Chapter Text
Damian’s words echoed in Jazz’s ears. She couldn’t read his tone. The words shuddered, her thoughts a discordant haze as she tentatively rose to her feet. Her legs shook beneath her; she nearly slipped—
With one nervous glance down, Jazz noticed a streak of ectoplasm across the floor, smudged beneath her shoe.
Her stomach twisted.
“Answer me.”
Jazz flinched, focus snapping back to Damian. His expression had set with defiance, eyes blazing. She could only imagine what she looked like, a deer caught in the headlights, face pallid and bile trailing her chin.
“I…” She hesitated. Damian’s brother had gathered in the doorway behind him, and for the first time that night Jazz truly took in the looming height and width of his shoulders. A tank of a man, even injured.
“Well?” Damian pressed. He took a step forward, boot clacking on the tile.
Jazz took a step back, feeling her heel bump into the edge of the tub. She could hear the water slosh inside. Could imagine the sickly churn of ectoplasm mixed in.
“S–stay back,” she said, unable to keep the tremor out of her voice. The shake out of her hands. She was cornered with Danny’s blood underfoot, his secret pressing down on her shoulders, a thousand tons.
“Wait.” The brother spoke as he grabbed Damian by the shoulder. There was no room— no air— in the bathroom with them blocking the only exit.
“Wait?” Damian spun around to glare at his brother, lip curled. “Todd, you were the one to storm out earlier— I have been patient. I have tried conversing. I have played along. I want answers , now.” He turned back to Jazz, eyes narrowed. “What is—”
“Stop.” Todd— and, oh, it was a small relief to finally have a name for him— gripped Damian’s shoulder more tightly, pulling him back. “This mess has her freaked out. Let her talk.”
His tone was not necessarily kind— his gaze still sharp, calculating— but something in Damian’s anger seemed to have tempered Todd’s own. His eyes swept over the mess of the bathroom, lingering a little too long on a roll of bandages that had unraveled across the floor.
“This room— the needles. The… ectoplasm.” The word stuck on his tongue, foreign in a way Jazz wished it was to her. “Do you know who did this?”
Who . The word felt decisive, an understanding. Of friendship, family— connection , in some way, to whoever had been injured enough to require a needle and thread.
Jazz nodded, feeling her throat run dry.
Todd nodded too, almost absently. His gaze remained on the stains of ectoplasm, as though rooted. “Who are they?” he asked.
“Does this have anything to do with Danyal?” Damian cut in and Todd shot him a glare, tightening the grip on his brother’s shoulder.
Jazz bit back a reactive, ‘no’, considering her choice of words. Considering the two people before her and all she knew about them.
Two strangers, from where she couldn’t quite say. They each had a bit of an accent, Todd’s something that sounded distinctly east coast, and Damian’s…
Jazz sucked in a sharp breath, for the first time noticing a ring of familiarity.
An echo of a voice she’d heard eight years ago.
The night Jazz found Danny in the park, he had been in no state to speak. He’d been burned, covered in blood. He had stared at her, eyes already drooping with exhaustion, before he finally collapsed.
They barely managed to get him to the hospital in time.
Jazz couldn’t remember much of the hospital proceedings— it was all background chatter, adults talking of matters she couldn’t quite grasp, and didn’t want to. Her focus had only been on Danny, asking endless questions about his care. His progress.
How long it would be until they could take him home.
Danny hadn’t protested when asked if he wanted to stay with the Fentons when they were cleared to foster. He went with a nod, a quiet yes.
On the drive back to FentonWorks, Jazz had prattled on about how they were already setting up a room for him. About how he could sleep in her room until it was finished.
Danny listened, absorbing it all with wide, focused eyes.
All she knew of him then was his name.
The first week with Danny home had been quiet. His footsteps hardly made a sound, featherlight. He hardly spoke above a whisper, answering in clipped yeses and nos. It felt more like having a stray cat in the house than a brother.
She still remembered the first time he really spoke.
They’d been in the backyard for a couple of hours, watching the fireflies light up as the sun set over the horizon. Mom and Dad were down in the lab and had trusted Jazz with keeping an eye on Danny. The house was a bit of a mess then, with scrap parts scattered all over.
Bits and pieces they would hammer and solder into place, the steel skeleton of the portal, before the fibrous veinwork of wires wove through it.
(Before a spark of electricity awoke in it a beating heart with the stuttering stop of a mortal one.)
Jazz had been prattling along about something— she couldn’t remember what— all she remembered was stopping when she realized that Danny wasn’t looking at her and had instead fixed his eyes up on the night sky.
