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ℂＨＡＲＬＯＴＴＥ ᗪＡＶＥＮＰＯＲＴ
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Ｓｅｍｐｅｒ Ａｄ Ｍｅｌｉｏｒａ
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Charlotte stood, every muscle in her body tensed. She could imagine a turbulent sea of hands shooting up in rolling waves in the next room over from the sound that carried through the walls. Their voices cried out to her like bands of seagulls, squawking without sense. Soon she’d be forced to stand before them. How had her life come to this? She knew she was about to be paraded about on stage like some show pony or prize by her more recent captors and it sickened her.
She thought back to when she had first arrived at the security firm a mere day ago…She had been practically dragged by her hair kicking and screaming since her and Daryl’s separation. He had given up the struggle almost immediately, on her behalf no doubt. She couldn’t bare it, what would they do to him? Charlotte had to make them see reason, she owed Daryl that much. She wouldn’t relent, not until─and that was when she heard it. The comforting voice of her father. Warm and familiar, like from a memory of a dream. “Charlotte.”
It was almost surreal hearing it again, when she thought she never would. She released fistfuls of the poor man’s jacket who held her in place or rather the reverse, it was difficult to tell anymore, and surged into her father’s arms. She was crying before they ever even impacted, the pair of them crumpling to the floor in an emotional heap. She hadn’t realized just how much she had worried for him until that moment. “My poor, darling girl; you’re home now. You’re safe. Everything is going to be alright.” He kept repeating that last line over and over in mantra as if to convince himself it was true, that she was really in his arms. Charlotte buried her face in his tweed jacket, like she had when she was seven and had had a terrible day at school. Everything was going to be alright…except it wasn’t. What of Daryl?
Not an hour later, after her father saw to it that she had a fresh set of clothes and a hot shower, they were both ushered into some sort of conference room. All he wanted to do was take her home but the warriors had other ideas. There, a frightening woman sat them down. She presided over the table like a watchdog; one of those poor animals who had been deliberately made vicious by being chained up and given little to eat; or better, like the old cobra, pale from centuries of darkness, who guarded the king's treasure in the Jungle Book.
Mrs. Carter, as Charlotte soon discovered was the unfortunate woman’s name, appeared little less than a lusus naturae: she was small, without breasts or hips, waxen, wilted, and monstrously myopic; she wore glasses so thick and concave that, looking at her head-on, her crystalline eyes seemed very far away, stuck at the back of her head. She gave the impression of never having been young though she must have been once, but Charlotte knew she couldn't let that lull her into a false sense of security. Age did not equal a certain softness. Looks were very deceiving, indeed...Though if she really set to contemplating Mrs. Carter's physicality, she was small, but her features were as hard as here beating heart most likely was.
She briefly recounted the media superstorm that had raged since Charlotte’s disappearance before explaining, “It’s important that we quell the city’s fear. They need to know we are looking out for them and that everything will be okay.”
But would it? From the little Charlotte had seen, both sides were ambling about like the blind leading the blind, killing senselessly when neither was quite the monster the other made them out to be. She had once staunchly believed the world to be quite black and white, human and inhuman, lines drawn in the sand…but the sea had since swept over them all.
"You want me to address the press." She said numbly, knowing full and well where this was going.
“You can’t be serious?” Her father asked aghast, he clearly had not anticipated this as she had. “My daughter has just been through a traumatic ordeal, she needs rest! Issue whatever statements you like, Charlotte is not fit for a press release.”
The woman’s expression went from sympathetic to hostile in the span of a second. “Mr. Davenport. I understand your position, but the people have a right to know that Charlotte is safe and sound…thanks to my team. They won’t take our word for it, they’ll want to see her. I can assure you, it will be quick and we can close the floor to questions. A few words and then we’re finished, otherwise money hungry paparazzi will just stalk outside of your home vying for a photo. You know how they are, like sharks in the water when the first drop of blood falls.”
She was good, she knew just which of Charlotte’s father’s strings to pull and how hard to get him to concede. Charlotte wasn’t so sold however.
"What about Daryl?" She inquired pointedly. Both of them eyed her in utter confusion.
“Who, dear?” The woman inquired, sickly sweet.
"Daryl. The werewolf ‘your team’ brought in with me. What is going to happen to him?"
Her jaw set, hard pressed. “I’m not sure…that’s not really up to me, but try not to fret. He can’t hurt you now.” She intoned, voice slick like summer rain on asphalt. Like a summer storm, shadows gathering in the gloom.
