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The worst thing was—it wasn’t even a ransom video.
Jazz returned to her dorm room from class to find five unanswered video calls, six missed voice calls and an unread message on her phone.
They were all from her parents.
Trepidation built in Jazz’s chest. Her parents were forgetful at best, and negligent at worst. She needed more than ten fingers to count the number of times they were too absorbed in their studies to remember important occasions in her or Danny’s lives. They hadn’t even come to her elementary school graduation. For her parents to contact her so insistently, something must’ve happened. Something bad.
She clicked on the message her parents had left her, and—
Oh, it was so much worse than she could’ve imagined.
Strapped to a lab table, with his face bleached of colour even more than normal, and his eyes staring so far off into the distance he probably couldn’t even register his current situation, was her baby brother. Danny. Who was currently in his ghost form. Jazz could tell from his expression that he was either dissociating or drugged, and while both were bad for his health, it was probably for the best, because—
Her parents were standing in front of Danny. Her father’s eyes were shining with childlike excitement, and there was a bloodthirsty grin on her mother’s face. They were gloating—contacting Jazz for the first time since the start of this semester, just to congratulate themselves on finally catching Phantom. There was a set of glowing green surgical instruments next to Danny’s head—scalpels, forceps, scissors, clamps and the like. Jazz didn’t need to hear what her parents were saying to understand what was going on.
It wasn’t even a ransom video. It certainly felt like one—come home this instant or we’ll vivisect your little brother—but it wasn’t. Jazz wished it was a ransom video. A ransom video would imply that her brother would remain safe for now, as long as she complied with whatever the kidnappers demanded.
Except the kidnappers were Jazz’s own parents—Danny’s own parents—who wanted to vivisect him for their own sick pleasure, and there was no ransom, because what her parents the kidnappers wanted wasn’t money or Jazz’s presence or anything she could give them. It was Danny himself, and they already had what they wanted.
If her parents hadn’t wanted to gloat, Jazz would never have found out until it was far too late, and by then…by then…
No. Jazz couldn’t panic. Panicking was counterproductive to crisis management. She had to formulate a plan—a way to get back to Amity Park asap, fight off or distract her parents, kidnap Danny from his own house, and then make an escape unscathed and preferably with Danny’s halfa status still a secret. But first—
Jazz needed to inform Sam and Tucker.
They should’ve never let Danny convince them he would be alright remaining in Amity Park alone. Jazz had already been in college by the time Danny, Tucker and Sam graduated, and while both Sam and Tucker managed to enrol in colleges outside town, Danny realised he couldn’t leave his haunt behind. He had somehow managed to convince all three of them he would be fine staying in Amity Park without backup, but…they shouldn’t have listened. Danny had always been too interested in martyrdom for his own good.
Jazz could only hope Sam and Tucker wouldn’t wallow in their own guilt too much. There was a time and place for processing one’s own guilt and regret and let go of the what ifs, but getting ready to break into one’s own house to rescue one’s brother and maybe commit a slight dose of parricide was not it.
Her college was a day’s drive from Amity Park even if she forewent all basic necessities including refuels, bathroom breaks, meals and sleep. She only had her Ghost Peeler and the lipstick blaster as her weapons—the Ghost Peeler only worked on ghosts, and even though the ectoplasm of the lipstick blaster was hot enough to burn humans, it wasn’t enough to go against both her parents Maddie and Jack. This wasn’t a mission Jazz could carry out alone, but she wasn’t alone.
She had Sam and Tucker, two people who shared no blood relation with her or Danny, but were more family that Jack and Maddie had ever been. They would drop all their other duties the moment they learnt Danny needed them, help Jazz stage a rescue, and they would pool their resources together and succeed. Even if her parents finally proved they were the monsters they had always claimed to be, the knowledge that Jazz wasn’t alone—still had somebody to rely on besides a brother who was about to be tortured, well.
It was a cold comfort.