He joined the others who were awaiting Sookie's signal at the back door. Energy coursed through him the way it had when he ran with her to find the witch across the cemetery. He knew this about himself: he loved to fight. When Sookie invited them into the house, he plunged into the fray, tearing through flesh and bone with abandon. This was what he was created for! He licked the blood from his lips and smiled at each victim with what he could only imagine was wicked glee.
Without warning, a thick fog seemed to envelope everything and everyone. Eric couldn't see the body of the man he'd just killed as it hit the floor. His eyes did fall on the scorned shifter, Debbie. Sweeping his tongue over his fangs, he followed her through the haze and took her by the throat. But before he could kill her, he was attacked by someone that would require his full attention. That person took the brunt of his frustration and anger and was soon little more than a pile of bones and flesh on the ground.
As if the indoor cloud hadn't been strange enough, it then began to rain. He didn't know much about witches, but he was learning a new respect for their power. The rain felt good, and he shook his head, grinning as his long, wet hair whipped around his face, throwing drops of water and blood all around him.
Their enemies were dead now, all except the witch. He felt a keen sense of disappointment. Killing had unlocked a part of him that he didn't know was there. A part of him that he liked very much.
Pam came to him with her head bowed. "We found Clancy alive, but Chow has fallen," she said.
They went to Chow's body, and he followed her example in kneeling. His companions seemed to be waiting for him to speak, so he said softly, "We bid farewell to our colleague and friend." He hoped it was enough. They knelt in silence for a few minutes longer, and Eric tried to feel something besides detachment.
"The witch is bound, Master," Pam said as they rose. "Very soon, you can return to us."
He was going to explain to her that she was now the leader of this region, but Sookie appeared at his arm. "Is the curse gone?" she asked Pam. Then, turning to him: "Do you feel any different?"
"I feel no different," he said. Nothing has changed, my lover. She looked disappointed. Was she really so eager to be rid of him?
He rejoined Pam and Gerald, who had gone to the witch, and he watched as they questioned her relentlessly, demanding that she release him from the spell. He was silent as he stood behind them. Hallow looked up at him and smiled calmly.
"How do you know he wants to be released?" she asked, her eyes still on his. "The spell is an unusual one."
"I have had enough of your games, you fucking bitch," Pam hissed, and Eric looked at her, surprised.
"You think your maker has found something that will steal him away from you?" Hallow's smile never faded as her gaze flickered from Pam to Eric. "Or someone?"
Sookie. He looked around for her and realized with a rush of panic that she had left him. Without a word to his companions, he raced out of the house and saw Sookie in the distance, walking away. He would not give her up so easily. He ran to her with vampire speed and stopped in front of her. With a soft gasp of shock, she took one step back, and her hand flew to her chest. He stepped closer and put his hands on her shoulders, staring down at her, willing her to believe that this night's actions changed nothing.
"You weren't there. I just looked around, and you weren't there." She lowered her eyes. "Where are you going?" he asked as he slid one hand down from her shoulder to take her hand. "Why didn't you tell me?"
She pulled her hand from his and held it up between them. "Please. Please."
He touched her face. "Let me go home with you. I don't know them." All I know is you, and all I want is you.
She sighed, so exhausted and drained that it made his own blood seem to slow. "Sure, come on."
Without another word, he lifted her into his arms and held her close to his chest as he walked back to their shadowy parking place. She was crying. Her trust in him was so weak that she could believe he would leave her, just like that. Even after he had given himself to her.
"You have blood all over you," he whispered as he helped her into the car. He didn't want to upset her further, but he also didn't want her to get stains in her car, pathetic as the vehicle was.
She sniffed and swiped her fingers roughly under her eyes. "Yes, but don't get excited about it. It doesn't do a thing for me. I just want to shower."
It didn't do a thing for him, either. It was filthy blood – witches and shifters and who the fuck knew what else. Her own intoxicating scent was almost completely stifled by the mess. She started the car, and he turned to smile at her.
"You'll have to get rid of this coat now." He plucked the sleeve of the worn jacket.
"I'll get it cleaned." Her voice was hollow, and he decided to say nothing else.
When she finally parked the car at her house, he felt relieved to be home – and then he felt a keen pleasure at the idea of having a home, and of that home including her. He waited as she unlocked the door, thinking about how he would make love to her tonight. Perhaps he would bathe her…
He smelled the shifter before he saw her, and he flung himself in front of Sookie a split-second before he heard the gunshot. He fell to the floor hard, shocked that pain could be so blinding. But he had to get up. He had to kill the bitch before she took another shot at Sookie. Had to… he was losing blood fast. He searched for Sookie with his eyes and saw her grab a gun of her own. She bit her lip and fired it, and Eric smiled as his eyes drifted shut.