There had been a look on his face, a longing . He often stared off, lost in his head, but it felt different then.
She followed his gaze, taking in the clear stretch of sky. It had been rainy for a few days, heavy clouds scattered overhead, but the wind had finally blown them astray, leaving an unbroken blanket of the cosmos.
“Uh, do you like the stars?” she asked, glancing back at him. She shuffled her feet, a little nervous to dispel his trance.
Danny blinked. He glanced at her, eyes settling for only a moment before wandering back to the sky.
She thought she saw a smile then, but it was too quick to say for sure.
“Yes,” he said, quiet. “I… I enjoy stargazing. The lights of this… place do not offer the best conditions, but it pleases me to see the sky so clear.”
Jazz had never heard another kid speak so cautiously before, rounding the formal dictation of his speech like a deer carefully picking its way through the woods, wary of what lay in the underbrush. His accent was just as odd, like the perfect English he spoke didn’t really belong on his tongue.
Jazz was so caught up in her observations that she almost didn’t notice when he shuffled uncomfortably, moving away.
“Um— do you know the constellations?” she quickly asked. She raised her hand reflexively to grab his, but let it drop. Jazz was very tactile, but she had already seen him flinch away from physical contact more than once.
Danny stilled. “Yes,” he said, the word teetering on a question.
“Could you tell me about them?” Jazz had asked, hopeful to hear more of his voice.
He smiled again, the expression brief but certainly there.
Danny had launched into describing the various constellations visible from their backyard, but Jazz couldn’t quite remember which ones he pointed out. All she remembered was watching a smile ghost across her new brother’s face as he spoke in words that were a little too big for a boy that was a little too small.
Damian’s voice was something of a ghost, an echo of how Danny had sounded, using big words in an accent she’d never been able to place before it disappeared altogether.
Did this have anything to do with Danny? Everything. Everything , Jazz thought with bitter acid churning her belly. She was simply standing, lost in her own head, while Danny… Danny was hurt. She had no idea where her brother was, only that he was hurt .
Damian shifted, brushing Todd’s hand off of his shoulder. Jazz felt what little time she had to think swiftly shrivel away, brushed aside by the hands of a ticking clock ( an annoying bastard of one , Danny would say).
“It— I think Phantom was here,” she spat out, needing something to fill the quiet before Damian did so.
A beat of silence, her heart hammering too loudly. “Phantom?” Damian asked, glancing down at the ectoplasm underfoot. “A ghost?”
More than that , Jazz’s mind screamed. “Yes,” her voice said, the word hollow on her tongue. It took everything not to shuffle her feet, feeling she might be sick again if she smeared anymore ectoplasm across the tile.
Blood, not just ectoplasm, her mind screeched, the thought leading her fists to clench.
“He’s— he fights the ghosts— the other ghosts. Phantom keeps Amity safe.” Her heart positively hammered against her ribs, adrenaline coursing through each nerve like a livewire.
Todd snorted and Jazz couldn’t help but balk. She knew it sounded insane, that anyone outside of Amity might doubt , but after watching her brother fight tooth and nail for months, Jazz could find no humor in their outsider perspective.
(The petrichor scent hung heavy in the air, laced with an undercurrent of citrus. Sickly. Familiar .)
“I’ve heard of a lot of different vigilantes, but never one named Phantom— never a ghost ,” Todd said with far too much disbelief.
Jazz’s fists shook at her sides and she felt some of Sam’s passionate fury swell in her chest. Their discussions, their theories— hushed words in the dark, far from adults that never cared to hear them. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard, or what you think. Phantom protects this town and he… and he...” Her eyes trailed back to the tub, the sick swirl of green water nearly as taunting as the portal’s endless vortex. “He’s hurt— bad, I think.”
She knew.
“You said this was a friend’s house. If your hero is truly a ghost, what business would he have here?” Damian pressed, as persistent as ever.
Jazz felt she could tell a lot about Damian at a glance. His stiff posture, his tone— how he needled, determination woven into every fiber of his being. He was not as easygoing as Danny, had next to nothing of her brother’s poor self confidence, but that headstrong determination rang true, a mirror.
“He’s our friend,” she said, giving him something of the truth. “He knows he can come to us for help.”
Not that any of us were here to help.
“Danyal also helps this ghost?” Direct and to the point, circling back to his goal like a hound on the scent.
Jazz didn’t miss the suspicion in his tone.
“He’s our friend,” she repeated, careful. “We all help him.”
“Where is this ghost, then? You can’t contact him?” Todd asked, crossing his arms.
