Kat couldn t help but feel uneasy under Jay's stare. The vampire was, for once, quiet and intense. Kat had only seen her act like this once and it was in dire times. Kat really did not want a repeat.
"What is it?" Kat asked.
Jay seemed surprised that she d been caught.
"How are you so sure that I m not just staring for the hell of it? Jay asked.
"You're too still," Kat replied.
Jay smirked.
"Fair enough."
The two let silence fall before Jay let out a sigh.
"Kat, how do you feel about being a hybrid?" she asked.
Kat fully eyed Jay.
"With the exception of the sire bond, I actually like not having to change once a month," she replied.
Jay drew her knees to her chest.
"But what if there was a cure?" she asked.
Kat chuckled.
"It wouldn t cure me of my werewolf bloodline," Kat said.
She narrowed her eyes a bit.
"Would you take it? Quit being a vampire and return to being human?"
Jay was silent too long, eyes intense.
"Jay?"
Kat was worried now at the thought of her best friend suddenly human. Suddenly, weaker. Vulnerable. Would it still be possible for them to be friends?
"I asked you first," Jay said.
"And I answered. It wouldn't matter. One way or another, I'm someone or something's slave. At least this way, I can fight back a bit."
"Do share how it is you are fighting back," Jay requested.
Kat cast hateful eyes on her.
"Don't go there," Kat ordered.
"And why not?"
"Because it will be the last civil conversation we could possibly ever have."
There was that line in the sand. The one both had come so close to crossing many times when they were first learning to work as a team. After years of being a perfect tag team, that line had been a distant memory. It was there and very clear cut but avoiding it was like breathing. Second nature. And to approach that line was a conscious decision. A decision Jay was making right now, standing at that line as if she had every right to unlock every one of Kat's hidden away secrets. And she knew it too. She sat there, motionless, eyes on Kat in what Kat would only ever call her heartless gaze.
"If you wish to be a dog to Klaus, that's fine. But I will not be," Jay declared, voice cold.
Kat gave her a dry smile, meant to be patronizing.
"Well you know what they say of dogs. Those that behave live a life of ease. And those that don't, die fast."
Jay stood, shoving the couch back into the wall where it crashed.
"You are a hybrid now! Do you not what that means!?" she screamed. "You will forever be his dog! You think he'll let you go just because you behave?"
Jay let out a frsutrated grunt before she resumed her yelling.
"He doesn't want to be alone. Even if you gave him someone who loved him, someone he loved and a happy home, it wouldn't be enough. Klaus would never be satisfied! He wants hybrids. As many as he can get. The only reason this house isn't crawling with more is because his human blood bag isn't so human anymore!" Jay finished.
"And who told you all that?"
The voice sent chills through both of them. Jay froze, as if that would make her invisible as Klaus clomped into the room, each step menacingly painful. Kat watched Jay. Watched her friend fight every instinct to run from the room, no doubt into a trap of hybrids ordered by Klaus to catch her. And possibly kill her. Klaus was smiling. Not a good sign. He caught Jay by her upper arm, spinning her around to face him.
"Care to share?" he asked.
Jay carefully avoided his eyes. Kat stared at her back, panicked. The sire bond was always there, like Big Brother. Even when Klaus wasn't in the room, or even in the house, it was like a piece of him was in her, reminding her that he created her. And he could control her. "What's the harm?" Kat asked. "It's not like we could do much with the information."
Klaus chuckled, looking at her.
"True," he agreed. His eyes returned to Jay, that smile in place.
"But I must fix this leak, whomever it may be. So, my dear, who is it?"
Jay finally met his eyes.
"I will never tell you. Sired or not, you will have to kill me first," she declared.
Klaus's eyes lost all amusement.
"Really now?" he asked. "Kat, please leave the room and close the doors."
This brought panic to her. Kat rose.
"Please, Klaus, don't kill her," she begged.
Jay may have pissed her off, but she was still her friend. Her best friend. "Nothing so brash," Klaus said, eyes still in a deadlock on Jay's.
"Go with ease, Kat. He won't hurt me," Jay declared.
Kat cast a glance at Jay before backing out of the room and closing the doors. As soon as the doors closed, Klaus's hand found its way to Jay's throat. She didn't even flinch, not even when he gave it a little squeeze.
"Are you scared?"
"No," Jay replied.
She kept her eyes trained on Klaus's as if her life depended on it. And she supposed it did, given that he seemed to be waiting for a reaction.
"A good line," he praised. "He won't hurt me. I never knew you could lie so well."
"It wasn't a lie," Jay declared.
"And yet here I stand. Your beautiful little neck in my grip. It would be so easy to snap it."
Jay smirked.
"You were never one for doing what was easy as opposed to what would benefit you."
"And you benefit me?" he asked.
Jay said nothing.
"See, even you do not know your own worth," Klaus taunted, releasing her.
Jay was stone still as he walked past her, taking Kat's former spot. Slowly, she turned.
"Well you must have seen some worth in me," she said.
Klaus said nothing, an encouragement that she should go on. Jay made her way towards him, stopping right at his feet so that she could look down at him.
"Of all the vampires in the world, you chose me to be your first turned vampire. Anyone would have worked. Or you could have gone a different route and chosen that pretty blonde you were with a few days ago."
At the mention of the blonde Klaus's eyes lifted to her.
"You chose me. And where I can find no measure of worth in myself, you saw something. Or was it my ability to work so well with Kat. Or my doubt all those years ago where I said fully awakening your hybrid self was a dream that would never be a reality? Did you seek me out, threaten me and then turn me into this, just to prove me wrong?" Klaus still said nothing so Jay lowered herself to the coffee table so that she was still directly across from him.
"All those years ago, you freed me from being human. You set me free of that world and gave me a new one. And then, when you saw me becoming enslaved in the new one, you set me free again. You claimed I was better as a free spirit than as a caged bird. So why have you put me in a cage?" she asked.
Klaus sat forward a bit.
"Do you know that many animals live longer in captivity than in the wild?" he asked.
Jay smiled.
"Do not try and claim that this is for my own good," she said.
"Do not presume to know my intentions," Klaus ordered, rising in anger.
"Do not act like you love me," Jay retorted.
Klaus paused at her words, looking down at her.
"That girl is beautiful. I'm sure the promise of eternal life and youth will keep her with you, so long as you keep out that tiny part about the sire bond," Jay went on.
She looked up at him, sadly.
"I loved you. I loved who you used to be. You could never imagine just how much. But the game is more fun when the rules aren't stacked against me."
