Look out of any window

any morning, any evening, any day!

Maybe the sun is shining,

birds are winging

or rain is falling from a heavy sky.

What do you want me to do,

to do for you, to see you through?

For this is all a dream we dreamed

one afternoon long ago.

What out of any doorway,

Feel your way, feel your way

Like the day before

Maybe you'll find direction

Around some corner

Where it's been waiting to meet you,

What do you want me to do,

To watch for you while you're sleeping?

Well please don't be surprised

When you find me dreaming too.

—Box of Rain, Grateful Dead

"…find me dreaming too!" Sasha Buckley belted out the last line of Box of Rain as the city of Shreveport, Louisiana faded in the dust of her cherry red '69 Chevy Camaro. Wind whipped over the convertible as the perfect natural air conditioning, cutting through the heavy summer air and tossing her long mane of curls over her shoulders. As she began humming the bars of the next song on her mix tape, Sasha's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, checking as they had periodically for any suspicious cars. There were none. Satisfied, her eyes flicked back to the open stretch of road ahead of her, then back to the mirror. This time she focused on her appearance.

For someone that had been driving for some thirty odd hours or so, she didn't look half as bad as she felt. Not even a full two days out of Los Angeles and her café au lait skin had tanned, the honeyed tone darker than it had been in the past few years she'd spent mostly out of the sun. Where her skin had darkened her hair had lightened, and as Sasha fluffed her ringlets, she found she wasn't at all mad. The new honeyed, blonde tones in her hair would have cost her a fortune at a salon. It was merely irony that she was getting more sun away from LA, and now her body was eagerly soaking it all in.

The radio's sound became garbled, and she switched it to radio, fiddling with the dial for a moment until she found a clear station.

"…back now with Senator Andrews. Senator, you're known to be a moderate—more moderate than our state's past senators, at least. Still, you've always been known to speak out on issues you feel strongly about. While you openly condemned the domestic vampire terrorist Russell Edgington just days ago after his attack, you haven't been quite so clear on your views on the VA. Will you support this new amendment? And after so many of your constituents beg otherwise?"

Sasha's hand hovered on the dial for a split second. Then the familiar voice of Senator Christopher Andrews came streaming out of the radio, complete with that Louisiana drawl that had charmed so much of the nation. Sasha scoffed.

"That's an excellent question, Cindy. And I know this is one many viewers at home are also asking. The thing is, it's easy to condemn a terrorist. Because that's what Russell Edgington is. But I think it's dangerous to condemn an entire group of people based on the actions of a deranged man—vampire. Now, vampire representative Nan Flanagan called me personally to assure me that her camp is just as appalled as we are—and furious. They too fully condemn Edgington's actions. They aren't going to stop until he is captured and persecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I think that, in the wake of this tragedy, this will be an opportunity for the vampires to prove that they intend to follow through with what they've been pledging for the last two and some years. From my understanding, Edgington is an old and important figure for them; if they are willing to bring him to justice, I think it will speak volumes about their intentions. It would certainly be favorable to me, Cindy."

"Thank you for your words, Senator. We have Sandy Atwell from New Orleans on the line now—"

Scoffing once more, Sasha flicked the radio dial again. The Good Senator, The People's Senator, as he'd recently been nicknamed, came across to many as moderate, even progressive for a republican senator of a red state, but Sasha saw right through him. He liked his position, and whether or not he believed in what he said, he'd play all sides for as long as it benefitted him. He wouldn't outright condemn vampires because there was no business in that, just as there was no business in outwardly approving of them. He was, in the end, what most politicians were.

A coward.

His celebrity had recently shot up as the nation's spotlight had turned onto Louisiana after the vampire Russell Edgington had violently murdered a news anchor on television. There was still a warrant out for his arrest, but Sasha knew that vampires had probably already apprehended him. Humans wanted justice, but she could imagine that the AVL was doing everything it could to stop Edgington from further impeding their cause. It was impossible to watch the news these past few days without AVL rep Nan Flanagan's face on it.