“You think I haven’t tried?” Jazz said with an exasperated huff. She tore her eyes away from the two brothers, tracing the grout between the tiles even as her thoughts wandered far past the walls of the Foley bathroom. She reached into her pocket, hand closing around the Fenton phones.
“Then what is your plan?”
Jazz blinked. She looked up, finding Todd’s eyes locked on her own, steady. She opened her mouth to give an answer— closed it, swallowing thickly.
“I… I don't know,” she admitted, voice dropping into a whisper. “I didn't see him in town, and he's not here, and he could be anywhere in the Zone, and I…” She trailed off, eyes sliding back to the door.
A thought struck Jazz, slim but possible. Her brother wasn’t one to plan well, but there was at least a chance he might have left a note in Tucker’s bedroom to explain the mess.
She stepped around Damian, making for the door.
“Where do you think you're going?” Damian challenged expectantly, and Jazz was glad when Todd grabbed him by the arm, shaking his head.
“I just need to think for a moment,” she said, nodding pointedly at the hall before stepping out of the bathroom and making her way back to Tucker’s bedroom.
She could hear the brothers behind her, Damian growling something sharp to Todd before storming after her. Jazz ignored them, keeping her focus locked ahead, her eyes sharp for any details she might have missed.
Tucker’s room appeared much the same as always, cluttered with scraps of tech hanging from the shelves, and books and clothes thrown haphazardly on the floor. Jazz’s eyes slid over the mess, snapping to the ectoplasm staining his bed, before trailing back to the open closet door and the chest of supplies.
She’d noticed the empty vials of ectoplasm before, but it was only now that Jazz caught sight of something else. She stooped down, closing her hand around a long vial with a plunger on one end and a sharp needle on the other. A syringe, with little more than a drop left of what must have been a full dose.
Ecto-dejecto, Jazz thought with sinking dread. She’d only seen Danny use it once before, when an injury had his energy flagging and there was still Skulker left to toss back into the Zone. The effect had been immediate, a dose of adrenaline that put a spark back in Phantom’s eye and enough energy in his hands to have Skulker quaking in his tin boots.
The crash afterwards had been just as spectacular.
If Danny was using ecto-dejecto now, he was still in motion. Fighting, pushing himself to the brink. Jazz wondered if a fight had dragged him back to the portal, or if there was any chance he’d set his course for the Far Frozen and Frostbite’s healing hands.
Something clacked noisily and Jazz couldn't help but jump, spinning around with the syringe gripped tight in her fist like a weapon. The brothers had moved across Tucker’s room to his desk, fiddling with what they found there. Damian pulled out the desk chair to sit down, while Todd leaned across the desk to grab something off of the top shelf. He came away with what looked like a red duck candle, turning it over in his hands before moving over to Tucker’s bed. Todd gave the ectoplasm stains on the sheets one dubious glance before plopping down.
His eyes slid to Jazz and she quickly looked away.
Jazz stared at the empty vials of ectoplasm, unseeing. She listened to the telltale clickclack of keys, and a murmured conversation between the brothers as Damian fiddled with Tucker’s computer.
Strange… Trust… Danyal… Ghosts…
She caught snippets of words, a conversation that Jazz tried her best to ignore. The longer the pair of them were distracted, the more time she had to think and plan.
There was no note, that much Jazz was sure of. Nothing stood out from the supplies, and the brothers would have said something if they found anything left on Tucker’s desk or nightstand. The odds of Danny leaving a note were already slim, let alone him hiding one anywhere that she, Tucker, or Sam wouldn’t be able to find it.
Without a note, and with no sign of Phantom in town, Jazz could practically hear the portal calling her name. She let herself imagine Danny striking out towards the Far Frozen, with enough sense to get help somewhere if he really needed it.
Jazz hated that it felt more like a pipedream than a possibility.
Still, she might as well start there. All it would take would be
hurrying back to FentonWorks, grabbing the speeder, and striking out for tall, familiar mountains in a sea of green.
If they could even get to FentonWorks without any trouble…
Silence pressed in on Jazz’s ears at the thought. The hairs rose along her arms, her heartbeat quickening as she strained her ears.
The GAV’s siren… When had it stopped? It had been blaring just a few minutes ago, close enough to warrant wariness, but now…
Thunk. The sound of a car door shutting, soft but there. Jazz glanced warily at the brothers, but neither showed any signs of having heard it. Damian was too focused on Tucker’s computer, and Todd had laid down on his back, tossing the duck candle in his hands like a baseball.
Their distraction wouldn’t last. This reprieve wouldn’t last, not if her parents had anything to say about it.
