Dizgirl: Ohmygoodness, it's been far too long. I am so sorry. As a reader who has been left hanging far too many times with fanfics, I know that pain and I am sorry to cause it! I have many very valid reasons for disappearing for the last year but no one wants to hear about my life drama! Just know that I thought of this story and you all often over these last few months and I am so excited to give ya another chapter! Enjoy and love!

Chapter 28: What They Want

Phantom

It grew colder with every step we took down the stairs into the basement. Cold air, cold metal, cold little lights blinking from the computer console against one wall. Should it really be this chilly down here? We were only twenty, maybe thirty feet below the surface. The leaves on the trees outside were only just starting to turn orange and red, yet it felt like winter. Maybe that was why they wore their hazmat suits while they worked…

They?

Who?

Someone, someone in orange and blue. That man and lady from the hospital. They wore suits like my ghost half. Was it because they were cold? I was never cold…except I was now, standing in front of a gaping hole in one of the basement walls that was lined with metal and deeply shadowed.

"This is so rad," said someone from beside me. I looked and it was Sam's friend Tucker. He grinned at me and his glasses caught the lights from the console behind me, flashing red.

I chuckled and elbowed him in the side. "Rad? You sound like my dad."

He shrugged and then smiled slyly at me. "You should totally check it out." He gestured at the tunnel.

"It doesn't work."

"Your parents say it doesn't work. That's not the same thing."

"I dunno…it could be dangerous." The word echoed back to me from the depths of the tunnel.

Dangerous.

Dangerous.

The sound pressed into me in warning, yet I suddenly found myself at the entrance wearing a suit like the one I wore as a ghost but the colors were inverted. White with black markings. Weird.

"That should keep you safe," Tucker said from behind me. "Now go check it out!" I looked at him over my shoulder. His glasses were still glowing red though I couldn't figure out what they were reflecting.

Red. Dangerous.

"I'm not sure about this," I said, turning to face him. "I mean, it's really cool but what if my parents find us down here?"

"You'll only be in there for a second."

"Yeah, but—"

"—Just go look!" He pushed me back and I fell, but instead of hitting the floor at my feet I kept going.

I was falling down the tunnel, the metal sides glimmering with pale green and silver as I slipped past them. Finally my back hit the bottom and all the air left my lungs in a rush. The walls of the hole stretched up around me as I tried to take in a breath. Was the tunnel really that deep? The entrance seemed so far away…

Tucker's head appeared over the rim, his eyes two pinpoints of red. "Don't worry. I'll be right here."

My eyes snapped open, the image of Tucker and the tunnel replaced by the high narrow ceiling of the room with the purple bed. A shaft of golden light sliced across the gray wood from the window behind me but otherwise the room was dark. My heart was pounding and I took a deep breath to try to calm down.

That was…I didn't like that.

Where had that come from? I had never been in a place like that before—which wasn't that unusual for a dream—but it had seemed real. Familiar. And Sam's friend Tucker was there. He had been in that other dream I had too. Why did he keep popping up? At least in the last dream he had been nice but in this dream… goose bumps broke out across my skin and I wrapped my arms around myself. He was like how they were sometimes, using nice words but with a scary expression.

And red eyes.

Was that how I had looked to Sam when she said I had had those red eyes before? Now I felt even worse about that night. She must have been so scared and yet she stayed and somehow broke me out of that…whatever that was. She could have left and never come back but she did, night after night. And when I left the warehouse, she could've given up but instead she looked for me. She really was a good friend. Better than I deserved.

I rubbed my face and then rolled out of the bed. Little puffs of dust rose up from my movements, though it was a lot less than the first night I was here. I had shaken out most of the dust so I wouldn't be floating around looking like I had crawled out of a vacuum bag all the time. It was a lot easier on my nose too.

As soon as I stood up, the light from the window hit me and I squinted against the glow. The sun was setting. It would be time to do my job soon. I was surprised no one had come to wake me up already. Then again, with the tension as high as it was a few hours ago maybe everyone was still cooling off. It had taken me a while to calm down enough to sleep and I wasn't angry like the rest of them. Just anxious. Uneasy.

What if the trio really would betray him? Could I stop them? Could I protect him?

My stomach clenched. I didn't want it to get that far, but what could I do to stop it? How do you stop people from being mad at each other? I had never had to do that before…. Maybe Sam would have some ideas. She was coming tonight; I could ask her, but if I told her more about them then I would be going against his orders…

But, I had already done that. I had talked to Sam about them when we had last met in the warehouse. It was okay because she had promised not to tell anyone about them. She would help me keep them safe. So, it was okay to tell her a little more, right? Especially if it was to help him?