She wasn't sure what the situation was in any case, only knew that it was definitely more than it appeared. Most humans didn't know that that he wasn't just any vampires; he was the Vampire King of Mississippi. She knew his reputation, and she also knew that a vampire nearly three thousand years old didn't suddenly just lose it. Between the vampires and her own personal dislike for the state, Sasha had been perfectly content to drive around it. Multiple detours had forced her to drive through its Northern portion anyway.

Sasha adjusted the reflective aviators before they slipped too far down the bridge of her nose, then reached down the bench for her bag, hand searching for a moment before she came up with her prize. She fiddled with the pack of Native American Spirits in her lap, finally wrestling a cigarette free and popping it into her mouth.

She continued to sing around the cigarette as her hand jammed into the front pocket of her daisy dukes for her lighter. That was when Camaro decided to give an undignified cough.

The lighter forgotten, Sasha frowned down at the muscle car as it gave one last wheezing gasp and then died out on her.

"Fucking how?" she murmured to herself. The car, unfortunately, had no answer for her.

Mumbling obscenities to herself, Sasha wrangled her wild mass of curls into a knot on top of her head. Already, now that she wasn't moving, the Louisiana heat and humidity was getting to her, reminding her of a decade ago when she'd sworn to never again step foot in the damned state. There was a lot about it that she didn't like, and the infernal summers weren't even the half of it. Beads of sweat began collecting on her skin like dew on grass, and it was with a great sigh that she stepped out of the Camaro.

Sasha spent a good fifteen minutes staring under the hood of the Camaro. She didn't touch anything, because Sasha couldn't even put a chain back on a bicycle if it came loose without fucking some other part of it up, but she didn't have to be an expert to know that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the Camaro. Eoin, whom she'd…borrowed the cherry-chromed beauty from, was something of an expert unlike her. He kept his cars in tip-top shape, and she'd never heard of any of his vehicles ever needing anything beyond typical maintenance or upgrades for parts that became updated. There was simply no way that the car would just give up on her like this. No way.

Still, it was easy to believe that she didn't really know what she was talking about, and just because there was still a tank full of gas and nothing obvious looked broken, that something might be wrong with her ride after all.

"The hell do you know anyway?" she muttered to herself, heading back to the car. She reached for water she'd picked up when she'd stopped for gas some forty miles back, nose crinkling as it hit her tongue lukewarm. She'd just have to call for someone to come tow it.

Grabbing her bag, Sasha searched for her phone. But when she flipped the thing open, it was dead. Her car charger was mysteriously absent.

Sasha stared at her phone for a long moment, then back to the car. Certainly a coincidence, that her car had broken down and that her phone was inexplicably kaput. She reminded herself that she was on I-20, that it had to be pretty heavily trafficked, and that she'd only have to wait to flag down a car and ask to borrow a phone.

The late afternoon sun made the wait hell. It beat down hot and hard on her, and even when she found shade by pulling up the Camaro's roof, Sasha found that she burned up by sitting in the car. The little water she had left was too hot to be refreshing, and the heat didn't make her snacks appetizing. Out of the Camaro wasn't any better; the sweltering heat rose up from the asphalt, slowly roasting her.

Some two hours came and went, and not a single car drove past Sasha. Her suspicions swelled to the forefront of her mind once again; how was I-20 so barren during the day? Though she'd tried the engine a few times, the Camaro hadn't given any signs of resuscitation, and after ripping through it three times in search for her phone charger, it never turned up. She was however able to dig a map out of the glove box, huddling behind the Camaro for shade as she studied it for a moment.

The nearest town on foot appeared to be a town called Bon Temps. It was barely a speck on the map, but if it didn't have a mechanic, it would at the very least have a phone for her to use. Sasha weighed her options for a moment; nearly three hours now, and not a single car had come by yet. Bon Temps looked to be in the neighborhood of ten miles out; Shreveport at least twenty, maybe more.

Bon Temps it was.

