A/N: Grumble insomnia. Grumble middle of the night. Grumble I really hope you love my new story. :P
Chapter 1
May 1994
Sookie Stackhouse was terrified. Her mother's latest boyfriend had come onto her, pushing her up against the counter and kissing her, when she was trying to do the dishes after school. Sookie asked him to please stop, and then tried hard to push him away when he wouldn't. Mama came in and saw and threw him out, but then she grabbed a knife out of the kitchen drawer and came after Sookie. She meant to use it, too. Sookie saw it in her head. She even sliced a long, deep cut across Sookie's forearm; Sookie had put it up to protect her face when Michelle slashed at it. Fortunately she missed the big artery and vein on the underside by an inch or so, but Sookie was bleeding pretty bad and should probably have stitches.
Sookie ran out of the house, grabbed her bike, and took off. Fortunately, she still had her hoodie in the basket, and she wrapped it as best she could around her arm. She didn't really have anywhere to go, but she knew Hadley had been staying at a shelter in New Orleans sometimes, and she had an idea of where she usually hung out. Hadley had been bugging Sookie to join her off and on for a couple of years, and Sookie guessed it was finally time.
When Sookie was 8, the car her family was in was washed off a bridge during a flash flood. They had all been on their way home from a church picnic, and the sun had shone all day long. The storm had come out of nowhere. Her Daddy, Gran, and brother, Jason all drowned. Sookie and her mother survived. Sookie had spent the last 7 years wishing she had died, too.
Sookie pedaled the bike out to the highway. She got off and let it go down the bank off the side of the road. It crashed into a heap at the bottom, about fifteen feet down. All she had were the clothes on her back, a pair of worn sneakers on her feet with holes in them, and a hoodie covered in blood wrapped around her arm. She stuck out her thumb and walked backwards, really glad that it was the left arm that was cut. Nobody was gonna pick her up if her hitching arm was all bloody. Plus it would tire super easily.
She hoped that whoever picked her up wasn't from Bon Temps, and wouldn't want her to fuck them or anything in payment for the drive. She really really hated having sex. A lot. Unfortunately, she had found that it was the second best way to stay out of trouble. The best way was to read minds and avoid it in the first place. Unfortunately, plan A made plan B really fucking unpleasant when plan A didn't work.
Only a few minutes later, an orange VW van pulled over and gave two short friendly honks. Or, more accurately, meeps. It sounded like The Roadrunner from the Bugs Bunny cartoons. Sookie smiled. The van was full of friendly-looking kids a little older than her, with long hair and dark baggy clothes. A big cloud of pot smoke poured out when they opened the side door. Sookie took a quick peek in their heads and confirmed what she intuited - these guys were OK. Their brains were red and snarly and hard to read, but she could get the idea of their emotions, and they were all feeling friendly, stoned, and happy. Even better, they were on their way to New Orleans, too, and thought the more the merrier.
They even had a first aid kit, and the big handsome one in back, Alcide, fixed her up while they smoked her up, cleaning the wound and super gluing it shut. In the front seats were Maria-Star and Jake. Amanda sat in the middle row, while the seat in back was folded down into a bed. This was where Alcide was working on her arm.
After he got her all bandaged up, he leaned down and kissed her. She didn't mind. Pot always made thoughts just kind of slip through her head, unless she took a turn down Paranoia Lane. And Alcide was a very hard read anyhow. Plus he was really cute and she felt grateful. And it wasn't like she hadn't fooled around a million times before.
They stopped at a gas station, and Sookie got out to stretch her legs and use the bathroom and try to clean as much of the blood off her as she could. She even rinsed her hoodie out in the sink. She was really glad that she had run into a bunch of cool people like this, who were happy to help her out and treat her half decent and not ask too many questions. Alcide even bought her a Snickers and a fountain Coke.
She told them about why she was taking off. Or, at least, today's portion of it. Her Mama had gotten even worse since she started tweaking. And some of the dirtbags she brought home⦠Not good.
The house was disgusting unless Sookie cleaned it for hours after school, and it was almost as bad by the next evening. There were cigarette butts on the floor or stubbed out in half full dishes of food, empty beer cans and take out boxes everywhere, skeezy guys coming and going at all hours, too, and always pissing all over the damn bathroom floor and toilet seat. And Sookie knew her mom had moved on to selling. Drugs and herself. And getting the fuck out before her mother tried to rope her into doing one or other, too, or before her mother killed her, had been necessary.
