His eyes sought a focal point, finally choosing a spot on the back of the couch. A small stain. Blood, most likely. From when, Dylan couldn't remember. It didn't matter. He fixed his dark, tear-blurred eyes on it and refused to look away. As such, he didn't see Ayesha's reaction.
Her aura spiked, jabbing and sharp. Something like fear, like terror. It was enough alarm that Dylan turned his face back to her. He fixed his eyes on her aura, watching its jagged edges stab at him. Was it fear of him? Something he said that finally drove the point home that he was well and truly a soulless monster? Or could it be fear for him? He hoped for the latter, even if he had no words to define it or understand it. Anything was better than the former.
Ayesha spoke again, but he didn't catch the words right away. His gaze was fixed firmly on her aura, unwilling, unable to look away. The word grief drew his eyes back to hers. Grief was an awful, complex emotion to experience, even second-hand. Taking that from someone, letting it burn out while he struggled with the sadness, the guilt, the absolute despair was horrible and traumatic. And to think such a memory had been the first Ayesha ever took. Dylan would've laughed humorlessly at the awfulness of that, but only thought that's a rough way t'start.
Nothing like having your soul ripped outโfiguratively or literallyโin any circumstance. And Dylan would know; he'd experienced both.
When her gloved hand took his and lightly squeezed, he seized on it with a firm grip. The warmth of her aura washed over him and in an instant, he understood. He knew why it had surged, why her concern grew stronger.
Wordlessly, Dylan took her hand in his and lifted it. He pressed his lips against the back of it, keeping it against his mouth for several seconds before lowering it. He rubbed his thumb against the back of Ayesha's gloved hand a couple times before he withdrew his. His eyes slid from her aura back to her face. He met her eyes.
"You didn't know I was soulless, did you?" Dylan's voice didn't rise more than a whisper. He often assumed others would simply know. A true monster, after all, shouldn't have a soul. And a monster he was, all the way down to his very foundation.
The woman he killed tonight must've certainly thought so, in that last moment of life, before he greedily took her soul to fill the place where his should be.
"Makes sense now, doesn't it?"
