Chapter 1~

She was drowning. Choking. Suffocating.

Ok, so maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure felt that way sometimes. Like right now. Sookie plastered a fake grin onto her face as she gazed across the table at her "date". Bill Compton wasn't the type of man she usually went for. Honestly, she dated so little that she wasn't sure she even had a "type". But he had charmed her grandmother and, as a favor to Gran, she agreed to give him a chance. Truth be told, he'd always given her the creeps, and it had nothing to do with him being a vampire. Hell, she'd supported vampire rights when they came out of the coffin and made no secret of her excitement about it. Bon Temps was a small town, a place where everyone knew their neighbors and said hello as they passed one another on the street. But Bill had always just seemed... different. He'd been in town nearly a month and had made several attempts to gain Sookie's affections, despite her constant rebuttals. He'd seemed elated when she finally agreed to let him take her out. But as she sat there staring across the table at him, his small, dark eyes never wavered from her even when the overly flirtatious waitress practically shoved her generous cleavage into his face as she dropped off their check. Sookie probably should have felt flattered that Bill Compton appeared to only have eyes for her, instead it made her feel unsettled somehow. Her hand scratched absentmindedly at the back of her neck as the hairs there stood at attention. It had been happening for weeks, this feeling of dread creeping along her spine. Bill didn't just bore her, as the night wore on she began to realize that he scared her too. It wasn't just that he felt "off" somehow, it was in the way he looked at her, the angry possessiveness in his eyes, like a wealth of violence lurked just under the surface, beneath the fake smile he flashed at her friends and neighbors. Bill Compton wanted to own her... and that knowledge terrified her.

She held back her grimace and tried to smile politely as his hand slid across the table and captured one of hers. He bent his head to brush a kiss across her knuckles and her gaze slid past him to the man behind the bar, whose lips were now turned down in a frown. Sam had been one of her best friends for years. Once upon a time he'd had a crush on her but they'd never shared anything more than an innocent kiss. Now he was married to her other best friend, Tara. Tara was more like a sister to her, really; they'd practically been raised together. Sookie's parents had died long ago and it was her Gran who took her and her brother, Jason, in and raised them. Whenever Tara's mother was on one of her drunken binges, Gran would insist that Tara stayed with them. Now, Tara sat across from Sam as he tended the bar, smiling at her husband's obvious protectiveness of Sookie. With a smirk, Tara threw a glance at Bill's back and rolled her eyes as she tapped at her watch. Yes, she'd given Bill enough of her time tonight. Enough time in general, in her opinion.

"What do you say, sweetheart? Would you like that?" Suddenly pulled from her thoughts, she realized that Bill had been talking to her and she hadn't heard a single word of it.

"Um... I'm sorry, Bill, but I really don't think this is going to work. I shouldn't have said I'd go out with you tonight. I'm just not really interested in dating anyone right now. I'm just... I'm sorry." she replied with a small shake of her head.

His disappointment was palpable as the smile fell from his face. The hand holding hers tightened, almost to the point of pain, before he released her and drew away. "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, Sookie." he replied. "Isn't there anything I can do to change your mind?"

His lips curved up into what was obviously a forced smile as his eyes seemed to bore into hers. And there it was again... that pressure in her head. The same thing she felt the night they'd met, when he had first tried to charm his way into her life. She'd known then that he'd been trying to glamour her but, at Gran's insistence, she had brushed it off and given him a second chance. Now she regretted giving him that chance. With a tart grin, she stared back at him defiantly, "No, Bill. There's nothing you can do to change my mind. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'll have Sam and Tara drive me home. Goodnight, Bill."

His jaw clenched as he worked to bite back his reply. With a resigned nod, he rose from his chair and sped away. Sookie breathed a sigh of relief as the tension of the night eased from her shoulders. A hand appeared in front of her and she couldn't help but smile up at it's owner. "C'mon, cher. Tara and I'll give ya a ride home. Besides..." Sam continued, "you'll need some backup when you tell your Gran that you gave Bill Compton the brush-off." With a rueful smile, she took his hand as Tara slung a sympathetic arm over her shoulders. They all walked out of the bar and hopped into Sam's truck, none of them noticing the eyes that watched them from the woods as they left.