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“You can tell him he’s safe to do whatever until you’re blue in the face, but with you here, hovering over him? He’s not going to believe it. He’s not going to even try.”
“Carter, he’s been through a lot.”
“Don’t you think I know that? We’ve both been through a lot. But right now, you’re not helping.”
Carter catches the way Casey glances between them, clearly checking to see how this will play out.Come on Benny,he tries to psychically urge the man.Prove to him that you’re not a master. Prove to him that we have power.
He’s not sure if he has suddenly developed psychic powers, or if Benny is just smart enough to realize he’s right, but either way Benny nods. “I should be packing anyway. And going over final security checks. Casey, you’re safe here with Carter, okay? I’ll be back.”
Casey seems to curl in on himself as he turns wide eyes on Benny. “B-but-”
“I’ll be back,” Benny says again. “This isn’t me leaving you. I’ll be back.”
“But…” he eyes Nathan.
“He won’t leave until Nathan leaves with him,” Carter says, understanding the issue now. “We won’t be alone with Nathan. They’ll leave together, at the same time, and then it’ll just be us. Right?”Nathan frowns, but a single warning look from Carter is enough to have him agree. “Right.”
Casey relaxes then. Not entirely, but enough to make Carter feel better. “Okay…”
“Oh, he just texted.” Nathan waves his phone awkwardly. “Said to give him 5.”
“This is your burner phone, Carter,” Benny adds, handing him a small black phone. “That’s what he’s going to call you on. You can never call him though, understood? Only text.”
“Okay.” Carter fiddles with the phone in his hands, the fact that he’s about to talk to his brother slowly sinking in. Maybe they won’t have to talk about all the things Carter has been avoiding by not calling him. Maybe they’ll just explain things to Casey and reassure him, and then they can go their separate ways.That’s not too much to ask… right?
After everyone - excluding Casey - exchange awkward, tense looks, Nathan and Benny head out. The second the door clicks shut behind them, Casey turns toward Carter. He does that thing he did before, where his lips part and he looks on the verge of saying something. This time, there’s no Benny to look to, no reason to back down.
Carter holds his breath and waits.
“I-” Casey pauses, shuffles his feet, glances around the room. His voice is soft and low when he asks, “What if there are cameras?”
That… is something Carter never considered when he was a slave.He probably should have, but what did it matter?He wasn’t going to misbehave or anything when he was left alone in the room. Hell, most of the time if he was alone it was because he was healing, which meant he wasn’t at all interested in anything more exciting than a nap.
“There aren’t any cameras.” At least, he’s pretty sure there aren’t. It’d be weird if there were. “Even if there were, it’d just be Benny and Nathan who see the feeds, and they don’t care what we do.”
“We…” he pauses, looking around some more. He’s clearly still worried about cameras. This time when he shuffles his feet, he moves closer to Carter. Close enough to lean in and whisper, “We should call 911. With that phone. We have to call 911, Carter. Now.”
Oh.
Oh fuck.
That’s not at all what he expected. He thought he’d either be dealing with a Casey that was still embedded in the psyche of a slave and wouldn’t really engage with him, or a Casey that would finally be convinced this is all true and be like he was when they first met. He did not expect a version of Casey that didn’t believe Benny and Nathan but was still willing to take advantage of this situation to call for help.
“We can’t do that, Casey.” Carter holds the phone close to his chest like his friend might try to steal it. Which… he might. “If we did that, we’d ruin everything. Benny and Nathan are trying to save hundreds of slaves. Thousands even. If we called 911, that’d never happen.”
“The cops know how to save them.”
“Not like they will, no. The cops would save us and the others in this house, but they wouldn’t be able to do anything else. They don’t have the information they need. The records. They don’t know that there are slaves all around the world who need to be saved. Slaves that Nathan has kept track of to make sure they were helped when this is all over. And they don’t know the other key players in the trafficking business. They wouldn’t know that they need to go down and deal with Miller and unravel his entire business. They wouldn’t know where to begin with any of it. Calling would be selfish.” Carter huffs. “And that’s all only if the cops even manage to get in here before getting shot down by all of Nathan’s men.”
Casey wipes tears from his eyes, hands shaking. “What if it’s not true, Carter? What if this is all just a big mind game? W - what if no one is ever going to save us and this is our one chance and we fucking miss it?”
“Casey-”
“Remember what I taught you? Keep calm. Breathe. Pay attention. Wait for your moment. This is our fucking moment, Carter. We can call 911. Fuck, we can call my fucking dad! I have no idea where we are, but he’d help us. He’d be able to figure it out. He’d-”
The phone rings.
Carter and Casey look at each other, Carter able to see every emotion that flickers through his friend’s expression.Surprise. Hope. Fear.“Carter…”
