A/N: I do not own anything about Sons of Anarchy. It belongs completely to Kurt Sutter, and I am just so glad to be allowed to play in the wonderful world he created.
Let me know if you like how this story is going... Or if I'm completely off base... I will tell you that Tully/Charlie is not the final pairing, though... Unless you want that? Vote on the poll for the final pairing on my profile, please.
Chapter Seven
Chibs was pacing back and forth at the bottom of his driveway, waiting for the rest of the club to arrive. When he had gotten to the house, he found Charlie's truck parked in the driveway, but the driver's side door was open, and her keys and gun were on the ground. He checked the house and couldn't find her, and that's when he had called Clay. Chibs stopped pacing when he heard the roar of motorcycles, and let out the breath he had been holding. They would find her. The club would find her.
"Tully's on his way." Clay said as he climbed off his motorcycle. "We might need him and his muscle. Weston and Zobelle aren't AB, and Tully has no problem fucking with them as long as we offer support."
"I still don't think getting in bed with Tully before we hear from Charlie is a good plan, Clay. We need to know what's going on there." Jax said angrily.
"If we need him to find my sister, I'll give him whatever the fuck he wants." Opie said quietly, but loud enough for Jax to hear him. They made eye contact and Jax nodded curtly.
Tully's white Mustang pulled up in front of the bikes, and an old Chevrolet pickup truck followed close behind. There were seven guys in the truck, and only Tully in his Mustang.
Tully got out of his car, cracked his neck, and said, "What, you can't keep track of one little girl?"
Piney growled low in his throat, but didn't say anything. "Look, man, the first place we need to start is with Darby. We know he's working with Zobelle, and he knows the area. If they've got Charlie, Darby will know where she is." Tig said, and the rest of the club nodded their agreement.
"Who knew Tiggy could be so rational?" Bobby said lightly.
"Hey, I want to find Charlie just as much as you guys do." Tig said as he put his helmet on. The others followed suit and headed back towards their bikes. "And I really want to hear the rest of the story about Tully and Charlie's ass."
That comment received a groan from the rest of the club members, and Opie almost broke Tig's jaw as he punched him. "Sorry brother." Tig groaned quietly, cupping his cheek.
Charlie's head was pounding so loudly that she could hardly think, and her mouth was extremely dry. She tried to lick her lips, and found that there was some kind of gag in her mouth. She groaned softly as she attempted to move each limb, trying them out to see if they were broken; she found them intact, but restrained. Charlie opened her eyes slowly, and found herself in a small room. She was lying on the concrete floor, and there wasn't a piece of furniture or a window to be seen. The only light came from a very dull single bulb hung from the ceiling and a sliver of light shown underneath the crack in the wooden door. Charlie could hear voices, but they were very faint and she couldn't make out anything. Slowly, she rolled onto her stomach and inched across the floor, thankful that the concrete was smooth and not gritty. As she came to rest beside the door, Charlie turned so that her ear was against the crack underneath the door.
"…Aryan Brotherhood… Don't want a war… " She caught occasional phrases from one voice, and then another voice interrupted. This voice sounded angry and cold. "Do as told… Send a message…" A shiver went down Charlie's spine as she realized that she would probably be the means by which these men sent their message. This has to be Weston or Zobelle, Charlie thought to herself. Who else would worry about the AB? The League isn't a part of the Brotherhood, at least I don't think so, otherwise Tully wouldn't have been at the clubhouse. Just the thought of Tully made Charlie angry and scared, but she pushed that down as she realized that he just might be the way that she made it out of here alive. She was pulled out of her thoughts as she heard footsteps coming towards the door. She inched away from the door to avoid being hit just in time to hear a key turn in the lock and watch the door open. Two men in ski masks came into the room, and one stepped towards her, sitting her up against the wall. Charlie tried to talk, and looked down pointedly at her mouth. The man closest to her looked back at the other, and he nodded, so the first man pulled the bandana from her mouth.
Charlie swallowed and licked her lips. "I can make sure that you don't incur Tully's wrath." She said quickly. "You and I both know the pain he can inflict. I know firsthand, if you don't, and believe me, you don't want to."
The second man stepped forward and punched her in the face hard, and Charlie gasped as her vision blackened for a moment. "Don't try and intimidate us, nigger lover. We're here to send Clay and the Sons of Anarchy a message. And you're going to help us."
It took Charlie a moment to recover, and when she did, she tasted blood in her mouth. She looked up at the man and spit blood on his shoe. "It won't be the first beating I've taken to protect the club." She said, grinning. "And you can't be any stronger than Tully's guys."
The man who hit her grabbed her arm and hoisted her off of the floor, taking a knife and cutting the ropes around her feet, and pulling her towards the door.
"Who said anything about a beating?"
They were wasting time, but Happy couldn't see a better way to do things. The club and Tully's men had split up into three groups to try and cover all of the Nord locations as quickly as possible, but no one was having any luck with finding Darby or any of his guys, and they had already killed two hours.
