Charcoal Tears (6 page)

I didn’t know them. I didn’t trust them. And yet, already… I needed them.

At the end of the day they both followed me to my car. Tariq was leaning against the driver’s door, his arms folded, a rare frown making an appearance. I unlocked the car and everyone slid in. It wasn’t until I put the keys into the ignition that Tariq spoke up.

“What are they doing here?” He jerked his head at the backseat, where Cabe and Noah were lazing silently, making the car seem a lot smaller than it actually was.

“They’re my friends,” I said.

Tariq’s eyes widened, and I realised I was smiling. He quietened and turned to the backseat, his mouth hanging open. I turned on the radio and drove home. We parked at the curb and Tariq touched my shoulder, flicking his eyes toward the house in warning. I nodded and turned to the backseat.

“Can you guys wait here?” I asked.

Cabe nodded, which I took as answer for the both of them. Tariq slid out of the car and I followed him to the door. We switched places as we neared the door, leaving me to be the distraction as usual. I’d drive off before my father could do much, and Tariq would be safe behind a locked door.

We walked into the kitchen and heard the sounds of the television in the sitting room. Squaring my shoulders, I led us toward the sound. He had to see me at least once or he’d come looking for one of us to ask for money. It was a lesson that we had learnt early on.

“Oi,” he called out, hearing the floorboards squeak beneath my shoes. The sound of the television was cut off and he appeared in the hallway. “Where the hell were you two?”

He was only wearing a pair of stained sweatpants, and they were tugged too far down his left hip. There was a sound behind him and a woman’s face appeared. I cringed. Apparently he wasn’t so concerned about our schedule as he was with the fact that we’d inadvertently just interrupted something.

“School,” I kept my tone even. “Did you buy food today?”

He growled. “I took care of my appetite, if that’s what you’re asking, daughter.”

Tariq sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes finding the woman whom I now realised was almost definitely a prostitute.

“Wanna piece?” my father asked him, flashing a grin.

Tariq turned on his heel in a flash and disappeared. I took a step back but my father stepped forward, far too quickly for the drunk that he was. He caught me by the shoulder and swung me until my back slammed into the wall. I felt the sharp ring of pain and bit the inside of my mouth.

“Get the hell off me, Gerald.”

“Call me daddy.” He laughed. “And while you’re at it, teach that boy up there,” he flicked his head toward the staircase that Tariq had just used to escape him, “some
respect
.”

I punched him in the gut, prayed that Tariq had locked his door, and took off for the kitchen. Gerald was following me this time, and that wasn’t something I had planned for. In quick strides, I made it out the door and was halfway across the lawn before Gerald spilled out of the house after me. I ignored the car, not wanting to draw attention to it, and started off down the road.

“Get your scrawny ass back here, Seraph! I’m not done with you!”

I kicked into a sprint, heard an engine start behind me, and by the time I rounded the corner, the car was beside me. I slid into the passenger side and Noah pulled back onto the road.

“Is your brother going to be okay?” Cabe asked after a moment.

“Yes,” I puffed out. “We have a system.”

“That’s why you went in first?” Noah asked.

I paused.
They noticed that
? “Ah, yeah. His door has a lock. Mine doesn’t.”

The cell phone in my bag started to vibrate and I fished it out, confused. I hadn’t been able to afford credit in weeks. Nobody ever called me. The number flashing across the cracked screen was familiar.

I flicked it open. “Tariq?” I breathed, afraid.

“You need to come back here.” He sounded angry and scared.

“What happened?”

“Come back. Now. He left, took that woman and went. You need to come back.”

“What, why?”

“Seph!
Get back here
!” he shouted, causing me to drop the phone.

Picking it up again, I pressed it to my ear. “I’ll be there in a minute.” I hung up and looked at Noah. “Can you take me back?”

He glanced down and set his jaw. “No.”

“My dad is gone. He left.”

He considered this for a moment and then turned the car around. We drove back to the house and I jumped out and ran to the front door. I had asked them to stay in the car again but this time they followed me. Tariq shouted down to me from his bedroom and I made my way up there, pushing open his door. The walls were plastered with pictures.

