Roar Read online

  ROAR

  Copyright © Aria Cage, 2014

  First published 2014

  Published by Kerri Williams, Johns River, NSW, 2443, Australia

  Email: [email protected]

  URL: http://ariacage.weebly.com/

  Cover art by Cover It Designs

  Edited by S.Abbott

  Proofreading by Black Firefly Productions

  Interior design by Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a database and retrieval system or transmitted in any form or any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the owner and publisher. This novel is subject Australian copyright Act 1968.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, some towns and events are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to the above is entirely coincidental. Songs, quotes, brands used within this novel are for entertainment.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners and various products/names used in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks are not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  Roar is edited (spelling) in English-American.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Acknowledgements

  THE NOISE OF THE ER is like a songbird that I welcome every day. There’s not a lot of room for anything else, and that’s how I like it; it’s the only way I can function. I admit, it lacks some of the fundamentals of a human life, but I left that kind of existence a long time ago.

  Hooking up the IV bag, Jamie bumps me, and I almost drop it. She mutters an apology even though there’s little time for pleasantries like “please,” “thank you,” and “sorry.” The patient’s heart rate is dropping, and he’s losing a lot of blood. An automatic panic grips my stomach, but I push it away, shove it down where the shadows claw for me. This man needs this team and this team need me. The emergency room of Beaver Dam Community Hospital is a fine machine. Every person is like a single part that has a job to do, and we all do it well.

  I became a nurse so I could help people. I don’t need to know them or them know me. I don’t ever need to see them after they leave this room. That is how I need it to be.

  My fingers trace the IV line to his inner arm where the paramedics had placed a cannula. I freeze. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I just… can’t.

  It’s him. I don’t have to look at his face, or his chart to know what’s screaming in my heart and churning my stomach. That one scar on his hand in the shape of a “D” tells me who he is.

  I barely recognise the call of my name, the concern from the lips of my team as I stand there, willing my eyes not to look up and see the face of the one person I ruined. But they betray me, and I see the harder features of a boy I once loved. My best friend, my protector, my secret, is lying on the bed, half naked with a piece of steel protruding his shoulder, maybe penetrated right through his subscapular. There have been so many changes over his body since I was fifteen. A lifetime of sorrow, lies, and pain; all because of me. Nate lost everything because I’m a coward, a dirty-fucking-damaged-coward.

  Jamie grabs my shoulder, and she shakes me hard. “Charlotte. You okay?”

  I can’t look away from his relaxed, sleep induced face as I shake my head no. I don’t know why I did that. I can usually hide my emotions; it’s a gift Daddy taught me well.

  “Go then. I’ll come see you when we have this guy in surgery,” she urges.

  I’m dead weight to them, but I need to stay. I can’t stop shaking my head pointlessly. I stroke the old scar on his brow that’s crusted with blood from his head injury as my team work around me. I feel their intrigued eyes boring into me, and I don’t care. Nate stayed by me through thick and thin, hell and worse, until we have been forced apart, and taught what we shared was wrong. I’ve been taught that my actions caused everyone pain; what he was taught, I guess, is to stay away from the likes of me, because I never heard from him again.

  “OR two is ready for him. Let’s get him out of here before his stats drop any further,” Paul instructs the team. For the first time, I look away from Nate to find my boyfriend staring at me as he pushes Nate from the room, directing his broken team on their next steps.

  Shit.

  NATE MAKES ME LAUGH. He always makes me laugh. I love him. Not like I love Davey, he’s like my brother. He has something wrong with him; people don’t say it, but I can see. He’s Nate’s brother, and they live with Nona, their gran. She likes to be called Nona, and she’s like my gran, too.

  Nona makes me pretty dresses because I don’t have a Mamma no more, and my daddy doesn’t know how to shop for me. He’s always so sad until I help him smile. He always says I make him smile and make him happy, and that makes me happy.

  Nate is hanging upside down from the big branch just above me, showing off. He’s eight, only two years older than me and has more muscles, but I want to try it, too. I reach out to the next branch when I hear Daddy calling me across the big yard.

  “Gotta go, Nate,” I say, rushing down from the tree.

  “Wait, Charlie. I’ll come with you.” I watch Nate pull himself upright and climb down to the same branch as me, and he takes my hand. “Ready to jump?”

  I look down to the ground, and it seems real high. I bite my lip so hard it hurts. He squeezes my hand and leans into my ear, “It’s okay. We don’t have to. Come on, we’ll go down the other way before your dad gets worried.”

  I smile and swing my skinny arms around him and hug him. He can’t hug me back because he makes sure we don’t fall, and I know he won’t let anything happen to me—he promised to always look after me and Davey. We both climb down and run toward the house, past the old dog house which needs a dog, and I pull Nate toward the garage ’cause I know that’s where Daddy will be waiting for me.

