It's About Power
Chapter 10
"You smell like him," Bill growled as he drove us along the interstate back to Bon Temps. He'd left the radio off for this trip. I clutched my arm, which had finally stopped bleeding and really didn't look so bad now. Surprising. It had looked like hell before…
"What?" I blinked. I looked across the car at Bill. When he'd found me in the bathroom with Eric, he'd swept me right off my feet without a word. He'd practically thrown me into the car, gotten in behind the wheel, and sped out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. It was a wonder we hadn't gotten pulled over yet. Maybe the cops could tell it wasn't worth it. Bill probably would've killed them if he'd been given half a chance.
"You smell like Eric," Bill seethed. He swerved and pulled the car off the road into an abandoned lot. I felt my stomach lurch as the car went diving down into the lot. Bill yanked my door open and ripped me from the car. My seatbelt snapped and whacked me in the shoulder. That hurt. Bill's eyes were half-lidded. His fangs were out again, fully extended, ready to bite. He ripped at the button on my slacks and pulled them down around my knees.
I couldn't help it. I screamed.
"Bill, please!" I squeaked, but Bill couldn't hear me now. Whoever that monster was, it wasn't the man I knew. Sure, he could be mean sometimes. He could be downright cruel. But he was always that way knowing I'd be okay. Maybe I'd cry a little, but he'd be there for me. I'd be okay. We'd be okay. Not now. This wasn't like those times before. This wasn't the same kind of deal. I was up a creek without a paddle.
Bill was inside me in a second. He threw my chest against the car and I smacked my bitten arm on the roof. Ow. The tears were hot on my cheeks. Bill was rough and mean and hurting me. I clawed at the car as if it could protect me. Behind me, Bill went at it for about five minutes. Then he pulled out. He grabbed me by the neck and turned me around. His mouth tasted mine, and he bit the inside of my lip. I beat on his chest weakly, like a kitten, and for the first time I saw how powerless I really was. He pulled back at last and got back into the car. I crawled into my seat, leaned against the door with the window rolled down, and I cried silently until Bill's cellular phone rang.
He looked at it for a long time before he answered it. He pressed the phone to his ear and then held it out to me without a word.
"Sookie?" It was Jason. I wanted to tell him to come get me, but of course, I was on my way home in a moving vehicle. I tried to suppress my weeping so he wouldn't worry.
"Jason?"
"Are you near home, Sook? Listen uh, just be here as soon as you can okay?"
"What…what's going on?" I didn't like the tone in his voice. I didn't like it one bit.
"It's Gran, Sook. She's… she passed away."
I was silent the rest of the way home. Bill was silent too. He didn't ask who was on the phone or what they wanted, and because he didn't ask, I didn't tell him. When we got to the house, there was an ambulance and Sheriff Dearborne's police car. I stumbled up the steps and I heard the stairs lurch as Bill followed me slowly. Jason was sitting on the couch in the living room. He had his head in his hands.
"Jason?" I whimpered as I sat down on the sofa beside him. If he noticed I was in disarray, he didn't mention it. Instead, he pulled me against his shoulder and we cried together. I could feel Bill hovering near us, and I didn't know what I wanted to do about that. I wanted him to comfort me, and at the same time, I didn't want his hands anywhere near me. Jason got up to use the bathroom. He patted Bill on the shoulder, and he sat down beside me. I gave in. I wanted to be close to someone and right now, I didn't care who that someone turned out to be. I curled my body against Bill's chest and leaned into him. Bill sat there like a lump. He tucked his arm around me, but only because he didn't know what else to do. I looked up at him and he was staring at the wall beyond me. Jason walked through the living room toward the kitchen. I heard him digging around in Gran's fridge.
"You need to go," I said to Bill. I sat up on the sofa. I pressed my hand to my hair and realized it was messy and crazy and that my brother had seen that. Thankfully my brother didn't know what we'd done tonight, what Bill had done, what I'd let him do.
"Excuse me?" Bill raised an eyebrow. He probably wondered why I was telling him what to do. Well, he could go on wondering. For the first time in a year, I didn't care.
