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secret
Here’s the thing — Danny had a secret. One he kept to only himself and Vlad. Even his best friends and sister didn’t know. Sure, he was a mystery already to most. And yeah, his friends and sister knew about his most glaring secret. But there was more, so much so that the thought of telling another soul could shatter all of his relationships. Vlad knew, of course Vlad knew because he was the one who made it possible to keep such a secret. But that didn’t make it any easier. As a matter of fact, in situations like the one he was in currently, it made it worse. So much worse.
“Hold still, Daniel. I need to get another sample of blood,” Vlad nearly growled, trying desperately to still Danny’s writhing arm.
“You already have one!” Danny yelled, unsuccessfully trying to wrench his wrist from Vlad’s grasp.
“It clotted too fast; I need a larger sample from a better vein,” Vlad ground out, thudding Danny’s wrist against the table and holding it there. “Now hold still. This should be easy enough…”
Within moments, there was a needle in Danny’s arm, and he was hyperventilating. Memories of being strapped down and cut into like a corpse flooded his already fragile mind. His fingers and lips and the tip of his nose felt like static and pin pricks. He tasted metal and raw ectoplasm — he’d bitten a gash into his cheek, he soon realized. Or had he only reopened a previous wound? He couldn’t tell at the moment. Above all else, however, he was petrified with remembrance, stuck in the lab at GiW headquarters.
“Hurts…” he wheezed pathetically.
“I’m almost done,” Vlad assured in a stern voice. A few seconds later, the needle was removed from Danny’s arm, and the younger halfa gave a hearty sigh. “This one should be good. With your physiology, your heart beats half as often as the typical heart. That makes it harder to draw blood. But I think I got enough.”
“Yeah…” Danny, not concerned in the slightest with sanitation, wiped the bright green blood from his arm. He always bled green now, even when he was in human form like he was at the moment. Ever since….no, he wouldn’t think of that. Couldn’t. Refused to. “What else do you need?”
“An MRI and an x-ray, then I can send you home,” Vlad explained. “You should be good to start flying back within the hour.”
“Ok, cool.”
The x-ray was quick and painless. Literally just a picture of Danny’s bones. The MRI, however, was not so easy. He had to do a full body scan. Between laying on a bed that felt too much like an exam table and being squeezed into a tube at varying locations around his person, he wasn’t exactly stoked to be doing the test. When it got to his head, the machine was near unbearable. While it banged and clanked around his overly sensitive ears, he struggled to stay still. Vlad had to demand he relax more than once.
Finally, the tests were done, and Danny was free. Well, free to leave. He could never truly be free with the metaphysical anvil hanging over his head. With that thought heavy on his mind, he flew back from Wisconsin, phasing directly into his room and coming to rest on his bed. Himself and Vlad had scheduled their regular appointments for the middle of the night, as they both didn’t need nearly as much sleep as a full human. Additionally, nobody could know about their twice weekly sessions. Nobody could know the true, unadulterated nature of his being.
Danny was never able to fall back asleep after these meetings. The adrenaline coursing through him from the anxiety of it all was near debilitating, and he was unable to stay still for very long. After a few pensive moments, he got up, making a snap decision and flying from his room again, in his Phantom form in case somebody were to spot him. When he reached his destination, he let himself fall back to the ground with a gentle thump. He kept his transformation up in hopes that the added ghostly nature would scare off any pests. Or humans, for that matter.
The woods were peaceful as ever. Danny kneeled next to the makeshift grave marker, running gloved fingers over the jagged edge of a thing. He couldn’t help the shiver that ran through him at the gentle touch, at the proximity to the body buried beneath. He bit his lip, so hard ectoplasm sprang into his mouth but he didn’t care. How could he when the pain was the only thing keeping him grounded to reality?
“Hey,” Danny’s voice rasped with unshed tears. “Sorry I haven’t been here in a while. Busy with shit and stuff. I guess.”
