Depths

7. Deep Trouble

This chapter has been edited.

...

Tucker and Sam were sitting in the goths mansion, sipping chocolate soy milkshakes. It had been a few days since they last saw Danny and they were starting to wonder why he wasn't answering their texts.

"Why isn't Danny answering my texts?" Tucker asked, looking down at his cell phone and his PDA at the dozens of unread texts he has sent in the last three days.

Ever since they were all small children, they hadn't gone more than two days without talking to each other. Even when they were fighting about something they would still text one another, albeit it was mostly to be salty and mean, but it was still communication.

"I know, he hasn't answered me either," Sam picked up her charging phone, glaring down suspiciously at her unanswered texts. It wasn't like Danny to ignore them for more than a day. He hadn't even done that when she told him she never wanted to see him again after he made fun of her outfit that one time when her parents were punishing her with girly clothes.

It may be true that he forgot his cell at home before he left for the fishing trip, but Danny should have been back Monday for school. It was now Tuesday evening and he never showed up in the last two days.

"Maybe we should stop by his house and check on him," Tucker suggested, "What if Vlad..." He didn't finish, regretting saying his first major concern out loud.

Sam dropped her soy milkshake, and the glass dropped to the floor shattering into dozens of sticky pieces. Her eyes were wide and her mouth dropped open at Tucker's implication, the fact that it could be a real possibility only made her more afraid.

She got up quickly and grabbed her phone off the charger, and Tucker wondered if he should have said anything about Vlad. "Sam, let's not jump to conclusions." He tried to settle her down a little, knowing the overprotective goth chick of a friend would tear down buildings when it came to him and Danny.

One time when she found out from Danny that Dash was beating the shit out of Tucker on a particularly irritating day for the jock, she had skipped a parent-teacher conference with the principal, ignored her parents telling her she was in a world of trouble and pulled the fire alarm. She was slick enough that nobody saw her do it and lucky enough when the school cameras were under maintenance that day, and fast enough that Tucker walked away with only a fractured wrist and a black eye with various other scattered bruises. It could have been much worse at the rate Dash was going, Tucker had been more scared of Dash during that than he ever had been.

Dash had paid the hospital bill and bought Tucker lunch the next day. Tucker remembered how bizarre it had been to be at his locker just before lunchtime and Dash walked right up to him and apologized for being so rough. He had handed Tucker a bag full of food, and a dessert, from Nasty Burger and a wad of cash. Though it didn't excuse his actions, it was definitely appreciated by the tech nerd who had a lower than average income at home.

He also remembered another time when Danny's parents were fighting about something meaningless for the millionth time and they didn't notice that Danny had come home with a black eye. The depressed and neglected child had called her for some company, but she was grounded for skipping class to help patch up Danny's the injuries Dash left and was under house arrest. She had climbed out of her bedroom window from three stories up, nearly broke her ankle, almost got caught sneaking out, all just to take Danny to a movie.

Tucker had been there too, and they had all went to his house when the movie was over, Sam's parents never noticed she was gone, and neither did Danny's.

"I'll stop jumping to conclusions when I find out why Danny isn't talking to us." Sam was nearly growling out as she opened the door and walked out.