Dead and Gone

wanted to see you?” The darkness was now intense enough to trigger the outside security light. Quinn’s face had harsh lines in the yellow glare. His gaze locked with mine.
    “No, but that’s not the point,” I said. I felt rage on the wind. It wasn’t my rage.
    “I think it is.”
    It was sunset. There simply wasn’t time to get into an extended argument. “Didn’t we say it all last time?” I didn’t want to go through another scene, no matter how fond I was of this man.
    “You said what you thought was all, babe. I disagree.”
    Oh, great. Just what I needed! But since I really do know that not everything is about me, I counted to ten and said, “I know I didn’t give you any slack when I told you we shouldn’t see each other anymore, Quinn, but I did mean what I said. What’s changed in your personal situation? Is your mom able to take care of herself now? Or has Frannie grown up enough to be able to manage your mom if she escapes?” Quinn’s mom had been through an awful time, and she’d come out of it more or less nuts. Actually, more. His sister, Frannie, was still a teenager.
    He bowed his head for a moment, as if he were gathering himself. Then he looked directly into my eyes again. “Why are you harder on me than on anyone else?” he asked.
    “I am not,” I said instantly. But then I thought, Am I?
    “Have you asked Eric to give up Fangtasia? Have you asked Bill to give up his computer enterprise? Have you asked Sam to turn his back on his family?”
    “What . . . ?” I began, trying to work out the connection.
    “You’re asking me to give up other people I love—my mother and my sister—if I want to have you,” he said.
    “I’m not asking you to do anything ,” I said, feeling the tension inside me ratchet up to an almost intolerable level. “I told you that I wanted to be first with the guy in my life. And I figured—I still figure—that your family has got to come first with you because your mom and your sister are not exactly stand-on-their-own-two-feet kind of women. I haven’t asked Eric to give up Fangtasia! Why would I do that? And where does Sam come into it?” I couldn’t even think of a reason to mention Bill. I was so over him.
    “Bill loves his status in the human and vampire worlds, and Eric loves his little piece of Louisiana more than he’ll ever love you,” Quinn said, and he sounded almost sorry for me. That was ridiculous.
    “Where did all the hating come from?” I asked, holding my hands spread in front of me. “I didn’t quit dating you because of any feelings I had for someone else. I quit dating you because I thought your plate was full already.”
    “He’s trying to wall you off from everyone else who cares for you,” Quinn said, focusing on me with unnerving intensity. “And look at all the dependents he has.”
    “You’re talking about Eric?” All Eric’s “dependents” were vampires who could damn well take care of themselves.
    “He’ll never dump his little area for you. He’d never let his little pack of sworn vamps serve someone else. He’ll never—”
    I couldn’t stand this anymore. I gave a scream of sheer frustration. I actually stomped my foot like a three-year-old. “I haven’t asked him to!” I yelled. “What are you talking about? Did you show up to tell me no else will ever love me? What’s wrong with you?”
    “Yes, Quinn,” said a familiar, cold voice. “What’s wrong with you?”
    I swear I jumped at least six inches. I’d let my quarrel with Quinn absorb my attention, and I hadn’t felt Bill’s arrival.
    “You’re frightening Sookie,” Bill said from a yard behind me, and my spine shivered at the menace in his voice. “That won’t happen, tiger.”
    Quinn snarled. His teeth began growing longer, sharper, before my eyes. Bill stood at my side in the next second. His eyes were glowing an eerie silvery brown.
    Not only was I afraid they’d kill each other, I realized that I was really tired of people popping on and off of my property like it was a train station on the supernatural railroad.
    Quinn’s hands became clawed. A growl rumbled deep in his chest.
    “No!” I said, willing them to listen to me. This was the day from hell.
    “You’re not even on the list, vampire,” Quinn said, and his voice wasn’t really his any longer. “You’re the past.”
    “I will make you a rug on my floor,” Bill said, and his voice was colder and smoother than ever, like ice on glass.
    The two