It might have pained her more to leave the Camaro behind if it was actually hers and if it hadn't just inexplicable died out on her. If anything did happen to it, then she figured that Eoin deserved it and they'd call it even. As it was, Sasha was more than fine shoving her few belongings into the trunk and slinging her messenger bag over a shoulder, the last of the water jammed into it along with a melted energy bar. She checked the watch at her wrist.

It had stopped ticking.

A trickle of unease shot threw her, and she stripped her wrist bare of the watch, leaving only the pile of small bracelets she had there. She hid the watch in the glove compartment, and then squinted her eyes up at the sun. By the sun's position just over her shoulders, she was willing to guess she had another four or five hours of sunlight. That had to be more than plenty to get herself to Bon Temps without the troubles that came with the night; that was if she even made it to Bon Temps. She was holding out on the hope she'd come across a payphone or car long before the end of the ten-mile trek.

She was fit; she wasn't so sure she was that fit.

"And we march," she muttered to herself, hoisting her messenger bag onto her shoulders.

Sasha's Doc Martens were well worn enough that they were comfortable around her feet, but they weren't exactly ideal for the weather. She was wondering if she'd even be able to remove them from her swollen feet when she came across a sign bearing the name of the small town that was her destination. She was somewhat miffed to find she still had a few miles to go, but that didn't compare to how she felt when she saw the sign right above it.

"Linden Road?!" she exclaimed. She dug the map out of the back pocket of her shorts where she'd stuffed it, prying it open to try to figure out how she could have possible ended up here. She'd been on I-20, and she was supposed to walk it until it branched off into a small road that would take her to Bon Temps.

Finding Linden Road on the map, she was shocked to find that it was a small line running about a mile apart and parallel to I-20. While the good news was that it was closer to Bon Temps, it was also a small, inconsequential road.

"No wonder you didn't find a goddam soul on it, Buckley," she admonished herself, raking through her memory for when she'd gotten off I-20. But the more she thought of it, the more she was certain she'd never veered off course. She was pretty good with directions, anyhow. She didn't ever just get lost.

Of course, the only other explanation was—

"Nope," said Sasha, shaking her head against the possibility, folding her map back up. "You got lost. First time for everything, Ace,"

And so she walked, even when she realized that she'd misjudged the sun, which was sinking at a faster rate than she'd realized in the West.

Sasha came to a stop on the side of Linden Road, turning to watch the night overcome the last few rays of the dying sun. Nighttime.

Despite the sun having sunk into the horizon and there not being a single lamppost on Linden Road, Sasha felt like she'd been thrust under a spotlight. Linden Road wandered into the Louisiana swamp-like territory, with trees and foliage on either side of the road creating the types of shadows and shapes that had frightened her as a child, that she still had the good sense now to question.

"I'm not that child anymore," Sasha whispered to herself. "I have lived with darkness. I do not fear darkness,"

As she resumed her pace, a small voice in the back of her head reminded her that while that may have been true, Sasha had never stopped fearing the things that slithered and stalked in the dark.

Another hour passed and Sasha was starting to think she'd stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone where the rest of the world did not exist, only the dark and eerie stretch of Linden Road.

Just as she began to wonder for the thousandth time what had possessed her to walk ten miles in the middle of nowhere toward night, Sasha finally came across a man. Her shoulders picked up.

"Hey—Hi! You! Hey over there!"

Relief flooded through her as she jogged the rest of the way to the man walking down the road.

"Hey there, I'm sorry but do—oh fuck!"

Sasha screamed in surprise, tripping over her own boots and landing hard on her ass. She scrambled backwards and away from the man—man?—loose rocks of asphalt biting into the palms of her hands and the back of her thighs.

The man she'd come across was missing half his face.

"You can see me?" he asked. "You see me?"

"This is not happening not happening this is so not fucking happening!" she chanted to herself, jamming her eyes shut. But when Sasha opened them again, the man was striding towards her.

"Fucking hell!"

"Is that what this is? That where I am? Hell?" the man asked, falling to his knees. His bloody, gory hands fell to her shoulders, gripping her so tightly she cried out in pain.

