Chapter 6
Chapter Six
It’s Friday night, and Tilly told me to go to the club’s back door.
The metal gate that guards the road and the car park at the back of the club is huge.
I stand on my toes and peer through a gap.
God, it’s like Fort Knox. What’s with the gate and all the fancy security cameras?
What type of nightclub has this kind of security?
With frustration, and the worry I’m going to be late, I slam my palm against the cold black metal. I guess I’ll have to ring Tilly and see if she can get someone to come out to get me.
As I’m digging in my back pocket for my phone, my eyes scan the gate again, and this time my gaze lands on a fancy biometric scanner. A scanner I completely missed the first time I’d looked. Gah, I roll my eyes. It has a call button.
I’ve always been that type of person—something can be right in front of my face, and I’ll not see it. I stab at the button with my thumb. The scanner lights up.
I tap my fingers against my leg as I wait and fight the urge to push the button again.
“Hello?” says a grumpy-sounding voice. I shuffle forward and lean my mouth closer to the speaker.
“Hi, I’m the new glass collector… You should be expecting me?”
“Miss Dennison?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” I nod my head, turn, and give the camera a little wave. The speaker crackles, and the man on the other end groans. My hand drops with a slap to my side, and I sheepishly tuck my hands behind my back. Yeah, I guess that was a little weird.
“Come through, head to the back door, and I’ll get Luke to meet you.”
“Thank”—the biometric scanner goes dark—“you.” I roll my eyes. He was really friendly.
The gate clicks and ominously swings open. I quickly back away, and before it’s fully open, I squeeze through the gap. As soon as I’ve stepped through, the gate’s trajectory changes and it swings back and clangs closed. Yeah, that’s not ominous at all, I think with a barely repressed shudder.
The surrounding area is well lit, and the parking area for the staff is clean and already half-full of cars. Silent high-tech cameras sweep the area.
I’m fifty percent impressed and fifty percent shitting myself.
I rub my sweaty palms on my trousers and continue around the back of the building towards where I hope the back door is located.
Another solid door with a fancy biometric lock. When I’m still a step away, the door buzzes and swings open. A blond-haired shifter meets my nervous eyes with a warm grin.
“Tru? I’m Luke… Tilly’s friend.” He rubs the back of his head, and I can’t help my answering grin.
In response to my smile, pink stains his cheeks.
I can tell straightaway, even though this guy is a shifter, he’s perfect for Tilly.
“Come on, kid. Let’s get your paperwork done and I’ll show you the ropes. ”
The door opens into a large hallway. The carpet beneath my feet is soft and springy.
The colour of crushed blackberries. Not quite black, not quite purple, but a cool mix of both.
I’m surprised the nightclub has such an expensive carpet for its staff areas.
The underlay alone probably cost more than my car.
Pain shoots me in the chest with that thought.
The loss of my car is still a sore subject.
Fucking car. I saved up for two years to buy that car, and look how it turned out. I owned it for three months. Shit, I regret not spending my money on teenage crap. At least I would have had something to show for it. God, I hate Uncle Nobhead for stealing it.
Luke points to the door far down the hall, “Owner’s office.
” His tour guide finger points to another door.
“Manager’s office, security office and staff room.
This door here will take you directly into the club, and there’s another direct door in the staff room.
” He opens the manager’s door and indicates for me to go in.
“All the doors have a spelled biometric scanner, so you’ll be able to use them as soon as I’ve uploaded you into the security system. If you can’t get into an area, then you’re not supposed to be there. Please sit.”
I take a seat, and as I tuck my long legs underneath the chair, I take in the room. The office has no personal touches. The walls are a plain white.
Luke leans on the edge of the desk and folds his arms casually in front of his chest. “Do you need to park your car?”
“No. No car,” I say, trying not to snarl.
“Oh okay.” Luke tilts his head to the side, and nostrils flare as he picks up the scent of my upset.
With a sad-sounding sigh, even to my own ears, I push the livid car thoughts to the back of my head and make a wall around them.
Anytime I think about being homeless, about losing my car, I need to kick the thoughts away like I’m kicking a football.
I need to keep those thoughts out of my head.
I can’t dwell or moan about the stuff I can’t control.
