Chapter Nine: The Sound of Silence
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The front doors of the Charming Police Department swung open and everybody turned their heads to see who it was.
Drew, the Nords drug dealer, exited.
Charlotte held her breath as he began the long walk to a waiting car.
Everybody seemed to ignore him, until he approached the steps and spoke.
"Charlotte," he acknowledged her with a nod and she glared at him, wanting to smack that smirk right off his face. Chibs, who had been flicking his lighter over and over to get a flame to light the cigarette dangling between his lips, snapped his head up. The cigarette was soon lit and he jumped down from his perch on the railing, blowing smoke in the young man's face as he intercepted his path.
"Keep walking, scumbag," Chibs growled at him, inhaling his cigarette again.
Drew frowned, thinking and threw another look at Charlotte. That son of a bitch realised that the Sons didn't get Charlotte to purchase from him. As much as he would like to call her right there and then the Scottish brawler was inching his way to the smaller built guy. Knowing he wasn't going to win this battle Drew jogged down the concrete steps, disappearing down the street in a car.
"What was that about?" Chibs asked Charlotte nodding his head to the drug dealer.
Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, trying to think of a plausible excuse to give him right now.
"Ass hole is Hank's brother, went school with him," Jax offered with a smirk, "Still can't get over the beating me and Ope gave him at football practice, tries to piss me off any chance he gets."
Jax and Opie shared a smile over that particular incident which led them both to being suspended for all of two days after giving him a broken index finger and a concussion.
"Arrogant little shit, ain't he?" Chibs muttered.
In the silence of Chibs' dorm room at the Clubhouse, Charlotte had room and time to think. And that wasn't proven to be a good thing.
With nothing to distract her; the guys still waiting at the police station and Gemma and Tara out getting 'supplies', she had considered the past few weeks. The arrival of LOAN, Gemma's rape, Lexi and Albie's death, Fiona's unexpected appearance on this side of the pond, and her getting fired.
Charlotte sat on Chibs' bed, running her sweaty palms up and down her thighs, eyeing her handbag. When she'd been prescribed the Percocet in the first place, the Doctor told her she could take one twice a day, or when the pain got really bad. Or something like that. She couldn't remember his exact words, but she did remember that she used to take one in the morning and one at night.
She reached to the floor and pulled her bag to her. She'd had one in the morning aleady, it wasn't even mid-afternoon but she was having one now. She'd just skip the one for tonight.
It's fine.
She popped the lid on the white bottle and shook some blue pills into her waiting palm. These looked tiny. Much smaller than her other ones.
Half the size, half the effect.Charlotte popped two in her mouth and swallowed them with a mouthful of water from the bathroom sink.
Charlotte's head was getting a little fuzzy and she decided that maybe heading outside for fresh air only to smoke a cigarette wasn't the best course of action.
She re-entered the Clubhouse, intent on going for a lie down.
"Hey, Charlie! You look like you need a drink, come have a shot with us!" Tony, one of the Tacoma members shouted to her from behind the bar, standing with Kozik, Happy and two girls they must've picked up on the way down 'cause they sure as hell weren't from Charming.
"I was just-" She started but then Happy held up his fore and middle finger, beckoning her over like he did his fighting opponents.
Four shots later and Charlotte's idea of lying down had completely floated out the window. Most of the Tacoma guys had rode away after the first shot, leaving her in the company of the two girls. One of them barely spoke English, she sounded Portugese or Dutch, and the other one was just plain weird but they kept refilling her glass and giving her all kinds of compliments.
Piney poked her with the butt of his shotgun.
"Oi," he grunted, "You look like shit."
She sat upright, too fast and her head spinned. "Are they back?" She asked, pressing her palms into her forehead trying to regain equilibrium.
"No," he grunted again. "If you're gonna hurl, do us all a favour and miss the bar. Bad for business," he chuckled.
"I love you too, Piney, you mean old mother fucker," she muttered to herself as she got down from the barstool onto shaky feet.
The jukebox was playing a song she didn't recognise that had a heavy guitar riff and it was making her head worse, she could feel the bass pounding in her ears and chest. Coupled with the crack of the balls pounding into one another from a game of pool was making it unbearable to stay in the bar. People laughing and talking echoed in her ears like she was underwater, so she headed slowly don the hallway to Chibs' bedroom, deciding to wait for him there.
Halfway there, her jeans pocket vibrated and it unnerved her, sending her into a small fit of blind panic. After a few rings she discovered what that strange feeling was.
"Hello?" She managed to answer.
