Crimson

13

The words of a vampire in love, a vampire in pain ricocheted around the confines of my head. They haunted me, laughed at me even. The image of the human lover and the vampire burned itself into the back of my eyelids. Close but never together.

My blank eyes followed the patterns on the floor as Kai and I walked down the hallway towards the stairwell. The neon exit sign hanging over the metal door beckoned to me and I almost wanted to rush to it. I just wanted to get out of this place where sadness echoed down the hall to consume me.

Kai's skin brushed mine as we walked down the hallway and I jumped before I inched away, his touch sending sparks of electricity up my skin. Goosebumps formed on my arms and I moved to mindlessly rubbed my hands up and down them. I would do anything to calm the knot that had formed in my stomach and the ache that had made itself present in my chest. I stared at the floor as he pushed open the door for the stairs, avoiding his gaze like he was the plague itself. Our footsteps echoed off of the concrete walls as we began our descent, the dim industrial lights casting eerie shadows around us. This stariwell had my heart pounding in my ears, I felt like I was a caged animal as I gripped the railing tightly.

"You are the butterfly and I am the flower, it's the story of us, how we are supposed to be because no matter how hard the butterfly tries, he can never be with the flower."

No, I was the butterfly and he was the flower.

I yelped as my skin was torn open on the metal of the stair railing, pain suddenly flashing across my senses. I wasn't paying attention and my hand ran over a part that was bent, the sharp metal edges catching my skin. I drew my hand away only to peer at the crimson liquid that stained my fingers and began to drip to the floor. My eyes shifted to Kai a few steps down from me who had stopped on a landing and was turned to stare at me. I glanced between him and the blood that was streaming down my hand to splash on the concrete. I moved down the few steps to stand in front of him.

"Here," I said coldly as I turned my head away and offered him my hand.

He took it into his much larger ones and I could feel his hot gaze on the side of my head. It took almost all of my willpower not to meet his dark and brooding eyes. I squeezed mine together as he pulled my arm upwards towards his mouth. But instead of feeling his tongue run over the blood, soft lips were placed against my wrist. My eyes snapped open and I whipped my head around only to be met with crimson eyes peering into my soul. I felt my breath leave my body, this seemed to happen every time my eyes gazed upon his in their natural state. Fear and a sense of admiration washed over me, this is what he was, a true reflection of the being in front of me. A smirk fell across his lips as we never took our eyes away from one another, his a deep red and mine a chocolate brown.

He lapped up the blood that was dripping from the wound, his tongue following the trail up the small swath of skin before his lips latched over the laceration. A minute later and he was no longer hungrily pressing my hand to his mouth. I chewed on my bottom lip as he released me, the wound no longer seeming to bleed. I was the first to break our eye contact by looking down at my hand, a small cut remained where the metal railing had sliced into me. To think that such a tiny, seemingly meaningless slice could spill so much of my blood. Just like a small, seemingly insignificant meeting turned into this.

I glanced back up but his crimson eyes had disappeared, like the coming and going of the ocean's tide.

"Say something," I whispered out of no where, my voice making an eerie echo.

"Like what?"

"I don't know, anything."

"I don't feel like talking," he replied as his hand crept into my hair at the base of my neck. Swallowing, I turned my head to the side snd gritted my teeth together, refusing to look at him as my eyes focused on a pipe above me with yellow paint chipping away. Of course. He was a predator and I was his prey, it's in his nature. If this is what he wanted I wasn't going to be able to stop him. I waited for a moment, waited for the second I would feel his soft lips just barely touch my skin. I waited for the second my pulse would jump when his fangs pierced through my delicate flesh. But the moment never came.

Kai forced me to turn my head back towards him. "Why do you always think the worst of me?"

I stood there shocked, my brain scrambling to think of what to say. "Because I'm used to getting the worst."

The sound of my heartbeat sounded loudly in my ears, the only noise that I could hear. Kai's dark eyes bore into mine as if he was taking a moment to absorb what I had just said. The words that I spoke were true, I always seemed to get the blunt, aggressive side of him flashed at me.

"Ajae," he simply said.

"What?" I asked, as if what I had told him was not the truth.

The hand that gripped my hair suddenly forced me forward. I let out a yelp as I was now only inches from him, looking straight at his blank eyes. They always irked me, those emotionless pits, they seemed to scrutinize me under their gaze and mock the way that I couldn't read the person they belonged to. It was then that I noticed that my hands were placed gripping his shirt at his sides. Too tight. I let out a shaky breath, my fingers loosening so I was no longer holding on like I was about to lose it.

I don't know what I was searching for as I stared deep into his hazel eyes. Something, anything. Any hint of emotion that would tell me what his next move was. But they were as blank as ever.

He lowered his head towards mine, our lips not touching before he halted. The cool electricity of shock reverberated throughout my body and there was nothing I could do but freeze to my spot. Kai lightly tugged on my hair as he placed his lips over mine.

I always thought that the first time I would wholly and truly fall in love would be amazing, that it would light a fire inside me and leave me utterly speechless. It did leave me speechless. But now it felt like he was sucking the life right out of me. My world was shattering around me and he was stealing the little parts of me that told me to stay away, to have no hope in him. My blood felt like razors in my veins, slicing me open from the inside out. I wanted to push him away, to slap him, to do something, anything but stand here paralyzed with my hands twitching and my eyes wide open.

The attempt was futile. And when he pulled away, all I could do was say in a small voice, "Why did you do that? Why did you just do that to me?"

I felt the hot burn of tears surfacing. "Did you not hear what Nara just said? Why would you do that?" My voice steadily got louder until I was yelling and the echo drown out the sound of my own racing heartbeat. He knew that this would kill me and yet, he did it anyway. We were not meant to be together, our worlds were intended to remain separate. But now he was dragging me in deeper when all I wanted to do was escape.

Kai simply stared at me and in that moment, I hated those blank eyes more than usual.

"You are such a cruel being Kai Petran. I hate you, I hate you so much." I shoved him away. So many emotions ran through my body at once, causing a system overload that was so painstakingly obvious I couldn't handle.

"Ajae."

"Don't talk to me!" I snapped as I backed away.

I took one last glance and spun on my heel to hurl myself down the stairs as fast as my legs could take me. My footsteps echoed around me. I shoved through the door at the bottom. Cool air rushed into the confines of the dark stairwell and I shielded my eyes from the blinding sun just as I heard Kai yell my name.

But I ignored his call and ran, I ran until the acid built up inside me and my muscles burned and then I kept running.