The Runaway • 𝑇𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑦 𝑆ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑏𝑦

13

The Runaway
Chapter
13

season 1
                 ↳ episode 2

♕♡︎♔

    Charlotte was awoken from the sound of boys laughter outside her window. She takes a quick breath as her eyes slowly open, taking in the light of the morning sun shining throughout her room.

She slowly rises from the bed and moves the curtain to glance out the window. JP and Finn, accompanied by the older Shelby brothers, were all piling into the Shelby family car. That's right, she recalls drowsily, the boys were going to the fair today.

Charlotte knew it would be pointless to try to go back to sleep so instead she gets ready for the day, deciding to go in early to The Garrison. She recently offered to take a look at the books to help out Harry, and she quickly realized they were an absolute mess.

Charlotte makes her way to The Garrison sometime in the morning, after tea with Scarlett and Celeste. She hums a tune on her way but comes to a stop when she hears the sound of glass shattering along with screaming. She cautiously walks closer to the source and is appalled to see the new policemen turning over one of the Lanes. It was some type of raid.

Charlotte cautiously stays hidden behind the wall of one of the buildings, taking in all the chaos with concerned eyes. She watches the policemen pull people out of there homes. Men, woman, elderly and children, overturning each home till it's left in ruins. Beating and taking the men, manhandling the women and children.

Her eyes catch on an older looking man in the midst of it all, sitting on a horse, wearing a beige trench coat and hat. He watches everything, observing it all with a sort of smugness. Her eyes narrow at him.

Was he the reason for all this chaos?

She scan's the rest of the Lane until she see's two young children, a boy and a girl, being roughed up by one of the policemen. He has one of the boys arms in a tight grip. The boy stands bravely in front of who she can only guess is his sister, who has tears in her eyes. She doesn't even register her feet rushing over to them until she grabs the arm of the policeman.

"Excuse me sir," she starts to say politely before the man brushes her arm off of him, telling her to 'fuck off' without a single glance in her direction.

"Hey," she grabs at his arm again, the police officer goes to brush her off again but she grips onto his jacket tightly. "Hey!" Her voice is louder now, "leave them alone." The man looks back at her from over his shoulder.

     "Get out of 'ere slag, this doesn't concern you." He spits at her with an Irish accent pushing her off of his arm again before looking back towards the children.

Charlotte stumbles back but doesn't back down, "they're just children, leave them alone!"

The cop stops, releasing the boys arm before turning to face her. "I said this doesn't concern you," he then raises his hand and slaps her.

Charlotte's head snaps to the side as she feels the sting on her cheek. Her hand holds her throbbing cheek, looking past the copper and towards the children who watch wide eyed as she motions with her eyes for them to run. They quickly nod at her before grabbing each others hand and breaking off into a run, glancing back at her.