Eric

I flew out the front door and followed two black SUV's until they split at the main road. They were too close together to determine which one held Sookie, until it became evident that I was following the wrong one. I turned around to find the other, but it was out of sight. I closed my eyes and followed Sookie's hum to the east. I came to a dock by a small marina that was not too far from our island. I saw what I assumed was the SUV and landed next to it, ripping the driver's door off. Four male vampires jumped out of the car and we began to battle. They were strong, but my rage propelled me. We fought for quite some time, and I received many wounds, but I never stopped fighting. I had incapacitated two of them and was still fighting the other two when they suddenly stopped and fled on foot. I followed them into a nearby warehouse, but then stopped and felt for Sookie. She was not here. This was some sort of delaying tactic. I ended my pursuit of the two vampires and reached out to Sookie. I ran out to the dock and looked to the water. She was out there.

I scanned the sky—not much time until daylight, but I took off over the sea. I found the boat easily and landed on the deck, overcoming the vampire on guard. I tore off his arms and tossed him overboard. I not only sensed Sookie but could now smell her fear as well. I heard her scream, "It's a trap!" as I bolted through the door on deck and down the steps to her. I saw Victor Madden smiling beside her just as the silver net fell on me. Naturally the pain was overwhelming, but I tried to fight it off of me while evading Madden's attack. I could feel my strength diminishing as dawn approached and my wounds weakened me. I kicked Madden's sword from his hand and heard it clatter across the floor. I finally worked the net off of me and threw it over Madden as I slammed into him, both of us collapsing into a corner of the room. I continued to kick and claw at him wildly, knowing that he too would soon lose consciousness with the dawn. When he was still I stopped and turned to an unconscious Sookie tied to the bed.

I knew that I would have to act quickly to get Sookie off the boat. Madden was not dead, but his battered body lay in a heap in the corner underneath the silver net. I had to make a choice. I had time to get Sookie to safety or to kill Madden. Or I may not have the strength to do either one. I thought if I try to kill Madden and fail, when he awakens, Sookie will be in grave danger. Considering the severity of my injuries, I may not even wake tonight. I could not risk her life any further, and so with my strength waning, I untied her hands and feet with my bloodied hands, and noted that three fingers were missing on my left hand. I lifted her and carried her onto the deck. I spotted the inflatable life raft, set Sookie down on the deck and pulled the tab to inflate the raft. I knew I must hurry. I could feel the sun's approach. I threw the life raft overboard, lifted Sookie and as the sun began to take me, I used the last of my strength to toss her into the waiting boat floating in the water. My last thought was that she looked so peaceful as if she were just sleeping in the raft as it began to float away, and then I felt the searing burn of the sun on my skin as I fell to the deck and sunk into blackness.

Sookie

I woke up with my jaw aching and had a horrible thirst. I was floating in a boat, but when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in a bright yellow raft. I sat up and looked around. It was daylight. Where was Eric? I closed my eyes and remembered witnessing Victor swinging a sword and missing Eric's neck, but slicing his hand. There was so much blood. I remember screaming, and then nothing else. Had I fainted? I sat up and looked around. I recognized the shoreline and I wasn't really that far away from the beach by our house. I looked in the other direction and saw the boat. Were we that close to our house all that time? I reached into the water and started paddling towards the boat, determined to find Eric. I had to know, no matter what the outcome was.

I dragged the raft up the ladder with me and heaved it onto the deck, thinking that I may need it again, depending on what I found. I pulled myself up over the railing and saw Eric sprawled out on the deck unconscious. He was face down, and his exposed arms and hands were steaming and black from burns. How long had he been here? Was he dead? I tried to take his hands in mine and pull him towards the door leading to what I assumed was down below deck where I had been the night before. His skin kind of peeled off and he slipped from my grasp. I suppressed a wave of nausea, and realized that he was too heavy for me to pull to safety. It's funny what your brain thinks of in moments of crisis, but I had a fleeting thought of an Oprah show once where some self-defense expert said that women had more strength in their legs than their upper body and in case of an attack, women should drop to the ground and kick. So I did. I kicked and pushed and kicked some more and he began to slowly roll towards the door, his face burning every time he rolled to face the sun. He was finally inside the door and his lifeless body somersaulted down some steps and landed on the floor below. I followed him in, closing the door behind me. We were back in the room where Victor had had me tied to the bed the night before. At least there was no more sunlight in here. The stench of blood and burned flesh was overwhelming. I saw Victor in the corner, burned with the silver net over him, but I had to assume he was just in a daytime stupor and not actually dead. At least he wouldn't be awake until dusk, so I had time to figure out what to do. I went back up to the deck and looked for a radio, and then a flare gun, but found neither. There were no other boats in sight, but we were close to my beach. If only I could get someone's attention, but I could see no one on the beach.

I went back down to the two severely injured vampires. I could see that Eric had lost some fingers on his left hand and had some pretty nasty looking wounds, but the burns were what concerned me the most. I had no idea how long a vampire could endure the sun before dying. Minutes? Hours? How long had the sun had been up? It felt like early morning. Was he dead? I remembered the horrible ending for Godfrey in Dallas and hoped that I had gotten to Eric in time, but I couldn't be certain that he wasn't finally dead. I closed my eyes and reached through the bond. There was something there, but it felt different. Maybe it was because of his injuries, but it wasn't the usual steady feeling I had when he was sleeping during the day. But it also wasn't a big fat nothing, so I felt a glimmer of hope. I looked around the room and found the sword that Victor had used to take Eric's fingers. It was heavy, but as I sat beside Eric I pulled it into my lap and carefully placed the tip to my wrist. When the blood began to drip, I placed the wound over Eric's mouth. I opened his blackened lips with my free hand and let the blood drip into his open mouth. I hoped that gravity would get it down his throat. I sat there for a few minutes feeling the blood drip, wondering if this would help or if it was too late. Should I open the wound more? Is he getting enough? And then I started to feel dizzy and thought maybe I was losing too much blood. I leaned forward over Eric's body and then there was nothing.

I woke to the pain in my jaw, the thirst, the sting of my wrist, and then I remembered where I was. I sat up and checked my wrist. It had scabbed over and there was dried blood all over Eric's mouth. His face was like something out of a horror movie with the burns and wounds from the fight. I looked over at Victor in the corner—still lifeless. How long had I been out?

I pulled myself up to my feet, climbed the steps and opened the door. It was getting dark. A wave of panic came over me. No time to think now. Would Eric wake up? Would Victor? I ran back down the steps, picked up the heavy sword and stood over Victor's body. I raised the sword over my head, and looked back to Eric. No movement. Then to Victor. The same. This went on for an agonizing few minutes until Victor began to stir first. He groaned and his arms slowly moved, trying to free himself of the silver net. I listened for any noise from Eric, not daring to take my eyes off of Victor. He opened his eyes and started to laugh. Still no sound from Eric. Victor looked me in the eyes and said, "Stupid girl. You don't have the balls."

And then I brought the sword down and watched his head separate from his body, silver net and all. I felt dizzy and disoriented and bent over and retched onto what was left of Victor. And then I was out again.