Betrayal - The Matlock Pack: Book Two

Chapter 10 - Casey

Thursday 21 January

~*Casey*~

As I walked out onto the field to greet the trainees, I pressed my fingertips into my temples to get rid of the blinding pain pounding behind my eyes.

This was the fourth day of this year’s training course, and I still wasn’t used to the early morning sunshine. Kennedy had kindly let my tardiness slide the last few years when I was just a trainer, but with my shift into the Gamma role, I had no more excuses.

At least I hadn’t touched anything illicit since I had stepped up, but this detox was a right b***h. Thank Goddess the hallucinations had stopped by now; unfortunately, the sweating, nausea and tremors remained. Auden was convinced it was only a matter of time before they would disappear too. I just had to wait them out.

I needed to find a damn hobby. One that wasn’t drug or alcohol fuelled, but that could still distract my mess of a mind. Otherwise, I was going to explode. Or implode. One or the other. Maybe both. Wouldn’t that be fun?

I let out an amused huff at the idea of my physical form both exploding and imploding at the same time and came to a stop next to Emery. He looked at me curiously, but I shook my head. He didn’t need to know what fresh hell my mind had created this morning.

“We ready to do this?” I asked him, looking across the mats at the first-year trainees.

“You know they won’t like it,” he muttered, a slight grimace on his face.

“I don’t give a s**t. They need to learn.” My eyes narrowed when I realised everyone had fallen into the same groupings they had congregated in over the past few days. I crossed my arms in front of me, concentrating on feeling them rise and fall along with my breathing. Holding my arms close to my chest gave me more control over the shaking, and concentrating on the slow, calm movements helped with the nausea.

Emery nodded once and clasped his hands behind his back. “Alright. The stage is yours.” He took a half step back to indicate I was in charge.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before I coughed to get everyone’s attention. “We’re going to do things a little bit differently this morning, folks.” I paused to make sure all the trainees were quiet. “We’ve noticed that you like to spar with the same people every day.” A few people nodded; some others started looking nervous. The ones who looked anxious knew where I was going. “Going forward, we’re going to designate the pairs for most of the morning sessions.”

As expected, a collective groan spread across the yard. Several people turned to look at Nat, who was sitting in the back and had paled noticeably from the announcement. She looked at Kadin, who shrugged.

I had spoken to Charlie briefly about what we should do with Nat and Kadin, and we agreed they would both benefit sparring with other trainees. Nat and Kadin had it in them to be impressive trainers in their own right and having them spar with others would not only help themselves, but their colleagues as well. At all other times, they would spar each other to build their own skills.

“There are thirteen of you here, seven males, six females,” Emery spoke up clearly, still half a step behind my right shoulder. “Because there is an odd number, one of you will spar against either myself, Charlie, or Casey.” He paused to let another group groan fade. “We will get you all to rotate partners every thirty minutes. These designated sessions will only occur Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.” He waited again when a couple of people opened their mouths to argue. “We know it’s Thursday today. We don’t care. Two mornings in a row of designated sparring isn’t going to kill you.”

A few chuckles countered the moaning chatter.

My attention shifted when I saw Charlie out of the corner of my eye approaching from Building Two. I hadn’t expected to see her today, as this was one of the two days she was set to train Kadin’s brother, Tate. “Emery has the list of who is matched up first.” I looked back at Emery and nodded to hand the reins over to him, before heading over to Charlie.

I vaguely heard Emery calling out names in the background when I got to her. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I meant to tell you yesterday at lunch what to expect with Nat and Kadin this morning, but I got caught up with Tate and Amittai.” She bobbed her head toward the trainees. “Kadin needs to be kept in line with her aggression. Whoever trained her before seemed to put all their focus on that, and now it’s all she knows how to do.”

I nodded as I made a mental note. That was exactly something Spence would have done.

“Nat keeps favouring defence. Make sure she steps up on her offense.” She looked over my shoulder to watch them get settled into their new pairings.

I nodded again. “Sounds like Nat. She was like that at Camp.”

