Part 3: Do I Want To Know?
Sookie sat with her head up against the wall in an empty, but at the very least, carpeted room. The only furniture was a pair of shackles that were chained to the corner walls, which she didn't have the strength to contemplate at the moment. There were windows on one of the walls, but they were completely closed up and light tight, so she had no idea what was on the other side of them, or where she was... or even how long she'd been here. She figured she'd been locked up through the night, and through most of the day now as she had been brought 3 meals. One of eggs and bacon, one of a grilled cheese and tomato soup, and now the untouched bowl that sat in front of her on the rug was filled with some kind of gumbo. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
She ran the last few hours back through her mind.
Eric hadn't flown her very far at all. Maybe half a mile or so up the road to where he had a car waiting, which frightened her for the sole reason that me must have been taking her somewhere far away if he needed a car to do it.
"Eric, what the hell-" She had started to try and question him, but she cut herself off with her own screaming as the vampire opened the trunk of the car, and placed her rather unceremoniously in to it.
"I'd try to get some sleep if I were you." He said, staring down at her as he put his hands on the trunk door, and then: "This is going to be a long, uncomfortable ride."
"Eric, you son of a-"
The door was slammed shut.
He was right about the ride being long and uncomfortable, but she hadn't taken his advice. Instead, she ran through several very unpleasant scenarios in her head as to why he would be doing this to her. After all, he had never really shown himself to be of upstanding moral fiber, had he? He'd tricked her in to drinking his blood that one time, as Jason had been so kind to remind her of. He'd bought her house in some creepy attempt at making her "his." Not to mention... Well, locking Lafayette up in his basement and torturing him for weeks.
Not to mention, in fact, dozens of awful, terrible, things he had done.
He had never been like Bill. He'd always been something else entirely.
So, what did he want with her? Would it be such a stretch to think that he had finally just decided to make her his vampire bride? ...Of course, that was a stretch. That was ridiculous. At least, she tried to convince herself that it was ridiculous. Even if it wasn't that, though, it could easily be something just as unpleasant. When this occurred to her, she wanted to break down in to tears just out of sheer frustration. She'd been through so much in the past few years, and had spent so much of that time being afraid. Afraid for people she loved, for herself, for the world... And Bill had died trying to protect her from more of that. He had died trying to give her a way to a normal life, and here she was, not even 2 days later, curled up in the trunk of a car. Possibly on her way to becoming Eric's vampire bride.
It just wasn't... fair.
When the car stopped, the trunk was opened, but she was blindfolded in almost the same moment, and then dragged up and out in to the night air. It bit at her arms and legs as she was still just wearing a baggy sleeping shirt, and she began to shiver almost immediately.
"Eric-"
"We're going to walk the rest of the way." He said, as he tied her arms behind her back.
"Why are you doing this?"
"If I said it was for your own good-"
"Fuck you." She had said with venom.
"That's more or less what I thought."
Then he taped her mouth closed.
And now she was here. In this room. Alone, tired... and still dressed in a baggy t-shirt.
The door opened, and the same young brunette girl who had been bringing the meals to her came in through it. She looked down at the untouched food, and looked disappointed.
"You've got to be hungry." She said.
"I seem to have lost my appetite for some reason."
He'll kill me if she doesn't eat...
"Why will he kill you?" Sookie asked, sitting up.
The girl slumped a bit.
"He said you'd do that." She shook her head, picked up the full bowl from the floor, and turned to leave.
"Wait," Sookie said as she stood. "Please tell me what I'm doing here."
The brunette took a deep breath.
"He'll tell you himself." She said, and then was gone. The sound of a deadbolt clicking in to place following her.
...
"I'm glad you were able to fall asleep." Eric's voice startled Sookie from a dreamless sleep.
She stood immediately and backed away from him.
"What the hell am I doing here?" She asked.
"I realize this must be unpleasant for you-"
"Unpleasant?"
"-But it was simply the most... efficient way to get you here."
"Kidnapping me?"
"Yes."
Then Sookie's stomach growled. Eric raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not certain how you think refusing to eat is going to make your situation in any way better." He said.
"I'm not eating anything you put in front of me." Sookie responded, then crossed her arms over her stomach defensively.
"Just to be clear," Eric started, beginning to back her up in to the wall. "If I wanted to hurt you, I would not have to resort to poisoning your food."
Sookie dropped her arms, and shook her head. On her face was a look of betrayed trust, and a visible lack of understanding of what was happening to her.
"No." She agreed, and could feel the familiar sting of tears at the inner corner of her eyes. "You've made that perfectly clear."
There was a knock at the door.
Eric stared down at her with a look that confused Sookie more than anything else had yet. He seemed far away, and... Hurt. It was a look that almost made her rethink her anger, but not quite.
"I'm going to open that door," Eric started. "And what's on the other side of it may make me unredeemable to you, but I would not be doing this if I did not have a good reason."
The half fairy's eyes widened. She was glad she hadn't rethought her anger.
"What-"
In the blink of an eye, Sookie was shackled to the wall in the corner, and then he was standing at the door, still gazing on her with that same look in his eyes.
"Eric," She started. "Please. Please don't..."
She didn't know what was on the other side of that door, but given what he had said about it, that it was something he believed would make him "unredeemable" was terrifying. He'd done so many things to her and people she loved, and still never believed himself beyond redemption in her eyes. Even she had never truly felt that way about him.
He opened the door with a smile on his face.
"Come right in," He said as he opened his arm welcomingly to invite whoever was on the other side to step in to the room. The brunette "meal bringer" stepped in first, and was followed by a short and very pale redheaded man. Sookie looked from one to the other, and then closed her eyes trying to pick up any errant thoughts.