"No, I mean, I know that. You misunderstand me. He was setting me free when the soldiers came. He’s a good man. If something happens to him─"
Her father cut her off, picking his jaw up off the ground in a metaphorical and half literal sense. “Charlotte! He is not a man. He is an animal.” He choked. “You’re obviously traumatized. Can’t you see what she’s been through!?” he howled at the woman. “Now she’s got- blast, what the devil do they call it... Stockholm syndrome!”
"Daddy, that’s not─"
This time it was Mrs. Carter’s turn to cut Charlotte off. “Miss Davenport, I cannot authorize you a visit to see our captive. It simply isn’t safe; we do not yet know what he is capable of. We will extract what information we can from him, and then─“ She paused mulling over her word choice while Charlotte waited with bated breath. “─then based on his level of compliance, we will proceed accordingly.” She adjusted herself in her seat in an uncomfortable fashion, looking as if she had further things to say on the subject that she wasn’t allowed or wouldn’t allow herself to. She finished with a solid, “It goes without saying that his presence here should not be made known to the press. You understand, don’t you? Politics and all that.” Her tone was one you’d use with a child, not one you’d use with the heir to the Davenport throne.
"I understand." Charlotte responded with a forced, weak smile. She tasted the words on her tongue and perceived its flavor to be vile. She had always rather disliked that expression ‘it goes without saying.’ If it went without saying, then why was it being said at all?
She snapped back to the present where Mrs. Carter stood before her, thrusting a set of note cards into her shaking hands. Charlotte vehemently wished Daryl could have been by her side in this moment to loan her his strength, but she knew that she had to embark on this journey alone. She would have to open her wings and fly solo, for better or worse-whether she caught a gust of wind or plummeted straight downward. Her father, woeful but stoic, led her into the next room on a platform to the mic as a hushed silence fell over the captive audience, not a sound to be heard save the snapping of camera lenses. Charlotte cleared her throat and began to speak.
"Last night, a team from Grey’s security firm successfully retrieved me from downtown Los Angeles, and reunited me with my father…" She started before she looked over to her right and smiled at Mr. Davenport. "I-" She knew what her next line was supposed to be, looking down at the paper still in her hands, but she suddenly couldn’t free the words from the cards. It was all lies and wouldn’t help her Daryl. The scribbled sentences blurred together before her eyes, black lines dancing into one another in a grey haze. What could she say?
Mrs. Carter shuffled in place impatiently. Charlotte was a Davenport, dammit. She bled politics and she would not be cowed in front of her peers. Immediately a calmness befell her - a sort of inner tranquility that they wrote about in books, but that almost no one seemed to actually possess. One that came from having made choices with poise and purpose. She looked every bit the governor’s daughter in that moment. "With me they captured a lone werewolf, one who incidentally was in the process of setting me free." The crowd of reporters went wild, practically frothing at the mouth with unanswered questions drowned out by their neighbor’s own shouts and volleying cries.
Mrs. Carter looked as if she wanted to tackle Charlotte. “That’s quite enough Miss Davenport.“ She mouthed, moving towards her in measured steps, but Charlotte wasn’t finished. She raised a hand to hush them once more. This was surprisingly effective.
"I have seen their world. They are not the monsters we force them to be. Sure, you might think me driven mad by captivity, but I can assure you my words are my own. As with our own people, there are the well intentioned and the selfish. Those who would harm others to achieve their means and those who agonize over every choice they make. Desperate times called for desperate measures in my case, but the wolves that took me treated me with the utmost kindness and respect when I was under their care.
They have lived abominably, and in constant fear of being sought out and murdered by agents of this firm. This has compelled them to take drastic measures. Now, this firm, acting as its own governing body, asks me to conceal this truth from you so it can dispose of this werewolf, Daryl Garreth, on their own terms; but I ask the people, is that how we operate? Allowing fear to dictate who has the power? Are we really going to execute a living, breathing man without trial? Simply based on his genetic makeup?
Last night’s act of terrorism was an absolute tragedy, but I implore you, let us not blame the bloodshed enacted by a few on the many. The American people are better than that."
She shook her head, eyes scanning the awestruck audience. Their gaze instantly fell on another target, Mrs. Carter, who stood not three feet away from Charlotte. The silence shattered for the last time as they demanded answers in unison, indignant screams threatening to spill out of the building. Information had been withheld and they would not stand for that, not with freedom of the press and all that. Mrs. Carter looked to Charlotte in thinly concealed rage as Mr. Davenport came and wrapped an arm around his daughter.
