A.N. Thanks to those of you who took the time to review the last chapter, or any chapter. I appreciate you all. Enjoy.

. . . . .

"You want some more water?" Sookie points at the glass in front of me. It's a big glass, but I've completely drained it in the rather short time I've been at her kitchen table. It took a lot for my mouth to stop feeling so dry.

I shake my head, folding my hands in front of me. "No, thank you."

She gives a stiff smile and takes the glass to the sink. She just carried the ruined rug out to her back porch, and Eric is out in the night somewhere, burying a corpse. He hasn't been gone long, but he probably would already be done were it not for the bullet wound in his stomach.

I wish he would hurry. I've been alone with Sookie before, but never on her territory. That changes things, somehow.

Or maybe you just saw a man die and you're not yet up for normal conversation.

No, no. That's not who I am.

Sookie lowers into the chair across from mine. "You sure you're okay?"

"Of course."

"You don't have to be. Not with me. If you need to be upset, that could stay between us."

Her voice is soft, and I feel the warmth of her heart, like I always do – although tonight there's also a tight, twitching sensation underneath the glow, because of Bill – so I know she isn't trying to be anything but kind. I can't help that she's annoying me anyway.

Be brave for me.

"If I needed to be upset, I would have been upset already. And it wouldn't need to stay between us," I add. "Eric's seen me upset plenty of times before. He's never made me feel bad about it."

"I didn't mean he would make you feel bad. I've seen how sweet he can be with you."

Sweet. That's not a word I've ever heard applied to Eric. It isn't inaccurate, not when it comes to him and me, but most people don't know that.

"It's just that sometimes we wanna put on our best faces for the people we love and admire. And there's a time and place for that, but . . . there's also a time to be . . . vulnerable. That's okay, too."

I wish I had her bring me more water. I miss having the glass to play with. I tangle my fingers together instead.

The front door opens. I'm sitting with my back to the foyer, so I twist in my seat to see Eric come in. "Well, that's done," he says, eyeing the place where the bloodied rug used to be as he steps over it and enters the kitchen. "Would you like to know where he is?" he asks Sookie.

"Not really." Her voice takes a turn. "I'd like to know if he knew where Bill is. So much for keepin' him alive."

"That's what I was planning." Eric runs his hand down my hair once before gripping the back of my chair.

Sookie tilts her head. "Until you saw his brand."

"That mark on his neck?" I say without thinking. Sookie's eyebrows pop up for a moment.

"It brings back many memories," Eric tells her. "Unpleasant ones."

"Why would he have a brand on his neck?" I know I'm pushing it, but it's not like I'm not involved with the problem. I was face-to-face with the man – the wolf – in question an hour ago. I watched him die.

Also, I really want to know why Eric would have many memories concerning werewolves. He's barely ever mentioned them to me.

But –

"Annika," Eric says, "go watch television."

I put my hands in my lap. "I won't ask any more questions."

"Do as I say."

I go, wanting nothing so much as to stomp my feet, but I have the sense not to do so. I just clench my fists really tightly.

I pace in the living room, listening over the television set (which I put on the lowest level of volume I think I can get away with) while Sookie and Eric speak in the kitchen, her eagerly and him in murmurs. He only raises his voice once:

"You have no idea how dangerous werewolves are!"

A pause, and then he goes back to murmuring.

After a few minutes of their back-and-forth, Eric appears in the archway of the living room. He jerks his head towards the door and takes my coat from the couch. I let him help me into it as Sookie comes out of the kitchen, arms crossed. She leans against the frame of the archway. "I leave tomorrow," she tells Eric. "I have to go, Bill would do it for me. I don't expect you to understand."

"I understand very well."

Sookie's eyes drop to me, and she lets her arms fall to her sides, but then clasps them in front of her hips. "If I do get into some kind of trouble . . . You'll feel it, right? Because of your blood?"

I twist my head back in time to see Eric nod.

"How fast can you get to Mississippi?" Sookie asks.

"Probably not fast enough." Eric steps across the foyer and opens the door, gesturing me through.

"Goodnight, Sookie." I cross onto the porch. The cool air feels good.

"'Night, Annika. Good seein' you."

Eric follows me out. Sookie takes the knob and looks out at us, in a reflection of how things were when Eric and I first arrived. Only now there's blood on his shirt. "Stay out of trouble, Miss Stackhouse," Eric says. "You'll be doing you and I both a favor."

Before she can answer, Eric's pulled me into his arms and we're gone.

. . . . .

We land in an alleyway. A man and woman happen to be walking past it at the time, and both gasp at our appearance – she shrieks a little – and hurry away, him practically dragging her. I hear Eric chuckle as he zips up his jacket, hiding his bloody shirt.

