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"SILAS—!"

Another call out to him echoed down the hallway, which he left ignored—a deliberate act of defiance, and punctuated his refusal with a violent slam of the door.

His brows furrowed and his mind was a tempest, a storm of thoughts swirling and colliding, each one a jagged piece of a puzzle he couldn't solve.

"How could she be all over a man like that—in front of her son."

Throughout his childhood, Silas was acutely aware of the emotional gulf that separated his parents.

He observed a pervasive indifference, a lack of genuine connection and warmth between them that manifested in everyday interactions.

Valerie and Hansel Viktor, it was an arrangements of business and they were both young, but they both understood it as a marriage of convenience.

For Valerie, the arrangement was particularly fraught with disdain.

She practically labeled Hansel a gangster, deeply repulsed by the shadowy and likely illegal nature of his "line of work.

" His dealings were whispered about, shrouded in secrecy, and everything she stood for railing against the very foundation of his enterprise.

She saw him as morally corrupt, a plague on society.

Hansel, however, found a peculiar amusement in Valerie's unwavering diligence.

Even after their marriage, she stubbornly clung to her books, relentlessly pursuing her studies.

He watched, often with a bemused expression, as she chased after her dream – a dream he considered almost..

. quaint. Her ambition, she explained, was to open a school one day.

A place of learning, of growth, of shaping young minds. Silly, right?

Yet, despite this chasm between them, both parents diligently attempted to express their love for Silas, albeit in their own distinct and sometimes mismatched ways.

Perhaps oneexpressed their care through meticulous planning and a focus on his practical needs, while the otherwas more demonstrative, showering him with gifts and physical affection.

The latter was Silas' father.

He ran a network of, shall we say, unconventional businesses within the clandestine vampire world. He was primarily involved in the blood trades—not the legal, regulated kind, but the murky, illicit operations that skirted the edges of morality and often plunged straight into its abyss.

This did mean though, that finances were rarely an issue. Silas never wanted for anything materially, yet the source of that abundance cast a long, complicated shadow over their lives.

★

They were comfortable, they both had their fulfillments. However, it wasn't enough and despite all of it, it wasn't unexpected when the divorce settlements were done. Everything had gone through and young Silas was afraid of the chaos he was amidst.

Following the divorce, Silas's mother was granted full custody, yet his father, Hansel, remained a constant presence in his son's life, or at least he tried to. Each visit was an extravagant affair, an avalanche of gifts burying Silas in a mountain of toys and treats.

Until one day—there came no more gifts; and there came no more visits.

Despite their divorce Valerie felt a disquieting wave of worry wash over her. She stubbornly refused to acknowledge it, dismissing it as lingering bitterness or residual resentment.

Discreetly, she began to inquire about Hansel, subtly probing mutual acquaintances and relatives. But no one had seen him. No one had heard from him. Hansel was simply...gone.

He had vanished without a trace, leaving behind a void filled only with questions and a growing sense of dread.

★

t hit him as soon as the door slammed behind him—sharp, biting, like a slap to the face. But he welcomed it. Needed it. It clawed at his skin, cut down through the rising swell of something uglier inside him.

A strange, hollow ache he refused to give name to.

Silas shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and strode across the courtyard, jaw locked so tightly he could feel it throb in his temples.

His shoes echoed sharply against the stone path, but the academy was dead quiet now—too quiet.

The kind of quiet that never felt natural in a place like this.

He didn't care.

Not about his mother. Not about Lockwood. Not about their whispered conversation behind closed doors like he didn't already know. He could say that he misses his father—or he could remember the abandonment from the pussy of a father he had.

So instead of doing either, he just continued to walk down the hallway of the dorms, till it lead him out to the courtyard of Auragon. "What a shitty place.." he mumbled to himself.The moon was heavy and swollen tonight, its glow unnatural.

He glanced up once, catching the shimmer of something sharp in the sky—like a silver tooth hanging from the heavens. His steps continuing to connect with smooth concrete of the floor, a gentle soothing click clack in his walk.

Silas probably hadn't even noticed in his speedy stroll, how quickly and how far he had made it until he heard muffled whispers and even the occasional yelping.

"Cressida?"

"Cress?"

Three figures, cloaked in shadow and urgency, slipped towards the narrow, wrought-iron side gate nestled near the edge of the South Woods.

The gate, usually locked and forgotten, groaned a rusty protest against their intrusion.

A single flashlight, held low and close to the ground, cast a nervous, bobbing beam between them, illuminating only patches of the overgrown path ahead and leaving the faces of the figures obscured in the surrounding darkness.

"What the hell..?" He muttered as he watched them freeze and begin to dispute, then it became clearer as he approached when the three of them had their eyes locked on something deep into the woods.

"Hold on is that— Y/N fucking L/N..!?"

★

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The dormitory loomed ahead like a mausoleum, dark windows watching like vacant eyes.

The night wind scraped along the stone walls and caught at Y/N's hair as Silas dragged her back up the gravel path.

When they reached the dorm, Aisha and Julia hurried in first without a word, their faces pale, eyes wide.

The moment the heavy door creaked open, they slipped inside, nearly tripping over each other to disappear into the safety of their shared room.

But Silas didn't follow; and he didn't let Y/N either.

He stopped just outside the threshold, his fingers still wrapped tightly around Y/N's wrist. His grip had not lessened, not once since he'd taken hold of her beneath the silver-bloated moon. It wasn't bruising, but there was a barely restrained edge in it, like he didn't trust himself to let go.

"Let go of me." she said quietly.

He didn't move. His eyes—dark, unreadable pools—scanned her face with the intensity of a man trying to memorise every flaw, every twitch, every flicker of defiance.

"You shouldn't have followed her," he murmured, voice low and charged.

"You shouldn't have left. You should have stayed the hell in your room. Where it was safe."

"Cressida—"

"Isn't your responsibility—!" he snapped, too quickly.

His hand finally let go of her wrist—but only to cup her jaw instead, fingers pressing just enough to tilt her face up to him.

She froze. The space between them narrowed to nothing.

The cold stone behind her back, his body before her, and that strange energy again—that wild, caged violence thrumming just beneath his skin.

"Do you know how easily that thing could've gutted you?" His words hissed past his teeth like venom. "Do you know how close it came?"

"You were out there too.." she whispered.

"I'm not a defenceless little bitch."

"You don't control where I go—"

"Don't I?"

What..?

His fingers flinched against her skin. "You don't understand, Y/N. You're in the middle of something you cannot survive, and you just keep walking straight into the fire like you want to burn."

Her breath hitched. "You think I chose—?"

"I don't care what you chose" he snarled. "Stay. Out. Of. It."

Something shifted in his expression then. Something subtle and terrifying.

His voice dropped. "I'm not like the others. And if you keep doing this—keep running into shadows where monsters live—I won't be able to protect you anymore. I won't want to."

It wasn't a threat, not exactly.

But it wasn't just the words—it was the look in his eyes. That strange, glinting glimmer behind the rage. Like a match had been lit and dropped into gasoline. Sensation.

Y/N felt her spine press tighter to the stone wall. "Y—You're bullshitting.." Her pulse was a frantic drumbeat in her ears. He leaned in one last time, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear, his breath cold. "Next time." he whispered.

"Next time, you might not make it back. And part of me... might not care."

Y/N stood there, trembling beneath the weight of something she couldn't name. He vanished into the night like he'd been swallowed whole by it.