Caius' Captive

Prewarning

"But why, if I am no one to you?" I asked.

"Do you want me to say 'yes, I will let her kill you?'" asked Caius, who then dropped his hand away from my face, clearly irritated.

"No, of course not. I want to know why you'd let no one hurt me if you don't care about me."

"So you want me to care about you, is that it?" Caius said.

This man was extremely good at avoiding questions. "No, that's not what I'm saying. And, even if I did want you to care about me, it would just because I feel unsafe here, and would want someone to look out for me, not because I have feelings for you or anything. I don't even know you!"

A smile drifted across Caius' lips. "I didn't mention feelings. I didn't even think of that. I only assumed it was because you felt unsafe."

My face would usually have flushed red if I was still human, but I only felt the feeling of embarrassment, without the change of colour. He had just unintentionally...or perhaps intentionally, I didn't really know...managed to make me mention having feelings for him. Now it looked like I was in love with him! Luckily, I thought of the perfect comeback. "No, you didn't mention feelings...but Marcus did earlier, didn't he?" I whispered.

"You're mistaken."

"No, I heard exactly what he said. Would you like me to repeat it?"

"You have nothing to repeat," Caius snapped.

"'You feel for the girl,' is what he said."

"Yes, okay, he said that. And what do you think it means?"

"You tell me."

Caius bent his head down lower towards me so he was now speaking in a low voice, but up it was still filled with anger. "It means I feel sorry for you. Not that I feel anything else. I feel sorry for a girl as worthless as you are, so meaningless that you have to travel halfway across the world to search for meaning. I know what you backpack travel tourists are like."

All of a sudden, I felt that punch to the gut again, but this time, it hit harder, so hard that I wanted to fold over and collapse. This was the worst thing anyone had ever said to me, and it was coming from the person I'd want to say it least. All I wanted was his validation, that was why I had initiated this conversation subject, but he had given me the exact opposite. He had condemned me.

The lyrics to The Cure's 'Boys Don't Cry' began running through my head. Misjudged your limits, pushed you too far. That was what I had done. He had showed kindness to me, assuring me he wouldn't allow anyone to hurt me, and I had used it as an opportunity to seek approval, and when he didn't give it to me, I tried to humiliate him by acting like he had feelings for me. I should've seen this coming. I could've avoided it.

But it didn't stop there. He continued. "I was nice enough to think to myself 'why don't I give this girl some sort of significance to her life, since she has none already,' and you took it for granted. You couldn't just be grateful, could you?"

I just wanted it to end. Not only the conversation, but my life. I wished he would've left me for dead like the other tourists instead of saving me just to mentally torture me, anyway. "I'm sorry—" I pleaded.

Then, Caius shouted, and it caught the attention of other people in the room. "No! I made a mistake saving you, and I pray to God Athenodora seeks your revenge, because now I won't be there to save you!"

Seeing other vampires turn their heads and watch me stand there after Caius said that to me made me want to die.

Caius picked up his glass of blood and downed it in four gulps, then downed the second glass, which I think was supposed to be mine, in three.