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It was an obsession anyone could have seen it. The constant counting, tapping of fingers in perfect rhythm with the clocks on the wall counting off seconds. Perhaps a nod to the time she had once spent locked up by a girl who should have been her daughter. When she had at first tried to remember how long she'd been there by counting off seconds and minutes and hours. When she stopped counting, she remembered hearing soft screams coming from the basement. She did what she had always done and ran started counting over, anything to forget what was happening.
Sometimes Dodge thought he hated his mother.
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"Dodgey, have some fun please?"
He looked at Charlotte, he did really want to enjoy himself here, it would make her happy. The whole sleazy underground atmosphere the club had was just…not comfortable, to say the least. Granted the next Andy Warhol was probably pondering life at the bar, still the music, the drinking, the drugs….just wasn't for him.
"I'm trying number three, I'm just .."
"High falutin? Don't give me that look you are!" Well she was right but it didn't mean he had to admit it, "Imma get you a drink… what? Seriously? Man up, I'm not gonna get you wasted Number nine."
Charlotte slipped off into the mass of people to find the bar and Dodge did is best to feel somewhat at ease. It wasn't working, fidgeting slightly in his seat he looked around the club, the strobe lights gave the room a sort of pipe dream quality. Most of the people around him were to occupied to be talking with one another , the loud music would have made it hard anyway. Except for one pair he just realized, a girl and a boy. They looked like they were sick, and had been for a long time. Sort of jittery, and like they were rotting on their feet. They exchanged something between them, what looked like wads of bills and syringes. So they weren't talking then. She turned around and hurriedly walked away, briefly Dodge saw the full view of her face.
"Alice? Alice!" She kept walking heading towards what looked like private offices, "Hatter!"
Finally she looked back over her shoulder and saw him, she started running but the crowds made it nearly impossible and he caught up to her.
"Alice, Tiffany said you ran off and I looked for-" Suddenly Dodge felt something cold pressed on his stomach, her hands were shaking.
"I swear I'll shoot you if you say her name again." her breath was shaky, like she was crying almost, "You wouldn't dare to shoot him. Who should I shoot then!
"Alice are you-?" she pulled the trigger Dodge flinched.
Someone screamed, Dodge turned on his heel. Wondering for a moment why he wasn't shot. Then he saw Charlotte, there was a stain on her clothes. From the shoulder, spreading fast. She's not screaming, not yet, the shock hasn't worn off. The stain is spreading to her fingers, pooling at the tips, before the stain spreads to the floor.
"Dodge, it hurts." H e wasn't aware of when she started crying or when she fell from pain or when he ended up next to her, " Dodge, make it stop!"
She loves him, and in her love thinks that there is nothing he cannot do. Dodge is not there when she begs him though, he's three years ago, in a basement holding another girl who's bleeding because of him. For a fleeting moment Dodge thinks she might bleed out before he can ever get her to a hospital.