Page 3 of Drawn to Death
Sometimes, people message me. Sometimes they say nothing helpful. Once, someone claimed I’d drawn their missing brother. We investigate, but they only care about me telling them wherehis body was, information I don’t have. Then they sent me a threatening letter. I deleted the email.
Now I don’t reply. I don’t want the weight of real people tethered to my ghosts. But, standing here in my darkest hour, I wonder if their idea for a séance makes more sense than I let on.
My yawn tells me that’s tomorrow’s problem. Time to take a sleeping tablet and sink into the void.
Chapter three
Talon
I’ve been watching him for three days. The man who draws death like he’s seen it up close. Pencil-sharp and unblinking. Quell. Weird name for someone who stirs up this much trouble.
My car is parked across from his apartment building. Engine off. Windows tinted just enough that nobody can see in, but not enough to scream, “I’m hiding.” I have the camera on my lap. Through the lens, his third-floor apartment is right there, every ordinary movement blown up big and clear. He doesn’t look like someone who should know about the things I do in the dark.
The telephoto lens makes it all too real. Same faded blue sweater for the second day. Hair sticking up in the back, like he’s slept rough and doesn’t care. When he stretches, it’s a long, slow arc, almost graceful. Catlike. I snap a few pictures. Documenting the boring stuff, like always, but with no kill order tagged on the end.
Just gathering intel. That’s what I tell myself. Standard procedure before termination, without the paycheck.
But nothing about this feels standard. Three days of watching, and I’ve got nothing. No visitors. No weird phone calls. No secret meetings. Just a pale, skinny person drinking buckets of tea and sketching so hard he forgets to eat.
I don't want to end this guy. I want to walk in there and tell him to get his shit together. To shower in the morning, to eat three square meals rather than nibbling when his belly tells him it's empty. Sleep when it's dark, live when it's light. Normal things most humans can manage. This boy doesn't need taking out; he needs looking after.
Quell goes to the window again. The mugs of tea are stacked beside the drawing table, like little ceramic towers. I zoom in on his hands. Graphite all over the edge of the palm, the pinky, under the nails. Working hands. Artist’s hands. Not the hands of someone who’s messed with our business. Someone needs to tell him to wash them.
Someone. But not me. That isn’t me, not anymore. I'm a cold-blooded killer now.
I drop the camera onto the passenger seat and rub my eyes. My back is killing me from sitting here so long. The car’s gone cold, and the chill in my chest hasn’t let up either.
Vincenzo wants this sorted out. That’s my job, sorting things out. Usually, the answer is simple: a silenced bullet, a quick accident, a vanishing act nobody bothers to question. But this isn’t usual. This isn’t a rival, or a witness, or some loose thread. This is something I can’t put into words.
I pick up my phone, thumb through the screenshots I’ve saved from Quell’s site.Dreamscream.pro.Stupid name for a death gallery. Each sketch stamped with a time, some cryptic brief note about “visions” or “dreams.” But every one is dead-on, a perfect snapshot of someone’s last second.
Someone I’ve killed. Someone my colleagues have killed. Colleagues isn't the right word. Other hitmen.
I've been grouping the drawings by killer. Some were easy; Vincenzo remembers who he paid for each body, allowing me to group them, even if he wouldn't give me the names. But others have no paper trail, understandable given the lives we lead.
The pile that are mine haunts me the most. Images of people I allowed myself to forget about. I don’t dwell on the past, but seeing the frozen images forces me to relive those moments.
The fourth picture makes me pause. I know the guy right away. Samuel Reeves. Fourteen months back. Private job, solo, no witnesses. I got him in a hotel room in Cincinnati. Tied his wrists with black zip ties. Asked the questions I needed to ask. Then finished it with a single shot. Clean. Quiet. Gone.
Quell has never been to Cincinnati. I'm struggling to find evidence of him leaving his house for anything other than paint and coffee. His daily visit to the coffee shop down the block is the closest thing this guy has to a routine… or social life. He wouldn’t know a healthy lifestyle if it bit him. He needs someone to drag him into the real world, make him eat something green. But that’s not my job. I’m not here to save him.
The drawing captures the exact second before I squeeze the trigger. The angle is wrong for a witness. It's from where I stood. It’s as though the artist has crawled inside my skull, seen through my eyes. The light from the dime-store bedside lamp throws shadows just the way I remember. The loose thread on Reeves’ collar that irritated me throughout the interrogation. The water stain on the floor, shaped like Africa.
Things I’d never told anyone. Things I’d almost forgotten myself.
It can’t be a fluke. It can’t be detective work. There isn’t a police report with those details. No witness.
But here it is, in front of me, every detail perfect and damning, drawn by someone who shouldn’t have a clue.
I start the car, knowing I have to get closer.
Breaking into Quell’s apartment is almost embarrassing. The security is a joke, a single camera in the lobby I dodge by taking the fire escape, and locks that feel like they’ll give if I just look at them hard enough. I pick the deadbolt in under thirty seconds, slip inside like a thought.
The apartment is dark except for a thin slice of streetlight peeking through the curtains. I stand there, not moving, letting my eyes adjust, breathing in the place. Pencil dust. Tea that’s gone cold. The stale smell of paper, and laundry that hasn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in a while. The personal scent of someone used to being alone.
I make my way across the hardwood, careful not to hit the boards that might creak. The apartment is straightforward: one main room that doubles as living and studio, a kitchenette off to the side, a bathroom, and, behind a closed door, what I guess is a bedroom.
The drawing table takes center stage. It’s set up near the window, slanted to catch the light, with a mess of crumpled paper all around it. I crouch by the trash can and pick up one of the rejects. Even Quell’s throwaways are better than what most people can manage. This one is a woman, half her face missing, the rest abandoned mid-sketch. Not one of mine, but I still wonder who she is.
