THE GUARDIAN 彡 the society

TWELVE

"I LEFT TOWN IN FOURTH GRADE BECAUSE OF MY DAD'S WORK," Charlotte started as she also signed while she talked, since Sam was in the room. Everyone met at Charlotte's house in the evening, and Allie brought Gordie, Becca, and Sam with her.

Everyone listened attentively as they kept their eyes on Charlotte. She seemed disappointed with whatever she was going to tell them but she was going to tell them regardless. She was hiding it for too long, and now that they were in a place they didn't know, Charlotte had to tell them.

She sat in between Clark and Helena, as they were the only ones to know about the incident. When Clark was questioned, he said that he only knew a tiny bit but he could empathize with Charlotte. Grizz thought back to the time when he came to visit them and Clark had a hand on top of Charlotte's. He remembered how him and Charlotte got into a mini argument before they confessed their feelings for each other, and that Charlotte said Clark only knew that Charlotte went to New York, nothing else.

"I had to make new friends, and so I did. Fifth and sixth grade went by smoothly, since I was just a normal girl," Everyone furrowed their eyebrows at 'normal girl', what did Charlotte mean by that?

Helena placed a comforting hand on Charlotte's knee as Charlotte continued to sign and talk.

"In seventh grade, my parents finally revealed to me that my father was in some sort of Chinese gang, which is why my dad came back to New York."

Valerie couldn't help but cut in, "Kevin is a gangster?"

Charlotte chuckled sheepishly and nodded, "Yep, a gang leader to be exact."

Charlotte noticed that Luke was glancing at Helena, so she quickly added, "Only my father was a gangster. My mother, who's Helena's mother's sister, was not, so Helena and I have completely different lives. I mean damn, a religious girl and her gangster cousin? Talk about plot twist," Charlotte tried to joke.

Everyone chuckled to themselves and continued to listen.

"My parents moved to this town to get away from the gang life once they found out that my mom was pregnant with me," Charlotte informed, "The gang's rivals started to get bold with my dad's gang since my dad wasn't around so my dad had to come back to cool down the fire. They finally told me that I was the daughter of a gang leader, and that I had to adapt to their lifestyle. My dad and his people taught me their ways they survived on the streets together, and made sure I knew how to defend myself."

"No wonder you're so crazy you fearless shit," Kyla snorted out, trying to joke and ease the tension. Everyone was surprised and were speechless.

Charlotte chuckled and nodded. "Those four years made me see and experience a lot of things that you guys would faint over."

Miles slightly raised his hand, "So.. Cass's death.." Kyla signed for him, for Sam to understand.

Charlotte softly shrugged, "I was shocked because it happened out of nowhere, but I wasn't scared or surprised with the concept of death."

Xavier suddenly came to a realization, "This incident, Char, did you watch someone die?"

Charlotte shook her head, making some release a sigh of relief. "No," Charlotte decided to get straight to the point. "In ninth grade, I just turned fifteen, and my dad gave me the title of 'leader' to a group of new members of the gang, that were either my age, a year older or a year younger. He just wanted me to learn and gain leadership skills, so he made me take them for a test run through the streets."

Charlotte inhaled softly, once getting close to the answer to her hatred for the title of a leader. Clark reached for Charlotte's hand and gave it a light squeeze, muttering, 'it's okay' to her. Grizz watched them silently, he was wishing that he was the one sitting next to her, not Clark.