The grave was remarkably silent; they usually were. Danny didn’t know why he half expected something more to happen. No, he couldn’t quite place where the longing was coming from. Because if the corpse buried six feet under were to respond, were to show any sign of sentience, he wouldn’t want that. But the silence and stillness of the night still nagged at the fragile threads of his mind.
“I lied,” Danny sighed. “I haven’t been all that busy. I just…don’t like thinking of you. That’s all.”
Again, the forest was eerily calm. Calmer than a forest should be. But then again, there was the fact that Danny reeked of death in this form. Animals tended not to like that so much.
“I feel like…” Danny pondered his next words carefully. “Like I can’t live up to you. Like everything you are is everything I’m not. Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
Silence. He let a few tears fall.
“I’ve never wanted to be someone so much,” Danny continued. “I’ve never been so focused on what I’m missing. Even after the portal accident, I didn’t feel this empty. This broken. This much like the missing puzzle piece, yearning for the rest of the puzzle. But you’re gone, and now I’m here, and that’s the way things are. That’s how it’s always going to be.”
Danny broke down now, hugging himself as phantom pains stretched over his chest. He could feel the scalpel digging in, hear the robust laugh of the agent cutting him apart. They removed his heart, his lungs, his stomach. Just for the fun of it. Just for laughs.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you,” Danny wheezed his words. “You needed me, but I wasn’t— I didn’t— I’m sorry. I want you to forgive me, but you can’t. Because you’re dead. Whole ghost, no pulse, dead.”
When he finished talking, he let himself transform back to his human form. Or, as human as he could get. Shaking and unable to stop the impulse to do so, Danny laid down on top of the grave, mimicking the exact position he’d seen the body buried in just two months prior. If he were six feet lower, or the corpse were six feet higher, they would be the same. And that was all Danny longed for; for them to be the same. The fact that they weren’t gnawed at his already tumultuous gut.
Eventually, the sun began to rise, slow and steady yet unyielding in its light and warmth. Danny gathered himself, bones and joints aching from the awkward position, and transformed back to his ghostly form. He flew back to his house just in time for his mother to knock on his door, prompting him to get ready for school.
“You look like you got two hours of sleep last night,” Sam greeted him at the door, leaning casually against the exposed brick of the garish building.
“Well, it was three,” Danny corrected, “and I’m sure I don’t look that bad.”
Sam scoffed, pushing herself off the wall and stepping in time with Danny. The two walked towards Tucker’s apartment complex, quietly shuffling along. After the pregnant silence became unbearable, Sam cleared her throat, drawing Danny’s distracted attention.
“You haven’t been sleeping since you ran away,” she pointed out.
There was one facet of Danny’s biggest, deepest secret; he’d ran away. They didn’t know about the violent abduction, or the searing pain, or the unfathomable humiliation and subjugation of the whole ordeal. They didn’t know how he escaped. They weren’t aware of the smoothness of his previously scarred body. Danny was afraid to tell, afraid to bring to light just what had occurred the week he’d ‘ran away’.
“I know,” Danny settled for the simple statement.
“What happened?” Sam pleaded, still walking in step with Danny even as he quickened restlessly.
“Doesn’t matter,” he shrugged through his words.
“It does.”
“Sam—“
“Danny, tell me goddamnit!”
They both stopped at that, staring at one another. Sam was on the verge of tears, breathing heavily as a result of speeding up to accommodate Danny’s supernatural pace. Danny, however, was all cried out. He had no answers, at least none he could bear to share. He had no way of fixing things, of pretending like nothing had happened. All he could do was shake his head back and forth, lips pursed and brows furrowed.
“Hey guys, what’s up?” Tucker walked leisurely into the charged situation. His oblivious nature quickly broke away, revealing an understanding of what exactly was going on. He wasn’t an idiot, after all; Danny knew he’d observed just as much as Sam had. “Oh. So we’re having this talk today. Got it.”
Danny turned to his friend, brows shooting up as he spoke. “You guys planned this?”