"Let go," she told him, stomach flipping at the scent of decay and gore that rolled off him. "Let go now before—shit,"

A flood of memories not her own assaulted Sasha. They were all disjointed, abstract pieces of faces and feelings she could barely make out, all jumbled. Two young children—boy blond, girl ginger. Hatred. Fury. Love. Blood. Hair—Red—Soft—Long. Fury. Despair. Pain. The memories began to sharpen, coming at a slower pace—a blonde woman. Tombstones—cemetery. Pain, so much pain. A gun. Rage. Lust. Hatred. Pain—shovel. The blonde woman again—

Sasha screamed as she felt pinpricks of ice scatter from where the spirit touched her, traveling through her body.

"Get off!" she shouted, throwing the man off of her. He skittered a few feet in front of her, landing on his back. He sneered at her, rising in an instant to his feet and—

"Holy shit!" Sasha screamed and threw her hands up as a car drove straight through the spirit, careening straight towards her. It screeched around her, narrowing missing her, coming to a dangerous halting curve somewhere behind her. Breathing hard from the two near-death experiences, blood pumping so hard she could hear nothing else, Sasha slowly lowered her hands to the ground. She glanced over her shoulder, eyes squinting through the darkness for the spirit. She couldn't see it.

But she did taste blood. Reaching a hand to her lip, she traced a fresh rivulet of blood from her nose. A headache was pressing against her temples, and she realized belatedly that the spirit hadn't only been more aggressive than most, but that this fatigue was due to it trying to possess her.

"Dead motherfucker," she cursed, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. A car door slammed, reminding her of the much more ordinary near-death she'd just evaded.

"Funny, I was about to say the same thing,"

It was a man's voice, tone clipped in a way that suggested that 'funny' was the last thing he found the situation.

"What, because you were driving over a hundred in a fifty zone like a psycho? It's a wonder you didn't kill me," retorted Sasha. Bile was rising in her throat, and she fought to keep it down. It had been a while since she'd encountered a spirit strong enough to invade her body.

"Because laying in the middle of the road isn't a psycho move?"

Sasha didn't appreciate the prissy tone, nor that it was significantly closer than it had just been. She hadn't even heard the stranger approach. When she looked up, she realized immediately why.

"Undead motherfucker," she muttered absently to herself. He was a vampire.

The giant—even if Sasha had been standing, and even if her total height was somewhere taller than in the ballpark of five foot five, she would have called him a giant—quirked an eyebrow down at her. In the fluid grace that marked his kind apart from the rest, he was crouched down, peering at her inquisitively.

Sasha knew a lot of vampires, enough to know that the notion amongst the average human that vampirism turned one into an exceptionally beautiful, sexy creature of the night was a misconception. The whole dying and reviving process might have smoothed out some scars, made hair shinier, skin acne free, but it wasn't exactly a beautifying agent. The otherworldly quality of vampires—the fact that they did not breathe, that they did not need to blink or stumble or make much noise when they moved was the part of the deadly allure that many humans confused as beauty.

That being said, the vampire before her had to have been uncommonly attractive as a human, because he was currently a goddam sin. His eyes were glacial in color and frigid intensity; skin the familiar pale marble of vampires. His hair was fair, nearly glowing in the moonlight and contrasting to his dark ensemble of black on black. He was pure sex.

"Wow," muttered Sasha, blinking through her daze. The combination of near-possession and super hot, strange vampire was not good for her queasiness.

"Hmm," hummed the vampire, quirking his head to the side as he studied her with unnerving intensity. "Once again I was thinking much the same,"

Sasha had enough presence of mind to know that whatever 'wow' he was thinking wasn't quite as flattering as hers.

Get your head together before you lose it, girl, Sasha told herself. She was in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere with a vampire she wasn't sure was friendly. Think.

Well, he stopped when he could have A) hit you or B) kept driving. Then again C) He might think you're a convenient snack. Although he is quite the snack himself…

But, said another wiser voice in the back of your head. You are bleeding, and he seems to be containing himself pretty well. He's breathing through it and everything—chances are good that he's not some wild newborn, right?

