A/N Well I have been writing every spare moment I have to try to get this out, as I felt a little mean leaving you all with a cliffhanger last chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"Get her? I have got her. I knocked her right over," another voice said, somewhere behind me in the darkness. Like the first voice, it was male and I didn't recognise it.

"You ain't got her, at all," the first voice said. "Because she's fixing to just walk on out of here."

He was right, I was. My palms were hurting from the gravel, but I'd sat back on my heels and judged myself mostly whole and I was trying to pin-point the direction my car was in so I could have a straight run there.

I was, however, cursing that I hadn't had my keys ready in my hand as I walked out here. They were tucked away, safely, in a pocket inside my big purse. The same purse that had slid down my arm and fallen to the ground when I'd been pushed over. I started to pull it towards me, cautiously, in the hope the men wouldn't notice the movement.

But that was too much to hope for. A hand reached out and grabbed my arm, the one with the purse-strap slung over it, and yanked me roughly up. In the process my purse slid further down my arm and all the way to the ground. I cursed silently, aware that my chance of grabbing my keys had slipped away along with the purse.

"I got her now!" the second voice said, with a lot more joy than I thought the occasion warranted. I peered at my attacker, but he seemed to be wearing a ski-mask of some kind and I couldn't make out any of his features.

"Well, get her bag," the first voice said. "We got told that's ours, now, didn't we?"

"She'll have tips," the guy holding my arm said. He still sounded happy. I tried to wrench my arm free, but it didn't work. "Oh no, don't fight me girlie. It'll be a lot worse if you fight me."

I wasn't so sure of that. I still had high hopes of being able to get away from these two. To where, I wasn't really sure. They were between me and the door back into the bar, and the one holding my arm had now reached down and picked up my purse, taking my car keys with him. Damn him to hell and back.

"I bet she's made a lot, tonight, with those tits of hers," the one holding me said. "Do I get to squeeze one?"

"Give me her stuff first," the first guy said. He stepped a little closer and I could see that, like his buddy, he'd covered his face too. He reached out for my bag and, as the guy holding me started to hand it over, I kicked out, hoping he'd drop it, or let go of me or something.

He did drop it, but the other guy snatched it up pretty quick. And the one holding me didn't let go of me, instead he dragged me in front of him, so he could put a hand on my other shoulder while standing behind me. My manoeuvre had not worked.

Now I was getting more than a little frightened. At first, I'd been annoyed at their interruption to my plan of getting home and getting to bed, but now I felt vulnerable and very much alone. I had no idea how long it would be until Eric came out into the parking lot, for all I knew he was sleeping there in his office.

I yelled. I yelled "Help" and "Fire" and "Get away from me" and anything I could think of. I yelled as loud as I could into the darkness. I yelled for Eric, even though I was almost certain he wouldn't come.

He didn't come. Instead there was a sudden burst of hot pain across my right cheekbone as the guy holding my bag hit me in the face. It was immediately followed by the back of my head hitting something hard and a yelp of pain from the guy behind me. "Goddammit, Joe. You done near broke my fuckin' nose!"

"Well, move your head away, you moron. You want her yelling the place down and that boss-guy coming out here?"

"No, but I don't see why I have to be the one to get hurt. You come and hold her for a bit, she's all wriggly now."

I was all wriggly now. I was trying my darndest to get him to let me go, even though the bag-holding guy who'd hit me was still standing right in my way. I wasn't going to let them… I wasn't even going to think about that. Getting away from them, that was step number one.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ. Stop bein' such a damn baby. She's just a girl, and you were wantin' to feel her up a minute ago."

"Well, I still do. But she's gotta be still first, else it ain't gonna be no fun."

Because I was moving so much, he'd had to move his hands from holding on to just my upper arms, and he'd wrapped one arm right across my chest now. As I wriggled, it moved up until it was across my throat, pinning me against him. I bent forwards and I bit his wrist, as hard as I could, forcing myself not to feel too disgusted about being that close to him.

Like I'd said to Eric, I very rarely bite. But when I do, I like to give it my all.