Charlie brought her attention back to me. “Takeshi didn’t give me much on either of their fighting styles before I saw them for myself. They’re both incredible fighters, but they lack finesse. That being said, they have the potential to be some of the best fighters Matlock has seen in years. We need to push them. And push them hard.”

I couldn’t deny that the grin that appeared on my face when she said that may have just been slightly evil. “You got it. Anything else?”

Charlie returned a cheeky grin of her own. “Not today. I’ll see how they fare tomorrow when I’m back, and we can catch up again on the weekend about where to take them next.”

“Okay.” I let my arms drop from my chest, but almost immediately felt my hands start to twitch again. It was almost a reflex when my hands tightened into fists to stop the shaking.

Charlie let her head tilt to one side as she studied me. “Two weeks?”

I grimaced. “Three.” There wasn’t any point in trying to hide my withdrawals from her. She was the pack’s lead investigator for a reason. Most pack members were terrified of her because they understood she knew absolutely everything about everyone, including them. Knowledge was power, and she was very knowledgeable. Not that she would ever use that information against anyone, but that didn’t stop people from worrying.

She placed a hand on my shoulder in sympathy. “Physically, it’ll get easier. You’re through the hardest part.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. How would she know?

She let out a low chuckle at the quizzical look on my face. Her hand disappeared into her pocket before bringing it out and showing me a bronze medallion. “Three years sober last Christmas.” While she stared at it, her face became incredibly serious, and she rubbed the token with her thumb. “One day at a time, my friend. One day at a time.”

My jaw dropped in astonishment. Charlie was an addict? If she could make it to such a high-ranking spot in the pack, there was more hope for me than I realised.

She dropped the medallion back into her pocket, looked at me, and let out a snort. “Takeshi helped me out of a bad spot, just like he’s doing for you. He sees things in people that they don’t see in themselves. You’d be surprised at what you’re capable of, Casey.”

I hung my head when I felt my cheeks flush at her words. “We’ll see,” I muttered without conviction.

She patted me on the shoulder again. “We’ll chat later, yeah?”

I nodded noncommittally and watched her feet turn and walk back to Building Two. Heaving a deep sigh, I turned back to the sparring sessions that were well underway.

