Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

shake. Not time to long for things I couldn’t have at the moment. Time to be alert and ready for action. “Do you really have Warren?” I asked Van. He was sitting to my right in the backseat of the Camaro. The plump teenager was crowded in to my left. She didn’t smell particularly good.
    “Nope,” he said. “Ain’t ever seen him, that I know of.”
    “Then why are you doing this?” I might as well know, though I already felt sadly sure this was going to end poorly.
    “Alcide asked that black bugger Mustapha to join the pack,” Van said. “He ain’t asked us.”
    So they were all rogues. “But I saw you at the last pack meeting.”
    “Yeah, I was going through rush, like they do in fraternities,” Van said, deeply sarcastic. “But I didn’t make the cut. Guess I got blackballed .”
    “I thought he had to let you in,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know the packleader got to pick and choose.”
    “Alcide is a little too selective,” said the airman, who was driving. He turned a little so I could see his profile as he spoke. “He doesn’t want anyone with a serious criminal record in his pack.”
    Alarm bells sounded then in my brain, way too late. Mustapha had been in prison, though I didn’t know the charge … yet Alcide had been willing to accept him into the pack. What had these rogues done that had been so bad that a wolf pack wouldn’t have them?
    The girl beside me tittered. The woman in the passenger’s side of the front seat cast her a dark look, and the girl stuck out her tongue like a ten-year-old.
    “You got a police record?” I asked the plump girl.
    Plump gave me a sly look. She had straight brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Her bangs were almost in her eyes. She’d stuffed herself into a striped tube top and blue jeans. She was wearing flip-flops. “I got a juvenile record,” she said proudly. “I set my house on fire. My mama got out just in time. My daddy and the boys didn’t.”
    And I got what her daddy had been doing to her, just a single line of memory from her, and I was almost glad he hadn’t made it out. But the brothers? Little boys? I didn’t think she was too happy her mom had made it out, either.
    “So Alcide wouldn’t admit any of you?”
    “No,” said Van. “But when there’s a changeover, and the pack has a new leader, we’ll be in. We’ll have security.”
    “What’s going to happen to Alcide?”
    “We’re gonna overthrow his ass,” said Airman.
    “He’s a good man,” I said quietly.
    “He’s a douche,” said Plump.
    During this charming conversation the woman in the front seat had not spoken, and though I couldn’t read her thoughts, I could read the ambiguity and regret that were making it hard for her to sit still. I sensed she was on the cusp of a decision, and I feared to say something that would tip her over to the wrong side.
    “So where are you taking me?” I said, and Van put his arm around me.
    “Me and Johnny might appreciate a little alone time with you,” Van said, his free hand lodging itself under my skirt. “You looking so fine and all.”
    “I wonder what you were in jail for,” I said. “Gee, let me guess.”
    The woman looked back at me, and our eyes met. “You going to put up with that?” she asked Plump. Thus goaded, Plump grabbed Van’s wrist and pulled his hand away from my crotch.
    “You said you wouldn’t do this again,” she growled, and I mean growled. “I’m your woman now. No more.”
    “Course you’re mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to cleanse my palate with a little country-fried steak,” Van said.
    “Charming,” I said, which was unfortunate, because Van punched me and I saw bright lights for a second. You don’t want to get hit by a werewolf. Really.
    I had to keep from gagging from the pain, but I resolved that if I threw up I was going to do it all over Van.
    He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, squeezed it until I could feel the bones rubbing together. This time, I had to cry out, and he liked that. I could feel the pleasure radiating out from him.
    Help, I thought. Can anyone hear me?
    No answer. I wondered where Mr. Cataliades was. I wondered where his great-great-grandson, whom I’d always called Barry Bellboy, was. Too far away in Texas to hear my mental voice …
    I wondered if I’d see tomorrow. I had planned on it being a happy day for me, a special day.
    At least Van seemed to be taking Plump’s hostility seriously now, and he quit hurting me.