XV.

Andy Bellefleur was at the bar eating lunch—Burger Lafayette with a side of deep-fried pickles—and he seemed intent on catching my eye. Every time I'd approach, though, he'd just get flustered and fuss about with his food or pretend to look busy on his cell phone. I chose not to pry into his mind. My shields were slowly growing their strength back, and I was full of energy today. I wanted flex those muscles and see how long I could keep 'em in place. Having strong shields was an important part of surviving my job, and frankly, I never took the time to really focus on them before I'd been kidnapped. I was different now. My thoughts were enough to contend with these days, I didn't want to have to deal with others if I didn't have to.

I poured a beer for Jane Bodehouse, who was in high spirits and well on her way to getting drunk. As I walked back past Andy, he fumbled with his coffee and spilled it across the bar top.

Alright. Enough was enough.

"What is it, Andy," I said, wiping up the mess with a rag. "I can see you're bursting at the seams and it's not because you over ate."

I wasn't exactly friends with Bon Temps only police detective. In fact, he'd always regarded me with a sense of wariness or even outright loathing. He was a lawman and I was Crazy Sookie, lumped in with all the other suspect townsfolk that might just one day go off like a powder keg and cause trouble for him. The fact that Jason Stackhouse was my brother didn't help me none either. I hated that he thought of me this way. But it wasn't my job to change the way people viewed me. Especially when I hadn't done anything wrong.

"Ah, shit," he said mopping up the spilled coffee off his lap with a napkin. He turned red from the collar of his plaid shirt right up to the top of his shiny balding head. I handed him a stack of napkins and poured him another cup of coffee, nudging it toward him expectantly. "It's just work stuff," he explained.

"Mmhmm…" I murmured encouragingly and leaned my hip against the bar. He wouldn't be the first to pour their heart out to me over this bartop.

"Got a lady in lock-up, waiting to charge her, and it's been a hassle getting the facts and evidence together."

"Charge her with what, exactly?"

He dropped his voice so he wouldn't be overhead. "Domestic abuse battery and attempted murder."

I stepped across to the little glass-washer under the bar and began unpacking the freshly cleaned beer glasses. "So what's preventing you?"

"She swears up and down she didn't do it, and her boyfriend, the victim, is adamant it was her. He's beat up real bad, but we got no evidence other than his testimony."

"How does that differ from other domestic violence cases? I thought victim testimony was evidence."

"She's real convincing, she's either an actress worthy of an Oscar or innocent. She's getting real antsy too, I can only keep her another night and once I release her, she'll run for the hills. I know it."

I reluctantly lowered my shields and listened in on his thoughts. Things were not good in the world of Andy Bellefleur. His was catching heat for not solving Lafayette's murder, that and his poor clearance rate—that is, the amount of cases he was solving—was reflecting poorly on him.

"Sherriff Dearborn hassling you?" I asked. Bud Dearborn was good people, and a better sheriff. He'd been good friends with my father too. So the idea of him chewing out Andy for poor work performance wasn't exactly far-fetched. Even though Bon Temps was a little podunk town in the middle of nowhere, Sheriff Dearborn wouldn't let substandard work slide.

"I'm grasping at straws," Andy said. He then looked at me somehow both sheepish and pointed.

"You think I'm a straw?" I said, pointing to my chest in bewilderment.

"As I recall it, you're good at getting a read on people."

"I'm not psychic or a medium, if that's what you think."

He grimaced as if ashamed he had to stoop so low to even ask me.

"Oh, quit your grousing," I said. I threw the wet rag into the sink. "I'll go and meet her if you think it might help."

"What was that all about?" asked Holly as I passed her to clear some tables in the dining area. She looked over my shoulder, regarding Andy with curiosity. They'd dated for a brief period, once upon a time.

"Beats me. Something's up with this town. Bon Temps isn't the safe place I remember it to be."