“Well, yeah,” Tucker nodded as he answered. “You’re in desperate need of an intervention, dude. Whatever happened when you were gone changed you. We just want to know how we can help.”
“You can’t,” Danny snapped, the words quick and potent.
“Bullshit,” Sam seethed. She stomped over to Danny, heavy platform boots thudding against the solid ground. “You’re driving yourself into the ground over something you refuse to talk about. Even when we’re not talking about the bigger issue, we can hardly get a word out of you edgewise.”
“I don’t know what you want!” Danny yelled, glad for the early morning quiet that enraptured the street. “I’m doing my best to just keep going, just get over it. Do you really want me to fall apart? Are you ready to fall apart?” Danny hissed, baring unnaturally long canines and glaring like a wounded animal between his two friends. “You’ll shatter if I told you what happened, and I’m not in any place to pick up the pieces. So back off, ok? Back the fuck off!”
This time, there was no immediate response. Only pervasive silence, the kind Danny had come to hate so much. Shaking his head once more, he looked down at his watch before trudging in the direction of Casper High once more.
“Where are you going?” Tucker trailed after him, Sam just behind him.
“School,” Danny grunted the word.
“We need to talk about this,” Sam chimed in.
“We just did,” Danny tried to placate.
“Danny—“ Tucker tried.
“We’re going to be late,” again, Danny’s voice was clipped and stern.
“We know about you and Vlad meeting up for the past two months,” Sam nearly yelled.
This time, Danny did stop in his tracks, staring straight ahead and refusing to look back at his friends. “How?” the word was a soft puff of air.
“Your ectosignature,” Tucker explained. “We found out how to track not just where you are now, but where you’ve been. Since you came back two months ago, you’ve been emitting a really strong energy.”
Danny turned slowly towards Tucker, panic written across it features. “You’re not supposed to know about that.”
“Is he hurting you?” Sam pleaded for an answer. “Taking advantage of you? God…experimenting on you?”
“No.” Danny looked at Sam without moving a muscle, only his eyes swiveling towards her. “He’s helping me.”
Sam took a step towards Danny, grabbing one of his ice cold hands in her’s. She ran gentle fingers over perfectly smooth skin, specifically the spot his ligtenbergd scar was supposed to be. “It has to do with everything. Your scar is gone. Hell, all of them are. You bleed green now.” She sighed, long and languid. “What’s going on?”
Danny closed his eyes, allowing himself to be comforted by Sam’s gentle touch. “If I tell you, you’ll hate me. I’ll be alone. Completely and utterly alone.”
“Never,” Tucker spoke up. “We could never hate you, dude. You’re our best friend. You’ve been there for us, and we just want to do the same for you. So let us, ok?”
When Danny opened his eyes, his friends were smiling softly and sadly at him, Sam still holding his hand and rubbing soothing circles into his palm with her thumb. Finally, he swallowed hard and nodded, which only caused a ripple of relief to cascade between the other two teens.
“I’ll tell you, but first I have to show you,” Danny explained. “We’ll be missing school today, I guess.”
The flight to the forest Danny had just been at by himself was longer than he remembered it to be. That was probably due to the dread settled in the pit of his stomach, unyielding and with a firm grasp. Eventually, they got there, and Danny lowered himself and his friends to the ground. The three stood there for a few moments while Danny took deep, calculated breaths to try and calm himself. It didn’t work, evidently, but it was worth a shot nonetheless.
“Where are we?” Tucker voiced the obvious question. “Nobody goes out here. People say the woods are haunted.”
“Tuck, we’re talking to Danny. Who cares if it’s haunted?” Sam reasoned before pulling her attention back to Danny. “But…well, I guess Tucker’s right. It is weird to bring us all this way.”
“It’s not for nothing,” Danny spoke low and shakily. He was looking anywhere but at the grave marker, which blended in as just another rock amongst the plethora. “I couldn’t say what I needed to around anyone else. No ghost, no human, nobody.”
“You’re scaring me, bro,” Tucker chuckled his words nervously. “What’s going on?”