"Ow! Fuck. You fuckin' whore!" he cursed, but it did the trick and he loosened his grip, which was worth the insults. I dropped to the ground, and I yelled again, just in case someone would actually hear me.

I was trying to re-gain my balance to start a run, when the guy who'd just let me go swiftly kicked me in the hip, ruining my chance. I pitched forward and, once again, my hands hit the gravel of the parking lot. I scrambled a bit, trying to stop falling to my knees when I felt his hands grabbing at my waist.

He missed, I fell to my knees and then I twisted my ankle painfully trying to stand up. But as I did so he reached out and grabbed my ponytail, pulling it hard and jerking my neck backwards, which forced me to lean back and stopped me standing right up.

I'd really thought I was going to get away, and the fact that I hadn't brought as many tears of frustration to my eyes as there were tears of pain from the hair-pulling. I wondered what was going to happen next, whether they were going to drag me into a car, or just into the woods that came up almost to the parking lot. I wondered if I'd ever be seen again.

"Fuck. She ain't nothin' but trouble," the guy holding my hair said, as I tried to hit out at his arm and scratch at his hand and make him let go. It didn't work though, and he managed to grab one of my hands in the other one of his and twist it up behind my back. He made it sound like I was doing this deliberately, just to ruin his plans for the night. Well, he ruined my plans so he could go suck it.

"I don't know why you're botherin'," the other voice said. "It ain't part of the plan to try fightin' with her. And you're losin' anyways. To a girl."

"Oh, I fuckin' am not. Look, I got her, don't I?"

"Till she bites you again. Or kicks you in the nuts."

That was what I was trying to do. He'd pulled me up a bit higher now, so I was almost out of my crouch, and I aimed a kick behind me, but missed. Still, he'd had to side-step which had made it harder to keep a grip on my hair. A few more kicks and he might let go altogether.

"Sure those tits are worth it?" the voice by the door to the bar asked my captor.

"Now I just wanna teach her a lesson." He pulled on my hair, hard, as he said that.

"Yeah, but I sure as shit don't want to go to jail when they find the body. Ain't worth it. C'mon, let's go to Shreveport with her tips and have us a much better time." I realised there was a hint of pleading in the other guys voice and I hoped his buddy gave in.

"Oh. Fuck it. All right, we're done." All of a sudden the hand released my hair and I was pushed forward, back onto the ground again. By the sharp pain in my knees I figured that my jeans had finally given way but I didn't care. I started crawling towards the half-circle of light in front of the door.

"Tell him next time, it's a customer," one of the voices said, but I didn't really pay a lot of attention. My one thought was door. If I could reach the door, I'd be safe, I'd be OK. I didn't look behind me, I didn't want to know if they were still there, or what they were doing.

I reached the door and, with shaky fingers, I pushed the numbers into the keypad to unlock it, as I heard tyres squeal and gravel crunch on the other side of the parking lot. I pulled open the door and threw myself inside and onto the floor of the corridor. And then I started sobbing.

I don't know how long I sat there, but it was how Eric found me, tears streaming down my face, hair wild, palms and knees bloodied, my cheek probably already bruising, and my chest heaving with the effort of getting out everything I'd been keeping in the whole time I was out there fighting to stay safe.

I stopped sobbing and looked up, just in time for Eric to ask "What did you do?"

I burst out laughing.

I'm not sure that Eric liked that much more than the crying. I noted that he'd been standing a safe distance from me, and now he took a step backwards, probably scared of the crazy lady with the changeable moods. Guess this was what it was like being Jane Bodehouse.

"Sookie. Can you tell me what happened?" Eric asked.

I stopped laughing and started sobbing again, and I shook my head for no. I couldn't talk. Not right then, anyway.

I was really confusing Eric. He steeled himself and came a little closer to me, and then crouched down. "You got hurt," he announced.

I nodded yes.

"In the parking lot."

I nodded again.

"How?"

I took a deep breath and said, in a shaky voice that sounded small and scared and not like mine at all "I got mugged."