They made it to New Orleans before midnight. They dropped Sookie off near where Hadley hung out in the French Quarter, and waved and meeped goodbye. They had given her the number for the payphone near where they were going to be staying, and they already had plans to meet up with her again in a couple of days.
"See you later, Sookie Sunshine!" Alcide called out one of the back windows, and she waved at them until they were out of sight.
She probably should have gone with them; they had asked her to. But Sookie was already feeling guilty that they did as much for her as they already had, and she didn't want to take advantage of their generosity. Better to beg from family, and that's what she was going to be doing, going to Hadley.
She walked the streets, trying to find somewhere that looked familiar from Hadley's memories. She asked several whores who looked about her age if they knew Hadley, and, if so, if they knew where she was, but she had no luck. A few knew her, but nobody had seen her for weeks.
Sookie spent the next couple of days searching for Hadley, but came up short. Nobody Sookie talked to had seen her for at least a month, if not longer. Word on the street was that she found herself some guy and had moved in with him and maybe gotten married, but nobody had any real idea of where she might be or how to reach her. Or, at least they didn't think of it when Sookie was looking. Sookie just hoped she was safe and happy.
It was plenty warm outside, so bunking down in a park was no big deal, and she was able to get more than enough panhandling for a big cup of coffee, some beignets, and a breakfast burrito one day, and even a shrimp po'boy and fries at Domilise's the next.
She was thinking of possibly trying to do some busking, maybe some fortune telling. She would probably do real well, especially from people looking for a creepy New Orleans experience.
The next day, Sookie met up with the kids from the van. They had come to NOLA to try to make it big as musicians, and had been trying to get booked in clubs all over the city. No luck so far, but they had only been trying a couple of days. They had a small cult following in Shreveport, but nobody in New Orleans had heard of Alcide Herveaux and the Werewolves, and apparently nobody cared, either.
Sookie just sort of wound up tagging along with The Wolves, as they called themselves for short. They parked the van kind of by a levee every night, laid down all of the seats as best they could, and they all snuggled down. There were a bunch of other kids with no other place to go who hung out there in cars or vans or sleeping bags, or even just on the ground, too. It was kind of like a party all the time. Sometimes Sookie fooled around with Jake, and sometimes with Alcide. Hell, she and Maria-Star had had a very giggly hook up late one night when they were both drinking Boone's Farm strawberry wine. They were so hard to read, with a little pot, she found that she even enjoyed it.
Amanda took off with a couple of other guys after a few days, and only came back to pick up her stuff. After that, it was just the four of them.
She smoked pot and did some of the designer drugs when they were around, but stayed far away from anything you had to inject, anything that you could OD and die on, or anything that was addictive - a strict no prescription pills, no coke, no meth, no heroin policy. She barely touched booze, too, She'd seen enough of what that shit could do from her mother and her junkie friends. The Wolves weren't really into that shit, either. Pot and beer was their idea of a good time, and that suited Sookie fine.
She told fortunes for change on Bourbon Street, and was happy to be able to kick in for food and gas and pot. Everyone was amazed how she was able to do it, but she brushed it off, saying she just "read people well". She thought Alcide suspected all along, though.
Sookie never did find Hadley, but she did have a family now, regardless. The Wolves got a few shows in some of the rougher clubs in town, and Sookie would sneak in and dance. After Amanda left, The Wolves just became a trio and Maria-Star took over on backup lyrics, and they ditched the second guitar. Sookie thought they sounded better, too.
Sookie got along with everyone - gutter punks, club kids, goths, old vagabonds, schizophrenic bag ladies, shelter volunteers, prostitutes, drag queens, the workers in the shops and cafes along Bourbon Street, and even the cops. She always seemed to know what to say or do, or where to go to avoid trouble and keep her friends safe and out of jail. Alcide always called her Sookie Sunshine, and it kind of stuck, so she was often met with calls of, "Hey, Sunshine!" wherever she went.
Jake and Alcide were big dudes and were very protective of her. Sookie didn't understand why they weren't as protective of Maria-Star until their first full moon, but it didn't phase her. And it gave her a great excuse to finally come clean about her telepathy.
For the first time in her life, Sookie felt safe and happy. Who knew that dropping out of school in the tenth grade and becoming homeless at 15 was the best way to go about that?