"Eric!"
Her voice was distant and near at the same time. That seemed impossible. Is this the end of the spell? He opened his eyes to see her face. No, this spell will never end.
"Drink." He knew he had spoken the word, made the request of her, but his own voice seemed unfamiliar.
She left his side before he could protest. She would not give him her blood? When she returned, she knelt beside him and offered a warmed bottle of TrueBlood. He took it, staring at her in confusion.
"Why not you?"
She grasped his free hand and squeezed it. "I'm sorry. I know you earned it, sweetie." She glanced over her shoulder, then back at him. "But I have to have all my energy. I've got more work ahead."
While he drank, Sookie carefully pulled back his clothing to look at his chest. She seemed amazed at what she saw, and he smiled slightly. Surely she knew that vampires could heal?
"Another drink?"
"Sure." She took the empty bottle and brushed some hair back from his face. "How do you feel?"
"Weak."
He sipped from the next bottle as he sat up beside her. His eyes fell on the remains of the shifter bitch, and overwhelming pride in Sookie surged through him. His eyes held nothing but admiration when they returned to her face.
"I know, I know!" she cried, covering her face with her hands. "I did terrible! I'm so sorry!"
Surely she didn't blame herself for the bullet he had taken. He would do it again… every night if need be. Taking care of her was his new mission, and he accepted it gladly.
"You might have died of the bullet, and I knew I wouldn't," he said reasonably, setting aside the empty bottle and touching her shoulder. "I kept the bullet from you in the most expedient way, and then you defended me effectively." And bravely, and decisively.
His words did nothing to banish the horror from her face. "I killed another human."
A human? "You didn't. You killed a shifter who was a treacherous, murderous bitch, a shifter who had tried to kill you twice already." He frowned. "I should have finished the job when I had her earlier. It would have saved us both some heartache…" He raised his hand absently to the spot where the bullet had struck him. "In my case, literally."
"But Christians don't murder," she murmured.
He took her hands away from her face and met her eyes. "I was never a Christian, but I can't imagine a belief system that would tell you to sit still and get slaughtered."
A smile won its way onto her face, though she still didn't look convinced. "Thank you, Eric." She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek. Too briefly, not enough. "Now you go clean up in the bathroom while I start in here."
"And leave you to do this alone?" He swept his hand around them. "I will not." He was on his feet in a flash, extending his hand down to help her up. He pulled his ruined shirt all the way off and balled it up. The first piece of garbage. Now for the largest and ugliest.
Remains of the shifter were everywhere. He gathered the big pieces into a neat pile around the body and packed everything into trash bags. Occasionally he heard Sookie give a soft sob as she crawled over the floor with sponges and towels and water. He hated the dead bitch almost more for this than for the attempted murder.
He slung the bags over his shoulder and carried them deep into the woods. Here, away from Sookie, he ripped the body into pieces and scattered them in several deep holes, miles apart. No one would ever leave flowers at Debbie Pelt's grave.
When he returned to Sookie, he felt energized by the running, the flying, and the destruction of something foul. She still looked distraught, so he tried to hide his excitement, but it was little use.
"Eric, do you think you could find Debbie's car?" she asked, wiping her sweaty forehead with her forearm. Her hands were bloody and filthy… not that that kept him from wanting them on him, all over him.
Locating the car took no more than a minute. He levitated high above Sookie's house until he spotted the vehicle on a rough, narrow trail near the entrance to her driveway. She frowned when he reported this to her.
"What should we do with it? Do you think we could push it to--"
Before she could finish, he fished Debbie's keys from his pocket and held them up. "Leave it to me, my lover."
She smiled. "Well, at least one of us can still think clearly. How about I follow you, and that way you can ride back here with me?"
"No," he said. He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead, then her lips. "You are going to stay here and have a good shower. You are going to take care of yourself while I finish this job."
He allowed himself one more kiss, then ran at full speed to the abandoned car. He had seen a junkyard on the drive to and from Shreveport, and he drove there well above the posted speed limit signs. Now it was simply a matter of ripping the car apart. This was much cleaner and easier than tearing apart a body, and it took him little more than an hour to stow parts of the car all around the junkyard. He added the tires to a large pile of others.
Sookie was in bed when he returned to her, but there was no time to do any of the delicious things he had been hoping to do. There was no time even to lie beside her and enjoy her warmth for a little while. Dawn was very close.