"They knew we'd come looking for them." Happy said gruffly as they left the Hairy Dog. He was with Jax, Bobby, Clay, Tully, and two of Tully's guys. "They're involved, and if she's not already dead, she's hurt."
"Look, we don't know that." Jax replied angrily, slamming his hand into the seat of his bike.
Tully leaned against his car and lit a cigarette. "I agree with the spic. Why else would they take her?"
Clay sighed. "Maybe they're looking to trade. I don't know. But these aren't the kind of guys that would have a problem with hitting a woman."
Tully chuckled to himself and the rest of the guys looked over at him. "It's just… you don't have to worry about Charlie not being able to take a beating."
Jax's mouth was open slightly and he shook his head. "What the fuck happened between you two?" He asked, and just as Tully started to reply, Tully's phone rang.
Charlie was numb. They were going to rape her. The man pulled her to a support beam in the warehouse, pushing her back against it and raising her arms above her head. He tied them to the beam and started to unbutton her jeans. As he started to pull them down, he leant down as well, and Charlie kneed him in the face as hard as she could. The man fell backwards onto the ground, howling in pain.
"You stupid fucking bitch!" He roared, grabbing his mask and pulling it off to check the damage on his face. The move must have been instinctive, because it dawned on him that he had pulled the mask off and he looked up at Charlie. AJ Weston's nose had to have been broken, and Charlie let out a giggle.
"That's the second nose I've broken today." She said, slightly dazed. It was an inappropriate reaction to her situation, but she still found it funny.
Weston started to rise from the floor, a murderous look on his face, when a gunshot rang out in the warehouse. Charlie looked around frantically and found the second man standing a few feet away with the gun pointed at Weston. He had shot Weston in the chest, and the man fell back onto the ground gasping for breath. The man still wearing his mask pulled out a phone and started to dial numbers.
"You'll tell Tully what I did, right? I stopped him." He said shakily as the line rang.
Charlie nodded vehemently. "Absolutely. I swear."
"Mike, it's Jason. I need you to relay a message to Tully."
Charlie sat outside the warehouse smoking a cigarette with Jason while they waited on the cavalry to arrive.
"You swear you won't let them kill me, right?" He asked for the millionth time. It had taken her a while to convince him to take off his mask, but he had promised to stay with her until the guys arrived, and it was stupid to continue to wear it. "I only helped him because Darby told me to do whatever he said. But Mike always had my back when we were in Chino; I knew I should've took his offer to join the AB instead of the Nords. I'm just not…"
"Hard enough." Charlie finished for him, wincing at the pain that radiate through her face when she spoke. The whole left side of her face ached. "That's a good thing. For me, at least."
Jason looked over at her. "Why, you think someone from the AB would've just raped you?"
Charlie shrugged. "They would've given me the choice: be beaten or raped. If I chose the latter, then yeah, he would've. If I chose the former, he would've done that too."
Jason was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "You said that you knew the kind pain that Tully could inflict, and that this wasn't your first beating for SAMCRO. You talked about how strong Tully's guys were…"
Charlie took a deep drawl from her cigarette and let it out, standing up as she heard motorcycles in the distance. "I said that it wouldn't the first beating I'd taken to protect the club. There's more than one charter."
Opie was the first to park his bike and jump off it, scooping her into a bone-crushing hug before setting her down and looking at her face. He gently cupped her cheek and she winced. "I'm fine. Jason saved my life." She looked back at the man and gave him a small smile, and he smiled back. Opie walked over to him and started to beat the hell out of him.
"Opie! Stop!" Charlie yelled, running over to him. "He saved my life!"
"He kidnapped you!" Opie growled back and continued beating the man.
Charlie looked back at the rest of the club, ignoring Tully and his men. "I promised him that he would come to no harm!" Charlie pleaded with them. "Please."
The club seemed to consider her plea, but they didn't move. Tully walked forward and Charlie stepped back from him. He chuckled and smirked as he continued toward her and placed his hand on the bruise on her face. Charlie flinched.
"Don't act like you don't miss me, Charlotte." He whispered in her ear, his breath hot. "You love to hate me, but you couldn't get enough a few years ago." Tully stepped away and smiled at her before he turned to Jason and Opie, who were still fighting. "Back up, big man." He said, pulling on Opie's kutte. Opie, startled, stopped hitting Jason long enough to throw Tully a confused look. Tully stepped up close to Jason, who was laying on the ground bleeding profusely, and put his foot against Jason's throat.
"I don't like to share my toys." Tully said quietly, and then he pulled a handgun from the back of the waistband of his jeans and shot Jason in the head.
Tully and his men had to take care of Jason's body. All Charlie had wanted to do was go home and bury herself in her bed, but Clay wouldn't allow it. He made Charlie ride back with Opie to the clubhouse, and they were all seated at the table, with Charlie sitting in an extra chair between Clay and Tig so that she could see the entire table.
"I didn't go to work tonight." Charlie said suddenly.