"Are you suffering from brain damage?" asked the vampire, the lines of his face revealing his impatience to her. "Although if you are I'm assuming it's a preexisting condition, as I didn't actually hit you with my car. I'm not even sure how you're bleeding. Do you sit in the middle of the road hoping to scam poor bastards out of their insurance?"

"I'm trying to gauge the odds you're a newborn with uncontrollable urges or a sadistic jackass," muttered Sasha, wincing in pain as she moved. She needed to get up.

"Oh?" asked the vampire, eyebrow quirking once again. "And which are you settling on?"

"I haven't ruled out the second one yet, but you don't feel like you were reborn yesterday," said Sasha. She forced herself up to her feet, wincing at her stiff muscles. That spirit had gotten a little further into her than she would have liked.

"I am so glad you're not inside of me," she murmured, eyes once again scanning the road for any sign of the spirit. It had been one of the strongest she'd come across in a while, and she didn't suspect it would stay hidden permanently. She wasn't all too eager to find out, in any case.

"I didn't realize that somewhere in between nearly flattening you with my car and your babbling I'd propositioned you," said the vampire dryly. Sasha glanced at him—up at him. Now that he too had risen from the ground, she saw that he did indeed tower over her. He was glancing at her with a hint of amusement now, eyes sweeping over her. They paused on her mouth.

"What? Oh, wasn't talking to you," said Sasha distractedly. She walked over to where she'd dropped her bag, rifling through it for a napkin or tissue, distinctly aware of the blood that had trickled down her nose to her mouth.

"Here,"

Sasha eyed the silk handkerchief he'd pulled out of his pocket—it looked far too nice to be used to mop up her bloody nose, but more importantly, she wouldn't be giving it back once her blood was on it.

"Take it. I'm not particularly attached," drawled the vampire. Sasha thanked him, wearily taking the silk square and pressing it under her nose. She stared at him unabashedly as she did, trying to figure out just who she was dealing with.

Also, he was very easy on the eyes. There was just so much to look at; his long, sinewy limbs, his incredible bone structure.

The vampire didn't appear to mind her scrutiny, perhaps because he was so busy with his own. His appreciative eyes weren't shy about the skin that showed beneath her high-waisted shorts, tracing the curves of her thighs, up to the dips of her collarbones above the neckline of her t-shirt. His gaze and it's obvious interest had a way of making her feel like she was standing in front of him in her best lingerie and not in the middle of a highway with a handkerchief pressed to her nose. It wasn't entirely unpleasant. He looked like he wanted to devour her in the worst kind of way.

Sasha blinked away the thought. She'd never been the type to devolve into a sex-crazed creature at the first sign of an attractive man, no matter how attractive. Just the opposite; she'd always prided herself in her ability to not only remain cool and level-headed and unaffected around men, but in having the upper hand in her interactions with the male sex.

"My first guess was junky," said the vampire after a few moments. "But you don't look or smell like one,"

Of course he hadn't been oblivious to her blood and the way it smelled. Now that she looked for it, she saw it in the way he spoke; she noticed a slight inflection of an accent—experience told her Scandinavian—and she noticed the way his tongue darted out unnecessarily. He tasted her blood in the air.

He probably liked it, too.

"You wouldn't happen to be going to Bon Temps, would you?" asked Sasha. "If not, can you tell me how much further down it is?"

The vampire glanced over her shoulder for a moment. "You look…sweet," said the vampire. Sasha's eyes narrowed at the suggestive double entendre there. "I wouldn't recommend that town for you,"

"I'm not particularly attached," drawled Sasha. "But as my car broke down some ten or so miles up the road, I don't have much of a choice, sweet or otherwise,"

The vampire stared at her for a long moment.

"What were you doing in the middle of the road?" asked the vampire.

"Like I said, my car broke down up the road. I stumbled over uneven ground. You might have forgotten that humans don't see quite as well as you do in the dark,"

His eyebrow quirked at her sauciness.