He knelt beside her bed, smoothed some hair behind her ear, and kissed her cheek. "All done," he murmured.
"Thanks, baby," she said, her lips curving into a small smile.
"Anything for you. Good night, my lover."
Her lips moved again, but she had already fallen asleep. He padded softly to the guest room and changed into clean clothes to sleep in. Then he lowered himself through the trapdoor and stared up into the darkness until everything disappeared.
* * *
Something was wrong. This wasn't his bed or his coffin or even his backup resting place under the bar. He sprang up from the hole to find himself in a small bedroom that smelled of--
There was a light knock on the door, and he whirled around to see Sookie standing there. Her eyes were wide as she took in his attack stance and his extended fangs. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.
"Sookie… am I in your house?" He obviously was in her house, but that made no sense at all.
She blinked. "Yes. You've been here for safekeeping." She looked around the room, everywhere but at him. "Do you know what happened?"
He remembered the witch's demands. He remembered getting dressed to work at Fangtasia the night before. He remembered Pam coming into his office to say that one of Hallow's messengers was there to see him. "I went to a meeting with some new people," he said slowly, squinting as if he could see the scene right there in front of him. "Didn't I?" These weren't the clothes he had been wearing. There were clothes that no one should be wearing. "When did I buy these?"
Sookie still looked stunned, as if someone had slapped her. "I had to get those for you." She sounded just as confused as he felt, if that was possible.
He patted his hands down his chest, over his hips. He seemed to be in perfect condition. What the fuck? "Did you dress me too?" He grinned at her and noted the way she flushed. One day he would have that beautiful body under his. Or over his. He didn't care where it was in relation to his, as long as they were having sex.
She swallowed. She still wouldn't look at him. "No."
"Where is Pam?"
"You should call her." Sookie folded her arms and finally met his eyes. "Do you recall anything about yesterday?"
Only one thing. "Yesterday I had the meeting with the witches."
"That was days ago," she said, shaking her head. "You don't remember last night after we came back from Shreveport?"
So she had visited Fangtasia, had taken him home with her? He smiled. "Did we make love? Did you finally yield to me, Sookie? It's only a matter of time, of course." But if they had been together last night, wouldn't he remember it? He sure as fuck hoped so.
Sookie didn't look amused at his flirting, as she usually did. She looked depressed. She was depressed, because he could feel it. She went to sit down on the bed behind him, and he turned to face her again.
"Something's wrong, Sookie," he said, frowning. "What happened while I was…" While he was what? "Why don't I remember what happened?"
Her eyes were welling up. "I bet Pam will be here any minute," she told him with forced lightness. "I think I'll let her tell you all about it."
"And Chow?" he asked. What had he missed?
"No," she said softly. "He won't be here. He died last night. Fangtasia seems to have a bad effect on bartenders."
The fuck? No one would kill Chow and live for much longer. He clenched his fists. "Who killed him? I'll have vengeance."
"You've already had." Her voice unsettled him. It was too unlike her. This voice sounded sad and defeated instead of sweetly confident. Or even angry and resistant, which he liked almost as much.
"Something more is wrong with you." Someone had hurt her, he could tell that much. Someone had hurt her very deeply.
"Yes, lots of stuff is wrong with me." She shrugged and glanced at the window. "And I think it's going to snow."
"Snow, here?" He grinned, willing her to shake off her gloomy mood. Most of these people in the South loved snow because it was such a novelty. "I love snow!" His grin widened. "Maybe we will get snowed in together." He imagined her in hat and gloves, making snow angels. Her long hair would be damp with snow, and her skin would be flushed and cold. He imagined himself subsequently warming her up in front of the fireplace.
She laughed, and it cheered him. "As if you'd ever let the weather stop you from doing what you wanted to do." She shook her head and rolled her eyes as she stood up from the bed. "Come on, I'll heat you up some blood."
He followed her down to the kitchen and sat at her table. Looking around the room, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. It was as if his mind could see things that should have been there, but instead there was nothing. Vague shapes. Memories of colors. A pressure in his chest that he had never felt before and couldn't place. It was an empty, painful pressure that strained against his ribs and threatened to push them apart.
Sookie seemed scattered. She would reach out to do something, and then decide against it. She dropped something, and she had never been clumsy.
"I have to get ready for work," she announced after a while.
She swept out of the room as he finished the TrueBlood she'd given him. He washed the bottle in the sink and threw it away, then he leaned back against the table. Something was missing, something important. He paced through her living room and back to the kitchen. He walked through the rooms again and again.
