Definitely Dead

?” I asked him, in a reasonable voice.
    He looked as unnerved as the nurse had. He said, “Sorry,” and backed away. I took a step after him.
    I screamed, “I HAVE NOTHING!” And then I said, in a perfectly calm voice, “See, I never had anything to start with.”
    He gibbered and quavered and I ignored him. I began my walk. The ambulance had turned right coming in, so I turned left. I couldn’t remember how long the ride had been. I’d been talking to Delagardie. I had been a different person. I walked and I walked. I walked under palm trees, heard the rich rhythm of music, brushed against the peeling shutters of houses set right up to the sidewalk.
    On a street with a few bars, a group of young men came out just as I was passing, and one of them grabbed my arm. I turned on him with a scream, and with a galvanic effort I swung him into a wall. He stood there, dazed and rubbing his head, and his friends pulled him away.
    “She crazy,” one of them said softly. “Leave her be.” They wandered off in the other direction.
    After a time, I recovered enough to ask myself why I was doing this. But the answer was vague. When I fell on some broken pavement, scraping my knee badly enough to make it bleed, the new physical pain called me back to myself a little bit more.
    “Are you doing this so they’ll feel sorry they hurt you?” I asked myself out loud. “Oh my God, poor Sookie! She walked out of the hospital all by herself, driven crazy with grief, and she wandered alone through the dangerous streets of the Big Easy because Bill made her so crazy!”
    I didn’t want my name to cross Bill’s lips ever again. When I was a little more myself—just a little—the depth of my reaction began to surprise me. If we’d still been a couple when I learned what I’d learned this evening, I’d have killed him; I knew that with crystal clarity. But the reason I’d had to get away from the hospital was equally clear; I couldn’t have stood dealing with anyone in the world just then. I’d been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all.
    His passion had been artificial.
    His pursuit of me had been choreographed.
    I must have seemed so easy to him, so gullible, so ready for the first man who devoted a little time and effort to winning me. Winning me! The very phrase made me hurt worse. He’d never thought of me as a prize.
    Until the structure had been torn down in a single moment, I hadn’t realized how much of my life in the past year had been built on the false foundation of Bill’s love and regard.
    “I saved his life,” I said, amazed. “I went to Jackson and risked my life for his, because he loved me.” One part of my brain knew that wasn’t entirely accurate. I’d done it because I had loved him. And I was amazed, at the same moment, to realize that the pull of his maker, Lorena, had been even stronger than the orders of his queen. But I wasn’t in the mood to split emotional hairs. When I thought of Lorena, another realization socked me in the stomach. “I killed someone for him,” I said, my words floating in the thick dark night. “Oh, my God. I killed someone for him. ”
    I was covered in scrapes, bruises, blood, and dirt when I looked up to see a sign reading CHLOE STREET. That was where Hadley’s apartment was, I realized slowly. I turned right, and began to walk again.
    The house was dark, up and down. Maybe Amelia was still at the hospital. I had no idea what time it was or how long I had walked.
    Hadley’s apartment was locked. I went downstairs and picked up one of the flowerpots Amelia had put around her door. I carried it up the stairs and smashed in a glass pane on the door. I reached inside, unlocked the door, and stepped in. No alarm shrieked. I’d been pretty sure the police wouldn’t have known the code to activate it when they’d left after doing whatever it was they’d done.
    I walked through the apartment, which was still turned upside down by our fight with Jake Purifoy. I had some more cleaning to do in the morning, or whenever . . . whenever my life resumed. I went into the bathroom and stripped off the clothes I’d been wearing. I held them and looked at them for a minute, at the state they were in. Then I stepped across the hall, unlocked the closest French window, and threw the clothes over the railing of the gallery. I wished all problems were that easily disposed of, but at the same time my