Holly hummed in agreement. I plucked clear from her thoughts that she thought the exact same thing. In fact, she thought something magical and supernatural flowed through the metaphorical groundwater of Bon Temps. And she sensed this because she was a… a witch? Well, blow me down. I'd had no idea. She caught me staring, and I quickly averted my eyes, but she was onto me.

"I don't like it when you do that, Sookie." It wasn't in Holly's nature to mince words. She told it like she saw it.

"Sorry." Some of the more astute people in Bon Temps had somewhat of an inkling about what I could do – like Andy, for example. Holly was one of those people too, and for whatever reason she thought I could only read her mind when I was looking her in the eye. A little like vampire glamour. I mean looking in people's eyes helped, a little like holding their hand, but I could read most people just fine without even having to touch or look at them. Or be in the same room.

I went home after my lunch shift finished and showered and changed, then met Andy back at the station. I was glad to not have an excuse to be at home while Gran was there. Not that Gran thought I was behaving strangely. In fact, quite the opposite. She was extremely pleased I was keeping busy. But I was trying hard to keep up appearances until I found a way to talk about what I'd learned from my alleged great-grandfather.

Andy led me through the station, and I stopped dead in my tracks as we passed through the open doorway leading to cells. My feet stuck like cement in the ground, and I was suddenly hot and cold all over.

"I can't go in there," I said. My voice sounded disembodied, floating around me like a fog.

"That's where she is."

"I mean I can't. I literally can't." I backed away a step, taking a ragged breath. "Do you have an interrogation room?" I tried to grasp for a clear thought, a calm thought, but my mind raced. My pulse raced. I backed up even further, and Andy looked at me strangely. I saw myself through his eyes. I was pale and ghostly.

"What's up with you?" When I didn't respond, he directed me to wait in the interrogation room behind Bud's office.

A girl, who couldn't be a day older than twenty, was led in by Andy a few minutes later. She sat down with a plop on the chair opposite me and regarded me with suspicion. I had managed to scrape a sense of stability together somehow in the intervening minutes.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"This is Sookie Stackhouse," Andy said, sitting down beside me. "She said she might be able to corroborate some of what you told me earlier."

"Oh!" She visibly perked up.

"What your name?" I asked.

"Junie Fletcher." Junie's hair sat around her head like a broad halo of fine dark curls and she was dressed in black leggings with a hole in the knee and a Bon Temps' high school t-shirt, featuring the football team's insignia. Her shirt was stained and rumpled though, and her brown complexion looked unnaturally pale under the fluorescent lighting. She looked at me with a gaze I recognized. A mix of nerves, sleep deprivation and a state of numb shock. I was remembered that feeling intimately. Her eyes were once my eyes, back when I'd first been taken by Sophie-Anne.

"Are you from Bon Temps?" I asked.

"Sure. I grew up in the little trailer park up behind the elementary school. I live on Berry Street now, near the All Faiths Church. You know it?"

I nodded. It wasn't a bad part of town. Older homes, mostly families in that area.

"Tell Sookie your version of events."

"There's nothing to tell," she said, sitting up straighter in her seat. "I came home last night and found Jock in the dark, cowering in the corner. Absolutely coated in blood and beaten black and blue. He sees me and starts freaking out. Then all-a sudden I'm being dragged down here and arrested for battery and attempted murder. But I did nothin'!"

"You didn't see who attacked him? Anything suspicious?"

"No. Not a thing. But...things have been weird at home recently."

Andy scoffed at this point and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. "Here we fuckin' go."

"What?"

"I thought we were being stalked," Junie said to me. "Things moving around in the house when we were out. Locked doors unlocking on their own. I thought I saw someone looking in through the windows one night."

"She means a ghost," Andy said.

"No!" she said. "I said it felt like we were being haunted. Felt? There's a difference." This girl was fed-up with Andy and authority in general. "Someone was messing with us and we didn't know who. We'd both been on edge for ages. I've had a deputy visit twice, but y'all didn't take us seriously! Thought we was kids just jokin' around. Then things got tense with Jock and I..."