The door to the room swung open, scattering my thoughts and making me jump. He walked into the room, his face twisted into a familiar scowl. I hunched my shoulders, expecting him to yell at me even though he couldn't possibly know what I had just been contemplating. If he somehow could, though…

"It's time for you to do your job," he said, his red eyes sweeping over the room before returning to me. "Come." He left without another word and I sighed in relief.

I followed him out of the room and down the stairs to the left, shifting into my ghost side as we went. We entered the front room and I glanced around at the empty space. Where were the others? I focused on my surroundings. Quiet creaks and the faint whistle of wind through the cracks of the sagging house echoed back at me but I didn't hear any voices, footsteps, or other signs the others were here. Had they all left already? I expected that for Amelia after this afternoon, but I was surprised the brothers were gone. The Angry One had been holed up in one of the rooms upstairs with his computers for the last few days and his brother had to drag him away each night. Sam and Tucker had barely missed the two of them yesterday.

"They're gone," he said. "It's just me and you."

I looked back at him as he glanced at the stairs behind me. His lips were pressed together tightly and his arms were crossed. "Wouldn't that be nice? To be just me and my ghosts again? No more back-talking, no more questioning everything I do or don't do…"

He scoffed and spun around. "They have no concept of pacing! You want to perform correctly? Then it's all about timing, patience, control!" I flinched as he barked out the last word, his gloved hands now clenched into fists at his sides. He whirled around again and I suppressed the instinct to step back as he moved closer to me.

"You understand," he said, his voice calmer but his eyes still gleamed in a way that had me on edge. "You won't betray me."

I shook my head quickly. "No!"

He nodded. "No," he repeated, his one hand fingering his coat pocket and his eyes now on the back entrance. "No."

He turned that direction and walked away, muttering under his breath, "…you couldn't if you tried."

Half an hour later I was floating up the staircase as I made my rounds when I heard the quiet crunch of grass outside the front of the house. I quickly sunk back down, faded from view, and then peeked out one of the windows that flanked the front doors. A figure worked their way up the hill towards me, their chin-length hair swinging around their face as they went. Sam!

I watched her reach the top and look up at the house for a moment before moving towards my right. I followed her from window to window as she circled the house towards the back door and then landed in the middle of the kitchen, turning visible, as she let herself in. She looked up and grinned.

"Hi Phantom!"

"Hi," I smiled back.

"How are you?"

"I'm okay." I fidgeted before asking, "you?"

"Alright," She pulled her spider backpack off from one shoulder and rummaged around inside it. "Tuck was gone today so that made it boring, but I got started on my Phantom of the Opera project since that's due later this week." She smirked at me before refocusing on her search. "That'll be a piece of cake…"

With a flourish she pulled out a flashlight. "Here it is!"

I smiled again at her triumph but my thoughts were on her first comment. "Is your friend sick?"

"No, he was out for," she hesitated, "um, personal reasons."

"Oh." Was it because of last night?

"Yeah." She swung her bag back on. "But he'll be back tomorrow. Maybe I can convince him to come with me again—if you're okay with that?"

"Um…" An image of the red-eyed Tucker from my dream flashed through my mind. I knew it was just a dream but it left me reluctant to agree. Plus, even if I ignored that, it wasn't like the real Tucker liked me much either. But, if Sam wanted him to…. "That's fine."

Sam tilted her head a little, studying me. "You sure?"

I swallowed. "Yeah, it's…he's your friend. If you want him to come…"

"But if you don't," she interrupted, "then I won't bring him. This is your place."

It wasn't my place, it wasn't even really theirs, but I didn't correct her. Instead I looked away and said quietly, "he doesn't like me."

Sam was silent for a moment and then replied, "Tucker doesn't like ghosts in general. It's not you specifically. He just...he had a bad experience with one and then decided that meant all of you were bad."

I let my eyes slide back to meet hers and she gave me a wry smile before adding, "I can't really blame him; what happened was pretty bad. But you can't judge a group of people based on one of them. Hopefully he'll realize that."

I nodded, wondering what had happened to Tucker that had made him hate ghosts. Then again, was I surprised? Most people disliked or were afraid of ghosts. It was why I was good at my job. I was the best one at keeping people away.

Speaking of which…I felt a little jolt of anxiety as I realized I hadn't been paying attention to the house and its surroundings. "I need to move."

"Huh?"

"I need to," I gestured at the hall leading away from the kitchen, "I need to look around, make sure no one tries to come in. Do my job."

"Oh," Sam flicked her flashlight on, the light spilling onto the floor. "Can I join you?"

"Yeah, of course."

I floated down the short hallway and she followed behind me, the beam of her light sweeping from side to side as she focused on different details. There were double doors on our left before the hallway turned sharply right and I took a quick glance inside before letting Sam poke her head in too. They led to a formal dining room with a long table and narrow, straight-backed chairs. We avoided this room because it had so many windows and was easiest to see from the street, so the dust remained thick and undisturbed over the floor except for two sharp lines across the wood from where the Ice Woman had taken one of the chairs.

