The Shell of Casper

- 7 - Curtain Call

She hadn't heard a step he took, or any sound revealing he had found a weapon. He shifted to block himself with her body. She could see his grey stubble, his grey hat with the embroidered ARC label, his yellow teeth beneath lips peeled back in a disgusted snarl. His gaze flickered to the floor, then back to Casper. His wad of spit and flakes of dirt had already soiled the picture. Rosie wanted to punch him in the nose.

"You got yourself your own loyal Reaper, then." The man smiled wickedly, still hiding partially behind her. "How cute."

"I said to let her go." Casper's mouth twitched as he focused with feline stillness. "Right now."

"No." The man shook his head with a humoured grin, as if this was all a hilarious joke. "You pull off your blinds, boy, and you'll kill her before you kill me."

    A vent sighed as it turned on, cold air wrapping itself around her bones. Casper's knuckles whitened as he clenched the hammer harder.

"He can't aim for a damn thing without sight, you idiots."

    Casper surged forward, cocking his arm back with the hammer in the air.

"Ah, ah, ah." The man pulled Rosie away with him, her body quivering. "I got Missy in front of me here, so don't try that again. I could end this in a second."

    The man couldn't though. If he killed Rosie, then Casper would have nothing stopping him from ripping off his blindfold. Rosie stared at Casper. The muscle in his jaw feathered in frustration as he lowered the hammer. His hair was in need of a cut, the dark strands falling down to his cheeks and the back was curling at the base of his neck. Rosie hoped that whatever girl she married would have as a sister to marry Casper. Someone gentle-hearted and smart like him. And so their children could be family beyond their childhood friendship. That was, if she and Casper would be free in time to get to a life like that. Her heart ached for that future. She needed to get out of this place. They had to get out. She prayed that Casper would make the right decision.

    It was then that she noticed his finger moving. He gestured it at the ground, curling it out harshly, over and over. He was indicating for her to kick her captor, in hopes of setting him off guard. Rosie felt her heart fall apart.

"I can't." Rosie rasped, the familiar pressure of the blade pushing harder as she spoke. Casper's facial muscles flinched and he ground his teeth.

"Let her go, right now." Casper seethed, his hand shaking as he gripped the hammer, aching to rip off the blinder and smash it into the foul-breathed, knife-wielding man. A man threatening Rosie, and being a risk to their escape. Well, the idea of an escape. Rosie began to cry, as she usually did at the moment when it came. They were not part of the scene. They were real.

"LET HER GO OR I'LL KILL YOU BOTH!" Casper screamed, he arched his arm with the hammer and clutched his blindfold, still over his face. It was a bluff. He always bluffed. She knew he'd never hurt her.

"You pull that off and I'll end her right now." Her captor said calmly with venom pouring off his tongue.

    Rosie leaned, staring as hard as she could at her best friend, thinking that maybe if she tried hard enough she could speak into his mind, show him her thoughts.

Don't do it. Don't do it, please.

Casper, I'm begging you. Please.

    She waited for this to be the moment. For it to be the time that it went too deep, too far, to see him surrender. Casper's whole body trembled with frustration, balancing the risks. Was this it? Could this be the last time she had to plan a jail-break? Or let him plan one out. She was a fox in a hen house, but not a fox with a free will. A fox with a chain. Bound and controlled. Was this the last time she would have her heart broken once more?

    Casper tore off the blindfold, while lunging forward to push Rosie away. He had done it.

"Enough, enough." Sergeant Abe came into the room, two guards at his flank. The two grabbed Casper as he froze, anchoring him back. She heard the handcuffs click as he was restrained. Casper closed his eyes as he was tackled, only opening when he turned his head to stare at the guards holding him back. His cheeks were burning and he went eerily still when the guards didn't fall into greyed heaps of bones and skin. Slowly, he looked at Rosie.

    The man holding her had his prop-knife popped back into his pocket, Rosie standing beside him. Confusion outweighed the betrayal blazing in his expression. She couldn't savour the moment that she could see his face fully. She wondered how many more months would pass before he would rip it off again at the final moment.

    "Go to your office and collect your things." Sergeant Abe grunted at her, his orange hair longer than the time they had met. He would trim it tonight, no doubt. He would appear to be only a day older than who he was when he brought the students into the scholarship meeting. "You've been relieved. It clearly isn't enough to threaten a loved one for them to rebel." Abe rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Maybe having no one familiar around will get them to give in sooner. Spark some hopelessness, eh? Like breaking a horse by giving it nothing else to fight for." The sergeant looked at Casper in disappointment. Casper strained against his cuffs.

"What is he talking about? Rosie?" His voice broke. He was clearly fighting the instinct to look away, as if his gaze really could kill someone beyond repair, in a blink.

"I'm sorry, Casper." Rosie hugged herself. Abe nodded his head to the side, and the guards tugged him out of the room.

"Wipe him back to day one, alright?" The sergeant said for the fifteenth time in the past five years. The guards lowered a headset onto Casper's unruly, dusky-haired head. Casper struggled away, shouting. The headset adjusted to his face, and he soon collapsed into the guards. It did nothing to his eyes as he feared they would. Just his memory.

    Rosie wiped her face and picked up Casper's photo to where it laid crumpled and wet. She cleaned it on her jade shirt, and stuffed it into her breast pocket. She'd been relieved. Now she could add it back to her collection, a shoe box beneath her bed holding fourteen, square Polaroids of the blue-eyed boy.

    Rosie raised her chin, knowing that if she took a moment to think that she would break down. Her footsteps blending into the sound of Casper's feet dragging down the hallway as she walked to her office.