Blood Bride

Chapter Eight: Missing Memories

        "HOW was school?" Ophelia was clutching the jacket that was draped around her with white knuckles. The tinted windows of the car made it hard to see her surroundings outside, the only things she was able to make out were the passing streetlights and pieces of unfamiliar buildings.

"It was wonderful." She said nimbly. "I was invited to be a cheerleader. I think I made friends." Or enemies.

"You can calm yourself now. Nothing is going to harm you in this car."

"Aside from you?" Ophelia was striking out today with this mouth of hers. She had never had trouble controlling her words. "I am calm." She went on to say. "What makes you believe I'm not?"

Jon didn't give her a hardened stare or reprimand her. Instead, he acted as if nothing happened.

"You're very alert. With your ability to rapidly answer my questions, I'd say you're listening for the slightest sound to give you a reason to leap out of the car. Your muscles are tense. You haven't even shifted in your seat which is unnatural for a human. Humans need to circulate blood, so movement is necessary. Need any other reasons?"

Ophelia hugged her bag tighter to her chest. Her eyes flitted to Jon, then back to the window.

"Where are you taking me?" She didn't recognize her surroundings outside. She didn't know where she was.

"Home." Jon raised his brow and eyed Ophelia for meticulous things like the gradual increase of her intake of air, how quickly her eyes moved, and how her fingers were crawling towards the blade he attached to her thigh.

She moved so fast, Jon was shocked when he stopped the blade inches from the space between his eyes. He had a tight grip on her wrist, nearly bone breaking.

He wasn't expecting his Blood Bride to turn on him because he had been considerably nice to her. Maybe he was a little too trusting of the young girl. He looked into her once soft and fragile eyes, the same ones that cried in the presence of a nightmare. Now were hard, her lip curled as she tried to spear the blade through him.

He twisted her hand, forcing her to drop the blade. He grabbed her throat and wrapped his arm around her shoulders to reel her in. Her back faced him as she tried to writhe free of his grasp. A struggle for her; merely a fight against an infant for him now that he was aware of her violent nature.

"You're not taking me back! I'm not going back there!" She growled, kicking Everly's seat as she squirmed in Jon's hold.

"Oh yes, you are. You are bound to me and have no other choice if you want your mother to stay alive." Ophelia looked him dead in the eye, gnashing her teeth. She gathered up a glob of saliva in her mouth before she spat at him, her spit landing on his cheek.

Jon fangs elongated, angry to have been so disrespected.

"Master Cross, would you like me to pull over?" Everly questioned, gazing at him through the rear-view mirror with concern.

Jon shook his head.

"Just hurry home." Ophelia grunted, and he thought he had complete control over her until her teeth sunk into his bicep. Jon flinched causing him to tighten his grasp, the opposite effect Ophelia expected her actions to have.

"If you don't stop right now I am going to strangle you, do you understand me?" But his threat posed no interest to her.

She struggled all the way home, flailing as Jon ripped her from the car and tossed her over his shoulder with her backpack in his other arm.

Everly drove off to park the car and Jon went into his home, Tobias waiting for them in the foyer.

He frowned eyeing the bite mark on his master's arm as well as Ophelia who was still kicking with energy.