I awoke the next night completely awake, no weird grogginess or adjustment. Just one minute I was asleep and the next I was awake. This was a nice part of my new change at least. I sat up, and Eric was already there, handing me a bag of heated blood.

"Thanks," I said, gulping it down. "How are you up already?"

He opened his closet and fished around for an outfit, settling on a very classic Eric look- black jeans, black tank top.

"The older we get, the later we can resist the sun, and the sooner we can rise. The whole house is light proof, so I am able to get up and do things before the sun is fully set." He tossed me another bag of blood and his cell phone. "Eat, and then if you wish to contact Sam you may."

I gratefully accepted both. "Thanks."

Eric walked out of the room and left me to make the call on my own. I was very nervous about talking to Sam. I knew he would not like what I had to tell him, and even though he was my boss, he'd been a good friend as well and I didn't want to lose him. However, I knew he was worried about me and it wasn't fair to him to keep him waiting to know what happened just because I was a scaredy cat.

I dialed the number and listened to the ring. I knew it would be the dinner rush, so I felt bad about calling at this time, but it had to be done. After several rings, someone picked up.

"Merlotte's."

"Hey Sam. It's Sookie."

"Sookie, thank God. Are you ok?"

"Um… kind of?"

He was silent for a moment. "What do you mean, kind of? What did that fanger do to you?"

"Well, so the other night, Debbie Pelt, Alcide's girlfriend, do you know her? She had been at a meeting with the other Shreveport supes and vamps, and she really hated me because she thought I was stealing Alcide from her, and then he abjured her when he found out some of the really horrible stuff she'd done…" I was rambling. I was nervous about telling him, and it was weird trying to recount my own death to someone. "Anyway, she uh, came to my house and shot me. In the chest."

"Oh my god! How are you still alive?"

"Well, that's the thing…I wouldn't be. I mean, I'm kind of not. The only way to save me was…to turn me?"

"Turn you? …That fucker turned you into a vampire? I'm going to kill him."

"Sam…would you rather me be a vampire or dead?"

"What?"

"Well you talk and act like vampires are so horrible, but the alternative was death, and frankly as difficult as this transition is, I prefer it to my life completely ending so violently and abruptly."

He sighed, and I could imagine him running his hands through his hair the way he always did when he was frustrated.

"Alright, well, thanks for letting me know I guess."

"Thanks for letting me know? Not even gee, Sook, I sure am glad you're not finally and truly dead? What the fuck, Sam? I thought you were my friend."

"What do you want me to say? You just had to get involved with those fucking fangers and you got yourself killed!"

I could feel my tempter skyrocketing, and my fangs popped down in response. It was a good thing we were having this conversation over the phone and not in person, because my instincts were telling me to hurt something or someone.

"Those 'fucking fangers' saved my life you asshole. It was a shifter that killed me. Yeah, one of your kind did that!"

"But if you'd never gotten involved with them to begin with, you'd have never met her and this never would have happened."

I tried to steady myself by taking a deep breath, but it did nothing since I no longer needed to breathe. "Yup, I could have just been poor pathetic, lonely, Crazy Sookie for the rest of my life. Because I was so much happier then."

"Your gran would still be alive if you hadn't gotten involved with them…" he muttered under his breath, but I heard him perfectly clearly. If he had actually slapped me it would have hurt less.

"Fuck you." I growled and crushed the phone in my hand.

Eric walked back into the room. I knew he had heard everything, but at least he'd given me the illusion of privacy. I looked down at my hand, at his phone that I had crushed.

"Oh no. I'm so sorry. I'm not used to being strong."

He shrugged. "It wasn't my main phone. I figured things would get emotional. I'm sorry he couldn't accept you. He's sometimes very unwelcoming to the supernatural world, despite being part of it himself." He eyed me for a moment, then said,"Alright, time to get dressed. We've got a busy night ahead."

I got up and rummaged through my bag. Nothing seemed appropriate to wear to Fangtasia, even if I wasn't going to be around the general public, but I settled on jeans and a fuzzy blue sweater. I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and applied some light makeup. My skin was paler now, the tan I always strived to maintain gone, but at least my blemishes were also gone. I didn't need foundation anymore, so I just applied some eyeshadow, mascara, and a little lip gloss.

I walked into the kitchen and Eric was standing there, looking gorgeous as always. He handed me another bag of blood, and I protested since I'd already had two, but he insisted I drink more to make sure I was as under control as possible.

"If you get out of control, I will have to use my maker's command on you, and I really don't want to do that. I know how important your free will is to you. I will only use it in an urgent situation."

I nodded and drank it down. I appreciated that he wasn't looking for absolute control of me. I know some makers abuse their power and force their progeny to do some really awful things. After I was finished, we headed back out into the garage and got in the car to head to Fangtasia.

We pulled in and parked in the employee section. The club had just opened and there was already a line to get in. Although there were people that hated vampires, there were at least as many who desperately wanted to spend time with one, be bitten by one, or become one.

We went in through the back door that was for employees only and down the hall to Eric's office. He sat down at his desk and gestured for me to sit in the chair in front of him. He typed some things into his computer and then declared me registered in area 5 as a vampire. That was a lot less than I expected. I thought I was going to have to fill out a whole bunch of paperwork and told him so. He said that everything was digital now because it was quicker.

"So who knows that I'm a vampire now that I'm registered?"

"The queen, she needs to know who is under her regime. The human government wanted us to have to register to them, but how would they enforce that? Most of them can't even tell that we are vampire if we don't want them to know."

For some reason, having the queen know about me left me with an uneasy feeling. Maybe it was just the idea of a stranger having so much information about me while I knew basically nothing about them.

