18. Quell
Chapter eighteen
Quell
I wake surrounded by silence. Not the hollow, echoing kind that usually lingers after my nightmares, but something softer, a gentle pause, like the hush between heartbeats.
Morning light spills through the blinds, striping the floor of my studio in pale gold.
For the first time in weeks, my head feels clear, not weighed down by someone else’s death.
I flex my fingers, half expecting them to ache, but they are loose and painless.
No cramps from clutching pencils all night, no need to exorcise bloody visions onto paper.
Just one night of dreamless sleep, and I almost feel normal.
The floorboards are cold under my feet as I pad across the studio. My toes curl at the chill, but it grounds me, a sharp, real sensation, anchoring me to this morning, not some haunted memory.
I stretch, arms up, feeling the slow, pleasant pull in muscles that haven’t spent the night tensed in fear.
Instead, Talon held me as I drifted off, his arm heavy and warm around my waist, his breath soft against the back of my neck.
He was still there when I woke up, though he slipped out earlier, mumbling something about checking the perimeter, making sure everything was secure. Always on duty, always watching.
But for once, I am not scared of what the day will bring. The woman with the gray curls is not a death dream. Maybe things are shifting. Maybe I am too.
I drift over to the drafting table in the corner, where the light is brightest. It is a mess: jars stained with charcoal water, pencils worn down to stubs, half-finished sketches I can’t bring myself to complete.
It was good of Talon to bring my things from my apartment, but they don’t interest me today.
I push them aside, clearing a patch of bare wood.
Today I want to draw something for myself, not for the nightmares.
My hand hovers over the pencils, picking one with a soft lead. Not the hard, sharp ones I use for the visions, the ones that scrape every detail of death onto the page with cold precision. This will be different. Gentler. Closer.
I pick a new sheet, thick and rough, the kind that drags the pencil, that clings to every mark, that makes you work for it. The kind I use before the visions, before my sketches start charting other people’s last moments.
My first mark is careful. A slow, shallow curve, a jawline.
Talon’s jawline, the one I trace in the dark with my fingertips.
I put down another line, the slope of his shoulder when he sleeps.
Then the hollow at his throat, where his neck meets the collar.
I draw from memory: Talon at rest, Talon when no one is watching, Talon with all his sharp edges folded away.
The pencil makes a soft, steady whisper as I work, the paper’s texture catching the graphite, roughing up the lines just enough to make them feel real. I let myself get lost in it, the repetition, the gentle push and pull, the way the image comes together in slow, deliberate layers.
“I just want to draw him smiling,” I mutter, not meaning to say it at all. My voice sounds thin in the empty room. When was the last time I drew someone smiling? When was the last time I drew anything except the moment right before it all ends?
I keep going, adding the lines at the corners of his eyes, the shape his mouth makes when he is truly at ease. It is coming along, better than I hoped. No visions, no warnings. Just a portrait. Just Talon.
But then something shifts.
My hand keeps moving, but the drawing changes. His head, once relaxed, now tilts forward. The shoulders, loose, pull tight. My fingers work without me, scribbling in new lines, sharper lines. The curve of his wrist straightens out, becomes his arm, extends, holding something I don’t mean to draw.
“No,” I mutter, but my hand keeps moving, anyway.
The shadows deepen around him, no longer that gentle morning haze in our bedroom but something colder, heavier. A void, really. Talon kneeling right in the middle of it, back straight, shoulders set, like he is bracing for something.
My breath snags as I add the last piece, the gun. Not pointed at anyone, just there, loose in his grip, barrel against his thigh. His eyes are shut in the drawing, face all calm and unreadable, the way he always looks when he kills, except this isn’t that. Not a kill. Something else.
“This one isn’t a nightmare,” I say, mostly to myself. My voice sounds thin. “It’s a goodbye.”
My hands shake as I stare at what I’ve done. The graphite looks darker now, shadows pressing in. I know what that means. This isn’t just a sketch anymore. It is a vision. Something set in motion already.
But it isn’t Talon killing. It is Talon alone, gun in hand, kneeling, like he is giving in or getting ready to, I can’t tell. There’s a kind of peace to it, but it makes my chest hurt.
My heart thumps hard and fast. This can’t be real. Not for him. Not for us. I yank the page out, crumple it in my fist. I’ll start over. Draw something new. Something that doesn’t end like this.
I get a clean sheet, and try to go back to my first idea.
Talon smiling. Talon just… calm. But my hand won’t listen.
Instead, the same image comes out, line after line: Talon kneeling, the gun raised like he could be offering it to someone, with that look on his face.
The acceptance. Every shadow, every angle, exactly as before.
“Stop,” I mutter, but my hand doesn’t care. It keeps going, making the same picture over and over.
I try again. And again. Each time, the same thing. Like the image brands itself into my bones, and now it is coming out no matter what I want.
By the fifth try, I give up. My hands are shaking so much I can barely hold the pencil. I spread the drawings out, searching for anything different, any clue. But they are basically clones. The way his knee presses the floor. His thumb on the grip. The quiet, absolute stillness.
There isn’t any blood. No violence, not really. Just Talon, waiting. Or maybe accepting. That’s worse than the usual stuff I draw. Those are just death, fast and ugly. This is… waiting. Holding your breath. The second before.
My legs buckle and I drop into the chair, still gripping a drawing. The studio walls squeeze in, the air turning thick and sticky. I can’t breathe right. My vision narrows until all I can see is Talon’s face, waiting for the end.
I have to do something. I always upload my visions; that is the ritual, the way to make them real, but this one? Oh, hell no. Not Talon. Not this. But I need a record, need the timestamp, need proof for myself if not for the world.
My hands are shaking as if I’ve just mainlined adrenaline.
I scan the clearest of the drawings, nearly dropping the damn thing twice, then fumble my way through a private upload.
Locked file, just for me. Date and time stamped right there in the metadata.
Evidence. A little digital “fuck you” to fate.
When it is done, I gather up the sketches, fingers still trembling, heart doing some kind of tap dance against my ribs.
No way I can leave them out. What if Talon sees?
He’s been so careful with me, so gentle, even when he’s out there killing for my sake.
He’s chosen me. Defended me to Vincenzo.
And now my visions are showing me his end.
In my bedroom, I find an envelope in the side table drawer, cram the drawings inside, and bury it under a pile of old sketchbooks. Not Fort Knox, but hidden enough for now. I’ll find a better spot later, maybe somewhere even I can’t find them if I’m not looking.
The room feels colder now. Morning light comes in like a slap instead of a caress, harsh and exposing. I hug myself, trying to stop the tremors that start in my fingers and are now threatening to take over my entire body.
“It hasn’t happened yet,” I whisper, as if saying it will make it true. “That means I can stop it. Right?”
But the words sound pathetic, even to me. I’ve never stopped a vision before. Never changed what I see. The drawings always come true, every single time. That’s the curse, the burden, the ugly little truth I’ve been living with for years.
I stare at the empty page on my drafting table, the blankness almost offensive after what I’ve just put down. My pencil lies abandoned, gray smudges on the wood where my fingers clutched it too tight.
The silence presses in, almost suffocating. In all the time I’ve been drawing deaths, I’ve never seen someone I love. Never captured a future that feels like losing a limb. The rules have changed, and I am completely, utterly lost.
All I know is that somewhere, somehow, a clock has started ticking for Talon. And I have no idea how to stop it.