Chapter 4 kind of got twice as long as I expected, so... I split it into two, lol. Sorry for the delay.

Thanks again for the totally awesome reviews!

5. Intuition

In the middle of dinner, Sky's phone rang. She talked to Colleen for a couple of minutes, then hung up.

"Jet died?"

She nodded, putting her fork down.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

She nodded again, then got up and cleaned up her plate. Putting the extra she hadn't eaten into a container, she closed the fridge and went outside. She wished that she could comfort Jack, but of course, that was his mom's job.

She walked the length of the fence, stopping in the back, trying to ward off the chill with her own arms. A low fog had rolled in, and the air was damp with the clinging fingers of pale mist. The trees loomed in the darkness like malevolent, judging spirits.

The wooden fence was damp, and she tried not to lean on it as water penetrated her clothes simply from the damp air. The stars overhead twinkled with the same venomous judgment as the trees, and she felt a growing sense of unease.

She looked around, finding nothing amiss. Yet the sense of being watched and judged increased. But with it came a nearly supernatural sense of impending, expectant doom. Never given to flights of fancy, Sky shivered and stepped backward. She half expected something evil to rush out of the woods at her, devour her, and be gone before it was ever seen.

Turning, she raced for the house. The yard had never looked so long before, and as she pushed herself in a sprint, it seemed as if the house retreated from her, elusive as if in a dream. Dread consumed her, and she nearly cried out with the intensity of it.

Instants ticked by with the speed of molasses as she ran, looking back. She swore she saw eyes looking at her over the fence. She reached the house and tore the door open, slamming it and locking it. She ran for the front, knowing she looked wild-eyed and crazy.

She locked the deadbolt and even the lock on the door.

She ran from window to window, making sure they were closed and locked.

"Sky?" Alcide asked.

She stopped, panting. She looked at him, embarrassed. "Something's out there. Some... evil... something. I could feel it." She shivered again and suddenly the house felt like a trap. "We have to get out of here!"

She ran for the garage.

"Sky... what-"

"I don't know! I... I don't know. But I'm going. You can stay if you want."

"No, I'm coming with you," he said. "It's a full moon tonight, though, so I... it's going to be hard for me."

"Oh god. Are you going to eat me?"

He shook his head. "No, it's just... hard. Just trust me."

She didn't need to be told twice. She didn't want to know.

"We have to go now!" she blurted. She grabbed her keys and scrambled into the car. Opening the garage door, she backed out. She barely remembered to close it before peeling out and racing away.

She looked in the rearview mirror and saw multiple sets of eyes glittering in the darkness. Alcide saw them as well, and she heard distantly the sound of a wolf call.

Alcide groaned and she saw the beginning of the change in his eyes. He gripped his head, and she floored it. The little Nissan roared in protest. Then, as if sensing her urgency, it dropped into passing drive and leaped forward as if the hounds of hell itself were on its bumper.

Sky wasn't entirely sure that was wrong.

In the meantime, Alcide was groaning and twisting in the passenger seat.

"Stop," he muttered at her, groaning again as if in deepest torment.

She wanted to disobey, but knew that she could be putting them both in danger. So she slowed and started to pull over. She hadn't stopped before he jumped out and ran, tearing at his shirt. She grabbed his door, swung it shut, and roared away, pushing the Nissan for every ounce of go it had in it.

She spent the night at a hotel, afraid to go home. Her gun sat beside her on the other pillow.

The next day, she was afraid to go to work, but did. The first thing she did was send Carlos home. She told him to take the next day off, too, unless she called him. He looked prepared at first to argue, then saw the tense, exhausted look on her face.

"Sure thing, baby doll," he answered.

"Carlos? Don't worry, I'll pay you," she said.

"I appreciate that. I do got bills."

She nodded. "Be safe."

He left.

She sat huddled behind the desk until afternoon. The door laser dinged and she looked up in surprise, fear the first response.