"You need to go, Bill. I need to be with Jason."
"Do you really want to kick me out, Sookie?" Bill was on his feet now. He looked imposing, and he looked mean, and I didn't know if I had the strength. "Do you really want me to go?"
"Sook, everything okay?" Jason asked. He was behind me now. I felt his hand on my shoulder. Sometimes it's nice to have a big brother.
"Yes, everything's fine." I said. "Bill, I revoke your invitation to this house."
I'd never seen a vampire get uninvited. Heck, I'd only ever invited one vampire into my house, and now I was uninviting him. Bill looked mighty angry when his body walked itself backwards out of the house, out the front door, down the porch steps. He gave me a foul stare and then turned around and walked home. I felt a cold shudder go through my flesh, and I fell back against Jason. He walked me to the kitchen and we sat down in front of one of Gran's strawberry pies. My brother handed me a fork.
The funeral was hard, but the wake was so much harder. Jason spent most of the wake in the kitchen, eating his way through casseroles and cakes left by Gran's friends from the Bon Temps community. Without my brother to cling to (he was a mess all by himself), or Bill, I was a wreck. My old friend Tara, along with Sam and Arlene, ran the wake. I cornered myself off in my bedroom and hid from the world. I curled up on the bed and spent my waking hours crying. When I wasn't crying, I was avoiding offers of food and drink from my loved ones. Sam came by with tacos. Arlene wanted to give me some rainbow sherbet punch. Tara had fried chicken. I told them all I wasn't hungry, and eventually the party died down. I woke up after midnight and went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
The urn was still sitting on the tiled kitchen counter, forgotten by some matronly type from the old guard of Bon Temps. I stuffed a cup underneath it and poured myself a cup of still hot but not terribly tasty coffee. I grabbed a slice of leftover cake from the fridge and went to sit down at the kitchen table. Gran had always had a lovely kitchen. The table looked out over a big bay window with a seat built into it. She had shutters on it, but they were open in the summer time. I looked out over the grassy lawn and dropped my coffee cup. Coffee splattered everywhere, stinging my leg and staining the legs of the table. There was Bill, standing on the lawn in the same clothes I'd met him in, drinking a True Blood out of the bottle. His normally tidy hair was messy across his forehead, and he'd stuffed one of his hands into his pockets. In the moonlight, his slight but muscular frame was perfectly outlined. He looked beautiful, except for the stare of pure hatred on his face. I scrambled up to the window and pressed my nose against it. I blinked. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone.
I spent three days cooped up in the house, afraid to go outside. Thankfully, after the wake, there was a lot of food just lying around. Jason kept away for the most part, so I didn't get any grief from him about staying home and stewing. On the third day of my self-enclosure, the phone rang at about three in the afternoon.
"Hey Sook, it's Sam, just called to see how you're doin'," Sam said. He sounded worried.
"I'm okay, Sam, considering…"
"Yeah, I hear that. I was just wondering when you're planning on uh…well, comin' back to work I guess. It's no rush, believe me."
"I don't know Sam," I frowned. Honestly, I didn't have a clue. I could work the day shift, that was okay, but I didn't want to get home after dark, and I didn't want to be out late at night. I still didn't know if the Bill I'd seen on my lawn was the real Bill or just my imagination, but I didn't doubt that if I went outside after dark, Bill would find an excuse to "come and talk" to me.
I even started having nightmares about seeing him. I'd go to sleep trying to think about anything else, anything at all, and I'd imagine him breaking into my house or coming into my bedroom. He'd push me down against the bed and he'd hurt me. He'd tell me I was worthless without him or that I needed him to survive. He'd tell me I wanted him to hurt me, that I liked it, that I needed it to feel like I was loved. He'd have sex with me and I'd try to tell him no, but something always prevented me. He'd be choking me or talking over me or I just couldn't speak. Whatever it was, I always woke up screaming, and I always knew I'd let it happen. It was my fault. I hadn't done anything to stop it.