A/N: Sorry for the wait.

Chapter 24

Sookie looked back at Eric, wide-eyed. She had heard Pam clearly through the tinny cell phone speaker, no matter how low Eric had the volume set. Her hearing was much more acute since having so much of Eric's blood. She swallowed and then closed her eyes to calm herself down. She didn't know how to feel. Victor was out of her life, perhaps forever. He wouldn't dare step foot in the casino again and she wasn't allowed out of it. And yet she was kind of terrified, even though she didn't really know why.

She was sort of expecting the King to walk through the door any second and she turned to watch it, waiting. Nothing happened. Eric was wrapping up his phone call when she was hit with a wave of dread. She looked back and grabbed his hand again. Her whisper sounded rough and scratchy.

"Jason and Gran."

He paused and then nodded and kissed her hand.

"Change of plans. Pam, you must arrange transport back to Area Five immediately. I need you in Shreveport by sundown. Victor may be headed to Bon Temps."

Pam sighed, disappointed but resigned.

"Well, I have time for a couple more hours of playtime, anyway. Any idea where I should look?"

"Sookie's grandmother lives across the cemetery from Bill Compton. Keep eyes on both. Victor and Bill are very well acquainted and he might end up there."

Eric looked at Sookie.

"Your brother?"

She gave them his address and then said, "He works days on the Parish road crew. After dark, he might be at Merlotte's."

Her throat tightened and her eyes welled up but she blinked back the tears. Thinking about Merlotte's hurt so much. She missed being a broke barmaid, working for Sam and seeing people she'd known her whole life every day. Hank Williams on the jukebox. Listening to Arlene talk about her kids. Sam standing behind the bar, his red-gold hair sticking up every which way. Hoyt following Jason around like a little puppy while his mother, Maxine, pried into everyone's business and spread gossip far and wide.

She wondered what her life would have looked like if she'd met Eric back when she was still in Bon Temps. If they would have hit it off. Whether or not they would have gotten together, if they'd somehow happened upon each other just out in the real world in Northern Louisiana. If he would have still wanted her if she were just a small-town waitress with a reputation for being crazy, dumb, and a total prude, instead of a very talented — and delicious — blood and sex slave. If the Queen hadn't sent Bill Compton to procure her.

She took another shaky breath and shuddered, remembering.

"Bill Compton has a cabin in the woods somewhere. It's remote. Very secluded. I'm not sure where, but within a ninety minutes' drive from Bon Temps, give or take. Maybe a little longer. Might even have been over the border into Texas or Arkansas or Mississippi. Hell, maybe all the way to Oklahoma. Time doesn't mean much in a car trunk in the dark and I got turned around pretty quick. I have no idea what direction we were headed. We were on a dirt road for a while and then turned onto three or four more, each bumpier than the one before it. Once we got there, I didn't hear any road noises except when Bill or his buddies came or went. Those three assholes know where it is. Diane, Malcolm, and the other one. Liam."

Pam sounded almost upbeat. Like she was maybe looking forward to what awaited her back at home, at least a little bit.

"Well, I'll be sure to have a nice long chat with Bill Compton and the disco triplets just as soon as I get back to Louisiana."

Sookie snorted.

"The disco triplets. That's a lot more poetic than what I called them."

Eric smiled. He sort of wished he could pay them a visit, too. He ended the call and squeezed Sookie's hand.

"Are you finished? It has been a very long night and I would like to take you to bed."

She wanted that too but didn't want to have to keep Emily there another night. And she wanted to get the hell out of the VIV Club and not have to go back for a very long time, but Felipe was on the warpath and she needed to find out what she could about Sandy.

She kissed his hand this time and let it go.

"Soon. I just have a few more questions I need to ask."

When Sookie turned back around, the woman was blankly staring forward, still deep in her trance. Sookie was relieved; she hadn't wanted to start from scratch. She blew out a deep breath and shook herself before steeling her shoulders and squeezing Emily's hand gently.

"I have a few more questions to ask, okay?"

The woman looked at her and nodded slowly. Sookie continued.

"Emily, have you met Sandy Sechrest?"

She shrugged, barely moving one shoulder.

"I don't think so."

There was something there, though. Sookie heard the woman's hesitation. Almost felt her doubt and confusion, trying to make sense of something missing half its pieces. So much of Emily's memories had been wiped away or covered over. Sookie needed something to resonate and maybe jog one of them loose and into the sunlight.

"Sandy's short — maybe five-foot-two — but she is scary as hell. Her hair is about chin-length and silver. She must have greyed real young because I think she was around my age when she was turned. I'm pretty sure she's American and hasn't been a vampire for more than a couple of decades or so. She wears glasses. When she looks at you, it feels like her eyes will burn right through you and into your soul."

That definitely teased out a fraction of a memory, but most of it was hidden behind an empty place in Emily's mind. Sookie only saw Johnny on the phone again, saying that worn out phrase about the King. But there was more there. Sookie knew there was. She could almost see it. She closed her eyes and blew out a deep breath and did her best to clear her mind. She kept her eyes closed, listening as hard as she could with her ears and her brain, when she spoke.

"Emily, who is Sandy Sechrest?"

"Sandy Sechrest is the King's chief financial officer."

Sookie's shoulders fell just a bit in relief. She desperately wanted to please Felipe. She hated that it wasn't all for self-protection. She craved his approval. Somehow, part of her even liked him. Or at least she had before Eric had come along. Before the last beating. She was almost positive she didn't any longer. Then again, being given to Eric had made her feel grateful, and still did.

She whispered, "That's right, Emily. What else do you know about Sandy?"

