CHAPTER 25

There were moments in life when the world stood still. Or rather, you stood still and the world continued on around you, waiting for you to catch up when you were ready. Shock. The kind born of betrayal, in every sense of the word, multiplied millions of times over.

Lina could feel her body freeze, all color drain from her face, as she stared ahead wide-eyed at something no one else could see. The shock emptied her mind of everything and anything else. The tangled thoughts gave her some space before the hell of reality sucked her back in and didn't let go anymore.

Everything around her felt distant, chaotic even in the quiet of her underground safe haven. Blood dripped from her nose, across her left cheek to her ear – a tell tale sign she'd woken up too early. She heard joyful noises from upstairs, but couldn't understand what was being said or who was speaking. She just stared ahead without seeing.

When reality caught up with her, she screamed like a dying animal. She trashed in the bed, shaking what little was left from the haunting dream off of her. Her maker, her brother… Eric. The sheets ripped and her surroundings melted into blur when she dropped on the floor with equal amounts of pain and horror hammering into her.

The old, deep but familiar feeling of loss after seeing the death of her brother again was being replaced by that powerful feeling of betrayal. She heard the words over and over in her ears, spoken by the man she loved. She couldn't understand how she had forgotten his voice, those words, and how she had let herself be fooled like that.

Perhaps Eric hadn't seen her that night or now she'd changed so much he didn't recognize her for the same girl. For a thousand year old vampire, that night could've been one in a million, nothing out of the ordinary, already a fleeting memory. But would that make any difference? She didn't know. She couldn't think that far. Her mind was working in overdrive.

That night in the car.

The onslaught of questions at the mention of her dreams. The way he'd made her swear to tell him the instant she had them again. His almost threatening presence and the way he'd pricked her conscience, torn open wounds that she'd been happy to respect as scars and then soothed her with beautiful words. She had faults, just like everybody else, but those faults weren't the only reason he'd pressured her then.

He knew.

And he'd gotten scared this day would come sooner than he liked.

There was no stopping the tears anymore.

She didn't know how long she lied there, curled up into a ball, before a hollow knock on the closet door caught her attention.

"Lina? Are you awake?" Sookie called out.

She didn't answer, just rolled on her back and shut her eyes. She would have to face her friends soon, but she didn't know how to do that. She felt raw, trapped in an emotional free fall, and the only handholds she could grab were those of rage and thirst for retribution. She clung to them, because without them she didn't think she'd ever stop falling.

"Eric's asking to talk to you. I have the phone here. He's being... persistent," Sookie said and knocked again.

She didn't even move a muscle. Hearing his name aloud, her sorrow finally whipped itself into anger. Anger was an old reliable friend. It had the pleasant ability to consume every other thought and feeling, leaving only the burning desire to survive in their place. Anger was a weapon she knew how to play with.

Sookie sighed audibly, making sure the caller heard her and registered her displeasure. "She's sleeping or dead or whatever you guys do during the day, Eric. Just like I said she would be... No. Absolutely not... Can't you wait until the sun goes down? ... Fine. I'll check. But if she bites my head off for this..."

Lina got on her feet, cleaned her cheeks and jumped on the ladder. Before Sookie had a chance to punch in the access code, the closet door swung open and Lina met her in the living room. Sookie took a few staggered steps back.

"Oh, hi. I'm sorry, I didn't want to disturb you, but Eric wanted me to make sure you're okay. I thought the best way to handle the situat-"

Without saying a word, Lina reached out her hand for the phone. She noticed the girl hesitate, her eyes fixed on Lina's face, which probably looked like hell, but finally she gave it to her. Contrary to what Sookie probably meant by handling the situation, Lina swiftly pressed the end button and hung up on her lover who had felt her emotional breakdown and was calling to check upon her. How thoughtful of him, she thought and removed the battery in case he tried again.

She wasn't ready yet. She couldn't bear hearing his voice and she had to get a grip of herself before she confronted him. Red-faced hysterical women were easy to disregard, and that wasn't how it was going to this time, or ever again. Time for begging and screaming was over.

"Your funeral," Sookie snorted. Lina looked at her and raised an eyebrow, hopefully making it clear how many fucks she gave. Her fangs were out, the deadly tips dripping saliva and longing to tear into someone. She'd lost control of them. Intense emotions tended to grant them their free will. Trying to shield her eyes from the bright daylight and keep her teeth from showing, she silently asked the girl the time.

It was only four in the afternoon. Three hours until the sunset in Louisiana. She threw the phone on the couch and made a beeline for the kitchen. She needed to feed. She needed to keep herself busy before she started panicking, which wasn't a very useful thing to do.