"Wow, that's cool," she whispered. "Looks like a scene straight out of a scary movie."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," her head bobbed beside me. "Especially with the way the one chair was dragged away. Kinda adds this ominous question about where it went…"

"The Ice—uh, one of them took it into another room," I explained, automatically correcting myself before I used my nickname for Amelia, before I gave anything about them away. I then frowned. But I would need to tell her more to ask my questions. And that was okay, right? Even though it would make him angry, it would also help him if I could diffuse the tension between the four of them, right?

Sam closed the door to the dining room and turned towards me. "Yeah, I figured, but how crazy would it have been if it had just disappeared? Just these tracks and then nothing."

I nodded, my mind still on my dilemma. I could start by just finding out what Sam already knew. Maybe ask her what she learned when she saw them at the warehouse? Maybe she already knew enough to help me.

Sam moved past me, peeking around the bend in the hall. "Where next?" she asked.

"Um…this way." I floated toward the archway that led into the front room with the stairs. She followed, but then paused under the arch. "What's down there?" she swung her flashlight down the hallway that continued past it.

"A bathroom and some, uh, living rooms? They have couches and bookshelves. One of them has a piano."

"Cool."

I didn't check down there as often because the windows were all sealed shut but if she wanted to check them out... "Did you want to see it?"

She considered it and then said, "Maybe later if I have time." She then joined me in the room, her eyes automatically going up to the vaulted ceiling and then the winding staircase to our left. "Wow."

She started towards the windows but I spoke up, "Hey, Sam?"

She stopped and turned back to me, her eyebrows raised in silent question.

"I, uh, I..." The urge to protect them, to stay silent and keep their secrets reared up inside me. But this would help him, she could help me. I shoved the feeling down and blurted out, "I have questions."

"Okay, about what?"

"About them. I mean, about what you know about them. About what you saw and heard and what you know…now." A tingling embarrassment swept over my cheeks but Sam just smiled a little.

"Actually, I have some questions about that too. So, let's…" she looked around, shrugged, and then sat down on the floor.

"You could use the chair or we could sit on the stairs," I offered but she waved it off.

"I like sitting on the floor. Come on," she patted the space in front of her.

I floated down and mirrored her position across from her.

"Okay, you first," she said.

"Um, okay." I took a deep breath, which then turned into a yawn. I forced it down. "Sorry. Um, you said you saw them when you went to the warehouse?"

"Yeah, sort of," she tilted her head to the side. "I mean, I saw little flashes of them but mostly I just heard them."

"How many…people were there?"

Sam seemed to think for a moment and then said, "Four, three guys and one woman."

I nodded. So she had seen or heard all of them. She was really lucky they hadn't seen her in return. I had always scared people away before they came too close to the rest of them so I didn't know what would happen if someone actually found them, but I could guess. And it wouldn't be good.

"They were talking about something going wrong," Sam interrupted my thoughts. "Something about alarms and breaking in…What were they doing?"

Another surge of protectiveness filled me, telling me not answer, but I pushed it away. "They, um…They do a lot of different things. They make plans and go to secret places and wear weird outfits…" I trailed off.

Sam chuckled. "Wow, that was vague."

I bit my lip as my cheeks warmed again, but at least she looked more amused than frustrated. "Sorry, I don't normally listen to them when they're planning what they're doing. I'm doing my job…"

"It's fine," she waved a hand between us.

"Oh, but it's changing," I said, "my job is changing. I'm training so I can help them with what they're doing."

Sam's forehead furrowed. "Your job is changing?"

I nodded.

"What are you going to do?"

"I need to…" I frowned as I thought about the exercises I had done today: flying, intangibility, invisibility, shields…. "Bring one of them somewhere? And…protect them?"

"Do you know where you're going?"

I shook my head. "No, not yet. We just started today."

"Huh." Sam's eyes wandered around the room as she seemed to think that over. "It's just…it kinda sounded like maybe they were trying to…go somewhere that they shouldn't, like somewhere that people aren't supposed to go?"

Her eyes slid back to mine and I sent back a puzzled look. "Yeah?"

"So…y'know, they might get in trouble if they were caught? Like by the police?"

I nodded, my expression turning solemn. "Yeah."

She seemed surprised at my response. "And you're okay with that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she gave another chuckle, though this one sounded a little forced. "I guess most people don't want to be around people who could be arrested 'cause they could get in trouble too and because those people are usually dangerous."

"But, I need to protect them," I replied. "I keep them safe from anyone that wants to find them."

Sam's face was troubled and I felt a flutter of concern. She had promised.