"Mugged?" Eric asked, like I'd said the strangest thing. "Here?"

"Yeah."

"By…who?"

"Muggers, I guess. Two of 'em. They'd covered their faces, so I didn't see who they were. They took my purse."

Eric didn't reply to that, he just sat back on his heels and looked at me. And then he looked like he thought of something. "You're supposed to hand it over, not fight them for it."

"Oh, right. Yeah Eric, I'm sure that works just swell in New York or wherever all the polite muggers live, you-all just handing over your things as soon as they ask. I don't have much and I ain't just giving it away. And I sure as hell just ain't…ain't…" I stopped talking as another sob came bubbling out of my chest. I wasn't letting them take me. I wasn't letting them feel me up, like one of them had wanted to, or do anything worse. I just wasn't.

Eric pressed his lips together. "Don't cry," he said, and I kind of hoped he might comfort me a little, but he just said "It's hardly going to help matters now."

"No. No, you're right, Eric." I sniffed loudly and wiped at my eyes with my hand. "I'm OK. Just a little shaken up is all."

"Good," Eric said, standing up and holding out his hand to me. "Let's get you…ah, fixed up then."

I let Eric haul me to my feet, and then followed him back into his office. "Sit," he said, and I did, in his big desk chair. He started rummaging around on the shelves behind the desk and muttering a bit, and then he disappeared out of the room altogether and he was gone a while. I wondered if I was supposed to follow him, but exhaustion had set in and staying put seemed a much better idea.

When Eric arrived back he was carrying a large bowl, a towel, and what looked like a first-aid kit. I'd almost dozed off by that point, and roused myself as he walked through the door. "It took me a while," he acknowledged. "That kitchen is…I don't know how he finds anything."

"Lafayette?" I asked. Eric nodded, as he put down everything he was carrying. "Oh, he just yells at D'Eriq until D'Eriq gets it for him."

"Seems like a logical way to go about it," Eric said. "OK, hold this on your cheek." He handed me a small plastic bag filled with ice, which I dutifully put against my face. "Now, put your other hand on the desk." I did that, palm facing up, and Eric adjusted his desk lamp so he could see better.

"You tell fortunes, too?" I asked, as he peered at my palm.

"Uh-huh. I see pain in your near future."

"Ow!" Eric had pulled out some of the gravel with a pair of tweezers he'd located in the first aid kid. "Wow, you're very accurate, Eric."

"It's one of my many skills," he murmured, still intent on my hand.

"Well, I'm glad you have some because you suck at fixing computers." Eric laughed at that, and I felt a little better and maybe noticed the pain in my hands and my knees and my cheek a little less.

"I got a lecture. Earlier," Eric commented.

"I heard. Back-ups are important, Eric."

"Apparently so. But this was about my housekeeping." He stopped pulling gravel out of my hand and reached over and lifted up the small trash-can he kept in his office. On top of the waste paper that was in there I could see a big pile of grey dust and fibres all clumped together. "That was in the fan of the computer. You can't let it get too clogged up, or else it overheats and dies. Or something. Bill was not impressed."

I waited half a beat for Eric to add something else about Bill and me, but he didn't, and I was glad. I was willing to put our argument from earlier in the evening aside. Maybe that was a little fickle of me, but right then, I just needed a friend.

"You need to get better cleaners in here," I said to him.

"I know. Also, now I know there's a fan in the computer."

"Wow. Never occurred to you that's what the whirring sound was, huh?'

"Not once." Eric looked up from my hand and smiled at me, and I smiled back.

Eric finished up my hand and applied some antiseptic cream, and then he looked at my right hand, which wasn't nearly so bad.

"How do they feel now?" he asked.

"Better," I said, meeting Eric's gaze as he looked from my hands to my face. "I'm sure glad that doctoring is one of your skills."

Eric chuckled at that. "And I'm glad you weren't hurt any worse, Sookie. There's a limit to my skills."

"Plus it would be a pain in the ass to replace a waitress at short notice."