"You were fighting?" I asked. She nodded, thinking back to some big blow outs she'd had with her boyfriend.

"I have exams next week. I don't cope with stress well at the best of time. So it's been rough. Now, instead of studying, I'm stuck here. When really, I should be in hospital looking after Jock!"

"You ain't going 100 yards near him, missy," Andy growled. She slumped down in her seat, her glassy eyes welling over with tears.

"Can you afford a lawyer?" I asked.

"Sookie!" Andy admonished.

"Surely he's informed you of your rights," I told Junie. I wasn't precisely sure what those rights were, but I needed to make sure that he wasn't keeping her in the dark here.

"Yeah…He has." She sniffled. "I can't afford a lawyer. I can barely afford to put myself through community college."

"You can have access to legal aid, surely. Can't she, Detective Bellefleur?."

"Well, yes but—"

"Good. Well, I'll ask Deputy Kenya about it on my way out. She'll make sure you're sorted out with help, if you need it." I fished a packet of tissues from my purse and passed it along to Junie as Andy escorted back to her cell.

"Well?" he said when he returned.

"It wasn't her."

"Ah, damn," he said and sighed. "Time to go canvass the neighborhood, then."

"Shouldn't you be doing that anyway?"

"Well yes," he said with a grunt. He was getting real annoyed by my presence and wondered how politely to ask me to leave. He'd been secretly hoping I'd just confirm Junie was the perpetrator and send me off on my merry way. "The deputies did yesterday, but we're stuck if he's staying it's her and she's innocent. We have to see if neighbors can tell us anything else."

"You don't want me to check Jock too?"

"How accurate's your what-do-ya-call-it?" he asked.

"My 'what-do-ya-call-it' is one hundred percent." Andy looked at me skeptically. I chewed my lip, wondering if my next move was the right choice. There were some bells that couldn't be un-rung, you know. "You're wondering if I'm BS. But, really, deep down you're worried that if I am legit, that I might I learn about out that time you drove home drunk and busted the front panel of your patrol car by hitting a ditch. You told Bud you hit a deer."

Andy turned a strange shade of green. I picked up my purse and slung it over my shoulder. "This is why I don't tell people," I said, "because then y'all look at me like I got the plague."

I left the interrogation room and Andy caught up to me in the car park. "Come ride along with me when I visit Jock."

I checked my watch. It was getting close to four and I had jobs I needed to get done at home before I went back for the dinner shift at five. "I gotta work."

"Tomorrow morning then."

I crossed my arms and gave him a hard look. "The way I hear it, police pay psychics for their help."

"I thought you weren't psychic."

"I'm not. I helped you though, didn't I?"

"Not exactly. Still don't know what the heck happened to her boyfriend."

I shrugged. "Not my problem... Not unless you paid me to make it my problem." Would you look at me hustling? Sookie Stackhouse, regular old telepathic consultant to lawmen big and small.

"I can't afford to pay you."

"Fine. You can owe me a favor." I already knew he couldn't pay me. But if I was going to do this then I was going to make damn well sure I'd reap some benefit from it.

"I can't give you a get out of jail free card."

"That's not what I'm asking." Though I'm sure it would've come in handy for Jason back when he was arrested for suspicion of murder for Dawn and Maudette's deaths. "More of a… If I ever need help then you'll do everything in your power."

"Fine. We got a deal." We shook on it, and I felt marginally better than when I'd agreed to work for Eric. Marginally.

I only worked a short dinner shift, which meant I clocked out at 8pm, and my own dinner was still waiting for me warm on the stove when I got home. I ladled myself a big bowl of soup with a hunk of cornbread and joined Gran on the couch in the living room.

"You'll be picking up any crumbs you drop," she said distractedly, eyes on the television. It was a repeat of an old Diagnosis Murder episode.

"Yes, ma'am." I toed my socks off and dug my toes into the rug and then let out a murmur of contentment with the first mouthful of soup. Gran reached over and patted my leg affectionately.