Claude and Frans were sitting at the dinner table shoveling food into their mouths, elbows flapping. Both dropped their forks, when she appeared. Apparently, she truly was a sight to be seen. She made a mental note to avoid everything reflective.

Claude was the first one to react. "Good morning. You look like shit."

"Thanks," she whispered and fixed herself a tall glass of O negative. O negative went great with all kinds of blood thirst. "You eat like a pig."

"What are you doing up? Are you all right?" Frans asked. The two brothers looked at her slightly shaking hand, when she raised the glass on her lips. Her body hurt, her mind hurt, her heart was in pure agony.

"Yeah. I just couldn't sleep."

She flashed him a smile that probably looked more like a sudden muscle spasm. Hoping to escape further questions and hide her darkened eyes, she turned her back on them and leaned against the kitchen counter. That's when Sookie sauntered in with her Merlotte's uniform on, hair in a high ponytail and a bag over her shoulder. "So my dear cousins, I'm working till ten tonight. But afterwards, would you like to start the search?"

"Sure," Claude answered. Frans nodded. Lina had trouble remembering what they could be talking about.

Sookie was staring at her expectantly and waved her hand around like it would help her to catch up.

It didn't.

"My parents. What happened to them. The mystery vampire? Claude, Frans, Jason and I went to the accident sight by the bridge a few hours ago."

"We accessed the ripples of energy left there in form of memories of her parents. Sorry we didn't wait for you, but I guess you couldn't have helped us anyway with your... light gone and all." Claude winced as he realized he might have just opened another can of worms. "But you know that. Right, so Sookie saw something quite unexpected."

Sookie continued. "I saw Claudine, which should've been impossible, because my parents were already gone when she appeared to help. But the thing is, I didn't access my mother's memories like I was supposed to. I saw everything through the eyes of the vampire."

"And that shouldn't happen. Fairies cannot make contact with vampires. We're the creatures of light and they're the darkness. There's us and there's them, and there's Lina, but Sookie shouldn't be able to form a connection to him. We don't know the dangers of that and it quite frankly scared the fucking shit out of me and Claude. If Niall hears about this, he's going to have our asses on a platter," Frans concluded.

"Lina, does the name Warlow mean anything to you?" Sookie asked her, with hope shining from her eyes. All three of them looked at her with varying degrees of anticipation.

"No," she grunted and Sookie's face fell. She clearly counted on her too much.

Never had she come across a vampire called Warlow in her travels. Of course, she hadn't visited many American vampire kingdoms and she liked to stay out of vampire politics whenever she possibly could, so it really wasn't all that surprising. Few knew of her, and she wasn't really interested in getting to know anyone undead like her. Most of her other kind were loonies, killers and greedy backstabbers, not really best friend material. Sookie and she could search the AVL's vampire index to check if the bastard was still alive as soon as they had a chance. But now, she couldn't make herself focus on it.

One ancient vampire problem at a time.

"I guess you can't know everything, can you? Jason will be disappointed," Sookie laughed, but then looked at Lina concerned. "Are you and Eric fighting?"

Lina turned to look at the glass in her hand. Her fangs throbbed with sizzling anger making speaking around them difficult, but staying silent wasn't helping her cause. "I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you."

"Well, he sounded a little worried and you look madder than a wet hen," Sookie said, but shrugged it off. Thank god for small favors. "He told me he's coming as soon as the sun goes down, so you can talk it out. Until later, guys."

And then there were three.

Lina cleared her throat, still not ready to meet the eyes of the two brothers. "Do you mind leaving me the house tonight? I've got something to do and I would appreciate it if you found someplace else to spend the night. I'll pay for it."

"I thought we were doing something tonight," Claude protested. "The party, remember? You talked to Frans about it."

"Not tonight."

Claude and Frans looked at each other. "We don't have too many nights left here, Lina."

"You can go to Merlotte's and keep Sookie company. Or you can go check who this Warlow is. Whatever you want. Take the hotel money from my account."

"We only agreed to help Sookie because Claude babbled, but time's running out. Sookie can take it from here and do whatever she wants with the information we gave her. It's no longer our concern. Sookie's parents didn't have the spark and we're under no obligation to go after him. So, I say we go out tonight," Frans chimed.

"Hear hear," Claude said and raised his bottle of beer. "You know, we could go to that new club in Shreveport. That place you were photographed at, right? Not a lot of vamps there. They all go to your boyfriend's dive. What's it called, Fang-tasia? Holy mother of irony. At least the vampire's got humor," he chuckled. "So, if you want to bail, you can always run back to your hunky Eric or -"

Lina slammed her fist to the kitchen counter hard enough to crack it.

