A/N: 16 is written and betaed (update on Tuesday, I think) and 17 is on the move. Sometimes I just can't stop when it's flowing. :D SE soonish?

Chapter 15

Pam tried to comfort Sookie as much as she could, but it took a while for the screams to stop, and even longer until she was no longer sobbing. She curled herself into a ball and closed her eyes, trying to go back into the deep almost-death she had escaped to when she'd still been so sick.

Sookie was hiding again, but Pam supposed she couldn't blame her. Pam picked up her cell phone and went upstairs. Eric hadn't ended the call. She put it to her ear.

"Good evening, Eric. Sorry I had to make you wait, but something came up." He didn't answer, but she could hear his teeth grinding, so she knew he was there. "It doesn't really sound like you've gotten over your temper tantrum yet. That really is too bad…"

"I want to move back into my house. I will tell Chow to find someplace else to stay. Go home and take her with you before I get back later tonight."

This time, Pam was silent for a long time. But then she said, "If you do this, Eric, I swear I will go back to Minnesota and take her with me. She is in no shape to be moved right now, but if I have to, that's where we'll go."

"Pamela, I comm…"

She cut him off. "What are you going to do, keep me prisoner? Lock me up in a room and make me rest under the floor in a closet for a few years? Is this what our relationship is now?"

After another long pause, Eric hung up. He nearly threw his phone at the wall of his hotel room. The screaming… he could still hear it. He thought that maybe it would haunt him forever.

Of course, he wasn't really angry at Pam. He wanted to throttle her, but deep down, he knew very well that she was right, and he was being an absolute prick. But that just made him even more angry. He just wasn't ready to admit it to himself yet.

He took the elevator downstairs and then stalked through the lobby to the door, elbowing his way through a group of vampires on the way. He could feel their glares on his back. Who gave a shit? He took to the sky as soon as his feet hit the pavement.

…

A little while later, Pam brought Sookie down some blood and set it on the bedside table. She sat down next to her. "He is very angry at himself. He will calm down soon. I don't know if he'll apologize, but I know that he's very sorry."

Sookie had her eyes closed, and Pam thought that maybe she was still in her hiding place. But then Sookie started speaking in a very small voice. "He doesn't have anything to apologize for. It was my fault. I like Eric a lot. I… I wanted him to kiss me. I feel so bad that I made him upset, but I just couldn't help it. His fangs…" She shuddered.

Pam was patient. She drifted into downtime, waiting for Sookie to speak again. Eventually, she did.

"Right after I turned twelve, the summer before I started junior high, Mama brought home a new boyfriend. I was already in bed, but, when I tried to read his mind, it was completely silent. I was so curious and excited. I had never met anyone with a quiet brain before. I got out of bed and crept into the living room to see."

Sookie took a deep, shaky breath.

"He was so scary. You could tell just by looking at him that he was bad news. And there I was. A pretty little girl who smelled like sweetness and sunshine. And by the end of the night, he found out that I taste even better. He also found out that I wasn't a virgin. For that, he beat me half to death, healed me, and then beat me again."

For years, she'd just gone through the motions. When her master wasn't in town, she'd spent all of her time at school, in bed, or in the shower. Even when he wasn't there, she would scrub herself raw two or three times a day. And when her master was there? She would go to school if he'd healed her, just to get away from her mother. She would always nod off in class because he'd rarely let her sleep when he wasn't at rest. She hated wintertime. And, if he hadn't healed her, she would stay home. At least if anything showed. She couldn't risk someone calling the cops or DCFS. If they took her away and he wasn't able to glamour her back, he would get her another way. And she couldn't be responsible for anyone getting hurt because of her again. Uncle Bartlett had been bad enough.

"That first year was bad. I missed a lot of school. Sometimes he wouldn't heal me, to punish me or because he liked it. To see his handiwork, I guess. The bites and bruises. Sometimes I just couldn't get out of bed. Near the end of the year, a ninth grader grabbed my ass in the cafeteria at lunch time, and I punched him. I shattered his jaw. It was all of the vampire blood. The kid had to drink his food through a straw for six months, and I got expelled. They were sure I must have had some kind of weapon, even though nobody found one, or even saw one. They did let me come back the next year, but I had to repeat seventh grade. Master had to glamour the boy's family not to press charges, and I paid for his trouble. And I didn't tell him why I'd punched that kid. Lord knows what he would have done to him. But at least nobody bullied me much after that.