I pulled up short and Cabe smacked into me from behind, wrapping an arm around my front to keep me from falling. I felt him freeze behind me.

“What on earth?” asked Noah, pushing past us into the room.

I moved forward and Cabe released me. Written in red across each picture were the same bold words.

Leave
.

I took a step back and Tariq slammed the door to his bedroom shut. Across the back of the door someone had carved a familliar nursery rhyme into the wood.

Rock-a-bye baby in the tree top.

When the wind blows,

The cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks,

The cradle will fall,

Down will come baby,

Cradle and all.

The line ‘Down will come baby’ had been scratched deeper than the other lines, making it stand out. I turned away from the words, my teeth chattering. The pictures were all of me, sometimes with Noah or Cabe, sometimes on my own. Some of them were months old. One was of me getting changed in my bedroom. I fell to my knees, ripping the envelope out of my bag and holding it up above my head. My voice was only a whisper.

“This was on my bed last night.”

Someone grabbed the envelope off me and I buried my face in my hands, hiding my panic as I tried to regulate my breathing.
One… two… three…
Cabe crouched in front of me, pulling me into his arms. It felt natural to be held by him, as though he were a precious childhood friend instead of a virtual stranger. My cheek fell to his shoulder and he hugged me tighter, trying to hold me firmly enough that I stopped shaking.

I could hear the sound of Tariq roughly pulling photos from the wall while Noah barked into a cell phone.

“I don’t care. You’re the best person to deal with this kind of shit. Ask
Silas? Are you insane?
Dammit, Miro, fine, have it your way. You’ll have to face her eventually.” He snapped his phone shut, swore at it, and shoved it back into his pocket.

“It’s just a stupid prank,” Cabe muttered, drawing my attention back to him. He seemed every bit as calm as Noah was riled-up. My trembling was getting under control, so I stood up and tried to put some distance between us. Cabe watched me back away and said, “Let’s get out of this house.”

I started to shake my head, but Noah’s hand landed over my cheek. He hovered, electric eyes pulling me into his turbulence. “It’s a prank,” he echoed his brother. “If they wanted to do something to you, they would have done it already. They’re playing with you. We need to get out of this house for a while. I’ll have someone come over while we’re gone and replace all the locks.”

Noah and Cabe left the room, and I shared a look with Tariq before we started to follow them. By the time we had returned the car, Cabe’s grin was back in full force. “Now that you’ve given into our inevitable friendship, it’s time for a little fun.”

I heard Tariq and Noah muttering in the back seat, and then Noah raised his voice. “Fun?” he asked.

“Tabby’s place,” Cabe replied, starting the engine. The cheery note to his voice sounded off, and I felt a brief trill of alarm at how easily they had brushed off the incident. Both incidents.

“Good idea.” Noah had a smile in his voice as he pulled out his phone again. “Hey,” he started in a friendly tone. “What’s up?” He paused a moment, drumming his fingers on his thigh. I turned in my seat to watch him and he met my eyes. “I’m with a friend from school.” Cabe stiffened in the driver’s seat, but Noah’s smile had only grown. “Yes,” he said. “That friend.” He pulled the phone away from his face and I saw the words
call ended
flash across his screen, indicating that his friend had hung up on him. Unperturbed, he dialled the number again. “Don’t be a bitch, Silas. This is important.”

I listened as he rattled off the facts of both
pranks
as though they didn’t bother him at all, as though he had every right to share that information with whomever he wanted… as though this were his life just as much as it was mine. I could feel the corners of my mouth turning down, and I looked away from Noah to try and control my rising anger. I caught Tariq’s eye, and saw that he was frowning just as hard as I wanted to, but I shook my head at him. I needed to figure out what was different about these boys, and why I felt so close to them, almost like I needed them in order to simply get through my day. I needed to know everything before I reacted.

I was living proof that the world was a dangerous and unexpected place.

“You have yourself a deal,” Noah said, sounding pleased. He hung up his call and started pressing buttons on his phone.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Nobody,” snapped Cabe.