Time to get my head back in the game.

~~~

“Rotate,” I called out to the trainees. They’d all done well so far with the two matchups we’d set them on. Now, it was time for the third, the last session before we went on morning break.

Noise filled the arena as they shuffled themselves into the new configurations. I wandered the outskirts with my arms crossed firmly in front of me again, keeping an eye on several particular trainees.

Nat seemed to have had an easy time with her first two sparring matches physically, mostly because her opponents had seemed hesitant in fighting her. She had fought two females, and both had shied away from her fighting, even though I could tell Nat was pulling her punches. She was starting to get frustrated that her opponents weren’t giving her their all.

Kadin had fought one male and one female. Charlie had been right; Kadin’s aggressiveness was overwhelming, but I could tell that she was trying to pull it back and be smarter in her style. She had obviously learned a few defensive moves from sparring with Nat, which helped her enormously when she was fighting the male.

It seemed Kadin and Nat were a good match as training partners. I’d have to talk to Charlie more about working them harder together.

Bells had struggled in both of his matches. He was doing okay, but not great, when he was standing up, but if his opponent got him on the ground, he lost all his confidence and would freeze up. I’d need to have a talk with him and see how we could nip this before it got any worse. Takeshi had told me that Bells had had issues with Tatum before Christmas, but it looked like there were lingering problems there.

Nolan was irritating me. He had been a thorn in my side for the duration of the week so far, acting like he knew everything. He had been accepted into the Warrior Training course by the skin of his teeth, and I had serious reservations that he would last the full two years. If he continued the way he had been this week, I was going to need to pull him aside and reprimand him for his behaviour.

As I paced the boundary, I watched Nolan approach Nat. I could feel my eyes narrow when it looked like he said something to her, but she remained quiet, simply tilting her head to one side and crossing her arms in front of her. My feet began walking towards them before I knew what they were doing.

Something felt off.

“…no-one wants you here, you f*****g freak. You may as well quit now before I put you down.” I could hear Nolan’s words on my approach, barely audible over the buzz from everyone else settling into their new pairings.

“Is there a problem here?” I called out to them. I could feel my face contort into a heavy frown as I looked from Nolan to Nat and back again.

“No, no problem at all,” Nolan said, a smirk on his face. He undoubtedly thought I hadn’t heard him.

I let out a low rumble as I turned my attention to Nat. She shook her head slightly. I took a long breath, but nodded slowly. “Okay. Let’s see what you’ve got.” I planted my feet on the edge of their mat and glared at Nolan with suspicion. The smarmy smile fell from his face when he realised I wasn’t moving away from their matchup. I felt my teeth grind at his blatant hubris. I disliked this i***t more and more every f*****g day.

Nat crouched into her typical defensive stance, waiting for Nolan to make the first move. It was the same position she began most of her sparring sessions with, especially when she hadn’t fought her challenger before. It was a way she could size up her opponent before she got serious.

Nolan wasted no time, leaping forward to punch her in the face. Nat easily moved to her left, bringing her left hand up to swipe his outstretched right hook out of the way. She followed it up with a right jab to his torso, but I could tell that she was still sizing Nolan up as she had pulled the punch.

Nolan collapsed onto his knees on the ground in front of her, letting out a wail that attracted the attention of all the other trainees, as well as Emery, who was in the middle of demonstrating something to his own opponent, Skye.

Nat took a step back from Nolan, bringing her hands up in front of her and looking at them with horror. My eyes twitched in confusion before I stepped onto the mat, heading for the fallen i***t. Was this some sort of joke? If it was, it wasn’t f*****g funny.

Nolan convulsed on the mat, his hands grabbing at his head like he was trying to hold it together. The wail turned into a long, drawn-out moan.

“Emery?” I turned to my colleague, who was fast approaching. He nodded at me and headed straight for Nolan. I went to Nat to push her back from Nolan’s fallen form to give Emery space to work, but Nat shied away from me immediately.

“Don’t touch me!” Her eyes were still wide as they bounced wildly between Nolan, her hands, and me. I ignored her and gripped both of her upper arms and pushed her back.

I stumbled but didn’t let her go when jolts of electricity ran from my fingertips up my arms, before disappearing at my shoulders. My eyes went wide when my brain put two and two together. Nat had caused whatever was going on with Nolan. I looked behind me at Emery, trying hard to calm Nolan down, before bringing my attention back to Nat.

She stared at me in shock, the look on her face obvious that she hadn’t meant whatever had just happened to Nolan.

“Back to your sessions, guys,” I called out to the other trainees as we walked away. “Come on,” I said to Nat as I pushed her back further, guiding her to a log seat away from the drama behind us. Once she sat down, I crouched in front of her, and let my hands drop to her knees. “Talk to me, Nat. What just happened?”

Holding her hands up in front of her, she blinked before she slowly focused her eyes on me. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times before she swallowed and started talking. “It was my warning system…” she trailed off as she returned her gaze to Nolan, still laying prone on the mat with Emery hovering over him. Nolan had stopped moaning now, but his hands remained gripped at his head over each ear.

