Chapter 5
Head pounding and eyes squinting, I immediately adorned my sunglasses as my face tilted away from the sun. The light beams seemed to make the tortuous pain behind my eyes even more daunting. Letting out a sigh I continued down my porch into the darker safety of my car.
The morning had trudged by, due to the daunting fact that I knew I needed to revisit the vampire bar. That, and the fact that I had my face in a garbage can for a half an hour. The realization of what I had done last night didn't crash into me until I sat idly in a towel after a desperately needed shower. "Awe fuck." Although I had read the note earlier, the truth of the matter was, I worked for Eric fucking Northman now and I was stuck in his overprotective, stupid, contract. After all of my lackluster and drunk attempts of loosening the reigns Eric tried to hold on my life, there was no way he would let his new pet go. I was utterly screwed.
Driving to Shreveport was tiring and depressing. Not the drive itself, but the reality of working as a stock worker in at a vampire bar made me feel a little down. In the daylight, the parking lot to Fangtasia was empty, and it felt eerie and wrong to park there. However, I had to do what the contract said. I looked at the clock in my car, exactly noon.
Approaching the establishment again felt wrong, but the look of the bar in the day made it look comedic and playful instead of the alluring quality it held at night. In the bright daylight the windowless building looked as if it was nothing but a sex store. Which, in reality it kind of was.
Jiggling the knob, I realized it was locked. Peering back at my Jeep, the thought of just giving up and going home flashed in my mind. But I didn't want an ear full from Eric when he woke up. I knocked awkwardly on the thick black door, and waited until something happened. A slender woman came to the door. She had short blonde curled hair and dark makeup. Her small frame was entrapped in a tight black laced shirt and dark leather pants. Well, she definitely fit in with the locals.
"Hi! You must be the new hire, I'm Ginger." The high pitch and loud volume of her voice made me cringe behind my glasses. She didn't seem to mind as her bony hand leaped out at me in an attempt at a handshake.
"Brooke, nice to meet you," I smiled slightly as I took her hand. Luckily she dropped it quickly and led me into the bar. Empty, Fangtasia looked small but clean. There weren't any vampires staring down at their next human playmate, or humans drinking their weight in alcohol so their nerves wouldn't be as obvious to the undead. Instead it was just a room with a dance floor, a bar, a stage, and a big old chair. There was no lingering smell of alcohol of blood, simply lemon cleaning product.
She simply pointed at the books behind the bar, and that I was to simply look at the normal orders, look what we have in stock, and to order based off that. Her thin legs seemed to wobble in his high stiletto shoes as she showed me the different areas of the bar. The bathrooms, Eric's office, the supply closet. I didn't have the heart to tell her I'd seen it before, because she seemed so excited about having a coworker.
"Is there any extra stock in the basement I need to know about?"
"No!" She nearly screamed in my face and dropped the glass she was cleaning. I had sat down at the bar to get to work, "All of the counts should be on the sheet, and if not, don't go down there. Come get me and I'll look down there for you."
Letting out a nervous chuckle I couldn't help but say, "You make it sound like there's a ghost down there." Ginger didn't laugh in response. Simply gave me an uncomfortable smile and left to take care of the back rooms.
A small creak echoed from one of the doors by the bar. Putting the pen down from counting types of rum needed, I arched my back allowing it to crack as I tried to look past the doorway. The "Employees Only" door proceeded to open as a looming figure stepped out. A dark man covered in a long flowing black chain around his neck entered the bar area. Covered in what I assumed to be blood, he barely looked my way before lunging himself at the locked front door. Staring, I said nothing as he yelled in frustration at his lack of escape. He started to aggressively slam his shirtless body into the plush entryway in hopes of opening it. I stayed silent in shock. My mind was racing, but I knew he looked familiar. Who the fuck was this guy? Where did he come from?
Hearing a light click come from the opposite side of the bar, I turned my head in time to see Ginger enter the room with a gun shaking in her hand. "Who the fuck are you?" Her voice echoed and the man finally turned around. It was the cook! The one missing from Merlotte's! The cook let out a few curses under his breath as his eyes blinked from the gun, to me, and back to the gun. "WELL?" Ginger's squeaky voice tried to demand, but it just ended up sounding like a plea.
Letting out one more held in breathe he leaned away from the door praising Jesus and looking up. "Thank Jesus. It's daytime," he started to come towards us realizing what daytime meant. No Vampires. He wasn't just covered in blood. He was drenched in it. As if he had been rolling in it for days. "Ya'll are human right?" I nodded uncomfortably, realizing what this man was. He was a prisoner. Eric Northman kept this man as a prisoner!
Standing up quickly I looked at Ginger's twitching finger on the trigger. "I ain't letting you go!" The cook started to saunter towards Ginger with a sway to his step.
I was ignored as he started to come onto her. As he grabbed his dick through his camo-pants while trying to get out of his situation in any way that he could, I started to make my way away from the two of them. I needed to wrap my head around the fact that Eric kept slaves in his bar, and that his human workers were aware of his wishes to keep them there. My hands made my way to my hair in frustration to how shitty of a first day of work this was.
