Crimson Rain

Chapter 2

Recap: Lafayette pulled back from me, looking me up and down, "How you been hooker? Staying out of trouble?"

"Been making some actually," I joked giving him a wink.

He laughed, "Now that's my girl!"

"So what can I do to help?" I asked, looking around at the mess that had been left when the "circling buzzards," as Tara and Lafayette called the people who had come out to mourn Gran's passing, left.

"Oh naw baby girl don't you worry about this, we can handle it," Lafayette said, trying to shoo me out of the kitchen.

"Please La-la," I practically begged, looking in his eyes. "I need to do something…I can't…I can't stand just sitting here with my thoughts. My head is a scary place right now," I explained, drawing a deep, shaky, breath.

"Ok sweetness," Lafayette said wrapping an arm around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. "Here, how about you start in the living room? Gather up all the trash and dishes that the buzzards left. Tara and I'll start in the kitchen."

"Sounds like a plan," I replied. "Oh and do me a favor?"

"Yeah sweet-thing?"

"Throw out all of that nasty food, I hate pity cooking." Lafayette's chuckles followed me to the living room.

The living room wasn't awful compared to what it could have been with all the people that were here. The mess was mostly due to cups and napkins that had been abandoned when Tara threw everyone out; there were a few plates but nothing horrendous. The menial task of throwing out the garbage and gathering the glasses and other dishes that couldn't be thrown away helped to quite my mind.

My running always began with a mental overload. I was the type of person to lay awake at night and worry if I was making the right decision. My mind would be swimming with scenarios, things that I could have done differently, and what ifs. I couldn't help but think that if I had been here that maybe I could have helped, that maybe I could have saved Gran.

Gran was the type of person to never judge others, the type of person to offer anyone a warm meal and a place to stay. She raised Jason, Sookie, and I to the best of her ability, and I loved her more than anyone else. My mother was actually Gran's niece, daughter of Gran's brother, Bartlett. My mother moved to New Orleans for college and met my father. Both had drug issues that stemmed from parental abuse. My parental grandfather was an alcoholic that would beat his wife and children after a night at the bar. My mother suffered from sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Both of my parents used drugs to escape the memory of the abuse. After a few years my parents married, but only after my mother became pregnant with me. My father had died when I was young from a drug overdose, after which my mother packed my things and sent me to live with her father. When Gran found out that I was being shipped to Bartlett's she threw an almighty fit. She came to my grandfather's not long after I had been left there and threatened Bartlett with everything but death. I had only been in that house for half an hour before I was in sliding into the passenger seat of Gran's old car and heading home with her. Even though Gran was technically my great-aunt she became more of a mother and grandmother to me than anyone else.

The whole town knew that my parents were both drug addicts and with the stigma that Sookie faced for her "disability" as she called it, life hadn't been easy. I was determined to get out of Bon Temps, find someplace where no one knew me and live a normal life. Well that plan went straight to hell, I thought. I was determined to not run from this. I owed it to the woman who raised me to stay and do the best I could. I could handle being the social pariah of Bon Temps; it was a hole-in-the-road town that no one really cared about.

In all honesty I was more worried for Sookie. She had things a little easier than me when we were growing up, but not by much. Jason and Sookie's parents were run-of-the-mill good people that died in a freak flood. Being as Sookie and Jason had no other living family that was willing to take them they went to their paternal grandmother. Jason was the one child in the household that was normal. He was dumber than a sack full of hammers, but he was athletic and handsome and was easy enough to get along with, when he removed his head from his ass that is.

Sookie was another story. While I was an emotional train-wreck, Sookie was a mental one. Sookie was pretty enough being blond-haired, blue-eyed, athletic looking, and able to tan (which I hated her for) but she had her own special brand of crazy. From the time I knew her Sookie was always able to tell what people were thinking. I was the first person to actually say it out loud, Sookie was telepathic. At first she couldn't control it, hearing everything everyone thought, which almost drove her to the loony bin. However, after some time she began to be able to build up her resistance. She explained it to me one day as building a brick wall between her mind and other's; she had to build it brick-by-brick and use quite a bit of her concentration to keep the wall up. Because of this she was often deemed crazy, because half her concentration was on keeping everyone's thoughts out.

