Chapter 28 The Beggar and the Hotel
The Beggar and the Hotel
Dylan’s POV
I didn’t look back at them and acted as if I didn’t notice them. I kept washing my hands, trying to figure out how to get out of that situation. I wanted to call Liam but I had left my phone with him.
I watched them through the mirror because looking back meant I had figured out why they were there and whatever they were looking to get from me, I would be making it easier for them.
One of them adjusted like he was trying not to act suspicious, he faced the urinal but he kept looking back at me.
“Excuse me,” A man said as he walked inside the restroom. He seemed to be in a hurry to pee.
I took the opportunity and walked directly to the door and pushed through it and kept walking. When I reached the corridor, it was busy enough that I found Liam immediately, standing exactly where I had left him. He looked at me the moment I arrived and read my face before I reached him.
“Everything okay?” He asked as I walked up to him.
“Yeah, let’s go,” I said, already walking towards the door.
He didn’t ask questions. He fell into step beside me and we walked with the crowd toward the main exit and through the glass doors and out into the cold evening air, and I didn’t look behind us until we were across the street.
They didn’t follow us because I didn’t see anybody suspicious afterwards.
Liam led me around the corner and away from the busy street, onto a quieter road beside it. The cold wrapped around us, our breath forming small clouds in the air. After a minute of walking with no one behind us, the tight feeling in my chest started to ease a little.
Our hands found each other on instinct and our fingers linked naturally. It has become something natural between us, one minute we are sitting or walking, the next minute we are leaning on each other. We walked on the street like kids having a good time while the city moved around us at its evening pace.
We passed an old man sitting on a flattened cardboard box against the wall of a closed shop. He had a paper cup in front of him and a blanket across his lap that wasn’t doing enough to cover him from the cold. I reached into my jacket pocket with my free hand, already knowing what was there, the notes I had folded in before the movie.
Liam grabbed my hand immediately, stopping me from taking out the money. I looked at him and his eyes were on the old man, and the expression on his face was the careful, controlled one that meant he was seeing something I wasn’t.
“Don’t give him anything,” he said quietly.
I looked at the man again. He was watching us with the patient, weathered attention of someone who had learned to read passersby quickly and accurately. His eyes moved between us in a way that was slightly too deliberate for someone simply hoping for change.
“Let’s go,” Liam said, already dragging me behind him.
“You are a wicked person. How stingy can you be to stop a good person from doing a good thing!” The old man’s voice echoed behind us, loud and sharp all of a sudden like the opposite of his quiet posture.
“I will make sure you pay for this!” He shouted, his voice echoed through the quiet street.
I felt guilty and angry at the same time. Someone needed help and Liam called me away. Liam’s grip stayed firm and he kept walking without looking at me. I matched his pace and the man’s voice faded behind us as we turned to another corner.
We crossed the road, he flagged a cab, we got in, he shut the door and the city outside became the muffled, passing version of itself through the windows.
I looked at him. “Why did you do that?”
He kept his eyes forward for a moment. “He was watching us, that man isn’t a beggar.
“How did you know that? You are getting too paranoid lately and it doesn’t make sense.” I said.
“When we were going to the theater the man wasn’t there. He didn’t raise his cup to ask others for money but when we passed, he did… Why would a beggar come out at night, in this winter cold?” He asked. “You heard his voice change after I stopped you, isn’t that enough?”
He was making sense actually. A lot has happened lately and this doesn’t look coincidental to me after giving it much thought.
“When I went to make use of the restroom, two men came inside. They were kinda suspicious, I don’t know how to describe it but it felt like they were waiting for me.” I said and Liam listened without interrupting, his attention completely on what I was saying.
When I finished he was quiet for a moment.
“I’m trying to figure out why they are doing this,” he said. “They are not only watching us but tracking our movements and putting people in places we’re likely to go.” He looked out the window. “Someone knew we were at the theater today.”
The cab moved through the evening traffic and I thought about the woman who had come as my aunt and offered me a chocolate that nearly killed me. Do other vampires know I’m a member of an anti-vampire group? Is that why they are targeting me because from what’s happening, it doesn’t seem like Liam is the problem, I’m the problem but how can I ask him for help without revealing myself.
“We can’t go back to our apartment tonight,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s too risky, we have to find somewhere we can easily boycott any threat for today.” He said
He leaned forward and gave the driver a different address.
The cab pulled up in front of a hotel that looked like it was made of gold. It was so clean and unbothered by the business of its guests. We checked in under his name, which was not the name anyone looking for us would be searching for tonight. We took the elevator to the fourth floor and closed the door behind us and both sat on the edge of the bed in silence.
“Are you hungry?” He asked.
“No, I’m full already.” I said.
He smirked and scooted closer.
“You must have had enough milk?” He whispered.
“What milk are…” That was when my mind comprehended what he was talking about and I became shy. “Stop being dirty.”
Later, when the city outside had gone quiet, we lay in the dark and I listened to Liam’s breathing even out beside me and felt my own body finally begin to release the tension it had been holding since we left the theater.
Then three knocks landed on the door.
We looked at each other in the dark.
“Who could be knocking? We didn’t order anything.” Liam said looking surprised.