"What are we doing?" We're somewhere in the city, I can tell by the noise, the real honking-and-shouting noise and the noise inside of me that comes from lots of feeling and thinking people. I follow Eric to the sidewalk and find myself in the middle of a commercial sort of street, one that's packed with shops and parallel parking but that's bigger than the one I woke up on a few hours ago. The shops are all chains, not unique little places.

"We have some time before we can expect Dr. Ludwig at the club," Eric says, and my stomach flips – more than it should, really. I hate Dr. Ludwig, but she's hardly a danger. Eric nods at the shop across the street, where a neon blue-and-white sign flashes the name Johnson's Creamery in blocky letters.

"It's been a stressful night." Eric takes my shoulder and starts guiding me along. "You need ice cream."

I put my hand on top of his for a second. He'll understand that means I love him.

I get a scoop of cookies-and-cream in a waffle cone and, because it's too cold to eat it outside, Eric and I sit at a table in the corner of the little shop. It's circle-shaped and bright red, like the tile on the floor. Eric takes a chair facing the entrance, like always.

"May I ask a question?"

"I will never forbid you from asking questions, dear. I just may refuse to answer them."

I rest my fist, firmly clenching the cone, on the sticky table. "Why is Sookie going to Mississippi?"

Eric's eyes dart around the room, but it's late, and the only other customers in here are a few people in their late teens or so, and they're across the room and too wrapped up in their own (impolitely loud) conversation to listen to us. "She heard the wolf thinking about Jackson. That's a city in Mississippi."

"I know where Jackson is, Eric."

"My apologies."

"And she wants to go where the wolf is from because . . . the wolves have Bill."

Eric nods.

"Why? What do they want with him? And why would they go after Sookie, too?"

"I have my theories." He doesn't elaborate.

Alright. "The brand, the brand on the wolf's neck – you said it brought back unpleasant memories. With other werewolves? Or something else?"

He rolls his eyes towards me.

"Eric, I know you said you decide what I should know and what I shouldn't –"

"To which, if I remember correctly, you said, 'Yes, Eric.'"

Fine, then. I lick my ice cream once. "Are you going to Mississippi, too? Because you're Bill's sheriff?"

"Bill is my responsibility," Eric says, "But he is not my only responsibility, and far from the most important one."

"You have to –" I stop.

"Have to what?"

"You . . ." I roll the cone between my fingers. "The magister asked you to find the vampire who's been selling blood."

"Ah, that's right. You were eavesdropping. And now I've bought you ice cream. I fear I may be sending you mixed messages."

"I'm sorry."

"I've promised the magister results. Yes."

"Why does he think it's so bad for vampires to give people their blood?"

"The sacred nature of vampire blood is an ancient belief, one which the majority of vampires, if they are being honest, do not ascribe to anymore. But those who do tend to be old and powerful."

I wonder if Godric ascribed to it. If he did, how would he have felt knowing that Eric has so often given me his blood? That he's given Sookie his blood?

And on that note . . .

"If the magister found out . . ." But no. No, I shouldn't say that out loud.

Eric understands anyway.

"Don't worry about the magister, Annie. I have everything under control. Haven't you learned that by now?"

I smile. And he does too, a little.

I can almost ignore the tiny twinge in my stomach that says, Be careful.

. . . . .

Dr. Ludwig finds nothing wrong with me, despite poking and pulling at my body like I'm a cheap doll for half-an-hour. She tells Eric – in her standard grumpy way – that there are a few vampire-friendly psychiatrists she could refer us to if he insisted, but that, with sleepwalking, there really isn't much to be done – not without resorting to magic, at least, and Eric shoots that option down immediately.

Dr. Ludwig says, though, that since I've only sleepwalked one time, there might be nothing to worry about. That it might have been a strange instance, a fluke.

Eric gives me one of my anti-anxiety pills before I go to bed. To help me sleep soundly, he says. But the truth is, I've been jittery ever since we got back to Fangtasia, and he knows it. Maybe it's because of the werewolf. Maybe it's because of the magister. I don't know, but I don't like it, it's not like me. Or . . . I don't want it to be.

That day, I sleepwalk again.

Eric had Ginger stay at the club from dawn to dusk, and – although I remember none of this after I wake up – she led me back to bed three times. The last time I was muttering, just one thing, she tells Eric – Stop it. Over and over again. She would have thought it was to her, except that I didn't seem to know she was there.

Eric listens to her quietly. Then he looks at me for a while. Then he asks if I feel like going car shopping for one of his associates. An old friend of mine.

