Betrayal - The Matlock Pack: Book Two

Chapter 18 - Casey

Sunday 7 February

~*Casey*~

I stared longingly at the bottle of amber liquid sitting on my desk, taunting me with its golden shimmer when the sunlight hit it at just the right angle.

All day, I had alternated between pacing my office and sitting at my desk with my arms crossed tightly across my chest as the bourbon called to me, its siren song haunting me by its beautiful yet subtly melancholic hymn.

The only thing stopping me from ripping the cork out of the bottle was the fact that the seal remained unbroken. A fact that had persisted for thirty-eight days.

And counting.

An unbroken seal meant the oath I had made to Takeshi upon becoming the Matlock Gamma persevered.

It meant that I persevered.

That didn’t stop my fingers trembling with the need I felt running through my blood. The necessity to forget, to let myself drift into oblivion, even if it was just for a few lonely hours.

When the twitching became too much to bear, the pacing would begin. It was the only way to drive the nervous energy out of my system. Once it was purged, I would sit down at my desk, rest my chin on folded arms to stare at the bottle and let the process begin anew.

It was an abject lesson in self-torture, and I knew it. I craved it.

The pack house was silent as a tomb. Everyone had left for the memorial service we held every year for the victims of Black Saturday. I had gone to the one at Christmas, but I refused to attend the February memorial.

The Christmas memorial focused on the people we had lost, the memories of loved ones gone before their time.

The February memorial focused on the day itself and everything we had endured since that day when hell came knocking on the door for us all.

Discussion before the bell tolling would always turn to the firefighting efforts of recent years and how we could make it so the devastation we witnessed in 2009 never happened again. The Matlock townsfolk didn’t seem to comprehend how hard that talk was on the firefighters who had fought then and since, and how that forced them to relive every one of our past horrors.

The visiting dignitaries would spout ‘thoughts and prayers’ to honour every firefighter’s sacrifice, but for those that remained to hear the empty platitudes, it was nothing but a reminder; something to bring all our horrifying memories to the forefront of our minds so they could replay again and again in technicolour nightmares that would haunt our dreams for weeks to come.

No wonder so many of us were alcoholics or drug addicts.

Where else could you find serenity when everything around you reminded you of what you’d gone through?

I was in Marysville when it burned that day. I heard the screams. Those screams of my friends and neighbours live on in my nightmares to this day.

I was twelve.

Old enough to ring emergency services and realise that no help would be coming because there was no-one answering the phone.

Four years later, I volunteered for the local brigade. To do my part; to help; to find a way, any way, to deal with my guilt at surviving.

I trained with those that had fought in Black Saturday. I battled the odd summer fire that came around every year. It became second nature to be called out in the middle of the night in the summer to go out for a couple of days and stop a fire in its tracks.

I was helping; I was doing my part; I was doing good.

Then Black Summer came along.

And suddenly I found myself struggling.

The multiple month-long call outs that never seemed to end.

The midday sky clouding over to the point of tricking the local fauna into believing it was night-time.

The overpowering smell of burnt animals you had to bulldoze with your fire truck because you just had to keep moving forward to get to the next house to stop it from being razed to the ground.

The unbearable heat that made you think you were existing in a furnace.

The roar of the fire-front whistling around you like an uncontrollable beast when your truck couldn’t move any further, and you could do nothing but sit in a glass bubble with a fire blanket draped over you, praying that the fire suppressant system would keep going long enough that you would survive into the next hour.

That summer broke me, never to be whole again.

It shattered so many people in so many different ways.

And every year, they would drag our memories out kicking and screaming during the February memorials.

Shaking my head to get the thoughts out, I got up from my seat and began to pace again. I’d gone all the way through January without having a drink or doing any drugs.

I could survive one more day. One more stinking, lousy day.

I tugged at my hair as I wore the carpet down, grinding my teeth so I wouldn’t mutter to myself.

The howling in my ears wouldn’t let up. The screaming of flames licking at the eucalypts as the fire-front skipped above you from over a kilometre away.

I clamped my hands over my ears to make the noise stop. Please, Goddess, make it stop.

Just for one day.

Please.

I pushed my sofa against the wall next to the door, moving it as far away from the unopened bottle as I could get, but where I could still see it. It wasn’t hard. My desk was in the middle of the office, and the bottle was in the middle of my desk. I could see that ambrosia from any vantage point within these four walls.

All I had to do was stare.

I climbed onto the sofa and brought my knees up to my chest. I wrapped my arms around them and let myself slowly rock in place while I glared at the amber liquid which sat on my desk, mocking me from eight feet away.

A knock at the door echoed through the office.

I didn’t answer because I couldn’t figure out who it would be. Everyone should be at the memorial service. I frowned at the glass bottle, idly wondering if it knew who was at the door. A manic giggle left my lips at the thought.

Damn. Was I going crazy?

Surely not.

“Casey, let me in. I know you’re in there.”

Charlie.

Of course.

Not getting up from the sofa, I leaned across to the handle and opened the door enough that it was unlatched, but not open enough to let her in.

She didn’t enter straight away. Swinging my arm back around my knees, I kept my focus on the bourbon, but that didn’t stop me from seeing the door drift open out of the corner of my eye.

