Page 48 of Drawn to Death
Quell keeps holding my hand. For the first time in years, I let myself breathe without counting the seconds, without checking for danger, without waiting for the next bad thing.
Maybe this won’t last. Maybe we’re not safe.
But with the morning light in our faces, and Quell’s fingers tangled with mine, it feels like enough.
Chapter twenty-four
Quell
The car slows as we round the last bend in the coastal road; the tires crunching over gravel and sand, like some memory of a holiday I never took. I catch my breath at the first glimpse of the house through a gap in the pines. Not a cabin. Not some safe house with blackout curtains and reinforced doors. This is a sprawling, weathered house, stone and wood, as if the coast itself has grown a home. Sunlight flashes on wide windows and a wraparound porch. Ivy climbs one corner, its green fingers reaching for the slate-blue roof. The ocean glitters beyond, a low, steady roar that’s followed us the last mile.
“Talon,” I say, not tearing my eyes away as we roll to a stop. “What is this place?”
He doesn’t answer at first. He just kills the engine and sits there, hands on the wheel. Five days of driving; switching cars, taking back roads, sleeping in cheap motels with the curtains pulled tight, and I’ve gotten used to the tense line of his mouth, the constant checking of mirrors, the way he never seems torelax. But now there’s something else on his face. Not relief. Something softer. Reverence, maybe.
“My grandparents’ house,” he signs, voice low, almost careful. “Used to be, anyway. Now it’s mine.”
I look at the house again. This isn’t a hiding place. It's a home. Talon’s home.
“I didn’t know you had grandparents.” It sounds stupid as soon as I say it. Of course he has grandparents. But Talon always seems like he’s just appeared one day, fully formed, with nothing behind him but guns and shadows.
His mouth twitches. Not a smile, but close. “Had. They’re gone.”
We get out. The salt wind hits me, full of pine and ocean. It tastes different here. Cleaner, maybe. Real. I stretch, feeling the ache in my legs from hours in the car. The sun is honest, not filtered through city haze. Warm on my skin.
Talon goes to the trunk and grabs the bags; two each, everything we have left. I follow him up a path made of flat stones, half-sunk in sand and beach grass. My shoe catches on the edge. Up close, I see more: the faded blue shutters, sea glass wind chimes on the porch, the wooden railing worn smooth by years of salt and storms.
Three steps onto the porch. The boards creak under us. Talon sets the bags down and digs out a key, an actual key, big and old, tarnished brass. No keypad, no scanner, nothing high-tech. Just a key.
“No one knows about this place,” he says, fitting it into the lock. “Not Vincenzo. Not anyone from that life. When I left, I cut everything. No calls, no visits, no trail. Nothing that could lead here.”
The lock turns. The door swings open. Sunlight pours in, catching dust motes that spin like tiny stars. The air inside is salt and wood and quiet, just waiting.
“How long’s it been?” I step inside.
“Eight years. Twelve since they died.”
I look at him, surprised. “You kept it all this time?”
He nods, eyes flicking around the room, cataloging every detail. “I paid a local guy to check it once a year. Roof, windows, whatever. I never came back. Wasn’t safe.”
“But now it is?”
He meets my gaze. “No. Just safer than anywhere else. And my folks would have wanted you to see it.”
That lands like a punch.They would have wanted you to see it.Me. The artist. The dreamer. The guy who’s seen through Talon’s eyes for years before we ever met. Now I’m standing in the home of the people who loved him, before he became a weapon.
The entryway opens into a big, open room with a high, peaked ceiling. Furniture stands around draped in white sheets, like ghosts waiting for us to wake them. One wall is all built-in bookshelves, crammed with old books, their spines faded and sun-bleached. A stone fireplace takes up most of the far wall, and windows look out over a deck and a strip of private beach. The waves roll in, steady and endless.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, which sounds weak, but it’s all I have. It is beautiful, but it's so much more than that. It's more than I've ever had in my life.
Talon moves past me, pulling sheets off furniture. Underneath are worn leather couches, a coffee table with a tide chart carved right into the wood, and armchairs aimed at the view, not each other. The dust makes me sneeze, but beneath it, I catch something else, a trace of lemon oil, maybe, or just the memory of it, soaked into the wood.
“My grandmother was an artist,” Talon announces, yanking another sheet free. “Not professional. Just for herself. She painted the sea. Said it never looked the same twice.”
I stare at him. He’s never told me anything about his past. Not ever.
“There’s a studio upstairs,” he adds, not looking at me. “North windows. Good light. You could use it if you wanted.”