As carefully as Jazz could, she moved towards the door. It took everything in her not to rush, making her steps slow and deliberate in a way that did not immediately scream ‘prepared to run’. She let her mind work, desperate to put a barrier between her parents and the two brothers.
Jazz tensed, a foot from the door—
Felt her heart leap into her throat at the sound of a distant knock.
The wheels on Tucker’s desk chair squealed as Damian jolted, and there was a thunk when Todd tossed the candle a little too high and it ricocheted off of the ceiling. Damian was scrambling to his feet as the ring of the doorbell echoed throughout the house.
Jazz caught one last glance of furious green eyes before she slammed the door shut behind her.
Jazz held the doorknob firm, bracing her feet against the wood when Damian yanked from the other side with a shout. The world seemed to still, her movements jerky and disjointed as Jazz reached for her ectogun and aimed at the metal of the lock.
Jazz remembered a trip to the hardware store, looking for a replacement lock after Dad fired a shot at the front door and fused it shut. Between the goop of ectoplasm, and the heat chewing at the metal, nothing short of a battering ram had managed to get the door open.
It was just the same now. One quick fire of ecto-energy from point-blank, the metal of the lock heating, melting, coalescing into an acrid mess that curled her nose. Jazz still didn’t let go, hissing as the proximity burned her hands. She felt one last tug from the other side, then heard a surprised swear when the heat reached Damian and he let go. A fist pounded against the wood instead, bowing the door with each strike. She could hear both brothers calling her name, demanding answers.
Jazz let it all wash over her, tensing when a rush of footsteps joined the chorus.
Jazz’s heart stuttered. She froze, a deer staring down the headlights of a freight train.
She met her mom’s eyes through the red tint of her goggles and swallowed a lump in her throat.
~*~
The window on the GAV’s passenger side was broken— had been for some time. Rain lashed through the opening, the breeze whipping Maddie’s hair helter-skelter as her husband rocketed down the street, taking the turns without slowing down. She gripped the edge of the seat with one hand to keep her balance, her other clutching her ectogun a little too tightly. The barrel of it bounced against the window frame, bucking in her grip.
She stared outside, the stormy night dark and bloody through her red-tinted goggles. Drops of rain hammered the lenses, making odd, rippling shadows of the night.
“We’ll find him, Mads,” Jack said in that self-assured tone of his. “Both of them.”
Both . The word jolted, sank heavy in her stomach. Both of their children were missing. Jazz’s car was home— she’d left them a message saying she arrived— but her bedroom door had been left ajar, her bed empty.
And Danny…
Maddie gripped the ectogun a little more tightly, taking a deep, shaky breath. “I just hope we find them soon,” she said quietly, hardly sure that Jack could hear it over the roar of the wind.
His hand patted her knee, as sure a sign as any that he understood. She offered her husband a small smile before drawing her focus back to the window.
Maddie couldn’t stop replaying what she saw in Danny’s room. Couldn’t stop retracing her steps, imagining what she could have done better— how she might have stopped the ghosts from taking her boy.
There had been three ghosts there, she was sure. The robotic ghost that often chased Phantom. One that wore the guise of a man, with eyes that flashed too green.
And whatever ghost had dared to take her boy, puppeting his body, dyeing his beautiful blue eyes green.
She’d focused on that more than anything in the moment. Nothing had mattered more than expelling the ghost from her son, before it could spirit him away.
She regretted that now. The other ghost had taken her shot— she saw it burn , knew the man was nothing mortal— and taken Danny all the same. Pulled him through the window and into the night.
They’d circled town since then, calling for their son, their daughter— receiving no answers. Maddie’s phone still lay in her lap, flecked with raindrops and hosting a wall of unanswered calls and texts.
They’d find them, she was sure. She only hoped they’d find them in time.
Panic gripped Maddie’s chest as they approached the Foley residence. They’d avoided it for a short while, lapping the city. Certain Danny wouldn’t be there. With no other leads, however, the house seemed their best bet. They pulled into the suburbs and down Magpie Lane, a familiar route traveled many times.
Her heart sank. The windows were all dark, the driveway void of any cars. There was a stillness to the place that only came with an empty house.
It made no sense. They weren’t exactly close with the Foleys, but Angela and Maurice had never taken Danny anywhere without their permission…
Not that ghosts cared for such formalities.
They pulled up the drive, the GAV’s engine rumbling quietly before cutting to a still.
“I don’t like this, Mads,” Jack muttered. He glanced up at the windows, frowning.
“I don’t either,” Maddie admitted. There was nothing to like. Nothing grand or wonderful about waking up to shouting in their home, and ghosts at the heart of it all.