An animal control officer came in. "We got an injured fox. Think you could get it up and ready to go back out into the wild?"

"I'll take a look," she answered. She took the man's card and rolled the cage back into a waiting room.

The door dinged again a few minutes later, and she tensed. She half expected Debbie or Marcus after the night before. But it was Jack, and she felt relieved, but sad.

"Hi Jack. I'm so sorry that I couldn't save Jet," she told him.

He was smiling, though. "He's alive, ma'am," he said. His smile fell a little. "Momma lied because she said that if he died, we wouldn't owe you anything. I'm real sorry. I got this five dollars I was saving up to get a baseball glove. I want you to have it for saving him." He walked up to the desk.

Sky wanted to say 'no'. It was his five dollars and a baseball glove was a worthy goal. But she could see the pride and the stubbornness on his face.

Then she thought of something. "I know you really want that glove, don't you?"

His lip trembled slightly, but he said, "Jet's worth it."

"I'll tell you what. I have a few things going on right now, but maybe you could come in next week and help me a little. That would pay it back even better. Just simple chores to help out. I've got a fox that just came in, and he'll need someone to help cut up his food."

"Really? That would be great!" he said.

"You have to ask your mom," she warned him. "I want a letter from her saying it's okay for you to help out. You don't have to say I know about Jet, though. We'll keep that between us."

His face fell. "I don't think she'll let me," he said.

"Well, we'll see then, okay? Sometimes parents surprise us."

Well, hers didn't. But some people's parents could surprise them.

He promised to come back on Monday, to let her know one way or the other. She went back in and prepared a syringe to tranquilize the fox.

"Please don't put me to sleep," a voice said.

She jumped so badly she nearly jabbed herself. She stared at the naked man in the cage, crushed up into it awkwardly and obviously in a great deal of pain.

"What, now there are werefoxes, too?" she demanded.

"Well, no," he told her. "I'm a shapeshifter."

"If I let you out, are you going to hurt me?"

"No! I'm wounded, anyway. Please let me out, this is a really painful position. I'm not sure I can shift back in this kind of pain."

So she let him out, saying as she opened the lock, "I warn you, I am armed."

He climbed out, and she looked away.

"Can you sew me up? Please?"

"You're a human, not an animal. I don't work on humans!" She walked over and pulled one of her lab coats out, holding it behind her for him to grab.

"Please? If I go to the hospital with such a strange wound, they'll want to know why and how. I'll probably be arrested or something. Please?"

"Okay," she finally relented. "I'll look and do my best."

He sat down and she gave him another coat to drape over his lap as she lifted the coat to look at the ragged wound in his side.

"My name is-"

"Don't tell me. Please. I don't want to know. I can't take anymore supernatural stuff. Just... let me do this and then go."

She injected him with a local that she knew was safe for humans, and proceeded to suture his wound. It was deep, but it was all in muscle tissue as far as she could tell. In an animal, it would be a wound that would heal acceptably and probably leave little more than a scar.

Finally, she was done. "I used dissolving stitches," she told him. "They'll go away on their own, you don't need me to take them out."

"Thanks," he said. "Say, I hate to ask this, since you've been so helpful already, but would it been too much to get a ride to Merlotte's? I think a taxi might deny me service if I'm wearing just a white lab coat. You can have anything you want from the menu, my treat."

The alternative, she realized, was going home. She nodded. "Okay. My car's out back."

She cleaned up the room and locked the front door. She got in the car, not looking at him. "I guess you just as well tell me your name, then." She sighed as she said it.

"Sam Merlotte," he answered. "Nice to meet you."

She pulled up close to the trailer house he indicated, and he rushed from the car inside the trailer. She parked and went inside the restaurant. The blond waitress looked at her very strangely as she sat down. "Sam was injured?"

Sky looked at her. She hadn't said anything at all about that, why would she be asking her?

"I know you didn't say anything about it, but it's true, isn't it?"