Now, this was all exactly as I remembered it. Gran, the old repeat playing on TV, the rug under my toes, the homey food. I looked at Gran from the corner of my eyes. When would be the right time to ask her about what I'd learned from Niall earlier in the week? The last thing I wanted was for Niall to show up unannounced and then deal with the revelation and fallout that way. But I couldn't tonight. I'd worked a split shift and was so tired my legs and brain felt like soup too.

"Dick van Dyke is such a handsome man," Gran said, taking a sip of her sweet tea.

"It's not fair that men get more handsome as they age." Niall Brigant had been one of the most beautiful men I'd ever seen.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she asked primly.

"Nothing!" I said with a little laugh. "You know you're beautiful, Gran."

A man was talking to Dick on screen, they were arguing over some incident with a broken door near the scene of the murder Dick was investigating. Gran tutted. "I think that young fellow did it."

"No way. It's always the most famous guest actor that's the murderer. Otherwise why'd they bother taking the part? It'd be the guy next to him. I remember him from some old 90s movie."

"Oh yes, he was on some of the newer episodes of The Waltons. You know, I think you're right."

My phone began vibrating in the back of my shorts pocket, letting me know I had a message, but I waited until I'd finished eating—and watching the episode—before retreating to the kitchen. As it turned out, the murderer was exactly who we suspected. I opened my phone.

Bored. Patrons are especially annoying tonight. What ru doing?

I smirked at my phone; my fingers poised ready to type a response. I flipped it shut instead. Let him wait a bit. I showered again, this time washing my hair since I hadn't bothered earlier in the day and climbed into bed before responding.

Early night. Busy day 2day

:( was Eric's response a split second later, followed by: Come and keep me company.

I can't. I'd make it as far the end of my street b4 falling asleep behind the wheel.

Ru in bed right now?

Maybe…

What ru wearing?

Something SUPER sexy

My phone began ringing immediately, and I declined his call with a laugh. I took a photo of the white nightshirt I was wearing, being careful to stretch it out so I could capture the cartoon Tweety Bird image on the shirt's front in all its glory. I sent it to him.

Tease!

I replied with a winking smiley face. We kept texting until I fell asleep midway through our conversation. He flirted mercilessly, but it was fun.

Andre arrived in my dreams again. Just like last night. Just like the night before that and that. I was back in my cot, the smell of damp on the concrete floor distinct and unforgettable.

"Give it to me," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

"No," I moaned and then I was twisting my wrist from his grip. Pulling and heaving, but I wasn't strong enough. Never strong enough.

"You're mine, Sookie. Mine…" He tugged my wrist to his mouth and bit savagely. The cell's walls slowly closed in on me like a bad horror movie—shrinking along with my sense of identity and self until it distilled my fear into pure concentrated desperation and panic. I cried out and he pinned me. I could feel the blood drawing from me, slipping out of me like a disembodied river sucking at my soul. I was dying. Andre growled, his voice low like a vibration that went on and on and on. I fought him wildly, begging him to stop.

I awoke with a cry and sat up in bed, gasping for air. I stumbled to my feet and stood, panting. The vibration continued and with a start I realized it wasn't Andre but the sound of my cell phone on silent reverberating against the mattress.

Eric was calling. I fumbled with the phone and declined the call. I sat back on the bed and flicked on the lamp.

I was so fucking over those dreams.

I had a drink of water from the water bottle beside me bed and focused on relaxing my mind. I'd only been home for two weeks. I had to give myself time. But when? How long until I could shake my ghosts away? I heard a light tap at my window and jumped like a startled cat. I got up and drew back the curtains only to be greeted by the sight of Eric.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered when I opened the window.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "Your heart's beating like a drum. And you're not picking up your phone."

I clenched my jaw and shook my head stiffly. The dream was still fresh, half of me was still there in that horrid cell, living that experience, while the other half of me trying to drag myself back into reality. I couldn't even talk about it.

"Did you know you had a Were prowling around your home?"

"Wait—what?"