Jack worried his bottom lip. He nodded. The GAV shifted, tilting to the left as he got up and stepped out. She could see an ectogun cocked in his grip, ready to fire. As Maddie left the GAV, she swiped her wet bangs out of her eyes and readjusted her own grip.
The front door was shut, locked as expected. Jack knocked on it and the sound boomed like the far-off thunder. They waited, Jack’s knuckles still hovering over the wood.
…No answer came.
Jack shifted his feet, craning to look through the window along the door before trying the bell. Maddie could hear the ring of it echo throughout the house…
…Still, no answer came.
Jack glanced over his shoulder, brows furrowed. Maddie gave him a nod, knowing they’d have another bill on their hands once they found wherever the Foleys had gone.
Considering what was at stake, property damage was the least of their concerns.
With practiced ease, Jack used his immense bulk to shoulder the door. It took three tries, but the door bent with a splintering groan and a resounding crash, bursting open onto a darkened hall.
Jack stepped inside, Maddie close on his heels. Compared to the storm outside, the house was as silent as a tomb, and just as dark. There wasn’t a single light on, no signs of anyone home. She supposed the family could be sleeping, but Maddie doubted they would find anyone in their beds.
It didn’t make any sense. The ghosts, the empty house— the texts she still had from Danny, telling her he was staying over at Tucker’s.
Maddie stared up the steps to the second floor, unease stirring her gut.
She took the stairs first, weapon pointed to the landing and her ears straining for any sound. Jack followed along behind her, trying his best to be silent, but the steps creaked loudly beneath his weight.
Maddie threw caution to the wind, racing up the last few steps two at a time when she heard a door slam. There was a shout, what sounded like a fist pounding on a door. She raised her ectogun as she alighted onto the landing.
Maddie turned on her heel, ready to face whatever waited down the hall— ready to break down any door in their way.
She froze, heart skipping a beat.
Jazz stood in the center of the hall with an ectogun clutched in her hands. Maddie’s heels dug into the carpet, and she heard Jack skid behind her. He sucked in a sharp breath. Dread settled in Maddie's gut, a heavy thing.
Something wasn’t right.
Jazz stood rigid, the grip on her ectogun white-knuckled. She held the weapon at her side, and the metal rattled slightly with a tremor shaking through her hands. Her eyes were wide, bright, and red-rimmed with emotion.
The door beside her shook as someone— something — bore down on the other side. Its lock smoked slightly, the wood scorched and the metal twisted.
Maddie’s eyes darted back to her daughter. “Jazz? What is going on? Where is your brother?” she asked, wary.
The ectogun’s muzzle smoked slightly in Jazz’s hands. She must’ve fired it at the lock, if Maddie had to hazard a guess. A quick and clever move, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep a ghost on the other side of the door.
Jazz’s eyes flicked to the lock. “I don’t know where Danny is,” was all she said, tone clipped. Brittle.
Something shuffled on the other side of the door, shadows sliding under the gap, and Maddie grit her teeth.
“Jazz, what is in there?” Maddie demanded. Most ghosts would have burst through the wall by now, but she wouldn’t put it past one to linger. To wait.
When Jazz didn’t answer right away, Maddie glanced around the hallway, searching for the answers her daughter wouldn’t give. Anything that might place Jazz’s odd behavior, or clue her into what lay beyond the door. There were drops of ectoplasm on the floor, either leading to or from Tucker’s bedroom. Messy footsteps crossed through it, smudging a trail of green beneath Jazz’s heel.
Maddie took a step forward, wanting a closer look…
Jazz shifted and Maddie froze. She stared down the barrel of Jazz’s ectogun, a sick swoop of cold dread filling her from the ground up.
“Jazzerincess?” Jack asked, his tone dancing somewhere between hurt and surprise.
“Don’t come any closer,” Jazz warned, keeping the ectogun high. Her voice trembled. Her hands shook.
Maddie dared a glance at her husband. His eyes were wide, brows furrowed. Shock and concern. Fear, maybe.
Nothing about this was right. Tucker’s family gone. The house empty. Her son gone, whisked away by some ghost…
And now this.
“Jazz, lower the blaster,” Maddie said. “Now,” she added, when her daughter made no motion to follow through.
She searched Jazz’s eyes, half expecting the same green that had overtaken Danny’s, but they were as teal as the day she was born. Jazz opened her mouth— hesitated. Maddie tensed, waiting for her to speak.
It did nothing to prepare her for the words that left her daughter’s mouth. The ridiculous question of, “Did you hurt Phantom?” that fell from her tongue with a chilling bite.