"I couldn't replace you, Sookie."

"Oh."

"No. Well, where else am I going to find a waitress who knows the accounting software?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, we are hard to come by, us waitresses-slash-bookkeepers." Pam was right, I was helpful. Good old, helpful, Sookie.

"I think you're quite unique, Sookie. And I wouldn't want to lose you." Eric reached up and gently turned my chin to the side to get a look at my bruised cheek. "That seems a little better now."

"It does," I sniffed. I was still having a reaction to the attack, because now I was crying again.

"No. No, just don't." Eric drew back from me.

"I'm sorry," I said, crying harder.

"Could you be sorry with less crying?"

"No. Not really. I just…I was so scared. Scared I'd never see anyone I knew again."

"Well, you did. You didn't let them take you. I don't think you should cry over that."

"I bit one of them."

"And you very rarely bite."

"Yeah."

"I'm glad you fought them."

"Yeah. Me too." I gave Eric a small smile, and he returned it.

We were silent for a moment, my sobs having subsided now. It wasn't an uneasy silence, though. Well, not totally uneasy. I was feeling OK. It took me a moment to realise that Eric was rubbing the back of my hand and that might have had something to do with it.

Right about then, I was willing to soak up any little scrap of comfort I could take.

"OK," Eric said. "Um…I'll take a look at your knees." He reached out and touched one, gingerly.

"Oh, no. That's OK. I think you've done enough now."

"No, I think I should at least clean them a little. Uh, can you take your jeans off?"

I thought about that. "No, it'll be fine Eric. I'll just fix them up at home."

"But, Sookie. I have all my supplies out here now." He gestured to the bowl of water and the antiseptic cream.

"Oh. All right then." I was just being silly, wasn't I? I mean, sitting in my bikini briefs wasn't going to be any worse than sitting around at the lake in a bikini, was it?

Somehow it was, but, after everything I'd been through, being partially undressed in front of Eric, who was, after all, trying to help me, didn't seem like it should be a big deal.

I stood up, and reluctantly unbuttoned my jeans and started to slip them down my legs. I half-expected that Eric might be gentlemanly and look away, or even turn his back, but that didn't happen. Instead he watched with curiosity.

"I'm feeling a little self-conscious here," I said, as I pushed my jeans further down my legs, thankful that at least Eric wasn't behind me when I was bending over.

"Sookie, if I really wanted to see you in your underwear, I would have thought of a much better way to achieve that. Something that required you losing less skin for a start."

"Well, that would have been nice." Getting my jeans over my skinned knees had been kind of painful, but having managed it, I sat back down in the chair.

"You have very nice skin, Sookie." Eric crouched in front of me and although he was supposed to be looking after my knees, his focus seemed to be a little higher, on the skin of my thigh.

"Well. Thank you, Eric." I figured even if I was a little uncomfortable, I could remain polite and this didn't have to get any worse. After all he wasn't going to make a move on me, was he? Eric was washing my knees now, his head bent very close to his task. I could feel his breath on my leg.

I shifted a little uncomfortably, and pulled my t-shirt down as tight as I could. Right then I sure wished that I was wearing the large sized t-shirt Eric had given me to wear the night I'd had beer thrown on me.

All of a sudden something occurred to me.

"Eric, I think I might have an idea who it was."

"Who?" He looked up, frowning slightly.

"The guys who mugged me. "

"But you said they covered their faces. So I don't think…"

I cut him off. "It was those guys. The beer-throwers. One of the muggers, he called me girlie. So did the friend of the guy who threw the beer."

Eric stopped work on my knees and looked thoughtful. "But you didn't see their faces." he reiterated.

"No. But one of them was called Joe…at least, I think he was." That was what I remembered but, to be honest, I'd had other things on my mind at the time. "We should tell the police. Tell them what I know, at least. And that someone was out there."

Eric stood up now, and stopped making eye contact. "But you don't remember much, Sookie. A name…which might be wrong, one of them using a term someone else used once. He's the only other person who called you girlie? Ever?"

