Шарлин Харрис - Dead As A Doornail

"Tell Portia I said thank you," I told him.

"I will," he said seriously. "She's pretty shook up. She's never been that close to violence before. She thought you were gonna die."

I could think of nothing to say to that. I waited for him to ask me what he wanted to know. His mouth moved, and I guess I answered him.

". . .said you ducked at the last second?"

"I heard something, I guess," I whispered. That was the truth, too. I just hadn't heard something with my ears. . . . But Andy knew what I meant, and he was a believer. His eyes met mine and widened.

And out again. The ER doctor had certainly given me some excellent painkiller. I wondered which hospital I was in. The one in Clarice was a little closer to the library; the one in Grainger had a higher-rated ER. If I was in Grainger, I might as well have saved myself the time driving back to Bon Temps and going to the library. I could have been shot right in the hospital parking lot when I left from visiting Calvin, and that would have saved me the trip.

"Sookie," said a quiet, familiar voice. It was cool and dark, like water running in a stream on a moonless night.

"Bill," I said, feeling happy and safe. "Don't go."

"I'll be right here."

And he was there, reading, in a chair by my bed when I woke up at three in the morning. I could feel the minds in the rooms around me all shut down in sleep. But the brain in the head of the man next to me was a blank. At that moment, I realized that the person who'd shot me had not been a vampire, though all the shootings had taken place at dusk or full dark. I'd heard the shooter's brain in the second before the shot, and that had saved my life.

Bill looked up the instant I moved. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

I pushed the button to raise the head of the bed. "Like hell warmed over," I said frankly after evaluating my shoulder. "My pain stuff has lapsed, and my shoulder aches like it's going to fall off. My mouth feels like an army has marched through it, and I need to go to the bathroom in the worst way."

"I can help you take care of that," he said, and before I could get embarrassed, he'd moved the IV pole around the bed and helped me up. I stood cautiously, gauging how steady my legs were. He said, "I won't let you fall."

"I know," I said, and we started across the floor to the bathroom. When he got me settled on the toilet, he tactfully stepped out, but left the door cracked while he waited just outside. I managed everything awkwardly, but I became profoundly aware I was lucky I'd been shot in my left shoulder instead of my right. Of course, the shooter must have been aiming for my heart.

Bill got me back into the bed as deftly as if he'd been nursing people all his life. He'd already smoothed the bed and shaken the pillows, and I felt much more comfortable. But the shoulder continued to nag me, and I pressed the pain button. My mouth was dry, and I asked Bill if there was water in the plastic pitcher. Bill pressed the Nursebutton . When her tinny voice came over the intercom, Bill said, "Some water for Miss Stackhouse," and the voice squawked back that she'd be right down. She was, too. Bill's presence might have had something to do with her speed. People might have accepted the reality of vampires, but that didn't meant they liked undead Americans. Lots of middle-class Americans just couldn't relax around vamps. Which was smart of them, I thought.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Grainger," he said. "I get to sit with you in a different hospital this time." Last time, I'd been inRenardParishHospital in Clarice.

"You can go down the hall and visit Calvin."

"If I had any interest in doing so."

He sat on the bed. Something about the deadness of the hour, the strangeness of the night, made me feel like being frank. Maybe it was just the drugs.

"I never was in a hospital till I knew you," I said.

"Do you blame me?"

"Sometimes."I watched his face glow. Other people didn't always know a vamp when they saw one; that was hard for me to understand.

"When I met you, that first night I came into Merlotte's, I didn't know what to think of you," he said. "You were so pretty, so full of vitality. And I could tell there was something different about you. You were interesting."

"My curse," I said.

"Or your blessing."He put one of his cool hands on my cheek. "No fever," he said to himself. "You'll heal." Then he sat up straighter. "You slept with Eric while he was staying with you."

"Why are you asking, if you already know?"There was such a thing as too much honesty.

"I'm not asking. I knew when I saw you together. I smelled him all over you; I could tell how you felt about him. We've had each other's blood. It's hard to resist Eric," Bill went on in a detached way. "He's as vital as you are, and you share a zest for life. But I'm sure you knowthat . . ." He paused, seemed to be trying to think how to frame what he wanted to say.

"I know that you'd be happy if I never slept with anyone else in my life," I said, putting his thoughts into words for him.

"And how do you feel about me?"

"The same.Oh, but wait, you already did sleep with someone else.Before we even broke up." Bill looked away, the line of his jaw like granite. "Okay, that's water under the bridge. No, I don't want to think about you with Selah, or with anyone. But my head knows that's unreasonable."

"Is it unreasonable to hope that we'll be together again?"

I considered the circumstances that had turned me against Bill. I thought of his infidelity with Lorena; but she had been his maker, and he had had to obey her. Everything I'd heard from other vamps had confirmed what he'd told me about that relationship. I thought of his near-rape of me in the trunk of a car; but he'd been starved and tortured, and hadn't known what he was doing. The minute he'd come to his senses, he'd stopped.

I remembered how happy I'd been when I'd had what I thought was his love. I'd never felt more secure in my life. How false a feeling that had been: He'd become so absorbed in his work for the Queen of Louisiana that I'd begun to come in a distant second. Out of all the vampires who could have walked into Merlotte's Bar, I'd gotten the workaholic.

"I don't know if we can ever have the same relationship again," I said. "It might be possible, when I'm a little less raw from the pain of it. But I'm glad you're here tonight, and I wish you would lie down with me for a littlewhile . . . if you want to." I moved over on the narrow bed and turned on my right side, so the wounded shoulder was up. Bill lay down behind me and put his arm over me. No one could approach me without him knowing. I felt perfectly secure, absolutely safe, and cherished. "I'm so glad you're here," I mumbled as the medicine kicked in. As I was drifting off to sleep again, I remembered my New Year's Eve resolution: I wanted not to get beaten up. Note to self: I should have included "shot."

I was released the next morning. When I went to the business office, the clerk, whose name tag readMS .BEESON , said, "It's already been taken care of."

"By who?"I asked.

"The person wishes to remain anonymous," the clerk said, her round brown face set in a way that implied I shouldn't look gift horses in the mouth.

This made me uneasy, very uneasy. I actually had the money in the bank to pay the whole bill, instead of sending a check each month. And nothing comes without a price. There were some people to whom I just didn't want to be beholden. When I absorbed the total at the bottom of the bill, I was shocked to find how very beholden I'd be.

Maybe I should have stayed in the office longer and argued with Ms. Beeson more forcefully, but I just didn't feel up to it. I wanted to shower, or at least bathe—something more thorough than the high-spots scrub I'd given myself (very slowly and carefully) that morning. I wanted to eat my own food. I wanted some solitude and peace. So I got back in the wheelchair and let the aide wheel me out of the main entrance. I felt like the biggest idiot when it occurred to me that I didn't have a way home. My car was still in the library parking lot in Bon Temps—not that I was supposed to drive it for a couple of days.