The minute Pam arrived, he led her into the kitchen and pointed at the chair across from him. "What the fuck is going on? Who killed Chow? Why am I here? Why don't I remember a fucking thing about anything?"
"I better get to work," Sookie mumbled. She grabbed her purse and slipped out quietly. If she thought he was done questioning her, she was sorely mistaken. But for now, he needed Pam.
"Pam?" he said, raising one eyebrow.
"You remember Hallow?" she asked.
"Of course. But we can decide later what we'll do about that." He waved his hand dismissively. "I may have to negotiate a smaller share of the bar or--"
"No," Pam interrupted with a shake of her head. "She's ours now. But back to what happened. Do you remember the night her messenger came to see us?"
"Yes."
"Chow attacked her, and she… We don't know exactly what happened, but you vanished. I heard from Sookie later that night. You had come here."
"Why?"
Pam kept her gaze steadily on his. "I don't know."
"Continue."
"Chow and I came over here the next night and arranged for Sookie to keep you hidden. Master, you remembered nothing. You didn't know me. You didn't even know who you were."
He nodded slowly, absorbing this. "You say that Hallow is ours now."
"Yes. We captured her last night when we attacked the witches. I used my unique methods of persuasion to force her to undo the curse."
"I can imagine," he said with a short laugh. "Is there anything else I need to know?"
"We'll have to give Sookie thirty-five thousand for this. Her brother was there the night we arranged everything, and he took advantage of the situation."
"Is that all you agreed to pay her?"
She looked taken aback. "All?" she repeated. She removed the bar's checkbook from her purse and showed him the first check, which she'd already made out to Sookie. "This isn't enough?"
"She deserves more," he said, taking the checkbook. He ripped out the check and tore it into pieces, then wrote out a new one, which he set in a safe place on the table between them. He put the Fangtasia checkbook into his own pocket. "I'm sure there's much to be done. First, I want Hallow's place searched. I want to know what spell did this." Pam nodded. "Next, I want to be told with complete certainty that her allies are either dead or far away. I want you to contact Chow's maker and let him know of Chow's death. We will pay him whatever recompense he is owed. We've wasted enough time here. Let's go."
"Master?" Pam said with a genuine smile as they stepped outside the house and into the winter air. "It's good to have you back."
* * *
His office was the same as he'd left it, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was either missing or out of place. He drummed a pencil on the desk, staring across the office at the closed door. Pam joined him about an hour before dawn. She had changed out of her black leather costume into a pale yellow sweater set, and she carried a book under her arm.
"I think we found the spell, Eric," she said. She walked around the desk and sat on it, facing him. She flipped through the book to a marked page and held it out to him.
The name of the spell was simply "Loss." His eyes flew up to Pam's, studied her inscrutable expression for a moment, then returned to the book. The victim's memory will be erased. He will seek out his heart's desire but never know it if he finds it. Often leads to madness and/or death.
"But I did know it."
Pam leaned in closer. "What?"
"What did I say?" Eric blinked and tossed the book on his desk. "The spell doesn't make sense. What could possibly be Hallow's reason for casting it on me?"
"My guess is that it seemed to be the most permanent method of getting you out of the way. If you were off looking for something you could never find, with no idea of who you were, she would be free to waltz in and take everything we have."
"But you would have stopped her," Eric smiled. "She didn't figure you into the equation." Pam looked pleased. "Now. What was the 'heart's desire'?"
Pam stood up and smoothed her skirt. "I told you where you were found," she said, then left the office.
* * *
He drove to Bon Temps as soon as the sun surrendered to the early winter evening. Sookie's drive looked good with the new gravel. He parked across from the turnoff, near a worn hiking and four-wheeler trail, and stared down the drive. The aching pressure in his chest had returned. He still couldn't rid his mind of the flashes of nothing that persisted. He set his jaw and drove down the short road to her house.
Sookie answered his knock and stared up at him with an expression he simply couldn't place. She was tired and sad – her blood told him that much. And, he found, it was clearer than he could remember. She had taken more of his blood. Why?
"I find myself troubled."
Sookie raised her chin in that defiant way he loved. "Then I've got to drop everything so I can help you out?"
None of your coyness tonight, my darling. I want answers. "I'll be polite and ask if I can come in." Politeness always worked with her.
Sure enough, she stood outside and made a welcoming gesture with her hand. "Yes, you can."