A few moments later, Pam burst into the office with a big smile on her face.

"Hello sister!" she said cheerfully, and pulled me from the chair and into a hug.

I was surprised by her enthusiastic greeting. "Hi, sister?"

She held me by the hands and stood a bit away, taking in my appearance. "You were my favorite breather, but this is nice too. Although we definitely need to take you on a shopping spree for new clothes."

I looked down at myself. I didn't see what was wrong with my outfit, but Pam is the fashionista.

"Sorry, I'm still stuck on the sister thing?"

"Of course!" She said, "Since Eric is my maker and yours, I'm like your big sister now."

"She's had a bit more time to process things than you have," Eric responded with amusement.

I was just glad she was taking it so well.

It suddenly occurred to me that the usual headache I get in Fangtasia was missing.

"Hey, I just realized that I don't hear everyone's thoughts!" I blurted.

Both Pam and Eric's gazes narrowed on me.

"I hadn't even thought about how the transformation may affect your gift," he said thoughtfully. "Are you unable to hear them, or is it just easier to block them and you've been doing it without trying?"

I focused, and realized that I was indeed holding up my shields without effort. I carefully lowered them and at first it was like turning on a hundred radios at full volume, but within a minute or two I was able to refocus. I could now tune out thoughts and single out individual brains.

"Cool," I breathed.

"What's cool?" Eric asked.

I explained what I had just learned. He seemed pleased that I had maintained my ability, even more so how much more control I had over it.

"And are vampires still a blank spot to you?" he asked.

I nodded, as I'd been able to identify and locate four blank spots in the bar when I'd reached out to test my hearing.

"Excellent," he said. "You may develop other abilities over time as well."

"If you can fly, I'm going to be pissed." Pam said.

"She's still upset that she did not inherit that ability from me," he chuckled.

"Are most abilities passed down from makers to their children?" I asked.

"Not necessarily. Some are, but many develop entirely different skills than their makers. Flying is actually quite uncommon."

He was explaining some of the more common things, as well as the things all vampires could do such as super speed, strength, enhanced vision and hearing, when the door burst open again. Although this time, I was significantly less pleased to see the vampire who had entered.

"Sweetheart, I'm so glad you are ok!"

"Bill, I'm pretty sure Sookie has already made her feelings about you perfectly clear, or do you not recall her last words to you? Also, I do not believe I invited you into my office. In the future, you will knock and await an invitation."

"She was not in her right mind. Sookie belongs with me. We all know it. Release your hold over her so that I can properly care for her."

All my previous interactions with Bill were replaying themselves with perfectly clarity in my mind. His possessiveness, how he insisted that Eric was evil, how he tried to keep me away from other vampires. And suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me.

"Bill, did you set Debbie up to shoot me so that you could try to turn me yourself?"

Eric and Pam looked surprised, Bill looked horrified. Or at least tried to.

"Of course not! How could you think such a thing?"

"I'm just trying to understand your insistence that we belong together, instead of moving on. Especially considering you were the one to end things between us to begin with when you lied to me and went back to Lorena."

"I told you, I had to obey her!" He was seeming alarmingly unsettled the more I pressed.

"Debbie was as good as dead already, all you would have had to do was give her a tiny bit of encouragement to kill me, but then you could swoop in and be the hero and tie me to you for eternity. You hadn't counted on me not coming all the way out and then refusing to let you in, had you?"

He fumbled, trying to come up with an argument, but just kept denying it, saying that it was crazy to suggest such a thing. I could feel the fury pouring off of Eric, but I was remarkably calm.

"Why did you want me tied to you so desperately? Surely it wasn't just because of my looks or personality. There are plenty of other women out there more beautiful and entertaining than me…" Then it clicked. "But I have one thing that no one else does, don't I? But why would my telepathy be so important to you that you would have me killed? Besides, who says it even survived the transition?"

If he could have looked paler, he did.

"That didn't even occur to you? My god, how stupid and self centered are you?"

"Pamela," Eric said, "Escort Mr. Compton downstairs, see that he is very comfortable for his stay with us."

"No! You can't do this!" Bill yelled. "I'll tell the queen!"

In the blink of an eye, Eric was in Bill's face, pinning him to the wall.

"And what exactly do you plan to tell her? And how? If you are chained up, awaiting punishment, you can't very well tattle, can you Billy boy?"

I don't think vampires get sick, but I still felt nauseous. Not at the idea of Bill being chained up, let that fucker rot. But because the final puzzle piece was starting to reveal itself and it did not look good.

Pam pulled a pair of pink leather gloves from her purse and silver chains from a cupboard in the office. Eric held Bill and Pam wrapped him in the silver to immobilize him before dragging him down the hall and depositing him in the dank, wet, basement that was apparently to be his cell.

I plopped back down in my chair and Eric sat across from me, staring at me. Then a ding sounded from his computer and he looked at it suspiciously.

"The queen doesn't usually respond back when I inform her of new vampires…" he growled, a deep and terrifying noise to anyone it was aimed at, I'm sure. "This is what you just figured out, isn't it?" he asked.

I shrugged, "Maybe, I'm not sure what you've just read."

He read her response aloud to me. "Sheriff, I am delighted to hear of your new child. I look forward to meeting her and hearing if her telepathic abilities survived the transition." His gaze locked on mine. "I never told her you were telepathic, which means someone else has been reporting to her about you. I think after tonight it is absolutely clear who that was."

I nodded.

Author's note: I just want to apologize in advance that my updates may become a bit more irregular. I only have one or two more chapters prewritten, but I'm trying to keep writing so it's not several weeks between updates.

Also, want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has liked and left reviews on this, it makes me so happy!