Set Alight

Chapter 4

Lindsey

Jack walks me home, Ashton not far behind but giving us space. At the front of my house I stop on the stoop and turn to say goodbye.

"Wait..." Jack mutters. I almost don't hear what he said.

"Yes?"

"I... er... Um." He rubs the back of his head, looking so adorable I almost laugh. "If you want to hang out some more, I kinda have something to... tell you."

I look at my house. "I'd love to. Just let me let my Mom know." He nods and I open my door. "Mom?" After convincing her to let me out another two hours, I rejoin the two boys.

Ashton looks agitated and seems to be explaining something to Jack, who just shakes his head. As soon as Ashton sees me, he shuts up and goes a respectable distance away to look seriously ticked off.

"Why's Ashton mad?" I ask as we walk towards the woods.

"I don't know what his deal is. It's okay, though, he's agreed to keep whatever it is to himself."

He takes my hand and leads me through the darkening woods. "Where are we going?"

He smiles. "You know how my Dad's Danny Phantom?"

The most ironic thing to happen ever. I thought his dad was hot but I fell in love with his son. Never thought my obsession would be so close to him yet... Whoa. Am I in love with Jack?

Kay. Let's not open that door right now.

"Sure."

He pulls me through a copse of trees into a clearing. Ashton joins us, still brooding, as Jack uncovers a metallic disk from a pile of leaves and moss.

"Well. You were wondering how I got here from Amity. Dad lent me this." He tosses it and it emits a bright green light, seeming to fill the clearing but somehow doesn't seem to go past the trees. It just... stops. Weird. 

A spinning cloud vortex seems to turn tangible and expands into a glowing smoke that encircles a five by five portal that looks like cool, flat glass. "Trust me?" He asks, holding out his hand I hadn't realized I wasn't holding anymore. Ashton scoffs and skirts around him, leaping through the portal and disappearing from view.

"Of course." I grab hold of his hand and he steps through, pulling me along with him. As I pass through, my warmth seems to leave for a moment. It's cool, as if I've walked through a waterfall.

"Wow..." I breathe. It's.... so big. Different colored doors of different styles adorn the empty space, all obviously different colors but radiating purple. The Ghost Zone is so contradictory...

 I am so absorbed in the haunting beauty I don't realize Jack has gone silent. As a... "Ghost?"

Jack is floating, his black hair with the white streak now inverted: pure white with a dangerous line of black. His lovely turquoise eyes are now emitting a green glow. His clothes are black and close-fitting, not quite a hazmat suit but pretty close.

There's a white medallion with some sort of JT logo that clasps a white cloak to his shoulders. A white utility belt hangs around his waist.

"You're.... a Halfa?" I demand, shocked. "But you said-"

"I know," he interrupts. "I said that being a halfa is something you have to gain through an accident, but because the ectoplasm merged with my Dad's genes when he changed, it's an inevitability in all offspring. When I was conceived, I was mostly human with a bit of ectoplasm from my dad. As I grew, it grew and replicated until it was on every gene. But I'm still more human than my dad as a ghost and more ghost as a human. See, I bear the mark of a Ghost-born." He points to his streak.

Ashton growls. "Oh, please. You knew I was going to tell her later," Jack explains, rolling his eyes. 

"Why?" I ask. The most recent thing he said is more intriguing then anything he had said so far. "Why now instead of later?"

He scratches his head. "Um. Every ghost has an obsession and a core, right?"

"... Sure." Jack! A Ghost! 

"I have a healing core. And my obsession is healing people as a result."

"What does that have to do with-" I freeze mid-sentence, as he'd withdrawn two silver pills from his belt. "Emma's medicine? You stole her medicine?!"

Ashton suddenly appears behind Jack. "You could kill her!" He looks so worried, sick with fear. "I can't..."

I cut him off. "You say you want to help people and steal what they need to survive?!"

I'm now very glad I decided not to tell Emma that Jack's dad is Danny Phantom. If she found out Jack stole her medicine, she'd tell her dad everything, and her dad's paranoia about ghosts would stop me from ever seeing Emma again. Her dad would never let her.

"Stop, it's not what you think! I was going to heal her... You know, but when I went to help... There was no cancer to heal!"

"What?" Ashton and I demand at the exact same time.

"This medicine... that's what I could heal!! Whatever this is, it's the thing killing her!"