Dead in the Family

assortment like mine, since I’d been bitten, cut, and tortured. But I hadn’t had to explain the details to JB, and he wouldn’t notice that my injuries were far from typical of those incurred in a car accident. I didn’t want any speculation going around Bon Temps about my physical problems—so I made the occasional visits to Dr. Amy Ludwig, who looked suspiciously like a hobbit, and I enlisted the help of JB du Rone, who was a good trainer but dumb as a box of rocks.
    JB’s wife, my friend Tara, was sitting on one of the weight benches. She was reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting . Tara, almost five months pregnant, was determined to be the best mother she could possibly be. Since JB was willing but not bright, Tara was assuming the role of Most Responsible Parent. She’d earned her high school spending money as a babysitter, which gave her some experience in child care. She was frowning as she turned the pages, a look familiar to me from our school years.
    “Have you picked a doctor yet?” I said, after I’d finished my leg lifts. My quads were screaming, particularly the damaged one in my left leg. We were in the gym where JB worked, and it was after hours, because I wasn’t a member. JB’s boss had okayed the temporary arrangement to keep JB happy. JB was a huge asset to the gym; since he’d started working, new female clients had increased by a noticeable percentage.
    “I think so,” said Tara. “There were four choices in this area, and we interviewed all of them. I’ve had my first appointment with Dr. Dinwiddie, here in Clarice. I know it’s a little hospital, but I’m not high risk, and it’s so close.”
    Clarice was just a few miles from Bon Temps, where we all lived. You could get from my house to the gym in less than twenty minutes.
    “I hear good things about him,” I said, the pain in my quads making stuff start to slide around inside my head. My forehead broke out in a clammy sweat. I was used to thinking of myself as a fit woman, and mostly I’d been a happy one. There were days now when it was all I could do to get out of bed and get in to work.
    “Sook,” JB said, “look at the weight on here.” He was grinning at me.
    For the first time, I registered that I’d done ten extensions with ten more pounds than I’d been using.
    I smiled back at him. It didn’t last long, but I knew I’d done something good.
    “Maybe you’ll babysit for us sometime,” Tara said. “We’ll teach the baby to call you Aunt Sookie.”
    I’d be a courtesy aunt. I’d get to take care of a baby. They trusted me. I found myself planning on a future.

MARCH
    THE SAME WEEK
    I spent the next night with Eric. As I did at least three or four times a week, I woke up panting, filled with terror, completely at sea. I held on to him as if the storm would sweep me away unless he was my anchor. I was already crying when I woke. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but this time he wept with me, bloody tears that streaked the whiteness of his face in a startling way.
    “Don’t,” I begged him. I had been trying so hard to act like my old self when I was with him. Of course, he knew differently. Tonight I could feel his resolve. Eric had something to say to me, and he was going to tell me whether I wanted to listen or not.
    “I could feel your fear and your pain that night,” he said, in a choked voice. “But I couldn’t come to you.”
    Finally, he was telling me something I had been waiting to learn. “Why not?” I said, trying very hard to keep my voice level. This may seem incredible, but I had been in such shaky condition I hadn’t dared to ask him.
    “Victor wouldn’t let me leave,” he said. Victor Madden was Eric’s boss; he’d been appointed by Felipe de Castro, King of Nevada, to oversee the conquered kingdom of Louisiana.
    My initial reaction to Eric’s explanation was bitter disappointment. I’d heard this story before. A vampire more powerful than me made me do it: Bill’s excuse for going back to his maker, Lorena, revisited. “Sure,” I said. I turned over and lay with my back to him. I felt the cold, creeping misery of disillusionment. I decided to pull my clothes on, to drive back to Bon Temps, as soon as I gathered the energy. The tension, the frustration, the rage in Eric was sapping me.
    “Victor’s people chained me with silver,” Eric said behind me. “It burned me everywhere.”
    “Literally.” I tried not to sound as skeptical as I