Charcoal Tears Read Online Free PDF Page A

tonight.”
    “Could you use any extra help?” I asked meekly, my eyes focussed on her desk. It seemed that with each of my shifts, her paperwork pile grew even larger, and I wondered if she were in some kind of trouble.
    She studied me for a minute, the frown lines between her brows deepening, and then she finally nodded. “Sure, why don’t you fill up the shot trays out the back?”
    This was why I still worked here. Sally never turned me away.
    “Thanks.” I tried to smile, and not for the first time that day, I failed.
    Her frown dipped lower, but she made no comment. I suspected that there were already too many things on her mind for her to venture into enquiring after my problems, but I didn’t mind. I wouldn’t tell her anyway. I weaved through the tables on the club floor and pushed out to the kitchen area. I found the twelve black circular trays, still sticky from the night before, and began to wash them up. I dried them out and set them side-by-side along the industrial-sized counter. As I placed out the shot cups and filled them, my mind began to wander, and the time passed quickly as I went about the motions of preparing the club for opening. By nine, Sally had me sitting in her office, eating takeaway pizza. She claimed that she ordered too much, as she always did. I knew better. It made me feel guilty, because Tariq was probably starving at home. For half an hour, I curled up in a chair and tried to get through my homework, and then Sally was hustling me to the front door. I stood there, taking money from people as they entered and stamping their palms.
    I hated every minute of the club when it was open. I hated that my fingers occasionally brushed against the fingers of strangers as I stamped the backs of their hands, I hated that I had to smile at them while they gave me money for shots. I hated that they thought I was there just for them. I wasn’t. I was there so that my father wouldn’t fly into a blind rage and kill me or my brother. I was there so that Tariq wouldn’t starve.
    I usually stood at the door, a few paces behind the security guard, until around midnight, and then I’d have to start handing out shots. I glanced at my watch, checking the time, and started for Mark—tonight’s guard—before one last person walked through the door. I paused, recognising the silhouette. The stranger wore a hood pulled up to cast shadows over his face, feeding the mystery that surrounded him. The first time he showed me his identification, his thumb had been conveniently covering the name, and nobody else in the club seemed to know what it was either. He was almost always here, he always bought exactly one drink, and he never spoke to anyone. He was gentle in his interactions with me, but the other employees and patrons avoided him with a vigour that I couldn’t help but find suspicious. They seemed terrified of him. He nodded to the guard, who didn’t check his licence, and walked up to me, handing over his money without saying anything. I tucked it into the safe box through the window behind me and he reached for my hand. I had met him on my first night a year ago; I had been too frightened to touch anyone back then, and I had almost mistaken him for Quillan—they looked very similar at first glance. That changed when you got a closer look.
    This man had a cold scowl firmly set into his expression, and wildness lurked behind each of the prominent scars that tagged his face: one dragging down the corner of his top lip, another creeping through his left eyebrow, and yet another disappearing into his hairline, thicker and more jagged than the rest. Danger boiled just beneath his skin, forming a screen over his black eyes, making them seem even darker than Quillan’s, and much more unstable. He was handsome, if you managed to see past the terror caused by his very apparition. His skin tone hinted at Mediterranean descent and he held himself tall, his shoulders squared with a grace rarely seen, his