A/N: Sorry this took so long. Along with messy life events, my muse smacked me in the ass and made me write the first chapter and a half of the story on deck. Le sigh. It will be (shocker) a canon-divergent AU, tentatively called Best Served Cold. Will finish something else first? Maybe?

Chapter 20

Eric and Pam ran back into the cabin. Sookie was sitting straight up in bed, clawing at her throat and screaming in terror. It was so much worse than the times she'd risen terrified before. Her eyes were huge and haunted and she had scratched deep fissures in the skin of her neck with her fingernails.

Pam sat next to her on the bed and gently took Sookie's hands. Sookie struggled for a moment, but then clung to them.

"Shh. I know it hurts."

It did. There was a sharp, searing pain in her neck and a deep throbbing ache in her chest. It felt empty, like a part of her had been scraped out with something dull and rusty.

She and her maker had been bonded for years before he'd turned her. It had made the bond stronger. More complex. The severed connection felt like a sucking wound. Like the physical loss of him had created a vacuum in her chest. It felt like she couldn't catch her breath, even though she didn't have to breathe. She would have thought that she would be used to pain by now. Numb to it. But it just somehow never seemed to work that way. She felt like she couldn't stand it. That she would go crazy from it. That it would never end.

But, slowly, it did. Eventually, she was able to let go of Pam, lie down, and curl in on herself. To protect the parts that felt wounded and raw and vulnerable. She cried softly and wrapped her arms around her body. Somehow it didn't help as much as it usually did. Now that she knew how much better it was when someone else did it.

She wished that he would hold her again. Or even that Pam would. But she didn't know how to ask. And a small part of her even felt guilty. Like she was being disloyal. Unfaithful. But the rest of her was ashamed of herself for feeling that way.

Sookie was still covered in blood, although the wounds had healed. The ones you could see, anyway. Eric was standing off to the side, and he felt… helpless. Useless, even. Worse, he felt complicit. He had made so many stupid mistakes that had led to this. That had caused and then exacerbated her pain. And he'd just done it again by ending her maker right next door instead of waiting until she was at rest. As if she hadn't been hurt enough. He was much older than she was, and it would have been little bother to take him back to Fangtasia, end him shortly after sunrise, and then rest for the day there.

He had never been this careless. For several hundred years, he'd been able to think several moves ahead, keep an eye on both the fine details and the whole picture, lead with his brain and his gut, come out ahead and (almost always) unharmed, and get the job done, whatever it was. All while enjoying himself as much as possible.

He loved a good chase, and this one had been no different. Except that it obviously had been. He'd planned his moves in advance, kept a close eye on her progress and her emotions, and kept working towards his goal. And he had certainly been enjoying himself. He'd thought that he'd been doing everything right. But he hadn't been leading with his head or his gut. Not really. They had both been led around by his heart. And that was not how he did things. Somehow, at some point, she had gone from a distraction to an obsession to… something else. And whatever that was had made him sloppy. And Sookie had paid the price.

He hated feeling conflicted. He hated… feeling. At least feeling like this. He ground his teeth and walked over to Pam. "It will be sunrise soon. Take her back to my house in the Corvette. I will burn it all down and fly back to your place."

Pam frowned. He'd gone from proud maker to cold and formal. And a short while ago, he'd been staring into Sookie's eyes while she was biting him and drinking his blood. Now he couldn't seem to even look at her.

"You'll be by tomorrow?"

Eric didn't answer for a moment, and Pam saw the muscles in his jaw bunch as he clenched it. "No." He turned and left.

Pam looked over at Sookie and sighed. It had been a very stressful few days. She hoped that Eric would be over his funk when he rose the next evening.

"Sookie, I'm going to pick you up now. We're going back to Eric's."

Sookie nodded and Pam carried her to the car. The keys were still in it, and Pam started the engine and drove away, just as the shed went up in flames.

Pam, for the second time, was driving a naked and abused Sookie away from a torture scene towards Shreveport. She turned on the radio to fill the silence. She was surprised a few minutes later when Sookie turned it back off again.

"Do you mind?"

Pam smiled at her. "Of course not."

Sookie brought her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "Is Eric going to be staying there, too?"

"No. He'll keep staying at my place with Chow."

"Oh."

