Page 45 of Drawn to Death
“Talon?” My voice comes out thin, a cracked whisper.
No answer. Just the distant hum of the fridge and the sound of my own lungs. I try standing, but my legs are jelly and my hands won’t stop shaking. The room tilts for a second, and I have to grab the wall just to stay upright. Great. I’m about to faint again.
Then I hear a zipper. The muffled slam of a drawer. The sound is coming from the bedroom. Relief hits me so hard I nearly drop back to the floor. He is still here. He hasn’t left. Not yet.
I shuffle down the hallway, one hand trailing along the wall. The bedroom door is half-open, yellow light cutting across the dark flooring. I push it wider and just… stop.
Talon has his back to me, bent over the bed. He is packing, but not like a normal person. Every movement is tidy, practiced. Like he could do this in his sleep. He has all his bags packed. All the things you’d need if you want to vanish.
“You’re leaving.” It hurts to say it. Like swallowing broken glass.
He doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t turn around. Of course not. Talon always knows exactly where I am. That’s how he survives.
“Yes.” His voice is flat. Not angry, not sad. Just… gone.
I step into the room, pulled forward by something I don’t understand. My body feels wrong, like it belongs to someone else. “When were you going to tell me?”
He turns, slow and careful, his face wiped clean of emotion. But his eyes are different. There’s a shadow there, something I’ve never seen before. “I was hoping you’d stay unconscious until I was gone.”
“That’s cruel.” My voice cracks. I hate how weak it sounds.
“It’s kinder than watching you break.” He goes back to packing, rolling up a shirt and tucking it in the bag. “You need to be free of this. Of me. Of all of it.”
“Free?” The word is sour on my tongue.
“No more deaths.” He looks at me, just for a second, then away. “No more dreams. No more blood on your hands because of me.”
I stare at his hands. The same hands that kill, clean up bodies, hold me when I wake up screaming. Now they’re just… packing. Getting ready to erase himself from my life.
“And what about my choice?” I say.
His shoulders tense, just a fraction. “That choice nearly broke you today. You couldn't pull the trigger. It does something to you.” He zips the bag. It sounds sharp and final, like a gunshot in the quiet. “I won’t watch that happen again.”
“So you’re just… leaving?” I take a step closer. “Just like that?”
“Yes.” He turns, catches my eye. His gaze is steady, unflinching. The kind of look you get from someone who’s already grieved what he’s about to lose. “You’ll be safe. Vincenzo will come after me, not you. Just follow my instructions. The dreams will stop once I’m gone. You can have a real life, Quell. Draw what you want. Sleep through the night. Be normal.”
Normal. The word stings more than I want to admit. Normal hasn’t been an option for me, not since the first vision, the first death, the first time I saw through a killer’s eyes. But Talon is holding it out to me like something precious. Like something he’s willing to bleed for, just to give it to me.
I look at the bags, at how ready he is to go. At the man who has become the only steady thing in a world full of blood and nightmares. And something breaks open inside me; not the brittle thing that shatters when he puts the gun in my hand,but something older. Something I bury so deep I think it’s gone. Suddenly, it’s all spilling out.
I move before I can think. Three quick steps and my arms are around him, my face pressed into his chest, my hands fisted in the back of his shirt. He goes rigid, startled, like he’s never been hugged before.
“You were already gone, and I couldn’t breathe,” I say into his shirt, the words muffled and shaky. “I felt it when I woke up. That emptiness. That silence.” I hold on tighter, like I can keep him from disappearing. “I don’t want silence if it means I lose you.”
His hands hover at his sides, not touching me, not pushing me away. Just hanging there, awkward and uncertain. “Quell…”
“I drew your death because I’m scared of what your life will do to me,” I blurt, rushing the words out before he can shut me down. “Because I know what we’re turning into. Because I don’t want to care if you live or die.” I pull back just enough to look at him, to make sure he’s really seeing me. “But I do care. I care so much it scares me.”
Something flickers in his eyes; a crack in the mask, maybe, or just surprise.
“The dreams are always torture,” I say, voice shaking. “Always, until you. Until I know whose eyes I’m seeing through. Until the killer has a name, and a face, and arms that hold me through the night.” I’m crying now; I know it, but I don’t care. “You kill people. And you still hold me like I matter.”
One of his hands lifts, slow and hesitant, and settles on my back. Just the weight of it, warm and solid, makes my breath catch.
“I do,” he says, voice so soft I almost miss it. “You do matter.”
“Then come with me. Follow your own damn instructions and come with me.” I press my forehead to his chest, listening to his heartbeat, steady and strong. “Even if it kills us.”
