."

Mom turns to him. "You knew about this?"

Dad huffs a bitter laugh. "Why do you think I was upstairs? Vlad and Eileen came to check on Danny, and they told me that drugs were ghost candy. When I heard them and Danny having a casual conversation about drinking vodka and baking with crystal meth, I needed a nap!"

Mom groans and runs her hands over her face. "Danny, I am so sorry."

Instinct makes me want to tell her that it's okay. But, memories of her yelling at my mama and telling me not to come home change my response to, "I know, Mom."

You're always sorry.

The silence lasts until Dad says, "Let's get this cleaned up."

"I'll do it," I say. "It's safer if I do it."

No one objects.

Maddie

Jack leads me into the living room while Danny cleans up the mess and his friends stay to help however he lets them.

I'm kicking myself because this is exactly what Jack warned me about. The kids told me what they were doing, and I chose not to believe them. It would be justified if this happened before I knew my son was a ghost, but it happened now. I know Danny is half-ghost. The rules have changed.

And, I still didn't listen.

"I know," I say before Jack can speak. "I should have listened to the kids. But, when I saw all those drugs in our kitchen, I panicked!"

"I don't blame you," Jack says honestly. "If I didn't know the context, I'd panic too. I'm sorry no one told you."

"It's alright," I say even though it isn't.

Why would anyone tell me? It seems like every time I hear some new, dangerous-sounding ghost thing, I make everything worse.

I saw the way Danny looked at me. It's like I've teetered off the edge of a cliff.

Now I'm holding on for dear life.

Danny

I get on my knees and form a small broom and dustpan out of Hard Light and start sweeping up the ash. Moving burns my muscles, but it's nothing compared to the agony I just endured.

After a moment, Sam bends over and taps my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Physically or emotionally?" I ask. I meant to throw in a sardonic smile, but I can't convey any emotion that isn't "numb."

I dump the remains of the drug mix into the trash can then dissipate my Hard Light and grab the Lysol from under the sink.

Tucker scratches under his beret with a guilty look. "I'm sorry, Danny. This is my fault. I accidentally beamed the saucepan while we were wrestling your mom away."

"It's not your fault, Tucker," Sam assures.

"Sam's right," I say. I pull a paper towel off the rack. "You were trying to help, and things got out of hand. Any of us could have knocked it over."

I get back on the floor and spray and wipe down the remaining residue. Afterwards, I pick up the saucepan and bring it to the sink. I toss the paper towel, then I start spraying every inch of the pan with the Lysol.

"Guess it's a good thing we saved some drugs," Sam comments. "You think it'll be enough?"

"I don't know," I say. "But, nobody is risking jail time to get more."

I hear a relieved exhale from Tucker.

I grab a new paper towel, spray it as well, and start wiping down the saucepan. Silence falls as I toss that paper towel in the trash and turn on the faucet to wash the pan like any other dish. I throw the sponge away as well for good measure.

I leave the pan in the opposite sink to air dry then see that Mom and Dad have returned. The tension heavy in the space between (Maddie) Mom and me.

Mom breaks the spell by taking a few tentative steps toward me. "Danny, I know I sound like a broken record, but-"

"Mom-" I cut off myself off because I almost told her it's okay again.

Something is holding me back from that reflex. Something I buried deep, deep down, vowing to never unearth such an ugly thing.

Maddie Fenton holds the shovel. What will she do with it?

"It's just…" Mom throws her hand toward the plastic bags still littering the table. "Well, when I saw all of this, you can imagine how scared I was!"

An understanding smile starts to form on my lips. "Yeah. I should have told, but you were finally getting some sleep - you and Dad - and I didn't want to disturb you."

"We're your parents," Dad says. "If it's for your safety, you can disturb us all you need to."

"I didn't wake you, did I?" I ask him.

Dad laughs and shakes his head. "You're too much like me, son. Nah, I was already up."

"I haven't been the best mother," Mom admits. "I know that. And, with this fixation, I'm scared that you'll throw your life away just for some ghost."

Tucker gasps. Sam curses. Dad smacks his forehead.

Mom blanches, waves her hands in front of her, and says, "That didn't come out right."

I. Lose it.

"Of course. Of course," I mock as my rage boils like the mixture was supposed to still be doing. "It's never about my safety or anything like that. It's about you hating ghosts!"

Mom shakes her head in desperation. "I didn't mean it that way!"

"No! No, Maddie, you never do!"

Tucker points toward the exit. "Should we leave?"

Sam looks like she's wondering the same thing.

Dad chimes in. "Danny, she just misspoke."

"Don't defend her!" I snap at him before turning back to (Maddie) Mom. "What's it gonna take, Maddie? When are you going to stop hating me for something I can't control?" My voice cracks at the end.