"You…you'll keep them safe, too, right? You can't tell the police about them or tell anyone else. Even—I guess Tucker already knows—but no one else! And he has to keep them safe too. He can't say anything about them to anyone!"

"Okay, okay," Sam held up her hands, her eyes widening a little. I realized I was now floating over her and could feel my aura fizzling around me, causing the temperature to fall and goose bumps to spread down Sam's arms.

I quickly dropped down to the floor and yanked my energy back inside me. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

Silence fell between us as I kept my gaze on my hands, mentally berating myself for reacting so strongly. I had that problem last night too. I didn't want to act that way towards Sam. What if I upset her? What if she was upset now? I felt another yawn coming on and tried to stifle it with little success.

"Tired?" Sam asked. My eyes flicked up toward hers. Her eyebrows were pinched together but not in an angry way.

"Um, a little," I said.

She studied me for a moment. "Are you getting enough sleep?"

"Yeah."

"And how much is that?" I looked at her in confusion and she added, "How much sleep do you normally get?"

I shrugged. "Usually four or five hours? Sometimes less." She nodded, her lips pressing together. I quickly added, "It's fine; that's plenty for me."

"But you seem pretty tired," she countered. "And this isn't the first time that's happened. You should make sure to get more sleep."

"I can't, I have to do my job."

"I know, but you still get some sleep each day, right? So just ask for a little more."

I imagined asking the Ice Woman for more sleep when she came to wake me. Or Neil or him. I shuddered. They'd get so mad… "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

I shook my head but she stared at me expectantly and I shrunk in towards myself. "It's really okay. It's just because of the training that I'm so tired. It's temporary."

"If you're training then that means it's even more important for you to get enough sleep."

I made a sound of protest, but before I could say anything she pinned me with that same intense look.

"Look, you're my friend," she said. "And I see you yawning and hear you're getting only a few hours of sleep. And I know you're dead—" I flinched but the action went unnoticed by her as she rambled on "—so maybe it's not so bad, but if you're yawning then that means you need sleep, right? And I just want to make sure you're okay 'cause, honestly, I'm not so sure these people you're protecting are…" She paused, her eyes unfocused. There was a moment of silence but then she said, "I just worry they're not…making sure you get what you need."

Her purple eyes met mine, her brows pulled together. Worried. She was worried about me. I felt a flicker of warmth inside.

"Um, it's okay. You don't have to be worried," I told her, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm okay. I can handle it and it's important, the training. And I do this all the time—not the training, but staying up and doing my job even when I'm tired…" I trailed off as I noticed this did not seem to be reassuring her.

She watched me for a moment and then said, "But don't you think you could do even better if you were well rested? Y'know, if you were more awake and had more energy?"

"Well, yeah," I replied. "But, I can't sleep when they're gone and I can't sleep when I'm training…so I just sleep when I'm not doing those."

"Okay, but—" she was cut off by the beeping of her phone. She pulled it out of her pocket and glared at the screen. For the first time I was a little relieved to hear that sound; it was disappointing to know Sam was leaving, but this whole conversation was becoming uncomfortable and at least now it would end.

But apparently Sam had a different idea. She turned it off and pointed it at me. "-But," she repeated with emphasis, "if it gets to be too much then I think you should tell them you need a break. Take a little time off training or do it earlier so you get more sleep? I dunno, something."

"Your alarm," I mumbled.

"I know," she huffed. "But are you going to do it?"

"Um…" My eyes drifted to her phone.

"Phantom?"

My gazed bounced back up to hers. She raised an eyebrow.

"You should—can we head to the door?" I asked. "I don't want you to get in trouble and not come back."

Her lips twisted into a pout. "Okay, but tell me you're going to ask for a break if you need it." She started towards the back of the house and I floated behind her.

"If I need it," I hedged.

"Which happens when you're yawning or feeling really tired," she replied, her hair whipping around as she looked back at me. "Because when you're tired you can't help them as much and if your job is really so important you would make sure you can do your best!"

I frowned, stopping at the entrance into the kitchen. "I'm doing my best…"

She spun around, the fire in her eyes disappearing at my expression. "I'm not saying you aren't. I'm just saying that I don't want you to work yourself so hard that you stop being able to do your best." Her face softened further. "Okay?"

The swoop of hurt that I had felt vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by that small warmth from earlier and I was struck again by just how kind she was. I ducked my head and said, "okay."

"Yeah?" She stooped a little to catch my eye.

I met her gaze. "I'll try."

She smiled, "Alright, I'll take that." She snapped off her flashlight and stuffed it into her bag. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

I nodded.

She opened the back door and stepped out. Turning around to close it, she gave me a smile and said, "Ask for that break!" Then the door crunched shut and she was gone.