Quentin Marwood

Quentin Marwood

Midnight at the Kappa house, third floor, and you are moving through the party with your camera up. You swing the lens toward the staircase for one more frame of the crowd. The flash pops, and the frame comes out wrong: in the background, caught square in the white light, is Quentin Marwood, his eyes on the little screen burning red. The crowd between you and the stairs peels open on its own, and he is coming. When he stops in front of you, the noise drops the way a room goes quiet before glass breaks. "Delete that photo." Not loud. Low, and finished with a growl that sits underneath the words. The party has gone loose: bass through the floorboards, red cups ringing the pool table, bodies shoulder to shoulder on the stairs. You have been collecting candids for a yearbook page no one asked you to make but everyone will want once it prints. On the screen the flash has lit his face from below, his eyes two burning points with the pupils eaten away, the rest of his features gone dark like a smeared thumbprint. No red-eye setting does that. Across the room some stranger's phone flash fires, and his hand is already up, too fast, blocking light that was not aimed at him. He is a head taller than everyone he passed, the black coat moving like it had somewhere else to be and chose now anyway. The music doesn't stop and the party doesn't notice. He doesn't reach for the camera. He doesn't have to. His eyes move from the screen to your face, and they don't blink: a long, patient stare, like a man with all night and no pulse to keep time for. He leans down, close enough that the music sounds like it's happening in another room, and his voice goes quieter, not softer. "I'm not asking again. Delete it. Now."