"Hallow is dead," he informed her as she closed the door and turned again to face him. He smiled. "Having been forced to counter the curse on me, obviously."
Her expression was absent, her mind clearly elsewhere. "Pam did a good job."
"It was Hallow or me. I like me better."
"Why'd she pick Shreveport?"
He told her the same story that Pam had told him; she looked as little interested in hearing it as he felt in telling it. Both of them knew that other things had to be said. One of them wanted those things said. The other clearly didn't.
"Pretty good reason to have it in for the supernaturals of Shreveport," Sookie said when he finished.
But he was finished with that. "They say I was here for several nights."
She smiled the fake smile he could recognize so easily. "Yes."
"And in that time, we never…?" He allowed his words to trail off. She knew what he meant.
"Eric, does that seem likely?"
So they had. She would have denied it immediately otherwise. What had made her do it? Perhaps she preferred him when he didn't know anything about himself, but that seemed too easy an answer. Too far below someone of her quality. What, then? He took a few steps closer to her and didn't miss the catch in her breath. They had fucked, exchanged blood. What an unfortunate thing not to remember.
"I just don't know," he said in a low, smooth voice, "and it's making me a little aggravated."
"Are you enjoying being back at work?" she asked brightly.
She was choosing to ignore it, then, what had happened between them. What had happened between them?
"Yes," he said. "But Pam ran everything well during my absence. I'm sending lots of flowers to the hospital. Belinda, and a wolf named Maria-Comet or something." He had never sent flowers to a Were before, but this week had been nothing if not eventful.
"Maria-Star Cooper," Sookie corrected. "You didn't send any to me."
"No, but I left you something more meaningful under the saltshaker." He knew as well as she did that money was cold, impersonal, unfeeling. And – for him, at least – easily gained and spent. "You'll have to pay taxes on it. If I know you, you'll give your brother some of it. I hear you got him back."
"I did. And your point is?"
"It won't last for long."
"What's your point?" She was being difficult. "I can tell you have one, but I don't have an idea what it might be."
He wanted to know if he owed her more. He wanted to know—"Was there a reason I found brain tissue on my coat sleeve?"
Her face turned to ash, and she sank onto the sofa behind her. He was beside her in an instant with her hand in his. Touching her, he knew that she had given herself to him. "I think there are some things you're not telling me, Sookie, my dear." He rubbed his thumb gently over the back of her hand.
Tell me why you had sex with me. Tell me what you felt. Tell me what you feel now.
She turned her face away from him. "I liked you a lot better when you didn't remember who you were."
Then she didn't have sex with him. She had sex with… Not Him. He wished he didn't know. Not having her was better than knowing that she'd given herself to a false version of him.
"Harsh words," he said at last. He released her hand.
A loud knock on her front door interrupted them, and Sookie jumped up to answer it. Eric recognized the Were from past business dealings.
"I'm on official business today," she said, not bothering with a greeting, "so I'll be polite." Too late, Eric thought. "Glad to have you back in your right mind, vampire," she added to him.
Eric raised an eyebrow. Just how many people had seen him in his… altered state? He didn't like it.
"And good to see you, too, Amanda," said Sookie.
"Sure. Miss Stackhouse, we're making inquiries for the shifters of Jackson."
Sookie was panicking; he wouldn't have known it from her outward appearance, which was calm. "Really?" She gave her fake smile and gestured to the sofa. "Won't you please sit down? Eric was just leaving."
Nice try. "No," he interjected with the most innocent grin he could summon. "I'd love to stay and hear Amanda's questions." Brain tissue, a missing shifter, a Sookie who seemed very unlike herself. He would love to stay and hear the questions.
Sookie was really struggling with herself now. Fear and confusion and guilt were washing over her, but she was maintaining the exterior of a perfect, polite hostess. "Oh, by all means, stay. Please sit down, both of you." She glanced at the clock on the wall, and Eric knew that only he could discern her desperation. The Were had no idea. "I'm sorry, but I don't have a lot of time before I'm due at work."
Amanda nodded, business-like. "Then I'll get right to the point. Two nights ago, the woman that Alcide abjured – the shifter from Jackson – the one with the new haircut…" She paused to make sure that Sookie knew the person she meant. "Debbie. Debbie Pelt."
The woman who had shut Sookie in the car trunk with Bill. The woman who had gotten Sookie raped and almost killed. He felt fairly sure that the woman was dead, and that her brain tissue had been on his coat sleeve. He smiled.
"Alcide abjured her?" he asked the shifter bitch.
