Reckless. [TMNT 2012]

1. Reckless; Casey

Song: Soul Addiction - Sylar

Sounds of locker doors slamming and idle chit-chat floats through the air. Wave after wave of high school students flood the hallways. Boys and girls of different shapes and sizes wade through the waters of hormones to get to their next class. Each of the teenagers have their own clique with them, matching styles in some way or another. But no amount of bling or flashy clothes can take my mind off of the one person I am searching for.

I casually cross my arms and lean against a locker. I tap the handle of my hockey stick as I gaze at the redhead in front of me. Her eyes, the shade of a brilliant sky-blue, are focused on the textbooks in her cubby. Her freckles tint a baby pink shade as she realizes I am standing there. She immediately buries her face further into her locker as she shuffles through her papers and pencils.

She always acts like I'm a pest, but I know she doesn't mean it. "So, Red, you excited about the Halloween party tonight?" I ask coolly.

That snaps April out of her desire to ignore me. "I'm not going," she replies stiffly without sparing me a glance.

I lift my dark eyebrows in surprise. "Why not? Everyone's going!" I press. Then a pause for a moment. "You aren't gonna be handing candy out to kids or somethin', are you? Because that's so not cool." Maybe insulting her will change her mind.

April only exposes the faintest trace of annoyance upon her face, however. "I'm not doing that, either. I have a big Geography test on Monday, and so I'm using the whole weekend to study," she explains as she finally decides which textbook she needs. She shuts her locker and turns to face me, tapping her foot to a beat that is inaudible to me.

"Aw, c'mon!" I complain as I lean against my hockey stick. "You're so boring!"

That manages to agitate April a bit. "Boring? You can't be serious," she snorts and crosses her arms over her book. Her gaze shoots around the hallway before she goes on in a soft voice. "I'm training as a kunoichi. I've fought Footbots, aliens, and horrifying mutants. And two months ago, I went into a battle against the Shredder himself. Now am I boring?" She puts on a triumphant smile and straightens up.

But I am no longer thinking about April. My mind wanders back in time, recalling all the memories of the war. I can still hear screams and see splatters of blood jumping across my vision, most of it not even mine. Well, at least, not until I passed out from extreme blood loss. I still faintly remember the black fuzzes blotting out my vision, until I was blind and deaf to the world.

But that wasn't the worst part. When I came to a few hours later I found my twin sister, Charlotte, dead. The turtles said she died by saving Raphael from the Shredder, but that doesn't justify her decease to me. She was too young and fragile to die.

The raw pain of seeing her lowered into her grave still clings to me. Sometimes, I even have nightmares about it. I wake up with a wet face and calling out Charlotte's name. I always expect her to rush across the hall and tell me that she's alright, that she is still around. But disappointment follows, along with the bitter truth that she is gone for good.

A hand on my shoulder drags me out of my whirlwind of thoughts. April is giving me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up," she says sincerely, her lips forming a guilty frown.

I can't bring myself to meet her gaze, so I study my shoes. They are blackened and worn from all the time I spend wearing them. "I still think about Char every day," I admit reluctantly. "I always expect her to rush out of her bedroom in the morning to cook breakfast for dad and I. But then it's like a slap to the face when I remember that will never happen again."

I never like to talk about my feelings to April. But with such strong grief, it just slips out. Thankfully, April doesn't seem to mind my random moments of weakness. I guess she's just grateful to know I'm more than a hockey player hiding behind a vigilante mask.

"She's still here in spirit, Casey. I can sense her," the redhead promises. When I shuffle my feet and stay silent, April wanders to another subject. "How do you get by without a legal guardian, anyway?"

That question brings even more rough feelings. Before Charlotte passed, she told me how my father died. Apparently, they were used as guinea pigs for a substance called 'mirror mutagen'. When they refused to participate in any more dangerous tasks, Tiger Claw murdered him to scare Charlotte into obedience.

My fists clench and unclench repeatedly. If I could just get my hands on that mutant, I would be the happiest guy on earth. No ugly freak is going to get away with terrorizing my family!

"Casey?" April waves her hand in front of my face.

I shake my head to clear it. Revenge is all I think about anymore. I need to relax.

"I'm good at imitating my father's voice over the phone," I respond to her earlier question, brushing off her concern. "Oh, and I can forge his signature. How else do you think I get all those permission slips to ditch classes?"

My friend gives me a disapproving look.

"I know, I know. It's lame," I shoo her opinion away before she can even state it. "But the teachers are falling for it, so who cares? Fake it 'til you make it."

April shakes her head, exasperated. "I was just going to tell you that things will get easier, but you seem to be coping quite well." I can tell she's joking by the tiny smile she shares with me.

I feel a little twitch of emotions in my stomach at the sight of such a pleasant expression, but I push it away. I keep telling myself that I have no chance with her, so why do the feelings never go away? I just wish she would quit messing with my head. But at the same time, I kind of like it.

April blinks and clears her throat to end the awkward staring contest. "So, speaking of ditching classes, how's finding another tutor going?" she asks conversationally.

April informed me two weeks back that she can't handle tutoring me in all my classes anymore. She can still occasionally help with trigonometry, but she can't take responsibility for any other subject. Luckily, she helped me pull most of my grades up to B's. All except anatomy, which is well below a D average.

Previously, I thought about asking Donatello for help. But he is an impatient teacher who uses too many big words. Besides, he's spending all his free time trying to find a cure for the zombants. In the end, I decided that would be too inconvenient, so I never asked him. Instead, I told my anatomy teacher to put me in the hat for another tutor.

"I haven't met my new tutor yet," I explain. "But apparently she's a senior at this school, and that means she has a 98 percent of being a total babe."

April rolls her eyes in disgust. "Please Casey, focus solely on the work for once," she begs.

I smirk and lean closer to her face. "You and I both know that's not how Casey Jones rolls, Red," I say in a silky smooth tone, but the pleading look she gives me makes me cave. "Fine, I'll try to do better," I agree grumpily.

"Thank you." She looks pleased. "Now, hurry up. We're gonna be late for class!"