  I push the old door open. It’s never actually closed ’cause the knob is too high for me. I rush in holding Nate’s hand. Daddy is always happier when he gives me a big hug. But this time, he has a strange face, and he is looking at my hand that’s in Nate’s darker hand. Our hands look funny and just a little dirty, but I don’t care.

  “Well, what do we have here?” Daddy asks and smiles. See, he’s happier when I’m near him.

  I relax in one big breath when I see his smile. “Daddy, you know who Nate is, silly.”

  Nate squeezes my hand, and I smile bigger before letting it go and running to my daddy, jumping into his arms. He holds me for a long time, but instead of taking me over to his big chair by the old radio, he lets me down on the ground and watches Nate.

  “How old are you again, Nathan?” Daddy asks, and I turn to my best friend and try to figure out why he isn’t happy.

  “Eight, sir,” Nate says, puffing out his chest, making me giggle.

  “You two spend a lot of time together. You protect her?”

  “Yeah,” I say, bouncing up and down. “Nate always looks after me. Last week, stupid Cindy pushed me, but Nate showed her. He didn’t hit her though, Daddy. He said you never hit a girl.”

 
“I see.” He nods, and I’m so proud of Nate, and I want Daddy to love him too. Nate needs a daddy. “Why don’t you and Charlotte go sit on the sofa for me? I’ll get you both a soda.”

  Nate doesn’t move right away, so I take his hand and take him to the big chair that smells of daddy, oil, and a little bit damp. I sit and tuck into a corner so that Nate has room, when Daddy clicks his tongue.

  “Charlotte, you know better. How do we sit on Daddy’s chair?”

  Oh, silly me. I push and slide to the ground, looking at Nate. “You have to sit first. I sit on your lap.”

  Nate looks at Daddy, then me and the chair. He doesn’t look happy, and I don’t like that. I want Nate to be happy, so I hug him and whisper, so I don’t upset Daddy. “Don’t be scared. It’s okay.”

  EVERYTHING HURTS BUT WHERE it should. I lost consciousness not long after I saw Connor scream for 9-1-1 as he held my shoulder. Someone else had my head. I didn’t want to look, but I needed to see the damage. I’m a glutton that way. When the steel bars rolled off the scaffolding and danced across the hard ground, one had danced right across and impaled me to the earth. I knew right away they were going to have to saw it to get me loose. The last thing I recall thinking about is what I always do before I go to sleep―Charlie.

  From about six or seven, she has been my last thought before the darkness takes me, and then one day it all changed―she became all I could think about. I had to teach myself years later how to stop because it damn near killed me. But it’s at night where I usually let the resolve go and allow her image to fill me, so it was no wonder that’s where my mind went when I slipped from the world of chaos, grinder sparks, and pain.

  Now though, I feel the pain. My throat and mouth burn, my head pounds, but my shoulder doesn’t. It’s tight, but that’s all and that makes me afraid of what I’ll find as I struggle to open my eyes. They are so heavy; it’s taking a lot to open them. That’s when I feel a hand on mine, and a jolt runs through me, making me flinch against someone’s loud gasp.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.” It can’t be her.

  My eyes are open, but I feel groggy despite my heart pounding wildly against my chest. “Charlie?”

  “Yeah.”

  I push against the bed; I need to sit up. I need to fight against the drugs in my system pulling me under. I need to feel her before the dream subsides. She doesn’t come to my slumber anymore; it’s not safe for me or her when I talk in my sleep. The other inmates are like vultures to any weakness, and she has always been mine … wait, I don’t belong in here anymore. I did my time. I’m a free and successful man now. My mind is so damn jumbled, I can’t trust it. Though, how do I deny what is before my very eyes?

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, grinding against the pressure building in my skull.

  “I work here.”

  “No. You work in Chicago.” Why would she come back here?

  She scoffs against her frown; it’s the same frown from eleven years ago. “How would you know?”

  I shake my head not wanting to admit that as soon as I got out I looked for her. I didn’t want to tell her that, for years, I made sure she was okay until I couldn’t bear to watch anymore, so I lie. “Nona told me.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Yeah, I did work in Chicago, but moved here about a month ago with… a new start.”

  I nod. I know all about new starts, hers and mine.

  I wonder if her new start involves the same guy I saw her move in with. It damn near slaughtered me to see her with him, which so happened to be the last time I saw her. I owed it to myself to give her up since she was happy without me. She deserved someone like him, not the darkness of someone like me. I needed to be better for her, to be able to prove to her that I was worthy. But that day, when Doc-swoony patted her butt, and she was all smiles and giggles as she grabbed a box from her car, I knew I would never be good enough. I would never make her smile so innocently after everything. I drove away and tried to move on. I drove away before I did something really stupid or violent.

  There’s a crackling silence between us, and I want to say so many things which I know I won’t. I can’t. There are so many things I want to do, but that’s something else altogether.

  “Your surgery went perfectly. You were very lucky not to have damaged anything too badly that you won’t recover from with plenty of rest. The doctor will be in shortly to make sure everything is fine for you to come out of recovery.”

