Page 31 of Drawn to Death
Quell is mine. Not like I own him. Just… as a fact.
And if Vincenzo doesn’t like it, he can put me in the fucking ground himself.
The doors swing open on silent hinges, the kind of hush that probably costs more than most people make in a year. Golden light spills out, catches Quell’s face, makes him look almost painted in amber and shadow. His pulse jumps at his throat, a trapped bird, going wild under his skin. I keep my hand pressed to his back, fingers spread too wide to be subtle. Let them see. Let all of them see.
Vincenzo’s assistant nods once, motions us forward. Her face doesn’t move, not even a twitch. I recognize the effort it takes to keep it blank; I’ve spent years learning the same thing. But her eyes slide to my hand on Quell, just for a second, and I can tell she’s tucking that away for later.
Quell doesn’t belong here. You can read it in his body, the way his shoulders hunch in, or how his artist’s hands twitch at his sides. Those hands aren’t built for this world. They’re meant formaking things, not breaking them. For charcoal and graphite, not blood and gunpowder.
My hands, they only ever know how to break things. His rebuild them on paper.
I remember the first time I saw what those hands could do. The dark warehouse couldn't diminish the clarity of his work. It was a perfect rendering of the kill I made. Every detail was there, a final moment, frozen forever. An image only two people should have seen. The dead man. And me.
But there it was, captured in pencil by someone who hadn’t been there. Someone who’s only dreamed it.
I don’t believe in anything except the physical world, not really. Don’t need to. Life is complicated enough without adding whatever the hell that drawing means. But I can’t ignore what’s right in front of me. I can’t explain it away with logic or luck or some kind of delusion.
That drawing led me to Quell. The man who sees murders in his sleep and wakes up to draw them, every detail right. Who posts them online, like confessions nobody understands. Who, when we met, looked at me not with fear but with something else. Recognition, maybe. Like he’s always known me.
He sees through me. I still don’t know what that means, but he stays.
The hallway stretches ahead, designed to make you feel small. High ceilings, ornate molding, art on the walls worth more than most lives. The floor is Italian marble, gold-veined and polished so bright it reflects us back in strange shapes as we walk. Everything screams power, money, and the promise of consequence.
I’ve walked this corridor a hundred times, always on my own. Always with my head down, thinking about the job ahead. I know it perfectly: forty-seven steps from the entrance to the inner door. I know which paintings have been swapped out,which guards work which shifts. I’ve memorized every camera angle, every exit, every little flaw in the layout.
But walking it with Quell is different. It makes me notice things I haven’t before, the way the place is designed to unsettle visitors. The way everything about it is meant to intimidate.
Quell’s breathing changes. Quick, shallow. He’s trying to keep it together, not give anything away. But I feel it in the way his muscles tighten under my hand. See it in the way his jaw trembles, just a little. Hear it in the way he measures every breath.
“Don’t,” I warn, barely above a whisper.
He shoots me a look, not sure what I mean.
“Don’t hide it,” I tell him. “They always know. Trying to cover it up just makes them look harder.”
He lets out a small, shaky laugh. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.” Still, I press my hand a little firmer against his back. Maybe to steady him. Maybe to steady myself. “Just be what you are.”
He hesitates. “And what’s that?”
I look at him properly then. The dark circles under his eyes. The way his mouth is set, like he’s holding back a thousand things. The way he walks as if he’s carrying something heavy no one else can see.
“Brave,” I tell him. I mean it, too. It surprises me how much I mean it.
For a second, something flickers across his face, somewhere between disbelief and hope, but it leaves a mark all the same. Another crack in whatever’s left of my professional distance.
When did that happen? This slow erosion of everything I’ve built myself into? I can’t say the exact moment. Can’t tell you when the job becomes secondary to the man standing beside me.
I’ve spent my life being a ghost. Moving through spaces without leaving a mark. Doing what needs doing, then fading into the background. It’s not just training; it’s who I am. I don’t exist to be seen.
But Quell sees me anyway.
And now, walking these last few steps toward whatever Vincenzo has planned, I understand something I didn’t before. The job, the blood, the emptiness I’ve built for years, it doesn’t matter anymore. Not if it means losing him.
I don’t just want to keep Quell alive. I want to keep him untouched by the life I’ve lived. I want to keep him clean. I want to save him from the slow rot, the way it gets inside you, the way it scrapes out the softest parts and leaves you hollowed out and sharp.
Three more guards wait by the inner doors. They watch us come, faces flat and bored. One of them gives me a nod, the kind you give someone who knows the job. None of them nod to Quell. They don’t have to. In their world, he’s just leverage. Or maybe a loose end. Nothing worth a second look.