"There are tracks around the perimeter of your yard at the back. A big cat."

"Panther?"

"Probably."

"Hang on, give me a minute." I left him at the window and wrapped my self in my robe and slipped into my tennis shoes. I'd somehow luckily been able to scrub out the synthetic blood stains from my shoes, unlike my poor Merlotte's shirt.

Eric lifted me through the window and glided me over to the edge of the yard. He set me down behind the veggie patch. Gran and I had spent a few good hours in the vegetable garden earlier that week, digging up the old summer crops and planting kale, silver beet and lettuce in their place. The last of the fall offerings before winter set in.

Eric looked at me warily.

"I'm not going to start crying, if that's what you're worried about," I said. The night air and his presence had managed to sweep away the last of my dreamworld. I shivered and drew the robe more tightly around me.

"Good," he said. "It's over here." He took me by the hand and led me to the edge of the forest that lined the yard. The moon was full, and I could see the rough outline of a paw print when he crouched beside it. "Can you see it, or is it too dark for you?"

"I can see." I knelt beside him.

"This is the clearest track. The panther moved back and forth along here a while before heading on."

"I wonder if it was Crystal… But why?"

"It's male."

"How can you tell?"

"Males are significantly larger, plus he urinated over there." He nodded toward a bush beside a hickory tree. "He's marking territory. It smells distinctly male."

"Gross." I stood up and walked over to it, mentally searching the grounds around the house for any blips that might indicate the nightly visitor will still close by. "Well, whoever it was, they're gone now."

I had no idea what to do now. I certainly didn't want to talk to Crystal about it, things were strained enough as it was. But I didn't think it was smart to let it go. What if it the were-panther was a threat? Or someone casing the home? I knew how retribution-focused Were packs could be. What if someone from the panther pack had something out against Crystal or Jason?

"Does Jason know his wife is two-natured?" Eric asked in a thoughtful way.

"I have no idea."

"Were packs don't generally approve of their members marrying non-weres."

"Why?"

"Less chance of producing a two-natured child."

"Maybe Jason marrying Crystal pissed someone off in the pack. I'm going to have to ask Crystal or Calvin. But why would a panther come and prowl around here?" I asked Eric and turned to him.

Eric's glow was especially otherworldly in the moonlight, and my breath caught in my throat. He wasn't the picture-perfect ephemeral beauty of Niall. Eric's beauty lay in his strong defined features which were both striking and forbidding. The kind of man you looked twice at, because he was deadly and handsome and there was no mistaking either quality. Eric's beauty didn't possess him... He possessed it, owned it like weapon and wielded it to his advantage.

Eric, as if sensing the tenor of my thoughts, stood and walked slowly toward me until I was backed up against the hickory tree.

"Yield to me, Sookie," he said.

"I..." Words failed me.

He lifted me suddenly against the tree and we kissed, urgency catching like a fire between us. My legs wrapped around his waist, my hands tangled through his hair. He pressed himself again me, his lips at my mouth, my neck, my throat. And I could feel he was ready, very ready. Eric was big in most ways, build and personality, and it seemed all parts of him followed suit. He was like a loaded magnum. My body tingled with anticipation and excitement. I'd never felt like this with another person and I wanted him so badly, the strength of it took my breath away.

My robe slipped open and his hands traveled up my thighs sliding my nightshirt up to my hips. I was practically bare underneath with only a pair of white cotton panties. I didn't care. I wanted more of him. I wanted all of him.

"Have you ever been with a man like this?" he asked, and his teeth tugged gently at my earlobe.

"Never," I whispered. I was embarrassed, though tried not to show it. I was twenty-seven. I don't think most red-blooded women waited that long by choice. "Is that a problem? I'm sure I'll be a fast learner."

Eric was smiling when his mouth met mine again. His hand gripping my bottom stroked the skin and slid ever so slightly under my panty-line.

"I won't let your first time be against a tree," he murmured, though he didn't sound entirely convinced himself.

