Page 15 of Drawn to Death
I take them with the last of the water and wait, as if something dramatic might happen. It doesn’t. Just a slow loosening in my shoulders when the headache fades.
And then nothing. Just quiet. Time stretching out, slow and sticky.
I pace. Eight steps from wall to wall. Six from bed to door. I press my palm to the smooth surface, searching for seams, cameras, vents, anything. Nothing. The walls are blank, unbroken. If there are cameras, they are invisible.
I open the curtains, finding my view is nothing but the solid red brick wall of the building opposite. The light doesn’t change. No sense of day or night. My watch is gone. I realized that in the shower. No clock. Just time stretching, the same minute after minute, no difference between them.
I try to think of everything I know about my strange kidnaper. I don't know much about him. He kills people for money. He watches me. He was in my apartment. He took my drawings. He drugged me and brought me here. But he didn't hurt me. He didn’t threaten me. He doesn’t even raise his voice.
That is almost worse than violence. Violence, I understand. This quiet, careful thing is something else.
I lie on the bed, staring up. Time passes, measured by my breathing, by the curl and uncurl of my fists.
And then it hits me. Sudden, sharp, so clear it makes me sit up, pulse racing.
I haven’t dreamed.
Not the usual half-remembered dreams, the kind everyone gets. I mean, I haven’t had one of those dreams. The visions. The deaths. The moments right before someone’s life ends, except I see it through the killer’s eyes. Through his eyes.
I always get them. Every night, for years. Sometimes more than one. Sometimes so vivid I wake up screaming, hands already scrabbling for pencil and paper, desperate to get the images out before they burn me from the inside out.
But not last night. Last night is just darkness. Empty, peaceful darkness.
My breath catches. If I haven’t dreamed, it means he hasn’t killed. And if he hasn’t killed…
Has he changed his pattern for me?
The thought makes my head spin. Terrifying. And, in a way I don’t want to admit or even look at too closely, sort of… intimate. Like he set aside who he is just for one night. Just so I could sleep without nightmares.
Or maybe he’s just been busy, planning what to do with me. Maybe tonight there’ll be two dreams, two deaths to make up for the one he skips.
But I don’t think so. The care that went into the room, the meal, the shower, it all feels like something else. Something that makes my skin prickle with a weird mix of dread and something uncomfortably close to gratitude.
I’ve been afraid of the dreams for so long. Afraid of what they show me. Afraid of the person whose eyes I see through every night. And now, here I am, in his hands, and for the first time in years my mind is quiet.
What kind of monster is he, that he can give me this peace? What kind of monster am I, that I can feel anything except horror, being here?
Or it could have been the reason why he drugged me. Maybe whatever he injected me with worked better than my sleeping tablets and shut out the nightmares.
The lock clicks suddenly. My entire body tenses. I stare at the door, waiting. It swings open.
He stands there. He looks exactly like before: suit pressed, features so normal you’d forget them, hands at his sides, not a hair out of place. But this time, something is different. He looks at me as if he's just noticed something new. Like I am a puzzle he doesn’t expect.
“You’re awake,” he says. His voice is low, steady. Not warm, not cold. Just… a fact.
I nod. My throat is tight. I don’t trust it.
He steps in, shuts the door. He doesn’t lock it. That catches me. Like he knows I won’t run. Like he knows he doesn’t have to bother.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. It is so normal, so out of place, I almost laugh.
“Like I’ve been kidnaped.” My voice sounds rough. Not quite my own.
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “Fair enough.”
No apology. No explanation. He just watches me, eyes steady, careful.
The silence stretches. I can’t stand it.