Maddie blinked. She reflexively gripped her ectogun more tightly at the ghost boy’s name. “What does that have to do with anything? Did that ghost—”
“ Did you hurt Phantom?” Jazz repeated more loudly, close to shouting.
Maddie’s teeth clicked together. Her ears roared, blood pounding as her heart began to race. Her mind whirled, dots tracing from the trail of ectoplasm that snaked through the woods to the damning smear beneath her daughter’s foot.
It painted a picture, foolish and wrong. The trickery of a ghost that hid fangs beneath the mask of a child.
He’d always been clever, had always floated too close to the school…
Always seemed to have access to whatever he needed from their lab.
“Phantom is dangerous ,” Maddie said, needing Jazz to understand.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Jazz bit back.
Maddie exchanged another look with her husband, feeling the tentative ground they were stepping on splinter and crack. The ectogun in Jazz’s hands wouldn’t do much damage, wouldn’t burn her like a ghost, but it would still hurt at close range. Could do worse damage if it hit her face.
Nevermind the threat waiting behind the door. The footsteps had quieted, the banging stopped, but Maddie was no fool to assume the ghost had gone.
“Jazz,” Jack started carefully, his playful nicknames abandoned for a tone that neighbored on pleading. “I don’t know what that ghost has told you, but—”
“Answer my question,” Jazz cut him off, unswayed.
Their children were always obstinate— resolute. It was a trait Maddie admired in them— took pride in, even.
It worked against her now.
“Yes,” Maddie said, throwing caution to the wind. She didn’t regret her husband taking the shot, no matter what that ghost had fooled her children and their friends into believing. She would take pride in their work. Always.
Jazz’s lip trembled. The ectogun kicked in her unsteady hands. “What did you hurt Phantom with?” she asked quietly, almost reluctant.
Maddie hesitated, unsure if she should tell the truth. They hadn’t discussed their latest invention with their children. They had planned to do so after testing— before Phantom had flown off with the prototype.
“The Fenton Whaler,” Jack said, showing no such reservations. He took pride in the names he gave their inventions; she couldn’t fault him for that.
Jazz sucked in a sharp breath of air. “W–what is that? What does that do?” she demanded. Her eyes flicked between them. She took a step back, smearing the ectoplasm beneath her foot.
Maddie sighed. Anger coiled up her ribs as she thought of all their late nights spent in the lab, now gone to waste. It would take them at least a week to find new parts, and another to go over the blueprints and see what could be improved upon.
That didn't include the time to rebuild. To test.
“A harpoon of sorts,” she said, and it came out in a bitter bite.
A blast cut through the air with a bright jet of green that barely missed Maddie’s shoulder. She staggered, eyes blown wide as the ectoblast hit the door at the end of the hall with a rattling thud.
“Jasmine!” Jack shouted.
The hallway seemed to narrow, squeezing the air from Maddie’s lungs. She stared, open-mouthed at the ectogun in Jazz's hand, still aimed high.
~*~
The hallway swam, distorted by the tears welling in Jazz’s eyes. She took another step back, unsteady. Her knees trembled. Her hands shook. The ectogun rattled in her grip as she stared down the barrel.
“You shot him,” Jazz whispered. The words rolled over her, a cold wave. She didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to, but—
The ectoplasm. The blood. Danny had been here. He’d bled.
“That ghost is dangerous, Jazz. I don't know how many times we need to tell you, but—”
“You shot a harpoon at my— at Phantom.” At Danny. At her brother— their son. “What has he ever done to deserve that?” Her voice had gone shrill, more a wail than anything. Close enough to Danny’s own that it made her heart ache.
Dad took another step closer and Jazz took a step back to match it, feeling the empty end of the hallway yawn at her back.
Cornered. Nowhere to run. The brothers had gone quiet on the other side of the door, leaving her alone to face this. To face her parents and the trail of ectoplasm that skirted down the hall and to her feet.
“Phantom has never hurt you. H–he has never hurt you. Why? Why would you—”
“Phantom is a ghost, ” Mom snapped back, her anger pulling Jazz to a stuttering stop. “You’ve never understood, Jazz, but everything we do— everything we have done is for this town and this family .” She spoke quickly, tone rising when Jazz opened her mouth to retort. She said it with all of the authority of a mother scolding their child for a lesson misunderstood.
Jazz laughed and it felt like a cold, wicked thing.
“What family ? We haven’t been a family since the portal,” Jazz said, feeling the hollow truth run through her bones, through the earth— through a hole lined with metal and wire.
Mom’s face crumpled, hurt, before twisting into something much darker. Her eyes narrowed, her posture stiffened. She readjusted the grip on her ectogun, and Jazz felt something shift.