I shrugged. I didn't know. Seemed more than likely, though, that he wasn't the only person. "I could say how tall they were…or something."

"And were they tall? Or short? Or just average?"

"Average. I guess." Boy, Eric sure didn't think much of my powers of observation. "But I'm sure I'd know them…if I saw them again."

"Sookie…" Eric sounded very grim all of a sudden. "I don't want to rain on your parade, but all of this stuff, it just isn't going to add up to an ID, or even an arrest. The best the cops will know is that you were mugged, here in the parking lot, and that you think it might have been a couple of guys you once served, but maybe it wasn't, and one of them might possibly be called Joe. Aside from that all you can say is that it was two guys, with nothing notable about them, and whose faces you couldn't see, who were hanging around the parking lot looking to mug someone leaving a bar. It's hardly going to be the number one policing priority. Even here."

"So…you don't think I should even report it?" This all seemed a little odd to me. I'd been brought up to believe that when you witnessed a crime, you should tell the police. And if you were the victim of the crime, then they'd do their best to get you justice. What did Eric know that I didn't?

"Sookie, I just don't think it's going to be that, uh, big a deal." Eric looked at me. "Although, of course, to you it's been traumatic."

He sounded so smooth when he said that, that I was starting to believe him. But then he said. "I just can't see a mugging, in the parking lot of a bar, being something the police could really solve."

And then I caught on. It was the fact it happened here. In the parking lot. In the parking lot of Eric's bar.

He didn't want anyone else to know.

Sure, he might be sorry I got hurt, wish it hadn't happened, try to make sure it didn't happen again, but he wasn't going to make it public, if he could avoid it. He didn't want the customers getting spooked, after all.

And, as much as it made me sick to my stomach, made me feel like a liar and a cheat, I had to agree with Eric. None of us could afford the bar to lose any business.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess you're right."

"I knew you'd see it that way too." That just made it ten times worse. Like I was the gullible idiot Eric could count on to go along with whatever he wanted. I might not have wanted to be like Dawn, visiting Eric's office when the mood took him, but I didn't think I was much better than her. He seemed to be able to talk me into things too. A few compliments here and there, about how he couldn't manage without me and I was nothing more than putty in his hands.

I looked at Eric and he didn't look all that triumphant, not like a person who'd just successfully got someone else to see it all his way, anyway. He looked kind of defiant like he half-expected me to argue with him over it all. I didn't have the energy for that.

"I better get home," I said. I stood up and started to pull my jeans on again, easing them over my scratched and torn knees. I put my shoes back on, and I straightened up, ready to head on out to my car…

Oh.

"I don't have my keys," I confessed to Eric.

"What?"

"My keys. They were in my bag."

"Well, why?"

"Because that's where I keep them. And I didn't expect to get mugged. In the parking lot." I least I still had my tips, they were in the pocket of my jeans, but I'd lost everything else I'd been carrying. My car keys, my wallet, the silver necklace Gran had bought me on my 18th birthday which I'd been meaning to take to get the clasp fixed…

Well, there was no good dwelling on that now. I should just be grateful that I was in one piece.

"I guess I'll take you home, then." Eric sure didn't sound thrilled about that. I waited while he returned the bowl and things to the kitchen and then switched all the lights off and checked the front door was locked, and then I followed him silently out into the parking lot.

"I'll have to get my car tomorrow," I said. Eric didn't reply. "If it's still there."

"I think it will be fine in the parking lot, Sookie."

"Like I was fine?" Eric and I had reached his Corvette now, and he walked right around to the driver's door, and opened it.

"You are. In the end."

"Yeah. No thanks to you. I yelled, you know. I yelled your name. You didn't come."

"I didn't hear." Eric sounded exasperated as he climbed into the car. I opened the passenger door and did the same thing, and then I gave the door a rather satisfying slam which earned me a glare from Eric.

Well, he didn't seem to give a damn about my car, so I wasn't going to treat his like it was something precious.

"No, I got that at the time. When you didn't come out."

"You should have tried to call someone," Eric informed me. "Even just dialled it on your phone."

