Chapter 6 His Red Eyes
His Red Eyes
Dylan’s POV
I took a step back. My brain was already telling my legs to walk faster, get out of that corridor and put a distance between me and Liam as much as possible. The first aid kit slipped from my hand and hit the floor but I didn’t stop to pick it up. I turned and ran fast toward the exit that led back toward the rink, my heart was beating unsteadily.
I didn’t make it to the exit before a hand grabbed my wrist.
I was pulled backward before I could take another step and my back hit the wall hard enough to knock the air out of me. Liam’s forearm pressed across my collarbone, pinning me tight on the wall, and his other hand moved to my throat. The pressure was so much that I wasn’t breathing properly. I looked at his face and my stomach rumbled in fear… His eyes were red. I had read about vampires during my training, seen it described in reports, but having Liam in his full vampire state made fear crawl on my skin.
“What did you see?” His voice was low and very controlled, which somehow made it worse than if he had shouted.
“Nothing… I didn’t see anything.” I said.
His hand at my throat tightened slightly. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”
“Liam… I can’t breath”
“What did you see, Petrov?”
My pulse was loud in my ears. I could feel it in my throat, right where his fingers were pressed. Every instinct I had been trained with was screaming at me to reach for the rod beside me and hit him on the head, but my body wasn’t moving the way I wanted it to because of his grip and the look in those red eyes was scary, who knows what he will do in that state if I should try something funny.
“I… I just came to treat your wound but… it’s healed now, all of a sudden.” I said keeping my voice low as I could manage.
His expression softened a little bit, but the pressure he put on my throat didn’t ease.
“Who sent you here? I noticed the way you act towards me… if you don’t give me an answer, I will break your neck bone” he said.
“Nobody sent me, I transferred from…”
“Who sent you?” He asked again, slower, and his hand tightened again until my vision blurred slightly at the edges and my knees started to feel weak. I grabbed at his wrist with both hands, but mine wasn’t strong enough to pull it away.
“Please,” I said, and I hated how small the word came out. “I won’t tell anyone… I swear to you I won’t say a word.”
He looked at my face for a long moment, those black eyes moving over every inch of me like he was reading something written there that I couldn’t see. My legs were going weak underneath me, not from fear alone but from the actual lack of air.
He suddenly let go of my neck.
I slid down the wall slightly before catching myself, pressing my palm flat against my knee to stay upright. I heaved a sigh of relief and focused on keeping my face straight, on not letting him see how badly my hands were shaking.
He stepped back and pointed at the bench. “Sit down.”
I sat on the bench, but it wasn’t only because of his instruction but because my legs had already gone weak.
He leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, saying nothing for a moment. Then he looked at the ceiling briefly, and when he looked back at me his eyes had returned to normal, it wasn’t red anymore but grey as always.
“Three hundred years ago… I was human.” He said. I didn’t move but listened to him even though I had read his history in some documents.
“I was twenty-two.” He said it like the number still surprised him sometimes. “There was a war, and I was captured. The vampire who turned me just decided that I was useful and that was enough for him.” He paused. “When I woke up, everything I had been before was already gone. My family, my name, the life I thought I was going to have… all of it was gone overnight.”
He looked at me but I looked away wishing someone would just pop out of nowhere and find us here, but far behind us the crowd in the rink cheered briefly. It felt like it was happening in a different world.
“I have been moving ever since,” he said. “Every few years, a new place, a new name, before anyone starts to notice that I’m not aging the way they are. I don’t hurt people.” He looked at me directly. “Whatever you think I am, and whatever you think you know, I need you to understand that I am not what you’re afraid of.”
I looked at him speaking in that quiet, measured voice, and something in my chest did what I wasn’t prepared for. I pitied him for real and doubted everything I had been told about him and everything I had believed for years.
“I hear you,” I said carefully. “I’m not going to say anything to anyone, you can trust me on that.”
He looked at me like he was deciding whether that was worth believing.
“I mean it… Whatever I saw here, stays with us here.” I said.
He looked at me for another moment, then something in his posture shifted, like a fraction of the weight he was carrying had been lifted. He pressed his hand to the wall to push himself up, but then he stopped, his arm slipped off the wall and he fell to the ground, and lost consciousness.