“Casey?” She took a slow step into the office, halting just this side of the threshold.

I didn’t respond. There was nothing to say.

There was a pause before she entered the office enough for her to close the door behind her. She walked past me and sat down on the sofa to my right, but didn’t touch me.

My fingers twitched as I watched the bottle, imagining what it would say if it could talk. I felt like I was getting close to having to get up and start pacing again, but having Charlie sit next to me eased the need ever so slightly.

We sat there in silence for what felt like an hour, not talking, barely moving. Our eyes fixed on the unopened bottle.

The ringing of the first toll broke the silence, echoing through the township. It was almost finished for another year. The bell would toll once for each victim.

Such was the predictable nature of an annual memorial.

A teardrop ran silently down my cheek as the memories flared to life, bright enough and vivid enough that I could smell smoke leaching out of my clothes to invade my soul.

Still staring ahead, Charlie let her hand rest on the couch between us, palm side up. No words, no demands.

The toll sounded for the twentieth time before my hand dropped to hers, and her fingers closed over mine.

Neither of us let go until the bell tolled for the sixty-third and final time.

~~~

“You have expensive taste.”

I raised an eyebrow at Charlie, who had picked up the bottle of bourbon on my desk. I remained on the sofa but was somewhat more relaxed now that the memorial was well and truly over, and the pack house was beginning to fill with ambient noise again.

She turned the bottle over to read the label on the back. “And high alcohol content taste, too.”

I let out a huff. “My dad always told me that anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

The corners of her lips edged upwards as she held the glass bottle up in front of her so I could see it more clearly. “Pretty sure he didn’t mean drinking.”

I shrugged. “If you ever find him sober, be sure to ask him for me.”

The burgeoning smile immediately dropped from her face. “Jesus, Casey.” She placed the bottle back on the desk and meandered across the room to the bookshelf. She ran her index finger over the book spines, obviously thinking about something, but I couldn’t tell what.

I wasn’t about to ask, though. My mind was clearer, but not that clear.

She paused as she tapped one book. “I was wondering…” she trailed off as an indecisive look appeared on her face.

“Mm?”

She shook herself out of her reverie and turned to face me, crossing her arms in thought and leaning back against the bookshelf. “Every Saturday I log on to an online AA meeting. I was wondering if you’d be interested in joining us.”

I took a deep breath that was way too unsteady for my liking. “I don’t know, Charlie.”

She c****d her head to the side to watch me. “It might not seem like it, but it does help. They’ve supported me through some tough times.” Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Like they would have done today for you.”

I chewed my bottom lip. “Today was a once-a-year thing—”

She held up a finger to stop me, but remained where she was. “I know that. But it wasn’t too long ago that it was a nightly thing, was it?”

I snapped my jaw shut, then opened my lips enough to grumble, “It was the only thing that would help me sleep.”

I knew Takeshi knew that. I suspect she knew it too, which was why she figured she had to come here today when I needed help the most. She was the Lead Investigator for a reason.

Which was probably why she was now looking at me with pity in her eyes.

Embarrassed, I let my gaze fall to the floor in front of me. “Can I let you know?” I asked quietly. Guiltily.

She paused before answering. “Of course.”

I heard her move from her spot to the opposite wall, where I had the names of each Warrior Trainee pinned up. Lifting my head, I watched her study the notes I had listed on each student’s progress.

She reached out an index finger to trail over the notes of Bells. “I heard about what happened on Wednesday.”

I leaned my left elbow on the arm of the sofa and rubbed my chin in thought. “Oh, yeah?”

Keeping her finger on the wall, she turned her head to look at me with a raised eyebrow. “You think he’s stable enough for the course?” She returned her focus to his notes.

I let out a slow, steady breath. “I do.”

Without looking at me again, she tilted her head in acknowledgement. “There’s tension between him and Nat.”

“There’s tension between a lot of the Trainees and Nat.”

“I heard she hauled him off Owen.”

“She did.”

“Hm.”

“Indeed.” I got off the sofa and joined her at the wall. “You know Bells and Nat’s history?”

“I do.”

“Then you understand why they’re both so angry.”

She let out a soft sigh. “I do.”

“And yet she pulled him off Owen and talked him down from a berserker rage.”

Charlie snapped her wide eyes to mine. “It was that bad?”

Staring at the notes, I nodded, crossed my arms, and took a deep breath. “The closest I’ve ever seen anyone go without shifting.” I let my words sink in. “And she talked him out of it.”

“Goddess…” She let out a whistle as she returned her focus to the wall. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a berserker.”

“I know.”

“And I’ve never heard of anyone talking one down.”

“Me neither, but I saw it happen on Wednesday.”

“And Owen survived?” She shifted her eyes to Owen’s notes.

“He spent the night in hospital but was released Thursday. He’ll be back with us tomorrow.”

“f**k…” She shook her head at the news. “And you still think Bells is stable enough for the course?”

I nodded. “I do. We’ve been working on relaxation techniques, but I think our secret weapon with him is Nat.”

Charlie huffed. “As long as they can get past their differences and their anger.”

“Exactly.”