"I didn't have my phone." Eric turned to look at me as he started the engine. "It's in the glove compartment of my car."

"Well, what the fuck use is it there, Sookie?"

"I didn't know it was going to be an issue, did I? No one told me one of the joys of working here was the muggers lurking in the parking lot. Plus the battery's all messed up and it doesn't work for long. I wanted to save it for the drive home."

Eric huffed out a breath, sounding quite exasperated. "Well, then. You should replace it. You need to think more about your safety." That was easy for him to say. I didn't have the spare cash for things like new cellphones.

"And you need to get better lights out in that parking lot, Eric. That one measly bulb doesn't cut it. By the way you're going the wrong way." He'd turned out of the parking lot and was currently heading towards Shreveport, not Bon Temps.

"What?"

"Wrong way. My house is back in Bon Temps. Behind us."

Eric muttered something and slowed the car right down, before looking over his shoulder and turning the car around in a smooth circle. Then he hit the gas again and we were flying down the highway in the right direction this time.

"I guess you never did go visit Dawn at home, then," I said. I don't really know why. I was just mad at that moment and Eric seemed like the best choice out of all the people I could be mad at. I'd been mad at him quite a lot that night and I thought that maybe that said something about his personal interactions with people. Clearly, he wasn't really cut out for ever leaving that office.

"Why do you have to keep bringing Dawn up, Sookie?" Eric sounded really angry now, too.

"Why do you want to sweep your whole relationship under the carpet? Oh right, because it wasn't a relationship. It was a booty call, and you're embarrassed by it."

"Stop telling me what I am, Sookie."

"Stop telling me what to do." I didn't like it when Bill did that, and I sure as hell wasn't going to take it from Eric either.

Eric didn't reply to that, but the car sped up a little and I gripped the door hoping we'd make it safely round all the corners we had to. After all, it would be a shame to survive a mugging only to die in a car accident later that same night.

With the minimum of words I managed to give Eric directions through Bon Temps and onto Hummingbird Road. When we turned into my driveway and hit the first deep rut Eric cursed and slowed the car right down, but he didn't say anything. His thoughts were kind of obvious though, he wasn't thinking kind things about me, or my driveway.

We pulled up to the house and I was in no mood to have Eric hang around and pass any judgements about my house. I had opened the door and was getting out almost before Eric had brought the car to a stop.

"Do you have keys?" he asked, brusquely.

"Spare ones. Under the plant pot. No, it's probably not safe, but anyone that survives the driveway maybe deserves a reward like being able to rob me in my sleep."

I could see by the little light on the roof of the car that Eric didn't like that comment at all. He thought I was being childish. I probably was, but I'd had a damned shitty night and I thought I deserved to blow off a little steam.

I went to shut the door of the car, but Eric put out his arm to stop me. "Sookie," he said, and then he paused. "What, uh…what will you say?"

I took a moment to catch his meaning. "I'll say it was an accident at home, say that something fell on me. Something large and particularly obnoxious."

Eric didn't rise to that one, he just nodded and pulled the door closed from the inside, and then he drove off into the darkness. I started the hunt for the spare key to my door.

Keys in hand, I opened the door and felt a wave of exhaustion hit me. I really wanted a shower, and I mostly wanted to climb into bed, but instead I slumped to the floor and just sat there. I was scared, there was no denying that, I was scared and I was hurt that Eric didn't want to make it public, didn't want anyone to know I'd been attacked when it had felt so personal. They'd wanted my tips. They might have been the guys who'd been ticked off when Long Shadow tossed them out for dousing me in beer. They might come back. Or they might mess with my car, they did have the keys after all.

I was just about to stand up, to make myself stand up and walk to my bedroom off the hallway, when I remembered something. Something those men had said when I'd been focussing on getting myself back into the bar.

They'd said Tell him. They'd said Tell him, next time it's a customer.

There was only one him I'd be likely to tell. It wasn't me they were after at all. I was just delivering a message.

A message to Eric.

Thanks for reading!