California, 1986
"I know you resent me now, but I'm only doing what's best for you. I take care of my children, and I hope that in time you can learn to see me as your father."
Fuck Max. Fuck California. Fuck everything.
The second you'd carved even a sliver of a life for yourself, it'd been forcefully ripped from you. You weren't allowed to be free. You had been "gifted" with eternal life, but you couldn't truly live.
Max saw himself as a savior. According to him, he'd rescued you from the gutter, from an impending death. But you'd died everyday since his fangs had sunken into your skin.
A stake through the heart was a kindness you would never be afforded. Your future had never been yours to control.
The room you'd been banished to at the top of Max's house felt more like a gilded tower as the nights wore on.
You were semi-imprisoned by your self-proclaimed father, and semi-imprisoned by your own will. Max didn't trust you enough to allow you out alone at night, but you'd be damned if you ever went out with him.
So you stayed, confined to your prison and guarded by Thorn. You seethed in malice, all alone.
Or sort of alone, as you'd done in life, you allowed yourself to escape to worlds within literature. Your bedside table was stacked with Mrs. Dalloway, The Bell Jar, and of course, Jane Eyre. What were you if not a mad woman locked inside a room. All you needed was a match.
You were skimming the pages of The Feminine Mystique when you heard a firm knocking on your bedroom door. Shortly after, Max entered, his tall, broad frame filling the doorway. "I want you to come to the video store tonight, in fact, I'd like you to start working there for me."
You continued to read, refusing to so much as look at him as he spoke to you, "why'd you knock if you were just going to come in anyway?"
Max frowned, "you've been here for almost a month now and you've done nothing but refuse to acknowledge me and behave terribly."
"Not true," you said nonchalantly, holding up your book and finally meeting his eyes, "I've also been reading."
Max's head fell into his hands in frustration. "I've tried so hard with you but-"
"Tried what?" you interrupted, "thrusting the curse of immortality onto me without explaining what you were doing? Without telling me what it meant? Without giving me a choice?!"
Max crossed his arms, preparing himself for another of your monologues.
"Or maybe you mean ripping me from my home, from the life I'd made for myself. Because God forbid I do anything on my own, God forbid I allow myself to be happy for once in my unlife. No, you'd rather keep me under your thumb, calling yourself my father just to spite me."
"Are you done?" Max asked, eyebrow raised.
"Might as well be," you spit, "you can hear me but you never listen."
"You mock me for calling myself your father, when all you ever do is act like a rebellious child."
You grimaced and turned your eyes to the ground.
He stepped forward, "I don't want to use it, but I will."
You sucked in a breath at his words. He was referring of course, to his thrall.
As your sire, Max had completely power over you. If he chose to, he could utter the words and force you to do whatever he wanted.
Max had assured you that he wouldn't use this power unless he deemed it absolutely necessary. Yet this didn't set you at ease. The threat of your agency being stripped from you was constantly present in the back of your mind.
