Chapter 6

"D'you know if there's anywhere around here I can take a shower?" Casey asked casually, sitting on her hands to stop herself picking at her scar.

"Uh, there's, like, an old outhouse thing outside." Jack scratched the back of his head with the barrel of his shotgun.

"Okay." She said quickly, grabbing a towel and heading for the door.

"Wait, wait, wait." He grabbed her arm. "I'll come with you."

"Oh, really?" She smirked and raised an eyebrow.

"I'll wait outside." He said firmly, but couldn't look her in the eye.

"Sure."

Closing the door most of the way behind her, Casey got undressed and walked over to the large cracked mirror in her bare feet. She looked at her reflection for a few seconds, running her hands over the bruises and cuts on her skin. Then she turned and stepped into the shower. The grout was crumbling away and there was unpleasant looking mould on the floor but she turned the switch up hopefully. There was a slight rumbling sound and suddenly freezing cold water shot out at her. She gave a little scream of shock.

Jack had been on high alert outside, weapons at the ready, when he heard the scream. He charged in, but the only person he saw was Casey.

She laughed, "The water just scared me a little."

His eyes widened and he spun around one hundred and eighty degrees so he was facing away from her.

"Oh, come on, Jack. Be mature."

"I'm sorry for coming in. I-I-I just thought that maybe something had happened to you." He said mechanically through gritted teeth.

"I'm all good in here." He heard the shampoo bottle opening. "A little lonely though."

"Well that's just tough. Because I am definitely not coming in." He emphasised the "t" in each word, which he'd grown to doing in times of stress.

"I think you want to."

"It doesn't matter what I want. What matters is keeping you..." He hesitated, his hands twitching, "safe."

"I'm totally safe in here. Especially if you come in to keep a closer eye on me..."

He turned his head slightly and glanced over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of her crimson hair.

"Dammit..."

He walked to the mirror and laid down his weapons, reaching uncertainly for his shirt.

Casey turned the handle on the shower and the water turned from freezing cold to a surprisingly pleasant hot temperature. She rinsed the bubbles from her hair and turned to see Jack standing right in front of her.

"Hi." She said, pleased.

"I must be crazy."

"Why would you be crazy?" She ran her hand teasingly down his chest.

"In here with you... you're still recovering from-"

"Then we're both crazy. Let's be crazy together. Now, shut up and kiss me already."

He did as he was told and pressed her against the off white tiles as the steam rose up and surrounded them in the tiny room with the cracking tiles and the mould on the ceiling.

That night, Jack lay beside her, but sleep didn't come. He'd lost control.

He cursed himself over and over. It could've ended up like last time, it could've all go downhill.

But it didn't.

It could have, but it didn't.

Suddenly a noise broke in on his thoughts. It was Casey. Soft groans came from her. Jack turned onto his side and leaned up on his elbow to see if she was hurt. Her eyebrows were knitted together in anger or pain, he couldn't tell which. Her arms twitched and her expression changed to one of fear.

"No... no please..." She mumbled sleepily, turning her head from side to side, lifting her hips up. "Let me go... please I-"

Then she started screaming. Jack shook her until she opened her eyes, saying her name.

Her screams died away as she woke up, but she was shaking violently. "Hold me..." She collapsed against his chest.

"It's okay, sugar..." He flicked his tongue across his scars uneasily. "Everything is okay."

She slowly fell back to sleep in his arms and he lay her down carefully, then walked out to the parking lot for a cigarette.

When Casey woke the next morning, she was alone. After a breakfast of pop tarts and Kool Aid, she went to find Jack. She found him, sitting on a partial wall outside, finishing the last of a packet of cigarettes.

"Did you sleep at all?" She asked after a minute, sitting down beside him.

He flicked his lighter, "Nah, not really."

The dawn light was just starting to creep up over the horizon. He was halfway through his cigarette when they both heard it.

A low distant rumbling.

"What is that, thunder?"

Jack spotted it first. The helicopter in the distance.

"Get inside."

She couldn't hear him over the growing sound of the helicopter. "What?"

"Get inside now!" He shouted, pushing her towards the door.

Casey sat on the bed, listening to the rumbling growing nearer and nearer. It passed overhead and she braced herself, but nothing came. Then when it appeared in the sky beside the house she saw something drop from the window down onto the ground.

The blast shook the foundations of the tiny building. Casey was thrown onto the floor, and she quickly covered her face with her arms as the windows smashed into a thousand pieces.

Once the ringing in her ears had stopped she slowly raised herself from the floor, amid the broken glass and peeked out of what had been the window. There was a smoking crater outside where the device had been dropped. This wasn't fun, like when her and Jack had blown up that nightclub, or even the Vincenzo's mausoleum. This was scary. And she only liked to be scared by the Joker.

As she watched the helicopter slowly start to land, Jack ran in.

