Run Away ✧ Sebastian Sallow

chapter three

"Won't you be a good girl and die for me?" Sebastian had hummed against her ear.

The heat of his breath tinged against tender flesh. Each word felt as if it had taken air directly from her lungs and no matter how much she had told herself to move, her body refused.

It felt like the walls were closing in around them faster than Antheia could process. She swallowed the hard lump of fear growing in her throat and tried to look for an exit, trying to avoid the unsettling nature of his eyes. There wasn't much that made her afraid except for the look behind his eyes or the monstrous growl in his voice.

Sebastian didn't give her a chance to find an exit that day. Towering over her and holding her wrist so tightly that his nails buried themselves into her skin.

"No one else needs to die," Antheia had tried to reason with him. Or maybe it was just how she was trying to reason with herself.

The body of Soloman had laid feet away from them, the relic lay in his hand pulsing with an eerie red glow. It was the moment before the former auror had attempted to destroy the relic that everything went wrong.

There was so much blood pooling into the dirt of the catacomb and licking at the edge of their boots. It was an unpleasant sight to see yourself standing in the blood of the dead. Yet she forced herself to look at that rather than back up into his eyes. Watching as her hand twisted easily around both of her wrists, holding her hostage like a snake coiling around its prey. It only took one hand to make her feel helpless.

"It's not too late," Her voice croaked in fear. "You aren't yourself, Sebastian. We can get you help."

"Help?" His free hand mocked her, gently pulling at her chin and trying to pull her gaze to meet his. But Antheia shut her eyes, she couldn't look at him again. Not like that.

There had been a point where her knees would have gone weak against the way he had been touching her jaw like that. But everything was wrong. It wasn't the same person anymore and Antheia was afraid of the monster pinning her hands together. Terrified of the looking the beast in the eyes.

The weight of his shadow enveloped her in darkness. Nails biting deeper into her skin so hard that she could almost taste the blood in her mouth.

"Look at me," Sebastian demanded, fingers still gently resting along her jawbone.

"No," Antheia protested.

She couldn't do it again. If it meant that she was going to die in the catacombs that day, she rather that fate than to see whatever he had become. She couldn't look at him like that after everything they had been through.

"My little flower," His breath was so hot against her skin. He was so close to her, maybe inches, but she refused to open her eyes to see just how close.

Even just being near him radiated against her body it made her sweat. Like he was boiling alive.

"Thea please," That time his voice was softer.

It had taken her by surprise. Just for a moment, she wasn't scared anymore. The nightmare was almost over and he was back or at least that was what she thought.

Antheia finally opened her eyes to look at Sebastian Sallow. To see the boy covered in darkness as he towered over her. But he wasn't back to normal. It wasn't him anymore, it had to be something else. The boy in front of her may have looked like him, with messy brown curls, and sweet freckles like sprinkles kissing his cheeks. But his eyes.

Like broken rubies cracked in place of where his eyes should be.

He wasn't human anymore. Those blood-red eyes haunted her long after that day in the catacombs.