"Charlotte, is Tara with you?" Jax asked quickly.
"Jax?" Charlotte asked, looking around for him, "Where are you?"
"Is Tara with you?" Herepeated.
"Urr," Charlotte looked around, again, making herself dizzy. "No?"
"Is she with you yes or no?" He pressed.
"No."
"You at the Clubhouse?"
"Uh-huh."
"A'ight stay there," he ordered.
"Jax. Jax? Nathan's here," she whispered into her phone as Nathan Drone suddenly appeared at the end of the hallway, near the window. She couldn't scream. She darted into the training room, samming the door behind her.
Fucking hell Charlotte, focus! Nathan's dead, you've had too much to drink.
She walked to the wal which was entirely lined with mirrors, pressing her palms against the cool reflective glass.
Breathe deep. That's better.she opened her eyes, watching her mouth open and close as she inhaled and exhaled. She'd had too much to drink, nothing serious.
Charlotte frowned when she noticed her hair started turning a different colour. It went lighter, morphing to a shade of red. Her face suddenly became older, wrinkles appeared on her forehead and around her eyes.
She was turning into her mother.
"I'm nothing like you!"
Charlotte slammed her fist against the wall, enough to make the tiles shake, but not enough to smash them.
"You're exactly like me," her mother told her from the mirror, "You're a drug addict. You'll be shooting crank up your arm in no time!" Sharon gave an evil laugh and Charlotte smashed her fist on the glass again.
"Shut up! I'm not like you, I don't bail on my family," she spat at her own reflection.
"Really?" Sharon raised an eyebrow,"You don't think everytime you swallow one of your little blue pills you turn your back on your family that bit more?"
"You're not real." Charlotte reasoned, shaking her head to shake the vision.
"Only because you fucking killed me!"
Charlotte screamed in frustration and picked up the smallest weight from the dumbellslying on the floor. She hurled it at the mirror, smashing her mother into hundreds of shards of glass onto the carpet.
The room spun around her and she was enveloped in a sudden wave of intense nausea. Black dots danced in front of her eyes and she felt herself falling back for a second.
Kozik was returning from the bathroom to his pool game when what sounded like a window smashed down the hallway, where the bedrooms were. He took a few steps down the hallway, trying to make as little noise as possible. The last person to go down there was Charlotte, so he called out her name.
When he didn't get any reply he moved further down and drew his gun, wondering if any of those Aryan shit heads got left behind and had managed to smash their way through a window somewhere. He heard another noise, like a soft thud followed by mumblings.
"Yo, Harper!" He called over his shoulder to the nearest person to him. Kozik nodded his head down the hallway and motioned, with gun in hand, that he was going down the hallway. Harper immediately understood, pulling out his own gun and flicking the safety off, resting his beer on the nearest table before giving Kozik a nod indicating he was ready and had his back.
The Tacoma Sergeant at Arms went further to the hallway and soon discovered the noises were coming from the training room. Kozik motioned for Harper to come down to him, and the two men flanked either side of the door.
Kozik counted on his fingers 1...2...3 and he kicked the door with his large boot, Harper behind him covering his back.
"What-?" Was all Harper could say when they saw Charlotte lying on the floor, body convulsing and something coming out her mouth. The two men stepped closer, Kozik spotting the smashed mirror on the other side of the wall indicating that was the source of the noise that drew him there in the first place.
Kozik moved to her first, practically falling to his knees and grabbed Charlotte's shoulders to roll her onto her side, allowing the sick to fall from her mouth and not choke her. This was going to do wonders for the reputation of the Tacoma Sons charter - letting the Mother Charter's President's daughter choke to death on her own sick whilst they were holding down the Clubhouse. That would be one hell of an agenda to tackle at the next Chapel meeting.
"Call an ambulance!" Kozik ordered the other man, pulling Charlotte's eyelids up to see if she was even marginally conscious. All he could see were the white's of her eyeballs as they rolled backward in her head.
"What happened?" Harper asked breathlessly, like Kozik knew. Charlotte had only taken a shot with them that whole day; they'd all drank the same stuff and they were all fine.
"Call a fucking ambulance!" Kozik repeated, getting frustrated as to why his friend was just standing there and kept asking stupid questions.
Charlotte suddenly convulsed strongly and more vomit was expelled from her mouth, but still she didn't wake up.
"Call 911!"
THE END.
NOTE: Before you ask me, 'Are you really ending it there?' the answer is yes, yes I am. This really is the end for this fic. It will continue after Season 3 airs.