Mom looks ready to cry. "I don't hate you! I didn't mean for it to come out that way."

"You mean like when you told me not to come home? How about when you said all those awful things about my mama and said all ghosts were the same! Did you not mean for it to come that way then, too?" I choke on my next words. "Just admit that you hate ghosts more than you love me!"

"Danny, that's not true!" Mom reaches for me. I smack her hand away, and she makes a face like I just backhanded her heart. "I love you so much! Nothing could ever change that."

I don't believe you. If I say that out loud, I'll never recover.

I wordlessly gather up the remaining drugs. If I didn't need them for Reaper's medicine, I'd eat all of them right here and now just to prove that they can't hurt me.

Once all the bags are gathered, I force myself to look at Mom and not react to the tears in her eyes. "I'm going to the lab to make a new batch." Another sentence I have to rip out of my throat is, "If you want me to keep living in this house, then you will let me work as long as it takes. Uninterrupted." The last word comes out in a monstrous tone that my girlfriend refers to as my "angry bear voice."

Mom nods her head and whispers, "Okay."

Dad taps my shoulder, making me pause in my march to the lab. I can't bring myself to look at him. It hurts too much to know that he's the only biological parent I have who loves me. I shake my head. It must be enough to convey the message.

Two sets of footsteps follow me down the stairs. I allow it because I have no reason to keep Sam and Tucker away.

Moments after the three of us are alone in the lab, I break. I slam my fists against the wall. The bags of drugs fall to the floor as I sink to my knees and the sobs I'd been holding back burst out of me. Sam and Tucker don't say anything. They get down to my level and pull me into their arms. I reposition myself so that I'm holding them both and cry harder. Two sets of hands tighten their grip. One set small and with a light tan, the other larger and much darker, both kind and loving.

Neither set belongs to the person I really want holding me.

"Danny," Sam says, "I'm sure she didn't mean it the way it sounded."

"Yes, she did," I weep. "She-she always does this." I sniffle and press my face to their shoulders. "She told me not to come home. She said those awful things about Mama." An event Sam and Tucker don't know about, I recall belatedly. "She'll never stop hating ghosts. Not even for me…"

My friends don't respond, unsure of what to say or just giving me time to compose myself.

Once I've mostly pulled myself together, we slowly untangle ourselves from each other. Tucker suggests, "Why don't we chill for a few minutes? Just sit down and try to relax?"

"I can't," I say. I gather up the bags on the floor. "If I stop working on a cure for Grim, my core starts hurting worse."

We stand up, and Tucker moves his hand between himself and Sam. "We can work on it, and you can, like, supervise or something."

Sam nods at him then takes me by the arm and guides me into the chair at the desk. "You need a break, Danny. Especially after all that," she adds with visible disdain. She takes the bags from me. "Tucker and I will look around the lab for inspiration. In the meantime, you need to clear your head. Try meditating. That usually helps you."

She's right. I'm so out of it that I didn't notice Tucker leaving our group and heading for the sink. He returns and hands me a paper towel. I take it with a thanks and wipe my face and blow my nose.

"Sit back, relax, and work your namaste magic," Tucker says. "We'll figure something out."

Surprisingly, the prospect of sitting here like a lump doesn't bother my core. Maybe it's because something is being done, even if I'm not the one doing it.

Or, maybe I'm just that tired.

While my friends rummage around the lab, I close my eyes and focus on my breathing. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Slowly, deeply. Feel your lungs expand and deflate with each breath.

Meditation is a proven relaxation method among ghostkind. It doesn't take long for my mind to fly away from here, for the bad thoughts to slip away.

I don't know how long I stay in blissful oblivion, but eventually I open my eyes to find Sam and Tucker staring at me from the opposite end of the lab. They approach once I've regained consciousness, Tucker carrying a small spray bottle.

"I have an idea," he says. He hands me the bottle. The label reads "Ecto-Dejecto." "This stuff makes ghosts stronger, right? What if we added some to the mix?"

The initial purpose of Ecto-Dejecto was to weaken ghosts, and it did do that…for about five seconds before strengthening the ghost. A lot. As a result, Mom and Dad scrapped the test batch. After I told them I was a ghost, the three of us started tinkering with the formula. Now we keep it around in case of emergencies. We even managed to remove the initial weakening effect.

I get out of my seat and walk over to a biohazard bin to throw away my gross paper towel. Then, I take the Ecto-Dejecto from Tucker and examine the magenta-colored liquid. "It did help Danielle when her form was unstable. And, it does make for a nice…power boost…"

Tucker nudges Sam with his elbow and nods at me. "He's got that thinking look."

I unscrew the lid.

"Uh, Danny," Sam says. "What are you doing?"

"Having one of those ideas that's just crazy enough to work," I say before tilting my head back and downing half the bottle.