BANG. My breathing stopped as the prisoner hit the floor, grabbing his leg in agony. Ginger threw her gun and started to scream as I rushed towards him. He looked at me with confusion as I threw my hands over his wound, trying to stop the bleeding. "Ginger! Shut up at grab me a bar towel!" Her shaking body did as she was told as I continued to put pressure on his leg. The old blood on his skin and the fresh blood from his leg started to cover my hands. I decided to push down harder causing the man to let out a small whimper.
"These are all dirty!" She yelled while staring at the off white bar towels in her hand.
Letting out a growl in frustration as the man looked at me with angry wide eyes I answered, "Give me the fucking towels before he bleeds out!" Catching them midair I immediately took one to cover the wound and another to tie around his leg to slow the circulation to the bullet wound. Even though I was wearing a black cardigan and couldn't see the blood soaking into it, I could feel it as it pressed into the skin of my abdomen.
"Ginger we need to bring him to the hospital." My hands continued to press against the towel on his leg as I looked at the wildly frantic woman pacing next to us.
This stopped her movement as her light eyes looked at me in horror. "Absolutely not! If we let him leave, we're as good as dead!"
Jesus Christ. Why couldn't my first day be quiet and normal? Just counting alcohol bottles and ordering more. Wait. That's it. "Ginger, hand me a bottle of vodka, I need to clean this wound out if you're not going to let me take him to a doctor." Ginger hustled on her high heels to the bar and back with an expensive bottle of liquor.
The man looked at me with caution as I pulled the soaked towel off the wound. As I poured it on his leg, I ignored the constant name of 'Devil Woman' being pointed in my direction. I stopped with the liquor and turned back towards the blonde woman, "Well we're going to need to call Eric then." The alcohol cleaned most of the blood off his skin before it started to seep from the wound again. "He needs to make a decision about this."
"It's only 5:30, they aren't going to be up for another two hours or so," Ginger's high pitched voice bounced off the bar as her head hung in her hands. "What are we gonna do with 'em?"
"You are gonna hold one arm and I'll grab the other and he's going to lay on Eric's couch so he's not sprawled out on a bar floor for one thing." Ginger lifted her head up at me with a small frown, but reluctantly shuffled over to the bleeding cook. "Eric Northman didn't put this into my fucking contract," I growled as I pulled the man off the floor as he yelled about the pain in his leg.
Sitting with the man for a while, I learned that his name was Lafayette, and he'd been stuck in the basement for weeks for selling vampire blood as a drug. Now I'm not saying that he should have gotten off scot-free, but what kind of sadistic being leaves a person in a puddle of someone else's blood in the dark? Eric Northman apparently.
The second Pam came into Fangtasia it was clear that Ginger had given her a heads up on how the day had gone. She sauntered into Eric's office with an annoyed yet uncaring attitude of the man losing blood in front of her. "Eric told me you're not allowed to leave until he gets here, but doesn't want you near the drag queen anymore," Her manicured finger pointed to the door, kicking me out of the room I had been sitting in for the past few hours.
Fangtasia had yet to be opened, so I sat silently at the bar as Ginger walked around the place like nothing had happened. Feeling me stare at her, she looked up from mopping the floor and gave me a small smile and a wave. How strange.
Then he was there, standing at the plush doorway of the bar with a grave look etched on his marble face. His hair was shorter. Much shorter.
Before I could let out a mean comment about how he looked like a supplemental member of a boyband, Northman was in front of me with my bloody hands in his. The blood had long dried and the black flaky residue remained, staining parts of my fingernails into a dark maroon color. Simply taking one hand, he silently let me to the woman's bathroom. I raised an eyebrow as he let go of my dirty hand and instead put both of his arms around my waist. Following his motions I stood in front of the sink.
His hands finally left my waist and once again led me towards the faucet. The automatic water sensed the motion and started to soak Lafayette's blood off my olive skin. Grabbing some hand soap he pressed his front against my back as he slowly massaged the soap into every area of my hand. His fingers deftly cleaned mine with softness and care. When the last area of my hand was finally clear of blood, he turned me around and dried my hands in his black shirt.
Again, without a word he walked me back to the bar and had me sit down. His blue eyes didn't hold any anger or frustration, but also no empathy or worry.
"You keep human beings locked up in your basement." My voice sliced through the silence, but didn't distract from our eye contact.
"Yes."
I tried to get my hand out of his to make it clear this idea made me upset, but his hold simply strengthened. "Are you going to help him or kill him?" I didn't know why I asked but the words fell out before I could stop them.
"I don't know yet" I nodded. "I will go take care of this, and then I will take you home." He left without giving me an option or an emotion on his face. As if this kind of violence and chaos was nothing more than a meager inconvenience rather than human pain.
Looking around the bar area, there was no one. Pulling out my phone from the back pocket of my jeans, I looked up the number for a cab and left the bar to go home.
Hey guys thanks for reading!
Sorry it's been so long, just wasn't sure where to take the story.
Please PLEASE review. I would love to know what ya'll think!
I only own Brooke.
