Depths

22. Hysterics

This chapter has been edited.

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It took hours for them to clean up the mess, and even more hours for them to drive to the outskirts of town, miles away from any owned land or property. 

Someone had already texted their parents on each of their phones that they would be out a little past curfew, and to not wait up for them. That they were watching a movie and would be getting food afterward before going home. Each of their parents had bought it, either letting them do what they want or scolding them not to let the late nights become a habit.

Sam drove, her mind going a mile a minute as she made absolutely sure not to break any driving laws. She didn't even want to think about having to deal with a policeman while a corpse lay hidden in the trunk.

How did they get into this mess? Sam and Tucker wondered. Yesterday, their biggest concern was exams, or never finding "the one" and now, here they were covering up a murder! How had things escalated this quickly? 

Danny was still in shock, so he hadn't explained what happened, and the only information they had, was what Phantom had said over the phone when he called them. In the span of ten minutes, they had made themselves into accomplices. One the getaway driver, and the other currently hacking into the school system to delete all video footage of that week.

Was it worth it?

Sam shook her head, of course, it was. Phantom may be emotionally impaired, but he was their friend, and they couldn't just let someone find out about him being a merman. Not only would they never see Phantom ever again if the authorities found out about this, but the merman's life would literally be a living hell if scientists and researchers got a hold of him. 

They wouldn't let that happen to him, no matter how stuck up the merman was; nobody deserved to go through the kind of torture that the government would put on Phantom if he was found out. They knew that the raven would be absolutely crushed if Phantom was taken away by scientists, as well. They weren't positive about just how close the two were, but if the love bites that they caught littering his neck were anything to go by, they had their suspicions.

Phantom was in the back seat, massaging the tense nerves out of Danny's shoulders as the kid rested in his lap. The raven hadn't said a word during the who ordeal, but Phantom could hear him thinking. He had calmed down a lot since the merman first saved him, so now at least his thoughts weren't so mushed together like a mess of tangled necklace chains, as they were a few hours before. 

All the kid was doing was reminiscing about life back when he was a younger child, back when his mother still loved his father, and their family was still happy. Phantom could smell that the kid wasn't unhappy that Vlad was dead, not that Danny would admit it to himself, but the merman knew that he had felt nothing but loathing towards Vlad for years now. 

Phantom would even bet that the raven wished that Vlad never existed in the first place.

It was night time by the time they found a good spot to dump the body, and when Sam parked near a swamp, she turned off the car and unlocked the trunk.

"Phantom? Are you going to help?" Tucker asked as he grabbed a flashlight, breath visible in the 30 degrees cold.

"Can't," he said snarkily, Tucker should know this already, "It's too wet out there in that swamp, I'll pop a tail as soon as a spec of mud touches me. I'll keep Danny warm."

Tucker didn't respond, just shut the door, and Phantom knew that he was scolding himself for asking such a dumb question. Both him and Sam got to work opening the trunk and pulling the body out. Vlad was much heavier than he had looked, and without Phantom's help, like they had when getting him in the trunk at school, the dead man seemed to weigh a ton. Their feet dug in the mud with the effort of holding the body up, and they were both glad they were conveniently wearing old shoes that they didn't mind throwing out.