CHAPTER 8: THE IMMUNITY
1749 Words
Aria hadn't slept.
She lay in bed all night staring at the ceiling, listening to the old heater click. Every time she closed her eyes, the same images came back.
The northern ruins. The black stones covered in moss. The symbol carved so deep it looked like it had been burned in.
Leon going inside even after she told him not to.
The words she had found in the archive. The Blackwood Curse. The First Vampire.
Her alarm rang at six. She felt more tired than when she had gone to bed.
She sat on the edge of her mattress and pressed her hands over her face. Her skin was cold.
"It's stress," she whispered to the empty room. Her voice was hoarse. "It's just stress. That's all."
She stood up and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Hoodie. Hair still damp. Dark circles under her eyes.
And then she thought about him, even though she didn't want to.
The transfer student. The one everyone had been talking about ever since he arrived. The one who sat in the back row, looked bored through every lesson, and somehow drew everyone's attention without even trying."
He's only a rich transfer student," she told her reflection. That's all. Just a rich, bored transfer student with good genetics.
She would ignore him today. Completely. She wouldn't look at him. She wouldn't think about him at all. She would get through her classes and go straight to the library and sit somewhere quiet.
That was the plan.
---
Silas stood on the second floor balcony, looking down at the main hall.
He hadn't planned to come here. The main hall was loud in the morning. Too many voices. Too many heartbeats thudding out of rhythm. The smell of cheap coffee and wet coats. He wanted quiet.
But his eyes had found her anyway. Automatically.
Aria walked through the front doors. Bag hanging off one shoulder. Hoodie zipped up to her neck. Hair still damp from the morning air. She didn't look at anyone. She kept her head down and walked straight through the crowd like she wanted the crowd to part without touching her.
She looked exhausted. Like she hadn't slept either.
Silas frowned. His jaw tightened.
Ever since arriving at Ashthorne, this had been happening. His attention kept snagging on her. He would be in class, listening to a teacher explain something he had learned five hundred years ago, and he would look over and she would be there. In the hallway. In the library. Always alone. Always with that tense look.
He hated it. It was irritating. Inefficient.
A human girl. Fragile. Short life. Loud emotions she tried to hide.
So he would end it today. Simple.
He would corner her. Use a little charm. A light compulsion. Make her turn around and walk away and forget the conversation ever happened.
It would prove what he already knew. She was just another human. Susceptible. Easy to control. Easy to forget.
Then he could stop looking at her.
He was calm. Confident. This had worked on thousands before her. On kings who thought their crowns made them untouchable. On queens. On hunters who came with knives blessed by witches. On priests who believed their faith would protect them.
One human girl in a hoodie would be nothing.
He pushed off the balcony rail and went downstairs.
---
Aria left third period alone.
Her friends were still inside, talking to the teacher. She had a free period and she didn't want to wait. She wanted the library. Quiet. No people.
She took the back hallway. The one that ran past the old classrooms they didn't use anymore. The linoleum was cracked. The lights buzzed overhead. The heaters hummed loud.
It was almost empty. One or two students far ahead. A teacher carrying books.
Then someone stepped into her path.
Silas.
Aria stopped so fast her bag hit her leg.
He wasn't blocking her aggressively. He just stood in the middle of the hallway. Hands in his pockets. Uniform perfect, but worn like he didn't care. Relaxed. Like he owned the hallway.
"Sorry," he said. Polite. He smiled, that easy, practiced smile everyone had seen since he arrived. "Didn't mean to scare you."
Aria stepped to the side to go around him. He shifted, just enough to stay in front of her. Still smiling.
"Aria."
Her whole body went stiff. Her shoulders tensed up to her ears.
She stared at him.
"How do you know my name?"
He tilted his head a little. "We have two classes together."
"We've never spoken."
"I know."
His voice was smooth. Calm. The kind of voice that made girls in her class whisper and giggle when he walked past.
It didn't make Aria giggle. It made her skin prickle. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She felt uncomfortable, like she was being studied under a light.
She gestured past him, trying to keep her voice even. "I have to get through. I have a free period."
"Of course. I just wanted to ask how you're liking Ashthorne. You've been here longer than me."
"Fine."
"Your classes?"
"Fine."
He laughed a little. Quiet. "You don't talk much, do you?"