"I’d like to see Daryl now." Charlotte declared, out of the microphone’s range.
She thought back to when she had first arrived at the security firm a mere day ago…She had been practically dragged by her hair kicking and screaming since her and Daryl’s separation. He had given up the struggle almost immediately, on her behalf no doubt. She couldn’t bare it, what would they do to him? Charlotte had to make them see reason, she owed Daryl that much. She wouldn’t relent, not until─and that was when she heard it. The comforting voice of her father. Warm and familiar, like from a memory of a dream. “Charlotte.”
It was almost surreal hearing it again, when she thought she never would. She released fistfuls of the poor man’s jacket who held her in place or rather the reverse, it was difficult to tell anymore, and surged into her father’s arms. She was crying before they ever even impacted, the pair of them crumpling to the floor in an emotional heap. She hadn’t realized just how much she had worried for him until that moment. “My poor, darling girl; you’re home now. You’re safe. Everything is going to be alright.” He kept repeating that last line over and over in mantra as if to convince himself it was true, that she was really in his arms. Charlotte buried her face in his tweed jacket, like she had when she was seven and had had a terrible day at school. Everything was going to be alright…except it wasn’t. What of Daryl?
Not an hour later, after her father saw to it that she had a fresh set of clothes and a hot shower, they were both ushered into some sort of conference room. All he wanted to do was take her home but the warriors had other ideas. There, a frightening woman sat them down. She presided over the table like a watchdog; one of those poor animals who had been deliberately made vicious by being chained up and given little to eat; or better, like the old cobra, pale from centuries of darkness, who guarded the king's treasure in the Jungle Book.
Mrs. Carter, as Charlotte soon discovered was the unfortunate woman’s name, appeared little less than a lusus naturae: she was small, without breasts or hips, waxen, wilted, and monstrously myopic; she wore glasses so thick and concave that, looking at her head-on, her crystalline eyes seemed very far away, stuck at the back of her head. She gave the impression of never having been young though she must have been once, but Charlotte knew she couldn't let that lull her into a false sense of security. Age did not equal a certain softness. Looks were very deceiving, indeed...Though if she really set to contemplating Mrs. Carter's physicality, she was small, but her features were as hard as here beating heart most likely was.
She briefly recounted the media superstorm that had raged since Charlotte’s disappearance before explaining, “It’s important that we quell the city’s fear. They need to know we are looking out for them and that everything will be okay.”
But would it? From the little Charlotte had seen, both sides were ambling about like the blind leading the blind, killing senselessly when neither was quite the monster the other made them out to be. She had once staunchly believed the world to be quite black and white, human and inhuman, lines drawn in the sand…but the sea had since swept over them all.
"You want me to address the press." She said numbly, knowing full and well where this was going.
“You can’t be serious?” Her father asked aghast, he clearly had not anticipated this as she had. “My daughter has just been through a traumatic ordeal, she needs rest! Issue whatever statements you like, Charlotte is not fit for a press release.”
The woman’s expression went from sympathetic to hostile in the span of a second. “Mr. Davenport. I understand your position, but the people have a right to know that Charlotte is safe and sound…thanks to my team. They won’t take our word for it, they’ll want to see her. I can assure you, it will be quick and we can close the floor to questions. A few words and then we’re finished, otherwise money hungry paparazzi will just stalk outside of your home vying for a photo. You know how they are, like sharks in the water when the first drop of blood falls.”
She was good, she knew just which of Charlotte’s father’s strings to pull and how hard to get him to concede. Charlotte wasn’t so sold however.
"What about Daryl?" She inquired pointedly. Both of them eyed her in utter confusion.
“Who, dear?” The woman inquired, sickly sweet.
"Daryl. The werewolf ‘your team’ brought in with me. What is going to happen to him?"
Her jaw set, hard pressed. “I’m not sure…that’s not really up to me, but try not to fret. He can’t hurt you now.” She intoned, voice slick like summer rain on asphalt. Like a summer storm, shadows gathering in the gloom.