It was several more minutes before she spoke again. "It's ok if he does. Stay at his house, I mean. I wouldn't mind."

Pam looked over at her, and Sookie's face was turned to look out the passenger window. But Pam could see her reflection in it. Sookie looked nervous, but hopeful, and Pam's stomach dropped. She had been concerned from the beginning that Sookie wouldn't take the heartbreak well when Eric moved on. If this was the end of it for him, the timing couldn't have been worse. At least things hadn't progressed past a kiss. "Are you sure you're ready for that?"

Sookie raised one shoulder. "I'm not ready to go out in public yet. I… I don't know if I ever really will be. Especially now. But he's been so wonderful. You both have. I'm not afraid of him any longer. I mean, y'all have saved me twice now. I feel terrible for keeping him from his home so much already."

Pam didn't answer. She would insist on talking to Eric the following evening, but she had such a terrible feeling about this. Sookie had been tortured again. Horribly. Brutally. She would likely be extremely conflicted after her maker's final death. Pam had seen it again and again in the children of evil makers after they'd been ended. They had belonged to their masters, completely and absolutely. They were their property as well as progeny. And they had been told that they were worthless and deserved to be mistreated so often that they came to believe it. And Sookie's situation, with her maker taking her at such a young age and bonding with her and treating her so incredibly cruelly? It was likely to be that much worse. Pam didn't think that Sookie could take rejection right now, too. Especially steeped in pity and shame. And, unfortunately, Pam didn't even trust him to let her down easy. Not when he looked and felt like that.

It started to sprinkle and Pam turned on the windshield wipers. Eric would need to make sure that the fires were well set in case it started to rain harder. Sookie looked out the window and tried not to think about anything. Especially all of the things that were trying to creep in. They were both silent for the rest of the drive back.

When they got to the house, Sookie got out of the car before Pam could go around to pick her up. She went straight downstairs and into the shower and scrubbed herself over and over again. She felt like she needed to be sick, like she had been so many times in the shower after he'd hurt her before. Back when she'd still been human. But she couldn't get sick now. She couldn't throw up whatever it was that was making her ill.

She looked down and saw the red drops dissolving in the water on the bottom of the tub and realized that she was crying. She didn't know how she felt. A million different ways. She'd hated him with everything she had for as long as she'd known him. He had broken her a very long time ago. He'd taken away her choice and freedom and autonomy and dignity and hope and will and sense of self. She had followed his every command long before he'd turned her. Even without glamour, she had almost always done what she was told, no matter how much she hadn't wanted to. She hadn't had a choice.

Sookie sat down on the bottom of the tub and pulled her knees up against her chest. She wrapped her arms around them and sobbed. She had wished him dead a million times. Probably more than that. She should be ecstatic. And she was! Part of her was absolutely thrilled. Most of her, even. But she felt guilty, too. So guilty. Her stomach was tied in knots. She… she had been a very bad girl. She was so messed up inside.

It had terrified her when he would pretend to be nice. Never more than a touch, but he would stroke her hair or her cheek or her arm, or he would kiss her gently. Sometimes he would tell her that she was a good girl, or even that he loved her. It turned her stomach. She knew that it was bullshit. That it had all been lies, designed to make her more crazy and to keep her off balance and for the pain to hurt that much worse when it came. But it had also worked. She had craved his praise and his affection. Just like she had her mother's. When he was touching her gently, he wasn't hurting her. She had always expected and dreaded the pain that inevitably followed, but she still sometimes leaned into the touch, almost as often as she'd recoiled in fear. She had been so alone. So starved for any kind of comfort or connection. She had been grateful.

The water pounded against her head and back and shoulders. She rocked and tried to soothe herself, but she couldn't. And it really pissed her off. She had to snap out of it. He would never be able to touch her again. She would never have to be bitten or beaten or burned. Not raped or hurt or humiliated. She could have friends. She could drink when she was hungry and read a book when she was bored or even go places when she felt like it. Eventually. She didn't have to look over her shoulder or worry that he would call her to him. She no longer belonged to him. She could… She could do just about anything.

She took a deep, shaky breath, and then another. She knuckled the tears out of her eyes and made a noise that was equal parts laugh and sob and closed her eyes. She whispered, "I'm free."