  “Thank you,” I croak. It sounds strange, and I clear my throat.

  She reaches for a cup and brings it to my lips. “For what?”

  I lean forward and grip her hands and the cup in mine. I didn’t have to, but I needed to feel her skin one last time. It’s been so long since I got to touch her. I can smell her sweet scent through the antiseptic and I close my eyes. I’m such a fucking asshole.

  I sip the small chip into my mouth and lay back before talking again, ignoring the drilling behind my eyes, boring into my brain. “For being here.”

  “You would have done it for me.”

  I would do anything for you. I have. I don’t say any of this because she knows, so I just nod.

  She’s nervous, her eyes occasionally skipping to the door. Fuck, I hate that. She can’t wait to get away from me.

  “Is there someone I should notify? Or has someone done that for you?”

  “Shit. Nona.” I push from the bed and the pain searing through me makes me sick. Her hands plant against my chest, pushing me to the bed making my head spin, or maybe it’s the pain causing that.

  “You can’t do that. You need to rest, Nate. I’ll call Nona.”

  “Connor probably did already, but she’s old and worries. She’ll want to come in, but Davey won’t be able to handle seeing me like this.”

  “I know. I’ll call her. I’ll tell her you’re fine. I’ll even go hang with Davey while she comes to see for herself, if it helps.”

  I still, and her hands remain as I stare into her soft brown eyes which bear her broken soul. “You’d do that?”

  “I’d do that. I owe you and Nona at least that,” she whispers.

  “Nona hasn’t moved, Charlie. She still lives next door.”

  I can see her chest shudder, and mine aches in response. “That’s okay. It’s just a house.”

  It’s more than that, and we both know it. It’s a reminder of what killed everything good in me and everything innocent in her.

  A nurse with a chart in her hand walks over to us, trying to hide her interest in what is going on between us. I can’t blame her. “Nice to see you awake,” she says as Charlie rushes to put space between us. I almost push myself up again in panic ’cause I don’t want her to go, but she shakes her head.

  “I’ll go call Nona.” She turns away, and I can hear my heart monitor peak against the thud inside me.

  “Charlie?” I hate that my throat croaks in desperation. But it is what it is; I’m a desperate man for a girl… woman I can’t shake. “Will you be back?”

  She chews on her lips and grips the side of her shirt as she glances at my nurse whose doing her best to ignore our conversation. I’m a fucking asshole and a coward for making her do this. It’s one thing to put an old woman’s mind to rest, but a complete other to ask her to come back to a nightmare like me.

  “Yeah.” Then, just like that, she backs away and rushes from the room, leaving me to hate myself a little bit more.

  “She a friend?” my nurse asks. I don’t look for her name; I just close my eyes and think about Charlie’s hands and scent, since anything else breaks my fucking damned heart.

  “Yeah. Childhood friend.”

  “I see. I don’t know her, but I see she works here. That was lucky.”

  I don’t know about that at all. Luck had never played a role in our lives before. I loved her from the moment she stepped out from the removalists truck with her father. I always will, even though I shouldn’t, even though
she deserves her freedom.

  WE’RE IN MY TENT I got yesterday for my birthday. Davey is still out with Nona, like every third Thursday. They normally come home with dinner. It’s our fat-Thursday, Nona says. It’s where we get take away, which usually means, fried chicken and fries from The Bell. Unfortunately, it also means it’s the day Sheriff Barns calls out for us from his garage. I don’t know whether he chose this particular day in the calendar because Nona was never home to suspect what her neighbour did for kicks, but it worked.

  This Thursday, like every month for the past year, I hold Charlie’s hand and let her lead me to the nightmare that is our life. I know it’s wrong, and I think she’s starting to see the truth too. I’ve tried to tell her, but she gets so upset that I just can’t. I can’t be the one she hates for shattering her resolve. She loves her dad, and he has her mind washed so raw she can’t see straight where he is concerned. There’s no changing what is done until she’s old enough to see the truth. I want to tell Nona, or someone, but I’m scared for her and Davey, so I stay quiet. I’m scared for Charlie, too. She isn’t the same girl anymore, and it’s entirely his fault. If he isn’t put away for some reason, she will be stuck with him, and he will probably take her away where no one can be there for her. So this is my nightmare―not what we do, but that we have no way out.

  I want to say I don’t like holding her and stuff. I want to say that so bad, but the devil in me knows better as I pull her into my lap on her dad’s sofa chair. He now has another chair in which he sits in as he coaxes us. I hate this garage so damn bad.

  “Kiss her, Nathan.”

  THE PHONE RINGS ONCE before I hear Nona’s broken voice through the receiver. I sit on a stool in the tea room and rub my chest. I loved this woman like she was my own gran. She watched over me and protected me when no one else could. She dressed me, fed me, and loved me as a little girl should be loved, and I had to leave her when I forced her to take it all away.