"No, I mean, I know that. You misunderstand me. He was setting me free when the soldiers came. He’s a good man. If something happens to him─"
Her father cut her off, picking his jaw up off the ground in a metaphorical and half literal sense. “Charlotte! He is not a man. He is an animal.” He choked. “You’re obviously traumatized. Can’t you see what she’s been through!?” he howled at the woman. “Now she’s got- blast, what the devil do they call it... Stockholm syndrome!”
"Daddy, that’s not─"
This time it was Mrs. Carter’s turn to cut Charlotte off. “Miss Davenport, I cannot authorize you a visit to see our captive. It simply isn’t safe; we do not yet know what he is capable of. We will extract what information we can from him, and then─“ She paused mulling over her word choice while Charlotte waited with bated breath. “─then based on his level of compliance, we will proceed accordingly.” She adjusted herself in her seat in an uncomfortable fashion, looking as if she had further things to say on the subject that she wasn’t allowed or wouldn’t allow herself to. She finished with a solid, “It goes without saying that his presence here should not be made known to the press. You understand, don’t you? Politics and all that.” Her tone was one you’d use with a child, not one you’d use with the heir to the Davenport throne.
"I understand." Charlotte responded with a forced, weak smile. She tasted the words on her tongue and perceived its flavor to be vile. She had always rather disliked that expression ‘it goes without saying.’ If it went without saying, then why was it being said at all?
She snapped back to the present where Mrs. Carter stood before her, thrusting a set of note cards into her shaking hands. Charlotte vehemently wished Daryl could have been by her side in this moment to loan her his strength, but she knew that she had to embark on this journey alone. She would have to open her wings and fly solo, for better or worse-whether she caught a gust of wind or plummeted straight downward. Her father, woeful but stoic, led her into the next room on a platform to the mic as a hushed silence fell over the captive audience, not a sound to be heard save the snapping of camera lenses. Charlotte cleared her throat and began to speak.
"Last night, a team from Grey’s security firm successfully retrieved me from downtown Los Angeles, and reunited me with my father…" She started before she looked over to her right and smiled at Mr. Davenport. "I-" She knew what her next line was supposed to be, looking down at the paper still in her hands, but she suddenly couldn’t free the words from the cards. It was all lies and wouldn’t help her Daryl. The scribbled sentences blurred together before her eyes, black lines dancing into one another in a grey haze. What could she say?
Mrs. Carter shuffled in place impatiently. Charlotte was a Davenport, dammit. She bled politics and she would not be cowed in front of her peers. Immediately a calmness befell her - a sort of inner tranquility that they wrote about in books, but that almost no one seemed to actually possess. One that came from having made choices with poise and purpose. She looked every bit the governor’s daughter in that moment. "With me they captured a lone werewolf, one who incidentally was in the process of setting me free." The crowd of reporters went wild, practically frothing at the mouth with unanswered questions drowned out by their neighbor’s own shouts and volleying cries.
Mrs. Carter looked as if she wanted to tackle Charlotte. “That’s quite enough Miss Davenport.“ She mouthed, moving towards her in measured steps, but Charlotte wasn’t finished. She raised a hand to hush them once more. This was surprisingly effective.
"I have seen their world. They are not the monsters we force them to be. Sure, you might think me driven mad by captivity, but I can assure you my words are my own. As with our own people, there are the well intentioned and the selfish. Those who would harm others to achieve their means and those who agonize over every choice they make. Desperate times called for desperate measures in my case, but the wolves that took me treated me with the utmost kindness and respect when I was under their care.
They have lived abominably, and in constant fear of being sought out and murdered by agents of this firm. This has compelled them to take drastic measures. Now, this firm, acting as its own governing body, asks me to conceal this truth from you so it can dispose of this werewolf, Daryl Garreth, on their own terms; but I ask the people, is that how we operate? Allowing fear to dictate who has the power? Are we really going to execute a living, breathing man without trial? Simply based on his genetic makeup?
Last night’s act of terrorism was an absolute tragedy, but I implore you, let us not blame the bloodshed enacted by a few on the many. The American people are better than that."
She shook her head, eyes scanning the awestruck audience. Their gaze instantly fell on another target, Mrs. Carter, who stood not three feet away from Charlotte. The silence shattered for the last time as they demanded answers in unison, indignant screams threatening to spill out of the building. Information had been withheld and they would not stand for that, not with freedom of the press and all that. Mrs. Carter looked to Charlotte in thinly concealed rage as Mr. Davenport came and wrapped an arm around his daughter.
"I’d like to see Daryl now." Charlotte declared, out of the microphone’s range.