“You’ll meet him soon enough,” Noah replied easily. “It’s inevitable, after all.”

“Like our friendship?” I was joking, but the words stuck in my throat. 

Noah’s teeth flashed and his head whipped up. “Yeah,” he stared at me with an intensity I was getting used to expecting from him, and I quickly looked away.

They drove out to the bay and parked outside an apartment building. It faced onto the water and had a fairly nondescript look from the outside, though the windows were long and wide, tinted almost to black, and quaint little half-moon balconies splattered the exterior with white patterned railings. There was a well-dressed man at the entrance to the lobby who opened the door for us, and another at the elevator, who pressed the button for us. We stood around quietly until we spilled into the elevator car and Cabe pressed the button for the top floor. The number six lit up.

“You guys live here?” Tariq asked, a little bit of awe touching his tone.

“Hmm.” Cabe hummed a non-committal sound.

There only seemed to be two apartments on the sixth level, and we entered the closest, our small group spilling into a sunny living room. The carpet was an appealing mocha, with snow-white rugs stretching out beneath the leather couches and heavy dark-wood furniture. There was a breakfast bar set up against the window looking out over the bay, and a kitchen tucked off to the side, a wall backing it. It was all very open-plan with the living room sunken a few steps down in the middle.

“Give us a moment to grab some stuff,” Cabe said, jogging over to one of the doors. “We’re going somewhere after this.”

Noah wandered into the kitchen and we followed. He opened the fridge and brought out a collection of things. Tariq and I stood there watching as he gathered the ingredients for sandwiches, and then I stepped up quietly beside him. We coordinated smoothly, and soon had four chicken and salad sandwiches made. Noah bumped me out of the way and laid them out on a tray to set into the grill.

He turned the oven on and tapped me on the cheek. “Thanks for the help, pretty girl.”

Tariq cleared his throat and we both turned. I jumped a little bit. I may have forgotten that he was there at all.

“Aren’t you worried?” he asked me.

“I don’t know.” I twisted my hands.
I’m terrified
. “I can take care of myself.”

He nodded. It was the reason I always stood between him and Gerald. “I know,” he said, hesitating. “But they even knew that you came crying to me last night. That’s why they put the pictures in my room this time.”

I tugged on a strand of hair hanging over my shoulder, letting it slip through my finger and wrap around of its own accord.

“I have no idea how they knew that,” I admitted.

“We’ll find out.” Noah leaned up against the counter. “I’ve got someone working on it.”

“Silas?”

“He’s a bit of a genius. You’re in good hands.”

“Does he go to our school?”

“No, he’s a little older.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “You’ve told him about me?”

Cabe’s door banged open and he shot Noah a look. They seemed to communicate something with each other, and then Noah was pulling out the sandwiches. We gathered to eat and I passed the other half of mine to Tariq out of habit, even though he had his own. Cabe swung a sports bag over his shoulder and we all descended back to the car. We drove back into the city and parked outside a cute little brick home with a well-manicured garden out the front. Despite the inviting façade of the house, there was something off about it. I couldn’t place the feeling until we reached the front door, and I found myself staring up at a surveillance camera. 

Cabe and Noah walked straight in without knocking and Tariq followed them, leaving me to linger in the doorway. I glanced toward the window beside the front door and caught the glint of metal. Caught by my own indecision, I hesitated too long, and then Cabe was calling out for me. I stepped through the doorway and followed the smell of cookies down the long hallway.

“Cabe!” A woman’s voice carried to me as I reached a kitchen area. “Noah!” I couldn’t see the woman, but I slipped forward, planting myself directly in front of my little brother.

He set his hands on my shoulders, squeezing lightly. I relaxed, not realising that I had jumped into defensive mode, and stepped away as the woman released Cabe and pulled Noah into a hug. She didn’t seem to notice us until she released him, and then she did a double take. Her eyes widened, peering at me, moving from my hair to my skirt to my shoes and then back to my face. She repeated the examination, slowly pulling her mouth closed.