Bored To Death

Outtake 1

Nightmare

**

When I’d risen to feel her weight against me, everything seemed normal for a moment until I ran my arm along her back to pull her closer.

She was like ice… it only took a second, maybe two before I gave myself the nightmare of my reality.

No heartbeat.

No breathing.

Sookie was dead.

Worse than anything… she was Mine. Her ring confirmed it.

I stood in the middle of our room either pacing frantically or staring down at Sookie. Spinning the ring on my finger, removing it and replacing it.

It offered nothing in the way of help except for a method of using my nervous energy.

The cold body in my bed had pushed me to the brink of complete insanity.

We’d lost ourselves again. Lost time. Lost everything.

As the family moved around upstairs, I didn’t think of a single way to explain… I couldn’t imagine a single way to gently tell them Sookie was dead and it would be three nights before we knew if it was permanent… because I couldn’t remember how much of my blood she had, if it was enough…

If she rose as a Vampire, then we’d manage. It was years earlier than planned, but it was part of our plan. I couldn’t bring myself to think about going on without her. I couldn’t think about burying her or going back to the way things were before. I had too much responsibility, too many obligations… Sookie would hate me if I turned my back on our family and flew in to the fucking sun… but the thought did occur to me…

The only question was whether to do it before or after I had to look into our family’s faces and tell them I murdered her.

If I was ever going to take the coward’s way out, avoiding that would be the best excuse I could have.

I had to force myself to think about donors and teaching her to feed. She was already moving close enough to Vampire speeds that a Human couldn’t tell the difference, so that change wouldn’t be too much of a transformation for her. Her hearing and eyesight had improved gradually since before we were bonded, so she wouldn’t suffer like Pam had.

Feeding and her telepathy were the only two concerns I had as her Maker.

Her Maker.

Not her murderer.

I couldn’t think about it.

I had to hope. I had to hope that I’d brought her over. I had to believe that I’d turned her. I had to hope that she wouldn’t hate me for doing it earlier than we planned. We decided already. Sookie’d already told Adele that was our plan. We’d had that talk already…

Childcare.

That was something I’d have to think about.

We’d have to find childcare.

Hunter would despise having a nanny, but it wasn’t something we could avoid or ignore. Adele certainly couldn’t be expected to do everything at her age… Not when she made me promise to let her die.

Feeding. Telepathy. Childcare.

I wouldn’t have the traditional trappings of making to worry about since we were far from traditional…

Sookie wasn’t being taken from her family or her home. She wasn’t going to miss her belongings or loved ones. She wasn’t going to need to go shopping for clothing. She wasn’t going to need a new identity. All I’d have to do was call the Queen and let her know about Sookie’s new state.

Sookie was going to be easy… the best child a Maker could have…

I was sure of it. She’d made an art out of being my pet and already had the respect of Vampires that would be her peers.

She’d already been making me proud… She’d made me feel and experience more than I would’ve thought possible.

Sookie had to rise.

If I had to bury her, I might as well climb into the hole with her.

I couldn’t face the people upstairs. I couldn’t bear the idea of walking up the steps to the kitchen to explain the possibility… their eyes… Adele’s health, Hunter would be destroyed… and…

**

I was deranged enough that I didn’t notice the hand on my shoulder right away.

In the scheme of things, it didn’t matter who it was. It could’ve been someone sent to end me and I’d have welcomed it.

But… if it was Adele, coming to look into the reason for my mood…

Or Hunter, feeling that my mind was a hive of anxiety…

Or…

“Eric?”

Sookie?

I turned around and when I laid eyes on her, I swear, I felt my fucking heart beat as I picked her up. “I thought I killed you.”

I felt like I was choking, drowning, struggling for air I didn’t need.

Glancing back at the bed to see the other Sookie pushing herself up to sit on the edge and ask where Her Eric was…

It occurred to me that Sookie was shushing me, promising that she was Mine, that she was completely alive… I might’ve mentioned that it was as though she was soothing me like a child who’d awoken from a nightmare… if I didn’t feel so much like one.