It might not have worked on a lot of vampires, but Thomas was very young and didn't have much experience under his belt. He hadn't even realized his mistake, though he was quite aware of the fact that his hand was bleeding, until he heard the command, and a compulsion came over him to stop attacking the other vampire. As he slid off the other vampire, climbing to his feet, Thomas began to panic. He wanted to put some distance between himself and the other vampire, but it didn't seem like it would do much good when the other vampire could just command him to stop and take a beating.

So instead, after taking a couple steps back so he wouldn't be in immediate swinging range, asked, "I don't suppose there's any chance you'll just chalk this up to me being young and dumb and let me walk away, is there?"

And from there, there wasn't much to do other than brace himself for whatever was coming next.