"After that first year, I managed to grin and bear it at school as much as I could. Even when my master would hit or bite so it hurt to sit down. So I would think of him all day. And then his blood made me dream about him most nights, if he let me sleep."

She finally opened her eyes and looked at Pam. "How can you do it all the time? Biting people. Hurting them like that. I don't know how I could stand it."

Unable to be glamoured and the slave of a monster who bit her hard on purpose. Even when she was a human child. This vampire was cruel. Barbarous. Pam almost didn't want to tell her.

"Sookie, it… It doesn't have to hurt. If you use your glamour, it doesn't hurt at all. And during sex, it is very pleasurable for humans. And vampires, for that matter.

Sookie sat up. Her face was covered in bloody tears that were smeared on one side from her pillow. "I've been bit thousands of times during sex. Tens of thousands."

Sookie pulled off her shirt so she was just wearing a pair of shorts. She pointed to a dimpled scar on the inside of her thigh, her arm, her stomach, her shoulder, her breast. "Tell me that when he did that during sex that it didn't hurt. It never didn't hurt. Human or vampire. Not once. And I can't glamour. The whole thing is just awful."

She lay back down again and turned over, curling up. Making herself as small as possible. Pam took the hint and went back upstairs. She could feel that Eric was outside, so she opened the door and leaned against the door casing. He was leaning against his Corvette, looking up at the stars.

"Did you just come by to pick up your car?"

He didn't look at her. Wouldn't, maybe. "No."

Pam sighed. "What is it, Eric? I don't know why you're here. You're not coming inside. And, if you do, we're leaving."

After a minute or two, he looked at her. She was surprised to see pain on his face. In his eyes. "I don't know why I'm here, either."

That was something she didn't expect. But she let him off the hook. For now. "Where did you go last night?"

He shrugged and looked at the sky again. "Baton Rouge. I stayed at the Seven Veils."

She walked over and put her arms around him. He held her and kissed her head.

Pam laid her head against his chest. "You still smell like her. Only a hint of another. You didn't feed?"

He shrugged again. "I fed. But there was nothing there that I wanted."

Pam had been to the bar at the Seven Veils many times, and it was always full of beautiful women. And men, too, if you were into that sort of thing.

She looked up at him. "Eric, what's the matter?"

He kissed her head and pulled away and then leaned back on the Corvette again. He looked back up at the night sky and changed the subject. "Have you learned anything new?"

Pam sighed. "Not really. We knew that her maker is an evil fuck. He's actually an extremely evil fuck."

Eric nodded. "I am very much looking forward to ending him."

Pam grinned. "Not if I get him first."

He looked back down at her and smiled. "I am very glad that I chose you."

"So am I."

He got in his car and turned the key and drove away.

The next evening, an hour or so after sunset, Sookie walked through the living room into the kitchen to get herself some blood. Pam smiled a little. Sookie walked back in with a mug full and sat across from her on the couch. Pam was impressed.

"I'm very pleased to see you up and about."

Sookie shrugged with one shoulder. "Thanks. I'm sorry I freaked out last night."

"You have nothing to be sorry for. Eric rushed you. You weren't ready yet."

Sookie gave the half shrug again.

Pam had been working on some embroidery and set it down on her lap. "Sookie, you have been with us for barely more than two weeks. Do you know how long Dr. Ludwig thought it would take for you to heal?"

"Sort of."

"She said months to physically heal, and years to heal mentally. If you ever did at all. That you are sitting here, looking like your old self, and talking to me is extraordinary."

Somehow it didn't really make her feel a whole lot better. She felt so broken. "I don't think I can see him again. I shouldn't have let him kiss me in the first place. I belong to my master."

"You won't ever have to see your maker again. Or go with him, at least. He will be finally dead just as soon as we catch him."

Sookie gave the half shrug one more time. They just didn't understand.

…

Eric was lying on Pam's bed, reading. He supposed that he should go to Fangtasia for a while, but the last thing he wanted was fangbangers crawling all over him. And he was sure that Clancy could take care of the bar, and Chow could at least try to keep Thalia in line.

His phone rang, and he thought that it would be Pam, but he didn't recognize the number. "I am here."

"Hello, Eric. This is Bill Compton."