He sounded a little out of breath. "Guys are coming... take these..." He threw some weapons on the floor. "You barricade the door. I'll hold them off."

"Okay." She stood up and walked straight to him and kissed him, hard, because she was afraid this kiss could be their last.

A crash somewhere close by made him jump.

"Okay." He kissed her cheek. "I'll see ya, sugar!"

The waiting was the worst, she was sure. Every yell could be Jack's, every shot fired could be going through his chest. She paced the box room, guns in hand, praying any second for things to go quiet and Jack to knock on the door and tell her everything was okay.

As the Joker fought his way through, throwing a punch to his left and stabbing to his right, he didn't notice a man in a dark trench coat slipping through the door and heading inside.

"Casey..."

A quiet voice hissed through the door.

Her stomach flipped.

A loud bang sounded on the door. Then another.

What was that? Someone slamming another person's head against the door?

Then she saw it.

The blade of an axe came through the door. It hit again and again until the man stuck his head through the door.

Despite Casey's terror, the only thought that came into her head was, "Please don't say here's Johnny!"

Soon the old wooden door was more or less completely in pieces.

Max stood among the shards of wood and slowly raised his head to face her.

"There you are." He sounded weary, almost old.

A knife clutched in one hand, Casey cowered in the corner like a trapped rabbit being stared down by a vicious snake.

"You're coming home with me."

She said nothing, only trembled.

"Something's different about you, something's changed..."

He walked closer. She tightened her grip on her knife.

"Come on Casey..." He reached out and touched her hand and the knife fell to the floor.

She quickly pulled out the hand gun from her pocket and cocked it, pointing it straight at Max.

"Don't come any closer!"

He looked hurt. "Casey... what's he done to you?"

"He hasn't done anything to me. I've decided this on my own. I wish people would stop thinking that I can't make any simple decision by myself because I can!"

Max slowly raised his hands in a surrender. "Okay... I see now you've made up your mind..."

Casey lowered the gun slightly. "I screwed him, you know."

The horror on Max's face made her almost drop the gun.

"...What?"

"You heard..."

She blinked and she was against the wall, his forearm pushed against her neck.

"You fucking slut!" He slammed her against the wall again and kissed her, biting her bottom lip so hard it bled.

Casey stretched her leg down and brought her knee up between his legs, he gasped and she was able to push him away across the room.

"You've got so much fight in you... I've always loved that about you." He said.

"If you love me so much, then why don't you let me go?!"

"I can't let you go... I can't go on without you! Don't you love me Casey?"

"I... I... want to be with him..."

"That clown can't provide for you like I can provide for you!"

"I don't need anyone to provide for me, I can look after myself."

"Oh please." He walked closer again. "When I found you, you were at a low level in the Mob, guys playing with you for cash... I saved you from that! Aren't you grateful?!"

"I would've got out by myself..."

"Don't be ridiculous, you were too far gone with your own personal habits by that point-"

"Shut up!" She screamed, pointing the gun at him again. "Don't talk about that!"

"Ohhh... that's still a sore subject for you I see."

"Stop it."

"You neglected a little detail when you spun out your tragic little life story for that clown, didn't you?"

"How did you-"

"You really think I'd let you guys go without keeping tabs on you? Please." He straightened the cuffs of his white shirt. "You know, you should really be more careful with what you write down. Anyone can go reading it."

She gave a little sigh of frustration, the gun still pointed at him, but she couldn't look him in the eye.

"You want that needle in your arm again, don't you?"

Casey threw the gun down with a yell of rage and launched herself at him.

He trumped her in sheer physical strength and the sleep deprivation wasn't helping her fighting ability.

Max was able to throw her to the ground. As she lay on her back, she felt his hands move up her thighs. She quickly kicked and made contact with something. He groaned and fell back. She sat up and they both sat opposite each other, panting a little.

"So you're not coming back… with me?"

Casey shook her head silently.

"And… and you don't love me?"

Another shake of the head.

"...Did you ever love me?"

"Not truly."

"Then I guess there's only one thing for it."

He grabbed the gun she'd dropped and opened his mouth wide.

"No, stop!" She yelled but he pulled the trigger.

The gunshot echoed throughout the building. Jack looked up from his fighting, everyone paused for a second.

The shock caused sobs to come in violent bursts. Her tears made stains on his jacket and his blood soaked her hair and clothes. A nearby noise made her jump and she took the gun from Max's hand. As she stood up, her legs trembled and nearly collapsed beneath her and she put a hand against the white wall to support herself. It left a dark bloody handprint behind.

She put the gun in her bag and gathered up her things. Casey snuck out of the door and ran across the fields and the forests until she found a car.

Jack hurried to the nurse's room, nervous to enter when he saw the remains of the door scattered around. A mixture of relief and disgust went through him when he saw the body.

He ran outside and yelled her name into the wind, but she was nowhere to be found.