Chapter Text
Long, slender fingers trembled slightly with each brush stroke. He paused. His attempt at painting happy little trees was starting to look like a rendition of a Tim Burton landscape. Accurate. Paint what you feel they said and it was apparent in his current creation. The small inkling that something was wrong (or about to become wrong) nagged him for the last few days. It came in waves – when it surfaced, he tried to figure out what it was but when it sank, the ghost of that feeling still lingered and it sometimes disrupted any important task he planned for the day. But now it came back with such force, he was starting to understand the picture.
He pushed his painting materials aside then closed his eyes. His mind buzzed at each thought, feeling, memory until he was able to pinpoint something vaguely familiar existing in the periphery of his mindscape. It glowed red with thinly-veiled anger but shivered with purple specks of fear.
He broke free from his trance, eyes wide with realization. Sweat collected near his brow and his mouth suddenly felt very dry. He crossed his work area to reach for the forgotten glass of water on his bedside table. Beside it was a small bottle of pills. He took them when his migraines proved too much. He downed the glass, ignoring the dull ache that was starting to form near his temples. His cat watched him from her place atop his bed.
Breathe Justin.
Closing his eyes and counting down from ten, he could feel his breathing return to normal. He looked around his small bedroom/studio searching for the phone he misplaced earlier. He had to contact the others; the distance among them made it difficult to reach out to them so he had to settle with the conventional method.
In the middle of his search, a new sensation nipped at his nape. Fingers lightly touched scarred skin, a token from his childhood. He pulled his hand back and grimaced. Now wasn’t the time for bringing up memories and his cat wasn’t helping with her constant meowing.
“Not now, Saoirse.”
He looked to his bed to tell her off, but his eyes drifted to his phone partially-buried underneath the pile of pillows.
“Good girl,” he petted her and reached for the device. It lit up with an incoming call, the name on the screen telling him that he knew.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Pablo,” he swallowed the lump in his throat and waited.
“…Jah, it’s Stell. They have him.”