"The grass, then?" I asked hopefully. He chuckled and the sound transformed to a deep rumble of pleasure as I continued kissing his neck. Ooh, he liked that, especially when I used my teeth. His fingers slipped further under the line of my underpants and soon found my most intimate parts. I gasped as he touched me, gently probing and stroking with his fingers. I gripped his shoulders tightly and we kissed once more.

He touched me gently, ceaselessly, leading me on and on toward something very big and very good. I felt like I was on the edge of an enormous cliff ready to fall off into a deep unknown.

"Eric, yes!" I cried out and kissed him deeply. I couldn't have him inside me, but with his fingers between my legs, his tongue in my mouth, his hand at my breast… I was falling, toppling, and it was amazing. I wrapped my arms around his neck and writhed against him. My lip scraped a fang and he groaned suddenly, sucking on it with a fierceness. And somehow that was okay too.

Time passed and the stars cleared from my vision.

"Wow…" I said breathlessly. "If that's what it feels like when someone else does it to me, then I think I've been doing it all wrong!"

Eric laughed and lowered me slowly to my feet, still holding me firmly in place. I pulled down my nightshirt which had ridden up past my breasts.

"I'm sorry, I didn't make that very fun for you," I said feeling more than a little embarrassed and awkward.

Eric eyes brightened and he took my hand placing it to his groin. "Does it feel like I didn't enjoy myself?" Oh boy, there was a wet patch under my hand. Another aftershock of pleasure tingled through me again. He let go me and then licked his fingers, like a satisfied cat licking its paw, and I gasped in horror.

"You are dirty!"

"You're delicious, Sookie," he said. "Your breasts are divine. Your voice is like honey." He kissed me some more.

"I better go back to bed," I said reluctantly. I couldn't stay out in garden all night, I had to work the next day. I took Eric's hand and walked on shaky legs back to my bedroom window. He gave me a boost and I climbed in; Eric followed in after me. "What are you doing?" I hissed. Gran was still asleep across the hall, but she'd have my hide if she knew I was sneaking men through my window at night under her roof.

"I want to see you room."

"Don't get too excited. And be quiet." I kicked off my shoes.

It was the same room I'd had since moving in with Gran. I was still in a twin bed. Gran had the furniture brought over from my childhood home after my parents died to try and create a sense of normality. I'd never had a chance to update it. The décor was quite childish, pastel yellow walls, the frilly white coverlet on the bed.

Eric wandered through my room. He examined the softball trophies on my bookshelf, then paused to pick up a framed picture of me and Tara that was face down on my vanity. The photo was taken at our joint 21st party. Tara and I were social outcasts each in our own way. She practically grew up with me, her mother lost and largely absent due to alcoholism. We weren't exactly popular in school or after it, but between the both of us we'd managed to scrape together a guest list big enough to throw a 21st birthday party, even though our birthdays were five weeks apart.

I looked so different back then, my eyes were wide and innocent, and my smile broad and carefree. I couldn't bear to look at that photo anymore; that was a version of me that I didn't recognize. That Sookie no longer existed.

Eric laid the picture back down before picking up my perfume bottle and uncapping it. He pulled a face when he sniffed it. It was old; gone bad in the time I was gone. Shame, it was nearly full.

I climbed into bed and yawned. Eric replaced the bottle and came over to kiss me one last time. I opened my eyes mid-kiss to see his were open too. Temptation lurked in those blue pools. I wondered what it would be like to have him bite me. I couldn't imagine it being as horrific as the way Andre had bitten me... But Andre had been a cruel and nasty individual. It seemed to me that Eric was gentle when he could be, and then passionate when he couldn't. The idea of him biting me didn't worry or frighten me. It scared me. It scared me the way sky-diving or bungee jumping scared thrill-seekers. The prospect was terrifying, but I had a feeling the execution would be thrilling.

"Good night, Eric." I didn't want him to get any ideas.

"Sweet dreams of me, lover." And then he was gone, my floral curtains flapping by the open window.