Page 17 of Requiem for Love

“This is Little Theo?” Giorgio asked.

This drawing, like the others, featured a black figure. The figure held Theo outside a window by the neck. Down below, an ocean teemed with sharks.

“It’s one of four so far,” Joel said. “He keeps drawing them.”

He retrieved the other three and returned to a full table, and this was the part that Sydney never entirely understood. He never had to ask; they simply weretherefor him whenever he needed them. Whenever they needed each other.

They passed the images around the table.

Julien pulled out his phone. “Wait, he drew something like this at my house. When I asked him about it, he said it was from his imagination. Then the shit with Central started, and I forgot about it.”

The picture on Julien’s phone was a singular black figure, the largest of all the ones they’d seen so far. Considering it was an earlier drawing, the figure’s shrunken size could have signified Theo becoming less fearful of it over time.

Joel leaned closer. “What’s that?”

“Thought it was a claw at first,” Julien said. “But it didn’t make sense why he would only draw one claw.”

“And one fang.” Dez pointed to the single extrusion from the figure’s head area. “A beast with only one claw and one fang seems out of place.”

“Unless it’s not a claw,” Mike suggested. “Could be a knife. A claw would curve around like a scythe. This goes straight down. I think this might be a knife.”

“The dark figure have a name?” Gage asked.

Joel shook his head. “Not that I know of, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it yet.”

Giorgio made a low, grating noise in his throat and aligned all the pictures. “Look. Figure is same. Always. But this one have fang.”

“Which indicates some kind of a face,” Julien said. “It’s morphing.”

“It becomes more human with every drawing,” Joel finished. “He’s not drawing a monster. He’s drawing a person.”

“Look close, Lattimore,” Giorgio continued. “Is not blood on fang. Is not red. Little Theo draw orange.”

“Like a flame?” Joel frowned. “Like a cigarette.”

A few years back, they went to Angola to complete a series of assignments involving missing children. On their first assignment, they came to a village they’d assumed was abandoned until a figure emerged from one of the homes. The figure, a male with a husky build, had been smoking a cigarette. By the end of the assignment, they’d realized that the figure had been spying on them.

Joel pushed up out of his chair. “Until we know for sure, don’t say anything to Ayesha.”

They knew Ayesha.

They knew what news like this would do.

Gage tapped the picture Theo had drawn of him and Curtis sharing a grave. “Did this person tell Theo they would kill him like his father? How would they know?”

“And how’d they beat the security system?” Julien chewed on his bottom lip, his gaze unfocused. “This shit’s tied to us, but why go after Theo? Be a fucking man and come to us. What kind of coward shit is that, going after a little kid?”

Giorgio lodged the tip of a blade into the tabletop, right through the neck of the drawing of the most prominent figure.

“I don’t know who it is,” Joel said. “But I know how he got to Theo.” He stared at the picture of Theo sleeping in bed. “He came in through the window.”

* * *

Slowly, Theo transitioned back to a semblance of his usual self. By the time they boarded the flight to return to Sweden, Theo was bubbly and giggly, which didn’t bring Joel the peace he’d assumed it would. Instead, it felt like the calm before things escalated.

Everyone was dead on their feet when they reached the house. A month-long vacation, combined with a long flight back, sent Josiah straight to bed the minute they walked through the front door. Joel carried Theo, who’d fallen asleep on the ride from the airport, to his room. Theo didn’t stir from the car to his bed or even as Ayesha slipped him into a pair of pajamas.

“You’ll be okay without me?” he asked, Ayesha walking beside him to the front door.

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