Chapter 6: When Jonathan Went Too Far

It was a month before Harley moved to Minneapolis when it happened.

Harley had been pushing back at Jonathan’s overbearing control for a while already. She wasn’t some demure domestic from the seventeenth century, and she had no desire to be his little servant girl for all time. She didn’t want to be at his beck and call, and she definitely didn’t want to learn to be seen but not heard. She was not looking to be his arm candy.

But she’d stayed with him for a while because he’d given her eternal life. Even if he hadn’t really asked her if she wanted it, he’d given her a great gift, and she needed time to learn what that meant. She needed time to learn how to be a vampire, and he was the most convenient teacher.

But she’d rebuked his attempt to keep her underfed almost immediately. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but she didn’t want to starve, either. And keeping her on the edge of starvation wouldn’t teach her control; it would just keep her under his thumb.

She’d been wriggling out for over a year, but it wasn’t until he attempted to drive a stake through her chest that she’d realized how important it was to get away from him.

“It won’t kill you,” he assured her. His accent was all over the place, having come from several different time periods as he’d survived the world passing by. “I just want you to experience it, so you know what to do should anyone ever attack you like this.”

There was something in his eyes as he said it. That look of control, of domination, of a hunger that had nothing to do with blood. She’d grown to understand Jonathan’s looks more and more as time passed, and she didn’t like this one.

“What will happen?”

“It will hurt,” he said. “Pain like you’ve never experienced. And it will seem as though you cannot move. Your mind will tell you that you are paralyzed. But you are not; you can move, just very slowly. You can free yourself, but it will take time.”

And then he lunged at her.

He stabbed forward with the oak stake, and Harley dodged desperately to the side. She’d taken some fighting classes before her turning, and had done some training since, but she knew she stood little chance against him. He had the weight of centuries of experience, and she knew that he would overpower her eventually.

So she needed to act quickly. And she needed to fight dirty. She moved around the apartment, putting the kitchen table between them. Jonathan went to jump over it, and she pushed the table forward, taking him out at the legs as he started his leap and making him slam onto the table, buying herself a precious second.

She threw the dish rack at him, which he swatted away as he regained his feet. He was growling, more bestial than normal, and Harley was sure Johnathan had lost it this time.

“I’m not going to let you stab me in the chest,” she said.

“You need to learn some respect,” he snarled. “Some time to think.”

He swung at her again, one hand reaching to grab her shoulder so that he could steady her long enough to plunge the stake into her breast. But Harley was waiting for that, and she took hold of his wrist and ducked under it, turning it a way it shouldn’t turn and pushing him away, getting closer to the door.

“If you walk out that door, you’re on your own,” he said. “I won’t teach you anything else. And there is so much more you need to know, little girl.”

Harley glanced around the apartment, at the space between her and the door. If she turned and ran, she might make it. She was fast. But so was he. And he might be fast enough to grab her or to stake her before she made it the five steps it would take to escape.

“Is that a threat or a promise?” she asked, stepping backward and not taking her eyes off him. She stepped carefully around the standing lamp, nudging it to get the chord to bunch up a little bit. “It seems like all you ever teach me are cautionary tales.”

“You should be grateful!” he snarled. He darted forward and then back, trying to make her lose her balance. “I’ve made you immortal. Given you forever! You OWE me.”

Harley frowned. She’d heard that kind of talk before, from people who thought that they could control her. And it clicked to her then that Jonathan always talked like that. “I don’t owe you,” she snarled. “You shared your blood with me, and that’s where we end.”

“We are bound forever,” he said. “I will always be your maker.”

Harley braced herself, ready to spring for the door. She bent her knees, and watched him clock her movement. “That’s a fact of history,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you’ll be part of my future.”

“You’ll have no future!”

And he sprung at her.

He moved quickly, too quickly for her eyes to really follow. That kind of speed is a risk, and Harley was ready for that. That’s why she had bunched up the wire on the rug. When Jonathan darted forward, his foot got stuck in it, and he stumbled. He couldn’t correct his movement at that speed, and when her fist slammed forward and hit him in the chest, her force combined with his out-of-control movement sent him sprawling, buying her the time to get out the door.

If he’d let her go, that would have been the end of it. If he’d kept true to his words that she would be rid of him by leaving, there wouldn’t have been a need to do what she did next. If he had been honest and abandoned her, everything would be okay.

Instead, he had to try again; he had to chase her down. He brought what happened next down on himself.