She rolled her eyes. "You were sitting right there!" Oh, wait, I forgot. That was while you were under a curse." Fuck you, Eric thought pleasantly, never losing his smile. "Anyway," she continued, "Debbie didn't make it back to Jackson. Her family is worried about her, especially since they heard that Alcide abjured her, and they're afraid something might have happened to her."
Sookie was all wide-eyed innocence. "Why do you think she would have said anything to me?"
"Well, actually, I think she would rather have eaten glass than talked to you again," said the shifter frankly, "but we're obliged to check with everyone who was there."
He felt her relief and became even more certain of what he knew. If there had been brain matter on his own coat… He stood without warning and strode through the kitchen and to the back porch, where he knew Sookie had hung her coat. It was clean, but he could smell the traces of blood on it. That meant little; Sookie's own blood was shed more times than he liked to consider. But shifters and Weres would be able to smell it, too; they might even be able to detect the scent of one of their own. It was one of the most ragged coats he had ever seen. He lifted one sleeve, let it fall again.
"She drove off in her own car," the shifter was telling Sookie when he returned to the living room.
"Has her car been seen?" he asked with feigned indifference.
"No, neither hide nor hair. I'm sure she just ran off somewhere to get over her rage and humiliation." The woman shuddered. "Being abjured… that's pretty awful. It's been years since I've heard the words said."
Weres and their ridiculous rituals. "Her family doesn't think that's the case?" he pressed, sitting down again. "That she's gone somewhere to… think things over?" Wherever she was now, she wasn't thinking anymore. Rather difficult to think with one's brain matter on a vampire's coat.
"They're afraid she's done something to herself." Both women scoffed at that idea. "She wouldn't do anything that convenient," the shifter added with callous honesty.
"How's Alcide taking this?" Sookie asked, and Eric looked at her quickly.
Surely she hadn't killed Debbie Pelt for Alcide? No. No, he knew that couldn't be true. The increased connection of his blood to hers was all the proof he needed.
"He can hardly join in the search since he's the one who abjured her," the shifter said. She didn't look very concerned. "He acts like he doesn't care, but I notice the colonel calls him to let him know what's happening. Which – so far – is nothing." She announced her readiness to leave by standing suddenly and heading for the door. Sookie followed her. "This sure has been a bad season for people going missing. But I hear through the grapevine that you got your brother back." She glanced over at him. "And Eric's returned to his normal self, looks like. Now Debbie has gone missing, but maybe she'll turn up, too. Sorry I had to bother you."
"That's all right," Sookie said lightly. She was nothing if not a good actress. "Good luck."
She closed the door behind the shifter, turned, and leaned back against it. Eric left the sofa and walked towards her. Perhaps he could convince her to call in to work and spend the evening with him. Tell him the truth. Allow him to prove that his real self was what she wanted and needed.
But the wave of relief that swept through his blood was undeniable. "You're going?" she asked, stepping away from the door.
He forced a slight smile and quickly rearranged his hopes. "Yes. You said you had to get to work."
"I do," she nodded.
He motioned to a light jacket that she had draped over one of the kitchen chairs. "I suggest you wear that jacket, the one that's too light for the weather," he told her softly, meeting her eyes. "Since your coat is still in bad shape." Talk to me, damn it. Don't you trust me? Her face gave away nothing, and he swallowed his frustration as he opened the door and paused. "In fact, I'd throw it away entirely. Maybe burn it."
With that, he left her alone. He drove back to Shreveport with the windows down and no music playing. Pam was expecting him back early to review the past week's business, but he found himself instead at the Dillard's in Mall St. Vincent. He browsed through the women's coats, found the one he wanted. It would look striking on her. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket as he walked back to his car, and he flipped it open to answer Pam's call.
"I am here," he said briskly.
"Oh," she replied, and he heard her sigh of relief. "I'm sorry for disturbing you. After what happened this week, I just--"
"It doesn't matter," he said. He settled himself in the car and stared straight out of the windshield before he turned the key. "What was I like when I was under that curse?"
"Like?" she repeated. "Well… you were just yourself, only you didn't remember anything. I guess you were more fearful, more nervous. You were confused. But all of that was just because you didn't know any of us. You were still you."
"I see." He was about to end the conversation, but Pam was still musing aloud.
"You were more you, in a way. I know!" He heard her snap her fingers. "Here's how you were. You were the human version of you. Make sense?"
The pressure in his chest pushed against his ribs, and he tried to imagine himself in Sookie's bed, with her body beneath his, with her lips breathing his name.
"Yes," he told Pam. "That makes sense."