It was a lot. She'd been glamoured to forget every time she'd met Sandy but she had been prepped for those meetings and had overheard many conversations between Sandy and Johnny. And yet she'd retained very little of substance.

Emily rattled off a bunch of information about Sandy that Sookie had already known, and some stuff she hadn't. None of it seemed to pertain to a plot against Felipe. There was nothing overtly shady, any more than Sandy was on any other given day.

The woman said, "She's been working with Johnny for a while. It has something to do with the King, but I don't know what."

Felipe DeCastro will pay.

Emily continued. "She calls two or three times a week."

"How long do they talk to each other?"

Emily barely shrugged one shoulder. "It really depends. Sometimes a minute or two, sometimes an hour."

"What do they talk about?"

She shrugged again and Sookie sighed, a little frustrated. This was the part Felipe was most interested in and staying in his good graces was compulsory. She couldn't stand to be beaten again. And the thought of being sent back to her old life in the VIV Club made her feel like dying.

Every thread she and Emily followed led to glamour's dead ends. Just like with Victor, Sookie pushed through the open door into Sandy's space in the woman's mind. Sookie closed her eyes and immersed herself in Emily's memories, as broken and disjointed as they were.

Emily had met Sandy before, but the meeting was very vague in Emily's mind. Nothing but a few snippets of conversation that didn't mean anything out of context, and Sandy's eyes staring at her. Sookie wasn't surprised the woman didn't remember, considering. Sookie filed the bits and pieces away, just in case, along with disjointed parts of Johnny's side of several telephone conversations. Nothing that sounded incriminating. Mostly jargon and numbers.

"Emily, were Sandy and Victor working together?"

The woman nodded a little.

"Sandy introduced Johnny to Victor about six months ago but they didn't communicate much. Just a few phone calls. I didn't meet Victor until two days ago."

Sookie didn't know if that was true or not. If so, there were no traces of those memories left."

"What does Johnny do for them?"

Emily didn't know. That information was gone, too. But now Sookie knew for sure that Victor and Sandy were working together, although she didn't know what they were up to or why. Hell, Sookie wasn't even sure if Victor or Sandy was the one who'd glamoured Emily to follow her and Eric around the night before.

She needed to know. Were they the ones cheating the casino? If so, how? And why, when it was only stacking the deck in favour of the marks while the house — and Felipe — bled money? Had Victor double crossed Sandy or had it been the other way around? Or was it someone else entirely? How was Sookie going to find out? And did it even matter with Victor gone? The king was already convinced Sandy was involved so, hopefully, Sandy would get the brunt of the punishment. Including Victor's helping, if Felipe was keen to dish it out. She didn't want him tempted to kill the messenger.

Sookie was fading fast. She was out of practice and her mind-reading muscles had atrophied with disuse, and it had been a hell of a week. Heck, a hell of a year and a half. The vampire blood had helped, but not enough. She had scoured Emily's mind in every way she knew how, and a new way she hadn't before that night, but there was just too much of it wiped away.

Eric put his hand on her back.

"You have done enough for tonight, my lover. You are very tired."

He was ready to take her back to their room, the King be damned. Sookie shook her head.

"Just one more thing. Emily, how did you meet Johnny?"

"I've been his ever since he saved my life."

"How?"

"I used to belong to another vampire. Franklin Mott. He was okay and didn't hurt me too much but, after a while, he gave me to another one, who was just awful."

She shuddered.

"I was with him for weeks. Johnny found out and rescued me. He made a bet with Mickey — my old master — and made sure to win. He won me. He saved me from hell. He's the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Sookie saw too much of what was in Emily's head. It was her turn to shudder. The woman's parents had died in a car accident, just like Sookie and Jason's had. In Emily's case, though, she had been in the car with them. She'd barely been a teenager when she'd been thrown from the vehicle. She had been dying when her first master had found her lying in a heap twenty feet from her car. He'd kept her for a year before handing her off to Salome's child.

Sookie had heard all about Mickey from Sophie-Anne and knew how evil and barbaric he was. From the glimpses she got in Emily's memories, Johnny really had saved her life and had become the best thing that had ever happened to her. He'd saved her from horrific pain. Sookie supposed he'd treated her as well as a vampire child molestor could.

She felt nauseous. It was all so awful and heartbreaking and Sookie decided she was done, whether she'd gotten all she could or not. She couldn't make herself stay in Emily's head a moment longer, even though it made her feel guilty. But she couldn't go back and save the girl the woman had been at the time. She lightly squeezed Emily's hand and then let it go. She forced herself to smile and the crazy Sookie one was all she could manage. It felt so strange on her face. She couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled it. Likely shortly before she'd left Bon Temps more than three years ago.

"I think that's enough for tonight. I know I'm beat. How 'bout you?"

Emily blinked slowly a couple of times and then stiffened, the fear coming back and hitting her all at once. She nodded.

"Please. Please let me and Johnny go home."

Sookie wished like hell she could. And that they'd take her with them. Her and Eric.

"I'm sorry. That isn't up to me. But I'll put in a good word with the King, okay?"

Both had teared up and Sookie looked up at Eric.

"Let's take her upstairs to Felipe. I can't sit and wait for him tonight, as dead on my feet as I am."

Eric couldn't help but smile a little at the thought. Still, she'd impressed him again. By her strength, choosing to face the King on her own timeline, despite the fear she clearly felt. He didn't think she'd ever stop surprising him. As for the rest, he would like to take her at her word and have her dead on her feet for eternity, just as he was. He hoped to be in a position to revisit that idea in the future.