“You—You’re overshadowed,” Mom grit out. Her fingers slid more firmly over the trigger. Dad stiffened beside her, following her lead.
Jazz’s heart skipped a beat, terror twisting a sick path through her chest. She felt it coil up her trunk, her throat, and settle somewhere around her eyes. Jazz didn’t need to see her reflection to feel it then. The burn behind her eyes, more substantial than any tears.
Ectoplasm, green and glowing.
Jazz took another step back, her foot bumping into a table at the end of the hall. “St–stay back!” she stammered, fear in every syllable. Every fiber of every nerve.
If Mom saw her fear, she only rose to meet it. Maddie’s lip curled, anger morphing the soft features of her face. “First my son, and now my daughter?” she spat.
Jazz’s head swam, blood roaring in her ears. Dad closed in, his own weapon raised aloft. Mom wouldn’t hesitate, not like this. Jazz had to fight back, to run, to do something— anything—
Pounding footsteps. A flash of movement. The errant shot of an ectoblast, meeting drywall with a sickening crack .
It took a long, tremulous moment before Jazz’s mind caught up with what she was seeing. Her heart beat too quickly, her hands shaking enough to rattle the ectogun lodged in her grip.
All she could do was stare, watching in disbelief as Damian rushed up the stairs and, with one broad stroke of his arm, struck her father down and into the wall.
The ectogun in Dad’s hands went off, just barely missing Mom. She’d turned to try and grab him as he went down, fumbling with her own weapon. Maddie’s eyes landed on Damian, hesitating . Jack braced, pushing himself upright when another set of steps thundered up the stairs.
“You!” Maddie snarled at Todd, her anger sharp and pointed. She moved to make space between them, readjusted her aim—
Swore when Damian closed the distance and struck the weapon from her grip.
“Mads—” Dad scrambled to get to her side, but let out a roar of outrage when Todd kicked the back of his knee and sent him stumbling.
Jack spun around, squeezing the trigger on his ectogun. A blast of green shot from the barrel, just barely missing Todd’s head. It struck the carpet with a sizzle and left a scorch mark just inches from Damian’s feet.
Damian leapt back, moving with far more speed and ease than Jazz would have anticipated. He left Jack to his brother, pinning all of his focus on Maddie. Mom dropped into a fighting stance and grabbed at a weapon on her belt, something with sharp prongs that reminded Jazz of a taser. Mom lunged, aiming for Damian's side, but met only open air. Damian ducked to the side, coming in low, before sliding close. Jazz caught a flash of something silver. It followed Damian’s hand in an arc, sharp, and silver met red as a knife sunk into Mom’s arm. She dropped her ectogun with a shout. Blood sprayed across the carpet, and Damian let out a surprised grunt when Mom twisted, slamming his shoulder into the wall. Damian kept moving, pulling his own ectogun from his belt, aiming—
“No!,” Jazz called out.
Maddie froze and Damian was quick to take advantage of her hesitation. He twisted her injured arm, pulling it back into a lock that Mom ducked out of with a roll. Her momentum carried her a little too close to the wall, her feet slamming against the molding, and she kicked out to regain her footing just in time to avoid another swipe of Damian’s blade.
“Stop it!” Jazz screamed. She aimed her own ectogun, but couldn't find a target to settle on. Blood dripped freely down Mom’s arm as she attempted to unsteady Damian’s footing. Todd was on the ground with Dad, grappling with his arms locked around Jack’s throat. Her dad managed to shift his bulk, slamming Todd into the wall with a crack of drywall, but Todd refused to let go. Maddie let out another shout of pain as Damian used her momentum to send her over his shoulder and back into the wall head-first. It knocked Maddie’s goggles loose, smashing the lense of the left eye, and Jazz caught a flash of wide, terrified eyes.
“I said— STOP!” Jazz cried out with everything she had, aiming a shot of the ectogun over their heads. Todd jolted in alarm, going still. Jack slumped out of his grip, unconscious.
Damian spared her only a curled lip and a snarl. “They aimed a gun at you— at their own child. Twice now!” He had Maddie’s injured arm in one hand, fingers dug against the stab wound. He had his other on the knife, blade pointed at her throat.
It looked much more like a dagger, now that Jazz had a proper look.
Jazz opened her mouth to retort, hesitating when Maddie spoke. “Danny? You—you’re still overshadowed,” her mother said, a weak warble.
Damian stiffened. His grip tightened on her arm, dragging another pained gasp from Maddie.
“You have no right to say that name,” Damian spat, pushing the dagger a little closer to her throat.