"He's fine. I sewed him up, though I usually only work with animals." She didn't add, 'not naked men,' but the waitress giggled as if she had.

Of course, the thought of a naked man brought her mind straight back to Alcide, appearing stark naked in her living room the night Eric showed up.

"Oh my god! Is that Alcide?" the waitress hissed at her.

Panic rose in Sky. She had just exposed his hiding place. Provided he ever came back after last night.

"No, no. Don't worry. But come on, we have to talk."

Sky found herself dragged almost bodily from her seat by the blond waitress. Everyone was staring at them and Sky felt mortification setting in. She hated more than anything to be stared at.

"You get used to it."

Right, and bricks fell from heaven every second Tuesday of the month.

The blond giggled. "I sure hope not."

"Okay," the blond said, closing the door to what was obviously an office. "How do you know Alcide?"

It was clear the woman could read minds, so Sky did the best she could to think of something else. She thought of how thrilled she was that Jet was alive. She thought of how sweet Jack was to offer her money for the surgery.

"Wait. I get that you don't trust me, but it's okay. I'm Sookie."

She said it like it was supposed to be significant. Sky thought about Orion and the time her mom had showed it to her.

"Please stop that," Sookie said. "Just tell me what you know about Alcide. I'm his friend. He's never mentioned me?"

Inadvertently, Sky thought of Debbie's visit to the house.

"Debbie? I hate that bitch. She tried to kill me and Bill. You should have shot her."

The door opened and Sam came in. "Sookie, can't you just get her something to eat? Leave her alone, she's the new vet."

"Oh, well, I didn't know that meant I couldn't talk to her," Sookie said.

Sky thought she was rude.

"You're not the first one to think that, and you won't be the last one," Sookie answered the unspoken thought.

Sky got up and focused this time on an image of a lotus flower. It was her favorite image and she often used it to go to sleep at night.

Sookie huffed. "Fine. But if you hurt him, I'll kill you."

Sky's rage flickered white-hot for an instant. If she knew Debbie, and knew how much she had hurt him, then she really couldn't claim she'd 'kill' anyone who hurt him.

"I beat the shit out of her," Sookie told her. "Cut her up pretty badly. And if you did the shit she did, I'd do it to you, too."

Sky could almost like her for that. She went back to lotus flowers.

Sam gestured out the door. "Shall we grab something to eat?"

Sky almost asked for someone else to wait on them, because she didn't like being invaded.

"Don't worry, I don't do it all the time. It was an accident it even happened this time."

Sky focused really, really hard on that lotus flower.

Sam, she found, was a likeable, amenable fellow. He asked her about her work, and why she chose Bon Temps. He asked about her house and how she was settling in.

She almost forgot about the shapeshifting, the werewolves, the vampires, and the mind-reading waitresses.

But eventually, she had to go home. So she gathered up her courage and her purse.

"Sam, you should go home with her," Sookie said as she picked up Sky's plate.

Sky glared, but the unrepentant blond shrugged. "She's scared," she finished, looking at Sam.

"What?" Sam asked. "Really?"

"Werewolves last night," Sookie supplied.

Sky sighed and dropped her head into her hand, looking through her fingers at Sam. "Do you ever have normal conversations around her?"

"Only when she's napping or if Bill's around," he answered with a grin. Then he sobered. "I'll follow you. If there were werewolves around last night, you might need the help."

She decided not to argue. At least someone knew he was with her, so if something happened, they'd know who she'd left with. So she got in her car and let him follow her home, not remarking on the fact that he was injured and would probably not be a lot of help.

She decided to go in through the front door. She opened the door, Sam beside her.

Stepping inside, she found the interior in shambles. All of the boxes had been thrown down, the sofa was rent, the TV destroyed. They had urinated on the walls and the boxes, as well. Dishes lay broken on the kitchen floor, and the freezer and fridge were open, the contents as often spilled out as left intact.

The back door was hanging on a hinge, claw marks on it.

Everything was destroyed.