I haven’t got the luxury of being upset. It’s a waste of time. A waste of my head space. It happened, and shit is bound to get better. Isn’t it? I’ll get my own back on my uncle. It’s only a matter of time.
Perhaps my weird silence has made Luke uncomfortable, as he springs away from the desk.
“Okay, I’ll add you to the taxi list then.
I don’t know if Tilly mentioned it, but the club will make sure you get home safe.
Working late is a risk that we want to mitigate as much as possible.
So there are a few shared taxies for any of our staff that need them,” he says a little robotically, as if he’s quoting someone else word for word.
“When it’s time to go home, I’ll arrange that for you.” He digs into a drawer.
“Thank you. That’s very kind,” I blurt out.
I’m glad he can’t see my face. I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but inside I’m panicking.
What am I going to say to the taxi driver?
“Oh, it’s the third garage on the left.” Oh my god, will I have to pretend to walk to some stranger’s front door?
Maybe pretend to open the door so the taxi driver and other staff members know that I’m home safe. What happens if they don’t drive away?
Gah, I rub my temple.
This is a great start to my new job so far. I know I’ll have to go straight to the gym. It was something that I was going to do anyway, at least tonight’s shift, as tomorrow morning I start work at six and it only gives me a four-hour break between.
My entire body groans with the thought. I know my work schedule is ridiculous.
At least I have time to get in a power nap.
Tilly has juggled the rotas for the next few weeks, so I shouldn’t start Saturday shifts until the afternoon.
Tomorrow is going to be hard like today.
I have a double shift and then the nightclub shift.
It’s only a twenty-hour working day on maybe three hours of sleep… if I am lucky.
I have to keep Dexter in cat food after all.
Luke finds what he’s looking for and slaps a fancy-looking datapad on the desk. He grins at me. “Complete the questions on this baby, and I’ll get you hooked up with a club T-shirt and a locker.”
I hook the corner of the datapad with my fingers and pull it across the desk towards me. “Okay, thank you,” I say as I tentatively return his smile.
“No problem. I’ll be back in a few.”
I tap the electronic pad, and the screen comes to life. The forms are quite simple. I strum the desk as I take a few moments to ponder what address to put down.
I decide to continue using my grandad’s address. It matches the information that Tilly has got for me, and it’s the address on my identification.
I hum as I answer all the usual questions and fall into the flow of things: answer a question, click next—answer another few questions, click next—add my bank details, click next… so I don’t even think twice about it when it asks me to put my thumb on a little nodule.
There’s a sharp sting of pain as a hidden tiny needle sticks into my thumb and then disappears back into the device.
“What the fuck, fuckety, fuck.”
I jump out of the chair and fling the datapad away from me. It clatters onto the desk. I rapidly back away, and I stare at the drop of blood on my thumb with growing fear.
The bloody thing bit me!
Pure panic hits me so hard my heart pounds and I feel dizzy. It’s got my DNA. It’s got my DNA.
Oh bloody hell.
Everything inside me is screaming for me to run away. Instead, I cringe and on wobbly legs stumble back to the desk. I drop inelegantly back into the chair. My knees tremble way too hard to keep me upright. The rapid beat of my heart yet to slow.
I huddle as my eyes dart about. I wait with dread for something bad to happen. A minute ticks by, then two as the datapad reads my freaky blood.
When the world keeps turning, I force myself to relax. No alarms sound.
Tru, you divvy, it’s for the biometric security system.
“Damn it, Luke.” I rub my sore digit. A bit of a warning would have been nice. Shit, I almost had a heart attack. I thought the biometric scanner was an eye scan or perhaps a thumbprint, not blood!
As a general rule, creatures don’t give others access to their bodily fluids.
Especially blood, a dangerous witch would have a field day.
What the heck have I got myself into? The job is for a glass collector.
Why the hell this business needs my blood to collect glasses…
It’s nuts. I have an almost uncontrollable urge to smash the crap out of the tech and scurry off home. But I refrain.
God, coming to work here might be the worst decision I’ve ever made.
I force myself again to relax. Well, relax as much as I can with my first-day nerves. I pick the datapad back up, and with now-trembling hands, I finish answering the questions.
As soon as I’m done, as if by magic, the door swings open to a smiling Luke.