So disgusting... floated away from the girl, but nothing from the man. He was clearly a vampire.
"What's disgusting?" Sookie asked with a shaking voice. The brunette looked at Eric with fear in her eyes. He merely smiled.
"See?" He said to the redhead, who by now was only looking at Sookie. "Just as I said." Then he said something in another language to the girl who he referred to at "Nirette", and she walked quickly out of the room.
"A real fairy..." The redhead almost whispered. Sookie's eyes shot to Eric.
"You bastard..." She bit out.
"Be quiet." He replied warningly.
"Don't blame Northman," The other vampire started as he rubbed his hands together creepily. "There have been whispers of fairies in Louisiana for years now."
Eric lowered his head at Sookie, almost as though to say "See?", but she wasn't sure what she was supposed to be seeing.
"What rumors?" She asked. "From who?"
"He won't say." Eric answered with a smile. "And can you blame him? That kind of information can be very... valuable. It isn't polite to question customers."
Sookie's stomach sank.
"Customers?" She asked.
Eric's smile faltered.
"You don't know?" The redhead asked mock-sadly. "Mr. Northman here is selling a minute with you at 100,000 dollars a pop. Looks like I'm lucky number 1."
A tear slipped from her eye.
"Eric..." She shook her head. "You can't."
Both vampires laughed as the redhead turned to Eric.
"I sure hope you can, seeing as how you already have my money."
"And I'd be lying if I said I don't hope to have more of it in the future..." Eric responded, clapping the other man on the back. "
The redhead licked his lips, and Sookie instinctively pushed herself further back up against the wall.
"So, can I…" The man trailed off.
"By all means." Eric said, gesturing toward Sookie.
The short vampire started toward her.
"If you touch me, I'll kill you." Sookie said. He laughed again, and looked at Eric.
"I love the spirited ones." He said.
"Well, she has no shortage of spirit." Eric agreed.
The vampire was kneeling in front of Sookie in the next moment, and then had his head at her thighs the moment after that. Sookie screamed.
"NOT," Eric started, suddenly grabbing him by the head, his fangs out. "The thigh." He retracted his fangs. "Wrists only."
"Wrists?" The redhead groaned.
"If you don't like it, then you can get the fuck out."
A beat before the other vampire nodded, and Eric backed away. Sookie's heart was pounding in her chest, but she didn't have time to think about what had just happened before fangs were digging in to the flesh of her wrist. She screamed again as she looked to Eric, only to find that his eyes were diverted away from her.
Then something suddenly occurred to her.
"I'm HepV positive!" She screamed. The sucking at her wrist stopped as the redhead raised his head to look at her.
"What?" He asked.
"I'm afraid it's true." Eric said, turning his eyes toward them.
"What the fuck, Northman!" The vampire was standing and in Eric's face.
"Sorry," the taller vampire said, though rather unapologetically. "Did I forget to mention that?" He grabbed the other man by the throat. "Then I probably also forgot to mention that if you're infected by fairy blood that the disease progresses much faster."
"You piece of shit." the redhead ground out.
"To be fair, she did say if you touched her she was going to kill you."
The man growled, and then Eric slammed his head against the wall. He fell unconscious to the floor. Eric looked to Sookie whose chest was heaving up and down. He walked over to her and kneeled. The dropping of his fangs startled her, but she was too confused and frightened to wonder at what he was doing. He bit down in to his thumb and took her wrist in his hands.
"Why?" She asked.
He rubbed the blood from his thumb in to the bite wound on her wrist, and it disappeared almost immediately.
"I'm sure you're wondering that about a lot of things." He said, retracting his fangs. "But I don't have the time to explain it to you." He stood. "Our friend Daniel here is not the only one who knows about you. I need to know the name of every vampire who knows your name, and this was simply the quickest way of going about doing that."
"... You could have told me." Sookie said with a constricted throat.
"Yes, but would you have gone along with it?"
"No." She answered forcefully.
"And now you see why I could not have told you. There isn't always time to wait for you to come around and see things from my point of view."
"I don't want to see things from your point of view. I want all of you to leave me the fuck alone."
He paused for a moment.
"That's what I want for you, too." He said, and then started toward the unconscious vampire. He threw the man over his shoulder, and began to walk out.
"Wait!" Sookie yelled. "Unchain me!"
"I would eat the next time food is brought to you." Eric said over his shoulder. "You're going to be here for a while."
Then Eric was gone, and the door was shut... And Sookie began to sob violently in her new corner.
...
Bill smiled at Sookie as she joined him on the picnic blanket that lay sprawled across the grass of the dark Bon Temps cemetery.
"You're bleeding." He said with concern as he took her wrist and began to survey it. Sookie looked down at it and creased her forehead in confusion.
"I thought Eric fixed that..." She said.
"Eric?" Bill asked, and dropped Sookie's wrist. "I thought you were done with him."
The girl rubbed her wrist, though all that served to do was spread blood across her hand and forearm.
"I thought I was, too." She said.
"I died for you, Sookie." Bill said angrily.
She shook her head.
"But you're right here."
"But I'm not right here." The angry vampire responded. "I'm gone because of you, and this is how you repay me?"
"I never wanted you to go..." Sookie argued.
Bill looked sad at that.
"I know. But you have to let me go. And Eric. You have to let all of this go."
Sookie shook her head and refused to cry. She was so tired of crying.
"How?"
Bill's face hardened.
"You have to kill Eric."
...
Sookie woke up with a start, Nirette staring down at her. She looked angry and scared before bending down to be eye level with Sookie and saying:
"I want to kill him, too."