Aria's hand tightened on her bag strap. Why was he asking this? They had never spoken. He was the most talked about person in the school and he was in this empty hallway asking her about her schedule like he had been waiting for her.
"I need to go," she said.
"One second."
He lifted his hand. Slowly. He didn't grab her. He didn't lunge. His fingers hovered near her wrist, then lightly brushed it. Barely a touch. Just enough to stop her.
"Wait."
Aria froze. Not because of the touch. Because of his eyes.
They were amber. She had noticed that before from far away. But up close, they looked wrong. The amber darkened, as though something behind his eyes swallowed the light.
He caught her eyes. Held them.
His voice dropped. Quiet. Clear. Every word precise. It wasn't loud, but she heard it perfectly over the heaters.
"Relax."
She didn't.
Her eyebrows pulled together.
"Forget this conversation," he whispered. "Walk away."
To him, this was effortless. A whisper. A thought pushed outward. He had done it ten thousand times without even trying. It was easier than breathing.
He waited for her eyes to glaze. For her shoulders to drop. For that soft, empty expression humans got when they heard him.
Nothing happened.
Absolutely nothing.
Aria just stared at him. Her expression didn't go blank. It didn't soften.
She frowned.
Silas blinked.
Impossible.
He looked at her again, harder this time. He focused. He let the compulsion sink in, heavier. The air around him went a fraction colder.
"Relax," he said again, lower.
Aria's frown deepened. She didn't look dizzy. She didn't look charmed. She didn't even look confused.
She looked annoyed. Really, really annoyed.
"What are you doing?" she said. "Are you okay?"
No obedience. No softening. No trance.
She was irritated.
Silas felt something he hadn't felt in a very long time.
Disbelief. Sharp. Cold.
He had compelled warlords to lay down their swords. He had compelled witches who spent their entire lives training their minds against people like him. He had compelled entire villages to forget his face the moment he told them to.
No one had ever resisted. Not once. Not in a thousand years. Not since Margaret gave him her blood.
He tried a third time. His fingers tightened the slightest bit around her wrist, still light, but not as polite.
"Forget this," he whispered. "You will forget me. You will walk away now."
Aria looked down at his hand on her wrist. Then back up at his face.
Her face changed. The discomfort she had been feeling vanished and turned into something cold and hard.
She pulled her hand back sharply. A quick, hard slap against his fingers. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just enough to reject him completely. A clear line.
"Don't touch me," she said.
Her voice was ice. No fear. No blush. No hesitation. No attraction.
Silas let go immediately. His hand dropped to his side. He stared at her.
Aria stepped backward. One step. Then another. She put real distance between them. She looked directly into his eyes, and there was nothing in her expression but disgust and anger.
"You're disgusting," she said quietly. "Stay away from me."
She turned and walked away. Fast. Her footsteps echoed down the empty hallway. She didn't look back. She didn't slow down. She didn't hesitate for even a second.
She turned the corner and was gone.
No lingering. No second glance.
---
Silas stood in the hallway.
Motionless.
The hallway was empty again. The heater hummed. Far away, a door slammed. Someone laughed in another building.
He stared at the spot where she had been standing. At the empty air where she had just been.
He lifted his hand and looked at it. The place where she slapped him. There was nothing there. No mark. But he could still feel it.
He had compelled kings to give up their kingdoms. Queens to hand over their crowns. Hunters to walk into the sun and burn. Priests to burn their own churches and forget why.
His power had never failed.
And now it had done absolutely nothing.
Slowly, his eyebrows pulled together. Not in anger. In confusion. Deep, genuine confusion.
Then, something else broke through the confusion.
A small smile started to form. Not his usual charming smile. Not the polite, practiced mask he had worn since arriving at Ashthorne. The one teachers liked. The one students trusted.
A real one. Small. Surprised. Unpracticed.
He let out a quiet laugh. It echoed in the empty hall.
It wasn't angry. It wasn't offended. No one who knew him would have recognized the sound.
It was fascinated.
For the first time in centuries, something had happened that he did not expect. Something impossible had stood right in front of him, in a cheap hoodie, looked him straight in the eye, told him he was disgusting, and walked away.
"Interesting," he whispered to the empty hallway.
He leaned against the wall, still smiling, eyes fixed on the corner where Aria had disappeared.
"So you really can't hear me."
He stayed there for a long time, alone in the buzzing hallway.
For the first time in centuries, the smile on his face wasn't practiced.
- Writer
