Dannies, Death, and Dates

Chapter 8

Dani's leg had set enough for her to go to school the next day. She felt like the elephant in the room everywhere. Nothing drew attention like crutches, and the only thing people could say was, 

"How did that happen?"

Some people tried to be nice by offering to hold books or open doors, but this put her in an even worse mood. She didn't want their help.

"Okay. You look about ready to kill someone," Danny remarked through a mouthful of sandwich as Dani eased herself into a cafeteria seat. 

"I am," Dani grumbled, stirring moodily at her jello cup. She wanted to vent about her frustrations. To rant about the stiff pain in her leg, the uselessness of being unable to fight, her suspicions about Gage. 

But she also didn't want to be the one to bring drama to the lunch table.

Forcing down the anger, she turned to Tucker and said,

"So... taking anyone to the dance?" 

Tucker shrugged, keeping his eyes locked firmly on his food. Dani smirked as she saw him deliberately avoid looking at Valerie as she passed.

"You know, I bet she'd say yes," Dani prodded, once he had looked up. "She agreed to go with you once before, didn't she?"

"But that was only because Quan switched dates last minute!" Tucker protested. "Plus I ditched her to take Sam, and we all know I can't do that this year." He threw a disgusted look over at Danny and Sam. 

"Hey, if you don't ask anyone, you can always hang with us Tuck," Danny reassured him. Sam glared at Danny pointedly.

"Almost always," Danny amended sheepishly. 

........................................................................................

Dani sat at her laptop computer, tapping through the ghost index. Over the years, they'd run into ghosts of every sort. She was searching through them by age now. 

Gage had to be around 16 or 17. If they'd run into him before, and he really was a ghost, he'd be logged into their base. 

"Nope... nope... nope..." she muttered, flicking through one at a time. 

Finally, search over, she shut the laptop. Was she overreacting? This house was a flux of ghost energy after all. The ecto reader could have been picking up any number of signals. Gage could have climbed the roof. He could be nothing other than a skater boy, sneaking out on roofs for the fun of-

Tap tap tap

Dani whipped around. There was Gage again, grinning at his success in surprising her. She folded her arms stubbornly and stared at him. 

He grinned and mouthed,

"I have fries!" holding up a bag from the Nasty Burger.

Dani grabbed her crutches and limped out of view from the window. Once out of sight, she took a deep breath. 

This could still be coincidence. But there was one way to be sure. She tucked a Fenton Thermos into the pouch of her hoodie, then limped back to the window and opened it 6 inches. Enough to fit her arm through. 

"What are you doing here again?" Dani asked, one hand clenched over the thermos in her pocket. 

"Well I finally realized what was missing from our last talk," he replied. 

"A proper goodbye?" Dani retorted.

"Nope. Food."

He opened the paper bag and a delicious smell of greasy food wafted through the window. Dani pulled up a chair to the window and propped her arms along the sill.

"When you put it that way..." she said, opening the window a little wider so they could share the fries. 

Gage spread out the cardboard tray on the windowsill between them and they ate a few. She snuck closer looks at him. Those eyes, amber at first glance... could they actually have a faint glow to them? Was the shade of that hoodie ecto green, or just normal?

Dani tried to keep cool as she chewed. This was like something out of a badly written romance novel. A strange, dashing young man comes to her rooftop and mysteriously disappears. She falls hopelessly, disgustingly in love, and they live happily ever after. 

But not this story, she thought. 

In a flash, Dani whipped the thermos out of her pocket and engaged it. The sucking, brilliant vacuum swept over Gage. His eyes widened in shock, and he gave a yell of surprise as he was sucked inside it. 

Just like every other ghost.