“Your ‘warning system’? What do you mean?” I pressed her, trying to get her to turn back to me.

Finally lowering her hands into her lap, Nat blinked again and shook her head. “You felt the electrical pulse, yeah? When you pushed me back?”

I nodded.

“It tells me who means me harm and who doesn’t.” She gulped when she glanced back over at Nolan. “I guess Nolan meant me harm…”

I pressed my lips together as I thought. “Has this happened before? How long does it last for? Is it permanent?”

Nat immediately returned her gaze to me. “This is the first time I’ve seen it happen. Normally, people feel the electrical pulse, but it disappears. You said you felt it. What did it feel like for you?”

“Static electricity. Ran up my arms, disappeared around my shoulders.”

She nodded in understanding. “Alex says that’s normal. He says that with Nolan, the current didn’t stop at his shoulders; it went to his brain.”

I took a quick breath in. f*****g hell. That would definitely sting.

“Alex says the effects should only last a few minutes, ten at most. It depends on how weak or strong the person is.” Still worried, she glanced over at Nolan again. Her voice took on an absent quality when she continued. “It disrupts the connection between human and wolf.”

I squeezed her knees to bring her attention back to me. “Temporarily, right?”

She reluctantly returned her gaze to mine. “Yeah.” Nat sighed in resignation. “I’m sorry, Casey. I’ll understand if you want me to leave the course.” Her shoulders sagged.

I tilted my head at her and let my confusion show. “Why would I want you to leave the course?”

“You don’t?”

“I’m assuming it’s a one-off thing, because I haven’t felt it again since that first time,” I said, squeezing her knees again to prove to her I was still touching her. “Correct?”

“Yeah. Alex says it’s a one and done thing.”

“Okay, so Nolan won’t get zapped again, right?”

“That’s what Alex tells me.”

“Okay, then. We’ll keep you two separated as much as we can in the course. If he tries anything, you come and talk to me, Kennedy, or Takeshi.” I waited until she nodded, before I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Just between you and me, Nolan was on thin ice in the course anyway, so I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over what just happened.”

She let out a nervous chuckle before her shoulders tensed. “No-one’s going to want to spar with me after this.”

“If they want to pass the course, they’ll have to.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, obviously not believing me.

I shrugged. “The sparring sessions are meant to teach trainees to fight together as a unit. Units require trust. As far as I’m concerned, trust implies we don’t wish harm to any of our fellow trainees. Nolan failed that criterion today.” I patted her knees one last time before I rose from my crouched position. “Come on, let’s get you back to it.” I held out a hand to offer her help in getting up from the fallen log.

A tiny line formed between her eyebrows as she thought about what I said. She looked over at Nolan, who was only now getting back to his feet. I assumed he was going to have one hell of a headache for the rest of the day.

Nat nibbled her bottom lip with indecision, but eventually took my hand and got up. We walked back to the mat we’d left Nolan on. He saw us coming and shied away from Nat like she was the devil.

“He’s all good, Emery?” I tipped my head towards Nolan.

“Yup,” Emery responded calmly, even though he raised an eyebrow at me in curiosity. I shook my head slightly at him and mouthed ‘later’ to him. He nodded once and left to get back to Skye.

“Right. Back to it guys,” I said to Nat and Nolan on the mat in front of me.

Nolan’s jaw dropped open. “What the f**k, Casey? I’m not fighting this freak. Whatever the f**k happened nearly killed me.”

Nat stood still, her hands nervously brushing her elbows as she fidgeted.

“No, it didn’t. Stop being so melodramatic. You’re fine.” I held up a stern finger when he tried to argue with me further. “Trust is everything in this course, Nolan. Trust between trainees, and trust between trainers and trainees. You trust me, don’t you?” I raised an eyebrow at him, almost taunting him to argue with me.

He gulped. “Of course, I trust you, Casey.” He stared daggers at Nat.

“Then trust that I wouldn’t put you in harm’s way. What happened was a one-off thing.” His eyes swung back to me, incredulity clouding his features. I stopped him when I saw him open his mouth to argue with me again. “You either spar with her for the rest of this session or you quit the course. The choice is yours.”

His jaw snapped shut and I could almost hear his teeth grinding as he seethed.

I folded my arms in front of me as I waited for his decision.

“Fine,” he spat. He turned to Nat and took a half step back when he noticed her grinning mischievously at him.

“Shake hands,” I said to them both, figuring it would be a good way to dispel the tension, and prove to everyone, including myself, that Nat’s ‘warning system’ was a one-off thing. I was ninety-nine percent sure what happened between her and Nolan wouldn’t happen again because I had encountered no issues after that first current, but that remaining one percent of doubt lingered.

Nat held out her hand, waiting for Nolan to take it. He struggled with himself, shuffling back and forth in front of her, trying to decide whether he could do it. Eventually, he slowly reached out to Nat to shake her hand before she stepped forward and lightly tapped his fingers. He flung his hand back from hers as soon as their skin touched, terrified that he would suffer the same consequences as before. I could see the relief on both of their faces when nothing happened.

I let out a quiet breath when that one percent disappeared. “Okay. You have ten minutes left before we go on break. Make them count.”