Danny slowly turned himself in the direction of the marker, letting his tearful eyes fall to it. He kneeled before it, moving leaves and brush away to reveal the words burned into the stone by ectoplasmic blasts. Himself and Vlad had done it a lifetime ago. He already knew what the inscription said, but he needed his friends to read it for themselves. He needed them to understand.
“Danny…” Sam’s voice shook as she looked down at the crooked writing. “Why are we standing next to a headstone with your name on it?”
Danny gripped the upper edge of the stone, the uneven material sharp against his palm and grounding him to the situation at hand. “Because this is where he’s buried.”
“Dude, you’re freaking me out here,” Tucker muttered, and Danny could hear his footsteps grow farther from him. He’d backed away. He was scared. And he should have been.
“You’re not making any sense…” Sam trailed off, unable to keep her voice even.
Finally, tears that had been ready to fall dripped down Danny’s cheeks. He shifted so he was sitting with crossed legs, his knees touching the surface of the tombstone.
“Three months ago, I didn’t run away,” Danny began to explain. He took a shuddering breath before continuing. “I was abducted by the Guys in White. They stole me from the night when I was going for a flight around town. I couldn’t sleep or something. I don’t know. It’s hard to remember.”
“Fuck,” Tucker swore. “Why didn’t you— how did you—?”
“Vlad helped me escape,” Danny continued through Tucker’s shock. “He broke me out, but…it was too late. I…no, not me. He was too damaged. His body was beyond repair. So…Vlad made me.”
The only sound after Danny’s last statement was wind whipping and his friends making odd, grief ridden noises. Through the sniffling and hiccuping, Danny could also hear his core whirring within his chest, the artificial thing speeding and slowing in time with his heartbeat.
“You…you’re a…” Sam stammered after an indeterminable amount of time spent in the strange limbo they were in.
“Yeah.” Danny couldn’t bring himself to speak more on the matter. Not now, anyway, with his back turned to his friends and his body vibrating with anticipatory shame.
“But you have all his memories?” Tucker choked the words out.
Danny shrugged in response. “Sorta. They’re blurry. Like dreams. But they’re still there, I guess.” He ground his hand in deeper to the stone, effectively slicing the appendage open. Green ‘blood’ oozed down the slate colored rock. Danny didn’t so much as flinch at the pain that accompanied it.
“You’re bleeding,” Sam spoke as she surged forward, grabbing hold of Danny’s injured hand and cradling it in her’s. His breath hitched at the delicate touch, mind reeling with confusion. She must have seen it written across his face, as she shook her head slowly before speaking again. “You’re ok. We’re ok. I promise you, this will be ok.”
“It won’t,” Danny lamented, petulant as a toddler. “I should have been there. I could have saved him. Then…then you wouldn’t be stuck with me.”
Inky black tears fell down Sam’s face. At the same time, Tucker kneeled on his other side, pressing a tentative yet gentle hand into Danny’s shoulder.
“We’re still here for you. It’s just…” Tucker chuckled humorlessly. “…just going to take some adjusting is all.” He sniffled at the end of his statement, wiping away tears beneath his glasses with the cuff of his yellow turtleneck.
“Why?” Danny hardly spoke. “I’m an abomination. I shouldn’t exist.”
“But we’re so glad you do,” Sam intervened, smiling through her tears. “We just…I just am glad to have a part of him. Any part of him. Any part of you.”
Danny broke down sobbing now, curled in on himself and clenching shut the hand Sam had previously been holding. As he did, Tucker threw an arm around him, and Sam gave him a full forced hug. Together, the three sobbed into the wind that still stirred around them. Animals came and went. Leaves fell. Altogether, it was a normal day in a normal forest. Normality followed them as they cried over a grave.
And suddenly, Danny didn’t have a secret anymore. He had hope, something he’d never tasted in his short life as himself and only himself. The fact was more than a comfort — a miracle, maybe. He thanked the ancients for his existence before continuing to sob with his friends.