It was clear that they thought threatening me with this Malia thing would make me say all there was to know about a vampire convention I'd never heard of. So I wasn't all that surprised when I found myself thrown in a bare room that would have made prison cells look like the Ritz shortly afterwards. I wasted no time trying to call out to Barry, kicking myself for not testing whether he could still hear the vampire version of Sookie before I'd found myself in a pickle.
"Barry! Barry!" I was screaming as loud as I could without actually opening my mouth. Then I felt something coming, sort of like when you tune a radio and just have a feeling that there's a good song coming if you just turn a little bit farther…
When I was finally able to tune in, the sound I heard nearly broke my heart. "Aunt Sookie?" The voice was soft, but I'd know it anywhere. "Where are you?"
Hunter, my cousin (twice deceased) Hadley's son was also a telepath. He was also five years old. He was the last person I could bring in to this. If the F.B.I. had given me grief over being a telepath, it was likely that Remy, Hunter's dad would find his son missing one night in the name of national security. Nope. I would not bring Hunter into this. I kept reaching out to Barry, but he didn't hear me. At least he wasn't acting like he could hear me if he could, but I was pretty darn sure I'd know if he was trying to ignore me. I kept listening out for anything, while trying to block Hunter's sweet little voice out to stop myself from answering. A five year old, telepathic or not, was not going to be much use.
But Remy would be.
"Hunter? Sweetheart?" Even my inner voice was panicky. "Is your daddy there?"
"Where are you Aunt Sookie?" He begged.
"Hunter, I need you to go and get your daddy and tell him everything I say to you, can you do that?" Dawn was coming, I could feel my eyelids growing heavy. I didn't know how long this would take.
It took another minute or two, but I caught glimpses from Hunter's eyes of a very sleepy Remy swatting Hunter away from his bedside like one would swat at a fly honing in on a picnic. I tried to turn that part of my telepathy off, but Hunter was very visual about his dad's threadbare boxer shorts covered with large-mouth bass donning Santa hats. "Hunter, can you tell your daddy you have a very important message from Aunt Sookie and she needs his help immediately?"I saw Remy jerk suddenly when he heard his son say my name. I figured I'd continue. "I need you to go get a piece of paper and a pen and I have some stuff to tell your dad." I followed Hunter's eyes through the small bungalow, which was dramatically messier now that Remy's girlfriend had left. Eventually he found paper and a pen and turned back to return to Remy's bedroom, but instead found his father in the kitchen wearing a Corona robe and reaching for the pen and paper. "Okay. Good job sweetheart. Now I just need you to repeat every word I say and tell me if your daddy asks a question. But we don't have a lot of time, so you have to keep up with me, okay?" I could tell that he was getting nervous, so I tried harder to keep my voice calm.
"Call Fangtasia in Shreveport and leave a message for Pam. Tell her that I don't know where I am, but Eric is with me. I don't know if he is safe or not. We're in an old warehouse and it was a couple hours away from my house, but I don't know which direction. I'm being held by the F.B.I. and they want to know about a vampire conference and we don't know anything. They have something called Malia, and they need to find out what she is. She's dangerous."
Hunter then relayed a question from Remy. "So we just need to call Pam? Should we call the cops or something?"
"They're not going to be very helpful." I was so tired, I could feel the dawn coming up. "Especially since it's the F.B.I. that's holding us here. Just call Pam and leave that message," my thoughts were slowing down, my eyes were closing, "and remember to never, ever tell…"
And then the dawn came.