Charcoal Tears by Jane Washington Read Free Book Online Page A

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