"I'll take you into town, if you'd like," he finally said. "If you can't get a mechanic out, you can at least get a motel,"

Sasha considered him for a moment. "And you'd do that…no strings attached? Bloody or of the underwear variety?"

"I'm insulted you'd doubt the sincerity of my good deed," said the vampire. "You're the hitchhiker in deviously tiny shorts. I think I'm the one who should be worried,"

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. He had a way of turning words that had the potential of coming out flirtatious as incredibly condescending. He was also her only ride, it seemed.

"My short shorts and I would be incredibly appreciative of your sincerely good deed," said Sasha, voice dripping with enough dryness to rival his. She thought she detected a hint of a smirk at his mouth—whether at her sardonic reply or that she'd just fallen into some kind of trap, she wasn't quite sure—but he quickly turned, making a sweeping gesture to his car.

"Your chariot awaits," he told her, tone flat so as not to be bested. This time it was her turn to fight a smile. She was somewhat reminded of Eoin, and she missed her banter with the charming Irishman and his mile-wide asshole streak.

Thinking of the Irishman made her think about how much trouble she'd be in once he found out she'd somehow fucked with his prized car.

As she approached the car, Sasha was able to see more than the glare of its headlights. The vampire drove a stunning Porsche, and she glared for a moment at the gleaming black chrome, knowing that had he not been a vampire, the likelihood of a human driver avoiding flattening her with it would have been low.

Okay, so yes she'd been in the middle of the road. But she was not about to take the blame when she'd nearly been taken for a joyride by a seriously fucked up ghost.

"Problem?" asked the vampire, standing by the open driver's side.

"Just thinking how not cute I would have looked splattered across the front of your car," said Sasha.

"Definitely would have been a bitch to clean," he told her, disappearing into the car. She scowled, then followed into the car, dropping her bag in between her legs. The car had leather seats—red—and all the luxury add-ons she could think off.

"I'm Sasha, by the way," she told him.

"Eric," he said after a cursory glance at her.

"So tell me, Eric," said Sasha. "What's wrong with it? Bon Temps, I mean,"

He took his time answering, pretending to focus on the U-turn back to the small town he'd just come speeding from. Sasha called bullshit; she was certain he could execute the maneuver blindfolded in traffic. He was thinking of something to say, or how to lie. Interesting.

"Bon Temps is a small Louisiana town," he finally told her. "Unless you find low literacy and inbreeding charming, I doubt it's for you,"

Again, Sasha called bullshit. She didn't think it was a coincidence that the strangeness with her car and her phone had happened outside of the same town he'd warned her off. There was something off about it, something off that was of note to a vampire. But he clearly didn't care enough to make a case for her not to go into town, and she wasn't particularly scared off.

Yet. The spirit had almost done the trick.

"And?" she asked, turning her eyes to the window, watching as the scenery sped by into a blur of dark and darker. Sasha didn't trust humans at this speed—she didn't trust herself behind the wheel like this—but driving around country roads with a vampire behind the wheel had been a vice of hers for a very long time. She could feel her excitement bubbling up at the exhilaration of flying through the dark like this, though she tried to dampen it, knowing it would only sweeten her scent to him.

"And?" repeated Eric. Sasha's eyes flicked to him.

"And vampires don't warn sweet girls like me off of towns for low literacy rates and inbreeding,"

"Know many vampires, do you?" he asked her skeptically.

"Some," she murmured thoughtfully, twirling a curl around her index finger so tight it hurt. The same vampires that were so going to kill her if they got their hands on her after all of this.

"Is that why you felt comfortable enough stepping into my car?" asked Eric. "Or are you another fangbanger?"

"You get a lot of fangbangers in these parts?" Sasha asked him dubiously, ignoring his insult. She hadn't been in the deep south in over a decade, but she still carried the scars of the emotional—and, on more than one occasion, physical—abuse that had assailed her simply because her father had been white and her mother black. She was skeptical that if Louisiana hicks couldn't accept humans of different skin color, they'd welcome vampires with open arms.

As though reading her mind, Eric smirked. "You'd be surprised."

