Definitely Dead

gathered in a knot in my stomach. “Bill?”
    Eric turned to face away from me, but not before I saw a shade of pity cross his face. Nothing could have scared me more. I might not be able to read a vampire’s mind, but in this case his body language said it all. Eric was turning away because he didn’t want to watch the knife sliding in.
    “Sookie, you would find out when you saw the queen . . . Maybe I could have kept it from you, because you won’t understand . . . but Eric has taken care of that.” Bill gave Eric’s back a look that could have drilled a hole through Eric’s heart. “When your cousin Hadley was becoming the queen’s favorite . . .”
    And suddenly I saw it all, knew what he was going to say, and I rose up on the hospital bed with a gasp, one hand to my chest because I felt my heart shattering. But Bill’s voice went on, even though I shook my head violently.
    “Apparently, Hadley talked about you and your gift a lot, to impress the queen and keep her interest. And the queen knew I was originally from Bon Temps. On some nights, I’ve wondered if she sent someone to kill the last Compton and hurry things along. But maybe he truly died of old age.” Bill was looking down at the floor, didn’t see my left hand extended to him in a “stop” motion.
    “She ordered me to return to my human home, to put myself in your way, to seduce you if I had to . . .”
    I couldn’t breathe. No matter how my right hand pressed to my chest, I couldn’t stop the decimation of my heart, the slide of the knife deeper into my flesh.
    “She wanted your gift harnessed for her own use,” he said, and he opened his mouth to say more. My eyes were so blurred with tears that I couldn’t see properly, couldn’t see what expression was on his face and didn’t care anyway. But I could not cry while he was anywhere near me. I would not.
    “Get out,” I said, with a terrible effort. Whatever else happened, I could not bear for him to see the pain he had caused.
    He tried to look me straight in the eyes, but mine were too full. Whatever he wanted to convey, it was lost on me. “Please let me finish,” he said.
    “I never want to see you again, ever in my life,” I whispered. “Ever.”
    He didn’t speak. His lips moved, as if he were trying to form a word or phrase, but I shook my head. “Get out,” I told him, in a voice so choked with hatred and anguish that it didn’t sound like my own. Bill turned and walked past the curtain and out of the emergency room. Eric did not turn around to see my face, thank God. He reached back to pat me on the leg before he left, too.
    I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill someone with my bare hands.
    I had to be by myself. I could not let anyone see me suffer this much. The pain was tied up with a rage so profound that I had never felt its like. I was sick with anger and hurt. The snap of Jake Purifoy’s teeth had been nothing compared to this.
    I couldn’t stay still. With some difficulty, I eased off the bed. My feet were still bare, of course, and I noticed with an odd detached part of my mind that they were extraordinarily dirty. I staggered out of the triage area, spotted the doors to the waiting room, and aimed myself in that direction. Walking was a problem.
    A nurse bustled up to me, a clipboard in her hand. “Miss Stackhouse, a doctor’s going to be with you in just a minute. I know you’ve had to wait, and I’m sorry, but . . .”
    I turned to look at her and she flinched, took a step backward. I kept on toward the doors, my steps uncertain but my purpose clear. I wanted out of there. Beyond that, I didn’t know. I made it to the doors and pushed and then I was dragging myself through the waiting room thronged with people. I blended in perfectly with the mix of patients and relatives waiting to see a doctor. Some were dirtier and bloodier than I was, and some were older—and some were way younger. I supported myself with a hand against a wall and kept moving to the doors, to the outside.
    I made it.
    It was much quieter outside, and it was warm. The wind was blowing, just a little. I was barefoot and penniless, standing under the glaring lights of the walk-in doors. I had no idea where I was in relation to the house, and no idea if that was where I was going, but I wasn’t in the hospital any more.
    A homeless man stepped in front of me. “You got any change, sister?” he asked. “I’m down on my luck, too.”
    “Do I look like I have anything