Clay chuckled and replied, "I called T.O. He said that you're excused for the night. What's important now, however, is that you tell us what the fuck is going on with you and Tully."
Charlie swallowed hard. "Kozik. You know he's a recovering junkie. He slipped about six years ago, and racked up a hell of a debt with a dealer that was connected with the AB. You know that they've been branching out. The dealer worked out of the alley behind the restaurant I worked out at. Tully was there one night when I got off work with a lot of muscle, I guess that since he was 'management,' they needed him to make the call. They had Kozik on the ground. He was already off the stuff on his own, and he was detoxing bad. They were beating him. They were going to kill him, and that was going to cause a problem for the club. I stepped in, and offered to take the beating. Tully offered me the other option, but I took the beating. The first punch knocked me into the recycling bin. Glass bottles. Nasty scars on my back, but I lived." Charlie stared at her hands the entire time she was telling her story. "Kozik and I decided not to tell the club about it. Too many moving parts, and too many people at risk. We didn't need to burn the bridge with the AB if we could help it. That's how Tully and I met."
Clay nodded slowly, his jaw clenched. "Aside from you and Kozik being fucking idiots, that explains a lot. But there's more to the story. Tully made it seem like you two had a relationship."
Charlie swallowed hard. "We did. Sort of. We… I… It was fucked up. Back and forth shit, and he always hung Kozik over my head. Threatened to tell the club and unravel everything." Charlie ran her hands through her hair. "That's as much as you get. That's as much as the club needs to know." Charlie slid her chair back and stood up. "I don't really feel the need to lay my sex life out on the table. Sorry Tiggy."
Charlie made her way to the bar, picking a pack of cigarettes off a table along the way, and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels. "I'll be outside when someone's ready to take me home."
Charlie stepped outside and lit a cigarette, then opened the bottle of Jack and took a gulp from the bottle. She coughed a little and shook her head slightly, then took another gulp. After seven gulps, Charlie climbed up on top of a picnic table and lay down on her back, staring up at the ceiling of the awning and smoking her cigarette. Charlie heard a car pull up and the engine shut off, then a door open and close. Charlie, assuming that it was Gemma, continued to lie there and stare at the ceiling. Footsteps came towards Charlie, and she realized that it wasn't the usual clicking that accompanied the arrival of Gemma.
"I see you got back to home base safely." Tully said, looking down at her with a smirk.
Charlie grunted and reached for the bottle of Jack on the bench of the picnic table. She sat up slightly, took two gulps back to back, and set the bottle back down. She coughed slightly and then laid back down on the table, taking a draw off her cigarette.
Tully picked up the bottle and took a sip, then asked, "You tell them the whole story?"
Charlie shrugged and looked at him. "More or less."
Tully took the cigarette from between her fingers and took a draw himself. "So, what? I kill a man for you, and you decide to stop running away from me?" He asked, running a finger lightly down her arm.
"I'm drunk." Charlie stated. "And you have nothing to hold over me. I have nothing to fear."
Tully dropped the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it, then climbed on top of the table to straddle Charlie. He placed his hands on either side of her head, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "You never had anything to fear. I never hurt you directly. Unless you asked for it, of course." Tully rocked his hips against hers and she felt his hard cock straining against his jeans. Charlie swallowed hard, willing herself not to react. "You've always been my favorite, pet. Even after you cut off all of your hair." Tully transferred his weight from his hands to his elbows, lowering himself onto Charlie as he ran his fingers through her hair. "Less to hold onto." He hissed as he pulled on it, and Charlie gasped, arching up into him. Tully chuckled low in his chest, pulling back to kiss her hard as he rocked against her again.
Someone cleared their throat from the direction of the clubhouse, and Tully growled as he broke the kiss and looked up. Charlie tilted her head back and saw Tig. Although her view was upside down, she saw him adjust the front of his pants and she stifled a laugh. Poor Tiggy.
"I'm supposed to take you home. Chibby is still in the meeting, and I've already made my decision."
"Right." Charlie replied, turning her head to look at Tully. "You have to get off me so I can go home and take a nice, hot bath."
Tully laughed and kissed her hard again, then said suggestively, "Yeah, I'll bet you'll enjoy that bath." He climbed off her and stepped down beside the table, helping her sit up and climb down from the table. She wobbled slightly, and Tully put a hand on her shoulder. "She probably shouldn't be riding on the back of a motorcycle. I'll take her home." He commented as she took another gulp from the bottle of Jack.
Tig took a step towards Charlie. "I agree, but I'll follow you out there. Chibby said you aren't allowed in his house."
Tully shook his head and laughed lightly. "Can't keep me from my pet; she's too fun."
Tig shrugged and headed towards his bike. "That's what the Scot said. And trust me, he will shoot you if he finds you there. Let's get her home before she falls over."
Tully led Charlie to his car and put her in the passenger seat with her bottle of Jack. He returned to the driver's side and started the engine, backing out and heading towards the gate. Charlie was staring out of the passenger window and saw Happy standing at the doorway of the clubhouse, watching the car as it passed by.
