Chapter Text
“You can’t be serious,” Casey whispered incredulously to the panel before her. Their verdict was mindless and unduly harsh. It was unacceptable.
“This isn’t a condemnation of you, Casey. You’ve been exemplary. Consider it a reward of sorts: a long rest after an arduous battle. You’ve worked so hard,” comforted the kindest of the assembled elders.
But Casey was too stunned to accept his platitudes. They meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. “Yes, I have worked hard, too hard to be dismissed and discarded before my work is done. There are still innocents to defend. Please, you can’t expect me to leave them unprotected. The Balance--”
The quietest being in robes raised his hand to silence her. “The Balance is in order. Thanks to your tireless guardianship, the Balance of Innocence and Wickedness is manageable. It is now easily the work of a lesser being. A Keeper shall do nicely to maintain what you have struggled to build. You must move on, Guardian. It’s time.”
With that pronouncement, there was nothing left for her to do but to vanish and wait for another to fill her place.
It was a thing easier said than done.
~!~
Casey stared blankly ahead, idly numbering the passersby in front of the innocuous little brownstone that housed the Assembly. She’d been sitting on this bench for a while now, blinking against the sun and quietly analyzing her predicament. She turned it round and round in her mind, but every possible solution was met with the knowledge that refusal to heed the orders of her masters would lead to her demise, in one way or another.
Once upon a time, the threat of death might have been enough to keep Casey marching to the beat of Supreme drums; it wasn’t anymore. She had seen too much of the pain that evil could do when left to roam unchecked, she had seen the innocents that could be hurt. She had been hurt herself. Evil was more than just an abstract notion in her world—her former world. Blood was red, tears stained silk. Not just a notion.
That was what she couldn’t let go of. Five years ago, she’d been brought in when her predecessor had been violently ejected from her post. Alexandra Cabot was a woman of exceptional talents. She had many gifts and carried as many secrets in her coat pocket as Casey did in her wallet. Casey had known as soon as she stepped into the one-six what kind of shoes she’d be filling. It had been hell, sometimes literally, but she’d gone there—and back—to do what she was destined to do: to protect.
Five years and what did she have to show for it except nightmares? Lives saved, yes, but so many lives unnecessarily lost. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was meant to do more. It wasn’t her time to be banished, or rest, as the platitudes dictated. This was her time to make the difference she was supposed to make. As a Guardian, she was born and raised to take on brutality in whatever form it took, in whatever circle it inhabited. Since law was the area in which brutal crime so often prevailed, here she was and here —she had hoped—she’d stay.
“Guess that wasn’t meant to be,” said a voice she knew too well, had heard too often in her long life. Casey turned to see an average-sized man with a tall-sized cane.
“Get out of my head. It’s the only thing they haven’t taken from me yet.” She looked away from him, too focused on her own misery to question his intrusion.
“Retirement is a gift, Casey. Do you know how many Guardians would be willing to die just for a moment’s peace?”
“That’s just it, I do know. I understand. There are nights when I can’t sleep for all the horrors I see during the day. I see victims and Innocents in my dreams. I see evil and criminals. I’m at the point where I can’t even distinguish between them. It’s all blood to me.”
“Then, take this as the reward it’s intended to be.” He shifted his ill-fitting cane to his side to lay a calloused hand on her arm. “You’ve worked hard.”
“But I lost, Vore, and now I’ll never get a chance to win.” As easy as it would have been, Casey wasn’t willing to cry about this. The slight burned beyond imagination; in fact, she was almost numb with the pain but she wouldn’t entertain wrong-headed tears. She wasn’t mourning the right things and she was ashamed of that.
“There’ll be others, Case,” her prodding mentor posed.
She dissented quietly, “Not another like her. There’s just one of her—but not for me.”
At his silence she assumed that he couldn’t disagree. Thus, it came as no surprise that he was gone when she looked. He’d always had a way of missing failure by a minute. He hadn’t taught her that lesson.
Looking around the grimy street, there was nothing charming to be seen, nothing remarkable to miss. Just when she thought she might actually be able to walk away unscathed, a kid not much shorter than herself lumbered past the bus bench where she brooded. He was well-kempt, seemingly unharmed, and yet, he turned to look at her, to scrutinize her in her perusal of him. He wasn’t one of the lucky ones, his eyes said; he was one of her charges.
Inwardly, she winced. How could she leave him?
The truth was she didn’t think she could.