I was worried that Gran's death would break Sookie. My life may not have been ideal but I was stronger because of it. Sookie on the other hand was more innocent. I had told Tara the truth when I said that Sookie needed to grow up, I just didn't want it to be this way. Sookie needed to toughen up and be stronger, I just hated that Gran's death was forcing her to do so. Sookie and I would never be the best of friends, but she and Jason were family and I did love them.

It didn't take me long to have a majority of the mess in the living room cleaned up. I threw away what I could and moved the glass dishes to the kitchen sink. I grabbed a dish cloth before heading back to the living room and used that to clean up any water rings or crumbs that had been left behind and gave the entire living room a general wipe down. Before tackling the floors I decided to help Lafayette and Tara in the kitchen, I didn't see the point in completing the living room only to have people going back and forth from the outside back in, even though Gran had a covered back porch.

Tara and Lafayette already had most of the food thrown away so I began on the dishes. Eventually Lafayette joined me at the sink, rinsing and drying the dishes I had washed. Tara joined us not long after, taking the clean and dry dishes and putting them away. As a team it only took us another hour to get the kitchen back to Gran's usual standards. After completing the kitchen we moved on to finishing the living room.

"Hey guys I'm going to check on Sookie," I said after getting a look outside to see that it was getting dark. We hadn't heard anything from Sookie for several hours and I was beginning to wonder if she may have had a bad reaction to the Valium she was given.

"Child that girl is dead to the world," Lafayette replied, beginning to sweep the floor, while Tara followed behind him with the mop.

"Maybe, but I'm still going to check on her, make sure that she isn't having a bad reaction," I said, heading upstairs.

I reached Sookie's room and had just bent over her to check and make sure that she really was asleep, when I was suddenly thrown against the far wall. A cold hand was at my throat cutting off my air supply and someone was yelling.

"Bill let her go!" someone yelled, finally getting through to my attacker. The hand at my throat suddenly disappeared and I fell to the floor, coughing.

When I could finally breathe again I stood taking deep breaths to regulate my breathing back to normal. "Who are you?! Why are you here?!" someone snarled from the vicinity of Sookie's bed.

"Bill stop it!" Sookie snapped.

"Down boy," I rasped voice still not quite to normal. "I'm Leah Thompson, I'm Sookie's cousin." I had been looking down at the floor until now, focusing on the grain in the wood to help calm myself, but now I looked towards Sookie's bed. My attacker apparently had been crouched in a defensive position in order to protect Sookie, but was now slowly relaxing. "And you are?" I asked, wincing and rubbing my throat.

"Remember me telling you about that vampire that moved to town?" I had no idea when Tara and Lafayette had appeared in Sookie's bedroom, but I nodded in answer to Tara's question. "Leah meet Bill, our resident vampire," Tara said, somewhat sarcastically.

"Ah. Well you ok Sookie?" Sookie nodded, and I could see her eyes beginning to droop. "Get some more sleep girl, looks like that pill is still making its way through your system." I gave Bill a nod and shooed Tara and Lafayette downstairs.

Tara and Lafayette refused to let me help finish the clean up and forced me out of the house. I raised my hands in surrender and moved out to the front porch, taking a seat and listening to the frogs and crickets. I wasn't out there long before I heard the door open and felt someone take a seat beside me. Since I didn't hear or feel any breathing from my seatmate I knew it was the vampire.

Before I could say anything, he moved and was offering me an ice pack. I looked at him in confusion. "It will help with the swelling," he explained.

"Thanks," I said taking it and placing the ice pack against my throat.

"I wanted to apologize for my behavior."

"Protection instinct?" I asked.

"Something like that," he replied not going into any details.

We sat in silence for a few moments. I knew a handful of vampires, which was surprising considering that I was so introverted, but I knew nothing about Bill. I was not comfortable around strangers, Sookie was the bubbly one. But if this vampire was going to be in my cousin's life, it was only right that I attempt to get to know him.

"So I'm guessing that you're living in the old Compton house?" He nodded, but didn't offer anything. "How did you and Sookie meet?"

He then finally proceeded to talk to me and explained their first meeting. Trust my cousin to run out and take on two vampire drainers on her own.