Eric's Porsche came to a crawling stop in front of an unlikely place. A diner. Sasha peered through the window at the sprawling construction, drinking in the neon green and red sign that proclaimed the establishment to be Merlotte's Bar & Grill.

"And you're buying me dinner? You shouldn't," said Sasha, glancing his way. The corner of the vampire's mouth lifted into the ghost of a smile.

"Which is why I'm not," he told her. "But I know you humans need to eat, and quite frankly I don't know this town well enough to bring you to a motel, much less do I have the desire to wander it aimlessly to find one. The owner of this…fine establishment will help you,"

Sasha bit her lip as she nodded thoughtfully, a hundred questions springing up to the forefront of her mind. What did a vampire with a fancy Porsche have to do with the owner of a diner in the middle of nowhere? Were they friends? Business partners?

"Can I offer you a Tru B?" asked Sasha, her hand coming to rest on the door handle. She had, after all, been raised with manners.

"The humans will be far more helpful to you if you're not seen with me," he told her.

Now that just wasn't fair. Even more questions were bubbling up onto the tip of her tongue, the handsome mysterious vampire intriguing her more with every second she spent in his presence. At the realization, she wrinkled her nose, slumping back against the polished leather interior. There it was again, the lure of vampires. Shaking her head free of an onslaught of self-analysis that would make even a therapist quake in their boots, she flashed Eric a final bright smile.

"So don't mention that you sent me?"

"Best not to," agreed Eric, meeting her gaze.

For a long moment, they stared into each other's eyes. Sasha felt a strange rush explode inside of her, like rivulets of hot and cold water running beneath the surface of her skin. Electricity danced beneath her fingertips, igniting something that had lain dormant inside of her for years.

Sasha blinked, breaking the spell that had fallen over them, clenching and unclenching her hands. How strange. From her peripheral, she saw Eric frown down at his steering wheel, equally puzzled.

"Thanks for the ride," said Sasha, forcing the words passed the sudden dryness in her mouth. She was out of the car before he could answer—if he'd even meant to—and striding for the entrance to the diner. Behind her she heard the engine of the Porsche rev, and then the vampire was gone.

A small part of her was disappointed, but she also thought that it was for the best. She might not have been a vampire, but mingled in with the delicious scent of his cologne, she could simply smell trouble rolling off him.

Merlotte's had the homey, laid-back and authentic air of a local diner that so many places in LA had tried and failed to replicate. Classic rock played softly from speakers as some patrons had their dinner and others played at a pool table in the back, betting and jeering against each other. Enough animals hung on the walls to make the average taxidermist enthusiast excited, relics of hunting trips from locals, if the plaques under them were anything to go by. For a long moment, Sasha's eyes landed on the buck hanging over the bar top.

"Hi!"

Sasha jumped as a pretty redheaded waitress popped up, her smile dazzling and blue eyes bright. "Welcome to Merlotte's. Can I get you a seat at a table, or would you prefer the bar?"

The waitress was a vampire. It wasn't something she hadn't seen before; ever since vampires had come out of the proverbial closet, many places had become twenty-four hours or at the very least had started keeping late hours, places like libraries and movie theaters and shops. Young vampires had flocked to fill these positions. But while it was common enough in large cities like Los Angeles, she hadn't expected a vampire waitress in a place like this, not in a small town in Louisiana. Merlotte's had too much of a mom-and-pop feel for it.

So Eric recommends this place, but isn't on good terms with the people—but a vampire works here?

"The bar is fine," said Sasha, returning the vampire waitress's smile.

"Then feel free to sit wherever you like. Sam's out back for a minute, but you can order your drinks from him. I'll come by for your order when you've had a minute to look over the menu. I'm Jessica, just holler when you need me,"

Jessica moved on to get an order from a table of four, and Sasha watched her curiously for a moment. She was somewhat amused to see that graceful as the girl was, she seemed to remember herself and then force a semblance of humanity to her movements. Sasha could guess she hadn't been vampire long.