Claude blinked.

Frans blinked.

She wheeled around. "Do I look like I'm joking?" she hissed.

Slowly they shook their heads, both gazing at her fangs like they just now remembered that normal fairies didn't chug a pint of blood for breakfast.

"Just for this once, can you do this for me?"

The two nodded like bobbleheads.

"Thank you."

She put her glass in the sink, whispered something remotely apologetic and fled for the upstairs bathroom. As the door banged shut behind her, she leaned against it and with a flick of her hand she started the shower. The spray drowned out all other noise and she watched as hot humidity crept up and clouded the bathroom mirror.

A fresh batch of blood tears streamed down her cheeks. Suddenly she wanted him here. She wanted to see what would surface in his eyes when he saw her crying here because of him. Remorse? Indifference? Would he just stare at her and wait until this futile emotional outburst was over? She cursed herself for caring and she cursed him for doing this to her.

She'd let him control her, just like she'd feared from the start and just like he'd promised he'd never do. The memory from her turning didn't make her afraid of him like it probably should have. He'd wanted her dead once, or at least he'd wanted to consciously do something that would've led to her death in mere seconds. To know he'd wanted to hurt and harm her beyond repair, and that her blood was still almost as potent to him as it was then didn't scare her one bit anymore. No, she was afraid of another type of death. The death of self worth. She wouldn't turn into that girl.

It was time to suck it up. Right goddamn now.

She wiped the mirror with her shaky hand and stared at her own reflection in the eye. Turning her head from side to side as she examined herself. The glow from the couple of days ago was gone. Her face was colorless unless she counted the bruised-looking shadows under her swollen eyes and the fresh rivers of blood tears that streaked her cheeks. Her hair was so snarled it looked as if a nest of rats had been wrestling in it. Maybe it was just her ego, but she didn't want to look pitiful. She couldn't wipe away every trace of her anguish from her face, but she could definitely do better than this.

There was a knock on the door.

Hastily she picked up a towel, cleaned her cheeks to it before the door opened. Frans walked in. He glanced at the towel in her hands and noticed the blood marks.

"The ears... The bleeds," she whispered as an excuse she knew he wouldn't buy for a second.

Frans frowned, too used to her antics to be offended by it. "I came to say that we're going. I won't bother asking if you're all right, because I know you're just going to be you and tell me to go fuck myself, but Lina, I'm still here if you want to talk."

She looked into his warm brown eyes with wordless gratitude.

"Niall called. He got the ball rolling with Flanagan. They're going to remove her status as a member of the Vampire Authority and AVL, but he'll be watching it closely and making sure everything goes well." A grin grew on his face. "Then we can hunt her down. That ought to cheer you up."

"That's good news," she laughed mirthlessly.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "I guess I'll see you later?"

"Yeah. Thank you," she said, but when he turned to leave she shouted, "Frans."

"Lina," he said and waited.

"The vampire that killed Àron… what did he look like?"

"He was tall, kind of brutal looking with brown hair reaching his shoulders or so. Why?"

A small wave of relief washed over her. Frans gave her one last lingering look before he left.

Lina picked up the comb and fiercely attacked the knots and snarls in her hair, then got in the shower and scrubbed hard with her favorite peach perfumed shower gel. She dashed out of shower and gratefully noticed that she was indeed alone in the house. Two hours until dusk. She dressed in slow motion and didn't bother with makeup, feeling as if time was slipping away. She tried to will herself to calm down, but it was impossible. She paced and fretted around the house like a blonde erratic hurricane. She called France, called Niall and fished out the briefcase Niall had given her from under the bed in her cubby. When the sun began set and the afternoon began to change color, she walked past the downstairs bathroom and spared a look at the damaged doorframe. Eric had ripped it apart. Memories of lying helpless on the floor of that bathroom only a few nights ago filled her mind.

Her own helplessness disgusted her.

She hoped dealing with Eric would be like dealing with an addiction. You give in and he'll own you, you resist and he never will. The saddest part was the realization she'd live forever like a junkie, looking for the next best thing, but failing.

She placed a piece of paper on the kitchen table and next to it a pencil. She didn't know how long she stood there, staring blankly at the paper. Then she walked to the porch and sat down on the steps, leaning against her knees like she'd done not so long ago and waited for the beautiful manipulator to come.

She didn't notice the man standing cloaked in the shadows of the woods, watching her for a while, but then silently turning away and deciding to return.