Which is how I end up in Bon Temps, in front of a small house decorated with multi-colored lights, blaring – with Eric's blessing – the horn of a gorgeous, shiny convertible. The car place we got it from opened just for us – well, for Eric. He picked out the model, but he let me choose the color. I went with red.

The little house's screen door swings open, and I stop honking as Lafayette steps onto his porch, wearing a yellow silk robe (fake silk, maybe). He sees us, recognizes us, and, although I can't hear him, his facial expression and gestures make me think he swears to himself. Maybe a lot.

I turn to Eric. The playfulness that was in his eyes when he told me to honk the horn is still there, but it narrows into something sharper as he rests his elbow on the door and lifts his hand, folding his fingers down one-by-one in a single wave.

Lafayette comes down the porch steps, tying his robe closed. "Hello, sweetheart," Eric calls to him pleasantly. He taps my arm. I scoot over, and he pulls me onto his lap before patting the passenger seat I just occupied. "Hop in," he tells Lafayette as he settles his arm on the windowsill behind me, brushing his thumb back and forth over my shoulder.

Lafayette obeys, plopping into the car like the trip from his house was miles long. "Listen," he says to his knees, in a way that makes it clear we're skipping pleasantries, "Listen. I moved what I could – I mean, even at half-off, the shit is still expensive –"

"Ah – Lafayette." Eric indicates me. "Young ears. Let's not bore Annika with the details of our business."

I glare at him. He ignores me. He told me when we were buying the car that it was for Lafayette, that he had hired him shortly after releasing him from Fangtasia's basement-prison right before we went to Dallas – "Lafayette is a capitalist, Annika, and for such people, money helps bygones more easily become bygones" – but he didn't say exactly what Lafayette does for him, and I didn't think to ask. Eric is a busy man, and I truly don't care to keep up with everything he does.

Except when he makes it clear that he doesn't want me to know. As he just did.

Lafayette stares at me like he's just now recognizing who I am – the girl he once begged for his freedom, the girl who saw him get shot.

The girl who didn't help him.

No – the girl who was loyal to Eric.

Lafayette huffs out a breath. "Look," he starts again. "I'm – I'ma just need some mo' time –"

"Relax," says Eric. "You'll ruin your new ride."

Lafayette blinks. "Huh?"

"Pam's been a bit harsh lately." Pam is Eric's second-in-command in virtually every area of his life, of course. She acts as a go-between a lot, I know that. "She's under a lot of pressure. I thought it'd be a good time for a small gift to my top salesman."

Lafayette's eyes have been tracing the car since he said 'Huh?', and I've been watching him, and feeling things from him – he's easy to read, his emotions are loud. He's scared, naturally, and angry, but he's also thrilled – although he doesn't want to be, he's shoving that emotion down, he assumes something's wrong here.

And one more thing. A sensation I've only felt once before – a vibration from him that matches perfectly with a vibration in me.

"Eric, did you give him your blood?" I ask in Swedish.

"Please don't interrupt, Annika," he says, not bothering to switch from English, until he adds, "But yes."

Lafayette gulps, eyeing Eric. "What's the catch?"

"Well, you'll have to pay the insurance, of course, I'm not an idiot. And I'm going to have to sell you the car for one dollar to avoid that pesky gift tax . . ." He pulls the keys from the slot in the car and jingles them before Lafayette, who takes them as if they might bite. "Mind you, it may look a little, uh, out-of-place parked outside of that . . . strange plywood hut you live in."

I giggle.

"Nah," Lafayette says after a minute. "I ain't takin' no more of your shit."

Eric pulls his hand from my shoulder and braces it on the sill as he leans towards Lafayette. I feel the smile drop from my face as Lafayette presses back against the passenger door and Eric begins to whisper.

"You have great value, Lafayette. You're discreet. Efficient. And you have a network of loyal customers with enormous disposable income. You could become quite wealthy if you wanted to."

What does Eric have him doing?

"I don't need no mo' money," Lafayette says. But . . . something in him is stirring. He doesn't mean that, no, not at all, even if he wants to.

"No?" Eric straightens. I feel his hand beside my shoulder again, fingers tapping lightly on my coat. "I never thought of you as lacking in ambition, but perhaps you're content with moth-eaten afghans and second-hand furniture . . ."

Lafayette rubs a finger over the keys. They gleam delightfully in the moonlight. Finally he says, slowly, "I'll think about it."

Eric's arm loops under my legs before I know what's happening. "Don't make me wait too long." The door behind me opens with a pop, but Eric's other arm braces me so I don't fall back. "You can owe me the dollar."

"Enjoy the car – I hope you like red!" I call, wrapping my arms around Eric as he leaps from the seats. Then Lafayette, the convertible, the little house, and all of Bon Temps disappear. It's just me and Eric and sky.