Sasha took a seat at the bar, pulling the nearest menu towards her. Eric had been right; she needed to eat. All the walking and near-possession had left her stomach all but growling for sustenance, and she was near ravenous when her eyes drank in the menu. She might not have been fond Louisiana in general, but she had nothing against the food.

"Our gumbo's had folks in here coming in for second and third helpins all day,"

Sasha looked up to find a man in his mid thirties slip behind the counter. He was dressed simply in jeans and a well-worn plaid shirt; Jessica had worn a uniform, so she guessed that this must be the diner's owner. He smiled kindly at her, and she guessed him to be Sam.

"But if you're hungry for a juicy burger, our Merlotte's Classic always hits the spot, guaranteed,"

"I was sold at gumbo," said Sasha, folding up the laminated menu and placing it back where she'd found it on the counter.

"Coming right up!" Jessica said cheerfully as she passed by. Sasha grinned; there were certainly advantages to having a vampire as a waitress.

"Can I get you something to drink?" asked the Sam.

"A beer sounds great right about now," said Sasha.

As the man got to work filling up a tall glass for her, she said, "I'm looking for the owner. Are you him?"

"Depends. Do I owe ya money?" he teased, placing her beer in front of her. Though his friendly demeanor hadn't changed and he was very clearly joking with her, his eyes had taken on a guarded sheen. He had a secret, as most people did. Sasha wondered what his was; she was willing to bet it wasn't your average secret, the I'm-a-married-man-fooling-around-with-my-neighbor kind of secret, not after the night she'd had. Did she dare trust the mysterious vampire that had dropped her off here?

"I was told I could get some help here. See, my car broke down a few miles up the road. I was able to hitch a ride into town, but I need a motel to crash in and the number of your local mechanic," she explained.

"I'm real sorry to hear about your troubles," said Sam. Despite his guard being up, his tone appeared genuine to her ears. "But not to worry, this a friendly place. We can get you up on your feet and passing through. You are passing through, ain't you?"

She wasn't sure if he asked because she looked liked a drifter, or because he was subtly warning her that simply passing through was her best option. She took a sip of her beer. "Yeah, just passing through,"

Sam Merlotte smiled widely at her like she'd answered correctly.

"Lucky for you, this is kinda the hang out spot," said Sam. He nodded his head to the pool table. "That's Earl Jenkins. He runs the Motel on Weston Road. I'll admit it's not much, but it's got running water and a fair price. If you explain your situation, I'm sure he'd be glad to give you a ride back to the motel. He ain't no creep, neither," Sam added.

Sasha thought she'd be the judge of that, but she grinned at Sam all the same. "That's very helpful, thank you. Earl Jenkins, you said?"

Sam nodded. "As far as a mechanic, you'll want to talk to Patty Evans. You can give her a call or find her here in the mornings. Weston Road ain't far from here, if you find yourself having to walk. Patty's real good at her job too, and she's honest folk. Won't yank ya around just because you're an outta towner,"

On paper it all just sounded way too good to be true, which was why Sasha kept her guard up. A broken down car, helpful vampires in fancy sports cars, ghost possessions, vampire waitresses? Nice townsfolk? Sasha was willing to bet there was something incredibly fucked up afoot, and she'd be getting to hell out of Bon Temps at first chance. Unfortunately, she'd have to stay the night first.

Hi! If you've looked up my other two TB stories, know that they are currently on hold/will be VERY sporadically updated as I've been focusing my efforts on this story for months. This first chapter is a complete one-eighty from the first draft-like, extremely different, but I think it's better, mostly because it's more exciting, interesting, and originally Eric Northman wasn't showing up until the end of Chapter 2.

This will be a slow burn story and somewhat AU, so don't expect to have everything revealed too soon! This loosely follows the plot of Season 4; this happens right about the time Sookie departs for her little Fae-vacation, and although she'll eventually make an appearance in the story, that won't be for a long time, as I am taking the creative liberty to fill in the year she was gone with some adventures.

Please feel free to drop me a review! I love having dialogue with my readers!