Maddie’s eyes blazed with fury, but she went quiet. Her eyes darted back and forth— from Damian, to Todd, to her unconscious husband, until they landed on Jazz.
Jazz’s heart skipped a beat. She found her feet moving of their own accord, carrying her close. A jolt of red dragged her gaze down, sending a sick swoop of nausea through Jazz’s belly when she saw that a bloody stain had joined the ectoplasm underfoot. The colors didn't mix well. They never did.
“Where is Danny?” Damian asked her mother in a cold hiss. “Where is Phantom?”
Maddie's eyes snapped back to him, narrowing. “You're not my son,” she said with finality. It sounded less like a revelation, and more like a determination.
She saw only green. Only a ghost.
“No,” Damian agreed easily. Then, with all of the steadfast focus of a wolf on the hunt, “Where is my brother?”
Maddie shook her head, confused, but it did nothing to settle her anger. “I don't know who you think you are, ghost, but—”
“Stop,” Jazz said, cutting Maddie’s tirade short. She stepped in close, tentatively putting a hand on Damian’s elbow. “Let me talk to her,” Jazz said, her words steady in a way she wasn’t. “I need to talk to her.”
Damian searched her face, eyes flitting back and forth. Whatever he was looking for, the boy seemed to find it. He gave a curt nod and took a step back. He still held the dagger in his hands, ready to use it. Todd sidled in beside him like a bodyguard. He’d picked up Jack’s discarded weapon, holding it tight.
“Make it quick,” Todd muttered, with a shake of his head. ”This is a fucking mess. We need to get out of here.”
Jazz ignored him. She readjusted the grip on her own ectogun, ready to use it if push came to shove. She stepped in front of Maddie. Met her eyes, trying her best not to flinch at the betrayal she saw there. Maddie had every muscle tensed, her back pushed up against the wall. She held her arm tightly, bloody palm clasped over the wound.
They'd have to bandage it soon.
“Mom,” Jazz started. “Mom,” she said louder when Maddie opened her mouth, ready to deny it. To call her a ghost. “Where is Phantom?”
Maddie let out a hollow, derisive laugh that would echo in Jazz's dreams. “Why don't you and your friend tell me? I'm sure it's easier for a ghost to track down their own.”
The response was hardly unexpected, but it still stung. Jazz’s heart sank, her throat constricting with a tempest of hurt and frustration. “I'm not a ghost,” she murmured. “Mom, why can’t you…” A shaky sigh. An attempt to swallow down her anger. “It–it’s me, Jazz.”
That laugh came again, higher and hysteric. “My daughter doesn't have glowing eyes. My daughter would never point a weapon at her family.”
“Hypocrite…” Todd muttered.
Jazz shut her eyes, feeling tears roll down her cheeks. She counted, measuring her breaths. Tried to center herself the best that she could. To put rationality above her feelings. To get answers now and break down later.
Jazz let out a shaky breath and opened her eyes. They trailed back to the ectoplasm. The smell still clung to her nostrils, sharp notes of petrichor and citrus. Thunder rolled, the rain a heavy tattoo on the roof. All of it a forceful reminder of Danny. Of her parents. Of the weapon they hurt him with.
“I need you to tell me where Phantom is,” Jazz choked out. Forceful now, a demand.
Mom’s jaw flexed, her teeth grinding. “If I knew where the ghost boy was, we’d already have him contained,” she bit out.
A spark of anger shot through Jazz, whitehot, but it came unexpectedly with a surge of relief. It was something, at least, knowing that her parents didn’t have their hands on Phantom.
The ectogun sagged in her grip.
Jazz had so much more that she wanted to say. So much she wanted to ask. Why do you and Dad shoot first and ask questions never? Why do ghosts always come first? Why can’t you see that Phantom has always meant well?
Why can’t you trust me?
Jazz was good at talking, at debating, at arguing what she knew and felt with every ounce of passion and energy that she had to spare. But that energy flagged now, sorrow drenching the fires of her anger.
Screaming in Maddie’s face, begging her to see what was in front of her eyes wouldn’t put the ectoplasm back in Danny’s veins. It wouldn’t find him. It wouldn’t help anyone.
Jazz turned away, meeting Damian’s eyes.
“I think I know where to look for… Danny,” Jazz said, choosing the name carefully. Half sure that Damian had already pieced together a connection between the two.
The boy nodded, eyes narrowing. “What do you want to do with them?”
Jazz’s heart leapt into her throat. Maddie hadn’t moved, and neither had Damian. The dagger’s red tip gleamed, the edge razorsharp. Not for the first time, Jazz wondered just who this boy was.
Who Danny was— or, rather, who he had been.